Reenactment of a Geography lesson with a Right Brain learner.

Years ago I convinced my brother to go skiing with me.   I had been skiing once prior to this, and I never made it off the easiest slope known as the “bunny hill”.   The easier slopes provide a rope tow up the hill rather than the chair lifts used by more advanced skiers.   I [...]

Working with a variety of modalities also increases the likelihood of later recall of material. When we incorporate auditory, visual, tactile and kinesthetic input in subject areas where our children struggle to learn, we will also be helping them learn to pay attention for longer periods of time. With that in mind, I want to [...]

As long as I’ve been a homeschooler, I always seemed to have some very portable items I could grab as we headed out the door so we could work on something in waiting rooms. For one thing, my kids were NOT good at the waiting part whether it was a doctor’s office or a grocery [...]

Some students hear the word “test” and have an immediate negative reaction. They may feel physical symptoms including headaches, stomachaches, general tension, and more. Many students undergo a change resulting in irritability, angry outbursts, and surly speech that is not (hopefully) typical behavior for them. Many of us who are adults now can recall similar [...]

Beckie and I finished reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and I wanted to give her a non-traditional assignment in addition to traditional assessment measures. So I went through two week’s worth of advertisements from the Sunday newspaper and cut out pictures that could be tied in somehow to a line from the play. For example, [...]

When my son Josh was learning to read, it was an arduous process. He made steady progress, but had to work hard to remember the sounds represented by print and the various ways they blended into words. At the time I was teaching Josh to read, my next door neighbor had a daughter 11 months [...]

“Kata” is a Japanese word, defined as “a set combination of positions and movements (as in karate) performed as an exercise”. Since all three of my children took martial arts classes for years I have seen many skills practiced and katas are more relaxing for me to watch than sparring. Karate has been thought to [...]

Beckie has always been a bit impulsive, so it comes as no surprise that she has little patience for spending time solving algebra problems. She’s entirely happy to have mastered the basic mathematics functions and as the problems in her current text get longer and more complicated her frustration increases. She struggles with inattention and [...]

My daughter, Beckie, has been learning about the endocrine system. I explained that the endocrine system includes hormone-producing glands, which as a teenage she has in abundance. Without missing a beat, Beckie responded in a hostile tone with “What do you mean by THAT?”. This was immediately followed by “I’m sorry!” spoken in a weepy [...]