Learning Styles

Learning Styles


Kids are like learning machines - their brains are developing and expanding at an incredible rate. However, each child still has a preference as to HOW to learn, and it is always valuable to spend the time to get an insight into your own children's preferred learning styles.

Some kids learn easily in the traditional school formats of linear note taking, while for other more creative personalities it is essential that their imagination is stimulated for them to learn effectively. Some kids love to learn on the computer, and if yours do then that can be very effective. (But please be aware of the issues of internet safety!)

Happy Parenting,

Cassie

Kids and Learning

Isn't it odd how, from the age of 0 through to 5 or 6, we learn such a massive amount about the world around us and how to interact with it - just by doing it and by interacting with others - and then suddenly we are told to sit down and spend the next decade or so learning purely by being taught! LOL!

The truth is that learning in a classroom environment is only a tiny part of learning - throughout our childhoods we learn from all of our experiences both inside and out of school.

Helping your child develop the skill of using his imagination and stimulating his brain by doing visual learning diagrams (sometimes called mindmapping) is a helpful idea and doesn't need to be limited to homework. Why not use this technique to help your child set goals and learn things for his sports and hobbies?

For more information, check out this article: MIND MAPPING (Visual learning diagrams)

Don't start the day without it.

Of course I am talking about breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Experts say that if your kids leave the house without eating breakfast they will have problems concentrating in school and lack the energy needed to sustain them throughout the day. But even if a child does eat breakfast, what he eats for breakfast may also dictate how well he does in school. For example in a recent U.K study school children were randomly given one of four breakfasts in a four day period. Their cognitive abilities were then tested throughout the day. The breakfasts the children were given were either a wheat cereal and milk, whole grain cereal such as oatmeal and milk, a sugary beverage or no breakfast at all. The study showed that the kids that were given the grain based breakfasts scored much higher than the kids who had either the sugary beverage or no breakfast at all. This study and many others have proven unequivocally how important it is to start your kids out right.

Keep in mind that your kids don't actually have to eat oatmeal every morning in order to have what is considered a nutritious breakfast. A fruit sweetened, whole grain muffin with nut butter and milk or scrambled egg in a whole grain tortilla are two quick and easy breakfasts that will keep your kids focused on school and don't we want to do what is best for our kids.

Happy Parenting,

Monicka

Cool link for kids who like animals

Learning should be fun! So I enjoyed finding these games on the BBC website (see link). If you have kids aged 5-10 who like animals, they'll probably like the "challenge" games.

One of the games is where you pretend to be a chimp and "see if you would survive in the chimp group" by remembering your fellow chimps and the social interactions to use with them.

Happy parenting,

Cassie

Learning and Imagination

Monicka and I had a wonderful email from a father yesterday, who reminded us how important it is to encourage kids to use their imagination. We completely agree!

How can an active imagination help children learn? In so many ways! They can tell themselves - or you - fun stories about what they have been learning at school. They can imagine ways to USE the information they have learned. They can revise for exams by closing their eyes and visualising and imagining things in vivid color.

For more ideas on encouraging your kids to use their imagination, check out Your Child's Imagination

Happy parenting,

Cassie

Relaxation and learning

Does your child get enough "time out" to relax, so that his brain is in good shape for learning?

I am just back from a very relaxing 4-day break in Scotland doing absolutely nothing, which was perfect. And I realised that I had not even known how stressed I was up to then. Just with going to work every day!

Kids are more and more prone to stress - what with school, extra-curricular activities and socialising. In order for them to perform at their best, please remember to make sure they get plenty of unstructured time to just relax and do nothing - or play in solitude and peace at their own pace.

Check out this article on the site for more ideas on helping your child relax!

cyberhugs,

Cassie

Appreciating your child's learning style

We all have a different learning style. Some of us are very logical thinkers, and thrive on lists and numbered tables - I'm a bit like that myself. Others are more artistically inclined and might naturally like to use lots of color when learning.

To help your child learn, encourage him to incorporate as many different senses into his study as possible. If he naturally makes lists, suggest colored pens to make the lists brighter and more welcoming.

Encourage humor! Laughing and enjoying learning help things sink into the brain.

Some kids are great listeners - if so, tell your child a story about what you want to teach him.

Other kids learn better visually and will want to see you draw something or point at pictures in a book when you are showing them.

Appreciate your child's learning style and marvel at your wonderful little person and his amazing brain!

Happy Parenting,

Cassie

Helping your child learn

Take a look at your child’s homework books and what do you see? Nicely written neat paragraphs? Tidy lists of facts and figures? If so, your child’s teacher no doubt has much praise! Teachers like to see neat handwriting – after all, it makes their job a lot easier.

The problem with this common or garden note taking is that, in a word, it’s boring! Yes, there is the occasional diagram or graph, but mostly it’s a good old bland sea of sentences. The important key words are buried in fluff and wordy paragraphs with little to stimulate the imagination.

Might it be better to help our children learn a way of studying that capitalizes on how our brains work?

Our brains process and remember information by linking. We tend to think that our thoughts are linear, similar to speech or written text. But learning within the brain is done by linking ideas, questions, words and pictures in huge inter-connecting branches and webs.

Your child can therefore revise much more easily and effectively by using visual learning diagrams like webs, maps, trees and timelines to incorporate the key words and important facts that he needs to remember, rather than copying out paragraphs of text. This may sound trivial but it makes a very, very big difference to understanding, memory and recall!

Watch out for the next kids goals parenting newsletter with lots of ideas to help your child learn effectively and be successful at school!

cyberhugs,

Cassie

For the love of reading

Happy Friday Everyone

Well it is the start of the weekend and we are into a brand new month. Cassie and I decided that the theme for the March blogs and newsletters is going to be about learning and specifically how we can help our children to love all types of learning.

More than having them practice their spelling words or doing their math drills, learning involves getting your children to question who they are and the part that they will play in the big world they live in. You as the parent are the greatest teacher of all and whether you realize it or not your children are learning by your example. One wonderful gift that you can give to your children is to help them develop a love of reading, as reading will help ensure academic success later in life.

Here are some tried and true ways to help your child learn to love to read:

---- Read to your child at an early age, the younger the better. Even little babies love to be read to and you can start with picture books for the wee ones describing the pictures and pointing to them such as look at the big yellow bus or the big juicy red apple. In this way your children will develop a love of words.

·---- Read to your child every day even if they already know how to read well; and try to develop a daily family reading schedule where everyone reads together for a minimum of 15 minutes. Make sure it is in a quiet area of the house, away from the distraction of the television or other noises.

·---- When you read out loud to your children make it fun by singing the words such as when you are reading rhymes or poetry and try changing your voice for the different characters and emphasizing certain words and phrases.

Finally let your children see you read as much as possible and show them how much you truly enjoy reading.


Happy Reading

Monicka

Keep an Open Mind

Funny how we can truly believe something is a scientific fact and find out many years later that we were wrong all along. I am not sure where I was when it made the news but yesterday my son informed me that Pluto was no longer considered a planet. Makes you wonder what else is going to turn out to be a bunch of worm fodder.

I guess the lesson here is not to believe everything you are told, or maybe the real lesson is to be open to all possibilities. Make it a goal to sit down with your kids and find out what interests them. Whether it is dinosaurs or extra terrestrial beings or why the sky is blue? Children are naturally curious so keep encouraging them to discover more about themselves and the world around them.

Happy Goal setting,

Monicka