Just Read: Just as children need wholesome nutritious food to grow their bodies, growing a child’s mind requires more than a diet of junk food.  I love learning and I love sharing that with my children. My kids are 10 (boy), 8 (boy), 4 (girl) and 2 (girl). I feel that teaching them and sharing good literature with them has also helped us be more connected- especially as my oldest is getting older and more independent. He still loves me to read to him. Since before my kids were born, I decided I wanted to have the tradition in our family to always have a book we read aloud together- whether I read to them, my husband reads to them, or we listen to books on CD in the car. When we were listening to the “Little House on the Prairie” series in the car, even my four year old was grasping the stories. The car is a perfect place for listening- everyone is strapped in and has nothing else to do but listen! I started reading chapter books to my kids when they were 4 and 6. I let them play legos or other quiet toys, but they had to be quiet and they had to be where they could hear. My second boy has ADHD but if he could play with something, he would sit and mostly listen, especially when the books were about dinosaurs or sharks. Now that he’s 8 and he’s used to listening to the stories, he loves it! I wasn’t an avid reader growing up, so I’ve used book lists to find great books. The Provo library website has online and printed book lists, and a favorite book list book of mine is “Honey for the Child’s Heart”. We are frequent visitors to the library and always have a ton of books we bring home. I think we are solely responsible for paying the salaries of all library employees due to our many late fines, but it’s worth it. A quote I love is:” I really believe that a curious mother and a library card can offer a stellar education."--Ann Voskamp.

Vision: My husband and I went on a drive one fall day in the mountains when our oldest was a baby, and we came up with a list, or a vision of what we want to do for our kids while they are in our care. It has been revised as they grow, but it gives us direction and goals. I want to be a “deliberate mother”, that is, I don’t want to just be a mother that “babysits” my children, but instead I have a goal, vision and purpose. It also helps me focus on the things I really want them to learn, so that we aren’t spread so thin. For example, I wanted to teach my kids ASL so they could volunteer to interpret for a service opportunity, and so I could “yell” at them in church without anyone knowing- just kidding. At the time, the kids were enrolled in a number of extracurricular activities. I felt we weren’t doing anything well because we just didn’t have time. So I came up with a list of things I want them to learn before they are 18- a bare minimum list that I want to teach them. Then they can choose what extra things they want, but no more than one or maybe two. I think that doing cub scouts (especially the belt loops and pins) has helped them get to experience a lot of different things without the commitment of signing up for it. For my four year old girl, we are doing “Little Keepers,” kind of a little girl version of Cub Scouts, and I have so much fun doing the activities with her!

It’s Never Too Early (Or Too Late): Around almost 4 years of age, my kids have started to hunger for me to teach them. They want to learn to read, or play “school”, and learn how to do things. I start teaching them how to read by using “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons,” and supplement with lots of games and other activities. It’s amazing what a child at that age can learn!

Get Them To Think:  I think the most important thing I can teach my kids is to have an active mind. Any situation can be educational, if I look for opportunities. For example, if I go to the zoo, I point out on the sign the scientific name of the animal and tell them it’s in Latin and stands for the genus and species. I make comments such as, “I wonder where this animal lives. What is its habitat?” and the kids may or may not look at the sign and tell me, but it gets them thinking, and curious, and that’s the important part. I may ask, “I wonder why this tiger has stripes,” or “I wonder how this polar bear, who comes from the Arctic, can live here in this heat?” or “What do you think this animal eats?” or “Did you know that tigers are nocturnal? That means they are awake during the night and sleep during the day.” For my little two year old, I talk to her during snack time. I may say, “I wonder if this marshmallow would float in your water,” or “How many cheerios do you have? Let’s count them,” or “You have a green fruit loop in your hand!” Taking a walk, I try and be very observant and look for things to tell them: “This tree is called a maple tree. See this leaf? This is how I know. This tree is deciduous, which means it goes to sleep during the winter and wakes up in the spring. That tree over there is an evergreen tree, and it stays green all year, etc.” I stop and have them touch, look, smell, and sometimes even draw or paint what we see.

Learning is FUN! My favorite way of learning is hands on and through experience! I love doing what we are learning- it’s more fun and they’ll remember it. During the spring, we read a lot about caterpillars and butterflies and we ordered a caterpillar and net and watched them turn into butterflies. The ultimate field trip was 2 years ago my son wanted to learn about fish so we read all about “marine biology” and fish and tried to mate Beta fish (though we were unsuccessful), and took a trip to California to explore tide pools. We also went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and went on a whale watching trip out in the Bay where we say Humpback whales that swam right up to our boat! We’ve hatched chicks in an incubator, had a garden, learned about bees and kept a beehive, and other smaller but fun activities that show the kids that learning is fun!

I’m Not Perfect, and You Don’t Have to Be Either: Now, before you feel like this just isn’t you, I will tell you that we aren’t constantly doing perfectly educational, fun activities. I’m just telling you the best things we’ve done over the years. Also, I’ve been learning how to do this for the last 10 years. I was never labeled as “academically gifted,” I just think that there is so much wonderful, lovely and fun things to learn in the world if you start looking for it. One great tool I have is a great group of friends who also love learning with their children, and we meet weekly and let our children play while we talk. I started out our “learning adventures” by starting with something we were interested in, and going to the library. I also have screen time severely limited. I have printed a list of over 100 activities they can do besides “screen time” posted over the screen so they can never tell me they’re bored. Over the summer we’ve come up with a token economy: we made a list of educational activities- reading fiction and nonfiction, math facts drill, writing, scouts, 4-H, etc., and for every 30 minutes of the activity they earn tokens of different colors that they can turn in for summer activities like going to the pool, getting shaved ice, etc. I hope some part of this has inspired you to come up with ideas of your own on your family learning adventures!

Email me if you have questions, comments or want a copy of our family vision statement, lists, token economy, or anything else at snuggles2901@yahoo.com