I’m a bit of a nerd. That’s what I’ve decided after looking at the side of my fridge. On the side of my fridge, I have lists of activities that my daughter and I can do every week. Let’s call them mini unit studies. I also have lists of writing skills and small motor skills and math and phonics and all sorts of activities to do each day. Now I’ve added another list: the what works list.
You see, the reason that I am a nerdy list-maker is that like many of us, my memory went out the window when I had a child. That means that my daughter and I can have a fantastic time doing a particular activity one day, and a couple of weeks from now I will not remember what it was that was so enjoyable for her.
My daughter is not a sit down, let’s learn seriously kind of kid. What five-year-old is? Ok, I am sure that there are a few of them, but I don’t have that model. To learn something, it must be a game. Yes, we’ve done things that are not game-like and that are sit down and serious, but that requires a lot of persistence and energy on my behalf. If I can get the same thing done in a fun way, so much the better.
Hence, the What Works list. It’s a list on my fridge, and when we really enjoy an activity, it goes on the list. Then I can use this for documentation for our homeschooling, which we need to do. More importantly, I can also use it when I’m stuck for a way to work on a concept or a skill. Since we’ll be doing some activities over and over until they stick, this is a good way to create a curriculum with activities that work for my daughter. And it’s simple – while I can blog about the learning or document it later, this requires no more than a sheet of paper.
How do you track what works for your kids?
Image courtesy of Fanginhoon at stock exchange.