Table Time and Study Time

This post is part of my thought on educating the kids.

I've been meaning to write what we do for study time at our house.   Basically, study time is the time when the kids get to study whatever they are interested in.  It seems pretty simple, but I have found that it's not as simple to them as it is to me.

When I first told them that study time is a very exiting part of the day because they get to choose whatever it is they want to learn more about, they knew exactly what they wanted to do.  After a few days, they began to ask, "What should I study?  I don't know what to do for study time."  I've heard that children need to experience a "vaccuum" of things to do (which is why it's necessary that we do not have a TV or other things that keep their minds entertained instead of curious during this time) which makes them get creative about the things they study.  This works really well.  However, since they asked what I thought they should study, I didn't mind sharing my opinion :-)

I mentioned before that whenever there is something that I want my kids to learn, I first ask myself why I think they should know that particular thing right now.  Sometimes the only answer I can come up with is: Because everyone else is doing it - or - they will look bad if they don't know it.  When that is the case (like in teaching grammar at a young age, for example), I choose to let it go.  I don't think those are good enough motivations.  There are just too many other things that I can find good motivations for - so I try to stick to those things when I work to inspire them to study.

According to TJED, it's not a good idea to separate their learning right now (at their age) into different subjects (ie. math, science, grammar, art, etc), but that the subject ought to be "The Love or Learning".  I love this idea.  When they are exited about something, I let them study it to their heart's content.  The difficulty for me comes when they are not exited about anything (I guess it must be when I'm not being inspiring enough!) and they don't know what they want to learn about.

For these times, I did what I always do when I need to figure things out - I made lists.  For these lists, I asked myself: What are some things that I think they should be learning about and why?

I presented these lists to the kids and explained to them that our brains are like our muscles and that we need to exercise them in order for them to work well.  I told them that there are different areas in our brains that we can exercise or "warm up" so that when we do want to learn about something - our minds can be ready to learn it.

These are the areas that I thought were important (they all intertwine, but these are their basic functions imo).  The lists of ideas follow after these explanations:

Analytical Thinking:
This is important so that we can solve problems by breaking down the big picture into small parts or principles.  I thought this quote explained the difference between "systems" thinking and "analytical" thinking pretty well:

"In the systems approach, the properties of the parts can be understood only from the perspective of the organization as a whole. Accordingly, systems thinking concentrates not on basic building blocks, but on basic principles of organization. Systems thinking is "contextual," which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of the larger whole (Capra, 1996)."

 Analytical thinking is what we often exercise when we try to solve math problems.  We're taking a problem and breaking it down into smaller parts.

Creative Thinking:
This is where we take parts and make them into a whole.  I think this is a big part of the "systems" thinking explained above.

"We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty...to what end were we created? We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fulness of joy.  Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things.."-Elder Uchtdorf

 Memory:
We mostly work on this during meals as I've explained before, but there are plenty of things they can do to help them develop their ability to memorize so I give them this as an option.

Expression:
This is to how I refer to the ability to express and share our thoughts and ideas.  Obviously, this is important because great thoughts and ideas are not going to do much good to mankind if we don't know how to share them.

Music:
This gives us an appreciation for beauty and an understanding of the universe that we can not gain any other way.  I'm not a musician so I don't grasp this very well, but the glimpses I've seen into the power of music in my studies are enough for me to realize that it is a higher language that we would do well to learn to appreciate if not to speak or fully understand.  Here's a good article about music in the universe:
http://www.svpvril.com/musicuni.html (Not that I understand much of it!)

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Once I explained to the kids why these things were important, I gave them a list of ideas of things they can do to work these parts of their brain.

When it's "Table Time", I ask the kids (Spice and Bud) to get out their planners.  They look at their goals and write down what they want to do for study time that will help them reach their goals.  If they need more ideas, they look at the following lists.  They usually pick one thing from each list.  The difference between Table Time and Study Time is basically that I will be at the table helping them with any table work they want help with at the beginning of study time.  This has the advantage of getting them to do some of the more "writing" type of activities at the beginning of study time so that they don't get put off when they get into a book later.

Study Time Ideas:

Memory

Write or recite:

A Poem (E)

Scripture (E)

Article of Faith (E)

Historic Document (E)

Play Lines (E)

Adage (E)

Play:

Memory

Musical Memory

Timed Math Facts

Math Wrap-Ups

Timez Attack

Analytical

Singapore Math Book (M)

Math Worksheet (M)

Life of Fred (M)

Logic Game

Mathemagic

Soduku

Game:

Chess

Sum Swamp

Blokus

Yahtzee

Monopoly

Rummikube

The Farming Game

Key Math Cubes

DaVinci’s Challenge

Set

Dominoes

Math Wizardry

Music

Piano Wizard

Practice your lesson

Practice a Song

Play a Music Game

Watch a Music Video

Compose a Song (C)

Expression

Spelling Practice (M)

Copywork (M)

Handwriting Practice

Language Game:

Grammar Punk (C)

Scrabble

Bananagrams

Beyond Bladerdash (C)

Madlibs

12 Tall Tales (C)

Online Spelling Game (M)

Grammar Worksheet

Write:

Story (C)

Letter (C)

Journal (C)

Poem (C)

Research Paper (E)

Creative:

Drawing

Painting

Sculpting

Invent Something on Paper

Book Summaries (E)

Experiment (E)

Research Project

Other Study Ideas

Find a book to read

Read

Research

Practice a Play