Teachable Moments

Being a somewhat Type A personality, I prefer checklists, textbooks, specifics all laid out. And generally this is how I homeschool--we use consumable textbooks, occassionally unit studies. But there is a general plan with many steps to get us through the grade.

Daddy, on the other hand, is my teachable moments teacher. He has a wonderful ability to see something and sorta go indepth right then and there. Here are two examples from this week:

Pennies: The Racing Princess and I were talking about pennies during her math lesson this week. We covered what was on the front and the back of each penny, how each penny was the same and what made each one different. Daddy happened to be home from PT and asked if I was going to discuss the way they stamp the coins. Since this was not in my script and not exactly in my knowledge base, I turned the class over to him. Daddy excitedly explained about the stamping press used to create coins and even used paper and two glasses as his props for this. Even at the end of the week, the Racing Princess was trying to explain to the Hawaiian Princess how coins were made.

Snow: Twice this week, we had flurries. No snow accummulation, but flurries. One particular day, again after Daddy got home from PT, he saw that there were flurries again and commented how it would be a great time to teach the Racing Princess about snow. I told the Racing Princess to get on her shoes and coat as she was going outside with Daddy. Since it was rather cold, they were only outside for a few minutes--then came in for some fact gathering on the computer. And she had a mini lesson on weather and snow.

I used to kick myself when Daddy did this cuz I would think "now why didn't I think of that?" But I have come to realize that it was part of God's plan for homeschooling in our family. I make sure that the kids learn what they need to in an orderly fashion for it to be built upon and to appease whatever state we are currently living in. Daddy jumps in on occassion with that tidbit of information that can go beyond where they are at in the learning process that encourages them to stay hungry for learning.