Sunday, October 31, 2010

A Whole New Perspective

My kids have never been fans of workbooks. They love games, movies, projects, reading, field trips, so that's how I've tried to teach over the years. The girls have done well and seem to enjoy learning most of the time.

I've researched the benefits of playing games and am a believer that they are a great (often under-utilized) learning too. Studies suggest that playing educational games helps move information from the left side of the brain (short term memory) to the right side (long term memory.)

Recently, I started reading about "right brained" learners and was surprised to discover (even though I probably shouldn't have been) that both of my children are "right brainers." The more I learn, the happier I am that I chose to homeschool the way we did. With both girls in middle school, this was the year I was finally going to make the switch to more "traditional" assignments, but now I am convinced that I need to continue the current path with even more changes to maximize their learning potential.

I'm sure this will be a challenge for me. My teacher training didn't cover this kind of learning, so it's a whole new perspective.