I am sure everyone with a boy is familiar
with this stage – all things are about trucks.
Things that are large have to be “bigger
than a cement truck.” Things that are important have to be “more important than
a fire truck.” Car rides become truck-spotting events, and parking lots
become scavenger hunts for fire trucks, cement trucks, telephone repair trucks,
and more trucks.
So how do you use a child’s natural
inclination to trucks to teach the basics that he’s going to need – like math,
reading, writing, and research? You base it all on trucks of course.
We have changed from adding numbers to
addition of trucks. We count and add truck wheels. We count and add fire truck
ladders. Of course, this also means we spend a while in parking lots walking
around finding trucks. Costco parking lots are particularly good for this in
California. Our local fire station is really nice about seeing us wander around
their parking lot At first they were a little curious, but now they know us by
name when we come to count fire truck tires and see how many extra tires they
have and more.
Reading is now about trucks. Occasionally I
can get a Spider-Man book in there too, but mostly we read about trucks. My son
can spell the word truck, spell words that rhyme with truck, tell you about
words that alliterate with truck, and can even read the words “fire,” “cement,”
and “caterpillar” because of trucks. Those aren’t words I would normally
have had him learn at this stage, but oh well. I take what I can get.
We write stories based on trucks. Our
newest truck story, as written by my son, is “A dump truck went to a
construction site and got dirt. It dumped the dirt in a pile. The end.” While
it is a short story, he wrote it himself (with my help on spelling, but not the
actual writing), and drew the pictures himself. It is a pretty big
accomplishment for a kid to write their own story.
So how do we learn when everything is about
trucks? We simply change everything to trucks. I imagine we will go through
this again in a few weeks with dinosaurs and then in a few years I’ll be
changing with horses for my daughter.
Isn’t letting your child use their
interests to drive teaching fun?
Natasha Wunderlich
I’m
a homeschooling mom who made the choice to homeschool because I saw how
rigid schools were and noticed how fluid my son’s learning style was
and how hands-on his learning style was. We have been at it for over 2
years now (we started when he was 2) and are enjoying our time together.
Learning and teaching has brought us closer together as a family. I do
believe in structure and lessons, not simply free form schooling, but
those lessons are child-centered and directed by his interested. We are
moving on through Kindergarten and 1st Grade material now, and watching
him learn and grow is awesome. You can find me on: www.wunderfulhomeschool.
No comments:
Post a Comment