Let 'Em Do 2 Things at 1 Time

In this homeschooling journey, I've learned something along the way:  if you happen to have a wiggly, squirmy, active, energetic, hands-on, can't-sit-still-for-long kind of child (like a certain seven-year-old I happen to know pretty well)  ;-), by all means, do not compel that child to sit in a chair and PAY ATTENTION when you're trying to teach him about how the Aztecs were conquered or how to count by nines.  It will not work.  Instead, let that child be doing something else while you're teaching him, and he will learn.  

I don't mean that he can be playing video games while you're showing him Christopher Columbus's route across the ocean, or that he can be having a lightsaber fight with his brothers while you're discussing the definition of a noun.  But give that child something to do with his hands--or perhaps with his body, depending on the context--and you'll find that his attention stays with you longer.  

Here are some ways I've used this principle in the past few years with my own Very Wiggly Child.  

* I let David do jumping jacks while we were reviewing math facts.  He did a jumping jack, then answered 5+3.  Another jumping jack, then 2+7.  And so forth.

* If he wanted to hang upside down like a monkey while he was learning to read, that was fine with me.  I sat beside him on the couch and held the book upside down for him.

* We don't do much with flashcards; but when we've pulled them out (for math review, for example), I'll spread them out on the floor and let David toss a beanbag onto them.  Wherever it lands is the card David has to answer.  And then he has to catch the beanbag when I toss it back to him.  :)

* We have some big soft, squishy balls from the dollar store.  Sometimes I'll hand one to David to play with while I read to him.

I've discovered that not only is this effective for David, it's also great for my other kids, so these days, when I'm preparing for the main chunk of our school day, I pull out some kind of hands-on activity that they can do while they're listening.  

An obvious choice is coloring pages.  Using the internet, it is so easy to find coloring pages to fit nearly any topic, and I take advantage of that convenience often.  We've been reading The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare recently (part of Sonlight's curriculum...oh, how I love Sonlight!), and one day I had some log cabin pictures for the boys to color while they heard how Matt, the main character, lived in a simple log home.

This is the one that Josiah did, the bottom right corner of which makes me smile because that is such a Josiah thing to do, to scribble a little until he discovers which colors exactly he wants to use.  :)

This was David's (as if you couldn't tell from the large signature)!  :)

This was Shav's first one...

...and then he was having so much fun that he asked to do another one.  :)

And this is Tobin's, along with a picture of a pioneer boy.

When Tobin colors anything these days, he immediately takes it up to his room and tapes it on his door.  His door is getting pretty crowded.  ;-)  But I love how he takes pride in his work and wants to display it.

I also love how each boy's work demonstrated something about his personality and about his stage of life.  I don't keep every scrap of paper the boys color (I confess that some of their papers become kindling for our woodstove), but I do enjoy seeing their work, and I like to preserve some of it, either by taking pictures of it or selecting a few to put into the notebooks that I keep for each child.

Another hands-on activity that I've pulled out for the boys often this school year is blocks.  It's amazing to me how much they are hearing, even when their hands are busy creating something.  I'll sit in the rocking chair by the woodstove in the living room, and they'll have their materials spread out ALL OVER the living room floor (yeah, it gets kind of messy, but it's so worth it, and they're pretty good about helping me clean it all up before quiet time), and I'll read to them, and they'll listen to me, and I'll watch them make their things.  And ya know, it's really, really wonderful.  Precious times.

On the day I took these pictures, we had gotten out the O-L-D set of Lincoln Logs that my siblings and I used to play with when we were little, and David got busy constructing quite a scene with them.

Of course, there was a house...

...with a fence...

...and an entrance gate.

...a picnic table with six people sitting at it and eating...

...a square swimming pool with two people in it...

...and a really large, bigger-than-the-house van (that's the rectangle in the bottom right of the picture below). :)

Josiah, meanwhile, was using LEGOs to build this powerful aircraft...

...which he wanted me to photograph from several angles.  :)

Tobin made a step pyramid.

And Shav got out some little cars to join the fun.

I do need to qualify what I've said in this post with two points:
1. It is important for my children, even my most active ones, to learn to sit still and be quiet when it's appropriate, so when the situation calls for it (for example, in David's choir class) I absolutely expect that of him.  (And he does well with it, if I do say so myself.)  But with the flexibility that homeschooling offers, why not take advantage of that and let my wiggle worm learn in the best possible way for him (not to mention, the most fun way!)?  To those of us who are used to sitting quietly, folding our hands, and learning that way, we might assume that a child who is doing two things at one time would be too distracted to learn anything, but that's simply not the case.  Not only have I learned that from those with much more educational experience than I have, I've also found it be true with my own children.
2. By allowing my boys to be doing something besides listening, I am realistic about the fact that their attention could wander away from what I'm teaching them (of course, that could happen--and does happen--even if I were enforcing a sit-in-your-chair-and-look-at-me kind of classroom).  When I pick up on that, I stop and ask questions to draw that child (or those children) back into the subject we're studying.  And sometimes I have to quiet them down, because their questions of "will you please pass the block box?" and "have you seen a yellow colored pencil?" turn into more extensive conversations.  But even with its imperfections, this style of do-something-with-your-hands-while-you're-listening-with-your-ears works well for us.

If you happen to drop by our house at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, you might peek your head in the door, survey the scene, and think, "These children aren't doing school!  They're playing!"  You would only be half-right.

Playing and learning.  For us, it's a beautiful combination.  :)