Need some new ideas for keeping learning fun? I’ll be sharing our favorites each week on Wednesday. To be honest, the thought of committing myself to having one great idea every week is stress-inducing, so I’m going to put it out there in advance that I will probably borrow heavily from all my wise mama friends.
In case I haven't mentioned it before, I'm a planner. I love having a schedule, even if we rarely stick to it . . . although too often I find myself adapting our day to the schedule rather than the other way around.
Today though, my wild idea was to throw the schedule out the window. Our first activity in the classroom this morning (and I used the term "morning" very loosely since I worked until 4AM) was a brand new workbook from the Critical Thinking Company called Balance Benders
. As explained to me at the FPEA convention by the woman in their booth, it's the beginnings of very basic algebra. To me, it just looked like something Noah would totally love - and he did. So much so, in fact, that he asked if he could complete the entire book today.My first reaction of course, was to tell him that I'd planned to do only 10 pages of Balance Benders, then move on to handwriting and Singapore Math. Fortunately, I saw the lunacy in the plan and decided to follow him down his chosen path rather than dragging him down mine.
Seeing him all lit up by math inspired me to look up info on "The Human Calculator", a man named Scott Flansburg who my friend Regina had just told me about yesterday. So after Noah had his fill of Balance Benders (no, he didn't finish the whole book), we sat and watched YouTube videos of this man solving complex math problems in his head in less time than it took the host to punch the numbers into a calculator.
I'm so glad I followed his path, because I like where it led. And to remind myself of this important lesson, I posted a note in classroom . . . Lead less, follow more.
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