Thursday 9 September 2021

Value Added Learning

 These last few letters of the alphabet are really stretching my thinking.  This is week 23 in Blogging Through the Alphabet 2021. This week we are looking at V is for Value Added Learning.  My co-host Deidre has been sharing some amazing things to do with lego in her Lego Alphabet Series. This week she is sharing V is for Vacation

I am a first generation home educator, as such I really struggled with homeschooling in the begining because I was looking at everything from a compartmentalised perspective.  Thankfully two things happened which really helped free me to enjoy homeschooling.

At the time I was living in New Zealand and they brought in some new laws about reviewing homeschoolers.  Our local homeschooling group (South Island Home Educators) held a meeting to help us understand the process.  I remember one of the mentor's Dot Brown explaining how to look at what we were doing and classifying it according to subjects.  For example if we were doing home economics and baking a cake there were numerous academic subjects being covered not just home economics.  We were covering: language arts - reading, math - measurement, critical thinking - following instructions, science - chemistry, home economics - baking, math - budgeting etc.  

It really does not matter what you are doing in the moment it is built upon multiple disciplines the art comes in knowing how to dissect it and classify it into the jargon that the homeschooling authority is seeking.

This is what homeschoolers are meaning when we talk about Value Added Learning.  You do not need to present six seperate subject classes to cover six different subject areas.  Carefully evaluate what you are learning about and you will soon discover that there is far more involved in learning in the every day. 

The second thing that happened was I was given The Three R's by Dr Ruth Beechick.  This is a treasure trove for new homeschoolers of primary aged students. 

Ruth empowers you with the jargon and know how to put you at ease when teaching Reading Writing and Arithmetic. Excellent.  It is available from: The Book DepositoryAmazonFishpondSonlight.

It's the jargon affiliated with education that often stumps us as home educators and makes us feel inadequate.  Knowledge is power and this really helped relieve me of the anxiety that was clouding my journey.

Chareen

Find the other ABC posts in this series here:

  1. A is for Art Lessons at Home
  2. B is for Books Where do You Purchase Yours? 
  3. Charlotte Mason a Round Up of Posts 
  4. Delight Directed Education
  5. Encouragement for Weary Homeschooling Mothers
  6. For the Children's Sake  
  7. G is for Geography
  8. Homeschool Bloggers  
  9. Instagramers to follow who are homeschooling
  10. Joy in Your Homeschool Journey
  11. Know Yourself - Stop the Comparison Game  
  12. Life Skills in Your Homeschool
  13. Math Resource for Home Education
  14. Netflix in Your Homeschool
  15. Olympics 2021
  16. P is for Podcasts  
  17. Quintessentially Homeschool
  18. Read-A-Loud in Your Homeschool
  19. Science in Your Homeschool
  20. Teaching From Rest by Sarah Mackenzie 
  21. Ubiquitous Homeschooler 
  22. Value Added Learning

Featured from last week the letter P...


This Week over at Our Homeschool Notebook the topic is V is for Vacation

 

Please link up your posts starting with the letter V for this weeks ABC Blogging



4 comments:

  1. My post for the letter V is finally up, so sorry it's late! Yes these last letters are stumping me. I agree, there is so much more learning to each activity/lesson than meets the eye. So many subjects cross over. It's really hard to break them down sometimes.

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  2. good reminder to think these things through eh?

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  3. I've never heard the term value added learning but I like it. It is what I did as a music educator when I had to write lesson plans. My lesson plans turned into the administrators had to include how I was address all the core subjects but music was not required! Crazy but do able when you look at how reading words and music to sing a song and then doing a dance or performing with instruments fit so many areas. Value added learning- I'll have to remember that.

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  4. Well said. I'm glad that you can learn different skills and concepts while doing another type of activity. Sometimes it helps reinforce things you've already taught and gives a great review! All the while, of course, you're having fun!

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