Teaching to Mastery

This TED talk, and I love TED talks talks about applying the concept of Mastery in Public schools... but we homeschoolers already knew this.

http://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=social-science

learning by playing

free learning games for grade 3

For early elementary school kids, I favor unschooling as a method of teaching, but not the kind of unschooling where the kids vegetate and don't want to do much of anything, so you leave them alone, kind of unschooling... instead the kind of unschooling where you don't really let them know you are teaching them, but you are.

 Apps like the kind I mentioned in my last post would go a long way in doing that, but so would all the same games we played as children, counting games, calling our car colors, watching school house rock, and lots of reading and storytelling.

Something I came across today would also fit into this, but it is for older kids.  Playing battleship using the periodic table. I wish I'd had this as a kid. Check it out!

What is appschooling?

I was watching a commercial this morning on ABC Mouse reading program and I heard the mention that the parent had tons of learning apps.  The word APPSCHOOLING  popped into my brain. Eureka! I thought, I just came up with a new homeschooling term.

NOPE.

I googled it and it already exists.

Here are some links for you to enjoy.

The Wired Homeschool

Ben and Me

appschooling (on pinterest)

If I had another kid to homeschool, I would definitely take advantage of this way of homeschooling!  I would probably mount an iPad to the wall and load it up with educational apps and let the kid "play all day".  I think this would work great up until about 4th grade when kids start needing more structured instruction (in my opinion).

Where has the time gone, and where is it going?

Here is this morning's post from Facebook:

This kid is truly grown up and has 2-3 semesters left of college... if she chooses, she can sit out the last semester, because she would have met all the requirements to graduate... or she can relax and coast the last 2 semesters by taking the smallest work load as possible. There's also the option of turning her minor into a second major.

Here is what she looks like now:

She won't pose for photos anymore, so we rarely get full frontal face. We have to paparazzi her!

The man child is on his final full semester of college, then a couple of summer classes and done. College wasn't as easy for him, it took some work and growth, but his last two semesters were 4.0 so we feel like he's really got his legs under him now.  Oh you want a photo?  Let's see what I can dig up.

I lifted this from his Facebook page.  It is his self portrait... and with the exception of some beardage and the fact that he has changed his style of hat, this looks exactly like him. Including the annoyed gaze.

I'm excited to see what the future holds.