I was leafing through the Learning Resources catalog when I came across an educational toy I knew my children would really enjoy. I mused for a moment how nice it would be to have the budget I had as a school teacher for extras not part of the standard curriculum before throwing it out. Then I noticed the cardboard box our fruit trees had arrived in. And this:
Became this:
The children dug into our school stuff and found the scale to weigh their pets. My daughter asked how to make an Excel spreadsheet so she could make charts for her patients. We don’t have any clipboards, so they found some binder clips and attached them to a piece of cardboard. My son gathered some pegs from another toy and brought them in to use as shots and my daughter used her little dog notepad for an X-ray. They are planning on painting the office tomorrow. They’ve treated every stuffed animal they own as well as the dog for everything from broken bones to rabies.
This also reminded me a little of the difference I see between traditional schooling and home education. When I was a classroom teacher, everything was professionally produced and we taught the children procedures for everything…how to sharpen a pencil, how to sit at the desk, how to play with the new items in the learning center. Education was more like a product, packaged and delivered, to be handled a certain way. And my students learned the objectives.
At home, my lessons are not nearly as polished as they were in the classroom. I forget things and there are always distractions to draw us away from whatever has been planned. But I am not as worried about the external quality of my children’s education as I am about the internal. My highest goal is to inspire my children so that they might pursue their own education, create their own knowledge, master their own environment. Earlier this week, I shared a quote I found from Arthur Koestler which seems applicable.
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
I want my children’s education to be characterized by this sort of creativity and discovery as they take the tools we have at hand and make something new (at least to them). I want them to have ownership of their own learning.
I am not saying that this never happens in a classroom, or that it cannot happen. But for it to occur regularly, students need something that is in short supply in our schools and in our culture: time. Time to get bored and time to start wondering what all they could do with a cardboard box. Time to pursue interests and time to just ponder and reflect.
I like our makeshift education and I think my children have been learning far more than they would have had I just bought them the toy.
It looks like it’s actually going to be more educational than the toy! If your children have a genuine interest, I wouldn’t wonder if the local animal shelter would let you come in once a week to pet all the friendlier animals and give them some human contact.
You can’t beat free!
Time – it is one of the MAIN reasons we are homeschooling.
My kids spend lots of time making all sorts of set-ups like the vet hospital your kids made. Sometimes it drives me crazy (because they don’t always ask for what they borrow), but I am very thankful for the creative brains!
One of my favorite childhood memories is the homemade versions of games my brother and I created as kids. Our parents didn’t buy us games, except for checkers and chess, so we made our own Battleship, Clue, Sorry, and whatever else we liked when we came home after playing at a friend’s house. And I never gave it a second thought until I had kids of my own.
That would make an interesting ‘curriculum’ list:
paper
cardboard
felt
glue
markers
tape…
See, a little sacrifice is good for kids. My daughter made herself a gameboy once. I was a little worried when she would sit on her bed with her little contraption making beeping noises to herself while staring at it.
I guess she figured it wasn’t as good as the real thing. It was the only homemade toy that didn’t last more than a day.
But I guess she also knew that was probably the closest she’d ever get to having one…she never even bothered to ask for one.
Ha! Love the gameboy anecdote! Believe me, the playthings the kids help create are more interesting to them and are played with longer than the pre-packaged versions made by adults. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
Ahhh, TIME. It *IS* one of the most precious gifts of our homeschooling. Time for my boys to be not just brothers, but FRIENDS. Time for me not just to be Taxi-Mom, but to be so much more involved with my boys day to day. Time for my sons to read the books that excite them, not just the ones that are required. Time for my boys to pursue their passions (my eldest is writing a BOOK!!). Time is, indeed, precious. And being at home for our education affords us much much more time … together & (ironically) individually.
That is why we have tried to not get our schedule too overloaded although that seems to happen almost on its own. Sometimes my daughter will go outside and just lay in the grass to watch the clouds pass by or take a book up a tree to read. I think that is time we do not always put a proper value on.
Okay I need to comment.
1. I see they sell a dress up doctor kit for $32. I bought that same kit for under $20. This is proof that these educational stores catering to classroom teachers mark prices above retail.
2. I just freecycled that same kit last week to a family along with other dress up toys. If you don’t know about freecycle.org check it out. People basically give stuff away to each other for free. Takers come to your house to pick stuff up (or your workplace).
3. Beware the Carolina teacher catalog. Even some of the books are marked ABOVE full retail as per the publisher’s marked price on the book.
4. Once while reading a Montessori N Such catalog I saw a model of a button down shirt for about $35 to teach schooled kids how to do buttons to dress themselves. I had a good laugh as back then I was trying to replicate a Montessori classroom in my home school while in the Montessori classroom they were trying to replicate real life experiences that happen at HOME. I realized at home we can just put the real shirt on and off and skip the model of the shirt. The same thing went for Waldorf early education where the teacher is copying what mom would do in the home (cooking, cleaning, knitting, ironing, washing clothes).
5. I love your children’s creativity and they did fantastic with their own play with this. I smiled when I saw their creations.
(I should take a photo of the cardboard box time machine in my living room right now and blog that soon…)
Oh one more thing. The Carolina science catalog sells two plastic flower models to show the parts of a flower. One is $330 and the other is $540. I am not making this up.
When I saw that I laughed becuase we homeschoolers can just walk outside and get a real flower or (gasp) go to the grocery store and buy a bouquet of flowers of a certain type for well under $15 and take them apart.
At home with homeschooling we don’t always have a need to have fake replicas of real things when we can use the real things.
In examples like the flower model, I am reminded of how fake and staged classroom learning is. Simple things like taking apart a real flower somehow are so inconceivable that a school would spend $330 or $540 on a plastic model? Are you kidding me? With our tax dollars???
What would John Adams or some of the founders of our country say about our taxes and how we are spending money on education today??
http://www.carolina.com/product/bobbitt+typical+dicot+flower+model.do?keyword=flower+model&sortby=bestMatches
http://www.carolina.com/product/denoyer+geppert+giant+dicot+flower+model.do?keyword=flower+model&sortby=bestMatches
Okay, love the post, but that is one big cat. Unless it’s a dog or a pygmy goat, then never mind.
When my older children were in about the 4th or 5th grade, I put time into the school day for a “30 day project”. It was a time to learn and master anything they were interested it. It was their favorite part of the day, and the things they learned! Napkin folding, knot tying, origami, juggling, balloon animals, bread baking, etc. Now, that they are in high school and college, they still have fond memories and some great skills. Time really is key for creativity to bloom.
Christine, these educational distributors have a captive audience because teachers have their purchase order numbers or whatever they are called and they are only accepted at some locations. I think school districts could save a ton of money if they just gave their teachers gift cards to WalMart.
Granted some of the materials (like furniture) is meant for classroom use and is quite a bit more durable. Those I actually found to be relatively reasonable. But all the toys and enrichment type things were way overpriced.
April, Hunter is a dog.
We call him BatDog because of those insanely long ears of his. And they still stand up.
Leslie, that is really neat. We learned origami last month. I need to check out some more books for it so the kids can do some more. They got tired of the few projects in our book after they had made each of them a dozen times and they ran out of people to give them to.
4. Once while reading a Montessori N Such catalog I saw a model of a button down shirt for about $35 to teach schooled kids how to do buttons to dress themselves. I had a good laugh as back then I was trying to replicate a Montessori classroom in my home school while in the Montessori classroom they were trying to replicate real life experiences that happen at HOME. I realized at home we can just put the real shirt on and off and skip the model of the shirt. The same thing went for Waldorf early education where the teacher is copying what mom would do in the home (cooking, cleaning, knitting, ironing, washing clothes).
***
I had the same thought reading the “we taught the students how to sharpen a pencil” bit above.
So “that’s a pencil sharpener, make sure it’s plugged in” isn’t schoolish enough?
Yesterday’s “lesson” was “how to make a grilled cheese because Mom is running around like a madwoman and I have to get something to eat around here!”
Nance
LOVE this! How awesome that your kids would take the initiative to do this. You had a sentence in your post that started with “students need something that is in short supply in our schools,” and the answer was TIME. Very true, and also, in a different way I was thinking they just need anything that is in short supply, because that is where creativity takes over.
Sharpening pencils is a huge deal in a classroom. I never knew how much pencil sharpening dominated the classroom. Without proper pencil sharpening procedures, there will be no learning. And I’m not kidding. That was the first thing I had to learn in the classroom. And they didn’t teach me anything about that in my education program. Lotta good my certificate did me.
I was going to ask what the “proper pencil sharpening procedure” is but I am obviously not qualified to know.
Nance
Proper procedure = whatever works.
“Sure, sharpen your pencil whenever you need to.” Did not work. Not in first grade. They loved sharpening pencils. Who wouldn’t? We had allotted pencil sharpening times when they would line up by group and sharpen with a monitor to make sure they didn’t sharpen them to nubbins which is what they liked to do most of all.
I love this post!
Make it yourself! Be creative! Recycle and save money!Thrifty ingenuity at its best.