When I set out to teach The Hamster his alphabet, I struggled with identifying his learning style. Unlike many boys, he seemed to be less a kinesthetic learner than an auditory or perhaps a visual one.
While he enjoys listening to his “story CDs”, he also enjoys looking at his books and is positively mesmerized on those rare (less rare than I would like) occasions when he watches a movie. So, is he a visual learner, an auditory learner or some combination of all three styles? After taking a few tests, designed to help me determine his learning styles, I decided…I’m not sure.
While obviously a discussion of multiple intelligences, and how that impacts the way a child learns, is in order, in general, I stick to the classic three types when determining what learning tools to buy. Since, my DS seems to be a combination of all three, I get to purchase a wide variety of materials…isn’t that special?
One tool that makes learning fun for him is learning placemats. Over the past few years we have collected quite a variety of them. Alphabet songs have been reinforced by our alphabet placemats. Any story is enhanced by our World and United States mats. We point out various places as we tell the story and show the path, by water or land that the protagonist might have taken. A recent viewing of “Happy Feet” (which I hated for the disrespectful and lazy language, despite the positive message) led us to determine that the star penguin must have landed near Argentina…other land masses near Antarctica being much too far to swim.
Now that he is exploring the concept of money, we have purchased a “money mat”. I spend little time actually going over the concepts of money value with him but, rather just allow him time to look at the pictures during mealtimes and ask questions as they arise.
I find these mats a wonderful opportunity to enable child directed learning while guiding him toward subjects he will encounter in school next year. Though they are available at a wide variety of places, I tend to find the best selection at our local teacher’s supply store. It works for me!
While he enjoys listening to his “story CDs”, he also enjoys looking at his books and is positively mesmerized on those rare (less rare than I would like) occasions when he watches a movie. So, is he a visual learner, an auditory learner or some combination of all three styles? After taking a few tests, designed to help me determine his learning styles, I decided…I’m not sure.
While obviously a discussion of multiple intelligences, and how that impacts the way a child learns, is in order, in general, I stick to the classic three types when determining what learning tools to buy. Since, my DS seems to be a combination of all three, I get to purchase a wide variety of materials…isn’t that special?
One tool that makes learning fun for him is learning placemats. Over the past few years we have collected quite a variety of them. Alphabet songs have been reinforced by our alphabet placemats. Any story is enhanced by our World and United States mats. We point out various places as we tell the story and show the path, by water or land that the protagonist might have taken. A recent viewing of “Happy Feet” (which I hated for the disrespectful and lazy language, despite the positive message) led us to determine that the star penguin must have landed near Argentina…other land masses near Antarctica being much too far to swim.
Now that he is exploring the concept of money, we have purchased a “money mat”. I spend little time actually going over the concepts of money value with him but, rather just allow him time to look at the pictures during mealtimes and ask questions as they arise.
I find these mats a wonderful opportunity to enable child directed learning while guiding him toward subjects he will encounter in school next year. Though they are available at a wide variety of places, I tend to find the best selection at our local teacher’s supply store. It works for me!
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