WORKING TOGETHER

One of the things that I love in our homeschool is that the older children can (get to) work with the younger ones.

There are two angles on this:

1. I get a break. Always a good angle. ;)

2. More importantly, just like we, as adults, learn so much from teaching our children, the older children learn when they teach too. Nothing cements a concept like teaching it!




One more plus-- some of these "little kid" projects are really fun, and this format allows the older children to participate without doing "little kid school". They take pride in being the teacher.




In this setting (doing a sink and float experiment back in January), Mark (9yo) is more the facilitator than the teacher for his little brother (6yo), and he is doing a great job. He brought a lot of enthusiasm to the project that I probably would not have. After the official experiment was finished, the boys continued, in one form or another, to play with this on and off all day. :)

*I should add that the most common form of older sibling "teaching" that happens around here is playing math games, working on "Take it to Your Seat Centers" that we have on hand, and doing science experiments. These things lend themselves to an older child being able to work comfortably with a younger. The math games also make good review for the older child, and the centers and science are more fun with two. :)

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