Accidental learning !?!
Q. What’s accidental learning?
A. One of the ways kids learn. But it flies under the radar. As parents we can encourage more accidental learning.
Q. Examples?
A. Think about the first words your child learned to read (not say, but read.)
The first two words my daughter learned to read were her name and the word “jewell.” Jewell is the name of our grocery store. She heard it and saw the word “jewell” in huge orange letters, all the time. She learned it accidentally. Accidental learning happens when learning is reinforced and even introduced, accidentally in a child’s life and in our lives too, while we’re doing other things. Grocery stores are great places for accidental learning.
Q. Grocery stores and learning?
A. We don’t think of store errands as learning time. So we don’t expect it. We don’t look for it. But it’s happening! We can encourage more of it – give it a boost – even reading and math.
Q. When we’re at the store I want to get it done. Seems like this would make those trips longer.
A. Let’s think about it. Why do we want those trips to get done as fast as possible? Isn’t it because errands are so tedious?
Q. Yes – not to mention that we’re all tired and the kids are begging for candy.
A. Tired and rushed. Rushed and tired. These two are like rivers that flood the banks of our lives. They do make it harder to see accidental learning opportunities. But we can shore them up and jazz our joy by expecting to engage with our children’s minds. Here’s how:
Finding learning, accidentally, can reverse the tide and bring us a surge of energy. Often during a late afternoon grocery store run our kids are learning – but they’re learning about new kinds of candy and junky stuff. How can we make the trip more interesting? We can engage their minds. What if your kids started “estimating” how much is in your shopping cart before you check out? What if each week they got better at it? What if they look forward to guessing. . .estimating. . .how much is in your cart – and so they start paying attention to all the prices as you shop?
Expecting them to learn means you’re not just doing an errand – you’re leading your kids in learning and doing your grocery shopping at the same time. (Younger kids don’t have to estimate the whole cart – help them start smaller by estimating how much you’ve got that’s just dairy, or just fruit. If they guess a million dollars – not a problem. Guessing a million dollars is a starting place. It’s an engaged place and now we can talk with them about ‘millions’ and find ways to see how much a million really is. They’ll get there. Talking and thinking together create a path.
Q. I was going to say ‘doesn’t that take patience’ – but maybe not as much as I thought.
A. Sometimes it does. Sometimes engaging with our kids’ minds actually makes more patience. Learning is fun. When we’re learning – evan as parents – we don’t get pinched for patience in the same way as when we’re rushing to get things done.
Q. So, looks like you’ve got a new book here called Accidental Learning?
Yes-indeedy! It’s a new book and full of ideas and offered at a sale price. In 43 pages Accidental Learning helps us transform a hum-drum part of life – everyday driving errands -by helping us engage our children’s minds and by helping them learn using the time we already have with them.
. . . Accidental Learning sprang from simple learning activities that our two families stumbled upon, almost by accident.
Most are so simple that at first we didn’t recognize them as actual learning strategies.
Over time that’s exactly how they work.
We offer them to you.
ACCIDENTAL Learning: A – Z
Easy Strategies To Boost Your Child’s Learning
A Guide For Learning Along the Way of Life
Tips For Busy Parents & On The Go Families
Easy Strategies To Boost Your Child’s Learning
Activities That Make Daily Life Less Hectic & More Fun
$9.95 as an electronic download. You can print it out and use it in your family, again and again and again. Here’s the link.