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| Here Come The Meatballs!! A Lesson in Mnemonics by Jennie von Eggers "HERE COME THE MEATBALLS!!", my three year old shouted as we drove through our hometown street. I thought that an odd statement to make completely out of the blue and asked him why he had said it. In typical three-year-old fashion, he was unable to tell me. Fortunately for me, his older brothers knew what his comment meant and why he had made it. Apparently, about a week prior, we had been driving the same road as my two older boys discussed whose turn it was to choose the sandwich at Subway. The boy with that days choosing rights was informing the other that he would be ordering the meatball sandwich, like it or not. And, just to taunt the non-meatball liking brother even more, he said, "HERE COME THE MEATBALLS!" Fast forward one week later. As we drove past the exact same spot where the original comment was made, my 3 year old remembered and repeated it. His mind was triggered to recall the meatball comment by a particular location, which happened to be an RV place alongside the road. Now, this comes from a kid who can't remember the name of the town we live in! As the co-author of a mnemonic based learning tool, I was particularly intrigued to realize that my 3 year old was using "mnemonics" without even knowing it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "mnemonics" it is just a fancy word for the process in which the brain is triggered to remember something by association. This got me thinking, is all learning based on "mnemonics" at some level? And, if we incorporated more mnemonic-style teaching methods, wouldn't our children have better retention of new information? Following are two examples of different teaching methods, one that was successful and one that was not: Our family was approaching a cross country move to the deep south. As any good homeschooling Mom worth her salt would, I saw this as a great opportunity to teach about the Civil War. We cracked open a history book, read, looked at pictures and discussed the main aspects of the war. A few days later when I quizzed them about what they had learned they seem to draw a complete blank. I can now see why they didn't retain the information. They had no association in their current "world" with the past world of the Civil War, to make it stick in their minds. As a result of my kids' failure to learn, I decided to teach them about the Civil War again, this time using a whole new approach. Involving my nieces, nephews and lots of household props we created our own play, acting out the timeline of the war. They loved it and you can bet they remembered it days later when I quizzed them. The moral? The next time your child seems stumped or just isn't "getting" something the way you'd like, try and find an alternative way of teaching. Find a way that they can relate to and associate the information with what is relevant to their world. Find that "trigger". Heck, my kids can't look at a cotton ball without thinking about those poor cotton pickers years ago. Did I mention they had to pick cotton balls off the floor? |
| Trigger Memory Systems |
| Education Through Imagination |
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| Mile Marker Math by Dena Wood I recently headed off on a 1 1/2 hour trip to a Cross-Country meet to watch my older boys compete. More accurately, I should say that my three younger children and I headed off. While a nice long drive in solitude can be peaceful and refreshing that same drive, when shared with a 7, 5, and 3 year old, is usually less so. (I'm being kind, here)In all honesty, I can't say I was looking forward to it. Trying to make the best of a less-than-good situation I began asking my 7 year old if she saw any vertical line segments as we drove along. I followed this up by asking if she saw any horizontal and then oblique segments. Bet you can tell what this weeks' math lesson was on, can't you? As she named the various types of lines she felt inclined to instruct her 5 year old brother on them, also. Soon they were both naming the different types of line segments they saw. Since this was going so well, I decided to push things a bit. I commented on the road signs and how they were different shapes and colors. We were particularly interested in the yellow caution signs as they'd had a difficult time finding the oblique line segments that make up these signs. I shared how all the yellow diamond signs were warnings or cautions and we spent time looking at and discussing them; falling rocks, curves, deer, tipping trucks?....well, you get the idea. We then discussed that other types of signs were also categorized by color and, often, by shape. Hmmm....we were on a roll....why not push it a bit further? I proceeded to point out a green mile marker at the side of the road. I told them that the next green marker would tell us we'd gone exactly one mile. They found this bit of information quite impressive and it led to a game of closing their eyes at one marker and estimating how far to the next marker. They would then open their eyes and see how close they'd come to one mile. (Mom would let them know if we'd passed it). When they began to tire of this I pointed out the numbers on the markers and told them that they could keep track of how far we'd gone by watching the numbers. First, they just made sure I was telling the truth by determining what the next number would be and verifying it upon sighting the marker. After a bit, they would note a marker, become distracted with conversation or the view, and later see another marker. Soon I was hearing, "We were at 116 and now we're at 124 so we went eight miles". All this was done in a leisurely, enjoyable manner and before we knew it, we'd arrived at our destination. We'd managed to have "lessons" on line segments, shapes, categorization, estimation, addition and subtraction without them ever being aware we were doing math. On the way home my daughter commented, "I usually don't like long drives but this was a fun one, today." Just goes to show what a little awareness on Mom's part can accomplish and how pleasantly education can take place. Creative learning at its best! Oh, about the meet! I will take this opportunity to brag that my oldest placed third out of 76 runners and my second son (only a Freshman) placed 15th!! Yes, I'm more than a bit proud! Too bad my little guys aren't old enough to figure percentages!! |
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