Learning Fun during the Break | Episode 92

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In episode 92, T.D. Flenaugh discusses strategies for keeping learning fun during breaks. She emphasizes the importance of giving children choices in their learning activities, such as gamifying tasks and setting achievable goals. She also suggests using resources like libraries and YouTube for learning new skills, such as cooking, baking, or building. Flenaugh also highlights the value of documenting and sharing the learning process with family and friends. She encourages parents to help children explore their interests and develop life skills, such as researching topics they are curious about and engaging in hands-on projects. She stresses the importance of making learning a lifelong pursuit that enhances independence and self-discovery.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:00

Are you on break? Your kids on break? You're about to go on break, whatever the case may be, this episode you don't want to miss, because we're going to give you those strategies and tips to keep learning fun, even when school is out. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the following for learning podcast. I am TD Flenaugh. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. Welcome. Here we are in the mood for vacation, but the kids are still home, and you have to figure out what to do, right? So if you don't have you know right now, the time or the ability to go on an extended break or out of town, I want to we're going to talk about what to do now. Right now, I'm just going to address what I'm wearing. So I have one a tie dye t shirt from when I went to a vacation. And so I'm in the vacation state of mind. I'm not on vacation, but I'm in the vacation state of mind. I have a hat on, you know, represent like vacation hair, like, if you're swimming, you're out, you're doing all the things I did take out my braids. If you watch my previous episode on the research I did on, you know, synthetic hair. My braids are out. But I'm also talking about, you know, just be in the vacation mood, right? And depending on your type of vacation, if you're on the beach or whatever, you are going to have your hair and you kind of which way, and you're going to be enjoying yourself. And then you could, you know, just put a hat on or whatever. So that's where we are in the vacation state of mind. So you are about to go on vacation, or you're on vacation, or whatever, you've got to figure out what to do to keep the learning fun, even though your kids are out of school. Now, of course, you may have some type of plan for them to work on their reading, to work on their math, their multiplication facts, any of those things, right? And I am saying, of course, let's do that, but I do want us to shift and to think outside of that, and think in terms of what is something that they want to learn to do. So I'm all about giving kids choice, about having advocacy, you know, agency about them, directing their learning journey. We know that there's a lot of things that they need to learn and they need to do, and there's not a choice about it. So when you can give them choice, let's give it to them. So of course, you may choose some kind of learning skill that they need to work on. And I 100% go for that, but put it in a way that you could gamify it. Okay? So gamify it in a way that give them some opportunities to think about what kind of games they want to do they want to do, so many in a year, so many in a week. Like, how do you want this to happen, right? So with the time, right? They may have, you may give them, like, 30 minutes a day. Again, it's not school. You're not replicating the school day. So think in terms of 30 minutes, I would say, no more than an hour, that you are engaging them in this task. Now, if you have a week, maybe not make it every day. Make it five days, make it four days, so that they're not every day dedicated to the learning, but they have a specific amount of time that they need to do it. If it's every day, make it very short, 10 minutes a day, or something like that, 15 minutes, so that it is something that's doable, is something that's easy and quick to do, and they're actually fulfilling that obligation. If you want to make it a challenge, by the end of the week, you get to do this. If you do this particular task or practice this many times, whatever that commitment is, let them know, establish ahead of time, and help them choose what they want their reward to be if they meet this challenge, and make it a challenge that is maybe difficult, but not too difficult. You're not going to have 100,000 minutes by the end of the week, or something like that, where their whole vacation is consumed with this particular learning activity. Okay, so you're giving them a choice about what they're going to choose, what they're going to get at the end of this challenge, once they meet this obligation, make it worthwhile. Okay, now you get to have an ice cream cone, right? Like, is that really the thing? If it is, okay, but if it's not, you have to figure out what they want and. Help them decide on what it is and make sure you have it ready for them. Make sure that you could get it for them, that you're not giving them some unfulfilled promises. Okay, so I just want to make sure that we are thinking about how to keep the learning fun and engaging. So it's a challenge. Maybe they're in competition with their brother or sister, but of course, everyone could get the prize or have something worthwhile. And again, competitions, when we think about someone's a winner or a loser, probably is not the best thing. But again, them getting a certain amount of something completed or done minutes or whatever, and then they're getting a goal so everyone can win, makes the most sense. So again, you want to make it fun, make it so that it is doable and it is something that is worthwhile to them in the end. Okay, very key. So the next thing I'm going to talk about is other things that they could learn. So we always, you know, always, often, we think about learning in terms of, okay, math, reading, writing, getting this particular project done. But I want to think, you to think about this in a different way. They're just as kids, you know, you know things that you want to always learn how to do or you would be interested in doing. So ask them, What is something that they want to learn? It could be something as skate, skating, skateboarding. It could be they want to learn how to code or cook or bake or something like that. So ask them about something that they want to learn how to do. Now, you may already have this answer, because they're always like, up in the kitchen with you, bothering you or asking you questions, and you're like, you know, you probably want to learn how to cook whatever this is, and then you're going to help them to learn it. Now, of course, you may be able to put them in a cooking class, but those of us who were not able to just pop up and give them a cooking class or put them use resources such as the library, such as YouTube, to help them find ways like tutorials and how tos, books and all of that on how to learn whatever it is that they want to learn. It could be knitting. It could be drawing, something in particular, like help them find something that they're interested in and they're excited about, okay, so something that they want to learn how to do. How you could start them on that journey learning how to do it. It could be building something. So again, think about learning in terms of, you know, Skills for Life, right? Not something's completely connected to, like a subject area in school or grade that they're going to get on a project or something like that. So keep that in mind. Help them to see learning as part of a lifelong a lifelong pursuit, something that they are going to enjoy doing. Okay? So think in terms of that, and help them find out what to do, how to do it, and help them to document this journey. So another way to make it very fun and engaging and also practice the writing skills or the speaking skills, is to document it somehow they could create, like, you know, different blog posts they could create just paper, pencil, like, you know, Journal of how they're doing. What day one is like, what day two is like. And again, it doesn't have to spam the whole vacation. Like every day, it could be four days or three days or two days. They're building something, right? They're building something, and they're very excited about what they're building. And they are, you know, showing like, here's some setbacks. We forgot this particular screw. We put this on backwards. We did it again. So when we're talking about learning, we're talking about documenting when things don't go 100% because learning is a process, and part of the learning process are is making mistakes, absolutely making mistakes as part of the learning process, and helping kids to understand that, helping to them, to celebrate when they make mistakes, and then learn from those mistakes and document that journey, is going To make learning fun, and again, it's something that they chose to do which is going to make it that much greater. Okay, so when we get back from our messages, we're going to have some more information about how to make learning fun over the break, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and so. Skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing heat and into loving to write. Get your book set today. You here we go. All right, so get that book set today for the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook. I do have another book coming out. It's coming out too, but it's not even instructional, but I'll tell you more about that later, as we're talking about how to keep learning fun and engaging again, I'm going to go back to that concept of gamifying what they're doing. So if they have siblings or even cousins or something like that, they could talk about what those different people, you know, those different family members, are creating, right? Maybe one of them wants to build something, right? They're building a cabinet or something like that. Maybe their room needs a reorganization, and they realize, okay, if we build this cabinet and put our tools, our toys here and our stuff here, this will be a lot more organized, right? So think outside the box and really listen to them. What are they interested in learning, right, and thinking about enjoying and celebrating everyone's gifts or interest, right? Because maybe the sister wants to create certain art things, art installations, you know, create a mural, whatever it is, right? But then maybe the brother wants to build something, or maybe it's flip flopped. Maybe somebody wants to, you know, bake, another person wants to cook, right? So having a time where you are going to display all of the things that you learned, or the project you worked on over the break, so maybe that Sunday or that Saturday, everybody is coming over. You're inviting family members over so they could enjoy the cake that your your child baked, or they can look at, you know, that cabinet, or whatever they created, or, you know, built. So think in terms of, you know, how you could take that learning outside of whatever you're doing right, learning outside of the classroom, learning outside of the home, and share it with others, either through a book that you're creating, a blog post, social media, post, a video, you know, a vlog on all the different ways that you The processes and stages of this thing that you created or built or were working on, you know, over your break is very, very important. This is a way to think about learning in a way that isn't just tied to the classroom, but instead that is tied to life improvement and agency and becoming an adult right, maturing, taking responsibility, learning to do new things. So these types of activities build confidence in kids. It helps connect them to possibly a career goal. It helps them to learn more about themselves. Like, Oh, I'm really good at building things. I'm really good at figuring things out, making puzzles, making that airplane model, or whatever it is that they really enjoy and love to do. So really think about that. Help them think through it. And sometimes, if you give kids too many choices, it's hard for them to find out what you know. I'm not sure what I want to do. I don't so you give them some things that you could propose to do. You could maybe like, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, bring a puzzle. I'm going to, you know, work on these types of games. We're going to use this game. We're going to do this and which one did you like best, which one you didn't like. Because, again, learning is about getting to know yourself as well. Sometimes we understand and know we have natural gifts, like, I'm really good at this particular thing, and you don't even know, but you learn because you engaged in this activity. Or, you know, you figure out I'm not really good at this, but it's something I want to get better at, and I'm going to work on it right? Or it's some things like, I just hate that. I don't like being outside. I don't like whatever it is. It helps them to get to know themselves, and helps them to understand what is working for them, what's not working for them, what is something that they may pursue when they get older, what's something they definitely don't want to pursue, what's a skill that they really want to work on building up. So learning again, is something that we need to help kids to detach just from the classroom and to think about how does learning look in your life? How Does Learning enhance your life? What could you learn to do better that's going to. Help you to grow and to mature and to the person that you want to become, to reach the goals that you're interested in achieving. So that is so important. So when we're thinking in terms of what to choose, because, again, that may be a challenge for your kid. Some kids right away, know, okay, I want to build this. I want to create this. I want to work on this. And other kids are going to need more of a support with that. So it think of in terms of something that could be artistic, right, some kind of craft that they're building. So you think you could think in terms of knitting, sewing. It could be in terms of, again, baking or cooking something, right? And in that way, you're going to help them to think about this then. Now, if you're like, where do I get these ideas from? So you could think in terms of, like, high school or middle school types of electives that are out there. Like, I'm saying art, I'm saying home economics. I'm saying, you know, shop, like, where we're going to build something, we're going to draw something. And if you know, you have more an outdoorsy kids, they could be doing some exploration. They are finding the different insects they could find, you know, outside, they are identifying different types of birds or different flowers or different things like that. Are going to help them with their learning process. Okay, so really, in thinking in terms of, you know, what are some things that we could think about, could we let them understand more if they're a person, sometimes you have a kid that asks a bunch of questions. I remember my brother was like this. He went through a stage as a kid where he was just asking a bunch of questions. And I don't feel like I had that same thing, but then you might help them, you know, really research a particular topic that they're asking a lot about. It may have to be a particular it may be a part of history, it might be a particular type of animal or organism or something like that, but it's really, really important that they're getting that information and you're helping them through the research process. Of course, I just last week, we had that podcast episode on research, and that just scratched the surface of what you could do. And research could also be something where they are actually doing their own research, meaning they are making their own survey and questioning people and asking people, how do you feel? What do you think is fair? What was your experience like? They could even interview family members and have like a family type of history that they are creating. So if you have some grandparents around older adults just learning about what their life was like when they were younger could be a way for those inquisitive kids to get some research done themselves. They are going around asking people questions and doing a survey. They are getting an interview from different family members about different aspects of their lives growing up, or maybe something that they're dealing with now that they want to know more about. I know one really funny thing is, you know, kids, so some kids, like they did not like take showers and stuff like that in the, you know, during PE and I guess some schools do. It just depends on where you are or whatever. But they want to know about, like, what was that like? Like, you had to take a shower, you had to be ready in five minutes or whatever. And really talking about that, like, there's a lot of places that don't do that anymore. They don't take showers anymore and, and so just, just things that you're like, This is really weird. Like, how did you handle this situation when you were younger? Because we don't have to do that stuff anymore. You know, one time I really got in, you know, we were talking about corporal punishment in my classroom, we were reading a book in which the characters were getting like, they were still getting, like, spanked and like, paddled and stuff like that in school. And it's called Roll of Thunder. Hear My Cry. And we did research on, you know, like, there are still some places in the United States that still have those kind of laws on the books. It's okay to paddle kids, right? We were really surprised about this. And this was probably like, let's say, like, five seven to, you know, seven to five years ago. And we were really surprised about it. And, you know, I didn't know, because, you know, we all learn from research, obviously, when you are in a particular place, you know what things are like. There. You know, what goes what doesn't go, but not knowing that even in the United States, other states have different laws that are completely different, or even in and complete opposite of what you're dealing with where you are currently in, you know? And so it just really helps you to know more about the world. And the more people get to know about the world, the more confident they are, and the more they can navigate different places that they go. And, you know, feel confident doing that right, so becoming a citizen of the world, and really being able to feel confident wherever you go, that you can, you know, thrive, and you could get to know people, and you could learn, and you can enjoy yourself, you know. So that is just such that's something that's so important, you know, in terms of, you know, as they're maturing and getting to, you know, getting to know themselves and how they fit into the world. So those are some things that will really like, will really stand out for kids as they're growing up. So, as you know, it is the time of year where people are taking vacations but you don't want the learning to stop. This podcast is all about giving your child the competitive advantage, so making sure that you keep learning going, even though that they're not in school is so you know, paramount to helping the kids have a competitive advantage, they're thinking about learning as something to help them to become more independent, to become closer to adulthood, right, and to get to know themselves better. They could do that through academic pursuits, and they definitely can do that through pursuits of you know, finding something that they want to learn how to do that has to do with a life skill, or becoming it more independent towards adulthood. Driving, I didn't even bring that up, right? It could be driving, cooking, baking, knitting, sewing, all these different things, building things, fixing things. Sometimes our kids even get annoyed by things that need to be fixed in the house, and we could maybe help them think about like, how do you fix this kind of thing and do research on it? Go to a big warehouse store, you know, tool store, where they do that type of, sell those type of products and figure out how to get this thing fixed, and they will feel so proud of themselves, you'll feel proud of themselves, of them as well, right? So those are the kind of things we want to do to help kids to frame learning as something that's fun and useful for their own lives. Do something today to make sure that your child gets the competitive event advantage right. So thank you again for joining the falling for learning podcast. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful week. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast. New Episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in Love with learning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.