My daughter, Christina, during a teachable moment at age 2, 1992.
I always considered natural learning an important part of our homeschool, of our family life in general. Natural learning can be an important part of your home whether you homeschool or not. Here are my favorite recommendations on how to help your child through natural learning.
1. Take the lead from Maria Montessori, and follow your child.
Maria Montessori added much to the world of education, but her biggest contribution is probably the concept of observing and following the child. It’s important to observe your child for teachable moments and for the stages of development when your child can learn a concept most easily. Maria Montessori’s concepts of the “absorbent mind” and “sensitive periods” can help you discover how and when your child learns various concepts and skills most easily.
2. Know and nurture your child’s natural learning style.
It’s very helpful to identify your child as a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner. There are a number of helpful systems for classifying learning styles, but visual, auditory, and kinesthetic are the most commonly mentioned learning styles.
The traditional school system relies heavily on visual learning. I think it’s good for children to have exposure to each style of learning with the greatest emphasis on their natural learning style. Both my children liked learning visually but were also very strong in the kinesthetic learning category. Montessori education and unit studies were very fun and stimulating for my children’s kinesthetic tendencies.
Here’s a quick learning style assessment from School Family that works whether your child is homeschooled or in a traditional school setting. Here’s information on supporting young children’s learning styles from Baby Center.
I also think it’s very helpful to focus on your child’s primary love language. The 5 Love Languages are Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. There’s an online assessment of the 5 Love Languages and suggestions for identifying your child’s primary love language. Knowing the favorite way for your child to receive love is helpful for learning at home. Both my children’s favorite way to receive love is through physical touch. We spent a lot of time cuddled up on the sofa, reading together.
3. Emphasize hands-on learning, especially during your child’s early years.
We used Montessori methods almost exclusively during my children’s preschool years. Montessori education presents concepts by using concrete materials before attempting abstract learning. Later on, we homeschooled with some Montessori materials and with unit studies, which emphasized hands-on discovery learning for many subjects. If your child is a kinesthetic learner, hands-on learning may be essential. For any type of learner, hands-on learning can make a much more dramatic, memorable impact as an educational experience.
What examples of natural learning do you see in your family?
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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Oh my goodness! What a wonderful post filled with so many great links – I can’t wait to start clicking! 🙂
Thanks for putting this together, Deb.
Thanks for your kind comment, Mari-Ann! I really loved studying about learning styles and personality types. And it was always fun to see how my children developed through following their own style as they grew up.
The kind of natural learning that I instinctively have practiced with my younger siblings and students (still waiting for Baby to be old enough) is learning through dialogue. I just chat about what I’m doing, throwing in a few facts that come to mind. So we’ll be in the store, and I say, “Hm, I want to buy 5 yards of fabric. But I only have fifteen dollars. So I guess I should only be looking at fabric that’s three dollars a yard or less.” (If Baby were old enough, I’d ask him to help me with this.) A lot of the time, this develops into conversations … my younger brother would always be asking, “What’s a yard? Is it like the size of our backyard? Why do they sell fabric by the yard?” And I’d answer the best I could, ask what he thinks, or suggest ways to find out.
I both learn and teach very well this way. Just watch my kid end up being a kinesthetic learner, though!
Thanks, Sheila! That’s a great way to teach – making learning relevant for life!
Stopping by from the Carnival of Natural Parenting. So glad to have found your site & love the information in your post. We are trying to get a little more structured with devoting time to learning while still following Beanie’s lead. I can’t wait to check out all the links.
Thanks so much for your kind words! It sounds like you’re doing a great job – it’s hard to go wrong when you’re following your child’s lead!
I’ve never thought about connecting your love language with natural learning, but at least with Kieran’s, they are completely complimentary! Kieran’s love language is quality time – he revels in time with me or Tom, and he’s so much more open and receptive when we’re doing things together. What a great concept, thank you for sharing!
Thanks, Dionna! I think you’re doing an awesome job of responding to Kieran’s love language – and his other needs as well!
I’m really enjoying your site! My oldest is two and so far we just take advantage of those “teachable moments” and follow her lead. I’m still gauging her learning style– it seems to change based on the activity 🙂
Thanks so much, Lindsey! Following your daughter’s lead and taking advantage of teachable moments is an approach that’s hard to beat! It can be difficult to determine children’s learning styles when they’re very young, and some children are just a fairly balanced blend of styles.
Holy cow what a great, informative post! I’ve bookmarked this post in my Homeschool folder for future reference as we homeschool our 1yo daughter! Thanks so much for all the great info and links!
Thanks for your kind comment! How great to start focusing on homeschooling while your daughter is still so young.
Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier and leaving a comment! (By the way, you do not look old enough to have a 25 year old by any means!)
You just made my day, Janet! Actually, I’m old enough to have a 35 year old.
Awesome!
The love languages books are wonderful — they especially helped me in my adult relationship with my mother.
Thanks for visiting my blog!
Thanks for your comment, Betsy! I love that the books helped you in your relationship with your mother. I’ve heard of that with studies of personality types as well. It’s great that it helps to understand how someone else approaches life.
I can only echo what others have said — what a wonderful, informative post! I love all the links.
We have many examples of natural learning around here — we’re homeschooling our two boys, ages 7 and 4. We spend time outside, doing crafts (finger-knitting, play-dough, god’s-eyes, felting), reading, talking, playing, climbing, running, bike-riding, and working things out with siblings and friends. 🙂
Thanks so much, Stacy! It sounds like you have some wonderful natural learning going on your family!
Yea! I have so many more links to read. 🙂 I have a slew of tabs open now to explore. Thank you!
I agree with you about the love language. That was so eye-opening to me, to discover both my husband’s and my son’s, and realize they were different from mine. It made me more aware of how I needed to fill their cups.
I like the idea of checking out Mikko’s learning style, too. I hear a lot about learning styles, but I haven’t done enough study into it to be able to discern the differences yet. It sounds like it will be very helpful, though. I’m guessing I was visual, since that’s the most school-oriented style, but even if that’s true for Mikko as well, I’d love to bring in other styles to round things out.
And I love learning about Montessori methods. Keep it coming! 🙂
Thanks, Lauren! You always give such great input! I hope you find the links helpful.
Great post. I am going to check out the links you posted about learning styles.
Looking forward to checking out all of the other links too. Looks like some very useful information.
Thanks, Darcel! I love studying learning styles and was excited to find so many great resources in the blogosphere.