Giving the 'Happiness Advantage'

This weekend I read an interesting article in the Times about 'Dolphin Parenting' Which was Shawn Achor's reply to 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom'.

If you haven't heard of Shawn Achor I highly recommend listening to his TEDtalk on 'The Happiness Advantage' in the video below.

I've never been comfortable with the Tiger mom style principles, and although it's a little corny, I do love the 'dolphin parenting' idea. We have been able to implement a few of his ideas into our daily  homeschool routine and I'm already seeing positive outcomes.

So, if you want to join me in 'Dolphin Homeschooling' here are the ideas we are using so far:

1) watch a funny video on youtube and laugh about it together. 
Yes, daily. Laughing together is not only fun, but it releases endorphines which help you learn faster and retain information for significantly longer. Plus it's bonding.  

2) write down three things that you are grateful for. 
Teaching your child to scan the day for positive outcomes, within 21 days this becomes a habit, so make a month (or longer) of daily gratitude journalling.

3) One happy memory.
Also in our journal we write out one happy memory/favourite thing that happened today. I write this for Cosmo, as I don't want his emotional experience to be limited by frustration of spelling etc... I let him tell me his happy memory and then I ask leading questions like 'what happened next?' and 'how did you feel about that?'

4) An encouraging/positive note.
My children have facebook accounts. Don't worry, they don't know their own password and they are only friends with family members. It is useful for this exercise though, where I ask him to send one encouragement or note of praise to somebody.

Shawn Achor points out that IQ isn't really a great predictor of success or happiness. How positive you are and how well connected you are with your support network are much more important predictors of both. These exercises done daily will build habits, and habits become character and destiny, according to someone much smarter than me.

'Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny'
                                                      -Samuel Smiles
 
 In just three days my son is already way more positive. He is finding all kinds of things to be grateful for, he's stopping during the day to point out that 'this is going to be my happy memory when we journal!' and he's saying encouraging things to me and his sister.

This stuff works, so let's give our kids the Happiness advantage :0)

Photo credit

Brain Quest

Cosmo was lucky enough to be bought a gift from one of the boys we live with, all the way from the United States!

The gift is a set of flash cards called 'Brain Quest' which I had never heard of, but they are brilliant. Each little pack is a notebook full of strips with different categories of questions on and answers on the card behind.

Cosmo was bought a grade 3 pack, bearing in mind that he is pre-K age, I was a little skeptical, but actually he really likes them. The math and science sections are still easy, but language arts, social studies and miscellany are all brand new to him.

Actually, it turns out brain quest have a huge website with downloadable resources and apps for the iphone/ipad too. It's only £2.99 so I've bought it and we'll be playing it later on today.

These sets are a great way to build encyclopedic knowledge, which is perfect for the developmental stage we are currently at.

***Update***

The app is AMAZING! It allows up to three users, so the kids can work at their own level each time they come back and not miss any stages/have to start again.

It's easy, multiple choice style means that even Lychee can play as I read the questions and she has to choose an answer. It's great for reading practice as I ask 'Which describes a girl? He or She?' and she has to look at the two answers to work out which one says 'she'.

Obviously Cosmo has zoomed through to level 24 in just half an hour, but he's enjoying it and building knowledge, so I'm really pleased. I also have no idea how many levels there are, but it hasn't shown any signs of being completed any time soon.

£2.99 well spent :0)

Cousin day and the natural history museum

This week saw the first 'cousin day' that we are attempting to add into our schedule. The plan is to have my sister and her kids over for a day and take turns teaching them, giving one of us child free time every fortnight so that we can get more done.

Depending on what your criteria is, cousin days was a success. 

Work was slow, distracted... Etc but everyone had fun. The children learned a little about life cycles of various animals and then each gave a presentation ins particular one. Cosmo chose snakes.

Lychee coloured some butterflies and we talked about symmetry. I was fairly surprised to see that she actually understood the concept. 

On Tuesday we went to the natural history museum with our homeschool co-op and had a great time. 

Cosmo was a little upset because his digital camera got broken on the bus, but he soon enjoyed looking around, particularly when we got to the human biology section. 

Lychee's favourite part was the butterfly exhibit (no surprise there!) and as well as loving all the butterflies she was completely overwhelmed with all the beautiful plants and flowers. She could not be a girlier girl. I have no idea where she gets it from! 

The children were both excited that they already knew the life cycle of a butterfly, but enjoyed stamping the stages on cards provided and watching the chrysalises hatching. 

You can see more photos on our travel blog if you use the links at the top :0)

Art and maths

Yesterday was sunny and my kids got excited about having an 'art' lesson outside.

The only problem is, I had planned to do maths. 

Problem was easily solved though, because it turns out, if you think about it carefully enough, art and maths overlap quite a lot. 

First lesson was pattern recognition. Cosmo loves patterns, but lychee has struggled with being able to repeat a pattern in the past. 

With a bit of help though, we coloured in a huge area of paving slabs using chalks in a repeated rainbow pattern and talked a bit about colour theory (primary colours blending through secondary colours... etc...)

Cosmo helpfully brought up colour temperature too, so we discussed that briefly, because this term our co op is focussing on light, so I figure wavelengths will be worth knowing a little about. 

Then we made a giant number line, by writing one number on each paving slab of our path. I used our 'mathematical reasoning' book and had the kids work out exercises by running along the line instead of drawing arcs on a page. 

It all went pretty well, and there was also some fun naughty and crosses, pictures of hearts and people's names scribbled around. 

Who knew you could fill an entire day, just playing with chalk? 

Gulliver's Land!!

Well the time finally came (actually it came a lot quicker than I imagined it would!) and Cosmo had saved up enough money to take, not only his own family, but also his cousins to Gulliver's land theme park.

He was so incredibly pleased with himself, although he got a little embarrassed with all the 'thank yous', it was obvious he enjoyed them, but just didn't know how to respond.

Here's the video of our fantastic day out:

Yes He Is (Death is Not Natural)

Okay, so this isn't technically a homeschooling resource, but I recently discovered this website that is full of media to make sharing your faith on things like facebook and twitter easier. The thing is, it has such simple, clear summaries of the gospel, that it is actually perfect for little ones to get a grip of the metanarrative of the gospel.

The website is called Yes He is and you can see a sample video, called 'Death is not Natural' here:

Lovely animations, which would make a great change to devotional time, and with a few basic questions you could easily make it a comprehension task, whilst all the while reinforcing the truth of the gospel. 

Go to Yesheis.com and you can view hundreds more videos and images that portray biblical truth in a simple and eye-pleasing way :0)

Managing Money: A learning opportunity almost missed!

Pocket money has been something that has come and gone several times in the Gracie household. We always tie it to some form of responsibility, and initially it goes well, but Cosmo gets bored. Currently pocket money is tied to him independently completing a set number of worksheets each day from our Timberdoodle curriculum, without complaining. 

We have always had 'spend', 'save' and 'give' jars, and he must put a little of his money into each jar, although the ratio is determined by him. He has historically been very generous with giving, kept  enough to spend on 99p toys from poundland, but not really been motivated to save beyond putting a small random coin in... until he had something to save for. 

Saving with a goal in mind has inspired him. He recently told me that he wanted to save up enough money to take the whole family to Gulliver's land (family ticket = £90). I had laughed it off and explained that it was a lot of money and would take far too long to save up his pocket money. He worked out that it would take just under two years, and that he felt he could wait that long.

A little later I read this blog about a four year old who saved up to buy herself, and her baby brother, iPads. I realised that we had a fantastic teaching opportunity, which I was missing by assuming he was incapable. 

So we had a chat about how to raise extra money for his goal. He has donated some toys to a local charity shop which pays him £2 a bag. He has also discovered ebay and listed his duplo set there (three days to go if you want to bid!) and is planning on selling his 'Swim fin' too. Grandma has been paying him 'a penny a pine cone' to collect kindling for her fire and a small amount for watering her plants. Even little Lychee got in on the action, attempting to sweep the Grandma's kitchen after a BBQ so she could earn some 'Gulliver money' to give to Cosmo.  

What I love most is his little determined character isn't undermining his giving attitude. He still puts money in his give jar. He still took the best bits of duplo (in his opinion) to save for his cousin Jonathon, and most notably, as well as saving £90 for our family ticket, he now also wants to save £180 so that he can take his cousins with him. 

We've created a spreadsheet for him so he can add to it when he earns money and watch his goal drop down. He's so excited and I nearly missed all this because I assumed he couldn't do it. 

Let your kids dream big.

*Update is available here*