Just here from Youtube, for the worksheet? I do have a worksheet that I'll put in the files there for you.
Alright, so I'm doing the thing that I tell everybody I always have these like big mottos in my life I live by because I learned it from women older than me and smarter than me and they told me stuff and it worked.
The first one is, "Better done than perfect."
Don't worry about whether or not it's perfect. Just get it done because at least now it's done.
The atmosphere, the mood, all these things that help you to absorb or not absorb, I've learned from teaching Spanish. And I want to share those things with you today because they're things that you can change easily.
All right, 10 crazy facts about your brain that will blow your mind and help you homeschool. So these are beautiful little things that you can change easily.
"When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower."
That may be enough for you.
1, 2, 3 and 4:
Okay, so the first ones we're going to talk about is atmosphere, mood, your physical experience, and your relationship. All these different four categories are the categories that you can change in order, or you can mostly change. You can't always change the mood, but you can change your atmosphere, your mood, the physical experience.
And then often you might not be able to change a relationship, but you can change the person who's teaching your child or who you're learning from. So you have control over three of these four categories. Let's talk about atmosphere.
Recognize that the weather or the air quality of where you are is going to affect whether or not your brain is on or off.
~Temperature is a big, huge deal. If a child is cold or too hot, too cold or too hot, it keeps them from being able to absorb any kind of information.
~Lighting. If you have to squint, if your child is squinting, then it's probably too dark. If they are asking for sunglasses or they want to sit under the table or they want to wear a hat, maybe it's too bright. Ask them. They typically know their preferences.
~Color. If you've never done a study on colors and how they affect your brain, colors actually automatically make parts of your brain come to life. So red makes you focus on anything or absorb anything. This is very cognition dependent, meaning if your child is stressed out, yeah, they can barrel through, like you can do it, right? You can drill them until they learn it because they're scared. But will they absolutely put it in long-term memory or will it become like a trauma thing? So if your child is scared of something, like a lot of times people have potty training issues, not so much because of of the kid's habits or ability to control their bowels, but because the flush scared them the first time. That trauma, that fear, keeps the kid from wanting to go to the bathroom, and so that keeps them from absorbing the information that they need to be able to train their body to go to the bathroom on command.
~Your mood has a huge impact on whether or not you're learning. A great way to change mood is with food. One thing that really helped my middlest with her mood was food in the shape of goldfish, little goldfish crackers. That way there's no sugar. We didn't do the colored ones because color was really bad for her. The food dyes really affected her. But that's the biggest thing is that knowing that you can change it, you can change it by smiling. You can change it by being silly, putting on music. You can help them by moving a location, getting a blanket, getting a teddy bear, letting them change anything about where they are, maybe what time of day, if they want to come back to it later, or if they're hungry or thirsty. You can change their mood. You absolutely can help them gain control over this area. So don't just give up. You say, oh well, you're still in a bad mood. You still have to do it. It's not good. It's not good for their cognition and they're not going to learn as well. And that's what we're homeschooling for, right? We want them to learn better than they would in an environment that they have to work through.
NUMBER 5: They have to overcome obstacles. Physical experience. So if they're actually moving around, then they're going to learn better typically. So pain levels. If they are hungry or they're itchy or cold or tight, or uncomfortable in any way that physical experience will affect their cognition and then their energy levels if they're super sleepy, or super animated.
Number 6 and 7 and 8: Change what they're doing change, where they are, or change what time of day that you are teaching the hard stuff.
The easy stuff you can typically do any time of the day because they can do it while they're feeling a little lazy or feeling a little sleepy. The hard stuff, they need higher energy, but not too animated. So you know your child best. You know what their on times are and their off times are. Like I would never try to teach anybody math at 5:30 p.m. It's just not a good hour for most people. It's not even a good hour for traffic.
Number 9 ~Audio levels. This is hard. So if it's too low of a voice, then they strain and it really gives them a headache. If it's too high pitched of a voice, it's irritating. Or if the volume is too high or too low. Again, it has to do with pain. So students who have autism, this will be a lot more sensitive to these pain levels, hunger, noise, and energy.
~AND BIG NUMBER 10: Relationship. If your husband is really good at teaching history but makes your kid nervous when it has to go has to do with schoolwork, like maybe your kid loves watching sports with them, going on hikes with dad, talking about I don't know whatever something else with him, what they did today. But it makes your kid anxious with schoolwork. You know, he really wants to please dad. It really makes him nervous. Then that would be maybe he's not the best person to teach that particular subject. You want somebody who exudes comfort, safety, happiness. If the person creates any kind of fear, anxiety, stress, urgency, or like they're in a rush. If you have a high animation person that makes the kid just kind of feel, oh, oh, I don't know what to do. That's not a good relationship to help with the hardest subjects. Some subjects you can still make it through, but others, if it's a difficult one, make sure you're choosing a relationship that is good for them. Like for me, physics, I got anxious and stressed and felt like it was taking too much time anytime I taught physics. I have a great relationship with my oldest child. He's awesome. He's still awesome. He was awesome growing up and super compliant and obedient and little Mr. Cookie Cutter - I could have easily put him in public school. No problem.
But when I got to physics, my relationship with physics affected the way he learned physics, so I had to outsource it. Recognize that even though you have a great relationship it you might not be the right person for that particular subject.
The bonus is knowing the sensitivity. I really wanted to help you see with a very short amount of time that you can change these things. So if you're super sensitive to one of these items, right, the temperature, the brightness, noise levels, things like that, choose you. Follow your preference. And then whichever kid you have is the most sensitive, where you can, choose the most sensitive person.
So whoever is most sensitive about food, then we're going to eat when that person is hungry. If we can change it, then we do. Because that's love, right? We change things as we can. So now what? You're like, thanks so much. You went through these 10 steps super quick. What do I do now? Ask them.
In those four areas, ask them, what do you like? How do you like to learn?
I do have a worksheet that I'll put in the files there for you.
You can mark it down in the area that you're asking each kid each question. And then if you can change just one thing, right, change one item in one subject or one arena and then ask okay, what's next?
What can we change next to make life easier for you more efficient and more conducive to absorption in the long term? So if they are you and they're like trying to convince you, no mom, I really do need chocolate every day to learn my math.
Or I really do read better in the dark. All you have to do is say prove it. Okay, let's try it. Let's try it your way. You never know. They might be, you know, it might not work out. You go, sorry, bud, that did not work. We tried it your way and it turned out not to be good. So we're going to go back to my way.
Sometimes you never know. So give it a shot. Let them have some input on their preferences. And life is just more fun whenever we can choose the way we learn and all of our different options while we're homeschooling.
If you have any questions about learning styles, I do have a book called the Key Learning Anything.
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