“But They Only Want to Play Games!”

But They Only Want to Play Games, yellowreadis.com | Picture: Minecraft character in black and red on wooden platform looking directly at camera

It’s the perennial question – are they really learning? This can be particularly acute when your kids seem to spend all day playing computer games (or horror – watching other people on YouTube play games).

This is our reality at the moment. Of course, I have been knocked around with a lovely infection, so there has been a tad less guidance than usual ( and thank goodness for antibiotics!)

But despite this, there are a number of things that we have done to actually aide, encourage and help our kids learn the things we think they need to learn while immersed in their ‘everything is a game‘ world.

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Teaching a Child Who Won’t Be Taught

Text: "Teaching a Child Who Won't Be Taught" "yellowreadis.com" Pictures: Boy in blue shorts and top lying on wooden bridge, minecraft pig on a white rock, pea pod on vine, young child in striped top playing with a tablet

How to educate a child who won’t be taught? It’s not a question I thought I’d ever need to answer, but life (and my daughter) decided this was the path we needed to follow.

Today, I’m going to talk about a few of the strategies I use to create a welcoming learning environment that steers my kids in the direction they need to go, without explicitly ‘teaching’ them.

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Campervanning Across New Zealand on the 2e Bandwagon: Strewing Education

Campervanning Across NZ on the 2e Bandwagon, yellowreadis.com. Image: Lake with mountain in background

One of the greatest experiences about visiting NZ was a chance for all of us get some hands-on learning that would not be available in Australia.

Knowing my kids and their preferences and attention spans, I had to carefully select what we visited – so good-bye long guided tours, talking heads or demonstrations. We would need something a little more hands on. And being science people, there was naturally a focus on science education. And boy was it fun.

Here are some of the great places we visited – in roughly the order we visited them.
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Educational Tricks for Keeping Up With a Natural Learner

Educational Tricks for Keeping Up with a Natural Learner, yellowreadis.com Image: You dog in white bucket

What are the tools and tricks I use regularly to help with educating my kids?

It’s a mix, really, but there are a few things that have helped make the journey a little easier.

C learns best when he is the one creating his own learning journey. And it is a privilege to watch how his mind works through problems. But it does occasionally leave me with a conundrum. How do I spontaneously have all the resources on hand that he needs, when he needs it?
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Cleaning and Strewing

It’s been a busy week here at homeschool central. Not because we’ve had an extraordinary week – though we’ve done a lot of fun stuff. But because I have been tackling the avalanche – or in other words, cleaning. It’s been a long, slow process of stripping cupboards and boxes and shelves, and gloriously throwing away old bills, and receipts from before I was born (exactly how did that bit of flotsam survive 5 moves?). But I am finally seeing some results. How many bags of rubbish were removed? 5+ Maybe? I’m not sure. And that’s not including the bags of clothes and other items that went or are going to charity. But today I’m going to talk about my pantry.
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