Mind Mapping for Clearer Thinking & Planning

I have been able to witness my fifth grader grow so much as a writer in the year and half that we have been homeschooling. He has a lot of strengths in writing, including stamina, a great vocabulary, and a tendency to try to emulate specific techniques of writers he loves. His writing has become vastly more coherent than it used to be, now with (mostly) correct punctuation and few run-on sentences. 

That said, left on his own he tends to dive into a piece of writing, then as he works on it, digress into long sections on whatever details fascinate or amuse him most. While I'm certainly impressed that he can write at length and stay happily engaged on one piece for days and days, I know the area in which he needs to improve is overall, big-picture organization. This year I wanted to help him learn to make a good workable plan before he starts a piece of writing, something that would keep him on track while he wrote, reminding him of what really belongs and what doesn't, what he's already written and what he still needs to cover.  

This fall one day, I quickly showed W how to make an outline, using Roman numerals to list the sections he wanted to write, and letters for the important points within those sections. He tried to make an outline for an informational piece he was to write. It got pretty messy, with no white space, lots of words and details crammed in and curling all over the page, and the order in which he thought of things and wrote them in the outline not matching the order in which he would eventually want to write about these things. He hadn't yet learned how to choose just the important key words to jot for this planning stage, so that was part of the trouble. He also didn't like having to make this outline, recognized that it was a bit of a mess when finished, and didn't refer to it much while writing his piece, but instead ignored it and did most of his thinking and planning as he went, as usual. 

One of W's outlines, that wasn't very user-friendly, before learning about mind maps

That particular writing piece came out alright in the end. But the extent to which the written outline format wasn't a guiding, useful tool to him made me look to alternatives that might better help him organize and plan. That's when we started to learn about mind maps.

Mind maps have helped a lot! Mind maps are another way to plan a piece of writing, or to organize thinking on a topic. A mind map is a graphic organizer. It's a refined version of a simple brainstorming web. A mind map uses unlined paper. The main topic is in the center, possibly with a little symbolic drawing to accompany it. Shooting out from the main topic are branches for each of your main subtopics. Each branch is in a different color and could also have an image accompanying it. From the end of each of the subtopic branches, you might have one or two or more small lines branching out to show details about that subtopic. There are some good explanations and samples of mind maps at several different web sites:

• https://www.mindmapping.com/mind-map
• https://www.tonybuzan.edu.sg/about/mind-maps/
• Also, a Google images search for "mind map structure" shows a lot of examples 

A practice mind map exercise: mapping things he likes

A traditional outline is linear, list-like, reads from top to bottom on lined paper-- and works well for many of us. Mind maps on not linear. By using color, images, and words, and using space creatively on a blank sheet of paper, mind mapping uses right-brained skills as well as left. Perhaps smart people who struggle with organization like my son, or anyone when working with a topic that feels particularly confusing or nebulous, would find mind maps helpful. For those who write as they plan or for whom ideas come in random order, a mind map can be a way to create order out of chaos. It's easy to add another branch, or another detail to a mind map in progress. It is also easy to see and work with the whole that a mind map presents. The end result sticks more because it's visual.  

W and I have been reading Mind Maps for Kids by Tony Buzan a few pages a day. The book is filled with examples of how to use mind maps, juxtaposed with more traditional ways to do the same tasks. It is interspersed with little exercises to stop and practice the skill, so it's a quick and active read. (It also has some little jokes and brainteasers sprinkled throughout to give brains a break from the mapping work every now and then.) It is published in Britain, so there is some vocabulary we've gotten to discuss as we go, like revising=studying, and maths=math. 

Mind map about a story about a vacation

The thing about using mind maps, or any type of outlining, to plan writing is that one needs to stop and think before diving in. Which are my main points and how many of them are there? How can I summarize each one with a key word or two? What is the supporting information I want to be sure to include for each section? 

These days, W thinks through some of these questions, then puts pen to paper to make a mind map. Then, his ideas are visually organized and color-coded before he types his first sentences on the computer (which is how he drafts these days). He still decides as he goes which branches of the mind map he'll write about in which order, but it's all laid out there for him, easy to navigate, so he can stay more grounded and on track. For a fantasy story he's been working on, he made a general plot arc before he began and also two small mind maps: one for the main character, with various facts and traits about him on the branches, and one for the setting. He keeps his notebook open to these mind maps as he writes and I can see the places where the details from them get woven into his stories. I'm looking forward to seeing how he categorizes his information for an upcoming piece he'll write about the Battle of Gettysburg. Each time he makes a mind map, he gets a little better at the process-- a little more organized, a little more succinct, a little clearer for him (and me) to pick up and understand. 

Fantasy story setting and character planning

Fantasy brainstorming

Mind maps are not only for use in planning a piece of writing. Mind maps are useful for kids in planning other things as well, and for thinking and studying such as: 

• Mind map to show/see the main points of a history article/topic 
• Mind map to sort out different quadrilaterals and their attributes. (W and I each tried this, based on an exercise in the book, and it was a great example of how a mind map on the same topic by two different people will come out differently! It all depends on how you think about and organize the topic in your own mind.) 
• Mind map to organize learning of new vocabulary (in English or a foreign language) 
• Mind map to organize spelling words-- by spelling pattern, or root word...
• Map out a novel they are reading and its themes (each theme as one of the main branches, and the smaller branches at the end being examples of how the theme shows up in the book)
• Mind map to plan gift giving to different recipients
• Mind map to plan the components of a birthday party

All of these are ways that mind mapping can make showing ideas, thinking, or studying more fun. 

Civil War causes and consequences map

I was even inspired to try mind maps for myself. I've tried using a mind map to plan out a couple of pieces of writing recently. Even though my thinking wasn't organized beforehand, or sequential, it was easy to create a mind map as I thought through a topic. It evolved organically. Since I didn't begin to write till I had the whole idea mapped out (a step I don't always do), the writing came together a lot easier than some other times. If I had known about mind mapping, the process might have helped me sort out confusing concepts in science class, and it would also have been a great study tool. Rather than making stacks of flashcards or reading through notes until I fell asleep, I might have sat down to a college exam and had a map in my head of the important topics and the connections between them. 

My kindergartner is becoming quite a writer for her age, but I haven't been using mind maps with her. It's certainly important to find ways to help young kids plan before they write. (Young kids tell wonderful, animated stories, but it takes so much effort to write them down, that their written version of the story is often far less detailed/interesting than what they can tell aloud.) But I don't think mind maps are the way to go for this purpose. At least through kindergarten and first grade, the idea of key words as notes (in any format) is too abstract for most 5-, 6-, 7-year-olds. In my experience if they make notes, the notes become their writing, copied word for word, less enthusiastically the second time. I think it's better for young kids to orally plan a story, or get ready to write by drawing the pictures first. More about that another time. 

The biggest selling point for W about mind maps is that they are fun. He says he really likes them because they are fun to make, easy to read, and much more helpful for him than other notes or outlines he has done before. I can imagine being a school teacher of older students and getting tense about kids spending time dawdling about their favorite shades of glitter pens and which pictures to draw before getting down to the business of writing the essay or story at hand. But, we have that time in homeschool. It saves time in the long run because it's a form of planning that W actually likes doing and will do. We are always telling W things like, "measure twice, cut once." There's nothing magical about the specific format of a mind map. It is just one promising way we've found to help get in the habit of slowing down and thinking and planning first before jumping into a project.  

The other day W was sending an email and he mentioned to me the mind map he was imagining in his head about the things he wanted to include in his note. I guess that's the goal of any graphic organizer or framework: to internalize it such that it doesn't need to be written out on paper, but it begins to shape the way we think and approach things. 

I've been imagining other uses for mind maps that might be fun to try out myself-- mind mapping vacation ideas, aspects of important decisions, new organization systems, holiday menus, or other events. Basically, any time I make lists, which might not always be the best way to see things clearly. The possibilities are endless.

Raising a Quiet Kid

When I was a kid, I was bossy with my little sister and the younger children my mom took care of in our home. I was always the teacher when we played school. My family joked about how much I could talk. But my strong opinions and verbosity were saved for home; to the world I was a quiet kid. When my grandmother had a friend visiting, she was irritated with me because I couldn't bring myself to say hello or otherwise interact in a manner that would have made her proud to show me off. I was given a completely sarcastic "most loquacious" award in seventh grade, a new environment where I was anything but. When we visited distant cousins that I seldom saw, I wanted to sit and listen to the grown-ups talk at first. I always had so much fun once I went to play, but it took me time to feel comfortable enough to do so.

    

Our Introverted Child 

Now I have a child a lot like me. We are a household of introverts, but M is at the most extreme end of the spectrum. While she's always been plenty feisty with us at home when needed, and talkative when she's excited, she has always become very quiet in new situations or with new people. 

We first noticed this when she was a baby. Even with family members, whom we saw regularly, she needed time to warm up. She would hide her face, or cling a little tighter when we first got together. We all learned to not try to pass her from person to person right away, not to expect anything from her immediately. If we did, she'd cry and we'd feel badly, and it would only make the adjustment time take longer. 

Fast-forward through many, many experiences like this: 

-M's daycare provider when she was little spoke to me anxiously about M's motor development, saying one day, "She just never moves!" M was indeed slow to learn to walk, but she moved all the time at home. I think she was literally stilled by the stimulation around her at daycare. What exhibited as a motor delay may have been as much a manifestation of her temperament.

-She attended preschool for two years. We could see a lot of growth in her at home, and M often told us stories of what the teachers and other children said and did, including their facial expressions and tones of voice. But the teacher told us in conferences that she couldn't definitively say what M knew or didn't know because it was so hard to get her to speak in class or in testing. It was not until the second year of preschool that they told me she was "coming out of her shell" by doing things like responding during the daily circle time greeting.  

-This fall M was so excited to be doing soccer for the first time and wanted to play all the time at home. But at practice, she jogged in slow motion behind the other children, and was so hesitant to follow the coach's directions that she looked like she was blatantly disobeying a lot of the time. By the very last practice session, she was at last comfortable and it was clear for the first time to other observers that she was having a good time-- running hard, laughing, following instructions to the group. The coach was delighted and asked, "Where has THIS M been all season?" 

She's five now and doesn't need warm-up time when it comes to family anymore (though she does sometimes need help getting airtime since her older brother is just that much quicker to start socializing and tends to have a steady stream of things to say). But, in less comfortable, less familiar surroundings we see the same pattern. The newer or louder the situation is, the longer she is quiet. On the car ride home after an event, she'll talk animatedly about the experience, about which she has observed every detail. Our M is in fact funny, expressive, athletic, musical, and social, but the protective layer around her in many situations seems to also be a distinct part of who she is. 

Our Parent Experience

As a parent it can be easy to get frustrated with these sorts of recurring situations. Teachers and coaches and daycare providers don't know what she is capable of. They don't know how much she is learning, how well she can dribble a ball/play a tune/identify letter sounds/etc. When she doesn't appear to fully participate in the traditional sense, they must think she's not paying attention. Certainly things would be easier sometimes without these challenges. 

But most of the time, out and about and in group situations, we try to not force vocal participation (especially in the moment in front of others), lest it becomes a battle. We also try not to draw attention to M's reticence. Our pediatrician years ago recommended not calling her "shy" because she would hear that as part of her identity and it would make the challenges even more difficult. That made a lot of sense to us and so we don't use the s-word (but of course we can't predict or control when others do). Sometimes we simply respond to direct greetings and questions for her. Otherwise we let situations run their natural course, with others doing the chiming in and M observing, reminding ourselves that it doesn't matter what others think; we know she's taking it all in, whether or not she's speaking. 

There are plenty of times that if we can wait graciously, she joins in when she is ready. Meanwhile, we try to respect her process and-- before or after an outing-- name for her the strategies we notice as effective for her, like, "It seems like it helps you to watch for a while at first before you join in." We positively reinforce when she does happen to respond to a question or participate on her own. We encourage her to smile or wave if she doesn't feel like talking, and we celebrate smiles and waves too. Baby steps are progress. 

We've learned that giving an assist can go along way. I never liked being told to "just go play" when I was little because it wasn't as easy as it sounds, and it isn't easy for M. We got together last winter for a big loud holiday party with about six other families and a herd of children. M didn't know everyone really well and was inhibited to say the least. It was looking likely that she would be my sidekick for the whole evening and I wanted more for her (and me), so I took her hand and we went and sat down with a little boy who is very close to her age who wasn't running with the rest of the kids. With M next to me, I started playing with him and talking to him about the little snap circuits he was playing with, without paying much heed to M at all-- and soon she was speaking for herself and playing with the toys as well. I did a silent cheer and after a few minutes I knew she was stable enough that I could return to the grown-ups in the next room and leave her to play. She had so much fun the rest of that evening and that experience was a big success for her, socially-- and for us, in learning a way to help her when we can recognize that she wants to join in but doesn't know how to on her own. 

In a similar way, her older brother is naturally this sort of social catalyst for M a lot of times. We've seen her joining in with others, or taking risks in general, like bouncing on a trampoline or riding her bike down a big hill, when she wouldn't have done it independently but did because W did it first and made it feel more safe and accessible.   

Sometimes just creating situations where she can be one-one one with someone helps her out of her shell, too. We've had plenty of opportunities to notice over the last few months that FaceTime calls can be hard. When we talk as a group, she whispers things to me a lot but struggles to say much, and she also takes several moments to respond when asked a question. But, if we turn her loose with the iPad and let her just be with one person, like her cousin, alone, her voice is loud and clear and she has a great time, being silly, dressing up, and showing off this or that.  

Her Extroverted Niche

At least since she was two, M has been making us take our seats on the couch to watch one of her "concerts." She sings, dances, plays instruments, and doesn't allow anyone else to sing along or share the spotlight. This seems to stretch beyond play, though. 

Last year M took a dance class and I was pleasantly surprised how quickly M was fully participating. We didn't have to wait weeks or years to see her doing what the teacher was directing her to do, like we had before with swim lessons and since with soccer. She didn't raise her hand or join in with the silliness of the other girls while they did their stretches, but she danced! A little performance for parents with costumes on a real stage was a thrill that she still talks about. We had wondered whether she would get stage fright, but the lights and a room of people seemed to do the opposite for her.  

In playing the violin for over a year, we've seen this phenomenon a lot. She has played for family members and in recitals and she is eager to do so. She even played for her preschool class for show and tell one day (she might not talk to them but she'd play for them!). Sometimes there is a moment after she gets into position and before she starts when there's a slightly longer pause than one might expect, just long enough that I start to wonder if she will freeze, but then she plays the first note and she's off. 

M seems uncharacteristically comfortable on stage. We've found she will perform in situations when she definitely wouldn't have been willing to talk. It seems that music and performance give her voice, and certainly confidence, and those are big reasons her instrument has felt like such a good fit for her. 

How to Teach an Introvert?

M's violin teacher is a calm, soft-spoken person who smiles a lot and has a quiet voice. M has warmed up to her and can work well with her. She fully participates in her weekly lesson in all the ways one might expect. It wasn't always like that and it's been great to see that evolution. But there is also a group component to her violin program. Once a week she has a small group class with a different teacher, who is also kind, but is also louder and speaks quickly. In that setting, even though it's a very small group, M rarely speaks. When the teacher announces a piece they should all play together, M often sort of halfway plays along, her motions stilted and missing some of the notes because her senses are absorbed by watching the others (I'm honestly not sure if the fact that this class is held virtually via Zoom now makes this situation a little better or worse than in the past when it was in person). 

In M's group violin class right now, they are working on a group project: creating a musical story to perform. In one session recently, each of the other children in her violin group class had quickly weighed in to make one decision after another about their story. When it came time for the last decision of the day-- naming the main character-- and M was still not raising her hand or calling out like the others, the teacher called on M. When M couldn't quite bring herself to respond right then on the spot (and I couldn't save her because I didn't want to name the penguin for her), the teacher gave her an "assignment" to make that decision and let the group know by next time. Later the teacher wrote to us saying she hoped it was okay that she called on M even though her hand wasn't raised, saying that she knew M had a lot to offer, and asking our input on the best ways to help her join without causing her stress. I really appreciated that this teacher, even though she herself has a very different personality than M's, was in tune enough to manufacture a way to bring in M's opinions to the otherwise fast-paced oral decision-making process that would have left M out, and that she accommodated by giving think time and letting M submit her input another way. 

This was just a small thing that happened in one class. But it made me think of M's education in general. She'll do sports and lessons for years to come, and at some point she'll attend a school that isn't at home. This instructor had seen M for who she was, problem solved, and worked with us to best suit her. I wished, not for the first time, that I could choose or train every teacher and coach and boss she'll ever have. To develop a good rapport with her and see her strengths clearly: don't make a big deal of her quietness, know that she is actively thinking/questioning/creating in her head even if she isn't participating in traditional ways, know that you need to patiently earn her trust and find creative ways to help her open up and show her skills. Also: she's brilliant and sweet and fun and if all you see is shy and well-behaved, then you don't know her yet.   

My Own Evolution as an Introvert

In high school and college I was keenly aware that other people had dozens of friends while I had just a few close ones. If I tried to be clever or funny on the spot, I never quite hit the mark, but I had good ideas later once I'd had a little time to think. In school it can feel there is a desperate dichotomy of either fitting in or not. Because crowds and gregariousness didn't come naturally to me, I had always felt inadequate. 

Then, as a young adult, I learned more about what it meant to be an introvert. Out of the school setting, I could recognize that those people in the in-crowd weren't superior to me; they were simply extroverts, with a different temperament from mine, one that was fueled by socializing and novelty, and had with it a different set of skills than mine. I love big gatherings now and then; it just takes a lot of energy. I crave downtime afterward to feel balanced again. I could see there was a place for both types of people (and everyone on the spectrum in between) in the real world. While networking and cliques are certainly still part of the adult world, they aren't the only currency that makes one feel worthwhile. As a grown-up it's easier to find and make your own niches that work well for you. I've had my introvert stumbling blocks as an adult, like job interviews and when I have had to present in staff meetings. It takes a lot of self talk to get through it but I get a little better at it, a little more confidence that I'll live through it, each time. Thankfully we can pick and choose our roles in life and work so we are mostly in situations that are not unduly stressful to our personality type. Learning a little about introversion and extroversion made me more comfortable in my own skin, and honest with myself about who I was. I wonder if becoming a grown-up is a bit of a sigh of relief for many an introvert. 

Looking Ahead

While we may always see in M, at times, glimmers of that baby who clung tighter when we entered a new place, she isn't that baby anymore. There is big progress as she grows; her comfort zone and the tools she uses are always evolving. She has made friends through classes and sports, and this fall she would freely trot off to play in the field behind us while we watched soccer games. With several people and situations, she doesn't need time to warm up. She used to just breathe into the phone after asking to talk, but she'll talk now. She gives a big expansive wave to every car that passes us when we go on walks on the dirt road near our house.

With all the progress I see, I still worry. I know there will be more challenging situations ahead that I can't be present for, that will feel bigger than when she didn't move in daycare and didn't talk in preschool. I don't want my daughter to struggle with self esteem when she's older just because she approaches life in a quieter, more cautious way than many. I don't want her teachers to think she doesn't know things and have big thoughts just because she doesn't jump into the fray all the time. I want her to embrace who she is from a young age and focus on the gifts she has, and I want to help her identify strategies that work.  

Advice on Raising Quiet Kids from the book Quiet

With my children in mind, I've been reading for some time a book that was recommended by a friend, colleague, and fellow parent called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I recently finished it. The whole book was good and interesting but the last chapter, on "How to Cultivate Quiet Kids in a World that Can't Hear Them" was the most fascinating and worthwhile. If you don't have time to read the whole book, I recommend reading even just this chapter if you have a quiet child in your life-- and probably most of us do. Here are some of the big lessons I gleaned from it.  

• Respect the way your child is; it is valid. Don't try to cure introversion. Think of it as a learning style. Cultivate the strengths of the way they are.
• Know that there are hugely successful introverts in the world who are successful not in spite of, but because of, their temperaments (the book has many, many examples). 
• Develop strategies for those times when your child needs to step out of their comfort zone for a bit. Talk with them ahead of time about what a situation will be like, and about simple ways they might respond to people to be polite and let them know they are listening, like giving a wave or a smile if they aren't ready to talk. Leave space after new situations like this for downtime. Some thrive on being busy and having lots of activities, but some don't. 
• Try to develop a good sense for the times when your child can benefit from that little push to get over the hump, vs. when pushing them would be too much and would overwhelm them.  
• Know that many introverts will seem reluctant to any suggestion of a new activity or opportunity. Don't force, but encourage them to try things. They need encouragement and little nudges for things that may cause anxiety at first but that they will be glad they did afterward, and bit by bit they will learn from these experiences that it's worthwhile to try things. 
• Help them know and talk openly about what their style is. 
• Stay nearby in new situations for as long as they seem to benefit from your presence. (I noticed early on that M was willing to enter the sandbox or playground or birthday party if she was holding my hand or close to me but not on her own.)  
• Respect and celebrate every small step (eye contact, saying yes to a request to play...). They are all giant strides in the world of a kid.      
• Help purposely set up play times and friendships with kids of similar temperaments or younger children. (We've often found M is more comfortable and quicker to interact with those she perceives as younger or smaller.) 
• Arrive early to new/potentially intimidating situations. It is much harder to have to join an existing active group. 
• Introverts often have one or two deep interests not necessarily shared by their peers. Praise them for these, encourage them, and help them find like-minded communities and friends. 
• Structure group work when it happens so kids have clear roles. But also teach and expect kids to work independently sometimes (I see this one as especially relevant for teachers).
• Give them think time before responding; don't prize speed.  

I've been thinking a lot about all of the smart advice from Quiet lately and hope to keep it in the forefront of my mind. I think this would all be important no matter where M spent her days, but of course right now she spends her days mostly at home as a homeschooler. I feel homeschooling her is doing her a service in a lot of ways. Understanding her temperament and respecting it in the way we do things is one big way I can personalize her education. I certainly don't force group work on her! I try to keep my tone and voice level when I'm frustrated with her because she is particularly sensitive to what she perceives as a "mad voice." I build her interests into the day. We help her find her voice when she needs that help; having an older sibling gives a fair amount of practice. At the dinner table, we try to teach her times and ways that it's okay to interrupt to get a word in. Of course she's not getting as much socialization practice as she could, this year in particular. I do consider that a lot. Then again I don't believe that just the fact of being in an environment with other people necessarily makes you become more socially adept. (Depending on the situation, it may just cause you to turn inward or put up more barriers.) We use the opportunities we have right now to prepare her ahead of time. We encourage and notice all the small steps she makes. She has so many strengths and we focus on those. I hope that by doing her early schooling in an environment where she is highly comfortable and can speak her mind freely and where she can develop confidence will help her in the long run. 

Great Non-Textbook History Sources for Older Kids

When I was a student about the age my son is now, I frequently had homework that involved reading a chapter in a social studies textbook and answering the comprehension questions at the end. All the significant names and concepts were in bold. I literally had to scan the chapter for the key words and find the answers in almost the exact wording as the question. I agonized over it, because  I was just so bored by it, until my mother sat with me and did it with me. There was not much thinking involved in the work. Even by answering those questions, I didn't comprehend the big ideas and I certainly didn't hold onto the specific names and dates and places. I knew history was important, but I often did not find it very engaging as a student. 

Thankfully I feel differently now. And I have a son who is naturally quite interested in history, so that alone helps make social studies a part of the day we both look forward to. In our homeschool, we've managed to "do" history in a way that makes the people and events of the past feel real and important; history topics seem to make their way to the dinner table more than any other subject. For this I also credit some great sources we've found to use in our studies. Last year when I was faced with teaching an upper elementary aged child of my own and figuring out what materials to use, I didn't want to trust any single source to shed light on the complexities of history. So I didn't consider buying a textbook or packaged curriculum. Instead I depend on a variety of (almost entirely free) articles, books, photos, and web sites. We've started to identify favorites that are particularly rich and reliable. In social studies (even more than in other areas), and especially with my 5th grader, I feel that I am not teaching, but learning and relearning right along with him. 

Some of our Favorite Non-Textbook History Sources for Older Kids: 

• At the top of my list are Perspectives Flip Books (above). Half of the book tells about an important event/issue in history from one perspective; flip the book over and the other half tells about the same topic from a different perspective. Last year we read The Split History of the American Revolution, told from the points of view of both British and Patriots. This year I was excited to get The Split History of Westward Expansion from the library, told from both settlers' and American Indian perspectives. It's all too easy for kids to take sides and see things as black and white. So I like to purposely seek out multiple angles and this series is one way to do some of that easily.  

• W absolutely loves history books by Steve Sheinkin. This author "confesses" in the foreword that he used to help write textbooks for a living, and that now he writes his own books, packed with "all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you." The books are really funny, and humor is a big sell for my son. Last year we discovered these by reading aloud together King George: What was his Problem?: The Whole Hilarious Story of the American Revolution. W has since read Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks didn't tell you about America's Westward Expansion and Two Miserable Presidents: The Amazing, Terrible, and Totally True Story of the Civil War. As a reader and learner in general, W holds onto details first and later hangs the main ideas on those, rather than the other way around. These books include the key facts but are big on the amusing details; they seem to be written with a kid like him in mind. I wouldn't want these books to be the only source we used to learn about a topic, but as part of the mix, they are a super fun way to help you visualize history as real people and situations.  
• Whoever thought up the Who Is...?/What Was...? enterprise was really smart. Written by many different authors, the Who Was...? series consists of hundreds of biographies about influential people of all kinds, aimed at kids ages 8 - 12, while the What Was...? line tells about important historical events or time periods. W has read a bunch of these just for fun, and I always borrow relevant ones to go with whatever we are studying (right now we have What was the Lewis and Clark Expedition? and What was the Alamo?). W says one thing he really likes about these books is the great pictures. Some have photos, and all seem to have evocative drawings on almost every page.
• Our library has magazines to check out and we've found that kids' magazines with a history focus, like Cobblestone and Kids Discover offer bite-size articles and text features on many aspects of a historical event or time period, often in greater depth than many "all about" books for kids tend to include. We've found battle maps, timelines, games, poems, how-to sections, recipes, lots of great illustrations and photos, even fun historical comic strips.  
• Primary sources are powerful. Last year we examined the Declaration of Independence through the Library of Congress web site. This year while studying westward expansion, we've viewed some relevant works of art through museum web sites, read some of Lewis and Clark's journal entries (W found some of the content, as well as the spelling, very entertaining) and read and listened to some contemporary song lyrics that give a sense of that time in history.
• We've found some solid web sites that we go to first before random internet searches. Ducksters is one such site. It has concise fact sheets on many history topics and subtopics. What you get is fairly basic overview material, but sometimes that's what you need. There's an option to have the information on the page read aloud to you. Each page also contains a brief quiz at the end; W actually likes these and always sits up a little straighter and reads a little more closely because he knows it is at the end. National Park Service web sites are always worth looking for as well. I was impressed with the slew of information available on some of the NPS sites we visited this fall, including Trail of Tears and Pony Express-- maps, videos, timelines, photos, artwork, and interactive activities.
• When we've done enough reading, sometimes we want a quick video to snappily summarize a topic as well as provide some good visuals. We search for the topic in question and generally find it worth clicking on videos from a few specific YouTube sources: History Channel, Smithsonian Channel, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and Biography. (These all have good web sites with good articles as well.)  
• National Geographic kids books are always good. Their Everything series (Everything World War I, Everything Battles, etc) has been a hit for W, but we are also currently really enjoying the Little Kids First Big Book of the World with M. No matter what age they are aimed at, National Geographic books seem to have just the right balance of right-size text and amazing photographs, along with neat text features (graphs, glossaries, fun facts, etc.).  

 

• Don't forget picture books! I believe in picture books for big kids as well as little ones. Even though W is a voracious and capable independent reader, he is delighted when I say I have a picture book I want to read with him. If I leave them lying around, he'll read them himself but I tend to save them to share aloud because we all enjoy them. I love to find relevant picture books to go along with any of our studies in history. Above are a handful I currently have that all have to do with our current big topic of westward expansion. Stories and pictures help round out understanding of any topic and bring it to life.

I think by layering and weaving sources on any given topic, rather than having history handed to him between two covers as it was to me, my oldest gets more of a chance to form impressions and construct meaning for himself. Some facts we read over and over in every source-- those facts really sink in. But he finds some unique facts in every new source he reads as well. It's a skill in itself to notice where there are inconsistencies among sources and to question why that might be. In using many sources we also get some practice evaluating credibility.  

Here are a couple of other notes about the way we do history:

Seek Context

With everything we read, even fiction, it helps to pause to provide context, or prompt for him to do that for himself so that it becomes a habit. If the book takes place in a particular year, I ask what was happening around that time in our country or in the world? If the book contains hints or references to key events, I try to make sure he is making the connection to when and where it is. (Our house was built in 1841; as we've read lots of things this fall, we've paused to think about it in terms of whether our house was here yet or not.) All these connections help make meaning. Maps of all sorts help with some of this context. I hung up a world map we have (it came from one of our KiwiCo. crates) near our school area at the beginning of the year and I can't tell you how many times a day that somebody refers to it as they tell a story or that little fingers trace a route across it. When you mention or read about something happening in a particular place, kids can't necessarily visualize it, so going to the map often, or grabbing the globe, helps a lot. 

Depth over Breadth

As far as what we study and for how long, I prioritize depth over breadth. Rather than "covering" history chapter by chapter, if we stay with one significant time in history for a while-- through varied reading and writing and activities and projects-- that knowledge becomes more permanent. Thorough understanding of a time period makes it more likely we'll be able to make authentic connections with other time periods, and/or with current events. Knowing a time period deeply gives us the opportunity to analyze and work with big ideas, not just concrete facts. It allows us to fully appreciate cultural, social, literary references that might otherwise have gone over our heads. Last year we overviewed U.S. history up to about the year 1800, but with a central focus on the causes and effects and events surrounding the American Revolution. Late this summer, W and my husband and I watched Hamilton. W loved it not just for the swear words and the catchy songs, but because he really understood it. He kept hitting pause to explain references to us-- there are so many and they are presented so quickly. I am excited that we are well on our way with the same sort of deep dive this year on new topics as we move forward through history. I love seeing the self esteem boost as he comes to feel like a bit of an expert on a period in history once again. 

Immersion

Inspired by the units of study in reading and writing that I used last year, I am again, for a period of time, using our reading and writing time to work with the same big topics that we are studying in history. 

For several weeks, I set aside independent reading time for W to read nonfiction under a big umbrella topic like westward expansion, after we've gotten a sense of the topic during social studies time. This is when he makes use of many of those favorite sources described above. (I check out a bunch of books and magazines from the library on the topic and he chooses which he wants to read. He still has plenty of other time to read his favorite fiction series of the moment or other choice reading.) By reading lots of nonfiction, on different subtopics by different authors, as well as historical fiction and graphic novels about the time period, he is immersed in it. He really is doing research, whether he realized it or not, and we work on research skills and how to take decent notes without getting bogged down by notetaking. The research and reading become easier as new knowledge fits into his growing schema. After a while he chooses a subtopic he wants to focus on, that he already knows a bit about, and researches and reads more, zooming in on that. 

While learning about a big history topic and reading about it independently, we also focus our writing time on it for a portion of time. You have to really know a topic well to write about it, and at the same time writing about a topic helps you really know it well. W is still so proud of a couple of "books" he wrote last year about two specific battles of the Revolutionary War, each book consisting of several short chapters. He wrote essays into those books, he wrote historical narrative, he wrote opinion sections and all-about sections, not to mention maps and diagrams. He had to organize and construct meaning in a big way in order to create his own coherent writing pieces. 

Surrounding ourselves with the topics and ideas of a history study, beyond social studies time, at least for a portion of time, works well for us. Of course, immersion includes going places that are historically relevant. The bit we did of that last year was wonderful-- seeing paintings and dioramas and artifacts of things we'd learned about in museums. But I have lots more field trips in mind-- battlefields, reenactments, national parks, monuments-- that have been temporarily slowed by the current pandemic. As I continue to add new excursion ideas to my "After Covid" to-do list, I console myself with the knowledge that when kids become immersed in a time period and come to know it well, the knowledge takes on a life of its own... One hobby of W's is to watch and make his own stop-motion Lego videos. He made several in the past year reenacting (with his own creative license in some details) battles of the Revolutionary War. Lately, a Pony Express rider and some Native American battles have started to feature in his creations, which is neat to see. I am pretty certain that I myself never brought my social studies lessons into my free time as a kid! 

Project Time!

We all want for our kids to love learning, to feel motivated, to put forth their best effort, and to take ownership for their work. Those were among our big goals before beginning to homeschool a year ago. And there are sundry ways I've seen growth in those areas. But one concrete thing we've done that has spurred big strides toward those important goals is a new routine we started this year: individual project time.     

  

The First Project...

It all started one day late this summer when W was helping my friend dig potatoes in her garden. He asked if she had ever made potato gnocchi and described how much he likes it. (It's a favorite dish in our house that my husband and I learned to make in a cooking class in Italy before W was born. W likes it so much he usually requests it every year for his birthday dinner-- with pesto-- and helps make it.) She said she hadn't made it, and told him he should show her how over Zoom or FaceTime sometime, like a cooking show. 

He got really excited about that idea of showing how to make this treasured dish and kept talking about it at home that night. I started tossing him ideas about how he might present it like a real cooking show. Then it occurred to me that I he'd never seen a cooking show, so he didn't have any reference points for the format. I asked if he wanted to watch a few cooking shows to get an idea of what they are like, and the kinds of things the hosts do. We Amazon Primed an episode each of Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals, Julia Child's The French Chef, and Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa. We paused the shows occasionally as we watched and I jotted the observations W made on a piece of paper. As we watched, he realized that Ina Garten had messy hands one second after tossing onion rings in batter, then they were magically clean the next! He also noticed that all of the cooking show hosts tended to just demonstrate how to do something, and then the camera skipped ahead to when that step was all done; we didn't see every single thing that happened. Armed with this big idea, and several other ideas he got from the shows, W decided he'd like to make a video to send to my friend B, and to share with anyone else who might be interested in making his favorite dish. He was excited to include just the important steps, not trivial stuff or the lengthy process of forming every gnocchi piece that he decided might get a little boring over FaceTime. So he started planning. 

He decided he wanted to first make a practice video to try out the whole process. I was rooting for practicing by making something like a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, or a piece of cinnamon toast, so he could really focus his efforts on delivery and process, but he was adamant that since no one needed how-to videos for those things, there was no point in them. So for his first cooking video he made a favorite accompaniment for gnocchi: pesto. He wrote the ingredient amounts on a card and taped it at eye level across the room so he could refer to it while he worked. Using my phone, I filmed the process in lots of short videos. We worked out a signal so I would know when he was ready for me to stop recording each time. We spent an entire afternoon at this. But his energy never flagged. I think the thought of creating a type of thing he'd never made before (a "show"), and of making something that other people would see (he kept asking if I could put it on YouTube), was hugely motivating. He incorporated all sorts of ideas he'd gotten from watching the celebrity chefs. He noticed and tried to emulate how "nice" they all sounded, like they were talking right to us, and how they all made it look easy, and how they tasted their food on the show, and made it sound delicious. Because Ina Garten had started an episode about making a steak dinner by driving to the butcher shop, W decided to start his pesto video at the source-- out in our garden picking the basil. Because each of the hosts we watched, but especially Rachael Ray, just kept talking the entire time she worked, filling the air space with friendly chatter, he tried hard to share tips or little stories here and there as he worked. The shows all included close-ups of specific techniques, so he directed me to zoom in at specific points as well.  

The day after filming, we researched together and figured out how to edit the videos. We don't have any special software so ended up using the Photos app that is included in Windows 10 on our computer. W was completely delighted by how simple it was to "trim" out the bits he didn't like. I had never edited video before in my life, so this was all new to me as well, but I felt we both learned a cool new skill that afternoon. Once we figured out how to do it, he did all of the clicking and was very much in charge. Finally, the next day, we stitched the videos all together, he played around with adding a special effect or two and voila-- he had his very own cooking show! He was proud of his non-scripted but well-thought-out first show and couldn't wait to sit us all down after dinner that night so we could watch it. 

After that, armed with all these new skills, he jumped into making the gnocchi how-to video he had set out to make originally. That one took an even longer afternoon to film, as gnocchi is a bit involved to make. But the video editing process was smoother his second time around and he was equally excited by the result.  W's final pesto and gnocchi cooking shows are linked below. The first is ten minutes, and the second eighteen, so I know that only a couple of grandparents out there will probably want to view these in their entirety, but I can't not share them here because I am so proud of the effort that went into their creation. These are dedicated to my friend B and her family, with thanks for inspiring a grand idea, and with hopes they can enjoy a delicious gnocchi and pesto night in the near future! 

W's How to Make Pesto Video:

W's How to Make Gnocchi Video:

The cooking show project sprouted from a little idea and carried into our first couple of weeks of the school year. It was so motivating for my son, so full of learning and excitement for learning. It was interest-based and followed its own natural timeline defined by the process. I helped with some research and resources and was an extra set of hands where needed (and M was his assistant in one video) but it was W's project, his creation. The whole experience was so positive and it gave us a model for project time, a new homeschool routine that we've all be enjoying since.   

Project Time

Three or four afternoons a week, we reserve the last hour or so of the day for project time. It is a time for my kids to follow their own interests with me available to help as needed. But, instead of being just a choice time to do whatever they feel like (which can easily turn into not doing much at all), focusing on it as a time for projects-- time to create a product or work toward a goal-- has made it feel wide-open to them, yet purposeful. Project time is for dreaming big-- for learning a new skill, for making things happen that we might not get around to otherwise. Sometimes I suggest an idea for project time and we do it if they are interested. But for the most part, the kids guide and plan what will happen during project time. Occasionally a great project pops up spur of the moment, like when the kids discovered tons of wild grapes in our yard and made juice and jam with them that afternoon. But in general we try to plan ahead. I check in with them over the weekend about what they want to work on in the coming week so we have a rough plan and the materials we need. Because project time has become a routine and because they love it, they are often interjecting in conversations these days, "Ooh! I could do that for a project!" I love hearing that. It's nice having a set aside time to allow them to make a habit of attending to the things they are interested in, and of following through on those thoughts. We do project time at the end of the day so as long as we don't need to be anywhere, they can keep at it as long as they feel like. 

Project Ideas

Projects W (age 10) has done, in progress, or in mind for the future:

• Filming and editing his own cooking shows to teach others how to make some favorite dishes
• Harvesting wild grapes and making juice and jam with them
• Making jewelry with polymer clay
• Studying presidential speeches and debates by watching and discussing current and past ones
• Drawing/carving pictures on shelf fungus he collected 
• Learning to whittle objects out of wood 
• Figuring out how to keep minnows he caught as pets for a few days
• Making a diorama of a specific battle, inspired by some he's seen in museums
• Making specific weapons out of cardboard 
• Gift making for family birthdays
• Making a coconut cake (Ina Garten's, of course) 

Projects M (age 5) has done, in progress, or in mind for the future:

• Memorizing "Let it Go" from Frozen
• Drawing Elsa using different online drawing lessons describing how to do so
• Learning how to play the board games Robot Turtles and Qwirkle 
• Reading books to learn about doctors/nurses/doctor's offices/germs
• Making applesauce, and cookies 
• Assisting in her brother's pesto-making video
• Harvesting wild grapes with W and making jam and juice 
• Writing a letter and mailing it to a friend
• Learning how eyes work (?) 
• Doing something to do with outer space or the moon or astronauts
• Making Halloween decorations for our porch, inspired by some exemplary houses near us
• Making a grapevine wreath
• Taking nature photos, perhaps to make a photo book
• Giving her dad and brother a haircut after watching how-to videos, with only slight assistance from me
• Putting together a particle-board shelf from Target
• Performing a magic show
• Making an owl box or bird house 

Finding all the cool stuff to photograph

Project Time and Younger Kids

Project time has been a little different with my 5 year old. For one, shortly after filming those first cooking videos for W, I realized that, unsurprisingly, it was hard to be available to help both kids with separate projects at once. It all depends on what the projects are, of course. But I wanted them both to have their own time to delve into things, and count on having a hand from me when needed, so I have actually been finding other times in the day to fit in M's project time so it is not at the same time as W's. 

Also, because she's younger, the things she names that she is interested in are either really big and somewhat unrealistic (as in "I want to learn how to be a doctor"), or quite small and manageable in one sitting (as when she pulled a game off our shelf that she'd never played and asked if I would teach her how). She doesn't always package her ideas neatly for planning sake so I have to decode a bit some of the wishes and interests she expresses; I end up often suggesting the particular form projects might take to her, inspired by her interest or comments-- whereas W, being older, often names not just the interest but the goal or product as well. In general, so far she has done a greater quantity of projects that are shorter-term than W, while W has done generally fewer and longer-term projects. 

Other Homeschool Project Time Tips

Here are some guiding principles I've learned about how to do project time well. Not every project is big and grand, but they all follow a similar path.  

Start with compelling questions or interests. Tune into your kids to hear these topics as they come up, even if they won't always state them clearly. (Although after a bit, they will start saying as part of daily conversation, "Hey! That's something I could do for a project.") 

Name a goal (what they hope to learn or be able to do) or a product (what they want to create). Motivation seems to stay higher when we aren't simply fiddling around with a material or topic, but working toward something. That doesn't mean the goal can't evolve or change. But I think having a stated starting goal keeps things focused. Also, feel free to suggest things, especially for younger kids who might have a harder time clearly stating goals or reasonable project ideas, but don't force any project or topic. The whole point is that it is interest-based. 

Find mentor examples of the thing they are trying to create (when it is a product). We watched cooking shows to learn what made them effective, which was fun and easy to do. But whether a kid is aiming to complete a piece of writing for a certain purpose or make a birdhouse, starting by studying the craft and examples of the type of thing they want to make is powerful. They can examine and appreciate but also ask questions: what makes this good? What makes this work well?

Figure out what they need to know and gather resources accordingly. We needed ingredients, and had to learn how to edit video. (We returned repeatedly to an article about using Windows 10's video editor on a web site called howtogeek.com, which made W laugh every time.)

Let the process, and how long their interest in it holds, guide the length of time it takes. For smaller forays and/or for younger kids, one or two sessions on a project topic might be plenty, but other things might fill project time for weeks. 

Share with an audience if possible/applicable. There's nothing like celebrating a final product by sharing it with someone outside of your own home to make it feel real and worthwhile. 

...It's funny because I have realized a lot of things about our project time fit with the big ideas of PBL (project-based learning), an initiative in education that some schools really value. I even took a training in PBL through the Buck Institute for Education several years ago. Yet as a parent I often used to feel frustrated with how much time was spent on PBL in my son's school. It felt like the projects would drag on and on, the kids would lose motivation for them along the way (and not every kid was invested in the whole-class projects in the first place), and the amount of time and energy devoted to them would take the place of learning basic skills that should have been taught consistently, in the primary grades especially. I always felt that, while you can learn a lot through a project, and projects are memorable, the bottom line is teachers in a classroom have a bigger responsibility to teach a lot of important skills that aren't all going to come up organically through a teaching philosophy that focuses on project after project. 

Aaaand stepping off my old soapbox now, clearly I have started to see first-hand more of the benefits of learning that is project-based. One of the biggest is the confidence and self esteem that results. My kids are so pleased with themselves for what they've accomplished during project time. They use the phrase "my project" a lot in conversation and I see them swell with the knowledge upon completion: I made this. They show ownership in the products themselves, but also in their own learning-- by constantly naming things they want to do during that part of the day, and eagerly working on things they care about. I think project-based learning may be especially beneficial and workable for homeschool, and especially when each kid gets to define the project based on what they see as interesting and important. We aren't following any official PBL procedures at home though. We aren't using any rubrics (true PBL educators love rubrics; there is even a "rubric rubric" on the website I linked to above), nor are we doing any busy work related to the projects or formal reflections after the fact. Just things they're excited about, for the sake of learning and creating. Our own incarnation of project time, and the way it helps them love learning and celebrates individual choice and agency, is a big part of the energy of our homeschool this year.