Creative Homeschool Instruction
Teaching Creative Thinking Skills to the Homeschooled Student
The use of prediction, analogies, elaboration and brainstorming are great strategies for teaching creative and critical thinking skills to homeschooled students.
One of the most important things you can do for your home schooled child is to teach him or her how to think. As their child’s teacher, homeschooling parents already understand that education is much more than just the memorization of facts. Real education is about understanding why things are the way they are. Real education is also about knowing how to find ways to solve problems.
Children who have had instruction and practice with thinking skills are likely to be much more persistent, because they have learned how to draw from a well-spring of ideas. Both in school, and in “real life” situations, figuring out what to do next when you’ve hit an apparent “dead end” is an important skill.
There are many ways to encourage the development of both critical and creative thinking. Below are a few suggestions to incorporate into your homeschool lessons.
Prediction
When reading stories, stop periodically to have your child predict possible outcomes. While he or she probably won’t be aware of it, this activity not only encourages creativity, it also requires that your child analyze the author’s purpose for writing, and the behavior of the characters involved in the story. In addition, it asks the student to look for patterns, and to compare what is unknown (the ending of the story) to things which are familiar (similar events in real life or in literature.) You may often find that the endings your child suggests are even more creative than those supplied by the author.
Analogies
These encourage logical or analytical thinking. Start with simple analogies for your child and work up to more difficult ones. Kids love to name opposites, so analogies such as “yesis to no as upis to _____” are perfect for beginners. With practice, your child can move up to more complex analogies. (Categories might include function(car : garage as horse : barn), part/whole (broccoli : vegetable as apple : fruit) or noun/verb (dog : bark as _____ : chirp). It’s easy to generate your own list of word pairs, or you can search out workbooks, or find activity sheets online.
Elaboration
This is a type of creative thinking that allows students to build on ideas that already exist. (It’s the “how to build a better mousetrap” concept) Again, you might want to start simply by asking your child how someone might make a new and improved clothes pin, envelope or even dental floss, (Perhaps they would alter color, size, shape, taste, texture, scent, etc.) Encourage them to illustrate their ideas.
Brainstorming Multiple Uses
This activity encourages flexibility in thinking. How many uses can you think of for an old door knob, a stick of chewing gum, a twisty-tie? Remember the rule in brainstorming is to think of lots of ideas, not to evaluate them at this point. Even ideas your children might consider “silly” are acceptable (and fun!) since those wacky ideas can serve as a springboard for other ideas that might be pure genius.
These are just a few of the many ways to encourage the development of your child’s creative and/or logical thinking skills. You may also want to check out your local toy store. There are many excellent games on the market that encourage kids of all ages to think creatively and/or expand their problem solving ability. So, while you’re teaching them the basics, don’t forget to teach them to wonder. Better yet, join in the fun and show them how it’s done.
