The Rookery

Happy Summer!  I often find that August is a good time to reboot my summer intentions — the basement is still not cleaned out, ditto that back corner of the yard.  It's also a good time to set up routines that will flow into the school year.  I don't mean chore routines (although those are great, too) but routines that will set the stage for successful learning.

"Curiosity" is a thread that's run through my summer reading and listening.  So often, we hear about how important it is for folks to have a "passion" or to be "passionate learners."  It's always made me a little self-aware.  I've been a life long amateur, a dabbler.  I play a little banjo, I can knit some, I can can (but not can-can…sorry, I also make puns at a very amateur level.)  But "passion"? Beyond education, not so much.  However, I am curious about just about everything.

And it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that curiosity is vital for learning.  We have to wonder about things in order to pursue learning about them.  And, luckily, summer is a great time to inject opportunities for curiosity into your home routine:

Promoting Curiosity through Reading at Home

Visit the library and take out a lot of books. Leave them laying around the house.  Make them the easiest thing to gravitate toward.  Make it a big variety – magazines, graphic novels, information, how-to – you never know what will spark an interest.  Set up some times when everyone is hanging out and reading – a weekend morning, a half hour after dinner.  Share the interesting tid-bits you come across.  Create a reading culture in your home.  (For more about the research basis of how these techniques can help your child become a strong reader, I recommend The Reading Mind. ) .

Promoting Curiosity through Math at Home

This one can get silly – be forewarned.  This summer my family has puzzled its way through figuring out everything from just how many tattoo parlors Northfield could support to how big a cage one would need to house all of the guinea pigs that could be born in a year from an initial set of guinea pigs.  (Full disclosure – we have a pregnant guinea pig due to a sexing error at the guinea pig shelter…if you're interested in a great pet, let me know!).

These types of puzzles are sometimes called "Fermi Math" because they were a favorite pass time of mathematician Enrico Fermi and I've written more about them here.  There's also a good kid book How Many Guinea Pigs Fit on a Plane which is in a similar vein, but honestly, once you get used to it, these kinds of questions are everywhere and the ones that are the most fun are the ones you stumble across as a family when you're waiting in line or driving somewhere.

Promoting Curiosity through Outings

You don't have to go far to find new things to wonder about.  One of my favorite parts of Forest School is the thrill of never knowing exactly what we're going to discover just outside our door.  Chances are, a walk around your block will produce a lot of new things to observe and think about with your Heron.  If you want to go a little further afield but are stuck for ideas (which happens to us all round about August) you can check out the Prairie Creek Out and About blog.  It has ideas for places to visit around Northfield and the Twin Cities.

Here's to a great last month of summer.  Looking forward to seeing you in the Herons.