Many parents have decided to homeschool this year. Even if you aren’t officially homeschooling, you may be doing school at home and may find yourself teaching your children.
A child who is engaged and interested is easier to educate than one who is bored and uncaring.Inspiring curiosity in your children is one of the best ways to enhance their education and transform them into engaged and eager learners.
Curiosity is vital for learning.
The best thing you can do for your children this fall, whether you are homeschooling or not, is to inspire their curiosity. Curiosity is one of the most important ingredients for learning. If a child is curious about a topic, they will want to learn more. They will be more engaged and will start really thinking about the topic. This will lead to better retention of the information they are learning. So, how can you inspire curiosity? Here are a few ideas:
Pay attention to their questions.
- Children are naturally curious and ask questions. Sometimes A LOT of questions! Try not to be annoyed with their questions. Instead, try to help them find answers. You don’t have to have all of the answers. Some things they ask won’t even have answers. The important thing is to encourage the questions.
Ask your own questions.
- Set an example by being curious yourself. Also, ask questions that encourage them to wonder about things. Ask things like, “why do you think that is like that?” If you notice and wonder aloud about the world around you, your children will start to do this too. They will see the world through the eyes of wonder.
Teach through inquiry.
- Which of these seems more engaging: Saying, “because of the equivalence principle, objects of different masses all fall to the Earth at the same speed.” Or saying, “If we dropped a brick and a pillow, which do you think would hit the ground first?” Then, following up with, “Let’s explore that.” It is usually better to ask questions that inspire their curiosity than to just tell them the answers. Just telling children facts and expecting them to memorize them takes the joy out of learning. Learning is exciting because of the discovery.
- Encouraging children to really think about things naturally leads to learning. For a child to remember something, they have to pay attention to it. They also have to engage in some sort of processing that takes the information from their short-term to their long-term memory. Being curious and thinking deeply about a topic does that.
Start Encouraging Curiosity Now
- As a first step to encourage curiosity in your children, create a question board. This can be a white board or bulletin board or collection of sticky notes stuck to a wall. This is a place where everyone in the family can write their questions. No question is a bad question if it is something they are genuinely curious about.
- Then, set aside time each day to address new questions. Talk about them, ask more curios questions about them. Help children to figure out how to find the answers.
Curiosity will prepare children for the future.
We don’t know what the future will look like. Technology will continue to advance. Many of today’s jobs may be done by robots or computers. Many new jobs will emerge that we can only dream of today. There is one thing I think we can say for certain, success in the future will require lifelong learning. People who are curious are lifelong learners. They continue to be interested in learning all they can about the world around them.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we can help our children to be prepared. Raising curious children will prepare them for the future.
To Learn More:
Confidently Homeschool, LLC, works with parents to guide them in creating an educational plan that will provide their children with an excellent education while also inspiring curiosity and a love of learning. If you would like to learn more about Confidently Homeschool, LLC or how to homeschool your children in a way that inspires curiosity and encourages a lifelong love of learning, go to www.confidentlyhomeschool.com.
