The Learning Umbrella

For church, I have to make these sets of manipulatives that go with the story being told in our Montessori-style class.  I’ve mentioned these stories before, and how much fun I can have putting them together.  Carbon has been watching me make and tell these stories all year, and he’s also been collecting the scraps of fabric that I have left over.  Now he’s started to put together his own story sets, and he’ll sit for a really long time making up the story that goes with it.  Last weekend he disappeared into his room for almost two hours, and when we peeked he was working out a story using a few narrow strips of fabric, 10 matchbox cars, and rolled up “tents” he had made from other fabric.

Here’s one of my latest creations:

And one of his:

I think this is a brilliant illustration of how children learn by observing what we do.  And how homeschooling can introduce our kids to so much more learning, basically through the osmosis of close contact.  If he was just one of the kids in class, he would see the stories and feel empowered to retell them in class with the existing manipulatives.  But, by being home with me while I build the stories, he feels empowered to actually create his own original stories using any manipulatives he can find or make.  This is something he’s doing just for his own enjoyment, but I think it’s also very “educational”.  Reason #2000 or something that I love homeschooling!