Adventures in Home Learning: A Final Post

 

I was thinking more about the idea of getting my daughter to read instructions carefully, how doing schoolwork can prepare us for life, and how life can help us with schoolwork.

Recently we were at a local farm store where they were selling bagged cookie mixes. She asked if we could buy one and I agreed.

Now it occurred to me that the directions on the bag of cookie mix could be just what we needed to help her learn to read instructions more carefully and thoroughly. If you want kids to be invested in what they are doing, baking chocolate chip cookies seems like a really good place to start.

So, one day I announced we were going to make the cookies. (To be more accurate, SHE was going to make the cookies while I asked questions and kept an eye on things.)

To start, I asked her what we needed to do first? “Put on an apron,” she said. Well, I usually bake without an apron but it was a valid idea so I said, “okay,” and we found her an apron in the drawer.

Then I told her she needed to read through all the instructions carefully before we started. She read them out loud to me.

I had her tell me what ingredients we needed to gather to go with what was in the bag.

Then I asked her, “what should we do next?”

“Dump the mix out,” she replied.

Hmm. “On the counter?” I asked.

No. We needed bowls and utensils to mix.

Once we had that, she remembered that I usually mix the wet ingredients together first, then add the dry. (The directions on the bag were kind of basic.)

I tried to keep any suggestions in the form of questions, “what do we need to do next?”

She has already done a fair bit of baking with me, so she had some pretty good ideas.

In no time at all, we had cookie dough on tins ready to go in the oven.

Over all, I think it was a very successful first lesson in reading instructions carefully. And we got cookies out of it.

Finally, this will be the last entry in the Home Learning section of this blog. Most people are either home schooling completely and know what they are doing far better than I, or working with their schools..

Thanks for reading. I hope it has been of some help, or will be if you find it later on.