Buying a trampoline and kinaesthetic learning

After many weeks of delay waiting for the delivery, our new trampoline for the garden finally arrived last week and we've begun assembling it. I'm sure the kids are going to love it, and spend a lot of time on it. So with this in mind we decided to go for a ground-level trampoline, perhaps more permanent, safer and more aesthetically pleasing than the more usual garden trampolines on the market. It's another reason to be outdoors, in the garden, keep fit and burn off excess energy and for Asher particularly, I think it will help his learning. 

Interestingly, I recently looked up learning styles, particularly kinaesthetic learning. Knowing that Asher is a do-er, right from the word go when as a newborn he was born strong and learnt to roll at 13 days old. Many of Asher's emerging interests as he moves into preschool age, fit with the kinaesthetic learning style. For example, kinaesthetic learners have good hand-eye coordination. Until a month or so ago, Asher had zero interest in sitting down with a crayon or pen. Then one week, all he wanted to do was colour. He sat for hours at a time carefully colouring in just one picture. His attention to detail and hand-eye coordination in his colouring was astounding for his age! These first pictures are now framed on his bedroom wall in pride of place. 

Kinaesthetic learners are good at sport. Asher has always hit his physical developmental milestones early and I want to encourage opportunities for him to continue to develop his gross motor skills. The trampoline will help here I'm sure. But more than this, I think we'll be able to use the trampoline to help in other areas of learning. Just a quick google and Pinterest search brings up lots of ideas for using movement and activity to teach literacy and maths skills. Quite literally, jumping into learning! 

Kinaesthetic learners learn through discovery, through doing and through using movement to enhance the learning process. I'm interested to see how Asher's home education develops as he gets older, and with us as his parents being the facilitators of his education, how we will go about helping him and optimising his learning. 

(Asher measures the depth of the pit below our trampoline)

The Great Outdoors: Weeks 10-12: 14 hours 35 mins

I've got a bit behind in my updates for the last few weeks, we have still been getting outside in that time though. The first week I was very poorly with nasty flu which left me bed bound :-( fortunately the kids escaped it. Spring has sprung and we're loving the better weather! Here's some pics from our recent outdoor adventures: 

An impromptu walk over the fields opposite our house, so impromptu the kids still had their dressing up clothes on, they loved it! 

On world book day we met up with some other home educating families at the park for the afternoon. 

Enjoying the outdoor gym with my family. I especially love Eden's enthusiasm in this photo! 

Both busy making mud pies in the garden

Lovely spring sunshine for bike rides. I think the last time Eden was on her bike was New Year's Day. She did great balancing and braking. Looking forward to lots of bike rides practising now the weather is better! 

This week coming *hopefully* we will finally have our trampoline arriving that we've ordered for the garden, we ordered it weeks ago, it's been a long wait! 

The Great Outdoors Week 9: 3 hours 50

Recently the kids have been LOUD at home, usually when they're inbetween activities, or we're getting ready to go out somewhere. It can be really stressful and headache-inducing when they're like this. While I'm sure it's completely normal behaviour developing into a bit of a habit at the moment, I'm also aware how great they respond to being outdoors, letting off steam, playing nicely together, enjoying each other's company and that this results in calmer, more settled behaviour at home. I'm so excited that the first signs of Spring are appearing. Clumps of bluebells, daffodils and tulips have sprouted up from the ground in our garden. I have lots of plans for us to spend the majority of our days outside once the better weather is here. I've got lots of fun memories of us spending time in the garden last summer, chilling out under our big sportsbrella, cooking on the gas BBQ, playing on the decking, in the tuff spot and the sand pit. It's a little tricky being out in the garden at the moment with our guide dog pup here, he wants to join in our play in the garden but the grass is taking a bit of a battering and needs time to recover!! 

I'm pleased with our total time outdoors last week, we had lots of sunshine, it's been the sunniest winter on record according to countryfile last night! I didn't take many photos this week, but this is a favourite, on our walk on Saturday there was a buzzard being mobbed by crows ahead of us, and this is Asher impersonating the crows "caw caw" :)