Getting Started with Homeschooling
Practical Considerations for Parents of School-Aged Children
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
Learning Centres
Learning centres are used extensively in primary school classrooms and can be effectively used in the home schooling environment. One of the key features of a learning centre approach to education is the focus on independent activity and learning, with task cards and necessary materials essential aspects of each centre.
Learning centres usually embrace each of the traditional subject areas, with language, math, science, music, etc., centres set up around the room. They can, however, be built around any topic or area of interest, process or skill.
Learning centres are an excellent way to include activities for various levels of expertise and understanding, especially for families with more than one child learning at home. They can also be designed for children with varying abilities, interests, values and learning styles, by incorporating many alternative activities to choose from.
Depending on purposes, space limitations and personalities, learning centres can be developed in all sizes and shapes, with the learning alternatives in them limited only by the creativity and ingenuity of you and your children. Don’t forget, the children can help you design and make them. There is no need for you to do all the work, and plenty of educational reasons for them to help!
In order to be most effective in contributing to an organised individualised learning program, each centre needs:
- A title and instructions. These should be displayed prominently and discussed with the children before the centre is used. The instructions explain what the children can do at the centre, and what will be done with anything created as a result of the activity. These may include rules relating to how and when the centre can be used.
- Necessary equipment, furniture, and materials selected on the basis of purpose of the centre.
- Several learning alternatives the children can choose, either written or drawn, on easily accessible and understandable task cards. These should be related to an objective or objectives; be diverse and range from easy to difficult and from concrete to abstract in order to accommodate varying interests, abilities and learning styles; be highly motivational to encourage the children to work independently (e.g. games, animals, videos); changed periodically to facilitate new choices; and provide opportunities for the children to apply what they have learned.
- It is also a good idea to have self-evaluation or assessment activities to enable the children to check their own progress in the centre. This may take the form of separate evaluation task cards, a folder or perhaps a poster style check-list to mark off finished tasks.
Some considerations in the designing of learning centres include the availability and cost of materials needed; storage and accessibility of supplies, materials and equipment; where the centres will be located and the suitability of the site in respect to noise, independent activity, and type of activity; and space for display and type of display. As reasonably permanent features of the learning program for a given period of time, learning centres can intrude on daily living, being difficult to ‘put away’ if visitors arrive or stay.
The following examples of learning centres for education at home are not exhaustive. They can include many more items, ideas and activities for the children to use reasonably independently. Learning centres are designed to be used in addition to structured learning sessions with you and other activities.
Other types of learning centres could include current events centre, sculpture centre, printing centre, time centre, space centre, plant centre, exploration of Australia centre, another culture or country centre, geography centre, water resources centre, beach and ocean centre, and so on. The number of centres possible are limited only by your imagination and resources.
 previous page |
Excerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling, Practical Considerations
© Beverley Paine, 1997
