#85 - Unlocking Learning Potential with a Simple Tool

Join Jesús and Monica as they reveal an often overlooked tool that has been a game-changer in their homeschool journey. Jesus shares how this tool has helped with mathematics, particularly in understanding place value, decimals, and accuracy in calculations. Plus, it aids in handwriting, improving letter formation and spacing. Are you already using it in your homeschool?

#Homeschooling #Learning #Education #Math #Parenting #Tools #Unlocking

https://1lnk.page/MonicaAviles

Transcript

You might wonder, well, if I don't help them start writing when they're little, will they enjoy it when they're older or will they, you know, just kind of been like, eh, I have, I've done fine without it. I'm not really interested in picking up pen or paper or anything like that. We found that Welcome to the Homeschool Unlocked podcast, the show that helps parents see homeschooling as a unique opportunity.

So forget fear. You can inspire. You can guide your child.

Homeschool Unlocked. It's not school. It's life.

Welcome to episode 85 Homeschool Unlocked family. 85. Love it.

I'm with... I'm Jesus. I am one piece of this dynamic duo here. Just a little bit about myself.

If you don't mind, my love. Absolutely. I have been a school psychologist for approximately 20 years, worked in the public school system about 18 years.

I am currently a youth pastor. I'm also currently a licensed school psychologist that allows me to work outside the school setting and guess what I want to do with all that greatness. I want to give it to you Homeschool Unlocked community.

So thank you for locking in. That's right. We want to give you the confidence to consider homeschooling.

If you've never, if you never thought you could homeschool, we're here to help you see homeschooling as a unique opportunity. So I'm going to start today's episode by asking you a fill in the blank question. Oh, okay.

Let's go. Okay. So these are the three choices, either Ray Dalio, Jack Bogle, or Warren Buffett.

Okay. I'm going to tell you which of those men started in business at the age of six, selling iced Coca-Cola's door-to-door in an air-conditioned Omaha, Nebraska, one hot summer during the depression. He steadily added other businesses to his string, selling lost golf balls to the Club Pro Shop, sifting discarded racetrack betting tickets for winners accidentally thrown away, and designing a system which allowed him to deliver 1,500 newspapers on one delivery route.

And there's more, but was it Ray Dalio, Jack Bogle, or Warren Buffett? You ever were given a question when you're absolutely clueless and you hope they give you multiple choice. You know what you're naturally going to do? You're going to pick whatever you've ever heard of before. So I've only ever heard of Warren Buffett.

So that is my answer for that one. Okay. Yes, it is Warren Buffett.

Yeah. I have no idea who those other people are, by the way. We've listened to an audio book from Ray Dalio.

I cannot think of it right now. He talks about economics and different seasons and all this stuff. Yeah, he was, yes.

I absolutely believe you. Okay. Many times I'm like, baby, I've never heard of that.

She says, how about more accurate? You don't remember that you've already heard of it. So my wife and I listened to many audio books from many different genres and she reads extensively. So chances are that is definitely one.

But it's Warren Buffett. And again, this comes from John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction. And again, he talks about basically kind of open source learning.

And it's challenging in so many ways, but I want to share that little bit of info with you as we get started today. And we're going to be talking about something that I think you're going to do a great job with, but I was totally surprised that you wanted to pick this as our topic. Now, listen, I want you to just to imagine.

I want you to imagine all the possible tools at your disposal to help your children learn. I want you to imagine all of them. There's one that's super, super, super underrated.

And my wife is sitting here next to me as we record this and she knows I've used the tool that I'm going to talk about like more than any other. And no, it's not the iPad. No, it's not the internet.

Are you ready for it, my love? Yes. You ready? Homeschool Unlocked community. You ready for those that are involved in this movement? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. It was that that was Monica pretending she was the audience, but she really sounded like some scared person in a cave.

So so that was Monica. Are you guys ready? Graph paper, graph paper. You know what we're going to talk about in this episode? Graph paper.

Now, you may not know this, but this is one of the most overlooked tools in education. And it's something that I've used extensively, especially with mathematics, but more recently tied to handwriting. So again, we talk about tools, tools that are at our disposal.

And today, the benefits of graph paper. So my love, I want you just to think about she's laughing. She's laughing because this tool is like it's right there.

It's right. It's in your hand. You just need to know how to how to use this particular tool.

And what I'll do is I'll put on my school psychology had at some particular point in just to just to tell you an item related to that. So I'm here. I'm basically here for decoration today because you are so excited.

I am. I'm excited about graph paper. We were thinking about, you know, what could could could the next episode be about? And, you know, the easiest thing to do is just think, you know, what am I doing now? What am I doing now? And I just finished getting off of the table trying to work with my son with regards to division, you know, long division.

And so all of a sudden, anyone that's ever worked a division or even multiplication or even long addition, all the mathematics, you know, number placement on the page. That's one of the things that just just throws kids off. Right.

When you're borrowing from the number to the left and you switch the number and the number is not over the next one. And so all of a sudden, you know, I mean, it isn't that the kids can't add, subtract or do math. It's that they didn't properly place this information on the sheet so they can't complete the task successfully.

So just talking about graph paper and mathematics, place value is super important, right? You know, you got the ones, the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, the 10,000, 100,000, you have placement. And right. And so all of a sudden, you know, what I tell my kid is, hey, listen, if you look at the number line, the number line is basically zero to nine and then it starts over.

Right. Everyone's accustomed to one to 10, but it's not. The number line is zero to nine.

When you get to 10, you're at one and zero and then you get to 19, then becomes two and zero, then three and zero. Right. So zero is always the beginning of the number line.

So then what I tell my kid is in each box, you're allowed one number. So when you hit that 12, then the item becomes what goes in the box. Right.

So the item is two goes into that box and then one goes to the top box. Right. So all of a sudden, my kids are grasping the fact that I could only put a number to fit in this one little box.

Right. Number line is zero to nine. So that has to be the number that's in there.

Right. So graph paper and mathematics, place value is super important. Now, when you introduce the decimal, right, when you begin to bring in, you know, non-whole numbers, right, all of a sudden pieces of numbers, placement is also super important.

Right. When the dot is, especially when you're doing like multiplication and stuff like that, where like, you know, point two, right. Multiplied by five point six, seven, eight, nine.

So the dots don't quite align. You know, obviously when you're adding it, you align the dots, you align the decimals. But when you multiply, you just multiply and then you just count the decimals.

Right. So all of a sudden, that's super duper decimal point placement, super duper better with graph paper, lining up equations. I think I've mentioned that already.

Right. Whether you're borrowing, whether you're carrying over. Right.

Super duper important. And what this does is this increases the accuracy of calculations. Now, I do want to say I'm going to just basically say that math is like board games.

I've just recently started being able to enjoy playing board games as a family. This is definitely something that you did more of with the kids. And I'm starting to do it now because it just required so much patience.

And sad to say, character wise, I just was like, I'd rather cook or do something else because this board game thing is a lot. So we have cash flow for kids. And Joelle and Geronimo and I have started playing this once a week.

And now we did this as a family. We played the regular cash flow game by Robert Kiyosaki. But anyways, the reason that I, the way that this is linked is basically that board games and math, they're two things that I have a hard time for different reasons.

One is patience with the board games. But math is actually, I have a really hard time explaining what, like why we do things. When you're talking to me about zero tonight, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm sure I knew that.

And I can do math. I wasn't like a super, I didn't super excel at it, but I was a solid student and I could do the math. I just found that even when they were little, I had such a difficult time explaining it.

So here's the deal, parents, you may think I just can't do any math. You know, I don't want to teach my kids math. Okay, sure, there's different curriculums and different ways you can do that.

But what if you, instead of looking at a math lesson as a bunch of problems, you took time and you learned with your kids, well, how, like just even the history of math, what, who was the first to like invent or not invent, but, but talk about the concept of zero or what is the ones place? What is the tens place? I mean, you are able to look at math and instead of just going right to the function of it and how to accomplish the problem, because you're not necessarily grading, you're not on someone else's timeline. You're not having to measure things the way the school is telling you to measure. You could actually take addition and do a lot with it.

Learn the history, learn, you know, different ways that different, how it has in different peoples and different times has looked, different ways people have counted and traded and bartered, how that has affected, um, you know, economics, just different things that just stem from this conversation. Try explaining this as I'm speaking to myself here. When I tried to explain addition, I was like, I don't know why we just do this.

Right. Which is also why would I want to give that kind of an education to my kid? If I'm like, Hey, I don't really know how to do this or how to explain it. I don't know how to teach it.

I just know how to do it for myself. Why would I want to put my kid in a kind of system that would again, make them know how to do something like, but not know why not know how to teach it. Um, so, you know, we're talking about graph paper here, but it goes a lot deeper than that because you want to teach your kids how to learn and you want to teach your kids why certain things.

Um, and this is also why we don't really start with kind of more formal math until they're older. So Joelle's 12 years old. Yeah.

So let me go back. I mean, just to put a pause on the graph paper. Yes.

You know, we're talking, we're talking, we're basically talking about our pedagogical philosophy. Right. And so we use the classical approach, right? The classical approach is kind of looks at, um, looks at learning and with regards to almost like three buckets.

First is memory, right? So kids at an early age, like that's their thing. That's their jam. They just memorize everything.

Right. Then as they get into that whole middle school, high school age, they kind of hit this reasoning aspect. So they want to know why the thing.

So first is what is it? Then why is it? And then when they start hitting late in high school, they love to articulate. They love to speak. They love to communicate right.

What they know. Now I want you to imagine your kid, right? Super, super young kid. Everything you say, they're just regurgitating.

They're just like sponges. It gets to a particular developmental stage when they begin to ask you why, why this, why that. Now you may be offended sometimes by these wise, but they're just at the reasoning state.

And then next they want to articulate, right? I mean, they claim to know everything. So they want to explain it to you. That's all right.

They want to share these thoughts. Now what's, what's super great about this entire process is that this is just where kids are at. Right.

And so, um, we have Joelle. So when, when, when my queen, Joel's a seventh grader. So, so when my queen says, you know, we didn't introduce formal mathematics.

I want you to think of math as in terms of operations, right? Like, like putting numbers together and coming up with computations, right? Whether it's addition or subtraction, but he's been learning mathematics because we emphasize memory since age five. So I say to my son, son, what's the communicative law of addition? My bad. Let me go back.

What is the identity law of addition? What is the identity law of multiplication? He says, a plus B equals B plus eight. So I said, son, let's look at that. You've memorized that, right? You have no idea what that means.

Nope. Because in the memory phase, you're just memorizing. Now he's in the middle school.

Now he's asking why now I'm going to help him apply the things he's memorized. So son, you see how it's a plus B equals B plus a. That means when you're adding, it doesn't matter. The placement five plus seven is the same as seven plus five.

You know, he looks at me, he's kind of pieced it together. Same thing with the identity law of multiplication, a times B equals B times a. And so I go back into it. So I said, son, is there a such thing as the identity law of subtraction? He's like, no.

And that's I said, that's because in subtraction, placement matters. Seven minus nine is not the same as nine minus seven. And so we go into that.

And so all of a sudden he has been working on mathematics at a young age. He has been working on deep science, algebraic equations and formulas since a young age. But now he's sliding over to physically doing these operations and we're putting pieces together for him.

And so that's just our philosophical approach to education here on our end. You can have your own, but that's that's just a little, you know, peel the onion back on the avil at home. And those conversations are breathing life into math.

You're like fanning the flames of a desire to learn math when you're talking. Right. You're you're talking errors coming in and out.

Right. You're you're breathing. You're breathing life into this math problem.

And, you know, we're focusing more on on the three of the liberal arts, but there's seven. And in the quote last week, I mean, Woodrow Wilson highlighted the importance of a liberal arts education. And, you know, if you're learning piano, right, that's math right there.

That's math in time and space. And and so it's beautiful. There's more than one way to learn and appreciate numbers.

Baby, can you teach me piano tomorrow? I can teach you chopsticks. So coming back, coming back to graph paper. So we know graph paper.

We talked a couple of great benefits. Right. This is a overlooked tool in in our treasure chest.

Right. So tied to math. We've talked about that.

In essence, using graph paper for mathematics really helps us visualize and track and comprehend the whole computation process way better. I'm going to now slide over to handwriting. I don't know about you, but letter formation and spacing, that can be disastrous for some.

I mean, I got so frustrated even earlier this week. I'm reviewing information that my kid wrote out. Right.

He's he's kind of preparing, you know, what we do in the obvious home is, you know, we go to school, we go to a physical site once a week and we do the rest of the material here at home. And he has to do all presentations every week. And so he's written out, you know, what he's been practicing.

And all of a sudden I begin to read and I recognize all the letters have the same height. I can't tell if that's an I or an L. I don't know if that's a G or. So I'm having great difficulty because of the size and the space of the letters really reading it.

And so I pull out the graph paper and it's super weird. Right. Because, you know, some of the squares kind of like, you know, the letter, you know, Kathmandu, let's say we wrote that out, you know, could take a quarter of the sheet, whereas you can make it real small.

But all of a sudden, graph paper with regards to letter formation and spacing really gives them that legibility. That's really an issue way early. Right now, I have nothing against line paper, right? Line paper provides basic guidance for like letter height and alignment.

Yeah, you'll align it up. But the graph paper really allows me to kind of work on some couple of different things. I think the last item I'm going to talk about graph paper, if you don't mind, it's just about drawing.

Yeah. Right. Connecting the dots.

Right. Part of the activities our kids have to do is draw the world, draw the world from memory. And so all of a sudden I put different dots on specific spots on this graph paper and they're able to to write out all the rest.

So it's a great tool. Now, I'm going to just rattle off just three little features tied to it. Well, before you do, I do want to also add that we're not saying that you can't use pen and paper when they're younger.

If your child really has just a passion to draw and sketch, absolutely. But what I will say is that if you just help the kids see learning as like this privilege, right, they have now gone from more chores and responsibilities and they're now in the season where they get to focus more on school and actually have fewer chores and step away from that. And now they have paper and pen and there's actually he is so enjoying sitting down to draw and sketch and he was not.

I mean, even a month ago he was not. But sitting down and he wants to write his letters fancy. I have not taught him cursive.

Yes. I mean, just different things that you might wonder, well, if I don't help them start writing when they're little, will they enjoy it when they're older or will they, you know, just kind of been like, yeah, I have. I've done fine without it.

I'm not really interested in picking up pen or paper or anything like that. We found that no, that they can actually, they're ready for it and they're not necessarily burnt out from having to write, you know, a lot since they were very little. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I was going to rattle off several different features of graph paper, but I'm only going to do one.

Okay. Right. And so that one is going to be tied to the color of the graphs.

Now, what I was thinking is, right, I'm working with Joelle, right? Mainly with the graph paper. These colors are, is black and white, right? I mean, you, you literally see the grid lines, right? The size and scale of the grid lines are perfectly square. Right.

And so how am I going to wean him off of this? I'm thinking, how am I going to slide him off? Even though I've had previous kids and I don't even remember how I slid them off. I could, because you can also create your own graph paper, right? And all you need to do just type for that. I'm just going to simply let you know, just Google how to make graph paper in

Excel, right? There's a beautiful tutorial on how to do it, but one of the beautiful things you could do is you lighten that color goes from black.

And I guess you can do some gray and do some light gray and slowly, but surely you can wean them off this grid paper, right? For mathematics and for handwriting. And then in time use color to bring them back to the traditional line paper. I just wanted to say that because I just found it by accident.

I thought it was super cool. And I thought you'd enjoy it. Have a great afternoon.

We love you. Use some graph paper this week. That's right.

And if you have extra graph paper, write a little letter to your loved one or to somebody that's thinking about homeschooling, point them to us. Love you guys. Bye.

Thank you for spending time with us today. Check out our link below and subscribe to our podcast. We hope that we helped you by unlocking a new way of seeing homeschooling.

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