How can I, as the adult train my mind?

[M0mcco07]

Hi all,

I am inspired to help my children have a well-trained mind but my own mind has not been trained very well. I am homeschooling my 5 year old but also want to "homeschool" myself. I want to grow my mind and my thinking. My idea is to start with some good books. I also have an almost 4 year old and almost 1 year old too. I am typically falling asleep after my husband and I get the kids and bed and dishes and laundry done but I want to carve out some time to read too. I would greatly appreciate some book recommendations to get my started and any other recommendations on growing my mind as well. I love books with nature (Gene Stratton porter) and have I have a new love for history and War stories. 

 

Thank you.

Madison

[Slache]

The author of the book The Well Trained Mind actually wrote a book for this exact purpose. It's called The Well Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer.

[Slache]

There is an updated version. Get that one.

[Rosie_0801]

That^ 

But don't beat yourself up if you can't be as diligent as you'd like to be. You have two small kids!

Don't underestimate Youtube. If you're not up for reading something solid, there are lots of nice series on there with manageable fifteen minute episodes. Philosophy, the history of theatre, the periodic table, etc, etc. Every bit counts.

[Slache]

6 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Don't underestimate Youtube. If you're not up for reading something solid, there are lots of nice series on there with manageable fifteen minute episodes. Philosophy, the history of theatre, the periodic table, etc, etc. Every bit counts.

Crash Course! Check out Crash Course on YouTube! It's amazing.

[Slache]

And Great Courses Plus!

[GracieJane]

I bought some cheap wireless earbuds on Amazon and listen to classics read aloud. Most can be found on Librivox. I also love Yale‘s Open Courses on podcast (I like the series on the Middle Ages, Dante, and Milton). With wireless earphones, I just leave my phone plugged in and clean the house, do dishes, fold laundry, etc. 

[bookbard]

Learning alongside your kids is fine - you don't need to learn everything at once. If your child asks a question, you can reply with "let's find out!" and look up stuff together. I find rather than googling a specific question ("how many fins does a dolphin have") it's better to look up a resource about dolphins and then you learn so much more - sometimes it triggers a whole lot more questions!

I knew nothing about science before I had kids. Nothing about space, evolution, atoms, how the body works . . . we've learned so much together, through reading and developing curiosity about the world. It's been great. 

[mom2bee]

If you want to train your mind and set a worthy-example for your kids, then I suggest you go with a lite-reading schedule.

1) Make the habit of reading 10 minutes every day without fail. Start with ONE book.
2) Nonfiction Childrens books are great to develop your knowledge of the world.
They are readable, factual, well illustrated, and easy to read. Go to the library, the children's non-fiction section and pick a book that has an overview of history. Most of these books can be well-read in 10 minute increments.

2b) Once you've established the habit (probably 2-6 months), get a 3-subject notebook and use it to take a 1/2 page of notes from your reading most days that you read.
2c) Just an FYI: Getting a reference resource that is meant for grades 4-6 or 4-8 can be a great way to give yourself a high-level overview of The Basics.

3) If you're awful at math, make 5 minute time to learn, recite, write and drill your math-facts each morning. Review your math facts again at night.
If you know your math facts, but can't subtract fluently by hand, then get in the habit of doing ONE problem by hand and checking it every day--thus working a subtraction and addition problem each day. Once you get the hang of multidigit +/-, then tackle multi-digit multiplication and division.

[Clarita]

13 hours ago, bookbard said:

Learning alongside your kids is fine - you don't need to learn everything at once. If your child asks a question, you can reply with "let's find out!" and look up stuff together.

I second this and my weak subject is phonics/English Language Arts. Totally learning alongside my kindergartener on that one. Don't be afraid to field all your kids questions and say "I don't know. Let me look that up and get back to you." or look it up together (science is easier to look up together, for me phonics I have to figure out on my own and then give my kids the information).

I learned back when I was a student (both at work and in college) your "teacher" doesn't have to know more about the subject matter than you do to teach you. At some point they serve a great purpose just guiding you to more information about your topic, how to present the information, etc.

[2_girls_mommy]

Learn alongside them, but also read as much as you can, even if only ten minutes a day like pp said.  Follow these and other boards for what others are doing and look into it.  As your kids get older you will be able to read a bit more.  I carry a book bag wherever I go.  If my kids were in dance class for 30 min, and the baby could play on the floor with toys for ten of those minutes, that was ten minutes I could look at a chapter in my book.  And when we needed to learn Latin, I did the whole program just as if I was a student.  I tried to do a chapter or two ahead of my kids and kept up reading over the summers when they were on breaks.  For things like art and history we just all learned and worked together.  I love nothing more than when we are all doing an art project at the same time and seeing our four different interpretations of a lesson or prompt.