ADVICE RATING |
  4.17 (Worth a try) from 17 votes (330 Visits) |
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cross-study in homeschool/the primary classroom |
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Anonymous Author (February 2007) |
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just think about this... as adults, for the majority of our everyday lives, we have a tendency to multi task and use all our knowledge to solve a problem or complete a task. it's a rare occasion that we use only one skills set. why is it then, that when 
educating our children we segregate our teachings into subject categories? (eg. science, art, maths). as a high school student, i found this very frustrating as i was spending a lot of time studying the same material twice in two different classes (eg. math and physics) it seemed like such a waste of resources and time for the teachers as well as the students... looking back i can see the answer was that it was easier to teach bulk students in this fashion especially in high school. but what about home school... if the size of the group is smaller it may be possible to cross-study to help the students better understand the practical uses of the material that is taught.
i am at present trailing this theory with my 4 year old son and am making some progress... i have found that he has a greater understanding (even at 4 yrs) and more interest in the material if it is taught in this fashion. for example combining the science of bubbles with art to get bubble pictures... or history with English to get reading and talking about dinosaurs. there are so many ways that subjects can be crossed over that the mind just boggles. (i actually have a notebook for this very thing just so i don’t forget... lol) i think, that the cross study actually brings more to the material because the students can see where the things they learn in the classroom/home school fit in to their everyday lives, and have a lot more fun learning the material... i know that they do some of this in primary school but I’m sure that the current curriculum could be written to take the idea further and use the activities the students complete to their full cross-study potential. i have also found that we can get through all the material that i have set in a shorter time than it would take to teach all the subjects separately, and there are less complaints.
this is just a thought but I’m really interested as to what parents and teachers think about this topic... and would love to hear your ideas (good and bad)
Lexii xxx
i was one of i think three students in my yeargroup in wa that did all three sciences in upper school, unfortunatly human biology was on a diferent line
so i missed that one. we did the amusment park thing here too for physics but i spent half the time helping my biology teacher mark some year 8 tests cause i was too chicken to go on the rides. she was an inspiration to me giving teaching a go myself, just on my own kids. so wishing i was in highschool.... forensic chemistry!!!! full on!!!! sounds like loads of fun!!! i remember cross study in science the most mostly with organic chem and astronomy as they were favourites, because i did all three i had an edge over the students who did only two cause they missed what i already knew from the third class... it rocked!! although because i did biology i missed calculus which set me back in physics a bit but i pulled through hehe... thanx for the info and good to know our kidlets in the schools are getting the benifits of this too! ::)'s frum MAB!
