A looooong (and potentially boring) post about learning styles. Skip if this doesn't interest you.

Ok so I briefly mentioned in my last post how I'm planning for 1st grade for Emilie...

I had a major AHA moment recently about the way she learns.

I always knew Emilie was a "Visual Kinesthetic learner", but it never occurred to me
that she thinks in terms of pictures -- and not words, the way Auditory Sequential learners process information.  This is totally foreign to me, because I am an auditory-sequential learner.  And so that is how I naturally teach.  So when I read the description below, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course! That is why when, for example, I asked her to copy the word "milk", which she did, she immediately had to draw a picture of milk next to the word.  Here is a comparison between Auditory-Sequential and Visual Spatial learners:

AUDITORY-SEQUENTIAL (eliz)	VISUAL-SPATIAL (emilie)
Thinks primarily in words	**Thinks primarily in pictures**
Has auditory strengths	Has visual strengths
Relates well to time	Relates well to space
Is a step-by-step learner	Is a whole-part learner
Learns by trial and error	Learns concepts all at once
Progresses sequentially from easy to difficult material	Learns complex concepts easily; struggles with easy skills
Is an analytical thinker	Is a good synthesizer
Attends well to details	Sees the big picture; may miss details
Follows oral directions well	Reads maps well
Does well at arithmetic	Is better at math reasoning than computation
Learns phonics easily	Learns whole words easily
Can sound out spelling words	Must visualize words to spell them
Can write quickly and neatly	Prefers keyboarding to writing
Is well-organized	Creates unique methods of organization
Can show steps of work easily	Arrives at correct solutions intuitively
Excels at rote memorization	Learns best by seeing relationships
Has good auditory short-term memory	Has good long-term visual memory
May need some repetition to reinforce learning	Learns concepts permanently; is turned off by drill and repetition
Learns well from instruction	Develops own methods of problem solving
Learns in spite of emotional reactions	Is very ***sensitive to teachers’ attitudes***
Is comfortable with one right answer	Generates unusual solutions to problems
Develops fairly evenly	Develops quite asynchronously
Usually maintains high grades	May have very uneven grades
Enjoys algebra and chemistry	Enjoys geometry and physics
Learns languages in class	Masters other languages through immersion
Is academically talented	Is creatively, mechanically, emotionally, or technologically gifted
Is an early bloomer	Is a late bloomer

I just about fell out of my chair reading this.  The description of Auditory-Sequential learners fits Elizabeth to a TEE, and the same applies for the other category to Emilie.

So what does this mean for me?  Well, for starters, I am so glad I discovered this about Emilie now, so early on in our homeschooling.  For phonics instruction, I'm going to focus more on associating pictures with individual phonograms (like drawing a BEE for the phonogram "ee", etc) and for new sight words she is learning.  We'll be making a lot of books with pictures in them.  I'm going to make sure we do more lapbooking for books we read, for history, and for even some science topics as it applies.  And also for history -- we'll be covering the Ancient World/Egypt (mostly via Old Testament studies) from My Father's World.  I'm not big into history documentaries and youtube clips, but seeing as how visual learners learn best this way -- that will definitely have to be on the plans as well.

Elizabeth is a totally different ballgame.  She learns the way I learn, so it's very intuitive for me to pick curriculum for her.  She is the kind of student who does very well with workbooks -- and that is super easy to plan (i.e. there is not much planning necessary for "school in a box" type curriculum - like this one, which a good friend of mine uses and which I might use with her as well).  Just buy the sequential workbooks and go through them!  Easy.  Done.

With Emilie, I feel like the planning is never done, because there is always this lingering question in my mind: "How can I make this topic as creative and engaging to her as possible?"  I am not the most creative person, so it takes a lot of thought and energy to present material in a way that engages her and is fun.  Emilie takes after Jee -- my very creative husband.  She is like him in so many ways, especially this learning style.

When you add in the kinesthetic component to her visual learning (i.e., she needs to be physically engaged - move around, touch things, using her hands to make things, draw, color, create) -- it adds a whole other dimension.  I recently bought Cuisenaire rods to add to her math curriculum and it has been a HUGE hit with her.  C-rods are wooden (or plastic) rods of varying lengths and colors, in increments of 1cm.  So the 1cm cube is white, the 2cm rod is red, etc etc.  All of a sudden she was getting the basic math addition facts:  What color rod + yellow rod (5cm) = orange rod (10cm)?  And she'd instantly reach for another yellow rod.  I was shocked at how quickly number bonds (for example: 9 = 4 + 5) all made sense to her.  As in, 1 week of working with the rods and she can easily figure out her math facts up to 10.  Just like that!  It blew my mind because I am NOT a visual learner, and it took me a lot longer to figure out which color rod corresponded to which number.  LOL.

So all this to say, I've really been enjoying learning how to teach Emilie this year.   There is definitely a learning curve learning how to teach (haha) but it's been good for me.  I am so thankful for this opportunity to homeschool!