Home School Worksheets Don’t Work

July 27th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

Want To Educate Your Child? Don’t Rely On Worksheets

Recent research has shown that just giving a child a worksheet and letting them sit there and do it does not grow dendrites in the brain. This brain activity must take place in or for brain development to occur. If you are looking for home school worksheets to keep your child busy, then you are taking the wrong approach.

As a responsible home school parent, I highly advice that your purchase a book called Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites This book will go into detail about what your child needs to learn effectively and efficiently. I’ll give an introduction here and you will quickly see why home school worksheets are a poor way to home school your child.

Basically, sitting there and doing a worksheet is a passive activity that doesn’t engage the child’s brain. They need an active activity that causes the brain to develop dendrites and neural networks. This is what the brain does when it is truly learning.

So what do you do to help a child truly learn? Basically, anything that doesn’t involve sitting in a chair. Now, of course there are times that the student must read textbooks or other materials. This can’t be avoided. But this should be the only time that a child is just sitting and reading.

A great way to help a child learning instead of using a home school worksheet is to have the child do a brainstorming activity on the subject or to engage the child in discussion. Brainstorming can be a parent/child activity. Some chart paper can be used or computer software. I believe it’s better to use chart paper and stand up while doing the activity. Brainstorm anything about the theme the child is learning. There are no restraints or limits.

Discussion is also a great way to education the child instead of home school worksheets. The parent cannot just give the kid a worksheet and run off to watch a soap opera or the Oprah show. This is not what a responsible education does. If your child was in public school, you would be appalled if the teacher just gave the kids worksheets and then sat there and surfed the internet.

Role Playing Instead Of Home School Worksheets

Role playing is a thousand times better than using home school worksheets. This is a great opportunity for the child to learn a topic from several different angles. For example, if the child is learning about the Civil War then they could do two role plays, one where they are from the North and the other where they are from the South. You can swap with the child. This way they are able to exercise the important ability to develop their skills at empathy.

So, if you were just planning to have your child do home school worksheets while you were watching soap operas or doing laundry- then think again. You would be better off sending your child back school. Ditch those home school work sheets and help your child do some real learning.