FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9
Happy Friday, Eddies!
OpenEd mom Krisy Shaughnessy calls herself an “accidental homeschooler.” Her first months of homeschooling had less to do with curriculum and more to do with drywall.
Some backstory: In 2020 her family bought a fixer-upper just as schools shut down. So Krisy put the kids to work – measuring walls, calculating square footage, and counting tiles. There was plenty of math involved, yet none of her kids noticed. Neither did Krisy, who also didn’t realize that she was homeschooling.
Now, 6 years into her open education journey, the remodel is complete, but Krisy still sneaks learning into everyday activites.
When her kids were younger, they often played Prodigy (a math game) with their cousins over FaceTime, and never once thought of it as math practice.
“It’s kind of like when you put vegetables in food,” Krisy says. “There’s some veggies you can blend up that’s totally unnoticeable.”
But my favorite trick from Krisy’s “Day in the Life” involves sticky notes, and costs less than $2.
Kids ask “why?” a million times a day (often at the least convenient moment). So Krisy covered an old whiteboard in peel-and-stick wallpaper, and put every question on a sticky note.
After their morning meeting, the kids pull one off the wall and document their research in a notebook.
Recent entries include:
Do sharks have teeth?
Do slugs have guts?
How does a light bulb work?
She calls it the “Wonder Wall,” and you can start it today.
The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for a want of wonder.
Enjoy the weekend!
– Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)
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