D is for Using a Digital Camera as a Tool to Teach

 

I'm currently participating in an ABC's for homeschooling challenge.  

Since it falls on Tuesdays, I am adding a technological slant to the challenge.  

I hope you stay tuned and enjoy my entries.

I started out my blog for various reasons.  The most important reason is that I wanted to record life lessons for my children.  I have found, through blogging, that pictures can carry the messages a long way.  Visual cues provide visual learners a way to relate to the information with a much more keen interest in the content.  I, myself, am a visual person so I understand this concept.

Digital cameras can be wonderful teaching tools.

In my blog reading, I have sought out blogs that provide rich images of how mothers organize their own homes.  I am loving this springtime cleaning season.  Many mom bloggers are taking before and after pictures of their decluttering and reorganization of specific rooms.  I love seeing their ideas come to fruition.  The explanations provided entice me to try out some of their ideas, often with my own tweaking.

You might think that I am only referring to myself and my enjoyment of taking photographs.  I have been fortunate enough to have taken some lessons in photography in my junior high and high school years.  They have shaped the way I take photographs.  I don't claim to be an expert.  I just know what I want to convey through my pictures.

Picture-taking is essential for me for several reasons.  Yes, I capture memories.  Yes, I love to record vacations and milestones.  Who doesn't?  I, more importantly, want to teach with my photographs.

Picture of organization of a bedroom, essential to homemaking

For example, to teach homemaking to my children, I am taking before and after pictures of my decluttering efforts in my own home.  I want to show my children about the importance of organization for a home to run efficiently.  It is important that they learn the skill of organization for when they have their own homes.  I am taking the time to jot down notes and adding before and after pictures to my blog entries about organization; I want to provide my children with examples of cleanliness in a home.  It might give them inspiration to reorganize their own bedrooms after seeing what I can do.

Picture of a cooked meal is a wonderful teaching tool.

Another way I use photography to teach my children is in the area of cooking.  I am enjoying blogging and taking pictures of meals (and their ingredients) that my children can make for themselves.  I have blogged about making soups, salads, and tacos.  I have made a point about making meals that are colorful for the eyes, too.  A melody of colors in a meal can lure people into eating your delicious, healthy meals.

Pictures of gardening help teach about science.

Of course, I must mention gardening.  My children should know about plants for science.  Is there a better way to learn about plants than to plant seeds and watch them grow?  I love the fact that out of seeds something big, juicy, and delicious grows out of the earth to eat.  My children have gardened for several years, but with pictures, those memories have been recorded for later viewing.

Well, thanks for reading this entry.  I hope I have provided some advice on how to use a digital camera to teach in your homeschool.  Even if you don't homeschool, all adults and children can use digital cameras to capture memories to teach others on any given subject, including family history, for example.  I hope you will give it a try, if you haven't already.  Photography can provide a different dimension to learning for your children.

 

How about you, my readers?  Do you own a digital camera?  Do you let your children use it?  I encourage you to use a digital camera to create opportunities to provide visual aids in your teaching.  Photography, in itself, can be quite fun, too!

I pray that God gives you all, my beloveds, His wisdom and peace.

This has been an entry for the Technology Tuesdays series.

Planting Cucumber and Cilantro Seeds

I'm sorry to keep you all waiting.  I was hoping to get this blog entry out yesterday.  Unfortunately, time ran out.  We did get to plant some seeds by 11 p.m. last night because I want to eat healthy.  To accomplish planting cucumber and cilantro seeds, we followed various steps which I will recount through pictures. 

We set a few newspapers on the dining table.  This was to keep the table clean.  Newspapers help the cleanup. 

We used the pellets from this package.  These pellets are made of fragile screen sacs full of soil.  If you add water, these pellets expand.  These are the remainder from last year.

The back of the box has easy instructions to follow to use the pellets. 

Here is an individual pellet (above), as I call it.

Here is an empty cup.  It used to hold applesauce.  We used this cup and a few other ones last year.

Here's what the cup probably held--granny smith applesauce.  It's  wonderful to know that you can eat a healthy snack and then use the cup for something else.

Here are a few pellets that went in cups.  Sorry about the background.  I keep those papers from ads that come in the mail.  I reuse them to place raw meat on.  This time, we used a few of those papers to collect any of the mess from planting.

We filled a watering can with water.  Isn't the elephant cute?

We poured water on the pellets.  I added a little bit more water to help some of the pellets expand.

We waited a few minutes.  You can see that all of the pellets became swollen.

Here is a close up of the difference between a swollen and a non-swollen pellet.  Soil was compressed before and then the ones we decided to use became bigger.  I have a few more pellets left for another round of planting in the future.

This packet has big seeds.

These are cucumber seeds.  We placed two seeds in each pellet of soil.

This packet has round seeds.

These are cilantro seeds.

I used two of those white plastic strips to label the seeds.  I cut the strips and labeled the pieces. 

I labeled one as cilantro and six for cucumber seeds.

We placed the labels inside the cups.

Finally, we placed the cups on the windowsill.  I hope the seeds grow into the baby plants of cucumber and cilantro.  I pray they will get enough sun.  They will be close enough for me to water them since they are in the kitchen.  Last year, we used lamps as artificial light to turn seeds into baby plants in our former classroom.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this many-pictured blog entry.  Thanks for your patience in viewing Saturday's late entry.

What about you, my readers?  Are any of you all planting anything this spring?  I hope you will consider doing it at least as an experiment for the children in your life.

I pray God's grants you all His wisdom and peace.

This has been part of Saturday Spreads series.