It all started with History.

It’s that time of year. My annual I’ve-been-thinking-about-it-since-May-now-I-need-to-make-a-decision time. Otherwise known as “How the heck am I going to teach this child________ (you fill in the blank with the subject) when we start school in September?”

Yup. I’m a home school mom. One of the benefits for your children to teaching them at home (not that we spend lots of time at home) is that you can fit the curriculum to their learning styles and needs.

Now, I know that by the time they hit college that they won’t get this little perk. And they may just get some awful Psych 101 prof in their first semester of freshman year that really should have stayed in the research lab with his monkeys instead of attempting to teach humans. But enough about me…

I believe that early on, if I can give my children what they need, how they need it as they learn the basics, I am laying the foundation for life success later. It’s really no different that what non-home schooling parents do. You make choices about their education, too.

So, I’m looking for a 5^th grade world history curriculum. For my very visual, kinesthetic, global, abstract, random, internal processing learner. (Translate = why most public school classrooms wouldn’t work for him.) I begin googling for curriculums that are noted for visual learners, because the last history curriculum I used won’t work for him. Said history books were for my extremely auditory 13 year old, who listened to every history CD we could find, and read every history book in the library until he knew more than college-educated me and so I enrolled him in an expensive online academy where he studied Herodotus, The Aeneid, Sophocles, and the like this year.

What’s great is that people actually write curriculum with teacher’s guides that address ways to teach to all the different learning styles. What I found, quite by accident, was a Meyers-Briggs personality/learning styles/multiple intelligences type test for children 4 and older. I was curious, and pulled him in (and subsequently my two other children) to take the test.

It was eye opening. And home school teacher/parent life changing. This  free survey took about 10 minutes to take with my child, and gave me a report called What Makes Rob Tick – specific homework tactics, how to help him best develop study skills, how he best works with others, tips on enrichment activities and how his friendships will likely develop.

This test and report hit the nail on the head for each of my kids, and it was great to have this simple report at my fingertips (they allow you to email this “snapshot” to anyone). I also like that you can read more about each of the personality types in general. Remember, though, that all children are “F’s” until about 13 or so when they begin to develop abstract thinking, so you’ll see three letters, instead of the usual four you’d expect from a Meyers-Briggs test.

What is this great site? Here’s the link to register and then take the free test with your child.  They offer other paid services, too. Parenting is hard enough. So I’m grateful for anything that helps me understand my children better.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who laughed when she saw in her six year old’s profile her personal motto “Don’t fence me in.” Laughed, and then went, “That explains a lot.”