Educating Your Children in a Long Term Collapse

We think about food, we think about defense, and we think about raising a healthy family after a collapse. What few people have given thought to is the education of their children. Even if you do not currently have children (you are a young couple, perhaps) you want to give this some thought. I am an educator by trade and have taught in nearly every kind of public school in my 17 years as a teacher. I currently teach a 3rd grade class in a very impoverished part of the state of Mississippi so I know a little about the subject.

Tools to invest in:

A hand-held chalk board

Plenty of Chalk

Children’s Books

Since the birth of my granddaughter Aurora a year ago, I have been thinking about how I would go about helping to educate her in a post collapse world. First off, reading is the most important educational skill that you can teach a child followed closely by mathematics. If you can only educate your child in two areas then these should be the two. With reading and a library, they can access any knowledge that they fancy. Not only that but they can also keep themselves entertained with story books in those down times.

How do you teach a child to read? Seems daunting, doesn’t it? It’s really not that big of a deal when you realize that you have all the time in the world to do this. With some children they will catch on easily, with others you will have to entice and cajole them to read. The first thing you should do is READ TO YOUR CHILD when they are very young. Continue this practice until they are reading themselves and then I still endorse reading together. I don’t care if you hate reading with a passion (which I doubt) you need to instill in your child that everyone reads. Read them stories that you loved as a child. Get a big book of fairy tales, Mother Goose Rhymes, and other children books you loved. Also important, give them access to these books even if they are just looking at the pictures. Make books become something that they love, cherish, and protect.

To teach a child to read you have to teach the child the alphabet first, of course, since those 26 letters will form the basis of all the reading and writing they will do. After the child learns the alphabet you can begin teaching them the sounds these letters commonly make. Although they will be learning sight words, which are words that they should be able to recognize and decode automatically after a while (the, a, an, and, cat, dog…) – you are providing them with the tools to decode more difficult words they come across in their own reading (Daddy, what’s “environment” mean?).

As they are learning the alphabet you can teach them the basics of writing. As they say the letters have them copy them down. You can draw the letter for them on your chalk board and they can copy them. Simple repetitive practice will make them become better and better at this the same way you did. As they master this you can have them write simple words they’ve found in the books they read. From here you can have them write simple sentences (See Jack run. Run, Jack, run.).

Original post and additional educational series can be found at PamelaFarms.com

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