Welcome to LOLIPOP

LOLIPOP began as my master's thesis - an experiment in group learning with twenty homeschool families, including over sixty kids between six and fourteen years old. I coordinated 2-4 projects happening simultaneously, in 6 week sessions. The kids had a lot of fun, and the parents learned a lot about how this energetic and enthusiastic age group can have a successful learning experience. Since this first experiment, I have conducted seminars and webinars based on the LOLIPOP concept, and published For the Love of Learning: Giving Your Child a LOLIPOP Education.
This BLOG is for all those out there, trying to give their children and students the foundation they need to grow into great scholars, thinkers, and leaders. The principles align with the Leadership Education model and foster a love for learning, build individual confidence, and teach learning strategies that apply to a life time of great learning.
Check out more info about the book, seminars, webinars, and more at www.sdlaa.com.


Lolipop Learning, and terms and concepts such as "Love of Play", "Love of Sampling", and "Love of Producing" are the sole property of Amy Edwards. “TJEd", "Leadership Education", “Love of Learning Phase”, “Inspire, not Require” and other similar terms and concepts are taken from the works of Oliver & Rachel DeMille, and are used by permission and under license. For more information, visit http://tjed.org/.



Monday, May 7, 2012

Inspiring Science

Today we had a very inspiring science day, so I thought I would share that with you.

I have several Ask magazines.  These are magazines published by the same company who publish Cricket, Spider, and Lady Bug.  Ask is specifically about Science, and is aimed at 6-9 year olds.  So last night I looked through a few old copies, and found something interesting that I wanted to share with my kids today.  The issue I chose had a story about some hikers who found a body in an melting glacier.  Scientists used carbon-dating and other investigative techniques to determine that this man died about 5,000 years ago.  The ice had preserved his body and several of his belongings, making him a great discovery for archeologists.

I read the story to my children, and then we did our own experiment.  We filled up several plastic cups with water.  Then my kids chose some items to submerge - a strawberry, a twig, a leaf, and a piece of paper.  They used rocks to hold the items under the water.  Then we placed the cups in the freezer.  We will take them out after a week, observe them, let the ice melt and compare them to the same items set aside but not frozen. 

One key here is that I did not approach this as if I had something I wanted THEM to learn.  I approached it as though I had something that I found really cool and interesting and I wanted to SHARE it with them.  We learned together. 

We finished up our morning with a math activity.  We took a bucket of coins to the Coinstar machine and traded them in for paper money.  Before we put them into the machine, we all guessed how much money it was (I won, but I wish that my 6-year-old's guess of $6,000 had been correct).  The machine was great, because it printed on the receipt how many of each coin we had.  We took our paper money home and put it into our family vacation fund (a lesson in life skills and goal setting).

Remember to take advantage of those natural learning moments that occur simply in the course of family life.  And consider investing in some of those magazines to help inspire learning. 

Here is a list of a bunch I like. 
Cricket
Spider
Lady Bug
Baby Bug
Highlights
Highlights Puzzle Mania
Highlight's Math Mania
Ask
Muse
Ranger Rick
Dig

And Superhero comic books are great for inspiring boys to read!
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