As part of your overall homeschool teaching supplies it
is a good idea to have a complete set of
encyclopedias
available for your child.
This can not only include
traditional encyclopedias, but you could also have
available various children's books and magazines.
As you
homeschool your children you will want to make sure that
you assign learning material that requires the use of
the various reference books and materials that you have.
Learning to seek information and look information and
answers up using reference material is a good exercise
for a child.
Not only does the child learn how to take
bits and pieces of information and parlay that into
larger segments and eventually into a full blown report,
but a couple other side benefits occur as well. First,
in order to look up (or research) information, reading
is a must.
So your child will be reading. Also, before
getting to the specific information the child is seeking
they will come across broader categories of information
and probably learn something about subjects they didn't
realize that they would.
Reference material kept neatly organized in a specific
section of your homeschool classroom also creates and
area of learning that your child can rely on to go to
when in need of information that they don't know. If you
don't have any encyclopedias or organized reference
books, then by all means make use of the library. These
exercises will build confidence in your child in that
they know that they can find answers to those topics and
questions for which they have no knowledge.
By the way, reference books are extremely useful for you
as the teacher as well. We often times found ourselves
looking up information on something that one of our kids
ask about or simply looking up information on a subject
we thought would be fun and useful to teach.
Also consider, subscribing to a couple interesting
children's books or magazines that are educationally
oriented and encourage your kids to begin to build and
organize their very own reference library. A set of
encyclopedias in your homeschool library is a great way to add
tools to your child's educational tool belt and give
them a skill they can carry all through adulthood.
