We Build Better Humans, Issue #11: META-AWARENESS
This issue features: 1. Blueprints to get meta with mental models || 2. Tools of the Trade: October class resources || 3. The science of the seasons
Taking a fresh perspective can shift so much. If you follow @_shortform on Instagram like I do*, you can see some amazing quick bites of their delicious brain food—like this post on 5 Books to Help You Learn Faster:
(*If you don’t follow them, fear not: That’s why you’ve subscribed to this resource warehouse!) :)
The Shortform website is a resource warehouse in its own right. Just imagine your local library, your favorite SEL warehouse & Blinkist all had a baby. I don’t even know how that works, but the offspring is definitely Shortform!
It’s got the Cliff’s Notes of the hottest learning tools, including a whole article series on the book series The Great Mental Models (now featuring volume 2). Considering that these books teach hacks for learning in pattern form, the whole thing is really very meta when you think about it. <3
If you’re an educator or a homeschooler, you may already be familiar with yet another resource warehouse (one of my faves, in fact), Twinkl. It has handouts, PowerPoint lessons, coloring pages & busy books—plus everything in between. It truly is an easy-to-print, immediately-downloadable stock resource for teaching your children, sometimes in ways that let them forget they are learning.
As a subscriber & member, I’m sharing my monthly free resource with you: A PowerPoint lesson (with companion handouts) on Indigenous People’s Day. No, it isn’t too late to teach both historic facts & social-emotional lessons from this national October holiday.
Scroll the site for even more seasonally-related resources, like Fire Safety Month, Day of the Dead, & Halloween.
Montessori Laboratory is my go-to science lesson warehouse. Not only does it share multiple lessons on a variety of subjects—with videos, experiments & hands-on lesson guides—but it envelopes every lesson with Montessori’s “cosmic curriculum.” (Yep, you should definitely Google that term if it’s new to you.) This time of year is a great one for learning about the tilt of Earth’s axis & its relationship to our changing seasons.
We update our podcast here as often as possible. You can also stream it live every Thursday at 11am U.S. Central Time from Valparaiso-based community radio station WVLP. Just go to the website & click the “listen” button. I’m sure you’ll love our upcoming show with local-area franchise owners, Joe & Lisa Kosina, who teach both sides of the developing brain via painting (with Little Rembrandts) & Lego-like STEAM (with NWI Bricks 4 Kidz). Listen & learn!