The Kitchen Table Classroom

Reneé B. Meloche is an instructional consultant with the Halton Board
of Education.

Based on the premise that the best person to help a child learn is his
or her parent, the notion of the “kitchen table” forms the framework
of this helpful home-schooling guide. “Setting the Table,”
“Stirring in the Subject Areas,” and “Simmering It All Together”
are chapter titles designed to keep the focus on having fun with
learning. Although this book contains many suggestions for interesting
hands-on activities (such as making a geographical map and growing
crystals) as well as for subject-specific learning strategies (such as
finger multiplication), it lacks a scope and sequence that makes a
curriculum truly developmentally appropriate. Therefore, The Kitchen
Table Classroom would be most useful as a supplementary resource for
home-schooling parents, and as a valuable source of ideas for
remediation or enrichment.