Archive for the ‘homeschooling’ Category
Game night – bring it into your school day!
There is much talk about family game night, a chance to spend quality time with the family. But board games shouldn’t be restricted to game night, they can be part of your school lesson plans!
Most board games offer learning through counting, matching and cooperation. There are also board games made specifically for their educational value, like phonics bingo or money matching games. Classic games like Monopoly and Scrabble have obvious educational value but games like Operation or Jenga can be great to develop hand/eye coordination and patience skills. The key to having board games enhance learning is to play them and have the child do the work. Have them count the spots on the die, then move the appropriate space. Have them find the colour that matches their own or count out the money owed. As they get older give them more opportunity to learn by letting them be the banker, or having them help a younger sibling spell words. Board games allow children to learn by doing, and by talking and by seeing – perfect to fit all learning styles. As an added bonus, playing a game can help active learners learn to sit still for a specific amount of time.
Make board games part of your lessons and see how much fun your children have learning!
Projects are a great way for kids to learn. They involve research, investigations, writing, drawing, experiments and more.
Combine as many subjects as possible to a project for a cross-curricular lesson. For example, a clay rendition of a frog’s life cycle (art/science), a field trip report on a visit to a pond (geography), a graph as to how many frogs were counted at the pond (math), a book report on a story about frogs (english) and so on.
Make the project ready for display and have a little project fair so your student can share their work with others (can be with family, friends or join in with other homeschoolers.) You can make certificates to award for certain topics – scariest topic, biggest project etc. Presenting their project in a fair style encourages them to express what they have learned as well as giving them an opportunity to speak in front of others. It will give them a feeling of pride for their accomplishment as well as allow others to offer encouragement and appreciation for the work.
A project lesson can take several weeks – time spent learning and having fun!
Mneumonics are memory aids. They can be rhymes, acrostics, acronyms and other devices to help remember key facts. They are especially helpful to auditory learners.
Remember the rhyme about Christopher Columbus we learned in school? In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I will always remember the year he discovered America thanks to this rhyme.
What if you needed to know the line up of planets from the Sun? Create a sentence using the first letter of each planet to start a word in the sentence. For example: My Very Excited Mom Just Started Using New Pillows. The first letter of each word in the sentence represents the planets and all the words in the sentence show us the order of the planets. This is a good technique to help remember the order of many different things.
Acronym is an abbreviation of several words in such a way that the abbreviation itself forms a pronounceable word. For example SCUBA stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. This is another way you can use to help remember important things – such as the Great Lakes – use the acronym HOMES to identify Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior.
Mneumonics are fun to use to show differences in similar words. Stalactites and Stalagmites are similar words, both representing formations of rock within a cave. StalaGmites has a G in it so it represents the one that grows from the Ground and StalacTites grow from the Top.
Encourage children to make up their own rhymes, acrostics, acronyms or other memory aids – they will remember them better that way.
When it is a magic act!
Preparing a child to speak in front of an audience can be difficult, especially if the child is shy. Hiding a speech into a different type of performance can be helpful.
A study about magic can include information about Houdini, various science experiments as well as a few magic tricks with cards or coins. After the lessons you can have your child perform a magic act for a small audience of family or friends. Their interaction with the audience, their presentation of the magic tricks and the memorization of each trick are all the same tools they would need to do a speech. By making it a less formal and fun experience the child will be less afraid. When the performance has been done once, any further performances will be even easier, and soon, even a speech won’t seem that scary!
Mixing fun with education is a great way to increase learning!
There are no rules, that is the beauty of homeschooling. Working one-on-one with your child will allow you to determine the best way for them to learn, and then you can teach it appropriately.
If your child does not like to read, offer stories in comic book form, you can get classics, Shakespeare, even the history of the world in this form. Comics break up the words with pictures making reading easier for reluctant readers.
If your child likes hockey bring that into your lesson plan. A unit study on a specific subject that the child likes not only covers the curriculum but also inspires them to learn because they are learning about something they are interested in.
If your child is an auditory learner, work in some audio books, computer games and music to the lessons so that they have the best chance to learn. Likewise, visual learners and kinesthetic learners can be taught to their learning style.
If your child is struggling with a concept, or is not liking a particular subject, tweak it so that the lessons will be more interesting, or easier for them to understand.
With homeschoooling you can take the time to determine how best to teach lessons to your child. You can cater to their interests, their likes and their dislikes. You can make education fun and important to them – that should be the only rule!
by Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Great words to keep in mind for homeschoolers, teachers, parents and anyone who has children in their life!
As the spring season meets us there a many chances for lessons in nature, science, health and more all you need to do is take a walk in the park (or neighbourhood, woods etc.)
The coming of spring brings a change in weather (Science), brings birds back to start their families (nature), creates new blossoms from the barren ground and trees (ecology) and brings sights, sounds and smells to inspire poetry (English).
When you take a walk in the spring, take your time. Look for new signs of life, listen for birds to identify and feel the warm winds on your face. Plan a garden, do a nature craft or learn about the power of the sun.
Get outdoors in the spring because you will find a lesson everywhere around you!
Homeschool lessons are full of facts, figures and information. Obviously, your students will not retain everything they learn. But the main lesson for them to get is how to find the answer.
Knowing how to find the answer is as good as knowing the answer. Not only does it teach children how to become independent learners but it also allows them to know the answer to any question they come by. When a child asks a question, certainly it is easy to offer them the answer. But it is a better learning lesson if you show them how they can find that out for themselves. Encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauruses can be used to find information, understand spelling or understand the meaning of a word. The internet is a great tool for search and find. Also, how to use the library is an important lesson on independent learning. At first, teaching them how to find the answers themselves will be a time-consuming lesson but eventually, much of their studies can be done on their own.
It is also encouraging for a child who is struggling with math or finds it hard to remember all the dates in history, that should they come across the need to know this information, there are ways to find it out.
Ever have one of those days when you are not sure what to teach? You are tired or not feeling well, have nothing prepared? Well why not have a Garbage Craft Day.
For this activity you need glue, tape, crayons and a recycling bin full of plastics, boxboard and paper. (avoid any dangerous items like metal cans). Make a pile of these recyclables in the middle of the room and give the kids a theme like – space ships or insects – then let them at it. Kids will spend hours sifting, creating and having fun building a garbage day creation. They will be learning engineering concepts as well as stretching their creativity. You can also follow up with lesson on recycling.
Smaller kids would love to use a cardboard box and turn it into a car, or rocket by adding wheels (pie plates, margarine tub lids etc), antenna, steering wheels and more!!
It is great to allow students to have self-directed activities, and very helpful on days when you need something to fill-in to your lesson!
The environment and the issues surrounding it is a common topic today. It is important to teach children about the environment, about the threats to it and about how they can help.
Simply reducing, reusing and recycling can be the first steps to helping the environment. Lead by example: recycle used paper (make sure you use both sides), seperate your trash into recyclable, compostable and reusable (great sorting lesson for kids). Donate out-grown clothing to a thrift store or charity, pay attention to packaging when buying products. Getting your children involved in the choices and the actions will help them learn how important it is to do.
Use downloadable resources so you only need to print the pages you need. Use household items meant for the recycling bin for crafts and science experiments. Melt down old crayons to make new ones, use a blackboard to write notes rather than paper. Adopt some wildlife as a gift for someone or as part of your school lesson plan. We adopted a sea turtle, then learned all about it and tracked his movements in the ocean!
Just the effort of thinking about it, and making good choices can make a world of difference.
To help pass the lesson on read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, underneath all the rhyme and silliness there is a strong message!