Archive for the ‘homeschooling’ Category
A Winter Solstice Celebration – book review
DiDi LeMay offers a heartwarming story of a little girl who sets out on a journey to feed the winter animals, and possible see one or two while she walks in the woods. After exploring the forest for a little while she experiences a talking encounter with a squirrel. Although she tries to leave the forest she discovers that she is lost. She stumbles across a meeting of forest animals, some, not so friendly. The little girl finds herself amidst an argument about humans and their disrespect for the environment, the animals and the world around them. Then the girl begins an adventure that proves to the animals that not all humans disrespect nature, and she can help them! While rooting on this little girl on her quest, young readers will learn lessons in helping others, standing up for their beliefs, conquering their fears, and caring for the environment. It is a celebration between animals and humans that should be emulated around the world!
visit http://didilemay.com/ to find out more about this book.
A Lesson to Remember
This came to me in an email this morning and I thought it was worth repeating!
A lesson that should be taught in all schools . . And colleges Back in September, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School , did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks. ‘Ms.. Cothren, where’re our desks?’ She replied, ‘You can’t have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.’ They thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s our grades.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s our behavior.’ She told them, ‘No, it’s not even your behavior.’ And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom. By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren’s classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room. The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, ‘Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.’ At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it. Twenty-seven (27) War Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall… By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.. Martha said, ‘You didn’t earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it’s up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don’t ever forget it.’ By the way, this is a true story.
Thank you Martha for showing us all how to make freedom an important lesson!
Some Sweet Lessons
So Halloween is over and the little trick or treaters have a huge bundle of candy. Believe it or not, this can be a good thing!
Instead of just rotting their teeth and giving them a sugar high, this pile of candy can be used in some sweet lessons.
Sorting – create piles of the candy according to a specific classification, colour of wrapper, type of candy, letter it starts with etc. and create a sorting lesson.
Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying and Dividing – use the candy as manipulatives to help reinforce math skills.
Graphing – create a graph to show how much of each type of candy was given out.
Fractions – use candy that can be sectioned – like chocolate bars, licorice sticks etc. to teach fractions. Divide the candy into parts first a half, then a half again to make a fourth and so on.
Crafts – some candy can be used to make crafts. Use lollipops to make finger puppets, lifesavers to make wheels on various types of vehicles, including trains (see picture) and use smaller candy like nerds to make sand art images. Obviously the candy can’t be eaten after turned into a craft but it is a good idea to finish up the candy once the kids have had their fill!
Weights and measures – how many smarties weighs the same as one chocolate bar? Questions like this can be studied using different sizes of candy.
Mad Libs – create a fun reading lesson by substituting the name of the candy for various words in a story. Or use a Mad Lib sheet and fill in candy words.
Games – play games using candy as counters or playing pieces. Smarties are M&Ms are great bingo counters!
Art – make a collage of candy wrappers – many wrappers have different colours and textures which can make an interesting piece of art! You can even use candy wrappers to make jewelry!
Take an online tour of the candy wrapper museum – discuss some favourite candy from your childhood and create a candy wrapper of the future!
Enjoy these sweet lessons!
Explorers made great discoveries – So can you!
Christopher Columbus took a risk and found the “New World”. Magellan took a risk and did not fall off the end of the Earth but went all the way around it. These explorers dreamed up an idea, followed it through and became great explorers.
Homeschoolers can be explorers too. Although there are the basic subjects to build a foundation like English and Math, home educators can explore other subjects of interest and curiosity and add them to their lesson plans. School curriculum does not cover espionage but homeschoolers can. Explore the world of spies learning geography, history, science and more. What about herbology? The study of plants used as medicine is another interesting yet not required course to study.
It is important to explore many subjects and interests in order for your child to make an informed decision on what they may want to pursue as a career. It is also more interesting for the child to discover topics that they are curious about.
Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance.
– Milton R. Saperstein
Explore the world, one subject at a time and increase the education of your child while also satisfying their curiosity!
A Lesson in Falling Leaves
The changing seasons provide a great learning lesson opportunity.
What makes the seasons change? The answer to this question will start a great topic of study. You could also include what happens to various aspects of nature when seasons change – like the leaves on trees change and fall to the ground putting the tree into a hibernation of sorts. Walk through the woods and try to identify trees by their bark, once their leaves are gone it is a lot harder to know what tree it is.
Fall can also create other learning opportunities besides the obvious nature studies. Leaves fall off trees can inspire a lesson on Gravity. Leaves change colour can produce an art lesson on colour mixing. Animals gathering food for winter storage can lead to a variety of lessons on animal behaviour, which animals hibernate, what animals eat and more. Even the changing temperature can allow for math lessons and a graphing exercise.
The leaves on the ground can also be great use for lessons. They can be used in crafts to make various tree fairies. They can be used for rubbings or shapes and they can be put into a tree journal to help remember what leaves match each tree.
Autumn is a great time of year, with lots of inspiring lessons to fall into!
Back to School Tips – Learning Styles!
As you get ready to start a new year of lessons make sure you are aware of all your children’s learning styles. There are three main learning styles Auditory (hearing), Visual (seeing) and Kinetic (doing). A child can be strong in one particular style or a combination of two styles.
It is important to understand a child’s learning style so that you can find the best way to teach to them. Of course it is important to develop all the learning styles in a child but especially necessary to teach to their learning style on a subject that they struggle with.
Be creative with your lesson plans so that each learning style is practiced. This is especially helpful when teaching more than one child the same topic. Use manipulatives in math, science and spelling class (for kinetic learners), Read stories out loud or use music to accompany lessons (for audio learners) and use pictures and colour codes to help the visual learner.
If you want to find out your child’s learning style, download this free questionnaire.
Back to School Tips – Organize your school area
Even as homeschoolers it is important to have a specific area for school lessons. A place where the students know that school work is done here – each student should have a separate work space/desk and a shelf for their books. As we start to plan for back to school, here are some ideas on getting this school space ready.
First look around the space and determine what is available that will be used for this year’s school year. Then make a list of what is still needed (perhaps a chair from another room or some school supplies from the store). Take away anything in the area that is not school related, especially anything that might be distracting (toys for example). Organize the school items so that frequently used items are easily on hand and items which are used less often are neatly stored away (on a shelf or in a drawer). Have new workbooks or binders, texts and lesson books ready on an easy to access shelf.
Now, organize your desk/work area using the same steps. Get out your lesson plan organizer and start to plan ahead!
Oil Spill – an environmental lesson plan
Everyone has heard about the BP oil spill that resulted from an oil rig explosion in April. Although the flow of oil has now been capped, the repercussions have only just begun.
Nature and the environment are a great Science lesson. The oil spill can add to this lesson by showing the damage that occurs when the delicate balance is destroyed. Incorporate geography so kids can see where the spill occurred, and track the waterways that may show evidence of the oil spill. Create science experiments that show how oil and water react together and try to figure out ways to clean the oil from the water. Create a project about sea life and what kinds of animals are affected by the oil spill, directly and indirectly. Even an economic lesson plan could be created to identify the loss to the local fisherman and other water based businesses.
It is easy to lay the blame on the company and its slow reaction to the problem, but discuss with the students what they might have done. How long would their ‘fix’ take to implement, would it work? Obviously the oil spill is a disaster but more time should be spent on solving the problem and preventing it from happening again then on what could have been done better.
Current events can make great lesson plans and keep students up to date in the world.
Sneak Peak: Pirates Unit Study
Blackbeard – a reading comprehension activity
One of the most famous pirates to ever sail the seas was Edward Teach who is better known for his nickname, Blackbeard.
Teach began his pirate career as a teenager on board a ship captained by Benjamin Hornigold, a British privateer. Teach remained part of Hornigold’s crew throughout the War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War). By the end of the war Teach had become an experienced sea robber. After the war he joined a group of fierce Caribbean pirates. Soon, he became captain of his own ship.
Teach, who then became known as Blackbeard gained a reputation as the most frightening pirate. His appearance was also fearsome. He was over six feet tall and always well armed. Across his chest he wore a sling that held three pairs of pistols. A cutlass and a few knives completed his attire. His long black beard was braided and often, before a fight, he would put smoking fuses in his hat to make him look menacing. Even his own crew thought him to be the devil himself.
Blackbeard’s ship was a French frigate called Concorde. When it was captured it held twenty-six guns (cannons). Blackbeard upgraded the ship to forty guns and renamed it “Queen Anne’s Revenge.” Blackbeard and his crew terrorized sailors in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea from 1716 to 1718.
He would pull aside a merchant ship and raise his flag demanding surrender. Blackbeard’s flag was not the traditional skull and crossbones. His flag contained a skeleton with horns and hooves which symbolized that he was in league with the devil. The skeleton held an hour glass in one hand and a spear in the other. The spear was aimed at a red heart which dripped blood. These were to symbolize that time had run out and surrender or blood would be spilled. The sight of Blackbeard’s flag added to his fearsome reputation usually led to immediate surrender. In fact, there is not record of Blackbeard ever killing anyone.
In 1718, Blackbeard established a base in the British colonies at what is now North Carolina. From this base he pirated ships along the North American coast. He would steal their goods and sell them to the local townspeople. After Blackbeard decided to settle down, the governor granted him a pardon in June of 1718. But when Blackbeard began pirating again Lt. Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy was sent to stop Blackbeard once and for all. On November 22, 1718, Blackbeard and Maynard fought in hand-to-hand combard on board Maynard’s ship The Adventure. Blackbeard suffered twenty sword wounds and five gun shot wounds until he was finally killed by a slash to the throat.
Maynard hung Blackbeard’s severed head from the bow of his ship as a warning to other pirates. It was the end of Blackbeard’s reign of terror.
For the complete unit study go to www.homeeducationresourceemporium.com/unit-studies
Helping your child succeed!
There are many definitions for success. My focus, is to have the child do well, enjoy the challenge and want to keep learning and improving -to me, that is homeschooling success.
Helping your child achieve this success can be a combination of words, thoughts and motivations. Encouraging words can go a long way to help anyone succeed. Point out improvements, creativity and proper behaviour. Keep your comments and words positive rather than negative. If you are marking a test or projects, use only checkmarks – if things are wrong they can be discussed afterward but without writing X’s on the page. Discussion about the tests, the project or any other work or behaviour can lead to positive reinforcement and an understanding of what would have been a better answer or action.
It is important to think before addressing a child’s behaviour or poor work. Think about what influences may have led to the problem, what behaviours they may be copying or what challenges they have faced recently that may be affecting them. We can recognize that everyone has bad days, bad moments and bad judgements. A child that is learning must also be taught appropriate behaviours, reactions etc in order for them to interact appropriately.
Understanding a child’s learning style is also an important step to their success. Recognizing how they learn best and then helping them learn using that style will not only help them learn but give them confidence to continue to do well. Understanding that children learn differently and at different paces will help you provide proper encouragement and lessons for each child. Motivating them to work hard, challenging them to stretch their abilities and encouraging them to keep trying are all great influences to provide them.
Of course, the world is not as encouraging as we are and at times children will run into negative people and influences. It is important to teach them how to deal with these challenges as well. Face negativity with confidence so that it doesn’t have a devastating affect. Remove yourself from situations that are degrading and negatively charged. And discuss any issues or problems they have faced that has troubled them.
Positive thoughts, words and motivations are the key steps to homeschooling success!