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!
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails – that’s what little boys are made of. It is true boys and girls are different. The same can be said for how they learn.
While many girls enjoy the audio-visual aspects of learning including reading, writing and storytelling, many boys prefer the kinesthetic, hands-on aspects of learning. Anyone who has been around an active little boy understands the struggle any teacher would have with making that boy sit still for lessons. Keeping them still and focused is a challenge for most of their education.
These boys (and sometimes girls) need to be offered education that keeps them moving, having fun and learning, all rolled into one. This can be accomplished through use of manipulatives, learning games, field trips and experiments. Making it a more enjoyable learning environment will help these boys learn better, and achieve higher results. Creating lessons around topics they enjoy can also add to a beneficial learning experience. Dirt and mud and gross things are often inspiring to little boys and can keep their attention through a lesson. Superheroes are characters of interest to many little boys (and big boys too) and so can be used to inspire creative writing, science experiments and even math problems.
Education with a BANG suggests that when teaching active boys, incorporate a subject they love and develop it into a lesson that will help them learn the basics of education like math, science, history, english and geography. Not only will it ease the stress on the teacher, but it will benefit the child who will then love to learn!
Exclusive Education with a Bang unit studies are available right now at www.homeeducationresourceemporium.com/unit-studies
Look for the unit studies on soldiers, pirates, spies and more and put some BANG into your lessons.
Sneak Peek: History of Fashion Through Textiles
History of Fashion Through Textiles is a 4 module unit study covering cotton, silk, wool and flax. It describes the process from raw material to cloth, including the history of the use of the cloth. Activities within the unit study include math, history, science, art and more making it a cross-curricular unit of study.
Here is a sneak peek:
Module 3: Cotton
Back to School Tips – Start with the Basics
What I really enjoy about homeschooling is being able to provide a huge variety of topics for my kids (and myself) to learn about. We are not limited to the specific recommended courses but instead, we can explore our interests, our wonders and even some off-beat ideas.
Of course, without the basics, none of this exploration is possible. The basics meaning, reading, spelling, writing and math. A strong foundation in these subjects will allow children to explore anything they want.
Recently, I had a chance to explore the ClickN SPELL program from ClickN KIDS. This program is an entertaining online program to help kids with spelling. It features the ability to set up a number of children and various learning levels. Each child can follow up to 100 lessons. Each lesson provides new words to learn through repetition. The spelling lesson will also increase typing skills as the child types in each spelling word. There is amazing encouragement as the child progresses and in each lesson the words get progressively more difficult. Each lesson ends with a practice round which reviews the words learned with a little mini-test. The results are then given in a report that can be viewed on the screen, printed and emailed to the parent. The cartoon cat that helps the child through each lesson adds some fun to spelling drills.
ClickN KIDS also has ClickN READ Phonics program to help a child learn to read. The programs provide some entertainment along with lessons and represents a “video game” idea which is sure to attract children to play!
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 – Downloadable workbooks!
Getting ready for back to school means having lesson plans ready to go. A great asset to you lesson plans is downloadable workbooks.
Ebooks are quick to download, ready when you are, no problems with out of stock or out of print resources. Ebooks are broad ranged or specific so they can be used for review or in a theme study. Downloadable workbooks let you print only the pages you need, as many times as you need them. There are thousands of titles available and even a chance to preview some of the pages before you buy!
All you need is internet access, a computer and a printer and you can have thousands of books, workbooks and theme units at your fingertips!
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!