Posts Tagged ‘learning at home’
Educating children is a career
When I was in university I majored in English and History. I was often asked, oh are you going to be a teacher? A teacher in a classroom was not the career I had in mind. Passionately, all I wanted to be was a Mom. What I didn’t know then was that I would be a teacher because I became a homeschooling mom.
Homeschooling was our choice because it was what best fit our family. I was very lucky that my husband had a full-time job that enabled me to stay at home. At the onset, I was very excited about schooling my kids. We went on field trips, made projects, got involved in clubs all the while with me taking a hands-on approach and jumping in with both feet. As a parent we nurture our children, encourage them and guide them. A homeschooler just takes the extra step of teaching them academics as well as about life.
Homeschooling is not a part-time job. We found projects, activities and learning opportunities in almost everything we did. Although we tried to maintain a school schedule, to give the kids the benefit of a schedule, we often found teaching/learning opportunites on the weekends and at nights when “school” wasn’t in session. The key was to allow the learning to happen whenever it happened. Obviously this took time and patience because in a lesson the child is encouraged to do the learning and the doing, which could slow down the process of whatever needs to be done. I remember being in the grocery store, slowly travelling down each aisle because my son wanted to read everything!
What I noticed about homeschooling was it never stopped. My husband would come home from his job and enjoy family time, and down time. But as a homeschooler, I was always involving the kids in what I was doing, fraction lessons while baking, science lessons in the bath etc. It was not a 9 to 5 job but it was a full-time career.
Teaching children, whether in a classroom or at home, is a dedicated career. Giving children the attention, the encouragement and the opportunity to learn is one of the most important jobs anyone can have. And, one of the most rewarding!
Anyone with more than one child can compare and contrast their children. They may have similar mannerisms yet opposing interests and sometimes you may wonder how two could have sprung from the same womb! Children are different, they have different interests, different focuses and different learning styles. So too, must the teaching style for them be different.
My first child was pretty easy to homeschool. He was a book kid, loved worksheets and would sit for hours working on a project. My second child is not as keen of a reader, would prefer not to have to write and won’t sit for hours to do anything. These differences are not a variance in intelligence, just in how and what they learn.
With both children, one of the main things I did was teach what interested them. My eldest son studied Medieval history at least five times. Each time had a different focus, an increased measure of learning and new projects to work on. The younger son enjoyed Medieval History as long as he was reading about knights, catapults and the siege of a castle, but really only wanted to study it once. And so, while one child created graphs about the plague, the other crafted medieval weapons from cardboard, tinfoil and duct tape. Since each activity was premised with a discussion or reading about the time period the history lesson was still being taught, just in different styles.
The older child struggled a bit with math, but when lessons involved money, things made sense! And so, many math lessons allowed counting, converting and problem solving with money. The youngest struggled with geography but enjoyed cooking. So, we travelled the world learning about common foods and recipes found in the various countries.
Free yourself from the “typical” school regime, especially with a more active, reluctant student. Create lessons through field trips, music, crafts, athletics and unit studies that fill the needs of each student. This encourages them to learn because they enjoy the subject, and the manner with which it is taught!
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!
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.
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!
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!
Project Fair – an educational amusement park!
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!
When is a speech, not a speech?
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!
What is a unit study?
A unit study is a set of lessons, worksheets and more on a specific topic of interest.
Each topic provides comprehensive, cross0curricular activities to inspire and educate a child in science, social studies, language arts, math, fine arts and more.
They can encompass various learning levels making it useful to teach more than one child at different learning levels. It can work well with different learning styles because it offers a variety of lessons that focus on each learning style – an art lesson for the visual learner, a field trip or science experiment for the kinesthetic learner and a poetry or rhyme section for the audio learner for example. Since each lesson is based on the same topic it can give options on how to study the topic that best suits each child.
Unit studies can be downloadable which saves money, time and the environment since you only print the pages you need. They can provide fun and learning for your child and encompass puzzle sheets to “reward” children for finishing a more challenging exercise.