Homeschooling in the New Year

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math

I’d read it in almost every book and website and advice column there was about homeschooling.

Make your own schedule.  Take off the whole month of December if you need to, but don’t, trust us, do not take off a whole month of math.

So, I took off a month of school.  I had Math Fact Cafe email me a page of practice problems everyday.  But somewhere in the hustle and bustle of holidays, I quit printing out those practice pages.  This was a break after all, why was I making her do math over the break?

I forgot all that wisdom I’d heard from every resource until we resumed our studies.  Reading?  Great!  Spelling?  Great!  History?  Took a few minutes to review then we were right back on track.

Then came Math.  I set her up with 18 counters, a ten-form chart, and the simple problem of 18-6.  She quickly remembered that the chart represented that 18 was 10 and 8. 

“So,” I prompted her, “all we have to do is find 8-6.  What’s 8-6?” 

She stared at the page. . .and stared. . .and stared. . .  “10!”

“No. . .”

“7?”

“Hmm, if only there were eight counters and we could take six of them away,” I hinted.

She stared some more.  She did not remove any counters.

“15?”

Oh dear.

I decided to come back to this later.  We’re obviously going to need to re-teach the whole unit.  Let’s just move on to the next unit for now. 

Shapes!

She laughed, “Ha, it looks like they’re trying to teach people shapes.”

I’m so glad I get to be a part of this.

Time for Lessons

Tags

homeschool schedules, school in the car

It’s been a while since I’ve written about homeschooling.  Probably because we’ve taken off for the whole month of December.  There are just too many things for a mama to think about to organize lessons right now. 

One often misunderstood aspect of homeschooling is this.  We may miss a day or two, here and there but it’s not like missing a day of school.  What I mean is, if you don’t send your child to school because you’ve got something you want to do during the day, your child misses a day of lessons.  When a homeschooling family takes a day off, we pick up where we left off.  Then we finish out the year a day or so later.  Often, we even make up missed days by having lessons on the weekends.

And, when you hear a homeschooling mom say, “We are so behind in school right now,” it usually doesn’t mean her third grader is doing second grade material.  It means, “I’ve set some pretty lofty goals for my children this year and planned our schedule to fit it all in thirty-six weeks.  We’re twelve weeks into school and we’re still doing Week 10’s projects and reading assignments.”  

I would love to hear comments from other moms out there who know this to be true.  And most classroom teachers would probably agree that there are things they planned to do that may get hedged out when other things take priority.  Sometimes it takes longer to do the necessary things than you had planned and you have less time to spend on the less-necessary things.

On one especially hectic day, we had somewhere to be that required us to cut short our school-time.  While we were home, we did reading lessons together, but before we left the house, I gathered some stuff for the road.

I printed some math problems from Math Fact Cafe.  They also have mazes.  Mazes are good problem-solving skill-builders and a lot of fun.  So I printed several of those as well.  I copied our handwriting excercise and tore out a few pages from her bonus workbook. 

(The bonus workbook is one of those all-in-one grade level books from the regular bookstore.  It’s not a part of out daily curriculum, but it’s a good review and time-filler.)

I clipped all those things onto a clipboard, in order of priority, and had my daughter get her bag of pencils and crayons. 

She jumped in the car, buckled-up and began working on them before her little sister and I even got ourselves together and out the door. 

Ten minutes down the road, she was done.  It would have taken her twice as long, if not more, to do that at home.  I think the novelty of working in a different environment is stimulating.

It turned boring handwriting and math drills into an exciting activity for the car.  I think it was fun to have a clipboard too.  I remember being a kid and feeling so grown-up when I used one.

And perhaps, children, as many adults do, find it easier to complete a task when the end is within sight.  Knowing exactly how many pages she had to do, she could work through them and be done.  It would be irritating to sit down to a task and not know what Mom was going to throw at you next. 

Which reminds me, I need to get our lessons and routine in order for next semester.  Routine makes the world go ’round for this homeschooling family.

Math Drills

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math drills, math facts, math worksheets

As always, I must begin my homeschool post by saying this:

Not all homeschooling methods and curriculums are the same.  The awesome thing about homeschool is choosing what works for you and your family.  I do not presume to tell other people what works for their kids.

I say all that because, as a homeschooling mom, I know there’s a lot of stress and self-doubt.  “Am I doing enough?  They’re doing that??  Maybe we should be doing that!!”  I wax and wane between that stressful place and the happier place of “Hey, we’re getting the hang of this homeschoolin’ thing.  What works for us is good enough.” 

IF (notice the big if), IF your family needs math drill sheets, I have an excellent resource for you.

www.mathfactcafe.com

I love the Math Fact Cafe.  There are pre-designed math drill pages or you can make your own.  It is a bit trixy in the beginning, but once you figure out how the form works, (you must type “1 to 20” not “1-20” for example) it’s a cinch.

You can even create a form and have them email you a worksheet each day.  My curriculum suggested that my daughter memorize her addition and subtraction facts through ten before moving on to the next phase dealing with tens and ones.  (If yours is different, that’s okay!!!) 

I didn’t want to spend lots of time drilling, using flash cards or the same ol’ worksheets.  Basically, I didn’t want her to “memorize” them but to use them so often it was automatic, almost instinctive.  You do something so many times that you don’t even have to think about it.  That’s more than memorizing in my opinion.

I have memorized poetry, but I can’t recite “Ozymandias” or Marc Antony’s speech anymore, but there are commercial slogans I could probably recite (“seeing green is saving green!”, “At Standard Insurance, we take better care of you.”)  without having ever set out to commit that to memory.

I dare you to look at this and not think of the answer.

2 + 3

You’re thinking it.  I know you are!  Don’t think it. . .

That’s what I wanted my first grader to absorb, so I made a little form, a daily worksheet, for her to do each morning.  Nothing too long that it becomes tedious.  Hopefully easy enough that she won’t have to go counting fingers. 

Of course, one of the easiest ways to drill math facts, or any facts for that matter, is a pop quiz at the stop light. 

We’ve played this sort of car games as long as I can remember.

“What do you get when you mix blue and yellow?”

“What does a cow say?”

“What shape is that sign?”

“What’s one more than seventeen?”

“What rhymes with ‘cat’?”

This can go on throughout your homeschooling experience.

Someday, “What’s Avogadro’s number?”

“What’s the square root of 289?”

“What is needed in the process of mitochondrial respiration.”

“If a ball is thrown off a 25 foot cliff at 35 miles per hour, how far away will it touch the ground?” 

Okay, maybe not.

Although. . .

knowing me. . .

it could happen.

Gotta buff up for Trivial Pursuit. 

My poor children.

I Lead a Trivial Life

Yes, I lead a trivial life.  Want proof?

The Man of the House and I decided to play a board game last weekend.  I opened our game closet and saw this:

 

A stack of four Trivial Pursuit games.  Further investigation revealed one more hiding among the other, rarely played games.

Yes, indeed.  A trivial life.  But I’m okay with it.  I’m a trivia nerd and I own it. I find myself locking away useless information for no other reason than:

I want to know all the answers.

I want to know who, what, where, when.

And also WHY.  WHY is the biggest question of all.

If you’ve never ventured into the arena of Trivial Pursuit, here’s how it works.

Each player/team gets a “pie” as the game piece.  You begin in the center and move around the board answering questions that match the color/category of the space you are standing on.

See that orange space? I want to get there to play for a piece of the pie.  Some people correctly call it a “wedge”, but we just say pie.

You need to get all your pie pieces to win.

When your opponent lands on a space, you read him a question.

It would be rude of me to show you the questions and not the answers. Here they are:

And if he gets it right, he wins a pie.

Grrrrr.

This is what you don’t want to happen:

This is what you really don’t want to happen:

Yes, the Man of the House kicked boot-ay this time.   But it’s only because I had questions like the orange one on this card:

A monkey and a lioness?  Seriously?  If you come up with the answer to this, I’m giving you a prize.  (It may be only a fictitious honor, but a prize nonetheless.)

I’ll tell you the answer in a day or two.

Each different version of Trivial Pursuit has different categories and minor differences in questions or gameplay.

A Genus edition (not Genius) covers general knowledge from the dawn of time through publication date.  It can get confusing though, when statistics change.  It may be necessary to consult the box or instructions to find the copyright.  “Was this before Bill Clinton?”  “Are we talking like Madonna or Britney Spears?”

Above is the one we play when it’s just the two of us.  The Best of Genus.  The most recent.

This one is hard.  All the questions are from the last 20 years (Actually, I believe it’s 1983-2003).  You’d think, “Oh, I’d  remember that!” but no.  It’s ridiculous how specific the questions are when they have to write a thousand questions from only twenty years.

The best one for parties is the 25th anniversary edition (top of stack in first photo).   It’s got hard-medium-easy questions, and it’s rather cool how it works.  There’s more opportunity for non-trivial-pursuit people to advance. 

I remember lots of laughs and competitive spirit when my parents and friends and family playing Trivial Pursuit in guys vs. girls games on New Year’s Eve. 

I really believe in playing games with your family.  Even if Trivial Pursuit ain’t your thang, pull out a game or two this holiday.  Make a memory.

 

 

Oh, and that Star Wars Edition?  That’s all him.  I tried it once, and it was a futile endeavor.  “Resistance is futile.”  No, wait, that’s Star Trek.  Nevermind.

 

 

 

Happy Friday! Work and Play

Tags

First Language Lessons, poem about work, Well-Trained Mind

Wow.  I can’t believe it’s Friday already.  Some weeks just seem to fly by.

I made a new recipe the other night.  Halfway through cooking it I realized I should have been taking pictures to share.  Ooops.  I’ll get to it again in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure.  And it will be better for having been through a trial and error phase.  What is it?  Honey and Pecan crusted chicken. 

Oh.  It makes me hungry just saying honey and pecan together.   Yum ditty yum yum. 

 

 

Little Lady uses First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind for, well, language lessons.  Mostly we’ve been studying nouns, but it also includes memory work.  What with that, Bible memory verses, and her acting class play, she does a lot of memory work. 

I bring it up to share with you this little poem. 

Work
Anonymous

Work while you work.
Play while you play.
This is the way
To be happy each day.

All that you do
Do with your might.
Things done by halves
Are never done right.

This has become our new family motto. Okay, maybe not a motto, but it sure helps when the house is an overwhelming mess, it’s nearly school time, but not quite, the girls are playing, I certainly don’t have time to do everything.  And then I remember the episode of Jeopardy I recorded earlier. . .

When I catch myself wanting to relax during the day, my work day, I tell myself, “Work while you work.”

I don’t need much reminding in the way of the “play while you play” area. Though, I’ve heard, some people do.

And how many times do you think I’ve asked Little Lady to repeat “Things done by halves are never done right”?  It comes in very handy. Instead of whining and complaining and scolding when she throws her stuff in the general direction of the closet rather than putting them where they go, I just remind her, “Things done by halves. . .”

It’s quite useful this one. It must be a universal truth. I think I’m going to look for scripture to back it up.

So today, work while you work. This evening, play while you play.

It’s the way to be happy each day.

Be Blessed,
Lady

Leaf, Leaf, Leaf. . .

Tags

easy crafts with kids, fall crafts, paper tearing

Those who know me would probably consider me a crafty person.  I scrapbook.  I have hand-made memo boards.  My girls wear homemade hair-bows.  Heck, I even hang up hand beaded stockings at Christmas time.

But, surprisingly, I almost never to crafts with my children.  You know, the kind of crafts mommies are supposed to do with their children, some cute little holiday decoration.  Handmade wrapping paper, Christmas ornaments, pipe-cleaner spiders at Halloween, pine cone turkeys for Thanksgiving. . .the list goes on and on. 

If you are one of those mommies and you need new ideas, Family Fun magazine is full of them.  Don’t know what I’m talking about?  Check it out.

Something about November gets me in the mood for crafting though.  Busy as this time of year is, I always seem to pull out the construction paper in shades of red, orange, yellow, brown, and purple.

Today, I drew some quick leaf shapes and cut them out for the girls.  Then, we began to tear.

And tear.

And tear.  Until we had a pile that looked something like this.

Next, we employed the glue stick.  Nothing beats a glue stick for kids crafts.  Liquid craft supplies like white school glue and paint make me want to run for cover.

If only I could figure out how to convince her that it’s not lipstick.

I did most of the tearing.  The girls were anxious to start gluing and their pieces were huge.   

Once the leaf is sufficiently smothered in glue, it’s time for the confetti sprinkle.

Then we laid them on the window sill to dry.  Why the window sill?  It was convenient and had plenty of available real estate.

This makes me happy.

After the first seventeen or so, we decided to streamline our production. 

Spread glue, dip into confetti pile.

What will we do with the fruits of our creativity?  Well, I’m not sure yet.  Perhaps we will string them all together to create a festive banner.

Maybe we’ll write what we’re thankful for on the backs.  Or maybe we will share them with our family at the holiday feast.

Or maybe all three.

I could look at these colors all day. This could be my new computer wallpaper.

Happy Autumn!

School Pictures at Home

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but when our family was considering homeschooling, weighing the pros and cons, one thing I seriously felt some mix of sadness and concern about was school pictures.

You know, school pictures.  The obligatory portraits taken either in the spring or fall.  The ones your mother filled up a little schoolhouse picture frame with from each year.   Remember school picture day?  You agonized over what you’d wear.  It must be cool; this is the lasting monument to your second grade style.  (I actually remember more about what I thought was cool and what clothes I liked because of my school pictures.)  So you’d spend extra time and attention getting ready for school that day, but by the time second period rolled around your hair was flat and you had that been-at-school-today look. 

You’d anxiously wait your turn in line.  Some poor kid had to hold the card that said who’s class it was.  Then you’d each take your turn while the photographer told you to say “Money” or “Boys” but of course that wouldn’t make you smile.  That was dumb. 

Then one day, when you’d forgotten all about it, the pictures would arrive.  Everyone would hide them at first, but eventually someone had to start showing.  Then you’d get to see who had blinked, who made a dumb face, and who was surprisingly photogenic. 

Soon, everyone would begin sharing the “exchanges”.  That’s what the order form called the teeny ones that you wrote notes on the back of and passed to your friends.  “Jess, you’ll always be my friend.  See you later. LYLAS.”   

LYLAS!! 

Does anyone else remember that? Love You Like a Sister.  And it was the sign off for every note.

Ahh, good times.  Even some not so good times, like the fourth grade photo that my mother insisted I retake.  And retakes were the day after I had my bangs permed.  Yes, the bang perm.  Recorded forever in my fourth grade photo.

But the point is, they’re all memories.  Bound up in school portraits.

Would my kids miss out on some greater cultural understanding if they didn’t have that shared experience? 

Probably not that big a deal, I decided.  But it would be nice to have something to document the passage of time.  Something more formal than Christmas morning photos, birthday candle blow-outs and the occasional goofy real-life shot.  (Who am I kidding, I take pictures at least once a week.)

That is why I was thrilled to hear that our homeschool co-op was planning a school portrait session.  Hooray!  All the homeschoolers will get to experience that milestone.

I was even more thrilled when I was asked to be the photographer.  Today was picture day.  Looking over their pictures, I have never had such a fun day of photography!  It was probably the most relaxed school picture shoot in the history of school pictures.  Of course,  I made some of the requisite dumb photographer jokes.  But I don’t recall ever seeing the photographer bob and weave to avoid raging honeybees before.  But no one was stung.  And most of the smiles look genuine.  I don’t think we’ll have anyone needing to hide their picture packet or take retakes on perm day.

If you do choose to homeschool, or if you are currently educating ’round the kitchen table, do make some permanent record of the experience.

Maybe schedule a formal sitting at a portrait studio.  Or get together for a casual session with a photographer.  OR just dress your kids nice on the first day of school and take your own pictures of them ready for a new year.

Last year, I photographed my little kindergartener counting her crayons during math class.  Those photos became our first homeschooling scrapbook layout.

I know it’s not a big deal, but sometimes its the little yearly rituals we remember the most. 

Be Blessed!