Been a Long Time. . .

Sorry, faithful readers (if I have any), for not posting for a long time. My life as a wife, mom, and homeschool mom is very busy, and I do not take much time to sit down and read on a regular basis. However, it is our Christmas break, and I have been reading a bit this week, so will have some titles to review soon. I have read some of the Jim Erskine Easy Homeschooling series titles, and just finished Andrew Zahns's 10 Commandments for Creatives.

I think I was planning a series of reviews back in September, but since I don't remember what that was, obviously we are not continuing that at this time. I appreciate those who blog every day, but this blog is not THAT. I will reread my past posts to see if there is something I need to finish up. 

Curriculum Games - Part 2: Hands-On Homeschooling

I have a number of friends that homeschool their children, and the reasons for doing so differ. Some friends desire a Christ-centered education for their students, but a Christian school is not an option or not an affordable option. Some travel and need the flexibility. Some are trying to meet special needs. I decided to homeschool (Well, deep down I believe God led me to it, but here is my thought process.) because of my four year old Will. Will is gifted in the area of mathematics. He is almost at the same level as his second grade brother Alex. With this ability, I knew he would be bored in K-4 math. . . and what do bored, active little boys (or girls) do in school? Get in trouble! I did not want his educational experience to start this way, so I decided (again, I 100% believe God led me to this decision.) to homeschool Will this fall.

Since Will is a kinesthetic (hands-on) learner, I started looking outside the afore-mentioned curriculum options and found Hands-On Homeschooling. HOH is the brainchild of Texas mom and former Christian preschool teacher Terri Wilson. You can read her story here - http://www.handsonhomeschooling.com/about_me.htm. HOH has 2, 3, 4, and 5 year old options. You can see the scope & sequence of each level on her website www.handsonhomeschooling.com. For Will, I chose the 4 year old program, although he is above some of the items. I believe the 4 year old program cost $90 + shipping and came in a big binder - yep, that's right! Everything for the year is in one binder - all teacher's material, all weekly outlines, all daily notes, all patterns - in one binder!

The different aged programs may be set up differently, but for Will's there is a Bible lesson every day + 3 other activities - reading skills, writing, readiness skills (think: patterns, shapes, etc), math, science/health, social studies, physical movement, manners, and personal care. Field trips are suggested throughout the year. As a teacher, I LOVE the fact that Terri outlines each WEEK with it's own page, then each DAY with it's own page of what classes to do, what materials we will need, what preparation I need to do. I think teacher-parents will appreciate the organization that Terri has done with her program, while regular-parents will appreciate not having to organize everything on their own!

As the name implies, the activities are hands-on. We do not use her Bible lessons, but each week revolves around one story. Day one, you read the story. Day two, make a craft. Day three, do an application activity. Day 4, review the story using the craft. Day 5, reread story and say verse.

She recommends, but does not write lessons for, phonics as part of the reading skills part. She does, however, recommend several programs in the teacher's materials. Oh the teacher's materials! Love them! Her program utilizes books frequently, which has caused me to patronize my local library a lot more often. All necessary patterns are included in the back of the binder, which you may use or reproduce for your student(s).

Will's favorite classes are Letter Book and Cooking, which his 7-yr old brother enjoys joining. For Letter Book, each week we cut out pictures and place them in a photo album on the page of the letter of the week. This has greatly improved his cutting skills as well. I will include some pictures at the end of Letter Book, as well as Cooking Class, and the science/health lesson where we made a life-sized Will out of paper! A teacher with a class full of kids would not have been able to do that with each student, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work one-on-one with Will and his brother.

Overall, I am very pleased with this program. I liked being able to look at the Scope & Sequence online before purchasing so I could decide which age level was appropriate. Currently, I use about half of the activities for the week. Since Will has an older brother, he is advanced in some of the skills, so we just skip them. HOH is Will's main curriculum, but he uses different math, Bible, and writing, as well as some readiness activities. I think the content of HOH would be appropriate for most four year olds, but the beauty of homeschooling is the ability to customize the program for each child.

 Life-sized cut-out of Will. The next week we made internal organs and skeleton on the back! 

Working on Letter Book. We usually take 20 minutes at least to work on this each week. It is a fun activity for the two of us to do together. 

 Cooking applesauce for the letter "A." Big brother helps by reading the directions. 

Curriculum Games - Part I

I have been active in Christian education for almost ten years, in addition to the six years before that when I was earning a B.S. in elementary education and an M. S. in secondary education. In the Christian schools I associated with, the big curriculum question was "ABEKA or BOB JONES (University Press)?" Considering my 2 degrees are from Pensacola Christian College that is part of the same ministry that publishes ABeka, I am sure you can see where my allegiance was in that issue.

When I made the decision to homeschool my two sons last spring, my knowledge of homeschool curriculum was limited to ABeka, Bob Jones, and Accelerated Christian Education (ACE). Boy was I in for a surprise! There are many, many more players in this homeschool game! I have found so many curriculum options, it is overwhelming at times! But I love the fact that there ARE so many options, I can pick and choose to make a customized program for my boys!

I am going to attempt to give an overview of some of the options I have discovered that I love. If you are interested in writing a guest blog about a curriculum you use and love, please message me.

Art with Anything by MaryAnn F. Kohl

If you know anything about our family, you know we have a budding artist for a 7 year old, so finding a good art resource for home school was very important to me. At the same time, I wanted something that my two boys (7,4) could do together. I found MaryAnn F. Kohl on www.amazon.com, and could've purchased any of her titles (such as Discovering Great Artists: Hands-on Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters or Story Book Art: Hands-on Art for Children in the Styles of 100 Great Picture Book Artists), but settled on Art with Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff (Gryphon House, Inc., 2010), which is aimed at ages 4-10, a great age range for homeschooling families.  First off, let me say that this contains more art projects that I would ever care to do - 5 a week for 52 weeks, so there are plenty to choose from. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the format of the book.

Each week uses an art medium that you probably have around the house, or given a month or two, could save up. Some examples are: Address Labels, Aluminum Foil, Berry Baskets, Buttons, Coffee Filters, Hole-Punch Dots (NO THANK YOU), Gift Wrap, Leaves, Lids, Rain, Socks, Toys, Yarn, Zip-close bags. Each week's contents starts with a list of what you will need for each day, followed by simple directions for each week's project. The projects advance from basic to more complex as the week goes on, sometimes using pieces from one day for another day's project.

Not being particularly adventurous (but I'm working on it), I decided to start at the first week which was Address Labels. The projects are Label Collage, Painted Label Art, Woven Look Painting, Label Puzzle Craft, and Fancy Spaced-Out Labels (p. 12-13). Today, on the first day of homeschooling, my boys and I completed the Label Collage craft. Each person received a sheet of blank address labels to color (We used watercolor paints and markers.). When we were all finished, we shared our labels, and pulled them off the sheets to make collages on construction paper.  Simple, but the process took at least 30 minutes, and my artist 7 year old declared, "This was fun!" at the end of art time! I cannot wait to do more of MaryAnn's art projects. 

Above you can see Will's (4), Alex's (7), and my art projects from today.

Most posts coming soon

I apologize for the lack of posts, but I just downloaded 3 titles on my Kindle about homeschooling, so look for those soon. I have been ill, and we are starting school on Monday, but my goal is to blog at least once a week on my reading.

A Look at Juvenile Fiction Writer Ann Rinaldi

Sorry for the lapse in posts. First we went to visit my parents, during which time I had imagined I'd have lots of time to finish reading the several books I have started on my Kindle. NOPE. Then when we returned, I misplaced my Motherhood book, and then got sick, during which time I have been watching a lot of Netflix! But I found the missing book, so should be getting the next section posted soon. During the midst of this, I actually have been able to read a little light fiction, so wanted to take a few moments to discuss my favorite author.

My favorite fiction author is Ann Rinaldi, who is actually a juvenile historical fiction writer. She published her first novel in 1980 and the latest came out a few years ago. I was happy to discover on her website that I have NOT read all her books yet!

I discovered Ann's writings while doing a research project on juvenile literature in college in my Children's Lit class. My project discussed books geared at teens, which ended up being an area even my professor did not have a lot of experience with. I do not remember much about the project, except that my professor loved it and I discovered Ann's books!

My favorite fiction genre is historical fiction anyway. I like her books because they are easy reads (200-300 pages) and very tasteful. While she examines complex historical ideals and traditions, she remains tasteful and age-appropriate in her choice of words for "mature" matters. For example in a recent read The Redheaded Princess (2008) about the life of Queen Elizabeth I, the title character was the object of advances from her step-father, who was interested in getting rid of wife #1 (who used to be married to her father, the King) to marry her to get at the throne, BUT it was all tastefully written and not at all graphic or inappropriate. That's what I love most about her writing. She tells it like it was, but in an age-appropriate way. (Remember, this is juvenile fiction).  She also does a great job meshing the facts with fiction, and is clear at the end of each book to state what was fact and where she got that information. And she always leaves things hanging, which makes me wish for a sequel to every book I read, but that's just her style.

The Key to Learning Anything by Suzanne Gose

I am so excited to share this book on my blog. I purchased it for my Kindle soon after I bought it last summer. It was one of those 99 cent specials! I am very interested in learning styles, and this book had come up in an Amazon search on the topic.  I was also intrigued by the author - "Señora Gose." Amazon said she teaches Spanish. I was teaching Spanish! Instant interest!

The KEY to learning anything, according to Suzanne, is motivation (Sorry, read on the Kindle so can't cite page numbers). This is stated at the beginning of chapter one, getting right to the point. But Suzanne does not just tell you that you need to be motivated to learn, she also guides you through a thought process to discover your motivation for what you are trying to learn.

I completely agree that you need some sort of motivation to learn. As a high school Spanish teacher, I have seen a lot of students that had absolutely no motivation to learn Spanish. (Hell-o, there are Hispanics everywhere in Gwinnett County!) These did poorly. For some of my students, their motivation was simply "because it was a requirement to graduate." Those did well on tests, but did not retain the material. When there was a motivation, the students did better. I recall one student, Glenn, whose parents spoke Spanish at work - but also at home when they wanted to keep something from the kids. He had motivation to learn Spanish and pretty soon was correcting Mom & Dad's Spanish!

For situations where one just cannot find any motivation, Suzanne suggests giving yourself a stake (negative) or reward (positive) for doing or not doing something. She then discusses each and gives several examples of applying stakes or rewards. All right, we have completed chapter one! The book is very easy reading.

Chapter 2 discusses one of the biggest hindrance to learning - unreasonable expectations. Chapter 3 discusses one of my favorite topics - learning styles.  Suzanne has an excellent assessment for discovering your learning style. In my research I have come across several similar assessments; I found hers to be my favorite. In fact, I liked it so much, I emailed her to ask if I could use it in my classroom research. Since then we have become good Facebook friends; I think if she lived in Georgia instead of Texas, we would probably hang out! In addition to the assessment in the book, she also gives a link to a video assessment on her website! (I love books with "extras.")

Suzanne then spends the next several chapters discussing the different learning styles. BUT she also gives strategies to maximize the effectiveness of studying, based on your learning style. I think this section would be invaluable to parents, especially if their student was struggling in school. I was able to apply some of this information in my classes last school year, particularly the strategies for Kinesthetic (hands-on) learners. These are the students who are constantly fidgeting. I used to try to stop the fidgeting, but last year, after reading this book, I began to focus on stopping the distraction of the fidgeting, rather than stopping the fidgeting. She brought out the point that suppressing the urges to fidget could actually hinder these students from learning! One of the strategies was to allow the student to fidget with a pipe cleaner, which is very quiet. I actually tried that with one of my 10th graders. I'm not sure it worked, though, as the next time I came by his desk he had fashioned it into a stick figure and was tearing up paper to create a bed, pillow, and blanket for the pipe cleaner man!

Since Suzanne teaches Spanish, subjects discussed include foreign language, a subject that is often overlooked in other educational venues. In four years of teachers' conventions, I never once had the opportunity to attend a workshop for foreign language teachers! She completes the book with a resource/reading list. Avid readers could complete this short book in one sitting as it is a very easy read. I HIGHLY recommend it to teachers, parents,and homeschooling parents. To be able to get an idea of your child's learning style and learn how to help them learn better is invaluable information.

Check out Suzanne's website www.flipfloplearning.com or her other products on Amazon. She has some great Spanish vocabulary flashcards and an iPhone app among other products.

Happy to be sharing Suzanne on the Women Living Well Wednesday Link-up! Click the WWLW link to the right of the page to check out the other blogs! I am #96.