Homeschool Hacks

Our Goofy Air-Conditioned P.E. Class

by Lisa

I just have to confess.  My girls and I were innocently looking for instructional ballroom dancing videos on YouTube when we stumbled across some hip-hop dance videos.  Instructional hip hop dance videos.  I could shake it when I was younger, and it was fun but now that I'm 33ish there's a whole lot more of me to shake.  Who says P.E. is just for kids?  Did you even know they had dance instruction videos on YouTube?  It's quite a fun experience, hanging out with my 14 and 11 year old daughters in this way.   Here are some things we've discovered:

1. Stretch out first, warm up those muscles. 
2. Wear comfortable clothing
3. Make sure you have room to dance.  Your office might not work if that's where your computer is.  We use the laptop in the living room, so we won't be bumping into each other
4. Don't let your kids film it or you'll wake up with nightmares that your denim-jumper-wearing friends  from the co-op found it on YouTube

You'll Love This- Discovery Channel's Human Body Series

I am officially in love with the Discovery Channel's new series. Discovery Channel's- Human Body premiered tonight. It was the BEST teaching tool I have found for Science in ages. You will love it. My nine year old and I watched the premiere episode tonight and loved it. I can not say enough good things about this new series. It will be known as a must have for teaching the boys in my house.

Here is a snippet about tonight's premiere episode-

"Episode 1: "STRENGTH"
Premieres Sunday March 2, at 9 p.m. ET/PT

The human body is engineered for strength, power and endurance. Bone is sturdy as concrete but flexible enough to resist breaking and light enough to allow us to be quicker off the mark than a racehorse. Our muscles, ligaments and joints have far greater strength and endurance than we know. In this episode, we feature extraordinary tales of human strength told with stunning see-through "anatomy in motion."

• A young man is sucked up into a tornado, only to be spat out a quarter of a mile away, unharmed.
• Pinned by a massive boulder, a climber finds the strength to lift it off in a seemingly impossible muscular feat.
• A college football player sustains what would normally be unbearable injury and pain, yet has the mental stamina to continue playing at full output.

Plus, how does a swimmer tap the remnants of our distant ancestors' extraordinary stamina to swim across the English Channel in 14 hours? How do marathon runners keep the pace on their grueling 26-mile run?"

Click here to watch the full episode!

My son and I also watched the second episode- Sight. It was amazing. The human body just comes to life and I learned things I never did as a kid. My son was fascinated with and understood concepts that would have taken a year to study and be forced to do the dreaded worksheets about. Can you tell my sons won't touch a worsheet unless forced?

The rating was PG-13. It was fine for my 9 year old and I am very picky about what I let him watch. It was very graphic, but not in a gratuitous manner.

When you watch, be sure to let me know what you think of the series!

Every Day’s a Celebration

Did you know that every day's a holiday? And there are some interesting ones. I like to search the web to find out what's special about today, then create a little "celebration" that incorporates a learning activity. A great resource is About.com's Fundays Calendar, which includes links of related activities for each "funday."

I'll be posting some of the holidays and activities here as often as possible. Shall we start with today?

March 19th is:

1. Act Happy Day: Founded by a doctor/speaker who prescribes method acting techniques to "enhance health and wealth." We're going to celebrate by laying down some "no whining" and "happy faces only" rules for the day!


2. National Chocolate Caramel Day: Recipes here.


3. And for your history study/discussion, today is also the anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. (I'm SO resisting the urge to add my own personal commentary here.)

holidays, learning, activity

Nutrition Expedition

Here's a fun way for your children to learn more about nutrition: Little D's Nutrition Expedition.

Meet Little D the Dragon and join him on his Nutrition Expedition! This 10-activity program incorporates engaging, hands-on learning that supplements your language arts and health curricula.

With the castle and dragon theme, my 7 yo gave this a thumbs up!