Hopeful Spirit is hosting a wonderful Carnival of Family Life.
A wonderful article from the Washington Post last week is here!
Principled Discovery has the best graphic in this one.
If you have any great articles you would like highlighted please email me- homeschoolhacks@gmail.com
Have a wonderful Monday!
Blessings, Alli
Summer at Mom is Teaching wrote a brilliant article on bullying. Go read it!
From her article-
"I don’t want to teach my sons to deal with bullies. I want to teach them that this behavior is unacceptable, that hurting others in any way does not make them “cool”, that they don’t have to fit into the crowd and that standing out does not have to be painful, and that they do not have to become the kind of adults that use words that hurt as much as fists. They can be better. If that means keeping them out of the bully-rich environment until they have a solid foundation built up and a strong enough personal base to stand up to those who use power-over, then good. They will be strong er for it in the long run."
Is anyone tired of hearing how we should put our kids in school to socialize them? Middle School and High School are artificial environments that children are expected to 'get through'. It is ridiculous to feel we need to expose our children to this simply because most children are forced to deal with it! The school experience for most children has nothing to do with real-life in adulthood. I say we start laughing when we are asked, "What about socialization?" I say the proof is in the pudding, as my grandmother used to say.
Welcome to the third installment of Tidal Learning Tuesday. The most wonderful Melissa Wiley originally posted this article in January 2005 and she has so graciously allowed me to republish.
I consider my primary function as a homeschooling mom to be Strategic Strewing of the Path. Coined by Sandra Dodd, "strewing" is a favorite term of homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, which describes the habit of oh-so-subtlely leaving books lying on tables and counters and in the car where unsuspecting children will find them. (Check out Sandra’s extensive page on strewing here.)
I learned the benefits of strewing from my husband. He hates to be told what to read. In high school, his favorite books were the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He read and re-read them for pleasure year after year. In college, he took a class on Tolkien. A certain number of chapters of The Lord of the Rings was assigned for each class. And Scott found that he never wanted to read the material. It had become "material." It was an assignment, chopped up into increments and parceled out over a semester. He procrastinated or completely blew off the daily reading assignments. At home the following summer, he lounged under the air conditioner and read the whole trilogy for pleasure.
He told me that story early in our relationship, and I’m glad, because it tipped me off to the fact that if I really want him to read something, I shouldn’t ask him to. Instead, if I have a book I’m dying to share with him, I leave it in the bathroom and take all other reading material out of there. That’s strategic strewing.
It works with my children, too. I know their interests. I know where they like to hang out in the house. So I choose books I think will capture my 9-year-old’s imagination and leave them on the windowsill beside her chair at the lunch table, or on the sofa where she likes to sprawl. I leave baskets of books all over the house; I casually lay a picture book or two on my 4-year-old’s nightstand when I’m putting her down for a nap. I sneak into my sleeping daughters’ room and put books at the foot of their bed, because I know that when they wake up they’ll find them and look at them and maybe I’ll get to sleep ten minutes past dawn the next morning.
I have to be careful, because sometimes this gets me in trouble. Two summers ago I wanted to know what was growing in our unlandscaped side yard, so I checked a book on weeds out of the library. I glanced at it but decided this book was too dry to make it worth the effort and tossed it onto the kitchen table. The next day I returned it to the library. The next day, then-7-year-old Jane summoned me with an anguished wail. "Mommy, where’s that great book I was reading? The one about weeds? It was SO interesting!" She’d found it lying on the table and naturally assumed that it was meant for her. I admitted I’d returned it, and she was crushed. I had to promise to schedule a special trip to re-check it out. Apparently what is one person’s giant yawn is another person’s heart-pounder.
Scatter enough books in their paths, and they’ll find the heart-pounders for themselves."
Read more of Melissa's inspirational posts at Here in the Bonny Glen.
This post was so graciously shared from the archives of Melissa Wiley. To read the original article and discover her treasure trove of wonderful articles, click here.
"Learning," says Sandra Dodd, "comes from connecting something new to what you've already thought or known."
Charlotte Mason called this understanding of education "the science of relations." Relations, connections, rabbit trails: these are the terms homeschoolers use to describe the natural processes of learning. One topic, even one word, sparks an interest or a memory, and zing, learning happens.
It's like playing with those magnetic rods and balls you stick together to make cool geometric shapes. (You know, the ones currently banished to the top of my closet because they are so fearfully dangerous for babies.) When you touch one of the little rods to one of the shiny silver balls, there's such a satisfying click as they draw together. You can feel the power of the connection.
I dearly love, at the end of a day, to think about all the connections my kids made—or that I made!—that day. So many satisfying little clicks, so many pieces of knowledge fitting together in interesting ways.
I had the Sandra Dodd "connections" page open on the laptop today because I wanted to look up that quote for a post. (This post, I suppose, although, as you'll see, the page took over and became the impetus of the post.) If you scroll down Sandra's page a little, you'll see there's a fun exercise for sparking connections, the bit with all the words in balloons. This caught Jane's eye and she wanted to know what it was about. I showed her, and she asked if we could try it. She decided to start with the word "purple."
We started shouting out ideas or things we associate with purple, and of course "royalty" came up, and neither one of us could remember the name of the shellfish the original purple dye came from. We looked it up and found this page, which told some tidbits I'd never heard before. Did you know the legend says it was actually Hercules's dog who discovered the dye? Hercules noticed its mouth was stained purple after it ate some snails.
King Phoenix received a purple-dyed robe from Herakles and decreed the rulers of Phoenicia should wear this color as a royal symbol.
We also found this part particularly interesting:
The chemical birth of the synthetic dye industry can be traced to the discovery of an aniline-based purple dye, mauveine, by William H. Perkin in 1856, who accomplished this while searching for a cure for malaria. Perkin was an English chemist who changed the world of his time by making this purple color available to the masses. It became quite fashionable to wear clothing dyed with “mauve,” and Mr. Perkin became a very wealthy man.
We had lots of other associations with purple, but the Hercules thing was so interesting we got sidetracked, and about that time Rose asked me to make a baby duck out of felt for Beanie, to match Rose's Beanie Baby duck (!), and in the middle of that endeavor I remembered I'd picked up a book of patterns for knitted animals, and hadn't shown it to Jane yet, and she got all excited and went off to translate the knitting patterns into crochet patterns, because she much prefers crocheting.
Rose asked for a felt dog next, or maybe Jane will crochet her one, but I don't think we'll stain its mouth purple."
I adore this YouTube video. I have been brainstorming all the fun things the boys can make lapbooks about. My Nine year old is already planning his 'Mythbusters' lapbook.
"One of the most important things and the hardest for me to accomplish in order to have an organized day is lesson planning. I finally took a day one weekend and sat down with my children’s curriculum, and filled a calendar with scheduled lessons. It was amazingly simple once I got past that first step—committing myself to doing it. For some reason I just thought “I’ve paid for this curriculum, I should just be able to follow the instructions and teach it.” Not so. With my children, it became very apparent that I would need a Plan of Attack. Otherwise, I was Dead in the Water.
Step One: obtain a daily planner
Step Two: set aside a day with nothing to do but plan (probably the most difficult part of the whole thing)
Step Three: Review the material; this is like skimming before studying; what are the main parts to the lesson? What can you reasonably achieve in a day? How do you want to divide this lesson up?
Step Four: For each day, write a summary in your planner of what you will teach, and the book and page you can find the lesson in.
Now every night, I take out my calendar and check on what I’m going to teach tomorrow. I get the text out, review the lesson more thoroughly, and meditate on how to present it to my child. Since I started doing this, I have been getting rave reviews. My 8 year old told his daddy this morning that he wants me to teach him through college! Who could ask for anything more?"
-Alicia from Homestate
Quick note from a very embarrassed Allison- Apparently I posted four times yesterday. ~blushes~ The planets aligned and when my toddler kept pressing buttons, he learned to publish!
Hi Homeschool Hackers,
I made a fancy little widget for your sidebars. The widget is automatically updated when I post so you'll never miss a tip, a link or a laugh!
It is easy to add to your site.
I would love to hear where all the Homeschool Hack widget lives. Be sure to let me know here or on the Homeschool Hackers social site.
Have a blessed Sunday, Allison
"Marker boards are great for writing out daily schedules, chore charts, to-do-lists, etc. Also great for practicing math or spelling. My dad taught me a lot of Bible verses as a kid by writing out the whole verse, having me read it through aloud twice, and then erasing one or two words, read through twice, repeat until the whole verse is gone. Worked fabulously every time, and I still remember many of those verses!"
- Jenni @ Makeshift Mama
Washable & Reusable Clear Tablecloths.
I love the thick, clear washable vinyl tablecloths at Walmart. I buy from the roll back in the Fabric Department, which I hear may be non-existent come April.
I paid less than $4 for 1-1/2 yards of the clear, thick vinyl to make a tablecloth.
I use this as a washable tablecloth for our dining room table.
I can slip maps under it and the children can use washable markers to map out a trip we are taking, or learn about the route taken by the Pioneers or even Lewis and Clark, as well as learning about the various states. This has been tremendous fun while eating lunch and I will say something like 'Where's Michigan" and the children will lift their plates to see who is nearest.
The tablecloth also works well for craft-time. Just use and wipe off any washable paint plasters, etc.
Submitted by Laura Williams
Laura Williams' Musings
http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com
Rachel, an Extraordinary Wife and Homeschooling mom of five in Ohio, sent in this great tip that was passed on to her from an Occupational Therapist. If your child is having trouble learning to hold their pencil correctly the answer is simple. Hang a chalkboard or piece of paper on the wall or fridge. Give your child a tiny length (1 inch) of chalk/pencil to write with. This will ensure your child grasps the pencil with the thumb and forefinger. Over time this finger positioning will become more and more comfortable. Thanks Rachel!
This post is part of Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer WFMW!
