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
I found a wonderful website with amazing 360 degree panoramic views from all over the world. You must go check it out. Check these out-
Enjoy!
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 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/PTThe 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!
This post was oringinally posted October 26, 2006. Big thanks and love for the wonderful Melissa Wiley for allowing Homeschool Hacks to share her wonderful work.
"It's funny how things you post on the internet take on a life of their own. When I began this blog last spring, I put "Our Rule of Six" in the sidebar (see it down there on the left, under the baby photo?), intending to write a post about it. I touched upon it in one of the very first posts I wrote for this blog, but I always meant to come back to it and explain how the idea developed. Now and then I'll get a nice email from someone who has happened upon the Rule of Six and found it useful, and I'm always so thrilled by that and I'll think, Oh that's right, I need to write that post!
But it's been just a wee bit busy around here these past few months.
While I was on the road last week (or the week before; it's all a blur), my friend Mary G.—whom I had the great pleasure of meeting in person during my Denver visit—popped me a lovely note saying she'd borrowed my Rule of Six for her own blog, and lots of people had responded with their versions, and would I mind if she put together a little Rule of Six Carnival? Of course I was delighted. I've greatly enjoyed reading this collection of posts, seeing how some folks have chimed in with their thoughts about my Rule, and others have put together their own lists.
And I figured it's about time I finished up that old post about what our Rule of Six is and how I came up with it! It's something I've been using for four or five years, and when I think about it, I can't believe I haven't ever posted about it before because it is such an important and constant guideline for me.
It got its start, as so many helpful principles do, in the writings of Charlotte Mason. In A Charlotte Mason Companion, Karen Andreola wrote that Miss Mason believed children needed three things every day: something to love, something to think about, and something to do. (And if you read the other posts in the Carnival, you'll see that the Bookworm, astute woman that she is, picked up on my source immediately!)
I remember it was shortly after we moved from New York to Virginia in 2002 that I looked at the bright faces of my three little girls in their big blue room and made a silent promise to myself to give them that good soul-food every day: something to love, to think about, to do. I thought about what that meant in practical terms, because a concept has to translate very clearly on a practical level if there is any hope of my pulling it off. It's the logistics that get you, every time. Broad principles are like umbrellas, and you need a hand to hold the umbrella with.
And that's how I got to our Rule of Five. (Yes, five. It was Five for the first two or three years. Item number Six didn't join the list until later—which is why I've been tickled to see all these Rules of Six popping up, because ours was the Rule of Five for so long.) I thought of it as the five fingers of a hand, the five things that I strive to make a part of every day we spend together:
• Good books
• Imaginative play
• Encounters with beauty (through art, music, and the natural world—this includes our nature walks)
• Ideas to ponder and discuss (there's Miss Mason's "something to think about")
• Prayer
When Mary borrowed my list, she put prayer at the top to reflect its overarching importance, which makes perfect sense. I have it at the bottom for the very same reason. I always figure that you're most likely to remember the last thing you hear. If I put the most important thing at the bottom of the list, that's the word that echoes in my consciousness afterward.
Also, when the girls were younger it worked so beautifully with a little fingerplay we would do at bedtime. We would hold up a finger for each thing on the list. "What did you play today?" I would ask, and eager stories would bubble forth. "Who remembers what books we read?" "Where did we meet beauty today?" It was such fun, at the end of the day, to listen to their reflections about what we'd done since breakfast. At the end of the list, we'd all be holding up the five fingers of a hand, and then we'd clap our hands together and that meant time to pray.
For us, as Catholics, the word "prayer" in my list is meant to encompass the whole range of religious customs and practices that are woven through our day, celebrating the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year.
But what about the sixth item in my Rule of Six? You see, of course, what's missing from my original list: work. That's because when I first came up with the list, my oldest child was only six, and play WAS her work. A couple of years later, the list grew—like my children. I added "meaningful work" (as opposed to busywork) to express the importance of doing useful things cheerfully and well, with reverence and attention.
And the five-finger visual works even better now, because you can tally off the first five things on the list and then clasp your hands together for the sixth. It's been a long time, though, since we used the fingerplay at the end of the day. I bet Beanie doesn't even remember it. Maybe that's something to return to now that we're settling into a new rhythm, a new place to practice our Rule."
Delightfully inspiring, I know! Now it is your turn Homeschool Hackers. What would be on your rule of 6, or in my case -rule of 10!
Leave your thoughts in the comments or over at the Homeschool Hackers discussion group.
Blessings, Allison
When I was first worried obsessing planning thinking about homeschooling I stumbled upon an author who spoke so beautifully and intelligently about her experience. I devoured everything she ever wrote and decided she was the coolest woman in the world. (She will be sweetly embarrassed when she reads that!)
Her name is Melissa Wiley, the published author of wonderful children's books, and she writes a wonderful blog called Here in the Bonny Glen. Over time I have come to consider her a friend. Isn't the Internet wonderful? When I sheepishly asked if I could feature her work here at Homeschool Hacks, she graciously agreed. (I told you she was lovely!)
This is the first of many of her insights I will be featuring here at Homeschool Hacks. I am sure you will learn from and enjoy her perspective as much as I have.
"People often ask me what kind of homeschoolers we are: Classical? Charlotte Mason? Eclectic? Delight-Directed? Unschoolers? How, they want to know, does learning happen in our home? Am I in charge, or do I let the kids lead the way? And what about math?...
...I call us "Tidal Learners" because the ways in which we approach education here change with the tide. Now, this doesn't mean that we're flighty or inconsistent, changing direction haphazardly. We aren't Fiddler Crab Homeschoolers. What I mean is that there is a rhythm to the way learning happens here; there are upbeats and downbeats; there is an ebb and flow.
We have high tide times when I charter a boat and we set sail with purpose and direction, deliberately casting our net for a particular type of fish. On these excursions I am the captain; I have charted the course. But the children are eager crew members because they know I value their contributions. And also I provide generous rations. No stale or moldy bread on this ship: no dull textbooks, no dry workbooks. My sailors sink their teeth into fresh, hearty bread slathered with rich butter and tart-sweet jam. Well fed and proud of their work, my little crew exhilarates in the voyage. Every journey is an adventure.
And we have low tide times when we amble along the shore, peering into tide pools and digging in the sand, or just relaxing under beach umbrella. The children wander off in directions of their own choosing; they dig and poke and ponder. One of them may crouch over a rock pool and stay there for days, studying, watching. Another will run headlong into the waves, thrilling to the pull on her legs, splashing, leaping, diving under and emerging triumphantly farther out. Or a child might prefer to stay close by my side, drawing stick pictures in the sand or building a castle. All of these things may be happening at once. Sometimes it looks as though nothing is happening: there's just an array of bodies on beach towels. But oh, the nourishment there is in a time of quiet reflection while the soul soaks up the sunlight!..."
Unschooling Voices is a monthly collection of blog posts on the topic of unschooling. For details about this unschooling carnival, click here.
The latest carnival is here. Good reading!
Math. It's everywhere. It's important. And there are lots of ways to help your children understand how math works in our lives every single day. As a follow up to Angela's Recipe for Unit Studies, here are some math resources that are outside the "curricula" box.
Books:
Web sites and resources:
And don't forget good old-fashioned board and strategy games, such as Monopoly, Yahtzee, Othello, Mille Bornes, Battleship and Risk. And cooking! And shopping! There's all kinds of math fun going on around us. Just keep your eyes open for the opportunities.
With homeschooling on the rise in the U.S., colleges and universities are gaining a better understanding of home education and actively recruiting homeschoolers. In this short article from Family.org, Chris Klicka with the Home School Foundation says "homeschoolers are very self-disciplined and they have mastered the tools of learning – reading, writing and arithmetic so they can apply themselves virtually in any subject.”
“Several of the universities, over the last few years, have done surveys of their student body and have found that the homeschool graduates in their student body have a higher grade-point average,” says Klicka.
Not exactly scientific research, but it's nice to see the point being made that when a child grasps "the tools of learning," success in whatever he chooses to pursue is likely to follow.
