Thinking About High School Already??

The best time to consider homeschooling high school is.... now! I love it when parents of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders tell me that they are beginning to learn about homeschooling high school. It's a great training time for parents! You can learn all of the issues around record keeping, academics, and encouraging specialization. At the same time, there is no pressure to "perform" or be perfect, since it's all just for practice.

When my oldest child began 7th grade, that's when I started reading about high school. By the time it was my turn, I felt like an "old pro"!

Blessings,

Lee

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How to Use Family Math

My first week of homeschooling I took my one and only "class", and it was on Family Math. I learned how to play about 10 or so of the games. The basic idea is to start at the top of the directions and work your way down, and the game WILL eventually make sense. Usually my kids understood the game better than me: I'm just there to read the directions!

This is how I used it: I looked at the math lesson that my kids were learning that day. Say it's fractions. I looked in the index in the back of the Family Math book, and look up fractions. It lists 4 or 5 games and activities with fractions. I looked at the top of each game for the grade level (primary, elementary, or middle school). Then I looked at the game to see what I need for supplies. I kept a shoe box with math stuff: sugar cubes, dice, cards. Mostly the games just required paper and pencil.

We played a math game almost every day. I used it as my math manipulative. This math manipulative is directly related to what they were learning in their math lesson (also in some of the Building Thinking Skills lessons.) It helped to teach the "why" of math concepts that may be difficult at first. When my eldest was 11 years old, he would usually begin his math lesson with "I don't get it." If I could find a good game for that lesson first, then he would start his lesson with "This is so easy." There was never a middle ground, by the way!

To make my life easier, and on the advise of the Family Math teacher, I made copies of all the game boards that I needed at the beginning of the year (when copies were 1 penny!) I made about 10 copies of each game. The book is reproducible. I paper clipped the copies together, and stored them in a 3 ring binder in numerical order. If the game on page 92 requires a copy, I slip one out of the folder. I have my hubby make more copies when one set gets low. Not all games require copies, though.

I loved Family Math because it is multi-age (k-8th grade) and inexpensive to use. Much like Spelling Power!



Blessings,

Lee

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Money Saving Timeline Idea

For a home-made timeline, I bought a roll of paper at an office supply store. It was a lot cheaper, and because the paper was in a roll I didn't have to tape regular printer paper sheets together. The rolled paper came in handy for some other homeschooling things as well. We used it for math games, and for creative writing story outlines. Sometimes I had the kids write the name of the book we were reading and put it on the timeline. They were really not much into drawing pictures (big surprise there,) so I would also often just print small images from the books we were reading, or off the internet and put those on the timeline.

Blessings,

Lee

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Fun with Maps!

My kids used to have so much fun making maps that I wanted to share an idea with you. We found this in the book "Make it Work Maps."



We used a topographical map - the kind with a line around every 1000 feet of elevation. We enlarged a section of the map. Then we traced the line patterns, one at a time, onto cardboard and cut it out. We glued the cardboard pieces we'd cut out onto a cardboard base as we cut them out. We stacked up the layers of cardboard until it made the mountains and valleys shown on the original map. Then we covered the whole thing with paper mache (newspaper and flour-water) and painted it with green hills, white snowcapped peaks, and blue rivers and lakes. It was tons of fun for the kids, and they got a real feel for topographical maps.

Blessings,

Lee
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It Sure Beats Discussing Cap'n Crunch

I am sure many of you have already heard of this idea, but it's one of my favorites! Put a large map on your dining table and cover it with a clear plastic tablecloth (I got mine at Target for $4) It worked great! Once we found this strategy, we would buy maps and educational posters at garage sales, usually included in the big boxes of old National Geographics you can get for cheap. We had a great time discussing the maps over breakfast.

Blessings,

Lee
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Finishing the Math Book

My former neighbor girl is in 5th grade in the public school, doing Scott Foresman math. She told me her teacher is only 1/2 way through their math book, on chapter 8. When my kids were at that same public school, 1st through 4th grade, never once did either of my kids get past 3/4 of their math books in any grade. One year they both only got through 1/2 the book. Keep in mind that most math texts are review for the first 6 chapters. How difficult it must be to be constantly behind in math, always struggling and never completing.

I think sometimes homeschoolers don't realize how well they are doing in comparison to the public schools. Not that we should compare! But I do hear a lot of parents worry that they don't know if they are doing a good enough job. It seems to me that JUST finishing one math book before going on to the next has got to be a great job in comparison.

I AM SO GLAD WE HOMESCHOOLED!

Blessings,
Lee

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Spelling Woes? Try Spelling Power!

When you begin Spelling Power, you start by assessing what how well your child spells. Then you start your child at that level. When my child was in 3rd grade, he tested at level G (about 7th grade level,) so I started him there. So the words are exactly as hard as they should be for your particular child regardless of how well, or how poorly, your child spells. There is an alphabetical list of 5000 words in Spelling Power.

If you come across a misspelled word in your child's work, you can look it up on the list. It tells you what grade level that word is, and if it is in a SP level list or not. That helps you decide if you want to add it to their spelling list or not. If the word is a 9th grade word, and your child is in 2nd grade, you probably don't want to add it to their spelling list. But if it is a 6th grade word, and your child is in 9th grade, then yes, you would include the word in their spelling list.



Blessings,

Lee
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Teach Poetry to Homeschoolers

I recommend a series of poetry books for children called Poetry for Young People. The series has Poe, Elliot, Shakespeare, Hughes - there are perhaps 10-12 books in the series. You can get them at the library, but here is an example from Amazon:



By using real poetry, they learned early that poems don't always rhyme, etc. It was fun. I know I learned a lot :-)

For more fun, we also used the Shel Silverstein books, including "Falling Up."

For writing poetry, I used a simple book called "How to Write Poetry" by Paul Janeczko. It was fine, but I thought the kids learned more by enjoying the real poetry rather than writing it.

Blessings,

Lee
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Making School Fun!

I tried to incorporate games into our homeschool whenever possible. My kids didn't enjoy many of the hands-on projects that we did, but they do love playing games. After a while I gave up trying to find unit study projects that they enjoyed, and I focused more on what they loved - games. We played math games, art games, economics games. They would giggle when I wrote on the assignment sheet "Play 30 minutes of Masterpiece" or "Play SAT Game." Making homeschooling fun is a great way to instill the love of learning.

Blessings,

Lee

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Misty, water-colored memorization...

...of the way we were....

Did you ever have to memorize anything in high school? Don't remember? I did, and to this day I can still annoy my family with "No Man is an Island"! Memorization isn't a the most critical skill, but it can be fun. Choose a poem or a scripture, and try it for yourself.

When we began, I didn't actual think that memorization was that important, so I set my sights pretty low. I began with deciding that my kids would merely read the same passage each day of the week for three weeks. I wasn't trying for the goal of memorization at all, I was just trying to give them an "ear" for good literature. What I found out really surprised me! About two weeks into this process, I found that the boys had memorized much of the passage. By three weeks they could say it completely by heart! Later in our homeschool career, they were able to memorize large portions of scripture just by reading it aloud daily to me. I was amazed - I didn't know the human brain worked like that!

Try it, and see if it's fun for your own homeschool!

Blessings,
Lee
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Family Math Fun

When my children were younger, I tried to find ways to make learning fun. One of the things we did through elementary school was to play a math game a few times a week. We found great math games in Family Math. It is a $20 book that is appropriate for multiple children, kindergarten to 8th grade. You can find it at curriculum fairs, but also at regular bookstores and the library. It is a book of games and activities for teaching and improving math skills for K-8th grade. All of the activities are low-cost or no-cost. It has reproducible games to copy. Having dice is helpful. We used dry beans or macaroni for our game markers. Each game indicates whether it is for primary, intermediate, or middle school kids. My kids played the same games together. You can play it with your child, or have them play together after you show them how. Some of the activites are "games" with a winner, but other things are just learning activities (like determining surface area and volume using sugar cubes.)

Each week when I made their math assignment, I figure out what topic was being taught. I looked up the key words (one week I looked up pi, circumference, and geometry) in the index of the Family Math book. There is usually a selection of games and activities to choose from. This way they are doing math manipulatives that are about the lesson they are learning. One of my frustrations with geoboards or cuisinaire rods was that they are not applicable to most of the lessons they are learning. One week my older son began proportions, and I found a game called "Gorp", where you roll a dice to determine different proportions for the gorp ingredients. For younger kids, there are lots of fun games for learning place value, and using basic math facts. It also has activities for money, time, calendar and measuring. One word of warning - the games look a little intimidating in the book sometimes. I took a class on Family Math when I first began homeschooling. The teacher recommended that when you begin a game that you are not familiar with, force yourself to follow the directions just as they are written, and by the time you are near the end of the directions, the game WILL make sense. I did not have the "Gorp" game demonstrated to me, but I followed the directions like she said, and it worked. It became their favorite game!

Blessings,
Lee
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The HomeScholar
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Girding Your Loins for High School!

Use 7th and 8th grade as your "high school training time." Not so your kids can working at high school, it so you can work on how you THINK about high school. When my kids were that age, I would think about how many hours we spent on activities, I would think about the different class titles that I could use for different experiences. 7th and 8th grade is also a perfect time to be planning ahead for the job in front of you. Buy a book about homeschooling high school, take classes at the convention, and get my video if it would be helpful. That way when you get to high school you won't be afraid. It's all about avoiding fear, and planning ahead is the best way to do that. Don't wait to become fearful and THEN plan or seek help, because that's where the tears start!

My favorite book for this age range is:
Homeschoolers' College Admissions Handbook: Preparing Your 12- to 18-Year-Old for a Smooth Transition It was broad enough, and not too deep, so that it was a good introduction. Some of the other books out there are so in-depth and intense that it can be very overwhelming.

So there you go, that's about 5 minutes of my first video right there, for free! LOL! Take care, and give me a call or an email if you need help.

Blessings,
Lee
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HELP! It's my First Year Homeschooling!!

>>>This is my first yr to hs. I think I get a handle on what needs to be done for a 4th grader and then I find something else out. On top of trying to weed through all the curriculum choices. I am about to give up. I am so frustrated and overwhelmed. I just want it spelled out for me.<<<

All the choices are so overwhelming! And many of the choices are wonderful, which makes it even harder to decide! I began homeschooling when my kids were in 3rd and 5th grades. We started with Sonlight Curriculum, just for those reasons you stated: I wanted everything spelled out for me! Sonlight was a great start, because it sort of "held my hand" while I was learning to homeschool. It taught me what subjects I might want to teach, reminded me not to forget things, and showed me how much to do each day. Plus it's a great curriculum But really, I only started to use it so that someone would "hold my hand" while I started my first year of homeschooling. It's a little pricey, but lots of things are pricey, and investing in your first year will help you get off to a great start. Their website is:

http://www.sonlight.com/

Hope that helps!

Blessings,

Lee

Are "Great Illustrated Classics" Worthwhile?

>>>>I was asked if using "Great Illustrated Classics" was a good idea...<<<<


I'm very familiar with those books, and I have actually suggested them for parents to use when their kids simply won't read college reading list material (which can happen for a variety of reasons.) They do have illustrations, which can help remedial readers but annoy older teens. I believe they are written at a 5th grade reading level. An adult reader can get through each book in perhaps 1-2 hours. The editing isn't in beautiful prose - in other words, they aren't that well written from a literary perspective. They ARE true to the story line, however. I really think a student will get a sense for the book by reading them, and that can benefit them. They just won't be getting the vocabulary or the "ear" for great literature.

A similar idea is to have kids read the GABB, "Great American Bathroom Book" which has a concise 2 page synopsis of great literature. You may be able to find that at Amazon. They don't have pictures, and it's meant for adults, so the reading level is more challenging.

Again, you don't get the vocabulary or the "ear" for literature, but you do get the story line.

Hope that helps!
Blessings,
Lee