Composer of the Week

One year I purchased a Costco 10-CD pack of great composers. Neat, because each CD was a different composer. My idea was to have a "composer of the week." We would just play a CD during lunch and maybe during math. I found portaits of the great composers on the web, that I would print. We read about them, sometimes online and sometimes from library books.

Another idea for music appreciation is "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" by The Teaching Company, www.teach12.com. It was our favorite lecture series. The teacher has a wonderful vocabulary, and my boys would take college level lecture notes in real time, while listening to the wonderful music content.

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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The Best Advice in Every Situation

The best advice in the world never changes: Know your child and trust yourself. You will figure out what's best, you can make these decisions. Nobody knows your child like you do. Nobody loves your child like you do. Nobody wants the best for your child the way that you do. You were made for this purpose. You are the perfect person for this job and for this decision you are facing now.

Blessings,

Lee
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Math for the Artistically Inclined

I have noticed (non-scientific poll) that the artsy type tend to enjoy geometry more than algebra. If you are dealing with a lot of frustration with algebra, then geometry may be a bit easier (probably depending on the geometry text.) Geometry can apply to art in a way that algebra.... well.... can't.

There is actually a lot of art in Jacob's Geometry, by the way. Although I notice it was also heavy on logic, so check it out and see if it is the right match for you!

Blessings,

Lee
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501 Writing Prompts

If you are looking for a quick and easy way to judge your student's writing quality, I liked the book "501 Writing Prompts" by Learning Express. It has (remarkably!) 501 prompts that you can use, but the great part is the sample essays! About every 25 or 50 essays, they will show a what a student essay would look like with that topic. They will give a perfect example, a middle-quality example, and an example of what NOT to do. That really helped me because I'm a visual learner, and I really needed to see for myself what a good essay would look like. Don't feel like you have to "grade" the your kids essays, however. The grades aren't that important. What's important is practice.



Blessings,

Lee
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Geometry, Trig and Calculus - Oh My!

Geometry is the basis for trigonometry, which is the building block for calculus. You have to understand the angles of a triangle to get to sine, cosine, and tangent. Many college majors require math, even those your might not expect, and you don't always know ahead of time what major your child will choose 4 years from now. That's why I think that math is important - and that includes geometry.

The geometry most of us remember from high school is "formal" geometry with proofs. Saxon approaches geometry in a more integrated fashion, combining it with other discipline - mixing it up a bit.

Our engineering professor friend says that there is a huge and growing deficit of kids that can do math - which has led to a decline in engineers and scientists. This is something they talk about at their professional engineering conventions, because it's a huge problem nationwide that affects our national security and national economy. This is something that engineers get very worked up about it :-) See more of my friend's comments here.

If your child gets frustrated by words, have them look at Saxon for math. It's mostly numbers, which can sometimes be encouraging to kids that hate reading and writing.

Blessings,
Lee
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College for the Learning Challenged

Don't be overly concerned about getting into college if your student has a learning challenge. Colleges are used to dealing with these issues. There are a lot of colleges that SPECIALIZE in dealing with such students. At a recent college fair, I was amazed at how many colleges used this as their "come on" line. I know a homeschooled young man who was very good at math and extremely below grade level in verbal abilities, and he got into a nationally ranked engineering school.

Don't be discouraged if your student has a learning challenge. Your student can have a bright future in college! Continue to encourage the areas where they are strong and look for a college that will support their areas of weakness.

Blessings,
Lee
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