Drawing Manga

Art is a favorite subject in our household.  And, lately we've been exploring drawing cartoons.  We've never read much manga, but the art work is very interesting.  My 9 year-old son discovered a great series of books that give excellent directions on how to draw manga characters.  They are by Christopher Hart.

The first one he discovered was the Kids Draw Manga Fantasy book pictured on the left.  He was excited that his finished work looked like the pictures in the book!  That is always so encouraging, isn't it? Then, he wanted more books, and he specifically asked for Christopher Hart.  So, we picked up a few more that were even more direct with their instructions.  They included the Xtreme Art titles Draw Manga, Draw Mini Manga and Draw Manga Monsters.

Dolch Words

Learning to read is one of the greatest adventures!  

My 5 year-old is in the process of emerging as a beginning reader.   What fun watching him discover how letters combine together to create words. 

To help him on his way, we have been using a combination of explicit phonics and sight words.  We are intensive on the phonics and use the sight words as helpers to make reading real books easier.  

To assist with quick recognition of high frequency words we have been playing a game called Roll-Say-Keep found at TheSchoolBell.com.  

Now that he knows how to read all of the words in Dolch List 1, he is able to read much more difficult books than basic phonics primers.  We often read as a team, with him reading all the short words and me reading the irregular or longer ones!

Stop Motion Animation

One of the joys of homeschooling is the ability to take time to explore areas of interest with your children.  Our eldest is 9 and loves lego and movie making.  So, we have combined the 2 interests and created some stop motion animation movies.  

Our tools are simple ones that are easily available.  We use our webcam to capture the images using free software called Stop Motion Animator, or SMA.  This program allows us to create the clips.  After we have the clips created we edit them with Windows Movie Maker.   

Here's a sample of one of the videos that we recently created.

We learned the process of planning scenes to tell a story effectively and had some fun adding sound to enhance the images.  Check back later for more mini-movies!

  

The Life of Fred

Wow!  Can this really be a math book?

Yes, it is.  And it is an easy reading, self-teaching one at that!

Does your child have a quirky sense of humor?  If they have already mastered their multiplication and division facts, then Life of Fred, Fractions is the book for you!

This is a book that puts applied math into perspective.

Fred needs to know something.  It involves math.  We learn the math along with Fred.   Then the silly story continues!  I've heard some people call the book wordy (at first glance it doesn't really look like a math book at all.) But the wordiness tells the story and  it's the story that makes the math so real and causes the book to be engaging!  

The style of the book is engaging, as it uses different fonts to create a conversation between the author and the reader, and still another one to tell what Fred is thinking.

There is a lot of opportunity to practice the skills learned in the "your turn to play" section  and also in the "bridges."

We LOVE Fred!

Fractions is the first in a series of books that goes all the way to calculus and statistics.  The books are written by Stanley Schmidt, a Ph.D. who taught both high school and college math.  (Man, do I ever wish he had been one of my teachers!)

Check out Life of Fred.  It is available from the publisher, Polka Dot Publishing, for $19, shipping included!

Engineering for Every Kid - Janice VanCleave

This book is another must-have for the science-minded homeschooling family.
We used it to compliment our grade 4 study of  physics.   It was tons of fun for our kids to learn about bridges, rockets, airplanes, roller coasters (and so much more) in a hands-on way.

This is a great book if you're looking for simple and quick exploration activities to support engineering concepts related to radiation, acoustics, hydrology, meteorology, and more.   Each activity is simple and involves things easily located or found around the house. Each begins with  "What You Need to Know" that is very helpful for background knowledge and vocabulary. It is written clearly and can be readable, while not being diluted.   There are a couple of exercises that test the students understanding of the material.  These often involve studying diagrams that are well drawn and to the point.

And, finally there is an activity to demonstrate the principles taught in the lesson.  The format of the activity is scientific and is :  purpose, materials, procedure, results, why.  Check it out!   

Adventures with Atoms and Molecules - Chemistry for Everyone!

Science is so deliciously hands on! It is the perfect subject for all ages. It is one subject that everyone can get involved in at whatever age or grade level they are.

My kids love science, and in fact have been known to beg for it! But, do-it yourself science curriculums can be difficult to come across. Well, the kind that actually teach science, anyway.

If you're like me, you've found lots of books that claim to have 234 cool science experiments you can do at home...but often times the explanations are lacking, or they just plain don't work.

I like science to be exciting, fun, and educational. So, I was looking for a good book that treated chemistry the way I would have approached it as a scientist; while at the same time giving the children a sense of learning it themselves and really doing science experiments.

So, where do you turn for some really good science?

Enter: Adventures with Atoms and Molecules by Robert Mebane and Thomas Rybolt. Each experiment is laid out similar to a science lab. There is a lead in question which needs answering, followed by is a listing of materials required (which truly are things which can be easily found around the house!) Next is the procedure and suggestions for observations. And, finally there is a discussion section, which is recommended to be read after you complete the experiment. There is a good deal to be learned about the physical interactions between molecules and the chemical reactions that can result.

This book is a great way to teach the scientific method of inquiry by testing and observation. We made mini-lab sheets for each experiment to keep in our science notebook. And also made a glossary of new science terms. Now, don't let the dull illustrations fool you. This book is the real deal.

Homeschooling With Mulitple Ages

So you've decided to home school.... and now your pulling your hair out because the toddler is flushing the cat down the toilet while you're trying to teach fractions to one child and basic addition to another! How can one person manage all of the children? Take a deep breath, relax, and know that you are not alone!

Here's a suggestion:

As a starting point, let's categorize school subjects in three categories:
teacher intensive, student intensive, and teamwork.

For example, in our home school:

Teacher intensive subjects:
Science experiments
Math: introduction of new topics
Administration of a spelling test
Cooking
etc.

Student intensive subjects:
Math practice and drill
Creative writing
Grammar
etc.

Teamwork subjects:
History
Read aloud time
Home Economics (i.e housework ....come on it's a subject! How else does Mom have time to teach?)

etc.

Complete your own list for all the subjects being covered.

Once you have your subjects categorized, organize the teaching day so that one child is working with you on something teacher intensive while another child is doing something student intensive, or while everyone else is doing something that involves teamwork. This will give you one-on-one time with the first child while everyone else is occupied. (I usually work with the most easily distracted child first, before I become distracted myself! Then cycle through them one by one. Making a schedule to loosely follow is a big help here.)

As the children get a bit older, it can be nice to involve the oldest sibling with a younger one to act as the teacher. It is not only a good curriculum review, excellent practice in teaching and a sibling bonding experience, it also gives Mom (or Dad) a break!

Give it a try!

Oh, and for the toddler who is flushing the cat, check my next post on what to do with a wayward toddler!

The Well-Trained Mind

When discovering your homeschooling philosophy it's important to research different approaches to homeschooling.  

One popular homeschooling method is the classical approach.  Classical education is an approach which links the study of world history to literature and science.  Essentially, the study of world history can be divided into 4 eras.  Each era represents a year of study.  The 4 eras can be cycled through 3 times during the entire schooling experience.  

The first 4 years, grades 1-4, are the grammar stage, also referred to as the poll-parrot stage. At this stage children are exposed to information for the first time.  

The second cycle, grades 5-8, is the logic stage.  At this stage the material is presented again, but the learner is more mature and is able to ask questions to help gain understanding in the "why."

  

The final cycle through the curriculum is the rhetoric stage. This is the culminating stage of the classical education in which students learn to write and speak about what they have learned in an intelligent and persuasive manner.

The Well Trained Mind, by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise-Bauer is an excellent guide for parents who are interested in learning about classical education and how to implement it. 

We use this book as a spine to guide our home schooling.  Although we use an eclectic approach it is based on the Classical format.  There is a tremendous amount of information in The Well-Trained Mind.  It is clearly presented and well researched.   The one caveat that I have in recommending it is that if you tried to do everything they outline, you might go mad!  It covers everything very extensively.  It is being revised and updated for publication in 2009.  This book is 800+ pages of valuable resources.  Check it out!