The Cat of Bubastes Audio Drama (Homeschool Review)

G.A. Henty’s novels are a favorite way for many homeschool families to learn history. These classics bring history to life through engaging stories set against a backdrop of wars and ancient civilizations. Over the past few years,  Heirloom Audio Productions  has converted several of Henty’s novels into high quality audio dramas, featuring well-known actors, vivid sound effects and musical scores. Their latest production is The Cat of Bubastes,  a story of ancient Egypt.

The Cat of Bubastes tells the story of a boy, Amuba, who is captured into slavery in Egypt.

The Cat of Bubastes  2-CD set ($29.97) includes three free bonuses:

• The 47 page The Cat of  Bubastes eStudy Guide and Discussion Starter for families who would like to expand the educational value of the story
• A printable poster featuring of 1 Chronicles, 17:20
• An MP3 download of  The Cat of Bubastes.

The audio drama is also available in sets of four (for sharing with friends or family) or as an MP3 download without CD’s.

The Cat of Bubastes follows the story of a boy named Amuba who is captured into slavery in Egypt, then purchased to be the slave and companion of a boy his age who is destined to become a priest. His adventures include exploring tombs, saving a girl from a crocodile, helping to cover up the accidental killing of a sacred cat, and subsequently fleeing for his life. Even Moses, the prince of Egypt, makes a “cameo” performance!

Although we have enjoyed all of the Heirloom Audio Production stories that we’ve listened to, Emily and I both agree that The Cat of Bubastes is our favorite. The plot seemed easier to follow than some other Henty stories featuring lengthy battle scenes where the storyline was carried by crashes and shouts rather than dialogue.  the storyline moved quickly, keeping us on the edge of our seats at times. It was certainly educational with the focus on Egyptian life and traditions, but families will choose to listen to it over and over just for fun. I would recommend this drama for all ages. Even younger elementary-aged children would enjoy the story, although there are some deaths of major characters that could be disturbing to sensitive children.

Study Guide:

The PDF study guide that accompanies the Cat of Bubastes audio drama provides parents of younger children with discussion material to help their children understand the story better. Alternatively, the guide can be used as written assignments for older children, expanding the story into a fuller study of Egypt.

The guide includes several components:

• Listening Well questions assess comprehension of the story.
• Thinking Further questions require the student to think about the events, culture, and principles in the story and  analyze them or to relate them to modern times.
• Defining Words include a list of the more difficult words in each section for students to look up.
• Expand Your Learning is my favorite section! These fascinating tidbits of information teach more about related concepts, from dung beetles to hieroglyphs to ancient Egyptian diet. Although we didn’t spend much time using the study guide for this audio drama, I had Emily read through these sections.
• Bible Study exercises are located a at the end of the guide and consist of lists of Biblical truths (“Throughout Scripture, God wage was against false gods and the demonic powers behind them.”) and several references to support each premise.
• The guide concludes with Historical Background Information about the story. These pages discuss early Egyptian civilization, the stories of their gods, and how their beliefs influenced their life practices.

The study guide is an excellent resource for families who want to expand the Cat of Bubastes into a fuller literature or unit study.

We have previously reviewed Heirloom Audio’s  With Lee in Virginia, In Freedom’s Cause, and The Dragon and the Raven, so visit these links to read about these exciting dramas or visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read more about The Cat of Bubastes.

Connect with Heirloom Audio:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeirloomAudio
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeirloomStories
Google+: https://plus.google.com/b/114534826166314080647/114534826166314080647
Instagram: @HeirloomAudioOfficial

 

Creative Scheduling

It’s easy to get into a rut. Do you study math, language arts, history and science every single day? Sometimes it is more successful to pull ourselves out of that traditional school mindset of every subject every day at the same time and experiment with some different scheduling ideas.

Why might you want to arrange your school year differently?

• To allow more time to really dig into a subject. Sometimes, there is an advantage to having a long block of time to spend on research, hands-on projects, or even read-alouds without the pressure to “get to the next thing.”
• To alleviate boredom. Staying with one routine day after day, year after year can be dull. When a student’s schedule changes from month to month or even day to day, it can keep interest higher.

What are some ways to schedule creatively?

• Block scheduling. When my children were in elementary school, we did unit studies or topical studies for history and science. I found that planning was easier for me and that all the subjects actually got done if we alternated history and science. Although we continued to do math and language arts daily, we might spend 8 weeks studying the solar system. Then we’d immerse ourselves in the Middle Ages for 6 weeks, and so on. 

This year, Emily spent the first 6 weeks of school studying human anatomy and physiology. We used a Great Courses video series, notebooking, research, and a Moving Beyond the Page unit. This was an intensive study for which she’ll receive a  full semester’s credit. During that time period, she had a lighter load in some of her other subjects and we didn’t start some subjects, like Spanish, until her human A&P course was finished.

• Schedule variations within a week. One method that is gaining popularity in public schools (and that has always been the practice in colleges) is to study different subjects on different days. Math might be scheduled for Monday through Thursday. Science might be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and History might be on Tuesday and Thursday. This allows for some variety from day to day and gives the student longer blocks of time to focus on a subject.
• Combining subjects. This is one of my favorite ways to both save time and to make education more meaningful. Once your children are reading fairly well, they don’t necessarily need a full language arts or English class. It is so easy to combine language arts into other subjects. Use science vocabulary as spelling or vocabulary work. Assign your children biographies or historical fiction to read. Not only will this enrich their history lessons, but the assignments do double duty, counting for two subjects. Have him write reports about what he is learning in history or science and skip those end-of-chapter questions. You can still use a spelling, vocabulary, or writing curriculum as needed, but you don’t necessarily need one every day or even every year. Of course, unit study curricula are great for combining multiple subjects, from science to art.
• Daily scheduling. Want to start small? If you always begin your day with math, surprise your children with a read-aloud or art project first thing. Take a walk or go to the park for a break mid-morning. Little surprises or daily variations can keep routines from becoming dull. Keep in mind that your children may need to do math or harder subjects earlier in the day when they are fresh, but there is probably still some room for variety.
• High school credits. I’ve found myself doing a bit of creative bookkeeping as I award my daughter’s high school credits. She has some subjects, such as critical thinking and art that she does as she has time, depending on what else is going on with her other subjects and extra-curricular activities. Although she did both of these subjects last year, I didn’t feel that she had yet earned a half credit for the courses. She is working on art this summer to finish up a credit. She’ll complete credits for critical thinking and logic next year. I’ll just put them on her transcript in the year in which they were completed.

What ways have you found to schedule creatively?

Notebooking and Human Anatomy

This month, Emily is working on  Human Anatomy and Physiology as a block-style course in which she’ll complete a 0.5 high school credit in just four weeks. She’s spending an intensive 2-3 hours a day on the subject, but will have the class completed by September.

We’re not using a traditional textbook for this class.  Her primary curriculum is the Great Courses “Understanding the Human Body” series. We recently got a membership to thegreatcoursesplus.com, which is a streaming service that includes hundreds of courses.  Each day Emily watches a lesson or two and writes a summary of the topic in her notebook. I found pages at NotebookingPages.com that are perfect for this. The graphics make the pages so much prettier and provide some guidance on her topic for the day. She’s also using The Human Body Book for reference.

 

I’ve been impressed with how much she is learning from these very detailed videos and she is enjoying the notebooking style of documenting what she learns.

Spiritual Circle Journal (Schoolhouse Review)

The Spiritual Circle Journal is a journal for adults that helps guide their devotional time, record prayers, and see where God is moving in their lives. The pages include nine circles to represent different ways to talk to God and to listen to God, providing direction and focus for daily quiet time. 

The Spiritual Circle Journal for Kids & Teens is similar. Each page includes nine fun shapes (a car, light bulb, heart, shoe, etc.) that represent different areas of of focus. As the child has his devotional time, he writes notes in each shape to record prayers, insights from scripture reading, thank-you’s to God, favorite verses, concerns, and so on. There aren’t any rules, or any order to the process. The shapes are there to remind the child of the different topics he may want to think or pray about that day. As he prays, thinks about his day, or reads the Bible, he is free to skip around the page writing comments, notes, and prayers as they come to mind. Some of the journal entries will be introspective; others will hopefully inspire the child to action, creating a link between time with God and his relationships with others.

This is a unique way to introduce a child to having a quiet time or to offer a different approach for a devotional time. It’s not a Bible study, although it could be used as a supplement to one. It doesn’t teach or provide pre-written prayers. Instead, it unleashes the child or teen’s creativity, providing gentle guidance in developing a relationship with God and encouraging them to look for how God is working in their lives. The pages are a heavy weight, slightly glossy paper that would work well with colored pencils, markers, or even watercolors. An artsy child could have a lot of fun with this journal.

The journal instructions suggest that the child start by using the book once or twice a week at first. That way, there isn’t a feeling of failure if the child misses a day. Emily has been using her journal every morning, though. She begins with her usual Bible and devotional book reading, then follows up by recording her thoughts in the Spiritual Circle Journal. She says that she enjoys using it because it helps her get her thoughts and feelings out and that writing her thoughts helps to organize them instead of keeping them jumbled in her head. The Spiritual Circle Journal is helping her focus on God and her feelings about life.

I like this approach to journaling. While a blank page may seem intimidating to a child or teen, the smaller writing blocks are much less so. The suggested themes for each shape give direction on topics to journal about. Children and teens can choose to simply write their thoughts in the shapes, to color or paint the shapes to add color, or even to draw symbols or pictures that will illustrate their thoughts. If you are looking for an open-ended introduction to journaling for your child, this is a product you might enjoy.

Connect with Spiritual Circle Journal:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LizLassa/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiritualcirclejournal/  @spiritualcirclejournal
Twitter: https://twitter.com/liz_lassa  @liz_lassa

 

Friday Freebie! Planets Game

Studying astronomy? This week’s freebie is a trivia game that will test your knowledge of our solar system. This game is best for older elementary or middle school aged students, although if your first grader is a whiz with the planets, he might love it as well! Planets, Moon, and Stars

This is one of 15 games that I designed several years ago to reinforce our geography, history and science studies.

This week’s bonus deal…buy The Inventor’s Game for only $1 (reg. $3.50) Or buy all 15 of my learning games for only $15 at CurrClick.

Planning Out Our School Year

This is the time of year when I work on scheduling out our new school year and writing lesson plans. If I used a “boxed” curriculum, this would be quite easy, but my eclectic approach to school and curricula requires a bit more planning ahead. Fortunately for me, planning and organizing are some of my favorite things to do!

First, I look over all the books and materials that I plan to use for the year. (These have already been purchased over the past few months.) Some will be used for the entire year. Others might be used for a semester, or for just a few weeks. Others might be used for a few weeks, then alternated with another resource.

Although I have a general plan of what will be used when, I need to narrow down that plan and record it. For this, I use a grid that shows each subject with a block for each week. I find that the Quarterly Planner pages from the Schoolhouse High School Planner are perfect for this.

Once I have my big picture in place, I can get to my weekly planning. I’ve used a variety of paper planners through the years, including simple grids that I just made up myself to commercial planners like the Schoolhouse Planner. Since last year, I’ve been using Homeschool Planet and just love it. I can put assignments in quickly using its sophisticated scheduling features that allow me to repeat assignments using sequential lessons or page numbers. I can easily shift assignments to another day, keep attendance, and record grades for each subject with the software.

This year, I’m actually using a combination of online and paper planning. On Homeschool Planet, I am planning assignments by the week. Emily will look at the weekly assignments and fill out her personal planning grid as she plans her own schedule day by day. This will not only streamline my planning, but allow her to become more responsible for her schedule and assignments. College is only two years away and I won’t be around then to make a schedule for her!

Having a plan is important to me and helps make our school year successful. I’d be lost without it!

Are You Preparing your High School Student for College?

 

This article is re-published from http://www.landryacademy.com. I thought it was very helpful in helping me choose skills to focus on during Emily’s last two years of high school.

College Professor Critiques Homeschoolers

© Greg Landry - written in 2009

I teach sophomore through senior level college students - most of them are "pre-professional" students. They are preparing to go to medical school, dental school, physical therapy school, etc.

As a generalization, I've noticed certain characteristics common in my students who were homeschooled.  Some of these are desirable, some not.

Desirable characteristics:

1. Homeschooled students are independent learners and do a great job of taking initiative and being responsible for learning. They don't have to be "spoon fed" as many students do. This gives them an advantage at two specific points in their education; early in college and in graduate education.

2. They handle classroom social situations (interactions with their peers and professors) very well. In general, my homeschooled students are a pleasure to have in class. They greet me when they enter the class, initiate conversations when appropriate, and they don't hesitate to ask good questions in class. Most of my students do none of these.

3. They are serious about their education and that's very obvious in their attitude, preparedness, and grades.

Areas where homeschooled students can improve:

1. They come to college less prepared in the sciences than their schooled counterparts - sometimes far less prepared. This can be especially troublesome for pre-professional students who need to maintain a high grade point average from the very beginning.

2. They come to college without sufficient test-taking experience, particularly with timed tests. Many homeschooled students have a high level of anxiety when it comes to taking timed tests.

3. Many homeschooled students have problems meeting deadlines and have to adjust to that in college. That adjustment time in their freshman year can be costly in terms of the way it affects their grades.

My advice to homeschooling parents:

1. If your child is even possibly college bound and interested in the sciences, make sure that they have a solid foundation of science in the high school years.

2. Begin giving timed tests by 7th or 8th grade. I'm referring to all tests that students take, not just national, standardized tests.

I think it is a disservice to not give students timed tests. Students tend to focus better and score higher on timed tests, and, they are far better prepared for college and graduate education if they've taken timed tests throughout the high school years.

In the earlier years the timed tests should allow ample time to complete the test as long as the student is working steadily. The objective is for them to know it's timed yet not to feel a time pressure. This helps students to be comfortable taking timed tests and develops confidence in their test-taking abilities.

3. Give your students real deadlines to meet in the high school years. If it's difficult for students to meet these deadlines because they're coming from mom or dad, have them take "outside" classes; online, co-op, or community college.

Build on the strengths that homeschooling offers and send your students to college fully prepared and a step ahead of most other students.

Greg is a homeschool dad, former college professor, and founder and director of LandryAcademy.com  Landry Academy springs from his unique experiences in teaching and mentoring youngsters  – he has a heart for students and a passion for teaching them about God's incredible creation that surrounds them. He has taught thousands of homeschooled students, designed and directed a university anatomy and physiology / cadaver laboratory, designed hundreds of science lab experiments for homeschooled students, and has written science lab manuals.

©2014 by Greg Landry

Dragonistics—Fun with Statistics (Review)

We just discovered a fun way to learn about statistics. With a set of Dragonistics cards, published by Statistics Learning Centre, we had access to a large amount of data without having to conduct surveys ourselves. The free printable resources at the Statistics Learning Centre website provided several ready-to-use activities and lesson plans for learning about statistics with the cards.

Dragonistics cards enabled my daughter to quickly conduct "surveys"  and do statistical analysis on  the characteristics of a large population of dragons. Each card displays a unique dragon with varying characteristics, including name, size, strength, color, sex, personality, age, and breath.  She used the cards to make bar graphs comparing characteristics in her dragon population. Then she developed hypotheses concerning  her dragon population and was able to evaluate each hypothesis (such as female dragons are more cheerful than males or green dragons tend to be larger than red dragons) by sorting and arranging groups of cards. When I sorted my cards attempting to  answer the same question,  our conclusions sometimes differed just as results would differ somewhat in real life. This was an effective way to demonstrate sampling error and variation.

The cards come in a nice box and are sturdy and colorful. They are ideal for making quick bar graphs or sorting into Venn diagrams. The set is designed for classroom use and there are plenty of cards for several groups of children to use, but we found the activities very easy to adapt for individual use as well and is appropriate for elementary aged students and up. I’m even hoping that we can incorporate them into a high school statistics course next year. This is a unique product that we will enjoy using!

Freebie Friday! Silly Snail Grammar Game

Studying grammar can be a bit dull sometimes, but not when you incorporate grammar practice into a game. My game, Silly Snail, reviews the major parts of speech using a game format. You can download it free here!

I’ve published a lot of games at Currclick that are a fun way to learn or review a variety of geography, history, and science topics. I hope you will take a look! Here’s a great deal on one of my favorites:

Learn and review geography and facts about the seven continents when you purchase Covering the Continents for only $1 through this link (reg. $3.50).  Or buy all 15 of my learning games for only $15 at CurrClick.

Great Ideas for Your Homeschool

As homeschoolers, we have more time to teach our children more non-academic skills, like sewing. I love this post at At Home: Where Life Happens that shows some simple sewing projects that the students made as baby shower gifts. I’m embarrassed to admit that, although I sew a lot, I haven’t spent to time to teach my daughter how to sew.

In my constant search for the best curricula available, I love hearing what resources have worked well for other families.  This week, Kym at Homeschool Coffee Break shared some of her favorite programs. Some, like The Power in Your Hands (review coming soon), and IEW’s Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization are favorites for us as well.

Have you ever considered year-round schooling? Amanda at HopkinsHomeschool.com is starting a series on the nitty-gritty of how a year-round schedule works. You can find her series here: Year-Round Homeschooling.

Friday Freebie! Animal Game

I love using games as part of our schooling. This is a category game that I designed a few years ago to teach or review animal characteristics and categories. There are two versions—for younger and older elementary ages. Younger children will sort pictures into animal types, and older children will identify the defining characteristics of each type. Download All About Animals here.

Want to try out another learning game? Through this link only, you can purchase The Insect Game for only $1 (reg. $3.50) Or buy all 15 of my learning games for only $15 at CurrClick.

NotebookingPages.com (Schoolhouse Review)

Are you familiar with notebooking? Notebooking is a method of homeschooling that encourages students to write and draw about what they learn instead of using more dry traditional classroom methods such as answering questions at the end of textbook chapters. It allows students to feel more ownership of their work, work more independently, and provides a great record of what they are learning. I received a Lifetime Membership from NotebookingPages.com to review and found that the many resources here make the process of notebooking even easier and more fun to implement.

About Notebooking

Notebooking fits in well with our homeschooling style. We have always followed a literature-based approach for history and preferred discussion, “real books” and hands-on activities for science. I have had my children write reports, draw, make timelines and label maps rather than writing short answers to questions. That’s what notebooking is about—allowing the children to demonstrate what they’ve learned in a way that allows creativity and follows their interests. We’ve never used pre-printed notebooking pages, but found them easy to incorporate into our schedule.

What is included in a Notebooking Pages.com membership?

Basically, hundreds of ready-to-use pages on a huge variety of topics. In addition to generic pages with pretty borders, your choice of standard or primary rule lines, and boxes for adding drawings, you have choices of dozens of topics in:

• Alphabet pages
• Bible characters
• Famous People
• Fine Arts
• Geography
• History
• Holidays
• Language Arts
• Science/Nature

Each of these pages comes in several formats. You can choose pages with or without a picture or picture box in several layouts and choose standard or primary ruled lines.

A book of centuries is also included for creating a timeline in a book format. Just this item alone can cost $10-$30 dollars from other companies. (We have one from another company that we’ve used for years. It’s a great alternative to a wall mounted timeline.)

Free Notebooking Pages Product Sampler from NotebookingPages.com.

A FREE MEMBERSHIP is available to NotebookingPages.com that provides a generous sampling of pages. It’s definitely worth a try. You may discover that the free membership is all you need or it may tempt you to buy the Lifetime Membership to have access to all the materials (with more still being added!)

 

How did we use Notebooking Pages?

Our primary focus for this review period was American history. I printed out a stack of pages on topics and people that we had recently studied or would be studying soon. Some, I assigned to Emily; others I just made available for her to choose. That way she could write about topics that were most interesting to her. We found pages on all the early presidents, Santa Fe Trail, Lewis and Clark, the War of 1812, the Constitution, and so on. As she learned about a topic, she’d choose a notebooking page that corresponded or a generic page if there wasn’t a pre-designed page for that topic and wrote a few paragraphs to summarize what she had learned. She really enjoyed doing this and it was a great way to record what she is studying and for me to see what she had retained from her reading.

Notebooking will be a big part of our school plans for next year and I’ve already printed out a lot of pages to use. Emily will be doing a human anatomy and physiology course using Great Courses videos and some other non-textbook resources. I plan to have her “make her own textbook” by notebooking what she has learned each day. I was thrilled to discover that in the human anatomy topic, in addition to the simple notebooking pages available for other topics, there were many diagrams with parts to label. These will be very useful!

The following semester, she’ll be doing a “history of science” course, again with non-textbook resources, so we won’t have access to ready-made comprehension questions or tests. I plan to have her do pages for each scientist she studies as a record of what she is learning.

I think it would be fun to do a poets study as well that would include poet biographies and copywork of poems. Really, one could incorporate notebooking into almost any subject.

Navigating the Site

Immediately upon signing up for my Lifetime Membership, I received several emails. The first, the “Membership Tour and Important Info.”  included very specific instructions for logging on and navigating the site.

The second email was an “EasyStart Guide” that provided a 5 day plan for getting started with notebooking.  Daily instructions included tutorials to work through, how to start a notebook, and creating the first notebook page. These guides were wonderful for easing the “Aack! Now I have access to thousands of notebooking pages. I don’t know what to do or where to start!” reaction. If you are new to notebooking, you won’t have to worry—these tutorials will get you started without any stress. There are even videos that give tips on how to incorporate notebooking into your school!

What we thought:

I was impressed with the wide variety of pages available. And of course, there are many many generic pages with a variety of formats and borders for use with any topic you can dream up. I loved that there were so many topical pages with illustrations—that makes the finished product so much nicer. Emily said that she is enjoying notebooking because it “helps her remember what is is learning better.”

If you are looking for a way to document informal schooling or if you have never tried schooling outside of the textbook approach, I encourage you to try out notebooking….and notebookingpages.com makes the process very easy!

 

Connect with NotebookingPages.com:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debrareed.notebookingpages/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NotebookingPgs  @NotebookingPgs

 

MySchoolYear.com (Schoolhouse Review)

During the past month, I’ve been trying out a new (to me) homeschool record-keeping program. MySchoolYear.com provides a system for online record keeping and planning for nearly every aspect of your homeschool. My School Year (Homeschool Record Keeping) costs $40 a year, which is a reasonable price for a subscription-based record keeping program. A subscription cover an unlimited number of students, which is great for large families.

My School Year manages and keeps records of many aspects of your homeschool:

• Lesson plans
• Attendance
• Grades
• Materials used
• Book lists
• Activities
• Awards
• Transcripts

To get started with My School Year, you need to enter basic information, student names, address, school name, dates for the current school term, etc. This will be used when creating transcripts. Then subjects and classes are added for each student. At this point, you will be ready to start creating lesson plans.

Individual lessons can be created by choosing the class and entering the information for each lesson. A couple of short cut options are also available. “Quick split” can take a resources with a specified number of pages and divide equally it among a specified number of days. For example, if you want your child to read a 346 page book over two weeks, the program will schedule an equal number of pages to be read each day. Rapid repeat allows you to schedule items with the same resource and different lesson numbers for a period of time (Saxon Math, lesson 1; Saxon Math, lesson 2; and so on). This is fairly limited, though, since the numbers need to be sequential. If your curriculum is divided into “Week 1, Days 1-5,” for example the only way to handle that is by scheduling one week at a time, or all the “day 1’s,” and so on. The feature still saved me some time over entering each subject individually.

Additional lesson planning features include the ability to reschedule lessons for a later date or to copy lesson plans for use with another child.

Each lesson can be marked as complete and grades entered. The program keeps track of progress.

 

Here is an assignment sheet created from the lesson plans. It was quick to print out and I liked the check-off boxes for each assignment.

I found the entering of lessons to be rather slow and tedious. I felt that it would have been quicker to do on paper. It is nice that the program keeps track of attendance and grade averages, though.

In addition to lesson planning, there are more report features. My School Year can create keep track of book lists, materials used, grades, extracurricular activities, awards, and so on. It can also create a transcript based on your student’s classes and grades. Reports can be as specific or as general as you desire.

As books are entered into the reading logs, you have the options to include reading level, page count, price, author and other notes about the book. A report can be printed at any time for the book list or any other list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Teacher’s Aid” tab offers warnings and suggestions for action. You can see below that I have a warning that my term is ending and that I need to set up a new term, and suggestions that I add awards, reading lists, or events attended to my records.

My Thoughts:

Overall, My School Year wasn’t a good fit for me. It took me quite a while to figure out some of the features. Although there is a “need help” button on every page that gives tips for using that feature, the way it worked wasn’t intuitive to me and I found it to be time consuming. After I accidentally entered Emily’s book list into materials/book list, I never could figure out how to transfer it onto her reading list for this term. Nor could I even view the list other than creating a pdf report of it. (It probably can be done, but I couldn’t figure it out.)

I really liked the reports that I printed out. The lesson plans are attractive and have check-off boxes. They were helpful to give to Emily each day with her assignments and it was just as easy to print off a week’s assignments at one time. Likewise, the book list report was attractive and ideal for including in a portfolio.

The program has a lot of features, more than some other record keeping programs that I’ve used, but just wasn’t easy enough for me to enjoy using.

My School Year has made several improvements to the program just in the short time that I’ve been a member, so the company obviously has a commitment to improving their product to meet the needs of their customers. If you want to try out My School Year to see if it is right for your family, a free one-month trial subscription is available.

Homeschooling for Free

As you can probably tell from this blog, I’m a bit of a homeschool curriculum “junkie.”  There are so many wonderful products available and I love to try out new things! To tell the truth, though, I think some of my favorite homeschooling years were ones when we spent very little money. There really are many resources for homeschooling that cost little or nothing.

There is a bit of a trade-off for free homeschool, though. Generally, you will spend more time putting together a curriculum, searching the library catalogs, and even teaching when you go the “free” route. You could end up with a program that perfectly meets your goals and is as rich as anything you could buy, or you could just end up with “cheap” and substandard. That is why it is important to carefully evaluate your goals and choose materials that will meet them.

Here are some possible resources:

1. The Library—my absolute favorite resource! Your children will have a much richer education if they read “real” books instead of textbooks. You can pick a subject to study, visit the library and come home with a stack of books to browse, read, and study—anything from insects to pyramids! For the early grades, I love the Five in a Row curriculum. Many of the required books and supplements are available at most libraries, so all you need is the manual and you are ready to go! You can even put together your own phonics/reading program. Libraries usually have sets of phonetic readers (like the Bob Books) that help you teach your child to decode words in a sequential manner, one phoneme at a time.

2. Notebooking is a great way to solidify learning and to keep records. Just have your children draw or write about the topics in those great books that they borrowed from the library (see above) and keep their pages in a binder. You don’t need all those workbooks—notebooking is a fine way to learn and to document your learning. If you need some inspiration, sites like notebookingpages.com offer a variety of free pages.

3. Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool has a program laid out for homeschooling preschool through high school, all using free internet resources. Course include “extras” like art, foreign language, and PE in addition to core classes. If you want something that’s “open and go” and fully planned, this might be perfect for you.

4. Kahn Academy has full math programs and many resources in other subjects as well. Content in non-math subjects is more geared for middle schoolers and up, but even your little ones could do math here. If you sign up for a teacher account, you can direct your child’s learning and monitor their progress.

5. I’ve found many free Spanish Resources:

• Salsa is a series of Spanish videos for younger children featuring puppets.
• Destinos is a video series and course for high school students and above. The videos are free online, as are computer-based practice activities. You can make this into a full 2-year course with the addition of the text and workbook, which I found on Amazon for about $3 each. (We’re using the cheaper first edition, which works just fine.)
• Mi Vida Loca also has videos and teaching activities for Spanish. We haven’t tried this one yet, but it looks like a lot of fun!
• StudySpanish.com is a great resource for learning basic concepts and grammar. Because it offers direct instruction and grammar charts, it’s also helpful as a resource for quickly looking something up, such as how to conjugate a verb in a particular tense.
• Duolingo offers free instruction in many different languages. It’s also available as an app for mobile devices. I’ve used this and it’s fun!

6. Want to teach geography? These sites have free map games that will have you naming off countries in no time!

• Owl and Mouse Map Puzzles
• Seterra
• Sheppard Software

7. We’ve been watching CNN Student news each day and have found this 10 minute show a great way to help teens learn about current events. Since I’m not a regular news watcher myself, it helps me keep abreast of what’s happening in the world as well.

This list is really just the tip of the iceberg of free resources, but I hope that you can find some useful resources here and get inspired to search for more!

Learning from Finnish Schools

I’ve read several articles lately about Finnish schools. The schools in Finland are some of the top performing schools in the world, yet their approach to education is opposite to that of the U.S or Asia. School days are short, children do not even begin formal education until age 7, outdoor play is an important part of the school day, and little or no standardized testing is done. Children are allowed to be children. They are expected to have fun at school and the teachers trust that they will learn when ready. It sounds like they let kids be kids instead of pushing them to do more and more.

Finnish schooling seems similar to the philosophy of many homeschoolers. I’ve been picking up some additional ideas for our homeschool, though. For example, craft time is an essential part of the school experience. And “craft time” doesn’t mean cutting, coloring, and gluing paper! Even in elementary school, children are learning to use sewing machines, knit, crochet, cook, and to use power tools. Not only are they learning practical life skills, but they are using academic skills in real life by measuring and figuring out problems as they create useful items. Teaching Emily some of these skills (or finding people who can teach her) is one of my goals for her last few years of high school. But now I’m thinking that it would have been a great idea to have started teaching life skills much younger!

One trend in Finnish schools is “teaching by topic,” or incorporating all of the subjects into one topical theme….sounds like unit studies to me! It’s funny that schools are just “discovering” the advantages of something that homeschoolers have been doing for years!

It seems that few children are “left behind” in Finland because any child who struggles, including immigrants and those with learning disabilities, get the attention they need to keep up with the group. On the other end of the spectrum, though, there isn’t a lot of support for gifted or advanced students because of the country’s focus on equality rather than achievement.

I think a lot of Finland’s child-friendly techniques would be wonderful in American schools (that are heading in the opposite direction), but at least we homeschoolers are free to individualize our children’s learning, teaching what our children need when they need it and fostering a love to learn. I’ve linked several articles above in case you want to learn more.

More Freebies from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

I’ve shared coupon codes from several great resources from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine over the past two weeks. (Be sure to look at my previous posts if you missed them!)

Some of my Crewmates are sharing some different freebies, so be sure to visit their blogs as well. Here are some of my favorites:

Homeschooling for His Glory is sharing:

E-Book #4: Growing Authors and Illustrators

E-Book #5: Helping the Reluctant Writer

E-Book #6: Why Does My Child Hate to Write

Running With Spears is sharing:

Free gift #1 is the God Made Them All Wonder Bundle! It includes 5 e-books about hummingbirds, bugs, butterflies, creepy crawlies, and alpacas!

Free gift #2 is Heart and Soul Homeschool Mama, which is an e-book written by a homeschool mama of 6 that’s full of tips and encouragement.

Free gift #3 is Molly’s Money-Saving Digest Summer Fun From A to Z — a super fun digest full of activities, recipes, science experience and more!

Grace Christian Homeschool is sharing several e-books on organizing your home, organizing your homeschool, and working from home. Who doesn’t need organization ideas!

Have a High Schooler? Here are Some Free Resources!

 

This nice little bundle from the Old Schoolhouse Store includes 4 ebooks:

Career Exploration for High School Students Pursuing Their Dreams

Transcripts, CLEPs, and Other Ways to Get into College

Career Training, Mentorship, and Parenthood

College Success Begins at Home: Seasoned Homeschoolers Share Their Experiences

Some of these resources are short, read-in-one-sitting mini books and others are more meaty. I just downloaded the set and am hoping to pick up some good tips!

Get the High School and Beyond Bundle free at the Old Schoolhouse Store free with coupon code: DLCREW16 (good until April 30, 2016).

Tips for Attending Homeschool Conferences

Have you ever been to a homeschool convention? If not, I highly recommend it. Conferences and curriculum fairs can offer a great opportunity to browse dozens of different homeschool curricula. There’s nothing like actually being able to browse through a book and to talk to the vendor (who may even be the author) to help you decide if it is right for your family. I always enjoy browsing just to see what’s “out there” that I haven’t discovered yet.

Attending a conference can also be a great opportunity to learn about new teaching styles, get new ideas for ways to teach, and just to be supported in this sometimes difficult task of home educating. Some conferences have just a few speakers, while others will have hundreds of sessions to choose from!

Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your homeschool conference experience:

1. Look over a program ahead of time. Choose the speakers that most interest you and make a plan before you arrive. Be aware that you may be able to buy recordings of sessions that you miss to listen to later.
2. Bring a notebook for taking notes during sessions.
3. The vendor hall can be overwhelming. Plan to walk through and browse before you buy anything. Take notes or pictures with your phone of booths and products that you want to come back to or to research before buying. Make your purchases later in the day so you won’t have to carry them around as long.
4. Start with some ideas of what you need for the next year. Maybe you are looking for a new history program or a vocabulary book. Don’t get distracted by all the things you don’t need right now.
5. Bring a tote bag, backpack, or even a rolling cart to carry your purchases. Rolling carts can be awkward in crowded spaces, but if you plan to purchase a lot, they may be the way to go.
6. Relax! Know that the experience will be busy and crowded. You won’t be able to hear all the speakers; you probably won’t be able to purchase everything you need for the year. But just getting that inspiration and rejuvenation for the next year and discovering a few jewels in the vendor hall to meet your homeschooling needs will make the experience worth it.

Read some more homeschooling tips by these other bloggers from the Schoolhouse Review Crew this week:

Melissa @ Grace Christian School

Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays

Missica @ Through the Open Window

Monique @ Mountain of Grace Homeschooling

Rebekah @ There Will Be A $5 Charge For Whining

Renita @ Krazy Kuehner Days

Sarah @ Renaissance Mama

Sasha @ Such a Time as This

Tawnee @ Adventures in Homeschooling

Tiffany @ The Crafty Home

Tina @ Desperate Homeschoolers

What’s Your Homeschooling Style?

Most of us public school graduates come to the idea of homeschooling with one vision of school. We see school as sitting at a desk, working through pages of a workbook or text. We may even envision those alphabets around the walls, colorful educational and motivational posters, bulletin boards, and an American flag!

Traditional schooling is certainly an option. There are plenty of companies that can sell you a complete set of books for each grade. Your child works through the books and when the lessons are completed,  he’s ready for the next grade. Many parents do feel most comfortable with this method when they are starting out. They have less research and planning to do and they can feel confident that their child is covering more or less what the typical child will cover for that grade. But there are many more ways to homeschool.

• Traditional schooling looks a lot like what most of us did in public or private school. Kids use textbooks and workbooks that are designed for their own grade levels. This style can lead to burn-out and the idea that education is equivalent to completing a workbook page or memorizing facts just long enough to pass a test. On the other hand, it can make planning easier for mom, and may be ideal for those who plan to homeschool for just a year or two and want to make sure their children learn the same skills each year as those in a traditional classroom.
• Unschoolers believe that allowing children to follow their own interests is the best way for them to learn. They don’t use textbooks or require their children to follow a schedule. They don’t assign schoolwork. Unschooling can range from no parental direction at all to spending considerable time obtaining materials and creating experiences that follow a child’s “delight.”  The idea behind unschooling or delight-directed learning is that when a child’s love of learning is nurtured, he will eventually learn all that he needs to and will gain the skills, ability, and desire to become a life-long learner.
• Literature based homeschooling uses “living books,”—interesting novels, biographies, and other quality books to teach topics. This works especially well for history, but can be used for other subjects as well. This can be ideal for students and parents who love to read, and can nurture a love of reading in those who are more reluctant readers. Children tend to retain knowledge better when it comes wrapped up in a great book. This works well in families who want to have several children of different ages working together, since read-alouds or great books as readers aren’t limited to one grade level. A 7 year old can be reading an easy reader about George Washington while his older brother reads a longer biography.
• Computer-based education can involve a variety of styles. Some programs resemble traditional education, some are interactive, or even use live webinar technology. Others feature videos. Online courses are often self-grading, which makes the parent’s job easier.
• Unit studies take one topic and incorporate all subjects into the topic. While studying bridges, for example, a family could read about the history of various famous bridges and what was happening in the world at the time they were built. A study of simple machines and other physics topics could be covered and the students could build different types of bridges from household materials. Making scale models would incorporate math, and writing a report would pull in language arts. Some curricula, such as Konos, will help you do the planning or each topic could be purely interest-led, beginning with a trip to the library to check out a stack of books on the chosen topic. This style of teaching is ideal for use with multiple ages.
• Charlotte Mason homeschooling involves short lessons that include great books, art, music, and nature study. Children narrate what they have learned in order to help cement the knowlege.
• Classical educators use a rigorous program that includes memory work, logic, Greek and Latin, and an emphasis on Western civilization. Topics covered and methods used are divided into 3 learning stages: grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

Many homeschools, including my own are “eclectic,” using components from many of these styles. I believe that it is important to determine what style or styles fit your personality and the learning styles of your children in order to best facilitate the ideal homeschool experience for your own family. You can find a quiz to help you determine your family’s homeschool preferences at: http://eclectic-homeschool.com/what-kind-of-homeschooler-are-you/ .

Read some more homeschooling tips this week at these blogs!

Annette @ A Net In Time

Brandy @ Kingdom Academy Homeschool

Brenda @ Counting Pinecones

Carol @ Home Sweet Life

Cassandra @ A Glimpse of Normal

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses

Cristi @ Through the Calm and Through the Storm

Crystal @ Crystal Starr

DaLynn @ Biblical Womanhood

Danielle @ Sensible Whimsy