Hands-on Learning Archives - Page 4 of 19

Display Boards for whole family learning

February 9, 2017Tracy

We’ve had so much fun with display boards recently that I just had to give you a peek at the action. As part of our Tapestry of Grace curriculum, we’ve been learning about the cultures and people of ancient Palestine during the time of King Saul, King David, and King Solomon. I love doing as much of our learning together as we can, so I assigned both of the older kids this display board project for their writing assignment. Immediately, they were all on board.

Preparation for the Display Boards

My preparation, overall, wasn’t bad. I printed off the Teacher Notes from our curriculum and highlighted the portions for them to read through for the writing part of the assignment, picked some images to print from Google images, and picked up some display board supplies at our local supply store. Each child picked their board, including Littlest, my preschooler. He wanted in on the action, and I figured getting him his own poster board would keep him from “participating” in the other kids’ projects in ways they would not prefer.

Directions for the Display Boards

We chose four cultures that had the most information available: Canaanites, Hittites, Philistines, and Phoenicians. And I gave them 3 weeks to work on it.

For my fifth grader, I assigned a paragraph for each culture. Other than providing his materials and showing him a few sample projects, I really did not do much more for him. He likes his independence.

For my third grader, I only required a couple of sentences for each culture. Because of her skill level and dyslexia, I helped her quite a bit more. I read the information to her rather than have her read it, and she used a new favorite app of ours to write her sentences. (Dyslexia Aid allows her to speak her sentence into the app, and it gives her the text for her to copy into her projects.)

For my preschooler, I gave him permission to use any left-over photos the big kids were not using. He got his glue stick and scissors and went to town. I love it! The red scribbles are his map of Palestine.

In Love with Display Boards

Seriously, we are in love with display boards, and I keep asking myself why I haven’t tried this sooner. My daughter has already asked about a hundred times if she can make another one. And it was an easy way to incorporate everyone at their own skill levels, interacting with the same information, which after all, is why I love Tapestry of Grace to begin with. I love whole family learning, and I love getting to put that learning on display.

DIY Science Curriculum for the classically inclined

January 2, 2017Tracy

Of all the subjects, science has probably taken me the longest to find a curriculum that I really like. Over the last several years, we have tried a number of approaches for science.

We’ve learned science through lapbooks and creating mini-books.
We’ve done unit studies and read living books.
We’ve watched a whole lot of Magic School Bus and Wild Kratts and Bill Nye the Science Guy.
We’ve dabbled in a few different curriculums: God’s Design, Christian Kids Explore, and Sassafras.

And while we’ve enjoyed different aspects of these, none have been even close to ideal. So, I did my own thing this year, with some inspiration and direction from the Well-Trained Mind. And just in case you are a DIY homeschooler, too, I’ve assembled a few steps for a DIY science curriculum.

4 Steps to a DIY science curriculum

Step 1: Find a core resource or encyclopedia

Any resource you love will work: Usborne, Kingfisher, DK, etc. I found the World of Science encyclopedia from Master Books and have absolutely loved it. World of Science is formatted similarly to an Usborne or DK encyclopedia, except that this resource is Christian. No millions of years or evolution to wade through, but rather the book begins with the idea of a Designer who had a thoughtful design and a creation that reflected His order. It’s colorful, interesting, easy to use, easy to follow, and includes some experiment ideas in the back of the book as a bonus. This particular book covers basic physics and chemistry topics. A companion encyclopedia World of Animals covers some simple biology and animal science.

True to the classical homeschooling method, I assign a couple of pages a week for my fifth grader to read and outline. His outlines consist of Roman Numeral main points; he is learning to pick out the main ideas or topic sentences. Occasionally, I’ll require him to write a summary paragraph or copy a diagram. He also looks up new terms in the glossary at the back of the book and copies them for his notebook. He has loved using it as much as I have.

Step 2: Choose an experiment kit

Search Amazon or Homeschool Science Tools, Target, Wal-mart, Hobby Lobby, even local thrift stores. Choose an experiment kit that fits with the topic you are covering. For instance, when we learned about electricity, my son had a snap circuit kit we picked up from the thrift store; this term we are studying principles of physics and simple machines, so he is using a gears and levers kit. Later this year, we will begin some chemistry and try out a couple of chemistry experiment kits.

Each week when his outline is complete, he is free to select an experiment from a kit that I’ve purchased to go with what we are studying. This is the “delight-directed” component of our science; he is free to pick an experiment from the kit that interests him. I know that these experiments are on topic, and he loves being able to choose his favorites. Then, after completing an experiment, he fills out an experiment form. We are using forms from notebookingpages.com, but there are tons of free printables online and on pinterest.

Step 3: (optional) Find science DVDs at the Library and on Netflix

As a fun bonus, I search for DVDs in our local library and on Netflix for the topics we are learning about. I’ve found that searching by specific topic has the best results; for instance, searching for gravity, light, force, motion, energy provides better results than searching for physics, geology, chemistry, etc. Some of these DVDs do contain evolutionary ideas (Bill Nye, for instance), but I’m okay with discussing that with my kids, especially since they’ve had an opportunity to begin studying from a Christian source. Use your own discretion.

You could also use the same strategy to search your library for additional reading on your topic if you prefer. Because of all the reading I assign in our other subject areas, I don’t choose to assign additional science reading.

Step 4: Make a plan

Be as detailed as you need to be, but I love to keep it simple, personally. Below is a picture of my actual plans for this last term. I counted up the number of pages in the unit we wanted to cover and divided by our 12 week term. Since it wasn’t a perfect fit, we needed to outline more reading pages on certain weeks. On those weeks, I did not assign an experiment. Of course, he was welcome to do one after his assignments were complete, but it wasn’t required.

I did not assign specific experiments. You could easily do that by looking through your experiment booklet and comparing it to the topics of your encyclopedia. But for us, this is a great compromise. I provide some parameters (“you are going to learn this topic and use this kit”) and allow him the freedom to pursue his interest within those parameters.

I printed off a bunch of experiment forms and placed them in his notebook. He can choose from several different styles to find a form that fits best with his particular experiment. Each week, I look over his outline and his experiment form (and he usually can’t wait to show me his actual experiment).

What about the youngers?

Middlest (3rd grade) and Littlest (preschool) usually join Oldest for the experiment demonstrations and videos; in a sense, he teaches the material to them. Middlest also fills out her own form. I did pick up a Magic School Bus chemistry kit for our chemistry unit later this year so that she has some age-appropriate experiments. As she gets older and more skilled in her reading and writing, I’ll have her completing more assignments (reading/outlining). But for right now, I limit the amount of writing I require from her.

So far, I have loved our DIY science curriculum. The kids are learning a ton, are very independent, and are still able to incorporate a lot of hands-on experiments that don’t require my constant supervision. It’s been a win all around. For the first time in years, I feel good about science.

5 favorite activities for Christmas Break

December 19, 2016Tracy

Christmas Break is a must for me. And while some families I know study Christmas traditions around the world and do Christmas-themed unit studies and homeschool through much of the season, I love to take the entire month off. That’s right, the WHOLE MONTH! We break as soon after Thanksgiving as we can manage (after the last math lesson is completed in our 12 week cycle) and don’t start back until after New Year’s. There is just too much fun to cram it into a traditional two week break. So, I’ve compiled a list of our top 5 favorite activities for Christmas break.

Our Favorite Activities for Christmas Break:

1. Crafts and Homemade Gifts

My kids love to craft, and I love to emphasize homemade gifts. But those kinds of projects take lots of time. Taking the month off allows us to use that extra time to make scarfs and paracord bracelets and homemade ornaments and carved soaps and other sentimental treasures. Some years, we’ve made gifts for the widows in our church. Other years we’ve made gifts for grandparents and great-grandparents. This year, my kids worked hard on homemade gifts for the kids in their class at our local charter school. Whatever the project, I’ve found it helps to combat some of the natural self-focus of the season; instead of constantly anticipating what will be under the tree for them, their hands and minds are busy with gifts for others.

2. Baking and Baking and…Baking

While all my kids look forward to Christmas goodies, my youngest counts down the days till the next batch of Christmas cookies. He is talking about those cookies in March, July, and October. It’s a long time till Christmas. Baking (and eating) at Christmas time is his absolute favorite. But baking is also a huge part of my day to day. Because of our dietary issues, I bake a loaf of bread everyday and many times I will also bake fresh rolls or buns or muffins or something. We cannot purchase any pre-made baked goods. So cakes, cookies, pies, you name it—all come from my kitchen. Which means that come holiday-time, I have a lot of extra baking on my agenda. And that takes time.

While I do limit how much we attempt to do and only prepare a couple of fun extras for each holiday, it still takes time. Taking the month off allows for those homemade Christmas cookies to get made while not adding too much pressure to the season. (Here’s my favorite sugar cookie recipe; I substitute Spectrum palm shortening for the butter to make it dairy free, too. Yumm!)

3. Reading Challenge

I keep my kids very busy with assigned reading during the school year, so one of the highlights to every break is the opportunity to read whatever they want. Our first library trip of every break is quite the event, with each kid nearly exploding with excitement before hand and eerily silent after the trip (as they eagerly devour Magic Tree House, Hardy boys, and other favorites). This year, our charter school also has a fun reading challenge.

Winter Break Reading Marshmallow Challenge

As the kids complete each reading challenge (read under the table, read by the fire, read to a stuffed animal, read in a mirror, read to a grandparent, etc.) they cut and paste the marshmallow into the cup of cocoa. So cute and fun that I actually googled the link so that you could download the form and do it, too!

4. Bucket Lists

This year, I had my older kids make a bucket list of things they wanted to do with their time off. We strictly limit screen time activities, but even so, I didn’t have to give many restrictions. The kids came up with tons of fun activities, some we will be able to do and some that are a little out of our control: having a famous music artist to the house for the holidays or playing in snow. But a lot of the ideas gave me a very good idea of what the kids really wanted to do with me, so that I could be sure I was available for those things. My daughter wants to paint with me some time during our break; my oldest wants to learn some hand-lettering with a calligraphy pen.

5. Parties, Friends, and Play Dates

My extroverted crowd loves to gather with friends. As an introvert, I can get really burnt out during this season if I don’t pace myself. But having the whole month off has helped me a ton and allows me the time I need to recharge between activities. Play dates with friends we haven’t seen in awhile, church Christmas parties and special services, birthday parties (we seem to know quite a few people with December birthdays)—they love these interactions and need them, and I want to be a part of it all with them, without feeling stressed about food prep, lesson plans, and crafting deadlines.

Last year, we weren’t able to take our month off, and I felt it. By January, I had promised myself—never again! I will always make a priority when I schedule my homeschool year to keep the month of December free. There are just too many memories to make this time of year, and I want to enjoy them all.

Preschool Curriculum for Homeschool: a plan for playful learning

November 16, 2016Tracy

It feels as though my Littlest should still be pulling tupperware out of my kitchen cabinets and beating on pots and pans while the olders do school. (Although I’m not entirely sure he won’t be doing exactly that. Ahem.) But the baby of the family is feeling the urge to grow up. He’s begging to do school with his brother and sister, wanting his own lessons and supplies, and pretending to read whenever he can. I’ve let him set the pace and started with some preschool activities.

Still, this year will be focused mostly on playful learning, putting learning in front of him in a lot of different forms of play and seeing how motivated he is. My preschool learning goals for him are very fluid: learn to count and recognize numbers as high as he can; learn the alphabet and sounds; love to learn!

So my preschool plans and resources come with this disclaimer: we may or may not use everything and/or finish our books. And I’m okay with that. When he’s ready, he will take off. But right now, he needs to play. And I’m always so surprised by what a preschooler can learn when you least expect it. They are “ninja” learners.

Foundations A from Logic of English (later in the year)
Usborne Alphabet and PK Math Readiness sticker books
Kumon project books
Wikki Stix
Counting Bears and accompanying books/activities
Do-a-Dot painters
Montessori board books: Letter Work, Number Work, Map Work
various Ipad apps (that’s a whole other post!)

Our pace for preschool is very relaxed; we get out the activities when he asks to do them. Usually, he chooses at least one activity everyday, and we get through all of our preschool lessons about 2-3 days out of the week, which is plenty! I’m not planning on starting the Foundations textbook until January, and even then, I’m taking it very slowly. Whatever we have left, we will finish next year along with the level B book for kindergarten.

I really do love this stage, where “school” is playful and fun and creative and colorful. I’ll miss these days. I may just have to pre-homeschool someone else’s kid when mine have outgrown all this. I’ll need the excuse to keep playing with counting bears.

Preparing Tapestry: our Fourth Year

August 24, 2015Tracy

We are headed into our fourth year of our Tapestry of Grace curriculum, which means we will have completed the cycle at the end of this year. (It also means this is my last year of all grammar level.) Last year, I felt like we really made Tapestry our own and found our rhythm, our stride. It felt good, like a fitted glove. Of course, when you end a year like that, it makes planning the next year exciting. I love the aspect of homeschooling where I trouble-shoot and research and find our answers, but the Lord knew I would be doing that in several other areas of our life; so homeschooling was off the hook. No massive revamping this year. With that said, preparing Tapestry for this year went really smoothly.

In summary, I love manilla folders. I keep 36 folders for our weekly “must-do” assignments like language and math and Latin. Then I keep a second set of folders for Tapestry that are labeled by Term (we do three 12 week terms) and by topic (I don’t cover everything; instead, I select the events and topics that will best suit my learners). All of our reading lists, media lists, and project papers are printed off and filed in these topic folders.

So here’s what it looks like. At the beginning of a week, I pull out two folders: the week we are in and the topic we are studying. Within the weekly folder, I pull out assignment pages and file into the kids’ daily pockets inside their binders (we use case-it binders with the accordion file inside). Within the topic folder, I look at my list all of the books and projects assigned for that topic and the number of weeks that I’ve guessed it will take us to complete (i.e. Titanic, 2 weeks). I then allocate those assignments that will fit with our week’s schedule. Last year, this method cut my weekly prep to about 30 to 45 minutes total! Both kids filed and ready to go in around a half hour. It was beautiful.

Reading Lists

Tapestry’s reading lists are copyrighted, so I can’t share the specific book titles that we are using. However, I will list a couple of other resources I use to compare and substitute book titles. SimplyCharlotteMason.com has a book finder feature that I love. Just type in the event or person you are studying, the reading level of your students, and a great list of engaging living books is listed for you. My second resource is my local library online catalogue search feature. Again, I type in the event or person, narrow it to children’s resources, and voila! I love my local library. It has an enormous selection.

I also use SimplyCharlotteMason’s Story of America and Story of the Nations ebooks as my core. These are not Tapestry titles, but the table of contents make it very easy to assign chapters that fit what we are covering. And the books are very engaging. We love them.

I select my favorites. Depending on how long we intend to study a topic, for each week I will select one to two read-aloud titles, one to two independent reading titles per child (depending on the length of the book), and the rest will be assigned merely as reference, as in “let’s look at more pictures.”

Media List

I love audios. Awhile back I scored Diana Waring’s history audio from Answers in Genesis‘ history program. We love listening to these on the way back and forth to karate and co-op. So, on the days we don’t get to our reading, we are still getting to our history. And this is another very engaging resource.

Netflix is also a resource where I search for related films to what we are studying. We don’t always get to this, but it is great for those off-days or sick days to already have this list compiled.

Projects

Homeschool in the Woods is not a Tapestry resource either, but we LOVE these projects. I use the Time Traveler activities. We make notebooking pages using both the notebooking and lapbooking project ideas. Especially since my kids are finally old enough to do their own cutting and pasting, these have been really fun activities to assign. They work on these while I read-aloud. It keeps their fingers busy but doesn’t distract them from the reading.

I generally choose the projects that fit what we are studying, our time-frame, and my kids’ interests. I spend one long afternoon printing all of my chosen activities and filing into my topic folders. This saves me so much time during the school year.

I also have the Draw Through History titles. My son loves to draw; my daughter loves to trace. And it gives them some ideas for drawing and enhancing their notebook with images of what we are studying.

Our Rhythm

I mentioned that I note about how many weeks I think a topic will take us. Last year, this was very fluid. We moved on when our books were read and our projects were done. And I found that in the end, things balanced out. Some topics took longer than I estimated, and some topics didn’t take as long. If we read everything in a week, we moved on. If it took us five weeks, because of interest or illness, we took our time and enjoyed it all. Sometimes, it was just a dud, and rather than struggle through 3 more weeks of something we were not enjoying, we covered the basics and moved on.

I’m also sensitive to my kids’ reading interests. There were some books that my son just hated, and while I realize that not all learning can be interest-driven, I think at the younger levels, reading should be. Occasionally, I’d make a call that he just needed to get through a book. But if I made that call, I ensured that I had a very tantalizing book as a reward when he finished. There were books we didn’t read cover-to-cover. (Pause for you to gasp in horror.) We survived, and were no worse for that decision.

In spite of all that flexibility, I was amazed by how much my kids retained and learned. A little went a really long way.

What about discipline and teaching kids to push through the difficult stuff? I split my subjects into two categories: our discipline subjects like math, grammar, spelling; and our inspiration subjects like history, science, and reading. This helped me define my objectives. My discipline subjects were challenging but in short spurts (no more than 15-20 min. per lesson/subject). My inspiration subjects were kept inspiring and interesting and often took closer to an hour or hour and a half (hands-on projects take awhile). But again, I watched my kiddos. If they were engaged, we took our time. If their eyes were glossing over, it was time for lunch.

Want to know more specifics? I’ve listed our specific curriculum choices here. Feel free to browse those links. Not sure what your homeschool style is? Be encouraged with my post about losing the labels.

I’m looking forward to another really great homeschool adventure, and I hope you tag along on our journey.

A Beautiful Mess

May 15, 2015Tracy1 Comment

My three year old Littlest took his crayons outside the other day. It was a beautiful sunny day. And you can probably guess the results. The big kids ran inside to let me know about this goopy crisis occurring outside.

I’ve been praying about and preaching to myself about reacting less. Pausing in those messy moments. So I set aside the lunch dishes to inspect.

But rather than a mess, God allowed me to see art. Art just waiting to be made. And so we made it: a big beautiful mess.

Melted crayon rocks — We each took goopy crayons and made melted crayon rocks. Littlest’s rock happens to be the biggest.

melted rainbow crayons — With the left over ruined and ruining crayons, we made new rainbow crayons. Nothing like taking a “crisis” and making rainbows; after all, God himself did no less.

Incorporating Art in Learning

May 1, 2015Tracy

I love art. All of it. I’m not picky. So it’s always been important to me to incorporate art into my kids’ experience. Not necessarily making artists out of them, but equipping them with a desire, an appreciation, and some basic skills if they want to pursue it at some stage in their life. I guess to me, art is an avenue of worship, taking time to pause and appreciate the beauty our Creator has placed around us.

In the past, I’ve included it as a formal subject in keeping with the Classical Education model, and I think that worked well when they were really little. Now though, I’ve streamlined the essentials of our homeschool, what we must get done, and let art become a fluid part of our life. I’m incorporating art in the various subjects, activities, and areas of learning.

The one remaining “formal” aspect to our art is artist study. But even this is trimmed way down in Charlotte Mason style of “less is more.” We studied two artists from our history time period this year: Winslow Homer (for most of two terms, 24 weeks) and Frederick Remington (for our last 10-12 weeks). And by “study” I mean I have 4×6 prints that I either bought from Dover (artist post cards) or printed from online resources. We spent about 5-10 minutes a week on this, either reading the artist’s biography or admiring his pictures. Then, I tacked the picture to a gallery of the artist’s pictures on our window. That’s it. Next year, I plan to take the same approach with Norman Rockwell and Kandinsky.

Less has really proven to be just as effective (and much less stressful) than more.

Otherwise, art is an option for “play time” and “quiet time” activities. Art supplies are rewards they can earn with their chore point system. Personalized sketchbooks are birthday presents. And I peruse The Artful Parent resources for ideas to stimulate their creativity, when the moment presents itself.

Then, I set an example. I pursue art myself. I’m playing with Zentangle and card-making. I’m bringing out my calligraphy and using it again. I’m teaching myself to paint. I practice sketching.

The perks? Art is fun. It’s not a task that I have to do or that I feel guilty about not having gotten to on the lesson plan. I can’t get “behind” in art. And my kids get to pursue what truly inspires them. My “messy” artist gets down and dirty. My OCD child gets to keep his hands clean with sketching. My toddler gets to do it all! And learning new skills becomes a life-lesson, not just a class activity.