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A Net in Time

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Homeschooling

Family Day 2019

February 18, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

Today was Family Day. We were able to show our student a good time today. We did horse-drawn wagon rides, darts, pool, a movie and fireworks. It was a rather busy day but it was a good day.

Family Day 2019

Family Day is not a statutory holiday, but it is only observed in New Brunswick, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and in British Columbia. PEI also has a February holiday called Islander Day, and Manitoba has Louis Riel Day holiday.  Since it is not a federal holiday, federal employees still need to work (total bummer).   I was concerned that my darling wouldn’t be able to join us, but….  his work CHOOSES to celebrate Family Day so he got it off.  WOOT WOOT!

Anyways, Family Day was originally created to give people time to spend with their families.  The date in February was chosen because it provides a day off between New Years Day and Good Friday.

We were promised a classic snowmobile show so we headed off to the Rec Centre to check them out but… No snowmobiles.  What a bummer!  They did have a guy there handing out free bananas and apples.   

Family Day 2019

After the wagon rides we headed off to play pool and darts.  Oh.. we laughed!   I used to play pool fairly frequently, but you’d never have known based on how I played today.  Hubby on the other hand played well.  The lad learned quickly, and our student well.. let’s just say that some things got last in the translation.  Pool was a bit beyond him but we laughed a lot!  🙂

I am so happy that our current student doesn’t let the unknown stop him from trying something new.  🙂  

Family Day 2019

From there we moved to darts.  This is a fairly individual sport, so after the gentlemen on deck showed the boys the basics of how to shoot with an elbow at 90 degrees. 

Family Day 2019   practicing darts

We watched the Movie Inside Out at the Elementary School. 

We went home for supper where I tried out a new dish.  It was kinda fun to play around making up a new recipe.  I’ll have to share it with you later.  🙂  Huge hit with our student!   Then we headed off to the fireworks.  

Wow!  It was SO pretty watching them over snow.  I didn’t expect how wonderful they would look.  I would have taken a longer movie of them but my hand started to freeze (it’s rather cold up here). And the video doesn’t do them justice over the snow, but it was a really nice show.

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: holidays

Review: Introduction to Robotics and Automation

February 15, 2019 By Annette1 2 Comments

My son has an enjoyment of robotics, he’s taken a few courses over the years.  Last year he was fortunate enough to be able to an engineering course at a local business and was able to build his own robot.  This was almost the best thing ever. 🙂

This year I was looking at course from Innovator’s Tribe and offered to do a review in exchange for the course.  Mr. K agreed!  WOOT WOOT!  I want to tell you how much my lad has been enjoying this course.

The course: Introduction to Robotics and Automation.

Introduction to Robotics and Automation

Course Description

This exciting course introduces students to the modern world of robotics.  Using interactive lessons and exciting hands-on activities, students will learn how to design, build and program a virtual robot.

30 hours of learning material right at your fingertips. Easy login, Sidebar for lesson placement, units of study and encouragement to try something more. 

Introduction to Robotics and Automation

What you Get

A self-paced, self-contained, completely on-line (except for hands-on projects) that your student can do completely on their own.

Introduction to Robotics and Automation

Occasionally you will be directed to a video outside of the course.  Videos such as the one below.  One of the things I like about these referrals is that they open the door to viewing other videos on robotics.  My son would often tell me the things he was learning about.

The layout of each lesson is really obvious.   This is on the things my son really liked.  He knew what kind of lesson it was going to be just by checking the sidebar.  Lesson variations are: Multimedia, quiz, text, and video.  Activities are clearly labeled. 

Introduction to Robotics and Automation

The page is laid out in such a way that you can see where you are in the lesson by checking the sidebar, while your lesson plays on the mainscreen. 

Introduction to Robotics and Automation

Since this is a self-paced course, my son wanted to do all the book learning first.  This isn’t unusual for him.  He likes to learn the material well before trying it out in real life.   At this point he has completed all the “Book-learning” that has been created (there is more to come).  

Over the next three or four weeks he hopes to complete the hammer-bot and water clock.  He is hoping we can find some Arduino to work with.  He says it is really interesting and he wants to do it all himself.  So I have a project to complete.. FIND  SOME!

Our Thoughts

From my son: I found the course fun.  It was enjoyable. I learned names for robotic components which I really liked.  Knowing this kind of information  is great.   I would happily take another Mr. K class because he is good at explaining things and making them interesting. How the lessons are done with the different slides is good.  And how they have videos in the slides.  The web-page isn’t complicated, it’s easy to use. 

From Me: When they say this is a self-directed course, it’s exactly that.  My son would say “I’m doing innovators!”  And off he’d go.  If I asked him what he learned about (sometimes 15 minutes later, sometimes an hour later) he’d tell me, sometimes prefaced with “I’m sorry, I got interested in learning so I was watching other videos”. 

Do we recommend this course?  Definitely.   Just like the first course we took from them called Thinking Like An Engineer.  Well taught courses that engage the learner in a variety of formats to work with all learning styles.  Great teacher too!

Introduction to Robotics and Automation
Introduction to Robotics and Automation.
Innovator's Tribe.
Mr. Kroeplin (teacher)
Grades 5-9
On-line
Self-directed, robotics, automation,
disclosure

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: Curriculum, Review, Science

Four Essentials of Child-Led Learning

February 8, 2019 By Annette1 24 Comments

Guess what!   Amanda agreed to guest post for me today.  Isn’t that great?  Welcome her with me to my blog today.  🙂  She’ll be talking about Four Essentials of Child-led learning.   Student led learning has taken us through world war 1 this year.  

“Mommy, what’s this?” Sicily questioned as she pulled out her kids’ meal toy.

“It’s an arctic fox.” I replied.

“Oh! I like him.”

“Would you like to see if we can find a YouTube video about an arctic fox?”

We headed to the tablet to look up videos on the arctic fox to learn a bit more about this little stuffed animal she got.

The video we found was a snippet from a documentary with an arctic fox searching for food. These little guys hop up and nose dive into the snow to catch small prey.

Sicily giggled non-stop while watching the fox catch mice in the snow.

From there we read books, did a few process art creations, and even pretend we were arctic foxes hunting for mice in the snow.

This love of arctic foxes extended into more arctic animals, so we started to study the polar bear, penguins, and orca.We learned about blubber, ice, and how penguins stay dry.

All this learning from a single fast food kids’ meal toy.

That’s the beauty of child-led learning. One small experience can spark months of learning and many different avenues to travel down.

What is Child-Led Learning?

In our house we follow a child-led approach to learning. That means I follow my kiddos interests for topics of study. Then I follow their lead with academic skills as well. I wait until they are 100% motivated and ready to learn each specific skill.

But it wasn’t always so smooth. I had many failures in our quest to learning at home. But through all those failures and over 11 years of teaching experience, I’ve discovered the 4 essentials to child-led learning.

4 Essentials to Child-Led Learning

Child-led learning doesn’t mean you have to give up all control. You are responsible for the 4 essentials.

When you get these 4 essentials to child-led learning correct, your days become peaceful and your child begins to learn quickly.

Child-Led Essential # 1: Encouraging Environment

You’ve probably heard from a Reggio approach to learning that the environment is the third teacher.

Well I’ve always been an overachiever. I strongly believe that your environment is the first teacher.

Your environment is more than just your homeschool room. It’s your whole life style.

Child-led learning is more of a lifestyle than a learning approach.

This also includes the experiences you give your child, and most importantly your everyday experiences. Have your kiddo help you do household chores, including help pay the bills, cook dinner, and fold the laundry.

The environment in which you provide your child and the experiences you give them, is what ultimately decides their unique learning timeline.

You control the environment.  The environment controls what your child learns.

Your child controls WHEN and HOW they learn.

Child-Led Essential #2: Relaxed Routine

Having an environment that supports your child’s interests and the skills you want them to learn isn’t enough.

You need a relaxed routine that gives them plenty of time to explore in the environment you created.

On a typical day, we plan to have 2-3 hours in our homeschool room with no structure except our morning meeting.

During this time, my kiddos explore whatever I’ve place in the environment. There are always open ended toys, learning games for specific skills they are working on, and invitations to play, create, and explore.

I have a table with materials/books from our current theme for them to explore at any moment.

We try to follow the Montessori 3 hour work period. During the first hour, my kiddos explore and choose freely what they want to play/learn.

The second hour, called false fatigue, usually ends up with them dancing, playing music, or chasing each other around in a circle. This is the hardest part, but according to Montessori it’s needed to reach maximum concentration.

 This second hour is sort of like their coffee break. I tend to leave a snack on the table once they hit this time that they can choose to eat if they want. Most of the time, we cut back on a lot of the chaos of this hour because they almost always choose to sit and eat a snack.

About 45 minutes later it starts to get quiet again. The kiddos are entering the third hour where deep concentration happens. Their brains are ready to learn new and more challenging skills.

 This is the time I will invite them to do the works I want them to do. Sometimes I will ask them to join me in an activity whereas other times I will sit down and start working on the activity myself. Most of the time they will join me, but not always. It’s their choice.

Child-Led Essential #3: Simple, Child-Led Activities

Learning doesn’t require a huge storage of materials or complicated activities. I rarely go out and buy new materials. We use what is available around the house or out in nature. Many of our activities are done with rocks and sticks.

Have you ever heard the saying “Less is More?”

It’s so true when it comes to educating our kiddos. The simplest of activities will be the ones that attract them the most and will have the most learning.

Why?

Because with simple activities and materials, the brain only has one thing to concentrate on.

When you have a bunch of moving parts their brains will most likely focus on the skill you don’t want them to learn.

Take for example, the ever popular preschool activity of tracing letters on a line.

It seems simple, but is it really?

In order for the child to trace on the line, they need to first have the development and strength in their eyes to focus on the lines.

Then they need the hand strength and hand-eye coordination to be able to stay in between the lines.

On top of that, they need good fine motor skills in order to hold the pencil correctly, so they have the pencil control to stand in between the lines.

And last, which is the main goal of this activity…

They need to form the letter correctly.

In order to do this activity perfectly, your child needs to be developmentally ready in all those areas which doesn’t happen until around 5, sometimes even 6, years old.

Keep it simple…

Hand them a blank piece of paper and a pencil.

Their only focus then will be on letter formation.

With enough practice, your child will begin to write smaller and smaller as their muscles develop. There is no need to ever introduce lines until about first or second grade.

Child-Led Essential #4: Trust the Process

This essential to child-led learning is the most important, but the hardest of them all.

You must trust the process, trust yourself, and most importantly trust your child and their unique learning timeline.

Remember…

You control the environment.

Your environment controls what your child learns.

Your child decides when and how they will learn it.

Set up your environment for success by providing materials/books for learning about their interests and the skills they are ready to learn then trust that your child will learn what needs to be learned on their own timeline.

Ready to get started with child-led learning? Click here to download our getting started guide.

To learn more about how we implement child-led learning into our homeschool preschool, click here for our Ultimate Guide to Homeschool Preschool.

About the Author

Amanda is the owner of Learning Through Experiences where she helps beautiful mama’s homeschool their kiddos using a child-led approach without spending a lot of time planning & prepping. She is a former elementary and preschool teacher with over 11 years experience. Amanda has 2 kiddos of her own, Sicily & Kade, who follow this exact child-led approach that she advocates. Amanda is the creator of Learning Through Experiences: A Child-Led Curriculum. In her spare time, she likes to read, garden, and relax in a bubble bath.

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: guest post, Homeschooling

Learning Electronics from a Clock Radio

February 5, 2019 By Annette1 12 Comments

Do you remember we took apart a couple of telephones a bit back?  Well, last week we started to dismantle a clock radio. Wow.. it was just so very interesting do to this, a great hands on way to learning electronics. 

We only had the one clock radio, so we shared our discoveries with each other.  Join us in learning electronics from a clock radio, won’t you?

Learning electronics from a clock radio

Okay, so this is what we did.  We took this clock radio and figured out how to take off the outside of it (basically just needed to undo some screws).

Once we got the cover off we took a really good look at the internal parts.   

We took what we learned from the telephone and found the resistors, diodes and capacitors.   We also found some… wire coil things we needed to look up.  Learned they were inductors.  And we found a transformer too!  OH!  and I mustn’t forget the really thin copper wire wrap!  We couldn’t figure out how to detach it so are saving that for another day. 

OH, that thing with the ON-tech on it?  I looked up that number and learned it was a transformer.  The lad figured how to get it out of its’ housing.  It’s gone into our keep pile.

Digital Display

He was very intrigued by the digital display and managed to get it out of the clock radio.   Unfortunately he was unable to get it to work.  He wants to see if Dad can help him get it working as he has plans for it it he can!

Even though he couldn’t get the digital readout to work, he did check out what capacitors, diodes and resistors do.  It was actually quite fascinating.    Here is the capacitor one that he did.  It’s not the best, but I tried.

Oh I should tell you what he used to test the components out.  He has a battery pack with a black and red wire.  He also has some resistors (I think) and he would simply connect the component he was testing to the wires and see what happened.   No chance to electrocute himself or his mother.  🙂  The idea made him laugh though, and then he explained his reasoning really well and all was good. 

In our Remaining Time:

What else did we have time for…. OH, it was a tough job but I managed to get the speaker unattached from the plastic housing.  WOW.. it was stuck on with some rather tough glue.   To get it off it took the two of use to pry a screwdriver underneath and break a clip.  Then it was just a matter of brawn over glue. 🙂

See!   We did get the motherboard (I think that’s what you call it) out of the plastic housing.   The lad and I clipped out a d1 and d2, three resistors, and two capacitors.   We hoped to get to the diodes but ran out of time.   

The lower the resistor the brighter it made the led bulb.  The capacitors made it gradually brighter and the d1 and d2 only worked in one direction. 

That’s all we managed this past Friday, check out our resources eh?  Maybe you’ll learn a bit more like we did!  🙂

Resources

We used these sites: 

Role of a capacitor.

List of electronic components.

As well as our book: 

I’m going to check if my library has these books, or at least books like them.

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: child-led learning, Electronics, hands-on learning, Science

Battles of WW1: The Western Front

February 1, 2019 By Annette1 2 Comments

Battles of the western front in WW1

I introduced this section by having my lad read through some books that talked about specific battles of the Western Front.

Watching this video below led us on a discussion on homelessness during the war.   We also discussed being shell-shocked, tanks being turned over and how you would get out, and the sheer devastation war causes. 

Reading about the weapons had my son talking about how the German weapons are the only thing that allows Germany to defeat Belgium the way it did.  Such a hard loss for Belgium, being the warning ground of what Germany had in stock. 

The video below was part of a five part video series on Australia and New Zealand in WW1.   This site told us a bit more about their training and battle locations. 

Learning about the major battles wouldn’t be complete without learning about gas attacks. 

Here we looked at three of the major battles of the Western Front.

The lad has a research project due this week.  Research one battle of the war.   Videos, on-line and physical resources to be used.   He needs to explain any role Canada played in the battle. 

He might choose one of these five but he hasn’t really decided.

  • Battle of 2nd Ypres. 
  • Battle of Vimy Ridge. 
  • Battle of the Somme. 
  • Battle of Passchendaele. 
  • Battle of Amiens

An update is needed!  The lad is working hard on the Battle of the Somme.  He’s been doing research and working on putting together a four paragraph essay for me.    He was hoping to get it done this week but today we took apart a clock radio and then he had to get ready for his FTX weekend with Army Cadets. 

Resources Used

We also used resources from Heather LeBlanc’s Major Battles and Events of WW1.

Filed Under: Homeschooling

Finding a Writing Mentor

January 21, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

My current chapter in Pep Talks for Writers, talks about the benefits of having a mentor.  It makes sense, doesn’t it?  Mentors are a vital part of any position in life.   Business, sports, bunnies, showing, you name it… add writing to the list.  Having a mentor to show you the way is a huge benefit.  Finding a writing mentor will only be of benefit to you.  

finding a writing mentor
Photo by Himesh Kumar Behera on Unsplash

Differences between a colleague & a mentor

A colleague gives you advice on the day to day, or perhaps occasionally on the long-term.  But mostly, a colleague is there to make sure the job gets done.  That’s it.   There’s no long-term goals or help in the plan.   A mentor, on the other hand, has a goal of helping you discover yourself, so you go on to shine in the future. 

Benefits of Having a Mentor

Oh, the benefits of having a mentor are numerous.  These work across disciplines.   Doesn’t matter if you are a writer or a ball-player.  Having a mentor helps you in so many different ways.

  1. You get to learn from another person’s vision, experience and learning.
  2. The option to get career advice.  WOW.  HUGE that can be. 
  3. Increase your skill level, sometimes in areas that you hadn’t even considered.
  4. A different viewpoint.  It can be so easy to just see things from one perspective.  But talking things over with another person can give a different perspective on an issue.
  5. Teaches you more about yourself.
  6. Friendships gained.
  7. Develop your skills in communication.  Learn how to show your voice better.
  8. Discover the fine gift of encouragement and support.
  9. Learn how to balance your personal and professional life.
  10. Develop your confidence.

Photo by Himesh Kumar Behera on Unsplash

Mentored as a Writer

Imagine you love writing in prose, and you write a story with words of poetry in them.  Your mentor sees that and then encourages you to include more poetry, or perhaps to start your next book off with a poem central to the storyline? 

Or you are a poet like William Faulkner and your mentor Sherwood Anderson encourages you to write a book of prose about Mississippi.   A mentor can suggest new storylines, a different writing style, places to look for publishing and more.

A good mentor won’t just tell you what you WANT to hear, but rather what you NEED to hear. They will not only tell you what they did but why… the good and the not so good.  A good mentor will want to connect with you, enriching both of your lives.

Where to find a Mentor?

It’s not always so easy to find a mentor.   It takes time and commitment to agree to help someone along the way.  Look at The Sharks from Shark Tank.  They don’t help everyone who crosses their path.  They look at what the person needs and see if it matches up with their skill set.   So it goes with writing mentors.

Not everyone you approach will have the time, inclination, or resources to mentor you.  All you can do is approach people and ask.  If they can’t, but they offer you some type of advice, take it, thank them and continue your search. 

Search for one, or if you must, make yourself one.  Follow a writer you admire immensely. Read their interviews, follow them on social media, devour their writing, and reach out to them asking for advice.  Take those snippets and use them for good. 

Other writing posts in this series can be found here.

Filed Under: Homeschooling, Writing Tagged With: Language Arts, writing

Battles of World War 1

January 19, 2019 By Annette1 10 Comments

I have to admit to feeling a bit surprised.   I thought, battles of the war, how complicated could it be.  BOY, was I wrong.  Led to a rather fierce discussion between the lad and I about how I could be so wrong!   But hey, we worked it through and have decided to divide this section into part.

Battles of the Western front, and the eastern front.  Then battles of Africa.   We’ll tackle sea battles and air battles.   But last week and this week we are just going for the general approach.. just getting a bit of an overview of the battles of World War 1. 

Battles of World War one.  Soldier walking across a field.

Photo by Specna Arms on Unsplash

Movies Watched

To that end, we watched a few different movies.  Flyboys. and The Red Baron.  We tried watching The Trench (don’t recommend it).   We have plans to watch Warhorse documentary and War Horse but so far we can’t get a stream that works. 

Books Read

The lad read through these books below, just select pages that talked about battles of the war in generic terms, or as a broad overview.

The goal is to have him find a battle he wants to research from a Canadian point of view, but so far none of them are grabbing his attention.

We also read through a book called Vimy Oaks because I was just intensely curious.  It took us a couple of nights to read through.  Thoroughly enjoyed this book. We found it fascinating that the oaks from France eventually found a way back after all the destruction.

Videos Watched

Would we be us if we didn’t watch some videos as well?

Watching how the line moved so much at first and then just kind of stalled, reminded us of how HARD and kinda pointless trench warfare would have seemed to the men involved.

Resources Used

We used a variety of resources for this unit study.   These include writing prompts from Bonnie Rose.   Heather LeBlanc’s Major Battles and Events of WW1 and Military Geography from TOS.    We used a timeline from someone but I can’t find a link to it… Might have been a free unit we picked up somewhere, I can’t truly recall.

Other posts about world  war one

  • Belgium
  • Animals in World War One
  • Soldiers in Training
  • Assassination
  • Pre_war Alliances
  • War Starts
  • Trench Warfare.
  • Trench Foot Experiment.

Filed Under: Homeschooling Tagged With: child-led learning, history, World War

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