A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Homeschooling

Phys Ed Encouragment

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When my son was younger, it was sometimes hard to get him to focus, I learned fairly quickly to have him do something physical if I wanted him to practice most anything.  Like the alphabet, or addition/subtraction facts, telling me the names of the Great Lakes and such like.  I had this balance circle that he would often stand on.  Working to keep his balance seemed to free up his mind to think about concrete facts.  Therefore as part of my “want to learn” series, it seemed appropriate to focus on physical education as well.

phys ed encouragement

Crew Recommendations

I asked members of the crew what they did for fitness and Holly pointed me to these cards she uses.

Deann pointed me to a site that I’m not sure about, because quite frankly I’m really leery of mindfulness stuff, as it doesn’t seem to sync well with being a person of faith.   BUT I’ll let you take a look at it and see what you think. It’s called Cosmic Kids. 

On a regular basis I get emails from Faithful Workouts.  Build your faith, work your body, and eat well.  I can’t say that I read all of the emails, but I do read enough to feel confident recommending them. Her emails are geared for the adults as opposed to children, so more like something to motivate mom, so then she can motivate her children!  Her latest email contained this quote:

Why is it so difficult to remain dedicated and faithful to diet and fitness when our health is at risk? What has to change in order for you to succeed?

I have to believe the answer is found in the commentary of 2 Chronicles in the NLT Study Bible;

“The secret to victory is first to admit the futility of unaided human effort and then to trust God to save. His power works best through those who recognize their limitations. It is those who think they can do it on their own that are in the greatest danger.”

For Students:

Get out and get busy really, that’s often all there is to it.   Children from 5-17 need at least one hour of physical activity every single day.  Amazing isn’t it?   So get out and explore the world!   Get up and explore your house.  There are so many ways to get busy.

From working with a balance board, to doing tippy-toe races across the dining room floor, to running along a trail as you get in the fresh air.  

Perhaps you have a boy who likes karate

KarateOr a girl who loves playing tag

gym tag

Dance, jump, balance, rock climb, go for a hike, smell the roses, look for birds, and take in a round of golf.  The point is to get off your seat and on your feet. 

Did you know that in one school district they have a rule.  For every 45 minutes of learning, the students get 15 minutes of exercise?   By doing so they have cut down on the reported cases of various learning disorders.   Amazing isn’t it?  The students are more focused, and better able to learn and retain information, making for less homework and more productive in school time. Imagine what that could do for OUR children schooled at home!?!

In what ways do you encourage physical activity in your students?  Do you have a favourite go-to activity?   In house we like nerf guns, walks around the dam, fishing, biking, shooting slingshots, karate and archery.   Mixing it up is a good thing to do eh? 

Want to learn series:

Coding.
Math.
Foreign Languages.

World War 1 Education Day

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world war 1 education day

Last year it was the delight of my son and I to join in on a day learning about World War 1 and Canadian participation.  We joined in at a large event featuring various highschools as well as homeschooled middle school through high school students from London and the surrounding area.   This was a very enjoyable day that my son was truly delighted to participate in.   I can’t promise that I will remember everything exactly anymore but I’ll do my best eh?  🙂

Learning to march was part of the fun that my lad enjoyed.   He found it interesting to keep pace with another student, and to follow along well.

They also learned the value in presenting a solid line of force against the opposing enemy.

Being the keen eyed observer that my lad is, he discovered another keen eyed observer.

praying mantis discovered London, Ontario
After this we proceeded through a few more stations.

We had a great day out together.  I’m so glad we had a chance to do this day together.

Everything is Theological

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May and June are going to be rather crazy busy around here, so I asked my friends in the Five Minute Friday community if they might lend a hand and write me a post or two, just to take the load off.   Ruth took up my plea and gave me this LOVELY post you’ll read below.   I love the thinking behind this post.  🙂  She blogs here.

Everything is Thelogical

I first heard the phrase, “everything is theological” in 1998. To say I did not like it or the professor who tacked the quote to his office door would be an understatement.

I’d believed up to that point that there is indeed sacred and secular. The one must be separate from the other for good Christians to live in this world – in it not of it. I believed this wholeheartedly. Checkboxes, black and white thinking (never any gray), and a shallow understanding of grace made for an easy way to live. 

For months that professor kept at us, as a good teacher does, with many different examples of how “everything is theological”. As students often do, we ignored him, all of us future teachers. Until someone had an ‘aha’ moment in class. “You mean everything we believe about God matters in the rubber-meeting-road of life??” The rest of us sat back and our prof was blinded by all the proverbial lightbulbs going off.

My philosophy of teaching began to change that day. I no longer thought of teaching as a “me standing above you telling you things” idea but rather “how can I open your eyes to see who God is, even in the dull parts of math”. (One
plus one will always equal two because God never changes.)

I’m now the mom of 3 kids who love to read! The 13 year old girl and her 11 and 9 year old brothers all have extremely different tastes in books. I could see this morphing into an unnecessary battleground. So when they were young, I did my best to whet their appetites for great stories and deep characters whether good or evil, and help them learn how to observe and discuss as they read. I bought up every Great Illustrated Classic book I found at thrift stores and garage sales. They offer the great stories of redemption and justice like: The Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein, and Jane Eyre at a level my children can embrace.

As we read, it became a habit to ask these questions:

Who are the characters and do they remind you of anyone?

Why did Harry Potter choose not to ask for help from an adult?
What does the author believe about people?
Are they basically good or evil?
Are adults treated as imbeciles and the kids save the day?
Is the story dark and scary? How? Why?
Are you surprised by what you feel about the story?
Is there an unlikely character who becomes the hero?
Is there a character you really don’t like? Why?
Does the story remind you of any other stories?

Even Dr. Seuss can contribute to amazing discussions about the most surprising things. It’s not simply books, either.
Movies are books we see through someone else’s eyes, and we need to help our children develop habits of thinking as they watch.

My middle child told me he checked out Les Miserables (the full version) from school. While I was very impressed with him for wanting to take on this amazing story, and not being swayed by his school librarian’s doubt of his abilities, I also didn’t let him read it. My 11 year old is not ready to discuss the idea of prostitution. In his disappointment, I began to tell him the story. The familiar story of a thief receiving grace and what it cost the giver blew him away. It was one of those very satisfying mom moments.

You won’t have these moments each and every time you read aloud.

Some days it’s slogging through a chapter while certain individuals repeatedly cannot keep their hands to themselves. Some days they beg for more chapters.  It’s the journey.

Remember you’re giving them tools to sift through what the world tosses at them. They need to know that everything is truly theological.


Ruth Verkaik is a teacher turned writer. She’s also wife to an engineer who
loves to ask “why??” to most things in life as do their 3 children. Her favorite
place is her bright windowed space where she loves to create and write. Often,
she can be found with a cup of tea and a good book while ignoring the laundry.
Sometimes her 50lb puppy joins her. Sometimes her book-loving kids. Her digital
space can be found at
www.ruthlverkaik.wordpress.com
.

Art with Dolls

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Do you remember I did a class on making dolls?  We had a lot of fun though admittedly we did the class differently than I had planned.

clothes pin doll, doll making class

You see my kids wanted to learn how to sew.  This wasn’t on my agenda at all.  I remember teaching my son to sew and thought two kids, sewing.. NOT.  But they really, really  (to the extent of begging) wanted to learn so I bite the bullet. 

making stuffies as we learn to sew in Doll Making ClassI have to admit, the hardest part was trying to make sure Dad wasn’t helping their lad too much.  “Let him do it himself I kept instructing!”.   The children had fun learning to make a simple block stuffy, giving them their own personalities and colour. 

The final day I gave them three different options for what to make.  Paper dolls, Topsy-turvy dolls or Clothespin dolls. 

Know what they both chose?  Topsy Turvy dolls!   What fun!   And easy enough to make.  Take a sock (like you are going to make a snow man doll) but instead you make a face on both sides and give the doll a cape to you can show which side is up. 

Topsy turvy dolls in doll making class

I loved how the children made these dolls their own.  🙂

Let’s see what else did we make.  OH.. the wooden stick dolls.  Which well.. we didn’t use wooden sticks from trees (like we were supposed to) I had long white things (surgical supply I think) and dowels, it was great letting the children decide which they wanted to use, and we had fun being creative!   One child decided he wanted to make a cat!  The other did a doll with a striped dress.   My son did “Dr. Who”. 

wooden stick dolls in doll making class

We also made a doll that could move on strings. But I will have to show you that another day as it’s getting late and I’m rather tired.  🙂

My goal is to teach this class (or another like it) to a different group of children.  I am hopeful to do that this summer.   Would be fun to teach it again…it was a great class to do. 

Seeking After Truth : Thomas Hobbes

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Thomas Hobbes was orphaned in infancy and taken in by a wealthy uncle.  Through the generosity of his uncle he received a good education, which in turn offered him a chance to travel.  He is perhaps best known for his political philosophies but he wrote on a wide range of subjects, included his philosophy of physicalism.

Thomas Bacon, seeking after truth

His basic premise:

Thomas Hobbes thought that people and animals were nothing more than flesh and blood machines. He lived in a time when great advances were being made in the physical sciences.

A rough outline of his progression in thought goes as follows

Nothing with substance can exist
So everything is the universe is physical
A human being is therefore entirely physical
Therefore man is a machine.

Using science and mathematics he thought was the perfect counter for scholastic philosophy so predominant in medieval times.  He saw no real need to balance the physical and the spiritual.  He saw zero limits to what science could achieve. Therefore saw the whole world as being physical having length, breadth and depth.  EVERYTHING in the universe was physical and nothing more.  He did believe in invisible spirits but still believed that just because we couldn’t see them didn’t mean they didn’t have length, breadth and depth.   He saw these spirits as moving through the body in a similar way we would view the nervous system today. 

The only differentiation he made was to God.  He believed that ONLY God could be described as an incorporeal being.   God’s divinity is something that a physical human being could never fathom.   Science and matters of faith were divergent and therefore God will always be beyond our comprehension. 

Hobbes never dealt with how the mind works or affects these physical only beings. He believed that in time science would explain this aspect of our physical beings.   He had a strong insistence that everything could be explained in the physical and in the end man is nothing but a machine. 

quote by Thomas hobbes "For What is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body."

Finding Truth:

Understanding the time that Hobbes lived in helps me to understand his philosophy regarding people.  Living a time when physical science was making great strides, it is easy to see why he believed that man was merely a physical machine and believed that eventually everything about us could be explained in a scientific manner. 

I see how he separated out God from the physical and made it very clear that God was different than all physical beings.  God was incorporeal and it’s not possible for human beings to understand him. I see much truth in this understanding because honestly, can we, as sinful beings ever truly understand God?  I just don’t see God as being as totally non-understandable as Hobbes makes him out to be. God’s word teaches us about God, and the example that Jesus set and how he lived, showed us God as well. The seeing God as different than everything else in the world is a pivotal thought that we often really fail to understand.  

To download a worksheet to help you think about Thomas Hobbes more, CLICK HERE. 

Others in the series
Francis Bacon.

Gardening vs Book Work

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The other day I offered my son a choice…. finish your schooling (doing bookwork) OR help me with some gardening.   He actually stopped to think about it!   🙂   In the end he said “Mom it’s really nice out here, are you sure it’s okay if I help you instead?”

Hands On Learning while being helpful … it’s a win-win in my book.  

Spring gardening with the lad

In the fall we thought we were going to move, so friends of ours asked about getting part of our red currant bush.  I told them sure, take a piece off.  Saw it this spring and realized they had dug the bush up but …. hadn’t covered the roots and what not so figured I’d move it.  It wasn’t hard getting it out…but I couldn’t move it on my own.  The lad to the rescue!  “I’ll help mom, just where do I grab it?”   He took one side and I then other and we got her planted in a new spot.  One that gives us access all around.  Anyways, this granted us the ability to examine the root system of a currant bush.  They are not very deep for the size of the bush and spread out all over.  The root system was probably about as big around as the bush, but only 1/4 the depth of the height.   We were quite surprised at this. 

Red Currant bush, pictured in new location

What else did we do?

Well, I raise rabbits, and in the summer they get greens out of my garden.  A big part of those greens is my large patch of chervil and parsley.   We moved it from the messy, full of weeds patch to a new section of garden, effectively increasing the patch size from a half garden to almost a full garden.   We only moved about half the patch today, the rest I worked on over the course of a week. 

Parsley for bunniesWe moved the black currant bush and discovered we had two of them.  We moved the bigger one where we wanted it, with compost on the roots, then made a temporary home for the smaller one.  Decided we would sell that one if we could.   He made me laugh.  I managed to sell it for $10 and my son’s immediate response was “I want to grow more mom!   Then I can sell them next year!”   WOOT WOOT!  I’m raising a fine entrepreneur.   I taught him how easy it was to start new currant bushes so now the red and black currant bushes have some brick holding down branches waiting to start new plants. Black currant roots are fewer in number and more spindly.   Very easy to dig up and move. 

Black currant bush

Our next task was the bee garden.  We call it that because we have a bumble bee who lives somewhere in the middle of the wood pile. We are fairly sure she lives under the big piece of wood in the middle.  We don’t like to bother her and it’s been fun having her bumble around us this spring on the warm days.  She never bothers us.  Anyways, we pulled out all the dead leftover stuff and tided up the bed, replanted what should grow again. We have a wee bit to do yet, but then we got hungry as we forgot lunch.  

The bee garden, three gardens surrounding a wood covered bees nest

Lunch is an excellent thing to have after a hard days work you know?  Lunch was followed by in rhetoric by Silverdale Press.  It made for an excellent day all round. 

The lad’s joys

  1. discovery of a very large black beetle.  Led him on a search for the name (unsuccessful but it was a cool bug)
  2. Ants! We have two new ant hills in our yard. One I want gone and the other I don’t worry on. The lad wants them all to stay but in the path of a lawn mower is not the best place for an ant nest.
  3. Some of our tadpoles have legs! We have some growing that are very large and take a long time to develop. Going on two years now for some of them. We’re kinda anxious to learn what kind they are.

Going on Vacation?

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Ah… I don’t know about you but I am SO enjoying the warmer weather.  Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE winter, and the spring with the flowers that seem to burst out of the ground… I love it!   Tulips and daffodils just make my heart smile after the mud and much of winter turning into spring.

My lad has been asking if I think we’ll be able to get out for at least a week of vacation this year, and I freely admit to him that I hope so, but I can’t guarantee it at this point… I might be, if I’m very careful, be able to swing a weekend.  Wouldn’t that be fun? 

Going on Vacation

One of my favourite things to do on vacation is to bring along books to read.  Granted I love getting out with the fellows on the kayaks and seeing the beauty that is in the world around us, but curling up with a good book and having friendly chipmunks scope me out for food, and listening to birds chatter in the trees around me… is just a wee taste of heaven for me.  I simply ADORE that time. 

Another joy I have is discovering new passions and ideas to pursue and guess what I discovered?   Lonely Planet has come out with a neat book called First Words Mandarin.   This purse sized book is filled with 100 words to learn in Mandarin.   The words are clearly presented on one page, with a full colour image on the accompanying page to make sure that students of all ages are able to know what they are learning to say.  AND if you have access to the internet you can even go to first audio (on Lonely Planets) to hear exactly how the word is spoken.  (if using a smart phone they have a QR code).   It’s that just the coolest thing?   I am looking forward to learning a smattering of Mandarin this summer.. with or without a road trip… though it would certainly make the time travelling down the road pass sooner wouldn’t it?  🙂

First Words Mandarin, a glimpse at book

One of the things we like to do while travelling in the car is to listen to a good story.  Currently, we are going through a Percy Jackson period. We’ve listened to those books and then decided to delve into a series that predates Percy called Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard.   It’s a fun listen that often makes us laugh.  We’ve also listened to The Ranger’s Apprentice, Brotherband Chronicles, The Unwanteds, Down Gilead Lane and Percy Jackson.  As we listen sometimes the lad will play on his tablet, and other times he digs into one of the creative books we have floating around the place.  

Sticker World Museum, book coverIsn’t that a great segway into StickerWorld Museum?  🙂  Sticker World Museum might sound like it’s just another sticker book, and it does have stickers in it, but it’s more than just a sticker book.  It has colouring, drawing, mazes, dot to dot and more.  Things to delight and keep hands and minds busy as they create their own museum. Written by Becky Wilson the reader is drawn into the world of a museum, filled with painting, sculptures, displays, mosaics and so much more.

It’s a great way to introduce children to the fun of a museum, and all the parts of them that make them interesting.

 

 

Sticker World Museum, sample pages

Another activity we engage in along the way are various car games, games like Cow!   Where you look for cows (and count them by the field) and for graveyards.  A graveyard on your side kills the cows on the opposite side.   Or the ever popular liscense plate game or alphabet game.  We’ve done lots of pass the drawing games as well (where you each draw a head, and then pass it to the next person who draws the torso, and then you pass it along until you see what you finally come up with.  It’s a ton of fun with three or more pcity mazes, book covereople. 🙂

When on vacation a person can find themselves in places they have never been before.  One will find themselves needing a map.   And oh, we all know how a new city can be a maze of unknown streets and new sights that capture the eye and the imagination, so perhaps a book on City Mazes will continue your journey into amazing places.  It’s a rather creatively done book using the streets of cities from around the world as a maze, and along the way points of interest are numbers and explained.  For instance in Berlin you pass by Louisa’s Place (a 1904 building), in London the Churchill War Rooms, and while in Copenhagen the Rosenborg Slot.  All sorts of places to amuse and entertain.    30 cities around the world to visit, most of them from European countries.

Sample page below, see the fine detail and small images of points of interest.City Mazes, sample page

City Mazes, Sticker World Museum and First Words Mandarin are all Lonely Planet books and are distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books.  These titles are available at select bookstores across the country and on Indigo.ca.  Aren’t they all excellent ways to help spend your summer vacation?   Learning, seeing, discovering, and keeping yourself busy as you travel the roads.