A Net in Time

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Team sports…. or individual… which works?

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 I don’t know if you are like me and not really into “doing phys ed”, so while I understand the importance of getting busy physically it’s not high on my list of priorities.  How is it for you?

I admittedly bought into the hype that children HAVE to take part in team sports because it’s good for them. Don’t get me wrong.. team sports are good for most kids, they really are! I felt like I was doing poorly by my lad if I didn’t get him into a team sport.

Therefore I put some effort into getting my lad interested in doing some type of team sport.

We tried homeschool soccer.   And admittedly there were points of success, but also had points of extreme dismay in my lad.

We stuck it out for a couple of years and the final year for soccer had my lad more interested in the toads and frogs in the local pond more than the soccer… so we called it quits.  🙂

Swimming worked a touch bit better, but not a whole lot.   Having ear troubles didn’t help the matter at all.   The end result was that my lad does know how to keep himself afloat in the water and that’s a good thing.  Perhaps with time he’ll become a more proficient swimmer… but first to fix his ears!

Then we discovered that we had a local karate club so I sweet talked my cautious lad into doing a couple of trial classes…. and HE WAS HOOKED!    He likes karate so much that he’s now has his orange belt and is looking forward to testing for his advanced orange belt.

Another love the lad has is archery!   He and his dad go out whenever they can.  A local fellow has a club with erratic lessons…but a willingness to let the boys go out and shoot arrows.

I have learned something important through all of this… my lad has a distinct fondness for individual based sports.  Where he can think his way through it, learning the steps in karate, perfecting his form in archery.  These things appeal to him.   Will he sometime down the road like team sports?   I don’t know, I’ll leave the door open for it though….but right now…  I have a boy having fun doing sports that he likes, and I call that…Phys Ed.  🙂

For other posts on the general theme of health and physical education, check out Canadian Homeschool bloggers eh?   Post goes live on the 26th.

Also linking up here eh?

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

The Week of the Easter Mouse

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Sunday after a nice afternoon with the family I came home to this mound on my patio.  Needless to say, as much as I like ants and think they do much good in the world, I don’t want them three feet from my back door building a mound.  So I medicated them and hopefully this bunch will fail to return and WILL NOT invade my house this summer.

Monday:
After a busy weekend, staying at home seemed like the best thing to do today.  The lad and I did some gardening together.  My young digger had a huge amount of fun moving and then replanting my parsley and chervil patch.   Who woulda thought that it would be so much fun digging holes and plopping a plant in it.  The dirt was just a flying!!!

Tuesday:
Off to London town!   The lad did a wee bit of schooling and then headed out with gramma in the afternoon.  He went with us first to fill out his application for a passport as we’ll be heading to PA at the end of May.

Wednesday
 A day of schooling at home.  Thought admittedly we got to a really late start.   We were all total slugs, so much so the lad ran out of time to get all his schooling done, so he promised me he would do his math the next day. 

Thursday:
 Off to the Alymer Dairy Museum today.  The lad promised to do his math on the way there but ended up doing right before bed. The Museum was pretty good.   Filled with memorabilia but the staff also put on a good program for the children and youth that attended… making butter, ice cream, learning about cartooning and more.  See look… I made a sponge bob!

Friday:
Today was co-op day so off we went for a morning of learning, me teaching Zentangles, Hubby teaching gym, and the lad learning about natural disasters and Biblical Feasts.
We learned the spider tag is not as fun as one might think.

Reviews:
Quick Tips for Busy Families. 
Fish Girl: a well done graphic novel

Five Day Blog Hop: Things We Enjoy
The Joys of Working at our Own Pace.
Miss Natalie and her support  
Studying what interests you
No One Wakes me Up.
The Joy of Staying Home.

 Everything Else:
Easter is Here.  A poem about Easter. 
S-I-N-G : self defense is great for women too! 
Recipe: Scalloped Potatoes
Discover Great Paintings – A child’s book of art.  Learn how to look at art.
The Holy District.  Devotion on Ezekiel 45:1-6
 

Linking Up at The Following Places.

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Five Things We Enjoy: The Joy of Staying Home

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 Ah… it’s been fun this week eh?   Exploring the things that we like most about homeschooling.

My son admittedly surprised me with today’s topic… He phrased it as “I get to stay home.”.

My son is BIG into time management.  He watches the clock, figures out how long it will take to do something, and calculates it seems… down to the nano second.  The fact that sometimes he over-estimates his time is neither here or there.

Living next door to our neighbours, a family with two children that attend public school.  The lad sees them leave and come back and wonders when they have time to do what they want to do.   He only sees them out having fun in the summer or on Saturdays.

He’s asked me in the past “What do they do on the way to school?   Do they just walk there and back again?”  

He sees how quickly he can go through his math at home, or do his art, or talk through our history and asks me how long it took when I was at school.   I tell him and he just doesn’t understand it.  How can learning history take a whole hour?  How can a math class last a whole hour?   

Then he starts to understand when I tell him that he has LOTS of time to do what he likes to do.   He gets it when he’s able to do his math in the car on the way to an event, he understands when we combine science with our study on Canada, and do art as a way to understanding the Pacific Coast First Nations people better.   It makes the school day go faster you know?

He can start his school day first thing in the morning, and work at his own speed, pursuing the things he loves to do,and meeting people he likes .

Knowing that most of his days are spent ordered in a way that works for him helps him to relax when we do get out and about.   Being able to recharge his batteries pursuing the things he loves the most, and yet having the freedom to leave home when needed.  It’s very good in the eyes of a boy.   

Friends, family, co-op days, field trips, vacation, learning adventures, pokemon go-ing and so many other things drag him out of the house, but… he can mostly stay home where a boy likes to be.

What about your children?   What do they enjoy most about homeschooling?

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Five Things We Enjoy: No One Makes Me Get Out of Bed Before I Want To (respect)

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 Welcome, welcome to day four of  things we enjoy.   The Homeschool Review Crew is having fun this week sharing knowledge, joys, sorrows and encouragement.

Day one: The Joys of Working at our Own Pace.
Day two: Miss Natalie and her support  
Day Three: Studying what interests you

Today my boy wants me to tell you about how much he enjoys that NO ONE makes him get out of bed before he wants to.  🙂

Mind you…. we normally don’t have to as he’s up and busy often before I’m even functional.  🙂

Allow me to tell you where this stems from:  When I was young my parents would wake me up simply by staring at me.  I have a huge startle reflex and they used that to good advantage.  I would wake up startled and frightened…not that they were INTENDING to scare me…but shaking me awake would be a good way to get inadvertently whacked.  So staring from a distance worked really well.   I am unfortunately still like this…  really… don’t wake me….just don’t do it.

Anyways, since I have bad memories of being woken up, I don’t wake people up unless I HAVE to.   When the lad was younger occasionally I’d need to get him up, but not often and never without having a good reason. Now that he’s older I just say “I need you up at ____ time, and yes, if you aren’t up, I’ll give you a call or send the cat in to greet you.” Admittedly…there is the odd time when the lad stays in bed late on purpose just so I will send the cat in to get him up.  🙂  (You can always tell because you’ll hear moans from his room, “Oh, I’m so tired, I wonder if mom will send Milo in”.  🙂

My son LOVES this.  He loves being able to have a lazy morning if he wants to (it rarely happens but…when it does…we are usually ALL being lazy).  If he’s tired he’s up around 830, but normally 730 and he’s off schooling, doing chores, catching a quick game of Clash Royale or more likely watching science videos.

In fact, I am positive that my son learned this fact from some science video. For when the lad and I talked about why this was important enough to put into his five favourite things, he said:  “It is better for people to wake up on their own, to ease into wakefulness, than to be startled awake.  Some people have problems with their heart and breathing if they are woken up.  It shortens your life to be woken up all the time.”   

He then added “thanks for not shortening my life mom.”
 
Being the mom that I am, with a logical child, I use this respect of his need to rest as a training tool.  When he does get up early (and like me once he’s up, he up chatting, I can say: “SHUSH be quiet.  When you talk first thing in the morning, you wake everyone up, so SHUSH, I don’t wake you up, so you don’t wake me up.”  It makes sense to this logically minded lad.  It’s a way to teach mutual respect.

Respect for each other.
I listen to you, you listen to me. 
You ask for help instead of getting angry, I ask for help instead of getting angry.
You tell me your goals for the day, I tell you my goals for the day and together we work to see those goals met.   
Respecting each others needs and wants, it’s one of those important things in our home.   Mutual respect…It helps us to give way when it has to be done eh?

When we know that the mutual respect is there, the communication comes easier, you know?   What is one way you use to teach respect for each other?

It starts, in our house, with respecting a child’s need to wake up when he wants to.  (and I end up not shortening his life). 🙂

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Art Book Series: Discover Great Paintings – A Child’s Book of Art

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 Do you want your children to understand the great artists?  Or even just to know how to look at some of the great paintings done?   Discover Great Paintings will teach you how to unpack these great pieces of artwork so you can discuss them well.

The first chapter in this book teaches a person how to look at art work.
Questions to ask, details to look at and facts about the artist.
The next 13 chapters unpack 13 different pieces of art work, helping the reader to understand them and learn the questions to ask about any artwork you can find. 

Learn to understand the colours, textures, emotions, shapes presented.

As you can see different elements are pulled out of the painting and discussed.

The facts about each painting are drawn out .. such as the castle belongs to a king, skulls show the dragon has been a danger, the princess wants to be saved, and the dragon is a symbol for evil (whereas the cross on the shield is a symbol for good). 

Learn the facts behind the scenes

Remember details about the artist:

 Learn how to look at art work, see everything you can in the paintings you see.  Be aware of all the great questions you can ask of an artist of the work that they do.  Or that you can ask of yourself if the artist is no longer living.  There is more in a piece of art then you might think eh!  🙂

Discover Great Paintings: A child’s book of art
Author: Lucy Micklethwait
Publisher: Firefly Books
32 pages.
Type: Hardcover
Art Book

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Five Things We Enjoy: Miss Natalie

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 Welcome to day of the Homeschool School Review Crew Five Day blog hop!  It’s so nice to have you come for a visit.

On Day One we talked about The Joy of Working at Your Own Pace.

Today I want to talk to you about one of our favourite people.

Miss Natalie.

Oh… we like Miss Natalie.  I’ll actually going running out the doors sometimes in my stocking feet to say hi to her. 🙂  (She ALWAYS scolds me for doing so).   She usually has a ready smile and a willingness to pass the time of day (until she needs to get going again).

You know what she does for us?

1. She talks happily with my lad.  Listening carefully to him.  She is kind to my boy.. he likes her and willingly talks to her whenever they meet.  She’s a grandma and I often read posts on facebook with her spending time with them, and sometimes they tag along and play with bunnies when we’re away.  

2.  She brings us books!   Lots and lots of books!!!   Many that my lad likes as well, so Natalie is a favourite around here.   Here’s one she brought recently the lad and Dad will be working through together this coming year.

3. She cares for our critters whenever we are away.   Caring for the lad’s snake, fish, plants, mice and cats.   Taking care of my bunnies.  Watering our gardens.   Without her we couldn’t do our vacation time, do extended field trips or many other things.

4. Peace of mind.  Oh my.. Natalie is an easy lady to talk to, she shows her care in her easy smile and her honesty.   Her care for our mail packages, our critters, and us, causes us treasure her dearly.    

5. Of course you need to understand something, over the past years of Natalie being part of our five day a week life, of her lending a hand here and there, she is not just our mail lady or our vacation/field trip allower, she has become a part of our lives.  She’s a dear sweet lady and I am grateful to know her.

We owe this lady a debt of gratitude.

A Net In Time Schooling

A Net In Time Schooling

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Five Things we Enjoy: Work at Your Own Pace

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Did you know that my son suggested this series to me. I was asking him what homeschooling theme I should write about and he tossed out “Why don’t you talk about what I like mom?” I thought that was a great idea so here we are. 🙂

The VERY FIRST thing he said was “you should tell them how much I like working as fast or as slow as I want to mom”.

When I asked the lad why this was important he said “I’m not rushed or slowed down.   I don’t have to worry about rushing or slowing anyone else down either.” 

This is very important to my 11 year old “I want to keep people happy” young man.  Being able to work at his own speed (with the odd reminder) is extremely important to him.  He can take a break when he wants to and play with a mouse.   He can work extremely hard and be done by 11-12, or be more leisurely and finish at 2.  It’s all good in my book.  Applying outside pressure has an adverse effect on him.
I have to admit that I am sometimes flabbergasted at how quickly, a highly focused lad who has plans for the afternoon, can get his schoolwork done.   He’s going to sew, work with his cactus, go pokemon going with Dad or just whatever catches his fancy.   

It makes me think of how last year I would ask him (as we daily planned out our day) what goals he had for the day.  It helped keep the air clear of the unknowns and gave him a goal to work toward.  I would help him meet his goals and he would help me meet mine…and together we learn that tomorrow is always another day.

But then we have days when … it seems like we’ll never get done.  Everything is a problem or a distraction or too hard or just wrong.. you know those nit picky things in programs that just drive you nuts. … and suddenly that molehill has become an insurmountable mountain.   Those days are harder to manage so we learned a new rule.  If we are not done by 2 (if a lad has been working all along) then we are simply done. 

He works off this

He puts X’s beside what he’s not doing (after consultation with mom) and check marks beside what is finished.   This is just our basic schedule and we change it around a bit depending on the week.. like this Thursday I’m hoping to go to the market.   So we’ll “X” out a bunch of things OR I’ll simply delete them from the schedule… HE LOVES those empty days.  🙂

I’ve tried to do fancier schedules but he gets aggravated or discouraged when there’s too much detail on the list.  He hates using a book.  So a simple print off schedule that he can mark up to his hearts content works for him (and I have it saved to the computer for easy tracking).

So what is it like in your schoolroom?   Do you find that your children work best with a basic schedule and leaving them to it?   Or do they work better using a different format?  Tell me about it if you don’t mind.

Easy way to visit using the linky below:

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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/