A Net in Time

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Decisions To Make in Homeschooling

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Homeschooling has become a very popular option lately.  Some people make the decision spontaneously and others research and plan before taking the plunge.  REGARDLESS of which method dropped you into schooling your children at home there are ALWAYS decisions to make in homeschooling your youngsters. 

What decisions you ask?  Well there tons of things to consider as you consider the decisions to make in homeschooling.   

Decisions To Make in Homeschooling

Questions to ask

I won’t go into exhaustive detail here, I just want to prod you into some of questions you might wish to ask.  This list should get you started and possibly generate more for you. 

  • What style will you use and what curriculum will fit your style? 
  • How do your children learn and how will that influence your day and teaching methods?   
  • Are there books you should read to further your knowledge base? 
  • What around homeschool groups… do you join one or keep visiting homeshool groups on facebook? 
  • Where will you find your curriculla?
  • Will you go for purchased or free options?
  • Textbook or living book style?
  • Hands-on, get dirty and right into it?  Or videos, textbooks, online teaching? 
  • Will you make a vision or mission statement?
  • Self-taught, parent-taught, or teacher taught, or some combination thereof?
  • Will you combine grades and subjects?
  • Will you partake of any public school offerings? (dependent on your school board of course)
  • Faith-based, secular, or a meld?
  • Ebooks, physical books, online.
  • Will you embrace a methodology of teaching such as Charlotte Mason, Child-led, Eclectic, Classical etc. 
  • What type of scheduling will you lay out? 
  • Will you school year round?  Take regular breaks?  Do modified summer school?
  • Many homeschools are mom-led, but sometimes grandparents teach, or even dad.  How will it look for you?
  • How about co-ops?  Is there one close by or do you need to start your own? 
  • What about where you will do your schooling?   Designated room or use of your entire house? 
  • How will you manage younger and older siblings?  Keeping toddlers busy whilst helping older students grasp difficult concepts. 
June 2021 Social Media Challenge Graphic

Teach Independent Learning

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Are you looking for ways to make homeschooling easier?  Needing tips to streamline the process?   Over the next 10 days, I’ll be sharing strategies that will you teach independent learning to your students.  I hope you will come along on the journey.

teach independent learning text with image of student doing independent work

If my plans go as I’m hoping they will I still start from the early years and work my way forward to where we are now in highschool.  It’s been a journey to gain independence and self-motivation to learn.  My goal is to show you a few steps along the way.   

Steps such as accepting where your child is at, realizing that learning goals aren’t all the same, incremental steps toward an end goal and how trust is a big factor in the process. 

Learning to be responsible for your own education isn’t always the easiest thing to learn. With support, encouragement and timely guidance, your students can gain the independence they need. 

Outline for teaching independent learning

  1. Acceptance the start of independence
  2. Answering questions.
  3. Encouraging creativity.
  4. Organization.
  5. Involvement in electives.
  6. Learning when to take a step back.
  7. Building confidence.
  8. Establishing Trust.
  9. When Errors in Judgement Happen.

What advice do you have to teach independent learning? 

Others Joining In

There will be about 17 other bloggers joining in on the 10 blog hop and I hope that you will take the time to visit them. 

These wonderful bloggers will be discussing topics such as creating a stress-free home, Health worksheets for children, encouragement for parents, unit studies, preschool activities, dinosaur worksheets, homeschooling tips, nature study,  and much much more. 

Want to learn keyboarding?

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Over the years I have looked at a number of keyboarding, or typing programs. Some free, some paid, all have their place.   I thought I’d work you through some of the options for who want to learn keyboarding, or have a student in need of these skills.

Want to Learn Keyboarding Skills?

Why Do I Care

You might be wondering why do I have this focus on keyboarding?  Why is it important that my son have excellent keyboarding skills?  

Did you know that I mark papers?  I KNOW .. funny eh?  I mark biology and physics papers for a high school. This very odd thing was learned!  I like papers that are typed out.  Typed papers mean I don’t have to fight with handwriting wondering if the penmanship is sloppy or if a word is spelled incorrectly.  It is quicker to read even writing and spacing.  It’s no small wonder to me that colleges and universities like their essays and papers typed out!

The elementary students of today will be tomorrow’s highschool and higher education students.   They will:

  • Write reports.
  • Argue papers, topics, put together presentations
  • Comment on discussion boards and blogs.
  • Journal in blogs and online tools like Penzu.
  • Research online (type addresses into a search bar).
  • Take digital notes (using Evernote, OneNote and similar).
  • Collaborate on Google Apps like docs, sheets, presentations.
  • Take online quizzes.
  • Use online tools for core classes (Wordle, Animoto, Story Creators).
  • And more

Having good keyboarding skills will make their jobs of learning easier.

Before we get too far in, let me talk about some of the products that I have actually used with my son. 

Keyboarding Reviews I have Done

We did UltraKey Online.   He pretty much liked this course, but found he didn’t really retain much of it when he was finished.   

Then came working through The Typing Coach.  This overall wasn’t a good fit for us long term.

This past year my son studiously engaged himself with Typing Instructor Platinum.  He really liked this program and found it also taught him to do the numbers, not just the letters.   It covered everything on the keyboard. 

Learn Keyboarding

Learn Keyboarding – free options

The benefits of free of course is that it is free.   Doesn’t cost you a dime beyond your internet fee.  Free programs can be really well done, or they can lacking in detail, practice time, tests or more.  Try them out, they are free, you will learn something and perhaps you can use one to build upon another.   Others it just requires using the full program and adding in drill time.

want to learn keyboarding

Learn Keyboarding – paid options

I have gone to thrift stores seeing keyboarding books there, the old flip style that I grew up with. 

Paid programs tend to be more complete than free, but not always.  Try before you buy so you can get a good feel for the program if you can.  

I found some options for you on amazon.  Note affiliate link.

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

Devotionals for Teens

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When my son was younger it was incredibly easy to find devotionals for him.  Easy worksheets on-line, whole curriculums, colouring sheets and more.  Now that he is getting older, it is more difficult to find free materials on-line for him.   This is what I have found when I looked for devotionals for teens.  

Devotionals for Teens

On-Line Free Resources

I am not going to say that every devotional on the sites below are good or have spot on teaching, but they do provide food for thought. They do provide fodder for good conversations. One needs to be careful in today’s religious clime to avoid encouraging false teaching, but we need to teach our teens to be discerning. They will need it to survive!

Josh McDowell Youth Ministries. 

Written for teenagers to use in their daily quiet time readings, this plan will make them laugh or cry. Some are fiction, some are stranger than fiction, but each will help you discover how to make right choices in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Student Devos.

A blog that posts a daily devotional geared at teens and young adults.  There is also a smaller section for youth and younger teens. 

Crosswalk

Posts a weekly devotional for teens on the theme Then and Now.

Wels.

Weekly devotionals geared at teens. 

DS2

Has a variety of topically based devotions.  

Youth4Him.

About 45 devotionals, I was unable to get the rest of the board to work. 

Devotionals for Teens

Now imagine my surprise when a link I was looking at took me to youtube.  I didn’t expect to find teen devotionals there.  I shouldn’t be surprised I gust in this digital age. 

What We have used

For the past year my son has been familiarizing himself with the books of the bible and their major passages and themes.   We’ve been using Teach Sunday School’s curriculum.  You can find my review here. He has been enjoying going through it, and though it isn’t free, it is well worth taking a look at. 

Devotionals for Teens Books of the Bible

Over this upcoming year we’ll doing working through Max Anders’ book 30 days to understanding the bible.  My review is here. 

Always Check for Error

Now remember… just like with anything.. read or watch or listen to what your teens might be listening to.  If only so you can talk with them, generating discussions to help them make their faith their own.  Thinking through issues, learning and discussing is the way to go eh?  🙂  You don’t want your teens believing things they shouldn’t about God’s word and the Christian faith.  Guide them.  Help them to seek after truth thoughtfully. 

Other Ideas?

I do love the idea of using a daily devotional to help encourage children and teens to dive into God’s word. It’s an easy way for them to interact with God’s word on a daily basis.  I sometimes struggle with the simplicity of most devotionals. Wanting to teach my son (and myself) how to just read God’s word for themselves.   This is a skill I hope to teach my son over the next year.  Different ways that he himself can explore God’s word on his own so he can more truly make it his own.

Want to Learn Some Specifics?

Looking for Rabbit Trails

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Monday night the lad and I were talking about school starting this week.  He was completely taken aback!  WHAT????  It can’t start mom!

Well.. oops lad, it is.

MAN!  (typical kid eh?)  but it was quickly followed with “OH RIGHT!   We’re studying what I want to, aren’t we?”

Anyways, we got on with making the beds and generally just chatting along about math and latin and language arts (still need to find an appropriate spelling/grammar rules program for him)

Our conversation continued about how I might have him make a salt dough map for his world war studies… his response.. Mom..could we just use clay instead?  It’s EASIER to work with, I can build layers and colour it and everything.  He took his time to explain the pros and cons for each method and what he was envisioning. 

AND THEN OH MY… He got into how we could use toothpicks and make little flags and make the hills and cliffs and make mountains.  And then colour coding the allies and axis power and using playdough to map out trenches.  It was amazing listening to him and all his plans.

Rabbit looking, text looking for rabbit trails

We then went on to talk about how to divide up his workload… One week we’ll watch videos and read books (and work on math/language arts etc), the next week we will be looking for rabbit trails and answering points of inquiry and tucking into science and art aspects.  Our discussion continued about how if he discovers lots of items that spark his curiousity we can just dive right into them.   His eyes just lit up!

THIS, this is what I have been working for all this time!  A lad who knows what he wants to learn, is able to articulate it well, and define what he likes about another medium (in this point clay) over another.  I am so hoping it all goes smoothly.    That my lad finds much to tweak his interest, that we have a blast following rabbit trails and learn much together.

If tonight’s talk is any indication….. IT WILL BE!

So how do you get there?

How does one build to that type of study and articulation without doing a formal study?

Frankly my lad is not always the easiest kid to school.  Shocker eh?

He does math quite frankly backwards (at least to my thinking).   He gets the answer, he sorts it out and it works for him but honestly, half the time I don’t understand how he gets from point A to answer Z.  We’ve utilized all sorts of math programs that work well for a short span and then they simply stop working.  The exception to the rule has been NatureGlo.  Math combined with science, history, geography and more… It suits him to a “T”.  LOVES IT.  BUT he made a comment to me last week.  I want to keep doing NatureGlo but can we also do a math that teaches me stuff that I have to answer math questions not connect a variety of dots?   SURE!  So yeah.. another thing I need to solidify.   It’s been a struggle getting to this point though.

Why do I bring up math?

Because it’s been part of the journey in learning to voice opinions and not just say “I don’t like this program” to being specific.  What don’t you like?  What is the struggle?  Too hard?  Too easy?   Something setting you off?  We learned fairly quickly that anything gimmicky WILL NOT LAST.   It is fun for a while but then it gets irritating with my lad and he can’t look past it.  He had to discuss it well with me about what did and did not work.   We actually took a break from math for a while and you know what happened?  He started to watch youtube videos.  This lad knows stuff I haven’t a clue on.  🙂

From math, then what?

Using our discussions in math we branched out to… here’s some curriculum… what topic do you want to start with?   Pulleys?  Animals?   Human body?  We found one study or interest often led into another subject. 

We started reading history encyclopedias… written by different people from different perspectives.. I tell you IT WAS FASCINATING!!!!

Learning how one aspect of history tied into another.  How an economic downturn could affect the nations around a struggling area (for good or ill) We often declared that isn’t the neat how THAT connects with THAT point in history.  Do you see how God used this event over here to turn the hearts of THAT person?   Let’s see how this person colours their history lessons .. see if we can discover their focus.  Do you see how they talk about this country bossing that country around and then they go over here and boss this country around and then… Until finally they find someone/some country who is strong enough and brave enough who says STOP, go no further?  Do you see the family connections there and the movement of land and economic growth there?  How it influences how people think?  Following connections happens everywhere… and talking about them as we go, helps articulation happen and dots to form about how everything connects.

EVERYTHING has a connection of some sort.

And this year…

This year we will follow rabbit trails all centered about the world wars, Canada’s involvement, and if we have time… the other wars.  🙂  Dad doesn’t think we’ll get through it all… (you think he knows us too well????)  I’m kinda hoping one of those rabbit trails will lead to a discovery of music the lad didn’t already know about, or even a love of European foods or a love of physical fitness! 

What sort of connections will you form with your students this year?

Think anything interesting will pop out for you?  Follow the rabbit trails eh?

Easy and hard how-to’s of homeschooling

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The topic for today’s Blog Hop post is Work it Wednesday, the question facing is us this: How do we make it work?  Whether it’s electives or finding what our children want to learn about, to finding inexpensive school supplies, figuring out high school or whatever.  The bottom line is this: How do we make it work?

The how to's of homeschooling easy and hard text.

Well, quite frankly, one day at a time.  There’s no other way to do it. 

Friendships

This summer I made a goal that I didn’t tell my fellows about.  I wanted my lad to be able to spend every week with a friend, or a perhaps hoped to be friend.    Other than two weeks of summer I succeeded (and I’ve only next week to figure out if I can yet and if so.. it will only be ONE week of summer)!   One friend a week since the middle of June.  I was delighted.  And SO was the lad!   Good eh?    Sometimes the lad doesn’t get to see his friends as much as he would like since we are generally about 40-60 minutes away from anyone!

The side-advantage that I hadn’t thought about was… every week this summer bar one, every time the lad visited with a friend, so did I!  🙂   WOOT WOOT!  Friendships are good, in person is cool and has the benefits of shared laughter the rings across a room.    On-line friendships are good too as they bring out another side of a person eh?

Electives:

I don’t really know how we add these in to be honest, they just seem to pop in.  I think part of it is, is that we don’t have the same schedule every single day.   I give the lad a schedule at the beginning of the month saying “this needs to be done three days a week, this twice, this once, this everyday” and let him run with it.  If he sees something he wants to learn it just kinda happens.  He’s a huge youtube lad and he’s been teaching himself physics lately so life happens.  When something pops up that he really wants to learn and something can be replaced that we do and it’s no biggie, we replace.  My goal is.. is he learning?  Does he know how to learn?   Can he learn from more than videos?  Does he know how to double check facts if needed?  Then what does it matter what he’s learning, as long as he’s learning!

If he needs help he needs to ask for it.  Sometimes we start something and it’s a bust, so I have him persevere until everyone knows it a bust OR I find something better.   And other times we start something and it’s such an inspiration it takes over our world for a while.  It’s all good as it’s all just learning. 

School Supplies?

Well frankly  this is SO not an issue.  When my mom’s church closed down about 7 years now????  Anyways, they had a TON of paper, pencils, scissors and stuff that needed to be moved out.  Guess where it moved to?  In fact we had so much stuff given to us that the town day care, other churches and some homeschooling friends benefitted.  We still have paper, pencil crayons and scissors.   Last year I finally said to a gal “you need stickers for your Sunday School?  SURE I have tons.. and now I have WAY less stickers and her Sunday School saved money.  I LOVE THAT STUFF.  I’ve also benefited from people throwing out stuff and I just happen to be in the right place at the right time. It’s nice to get stuff for free and then keeping what we need (or sometimes just covet) and then passing the rest on…it’s a great thing to do.  🙂

What is most difficult?

I think the hardest thing I have at being consistent with is devotions together with the lad.  I’m doing pretty good on my own (YAY GOD), but with the lad it’s harder.  Part of it is that we eat when we’re hungry in this house.  This means that just because I’m hungry and have made a meal doesn’t mean that anyone else is hungry.  We don’t always eat together so having “meal-time devotions” like how I grew up doesn’t happen all that often.  I’m starting to, at 730, to draw the lad aside and say “let’s do our Heidelberg”.  It’s end of the day, usually we’ve all eaten by then and we’re starting to wind down for the day.  This doesn’t always happen, as I said, we’re starting this.  I think once summer is over and we get a student in for the semester this will add some regularity to our day and then devotions will happen more frequently eh?  At least I hope so.  🙂   I know I don’t want to do what some homeschooling families do and add it as a requirement to homeschooling days/lessons.  I want it to be a natural part of life. 

back to school blog hop

Some names to start you off

Jennifer @ Dear Homeschooler
Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
Karen @ Tots and Me…Growing Up Together
Kelly @ Hope in the Chaos
Kellyann @ Walking Home …
Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase
Kristen @ A Mom’s Quest to Teach
Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
Laura @ Four Little Penguins
Linda @ Apron Strings & other things
Nicole @ Bless Their Hearts Mom
Patti @ Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy
Rebekah @ There Will Be a $5 Charge For Whining
Rodna @ Training Children up for Christ
Stacy @ A Homemakers Heart
Tess @ Circling Through This Life
Wendy @ Life at Rossmont
Yvie @ Gypsy Road



How to Write a Book Review

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Anyone who reads my  blog knows I enjoy sharing books with my readers.  I find it a hoot to find neat books or curriculum to share with you.   But how does one write a review?   

I know that over time I have figured out how I tend to like do a review.  But what makes the meat of a review?  What makes a good book review?  What makes a book review different from a book report?


Writing a book review is not just about summarizing.  Honestly.. anyone can summarize a book.  For instance: Harry Potter’s series could be simply summarized as “Bullied kid makes good, Bad wizard beaten.”.    Doesn’t really tell you anything about the series but it was summarized.  🙂

A book review is also not a book report but can contain some elements of a book report (as you often do tell something about the book) but unlike a book report in a book review you do NOT give away the ending or tell all you know about the plot of characters. 

A review delves into the book, giving some summary, but mostly is critiquing and offering your opinion about it, along with some quotes. 

There are two main types of book reviews: Descriptive and Critical Reviews. Descriptive reviews are predominately what I do on this blog, giving essential information about a book, but describing the basic story, telling you what I think about it, elements that are contained within and whether I think it completes it’s purpose. If I know the author’s thinking in creating that book I’ll let you know that as well.  For some books I’ll pull quotes out that caught my attention. 

Critical reviews describe and evaluate the book, based on literary and historical standards. It will compare a book with another, work with the author’s intent (if stated) and tends to used with more academic books. The text will be used as part of the evaluation. 

Doing a book review, gives you the opportunity to analyze a book, to speak to it’s strong points, as well as point out the weaker aspects.   It allows you to apply a personal touch, such as “I really appreciated the way the author did…..” 

How you write your review can depend on your audience. Knowing what your audience is, can help you present a book more effectively.  For instance, if your audience is a bunch of moms looking for a good book to read with their littles, you would write your review differently than to a more academic crowd. 

Remember: a book review asks you to analyze a book.  You are thinking about what you are reading, if it meets its audience, it’s strengths and weaknesses, and if it does what the author intended.  

You will need to let your audience know some basic facts about the book, like the author, size, publisher and what not.  Doing this pins down exactly what book you are reviewing, include the edition number if there is one.  If there are special features like maps, resource section, etc.

Things you might wish to include in your book review would be:
– did the book meet your expectations?  Explain.
– did a quote grab your attention – include it, add your thoughts if relevant
– what audience is this book intended for?
– did you learn anything new?  any important lessons?  Any cautions to add?
– graphics from the book (or based on it)
– who would like this book?
– talking about the author, awards etc.

When you review a book, make sure you review the book in front of you, not the book you wished the author had written.

If it’s an awesome book, say so… but by the same token, if it’s an average, say so , or if it’s an awful book say so…but do so kindly, the author did their best and their efforts should be honoured.

Do you have any other thoughts about what should be added to a book review?  Add them in the comments below. THANKS!
 

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