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Archive for February, 2012

Reading Hide and Seek

Posted in Elementary, Preschool, Middle School on February 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I just began tutoring for a fantastic family who has a beginning reader.  I love what I saw the mom doing with her son in reinforcing concepts. She writes words they are studying on a small whiteboard that is a “master list”. (You could use any large piece of paper as a master list if you don’t have a small whiteboard.) She places flashcards of these individual words throughout the downstairs and her son must find the card, match it with the word on the whiteboard, and say it aloud. She also is doing this with addition problems. He must find the addition problems on flashcards throughout the house, add them together, and match the sum on the whiteboard. This is such a great way to get children involved in the memorizing of facts, as well as give them an opportunity to burn off some energy. I think this can be applied in almost any area of academics. Here are some more ideas:

Science- terms on flashcard, definitions on the whiteboard

Money- pictures of coins on the cards, values on the board

Time- faces of clocks on the cards, analog time on the board

Numbers- match items on the cards to numerals on the whiteboard

Colors- a color swatch on the flashcards, color word on the board

Health- pictures of food on cards, food groups or servings on the board

Geography- capitals on flashcards, states or countries on the board

Do you have any ideas to add? I’d love to hear about them.

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Home Organization

Posted in Home Management, tagged on February 20, 2012 | 5 Comments »

Are you feeling crowded by clutter? Are you wishing your pantry looked like this?  Is this a picture of my pantry? No! This is what I aspire to have my pantry look like and  I saw this posting  on a home school forum about home organization that just might help some of us.

Home Storage Solutions 101 is a website that helps you with organizing your home.  It is organized into weekly categories that address different rooms in your home. While it does start in January, you can jump in at any time. I think her ideas are practical and are broken down into manageable pieces, which is something I  need. I also like that she begins organizing in the kitchen since this seems to be where the majority of us home school moms spend our day!

Just remember to start with one area or room of your house and then when that is finished, move on to another one. Set aside a portion of your day to do this, 30 minutes I think would be good. Once you have an area organized, take pictures to help family members (and yourself) have a visual of where things go when you are straightening up. Don’t let all of your hard work fall back into a cluttered mess as that only leads to frustration. I had a friend whose son was extremely messy and she took pictures of his room once it was organized. She broke it up into categories for his desk, dresser, closet, and bed. She taped the photos on the back of his bedroom door for quick reference.

I like parties so maybe I could entice a few friends to come over for a “home organizing party”, what do you think? :)

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Get Set for Kindergarten: a book series

Posted in Elementary, Preschool, Resources, Tips, How-To's, tagged , , on February 13, 2012 | 4 Comments »

I saw this trio of books at the library the other day and thought they would be a valuable resource to anyone with children who are preschool/kindergarten age. Rosemary Wells is one of my favorite author/ illustrators and I hope you enjoy them. You can read the book without doing the suggested extension activities, but these would be great for a student who is ready for “The Next Step” as the book has stated. I have only listed three, but there are more books in the series to enjoy.

In The World Around Us children learn about communities, community helpers, holidays, and maps.

Adding it Up introduces the concepts of addition, money, simple fractions, graphs, and patterns.

Letters and Sounds introduces not only the alphabet, but also rhyming words and syllabication.

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You are not my mom!

Posted in Living on Jupiter: Encouragement, Musings on February 13, 2012 | 2 Comments »

This was a response that I got from a text that I thought was from my son. I know I have to back up the truck so you can jump in to follow my line of thinking here…

My son is out of the country serving as a missionary in Eastern Germany. I was really missing him the other day so I sent him a text to the  telephone number that I haven’t used in over 3 months. Not because I don’t communicate with him, I just don’t use the text feature very often since we skype every week. Anyway, the message I sent him said, “I was thinking of you today. I love you!”

Approximately three hours later I get a message that said, “Who is this?”

I quickly typed, “Your mama!” as this is what Malcolm fondly calls me. I thought that was strange since he knows my telephone number and who else would leave him a message like that? Hmm?!

The reply that was quickly returned stated, “You are NOT my mom!”

“This is becoming even stranger”, I thought to myself. I fired off a retort, ”Of course I am!”

“No, you aren’t.”

By this time an idea was forming in my head that maybe, just maybe, I had the wrong number.

“Is this Malcolm’s cell phone?” I asked rather hastily.

“No ma’am.” Were the words that blazed upon the screen in front of me.

Right then I realized that I was conversing with a stranger. My face flamed a brilliant shade of  red as I was thinking how embarrassing this was for not only me, but the other person on the other side of this conversation. I typed furiously, “I am so sorry! I thought you were my son! I bet this was really weird then!”

The reply I received stated, “Yes, it was a bit weird, no biggie.” And  the next thing the person typed made me laugh and not feel so bad was, “There for a minute I actually thought I had a secret admirer !” Bless that person and their sense of humor!

What does this have to do with home schooling? Very little other than to say “I love you!” to your children today at some point when you are having school. Be sure it is face-to-face or if you text them, make sure you have the right number. :)

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Boys and Co-Ed Clubs

Posted in Elementary, Preschool, Junior, Senior High, Middle School, Resources, Tips, How-To's, tagged , on February 6, 2012 | 4 Comments »

I featured Keepers of the Home last week as one of the girls clubs. This week I want to bring to your attention the boys program called Contenders for the Faith. “This program has a handbook for young men, ages 7 through 14, to equip them to become godly men and competent providers for their future families. The handbook is unquestionably an excellent skill-builder. The boys will learn how to handle finances, do home maintenance, and develop skills in leadership. Plus, extensive Bible reading, memory work, and Bible study are included to aid them in developing good habits in their own walk with God.” (quoted from website)  A nice feature is that it can be used by individual families or as a group. Your son can earn badges and wears a uniform that is similar in the same respect as Boy Scouts.

The Boy Scouts  continues to be a terrific program for young men and there are many troops throughout the United States. It “provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.” (quoted from website) The program  for boys ages 7-10, is known as Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is for ages 11-17 years old.  Older scouts are encouraged and expected to take on leadership roles within the troop, which encourages responsibility. The badge work is so thorough in the coverage of topics that you can even use some of these in your daily home school. You can order individual badge books on a variety of topics, such as home repair, art, and first aid. I used the skiing badge requirements for my sons as the criteria for part of our physical education credit in high school.

A co-ed program  for young adults ages 14-20 that is a division of Boy Scouts is called Venturers . There are great activities for students that they themselves plan such as trips to various cities and also outdoor adventures. The young men and women also participate in humanitarian programs such as Habitat for Humanity.

4-H is a club for boys and girls through young adults. “It prepares young people to step up to the challenges in their community and the world. Using research-based programming around positive youth development, 4-H youth get the hands-on real world experience they need to become leaders.”  (quoted from website)

I have had several friends whose students participated in this program and they did fantastic service projects and had interesting topics to research. The particular  club these students formed used to fix and charge a reasonable price for tacos-in-a-bag  once a month for our co-op.  The proceeds from the sale were used to fix monthly meals for the Ronald McDonald House.

If you know of any other great clubs that  are appropriate for young men and women that I have not listed feel free to leave a comment. :)

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