Keeping Up with the Accelerated Reader
March 5, 2010 by HeatherW
If you’ve ever had an accelerated reader in your home, then you know it is a challenge to keep up with what they read and to keep them in books. They read everything and anything they can get their hands on and as a parent you are constantly on the search for a good read for your child.
In my experience, there are three things that present the most difficult hurdle when you have a student who reads voraciously.
First is finding books that are emotionally appropriate for their reading level. Just because a student can read what kids in high school are reading when he is 6, doesn’t mean he should. Worse than reading books that are no longer challenging, is reading books that are inappropriate for kids of a younger age.
The second is pre-reading fast enough to find out if a book is off the mark for your child or not. At our house, my husband is the pre-reader. Unencumbered with the daily tasks of homeschooling and being a fast reader makes him a prime candidate for this job. If I see a book or series of books that I think might be appropriate, I bring it home and set him to work. In one evening he’ll be able to tell whether or not our son should try the book. He’s read a lot of good books over the years and it gives my son the incentive to read it. Once his dad has read it, then he knows that he can share what’s going on in that good book with him. We’ve seen some wonderful conversations over the years that have begun because of a book they’ve shared together.
If you don’t have a good system in place for pre-reading, then there are other ways to be more certain about a book choice. One is to ask around. Ask family, friends, and online homeschooling forum buddies about a book. Chances are someone has some experience with it and can tell you about the book.
Another way is to get your hands on some books about books. My favorites include The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease , Honey for a Child’s Heart and Honey for a Teen’s Heart by Gladys Hunt. These authors have specialized in sharing good books with their audience. The Read Aloud Handbook is all about reading good books to your children even as they get older, which is another topic all to itself, but in it there is a bibliography of good books.
As my oldest son enters the adolescent world and has been at this reading thing quite a long time, my focus has turned to books for older kids. Gladys Hunt has come to my rescue with a book written about good books for teens and how to use them to communicate with your teen. Reading is a good way to connect with your children and it will continue to be true as they enter their teens. I’m hopeful that since we have a well established culture in our home of discussing books, it will continue to be an outlet for our kids as they get older. Another good source is The Kid’s Book Club Book by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp. This book not only has a good reading list, but it shares how to organize and carry out a book club for various age groups of kids.
The last thing that I find to be a challenge with an accelerated reader is that as they grow, they get more discerning. This is actually true of any reader that has been exposed to good books whether or not they are ahead of the reading game. I have observed over the years as my son has read a lot of good books, he has little tolerance for books which are not. As Gladys Hunt says in Honey for a Teen’s Heart, “Excellence has a way of eliminating inferior products.” In practical terms, this means that finding a good book gets a little harder especially since they read so quickly! That’s all the more reason to find a good source of information on books.
Finally, I’d like to point out that typically we think of early readers as being “accelerated” readers. They head out of the starting gate at a full run and keep a steady pace. Keeping them in good supply of appropriately challenging books is a key to nurturing the early start. In addition, you can have accelerated readers that begin reading more on a typical schedule for emerging readers. Once they catch on, they begin to read everything in sight. Just because they didn’t start super early doesn’t mean they haven’t caught up to the fast pace of reading books and don’t have the capability to read more difficult books.
At our house, nurturing our good readers means having a print rich environment and making sure that trips to the library are a priority. We have so many books home from the library at our house sometimes we wonder if there are enough still on the shelves for others! I’m sure this is a familiar scene in the homes of most homeschoolers. Keeping track of which books come home and encouraging the good stuff is the task at hand. I encourage you to find the resources you need to help your kids make good decisions about books. If you should happen to make a poor judgment, all is not lost. Sometimes those less than discerning moments give us opportunities to have good discussions with our kids.
Enjoy the journey with your accelerated reader. Chances are they will take you to places you’ve not been before through their adventures with books and it gives you as the parent a special role as adventure guide.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Encouraging the Reluctant Writer
January 27, 2010 by HeatherW
Isn’t it amazing how different each of our children can be? As homeschoolers, we get to witness this first hand as we work with our students at home. Out of four children, I have one who can hardly wait to get started and could write pages upon pages of information or story and most of it will look great without much to edit. I have one who is very eager to write and is still a little rough around the edges. I have one who loves to write and won’t take an ounce of instruction on how to do so (let’s hope this improves after preschool!) and I have one who loves ideas and dreaming up stories but has no time for the conventions of writing.
Each of our children requires us to know them well so that we can customize our instruction for them. If you are like me and you have a child who is a very unwilling participant in the writing process, then you know it is a challenge to engage this student in a way that will be encouraging. Hopefully, with some extra effort on our part, we can see some progress.
Photo Credit: Marsha, Other Such Happenings
With my reluctant writers, I find it’s important to make the writing an authentic experience. Is there an assignment with purpose that you can have your child do? Letter writing, narrations on a current topic of study, or a persuasive piece related to something your child wants are a few ways to make the writing meaningful to your student.
These ideas let your student own some of what is in the assignment and it allows you to help them explore different writing applications such a friendly vs business letter format or a summary or a persuasive paragraph.
When I work with my reluctant writer, I try to remember that the process is sometimes more important than the product at this stage.
For example, one of the strategies my 9yo daughter enjoys is using word cards to form a paragraph. Recently, I gave her 5 words having to do with the Underground Railroad. My linear thinking brain assumed she would write five facts about the Underground Railroad thus completing my objective of having her write some facts- something I am hard-pressed to do with my creative, out-of-the-box thinker. To my surprise, what she produced was a fictional story complete with dialogue. She used all the cards. She incorporated the facts. She just didn’t do it the way I thought would be best. However, in the end it was all there and the piece gave us something to edit and talk about and improve upon. In other words, it was a success!
That recent experience brings me to my next point. When working with a reluctant writer, really try to figure out what is going to make this student motivated to write. For my daughter, it’s writing stories and plays. I would like to focus on some other skills, however I can still reach my goals for her while allowing her to explore writing the way she wants to do it. She loves to have her characters talk with each other and I’m all for it as long as she can punctuate it properly. She’s agreeable to learning the finer points of using quotation marks as long as I let her write dialogue in her stories. We both win.
I do not use a formal program for grammar or writing simply because I like to tie our writing into our current unit study. However, what some may consider l lack in formality, I make up for in consistency. We write everyday in our homeschool. Sometimes it lands in our lap. Just today, my 7yo asked if he could write a letter to his grandparents. He wrote a fine letter and our next step is to edit. He shared some great ideas and I did some coaching with him as he read his sentences to me. He did some rearranging and by bedtime thought his letter was ready to mail. I see a few things we can edit tomorrow, but what a great writing assignment.
Photo Credit: Marsha, Other Such Happenings
Finally, I think it’s important to keep in mind why we want our kids to write. My goal for my children is that they will be effective communicators. Part of effectively communicating is writing well so that your audience understands you- whether the audience is reading a paper or reading an email. I choose activities and assignments for each of my children that bring them closer to that goal- whatever that might mean for them at any given time during our school year. Continuing to model and coach kids, no matter how much or little they have written, is critical for the reluctant writer. Experiencing success and building on it makes a good writer. I look for opportunities for my kids to grow and to be successful.
Here are a few resources I use, that in their own way, share something about writing with children which I have found helpful.
- Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye (lots of different writing games and activities to nudge even the most hardened reluctant writer)
- Games for Learning by Peggy Kaye (includes similar games to those found in Games for Writing)
- Creating Books with Children by Valerie Bendt (a unit study on making a book with kids- from planning to editing to publishing and binding. Our kids really enjoy this one)
- Unit Studies Made Easy by Valerie Bendt (How to write and implement a unit study- with lots of information on the kinds of writing to assign during the study and how to evaluate it)
Perhaps you have another resource to share with us. Please leave a comment and let us know what you have found to be successful with your children.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Using Books to Inspire
December 4, 2009 by HeatherW
Right now in our school we’ve been studying the Underground Railroad and The Civil War. They started as little “bunny trails” we wanted to follow after having read the Five in a Row book, Follow the Drinking Gourd. My daughter has taken an intense interest in the topic and we decided at a “conference” (my name for getting the kids together for a meeting to help decide the direction we’ll go in our school- they don’t get ultimate decision making power, but I do empower them to help steer us in the direction we should take together) that we’d jump in with both feet discovering all we could about slavery, the events leading up to the war, and the Civil War itself.
As any good homeschooling mother does, I immediately scoured our library system and ordered up many books on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and the Civil War as I could find or see that would be good reading for the kids. Once they arrived, I picked them up and dutifully began working on a learning display.
Do you have one of these in your home? I’ve seen many versions. For some it’s the coffee table or a hutch. A place under the window or maybe a piece of furniture in the dining room. I searched for years for the perfect spot. I tried baskets and trays. Finally, a place called out to me. There is an old oak child’s dresser from my husband’s childhood home (and his mother’s as well) that stands behind our dining room table and it has a table runner on top. It is a relatively undisturbed flat surface in our house. We don’t have too many of those and the fact it that is largely undisturbed by our four children makes it the best place in the house to set up the learning display for the week.
The learning display is where I will set up books that go with our unit study. I can put out artifacts or other clues to what our adventures will be for the week. I put up related work there and showcase our current study in a variety of ways.
The kids know they are always welcome to visit the books there and enjoy them. I generally don’t specifically assign them a book from there though sometimes I do encourage them to find a book they like and to look through it. Sometimes I assign a Daily Quest that requires a child to find information there – either in a book or in some other medium as part of the display.
Perhaps some of you already do this, but do not see the fruit that comes from it. Maybe you’ve tried it before and find it difficult to maintain. Or maybe you don’t see your kids using it at all. If this is you, I encourage you to keep trying! I learned long ago that my very “hands on” daughter would see a book on the coffee table that would catch her eye and before long she’d be engrossed. Not only did I see her reading a lot, but she would share what she was reading with great enthusiasm.
That’s when I decided to really use this and work on providing a variety of books and artifacts at the learning display. Is it worth it? As soon my daughter, who is 9, requested to learn more about the Underground Railroad and I provided the books and other items, she started plowing through them and so did my oldest son who is 11. Literally, the two of them have read at least a half a dozen books each on the topic of slavery and the Underground Railroad and the Civil War as well as the biographies of significant people of the time. Does it make a difference? Let’s see. My daughter has been part of a puppetry class at our homeschool co-op this past semester and she made many puppets and wrote just as many puppet play scripts. One of them was about Harriet Tubman- a beautifully written short play about a slave boy who is helped by Moses- the mysterious person who helps slaves to freedom. Her puppet, which she constructed from paper mache, bears the likeness of its name sake. The play was written to portray the character trait of courage.
As my kids read more and more about the topic, I felt myself worrying about them getting ahead of our studies. If they read all about it at the pace they choose, then what will be left to discover during our studies. As I began to get more into our unit, I realized that the prior knowledge my students now held about the Civil War and the events leading up to it, only enhanced our activities as we went along. There was genuine discourse about what they had read as we worked together on an assignment- for example recently an article for a collaborative “newspaper” we are putting together.
Yesterday, as we were working on the articles for the Camp Kettle newspaper we are doing as part of the unit, my daughter was telling me all sorts of facts. For instance, slaves were starved so they wouldn’t run away. To which my 11 year old commented he thought the slave owners were wrong because it made them want to runaway more. I replied that the idea didn’t work out for the owners and my daughter agreed saying it was one of the things that backfired on the slave owners because it made the slaves try harder to get away. She has a very astute observation about the times back then and was able to do the ad on the page about a reward for runaway slaves. She said one reason that they wanted to do a sign with written names instead of pictures is because the slaves couldn’t read and wouldn’t know when they had been noticed. She was putting descriptions on the sign and said she listed fat because that was a very unusual marking for a slave because they were all very thin.
All the insight she has gained has come from books I’ve left around as available to read! When I think I let them read too much and there will be little left to learn, I remind myself (as a former public school teacher) that this notion of knowing too much about a subject is really a school teacher fear! To the contrary it is fun to talk about these things as we do the activities and learn more about the war. Yesterday we had quite a little discussion on how Harriet Tubman felt about President Lincoln and how she thought he wasn’t doing enough to end slavery. Meanwhile, Lincoln was working on unity and not having the south form a new nation where he would have no control over the issue of slavery. Had the south done that, slavery would not have ended. It was an interesting little debate and I think what made it so in my mind is that I was not having this discussion with my high schoolers but rather my 4th and 6th grade kids who had done little more than read books about a topic they wanted to know more about.
I’m often curious when I see the one to three paragraphs that tell the bare minimum of facts about a person or topic and that are followed by a handful of questions to make sure the student read it right. They are readily available to classroom and home educators alike and my guess is they are used more often than not. This would be a dreadful task for my daughter, but the stack full of real books about a person’s life and times that she could choose and read at her leisure based on a topic she told me she wanted to know more about was a delight! Which begs the question, why do we sometimes settle for less?
Providing a learning environment that is print rich- in all its forms be it fiction, non-fiction, picture book, chapter book, a set of flash cards, an internet site whatever it might be – just might delight your children. Take the opportunity to listen to their interests and just make it available. At first they might need active encouragement that leads them there (like a Daily Quest or a Scavenger Hunt), but once they get there, they will go back again and again.
And then you will see the difference it can make! Perhaps it will be your kids debating the merits of Lincoln’s Presidency at the dinner table one night. All because of an inspiring book.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
The Daily Quest
October 16, 2009 by HeatherW
When we first brought my oldest home from school midway through his first grade year (back in January, 2005), I used to do a Question of the Day with him. Our only goal for him at the time was to restore his love of learning which had been efficiently squelched out of him in his brief public school experience.
My son loved the challenge of reading for information and bringing it back to me so we could talk about it. We kept the questions in a wooden canister that he painted for the task. A few weeks ago I decided it would be fun to bring it back to our homeschool (which has come a long way since those early days) and purposed to get a new box made. I retooled the name too calling it – The Daily Quest.
So, how does it work? Each day I put a set of questions in the box that the kids have to work on together. Usually it is related to our topic of study at the moment or sometimes it is meant as an introduction to a new topic.
The maiden voyage quest was about hurricanes. The kids had to work as a team to come up with the answers. What is a hurricane? What are two other names for hurricanes and where are they used? What is the difference between a tropical depression and a tropical storm? The next day they had to find out what made Hurricane Agnes a particularly harsh hurricane and where the most damage was sustained. They were able to uncover some pretty interesting facts to discuss at the dinner table.
I have some guidelines in place to facilitate the team building process.
They must:
Answer the questions together using reference books and websites. Try to avoid just Googling the answer. Use websites such as National Geographic for Kids. Write down the answer. Work together without arguing or hogging. Work as a team. Everyone must have a turn being the “recorder” – so it’s not the same person each day. Everyone will contribute to the answer at dinner time. Make sure you include everyone. Discuss where you can find the answers and give assignments according to age and ability.
On the Quest sheet at the top of the page I put The Daily Quest title with the date and then I have those rules in a box at the top followed by the day’s Quest. I make a document just for ease.
In practice, I have found it difficult for everyone to have the same level of involvement all the time. So, some days they have separate Quests. For my 7yo I like to have him search out the answer to a Quest in some easy readers related to the topic. We have a learning display in our dining room which is set up with seasonal items and our current unit study. This is an easily defined space for a young researcher. We also have a reference shelf in our school room for just such occasions.
This is not something I put a time limit on. So, the Quest is given during our Morning Gathering Time and the kids can work on it throughout the day as long as they follow the guidelines and they are ready by dinner time to discuss the Quest. It might work better if it was put in our “routine”, but I like the idea that the kids have ownership of when the Quest is sought after. In the same manner, they learn how to manage small tasks on their own without as much structure. Developing this skill is very important as they get older.
So, what adventures will your family embark on daily? Perhaps there is room in your school for a Daily Quest.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
State Geography Studies
October 8, 2009 by HeatherW
When we pulled our oldest son home from public school half way through first grade, we didn’t have a lot of homeschooling materials or fancy curriculum. Our one goal for him at that time was to reestablish his love of learning which had been quickly and efficiently squelched by a traditional classroom setting.
Mostly we read books and adopted a unit study philosophy exploring various subjects that popped out of the stories we were reading. One area of intense interest for him was geography. In the days before we had special resources for geography, I came up with a way to record information about each state using only blank maps and an atlas.
I had a large black and white U.S. wall map which I hung up so that we could chart our progress as we traveled from state to state. As he finished studying a state, he got to color it in on the wall map. For each state, I had him produce three informative maps. The first was a political map, the second was a physical map, and the last was a fun fact map.
Requirements for the Political Map:
- Mark the capital with a red circle or star and label it (the outline map we had already starred the capital but did not label it)
- Locate and label three other cities in the state.
- Color the water blue and label the major bodies of water.
- Color the state
- Color each neighboring state a different color.
- Title the map.
Requirements for the Physical Map:
- Color the water blue.
- Use an atlas physical map to determine the physical features of the state.
- Label the features and use symbols/colors to represent the features. He might use triangles for mountains or yellow for low lying coastal plain areas.
- Produce a key on the back of the map to tell the map reader what the physical features are (while this typically goes on the front of a map, being a 6 year old, I gave him the extra room to accommodate this fine motor skills)
- Title the map.
Requirements for the Fun Fact Map:
- Use an atlas to learn more about the state. What industry is there? What crops are produced? Are there any landmarks there? What is the state famous for?
- Choose five fun facts to represent on the map.
- Choose a symbol for each fun fact and put it on the map in an appropriate location (example: if the state is NY then put the Statue of Liberty where she really is)
- Make a key and put in on the back or where you have room on the front of the map.
- Title the map.
Once my son had finished with these maps, he had a pretty good idea of what that state was like. The Fun Fact map came later as a way to allow him to discover the state on his own. I did not require him to learn or include the official state symbols although that is certainly a reasonable request.
We kept these maps together in a notebook and along with the map on the wall, it was a record of the places we’d been. Sometimes our state maps were part of the unit study we were immersed in at the time and sometimes my son would look at the wall map and decide he wanted to explore a state. In order to meet our goal of reestablishing his love of learning, I let him run with his interests.
We use resources we had on hand, but as we forged on I was able to be more discerning about what we used. We began with Scholastic US Outline maps and a one dollar Scholastic atlas both from a Scholastic Warehouse Sale. Really any map source will do, but I would look for an outline map with bold, clear lines which are spread out so the map uses the whole page. Sometimes free online sources are tempting, but I find they make for a muddled map. It is especially good to be mindful of this for younger elementary children who need space for their labeling. I will also draw a labeling line for them after they place city dots to help facilitate a neat map. My favorite maps are the Uncle Josh’s Outline Maps in the CD format (they have extras not in the book).
My favorite set of atlases right now are the National Geographic Young Explorers U.S. and World Atlases. Each map is a double page affair and there are political and physical maps for each state or country. It is very easy to determine physical features on the physical map and the political map shares a wealth of information for the Fun Fact Map.
While I admit that I have many resources in my repertoire now, our studies started very simply and yielded excellent results. Consistency and enthusiasm were the keys to our success with this survey of United States Geography. Teaching the U.S. with map making is a fun adventure and it teaches plenty of map skills along the way and the best part is you don’t need an expensive geography curriculum- just an atlas and some outline maps. Enjoy the trip!
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Growing Your Children’s Passions in Your Homeschool
September 7, 2009 by HeatherW
Have you ever really thought about what makes your child’s heart sing? I bet if you thought about it, you could name the thing that would do it. For each of your kids. Isn’t it delightful when you can capture it easily enough and share it with your child?
That’s what our daughter’s art desk was all about. I knew it would make her heart sing. She spends hours and hours there working with paper and other craft media to create. It wasn’t a fancy birthday present, but I knew it would speak to her heart long after the other presents were forgotten.
One of the things I think is important as a parent is to engage our children often enough that we really know what they are passionate about. How do you know? How do you find out? Does it require expensive lessons and lots of venues for trying out lots of things? No, I don’t really think so. I think the resource it requires the most of is our time as parents. When we invest time in our children, it’s easy to figure out what brings them joy.
We have four children and as they have grown older we have no doubts as to what they are passionate about. Our oldest is just about 11 and he loves games. He is a gamer for certain and one of his favorite things on this earth is to play games with us and with his friends. He loves science, math, reading, playing baseball and soccer and following Virginia Tech Football (Go Hokies!). The younger two boys are still growing and the more time we spend with them, the more we get know the things they love most.
I already mentioned our daughter loves to create- she loves to do art and to craft things. She loves to sew and to learn American Sign Language. A common theme for her is creating with her hands. She is so talented at using her hands and it shows. We feed these passions as much as we can without adding too much to our schedule.
The concept of not adding too much to our schedule really brings me full circle to my post from last month on Keeping the Home in Homeschool. How can we fuel our children’s passions without racing around constantly?
In his book, The Hurried Child ,David Elkind discusses the phenomenon of busy children. Children who are on the go so much, families rarely enjoy a common time together. I think one thing I struggle a bit with even as a homeschooler or maybe because I am a homeschooler is all the music lessons and sophisticated things we can get our kids into…is my child at a disadvantage if I do music appreciation and basic music theory but not push formal instrumental lessons or choir training? One of the best things we can do for our kids is to learn what makes their heart sing and to pursue that with our time and resources- rather than every little thing that comes along. Do you value/use/remember every opportunity you had as a kid? It’s not likely. In fact, I would almost say I’m at a deficit because I joined everything and tried many things. I still do it as an adult. I want to try a lot and to be good at many things. Thankfully, my husband is around to keep me in check. Though he would argue I still do too much. Less is better is his motto.
There’s a big difference between a kid who enjoys soccer recreationally and probably is even very good at it and the kid who is serious scholarship material. Do we invest gobs of family time to soccer at an intense level in that case? Real talent, aptitude and desire is really different from- this is fun. This is fun can be handled differently with pickup games and friends. That changes the atmosphere of the activity and how often it must be done.
One reason our family has chosen to do 4-H over Scouts programs is because it’s a unifying activity. Our daughter and our sons can participate together as a family and we don’t have to run all over to drop some boys here and our girl there. They can pursue their interests in 4-H in our homeschool and proudly take their work to the fair every summer.
I mentioned last month that our children are generally permitted to be in one “thing” of their own at a time/per season. So, when new opportunities arise, we have to make choices. Recently, my daughter was able to take a sewing class at a local refashioning sewing classroom. She adored her time there and can hardly wait to return. Before we enrolled her in a class, she had been sewing for a year. Her grandmother started a project with her last summer and she did so well with the machine that we signed her up for co-op sewing classes. There were two that semester- one a beginner class and one an advanced class. I figured the advanced class was an independent study and she could work at her own pace no matter what it was. Once I knew she was on fire to sew, I had no problem spending our resources of time and money on the outside class.
For us that is the key…introducing activities at home before investing a lot of money and especially time outside the home. Our son wanted to learn to play the guitar so we invested in a basic child’s guitar and some instructional books. It’s been a terrific way to teach basic music theory and it gives both of us a chance to see how strong the desire to play guitar really is. If it is strong and it shows, then we can look for lessons for him in a way that is the least disruptive to our family life.
Our children are well aware of the one activity rule and they make decisions based on what they really want to do rather than indulging in it all just because it is fun. When our daughter finished her sewing class this week she very excitedly announced she was willing to give up softball in the spring to continue with the sewing shop.
The concept of pursuing our children’s passions in our homeschool is something we work on daily. It is the goal toward which we want to be purposeful. We certainly have our children in activities outside the home things like soccer and baseball and sewing occur in regular seasons at our house. It is important to know our children well enough to know what makes them soar- even if it is only for a short season. The fact is, even if I wanted to indulge my children in all the activities (whether long term like a sport or short term like a fun outing) they might choose, I simply cannot accommodate the time or the financial resources four children would require to do so. Not to mention that an overscheduled family cannot spend much needed time together. Instead, we work hard at home to fuel the passions we see in our children and make wise decisions about how we can further pursue a delight for them in an outside venue. Isn’t that one of the hallmarks of homeschooling? We enjoy the freedom to explore more with our kids and to help them find out what it is they enjoy- without outsourcing it all the time.
And in turn, this leaves us more time in our homeschool to explore the extraordinary. Enjoy the journey. Passionately.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Keeping the home in homeschool
August 10, 2009 by HeatherW
The message seems to be coming from everywhere recently as I prepare for a new year of school. While reflecting on what has gone well for us over the last school year and what hasn’t, once again I’m faced with choices- choices about curriculum, choices about activities, choices about scheduling and routines. All are valid areas of our homeschool.
No one can doubt the value in outside activities for our children. There are so many choices especially now that homeschooling is more mainstream than ever. Have you ever noticed how much effort it takes just to stay home and do school?
Each year as I determine our yearly plan which New York State requires, I must again weigh the many extracurricular activity options against what my children are passionate about and what our family can handle both financially and routinely.
I hear whispers from both sides.
Some of the whispers are subtle. A constant mantra that I hear just from observing other families and recollecting my own childhood. Comparison is the death of contentment and yet it is hard not to wonder if we are doing the “right” thing with our children if we choose not to go after every opportunity that is available for them. Friends and acquaintances enjoy swimming lessons, scouts, dance, etc., while we have adopted a policy that allows each of our four children one activity- more or less at a time. We also take the winter months off of structured activities and go the YMCA as a family instead. With four children that time still adds up. That doesn’t even include the myriad of good things a family can get involved with during the school day- homeschool co-op, ice skating, bowling, archery and the list goes on.
Some of the whispers aren’t so subtle. Requests for our oldest son, who plays soccer and baseball, to join a traveling team or a winter indoor league come at regular intervals. He could use extra instruction and playing time to gain an edge. Won’t your daughter be in dance this year? I haven’t seen your family at story time this year or evening library programs.
Whispers from the other side consistently tell me that we need to protect our time as a family. It is fleeting. The time is short. Homeschooling veterans tell us that cutting back on outside activities will allow us to have a richer homeschooling experience.
I can tell you that even in the homeschooling world those whispers aren’t loud enough! By my own observation over the last four years, our best homeschool days happen when we are home. Wow. That screams the obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, I believe the real success occurs when we have many uninterrupted days at home and that is much more difficult to achieve. To be able to relax and discover with our children, we need to have time on our side. Regular, frequent days of being home, with no outside agenda, allows us the freedom to explore more in our school. We aren’t constantly in a “battle” to hit the 3Rs before we leave for dance class or baseball practice.
Fiercely protecting our “school” time allows us to be more adventurous and it provides the time for us to invest in our children. Fiercely protecting that time allows us to go beyond the ordinary on a regular basis. It allows our children to play more and relax. We aren’t always in the car and on the go. Fiercely protecting our time means finding out what our kids are really passionate about and finding ways to feed that passion at home and as a part of their school day- not necessarily adding another “activity” to the many places we have to go. Or maybe it means cutting out the fat- the extras about which our children are not so passionate. Fiercely protecting our school time sometimes means making unpopular choices. It means that sometimes the whispers from all the good things we do get louder even as we try to silence them!
I had the opportunity for several months last fall to get a feel for what life is like when you clear your calendar and stay home with your kids. Major surgery will do that for you! I must admit that being forced to drop everything and be here with my kids, brought a lot of peace to our school. I wasn’t driving for a few weeks and even though I was allowed to drive before too long, I didn’t have the energy required to get four kids 10 to 4 out the door to go anywhere! I was content to stay home and learn with my kids. There were no outside pressures calling to us to leave home. I wasn’t feeling burned out from running too much. And neither were my children. Despite recovering from surgery, our school was consistent and rich.
While I know it’s unrealistic to expect that our children will never participate in anything, it’s easier to end up with too many activities than to not do enough of them. If we purpose to stay home more, then I think we get closer to a healthy balance.
So, how will you aim to keep the home in your homeschool this year? What can you say no to that will give your children the chance to explore more at home? Such a goal will require us to be intentional. It will require us to be vigilant to guard against those outside invitations which are not part of the vision we have for our school. I always tell people that I want to provide the extraordinary for my kids when they ask why we homeschool (In fact, I think it’s in my signature line here!). Extraordinary experiences won’t happen if we are hardly at home to enjoy them!
Now that I’ve issued the challenge to be at home more, next month I will explore how we can speak to our kids’ hearts and fuel their passions both at home and with carefully chosen outside activities.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Adventure Boxes
July 13, 2009 by HeatherW
For the past three years we’ve embarked on summer adventures with each child. Each child gets to help choose an area of interest to pursue for the summer. I load a box full of books, crafts, and activities that allow the child to make new discoveries all summer long. I start planning for the adventures in the spring, adding to the boxes little by little so I’m ready in time for summer.
Benefits:
- Great for accommodating the interests of your individual children. Indulge them in what they want to hear more about!
- Fun way to practice skills during the summer- anything from reading to writing to building or problem solving
- Easy to adjust to your family and lifestyle- one mom I know is doing marine biology with her high schooler, easy to implement whether you work or are at home all day, etc
- Kids like the structure of having adventure time each day. You can structure it any way you like all at the same time or whenever they want to sit and do.
- Cuts down on the “I’m Bored!” complaints
- Allows you to connect with your kids throughout the summer
- Allows you and your kids to be creative
- Works with all ages from high schoolers down to toddlers and babies
- If you’d rather do a together adventure you can do that too (family adventure)
How Do I Do It?
- Start conferencing with your kids about what they’d like for an adventure. You can always pick for them, but in general there is more success when you bring them to the table to let them be involved.
- Choose items for the adventure box theme- could be coloring books/pages, craft kits, stickers, books, games, fiction story, reference books, movie, journal for them to write in, general craft materials, etc. Start collecting them now. Keep in mind any skills that need attention and choose accordingly.
- Decide how you will keep the adventure box materials. Box? File Box? Shelf? Make sure it’s easy to access for each child.
- Decide when you will embark on your adventures each day. Will you do it all at the same time together? Little ones in the morning and older ones during nap time in the afternoon?
- How independent do you want it to be? I suggest a combination of activities to encourage independence, but then it still allows you to be engaged with your child. One idea I’m giving some though to is giving the kids tickets. Each child can only turn in two tickets per day and never two days in a row for any one child. In the morning we’d do our own thing (I’d do my work and interests and the kids can play) in the afternoon I’d be available from 1 to 4 to help the kids on their adventures.
- How many items go into the box? You can choose to put a few in at a time or put it all in there so the child can explore. You can mark the items that require help from mom so they can see how they need to spread things out according to the tickets or however you decide to set it up. I hold some things back as surprises along the way. For items too large you can put in a coupon instead. They can bring you the coupon to get the item (a game, map, etc.)
Adventure Boxes are a great way to keep things moving over the summer. I had the chance to ask the Five in a Row friend who first shared this idea with us (three years ago or so) over on the Five in a Row (FIAR) message boards what she was up to this summer with her kids. I was excited to learn about this year’s adventures and her super idea for using tickets with her kids. It occurred to me while chatting with her that waiting until the summer to have such adventures is perhaps a silly idea. I’m going to put some thought into how we can incorporate some of these type adventures throughout our school year. As our official year has ended, I’m starting to really think on how to reorganize our school calendar for the next year. That along with Living Math and using Adventures during our year will give me plenty to think about and plenty to write about over the next few months!
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.
Thinking Inside the Box: Using the Workbox System
April 29, 2009 by HeatherW
How We Use Sue Patrick’s Workbox System to Structure Our Homeschool
If you visit even just a few homeschool blogs out there in the blogosphere, then it’s likely you’ve come across the “Workbox System”. So, what’s all the fuss about? Why are homeschooling moms clamoring to get this system in place in their homes?
Sue Patrick developed this system to help her autistic son have a more structured day from the time he was still a toddler on up into his school days. However, this little gem of a system can all help all moms make sure the school day is consistent and rich for each child.
The basis for the system is a little rack that holds 12 plastic shoe boxes. In general that means a wire rack with four shelves which can hold 3 boxes each. Each box gets a number velcroed to the front of it. When you purchase Sue’s book, you will get access to the printables you need to set up your workboxes. In addition to the numbers on the front of the box, there is a schedule strip where you have squares with Velcro in them. The schedule strip is used to order the child’s school day. In between the numbered boxes on the strip, you might have a break card, or a water the garden card, or a play with a sibling card. The idea is that kids follow the schedule strip and do what is in each box or otherwise directed on the schedule strip.
Sue has a lot of ideas on how to use the system in a variety of situations and her book gives you ideas on how to break down your current curriculum in a way that fits into the boxes. One of the hallmarks of the Workbox System, is the visual cues it provides. As the child completes a box, he sets it aside away from the cart. This way, he gets to see his progress as he gets closer to the goal which is to finish the work in all 12 boxes. Ms. Patrick has also built in other cues like “checking in and out” for the school day, “ask for help” cards, and “work with mom” cards.
Ms. Patrick’s book also describes how she uses centers and file folder games as a regular part of the daily routine. Would you believe her treadmill is part of the daily Workbox System at her house too? Be sure to check out her manual to see what else was important to her as she put together this structure school time for her family.
As you travel the blog circuit and see how others have chosen to implement the system, you’ll see all kinds of modifications and activities. There are no shortage of ideas out there on how families are incorporating the Workbox Systems into their school.
So, what goes in the boxes? All the school work for the day. I put regular school work in there plus all the extras you SAY you want to do but don’t get around to, because either you don’t have time or you forget or you lose steam or you didn’t prepare it ahead of time. I haven’t gotten up to 12 items yet, but I will get close soon. Our unit study goes in first, then I can switch around other things like math, silent reading my choice, silent reading their choice, a math game, writing time, spelling, sewing, guitar practice, snack, break, etc.
Who is it for? For any child at any level, the author says. High schoolers and young ones and special needs kids all do well with the system. It has a schedule but it can vary as much or as little as you want it to. There is structure but flexibility.
It works for ANY curriculum. You just have to know how you want to break it out. You just put the various things you do throughout your day into the boxes in the order you want the student to do them. It fosters some independent work ethic. It ends questions like, am I done yet? How much more school? Can I do ___?
I like it for the accountability for ME. In order for it to work, I have to be prepared ahead of time. It’s a lot of up front work, BUT it pays off when our day proceeds in peace. I am not looking for something I printed and can’t find (while the kids scatter), I’m not saying, hold it I need to get this or that (and the kids scatter). I put it all out and it’s ready to go.
I like it because to fill the 12 boxes I’m pulling stuff off the shelf that I always MEAN to do but never do, like those great 100s charts and the book that goes with it and lots of other games and fun things. I like it because I can put variety into my kids’ days without managing the effort at ‘go time’.
I had been having my kids do activity time before they get free time. It’s more or less structured “free” time. Now I can just load the boxes with the day’s activity and call it a day. I like it because I can get to those things we never seem to have time for – because I load it up in the boxes. Like my daughter’s sewing projects – I just prepare them and put the materials in her box.
It gives my preschooler pre-determined and set-up activities that he can go through without being disruptive or constantly asking for media time (in whatever form he desires at the moment). He loves it!
It works because it’s all ready to go and we just flow through the day with some level of peace. I’m less frustrated when the day begins because all my ducks are in a row.
For me it is a living checklist. I was working on a daily checklist for the kids when I saw this on a homeschool forum. It clicked with me. It fits right in with my word for 2009 which is “tenaciously purposeful.” I want to be tenaciously purposeful in working more into what we do during the day. So many times it seems like we are going for what we can “get done” in the time we have. I want more for my kids. The workbox system is a tool I can use to make that happen and it’s working! Perhaps it will work for you too.
Heather Woodie is a homeschooling mom of four kids ages 10, 8, 6, 3 and wife to a handsome chemical engineer for 13 years. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. Between family and homeschooling time, she is working as volunteer staff for MOPS International as an Area Coordinator for NY State. She’s been homeschooling four years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote .
