Heart of the Matter

Gear up for a year full of fun and learning.

Remember the excitement and nervousness of your first day back to school when you were a child? I do. I remember the weeks leading up to the big day, my mother would take my sister and me back-to-school shopping. We would be treated to new outfits, shoes for our bigger feet, and of course new school supplies. As we were preparing to start back to school in our homeschool, I remembered the fun of getting ready to head back for another year. I want my son to have his own great memories and knew I needed to be sure to help create them.

Tip 1. Spruce Up. During the week leading up to our starting back to school, I would not let my son come into the schoolroom. It was off limits. While he was out of the room, I cleaned out old paperwork and filed it, removed old curriculum that would not be needed for this year, rearranged furniture a bit, and added new decorations and items.

Tip 2. Talk it up. Make a big deal about your child advancing to the next grade. It is a big deal. Show them how excited you are and they will certainly join in on the excitement. We talked about all of the fun things my son would be learning in third grade and thought of fun field trips we could enjoy during the year. My son eagerly participated in the discussion of learning new grammar rules, division, and more about American History.

Tip 3. Get Something New. Remember your Trapper Keeper from when you were a child? Mine was bright purple and I loved it. I decorated it front and back with puffy hearts and stickers. And then, the next year, my mother let me pick another one – fresh and ready for a new year’s adventures and doodles. Take your child to pick something new for the upcoming school year. It helps to make a list together with your child of the items that you do need for the school year. Pencils, paper, erasers, notebooks – while these may not sound particularly thrilling to you, allowing your child to pick them as his or her very own is a big deal.

Tip 4. Dress up. Have your child start their first day back to school in a special outfit. My son selected his favorite dressy shorts and shirt to wear on his first day instead of his usual gym shorts and t-shirt. And I made a special effort to dress up as well.

Tip 5. Capture it. Grab your camera and be sure to take pictures of your child’s first day of the new school year. Include you and your spouse in some of the pictures. These make great beginning shots of your homeschool yearbook or scrapbook and will be treasured photographs of your family. We took tons of pictures outside and with us, but one of my favorites was in front of the white board where I had written the date and “Welcome to Third Grade!” Having these details in one of the photographs provides a great point of reference and makes the photograph interesting, too.

What is your favorite back to school ritual?

Robyn Stone is a wife, entrepreneur and homeschooling Mom to one very energetic little boy who is not quiet so little any more. She shares about her journey in life on her blog Our Homeschool Home. She loves a good cup of coffee, photography, and a great conversation.

After six years of homeschooling, we attempted summer school this year for the first time. It lasted about two weeks. We were in “summer mode” and simply could not get much accomplished. When our 13-year-old son finished his grammar book, I declared summer school officially over. If he could do math after breakfast while our 9-year-old son completed a grammar page, that’s all I expect on our busy summer schedule. The kids have baseball, swimming lessons, and basketball camps in June and July. Add in some art in the park with our homeschool group, church activities, all of our birthdays and anniversary in June and July, and time with friends and family, and our summer is nearly booked.

I’ve learned from past years that we need that summer break, a time to refocus, relax, and rejuvenate for the school year ahead. Even if the kids didn’t need the break (and they do), this momma reaches the end of her rope by the time June rolls around.

What I’ve found is that the kids need time to process what they’ve learned the past year and apply it in their own ways. At times I’ll catch them talking about something that I didn’t teach them, and it reassures me that they’ve been learning all along. Even at baseball practice, our 9-year-old will converse with his teammates about exponents in math. Or the kids will tell me they want to learn more about sports science or how the body works, even though we studied that in Life Science. Apparently they want to learn more than was covered and summer is the time to do that.

We’ve signed up for our library reading program for several years and the kids enjoy reading books of their choosing from our public library, which is conveniently located down the street from swimming lessons. Today I caught them reading Clubhouse magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Formal lessons were not needed.

We gave our older son a spiral-bound notebook so he can journal throughout the summer his thoughts and feelings, what he learns, and what he accomplishes. The journal is his and his alone, not something to be graded. How blessed I was to see him writing in his journal into the night, actually enjoying the process of writing which he had only endured before.

I know some families are able to school year-round, but we are not one of them. Learning takes place all the time, but formal lessons are kept to a minimum during our short summer months.

How do your kids learn during the summer months?

Lisa Van Dong has been teaching her two sons since 2004 and attempts to incorporate study, work, service, and play into their homeschooling days. She takes an eclectic approach to homeschooling and enjoys reading, writing, editing, and essential oils. Lisa blogs publicly at Pockets of Time and privately at Scooter and B.

I’m sure you’ve heard people either warn you or complain to you about a teacher who merely filled the hands of students in their classroom, with dreaded BUSY WORK. I’ve heard the same, and having been a classroom teacher in the past, I recall fighting the temptation of doing the same. Now, as a home educator, I am rethinking my definition of busy work and have come to the conclusion that, given in the right context, busy work is not all that bad.

Why Busy Work?

1. Older children love to be engaged in projects and they enjoy seeing them through from start to finish.

In our home I’ve observed a big difference between afternoons when my children are given a massive amount of unstructured free time, and those when I purposefully give them projects to complete. There’s a span of time in the afternoon when reading is not an option because there are some additional jitters that need to be worked out through some amount of physical activity. That’s when I turn to this productive, busy work. I’m not speaking of their normal school assignments, I’m honestly speaking of work I give them to fill the time — a block of time between snack time and dinner time; between lunch and recess, etc. My eight year old daughter especially loves projects that allow her to solve a problem, or make a plan, so I may give her a calendar for the next couple of weeks and have her fill in the events and tasks we have to complete. Or I may give her a blank menu, and have survey her siblings and enter their desired meals for the coming week. My six year old son, on the other hand, LOVEs to complete workbook pages. He even takes them to bed with him at night. So in the afternoon, instead of spending 30 minutes on an electronic game, I give him a Summer Express workbook or other worksheet, in step with his current learning goals. He absolutely enhales them and can’t wait to show Mom and Dad what he has completed.

2. Little busy hands stay out of trouble.

Pre-schoolers and toddlers will find a way to do something either constructive, or destructive with their time. Instead of going on about my afternoon chores, with no forethought of what my four and two year olds will do with their hands, I will often give them projects as well. Their projects may consist of “organizing” the belongings of their pretend animals and families in the play room; putting the silverware and plastic dishes away; assisting Mom with transporting dirty clothes from the hampers to the laundry room; replenishing the toilet paper in the bathrooms, or folding towels. Many times, this relieves me from the frustration of making unwanted, discoveries of crayon-marked walls or tissue-filled toilets.

Store time has also been a fun time to assign busy work to the “littles.” I’ll have them carry the small baskets and help place items inside. Talking to them about the next item we’re looking for and asking them questions, is also a great way to keep their minds from wandering off into the worlds of boredom, tiredness, squirminess, and screamville!

Have you had times where you’ve resorted to busywork which was not-so-productive? Do you have suggestions of great projects to busy your children’s hands throughout the day or when you’re out and about? Please share!

Leslie Thompson and her husband Jeoff began educating their children at home almost three years ago. They have a passion for sharing Christ’s love in marriages and helping point husbands and wives (including themselves) back to Christ when resolving conflicts. Leslie is Director of a Classical Conversations Community, in which their two oldest children are enrolled. Their two youngest children, ages 3 and 1, provide a much needed element of joy throughout the family’s school day.

Adding high-interest subjects has positive results!

Most days, I feel like we barely squeeze in the school work that must be done. Despite that, I am taking a new approach for this school year: I am adding more.

Ack. I know what you are thinking – I am going to crash and burn by November. That may be true, but I think adding more, in this case, will mean less work and more fun in the long run.

In addition to algebra, English, Spanish, history and science, my son is doing computer science, a unit on architecture, physical education, art and guitar. All of our “extra” subjects are of my son’s choosing. They are areas of interest that either he would not have time to explore in a regular classroom or he would be required to take when he is older, but not allowed to study now.

While every child is different, my boy thrives on activity and high-interest adventures. For him, learning Visual Basic and seeing his computer program work is a source of joy. (For the record, I am married to a computer programmer, but I know nothing of it myself. What I do know how to do is find free/low cost resources when my son has an interest. I do not have to know everything in order to have him learn it.)

A $1 thrift store purchase, “Great Architecture of the World,” is resulting in a homegrown unit on architecture – styles, designers, engineering and even geography will be included. This is fun stuff. And when my son plows through his grammar lesson in order to get to the computer or to learn about columns or how Frank Lloyd Wright made Fallingwater? Well, a little incentive never hurt anyone. Just don’t tell him how much he is learning “after” school.

Chris Worthy is mom to Caroline (16) and Nolan (11) and will soon celebrate 21 years of marriage to her favorite person, John. Chris practiced law before becoming a writer and stay-at-home mother more than 10 years ago. She enjoys cooking, crafting, spoiling dogs, green living and rummaging though old books. Follow along at www.chrisworthy.com.

By now, most of us have heard the party line about the why and the how of assembling traditional portfolios for our homeschooling students. But, some things just can’t be flattened or captured in a photograph. What do we do with large canvas paintings? What about performances by the future ballerina or actor? How do we best showcase the culmination of thousands of hours of practice for our classical pianist?

We use a professional artist’s portfolio for large-scale art projects and we create an electronic portfolio for videos, audios, and multi-media presentations. This is my daughter’s artist’s portfolio. It is the smallest size I could find at a local art supply store (because I’m cheap!), but it has done the trick. I paid less than thirty dollars for it on sale. This will allow you to showcase over-sized drawings, paintings on canvas and other mediums, and other art projects. For a teen who wants to go to art school, an artist’s portfolio is a must.

Here are some links to help you decide which size/brand is best for your artist:

• Blick Art Materials
• Rex Art
• Adorama
• Amazon

For musicians, if you can afford to do so, set up time at a professional recording studio in order to get the best results. If you can’t afford that, buy cables to connect the instruments or microphone directly into the computer. Several free programs are available online for download that will enable you to record, mix, and save music into different types of files. The quality of the recording is almost as important as the quality of what is actually being recorded, especially if your musician is planning on using these as college entrance auditions. Dancers, actors, and filmmakers can record their performances and dramas directly onto computer files. Again, be sure the sound quality is superb. Also be wary of poor lighting conditions and outside distractions while you’re doing the actual filming.

With an electronic portfolio, students can control who sees which content. They can create CDs to send to people and even create several different CDs with unique recordings as needed. If the files are stored online (securely, of course), students can refer anyone they wish to that website to view its contents. Another benefit of creating an electronic portfolio is that a lot of information can be stored in a small amount of space. It is portable and can be available to more than one person at the same time.

Here are some links that detail the electronic portfolio process:

• Wikipedia
• Google tools web map
• Step-by-step process (list and mind map)
• Education World

The more our high schoolers are involved, the more they will take ownership of their portfolios. Besides, teens will probably come up with ideas that we would never have imagined. Enjoy the process and be creative.

Q4U: What creative ideas have you implemented in the portfolio process? Please share them with the rest of us.

Bethany LeBedz has been married for 17 years, homeschooling for 10 years, and organizing forever. She homeschools her two girls in North Carolina. She is also a partner in Codex Publishing, publisher of The Tutor and classic book reprints. She writes a regular column for the Home School Enrichment magazine. When she isn’t homeschooling or driving the family taxi, Bethany enjoys reading, music, church activities, editing, writing, history, and keeping up with friends. Follow her blog at Confessions of an Organized Homeschool Mom.

If you are like our family, at the time of this writing, there are 69 days until school starts again. If that sounds overwhelming to you, then don’t get me started on how few days there are until Christmas!

Sixty-nine days is all at once a lot and not nearly enough days of rest and rejuvenation. Don’t you find that the kids who have been desperate for holidays all spring are bored and out of things to do by August 13th? And all those wonderful friendships in the neighbourhood that we hoped would blossom and grow over the summer break tend to actually wither and rot by the end of July? Maybe that’s not your reality. Maybe summer break for you is all about peace and domestic bliss and self-initiated chores. If so, you should write a book. I’d buy it.

Don’t get me wrong: summer, like the rest of the year, is generally a really smooth sail in our home. The kids get along with each other really well, and we all enjoy the break from the routine of school-books and assignments (and marking!)  However, every summer there comes a moment where it is quite glaringly obvious that we have all, myself included, had too much free, unstructured, un-educational time. The bad habits of the neighbours are wearing off on my kids, mild irritations with each other become a bit less mild, and we are all generally looking for a rudder to our boat. What to do? What to do?

On top of that, haven’t we all sat at the dining room table in September listening to our kids ask, “What’s 8 times 7 again?” and then bemoan the incredible lack of retention children suffer over a summer that is devoid of intellectual stimulation.

In light of all that, I have come up with a list of things I’d like to do with our kids this summer. These are a few of the things that I always mean to work into our fall schedule, but they often get bumped by the “real school” stuff of core subjects and easily gradable topics. Maybe you’ll want to try some of these too. Or maybe you have a list of resources you’d like to share in the comments below.

• We love words in our house. Really good words. Interesting words. Words that no one else knows how to use! Sometimes we (geek alert) read the dictionary. Or at least we pick one word from the “A’s” one day and learn it and use it, only to pick from “B” the next day. Nothing quite as cute as hearing a six year old say, “Well, that’s balderdash”. Do it. It is great fun and an easy way to build a vocabulary.

• My kids ADORE all things nature. A series of books we have loved using as a read-aloud and as fuel for nature journaling are the Christian Liberty Press Nature Readers. These short, simple, nicely illustrated books are great for car rides, rainy days, independent reading, or for carrying along on a hike to see what you can find in the woods. We’ll be pulling these off our shelves and leaving them on the coffee table for some spontaneous science classes.

• Another easy activity that won’t feel like “school” is listening to stories while colouring, so why not try the Color the Classics series? How much easier does music appreciation and knowledge of composers get than listening to a great piece of music, while reading a biographical sketch and colouring a picture! Love this series.

• Of course we can’t forget math, so why not listen to some memory work songs on the way to the cottage, or play Around the World with flashcards on a rainy day. You may be surprised at how much fun that is in July! And of course there is the “life-skills aspect” of the traditional lemonade stand. Let them “take out a loan” from you to buy the lemonade. Let them figure out a reasonable price per cup so that they can sell their product, pay you back, and still make a profit. This feels like an adventure, not an assignment.

• And if your kids really want their screen time this summer and don’t want to leave the computer, instead of all the other games they could play, get them hooked on the geography games at www.shepperdsoftware.com? They have more than just geography, but if you’ve ever looked at Knowledge Quest’s Globalmania e-book, you’ll be highly motivated to learn world geography by online games! Go check out www.knowledgequestmaps.com It is highly inspiring and the link to the free e-book is available there on their webpage.

• My favourite new resource that we are just about to jump in to is Focus on the Family’s summer curriculum called Kids Of Integrity. They have 16 free lessons with questions and crafts to spur your family on to Christ-likeness and lives of integrity. Doesn’t that just make your heart leap? I keep looking at the site and downloading the next lesson. We are ready to dive in to that!

Is this enough to fill your 69 days? Do you need more? What about all those lap-books you meant to do over the school year that never got finished? They feel like craft time, not school.

• What about acting out the books you are reading as a family?

• What about the Art in the Park and Fall Fair displays in your hometown? Go and discuss what you see, what you like and why.

• What about starting a Baking Club? Invite over a couple of your child’s friends from church and bake a batch of cookies once a week to give to someone at church. Be sure to double or triple the recipe, but make the kids do the math!

As in every area of life, being intentional about the goals we set and how we spend our days is the only way to ensure success. This summer could just go by with out event and we could all survive until September when we jump into a routine again, and that would be okay. Or we could have a new, flexible, light schedule over the summer (with lots of room for changes of plans and spontaneity!) that sets us up for a really great September, refreshed, but challenged, and ready to keep on learning!

How will you fill your days this summer?

Barbara Postma and her husband, as they homeschool their 7 children, are finding out that no two children are alike! Between lessons and lunches, Barbara blogs at Fuel by Barbara.

Running a quick errand, fiddling with the radio, the children chattering in the back and I caught a glimpse of motion ahead and to the right. Not perceiving exactly why, I stopped the car and waited. Slowly, cautiously, a deer emerged from the underbrush and just stood at the side of the road, seemingly as captivated by me as I was by her. The children unbuckled and leaned over the seat to get a better look and still she just stood, watching us watch her. Finally, she decided to cross and the reason behind her hesitation became clear. A young fawn, smaller than our lab mix, hobbled across the road and hid itself in the dense vegetation on the other side.

It was a special moment for all of us and the children were strangely quiet as they buckled themselves back in, strained to look out the window at the fawn in its hiding place as we drove by and the rest of the way into town.

• They were alone in their thoughts and their wonder and I left them to it.

• I didn’t tell them everything I knew about white-tailed deer.

• I didn’t stop by the library to check out every book they had on white-tailed deer.

• I didn’t come home and Google the information.

• I didn’t make up a scavenger hunt sheet for them to research facts for themselves.

• I didn’t pull out file folders to start an impromptu lap book on the subject.

• I totally let that teachable moment slip right by. Or maybe not.

I have a tendency to over-educationalize everything, to turn everything into a formal lesson. For some time, I have been wrestling with the value of unanswered questions, simple wonder and how to build a more reflective homeschool. Sometimes, I’ve decided, it is better to experience, to ponder and to be filled with wonder rather than to have immediate access to a deluge of information.

It’s like reading poetry. We study poetry by dissecting it, analyzing it and putting it back together. We develop a love for poetry, however, by being touched by it. I want my children to learn as much as they can about the natural world around us, but I also want them to simply be touched by it. To pause to watch the flight of a barn swallow, listen for the yips of the coyotes and watch the edge of the trees for deer.

I want them to develop a lifelong love for the abundant life around them and that happens perhaps best in the still, quiet moments where I do little more than direct their attention to something they otherwise might not have noticed. Their curiosity can take over from there.

Dana Hanley is homeschooling her five children while moving to the country. You can follow her plans and adventures while seeking to live life more abundantly at Roscommon Acres.