My Cool HomeschoolHomeschooling Resources

A couple of weeks ago, we were browsing through a thrift store when I came across a book entitled The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management by Hyrum W. Smith. Smith is one of the creators of the Franklin Planner, a planner my father enjoyed using for years. Because it seems I’m always working towards a better schedule for getting things done, I went ahead and purchased the book without even browsing through it. I think it cost a dollar.

As it turns out, it was one of the best dollars I’ve ever spent. I’m only about a third of the way through the book, as each chapter gives the reader a lot to think about. One of the things I’ve found most helpful was the chapter concerning governing values, or those things that are the highest priorities in our lives. They are unique to each individual, and although they are most important to us, they are often the things that get pushed aside when the urgency of the less significant fills up our time.

Smith, then, encourages the reader to decide just what his or her governing values are and to list them as a “personal constitution,” a prioritized list with a short description of what each one means. Writing that list as affirmations also helps you see yourself as you want to be. The list might include something like “I am a joyful and patient mother,” “I am debt-free,” or “I am dependable.”

I have written down my personal constitution, and I can already see how helpful it is. I can also see how many of my activities aren’t really related to my values. This, Smith says, is what causes many people to feel so frustrated.

What is one to do? Well, the next step is to write down my long-term and short-term goals based on those values, then make my daily plan based on those goals. I’m still working through that part, but I can’t wait to see the difference it’s going to make!

We found Look Book by Tana Hoban in our library a few years ago, and it’s been one of our favorite books ever since. We liked it so much, in fact, that we made one of our own.

Look Book is a wordless picture book that features pages with a cut-out that shows a small part of a photo on the page underneath. The reader, then, must take a good look and decide what is actually in the picture. A turn of the page will reveal what the photo really captures — a pretzel, a flower, or some other object. The following photo then shows that object in an even wider view, such as pretzels on a pretzel cart or a stand filled with flowers.

After going through Look Book with my oldest son when he was little, I made a similar book using items I had around the house, and it’s lasted us for years. Now my five-year-old is enjoying the same book. If you’d like to make a “Look Book”, here’s what you’ll need:

• Three-ring binder
• White or black cardstock
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Old magazines
• Glue Stick
• One piece of notebook paper

To begin, search through your old magazines for photos that would work well in a “Look Book.” Large photos of familiar objects that fill the page work best. Items such as fruit, animals, and cars are a good place to start.

Next, cut the photo to fit on a piece of cardstock. Glue it to the cardstock using a glue stick. Line the cardstock up with a piece of notebook paper and punch three holes on the left side and put it in the binder. Do the same with all of the photos you’ve chosen.

Now, for each picture you have, take another sheet of plain cardstock and punch the holes along the side. Place one piece of plain cardstock in the binder in front of each piece of cardstock with a photo.

Next, choose an area on the plain cardstock to cut out. You don’t have the make the area very large — you want it large enough to show a portion of the photo underneath, but not too large that the reader can tell just what it is without looking closely. (To cut an area from the middle of the paper, poke on end of the scissors through the paper, then cut it out from there.) The pages in your book should alternate between plain cardstock with a cut-out and the cardstock with the photo.

There you have it! You’re children will enjoy the Look Book you’ve made — and they may even want to make one of their own!

When my children were small and we regularly attended a playgroup, we developed a clothing swap with other families in the group. Once every couple of months, the moms would go through their children’s clothing and sort out those pieces that the children didn’t wear anymore or that no longer fit. We’d bring our bags of clothes to playgroup and sort them out by size. Then, we’d take turns looking through them and picking out what our individual families needed. Any extra clothes that weren’t taken were donated to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.

Although it was a lot of work collecting the clothing and sorting through them, the result was that we had plenty of clothes for the next season without having to purchase any of them. We were also able to help someone we knew just by giving away the clothes we no longer needed.

As the children have grown older, our playgroup has changed into more of a field trip group, so we don’t do the clothing swap anymore. However, a church in our area has taken on the same idea, offering a clothing closet to anyone in need. They receive donations of clothing, opening the swap once a week for anyone in the community to come in and take what they can use. It’s like our playgroup clothing swap, but on a much bigger scale.

It’s a big job for those at the church who work at it — they sort the clothes by size, then hang them up or fold them and put them away on the shelves. More clothes are constantly coming in, so the work never ends — there are boxes and boxes of clothes to sort through.

But what a service it is! We donate our clothes to this swap, and we’ve found many nice things there as well. Our family of six has probably spent less than $100 on clothes this year.

If there’s not a clothing swap in your area, you might consider starting one, even if it’s just among other homeschooling families you know. It’s a great way to bless others — and a great way to be blessed!

This week, our kindergarten/first grade co-op class worked on lessons based on the book Three Names by Patricia Maclachlan. The watercolor illustrations offer a lot of art lesson possibilities. Our class chose to work on project about perspective, and it turned out to be a fun exercise that can be adapted for students of various ages.

For this lesson, you’ll need:

• One sheet of watercolor paper
• Masking Tape
• Piece of cardboard (a little larger than the paper)
• Watercolors: green, blue, brown, grey or black, and yellow ochre (golden yellow)
• Watercolor brushes
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Paper Towel

To begin, tape the piece of watercolor paper onto the cardboard backing. When your student paints on the paper, it will tend to buckle; by taping it to the cardboard and allowing it to dry completely, it should flatten out again.

Next, have the student draw a straight HORIZON LINE using a pencil and a ruler. The horizon is the line where the land meets the sky.

Now, instruct your student to choose a point on the line to be the VANISHING POINT. The vanishing point will just be a dot on the horizon line; it’s the place on the horizon where the road will seem to disappear.

Next, have your student draw two diagonal lines from the bottom of the page to the vanishing point. The resulting figure will look like a triangle. This is the road going far away into the distance.

Your child might choose to add other objects to his picture, such as trees or animals. Remember, though, that the closer the objects are, the bigger they will appear to be; the further away they are, the smaller they will appear.

To finish the picture, paint in the sky above the horizon line, and the land on either side of the road green and/or brown. The road could be golden yellow if it’s a dirt path or grey if it’s a highway.

Once your student has finished, be sure to hang up the painting or put it in a portfolio. A job well-done needs to be displayed!

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to organize our home, and we got off to a good start this year. As we rearranged our rooms to make our space more useable, we packed up boxes and boxes of stuff (some might call it junk) that we just don’t need right now. Fortunately, we have an extra building we can use for storage, so we put everything out there. I haven’t sorted through anything yet — we just boxed it and stored it.

I’ve learned several things through this process:

1) A house with less stuff is easier to clean. I always knew this, but for the first time in several years, we’re actually putting it into practice. That’s not to say we’ve never gleaned through things before — we’ve given away bags and bags (and bags!) full of toys, clothes, and household items just this past year. But it must not have been enough, because we had so much to pack away as well.

2) We can save money by not having so much stuff. We have spent a lot of money on those things we packed away. Even with store sales and yard sale finds, the money adds up. When I look at all that stuff we aren’t even using, it’s easy to estimate how much it cost — and somewhat disheartening.

3) We don’t need so much stuff!  We are a family of collectors, and we all tend to hang on to things either for sentimental reasons or because we just might need it someday. But we’re functioning just fine without all that stuff, and actually, we’re functioning even better.

So here’s to a new year and an uncluttered house! Now I just have to sort through that building…

This week, our kindergarten/first grade class read the story Katie and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton. Our craft was a simple but fun snowman picture. If you’ve been experiencing wintery weather lately, give this craft a try.

Supplies:

• Colored cardstock (any color will do, but we used a dark turquoise color)
• White cardstock
• Glue Stick
• Elmer’s glue
• Googley eyes
• Crayons, colored pencils, or markers.
• Pen
• White acrylic craft paint
• Styrofoam plate
• Water in a container
• Two small-medium paint brushes
• Paper towels
• Newspaper
• Scissors
• 3 objects with circular bases, 3 different sizes (i.e. a mug, the lid to a jar, etc.)

To prepare, draw 3 circles of different sizes (small, medium, and large) on a piece of white cardstock using the 3 objects with circular bases. Older students can do this step themselves.

Next, draw a hat (or several different hats if you want to give the student a choice) on the piece of white cardstock. Older students can draw the hat themselves.

Now draw a triangle for the snowman’s “carrot” nose on the white cardstock. Again, older students can draw the nose by themselves.

Have you gathered all of the supplies? Now you’re ready to create your snowman!

1. To begin, color the hat and triangular “carrot” nose with crayons, colored pencils, or makers.

2.  Next, cut out the hat, carrot nose, and 3 circles.

3. Using the glue stick, glue the circles onto the colored cardstock, placing the largest on the bottom, the medium-sized one in the middle, and the smallest on top, forming a snowman.

4. Next, glue the carrot nose onto the face of the snowman. Glue the hat onto the head of the snowman.

5. With a pen, give your snowman a smile. You might also want to draw on arms or buttons.

6. Now it’s time to add the snow! Cover your table top with newspaper. Next, pour a small amount of white paint onto the Styrofoam plate. Dip one brush into the water and then in the paint to dilute it a little bit. Now, hold that brush over your painting and begin tapping the handle of it with the handle of your other brush. The paint will spatter all over your painting, forming the snow flurries.

7. As a final step, glue on the googley eyes using Elmer’s or school glue (this step comes after painting the snow so the eyes won’t get paint on them).

When you’re finished, put it in a safe place to dry, and you can soon hang up your snowy day picture!

We decided to wait until the second week of January to get back into our schooling routine, so we used the time we had this past week to reorganize our home. It’s something I had wanted to do for quite a while, but busy schedules just hadn’t allowed it. So for the past few days, we’ve been moving furniture, sorting through books, weeding through the toys, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. And each day, after a few hours of work, we all take a break.

Break time for the kids means free time, which they have been spending playing with new Christmas toys. But for some reason, their free time this week has been exceptionally loud. For the most part they’ve been getting along, laughing and shouting — it’s just been so loud, that it just doesn’t count as break time for me.

My idea of a break is quietly reading a book or magazine in my room, taking a quiet walk by myself, or listening to some quiet music while I work at a hobby. There is a key word in all these activities — “quiet”.

For the most part, homeschooling parents are home with their children most of the day, every day, except when we’re running them to classes and lessons or taking care of household errands. No wonder we need a break from the activity — a quiet one. Although we can enjoy this time when our children are young and moving and playing, we shouldn’t feel guilty about sending them to their rooms, closing the doors, and going outside to sit under a tree. In fact, we need to do just that. We need to take the time to rest, relax, and recharge ourselves so we can move on well with the rest of the day.

So whether you’re schooling, working, cleaning, organizing…whatever you’re doing today, try to find a quiet place to take a break. Make it a habit, for you and your children, and you’ll be able to enjoy being with them even more.

Several years ago, when we were traveling home from visiting family, my niece loaned us some of her Adventures in Odyssey cassette tapes (okay, it was quite a few years ago!). We listened to them on the way home, in no particular order, and we were all hooked.

Adventures in Odyssey is a radio story series created by Focus on the Family. It takes place in the fictional town of Odyssey, with many of the episodes centering around John Avery Whittaker and his ice cream shop called Whit’s End. The shop is designed to be a place kids can come to create, explore, and use their imaginations.

Adventures in Odyssey first aired on the radio in 1987, and the original characters were soon joined by others. Besides John Whittaker (Whit), listeners get to know Connie Kendall, who works at the shop; Eugene Meltzner, a techno-whiz with a big vocabulary; Jason, Whit’s son; Tom Riley, a farmer who becomes mayor; Bart Rathbone, the owner of the electronics store; Rodney Rathbone, his son and a gang leader; Jack, Whit’s friend and the owner of an antique store, Wooton Bassett, a mailman who secretly writes and draws comic books; and many others, including all the kids who visit Whit’s shop. As the years passed, these characters grow and change, learning important Biblical lessons about forgiveness, friendship, grace, prayer, truth, actions and consequences, trusting God, and more.

We continue to enjoy the stories (now on CDs, too!), listening to them not only in the car, but sometimes at bedtime as well. If you’ve never heard an adventure, check with your local Christian station to see when they are on the air. You can even listen to the stories online at www.whitsend.org. Give it a try, and enjoy an Adventure in Odyssey!

Although it seems I’m always assessing how well our schooling is going, there are generally two times of the year when I make big changes. The first is in August, as I plan for the new school year, and the second comes at the end of December, before school starts again after the holidays. Now, for the new year, I have several homeschooling resolutions:

1. Focus more on school during school time: I tend to get easily distracted with “life” during the school hours, so naturally, my children become distracted as well. For me, this resolution means that I’ll be unplugging the phone and leaving the computer off until after lunch.

2. Include more of the fun stuff: Some days, it seems that it’s all we can do to get the academics covered well. But part of the joy of homeschooling is being able to explore, investigate, and create together. Whether it’s taking nature walks, working on projects, or trying out new recipes, I want enjoyable activities to be a regular part of our school days.

3. Get dad involved: My husband has a full-time job during the day and then works a few extra hours a couple of nights a week. It’s hard to imagine that he’d have time to help out with the schooling, but there are some easy (and relationship-building) things he can do with our children. He can snuggle up with them on the sofa and listening to them read, or he can choose a story to read to them. Or, he could call out a few of those math facts while they sip cocoa together. Either way, the children would enjoy spending that time with him.

4. Make the most of trips: Because we have a lot of extended family living within a day’s driving distance, we often travel to visit and spend time with them. This year, we’ll make the most of those trips by using each one as the focus of a unit study. Before we go, we’re going to research our destination, locate it on the map, and trace our travel route.

All in all, I think it’s going to be a good year. Are you making any changes in 2010?