Home Teaching Help

What Kind of a Teacher Does Your Child Want?

2011-11-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

My school days were a very long time ago, yet I can still remember some of my teachers. There was my first grade teacher, Mrs. Clark, who I remember as a kindly, white-haired lady who employed creative methods for encouraging our participation and learning. Then there was my fourth grade teacher, whose name I can't remember, perhaps because she couldn't remember how to spell my name all year long. Not too encouraging, eh?

What about your school memories? What do you remember about the teacher you would have considered your favorite? You may not have considered why that teacher was your favorite, but those reasons can be important. A student's relationship with his teacher is a powerful component of his educational experience.

If we were to survey a group of children concerning the characteristics that they appreciate in a teacher, we would likely hear reasons such as:

Friendly toward me
Listens to me
Doesn't yell at me
Understands that learning can sometimes be hard
Notices my efforts
Cares about me
Encourages me when I'm having trouble
Understands that I'm not like everyone else
Makes learning exciting

When you look at the situation from a child's perspective, this list makes sense. These are essentially the same qualities that you would want in a teacher if you were learning something new. Now if you consider your own child's perspective - coupled with the fact that he must live with the teacher (you!) - then the importance of a positive student-teacher relationship gains even greater significance.

If the feedback you are getting from your student leads you to think your teaching style may be more like your least favorite teacher, you can take steps to improve the situation. Consider the imfluence of your words and remarks, and endeavor to be more positive and empathetic. Listen to your child's frustrations, offer suggestions, and look for new ways to present the material that is causing your child difficulty. Pay attention and respond positively when your child tries hard, and gently encourage him to keep trying if he seems distracted.

What draws out your best effort? Encouragement draws out my best effort. What draws you alongside another person? Empathy does that for me. Tune in to your interaction with your child. Listen to your words, watch what your body language is conveying. Start with one area to improve and observe the changes in your child as you make improvements. I suspect you will enjoy the change in your relationship.

Kelly

Checklist for Reading Readiness

2011-08-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

Learning to read is a significant milestone in a child's education. After all, it's the gateway to the worlds of books and print media. Some parents feel that they need to press their children to begin reading early - there are even programs to "teach" your baby to read (ask me about that later) - but I'd like to offer a checklist of sorts to help you evaluate your child's readiness to read. This is adapted from an article from All About Learning Press.

Print Awareness
__ Your child knows the proper way to hold a book.
__ Your child understands that books are read from front cover to back.
__ Your child understands that words and sentences are read from left to right.
__ Your child knows that words on the page can be read.

Phonological Awareness
__ Your child can rhyme words. If you say bat, your child can find a rhyming word like hat.
__ Your child can identify the separate words in a sentence.
__ Your child can clap syllables. If you say dog, your child knows to clap once. If you say umbrella, your child knows to clap three times.
__ Your child can identify the beginning sound in a word.
__ Your child can identify the ending sound in a word.

Letter Knowledge
__ Your child can recite the alphabet.
__ Your child recognizes the letters in their capital form.
__ Your child recognizes the letters in their lowercase form.
__ Your child points out familiar letters on signs, in stores, or on packages.

Listening Comprehension
__ Your child is able to retell a familiar story in his own words.
__ Your child can answer simple questions about a story.
__ Your child asks questions during read-alouds, such as Why did the elephant laugh?

Motivation to Read
While it can be difficult to determine whether a child is motivated to do something, your knowledge and observations of your child should help you. Motivation is a key factor in success with reading - some children are ready early, while others need more time to build the desire. Early exposure to reading aloud should help build this motivation. The following are all signs that your child is likely motivated to read and has achieved the understanding that reading is fun.
__ Does your child enjoy being read to, at least for short periods of time?
__ Does your child pretend to read or write?
__ Does your child frequently request read-aloud time and show enthusiasm for books?
__ Does your child often ask you what a word says that he sees on a sign or in a book?

Scoring the Checklist
If all or most of the boxes are checked, then I believe it is safe to say that your child is ready to learn to read. If there are some missing checkmarks, you have identified the areas that you should work on with your child.

Be a student of your child - tune in to his readiness rather than setting a schedule that satisfies the cultural "norm" or peer pressure of other parents you know. Working with your child's developmental readiness will lay the groundwork for much less stress in your educational endeavors.

Kelly

It's All About Spelling

2011-08-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

We all have memories of spelling lessons - for some of us, spelling was easy, for some it was a chronic challenge. I don't know why it worked that way, but I do know that spelling is important to our ability to communicate clearly. Sure spell check is a helpful feature of word processors, but not everything we do will be electronic ... you have to write some things by hand, at least occasionally.
I've talked about learning styles and how we need to select our educational programs based on our children's learning styles. So many of the spelling programs developed by curriculum companies seem to be directed to visual learners, but a few are designed to work with all learning styles. All About Spelling is one of these, incorporating sight, sound and touch in multisensory lessons that involve the students physically.

All About Spelling is laid out in logical sequence, with each lesson building on the previous lesson. Progression is based on mastery, to ensure that a solid foundation is established for success as the spelling words get harder. Continual practice keeps that foundation firm and the concepts fresh.

The Basic Interactive Pack includes letter tiles, magnets, phonogram CD-ROM, and index divider cards - essential materials for using the program. Each program level includes teacher's manual and student packets.

Don't choose the program level based on your child's grade level. This program is designed to work from the foundation up, so you need to ensure you have that firm foundation. It is recommended that those new to All About Spelling begin with Level 1. However, you can start with Level 2 if your child

has mastered the phonograms from a to z, plus ch, th, sh, ng, and ck - able to pronounce and spell them from dictation
can segment words into their individual sounds
can spell most 3-letter words, and
can easily write simple sentences

Whether you have older students for whom you haven't found the right tool for spelling success, or you have younger students and are just getting started with spelling, All About Spelling may just be the answer you seek. If I were still teaching elementary students, I would be using this program. How 'bout you?

Kelly

Had Your "Box Day" Yet?

2011-08-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Box Day? What's a "Box Day," you ask?

Well, I suppose this term is better known in Sonlighter circles - among those who use Sonlight Curriculum. It refers to the day that your Sonlight order is delivered and you discover a big box (or two) at your front door. If your timing is good, you might catch the FedEx man when he brings it, and you can ask him to bring it inside for you. That can save you some significant weightlifting.

If you have spent any time on the Sonlight Forums, you have probably seen posts where Sonlighters have shared their Box Day experiences and pictures. Though the environment may look different, the general features of the pictures are quite similar - stacks of books, smiling children either sitting among the stacks or draped on a couch with a selected book, jumping ahead of the reading schedule. In our early days with Sonlight, there was also a dusting of packing pellets which had to be gathered from the various places to which they clung. Nowadays, since Sonlight switched to using crushed paper to protect the books, there isn't as much involved in cleaning up after unpacking. Some families actually take the paper, smooth it out flat, fold it accordion-style, and set it aside for art projects. What a great way to recycle! I am going to start doing this to save paper for my grandchildren's artwork.

As I've spoken to several customers in recent weeks, I've begun to hear their stories ...

"I was floored by the Sonlight material [at the convention]. Flipping through the IG, it hit me that this is what I needed. Looking through the content, I realized that this is what my 6-year-old son needed!! My husband and I love the focus on world history and the people of the world that have not yet beenr eached with the Gospel ....We came home and ordered .... The box came. I was beside myself excited! Our 6 year old wasn't all that interested in the big white box. Until...I opened it. I am an 'inventory the box' kind of person. He came over to the rug where I was neatly piling the box. He pulled out one on Ancient Egypt and another and another. I watched his eyes get wide and excited. You know you've picked the right curriculum when this question immediately follows. 'WHEN can we start?! Do we HAVE to wait for August?' I haven't started our school year yet, but we are both very excited about what is in store." Elizabeth P, TN

"We have almost finished our first week of school and are really enjoying the program!" Jena H, FL

I'd love to hear your Box Day stories. Share them as a comment, or e-mail me at klutman@sonlight.com. Until then, I pray that your school year is a blessed one ....

Kelly

Turn a Road Trip into Geography Lesson

2011-07-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

Summer often means family vacations. If your vacation involves a road trip, you may be wondering how you are going to survive the hours in the car. Granted, today's technology offers DVD players, iPods, and assorted other means of entertainment for the children in the back seat, but there's another approach that might engage their minds more effectively.

When my boys were in elementary school, we incorporated geography and travel logs with our road trips, and found that it helped them be more involved in the trip and learn road navigation. Now I realize that we have access to GPS technology today, so what I'm suggesting falls in the category of "old school"; but doesn't homeschooling in general fall in that same category? After all, we won't always have the benefit of GPS at our fingertips, and map-reading skills are beneficial in a variety of ways.

So what did this involve? A folder for each of the children who will participate, maps of the areas in which you will travel, and notebook paper. At that time, I photocopied the appropriate pages of our road atlas and included that in the boys' folders. As we started on our trip, we them locate the main towns through which we would travel. Then we asked them to identify and mark the route that we would be following and the rest areas along the route. On occasion during the trip, we would ask them to figure out where we were along the route, showing them how to identify the mile markers and exits so that they could find our location. If someone in the family needed a "pit stop" we asked them to locate the nearest opportunity and direct us.

When we stopped to see sites of interest along the way, we encouraged the boys to collect brochures from those sites, as well as admission tickets or other memorabilia and stash them in the pockets of their folders. Each day the boys would write a journal entry concerning the day - noting the highlight(s) of the day, or new things they learned, or what they were looking forward to in the remainder of the trip.

At the end of the trip, while I was catching up on laundry and putting things away, the boys worked on completing their journals. They completed the marking of our routes on their maps, put the brochures on pages with captions, and finished their journal entries. The result provided an individualized journal/photo album for them to enjoy, along with navigation skills that kept them "in tune" with our progress ... and helped us to hear less of "are we there yet?"

Oh, and we never went on a road trip without a Sonlight book (or two) to read along the way. By reading one chapter per hour, we broke up the activity in the car to allow individual and group activities ... at least until we got to the point of "oh, Mom, don't stop reading yet" and passed the book around for others to take turns reading chapters aloud.

Try it, you might find road trips more enjoyable!

Kelly

Parlez vous ... sprechen zie?

2011-05-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

You've probably seen the kiosks in your local mall with those bright yellow boxes. Have you ever stopped and perused the program?

You don't need to wait for your students to reach high school to introduce foreign language studies. Rosetta Stone incorporates a dynamic immersion approach to teach students using the audio and visual capabilities of your computer. A student that can comfortably handle a mouse, can begin work with the simpler lessons, often as young as 6 years old. Older students can progress into written lessons and pronunciation practice with native speakers guiding the lessons.

So, Mom or Dad, have you ever dreamed of learning to speak another language?

There was a time when I thought I didn't have need to learn another language, but then I married an Army officer and we were stationed in Europe. Learning at least the basic portions of a new language, or two, was vital then. Nowadays, you don't need to anticipate traveling out of the country to find learning another language beneficial. There are opportunities to speak other languages in everyday circumstances. You may choose to learn the same language that your children are learning, or venture into another language that interests you. With Rosetta Stone, there are over 30 languages from which you can choose. and all of them are available through Sonlight Curriculum.

Why would you want to purchase your Rosetta Stone program from Sonlight? Well, there's a significant difference between the program that you would purchase at the mall kiosk and the one that is offered by Sonlight? Sonlight offers the Homeschool edition, which includes the Student Management System at no additional cost, and allows you to track multiple students' progress through the lessons.

The Student Management System is a key feature, but now there's an even more exciting feature that I want to share. Rosetta Stone is available at a significant savings through June 11th! How significant is the savings? Well, I'd call more than 1/3 off a significant savings, wouldn't you?

Rosetta Stone languages are offered in multiple levels, and you can purchase these levels in bundles of 1 to 5 sets, with the greatest savings available when you purchase all 5 sets of one language.

      Any individual level is $159 (marked down from $249-299 - you save $140!)
      Level 1-2 sets are $259 (marked down from $449 - you save $190!)
      Level 1-3 sets are $359 (marked down from $579 - you save $220)
      Level 1-5 sets are $459 (marked down from $749 - you save a whopping $290)

These prices are the lowest I've seen on Rosetta Stone in years, and Sonlight is offering not only these great prices but also free shipping and no sales tax if you live anywhere but Colorado or Indiana. That adds a lot more to the savings.

If you've ever thought of exploring a new language, now's the time to look into Rosetta Stone. Wouldn't this make a great adventure for the whole family to embark on this summer? What's it going to be ... Francais, Deutsch, Espanol, or something more unique? There's a world of language waiting for you in a little yellow box.

Kelly

Spring Is Coming

2011-03-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

For many of us, this time of year can be a bit of a struggle. You may be feeling cabin fever if your yard is still buried under piles of snow, or you are wallowing in rain-soaked fields. Whatever your outside environment may be, many homeschoolers find their vision blurred and their strength waning at this time of year.

Hang in there! Spring is coming and the finish line for this school year is almost within reach. So what do you do to get over the hump?

First of all, take a break from academics. Declare a game day, if you can't get out of the house, or take a field trip if you can escape. You can play educational games, but the importance is PLAY. Pack a picnic and eat it in the family room or cook hotdogs in the fireplace or woodburning stove. Step outside your "norm" for a day or two to reset your mind.

Take the opportunity to consider your school year. What has worked? What is lacking? In what areas do each of your children still need focused help? These will be the basis for planning for next year, and it's helpful to take notes while it is fresh in your mind. If your local homeschool convention is coming soon, look in the right column of this blog to find my Convention Survival Guide. Go to your convention with a plan and purpose so that you are able to come away with your needs met rather than just being tossed to and fro by a full schedule of speakers and an equally full lineup of vendors in the exhibit hall.

And have you begun to feel the growing anticipation of a new Sonlight Curriculum catalog? It won't be long before that valuable resource will arrive in your mailbox. I'll let you in on a secret ... the catalog will be available online before it shows up in print. If you a really eager to see what's coming for this year, keep an eye on the Sonlight website.

Questions - aren't there always? You can contact me at klutman@sonlight.com and I will be glad to provide answers.

Multitasking - Fact or Fiction

2011-02-18T18:05:00.000-08:00

In our fast-paced, often overloaded society, it seems that one's ability to multitask is a vital skill. I have generally seen this skill most often demonstrated by mothers, haven't you? Let's face it, just getting started in the morning has Mom juggling wakeup times, breakfast preparation and supervision, ensuring the children have dressed themselves (unless Mom had to do that, too) appropriately and made their beds, answering that first phone call of the day, and thinking of the tasks that must be accomplished and appointments that must be kept during the day....and that's just the general stuff!

John Medina, in his book Brain Rules, definitively states that the brain cannot multitask. What?! That was my response when reading the statement, so I naturally had to read on in an attempt to find a weakness in his defense of the statement. While Medina notes that at one level the brain can multitask - noting that we can walk and talk at the same time, that pianists can play two different arrangements with their left and right hands, that your heart continues to beat while you read a book, etc. - he clarifies his definition of multitasking by stating that "we are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously." Hmmmm ... now I have to focus on processing this information.

Medina demonstrates his point with the example of a teenager who is determined to write a paper while keeping his cellphone and instant messenger open to receive messages from friends. Look at the steps that the brain follows in this effort:

Shift alert - as the student sits down to write the paper the brain signals an attention shift.
Rule activation for task - the brain sends out a search query to find the neurons capable of providing the information needed to write the paper, and then activates those neurons.
Disengagement - receives audible alert of an IM (instant message) from a friend. Since different neurons are required for interacting with that friend, the brain signals a shift of attention.
Rule activation for task - the brain sends out a search query to find the neurons capable of writing to that friend and activates them.

These 4 steps must occur in sequence each time the student switches from one activity to another. Have you ever counted how many IMs and cell messages can be exchanged between just two friends in a given hour - and my teens often carried on conversations with multiple friends at the same time? No wonder that school assignment or paper did not get accomplished very efficiently! Note to self after reading this chapter: establish periods of time during the school day when the IM and cell phone are shut off so that my student can better focus on one task, and then try not to be another source of distraction for him while he is working.

But I can still hear the gears turning in many of your minds - ha! I've gotten your attention focused! You are likely thinking that you see many people multitasking with apparent efficiency. How does that work? Medina says that those who appear to be good at multitasking actually have good working memories which are capable of paying attention to several inputs at once. They still need to process each of these inputs and determine what action is warranted for each. If the inputs involve tasks with which the person is familiar, then switching between related inputs and tasks can be done more efficiently. Yet, let's face it, we each have our limits, and whatever your capabilities may be ... your brain still needs a break!

Yes, we can be successful in processing multiple inputs and performing accordingly, but we can't function that way in all circumstances. Help your children understand this important aspect of brain function and their need to establish opportunities to focus on one topic, and you should find your homeschooling efforts will be more efficient and less stressful.

Kelly

Sleep - Anything But 'Down' Time

2010-11-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

Sleep. As children we may avoid it, certain that we might miss out on something, but as adults we crave the sleep that seems to be stolen by our commitments and responsibilities. Why is sleep so important to our bodies, and what might it have to do with learning? As I continue to work through John Medina's Brain Rules, I can tell you more than I knew before.

You may think that our body is "in neutral" when we are sleeping, yet science has demonstrated that, for the majority of the time that we are sleeping, that is not the case. In fact, the only time you can observe a real resting period for the brain is in the deepest parts of what is called non-REM sleep, which takes up only about 20% of the total sleep cycle. While your body may appear to be resting, the brain is not resting at all.

Now most people report that sleep is restorative, and note that if they don't get enough sleep, they don't think as well. In the mid-1960s, a high school student did a science-fair project involving his not sleeping for 11 straight days and observing what happened. To sum the experiment up, his brain began to malfunction - he became irritable, forgetful, nauseous, not surprisingly tired, and even suffered many symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease. All because of lack of sleep.

One of the early discoveries in the area of sleep science was the fact that our bodies are locked in a daily warfare between the circadian arousal system (wakefulness) and the homeostatic sleep drive (you guessed it, sleepiness). Internal and external forces help regulate the conflict, defining both the amount of sleep we need and the amount of sleep we get. Scientific literature has labeled people with different sleep rhythms as larks (early risers who are most productive around noon), owls (those who are most alert around 6 p.m.), and hummingbirds (the other 70% of the population who vary between those time ranges). Though it is obvious that people's preferred sleep times can vary, just how much sleep an individual needs has not been concluded. Sleep schedules are quite dynamic - changing with age, with gender, with pregnancy and with puberty.

Most of us would agree that infants and young children need a nap to get them through the day, but science has found that short, regular naps can greatly benefit adults as well. President Lyndon Johnson routinely closed his office door and took a 30-minute nap, which he said gave him the stamina to meet the demands of his position. May seem odd to us, but consider that a "siesta" is part of many cultures. Whether you actively pursue a nap each day or not, numerous studies have demonstrated that even a brief nap can improve performance by at least 30%. Did you need a reason to take a break?

I think it's safe to say that most of us have heard the phrase "let's sleep on it." What's behind the concept? Can ordinary sleep benefit learning? Yes! Sleep has been shown to enhance tasks that involve visual texture discrimination, motor adaptations, and motor sequencing. The learning that appears to be most sensitive to sleep improvement is that which involves learning a procedure, but consolidation of all learning and experiences in the day takes place the night after they occurred.

Lack of sleep hurts learning. In fact, a highly successful student can be set up for an academic fall just by adjusting the number of hours he or she sleeps. Cumulative losses of sleep are difficult to make up, and the physiological effects are staggering. When sleep is restricted to 6 or less hours per night for just 5 nights, cognitive performance will match that of a person suffering from 48 hours of continual sleep deprivation. When people become sleep-deprived, their body's ability to utilize the food they are consuming falls by about one-third - causing the body to crave more food, and adding weight gain and accelerated aging to the effects.

Does this information validate some of your innate understanding of sleep, or have you encountered information that contradicts your expectations? Are you a parent like me whose "owl" child seems to function in another dimension from the rest of the family? How do you accommodate his individual rhythm and keep the whole family working together? I chose the route of compromise - planning the activities that we would do together for late morning or afternoon, and allowing my "owl" to focus on his independent school work in the evening when he was most alert. There were occasions where an external influence required him to be involved earlier than he preferred, but that was only when I had no control over the scheduling. It took some adjustment for all concerned, yet the outcome was beneficial.

One thing is for certain ... I now have a greater appreciation for the importance of sleep, both for myself and my family. I wish you pleasant dreams and effective learning!

Kelly

Remember to Repeat

2010-10-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be a delight if our brains worked like a cassette tape recorder? Do you remember those handy gadgets. All you needed to do was put a blank cassette into the machine, press record and talk or sing into the microphone. Then rewind and press play, and you heard a recording of what you had done. While it might seem that it would be great to have it work that easily, our brains are, in fact, capable of so much more than the old cassette recorder. The key is knowing how to maximize its potential.

That's what I'm hoping to share in this series of blog posts as I read John Medina's book, Brain Rules. I can't say that I agree with his whole perspective - he works from an evolution-focused foundation - but many of his insights have been extremely enlightening.

We last talked about short-term memory and the fact that repeating information at regular intervals would enhance the encoding of that information. Likewise, receiving that information in a variety of ways - through multiple senses - would provide more intricate and lasting encoding. The key phrase for short-term memory was Repeat to Remember.

Next we will look at long-term memory, for which the key phrase is Remember to Repeat.

New memory traces - often referred to as working memory - are flexible, subject to amendment, and at great risk for extinction. Converting this working memory into long-term storage is called consolidation. Just like short-term memory, the fixative for long-term memory is repetition at regular intervals. Thinking or talking about an event immediately after it happens greatly enhances memory. Putting thoughts into your own words is another beneficial action. Both are incorporated in the educational exercise of narration, where the student may read or listen to a passage or chapter in a book, and is then asked to recount the information in their own words. Doing so right after the initial exposure is effective, and then repeating the information again - telling Dad at dinner, or sharing it with someone later in the day - will further fix the information in place.

There are auditory and visual components to memory, but when both can be incorporated as the information is first processed, the memory traces are more intricate and more easily retrieved at a later time. The brain's retrieval systems seem to undergo a gradual shift from specific and detailed reproductions of information to more general and abstracted recall. Regular re-exposure to the information will help to keep the memories more detailed.

Harvard phychology professor, Dan Schacter, tells his students, "If you have only one week to study for a final and only ten times when you can hit the subject, it is better to space out the ten repetitions during the week than squeeze them all together." Late night, last minute cramming sessions are not effective. Rather we learn here that it is better to revisit the information regularly between the time it is introduced and the time that retrieval is needed (test day) in order to ensure that retrieval will be as vivid as possible.

As teachers, we can seek to pace the information that we are giving to our students so that we are incorporating new information gradually and repeating it at timed intervals, rather than bombarding our students' brains with a constant flow of new information and minimal opportunities to revisit and explore deeper the concepts that were recently introduced.

For enhanced memory function ... Repeat to Remember, and Remember to Repeat.

Kelly

Repeat to Remember

2010-10-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

One of the primary functions associated with the brain is memory, and this is a key function for students and educators. Knowing a little more about how the brain stores information may help you in your efforts to teach your children.

The brain has different types of memory systems that fall into two categories - those memories that involve conscious awareness and those that are voluntary. Once you have learned how to ride a bike, recalling the skill at a later time does not generally require a conscious effort. However, remembering a telephone number does require a conscious effort. This type of memory is what we would call a declarative memory - involving something you declare - and it is the type about which researchers have learned the most. Declarative memory involves encoding, storage, retrieval and even forgetting.

Most people believe that the brain is a lot like a recording device where learning is based on pushing the record button, and remember is similar to pushing the playback button. But it really isn't that simple. There are several types of encoding, which involve all of our senses, and their processing centers are scattered through the brain. These include:

Automatic encoding - which occurs unintentionally and is easily recalled because the memories seem bound in a cohesive, readily retrievable form
Effortful processing - which requires conscious attention and deliberate effort, but the information does not tend to be bound together and requires a lot of repetition for effective retrieval
Semantic encoding - which is focused on the definition of words
Phonemic encoding - which involves the comparison between the sounds of words
Structural encoding - which involves the visual inspection of shapes

What does this mean for your child's learning efforts? Well, here are some guidelines for enhancing the encoding process, and thereby the memory retrieval.

First of all, the more elaborately we encode information at the moment of learning, the stronger the memory. When information is presented in a way that incorporates multiple senses, that information will be encoded in various parts of the brain and produce a stronger opportunity for retrieval. For example, when reading from a textbook, the student is receiving visual information for encoding. Adding the student's voide reading the words - or at least the key sentences - out loud, provides auditory information for encoding, and taking notes or highlighting key information provides touch input that further expands the encoding. Another example from the literature-based approach would involve reading a story that incorporates factual information within the context of a character's life and actions. As the student connects emotionally with that character, the factual information becomes more personal in nature and is more elaborately encoded. Ensuring that the student understands the meanings of words, and adding personal examples make the most of the brain's natural predilection for pattern matching.

Memories have different life spans. Hermann Ebbinghaus has been credited with research that determined that people usually forget 90% of what they learn in a class within 30 days, with the majority of the forgetting occurring within the first few hours of class. Isn't that encouraging? However, he also found that simply repeating the information at timed intervals greatly increased the memory. What does this mean to us as parent educators? In order to help our children remember the information that are encoding, we must revisit that information regularly. This can be done through discussion after material is read, by reviewing what has been learned about historical figures and events in our Book of Time, by making up songs or ditties with key information ... there are numerous ways to repeat information and extend the life of the memory.

Lastly, it is suggested that retrieval may be improved by replicating the conditions surrounding the initial encoding. When a student has learned a particular portion of information in a special setting, returning to that setting will usually aid in the retrieval of the information. You can recreate the sounds, the smells, the seating ... all to enhance your student's ability to retrieve information that has been encoded.

Repeat to remember, circle back to prior subject material and look at it again. Your student will benefit greatly!

Another post presenting information drawn from John Medina's Brain Rules.

Kelly

Attention!

2010-10-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

Does it matter if we pay attention when learning? You bet it does! The more attention the brain pays to any stimulus, the more effectively the information will be encoded and retained. Better attention always equals better learning in every academic category.

So do we use the military approach of yelling "attention!" whenever we want our homeschooled children to focus on what we have to say? I really don't think that would be effective - we'd be hollering too much during the school day, and some of our children would be so distracted with the effort of sitting still that their brains would be anything but focused on what we are saying. [By the way, the handsome soldier in the picture is my youngest son, demonstrating his good Army posture ... with the addition of a slight smile.]

The fourth rule that John Medina explains in his book, Brain Rules, addresses what attracts the brain's attention.

Memory - in everyday life, we use previous experience to predict where we should pay attention. Even different environments create different expectations in the brain. This could affect your child's willingness to pay attention if he is facing a subject that has felt defeating in the past. Experiment with different settings for working in this subject, looking for an upbeat place and a new approach to give him success.

Interest - regardless of our culture, "interest" or "importance" is closely linked to our level of attention. Marketing professionals actually believe that the reverse is also true - that unexpected attention getters can also spark interest. Some commercials use unusual, unpredictable or distinctive features to harness our attention. Likewise, you could use a story or picture to draw your children's attention and pique their interest before beginning a new lesson.

Emotion - emotionally arousing events tend to be better remembered than neutral events. When the brain detects an emotionally charged event, it releases dopamine into the system which greatly aids memory and information processing. This is one of the primary benefits of a literature-based approach to learning, where the story is written so as to immerse your child into the environment and emotion of the event, thereby fixing the detail into memory much more effectively than reading a dry narrative in a textbook.

We humans are terrific pattern matchers, constantly assessing our environment for similarities. Our memory is enhanced by creating associations between concepts. When you are introducing a new concept in Math, try showing your child how this concept can be utilized in real life before you explain how to do it. This may seem like approaching it backward - most Math lessons would teach the concept and then show how to apply it - but you may find that your child's attention will be more focused and their grasp of the concept itself more firm if you use this approach. He may even take the problem solving further than you had demonstrated, which makes the lesson all the more effective.

There's more to this topic of attention that I will share in my next post ...

Kelly

Wired (and Re-wired) to Learn

2010-09-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

What does a nerve cell look like? A fried egg provides a great visual of a cell, but needs some modification to look like a nerve cell. If you're not afraid of a little clean up, try this with your children – put it on the table and smash it with the palm of your hand, splattering it across the table. You should have a many-pointed star. Now take one of the points and stretch it out away from the “body” of the egg, then take your thumb and squish the farthest region of the pint you just stretched. You now have a visual representation of a nerve cell, or neuron – two smashed stars connected by a long, thin line. The original smashed piece represents the nerve’s cell body, and the star points are dendrites, while the stretched out region is called an axon, and the starburst at the furthest end is the axon terminal. Talk about an effective demo, huh? I can't take credit for this one - it's adapted from John Medina's Brain Rules, from which I also quote below.

Now let's put that neuron into perspective in the brain itself. You can visualize the real world of two neurons interacting by "thinking of two trees uprooted by giant hands, turned 90 degrees so the roots face each other, and then jammed together. Usually, thousands of neurons are jammed up against one another, with their branches forming connections in a nearly incomprehensible mass of branching confusion.”

“Occasionally, the end of one neuron swells up, greatly increasing in diameter. The terminal ends of the other neurons split down the middle like a forked tongue creating two connections where there was only one. Electricity crackles through these moving neurons at blinding speed…with clouds of neurotransmitters filling spaces between the neuron trunks.” The human brain is learning!

“As neurons learn, they swell, sway, and split. They break connections in one spot, glide over to a nearby region and form connections with their new neighbors. Many stay put, simply strengthening their electrical connections with each other, increasing the efficiency of information transfer.” The brain is constantly learning, so the brain is constantly rewiring itself.

The human brain is only partially constructed at birth, with the majority of construction being finished by the mid-20s and fine-tuning carried on well into your 40s. When babies are born, their brains have about the same number of connections as adults have; but by the time they are 3 years old, the connections in specific regions of their brains have doubled or tripled. It doesn’t last though, as the brain will actually trim back a lot of this expansion and return to adult numbers by the age of 8. Then the process starts again at puberty with connections settling down to adult numbers in the late teens. Though the larger pathways in the brain – the neural equivalents of interstate freeways and state highways - are fairly consistent, individual patterns are evident when you get to the smaller routes – the brain’s equivalent of residential streets and dirt roads. “Whether examining toddlers or teenagers, different regions in different children develop at different rates.”

Here’s the educational application …

Our current educational system, particularly the classroom model, is based on a series of expectations that certain learning goals should be achieved by a certain age. But does everyone’s brain follow that one pattern? Students of the same age show a great deal of intellectual variability. About 10% of students do not have brains sufficiently wired to read at the age at which we expect them to read. And this is not the only subject area for which the brain’s readiness can vary.

Rather than fix your expectations on any particular scope and sequence, present the opportunities and observe your child. In the homeschooling setting it is much easier to vary your approaches and your timing for learning opportunities. If your child does not appear to grasp a concept quickly, consider whether you may be introducing it too early for that child. Pull back and reinforce what they have grasped, or try a different approach for introducing the concept. Incorporate as many of your child’s senses – seeing, smelling, hearing, touching and even tasting – in their learning environment and watch the outer evidence of the brain’s rewiring in action. What an incredible adventure you are sharing with your child!

Kelly

Exercise Boosts Brain Power

2010-09-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

At the encouragement of a friend, I am reading the book, Brain Rules, by John Medina. Just a couple chapters into the book I have encountered information that I simply must share, and this blog seems to be the best way to do so. I feel a series of posts coming on as I mine the valuable nuggets of this book.

Brain Rule #1 – Exercise Boosts Brain Power

We’ve heard a lot about the benefits of exercise for our bodies, but I hadn’t so clearly encountered its benefits for brain power until now. My post titled "Move and Learn" in May addressed the benefit of movement and academics, but this was mostly from the learning style perspective. I’m now armed with even more information regarding the benefits of exercise – or movement – for our brain.

A good bit of research has been done to compare the effects of sedentary and active lifestyles. Exercise can result in sometimes astonishing elevation in cognitive performance compared with those who are sedentary. Exercisers outperform couch potatoes in tests that measure long-term memory, reasoning, attention, and problem-solving. That’s fine, you may be thinking, but that’s not been our habit up to now. Hang on though, all is not lost. When normally sedentary people are enrolled in an aerobic exercise program, all kinds of mental abilities begin to come back online for young or old. In a recent study, children began a program of jogging for 30 minutes 2-3 times a week. After 12 weeks, their cognitive performance had improved significantly compared with pre-jogging levels.

Dr Antronette Yancey’s studies found that exercise improves children. Physically fit children identify visual stimuli much faster than sedentary ones and appear to concentrate better. Brain-activation studies show that children and adolescents who are fit allocate more cognitive resources to a task and do so for longer periods of time.

“Kids pay better attention to their subjects when they’ve been active,” Yancey says. “Kids are less likely to be disruptive in terms of their classroom behavior when they’re active. Kids feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem, less depression, less anxiety. All of those things can impair academic performance and attentiveness.”

Why exercise works so well on the brain – a brief physiology lesson …

When we eat, the body uses teeth, stomach acid and the intestines to tear the food apart and reconfigure it for absorption. Much of our food is turned into glucose, one of the body’s favorite energy resources, and absorbed into the bloodstream via the small intestines. It is then carried to the body’s cells where cellular chemicals tear apart the molecular structure of glucose to extract its energy. Such fierce activity generates a fair amount of toxic waste, primarily in the form of excess electrons, better known as free radicals. If not quickly corralled, they will wreck havoc on the innards of a cell and thus the body. The main function of oxygen in your body is to act like an efficient electron-absorbing sponge. At the same time the blood is delivering foodstuffs to your tissues, it also carries these oxygen sponges which absorb the electrons and transform them into carbon dioxide which is carried back to the lungs for expulsion from the body. The oxygen-rich air you breathe keeps the food you eat from killing you.

Blood acts as both wait staff and haz-mat team, and any tissue without enough blood supply is going to both starve and be poisoned – including your brain. Though only representing about 2% of the body’s total weight, our brain utilizes 20% of the body’s total energy resources. Improving the blood’s delivery system can improve both the brain’s energy supply and waste removal. Exercise does not provide the oxygen and food – it provides greater access to the oxygen and food. When you exercise, you increase blood flow across tissues of your body. As the flow improves, the body makes new blood vessels, which penetrate deeper and deeper into the tissues of the body. The more you exercise, the more tissues you can feed and the more toxic waste you can remove.

Imaging studies have shown that exercise literally increases blood volume in a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus - a vital constituent of the hippocampus, a region deeply involved in memory formation. Early studies also indicate that exercise also stimulates one of the brain’s most powerful growth factors, BDNF, which exerts a fertilizer-like growth effect on certain neurons in the brain. This protein keeps existing neurons young and healthy, and encourages the formation of new cells in the brain.

After presenting this fascinating lesson on brain physiology, Dr. Medina proposes that classrooms integrate more movement, and that Phys Ed programs be increased rather than eliminated. Might be a little harder to sell this in a large school district, but it wouldn’t be as hard to integrate the idea of exercise/movement in our homeschool environment. Maybe you don’t relish the thought of jogging, but you could add some basic calisthenics – jumping jacks, sit ups, running the stairs or around the house, etc. – to get the blood pumping in your home at regular intervals in the day. I daresay that you will discover improvements in both academics and mood. Try it out!

Kelly

The Top 10 Reasons We Homeschool Our Children

2010-09-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

As promised, I will finish the list I started with my last post ...

6. To build intimate and meaningful relationships with your children in order to show them how much you love them. I learned early on in my homeschooling adventure than one of the side-effects of classroom socialization is that my children thought they needed to spend most of their time with other children their own age. Little brother just wasn't a 'cool' playmate, and hanging out with mom wasn't ideal either. But I saw this attitude change as we discovered new aspects of our relationships and we began to enjoy each other's company. More time together also made it easier to be a student of my children - to observe them and discover their strengths and weaknesses, their likes and dislikes - which made my parenting more effective.

7. To share with your children the common, everyday joys of life and be there when they need you most. I was there when my younger boys learned to read, I was there when they saw and grasped a new concept in Math or Science - and it was a delight! I was also there when life handed them disappointments, and I could encourage them to keep seeking, to keep knocking on the door.

8. To be your children's mentor, spiritual leader, role model, friend, and teacher. A lot of hats to wear, I know. Yet consider how hard it would be to fill these roles for your child if you weren't with them throughout the day - or if you were having to undo more negative accumulation from classroom and peer experiences.

9. To protect your children from the negative influences they may encounter outside the home. Now don't get me wrong ... I'm not saying to place your children in a cuccoon that completely shields them. We didn't completely keep them away from negative influence, but were better able to protect them by choosing the venues and balancing their exposure with our guidance and affirmation. As they grew older, we allowed them greater choice, while providing the sounding board for discussions of what they experienced and the appropriate response to it.

10. To instill in your children a life-long love for learning and to show them that learning is not boring, but exciting. This love for learning is, in my opinion, the result of our efforts in #3 - meeting your child's unique needs. When you help your child identify his learning style, and provide the tools for him to be successful, then your child's innate curiosity and desire to learn isn't squelched, but is rather fueled for the future.

You've made a good choice! The road won't be easy, and there will be days that you question your decision, but look again at the reasons for the path you have chosen, and be encouraged.

Kelly

The Top 10 Reasons We Homeschool Our Children

2010-08-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever asked you why you homeschool? Did the question catch you off-guard, or were you prepared to answer? The first time that I was asked that question, I was not really prepared to answer clearly, so I purposed to get my reasons fleshed out and written down. This exercise had multiple benefits ... I was better prepared the next time someone asked why I homeschooled, and I could read through my reasons when I was waivering after a tiring day. Several years ago, Sonlight published ten reasons which stated mine (and additional reasons that hadn't yet occurred to me) in a more succinct manner:

1. To instill your values and beliefs in your children - this is a primary reason for most homeschoolers with whom I talk. We want to be the ones who guide our children in developing their character and their faith, and to do so in our home amongst those who love them, rather than trusting them to learn from their peers.

2. To encourage academic excellence in your children. That phrase - academic excellence - can bring both delight and fear to parents. Perhaps you aren't confident in your own academic excellence and thus wonder whether you will be able to set an appropriate standard for your children. If that is the case, then set a new standard for yourself alongside the children, because most homeschooling parents find that they learn quite a lot in the process of guiding their children in their studies. Seek out materials that do not require you to know the subject, but will enable you to learn with the children ... you'll be amazed at the results.

3. To speak to and meet your children's unique, individual needs. Let's face it, in a classroom environment, everyone can't march to a different drummer. But in your home, you can tailor the materials you use to best speak to your children's individual learning styles. Explore my earlier posts about this topic and equip your child with the tools that God designed him or her to use most effectively.

4. To help your children through the difficult times in their lives. Or even allow them to help you through difficult times. That's why God placed us in families - not only to grow together, but to also hold each other up. I have often said that I believe our teenagers need us (parents) as much as our preschoolers do, and the years between are equally as important.

5. To help your children understand the hard questions we face in life. Of course, "understand" is somewhat a relative term for children, since they will grasp increasing depths of understanding as they develop. But we can still be there consistently, answering their questions at the level they can grasp, affirming their desire to know and our faith that God is always with us.

These are enough for now - I'll finish the list in my next post. Meanwhile, I encourage you to contemplate these reasons. Do they reiterate your reasons for homeschooling? If so, what have you done to put them into action, and could you fine-tune your efforts? If not, then how do your reasons vary, and what are you doing to act on them?

Kelly

Develop a Love for Learning, part 2

2010-07-29T20:13:00.001-07:00

So let's look back to our formula. We've talked about Exposure through Exploring, Experiencing and the Emotional connection, but now we look at what these yield, and the first thing I think of is Creativity. When you read great books together, the children's interests in the information to which they have been exposed can inspire their own projects and activities, rather than activities planned by the parent. A pre-planning activity that is instigated by the parent may not tie in to the children's interest, in which case the time and effort devoted by the parent is not as fruitful as letting the chldren drive the activities. When we studied Egypt our boys begged us to delay planting the garden so that they could set up a model archaeological dig - this was so much more effective than my spending an hour planning and prepping for an activity that the children would spend 5 minutes doing and not necessarily find enlightening. When you read a pioneer book, your child may want to churn butter; when you study pyramids, your child may want to find a few boxes of sugar cubes handy for building a model; when you study Samuel Morse, you may find your children working to set up a mini-telegraph in your home. The possibilities are endless, as is the fruit. This creativity results in greater Comprehension of the information that has been explored.

While reading great books together is a primary way to encourage children to love to learn, there is another key way that incites a love for learning and also encourages Creativity and Comprehension. That is to share something you love with your child and do it right along with them. If you have a skill or hobby, share it with your kids. This could include fishing, music, baking, car mechanics, or gardening. Your child will be unskilled and probably make more of a mess than you would, but because they want to be like you, this type of shared experience will make them not only want to learn more about the activity but also to know more about you. Beyond imitating mom or dad, your children may seek to imitate heroes they discover in their books. Ben Franklin, Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, William Wilberforce, Albert Einstein and so many more can inspire your children to dream big and aim high. When learning side-by-side, you will be encouraged to learn more, explore more options and feel excitement in finding out what happened. Your enthusiasm will inspire your children, and the more experiences they have, the closer they will come to the last part of our formula - Mastery. This occurs when information has been clearly fixed in a pattern with which new information can fire in the brain and turn on the lights.

Einstein's formula has been used to provide a familiar visual reminder for the key points presented for developing a love for learning:

Exposure in Exploration, Experience, Emotion, Excitement = Mastery, Creativity, Comprehension

When we incorporate exposure, exploration and experience that ties emotions into our learning, we immerse ourselves into what we are learning, experiencing it with multiple senses, as opposed to skimming the surface, and we find that mastery comes from the creativity and comprehension that this immersion fosters. Put these to work in your homeschool adventure and I am confident that you will find your children - and even yourself - developing a love for learning.

Kelly

Develop a Love for Learning, part 1

2010-07-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Whether you are a current homeschooler, or considering homeschooling, if you have a child that thinks school is boring or anything but fun, you are looking for answers. How do we develop a love for learning in our children?

As I pondered this question and began jotting down ideas, it occurred to me that the ideas I had could be visualized through Einstein's familiar formula.

Let's start with E ...

Exposure - working from the fact that the brain's primary function is collection of information, we need to expose our children to information in a variety of forms that employ multiple senses.

Examples bring awareness of a topic and spark their interest. Whether you are presenting engaging characters in context of a story, or taking your children on a nature hike, or showing them the variety of fruits and vegetables in the produce section of the grocery store ... you are bringing awareness. Facts presented without a connection are harder to grasp, but examples provide the context needed to retain information and begin to use it.
Exploration is the next step as you gain Experience by putting the example into motion, test its application, discuss it and make comparisons, build a model or create a map. By working to provide opportunity to exercise the examples, you will find your children's interest growing.
Emotion is the "gatekeeper of learning and performance," according to Susan Kovalik, the founder of Center for Human Brain & Human Learning. She points out that emotion keys memory, as you will understand if you think back to significant childhood memories. Invariably those memories can be tied to a strong emotion, be it anger, fear, joy, etc. Likewise, your child will remember information that is tied to emotion, even in the realm of academics.
Excitement on your part is contagious and is the key to drawing in your children. Many of us have seen Brad Stein's Visine commercial where he epitomizes the lack of excitement with his "wow." If you are just going through the motions to press your children to get their work done, your children aren't going to be absorbing as much as if you are eager to see what can be discovered each day. If the curriculum you are using doesn't inspire excitement for you or your children, you may want to consider a change.

Even more intricately than the computers that are so central to our society today, our brains make meaning of new information by storing it in patterns. Your brain organizes information into patterns which are cataloged for storage and future retrieval, just as a computer would store information in documents, files and folders, according to the way you save the data. When you as the teacher present new information already sorted into a pattern, then your child's brain is easily able to use the information. Academic examples would be studying materials in a historical theme, or focused on geographical cultures, teaching Math with manipulatives or exploring fractions through a baking project. When we studied Science, we not only read about it, but we also did experiments, which naturally inspired my children to want to know more, dig deeper and find answers to their questions. When your child's brain seeks to retrieve information that has been stored in a pattern, the information in one neuron connects with information in other neurons, creating a brain-firing, electro-chemical reaction ... what we commonly refer to as the "lights go on." Susan Kovalik says, "the more experiences children have, the greater their ability to make connections."

My family has experienced this time and again when reading books or watching movies. Think about it - when you go to a movie, pay the admission price, perhaps stock up on popcorn and drink, and settle in to the theater seat, you would not be pleased if what appears on the screen is a list of bulleted statements telling the story. Interested? NO! The story in visual movie form, or in the rich word form found in great literature, calls you forward to find out what happens. "Just the facts, ma'am" is not appealing, yet if you imbed any amount of otherwise dry facts in the storyline, they become meaningful and memorable. This is because they are attached to the pattern of the story. An example of this would be our experience with the movie, National Treasure. The plot was intertwined with a mystery related to history, and set in a variety of historical places. What child or parent didn't learn American History in the process of watching that movie? We had the opportunity to be in Philadelphia after the movie came out on DVD, so we watched it again before venturing out to see the sights. Suddenly, the buildings had a whole new meaning - my boys were looking for the different places that were shown in the movie, searching for artifacts like those they had seen, and even got very excited to meet a park ranger who had been in the movie.

Great literature does the same without requiring the movie theater, projector or other technology - in fact, I love the versatility of reading. Great books can not only be read almost anywhere, but can transport you anywhere, anytime, and give you and your children a thirst to find out more about the person, time period or event. Emotional connections that are necessary for children to learn can be found by reading - and living the events through the characters in - great literature.

stay tuned for the rest of the equation ...

Summertime Strategies

2010-06-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, the good ol' days of summer. We remember them from our childhood as carefree days when we didn't have to dress for school, but instead could spend our days playing barefoot outside. Fast forward to the present and you may not see the summer as a carefree time. Some homeschooling families choose to school year-round, taking short breaks distributed through the year, while others follow the traditional school calendar and take 10-12 weeks "off" of school.

If you take a break from formal school work in the summer, do you sometimes feel like you take on the roll of referee in place of teacher? You aren't the only one! I often have homeschooling moms ask me how to make summer feel more productive and less like a free-for-all. My answer comes from a good friend of mine who has often said, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Think about that statement. It is really true in every aspect of our lives. Now, I'm not advocating that you schedule every moment of your summer days, weeks and months. I don't even schedule that much detail into my normal school year. But ... it helps to have a general template to follow, and include some regular activities to keep the days in order and give the children benchmarks to follow.

What are some items that you can include in your general template? Well, here are a few suggestions:

continue the habit of reading aloud together - if you didn't finish all the Read-Alouds from your program in the school year, use your summer to complete them. This might be a great lead-in to a post-lunch quiet time, helping your children calm down and relax during the hottest part of the day.
don't abandon the chore list! Those everyday and weekly tasks still need to be done, and there may be additional projects that could be completed with the help of your children. This is a valuable part of training them in life skills.
set regular times for the beach, pool or park, and perhaps invite friends to accompany you. If this activity is scheduled consistently, you shouldn't have to field repeated questions such as "when can we go to ...?"
focus on Science during the summer - this subject is sometimes one that gets overlooked in the demands of a heavy schedule during school, but it can be a delightful, hands-on project for the summer time, when you can take the time for rabbit trails according to your children's interests.
planning a road trip? Add some journaling activities for your 3rd-grade-and-older children to help them record the adventure. You can print copies of the road maps you would use and teach the children how to read the maps and mark the route you take. When you stop at various sites, encourage them to collect brochures and take pictures that can then be incorporated in their journal, along with a brief note about their experience. These can be as simple as a pocket folder with notebook paper, maps and brochures, or can grow into a scrapbook of the trip if your child is so inclined.
find a volunteer opportunity for individual children or the whole family. Whether helping at the local library, the animal shelter or a nursing home, there are a variety of options to demonstrate Christian service and reach out to people.

No doubt you will hear at some point in the summer the inevitable phrase ... "I'm bored." What's your response? Well, my first piece of advice is to limit the amount of electronic entertainment your children are allowed each day. The more time they spend in this way, the more addicted they tend to become, and the less creative they are with unplugged time. Part of your summer plan should include parameters for electronic entertainment. Then supply some craft kits or general creative supplies for your children to use. Another friend shared a wonderful response to this phrase - when one of her children declared his boredom, she would tell him to go outside and play for a bit, and when he came back in she would have a chore for him to do. Oddly enough, he was generally outside for an extended amount of time.

I pray that you have a blessed summer, with an occasional opportunity to sit on the porch with a cool glass of lemonade in hand as you visit with friends and family.

Kelly

Move and Learn

2010-05-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Do you remember your days in the classroom? Mine were so long ago they are pretty fuzzy, but I do recall hearing the teacher reminding students to sit still, encouraging them to focus rather than fidget. Did you hear that when you were in school? Perhaps you were one of the students they were speaking to, and you were struggling against your natural inclination to move while you learned.

Research is now demonstrating that children benefit from having the freedom to move while they are learning. According to a recent report on ABC News, classrooms have begun incorporating more exercise and beneficial movement, and the student's scores are improving significantly. Some classrooms have stability balls for the students to sit or bounce on rather than the traditional desk chair. Other classrooms are set up for students to stand while they work, and take movement breaks regularly. A high school near Chicago has shifted each student's schedule to start the day with physical education, as well as providing balls and bikes in the classrooms so that the students are constantly on the move. The result ... reading scores have doubled, and math scores have risen by a factor of 20. Rather than cutting the PE program, this high school's administration is looking for additional ways to get the kids moving.

Do you have children who struggle with math or reading? I would suggest that you get them moving. One of my earlier posts spoke about the kinesthetic learning modality, but I don't think that these schools are finding that the movement is benefitting only those students who are wired kinesthetically. I think there is benefit for everyone in movement. Exercise, such as square dancing, which incorporates aerobic activity to increase the heart rate and intricate movement to stimulate thinking, can jump start your child's brain (or your own) for better problem solving.

So break away from the desk, table, or couch on a regular basis during your school hours, and get moving! Explore new ways to challenge your children and yourself. You'll provide an outlet for their wiggle and, no doubt, discover that thinking is not as challenging as it was in your stationary past.

Kelly

Feeling Weary or Discouraged?

2010-05-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

Do you find yourself counting the days until this school year is ended? It isn't uncommon for homeschool parents to feel fatigue and even discouragement in the spring. The Bible indicates that many of our experiences in daily life correspond to spiritual situations. Fatigue and discouragement in the physical can be a reflection of spiritual battles. My pastor recently shared some valuable insights for having victory in the spiritual and physical aspects of life and I thought they may be of help for you as you come into the home stretch for this school year.

First, you must know your enemy. There were days in my homeschool experience that I was inclined to think that my children were the enemy, but that was really not the case. Read 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 if you don't believe me. Your children are a gift from God, not your enemy; so you need to look at the bigger picture to identify your enemy. Perhaps it is a schedule that is packed far too full, allowing no breathing space or down time. In this season of your life, you need to protect your school time and carefully select your outside activities. If you feel that you are making little progress in your homeschooling, you may need to examine your approach and explore other options. When I began to explore my children's learning modalities and selected materials that worked in conjunction with those modalities, then our efforts were much more successful.

Second, you must know your weak points. If your children "push your buttons" that will be a clue that you have weak points. You may find it helpful to find an experienced homeschooler or 'Titus 2' woman at church and ask her assistance in identifying those weak areas and her advice and prayer support as you seek the Lord's help in fortifying those areas. God can using the homeschool setting to show you areas that He wants to develop in you. Don't ignore these opportunities ... it's a valuable part of your growth, and can demonstrate to your children that God works on us all.

Next, you need to know your weapons. The passage I referenced earlier in 2 Corinthians tells us that "the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful" and 1 Peter tells us that God's grace is as varied as the trials we face, so you can be confident that He will help you. Your first weapon is prayer, surrendering yourself as you seek His guidance. You can also explore alternate curriculum options, seek to plan your schedule and days more carefully, and practice employing the word "no" with a smile. I'm primarily referring to not agreeing to participate in every possible activity, but choosing them carefully, ensuring that they provide greater benefit than cost to you in time, preparation, and energy. This was a hard lesson for me.

Lastly, I strongly encourage you ... don't give up! If you know in your heart that you are called to homeschool your children, then press on. If your current approach isn't working, then explore other options. Attending a homeschool convention is a great way to revive your vision, explore those options and redirect your efforts. Perhaps this needs to be a 'Mother's Day/Weekend Out' type of trip, giving you time to get away, rest and renew your energies. Trust me, you are worth it!

2010-04-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was my first homeschool convention of the season. I traveled to what I consider my "home" event - the CHEF of LA convention near Baton Rouge. Though the attendance is not high at this event, it is always encouraging to see familiar faces and meet new homeschoolers who are just beginning their journey.

Mike Farris of Home School Legal Defense Association was a keynote speaker this year. Though the graduation of my youngest son finished my years as an active homeschooler, I still like to stay abreast of what is happening in the community, so I purchased the recordings of his sessions. He opened with a "Past, Present and Future" view of homeschooling which I found very interesting! The homeschooling movement has reached the 30-year mark, and it is obvious that God has intervened repeatedly to open doors and clear the path. However, lest we become complacent in our assumption that our rights to homeschool will continue, I encourage you to beware. There are still many individuals and groups who seek to quietly take those rights away. Stay alert to what is going on outside your homeschool walls ... the enemy is prowling ...

While a wide variety of informative sessions were being held, my assistant, Sherrie, and I spoke with veteran and prospective homeschoolers about their options. For those of us who grew up with a classroom education, textbooks and related materials seem to be the norm for education; but there is so very much more available. I think back to the various travels that my boys experienced through the pages of biographies, classics and historical fiction, immersed in the lives and thoughts of the characters in the books; and I would not want to return to the surface-skimming pages of a textbook. One episode in particular has stuck in my memory for some 14 years ...

In our first year of using Sonlight, my 5th grader had read a biography of Orville and Wilbur Wright, and his Language Arts assignment was to pretend that he was their mother, Mrs. Wright, and write a letter to her grandchildren relating a story from their father's childhood. The idea was for my son to review all the accounts he had read of the Wright brothers' adventures and select one to narrate in an informal letter format. However, my son informed me that he couldn't complete the assignment. "Why not?" I asked. "Because the Wright brothers were bachelors all their lives, and they didn't have children for her to write to!" was his reply. I was momentarily dumbfounded. I had not grasped that level of detail about their lives from the textbook that I had read as a child. I knew that they flew the first plane at Kitty Hawk, NC, in the early 1900s, but I did not know that their father owned a bicycle shop and their childhood exposure to mechanical things had sparked their inventive minds. This was a clear illustration of the level of comprehension and retention that a child experiences from real books as opposed to textbooks.

What are your stories? Did you have a Sonlight "aha" moment? I would love for you to share with us all ...

Kelly

The Coupons Are Coming!

2010-04-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Have you made plans to attend a homeschool convention this spring or summer? I would recommend that you consider it. Homeschool conventions can provide a number of benefits for you, whether you attend by yourself or with a friend as a mom's weekend away, or you go with your husband and focus on working together to set a plan for the next school year.

Convention organizers work to line up speakers and workshop sessions that will provide encouragement and guidance for you as you embark on new stages of homeschooling. The vendor hall offers the opportunity to view materials that you may be considering using with your children.

Granted, you may already be settled in the curriculum that suits your family perfectly, and you prefer not to be confused by a wide array of different options; but if your curriculum of choice is Sonlight Curriculum, then visiting the vendor hall at your homeschool convention will not only let you see what's coming next ... you will also leave the Sonlight booth with a $15 coupon to apply to your order of $50 or more. This is the first time such an offer has been available. And that's not all ... if you place your order with Sonlight by Sunday night after the convention, and include a note in the comment box to the effect of "rush processing per [your Consultant's name]" then Sonlight will process and ship your order on Monday at no additional cost to you. That means that you will have your order before the end of the week following the convention! How cool is that?

To find out what events will feature Sonlight Curriculum Booths in their vendor halls, go to the Homeschool Convention page and use the map or the calendar listing. If you are in Louisiana, Mississippi, or near Orlando, check the listing in the right margin of this blog to access details about the events that I will attend. Come visit my Sonlight booth - I'd love to talk to you about your experiences with Sonlight, your potential use of Sonlight, and provide you with a Sonlight catalog and your very own coupon.

The Catalogs Are Coming ...

2010-03-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

This is always an exciting time of year for the Sonlight community as anticipation of the new catalog arrival builds. Some creative Sonlighters write poetry expressing their excitement, while others compose songs to new or existing melodies, calling on their mailbox to produce the desired publication. The new catalog goes into effect on April 1st, but I'll let you in on a secret ... it will most likely arrive before that date!

I answered my doorbell today to find our UPS delivery man standing on the porch with a two-wheeled cart stacked high with boxes of Sonlight catalogs. This is my stock for conventions this spring and summer. You would be proud of me for helping him stack them in the entry hall and waiting patiently for him to leave before pouncing on the top box to pull out the treasured catalog. In the years that I have used Sonlight, my appreciation for the UPS and FedEx delivery men has grown as they bring me box after box of treasured materials.

If you have ordered from Sonlight in the last two years, or visited a Sonlight convention booth, set up a customer account on the Sonlight website, or requested a catalog since the beginning of this school year, there is a Sonlight catalog with your name on it winding its way through the postal service for delivery to your mailbox.

When it arrives, set aside some time to curl up in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee or glass of tea, and explore its pages. If questions arise, don't hesitate to contact me at klutman@sonlight.com and I will be glad to provide answers.

Kelly

Spring into Convention Season

2010-03-12T14:14:00.001-08:00

I don't know what it looks like outside your house today, but I have caught myself standing at the window gazing at the sunshine and the evidence of new growth all around. Thanks to El Nino (there's a Physical Science topic for you to research with your children) we've had a very wet winter ... including over 25" of rain in December alone! Add to that the much colder weather that so many experienced nationwide and you can understand why I welcome temperatures that allow me to open the windows and welcome the breeze. Trees are beginning to bud and some are even in bloom down here on the Gulf Coast, and the birds are busy tending the nests they have built, singing as they work. What a delight!

Beyond the beauty outside, I am eagerly anticipating the start of homeschool convention season. Whether you attend a convention for the vendor hall, or preparation for the next level of teaching, or to get rejuvenated after a long winter, there is usually a lot of benefit to be found. Conventions also offer an opportunity for homeschooling moms (or couples) to get a few days away to restore their focus and enjoy some adult conversation. I hope that you will look for me at the conventions I will be attending - CHEF of LA in Greenwell Springs, LA, on April 22-24, MHEA in Starkville, MS, on May 14-15, FPEA in Orlando, FL, on May 27-29, and SWLA CHEF in Moss Bluff, LA, on July 30-31.

The Sonlight booth will be an exciting spot to visit, with an expanded size, a new look, the new Sonlight catalog, and the opportunity to get your hands on our materials. For the first time ever, we will also be giving a $15 coupon for a purchase over $50 to every family who visits the booth as a convention special! Stop by the booth and fill out the contact card to receive your new catalog and the coupon, as well as be entered in a drawing for a number of goodie bags.

If you look in the right-hand margin above my convention listings, you'll find a link for a Convention Survival Tips article that offers suggestions for planning your convention trip to reap the most benefit. Here's a tip tidbit ... bring along some of the printed return address stickers you get free in the mail, and use those for any vendor contact cards you are asked to fill out. It saves you a lot of time - especially at a large convention - and ensures that your information is legible for the vendor.

I look forward to seeing you somewhere along the Gulf Coast in the next few months. Until then, focus on your goals for this year and finish strong. You can do it!

Kelly

Win ... By Referring a Friend!

2010-02-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

As winter draws to a close – at least that’s what we are anticipating here in the South – the homeschool convention season is just around the corner. I just spent several days in Littleton, CO, brainstorming with other Sonlight Consultants, and I have lots of new ideas in my head. I’m looking forward to my first event in April and having an opportunity to share Sonlight with homeschoolers like you.

Watch here for more information concerning a special, exclusive offer for each person who visits my Sonlight booth at the CHEF of LA, MHEA, FPEA, AH Expo or SEHS Expo events in 2012.

I’m offering a gift to my customers who refer a friend to me. The friend you refer must be 1) new to Sonlight – you are welcome to refer yourself if you are not already a Sonlight customer – and 2) make a purchase of at least $50 this year after I receive your referral. What’s the gift that I’m offering? It’s a free Sonlight book and a trio of Smencils. What are Smencils? They are scented pencils, available in either colored pencil or traditional #2 lead, that come in plastic tube cases to preserve their scent. They offer a unique twist to your child’s school work – a fresh aroma for your school – and a Sonlight book is always a treat. Send your friend’s contact information to me via e-mail at klutman@sonlight.com with “Sonlight Referral” in the subject line. I will register them as a new customer and introduce myself to them as their personal Sonlight Consultant.

If you are not currently a Sonlight customer, you are welcome to refer yourself … you can be your own friend.

It’s a great opportunity for both you and your friend – they get a personal Sonlight Consultant, available to answer their questions year ‘round, and you get a gift. Send me their contact information via e-mail, or your friend can contact me directly, telling me that you referred them. You both win, so send that e-mail now!

In case you are wondering, neither Sonlight nor I will share your friend’s contact information with anyone else. It is important to you and to us.

When a Written Test is a Must ...

2010-02-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

Tests will be part of academic life at every level. You have a great deal of freedom to adapt your testing techniques in the homeschool environment, but should also offer opportunities for your child to test in the traditional method in order to be prepared for standardized testing, college testing and entrance exams. Let’s review some methods for your child to cope with the written test, no matter what his or her learning style.

For the auditory learner, thinking noises and processing information vocally are common. These can usually be accommodated in your daily educational activities, but in a group testing environment, the noise would be distracting for others. If you know the test administrator, you may be able to get permission for your child to listen to music on an iPod to provide the auditory cover needed. But don’t overlook the need for providing practice in a quiet testing environment. Make it a game. Start by challenging your child to work quietly for just 5 minutes, then build on that. When your child can work quietly for a reasonable span of time, add some further challenge such as distracting noises to help your child condition his auditory brain to tune out sounds.

A visual learner can be distracted simply by the appearance of the test itself. Lots of questions, lots of bubbles on a multiple choice test, disorderly presentation … any of these can present distractions to your visual learner. Coach your child to cover distracting portions of the test. A hand or second sheet of paper can be used to cover lower portions of the test, enabling your child to focus on the upper portion. The “wrong” answers on a multiple choice test are actually called distracters. These can cause your child to overthink the answer. Coach your child to cover the answers, read the question and think of the answer before looking at the choices, then mark the answer.

Your kinesthetic learner, aka wiggle worm, may find himself overwhelmed by the effort to simply sit still and not be able to answer the questions. Test whether manipulating a piece of clay or small stress ball, or chewing gum, will “release” your child to focus on the written work. As with the auditory learner, practice test conditions, challenging your child to be still for progressively longer periods. Or, find acceptable movement for a test environment – such as highlighting words, doodling in the margins – provided that the movement doesn’t occupy all of your child’s time at the expense of answering the questions.

Though written tests are not the only means for evaluating your child’s mastery of concepts, they cannot be completely avoided. Preparing your child to cope with the written test setting will provide him or her with a step up toward success.

Adapt the Dreaded Timed Test

2009-10-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

Does your child get completely distracted and overwhelmed by the timer involved in a timed test of Math facts or other details? Timers certainly added a lot of pressure when I was a child – my body would tense up and my mind would be dominated by the ticking of the timer rather than the facts that I knew flowing onto the paper. Can you relate? Can your child?

So, what’s the point of the timed test? We recognize the benefit of being able to quickly present Math facts as the basis for more involved calculations, but does the timed test provide an incentive that works for all children? Why not let your child compete against himself, rather than others or that dreaded timer? Provide your child with the test sheet, record the time that he begins, and the time he finishes the page. The next time, his goal is to complete it in less time. That would be improvement, right? Try it … I would bet your child will like it!

Have a Tête-à-tête …

2009-10-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

The term is borrowed from French, meaning “head to head,” which is a great description of discussion in the homeschool environment. Of course, the French term implies a private conversation between two people, and your discussion can include several family members, but I think you get the idea.

Narration can be part of this discussion. When you read a book out loud to your child, or your child reads a book independently, you can use narration to determine how much the he or she grasps the content. If the book is non-fiction, ask your child to share details from what you read. Does this request leave him or her stymied? Lead off with a question, or ask your child for information regarding a particular person or event. If the book is fiction, ask your child to retell the events of the story. Doing this helps him or her to practice following the plot of the story. After your child has completed the narration, you can expand on the retelling of the story by asking clarifying questions, helping your child to further explore the action in the story or the choices made by characters.

Take narration a step further and you can combine fine arts and kid creativity by having your children reenact the story. Costumes and props can be simple or they can further expand the visual aids you employ in reviewing what was read. Have artistic children? Let them draw or create 3D representations (we called these dioramas when I was in school) of the story. Incorporate other subject skills by having them create a newspaper article or another form of creative writing that will go far beyond the traditional book report. Remember the enticing presentations at the end of Reading Rainbow? Those children were “selling” the books that they had read, providing just enough information and personal testimony to catch your attention and make you want to read the book, too.

Any of these methods will demonstrate your child’s grasp of the book content, and make the most of his or her creative nature.

What About Testing?

2009-09-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

"I know some kids who ought to exercise a right not to have their intelligence tested. They run the high risk of having their minds misrepresented by a score."
Mel Levine, M.D., A Mind at a Time

Tests have been a part of school since the classroom was established. Let's face it, tests were necessary for a teacher with a large number of students to evaluate and a limited amount of time to do so. But different learning styles absorb and process information in different ways, while most tests demand that the information be presented in one particular way. If your child doesn't seem to do well on tests, it is very likely that the test is calling for information in a way that doesn't match his or her learning style. A child that processes information globally will easily grasp big-picture concepts but will have difficulty breaking down information to specific details for a short-answer test; and likewise, an analytic child will quickly identify the details, but will have difficulty "seeing" the big picture.

Think back to your days in the classroom ... what was the normal environment for tests? Everyone sitting still at their desks, nobody permitted to speak, paper and pencil at hand and a timer (or was it just a clock) ticking. Sound familiar? There was an aspect of challenge for everyone in the room ... beyond the global versus analytic issues, the kinesthetic child can't move, the auditory child can't talk, and the visual child can't use visual aids. It's a wonder that more children through the decades didn't fall through the cracks of traditional testing. Perhaps they actually did.

Do you get the impression that I'm saying testing isn't necessary? Not really. Just don't confuse testing with accountability. A paper and pencil test isn't always the best way to evaluate your child's grasp of a subject. If you know your child's learning style, make that a primary consideration when you decide how to measure the level of your child's knowledge and grasp of the subject. Yes, they will need the discipline of being able to complete a written test, but that is not the sole means for evaluation.

We'll be talking about different alternate approaches to testing in the coming days ...

Tradition or Adaptation?

2009-08-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

I know many families who have begun their school year - some venturing out for the first time, and some continuing the adventure where they left off earlier. I recently came across a book by Cynthia Tobias that reminded me of some ideas that may be of help to you. Our family's schooling experience was greatly enhanced by the information that I gleaned from several of Cynthia's books, starting with The Way They Learn, which is available from Sonlight.

Cynthia writes, "We do need educational reform, but most of all we need to remember who we are trying to educate. The students should be our first priority - each child should be considered an important and valuable customer who can potentially change the world for the better. We should keep our standards high, our academic goals clear, and our code of ethics strong. The point is, we need to teach kids to think, not just feed them facts to think about. That means we'll need to pay attention to the individual learning strengths and preferences of each student."

Cynthia inspired me to break the mold of my traditional education and adapt my approach to meet the needs of my children. While we still used the table for some of our work, we often abandoned it for more comfortable surroundings that were more conducive to my children focusing on the task at hand. I discovered that one of my boys was much more comfortable in softer lighting, that another could focus better when stretched out on the floor, and another was geared for best performance later in the day. There are a variety of aspects of your child's physical environment that could be modified to maximize his ability to focus and learn. These include the type of lighting (bright, soft, fluorescent, etc.), the seating arrangements (desk, table, floor, comfy chair, etc.), the temperature of the room, even the time of day that they are doing their work. Engage your child in experimenting with the best arrangement, but remember to hold him accountable for proving that the non-traditional study environment he prefers actually produces the best results.

What to do with the toddlers?

2009-08-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

We've all been in that place in life - maybe you are there now - where we have a toddler who has significantly increased the activity level in our house as he runs circles around us until that blissful moment when he falls asleep. In the midst of this circumstance, you ask, how can I possibly homeschool? The answer is that you can, if you have a plan.

Let's face it, with a toddler in the house, you won't get much of anything done unless you have a plan. You know your child's ebbs and flows, so to speak. There will be times that he needs one-on-one, and there are times that he needs to be trained to work with the team. Don't fall into the mindset that everything must revolve around him constantly, and that his education (in terms of training, not academics) will wait until he is 4 or 5 years old. Begin now to introduce the concept of working together, helping with chores, etc.

There are a variety of ways to occupy a toddler or even incorporate him in your schoolwork. I would suggest that you look at my earlier posts pertaining to using movement to teach wiggly children - with modification, these methods can work to occuply toddlers, too. Other ideas would be:

~ set up small collections of toys in bins labeled for each school day (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) and offer those to your toddler on just that day of the week. Seeing these toys so infrequently will make them seem "new" and keep the child interested longer while you work with the older children.

~ create a place for the toddler to "do school" - whether in the high chair, in a chair at the table, or at a small table nearby - and give him tasks to work on. These can include lacing cards, stacking blocks, connecting Legos or Duplos, or other small-scale activities.

~ establish a "recess" for each of the older children to play with the toddler while you focus on a subject with one of the other children.

~ make the most of nap time, saving subjects for which an older child needs quiet to concentrate or your undivided attention, provided nap time falls at a time of day when that child is at his or her peak in focus ability.

~ if you use music to help your children memorize, encourage the toddler to participate. I particularly recommend the Sing the Word Bible memorization CDs that Sonlight offers - they work well at home or in the car.

You will be amazed at what they can learn just by being in the room with you while you teach your older children. I remember a TV commercial that illustrated this so very well ... it featured a family eating breakfast and Dad quizzing his son on the state capitols. When he asked him the capitol of Vermont, the boy seemed stumped, but his little sister, sitting in her high chair, looked up from the food on her tray and called out "Montpelier!" It could happen in your home, too!

Larger Movement for Learning

2009-07-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

While incorporating small, quiet opportunities for movement may be appropriate for certain times in your school day, there are also other times when larger movement is needed. I would define "larger movement" as incorporating either the whole body or larger muscle groups.

One of the favorite tips that a good friend shared with me was adapting the idea of hopscotch to rehearsing facts. Take a collection of index cards and label them according to the facts you wish to review - examples would be letters, numbers, parts of speech, etc. The cards needed for the review are then scattered on the floor and as you ask a question, your child will jump on the card and say the answer. For example, if you are reviewing addition facts, you might scatter an assortment of numbered cards on the floor (space them according to reasonable jumping distances). When you call out "3 + 5" your child will answer (loudly, if you wish) "8" and jump on the index card labeled "8".

Another approach would be to play toss with a bean bag as you and your child recite linear information - meaning a series that has a beginning and an end, such as the books of the Bible, skip counting to 50, or even a memorized passage. I recommend using a bean bag so that if someone misses a catch you aren't as likely to need to chase it far as you might a ball.

Have you ever considered playing "Mother May I" as a part of reviewing details? This can be done with a group of children, even when they aren't on the same level. As "Mother" you can control what questions you ask each child (varying the difficulty as appropriate) and how they would advance when the answer is correct. Try it ... you might discover a whole new way to review everyone's History, Language Arts, Science or Math facts in one activity ... and have fun in the process!

Who says learning can only be accomplished sitting at a table or desk?

Pardon a slight detour ...

2009-07-28T06:31:00.001-07:00

I have shared in an earlier post about the seasons of change that I am walking through this year. I know that my last post was the first in a series where I am sharing tips for working with wiggly students, and I will continue that ... but right now I am about to wiggle out of my own skin with gratitude to the Lord for the precious gift He brought into our family on Sunday.

Little Liv joined our family almost a month earlier than expected. She has wasted no time in wrapping our hearts around hers and we rejoice in her life and all the plans that God's Word says have already been written for her.

So now I carry the added title of "grandma" or whatever actual name it works out to be. New horizons, great excitement, even a fresh perspective on family. I am blessed!

Quiet Movement While Learning

2009-07-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

As we break out of the classroom mold and discover the freedom we have in adjusting our methods and the environment we provide our children for learning. For the wiggle worm - the child who needs their world to stay in motion in order to be able to focus on details - there are a variety of types of movement which can be incorporated into your learning activities. I've already mentioned in my last post letting them manipulate Silly Putty or Play Doh in their hands, or sitting in a rocking chair, while they listen to you read out loud or discuss a topic with you. Other ideas could include:

~ salt dough ... building a model as they listen to a story
~ Legos ... provide a specific building assignment
~ drawing ... better to trace or copy and color a picture than freestyle drawing
~ bounce on a mini trampoline
~ provide a bowl of screws, a screwdriver and a piece of scrap wood
~ sort a bowl of assorted craft puff balls by size or color
~ mopping the floor, dusting furniture
~ create patterns with rubber bands on a geoboard
~ play with paper dolls (many historical sites offer thematic paper dolls in their gift shops - these can be geared for girls or boys)

Next I'll be posting ideas for larger movement to incorporate as you seek to provide the keys your child needs to unlock his educational success.

Starting a new homeschool year?

2009-07-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

Are you just considering the option of homeschooling? Perhaps your child's experience in the traditional classroom has been a wake-up call to the difference between his gifts and their teaching style. On the other hand, you may have already been homeschooling and realized that your definition of learning - most likely established in your experiences as a child in the classroom - do not seem to connect with your child. That's okay ... in fact, it's quite common. As mothers, we may have carried, birthed and raised them, but we all realize fairly early that no two children are alike, and they are often very different from us!

So my first encouragement - you may call it a 'nugget of wisdom' based on years of experience in breaking out of the classroom mold - would be to NOT emulate the classroom! Especially if you pulled your children out of that environment because it wasn't working. Think about it: you have most likely been with your child more than anyone else on this planet - you fed and diapered him when a baby, you encouraged him as he took his first steps, you protected him as he explored his environment, you taught him to talk and to dress himself - so why wouldn't you be equally qualified to teach him academic subjects as well? Follow your instincts, listen to your child radar, and build on what works for your child.

Who decided that children needed to be sitting in a desk or at a table to do their schoolwork? Perhaps that's necessary to maintain order in a classroom, but in the tutorial environment of your home there are a variety of appropriate locations for your child to learn. I learned very quickly that my wiggly boys needed to shift locations often, so we would alternate between my reading to them while they sat on the couch or lounged on the floor and sitting at the table (or a reasonable surface) for written work. When it was far too distracting for a child to sit at the table, they would move their work to the kitchen counter and stand while they completed it.

A particularly wiggly child is usually a signal that they need to be moving in order to learn. If you want their ears and mind tuned in while you read to them or discuss something, let them manipulate something (Silly Putty, for example) in their hands, or sit in a rocking chair to add motion. Sitting on a large exercise ball may be a better option than a solid chair at the table, because they can incorporate motion while they are working (and it is usually quiet motion). Allow such motion will "free" your child to listen and focus.

Pay attention to your style. If you tend to speak fast and energetically, you will rev up your already wiggly child. When you need them calm for an activity, lead into that time with your own calm actions and voice. Have you ever had an energetic game of tug of war with a dog? When you are ready to quit, the dog is usually still eager to play, and it takes some effort with a calm voice and gentle petting to get them to mellow out. It's really the same with your children. So consider how you can help your child prepare for the next activity.

Use this summer to talk with other homeschooling parents, research ideas and build your repertoire of learning approaches to meet your child(ren)'s needs. If you try something and it bombs, set it aside and look for another idea. Just remember, it's not that your child is defective, he is just wired to learn differently. Your goal is to find what works with his wiring.

Where have the months and years gone?

2009-07-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

I've been significantly absent from this blog for far too long. Don't think for a moment that I was lounging on a secluded island paradise ... that rarely happens in real life. No, I've been working through a season of change, and I'm still in the process.

May saw my usual busy schedule of homeschool conventions - I traveled to Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Florida - in which I was delighted to speak with hundreds of homeschool families. I gave workshops for large groups, but the most rewarding is speaking directly with homeschooling parents, finding out where they are in their homeschool journey, what their goals are, what ages they are teaching, and offering them suggestions for making the journey simpler and more fulfilling. I love it! God equipped me as an encourager, and has given me many experiences from which to share.

Once the conventions were over we had the final flurry of preparations for the high school graduation of our youngest son. There was plenty of planning and prep that went into our ceremony for 12 local homeschooled students, and it was punctuated with foggy reminiscent periods of the 19 years that we have homeschooled. This wasn't just his graduation, it was mine, too. I am no longer an active homeschooling parent. Wow! I never pictured this day when we first ventured into homeschooling so many years ago. Sure, there have been some rough times, but I wouldn't trade our experiences for anything, especially not a yellow school bus.

Graduation might have brought a lull for many, but not for our family. Our son had chosen to enlist in the Army and was scheduled to leave for Basic Training less than two weeks later. We began an unchoreographed dance around each other - he trying to see all the friends that he would miss while he was gone, me trying to get details sorted out to ensure that what he needed to take was at hand and prayerfully processing the varying emotions of my youngest grown up and leaving home. That was one of the bigger shocks. Unlike the older two who went to college and came back home after each semester, the youngest was going to leave and not come home again except for hoped-for annual leave from duty, and we won't know where he will be living until later this fall. I haven't lived in this unknown since my years in my parents' home (Dad was a Marine) and the first decade of marriage (husband was in the Army).

So I'm wandering new territory. Writing letters by hand to my son who has no computer access during Basic Training, sorting through emotions, and seeking the path and plan that God has for me in this new season of life. Meanwhile, I hope to be able to impart some of what I have learned through my homeschool journey and what I am learning now. I welcome your company along the road.

First Event of the Season

2009-04-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

I attended my first event of the season last weekend. It was the CHEF of LA Homeschool Convention in Greenwell Springs, LA. This is my homestate event, and one of the smaller ones that I do, so I have the benefit of getting to know attendees and recognizing those who return year after year.

I guess since my youngest will be graduating this year, I'm getting more nostalgic as the graduation date approaches. This year, I realized that there were some attending with their small children who I remember attending as middle-school and high school students in my early years of representing Sonlight. Rather than wallow in feeling old, though, this makes me rejoice to see another generation pursuing the high calling of homeschooling their children. What a gift!

"Goal" is not a 4-letter word

2009-04-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

I have always had a part of me that resists setting goals. I don't know whether it is the connotation of the word that makes me think goals are hard and will take forever, or whether I just never had it modeled for me as a child. Whatever the reason, this is an area that I am working on in my life. Funny how various things will speak to you when you are focused on a theme ...

The following is from The Word For You Today devotional that I read regularly:
"Good planning and insight...bring...you honor and respect." Prov 3:21-22 NLT
People who set goals accomlish much more than people of equal educatio nand ability who don't. With that in mind, build these eight principles into your life.
1) Decide what you want. But first consult God. "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." (Pr 19:21 NIV)
2) Think on paper. Writing your goals down gives them a sense of permanency, plus it energizes you. "Good planning and insight...bring...you honor and respect." Wishy-washy objectives won't get you where you want to go.
3) Establish a deadline. Without a definite beginning and ending, it's easy to procrastinate and get nowhere.
4) Make a list of what you need to do. Keep it before you at all times; it'll give you a track to run on.
5) Convert your list to a plan. Decide what you need to do first and what you can do later. An organized plan is always better than trying to carry stuff around in your head.
6) Act immediately. "Be very careful, then how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity." (Eph 5:15-16 NIV) Do something! A mediocre plan that's implemented beats a brilliant one that's not.
7) Do something every day to move you forward. Build it into your schedule. For example, read systematically through your Bible, call a specific number of clients, engage in physical activity for a given time.
8) Have a goal you're willing to devote your life to ... and keep your eye on that goal at all times. "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Ps 90:12 NIV)

I found that this gave me a guide, set a process for setting goals and added pointers for pursuing the goals. Granted, we don't all meet our deadlines, and goals may change over time, but I've heard it said, "If you're aiming at nothing, you're sure to hit it." I'm working to fine-tune my aim ... how 'bout you?

Translating Sonlight to Transcript Courses

2009-04-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

In my last post I promised to provide some guidelines for breaking down Sonlight Core programs into courses that can be reported on a high school transcript. You probably recognize that Sonlight's Core programs comprise a variety of components - Bible, History, Literature, and Vocabulary/Composition in the older levels. In order to include your child's Sonlight studies on a transcript, it is best to separate these components into separate course credit. The titles you give these courses can vary according to your preference or the expectations of the college to which your child will be applying. A quick note here - your child's transcript is similar to a resume that would be submitted when applying for a job. When job hunting, it's not uncommon to tailor the resume to the business ... likewise, you can adapt your child's transcript to the particular college, even creating a unique one for each college to which your child applies. The courses wouldn't change on each one, but the way that you present them in order to highlight particular ones may make a difference in how your child's transcript is evaluated.

So, what Sonlight Core programs would be appropriate for high school credit? I would say - and this is my opinion - that Core 5 and higher could be justified as high school studies. Naturally, you would expect a high school student who is doing Core 5 (Eastern Hemispheres) to put more work into the program and projects than you would an elementary-aged student, but given the prominence that Eastern Hemisphere countries are carrying in current events, I believe that this Core program could provide an effective foundation for understanding international affairs. The likely course credit from this program would be a World Culture course titled according to your child's focus in the study, and Bible credit. The related Language Arts 5 program can provide Composition credit, but high school students do not normally count grammar as part of English credit.

Core 6 and 7 provide a two-year study of World History. These can be done as outlined, or you may prefer to focus on just the Alt 7 Condensed World History course, or the Core 7 as Modern World History (modern meaning since the Renaissance). I would suggest that the latter two options would fit better in the traditional outline of high school course requirements. Again, these would provide World History course credit, Bible credit, Composition credit if the writing assignments are completed, and Intro to Literature credit.

Core 100 provides an In-depth American History course, along with Bible, Composition and Literature credit. The amount of credit - 1/4, 1/2 or a full credit - is dependent on the amount of time devoted to the particular portions of the Core program or coursework.

Core 200 provides a study titled, History of God's Kingdom. I have used this title on a transcript submitted to a Christian college, or shifted the course title to World Civilizations for a transcript submitted to a secular college. Again, the course would generally provide credit for History, Bible, Composition and Literature.

Core 300 provides a World History course focused on the 20th Century. You may want to indicate that focus in your course title. The Core would provide credit for History, Bible, Composition and 20th Century Classic Literature. In this case, I gave my sons a full course credit for the Literature because of the numbers of works that were included.

Core 400 provides a combination of American Government and Civics, along with a hefty dose of American Literature. If your child covers all of the scheduled materials, I would suggest that you can give 1 credit for American Government, 1/2 credit for Civics or Political Science, 1 credit for Bible, 1/2 credit for Composition, and 1 credit for American Literature. You may even choose to give "honors" credit for portions of the Core 300 or Core 400 programs because of the robust content when compared to traditional textbook programs.

Lastly, Core 530 provides a focus on British Literature. This is not a complete Core program in the sense of incorporating Bible, History and Literature, but can be used in preparation for taking the AP English Literature exam. Please note that this course is not endorsed as an AP course by the College Board.

I highly recommend Cafi Cohen's book, Homeschoolers' College Admission Handbook, for guidance and samples of high school transcripts.

Transcripts - What's the Buzz?

2009-03-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

As I have talked with homeschoolers, it appears that one of the primary concerns of those considering the high school years is the issue of transcripts. The very term seems to strike fear into homeschoolers. Okay, I'll admit that as my oldest entered high school, I was not certain how I would create a transcript, but a friend walked me through the process, and perhaps now I can alleviate your fears by walking you through it as well.

First of all, there are two different aspects to preparing a transcript: 1) compiling the records, and 2) actually creating the document.

Compiling the records is best done yearly rather than in the final stages of the senior year. Think step by step, line by line, course by course. It is much easier to collect the information about the courses that your child completes when the material is fresh on your mind. For each of these courses, I recommend that you keep a list of what was studied, what materials were used, and how much time was devoted to the process. Your child's course may fall into a very common title such as Algebra 1, in which case you will likely have used a textbook and your child will have completed daily lessons. This is an easy course to record, since most textbook-based courses that are designed for two semesters of study would be considered 1 credit for a high school transcript. If you are recording a course of your own development, or one that is not designed in a traditional format, you will need to have your child maintain a log of the time spent on the coursework so that you can determine how much course credit to give - traditionally, 1 credit would represent 120-150 hours of work, but given the tutorial nature and efficiency of homeschooling, I lean toward the 120 hours for 1 credit. You should also create a brief description of each course and its goals as you compile your records.

The next step for transcripts is actually creating the form. This is easiest to do using the computer, but you still need to select the format you wish to use. Lest you be concerned that your transcript will not look like others, be assured that every school district produces a transcript that looks unique. Some transcripts show the coursework chronologically, and some group the coursework by general subject areas (such as English, Math, Science, and Electives). Either way is acceptable. Sonlight offers some helpful resources in Cafi Cohen's Homeschooler's College Admissions Handbook and Barb Shelton's Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+La. I have used Excel Spreadsheet software to format my transcripts and print them off. Barb Shelton offers a good suggestion ... when you print your transcript in black ink, have the principal (Dad?) sign it in blue ink so that it is clearly an original copy.

Now, when you are using a non-traditional program such as Sonlight Curriculum's literature-based Cores, you may wonder how it breaks down into courses. I'll post that in my next installment.

Homeschooling High School

2009-03-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

High school at home? Most definitely! Many parents approach me with concerns about their ability to teach the high school subjects, but I assure them - and you - that it is not the daunting task that it may seem. There is a vast array of resources available to homeschooling parents of high school students - ranging from self-study courses, to tutoring settings, to traditional texts taught by parent or by video - and don't overlook the rewarding approach of learning alongside your student. I never thought I would be learning Latin at my age, but I have found it both fascinating and rewarding to study along with my sons. Now when we tour historical sites, it has become a game to translate the wording on the seals and official plaques we encounter.

Let's face it, many of us feel inadequate to "teach" high school because we don't remember much of the material that we were supposed to have learned in our high school years. That's really not a problem. As I've worked through courses alongside my sons, I've refreshed some knowledge, discovered new areas of interest and gained some new understanding of knowledge that I had retained. That was beneficial for me, but it also demonstrated that learning can be a life-long adventure.

You might find it helpful to hear input from several Sonlighters – including me – from the Staying the Course podcast on the Sonlight website. Listen and be encouraged!

By the way, the handsome graduate pictured above is my youngest and last one.

What started our homeschool journey?

2009-03-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

Ask any homeschool parent what prompted them to begin investigating homeschooling and you will, no doubt, hear a unique story. Our reasons can be as varied as our taste in food and clothing, or our family backgrounds.

Our family's home school journey began in 1990. After teaching the middle of our three sons to read as a preschooler, we attended the local public school's Kindergarten orientation and realized very quickly that he would not be sufficiently challenged in their course of study. I had several friends who home schooled and encouraged me to consider it, so we decided to bring our oldest son home from public school and begin home schooling with a 3rd grader, a Kindergartener and a baby.

Of course, we started off with traditional textbooks because that was what I knew from my school experience. We managed through our first years this way, but frankly, it got boring...and quite challenging for me to cover all subjects for so many different grade levels. Eventually, I decided to leave the textbooks for a more hands-on learning approach and joined 4 families in a co-op using unit-based materials. Learning in this way was much more exciting, but it was not uncommon for me to spend at least 3 hours each weekend preparing for our lessons.

As our oldest son approached high school, I began looking for a method that would provide for this level of study, help me break away from a pile of textbooks for each child, and release me from extensive preparation time. I found my answer in Sonlight Curriculum. The Instructor's Guides minimize the need for preparation, we enjoyed reading much of our materials as a family, and instead of a pile of textbooks written for a captive audience, we enjoyed a collection of books that immersed our family in the environment and lives of the people who made history. Just months into our first year using Sonlight Curriculum, my children voted unanimously that it was the most fun they had had in school.

Now our oldest son has graduated from college, married and is starting a family, while the middle son is in college, and the youngest is finishing high school. For those of you who think that high school is simply too big an undertaking for the home environment, I would encourage you to reconsider. While we would all agree that it is best for parents to be home with preschoolers, I personally feel that our teenagers need us just as much. By home schooling in the high school years, you can help to shape your child's studies to prepare him for his future and provide stable support and guidance as your teen tests his or her wings.

You don't have to have the end figured out when you first start ... trust me, I certainly did not! In the beginning it was a one year at a time commitment. And then one day I realized that home school was a part of our lives, something I no longer needed to debate each summer. It has benefitted us as a family and as individuals, and enabled us to touch many lives in ways that we never would have had we followed the "norm" of shunting our children off to traditional school.

My Convention Schedule

2009-02-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

A new year brings a new lineup of homeschool conventions, with the opportunity to talk with and encourage even more of you as you explore your options. Look for me at the following events - bring your questions, bring a friend, and see how Sonlight Curriculum can meet your needs.

Download my

Convention Survival Tips

CHEF of LA Convention

April 20-21, Baker, LA
Bethany World Prayer Center

MHEA Convention

May 18-19, Starkville, MS
MS State University, Colvard Student Union

FPEA Convention

May 24-26, Kissimmee, FL
Gaylord Palms

Alabama Homeschool Expo
June 29-30, Montgomery, AL
Montgomery Convention Center

Southeast Homeschool Expo
July 26-28, Atlanta, GA
Cobb Galeria

Welcome to the Homeschool Journey

2009-02-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Homeschooling is not the new concept that it was when I started over 20 years ago, but it still represents a unique approach when compared to most parents' educational experiences. I am beginning to meet young parents who were themselves homeschooled, but they are the minority. For the rest of us, embarking on the homeschool journey requires research and adjustment of mental pictures ... and don't forget commitment.

As a Sonlight Curriculum Consultant, I'd like to be your resource for information regarding homeschooling. I've compiled some materials here to get you started, and welcome your e-mails if you have further questions. Sonlight Curriculum was the answer for our homeschool - read about Our Homeschool Journey - and I am confident that our materials can help you enjoy your journey as well.

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Getting Started
You CAN Homeschool - a video
How to Do It - a podcast
What is Literature-based Homeschooling? - a podcast

Can't get to a convention? Listen to my Sonlight workshop.
Visit my Recommended Reading page.

Creating an Education Plan - a webinar (view in your web browser)
Exploring Your Child's Learning Style - a webinar
Organizing Your Home and Homeschool - a webinar
Homeschool Goals Guide
Conquer Your Clutter in 8 Easy Steps
Concerned about Socialization? - a webinar

Break Out of the Classroom Mold
Tune in to Your Child
Quiet Movement While Learning
Larger Movement For Learning
Tradition or Adaptation
Homeschooling with Toddlers - a podcast
Taming the Rugrats - a brief webinar

Testing
What About Testing?
To Test or Not to Test - a brief webinar
Adapt the Dreaded Timed Test
Talk It Out
When a Written Test is a Must

High School Concerns
Homeschooling High School
Homeschooling High School - my workshop
Transcripts - What's the Buzz?
High School Transcripts - a 30-minute webinar
Translating Sonlight to Transcript Courses