If you have an apprehensive writer, the dot game can help you get your kiddo to practice writing without even knowing he's doing it. Really! I was playing the dot game earlier this evening with my apprehensive writer, and halfway into the game I realized he was drawing a lot of lines and wrote the letter "E" close to 35 times, and he hadn't complained once.
Here's how to play:
1) Using paper and pencil, make a grid of dots. Line them up evenly both horizontally and vertically. You can make the grid as big or small as you want. (The bigger you make it, the more practice they get. But you may want to start out smaller until they get the hang of the game.)
2) Each player gets a pencil (preferably a different color for each player).
3) The first player starts by connecting two dots with a small line.
4) The next player does the same thing.
5) The object of the game is to be the player who makes the final line that "closes" a box. For each box that you "close" with your line, you get to write the initial of your first name in the box.
6) When you make that "closing" line, you also get to take another turn. If you close another box with that turn, you get to keep going until you can't close anymore boxes. Then it's the other player's turn again.
7) The player with the most boxes wins.
*This is a great game to play when you are waiting in the car, in a line, or anywhere when the time is dragging by. You can be creative with the letters that you have your little ones write in the boxes. They can use different letters from their name for each game you play, you could use numbers--whatever you want your little guy to practice. If you want to check it out, CLICK HERE to play the online version.
Wisdom of the World
As I was reading my Bible today, God reminded me that what is important to the world is not the same as what is important to Him. I was reading about knowledge and wisdom in 1 Corinthians, and I was reminded of what is important for my kids to learn in our home school.
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| wise old owl |
I was reminded that the Bible teaches that we should be knowledgeable by God's standards, and not conform to what the world teaches us, or to the demands that it places upon us. My prayer is that in our home, I would teach my children to be wise in the Lord and not in the world. That I wouldn't compare what we're learning in our home to what others are learning in their homes, or conform to what others may think I should be teaching my kids.
It's important to always remember why we homeschool, and to keep a clear vision of those reasons. If we don't, it's too easy to get caught up in trying to keep up with the Joneses, or trying to get the highest test scores, or trying to ____________ (add your choice of wording here). Keep your eye on the prize. Keep your heart close to the Lord's. And, keep teaching your kids what is important according to Jesus.
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise b the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness" ; and again; "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. ~1 Corinthians 2:18-20
Bad Days
Even homeschoolers have bad days. Whether the kids are cranky, the parents are cranky, the kids are bickering, or refusing to do school work, bad days happen! Homeschooling isn't free from problems, so don't ever get the wrong idea of how my days go.
Some of the days we have make me want to send my kids to public school--until the storm passes, then I'm thankful to have them at home with us. But, still, there are days when I'm at the end of my rope. So, don't be fooled, although there are lots of fun and smiling pictures on here, we're just people too. We have bad days. But it is nice to be able to drop our books and head to the beach or do something else to take the stress out of our day. We always have the next day to catch up!
Spontaneous Creativity
When my oldest son, Thomas, was about 4 or 5 years old, he was in the Spider Man phase. He had the toys, watched the cartoons, and made spiderwebs. Yep! He constructed spiderwebs throughout my house and once he even made my mom (his grandma) late for work because it was obstructing access to the kitchen! Ha ha! Those are fond memories; I'm sure my mom agrees.
When I got married, my son was still into that phase and would frequently build spiderwebs in our new apartment. His webs were huge--they would occupy an entire room, whether it was the kitchen, the living room, or the bathroom. He could work quickly and effectively, and he was just a little guy.
A few days ago, he decided to share the gift of spiderweb-making with his younger brother, Ethan. So, he used the staircase and taught Ethan how to construct a spiderweb. But, this time he had a little something extra to add to their masterpiece! Can you spot it?
This is one of the many joys of homeschooling. Spontaneous creativity is a part of our daily lives and it's so fun to watch and be a part of. I especially enjoy being witness to the teamwork of my children as they problem solve and laugh together. Art for today...check!
Empty Toilet Paper Rolls (tubes)
I have these in abundance at my house. And, not just because we use a lot of toilet paper, but because I can't seem to throw them away. Every time there's a roll on the dispenser with just a few sheets of TP left, I have a little twinge of excitement because I know soon there will be another empty roll to add to my collection.
But, therein lies the problem...I do not know why I have this collection. I just know there is something useful we could do with them. So, I did an internet search and found a great website with quite a few creative ideas for using empty toilet paper rolls. Didn't have time to search the entire website, but it does look promising.
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| home-school-coach.com |
Here are just a few ideas they pitched on their website: a mini diorama, a nativity set, dolls, and a castle. For more ideas and instructions, you can visit their website HERE.
Addressing Envelopes
When getting ready to send a thank you card a few weeks back, I realized that my oldest son wasn't very well versed in addressing envelopes to send in the mail. It never really occurred to me that he might be missing this information. He's done it several times for thank-you cards, birthday cards, and a few others, but not nearly as much as I did growing up. I had a pen pal in Washington to whom I wrote regularly--we wrote these letters as a 3rd grade class assignment.
Since realizing this, he now addresses the majority of the pieces of mail we send. I want to make sure this information is set into his long-term memory--I think it's important to know. However, I realize that with email, video chatting, and cell phones, snail mail is becoming more of a lost medium of communication.
I decided to introduce this to my creative writing class as well. I figured that if my son was missing this, there had to be others who were missing it as well. Yup. It was true. I wasn't the only mama whose kids needed practice addressing envelopes.
To make it fun, the kids all wrote letters to their favorite authors and then when it came time to mail them, we all addressed our envelopes together as a class. It took a lot of time to get everyone through this task, but it was definitely worth it.
Decompressing
We brought our oldest son home from public school during 6th grade (which was still elementary here). We did try homeschooling in 2nd grade, but it didn't last very long and he ended up going back to public school due to various circumstances in our lives at the time.
When we brought him home this time, we researched a ton and found so much information about homeschooling. In our research we found quite a few people who gave the advice to allow a child to decompress once you've taken him out of public school. Give him time to find himself, to find what he loves, to rekindle--or find for the first time--his love for learning. Taking time to decompress also gives him time to step out of that public-school-box or mindframe and realize that homeschooling is going to be different.
What does decompressing look like? It's spending time doing nothing together, reading good books just for enjoyment (no tests or worksheets), spending lots of time in nature, delving into arts & crafts, watching good movies, spending time with God, being silly, trying out a lot of things to find what he's passionate about. There are so many things to do--basically just enjoy your child and allow them to get some fresh air as they step into this new journey called homeschooling.
One rule of thumb when deciding how long to take in the "decompressing" stage is to take one month for every year your child was in public school. I didn't take quite that long; I introduced some more structured learning after a few months, but I did it very slowly and started small. I'm glad we listened to the wisdom of others and took as much time as we needed to ease into homeschooling.
