-by Mimi Rothschild
Do you study in units? Do you have separate subjects at different times of the day? Do you get together with other families for special learning projects? There are many ways to organize the school day, and being able to make it just right for your particular students is one of the best reasons to homeschool.
Yet all these approaches can lead to a lack of integration of studies. Do your students end up with the idea that Ancient Egypt happened, and then, when it was all finished, along came Ancient Greece? Do you feel frustrated sometimes when your students don’t make connections that seem obvious to you? Do you love to follow the kids’ lead when they’re excited about a subject, but worry that your studies are too fragmented and might have gaps?
Timelines can help with all these problems, and many more. If you make a schoolroom timeline, you can add any lessons to that timeline in minutes, helping your kids to see the context, regardless of the subject area.
The time when a person lived, a nation was established, a picture was painted, a scientific discovery was made, a natural disaster took place – all these things can be marked on the timeline, giving you opportunities to put new information in context and review previously learned information as well.
You need to begin with a line. A long strand of string or yarn, a stretch of painter’s tape, or a banner of paper are all practical options. If possible, put your timeline on the wall of the room where you study so it’ll always be available. If this just won’t work with your decor, think about using an accordion fold or roll of paper so it can be stretched out and viewed all at once.
Now here’s your chance to integrate math and history. Calculate how long your timeline will be and how many years it will cover. Now, calculate how best to divide it: one inch per year is one option, but you might prefer to use one foot per decade or one yard for each century. Since these decisions depend on the space available, the length of time you’ve decided to include, and the number of events you want to be able to mark, this can be a terrific opportunity to practice problem solving and working well together.
Actually constructing the timeline will require measurement and more calculation. Mark and write in the basic time divisions neatly. This can be a chance for computer practice, if you want to print out the dates, or it can be an art or handwriting project.
Now, each time a date comes up in your studies, add it to the classroom timeline. You might want to start with some special family dates: the birthdays of all the kids, for example. Then, when you read about a person or place or thing or event, find its spot on the timeline.
You can use labels, strips of paper, lengths of yarn radiating out from the date points, or index cards lined up along the timeline. Add drawings, quotations, and even small objects. Soon, visitors to your home will be admiring your handiwork – and your students will really understand the relationship between Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.
-by Mimi Rothschild
Valentine’s Day is a light-hearted holiday, a time for thinking about the people we love. Bring some hearty fun into your homeschool lessons with these ideas:
• Take leftover candy canes from Christmas (don’t we all have a few squirreled away still?) and make easy heart candies. Put parchment paper or foil onto a cookie sheet. Lay the candy canes in pairs with the curved hooks at the top and both ends touching to form hearts. Bake them in a 200 degree oven for about five minutes, just till they melt together. Let them cool before removing from the parchment paper or foil.
• Fold construction paper in half and cut hearts, discussing basic shapes or symmetry while you do so. Cut lots in different sizes, and lay them out on paper to form bodies, heads, hands, feet, and other parts of people or animals. Draw in details for your heart creatures.
• Study heart health. Learn about heart rates, heart-healthy foods, and how the heart works. Older students can check the details on the rates of heart disease in our nation, combining math and science in a sobering lesson. Move on to plan healthy meals for the family, and an exercise plan with the recommended amount of cardiovascular exercise for the week.
• Send valentines to friends and family, using the lesson as an opportunity to practice handwriting, letter writing, or poetry, depending on the ages of your students. Free ecards are an environmentally responsible possibility, but real physical mail is getting so rare that sending a card in an envelope can be an exciting event for the recipient.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.
-by Mimi Rothschild
So many homeschool families have small family businesses which make it possible for one or both parents to devote plenty of time to homeschooling. We hear about families cheerily practicing math skills by working on small business accounting, gaining practical skills for their futures by working in the family business, or studying happily alongside the home working parents.
But we also hear about children working in the fields instead of studying, being kept out of school to babysit younger siblings while parents work, and being limited in their learning as the needs of the family business take precedence over the needs of the students.
We also hear about moms trying to earn from home and homeschool at the same time, ending up exhausted and unsatisfied with their accomplishments in either area.
Is it possible to combine homeschooling and a family business? Here are some strategies that help:
• Structure your learning – or at least some of it. We have friends who have a family band. Their kids not only perform in the band and learn business skills by assisting with management tasks, they also get to travel all over the country. We know these are valuable, educational experiences. But the kids spend their mornings working with very structured study materials. They make sure to get the basics covered, and then they benefit from the unstructured learning that is their life with the family band. You might choose to have the kids work on simple accounting or inventory tasks during math time, write business letters during writing, or help work out a marketing plan as part of a business skills class, but then make sure that all the other subjects are covered, too.
• Get feedback from the kids. Many kids are excited by the opportunity to take part in a family business, and to do tasks which they know are important and contribute to the family’s welfare. But few kids will really enjoy – or learn much from – hours of filing or packing up orders. While all students have to do some tasks they don’t enjoy, pay extra attention to feedback on work-related tasks to be sure you’re not letting the needs of the business come before the needs of the kids.
• Get help. Running a business takes a lot of work, and it may be necessary to delegate some tasks. Whether that means getting more help with homeschooling or with the business, be realistic about how much help you need. Work with the kids to set up a realistic schedule of times when you’ll work alongside them – you on the business and them on their schoolwork, when you’ll work together on business-related learning opportunities, and when you’ll work together on schoolwork and set the business aside. If all the tasks you need to do won’t fit into that schedule, then it’s time to delegate.
With caution, a family business can be a wonderful learning experience, a good way to increase funds for homeschool costs, and a chance for one or both parents to be available for homeschooling.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.
-by Mimi Rothschild
Fashions in education come and go. As homeschoolers, we can usually ignore them. One of the areas that comes up repeatedly in different guises, though, is the question of critical thinking skills.
One year the pendulum swings so far that educators are saying, “It doesn’t matter what they learn, only that they learn how to learn.” The next, it’s back to the basics, with rote memorization of facts at the center of teaching. Then we’re back to critical thinking, but calling it “problem-solving.”
The latest version of this debate is being called “21st Century Skills,” and some educators are hailing it as the most important new thing on the horizon. Critical thinking, creativity, problem identification, and the ability to work with others to solve problems are all part of this new constellation of skills that we’re told has arisen from new technologies and new ways of approaching the world.
As homeschoolers, we aren’t bound by educational fashions, so we can see that there’s nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
James 1:5 tells us, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him.” The source of wisdom is, and always has been, God, who created us with the ability to reason. The book of Proverbs talks often about critical thinking: “A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.” (Proverbs 14:15) “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” (Proverbs 19:2)
Critical thinking means that we read and listen carefully, making sure to understand and search for evidence for the claims made. We must be able to dissect the reasoning behind an argument and judge its validity. We should think creatively, since we are made in the image of the Creator God, and have the God-given the ability to think and to delight in new thoughts.
As for working collaboratively with others, we have the example of Jesus before us, as well as the word of God on the subject: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:13-18)
So how can we help our students to gain the ability to learn, understand, reason clearly, and yet also to work with others to solve problems peaceably?
Read together, and use questions like these to guide your children toward wisdom:
Approach problems, such as puzzles, complex math questions, and practical challenges, with a spirit of inquiry. Questions like these will help lead your kids to take a critical thinker’s approach to problem-solving:
Finally, we should make sure that we don’t confuse critical thinking with a rebellious spirit. “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you,” says Proverbs 32:9. Our God-given understanding allows us to delight in learning about God’s ways, not to refuse the wisdom of God’s word.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.
-by Mimi Rothschild
With winter weather and the time pressures of getting ready for the holidays, homeschoolers may be spending less time out and about. We can still give our kids the benefits of field trips, though. Later in this post, you’ll find a list of just some of the many wonderful museums you can visit online.
Get the most from your field trips by following a few simple steps:
• Visit the site yourself first. This way, you can see what background your students will need in order to get the most from the online visit, and you can choose an appropriate objective for the visit.
• Choose a learning objective for each of your children. Older students can write reports, while younger ones can do a virtual scavenger hunt, sending you a link to a page you asked them to find. Many sites also have games or quizzes designed for kids, and these can be excellent objectives.
• Follow up. Just visiting is fun, but taking that knowledge and applying it to other lessons is the way to make the learning stick. Have students write, draw, retell their learning to other family members, or in other ways use the things they’ve learned.
Favorite places to visit:
• The Cave of Lascaux is a beautiful website, allowing us to visit a place few people can see in the physical world. The artworks made there by early humans show that they, like their sovereign Creator, were made with a desire to create. Enjoy a Virtual Visit to the cave, learn its history, and finish up with online quizzes and puzzles.
• Visit The Virtual Instrument Museum to see, hear, and learn about a dazzling array of instruments made from all kinds of different materials. You can enjoy exploring the museum in a free-form way, but it’s also a great opportunity to practice geography by finding the homes of all the instruments on a map as you explore, or to work on critical thinking skills by sorting the exhibits.
• The National Museum of the American Indian has lots of wonderful exhibits. One is about the history of Native American women’s clothing. Another is the special online resource about Native American Codetalkers. Click on the “Education” button and then the “Print Resources” button to find a variety of PDF files to print out, including posters.
• It isn’t only museums that make good virtual field trips. Check out the Virtual Cave for an excellent science lesson. There are plenty of amazing photographs, and lots of information as well.
• The Exploratorium is probably the best science museum for kids around, and they have so many great resources that you’ll need to make more than one visit. Take time for free exploration, or build field trips into lots of your science lessons.
• A cyber field trip on the Grimms Fairy Tales can include reading the classic fairy tales as well as some history and geography. National Geographic has done a good job on this website, with stories to read and listen to, plus background information and creepy graphics that add to the fun. The treasure chest on the left side of the home page hides the contents list, including kids’ activities.
The web is a wonderful thing, and it changes every day. If your favorite virtual field trip destinations disappear over time, you can find new ones by searching for “virtual museum” or for your favorite real-world museums – chances are they have online exhibits.
Leave us a comment telling us about your favorites!
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.