Sunday, August 28, 2011
Weekly Homeschool Lessons: Week 1 Overview
Week 1 Lessons & Activities at "Everything Homeschooling"
Here are some of Week One's lessons and topics, as we gently ease into the New Homeschool Year! Enjoy!
Explore, Do, and Learn About:
* Language Arts:
- Writing, thinking, sketching, drawing, and keeping a Writing Journal.
- Reading and discussing a variety of books.
- Reading "Animals of the World" to learn about Geography.
- Reading stories about endangered animals online or from the library.
- Reading Classic Stories online, such as Aesop's Fables, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book, Time Machine, O Pioneers!, Great Expectations, and many more!
* Social Studies:
- Learning World Geography by reading about animals of the world.
- Reading and learning about habitats of animals around the world.
- Finding endangered species in your region through the interactive map.
- Visiting virtual zoos in locations around the world.
- Creating and crafting animals, habitats, dioramas, visual displays, and collages.
- Choosing history and social studies worksheets to do, if desired.
* Math:
- Measuring how high a rocket or kite flies.
- Making a geometric T-shirt with geometric designs.
- Creating animals, and more, with tangrams and your imagination.
- Choosing math worksheets on topics such as basic or advanced math skills, fractions, decimals, percentages, geometry, algebra, graphing, trig, if desired.
* Science:
- Observing and drawing constellations in your night sky.
- Visiting a planetarium online and viewing constellations.
- Learning 88 constellations to share with family and friends.
- Making a shoebox constellation viewer.
- Playing the Constellation Matching Game.
- Reading books on constellations.
- Building an easy DNA Model.
- Choosing science worksheets to do, if desired.
* Life Skills, Health, & Safety:
- Remembering to take care of ourselves.
- Having a stress-free homeschool year.
- Reading "cooking with kids" cookbooks for healthy meals.
- Trying some healthy recipes online.
* Arts & Music:
- Learning about different styles of art and artists.
- Designing and creating artistic hot air balloons.
- Printing and drawing art pages.
- Being creative with arts and crafts ideas.
- Choosing a new instrument to learn to play.
- Building the DNA Model on the Free Homeschool Activities page.
For 36 Weeks of Weekly Lessons for Grades K through 12, remember to visit our Everything Homeschooling website weekly at EverythingHomeschooling.com!
Happy Homeschooling!
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Why Homeschooling Is Not "School at Home"
Summer is winding down, and September is just around the corner. It's the time of year when thoughts turn to "school."
As you begin your homeschool year, remember that homeschool is not "school at home." Home education is simply a natural part of living, thinking, imagining, creating, learning, doing, and growing each day.
The "school" system was unfortunately modeled on authoritarian Prussian schools. Intents were not necessarily the "intellectual training of children but the conditioning of children to obedience, subordination, and collective life."
The state viewed itself as "the true parent of children."
As a dissatisfied Albert Einstein said about his experience with Prussian schooling: "It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."
An early proponent of state control of education in America states: "Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property." - Benjamin Rush
Sociologist Edward Ross believed in giving the child a teacher to imitate, instead of his father. He saw the school as the means for gathering "little plastic lumps of human dough from private households and [shaping] them on the social kneadingboard."
"Education reformer" Horace Mann said: "We, who are engaged in the sacred cause of education, are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."
These are just a few of the reasons why it's important to understand that homeschool is not "school at home."
As parents of wonderful, curious, eager children, spend time talking with your children to determine what interests them, what they want to explore this year, what they want to learn or delve into, and their ideas on how to go about learning these things.
What amazing things can your child imagine? What fantastic creations can your child conceive of, invent, construct, create, bring to life? What unique capabilities or qualities can your child share with others or use in a way that makes a positive difference in his or her life, as well as in the lives of others?
As author Joel Turtel stated: "Parents, for your children's sake, walk away from the public schools. Also, don't depend on vouchers or charter schools, which are few and far between. Take control of your children's education and the values you teach them by homeschooling your kids or enrolling them in a low-cost Internet private school of your choice. Your children's future is at stake, and so is, by the way, the future of our Republic and our liberties."
So, as you begin your homeschool year this year, remember that it's not "school" you want to model your homeschool upon. Rather, it's your family's values, morals, and educational goals of your children that you want to keep in mind. It's the way they learn best, that you want to model your homeschool upon. It's their curiosity, eagerness, and joy of learning that you want to follow. It's the excitement of guiding them and helping them to learn, which results in a positive educational experience for your entire family, a lifetime of wonderful memories that you will all treasure forever.
Happy homeschooling from EverythingHomeschooling.com!
As you begin your homeschool year, remember that homeschool is not "school at home." Home education is simply a natural part of living, thinking, imagining, creating, learning, doing, and growing each day.
The "school" system was unfortunately modeled on authoritarian Prussian schools. Intents were not necessarily the "intellectual training of children but the conditioning of children to obedience, subordination, and collective life."
The state viewed itself as "the true parent of children."
As a dissatisfied Albert Einstein said about his experience with Prussian schooling: "It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."
An early proponent of state control of education in America states: "Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property." - Benjamin Rush
Sociologist Edward Ross believed in giving the child a teacher to imitate, instead of his father. He saw the school as the means for gathering "little plastic lumps of human dough from private households and [shaping] them on the social kneadingboard."
"Education reformer" Horace Mann said: "We, who are engaged in the sacred cause of education, are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."
These are just a few of the reasons why it's important to understand that homeschool is not "school at home."
As parents of wonderful, curious, eager children, spend time talking with your children to determine what interests them, what they want to explore this year, what they want to learn or delve into, and their ideas on how to go about learning these things.
What amazing things can your child imagine? What fantastic creations can your child conceive of, invent, construct, create, bring to life? What unique capabilities or qualities can your child share with others or use in a way that makes a positive difference in his or her life, as well as in the lives of others?
As author Joel Turtel stated: "Parents, for your children's sake, walk away from the public schools. Also, don't depend on vouchers or charter schools, which are few and far between. Take control of your children's education and the values you teach them by homeschooling your kids or enrolling them in a low-cost Internet private school of your choice. Your children's future is at stake, and so is, by the way, the future of our Republic and our liberties."
So, as you begin your homeschool year this year, remember that it's not "school" you want to model your homeschool upon. Rather, it's your family's values, morals, and educational goals of your children that you want to keep in mind. It's the way they learn best, that you want to model your homeschool upon. It's their curiosity, eagerness, and joy of learning that you want to follow. It's the excitement of guiding them and helping them to learn, which results in a positive educational experience for your entire family, a lifetime of wonderful memories that you will all treasure forever.
Happy homeschooling from EverythingHomeschooling.com!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Easy Homeschool Forms for Keeping Homeschool Records
Our Homeschool Forms make record-keeping easy!
Subscribers can print and use the following homeschool forms from our EverythingHomeschooling.com site.
* Weekly Planner Logs - Includes space for recording daily lessons for all subjects, week by week. Tip: Use the 36 Weeks of Lessons on our site. Then jot down the activities for each subject area each day, along with any other educational activities you do.
* Reading Logs - Includes space for recording all books read, plus all reference materials you use, along with the authors' names.
* Attendance Records - For recording the days that your homeschool is "in session."
* Report Cards - For recording your child's grades, if desired.
* High School Transcripts - For recording grades and credits earned in each subject, semester by semester, year by year.
* Notice of Intent to Homeschool - For submitting to your school district, if required.
* Educational Philosophies & Educational Goals - For determining the directions you want to go with your homeschool, along with your goals and expectations for your child's education.
* High School Diploma - For awarding to your child upon his or her graduation, when your child has met the goals and standards you set for your family's homeschool.
To print these Homeschool Forms, click the "Homeschool Forms" button in the menu on the left of our EverythingHomeschooling.com site.
Happy homeschooling!
Subscribers can print and use the following homeschool forms from our EverythingHomeschooling.com site.
* Weekly Planner Logs - Includes space for recording daily lessons for all subjects, week by week. Tip: Use the 36 Weeks of Lessons on our site. Then jot down the activities for each subject area each day, along with any other educational activities you do.
* Reading Logs - Includes space for recording all books read, plus all reference materials you use, along with the authors' names.
* Attendance Records - For recording the days that your homeschool is "in session."
* Report Cards - For recording your child's grades, if desired.
* High School Transcripts - For recording grades and credits earned in each subject, semester by semester, year by year.
* Notice of Intent to Homeschool - For submitting to your school district, if required.
* Educational Philosophies & Educational Goals - For determining the directions you want to go with your homeschool, along with your goals and expectations for your child's education.
* High School Diploma - For awarding to your child upon his or her graduation, when your child has met the goals and standards you set for your family's homeschool.
To print these Homeschool Forms, click the "Homeschool Forms" button in the menu on the left of our EverythingHomeschooling.com site.
Happy homeschooling!
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