D is for Dinosaur

alphabet notebook page

I knew when I started making an Alphabet Notebook with my son that it would be a hit-or-miss activity. With seven older childer to educate and a baby to care for, it is hard to find time to time to squeeze in preschool projects. But I had no idea it would be over a year before we made it to the letter "d"!

This is actually the second page we have done for this letter. The first time, we followed the example on the Totally Tot's website and made a daisy. It was a disaster. There was no way to make it look right AND make it look like a "d." Besides, daisies don't really hold much appeal to rough and tumble little boys.

handprint dinosaurs

Yesterday CJ and I made handprint dinosaurs like the ones on Red Ted Art's Blog. He had so much fun that today I got up early today and made a pattern for a "d is for dinosaur" notebook page. He was thrilled and ran upstairs as soon as we had finished putting it together so he could show it to his oldest sister. I hope you enjoy it as much as he did.

d is for dinosaur coloring page and pattern

Home Education and The Preschooler

Although I believe strongly that children should be taught as much as possible, as young as possible, I also believe this teaching should take place in a fun and non-pressured environment. I have never set my children down to learn their colors, numbers, or shapes. They pick those up pretty easily in day to day life. Once in a while we do traditional "preschool" activities because they are fun, but not because I think they are necessary.

My children begin "formal" schooling between the ages of 3 and 4, depending on the child, learning phonics in a relaxed way while continuing natural every day learning. Additional learning is introduced casually. I try to bring home books from the library on things that interest my children, but I also use books to introduce them to new interests. Counting and math are learned with manipulatives and games; science and history through crafts, experiments, field trips, and nature walks. Geography studies are really fun to do with little ones because you can play games, do crafts, fix foods, listen to music, and wear costumes.

I try to limit writing as much as possible. Children don't usually have the physical skills for writing until about age 6, and I gave my older children a permanent dislike of writing by pushing too much too soon. Drawing is a fun alternative way to practice these skills, without the pressure (especially drawing exercises where they are supposed to copy step-by-step). Mazes and dot-to-dots also help them to practice pencil control. There are many ways to use notebooking with younger children who aren't writing yet.

Because young children absorb things so easily, it makes sense to include them whenever possible while you are teaching the older children. It also solves the problem of "what to do with the little ones" during school hours. However, it is also good to have some alternatives for the times when it won't work to include them.

Some of the solutions we have come up with are:

1. Take advantage of nap times.
2. Have the older children take turns entertaining the younger ones while you give one-on-one attention to your older students.
3. Teach the little ones to sit quietly for short periods of time and read or color.
4. Have special toys and activities prepared which the little ones can only use during these times.
5. Place them in a safe area (a playpen or their bedroom which is closed off with a baby gate) and allow them to play by themselves while you work with the others.
6. Give them a snack (or scatter cereal or chocolate chips on the floor for a scavenger hunt- they eat off the floor when you aren't watching anyway)

Sometimes, the baby is the lesson

Preschoolers add a lot of noise and chaos to the homeschool. However, their ability to absorb information and their excitement over learning adds sparkle to the learning environment. Sometimes it is necessary to use distraction techniques in order to get the lessons done. But sometimes, the baby is the lesson. Enjoy the days with preschoolers in your homeschool. They will be gone too soon.

Our Plans for Science

My two oldest boys will be doing Apologia's Chemistry this year and my 13-year-old daughter will be doing Physical Science. Since both of the boys plan to go into science related fields, we place a lot of emphasis on this subject. I splurged a little and purchased each of them one of the slightly more expensive Avory binders with the clear cover that you can slide an insert into. Then I designed a cover page for them to decorate. Here is the binder belonging to my 15-year-old "mad chemist":

The boys will be using the notebooking and lab pages from Knowledge Box Central's Chemistry Lapbook Journal and their sister will be using pages I printed from the Apologia Yahoo Group files section. I really like the KBC lab forms, but the other pages have way too many lines for answering the questions and take a lot more paper than the free pages I found in the Yahoo Group files. The grading form you see in the picture below is one that I created. 

Knowledge Box Central Notebook Journal

On Your Own Questions for Physical Science

I believe hands-on experience is the best way to learn, so experimentation and observation have always been a big part of our science education. Several years ago, we even devoted an entire month to studying slime. We've been using Apologia textbooks for six years, and my children absolutely love them because of all the experiments that are included. I love how the elementary texts have notebooking worked right into them. However, I've decided to do something a little different with my younger group this year.

I had downloaded the free Elementary Life Science text some time ago from Scott McQuerry's website. I liked his fun approach and his emphasis on experiments, but we had already covered most of the Life Science material. However, when he introduced his Earth Science text, I figured it would be the perfect way to cover some topics that none of the Apologia elementary books address. I also had a copy of Ann Voskamp' A Child's Geography: Explore His Earth (which covers a lot of the same things) and being inclined to overkill, decided to add that in too. We will be notebooking through both of these texts and filing these pages in simple 3-prong folders.

The Many Faces of Notebooking: Math

Math notebooking is a little bit more difficult than notebooking a subject like science or history. I do tend to rely on textbooks and workbooks more often than not. But we do still sneak in some notebooking and living math on occasion.

This year my 6 older children will be using Life of Fred textbooks for mathematics. We really enjoy the way the author uses a storyline in these books to bring math "into the real world."

Lessons will be completed in simple, inexpensive spiral notebooks. The August Notebooking Round-Up at The Notebooking Fairy mentioned some new Dinah Zike products which are kind of a mix between lapbooking and notebooking. I plan to have the children create something similar to include additional notes and formulas in their notebooks for future reference.

My 6-year-old will be using a combination of the free math curriculum made available online by the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching  and living math activities.  She will also be doing some math notebooking along with the 11, 10, and 8 year old. We completed my Geometry Notebook Pages in the Spring and will be doing the Counting & Numbers pages this Fall.

Math notebook pages are stored in plastic 3-prong folders.

A New Name For Notebooking

We've been "notebooking" almost as long as we've been homeschooling, yet it was only a couple of years ago that I realized it had a name. But I've got to be honest with you: I really don't like the name. While "notebooking" is technically a good description for what we do, it's only a good description if you already know what you are doing. You can't just walk up to someone and say "Yes, we use notebooking in our home education" without expecting a few questions. Which is why I've been trying to find something better. I haven't come up with anything stellar, but I think that the term "journaling" might be pretty good. After all, education happens during the daily adventures of life (some that happen naturally and some that are created by the "teacher") and a journal is a great place to write about adventures!

If something exciting happens, you naturally want to share it with someone else. And learning is a very exciting thing. Writing a short summary of things that have been read, stories that have been listened to, or field trips and activities that have been experienced is a great way to "review" learning and make sure those memories don't get lost. It's also makes it easier to share those memories with others. Maps and illustrations can also be drawn or copied and pasted into your journal. "Lapbooking" can be time and money intensive, but an occasional mini-book is a great addition to an educational journal and adds an interactive element to it. Photographs and small keepsakes from projects and field trips are also nice additions to a journal. Hands-on activities are a great way to make learning personal to your child and like other important events, they should be well documented. Just like any other journal, the contents of an educational journal will vary according to the personality of the writer- your creativity is the only limit.

So, there you have it: Educational Journaling. You heard it here first! ;o)

A Mother's Education

Even though homeschooling has become somewhat "normal" these days, it still receives more than a normal share of attention. Questions about legality and socialization have been replaced with questions about ability. "How will you teach them when they get to highschool?" "You must be really smart. I don't think I'm smart enough to teach my children." "You must have a lot of patience." I hear these comments often and they make me smile. In the eyes of the world, I may look like SUPER WOMAN, but I'm really quite ordinary.

It doesn't take a high IQ or a college degree to home educate. In fact, my own mother never went any farther than high school. She didn't know how to do chemistry and algebra was never her strong point. But if she wanted to learn something, she knew how to look it up. My mother was a researcher; and in the days before Google, she was the one to go to when you needed an answer. That is the true secret of home education: parents who love learning passing that love on to their children.

When people look at home education, they mostly focus on the children. Of course, the children are important and I believe that children do benefit from home education. But I think the education the mothers receive is just as beneficial. I'm not simply taking about academics, although there is that aspect. It amazes me how much I learn along with my children; and because I am learning too, it doesn't matter whether I "know it all." I am simply a facilitator, not a teacher. But I am learning other lessons as well.

I am learning to be patient. No, I wouldn't consider myself a patient person, but I hope I'm improving. Trust me, listening while a child sounds out the words of Green Eggs and Ham requires a LOT of patience. (Come on! I could say it from memory!) Explaining how to carry in addition for the seventeenth time (and knowing there are four others who still need to learn this concept) takes a lot of patience. And forcing yourself to ignore how long it took your five year old to fold the towels into that crooked heap (it would be so much easier to do it myself!) takes a lot of patience and continual self reminders these are important life skills he needs to learn. Throw in a three year old who suddenly developed a stutter and "Oh, Lord, did I REALLY ask you to help me learn patience!????" Yes, I am learning to be patient.

I am learning humility. People haven't just started telling me I'm smart since I started homeschooling my children. I was a very precocious child, so I've been hearing it most of my life. But trying to teach children, especially when they are your own children, has a way of taking you down a notch or twelve. I love writing, It should be easy for me to teach writing.  I had a second grade teacher (pre-homeschooling) who taught me to love writing and she made it seem so easy. But my children hate to write and I can't seem to change their minds. The one subject that should be the easiest for me is my greatest failure. I also learn humility when that fun project I planned becomes the worst idea Mama's ever had. I'm also humbled by the total lack of control I have over the lives of my children, by the reflection of my sins in their own lives, and by the realization of just how much my sins hurt them. I know I would probably see this even if I didn't homeschool, but being their primary role model certainly makes it harder to place the blame somewhere else.

I am learning to pray. I pray for patience. "Oh, Lord, did I REALLY ask you to help me learn patience!????" I pray for forgiveness. I pray for wisdom in how to train and shape these lives into lives that would glorify Him. I pray for the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of myself and my children, without whom we can do nothing. Oh, did I mention patience? Home education is a process that continually drives me to my knees, and what better thing to do on you knees than pray?

So, can you teach your children? Are you smart enough? Probably not. Are you patient enough? I doubt it. But if you love your children and have a desire to learn, those really are two very good reasons why you should. You never know what you will learn.

It's Not About The Test Scores

Our time has come, the pressure is on. We look back and remember how many times our mothers told us that we needed to do a little bit better, try a little bit harder and behave ourselves in public because we were home schoolers and we had to prove ourselves to the world. And we have! Home schooled children have consistently done better on achievement tests and have excelled in all areas, including the infamous area of "socialization". But now it's our turn to be the teachers, and here we are still trying to prove ourselves. If our parents could do such a great job when they had absolutely no idea what they were doing then we, as veteran homeschoolers, should be able to do so much better!

And so we do all those things we think our parents should have done. We avoid all those mistakes we think they made and we make our own mistakes. No one is perfect, after all. But no matter how many mistakes we make we know that there is no one who can teach our children better than we can. So we keep on. We are the second generation and we are here to show that it can be done . . . again.

But with all the pressure and with all our determination to do things right is there something we have forgotten? Are we here for the sole purpose of educating our children or is there something more? We have certainly impressed the world with our academics, with our well behaved and well adjusted children. And though we still hear the "socialization" issue being raised, we who were home schooled in the early years know that it is no longer as great an issue as it once was. We have gained our converts and the number of homeschoolers has increased, but this new crowd doesn't seem to be quite the same. We have dazzled them with our education and they have missed the whole point.

But what is the is the point if it's not education? It's why our parents began home schooling in the first place: because they understood that they were responsible before God for the training and upbringing of their own children. It isn't about excellence in education, except as it relates to Colossians 3:23-24. It isn't education for the sake of education (knowledge which puffs up). This education is a means to an end: to bring the hearts and minds of the children in line with those of the parents. Discipleship! We are not simply teaching our children, we are sharing our lives with them.

And it is no wonder the newcomers don't "get it". It is no wonder the world can't see it, when we for so long have been caught up in trying to impress them and have forgotten it ourselves. We have won the respect of the crowd and have lost the hearts and souls of our children. What a great loss!

Finally, it dawns on us what a great task our parents have taken on and suddenly we feel inadequate. We quaver at the possibility of ruining our children's lives. But as hard as we shake we know that we cannot give this task to someone else. This is our duty and we must prove faithful.