HOMESCHOOLING IDEAS

The little dog with a big name: Roberto Marmalade John Brian Peter Reginald Horace Applesmith Weatherby Edwin Vincent von Popplesocks - or Bibble-Bobble-Popplesocks for a bit shorter, or Bobby for very short. Not a pedigree name - we just like playing with words and giving our animals long names.

We once had a calf called Penny. But her long name was Pennyroyal Sausage Sausage Mincemeat Roastbeef Steak. She never came to us when we called her, so it didn't matter. :o)

Just a few thoughts on what we are doing right now "education wise" with our 16, almost 14, almost 7, 4 and almost 2 year olds.

We start the day with Daddy before he goes to work - we read the Bible, discuss and pray.


After breakfast and cleaning up we sing for a while then start on the things on our usual list.


We are doing Math U See - always have done and wouldn't swap to another system as everyone understands and works well with this.

The boys are up to Zeta - the 16 year old is nearly finished that. I have NEVER worried about what stage they are up to according to their age. We just start with the first book and go from there - isn't homeschooling GREAT !!!!!

Science - the boys both did Apologia General Science last year and loved it. We read it all together, but hardly did the experiments as they knew what was going on and I don't like doing experiments! I said they could do them with Dad if they wanted to, they said no thanks. The 16 year old has now finished Physical Science, but I can't afford the next books so he will have to wait to get the physics and biology ones.

Both boys did the Andrew Pudewa "B" Course and have benefited greatly from that. I would like to do the continuation course when we can get it.

I am very excited about "Notebooking" - I found out about it on Cindy Rushton's site, and when I explained it to the boys THEY were excited about the fact that I said "You can't do it wrong - the only thing you can do wrong is if you DON'T DO ANYTHING!" So they know they can just write something, put it in a plastic sheet protector, put it in their notebooks and it's done.

Whereas Miss almost-7 wants to decorate the pages and make them like scrapbook pages, and draw pictures make them all pretty, then put it in the plastic pocket and put it in her notebook (folder).

The boys love to look back on their work from when they were younger (pictures, stories they dictated to me and illustrated etc) and so they know the importance of keeping stuff the little ones do.

We ocasionally make a book, or a lapbook of a subject the litlte ones are interested in. The last two we did were butterflies and polar bears. These are just pictures and information printed off the internet, with some pictures drawn by the children, and we read some books and talk about it, and draw a map etc, then stick everything together. If we don't come up with enough information for a lapbook, then we will just put the pages into our notebooks now rather than let them get crumpled and lost.

We always have lots of non-fiction books out of the library so that covers many subjects like social studies and geography etc. We are often talking about different countries in the world and looking at the map. The big boys have a programme on the computer for doing their geography which doesn't involve a lot of gimicks or games - just beat your own score stuff which appeals to them. They are also both learning Swahili as our 14 year old has been interested in Africa since deciding that a Streaked Tenric was his favourite animal, then reading his first Paul White - Jungle Doctor book.

The other day our 16 year old started to talk to the little ones about dinosaurs. They were intrigued! He went over quite a bit with them, and what was most wonderful was that all his information has been gathered from many sources, books, Creation magazines, discussions with others - and he has filtered out all the evolutionary lies! So he was able to say "people think that this one MAY have looked like that" and "Dinosaurs lived at the same time as man" etc. Darlin boy.

The other day I was thinking something: a little boy visiting church was obviously into Thomas The Tank Engine - and I remembered that our older boys used to like them, but we have decided that they are not good for us now. Too much bad (sinful in fact) behaviour with the trains, grumbling, paying each other back etc - plus the fact that we try hard to only read about and think about things that are real or could be real - so we don't have talking animals, or talking trains.

And I said to our oldest about the fact that our little ones were "missing out" on stuff, and he said that the biggest fun was knowing all the names of the trains and recognising them and then playing games with them. Trouble was that their personailities were decided by the people who wrote the books - this one was grumpy, this one was nasty and deceitful etc.

So I mulled over that a bit more, and I thought that it would be fun to make some cards with pictures of wild animals on, and on the other side was the name of the animal and the Latin name, and play that game. When Miss 7 heard that idea she shouted "YES PLEASE!" They LOVE saying the latin names for animals like Cynomis Ludocvicianus (prarire dog). So I might get onto that.

Our almost- 7 and 4 year old are always ready to do cardmaking and love to play "offices" and "shops".

The older boys are also doing things with the Powerdirector programme on the computer, with stop-motion animation, and photo stories with music and effects etc.


We are intending to get organised with a YouTube account and put some of their work out there for the public to enjoy - lots of good clean fun and silly boyish humour!

There's also heaps of talking, reading and playing that goes on with our family - lots of Lego which I have proof now is a good thing for getting children's brains working!!

Blessings
The Mummalady