March 27, 2009

Thank you for visiting HomeschoolBytes again! Feel free to contact me with questions or suggestions. Make sure to subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates any time I post new content.

Here’s a quick tip – not so much a homeschool one, but for parents with kids who have been chomping at the bit to get out of the house now that the weather is a bit nicer:

Make sure you’re using a sunscreen that is not only effective, but also safe!

I stumbled on this amazing online Sunscreen Database published by Environmental Working Group, a non-profit research organization.  They are a third party who rates the safety and effectiveness of cosmetic products to give you the information you need.

From their website:  “Our aim was to fill in where companies and the government leave off: companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish, and our government doesn’t require companies to test products for safety before they’re sold. EWG’s scientists built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, integrating our in-house collection of personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 toxicity and regulatory databases.”

So, grab that bottle of sunscreen from last year, type it in to their “Find Your Sunscreen” page, and see how it rates.  You may be very surprised.  I was!

Posted under Parenting

March 25, 2009

We do a bit of memorizing here and there.  In the past we’ve mostly done scripture verses, poems the kids pick out, and the infamous times tables.

Just last week, though, I thought it might be fun to look at some other famous bits of writing.  I tried to think of what I had memorized in school, and scraps of the Preamble to the Constitution came to mind – a bit jumbled, but most of the parts intact.   And then my husband started singing it and told me where he’d learned the song from:

Did you know that Schoolhouse Rock did a little short film on the Preamble?  It’s cute and fun, and the kids pick it up pretty quickly after listening to it a few times.

(Just make sure to add “of the United States” after “We the people” at the beginning if you want the accurate Preamble.)

And introducing the Preamble turned into a great discussion with my 9-year-old.  By the time we talked about justice, welfare, a perfect union, liberty, and a fair bit of early American history, we had a great ‘session’ of ‘school’.  What is life about?  Why were those ideas important enough to fight for?  How are those ideas present, or not, in our lives, our homes, today?  It was great fun!  Those are the conversations with my children that I consider priceless.  

And I just started by looking for a bit of something to memorize and stretch the brain.  Isn’t homeschooling great?

Do you do much memorizing in your families?  If so, what types of things do you memorize, and do you have a method that you could share with us?

Posted under History Curriculum, Memorizing Facts

March 22, 2009

1. The kids you used to babysit have their own kids and you’re pretty sure it’s only been a few years since they were wearing diapers.
2. You remember being horrified when your ‘ancient’ parents turned 40, and never thought it would happen to you.
3. You always knew you would be an adult some day, but it still doesn’t feel like you are . . . even with 5 kids.
4. You’ve made a two column list of reasons for and against dying the gray scattered in your hair, and still can’t decide.
5. You actually said, “When I was a young . . . ” out loud!
6. Teenagers look at you in confusion when you use all your cool, rad, awesome, and stoked words in a sentence.  Or, you suggest a larger size when a teenager tells you someone’s pants are ‘tite’.  They say you must be ‘trippin’.  Since you haven’t fallen, you’re a bit confused.
7. None of the kids in your life have ever heard of “The Smurfs”, “Gilligan’s Island”, “The Flintstones”, or “Inspector Gadget”.  You think “Pokemon” is something a kid does to someone sitting next to them.
8. 6-year-olds routinely guess you’re close to 100 years old if you don’t give them hints before they guess.
9. You’d rather people forget it’s your birthday so you can pretend another one hasn’t come and gone.
10. After one game of ’friendly’ basketball with other moms, you’re in pain for a week and can’t make it up your own stairs without groaning.

Yes, I’m having a birthday  I’m really young at heart, though, because I’m pretty sure I”m getting some Webkinz from my kids . . . and I LIKE Webkinz. 

Anyone else out there wondering when they crossed the line from kid to adult?

Posted under Top 10

March 16, 2009

It’s not homeschooling that is so hard, per se, it’s all the extra housework.  My house is being lived in, spilled in, colored in, eaten in, and on and on, all day long, when most other kids are in school.  This means more housework that the average family.

How is all this extra housework a plus?

• Responsibility:  The kids are tortured blessed with many more opportunities to learn to clean up after themselves and take care of their things than their school-going friends.  Seriously, though, you have to work out a way to share the household responsibilities if you don’t want to dissappear under mountains of laundry.  I think this is valuable life training for the kids that teaches them accountability, how to self-start, and prepares them for that first college dorm or apartment of their own.

Here are some ideas to make it fun:

Sorting: 

Don’t waste school time doing sorting worksheets in a math book when you have real life!  When you start looking you’ll be amazed how much of your housework is sorting!

• Sorting groceries – When you come home from shopping make putting away the groceries a sorting game.  Throw in a timer and if everything is on it’s right shelf before time is up, share a treat or game together.  (Knowing where all the ingredients are comes in handy next time you send someone for a can of something while cooking dinner.)
• Sorting laundry – Start when their young, and kids actually think playing the “Who’s shirt is this?” game is fun.  A bit of silliness pretending Daddy’s shirt belongs to the baby goes a long way with the 3-year-old crowd.
• Sorting toys into containers of ‘sets’ like Legos, cars, outdoor toys, etc.
• Sorting everything off the floor of their room into separate piles:  clothing, toys, trash, books, and bedding.

“I can do it myself.” 

Kid’s may stop saying this after age 2, but I don’t believe they stop thinking it.  I think kids of all ages long to feel appreciated for their work and have confidence that they can do a challenging task well.  Here are a few ideas to share the household work at the same time you help your children to learn:

• Picking out clothes to wear – Get over your fashion sense and let your kids wear what they can pick out and put on themselves.  If there are some particularly horrendous choices, you may want to do a clothing class about plaids, patterns, and colors and which ones go together the best – but at a different time than when they are dressing.
• Cooking, plus how to use the stove and a sharp knife – These are great skills and confidence builders for the ‘Tween’ crowd.  Plus, food preparation takes a huge chunk of a busy mom’s time.  Share the duties as soon as your kids are able.  Check out this article about the lessons kids learn in the kitchen.
• Encourage older kids to help out younger siblings:  Reading stories, with their ‘chores’ like cleaning up toys, getting dressed, playing games with them, etc.  They develop confidence and responsibility, plus it helps develop close relationships between siblings.
• Event planning:  Put the kids in charge of planning their own birthday party, a playdate, parts of a vacation.  It may be extra work teaching them how to do it the first few times, but it will pay off in less work later and again, more confidence building life skills for your kids.

Basically, homeschooling is life and life is homeschooling.  If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by everything you have to get done, stop doing it by yourself.  Look at your kids, involve them in your life, your work, your chores.  You are a family making a home and learning about life together, not by yourself.  And, amazingly, you’ll find that common household tasks have a lot to teach your children.  Here are some from our house:

Making herbal ointment 

Picking garden veggies.

Pounding bread is a favorite at our house!  Check out the following video:

Posted under Homeschool Activities, Parenting

March 13, 2009

Would you like to see a picture of crystalline iron found only in meteorites?  Check out these real word examples of elements on Chem4Kids website – a site dedicated to helping teach chemistry concepts to kids.

Here is some of what Chem4Kids has:

• All about Matter
• Atoms
• Studying the Periodic Table
• Chemical Reactions
• An Introduction to Biochemistry
• Elements 1 through 36

Enjoy browsing their site!

As always, though, I think science for kids is best experienced first hand with experiments.  Do you have any good ‘kitchen table’ chemistry ideas?

Posted under Science Curriculum, Science Websites

March 12, 2009

“Doll Faces Flower”  by Brooke

Here’s and ‘oldie but goodie’ idea next time you’re looking for a hands-on art activity: 

Collages!  Remember how much fun we had doing those in elementary school?  Ok, we didn’t have glue sticks back then, and I remember eating the glue paste (it smelled so good!), but it’s still a great activity.  It’s fun, cheap, easy, and best of all, minimal mess.

1. Gather up old magazines, newspapers, catalogs, preferably for things your kids are interested in like the American Girl Catalog for my daughter.
2. Pass out paper, scissors, and a extra glue sticks.
3. Let them cut and glue to their hearts content.
4. You can suggest ‘Themes’ like the flower my daughter made from doll heads, making a car by finding and cutting out all the parts from different vehicles, making people, fantasy characters, even new Pokemon characters by cutting and glue various parts together.
5. It’s also some great pattern opportunities including biggest to smallest, sorting, venn diagrams, etc.

Enjoy!

What are some of your favorite ‘easy’ hands-on and art activities?  I can always use more, especially when the kids are cooped up inside by the weather!

Posted under Art Curriculum, Homeschool Crafts

March 11, 2009

Blueberry pie cups, carrot cake, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (batch #1 VERY salty), and biscuits a bit like hocky pucks?

Guess what my 9-year-old has been doing for school this week?  Well in a bit of a fit, we threw our school work out the window (figuratively) and decided to try doing a ‘Project Week’.  My idea.  So, the older two kids could pick anything they wanted to learn, work on, create, build, etc., and would put in some effort every day with the goal being to show and/or demonstrate what they’d done to the rest of the family at the end of the week.

We had a mis-start with a Volcano lapbook (He wouldn’t spend time on it on his own, which defeats the purpose.  So I said, “Throw it away, and pick something you really want to do this time.”).  Then I suggested he take a cookbook and pick anything he wanted to make and do one recipe a day.  Success!  He loves poring through the book and making anything he wants, preferably desserts!

How is this school?  What could he possibly be learning?

• How to read fractions.  (math)
• How to read measurements.  1t of salt is NOT the same as 1T of salt.  A partially filled cup of flour is not the same as 1 C of flour. (math, again)
• How to be careful around sharp knives, hot stoves, food processor blades.  (safety, operating small equipment, electricity, heat transfer, science, responsibility)
• “Why is cooking even worth it if no likes what you make and throws it in the garbage?”  He says, with tears in his eyes after the very salty ‘gaggy’ cookies. (So, empathy for Mom cooking all these years)
• Following a recipe.  (reading comprehension, sequenced directions)
• All stages of a project:  planning, preparation, execution, and clean-up. 
• (Here’s the clean-up rule that works for us:  I come into the kitchen like a detective trying to find some evidence that he was cooking.  When I can’t, he’s done.  Except for the finished food, of course, which my son informed me is also evidence he was cooking.  Hmmph!  Kids are such lawyers!) 
• Seeing your work appreciated, when we all devoured the pies, cakes, and 2nd batch of cookies.  (achievement, accomplishment, pride in new ‘adult’ skills, growing up)
• And best of all, spending time doing something you enjoy, serves others, and is school, all at the same time.

(I’m hoping we can transition him to a love of good EXERCISE programs after this cooking stint!)

How to you get your kids involved in the kitchen and cooking?  Any good tips?

Posted under Homeschool Activities, Homeschool Life

March 10, 2009

Renae has put together a bunch of great homeschool articles around the theme of her top 10 school supplies: HERE. It’s a fun read. As homeschoolers, we have to create the whole school environment on our own, so we’re always on a look out for good supplies.

It’s funny, but I’m looking at two new, unopened packages of bright yellow highlighters sitting by my phone. I couldn’t resist buying them because they, one, cost only pennies in a great sale, and two, I homeschool, so I have a lasting attraction to office supplies. A double whammie!  And now they sit there, waiting for some project that could possibly need twelve highlighters.  I have to remember my mom’s council a bit more, “It’s only a deal if you need it!” 

Enjoy!

Posted under Blog Carnivals

March 10, 2009

Need some math inspiration?  (We’ve often hit points where it doesn’t seem like anything we’re doing is working)

Check out the latest ‘Math Teachers At Play” Carnival for some new ideas.  She has gathered posts on Elementary Concepts, Arithmetic, Basic Algebra and Geometry, Advanced Math, Math Puzzles, and Teaching Math.

Sometimes it pays to try something totally different.  I’ll post about our latest math and school experiment tomorrow.  Enjoy

Have you tried any new math ideas that have worked well?  I’d love to hear from you in the comment section!

Posted under Blog Carnivals, Math Websites

March 9, 2009

It’s a big milestone when your children finally start reading books on their own just for fun.  But, my son quickly followed in my footsteps and started checking out stacks of books to read.  So, how can I get some idea of what he’s reading and if there are topics I need to discuss with him or ask him to avoid reading?

Well these two awesome moms have put together reviews and ratings for lots of children and teen books on The Literate Mother website. 

They have personally read each book and given it a 0 to 5 rating for:

1. language
2. violence
3. sexual content
4. adult themes

They want to help parents and teacher be informed about book content so they can suggest, discourage, or be prepared to discuss reading material.  Thank you!

Posted under Books to Read, Language Art Websites