Teach Them or Teach Them To Learn?

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
-William Butler Yeats

"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
-George Bernard Shaw

Money-Saving Website

Oh, that all the homeschool resources we love were free.....

I love my local library. Love, love, love. Our branch participates in a very good lending-exchange program with other area libraries and the staff has been wonderful about supporting us in our homeschool journey. However, unless your library has unlimited funds and a large base of homeschoolers lobbying for materials, it's likely that you will need to look elsewhere for at least some of your materials.

Enter the Co-op!

http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org has a great selection of discounts on loads of resources for the homeschooling family. It is free, yes, free, to join! Once you are a member, you can band together with other members to order things at less than retail price. On many items, the discount increases as more people buy in!

They usually have offers for resources covering all major subjects as well as electives and some fun stuff. I have seen items that would work for secular HSers, religious HSers, elementary schoolers, high schoolers, and many, many that would work for HSers of any stripe. It's well worth subscribing to their updates since offers normally have a time limit - different offers come and go and many have multiple sign-up periods. If there is a product that you think would be great on their site, let them know and they may get in contact with the company to see what can be done.

No, I have no financial interest in the Co-op, though I am a member and have benefited from some of the savings they offer.

Free (nearly) Paper Toys!

http://www.thetoymaker.com - Click on Free Toys to find a large assortment of projects that are free. (OK, a few cents for ink and paper.....) Toys that almost anyone can fold and put together, boxes that can be folded for decoration or to hold small surprises.... Loads of fun designs! (Even a few learning toys.....)

Record Keeping

Some of us are required to keep and/or submit certain types of records. Some have high-school aged kids who might want to go to a college that will ask for some sort of transcript. Others simply want to keep themselves on track or need a way to reassure themselves that yes, the kids are learning and moving forward. Finding the right form of recordkeeping to satisfy your family and any legal requirements you are subject to will be one way for many of you to stay sane. :)

Paper Records

-Journaling. Many families simply get a notebook and write down what the kids do each day. This can be as loose or as structured as you like. Write down what is accomplished each day, dividing into subject area and noting hours if you like.

-Detailed notebook. Get a 3-ring binder for each child and start printing out useful forms. Luckily, there are sites out there that offer free forms that are specifically designed to be useful to homeschoolers.
http://donnayoung.org/index.htm - Donna offers a wide variety of useful forms. Check out the options and choose the ones you like. She has everything from planning sheets to forms to record volunteer hours on. Well worth spending some time clicking around this site. if you download in Word format, you can edit many of the forms to suit your needs.
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/records.htm - A few useful forms. Most look most useful in the earlier grades.
http://tinyurl.com/7cckch - A daily assignment plannning page from about.com. Could be used for any age.


Online

Homeschool Tracker http://www.homeschooltracker.com
Windows only
Many homeschooling parents swear by this program. Others swear at it. You'll need to check it out and see if it works for you. The basic version is free and allows you to manage assignments, track hours and some resources used, and generate some reports. The Plus version will cost you money, but does offer a number of extra features, ranging from a transcript feature to weighted grading to the ability to copy assignments into a weekly or lesson plan.

PER (Plan, Educate, Record) http://www-homeschoolplanner.com (note the dash, not dot, after the www)
main site - http://www.home-school-inc.com
Any OS can use this. For Macs, Firefox seems more stable than other browsers when using this site.
A free tool you can use to plan out what you'd like to do, schedule class times, record what gets done, and generate reports on things like attendance and resources used. You define your term lengths, using the dates most useful to you. The kids have their own area to log onto to see assignments, grades, etc. You can even assign work to be done that can be turned in and graded within the system. If you don't take the scheduling too seriously, this can be a very useful tool. (You do have to define class times, but nothing says you have to stick to that time schedule - just enter completed work in appropriate boxes and you're good.)

Help With Getting Chores Done!

******UPDATE - Handiland has begun charging subscription fees in order to access most everything above the most basic functions. We will be leaving the service and I can no longer recommend it unless you're not watching your budget. :(

Do your kids resist doing their chores? Do chore charts help, but maybe they need an extra boost? Have you discovered HandiPoints yet? (http://www.handipoints.com)

Handipoints is an online system where parents and kids can assign and track chores. Parents assign a certain number of points for each chore and the child checks off the chore as it is completed. You can easily list chores as daily, like brushing teeth after each meal, or weekly, like taking the garbage cans out to the street for pickup. You can also choose any combination of days that work for you - useful if Child A does dishes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while Child B does dishes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday! In fact, for many chores, I choose the daily option so that we have the flexibility to assign points whenever the chore is completed - some things just aren't scheduled for the same day each week.....

For each chore completed, the child actually receives two kinds of points - the system keeps track of each separately. One type of points can be saved up and used to 'purchase' rewards from Mom and Dad - 10 points to play an extra board game with Dad, 40 points to choose a movie to watch, etc. You decide on the rewards and how much it will take to earn each one.

The second kind of points is used to 'buy' virtual items in the HandiPoints world. Each child has a cat character that they get to customize and play games with. (Some of the games offer the chance to earn more points) With HandiPoints, they can choose to 'buy' items to decorate their virtual room with, clothing pieces to dress their cat in, or do things like send virtual postcards to other cats.

Handipoints is most likely to appeal to younger kids, though I know of quite a few pre-teens who really love playing in the virtual world of HandiPoints. Even if the virtual-world aspect is "too young" for your kids, the point-tracking system alone is worth joining. (As of now, it is free to join. Rumblings suggest that this may change.....) With younger kids, internet security is, of course, a concern for many parents. Handipoints handles this well - kids communicate with each other using a set menu of G-rated statements, questions, and answers. There is no way for them to give out personal information, so that's one worry out of the way! They can also make their cats do things like wave, dance, sneeze..... My daughter particularly enjoys sneaking up to my cat (I do log on sometimes to see what she's up to - she's aware of it and we have fun together.) and sneezing on her. LOL

Homeschool When Mom (or Dad) is Sick

Ugh. You know the feeling. You wake up in the morning and can just feel that things are not right. In a perfect world, you'd just curl yourself back up under the blankets and try to go back to sleep just to avoid feeling like this all day. But no...... the kids are up and everyone's healthy but you. How does your family handle days like this?

Suggestions:

- Declare a day off. Skip the work altogether. Let the older ones heat up some soup for you. Of course, this is really an option only if you can be at least fairly sure that the kids will not cut open the sofa and spread jelly all over the stove while you're safely tucked in bed.......

- Pull out those educational videos. Let the kids go to town watching Discovery Channel shows, practicing along with French-language DVDs, or scouring discoverystreaming for age-appropriate health vids.

- Just scale back a bit. Have the kids sit where they can hear/see you, but can't catch your germs. Let them read something, then tell you about what they learned. They can be moving forward with their education with a minimum amount of physical effort on your part.

- Are you lucky enough to have a family member or a homeschooling friend who can take the kids for the day? Spare just a fraction of a second to think about all those parents without a support system as good as yours and make the call!

Happy Not-Back-To-School Day!

Most of the public and private school students head back to class tomorrow. I plan on enjoying a late morning in bed, maybe a bit of hot cocoa. :)

Since we began homeschooling, DD's schedule has slipped back a couple of hours. Compared to her public school friends, she's up late and sleeps in late. However, her schedule seems to be much closer to what recent research suggests is the healthiest one for kids her age, so I'm good with us being a bit different. Since I have evening classes, it all works out perfectly for us anyway. :) No stressful mornings trying to get her up and off to school hours before her body wants to be awake, no missing out on time with her since she's in school all day and I'm at class all night.......

Sometimes, it's the things we *don't* have to do that are the most sanity-making.

So, whether your family is up at 5 am or still snuggled away under warm blankets at 10, here's a cocoa-toast to the freedom to work on our own personal schedules!