Sewing lesson results

We've had a busy week getting ready for Rose's baptism but I wanted to share how impressed I have been with her sewing skills - from the earliest lessons with their sewing teacher, to putting zips in, to sewing button holes and learning how to draw a pattern - she has loved every minute and used so many of her new skills to sew her baptism dress :)

Online Christian Filmmakers Academy - Homeschool Review Crew

I was so excited to get a chance to review the Online Christian Filmmakers Academy from Family Gravity Media, a division of Families For Christ Ministries, Inc. Sunflower is doing an arts award in film and has been begging for a programme like this, in fact she squealed when I told her what we were going to review.

The Online Christian Filmmakers Academy has been created by Ken and Zac Lawrence, a father and son team who have been producing, acting and directing since 2004 and have run numerous film camps. They took their combined experience and created an amazing online film school.

The course starts with an introductory video and is then broken down into 5 modules

• Camera - broken down into six lessons, it starts by introducing you to the camera, educated you on lenses, frame rates, shutter speed, tripods and more.
• Cinematography and Lighting - consists of 15 lessons and covers topics including; hard & soft light, types of light, painting with light, framing, depth of field, green screen, setting up an interview and more.
• Sound - has 6 lessons covering sound equipment, microphones, field recorders, location recording etc.
• Pre-production - this has 5 lessons covering various aspects of writing the Screenplay, paperwork, creating the team etc.
• Production - this is a 5 lesson module covering; the crew, set management, how to direct, filming step by step and more.

They are currently creating additional content that will be added throughout the year. 

The Modules are easy to navigate (and are even marked off when you have completed them) and each lesson ranges in length from 2 - 25 mins and show some great hands on examples and tips. Once a lesson video has been watched there are various download bonus templates, documents and interviews with a quiz at the end of each module.

The lessons are packed full of information but so easy to follow that even a novice like me has improved. I loved that you can move through at your own pace and that the entire family can all use the same subscription (lovely cost saving). They really impressed me with the level of examples shown and that they have even thought about the type of basic equipment you would have available at home (camera and lights) and included suggestions for how to improve basic equipment (plans for a PVC shoulder rig anyone?). 

Sunflower loved that the lessons were so engaging and especially loved the tips they gave, in her words 'this is the best school work I've ever done'. She has been working on several story boards and its been lovely to see her enthusiasm and excitement for the work. She has even tried to incorporate a 'green screen' into her background.

The Online Christian Filmmakers Academy is available for $299 for a 12 month subscription. but until November 30th, 2016 They are offering a $100 discount with the code FALLCREW16  

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the Homeschool Review Crew

CHSH-Teach.com TOS Review

Over the summer we have had the privilege to review CHSH-Teach.com otherwise known as the 

Christian HomeSchool Hub Download Club. I was given a years subscription to the CHSH Download Club

CHSH-Teach.com is the creation of  homeschooler, Lynda Ackert. She decided to put her love of creating to good use and designed a website that acts as a hub for all her educational resources - it has over 50,000 down loadable pages including; worksheets, lapbooks, flashcards, notebook pages, reading comprehension, languages, writing prompts, workbooks, posters and many more. It even remembers us and has pages of organisational materials including; planning forms, graphic organisers, awards and calendars as well as daily devotionals and discussion forums. Lynda is continuously adding new contents to the site as she creates them so the list is ever evolving.

CHSH-Teach.com is incredibly easy to use. Once you have registered online created your account you can browse the resource bank and search by subject, search by topic or keyword, search by grade level or search by monthly events. The subjects are broken down into the main topics areas of Bible Related Resources, Languages, Arts Music and Crafts, Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Electives, Health.

You can opt to search by grade level - Kindergarden, 1st-3rd grades, 4th-8th grades, 9th-12th grades.

There are two ways to search by month as well.

 

I selected a summer math activity for the girls (fractions) and then gave them free reign to select their own 'lessons' for the summer. 

Rose being the wannabe inventor decided she wanted to know more about inventors and how they did it so we opted for a pack on Thomas Edison. Sunflower and Tulip wanted to look at the industrial revolution (more as an excuse to visit the local museums again) so I downloaded their pack. Basically this had something for every child (even Lilly downloaded some English Lit activities to go alongside her coursework), I downloaded some nice grammar rules and math posters to use as prompts for the new school year.

If you are after simple worksheets for practise or for a more complete lesson plan - its all here. For example the Industrial Revolution pack we used is a 24 page pack including reading, questions, vocab, timelines, discussions, reading comprehension and more. There are a number of additional worksheets and activities to go alongside the main pack.

I've got to be honest and say I'm very impressed with CHSH-Teach.com - whatever we are studying there seems to be something here for every age group. I love that its all in one place and saves me hours of trawling the Internet for suitable materials and I love how versatile it is, whether we want to do lapbooking, notebooking, worksheets, discuss, fill in the blanks, narrate etc. there is something in the hub to use. It makes it so much simpler to homeschool and teach your children.

CHSH-Teach.com offers an annual subscription fee of  $25 or for lifetime only for $99.99. They have freebies so you can trial the site and they have options to buy individual worksheets or workbooks.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog.

How I handle burn out

I realised last week that I've lost my way a little - the passion had gone, I was no longer dancing on the table and pulling amazing lessons out of my hat - in fact lessons had become so boring it prompted Lilly to ask 'why can't we do lessons like we used to?'

In fact this is not the first time I've experienced burn out, it's a common occurrence in homeschool journeys and has various causes; tiredness, moving house, new baby, work, family stress, lack of sleep, illness, physical exhaustion, exam studies, mental exhaustion, tiredness, financial pressures and did I mention tiredness?

It made me sit and think of how I've kicked myself out of those slumps and what I need to do to get things back on track - I've put my ideas and tips below but if you have any more I would love to hear them,

1) Simplify. Too often when I'm exhausted and hitting that burn out, the thought of a field trip/activity day/class etc is just too much. I find as a Homeschooler I'm prone to over schedule as I want them to see friends and have those extra curricular activities. It's OK to stop and spend a week at home in your pj's.

2) Rest. Tiredness is a real problem for me, when I don't get enough sleep I struggle to do anything. Getting an early night or having a lie in (who am I kidding, a lie in is a pipe dream in this house) is essential if I need to recover energy.

3) Take care of me. Once rest is sorted, the next step for me has to be getting myself in order (without feeling guilty about it) so make sure my diet is in order (I have a tendency to eat junk food and way too much chocolate when stressed which just leads to sugar cravings, short temper and being even more tired) and take some time out for a walk (exercise always helps) and some time to meditate and clear my head space (again without feeling guilty that I'm not working on lessons)

4) Go back to basics. Take lessons back to simple reading aloud time followed by math games for a week or two - this gives you time to get your mojo back and reduces the pressure you feel under. Slowly start to incorporate more lessons into your day till you get to a schedule you are happy with and can maintain.
I often find the pressure increases if I fall behind my self imposed schedule in their lessons so I've learnt my lesson and just have a loose schedule of what I'd like to achieve that month.

5) Take a break. If you can take a holiday do so. Spend a week in your garden or visiting local parks. Call a pyjama week (Schools have teacher training/snow days/strike days so why shouldn't homeschoolers have stress days?), a craft week or a movie week -  just do something different to revitalise you all.

6) Avoid feeling guilty. Too often we compare ourselves to what we see as the 'perfect homeschoolers' - stop.
Don't put undue pressure on your family to be like the highlights of others, don't feel guilty that your kids aren't winning (or even entered in) the science fair or Latin masters. Don't punish yourself, realise what you do, what you have achieved and see how individual and happy your kids actually are.

7) Read Inspiring stories/blogs/books. Take tips from survivors of the burn out, hijack others ideas, remember what inspired you and what you first loved about homeschooling and above all else find what makes you enthusiastic and passionate about homeschool because with that anything is possible.

8) No man/woman is an island. Seek help from others (and because I'm religious I like to pray for help as well) talk to fellow homeschoolers, family and don't forget the kids. I still remember the first burn out I suffered, in discussing it with the kids they suggested that they help more with the chores (they used to just do the dishes and tidy their rooms) they volunteered to do more to help around the house so that mummy could have the energy to do more fun things with them (their idea, not mine - but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth).

9) Have Fun. The best lessons and the most memorable are where we all have fun. My excitement leads to their excitement and their excitement leads to a willingness to learn more about that topic.
A fun lesson will inspire them to do some more reading/researching on their own so find out what they like and use it.

I hope my ramblings help and please feel free to share any other ideas.

Homeschool Copywork -TOS Review

One of the reasons I first adopted some Charlotte Mason homeschooling techniques was due to her emphasis on copy work to practice handwriting, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, composition and more. Homeschool Copywork offered the crew a chance to review their Lifetime Membership and I happily volunteered.
                          
Homeschool Copywork is a website created by Amy Belvins, a homeschooling mum of six who has successfully used copy work techniques for years. The site has a number of copywork booklets that, as a member, you can download as a PDF and print at your leisure, and what a lot they have for you to download (and the list is ever growing as more are developed). Each booklet is available with different font choices from tracing for the early years, manuscript, cursive and plain lines for the older ones.

                           

There is a big catalogue to choose from - once you have logged in you can select by age (early elementary, upper elementary, Junior High or High School) or browse the list of titles which includes topics such as;

• Character studies
• Poems
• Scripture studies
• Artist studies
• Inventors
• Science
• Nature studies
• Holidays
• Composer studies
• Famous people

You can also browse their bonus products which include loads of note booking pages and some colouring pages.

Each PDF is different in terms of content and size - some are over 100 pages and others 30. For example we worked on the Claude Monet Artist Study which was 34 pages. It started with an information page telling us about Claude Monet and asked us six questions to think about when looking at his paintings (everything from light, colour & mood to how you would do it differently) it also set a one page essay based on your observations of a Monet painting of your choice. Next came the copywork pages which had a series of six quotes in four different styles (this worked perfectly for me as four children each had an individual style to work on), each handwriting page has a picture at the bottom of the page. The final pages in the pack are six A4 copies of his paintings for you to use in your study.

 

 

 

We have just started working on the John James Audubon Copywork pack which is bigger at 191 pages and has 25 quotes, much longer passages and bird pictures at the bottom ofthe pages.

What impressed me the most about Homeschool Copywork was the depth of content in the PDFs, there was no twaddle just relevant quotes, hymns, poems, famous documents, scriptures, rich literature passages, pictures etc. all available in multiple font options which meant the same PDF was often suitable for multiple ages. It's also incredibly easy to assign a week or month of copywork - just print and go, no more hunting for that perfect quote or frantically typing up something suitable for them to use.

The site could be easier to navigate but in fairness the quality and choice of PDFs was so good that that became irrelevant and I am glad that she chose to focus on producing good quality, relevant and meaningful copywork. I loved that I can have copywork to match our studies so quickly and easily. 

You can purchase a lifetime membership for $45 or a 1 year full membership for $29.95. They even have a free membership where you can try out some of their products to see how they work for you.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog.

 

Question time

One of my favourite aspects of educating the girls at home is being bombarded with their wonderful questions all the time. Sometimes they want to know why clouds don't float off into space? or why grass grows in winter when the rest of the plants die?

That said, there are times and places where these questions prove difficult (like in the middle of the night) so we decided to give them a place to record the questions so we could approach them at a more sensible time.  I drew a thought bubble on a small whiteboard and stuck it at the bottom of the stairs with a pen, they can write down any questions or draw a picture to prompt them, then during reading time we can have a 'question session' where we can look up the answers.

So far it seems to be working nicely and is a great way to sneak in some extra writing practice.

How do you record your kids work?

I was recently asked this question by a reader and thought I'd share what I do and quiz you guys about how you do it.

For the last 3 years I've kept each child's work in a file folder (prior to that we tried notebooks but they were never big enough).

Each girl is given a folder with a few tabs in which are then labelled by subject.

At the end of each day any notes taken, posters drawn, notebook pages, stories/poems written, experiments recorded, artwork, worksheets etc are placed in a file tray. At the end of the week (or sometimes every couple of weeks if we are feeling lazy) they get the hole punch out and file them away. 

For any of the bigger stuff (model of the pyramids, large art pieces, historical feasts, educational games, lapbooks, trips) I just take photos that I can print and place in their folders.

I also do this for any Montessori materials they use - for example, when they were doing the adverb presentation I took photos and popped them in her folder.

With their 'internet learning' there are often print outs of the lessons available, otherwise I print out a report from the parents page to include.

With 'video learning/youtube learning' they take notes while watching which get included in their files.

So how do you record your child's work?

Brookdale House - Writing Through Ancient History TOS Review

We incorporate lots of Charlotte Masons ideas into our homeschool journey so I was quietly pleased when Brookdale House were looking for reviewers for Writing Through Ancient History Level 2 Manuscript.

Based on Charlotte Mason's principles of narration, copy work and dictation - Brookdale House have created a tool that teaches history, grammar, writing skills, spelling and more all whilst absorbing works by great authors from the past. The Writing Through History Series is set up as a four year history cycle covering Ancient History, Medieval History, Early Modern History, and Modern History. The four year cycle includes 2 levels; level 1 aimed at grades 1-3 and level 2 aimed at grades 3-5. You can also decide if you want manuscript or cursive writing styles.

I opted for the digital download (a printed book is also available) as I would be using it with multiple students. This came as a 384 page pdf covering history from 2640BC to 400AD and includes short stories, poetry, primary source documents and cultural tales.

Writing Through History Level 2 is broken down as follows;

Introduction - This section talks you through various ways to use the product and gives examples of how to introduce narration, studied dictation, copy work and grammar. It also outlines scheduling ideas. It has clear explanations on how to implement the methods and gives an overview of how the methods work including how to structure narration questions.

Chapter 1 - is full of short stories that give real insight into people, places and events 

Chapter 2 - contains extracts from primary source documents including Sayings of Confucius, Ancient Writings by Herodotus, The Categories by Aristotle and many more.

Chapter 3 - contains poetry both from and about ancient cultures including The Boaster by Aesop, Hymn to the Nile, Moderation by Horace and many more

Chapter 4 - contains folk or cultural tales like The Enchanted Waterfall, The Clever Trick, The Golden Nugget Tale, The Penny-Wise Monkey etc.

Appendix - includes the grammar guide, oral narration and alternative texts from the Bible.

In all chapters, the reading selection is followed by a practise model and multiple copy work pages. 

I chose to schedule this to three days a week (part of the beauty of this product is you can schedule to suit you) I would print the selected sections over the weekend so that on Mondays they would read the story, answer narration questions and narrate it to me in their own words which they then had to write on their narration page. Tuesdays focused on the copy work and dictation, while on Wednesdays we looked at grammar and additional copy work. I chose to set this up as group work and it worked really well across the different ages. Sometimes I read it to them and other times they would read it to the group then the reader asked narration questions to the group before they would go off to do their individual writing activities. It would also work perfectly well as an individual lesson where the child would read you the story, then narrate it in their own words before doing the copy work and writing.

I loved how the versatile this is; I can choose the history lesson that ties in with what we are currently studying, choose who does the reading, I can choose how to schedule our week, choose to assign it as group work or individual work and I can choose what to include or not include - basically I can tailor this to fit our needs. I love flexible products : )

The four girls (ages 6-13) all loved the cultural/folk tales the best and it was hard to get them to stop at just one, they were quiet happy to do more writing if it meant they could have more stories.

Level 1 is designed for grades 1-3, and Level 2 is for grades 3-5 and is available for $22.95 (or $30.95 for the printed book).

You can see what my crew mates thought of this and other Brookdale House products over at the TOS Blog

Cracking Narration

For years I've been using narration successfully with my older girls - however Rose (6yr) has always struggled with it - either she just repeats the last sentence back to me, or you can hear her chanting under her breath the fact she wants to share with us.

This week I asked her why she wasn't listening and her reply was 'my brain just doesn't remember', this prompted me to give her loads of examples where she does remember but she still didn't seem happy. This worried me so I took it right back to the basics and made up three daft stories I asked her questions about it and to tell me what came next in the story - she managed to remember all the facts and got so excited by her 'skills' that she decided she would tell me stories and ask me to narrate them back. She especially likes when I get an answer mixed up.

Needless to say I finally have a youngest who is happy during our narration exercises and nips into bed every morning to play 'brain games' :)

Orphs of the Woodlands - TOS Review

Over the years I've waxed lyrical about the 'living' books we use - stories that teach math, science or history concepts as you read. We were asked to consider reviewing Orphs of the Woodlands by Star Toaster and when I discovered it was in effect a living book but online, I jumped at the chance.

Orphs of the Woodlands is described as an online education game, its an interactive and fun way to encourage kids to read (and secretly learn loads)

Your first task when you have logged in, is to choose a name for the main character (who is a secret agent in training) and then you start reading. The story is funny and really engaging - its the adventurous journey of an orphaned, bitter squirrel who becomes a caring, educated agent whose task is find the treasure of High Tower and save Orphs. You are pitted against the Night Creatures, who are also after the treasure.

In the truest sense of a living book - as you read the story, you learn! It's packed full of word definitions, math knowledge, science, famous quotes, nutritional information, critical thinking, character skills, music and loads more. The story is interactive, so not only do you learn via the story but if they read a word they are unsure of they can click it to find the meaning, there are also pop up lesson movies from various characters as well as clickable sound effects, music and recipes.  The story is fifteen chapters long and it can take a good 45mins to read a chapter and complete the 'jobs'.

At the end of each chapter your character has the chance to work using the knowledge gained from the story and earn gold stars (the currency of the woodland) which you then use to rescue and care for orphaned woodland creatures (you can buy them plots of land, food, clothing, defence, medicine, water etc. the better you get at caring for the Orphs, the more come to you) 

These 'jobs' are based on what you have learnt whilst reading the chapter and are divided into different categories (the more you get right in each category, the more gold stars you earn). In case you don't remember everything you read there is a review snippet before each job. The jobs are usually a multiple choice question. For example you can earn gold stars by working in a print shop (vocabulary jobs - defining word that were in the story), working as a cookie consultant (advising on the nutritional value of ingredients) or as a talented tutor (teaching another character about algebra)

The Parent page is easy to navigate - you can check you child's status, view the skills completed and view lessons as well as read the book.

Lilly(12), Sunflower (10) and Tulip (8) all used this (Rose felt left out and thought it looked fun so she ended up sitting in with Tulip while we read the story together). Both Lilly and Sunflower used this without any help from me - they loved it and it was often hard to get them off the computer because they were so engaged : )
Tulip falls just outside their suggested age range of 4th - 7th grade, so I read it with her them - she did require some help with the jobs but neither of the older girls did.

When I asked the girls for their thoughts on Orphs of the Woodlands they said:
"Best game ever - I loved building new homes for the Orphs"
"My favourite part was Prof Forp always saying to learn 'New Information Daily' and when they used cute animals to encourage me to be industrious or believe I can do it"
"It's so much fun - I can't wait for book two"

Their only disappointment was that a number of the recipes contained nuts (he is a squirrel) and they have nut allergies - Sunflower thought the nut bread looked especially appealing.

I loved the amount they learnt (I even got told to have a peppermint tea when my tummy was sore) 

and how engaged they were by the story - It's so well written and really captures their imagination. I thought the game looked amazing - its really pretty and well designed. I think Orphs is a great product and is defiantly our favourite review so far.

Orphs of the Woodlands is available for $19.99 for a 60 day subscription for up to three students (and only $6.99 for a 30 day extension) and Star Toaster are offering a free trial (first 100 pages) so you can see how much fun it is.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog

The secret truths about homeschooling

When you start homeschooling there are certain truths that no one warns you about - these are the hard lessons I've learnt.

1) Glue sticks and sellotape become more valuable than contraband - I have to hide my stash in my underwear drawer because it's the only place the kids won't look.

2)Sick days no longer exist - even when I'm in bed suffering with a vomiting bug the kids still clamber on asking for 'lesson books' to be read to them.

3) Documentaries become your best friend when you are ill - pop them on and pass out on the sofa with a smile on your face knowing that the kids are least learning something.

4) Everyone you meet when you are out with your kids during school time will have an opinion about home education - they may think its good or they may think its bad but they WILL share their opinion.

5) Your printer simultaneously becomes your best friend and the most hated appliance in your home (especially when it runs out of blue ink in the middle of a black and white print run)

6) If it doesn't involve glitter or play-doh (yes, even when they are 12) you may as well give up now.

7) Birthday, anniversary and Christmas presents become less about a new perfume or shoes and more about that guillotine you've had your eye on or specialist art supplies that weren't in your budget. 

8) Your memory goes to pot, don't get me wrong - random facts like capital cities and melting points of chemicals will still be there but remembering to book or attend a dental appointment - not gonna happen.

9) Kids will pounce on any mistake you make in lessons - they will take great pleasure in telling you exactly why that fact or information is wrong (and what book you should have read before doing the lesson so you could get it right).

I've probably forgotten loads (see point 8) so feel free to share any I've missed.

Seems those Attenborough documentaries are paying off....

It made me chuckle to walk in on the girls playing this.

They spent over 40 mins 'playing' dinner with various animals eating other animals (they even hosted a dinner party). 

Seems those 'off' days where we just watched documentaries were worth it : )

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving

I asked the girls yesterday what they were most thankful for. Their replies were not quiet what I had expected.

Lilly - For my scriptures and that singing makes me happy.
Sunflower - I'm most thankful for my family and that my home is warm. 
Tulip - For family and sweets.
Rose - that He put me on earth and for Spiderman.

I'm thankful that I've been given the strength and energy to keep on homeschooling through the last year and that the majority of days are ok :)

The Timeline Scroll

It's one of those thing that you are told every homeschool family should have, so you try to be good and create one running up the side of your staircase until you realise it will take over the whole house!

After many years (and many different timelines) I finally came up with one that fits easily into our home and life but still gives us tons of space to write all our history facts on (the full length of our timeline is just over 5 meters, so plenty of space for those all important facts).

Welcome the timeline scroll

(this looks like a roll of wallpaper because it is!)

We started by attaching a stick to the edge of the paper roll with duct tape (to make rolling and unrolling our scroll more fun) then rolling out the wallpaper and drawing a line through the middle - marking off each 50 years with alternating dark and light lines and adding the dates.

Then when we study a specific time we open just the section we need to write down our facts, add photos etc.

When we are not using our timeline, it neatly rolls up and hides in the corner behind the bookcase.  We use this on a daily basis and the girls just collect it and roll out what they need.

The Brinkman Adventures - TOS Review

We love learning through stories so being offered the chance to review The Brinkman Adventures - Season 2: Episodes 13-24  by The Brinkman Adventures was great, not only do they educate and entertain but they also teach the importance of values and have honest discussions about how God uses people to do his work.

The Brinkman Adventures is a radio drama based on true missionary stories. It follows the large Brinkman family as they visit missionaries worldwide. During their journey the Brinkmans' experience various problems and setbacks, but God’s hand is over them, There are 12 episodes in season two and each episode lasts approximately 25 mins so there is over 5 hours of stories. They are available as CD’s or digital download – we got the download to review.

I decided to use these in the car because the length tied in perfectly with our 30 min car journeys to and from our various activities but they would work equally well in the home as a group story time or family night

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Their first adventure starts at their local water hole, where the children find a huge gold ring and the excitement grows from there as they travel to Hong Kong, Mexico, a pirate island, a French castle and beyond.

A couple of the episodes do tackle sensitive issues (like slavery) but there is a verbal cautionary note prior to those episodes – I did choose to listen to them prior to trying them out on the girls so I was prepared to deal with questions and concerns that it bought up.

The girls LOVE them. They have bugged me constantly to listen to the ‘next one’ even to the point where they wanted to go home early just to listen to the next episode : )

I liked that the episodes occurred all over the world – it was a great, secret geography study. I loved how they have a gift for making you feel like you are right there with them living the adventure and making those choices. The best feature for us is that they are all based on real stories and they have a links where you can read more about the real stories they are based on.

We did struggle a little jumping in with season two and I would have preferred to start with the first season so we had their full story but otherwise couldn’t find fault with these. They tackle sensitive issues like still birth and slavery sensitively and introduce missionary work in an engaging way.

I asked the girls what their favourite episode was and we have a divided camp – Lilly and Sunflower loved the story where they smuggle Bibles to where they are needed. While Rose and Tulip’s favourite was the French castle mystery.

The Brinkman Adventures is available on 4 CD’s for $25 or $17 for downloads. It is suggested for all ages and it worked very well across our age range (5-11) as they were all hooked.

You can see what my crew mates thought over at the TOS Blog