Happy Homeschooling!

The End of One Journey is the Beginning of Another

2011-07-15T14:10:00.001-04:00

I am somewhat saddened to announce that we can no longer call ourselves homeschoolers. Our daughter started public school back in September, and some of you may know that our son has been back in school for two years now. It has been a good transition, and I am certain it is the right decision for our family at this time. I did have a bit of trouble adjusting to the fact that we are no longer part of this elite group of amazing, interesting, cultured, and forward-thinking families, but I’m okay now. :-)

Our daughter was excited about going to school, but at the same time a bit nervous. In her mind, we didn’t do geography, science, or history, so she was worried she was going to be “behind” academically.

It’s true that in the four and a half years we homeschooled, the only formal curriculums we followed were French and Math, and even those were not as consistent as I had hoped. However, I explained to her that it may not have looked like school, but we did cover everything they do in school and much more in our daily lives. We discussed current and historical events, we went on trips, visited museums, and turned our entire existence into a living classroom.

At the time of school registration our daughter was 10 years old and would normally have gone into grade 5. She’s very bright and we wanted her bumped up a grade, which required having her tested. She did extremely well. She scored at a grade 11 reading level and a grade 9.5 math level, so the school board had no issues with bumping her up to grade 6. She’s actually only the 3^rd student in the entire school board history to skip a grade other than kindergarten. Since starting school, she’s done very well socially and academically; she is even holding her own in French, despite that being her most difficult subject.

Her brother also scored “extremely well” before entering Secondary 1, but I have not been able to get the official results from the school board, even though they promised to share them with me. I strongly suspect he scored at a college level, which may be why they are giving me a hard time about getting the results.

What my daughter did not understand is that once you make the decision to homeschool, something changes in your thought process. You realize that you are suddenly responsible for your child’s entire education (which can seem scary at first) so almost every conversation naturally evolves into learning moments. You can’t help but discuss why President Obama’s election was a historical moment, how oil spills affect wildlife, and where Uncle Jack lives and how far away that is.

Each of those moments is a lesson, even though there is no classroom, no teacher, no line-ups for corrections, and no after-school homework. Since the conversation is relevant and engaging – and often initiated by the child – he is eager to learn and absorb the information at hand. Since it’s an open dialogue that unfolds like a story, it keeps him focused. Since the child is receiving one-on-one attention from a parent or loved one, the child is being fed emotionally as well as intellectually. Once the conversation is over, the child typically has some free time to reflect on these new ideas and concepts, either solidifying the knowledge or prompting more questions so that the cycle can begin again. In my opinion, this is the ideal learning environment.

When you add all of these teaching moments together, the child is receiving hours and hours of instruction every week, and has no idea that she is being taught. She is living life and learning directly from it, absorbing everything like a sponge, instead of rebelling against it.

For us, homeschooling was not an easy lifestyle to choose. My husband and I were both raised in main stream families, so it seemed like such a big decision at the time. The biggest challenge was being so geographically isolated, but we found ways to work around that and make the best of what we had available to us.

I will always consider our homeschooling journey a successful one. Not because both of our children tested very high by traditional academic standards, but because our children are well-rounded, mature, confident, interesting, and passionate people. They have a strong foundation that will hold them up when they are facing difficult times. They know how to learn, they enjoy teaching and helping others, and they are able to think about the world outside of their own. They have taught me so much in the last four and a half years… mostly about myself, human nature, and the resilience of children… and I will never regret the extra time we spent together.

So, with that, I say so long. I will leave this blog up for others to read, but I will not be adding any new posts. Whether or not we decide to homeschool again in the future, I will always consider myself a homeschooler at heart.

I wish you all the best in your homeschooling journey and hope that you will find it as rewarding and fulfilling as I have.

Warm regards,
Kim, aka LadyBugAbode

Satellite Flybys

2010-07-10T15:38:00.002-04:00

Enter your postal code or zip code and this site will tell you when the next satellite is scheduled to fly over your location. There's also a link for Global Flybys if you are not in Canada or the US.

http://spaceweather.com/flybys/index.php

This would be a great tool for a Space project!

Facebook: The Danger of Ignorance

2010-05-25T08:16:00.001-04:00

When our 12 year old son asked for a Facebook account, my husband and I discussed it over a period of a week before reluctantly agreeing to give it a try. We can't totally protect our kids from social media, but we can educate them on how to appropriately use these sites. He wanted the Facebook account mostly for the games that he saw his friends play, so we agreed to let him have an account, on several conditions:

1) It was a trial run and we reserved the right to remove the privilege at any time
2) He could only "Friend" people he knows in person (and with our permission in the beginning)
3) He had to give us his password and "Friend" me so that I could see what he was doing

We helped him create the account, and immediately went through all the privacy settings with him. He was shocked at the default privacy settings that Facebook has in place, and we had a great discussion about Facebook’s motives for doing that and what they get out of it. Now that he understands not only why Facebook would want to share his private information, but the damage it can cause him in the long run, he’s more willing to take an active role in protecting himself.

In going through his privacy settings a second time, we discovered that the games on Facebook set their own privacy settings individually. He likes to frequently try new games, so he doesn’t always think to go in and check what they’re doing with his information. Some of them were automatically able to use his personal information to contact him by email, and to see and share his friends list. It’s important to go through those settings on a regular basis – especially if you/your child play lots of different games.

We recently came across ReclaimPrivacy.org, a free tool to check your privacy settings on Facebook:
http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/

Using that tool, we discovered that my son’s friends could inadvertently share his personal information with anyone on the Internet! Facebook’s privacy settings are so complex, that’s it’s easy to miss something important. Also, certain elements on Facebook are no longer private, no matter what your settings are, including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests. The only way to keep those settings private is to delete them.

Also, Facebook never actually deletes an account – what you put on Facebook is permanent. Try this yourself and see. I created a Facebook account, waited a few weeks, and then deleted it. Months later, I tried logging into my account and voila! Everything was just as I had left it, as if I had never deactivated the account. This is bothersome, but at least by doing this experiment, I can show our son that everything he puts on the Internet is permanent. Once you hit “send”, there’s no going back.

Obviously, kids have to be taught to be accountable for everything they do online. I often explain to friends and family that anything you put online – not just on Facebook – is there forever. I can tell that sometimes people think I’m just being a paranoid conspiracy theorist… that is, until I show them the Way Back Machine:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Type in any web address and see what it looked like on virtually any given date. The Internet is being archived, whether we like it or not. And this is just one example.

By showing all of this to our son – and not just “lecturing” him about it – he was able to understand how permanent the Internet is. To demonstrate the dangers of online privacy, I also went to Facebook and clicked around on “friends of friends” to show him how public their information is. You can easily find a total stranger and learn their full name, their birthday, their spouse’s name, their kids names, where they live, what they do and their hobbies. That’s more than enough information to pull off a host of scams online and off. Demonstrating while you discuss the subject will really help impress upon kids the need for security and the dangers of being ignorant.

I now actively participate on Facebook in large part because our son is there. I don't necessarily interact with him much, but I can see what he's doing and who he has added as "friends."

He's had the account now for several months and has only 25 friends. We explained to him that he must resist the temptation to compete for friends. Just like driving an expensive car is a symbol of status in our society, having tons of Facebook friends is a symbol of "online popularity." We explained that neither the car nor the online popularity rank will make him happier or indicate his value as a human being. It was a good discussion that covered peer pressure and social status in schools and the work place.

Take the time to discuss all of this with your kids, if they have a Facebook account, go through their privacy settings, run the Reclaim Privacy tool, and read the articles below to keep your family safe.

Resources:

Reclaim Privacy (Facebook Tool):
http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/

Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/13/parenting-social-media/

Evolution of Facebook Privacy:
http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/

The Erosion of Privacy on Facebook:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information

7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things-to-stop-doing-now-on-facebook

Facebook’s Gone Rogue:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/

Way Back Machine (Internet Archive):
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Online Language Arts Games

2010-05-09T07:09:00.002-04:00

Gardening with Kids - Make Organic Planting Pots from Newspaper

2010-05-04T08:31:00.000-04:00

Once you know what type of gardening soil you have, it's time to plant some seeds. Why not make your own planting pots out of newspaper?

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-organic-planting-pots-using-old-newspa/

Have fun!

Gardening with Kids - Easy Soil Test Science Experiment

2010-05-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

If you enjoy gardening with your kids, why not have them do a quick soil test? They can then help decide what types of vegetables or flowers would do well in your garden.

Collect a sample of soil from your vegetable or flower garden (about 2 cups will do). Divide the soil equally into 2 bowls.

Add 2 TBSPs of Baking Soda to one bowl of soil – If it bubbles, your soil is acidic.

Add 2 TBSPs of Vinegar to the other bowl of soil – If it bubbles, your soil is alkaline.

TIP:
If you can’t see the bubbling, put your ear close to the bowl and listen carefully!

Pepit: Des exercices éducatifs pour tous !

2010-02-18T11:02:00.001-05:00

Here's a great French resource. You can download the activities or play online. There are audio files so that your children can read and hear the French pronunciation.

There are over 150 exercises, all in French, divided by age group and category.

www.pepit.be

Have fun!

14 Tips to Encourage Children to Read

2010-02-01T08:51:00.009-05:00

Reading is an important part of life. While my children happen to love it, I do not believe that you can force a child to love reading. It’s a fact of life that some kids will never be passionate about books, despite our best efforts. However, I do believe there are things parents can do to help encourage a love of reading.

Here are 14 tips to encourage your children to read. The earlier you begin, the better, but it is never too late to start.

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Use your library. Make regular trips the library. Mark it on the calendar and make it a special outing, perhaps stopping at the park on the way home. Psychologically, your child will begin to associate the library with fun, even if it’s not her favourite part of the day.
Get social. Meet friends or other homeschoolers at the library. Join story time. If there is no story time, start one. If your child is too old for story time, ask him if he would like to help read to the younger kids. You could also start a reading club.
Read to your child and continue to read to your child, even when she is old enough to read on her own. Don’t stop unless she specifically tells you she wants to read by herself.
Don’t dismiss comics. If your child is reading anything at all, that’s a positive thing. Some comics will actually help your child’s vocabulary, like Calvin and Hobbes, which is written at a very high level. Comics like Doonesbury teach children about current events and politics. Even if your child is reading “garbage” comics, at least she’s reading. She will get more out of those than from watching television, so don’t discourage it.
Play reading games. Word games like UpWords, Buzz Word, Taboo, Apples to Apples, Boggle, Hangman, Word Searches and Scrabble, all help with vocabulary and spelling. If your child has a good grasp of her native language, she will struggle less with reading and enjoy it much more.
Read. It’s true that when children see their parents reading, it becomes a way of life. Model the positive behaviour you want for your children and your work is half done. Don’t just have books around your home, make sure the adults are reading them regularly. Novels are great, but cookbooks, magazines, newspapers and crossword puzzles all count for reading.
Limit TV and video games. TV requires no brain activity at all – in fact, studies show that your brain is less active while watching television than when sleeping. Obviously, this makes it an easier activity than reading. You don’t have to throw away your television set, but set some reasonable limits so that your child has to find other activities to occupy his time.
Lower the level. Allow your child to read below his abilities and don’t give him a hard time because of it. Children will often revert back to an easier level to reinforce what they know and also to gain a sense of accomplishment. My daughter still likes to go back to Dr. Seuss books on occasion to read them as fast as she can, just for giggles. She feels proud that she can read them so well and remembers when she struggled to get through a few pages.
Encourage reading to younger kids. If your son is struggling to read novels, ask him to read picture books to a younger sibling or cousin. He will feel confident in his abilities and reinforce what he knows.
Create a special space in your home just for library books. Make it easy for your child to take care of borrowed books, and help him stay organized so that it doesn’t feel too stressful. If a trip to the library becomes a shouting match while you hunt for books and rush out the door, the negative feeling will be associated with books and reading in general. The point is for him to read, so this may be an area where you can bend in the beginning. Help him take care of the books and enforce organizational skills more and more as his interest in reading strengthens.
Stick to books. Don’t borrow movies from the library until your child has a solid interest in reading. Get movies at the movie store and books at the library to avoid distractions.
Read it, then watch it. Read books that have been made into movies together and plan a movie night when the book is done. When a child finishes a large book like Harry Potter, watching the movie becomes a celebration of his accomplishment. Start small in the beginning and read the book as a family, if necessary. Work your way up to larger books. Consider books from this list: http://www.kidsreads.com/features/books2movies.asp
Take turns. When my nephew sleeps over, he and my son often take turns reading a paragraph at a time together before bed. They enjoy the time they spend together and no one feels left out for reading slower than the other.
Delay bedtime. Let your child stay up a little later to read. If she wants to read on her own, give her an extra 15-30 minutes, as you see fit. Having that special time as an independent reader is gratifying and will allow for some extra down time. Bedtime reading is a wonderful way to wind down and get your mind off the day, and this habit could very well carry on into adulthood.

Since reading is such an integral part of homeschooling and life in general, everything you can do to help smooth the way will only benefit your child. Remember, the goal is not to make your child read, but to instil a love of reading that will last a lifetime.

How to Find Homeschoolers

2009-12-03T15:12:00.001-05:00

Finding local homeschoolers to connect with has been a constant battle for us since day one. The problem is that most homeschooling families prefer to remain anonymous and not publicize that they homeschool. This makes your job of finding friends for your kids even harder.

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We live in a very small town in rural Quebec, with a permanent population of about 1,500. As such, we are the only homeschooling family in the entire township. When we first started homeschooling, the nearest homeschoolers were people we already knew who lived 45 minutes away and across the US border… and they’ve since moved to Nova Scotia.

So how did we find other homeschoolers? The first thing I did was look online. I found as many homeschooling forums as I possibly could and posted messages stating where we live, what “geographical radius” we’re looking for, how many kids we have and their ages.

I found 0 homeschoolers.

I waited a few months and tried again.

Nothing.

Eventually, someone 20 minutes away posted at a forum saying they were looking for homeschoolers in our region. That has worked out extremely well – we meet with them every week and have developed a priceless friendship over the last three years. However, their kids are more our daughter’s age and younger, so our son was still feeling a bit lonely. Homeschooled boys over the age of six are a rarity around here.

Since our children have been in public school, we have no reason to remain “under the radar”. So I decided to try putting up posters. I kept the text brief so as not to turn anyone off who might choose a different homeschooling style, or who might be looking for kids of a different age, etc. For now, I just wanted to see who was out there, get to know each other and build a community. The only thing I wrote on the poster was:

Homeschoolers!
Seeking families interested in group activities.
Contact Kim at (555) 555-5555.

I created an area at the bottom where people could tear off a tab with my name and phone number on it. (Of course, here in Quebec the poster has to be bilingual, so it wasn’t as bare as it might seem!)

I put the poster up in the following locations:
• Every library within the region that I was willing to drive to for events/outings
• Health Food stores
• Pharmacies
• Grocery stores
• Banks

The library is the most important location for the simple fact that no matter what method of homeschooling families choose and no matter what their reasons for homeschooling, most homeschoolers use the library unfailingly! I chose to put posters up at Health Food stores because people who homeschool tend to make alternative choices. The other locations were chosen purely because everyone uses them and I hoped to hit the largest audience that way.

I received two calls from those posters. One was from a family with children exactly our kids’ ages. That worked out well for a while, but they too have since moved away. The other family has younger children, but they’re great people and we have been so happy to connect with them.

It’s taken some time, but by finding those first few families, through them, we’ve now connected with two groups. One is a group of 15 relatively new homeschooling families (mostly with young children) 20 minutes from us. The other is an established group with 45 families about an hour from here. While we won’t drive an hour every week to meet with them, we’ve joined their Yahoo group so that we can learn about activities and join those that are close or are particularly interesting. We also make sure to post activities we’re planning, in the event that any of them feel like driving out our way.

We are also not shy to go outside the homeschooling community. Homeschoolers are always our first choice because not only do they tend to be like-minded people, but their schedules are more flexible for activities and outings. Our children have both participated in after school programs run by the local youth centre, which has helped keep them from feeling so isolated.

Our son is now back in public school, in part due to the lack of homeschooled boys in the area, but I’m confident that with these new connections we’ve made recently, that our daughter will continue to thrive and enjoy learning in the home environment.

I wish you the best of luck in your homeschooling journey!

Locking Google SafeSearch

2009-11-11T12:22:00.002-05:00

Most homeschoolers rely on the Internet as an integral resource, but online safety is always a concern. Parents now have an additional tool at their disposal to help prevent their children from seeing inappropriate material on the Web. Google has implemented “SafeSearch” which gives parents the ability to password protect the filter settings of the popular search engine.

You’ll find instructions (complete with a demo video) here on how to set up this free service:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/locking-safesearch.html

Happy *Safe* Surfing!

Video: Birth of Live Elephant!

2009-10-31T07:30:00.000-04:00

This incredible video shows the birth of a live elephant!
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/656611/d1dfcfee/live_olifant_geboorte_tv.html

It is a bit graphic, so you may want to preview it before showing your children.

Learning Through Video

2009-10-06T09:19:00.007-04:00

Here are some links to free online educational videos. As always, please preview all websites before allowing your children to visit them. I have not thoroughly verified every one of these links, and cannot be held responsible for inappropriate content.

If you would like to report a broken link or suggest a link to add to this list, please send me a comment and I will review your request when I moderate the comment. Thanks!

Learning Through Video: General
http://studio4learning.tv/
http://www.homeschoolviewtube.com/index.php
http://www.ted.com/
http://www.bodocus.com/ (Full length documentaries)
http://www.teachertube.com/
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/

Learning Through Video: Economics
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 (Money as Debt)

Learning Through Video: Health
http://www.brainpop.com/health/seeall/

Learning Through Video: Language Arts
http://pbskids.org/lions/songs/ (Reading)
http://www.brainpop.com/english/seeall/

Learning Through Video: Math
http://www.brainpop.com/math/seeall/
http://www.learner.org/resources/series32.html?pop=yes&vodid=741044&pid=871#
http://countdown.luc.edu/

Learning Through Video: Science
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/656611/d1dfcfee/live_olifant_geboorte_tv.html Birth of Elephant
http://www.brainpop.com/science/seeall/
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/

Learning Through Video: Social Studies
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/seeall/

Learning Through Video: Misc.
http://mathusee.com/blog/?s=greek (Greek Alphabet)
http://www.brainpop.com/earthday/ (Earth Day)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs/ (NOVA videos from PBS)
http://www.storyofstuff.com/ (The Story of Stuff - economics, environment)

We're Back!

2009-09-08T09:11:00.003-04:00

We’re excited to be starting another year of homeschooling. This year is busier than ever, so my plan is to update this blog every couple weeks. I look forward to sharing ideas and resources with you.

To be sure not to miss any posts, click on "Follow Blog" at the top of the screen.

Planet Earth Interactive DVD Game

2009-01-02T11:05:00.002-05:00

My nine-year old daughter received the Planet Earth: The Interactive DVD game for Christmas. It's a lot like the Scene It DVD games, but it's based on the highly acclaimed Planet Earth BBC documentary series narrated by David Attenborough.

Our whole family really loves this game! It’s simple and fun, and the questions are informative and interesting. It’s not really competitive; you get a few puzzle pieces for each correct answer, and then put the puzzle together as a group. The last person to place a puzzle piece is the winner, so it's kind of random and not really based on who had the most correct answers. The puzzle is, appropriately, a picture of the earth. The footage is from the documentary series, and is absolutely spectacular.

If you haven't seen the documentaries, I highly recommend them as well. There are 5 DVDs, each with three 45 minute "episodes" on them, based on a specific theme (like caves, polar regions, etc). You can buy them as a complete set or individual discs, and they’re quite affordable.

The Homeschool Social Register

2008-10-23T19:38:00.004-04:00

http://www.homeschoolmedia.net/register/

I think this website is a brilliant idea, because it allows homeschoolers anywhere in the world to connect with other homeschoolers in their area, without giving any personal information. You can browse by country, province/state, or city. It is immediately evident if a location has no listings, so you don’t have to randomly click each town to see if anyone has registered. Those with more listings are more prominently displayed.

In time, as it becomes more popular, it would allow us to see how many homeschoolers there are, and where they are most concentrated. It’s not an official tally, by any means, but it is interesting to have one central place where we can go to find others in a specific area. Not that it really matters, but I don’t think anyone has an accurate idea of how many homeschoolers there really are, especially considering how much the laws on registering as homeschoolers vary from one province/state/country to the next.

Another bonus is that if you’re thinking of moving or travelling, you could use the site to connect with homeschoolers at your destination.

There are also puplisher listings, articles, and tons of other information that I have yet to explore. The site is a “labour of love, not a business”, as owner, Dave Hirschman puts it, so register today, and help spread the word!

What if Dad’s Not Convinced?

2008-09-20T19:03:00.002-04:00

So, you’ve started to research homeschooling and have decided you want to give it a go, but your spouse is not convinced?

That’s the situation I was in, and while my husband has always been a huge supporter of everything I do, he was leery of going against the grain on this one. This is, after all, our children we’re talking about. He has every right to be concerned for their well-being.

If your spouse is not convinced, keep in mind that s/he wants the best for your children, just as you do. We parents may not always have the answers, but the decisions we make are usually based on what we feel is the right thing to do at the time. Hind sight is 20/20 vision, but that doesn’t help now, does it?

Happy Homeschooling!

The End of One Journey is the Beginning of Another

Satellite Flybys

Facebook: The Danger of Ignorance

Online Language Arts Games

Gardening with Kids - Make Organic Planting Pots from Newspaper

Gardening with Kids - Easy Soil Test Science Experiment

Pepit: Des exercices éducatifs pour tous !

14 Tips to Encourage Children to Read

How to Find Homeschoolers

Locking Google SafeSearch

Video: Birth of Live Elephant!

Learning Through Video

We're Back!

Planet Earth Interactive DVD Game

The Homeschool Social Register

What if Dad’s Not Convinced?

Virtual Field Trips

Online Art Games

Online Science Games

Online Canadian History Games

Online Music Games

Online Foreign Language Games

A New Group for Teaching a Foreign Language!

Science Experiments

Online Math Games

Online Geography Games

Summer Break

Rosetta Stone

Canadian Flyer Series

Genealogy Unit Study

Muzzy Language Program from the BBC

Positive Personality Profiles: Discover Personality Insights to Understand Yourself and Others

Okay, We’ve Made the Decision to Homeschool… Now What?

Don’t Skip School - Have an Unschooling Day!

Wicked History Of The World: History with the nasty bits left in!

So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling

Making Rote Memorization a Little Less Rote

Build Off!

The Completely Comprehensive, Thoroughly Thorough Way to Plan a Unit Study

Science: An Experiment in Life

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane)

French Lapbook

Grammar with a Giggle

Globe Probe - Free World Geography Game!

Geography with Postcards