Homeschool Year in Review (Grades 2 and 4)

June 19, 2013 at 5:27 am , by Liesl Den

This is such a fun post to write! This is where I get to reminisce and think about the amazing year we’ve had.  It has been a blast… tiring at times (particularly in February when LD had a lot of out-of-town gymnastics meets, I had lots of meetings and was training for a half-marathon). But looking back, we had a fulfilling, successful year.

We do a lot of our activities together, so you’ll see a lot of crossover between the preschool year in review and this one.

I’ll start with what we call collection… the hands-on activities we do in science and history (and other subjects like music, art, etc.) This year I made lots and lots of packets and worksheets to go along with the units we covered. You could probably spend an hour scrolling through the posts that have free materials I made for the kids! The kids LOVE pouring through their history and science notebooks to check out the activities we’ve done (we often do lapbook type foldables, but we now glue them onto construction paper and add them to our 3-ringed binders).

Science:

Some of the science units she did this year included:

• Invertebrates –Mealworms While I talked about living and non-living with my youngest daughter, I had the older kids do some observation and writing and we went over the various systems of the worm.  You can download our observation sheets by visiting the mealworm post.

• Earthworms, Planarian 

• From there we went on to talk about vertebrates (particularly with my youngest). The older kids did a lot of independent work on animals using materials from Erica over at Confessions of a homeschooler.

• Chemistry Unit: We started with the States of Matter. We used resources from  States of Matter Teacher’s Guide by Molecularium and some of the books suggested in the NOEO curriculum. We did a few activities about molecule movement, water molecules, acids and bases, building molecules, and more etc.

chemistry review worksheet on the states of matter, atoms and molecules:

For more on our chemistry unit see these pages: Chemistry Unit and 2nd page of the Chemistry Unit

• Rocks and Minerals: I mentioned this unit yesterday.  We did lots of hands-on activities everything from panning for gems to growing crystals to exploring the properties of rocks…

• Human Body, Digestive System (she participated in all of our hands-on activities): Again, ED was right in with us for all the hands-on activities we did in this unit…. like learning about the different jobs our teeth have, how swallowing really works, the true length of the digestive system (below). I made lots of free resources as we worked through this unit.

History/Geography: This year we had an amazing year studying about Africa.

• We started with the basic facts about Africa, 
• studied Ancient Egypt. The kids loved learning about all the gods and goddesses.

• North Africa — We talked a lot about the spread of Islam across North Africa (and later into West Africa).
• Islam After we spent a week or two reading children’s books about Islam and the different holidays and learning a few facts about their religion we visited a local mosque. Despite the negative comments a couple people left on the blog, I felt it was really important that the kids get to know a bit about a religion different from our own.  (On that same note, we also learned a bit about Catholicism and the Pope when the new Pope was elected.)
• West Africa — history, art, music, games, culture, modern life.  The kids were fascinated by the history of Mali (Sundiata and Mansa Musa).

• Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – We read an amazing novel about Equiano called the Kidnapped Prince. It was really powerful.

• East Africa  – history of the region, modern East Africa
• We never had a chance to study South Africa, though Hubby’s family lived there years ago.

 

 

America’s New Teachers… Inadequately Prepared A Study Says

June 18, 2013 at 7:37 pm , by Liesl Den

According to a new study, America’s universities are failing to adequately train the people who become teachers each year.  The study by  National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) found that most teacher education programs are lacking. They studied more than 1,100 university education programs. The NCTQ blog said, “Our results show that most [programs] have a long way to go to get teachers classroom ready from day one.” The study points out that because of wave of baby boomer retirements, first-year teachers now teach around 1.5 million students every year. This is alarming because students taught by first-year teachers lose far too much ground academically compared with those taught by experienced teachers. 

A few highlights from the study:

• It is far too easy to get into a teacher preparation program. Just over a quarter of programs restrict admissions to students in the top half of their class, compared with the highest-performing countries, which limit entry to the top third.
• Fewer than one in nine elementary programs and just over one-third of high school programs are preparing candidates in content at the level necessary to teach the new Common Core State Standards now being implemented in classrooms in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
• The “reading wars” are far from over. Three out of four elementary teacher preparation programs still are not teaching the methods of reading instruction that could substantially lower the number of children who never become proficient readers, from 30 percent to under 10 percent. Instead, the teacher candidate is all too often told to develop his or her “own unique approach” to teaching reading.

Today NPR’s Tell Me More talked about the quality of the education teachers are getting. Most teachers are not entering their first year prepared to function in the classroom. They are not teaching teachers how to teach the content (such as math)… or how to tackle different learning abilities or behavior issues in the classroom.  The information people learned in these teacher education programs was not particularly useful. The course of study hasn’t changed much for 50 years even though the classroom of today is much different than those of a generation or two ago. These programs haven’t kept up with the times.

Most every teacher says they weren’t prepared in their first year in the classroom. The biggest complaint, said the expert on NPR, was that there was not enough hands-on experience. Not only that, but a lot of first-year teachers wind up in the hardest to manage classrooms.

According to the NCTQ report, “The heart of the matter for the field of teacher education is that students taught by first-year teachers lose far too much ground. And it’s not just the students who suffer. First-year teachers deal with so much anxiety and exhaustion that many just crash and burn.”

International tests show that U.S. students are lagging behind other nations such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Northern Ireland in reading, math and science.* Experts blame budget cutbacks, entrenched poverty, crowded classrooms, shorter school years, greater diversity of students than in other countries. But teacher quality is the most important factor inside the classroom that affects student learning. The NCTQ study points out that high-performing nations, such as Finland, South Korea and Singapore, are all notable for their top-notch teacher training systems. All three draw candidates from at least the top-third of the college-going population.

Teachers should finish their educational programs with the skills that will make them more effective so they will function well in the classroom from day one, the report concludes.

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Links You May Want to Visit to Find Out More:

You can read the original report (approx. 100 pages): A Review of the Nation’s Teacher Prep Programs

*See this article in the Washington Post: Here’s why other countries beat the U.S. in reading and math or go directly to the National Center for Educational Statistics to view the report yourself.

Read the NPR transcript: New Report Finds Many Teachers Aren’t Ready To Teach

Read the Washington Post article: University programs that train U.S. teachers get mediocre marks in first-ever ratings

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Homeschool Preschool Year in Review

June 17, 2013 at 12:03 pm , by Liesl Den

Each year at the end of the year, I put together a post that looks back at our school year.  ED has had a great year. She was 4 this year and turned 5 this spring. We homeschool together… so ED participates with my older two kids in all their activities. Some of these units (like the 5 senses) were mainly for ED, others were mainly for the older kids, but ED tagged along. The older kids generally cover the topics in more depth, but ED enjoys participating in the hands-on activities.

I put in links back to the posts (or to the units themselves), if you are interested in seeing what we covered in a bit more depth.

Science:

Some of the science units she did this year included:

• 5 Senses Unit

• Mealworms – Living and Non-Living

•  Above and Below Ground

Visit that post to get the free print out for that preschool activity (what lives above ground, below ground):

• Plants: parts of the plant; symmetry; carnations and celery experiment

• Invertebrates and vertebrates: Montessori cards; Farm Animals; Vertebrate Man (how the backbone works)

• World Animals and the 7 Continents:

• Rocks and Minerals: We had so much fun with this unit! We did lots of hands-on activities everything from panning for gems to growing crystals to exploring the properties of rocks…

• Human Body, Digestive System (she participated in all of our hands-on activities): Again, ED was right in with us for all the hands-on activities we did in this unit…. like learning about how swallowing really works:

The epiglottis above… and the muscles forcing the food bolus down the throat below:

• Science Experiments: She loves science experiments and we threw in lots of hands-on activities throughout the year. (Explosion of colors: milk and dye experiment)

• She participated in all of the crafts, cooking and other activities we did as we learned about Africa this past year. Everything from Ancient Egypt and North Africa to West and East Africa. (Below: Masaii necklace craft). Browse through all the posts in our Africa Unit here.

• She reviewed world geography (and worked off-and-on with us as we learned about the geography, countries and features of Africa)
• She learned about the 7 continents and world animals

General Preschool:

• Handwriting
• Winter Theme Preschool Unit
• Pete the Cat Unit

Reading/Phonics: She went from barely being able sound out three-letter words to working on words with vowel teams. She read through the first set of Bob Books (last summer), all 52 of the free Sam readers, and the first four sets (1, 1A, 2 and 2A) of Primary Phonics.

We’ve read lots and lots of books aloud together… too many to write about here!

Math:

• Counting
• Clocks

• Skip counting (10s, 5s and just started on 2s)
• Doubling (1+1 through 6+6 and is now working beyond those)
• Allowance and money
• Pete the Cat
• Click here to see all our preschool math posts (and free downloads)

Would You Have Turned the Car Around and Stopped?

June 14, 2013 at 12:00 pm , by Liesl Den

After I dropped the older kids off for their art class on Wednesday, ED and I headed home.  On the way, we were traveling on a bustling 4 lane road.  As I drove down the road I noticed an older gentleman (mid-to-late 70s) who was slowly sitting down on the curb next to his lawn mower. He reached down with one hand to help himself get down onto the grass.  I glanced back in the rear-view mirror and saw him wipe his brow and sit awkwardly. A million things ran through my mind, but within seconds I moved over, made a left and turned around to go back and check on him.

I was able to stop safely on the side of the road, waved at him as he looked up, and then got out to make sure that he was okay.  He smiled and said he was just getting too old for this kind of thing (mowing the lawn) and needed to take a rest. He assured me that he was just fine and thanked me for stopping.  He then struggled up as I got back in the car and headed off.

Photo Credit: Man cutting grass with lawn mover, via Shutterstock

The incident got me to thinking about the times I stop and the times I don’t.  Most of the time when I have the kids in the car or am alone, I don’t stop to ask people if they need help (when I’ve seen people broken down by the side of the road and that kind of thing). In this day and age, I figure most people have a cell phone. And, because I usually have the three kids with me, I think twice about stopping… I take all the factors in — like the time of day, our safety pulling over on the side of the road, but honestly most of the time I drive on by. Most of the times we have ever stopped to check on a stranger, Hubby has been with me.

But then at the same time, a year or so our car ran out of gas (long story). Hubby went off with the kids to get gas (in our other car) and I stayed with the car. I was really appreciative when several people stopped to see if I needed anything.

What do you do in those situations? Would you drive on by? Stop and check on him? Have you ever stopped in to help someone else out?

The Value of Play

June 13, 2013 at 5:32 am , by Liesl Den

Today I listened to an interview with Peter Gray, a psychologist who examines the importance of play over at the (free online) unschooling summit. Despite yesterday’s post, Summer Learning, where I talked about the academic focus of our homeschool, the truth is my children play a lot especially compared to their public school friends.

After listening to his interview and cruising some of the articles he posted on his website, Freedom to Learn, I felt lots better about the amount of free play my kids have. Here are some of the wonderful reasons children’s play is valuable:

• It’s creative and fun!
• Play is self-directed.
• Kids stay physically active.

• It fosters creativity as kids express themselves through art, music, painting, role plays, etc.

• It helps kids explore the world around them.

• It helps kids develop and keep friendships. It helps kids learn to cooperate, negotiate and restrain their impulses. It gives them opportunities to resolve conflicts and learn self-advocacy skills.
• It helps kids develop their emotional capacity… like empathy, compassion, listening, sharing, etc.

• It allows kids to use their imagination.
• Kids can practice adult roles.
• Kids help develop rules surrounding their play. Kids’ play almost always has structure. Kids often play a role and have to play within their and their friend’s understanding of the role. This requires quite a bit of self control. I’ll often hear the girls say, “Let’s pretend that…” and they go back and forth negotiating the storyline together.

In the photo below, ED explained all the grass was lava and they could only step on the logs.  The wheelbarrow was their house and they could go wherever they wanted by spinning the wheel:

• Play can teach perseverance. When kids try things over and over he/she gains confidence over his/her own abilities. I just think about LD’s archery set and how determined he is to get a bulls eye.
• Kids learn to entertain themselves.
• Part of the value of play is the time and space to be in a stress-free, carefree world.
• It helps kids develop dexterity and real-world skills. A lot of children’s play involves building things and putting things together. This helps them learn to use tools and explore how things work.  You can see toddlers who enjoy learning to use hammers and screw drivers… all the way up to kids who do woodworking or go outside to build their own forts.

• It helps develop kids moral capacity. 
• Kids can explore their behavior by acting out scenes and examining interactions they’ve observed.  I can think of many “phone calls” I’ve overheard where the kids act out the proper phone etiquette (“Hello?” “Oh, it’s so nice to hear from you” type of conversations.) 

I often hear, ED tenderly talking as McKenna (the doll) gets ready for bed, etc. 

So this summer when the kids are playing for long hours, we can rest assured that this is time well spent. As Albert Einstein said, “Play is the highest form of research.” Indeed, play is important and vital to a healthy childhood.