Unsurprisingly, often the most interesting critters found in soil are the hardest to find! They’re small, fast, and used to avoiding things that search for them. So, how do we find and study these tiny insects? With a Berlese Funnel (Also called the Tullgren funnel)!
Some insects are just too small! Even if we try to carefully pick them up with forceps, they either escape or are crushed. What to do?
Answer: Make an insect aspirator! An insect aspirator is a simple tool scientists use to collect bugs and insects that are too small to be picked up manually. Basically it’s a mini bug vacuum!
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The way animals and plants behave is so complicated because it not only depends on climate, water availability, competition for resources, nutrients available, and disease presence but also having the patience and ability to study them close-up.
We’re going to build an eco-system where you’ll farm prey stock for the predators so you’ll be able to view their behavior. You’ll also get a chance to watch both of them feed, hatch, molt, and more! You’ll observe closely the two different organisms and learn all about the way they live, eat, and are eaten.
How does salt affect plant growth, like when we use salt to de-ice snowy winter roads? How does adding fertilizer to the soil help or hurt the plants? What type of soil best purifies the water? All these questions and more can be answered by building a terrarium-aquarium system to discover how these systems are connected together.
Mass and energy are conserved. This means you can’t create or destroy them, but you can change their location or form.
Most people don’t understand that the E energy term means all the energy transformations, not just the nuclear energy.
The energy could be burning gasoline, fusion reactions (like in the sun), metabolizing your lunch, elastic energy in a stretched rubber band… every kind of energy stored in the mass is what E stands for.
For example, if I were to stretch a rubber band and somehow weigh it in the stretched position, I would find it weighed slightly more than in the unstretched position.
Why? How can this be? I didn’t add any more particles to the system – I simply stretched the rubber band. I added energy to the system, which was stored in the electromagnetic forces inside the rubber band, which add to the mass of the object (albeit very slightly). Read more about this in Unit 7: Lesson 3.
What grows in the corner of your windowsill? In the cracks in the sidewalk? Under the front steps? In the gutter at the bottom of the driveway? Specifically, how doe these animals build their homes and how much space do they need? What do they eat? Where do fish get their food? How do ants find their next meal?
These are hard questions to answer if you don’t have a chance to observe these animals up-close. By building an eco-system, you’ll get to observe and investigate the habits and behaviors of your favorite animals. This column will have an aquarium section, a decomposition chamber with fruit flies or worms, and a predator chamber, with water that flows through all sections. This is a great way to see how the water cycle, insects, plants, soil, and marine animals all work together and interact.
Here we’re going to discuss the differences between three types of worms; flatworms, roundworms, and segmented worms. The word “worm” is not, in fact, a scientific name. It’s an informal way of classifying animals with long bodies and no appendages (no including snakes). They are bilaterally symmetrical (the right and left sides mirror each other). Worms live in salt and fresh water, on land, and inside other organisms as parasites.
The differences between the three types of worms we will discuss depend on the possession of a body cavity and segments. Flatworms have neither a body cavity nor segments. Roundworms only have a body cavity, and segmented worms have both a body cavity and segments.
Flatworms (Phylum Platyhelminthes) have incomplete digestive systems. That means that their digestive system has only one opening. The gas exchange occurs on the surface of their bodies. There are no blood vessels or nervous systems in flatworms. Some are non-parasitic, like the Sea flat worm, and some are parasitic, like the tapeworm.
When birds and animals drink from lakes, rivers, and ponds, how pure it is? Are they really getting the water they need, or are they getting something else with the water?
This is a great experiment to see how water moves through natural systems. We’ll explore how water and the atmosphere are both polluted and purified, and we’ll investigate how plants and soil help with both of these. We’ll be taking advantage of capillary action by using a wick to move the water from the lower aquarium chamber into the upper soil chamber, where it will both evaporate and transpire (evaporate from the leaves of plants) and rise until it hits a cold front and condenses into rain, which falls into your collection bucket for further analysis.
Sound complicated? It really isn’t, and the best part is that it not only uses parts from your recycling bin but also takes ten minutes to make.
Art and science meet in a plant press. Whether you want to include the interesting flora you find in your scientific journal, or make a beautiful handmade greeting card, a plant press is invaluable. They are very cheap and easy to make, too!
The technological advances made in the last decade alone have created a generation gap between the current set of parents and their children. As gadgets allow the homeschool students to connect to the internet in new ways and gain more information, it’s imperative that the homeschool parent teach the homeschool class to use technology wisely.
Teach yourself before you teach them
There are a number of things that you can do using the internet, and new gadgets that you are probably not even aware of. For instance did you know that it’s possible to find an App to learn just about anything? Check out the ones that you feel will be helpful to your homeschool students and play with them yourself before asking them to try it out.
Teach them the limits and boundaries
There is so much to do, but they should have a limited time each day to be online. Makes sure that they understand basic security threats and how they should avoid them. Never ever allow them to give out their information online on any website without you being present. Plus educate them about malware and virus attacks. They should have a fall back drill for all such eventualities and you need to make sure that they remember them.
Supervise from a distance
Learn to set up filters for the internet so that your homeschool students don’t inadvertently end up on websites that they should not be accessing. Keep a check on the internet browser history to see what they are doing online. Ensure that they are being safe when they go online. Trust them, but keep a check as there are many kinds of threats these days.
Act as a role model
When you ask them to limit their screen time, ensure that you do it as well. If you are setting up a guideline for them to follow, educate them about how it works. Then ensure that they see you following the guideline when you go online or use a gadget. All children learn best when they imitate their parents, so it’s up to you to act as a good role model.
Unlike in Germany, where homeschooling is actually illegal, in Canada homeschooling programs are legal. The regulations for home based learning come under the provincial jurisdiction. This means that each province in the country may have a somewhat different set of rules to follow for homeschooling your child. This is similar to the United States where each state has a different set of legal rules for homeschooling.
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This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
We’re going to cover energy and motion by building roller coasters and catapults! Kids build a working catapult while they learn about the physics of projectile motion and storing elastic potential energy. Let’s discover the mysterious forces at work behind the thrill ride of the world’s most monstrous roller coasters, as we twist, turn, loop and corkscrew our way through g-forces, velocity, acceleration, and believe it or not, move through orbital mechanics, like satellites. We’ll also learn how to throw objects across the room in the name of science… called projectile motion. Are you ready for a fast and furious physics class?
The curved shape of the magnifying lens causes light rays to bend and focus on an image. When we look through the lens, we can use it to make writing or some other object appear larger. However, the magnifying lens can also be used to make something smaller. The light from the bulb is bent and focused on the wall when the lens is held far from the lamp and close to the wall. The image is much brighter than the surroundings. This is because all the light falling on the surface of the lens is concentrated into a much smaller area.
When sunlight is concentrated by passing it through a lens, the result can be an intensely bright and not spot of light. Even a small magnifying glass can increase the intensity of the sun enough to set wood and paper on fire. We are using a light bulb rather than sunlight for this experiment because concentrated sunlight Can be very harmful to your eyes. NEVER LOOK AT A CONCENTRATED IMAGE OF THE SUN.
The United States Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado uses solar energy to operate a special furnace. This high-temperature solar furnace uses a lens to concentrate sunlight. A heliostat (a device used to track the motion of the sun across the sky) is used so that the image reflected from a mirror is always directed at the same spot. The lens is used to concentrate sunlight from a mirror to an area about the size of a penny. This concentrated sunlight has the energy of 20,000 suns shining in one spot.
In less than half a second, the temperature can be raised to 1,720° C (3,128° F) which is hot enough to melt sand. This high-temperature solar furnace is being used to harden steel and to make ceramic materials that must be heated to extremely high temperatures.
Concentrated sunlight also has been used to purify polluted ground water. The ultraviolet radiation in sunlight can break down organic pollutants into carbon dioxide, water, and harmless chlorine ions. This procedure has been successfully carried out at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California. In the laboratory, up to 100,000 gallons of contaminated water could be treated in one day.
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This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
You’ll discover how to boil water at room temperature, heat up ice to freeze it, make a fire water balloon, and build a real working steam boat as you learn about heat energy. You’ll also learn about thermal energy, heat capacity, and the laws of thermodynamics.
Materials:
When two blocks of the Earth slip past each other suddenly, that’s what we call an earthquake! From a physics point of view, earthquakes are a release of the elastic potential energy that builds up. Most energy is released as heat, not as shaking, during an earthquake. 90% of all earthquakes happen along the Ring of Fire, which is the active zone that surrounds the Pacific Ocean.
This is a recording of a recent live class I did with an entire high school astronomy class. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
Light is energy that can travel through space. How much energy light has determines what kind of wave it is. It can be visible light, x-ray, radio, microwave, gamma or ultraviolet. The electromagnetic spectrum shows the different energies of light and how the energy relates to different frequencies, and that’s exactly what we’re going to cover in class. We’re going to talk about light, what it is, how it moves, and it’s generated, and learn how astronomers study the differences in light to tell a star’s atmosphere from millions of miles away.
I usually give this presentation at sunset during my live workshops, so I inserted slides along with my talk so you could see the pictures better. This video below is long, so I highly recommend doing this with friends and a big bowl of popcorn. Ready?
If you’ve ever owned a fish tank, you know that you need a filter with a pump. Other than cleaning out the fish poop, why else do you need a filter? (Hint: think about a glass of water next to your bed. Does it taste different the next day?)
There are tiny air bubbles trapped inside the water, and you can see this when you boil a pot of water on the stove. The experimental setup shown in the video illustrates how a completely sealed tube of water can be heated… and then bubbles come out one end BEFORE the water reaches a boiling point. The tiny bubbles smoosh together to form a larger bubble, showing you that air is dissolved in the water.
Materials:
An average can of soda at room temperature measures 55 psi before you ever crack it open. (In comparison, most car tires run on 35 psi, so that gives you an idea how much pressure there is inside the can!)
If you heat a can of soda, you’ll run the pressure over 80 psi before the can ruptures, soaking the interior of your house with its sugary contents. Still, you will have learned something worthwhile: adding energy (heat) to a system (can of soda) causes a pressure increase. It also causes a volume increase (kaboom!).
How about trying a safer variation of this experiment using water, an open can, and implosion instead of explosion?
Materials – An empty soda can, water, a pan, a bowl, tongs, and a grown-up assistant.
NOTE: If you can get a hold of one, use a beer can – they tend to work better for this experiment. But you can also do this with a regular old soda can. And no, I am not suggesting that kids should be drinking alcohol! Go ask a parent to find you one – and check the recycling bin.
You’re about to play with one of the first methods of underwater breathing developed for scuba divers hundreds of years ago.! Back then, scientists would invert a very large clear, bell-shaped jar over a diver standing on a platform, then lower the whole thing into the water. Everyone thought this was a great idea, until the diver ran out of breathable air…
Materials: 12″ flexible tubing, two clear plastic cups, bathtub
When air moves, the air pressure decreases. This creates a lower air pressure pocket right between the cans relative to the surrounding air. Because higher pressure pushes, the cans clink together. Just remember – whenever there’s a difference in pressure, the higher pressure pushes.
You will need about 25 straws and two empty soda cans or other lightweight containers
While this isn’t actually an air-pressure experiment but more of an activity in density, really, it’s still a great visual demonstration of why Hot Air Balloons rise on cold mornings.
Imagine a glass of hot water and a glass of cold water sitting on a table, side by side. Now imagine you have a way to count the number of water molecules in each glass. Which glass has more water molecules?
The glass of cold water has way more molecules… but why? The cold water is more dense than the hot water. Warmer stuff tends to rise because it’s less dense than colder stuff and that’s why the hot air balloon in experiment 1.10 floated up to the sky.
Clouds form as warm air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the warm, wet air rises, it cools and begins to condense, releasing energy that keeps the air warmer than its surroundings. Therefore, it continues to rise. Sometimes, in places like Florida, this process continues long enough for thunderclouds to form. Let’s do an experiment to better visualize this idea.
Lots of science toy companies will sell you this experiment, but why not make your own? You’ll need to find a loooooong bag, which is why we recommend a diaper genie. A diaper genie is a 25′ long plastic bag, only both ends are open so it’s more like a tube. You can get three 8-foot bags out of one pack.
Kids have a tendency to shove the bag right up to their face and blow, cutting off the air flow from the surrounding air into the bag. When they figure out this experiment and perform it correctly, this is one of those oooh-ahhh experiments that will leave your kids with eyes as big as dinner plates.
Here’s what you do:
About 400 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci wanted to fly… so he studied the only flying things around at that time: birds and insects. Then he did what any normal kid would do—he drew pictures of flying machines!
Centuries later, a toy company found his drawing for an ornithopter, a machine that flew by flapping its wings (unlike an airplane, which has non-moving wings). The problem (and secret to the toy’s popularity) was that with its wing-flapping design, the ornithopter could not be steered and was unpredictable: It zoomed, dipped, rolled, and looped through the sky. Sick bags, anyone?
Hot air balloons that took people into the air first lifted off the ground in the 1780s, shortly after Leonardo da Vinci’s plans for the ornithopter took flight. While limited seating and steering were still major problems to overcome, let’s get a feeling for what our scientific forefathers experienced as we make a balloon that can soar high into the morning sky.
Materials: A lightweight plastic garbage bag, duct or masking tape, a hand-held hair dryer. And a COLD morning.
Here’s what you do:
Where’s the pressure difference in this trick?
At the opening of the glass. The water inside the glass weighs a pound at best, and, depending on the size of the opening of the glass, the air pressure is exerting 15-30 pounds upward on the bottom of the card. Guess who wins? Tip, when you get good at this experiment, try doing it over a friend’s head!
Materials: a glass, and an index card large enough to completely cover the mouth of the glass.
As you blow into the funnel, the air under the ball moves faster than the other air surrounding the ball, which generates an area of lower air pressure. The pressure under the ball is therefore lower than the surrounding air which is, by comparison, at a higher pressure. This higher pressure pushes the ball back into the funnel, no matter how hard you blow or which way you hold the funnel. The harder you blow, the more stuck the ball becomes. Cool.
Materials: A funnel and a ping pong ball
As you blow air into the bottle, the air pressure increases inside the bottle. This higher pressure pushes on the water, which gets forced up and out the straw (and up your nose!).
Materials: small lump of clay, water, a straw, and one empty 2-liter soda bottle.
Fire eats air, or in more scientific terms, the air gets used up by the flame and lowers the air pressure inside the jar. The surrounding air outside the jar is now at a higher pressure than the air inside the jar and it pushes the balloon into the jar. Remember: Higher pressure pushes!
Materials: a balloon, one empty glass jar, scrap of paper towel , matches with an adult
This experiment illustrates that air really does take up space! You can’t inflate the balloon inside the bottle without the holes, because it’s already full of air. When you blow into the bottle with the holes, air is allowed to leak out making room for the balloon to inflate. With the intact bottle, you run into trouble because there’s nowhere for the air already inside the bottle to go when you attempt to inflate the balloon.
You’ll need to get two balloons, one tack, and two empty water bottles.
Fill the bathtub and climb in. Grab your water bottle and tack and poke several holes into the lower half the water bottle. Fill the bottle with water and cap it. Lift the bottle above the water level in the tub and untwist the cap. Water should come streaming out. Close the cap and the water streams should stop. Open the cap and when the water streams out again, can you “pinch” two streams together using your fingers?
Materials: A tack, and a plastic water bottle with cap, and bathtub
Yeast is a simple living organism that can break down sugars into ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide. The process by which yeast breaks down sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide is called fermentation.
The tiny gas bubbles rising in the liquid mixture in the bottle are carbon dioxide gas bubbles that are made during the fermentation. The balloon on the bottle expands and becomes inflated because it traps the carbon dioxide gas being produced.
The ethyl alcohol that is made during fermentation stays in the liquid mixture. When fermentation is finished, the liquid mixture usually contains about 13 percent ethyl alcohol. The rest of the liquid is mostly water.
The ethyl alcohol can be concentrated by a process called distillation. During distillation, the liquid fermentation mixture is heated to change the ethyl alcohol and some of the water into a vapor. The vapor is then cooled to change it back into a liquid. This distilled liquid contains 95 percent ethyl alcohol and 5 percent water. The remaining water can be removed by special distillation methods to give pure ethyl alcohol.
In some areas of the United States, ethyl alcohol is blended with gasoline to make a motor fuel known as gasohol. About 8 percent of the gasoline sold in the United States is gasohol.
Gasohol burns more cleanly than pure gasoline. This results in fewer pollutants being released into the air. The use of gasohol as a motor fuel is particularly important in cities that have a lot of smog.
Corn syrup is a mixture of simple and complex sugars and water. It is made by breaking down the starch in corn into sugars. The process is called digestion. In this experiment you changed the sugars in corn syrup using yeast. Much of the ethyl alcohol used to prepare gasohol is made by fermenting corn and corn sugar.
Over one billion gallons of ethyl alcohol are made each year by fermentation of sugars from grains such as corn. Ethyl alcohol is a renewable energy source when it is made by fermenting grains such as corn. This is because the grains, such as corn, are easily grown.
A peanut is not a nut, but actually a seed. In addition to containing protein, a peanut is rich in fats and carbohydrates. Fats and carbohydrates are the major sources of energy for plants and animals.
The energy contained in the peanut actually came from the sun. Green plants absorb solar energy and use it in photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide and water are combined to make glucose. Glucose is a simple sugar that is a type of carbohydrate. Oxygen gas is also made during photosynthesis.
The glucose made during photosynthesis is used by plants to make other important chemical substances needed for living and growing. Some of the chemical substances made from glucose include fats, carbohydrates (such as various sugars, starch, and cellulose), and proteins.
Photosynthesis is the way in which green plants make their food, and ultimately, all the food available on earth. All animals and nongreen plants (such as fungi and bacteria) depend on the stored energy of green plants to live. Photosynthesis is the most important way animals obtain energy from the sun.
Oil squeezed from nuts and seeds is a potential source of fuel. In some parts of the world, oil squeezed from seeds-particularly sunflower seeds-is burned as a motor fuel in some farm equipment. In the United States, some people have modified diesel cars and trucks to run on vegetable oils.
Fuels from vegetable oils are particularly attractive because, unlike fossil fuels, these fuels are renewable. They come from plants that can be grown in a reasonable amount of time.
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Fossil fuels, which include petroleum, natural gas, and coal, supply nearly 90 percent of the energy needs of the United States and other industrialized nations. Because of their high demand, these nonrenewable energy resources are rapidly being consumed. Coal supplies are expected to last about a thousand years.
We must find other sources of energy to meet the increasing fuel demands of modern society. Important alternate sources of energy include: solar, wind, biomass, hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, and tidal energy.
One of the benefits of using alternate sources of energy is that many of them are “clean.” This means that they do not cause pollution. Also, many alternative energy sources are renewable energy sources. They are replaced naturally-such as plant life-or are readily available – such as the sun and wind. In addition, the use of renewable forms of energy will allow us to stretch out our current supply of fossil fuels so they will last longer.
In this chapter you will learn how biomass, or organic matter, can be an important energy source. Plants are the most important biomass energy source. Plant material can be burned directly-as with wood-or it can be converted into a fuel by other means. In the experiments that follow you will explore: how water can be heated by composting grass, how a peanut burns, and how corn syrup can be made into ethyl alcohol.
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This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I've included it here so you can participate and learn!
Discover the world of clean, renewable energy that scientists are developing today! Explore how they are harnessing the energy of tides and waves, lean how cars can run on just sunlight and water, tour a hydroelectric power plant, visit the largest wind farms on the planet, and more! You’ll learn how streets are being designed to generate electricity, how teenagers are making jet fuel from pond scum in their garage, and how 70 million tons of salt can provide free, clean energy 24 hours a day forever! During class, you’ll learn how to bake solar cookies, magni-fry marshmallows and do the experiment with light Einstein won a Nobel prize for that is the basis of all photovoltaic energy today.
Materials:
Greetings and welcome to the study of astronomy! This first lesson is simply to get you excited and interested in astronomy so you can decide what it is that you want to learn about astronomy later on.
We’re going to cover a lot in this presentation, including: the Sun, an average star, is the central and largest body in the solar system and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
The solar system includes the Earth, Moon, Sun, seven other planets and their satellites (moons) and smaller objects such as asteroids and comets. The structure and composition of the universe can be learned from the study of stars and galaxies. Galaxies are clusters of billions of stars, and may have different shapes. The Sun is one of many stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Stars may differ in size, temperature, and color.
Materials
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too
Our solar system includes rocky terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), ice giants (Uranus and Neptune), and assorted chunks of ice and dust that make up various comets and asteroids.
Did you know you can take an intergalactic star tour without leaving your seat? To get you started on your astronomy adventure, I have a front-row seat for you in a planetarium-style star show. I usually give this presentation at sunset during my live workshops, so I inserted slides along with my talk so you could see the pictures better. This video below is long, so I highly recommend doing this with friends and a big bowl of popcorn. Ready?
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You can go your whole life without paying any attention to the chemistry behind acids and bases. But you use acids and bases all the time! They are all around you. We identify acids and bases by measuring their pH.
Every liquid has a pH. If you pay particular attention to this lab, you will even be able to identify most acids and bases and understand why they do what they do. Acids range from very strong to very weak. The strongest acids will dissolve steel. The weakest acids are in your drink box. The strongest bases behave similarly. They can burn your skin or you can wash your hands with them.
Acid rain is one aspect of low pH that you can see every day if you look for it. This is a strange name, isn’t it? We get rained on all the time. If people were dissolving, if the rain made their skin smoke and burn, you’d think it would make headlines, wouldn’t you? The truth is acid rain is too weak to harm us except in very rare and localized conditions. But it’s hard on limestone buildings.
I mixed up two different liquids (potassium iodide and a very strong solution of hydrogen peroxide) to get a foamy result at a live workshop I did recently. See what you think!
Note: because of the toxic nature of this experiment, it’s best to leave this one to the experts.
Nurses will put hydrogen peroxide on a cut to kill germs. It’s also used in rocket fuel as an oxidizer. The hydrogen peroxide in your grocery store is a weak 3% solution. The hydrogen peroxide used here is 10X stronger than the grocery store variety. The KI (potassium iodide) is the catalyst in the experiment which speeds up the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide. This is an exothermic reaction (gives off heat).
Guar gum comes from the guar plant (also called the guaran plan), and people have found a lot of different and interesting uses for it. It’s one of the primary substitutes for fat in low-fat and fat-free foods. Cooks like to use guar gum in foods as it has 8 times the thickening power of cornstarch, so much less is needed for the recipe. Ice cream makers use it to keep ice crystals from forming inside the carton. Doctors use it as a laxative for their patients.
When we teach kids how to make slime using guar gum, they call it “fake fat” slime, mostly because it’s used in fat-free baking. You can find guar gum in health food stores or order it online. We’re going to whip up a batch of slime using this “fake fat”. Ready?
Here’s what you do:
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Charcoal crystals uses evaporation to grow the crystals, which will continue to grow for weeks afterward. You’ll need a piece of very porous material, such as a charcoal briquette, sponge, or similar object to absorb the solution and grow your crystals as the liquid evaporates. These crystals are NOT for eating, so be sure to keep your growing garden away from young children and pets! This project is exclusively for advanced students, as it more involves toxic chemicals than just salt and sugar.
This experiment is for advanced students. Water Glass is another name for Sodium Silicate (Na2SiO3), which is one of the chemicals used to grow underwater rock crystal gardens. Metal refers to the metal salt seed crystal you will use to start your crystals growing. You can use any of the following metals listed. Note however, that certain metals will give you different colors of crystals.
Your crystals begin growing the instant you toss in the seed crystals. These crystals are especially delicate and fragile – just sloshing the liquid around is enough to break the crystal spikes, so place your solution in a safe location before adding your seed crystals.
After your garden has finished growing to the height and width you want, simply pour out the sodium silicate solution and replace with fresh water (or no water at all). Due do the nature of these chemicals, keep out of reach of small children, and build your garden with adult supervision.
Here’s what you need to get:
There is little that can be done without rules in the homeschool classroom. The homeschooling parent needs to make the rules very clear to the children so that they can be followed. Also important is to make the children understand that if the rules are not followed, there will be consequences. These must also be defined for breaking each rule. Here are a few house rules to get you started.
Be Respectful of Everyone
This means there will be polite behavior towards everyone. No fighting, no name calling, no biting, no punching, and no ill will created. Use the golden words of ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘You’re welcome’. If this rule is ignored, prepare the child to lose a privilege. The exact course of consequences will have to be modified for each child based on their interests, but these consequences should be communicated in advance.
Be Honest in Speech and Actions
To develop a conscience early will allow the homeschool student to do well in social interactions later in life. They need to be taught that they must always speak the truth. Not to lie by omission. To say what they really mean and not simply what they feel the parents want to hear. They should always follow through on their promises.
Be Responsible for Own Words and Deeds
The homeschool students should be aware that everything they say and do will result in some consequences. They should be able to take responsibility for the consequences that follow their actions. They should clean up the messes they create. Learn to ask for help when they need it. Think how their actions will affect others before they act. apologize when they have done something wrong, even if it was unintentional.
Be Full Of Gratitude
It is important for children to understand that not everyone has everything that they seem to take for granted. Make the homeschool students show their gratitude for their blessings. Have them help those less fortunate than them on a regular basis. Also a small thank giving prayer said at the end of the day for all the good things that happened would also be a good idea to implement.
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
Spark together electric motors, build homemade burglar alarms, wire up circuits and build your own robot from junk! Create your own whizzing, hopping, dancing, screeching, swimming, crawling, wheeling, robot during class. We’ll cover hot topics in electricity, magnetism, electrical charges, robot construction, sensors and more.
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
We’re going to study electrons and static charge. Kids will build simple electrostatic motor to help them understand how like charges repel and opposites attract. After you’ve completed this teleclass, be sure to hop on over the teleclass in Robotics!
Electrons are strange and unusual little fellows. Strange things happen when too many or too few of the little fellows get together. Some things may be attracted to other things or some things may push other things away. Occasionally you may see a spark of light and sound. The light and sound may be quite small or may be as large as a bolt of lightning. When electrons gather, strange things happen. Those strange things are static electricity.
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
Sound is a form of energy, and is caused by something vibrating. So what is moving to make sound energy?
Molecules. Molecules are vibrating back and forth at fairly high rates of speed, creating waves. Energy moves from place to place by waves. Sound energy moves by longitudinal waves (the waves that are like a slinky). The molecules vibrate back and forth, crashing into the molecules next to them, causing them to vibrate, and so on and so forth. All sounds come from vibrations.
Materials:
Greetings and welcome to the study of astronomy! This first lesson is simply to get you excited and interested in astronomy so you can decide what it is that you want to learn about astronomy later on.
We’re going to cover a lot in this presentation, including: the Sun, an average star, is the central and largest body in the solar system and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
The solar system includes the Earth, Moon, Sun, seven other planets and their satellites (moons) and smaller objects such as asteroids and comets. The structure and composition of the universe can be learned from the study of stars and galaxies. Galaxies are clusters of billions of stars, and may have different shapes. The Sun is one of many stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Stars may differ in size, temperature, and color.
Materials
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
We’re ready to deal with the topic you’ve all been waiting for! Join me as we find out what happens to stars that wander too close, how black holes collide, how we can detect super-massive black holes in the centers of galaxies, and wrestle with question: what’s down there, inside a black hole?
Materials:
Many homeschooling families have to get creative about how to make up for the loss of a second income because one of the parents chooses to stay at home and homeschool the children. Most of them come up with ideas to work from home along with handling their homeschooling responsibilities. This is easier with the many opportunities that are present with working online. However would it be possible for the homeschooling parents to both work away from the home and still do justice to homeschooling the children? Here are some ways that could make it work.
Work Different Shifts
By working around each other’s shifts it is possible for one parent to always be present at home. This parent then becomes the defacto homeschool teacher for the school day. In this way the children can be taught by both parents. Mom can handle the subjects she is comfortable with and Dad can do the ones he likes. Both are equally invested in the schooling of their children. This is easier to do when the children are somewhat older. Toddlers may still need the mother more than the father.
Get Extra Help
If both the parents are working away from the house, it would be a good idea to get more help with the children. A relative who is free to help out would be best, but it’s easy enough to hire someone responsible to be with the children while they are at work. This person could be given the homeschool schedule and made to supervise the homeschool student’s work while the parents are not there.
Independent Studies and Extra Classes
Another way to help the schedule is to have the homeschool children work on independent studies while the parents are physically unavailable. That way they are guided to continue learning even when the homeschool teachers are not present. Also extra classes for music, sports and other activities can be scheduled at the time the parents are at work. This ensures that the children are gainfully employed and learning something new, at the time that the parents are unavailable for supervision and teaching.
While homeschooling is legal in all 50 states in the US this is not true of all other countries. In some countries in Europe, such as Germany, it is illegal to homeschool your children. So it is indeed lucky for you if you have the choice of following a homeschool program for your child no matter where in America you live. In fact you can even teach your children at home when you live abroad for some period of time as long as you conform to the legal requirements of the state that you will return to live in.
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Words are a much more powerful force than we reckoned. It is an old idiom that the pen is mightier than the sword. The words we think and speak have a very powerful impact on the young minds around us. The choice of words can encourage them to try better next time, or convince them that nothing that they ever do is going to be worthwhile to us.
In addition to minding our own words when we are in the homeschool classroom, it is a very good idea to teach our homeschool students the power of words for themselves. It is one of the most important life lessons that you will ever teach them. Here are a couple of things that a homeschool teacher may suggest to their wards.
Monitor Self Talk
Words are all about communicating. There is no better way to check what we think about ourselves than to actually pay attention to that little voice inside us. Teach your homeschool students to listen to what their inner voice says and share it with you. If it is saying things that are negative and tearing down their confidence, teach them to cancel that type of self talk immediately. Then instead have them say a positive and encouraging statement to themselves. This small exercise when done once a week can bring about a huge positive change in their confidence levels and ability to take on new challenges.
Think Before Speaking With Others
Now that they are speaking kindly to themselves, have them monitor how they are speaking to their siblings, friends and other people around. Ask them to keep their words positive whenever possible. The idea is to teach them to take a second to say the sentence they mean to speak out loud and consider if it is going to hurt the other person. Make them think about what they really wish to communicate and have them consider the words that would best do so. This will have less fights breaking out between siblings and get your homeschool students to be more considerate about others feelings.
This is a recording of a recent live teleclass I did with thousands of kids from all over the world. I’ve included it here so you can participate and learn, too!
Discover how to detect magnetic fields, learn about the Earth’s 8 magnetic poles, and uncover the mysterious link between electricity and magnetism that marks one of the biggest discoveries of all science…ever.
Materials:
Optional Materials if you want to make the Magnetic Rocket Ball Launcher:Four ½” (12mm) neodymium magnets
A homeschool family depends on one individual to provide all it’s needs. Be it in the homeschool classroom or at home in general. This means that the homeschool teacher, usually the mom, has a lot of pressure on her at all times to perform at her best. Here are some resources that allow a homeschool teacher to meet all the needs of her family in a stress free and organized manner.
A Computer
Having a dedicated computer for yourself is an absolute must for any homeschool teacher. Set up a separate user account for each of your homeschool students so that they do not inadvertently destroy hours of lesson plans, schedules and more that you will be working on. The computer matched with a printer is one of the most important resources that a homeschool teacher will need.
A Library Card
Yes, there are a lot of books available online. Yes, you may own a kindle, but truth is that a visit to the library is more than just getting study resources. The feel of a physical book, the hunt for a new story that will be read out loud, or simply a couple of good who dun its for you to relax with, a library card can help with all this and more. A trip to the library is one of the easiest field trips that you can take as a homeschool teacher.
An Organizer
It can be a paper and pen one that you lug around or it can be online on Google Calendar. The organizer should hold all your appointments, chores, and schedule for the homeschool classroom. It can take a few hours on the weekend to update for the rest of the week, but it will save a lot of time and effort at a later stage. Since no two days look alike for a homeschool teacher, an organizer is an absolute must.
Membership to a Homeschool Support Group
There is a lot to be said for a support group. Meeting with people facing the same challenges you are, can be therapeutic as well as helpful as you learn from their mistakes.A homeschool parent will gain a lot out of a membership to a local homeschool support group.
Homeschooling means different things to different people. Some think of homeschool as a means to teach the child all that they were taught, others want their child to decide what he or she really wants to learn and then teach them that specific topic. There are different methods that a parent can use to teach a homeschooled child. Of these unschooling is the most controversial as it leaves the progress of the education solely on the shoulders of the child being taught.
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There are a lot of resources that may be used in the homeschool classroom. Given here is a list of four resources that will make it much easier for the homeschool parent in the classroom.
A White Board
So much can be explained and done on a white board. It does not have to be very large, but it would be a good idea if it is hung up on a wall of the homeschool classroom. Ensure that you have white board markers in all different colors available along with a duster to wipe the board clean.
Art and Craft Supplies
No matter what subject you decide to make a project in, you will need all kinds of art supplies. It’s a good idea to invest in these scissors, cutters, colors, pencils, sharpers, glue and staplers in bulk. They do not spoil over time and they will always be used in the homeschool classroom.
A Laptop and Color Printer
Most families will already have a computer dedicated to the homeschool classroom. Having a laptop with an internet connection is such a basic requirement, that it need not even be mentioned. However having a color printer available at home is a resource that is quite invaluable. So many worksheets, lesson plans, notes and more can be printed out right in the homeschool classroom if a color printer is available.
A Lamination Machine
This may at first not seem to be a very useful resource to spend money on in a homeschooling family. However the sheer number of pages, documents, flash cards, and chore lists that you can laminate and save time on later will be well worth the initial expense of investing in a lamination machine.
A Kindle
Books are the best resource that a homeschool classroom can invest in. However physical books take up a lot of space, which can be in short supply in the homeschool classroom. They also tend to cost much more than their digital counterparts. This means that buying and using e-books is a much better alternative to spending on physical books. Plus with the Amazon Kindle, you have the option to use the Kindle Unlimited membership to have free access to hundreds of books at a very low cost.
Cutting down on expenses is not always easy when you have a classroom full of homeschool students. However there is always a way to stretch what resources you do have to benefit everyone. Here are some ways that you can do more without going bankrupt in your homeschool classroom.
Re-Use What You Have
Instead of investing in workbooks, invest in textbooks. These can be re-used for the next homeschool student who reaches the grade. Buy more unit studies as these will have activities and knowledge for different grade levels and experiences. Use educational games. These can be played with all the homeschool students and can be modified in difficulty levels as they grow older. The idea is to be able to use each resource that you buy for at least two academic sessions and with at least two of your homeschool students to make them more economically viable.
Inexpensive Supplies and Furniture
A lot of money and effort can be saved if you re-purpose what is already available within the home to use in the homeschool classroom rather than going for store bought supplies and furniture. Stock up on spiral notebooks in the month of August when they are cheapest. They can be used throughout the year for various purposes. Buy school supplies in bulk packages where ever possible to ensure that you get good discounts. Reuse school bags, pencil boxes and other material which is still in good condition. Buy something new only when the old breaks beyond repair.
Frugal Field Trips Combined with Errands
Taking the homeschool students on a field trip could often be combined with chores such as picking up groceries so as to save money on fuel. Also field trips can be made to places like public parks, town libraries and historical sites which do not have any entry fees. There is plenty of learning that can happen on such field trips as long as the homeschool parent plans the trip well in advance. Spending on food on a field trip can prove to be quite expensive, so make sure that each homeschool student has their own food packed from home.
The study of science is characterized by attending classes of theory and then putting it to the test in a laboratory experiment. With parents who teach homeschool science is the lack of a formal laboratory in the home a limiting factor? While some may think so, it need not necessarily be so. There are many ways to conduct experiments and the lack of a laboratory need not be a limitation for a home school student if the parent is able to harness the power of available resources.
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Money is always a consideration when a homeschool parent looks into resources for their homeschool students. There are always surprise expenses that tend to throw the homeschool budget out of kilter each academic session. However that does not mean that the homeschool students will have to do without good study material. Here are some ways to homeschool effectively on a shoestring budget.
Don’t Buy, Borrow
When it comes to text books, buying new ones can prove prohibitively expensive. Instead of buying new books look for homeschool cooperative associations and libraries from where you can borrow them. Many such libraries allow you to keep books for a month or more. Use each subject text book to set the tone for the topic being studied and then move on to using other free resources.
Buy Second Hand
Not only are many homeschool parents looking to recover some of the money that they spent on textbooks, it also gives the next homeschooling family a financial cushion to be able to buy textbooks second hand. Keep in touch with parents whose children are in a grade higher than your own and ask them about selling their text books at the end of the academic session. This can be a major savings source.
Library Sales
Books that may not be in the best of states physically are often sold for a song by libraries. The material inside is still good. Check the condition of the books before you buy them to see that you can use them with your homeschool students. You can get a number of reference books at an extremely reasonable rate if you keep track of the local library sales.
Public School Giveaways
While you may not get exactly the sort of books you want your homeschool students to read, you can still pick up map books, encyclopedias, workbooks and other reference material at these giveaways. There is no harm in checking out what you can pick up for free or at really minimal costs. Make sure that you go through all the second hand books you get before handing them over to your children to use.
While every homeschooling parent would like to pretend that the picture perfect classroom runs like clockwork everyday, we all know that it’s a fallacy. There will be good days just as often as there will be bad days in the homeschool classroom. The idea is to keep trying to gather as many good and productive days that you can with your homeschool students. However there are some emotional costs of homeschooling that a homeschool teacher may find difficult to pay.
Explaining Your Decision to Homeschool
“Why do you homeschool your children when there’s a perfectly good public school near by?” This is one of the most energy draining questions that homeschooling parents have to deal with. Having to explain the rationale behind their decision to homeschool, and why they feel that it was a better choice for their children is a huge emotional cost. Even when you stand by your decision firmly, the mere fact that so many people seem to question your choice, can be difficult. It is one the single, most difficult things attached to being a homeschooling parent.
The Constant Supervision
When your children are being homeschooled, you never get a break. A parent whose child goes to regular school can enjoy the time off from supervising the children while they are being handled by teachers in school. A homeschool parent never gets that kind of time off. No matter how they are feeling, in good health, or sickness, with guests arriving for dinner, or grandparent’s dropping in for a quick visit, the homeschool parent is always responsible for their homeschool students. The only true break is when the spouse takes over for a while.
Struggling for Acceptance
While things are much easier now, since there is a higher level of awareness about homeschooling, the regular parents always struggle to accept homeschooling parents. To be a part of a group of parents in the neighborhood who are seen as some what strange or different for their decision to homeschool, is also a taxing emotional experience. They may like you as a person, but not be sure how to react to you or even how to socialize with you.
Unit studies allow a parent to teach a child all possible aspects of a topic or theme in a single schematic manner. This means that if a child is learning about hometown he will learn about the geography of the state and the location of the hometown. Then he will learn about the places of interest in the place which deal with the history of the hometown like museums, the city hall and other related places.
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There are many costs of homeschooling and not all of them are monetary. Here’s a look at what you will be spending when you take on the task of homeschooling your children. This post focuses on the possible monetary costs that you are likely to encounter on your homeschool journey.
The Curriculum and Text Books
These are the basics of providing an education in both the public school as well as the homeschool set up. You will end up buying books for your homeschool students for every grade and each subject that they need to study. This is a given.
Home Library and Internet Data
The reference data that you will need to teach all the subjects will come from one of two primary sources. Books and websites. You may choose to use your local library for the books but may still end up buying books that you refer to often. Similarly you can use the internet at the library, but it makes much more sense to get a good data plan and use the computer at home.
Professional Memberships
There are homeschool associations, local support groups, legal support groups and homeschool cooperatives that all charge a minor amount as membership fees for all the help that they provide. Depending on the number of groups you join and the features you want available to you, you will have to make payments accordingly.
Standardized Testing
Many states have made standardized testing mandatory for the homeschool students. This allows the state education department to monitor the progress of these students in an unobtrusive way, as well as compare their performance to others in their peer group. These tests all have fees associated with them. Be prepared for these expenses by charting them out in advance.
Extracurricular Activities and Sports
Often a good way to socialize homeschool students is to make them join classes for crafts, arts, music and team sports. These can be as per the interest and talent that your homeschool student displays. As well as what is locally available for the child to attend. These classes will also bear a monetary cost.
A High School Diploma is usually considered a must for admission into a college. It is a good idea to get in touch with a college counselor to get details of what kind of homeschool diploma will be acceptable to the college for admission purpose. For a homeschool student who may have completed the high school requirements at home, is it possible to get a formal diploma?
The most common practice for the parents to design and present the homeschool students with a diploma by themselves. In this case the homeschool is treated as an independent educational institution. The details include the name of the institution (i.e. the homeschool) issuing the diploma, name of the student, city and state in which the diploma is issued, date, and a signature of the individual who has overseen the student’s education.
For some parents who may be associated with an online school or correspondence school, it may be possible to arrange a diploma from this educational institute as well. This will have the name of that specific school along with all the other details outlined in the passage above. It will be issued to the students who have enrolled for a specific course with the institute and have successfully completed it.
In extremely rare cases the parents may approach the local public school and ask about them issuing a high school diploma to their homeschool students. The educational institute will probably ask the student to undergo some testing in order to determine that the child is competent in the subjects that he or she is supposed to be graduating high school in. Usually this is not seen as public schools do not encourage homeschooling.
In some states it is possible for the homeschool student to obtain a high school diploma from the Department of Education. This is specially true of states where the homeschool parents must continuously update the department about the progress of their homeschooled children through the years. The years of transcripts and standard tests which are a must for this process serve as the basis of the allotment of the high school diploma.
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A fresh year, a fresh start. New ways to keep your homeschool students engaged and learning. As the homeschool children get back to their classroom in the new year, here are some activities that the homeschooling parent may like to consider.
Do More Hands-on Stuff
Get the homeschool student off their bums and working with their hands. This could mean doing more practical experiments, helping more around the more in regular chores, and even heading outdoors despite the weather being what it is. The idea is to ensure that they do less sitting, more walking and maybe even some running and playing. Just pick up any activity that interests your homeschooling family and run with it. The activity does not have to stay the same each week. Switch around stuff everyone enjoys. Ask the children for suggestions if you run out of stuff to do.
Start a Community Service Project
Teaching your homeschool students to give back to society can not start too soon. Think of what your immediate neighborhood could benefit from? Something small that even your children would be able to do. Set it up as a community service project with a couple of supportive neighbors whose kids can also get involved. Lead by example, so that your homeschool students see just how rewarding it can be to serve selflessly. It will reinforce many positive traits in their characters including the value of unity in action and love for their fellow man.
Focus on Specific Character Traits Per Homeschool Student
Think a bit about what each homeschool student could do better with. Can someone learn to be more economical in their purchases? How about teaching someone more humility in actions and words? Perhaps another child could do with some confidence boosting. Maybe someone needs to work on patience and diligence? The homeschool parent can pick up a single character trait for each child and design some activity to help them improve this trait. A little out of the box thinking in a creative manner will allow you to come up with many interesting ways to teach your children.
The madness is over and so are the holidays. It’s time to get back into the homeschool classroom, but your homeschool students are not too comfortable with the idea of going back to school after so much fun and freedom. How do you make the transition back to regular school easy on them and on yourself? Here are a few ideas and tips that may help.
Start Off Small
Expecting your homeschool students to go from zero to hundred in the class is just not realistic after the holidays. There’s a little bit of a hangover left and it works best if you begin with a small topic or project on the first day back in school. The very act of completing the first project or assignment will set the tone for longer ones to come. The homeschool parent can go slowly up to the speed they were at before the holidays and the children will respond accordingly.
Don’t Stay Classroom Bound
Easing back into studies can be made fun by adding a field trip or an educational visit to a museum in the first week. It keeps the spirits of the young ones up and will be much easier than having them complete full worksheets in a timed manner. The natural enthusiasm for the outing will translate into field reports and have them back to writing in no time. This way you just ask them to extend the fun of the outing experience rather than make a painful book report.
Have a Half Day Thrown In
Give the children the glad tidings that midweek there will be a half day. On that day you can take them out to the mall, or maybe visit grandma if she stays in the same town. You may take them to an amusement park or simply go and play some sport. Feeling broke after the holidays? Just let them swing in the backyard. The only thing that you are not allowed to do is take an educational outing. It’s supposed to be a true half day holiday.
Moving from homeschooling to regular school can be a monumental step. It is a decision which can not be made lightly on the spur of the moment. For the process to be smooth and the transaction to be successful certain tasks need to be taken care of before hand.If you went through your initial education as a home schooler and now want to get into a regular high school you will need to get a few things in order before you can join classes.
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Self-doubt is the worst affliction that a homeschool teacher can be afflicted with. There are so many people around you being negative about homeschooling that it’s difficult to keep telling yourself that you are doing the right thing. Questions such as “Am I doing the right thing?” or “Is my child getting all that he needs?” are usually floating through the minds of any new homeschooling parent. How do you deal with it? By asking yourself some tough questions.
What Are Your Reasons For Homeschooling?
Are you homeschooling your child for the right reasons? Is is because you want your child to have a good learning experience and to be able to grow into a well adjusted human being? Or are you simply trying to instill the correct moral values in your child that you find are lacking in the public school set up? Maybe you just think it’s cheaper to homeschool your children? What is the reason that turned you to homeschooling your children? Think about it. You will know if it’s a good one in your heart.
What Are Your Priorities?
No matter what your reason for homeschooling your child, do you make it a priority to ensure that the child is studying well?Does the child have age appropriate toys and books? If the child has enough to challenge him while he learns new things, it means that as a homeschool teacher you are doing a credible job. If he can hold his own in a conversation with peers and share his toys while playing, he’s adapting well to his social life.
What Values Are You Passing Down?
Does your child wish elders? Is he mindful of other people in the room when he’s playing loud music? Does he help with chores around the home? What are the messages that you send him with your own actions and words regarding correct values and morals? No parent will try to willingly harm their child, and neither are you. Your New Year Resolution should be to have faith in the process. To know that you are doing your best and that your child is benefiting from your efforts.
No matter how hard you try, the holidays are likely to throw the schedule you have for your homeschool classroom out of kilter. While this is especially true for those who are new to homeschooling, most homeschool teachers will face this issue to some degree. This means that you need to reorganize what you will be teaching the next month to include what you have been unable to teach this month.
Since you will not be making too much progress with your homeschool students during this period of time, it can be used instead to get yourself more organized about the upcoming homeschool schedules post the holidays. Here are some things that you can do in advance to stay ahead of the game in January.
Get the Homeschool Classroom Cleaned Out
There are a number of tasks that a homeschool teacher will put off on a normal school day. Now is the time to catch up with all that cleaning up. Go shelf by shelf and check what is no longer needed in the classroom. Collect the old worksheets and discard the ones that are not going into the children’s portfolios. De-clutter and make more storage space available.
Check Materials and Furniture
Take a stock of all the arts and crafts material and see what supplies are running low. Make a list of all the stationery items that you are going to need, if possible place the order for delivery after the holidays. If the furniture needs to be cleaned out or painted, this is a good time to do so as the class is not is use. Painting the walls or wall papering is also an idea to consider.
Make Correction to Your Study Plans
The lesson plans that you may have worked on at the beginning of the year may not be working out so well now that you are actually using them. Now is a good time to remake these plans with a healthy dose of reality thrown in. Add the extra days that you didn’t give yourself to make up work that is left out from previous classes.
The homeschool curriculum you follow is essentially a guideline to help you teach your children. Do not make the mistake of following it so rigidly that you lose the advantage of teaching your children at home at the pace that they are comfortable with. Each child is different. Just because your first child enjoyed coloring it does not follow that your second child will also like it as much.
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Sharing is Caring
The winter months can be a tough time for people who are less fortunate. By making your homeschool students aware that they can do something for such people, you give them a practical lesson in sharing is caring. Make a list of people who your family knows who could do with some brand of sharing. This could be in terms of time spent with the elderly who are lonely, or putting together a care package for students or military personnel in foreign countries, or even just gift wrapping toys for the local orphanage. Think up of new ways that they can share things as well as their time to show how much they care.
Possible Places to Visit
The local orphanage is a good place to visit during the holidays. Take along all the clothes that the homeschool students have outgrown. The books that no one seems to be reading anymore and the toys that have been sitting on the shelf without being played with in ages, are both good gifts to give away. Maybe make the time and effort to visit a local veteran center and perform a play to entertain them. One of the easiest things is to prepare a set of Christmas Carols and go singing them at locations such as the children’s hospital, the old age home, and even the orphanage. The idea is to spread some cheer in society.
What is Expected of the Children
Explain to the younger children about the concept of giving. How giving anything from a smile to a favorite old sweater away can bring joy to someone else in their life. Speak about how people less fortunate than the homeschooling family that they belong to deal with the harsh realities of life. It is never too early to develop compassion in your children. Make it a point to have them behave well with everyone they interact. Remember they should not feel that they are doing someone a favor, instead they should realize that it’s about giving back to the society that has already given them so much more than others their own age.
The holidays can be fraught with numerous activities and trying to schedule a regular homeschool day in the midst of Church activities, Christmas shopping, carol singing and gift exchanges can be difficult. Instead why not shift the focus during the holidays on other activities?
Slow Down the Formal Academics
It’s okay if you don’t hit the textbooks regularly during this time. Remember homeschool learning is pretty flexible. You can teach your homeschool students different subjects without ever opening a reference book. Use daily activities to instill good values and morals. Pick up on activities that teach them how to do something new, while staying away from worksheets and practice in the formal set up.
Start a Deliberate Acts of Kindness Routine
Advent calendars are a good way to reinforce kindness training. Have a small act of kindness written on top of the date and a small gift in the pocket below. The homeschool student needs to complete the act of kindness and have it approved before he can get his hands on the day’s gift. You will find them planning ahead and thinking up of ways to get the act of kindness done as soon as possible.
Teach Life Skills for Actual Living
Things like baking cookies, wrapping gifts, making handmade cards, addressing and posting the cards, decorating a tree with home made ornaments are all skills for life. Just because the children are helping the homeschool parent to get ready for the celebration doesn’t mean that they are not learning anything. They are being instilled with actual life skills that will serve them for a lifetime.
Read Stories and Sing Songs
Set aside some time for just having a bit of fun. Yes there are a million little things that need your attention for the celebrations to be ideal, but you aren’t always going to have your children in the house with you. Have a story read out loud by the eldest sibling. Follow it up with some carol singing for just the family to have fun. Get into the true spirit of giving by giving your children some memories that will last them a lifetime.
As you fend off a crisis in your life it may well affect your ability to deal with the home school curriculum simultaneously. There can be all kinds of special situations where you may face an out of the way crisis. It could be a simple thing like the death of a near and dear person, or something far more catastrophic such as a physical natural disaster like an earthquake or a tornado aftermath. Truth is a crisis of any magnitude can make it nearly impossible for you to continue your regular home school schedule and studies.
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Random Acts of Kindness done during the month of December allow homeschool children to realize that there’s more to the holidays than gifts and merry making. Put up a list of such random acts in the homeschool classroom and ask your homeschool students to tick off at least ten by the time the month’s over. Here are some suggestions that you can use for kids in different age groups.
A toddler in kindergarten can be asked to call up a long distance relative and bring them some holiday cheer. This would work even better if they were to speak with grandparents who may not live in the same town. It will also instill in them a sense of family and belonging. Another act could be to compliment someone. Explain the concept and have them practice on the full family.
Young ones till grade 5 can be asked to do a chore for someone else. It could be for the homeschool parent, a sibling or even a neighbor. As long as the child can manage the chore safely, that’s acceptable. This shows the child that all people have responsibilities and they need to step up with their own. Allow them to do something fun like wishing a stranger with a smile. It’s a good way to help shy children make friends.
Middle school homeschool children could be asked to make cards and tree ornaments to be given away to people in the hospital, or even posted to those serving in the military who are unable to be at home. This activity will not only show them the importance of charity, but will prove that there are people in a worse situation than they are. Allow them to create a sidewalk greeting and write it out. They can mark it out in the snow as well.
Your older teenagers can be given a more comprehensive list with items such as thanking someone for making a difference in their lives, to collecting clothes and books around the house that can be donated. Do include simple ones like give someone a hug and letting a person behind them in line get in front of them as well.
A number of states have different legislation required when it comes to homeschooling within the United States of America. Some states are easier to homeschool in than others. States requiring no notice to the school district include Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Texas. The HSLDA is an organisation that allows you to find out the legal requirements you need to meet when you are considering homeschooling.
Unfortunately, it is not always legal to homeschool your children in other countries. If you are a homeschool family that is planning to live abroad for a while, it would be well worth the effort to find out exactly what the country’s laws regarding homeschool entail. There are more than forty countries listed on Wikipedia where it is illegal to homeschool your children. Make sure that if you are going to one of them, that you enroll your child in the legal school system.
While homeschooling is a progressive movement across the globe, and more people are opting to teach their children at home instead of sending them to public or private schools, it is still not quite as popular as it will get. Many governments around the world still feel that parents are unable to impart quality education to their children, and in third world countries this may be true because the parents are barely literate themselves. In time the option to homeschool your child would become available in more nations.
There are already nations where homeschooling is illegal, but allowed for children with special needs. Since the public school system is unable to cope in these countries with the extra attention that a special needs child requires, they have allowed parents to homeschool these children. As more people around the world realize that homeschooling can have just as many advantages as public or private schools we will see them rallying to make it legal in their own countries as well. Till then, be grateful if you live in a country which will not arrest you and throw you into jail simply because you choose to give your children an education within your home.
A few decades ago regular schools were the only logical choice for schooling because most parents just did not have the resources to teach their children at home even if they wanted to. Thanks to the advance of technology this is no longer a limiting factor for parents looking forward to teaching their children at home. These days it is easy to get homeschooling help if you chose to teach yourself.
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Homeschooling Parents are free to either use a fixed curriculum or pick and choose books and resources for each subject. The choice is often difficult to make. Should you save time by picking up a ready made curriculum offered for the grade your homeschool student is in? Or should you be flexible about what your child may or may not study in the academic session based on his or her interest?
Independent Learning
The end goal of a homeschool student is to be able to teach himself about whatever subject he may have interest in. To encourage independent learning the homeschooling parent may choose to forego a set homeschool curriculum with fixed books and learning resources. This will allow them to pick up learning material as and when they require based on how they proceed in each topic.
It can be more economical to buy a single books or so each month than buying an entire set at the beginning of the year. However in the long run, you may end up spending more on individual books collectively during the academic session. It will depend on the homeschool family’s budget to pick the option that suits them best.
Hands On Tools
With a set homeschool curriculum kit, there will be a limited number of activities that encourage hands on learning. Yes, the books will tell you about activities and there may even be a kit or two in the pile to do something interesting, but on the whole they will focus on books and workbooks for the learning.
While a homeschool teacher, who is not restricted by a set curriculum kit, will be able to add any activities that they like. They can pick up art kits, robotics kits, craft materials as required for different projects, when they want to. The flexibility and freedom of choice will be much greater in this case.
So, which is better? To have a formal, set homeschool curriculum or to make up your own along the way? That is a question best answered by the homeschool teacher by taking finances and teaching preferences into account.
The winter months can be chaotic for homeschooling families. Not only is the weather chilling the bones, the holidays mess up all the daily routines that worked so well through the rest of the year. Here are some activities that may help the homeschooling parent make some progress with the learning of the homeschool students.
Build a Snowman
Physical activity is what gets relegated to the back burner for most children during the cold months of winter. Don’t be afraid of the homeschooling students falling sick. Instead bundle them up nicely, ensure heads and hands are protected, and let them loose in the backyard to build a snowman. Doesn’t snow where you live? No problem. Just add an outdoor trek in the local town park instead. Make sure that they get to burn some calories. They will look alive. Make sure to save these memories of rosy cheeks by taking plenty of photographs.
Bake Cookies
Not only do winters cry for some home baked cookies, they are also a great way to set up an impromptu lesson for your homeschooled kids. Let them convert a recipe into making twice as many cookies, doubling all values. Make them do the measurements with the cups and the spoons. If possible get a recipe in metric values and get them to convert it to pounds and ounces. Teach them about how the oven heats up and bakes the cookies. Heat transference can be a great physics lesson in the kitchen. Talk about the chemical reaction that cooks the raw dough into yummy cookies. There’s so much to teach in the kitchen.
Make Decorations
With the holiday season upon us, it’s easy to come up with a ton of arts and crafts projects to make decorations. You can do up the homeschool classroom first with indoor decorations. Then move on to more challenging projects for decorating outside the house. Lawn figurine sculptures, painted rocks, bottle art and a whole lot more can be given a seasonal holiday twist. If you have trouble coming up with ideas for projects just browse the internet. There are a lot of do-it-yourself projects with step by step directions easily available.
Get them to do experiments
A hands on approach to home school science can make the subject your child’s favorite one. While it is important that the child understands the theory written in the science book, it is the experiments that make it an interesting learning experience. If you can capture the attention and interest of the child, the quality of learning will be greatly enhanced. The best way to do this is to ensure that the child is able to do at least one experiment per chapter. It will then become like the highlight of the school day, not to mention the fact that it will probably stay in the memory for a long time.
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The winter months can lead to a complete loss of outdoor activities for homeschooling families. It is very important for homeschool students to be able to blow off steam and keep physically active. These are some fun games that will allow the homeschool parent to keep the kids entertained.
Sock Wrestling
Get your homeschool students together for a bout of fun filled wrestling. Have a carpet laid down on the floor in a cleared out area. Now get the kids to face off each other fully dressed and with their socks on, but shoes off. The winner of the wrestling match is the one who manages to get both the opponents socks off. Do ensure that the children understand about basic safety rules during the wrestling match.
Indoor Obstacle Training
For your younger children displace the furniture and let them move through the area as an obstacle course.The need to hop over cushions on the floor, go under the tables and alternate between the chairs. Make up the course as interesting as you can. Ensure that you have a demo before you have the actual race to time them. The person with the shortest time wins.
Queen of Sheba Wants
Another great indoor game that can generate a lot of action is “Queen of Sheba”. Appoint yourself self proclaimed royalty and let your loyal subjects aka homeschool students know what you desire. The homeschooling mother must ask the kids to do different activities by declaring “The Queen of Sheba wants…” followed by an action. It can be anything from fetching her a glass of water or entertaining her with a dance or a song.
Sort the Skittles with a Straw
The best part about candy games is that they can end up as a snack after the game is over. Here empty out a couple of packets of skittles in a plate and give the homeschool student a straw. The idea is that the kid can not touch the skittles directly with his hand. The sorting of the skittles into different colored piles needs to be done using the straw. Again shortest time wins.
Since five years is the age at which most children begin to enroll in kindergarten, it may also be the age at which a homeschooling parent may decide to begin formal lessons. When you begin formal homeschooling, there may be thoughts about not doing enough with your five year old. Here we take a look at what to expect when homeschooling your young one.
Start Off Easy
Your homeschool classroom is not a substitute for school at home. You don’t have to go from loving parent to strict homeschool teacher overnight. Begin with bringing a book over to the classroom and reading it out there. Have drawing and coloring hour on the study desk. Start flashcards while seated in the student and teacher chairs. Gradually bring about the acceptance of the homeschool classroom as a place to sit down and learn.
Milestone and Learning Goals
Yes it is important for a five year old homeschool student to meet his educational goals. Basic alphabet identification, the alphabet song, numbers and basic addition, sorting of objects and creating patterns. All these are skills that a five year old should have, but please remember that you have the full school year to perfect these skill levels. You can’t expect him to perfect everything the first time you teach him a skill.
Other Activities and Interests
Try to bring outdoor activities into the five year old homeschool student’s life besides his school lessons. Climbing, sliding, swinging, and even dancing are good activities to get them to move physically. Arts and crafts can be added with age appropriate projects. Colors and sculptures can make for interesting skill building. Add activities that your child has a natural interest in pursuing.
Remember as a homeschool teacher you have far more flexibility about deciding what your child needs to learn and when. Take advantage of this fact by letting him learn stuff higher than his grade if he can manage it. The basics given in the common core can be easily covered even as you work with your child to focus on what is essentially interest led learning.
A toy is the best teacher that a child can have. The more you play the more experience you gain. Science based toys are an excellent way to help your home schooled child learn more about the subject. There are a number of such toys that you can buy. Here’s a list of some such toys that can help the child develop a keen interest in homeschool science.
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There are many different types of methods used by homeschool families. The school-at home-approach is where they usually begin and end up exploring many other methods such as Unschooling, Unit Studies, Charlotte Mason, Waldorf and Montessori to mention a few of the more popular ones. A system of studies which has been around since the middle ages is called the Classical Method.
What is the Classical Method?
The aim of the Classical method of learning was to teach the student how to learn for themselves. This is very much in alignment with the aim of homeschooling. The five tools of the Classical method were called the Trivium. They are Reason, Record, Research, Relate and Rhetoric. As you can see the system has a lot in common with the scientific method. Each tool comes in handy when the student needs to teach himself something new.
What are the Stages of the Classical Method?
There are three main stages of the Classical Method. These are the Grammar stage, the Logic stage and the Rhetoric stage. In the Grammar stage the homeschool student learns facts, memorizes data and gains new knowledge. In the Logic stage the reasoning and logic is used on the knowledge that has been accumulated so far. Finally in the Rhetoric stage the Trivium is completed as the student learns the skills of wisdom and judgment. For instance consider learning the multiplication tables part of the Grammar stage. Then using the knowledge to solve sums is the Logic stage. Using these two together to solve word problems would be the final Rhetoric stage.
Can Classical Method Be Used By Homeschool Teachers?
Yes, of course it can. While the original method was used to teach adults how to accumulate more knowledge, the tools of teaching in this method are still very good. They can be easily adapted to help homeschool teachers make their homeschool students more self reliant in the homeschool classroom. The idea of education is to ensure that the child being educated is able to handle the knowledge that is being bestowed on him. This is easily done via the Classical Method.
The holidays can be a great distraction in the homeschool classroom. Public school is out and your children want to know why they have to study. There is so much to do within the home to get ready for the holidays and the constant distractions of family, friends and the media. It is a wonder you get any lessons done at all during the end of the year months. Here are some ways to combine the spirit of the holidays and include learning for your homeschool students.
Introduce Holiday Literature to the Curriculum
While watching movies based on Christmas and Thanksgiving is a generally accepted activity, it would make more of a difference to your homeschool students reading abilities if they were to read books based on the holidays instead. It doesn’t have to be a long book, it can even be simple Christmas carols. Just make sure that some reading is done everyday. You can even have a read out loud session each day if your young ones are too small to handle difficult words.
Put the Crafts and Arts to Good Use
There is an overwhelming number of ideas for crafting activities related to the holidays available online. Complete boards of activities and projects can be accessed on Pinterest with a simple search. Making cards to send to relatives and friends. Putting together decorations to decorate the home, tree and the classroom. Take your pick from projects which come with detailed instructions. Put together the activities that would most interest your homeschool students and you are set.
Public Speaking is a Skill to Hone
Poem recitations, putting on skits or plays, and even participating in local events around the holidays is a more creative use of time than simply doing nothing. Encourage your homeschool students to get more involved with activities that can allow them to showcase their creativity and enhance their public speaking skills in the local community. Fins out what’s happening and ensure that your young ones participate it in all. This will also help them make friends and close childhood connections and memories to treasure later on.
Social Media may be the most underutilized tool in the homeschool classroom. Yes they can be websites and apps where the homeschool parent ends up wasting a lot f time, but with a little bit of self discipline these can be turned into very useful resources for the homeschooled students. Here are a list of sites and apps that you can look into.
Google Earth: This is a great tool to supplement your homeschool Geography lessons. Allow your homeschool students to read a map, see the satellite image to identify local hot spots, and even get a street view of your own home. You can set them an assignment about creating a map of their own neighborhood and then compare how they did based on the Google map.
iBooks, Google Books, Kindle Store: Each of these ebook stores has tons of free books on promotion on any given day. While it’s not possible to get on each app and search for things everyday, consider joining a couple of newsletters that do the curating for you. BookBub is a good one to start with. A simple web search with throw up many more newsletters. Don’t join more than a couple or you’ll waste a lot more time.
Google Images or Image Searcher: Ever so often you want to use an image on your homeschool student’s worksheet. Or they need an image for a report or project. These tools allow you to find creative commons images that you can download and use legally. Just adjust the search settings and you are set to go.
Show Me: This app turns your iPad into a personal interactive whiteboard. You can record your voice with instructions as you add images and writing to the whiteboard base. A great tool to pre-record lessons for your homeschool students which can be reused time and again.
Toontastic: This free app from Google allows your homeschool students to get creative and record their own animated cartoon. They can pick characters, create a story line, draw their own character, record their voices, and animate their cartoon. Available on both Android and iTunes.
Printing may be something that young children do not always enjoy. Calligraphy writing is more like art, and those who enjoy drawing will enjoy the flourishes and loops that come with calligraphic writing. Here are some ideas to get the homeschool students started on calligraphy.
Faux Calligraphy
There is no need to buy the specialized nibs and dip ink for a beginner. Half the time a homeschool parent is strapped for cash, and investing in an activity that the homeschool student does not continue is simply foolish. Get them a gel pen which flows well. Get it in 0.5, 0.75, and 0.9 mm tips. This will give them the freedom to take on different sized lettering. Hand them the different sized nibs and dipping ink once they have stayed with the hobby for a while.
Decide the Script to Master
Most of us think of calligraphy as beautiful, handwritten lettering. The truth is, just as we have different fonts on the computer, there are different scripts for calligraphy as well. German gothic, roundhouse, copperplate, classic are some popular ones that have online tutorials available for free on YouTube. There are good worksheets available at the Post Man’s Knock, but they are not free. Let your homeschool students decide the style they want to work with and master.
Practice Makes Perfect
Remind your homeschool student that they will not be able to do calligraphy as fast as normal writing. If they go fast the appearance of the letters will be shaky and scraggly. Going slow will improve the quality of what they write. It will also allow them to enjoy the process of creating something unique and beautiful. If you are looking for calligraphy friendly to a left handed child, you may like to check out Logos Calligraphy. Yes it makes the process simpler for the lefty.
Once the homeschool students have mastered the basics of the loops and curves, have them come up with their own pieces of lettering. They can write their name on their books. Or create a sign for the homeschool classroom. Maybe a card or two for relatives. The possibilities are endless.
The traditional “school at home” method which is similar to the different subjects being taught class after class in a regular school is not the only method that can be used for homeschooling. A number of more relaxed and flexible methods are often used by homeschooling parents. Here are a few of these techniques and a brief look at how you can incorporate them into your own homeschooling curriculum.
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A single glass of water can be an excellent teaching tool. Add a couple of extra items and you can be actively demonstrating a number of different scientific principles with your homeschool students over a glass of water.
Surface Tension
To physically demonstrate the surface tension on the top of water, fill a glass almost completely to the top. Now add a few coins from the side. Make sure that you do not add them from the center as that will eliminate the surface tension. Now keep adding coins and count the number it takes to break through the bulging surface tension on top of the glass.
Diffusion
It is easy to show the process of two liquids mixing if they are of two different colors. Add water to a glass and create a mixture of colored water in a second glass. Now use a dropper to collect the colored water and before you add it to the glass of plain water give it a stir with a spoon. You will see how the drops of colored water travel through the glass before they diffuse completely with the plain water. The homeschool student may also try to add drops of colored water without disturbing the plain water in the glass. The process will be slower but easily observed.
Refraction and Reflection
Place a glass of water on a table’s edge and place a sheet of white paper at a lower level. This will allow the sun’s rays to shine through the water in the glass and split up into the colors of a rainbow on the plain white sheet below through the process of refraction and reflection. The process is similar to the actual rainbows created in the sky due to water droplets in clouds.
Change in Sound Frequency
Line up four glasses and fill them each with varying levels of water. Now use a metal spoon to strike the glass. Each glass will have a distinctly different sound due to the vibrations of the water molecules within the glass. This is a principle also used in a musical instrument known as the Jal Tarang.
