Homeschool History And Literature

Sonlight Curriculum Tip: Homeschool history would not be complete without reading biographies. When you have your child read a biography he gets to see history from the perspective of someone who actually lived it. Having your children read biographies (or reading them to your children) is the quickest and easiest way they can learn and become intimate with history.

Use Real Life To Supplement Homeschool Math

Anytime you can teach a child a math skill using real life objects and experiences you should do so. If your children are learning about measurements you should actually have them go around the house measuring things. If they are learning about weight, have them weigh things. If they are learning about division, purchase a bag of candy and have them divide it up between their siblings. Using real life experiences goes far in reinforcing what your children are learning in math.

Homeschool History And Community Events

One of the best ways to supplement homeschool history is through Living History Days. Take your children to reenactments of popular battles, speeches and parties. Let them be an eyewitness to history and it will most certainly make an impact on their minds. Living History Days can be found in most communities. Check your local newspaper and library for postings of the next event in your area. Pack a picnic and go learn!

How To Liven Up Civil War Homeschool History

The American Civil War is often studied in homeschool history. To make the subject more lively and interesting for your students teach them all about “Civil War Slang.” Find a listing of slang terms at boonebunny.tripod.com/hubbub.html. Find out if “goober grabbers” was an offensive or polite term for Georgia troops, or if you would want to eat “ginned cotton.” These slang terms are quite funny and will make studying the American Civil War more interesting to homeschoolers.

Homeschool Language Arts: Reading

Homeschool language arts can be a daunting subject for children, especially when it comes to reading. The key is to get them excited about reading. Nothing turns a child off to reading more than having to read books that they have no interest in reading. Instead of picking and choosing all of your children’s reading books you should let them choose books which interest them on occasion. For instance, if you have a sports minded child, let him or her choose books which are sports related -- such as biographies of famous athletes or a book about trading cards. Not only will you tap into the child's interest but you are showing that reading can be fun and interesting.

Homeschool History And The History Channel

The History Channel Classroom is a great place for you to find educational material for your homeschool history program. This classroom is a service that The History Channel provides for teachers and they welcome feedback. If you are studying a particular historical figure or event in history, check out the calendar to see when your subject will be documented on The History Channel. This classroom program gives permission for video taping and they also provide study guides to their documentaries which can be found at The History Channel Classroom website. Download their calendar today so you can plan to tape the shows for your homeschoolers.

Narration Starters

Are you content with your nightly reading to your child? He or she will benefit more from the reading, and probably enjoy it as well, if you discuss the reading afterwards.

Here are some typical questions or conversation starter's teachers' use to prompt their students after completing a reading that you might use with your child:

• Tell me all that you remember about the passage, in your own words
• Wasn't it funny when ____! What else do you remember?
• What do you think about __________?
• Explain how ________.
• Did you learn anything new?
• What are five things you learned about _____?
• Tell me all you know about (a particular character). (Analyzing Character)
• How did Character A behave differently than Character B? (Parallel Characters)
• Why did you learn about (a particular character) in this chapter? (Analyzing Character)
• Why did (a particular character) do ____? (Character Point of View)
• Tell me all you know about ____ (location)
• Tell me all you know about ___ (occurrence)
• How did (a particular character) feel? (Analyzing mood)
• What makes this story "pretend"? (Fantasy vs. Reality)
• What clues told you that ___was about to happen? (Making inferences)
• Why do you think ___happened? (Drawing conclusions)
• Tell me exactly what happened in order. (Sequencing)
• What do you think of ___? (Making judgments)
• Describe the person telling the story. (Narrator's point of view)
• Tell the most interest thing about ___. (Fact vs. Opinion)
• Describe what happened because of ___. (Cause and Effect)
• Tell me all the ways ___and ____ were different/same. (Compare & Contrast)
• Is the ending/chapter good or bad and why? (Making judgments)
• Compare the actions of (two characters). (Compare and Contrast)
• Compare this book with another of similar style. (Compare and Contrast)
• Compare this book with another by the same author.
• Why did the author write the story this way? (Author's Point of View)
• How did the author know about these kinds of things? (Author's Point of View)
• What was the author saying about _____? (Author's Point of View)

Yucky, Gross, and Cool Body

Trying to homeschool yourself or your child about the human body? Discover Kids has a website about your "Yucky, Gross, and Cool Body" that has everything you wanted to know and more about things like bad breath, the brain, ankle sprains, skin, and so much more!

The web site can be found at: http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/body/pg000029.html

Seven Ways to Help with Handwriting

Kids aren't able to write well until they have developed good fine-motor skills. These skills improve easily with lots of practice, so it's important to encourage your child partake in activities that tax their fine-motor skill.

The following activities can help your young child develop the precision, balance, and hand-eye coordination that are needed to perform the fine-motor skills used in handwriting, so they can subsequently have success in home school language arts:

* Give your child clay or play-dough to play with to strengthen the major muscles used in handwriting
* Encourage her to play with Legos, miniature cars, small blocks, action figures, and other small toys
* Do puzzles with your child
* Provide creative art projects that involve using crayons, marking pens, scissors, and finger paints, as well as tearing paper
* Play games with your child that involve the handling of cards and small game pieces
* Ask your child to sort collections of loose coins into stacks of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters

Homeschool Language Arts And Phonics

When you are searching for a homeschool language arts program for kindergarten children you should search for ones that teach consonants and short vowel sounds. First grade language arts programs should review short vowel sounds and consonants then progress to blends and long vowel sounds. A second grade language arts program should cover all vowels, consonants and blends. The great thing about core curriculums is you can add electives subjects to it (such as music or art) to personalize the curriculum to suit your child’s interests. Core curriculums come with work schedules already laid out so there is minimal planning on your part.

How Stuff Works!

This site will tell you... well... how stuff works!!
And, when they say stuff, they mean stuff!
In the "Super categories" you will find links to find out how just about anything works!

* http://www.howstuffworks.com/

1st Grade Science

First Grade Science

*Grouping and classification
*Living and nonliving things
*Animals
*Pets
*Farm animals
*Zoo and circus animals
*Woodland animals
*Common birds
*Plant and animal habitats
*Seeds, bulbs, plants, flowers
*Weather and seasons
*Day and night
*Solids, liquids, gases
*Air and water
*Magnets
*Fire and temperature
*Sun, moon, stars, planets
*Simple machines
*Beginning experimentation
*Scientific method and scientific inquiry

Courtesy of: http://www.worldbook.com

The Ten Steps to Spelling

Here are the ten steps to spelling that we use. After we pretest to our 10 words for the week, I sit down with each child and go over each of the ten steps... once for each word.

1. Say (pronounce it aloud).
2. Look (look carefully. Ask yourself questions such as, "Can I spell it the way it looks? How many syllables are there? Are there any double letters? Silent letters? What are the vowels in each syllable? Anything peculiar about this word? How many letters are in the word? Are there any odd syllables? Any parts of the word spelled unlike they sound? Anything unusual about the word? Any difficult combinations? Is the word a noun verb, etc.")
3. Say (say the letters while looking at the word)
4. Close (close eyes and visualize the word and spell it)
5. Check (check that you got it right)
6. Trace (trace the word on your desk, in a sand tray, on sand paper, on a fabric board, using large arm motions)
7. Write (without looking)
8. Check (was it right?)
9. Repeat (steps 1-8, if it was not right)
10. Sentence (write the word in a sentence

Out-of-the-Box Thinking on Homeschool Curriculums

A well-rounded homeschool curriculum does not only cover the courses and subjects that come in a box. A quality education requires us to give our children more.

Some examples of how you can round out your student's education are music lessons, civic or church volunteerism, sports involvement, computer science, and woodworking. Don't be afraid to act on your child's passions. It will keep that student an enthusiastic learner.

5th Grade Science

Fifth Grade Science

*Biological adaptations
*Biotic communities
*Animal and plant classification
*Fish
*Reptiles
*Bacteria
*Molds
*Trees
*Plants and their food
*Conservation
*Cells
*Human body
*Landforms
*Properties of air and water
*Time and seasons
*Temperature and thermometers
*Magnetic fields
*Use and control of electricity
*Conduction and convection
*Light and optics
*Force systems
*Chemical systems
*Sun and solar system
*Space and space exploration
*Scientific method and scientific inquiry

Courtesy of: http://www.worldbook.com

Homeschool History Can Encompass Other Subjects

Not only can you do homeschool history using literature, but you can also use the literature for other subjects, too. Take words your child may stumble over during reading and make those this week’s spelling words. Make words your child does not know the meaning to and make those this week’s vocabulary words. Prepare a food dish from the time period your child is reading about and call it home economics. Make a map of the area your child is reading about for geography. Literature based programs can go far in encompassing many subjects.

Garden Kits!

One year, we had a "Welcome Spring" party. As party favors, we gave garden kits. To make the garden kits, I used colored lunch bags (you could also use brown lunch bags and have the kids decorate them) and filled the bag with the supplies to make a *storybook garden*.

Supplies include:

• seeds
• small pots (you could use terra cotta, peat pots or even the peat disks available!)
• a plant label (we use popsicle sticks) and the storybook of choice
• also add any small garden items you can find (like stickers)

Themes can include:

• Peter Piper (pepper seeds)
• Mary, Mary, quite contrary (Wildflowers)
• Jack and the Beanstalk (Pole Beans)
• The Princess and the Pea (Sweet Peas)
• Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater (Mini Pumpkins)
• The Enormous Watermelon (Giant Watermelon)

The Day After The First Day

Most parents feel most comfortable using a prepackaged home school curriculum for the first year or so. Then, they switch to a more customized approach. A prepackaged curriculum comes with virtually everything that you need to begin work immediately - a textbook for each subject, workbooks, supplemental books, and any materials referred to in the year's lesson plans. Each package includes a detailed teacher's manual that tells you exactly what to do and how and when to do it. Some even tell you what to say! The texts, however, are often written for classes of 20-30 students, so beware. As you get more comfortable, you may want to begin searching for materials that are better suited to your children.

During your week(s) of transition, get a spiral notebook to be used exclusively for your home schooling. On scratch paper, begin arranging your week. Figure out what you want to teach and when you want to teach it. Look at the lesson plans in the prepackaged curriculum; you need not follow it to the letter if you would like to do some