Archive for the 'Homeschooling' Category
Get ready to celebrate - Green Style!
October 13, 2008 | Comments
I am really excited to share this with you all - trust me, it’s been hard work keeping my mouth shut about this one until today!
The Holidays are just around the corner - coming up way too fast in my opinion - but I’ve got a resource that will make the whole thing easier AND more environmentally friendly.
Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations & Traditions for the Whole Family is a great handbook for the holidays. Instead of getting caught up in the madness and chaos of creating the perfect Good Housekeeping Holiday (and spending the small fortune and generating the pile of waste that goes along with it), Celebrate Green! gives solid, practical advice for injecting real meaning into the Holidays while reducing waste at the same time.
With four kiddos to outfit in Halloween finery, I flipped instantly to the section on costumes . . . and were my eyes opened! I always knew I didn’t like the Halloween store fare - it’s expensive and yet feels cheap. But I had no idea it was manufactured with (among other things) lead and formaldehyde. Fun, huh? So instead I pitched some of the ideas from Celebrate Green! to my kids, and voila - they turned on their innate creativity and started coming up with great ways to create costumes from what we have at home or could create ourselves. This way, they get a double benefit. Not only do they get to dress up, but they get the fun of creating their costumes as well!
We’re having a blast with this book, and I look forward to incorporating many of the suggestions all year long! I enjoyed it so much I signed on to join the blog tour. Check out a few of the other blogs talking about this book:
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October 1 http://www.village-green-gifts.com/536/book-celebrate-green/
Tamara Graham My True Genius
New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE) The NYWSE Blog October 2 Jenn Savedge The Green Parent Elena Lipson The EcoDiva - Sustainable Luxury www.TheEcoDiva.blogspot.com and www.CarrieandDanielle.com October 3 Jenn Sturiale Tiny Choices October 5 Sarah Sabado Photography, Travel and Life Week of October 6 Paige Torgrimson Green Paige October 6 Stacy Williams Sagan’s Universe http://www.sagansuniverse.blogspot.com/ Shirley Siluk Gregory Green Living/Suite101.com http://greenliving.suite101.com,
Julie Northrop Free Birthday Treats Blog http://www.freebirthdaytreatsblog.com Tiffany Washko Raw Kid Recipes & Nature Moms October 7 Faten Abdallah Global Arts http://www.theglobeandthearts.blogspot.com Cheryl Morgen Escape to Books http://escapetobooks.blogspot.com/ Elena Lipson The EcoDiva - Sustainable Luxury www.TheEcoDiva.blogspot.com and www.CarrieandDanielle.com October 8 Wenona Napolitano Green Weddings and More and Creatively Green www.everythinggreenweddings.blogspot.com and www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com Shirley Siluk Gregory EcoLocalizer.com
Penelope Anne Bartotto, Interview The Library at the END of the Universe http://bookwormsballroom.blogspot.com/ Linda Blanco SaferForYourHomeAndSelf Jen Vondenbrink Your Life Simplified |
October 9 Angie Goodloe The Herbalist’s Path www.herbalistpath.blogspot.com October 10 Cate O’Malley The Voice of Mom
Penelope Anne Bartotto, Review The Library at the END of the Universe http://bookwormsballroom.blogspot.com/ Alisa Bowman Project Happily Ever After http://www.projecthappilyeverafter.com/happy-qa.asp October 13 Mark Caserta 3r Living and 3r Blogging Tricia Ballard Living at the Speed of Life http://www.triciaballad.com/blog/ October 15 Jen Vondenbrink Your Life Simplified (interview) www.yourlifesimplified.com/blog1 Angie Goodloe Mama Goin’ Wholistic http://mamagoinwholistic.blogspot.com/ October 16 Karen Renzi Beyondus Blog - Musings on Marketing, Web, and Life Work-at-Home-Momma www.workathomemomma.wordpress.com Kirsten Aadahl EcoWomen http://ecowomen.wordpress.com/ Andrea McMann Simple Things http://simplethings1.wordpress.com October 17 Bethany Cagle Brynna Curry http://www.freewebs.com/brynnacurry Unsure of date Stacey Kannenberg www.cedarvalleypublishing.com/blog
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Check out http://www.CelebrateGreen.NET, where you can sign up for updates, blogs, find more tips, ideas, receive special offers and discounts. Authors Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are also interested in hearing from their readers, be sure to let them know what you think!
Tackle it Tuesday: Three Year Olds Can Put Away Laundry!
March 11, 2008 | 6 Comments
First off, I apologize - I meant to have photos to post of this project, but my camera up and died yesterday! Hopefully it’s just the battery and I’ll be able to post photos later this week.
Ok, now on to today’s Tackle. I have a family of 5 - soon to be 6 (if you haven’t already, check out the nursery blogging project!), and with our 3-year old potty training, let’s just say we generate a LOT of laundry! One of the biggest challenges to all this laundry hasn’t been getting it put through the washer and dryer, but getting it all put away. I can get through about 4-5 loads of laundry in a day if I stay on top of it, and it’s easier for me to put it all away at the end of the day, rather than put each load away individually. I usually sort and fold laundry while the kids are in their bath.
Here’s the problem with my existing system: by the time I have the clothes sorted and folded, the boys are ready for bed. I can’t really get the clothes into their dressers and closet while they’re trying to go to sleep, so their clothes end up being stored in laundry baskets.
That’s gotta end - it’s driving me nuts!
There are two reasons that the boys couldn’t put their own clothes away: First, they would have to accurately figure out which clothes belonged to which person, and second, they would have to remember which drawer each item of clothing belonged in.
On the first point - figuring out which person each item belonged to - I bought 3 smallish laundry baskets. They’re just big enough to hold one boy’s clothes, and small enough for them to carry or push them down the hall to their room. I labeled them with each boy’s name in their favorite color. As I’m folding, I sort the clothes into each boy’s basket.
On the second point - helping them remember which drawers are theirs and which holds shirts, pants, etc. - I’m turning that problem into a homeschooling opportunity! Our oldest is starting to read independently, our middle son is starting to sound out words, and our youngest is learning to recognize his name and his brothers’ names.
I found index cards with manuscript lines printed on them, and some clip art showing shirts, pants, and pajamas. I made three cards for each boy, and wrote a label for each drawer in the boy’s favorite color, then taped a picture of the clothing item to the card.
Now, each boy has a color-coded laundry basket with his name on it, and three drawers with color-coordinated labels with his name, the word for the appropriate clothing item, and a picture of the clothing that belongs in that drawer.
To test the theory, I lined up the full baskets in the hallway outside their room, and sent them each in to put their laundry away. It worked - even my 3 year old got all of his clothes put away in the correct drawers!
I’ll try to get pictures posted later this week, once my camera is working again.
Homeschool Revelations - Boys learn differently than girls.
March 10, 2008 | Comments
Ok, so maybe this is one of those “Duh…” moments, but this weekend I had a revelation. I’m homeschooling my two youngest boys for preschool, and last week was a struggle. I couldn’t get either of them to pay attention to me or complete the simplest task. Instead, the Spaz Twins were bent on destroying every last one of their Mama’s nerves!
So we took Thursday and Friday off, figuring maybe they just needed a break. Well, the good news is, they both survived. I did not beat them senseless. But clearly, less structure in the day was not the answer! In fact, when I set them down on Friday afternoon and announced “Ok boys, we’re making brownies” their behavior improved instantly - they paid attention to my instructions, they concentrated on counting and measuring…suddenly I had my boys back!
It was then that it hit me - half the point of homeschooling is that we can give the boys an education that’s perfectly tailored to their learning styles, rather than a one-size-fits-all educational plan!
So I’ve been brainstorming this weekend for ways to teach them that will hold their interest and work with their natural energy, rather than fighting it. Coloring pages and phonics worksheets just aren’t right for these individual boys - so how do I teach them the same concepts? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far - please, leave a comment and throw out your ideas too!
- Find ways to teach them physically. Science and Art are 100% hands-on, and they often spend more time than I expect working on those projects. Find a way to apply what works in Science and Art to Phonics and Math.
- Letter and number hopscotch (jump on the letters in your name, jump on the numbers in order, etc.)
- Letter and number beanbags (use them for sorting, patterns, spelling their names, doing simple addition)
- Practice making letters and shapes in flour and/or sand
- Maybe concentrate on just one subject per day? Math Mondays, Art Tuesdays, Science Wednesdays, Phonics Thursdays, etc.?
- Mix up activities - don’t do patterns three days in a row, or they’ll get bored.
- Add in some really active gross motor skills activities to burn off some energy.
Posted by Tricia @ 10:55 am in Homeschooling
The Weakest Link
February 22, 2008 | Comments
We’ve all heard the phrase “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Well, this week I made a very revealing discovery. When it comes to keeping a household running smoothly, there are two basic methods:
- The CEO method, in which there is one primary person in charge of keeping the whole system running smoothly.
- The Co-Op method, in which everyone has responsibility for some part of the system, and enough knowledge of the rest of the system to step in if one person is unavailable.
Wanna take a quick guess as to which method most of us use?
In our house, I’m the organized one. I accept that. I’m really good at planning, organizing, and coming up with new ways of getting things done. I’m also only one person, and a pretty average one at that. I don’t have some extraordinary gift for squeezing 25 hours out of the day.
My family is generally good about helping out - as long as I tell them exactly what I need done, and give them a deadline to have it done by. Unfortunately, when I got sick early this week and ended up spending three days essentially on bedrest, everything ground to a screeching halt. Literally. By Wednesday evening, the family ate frozen pizza off of paper plates. (Not that there’s anything wrong with either frozen pizza or paper plates on occasion!) Laundry hasn’t been done since Monday. Don’t ask about the shortcuts we’ve taken in homeschooling this week!
The CEO method of household management has its benefits - you have a single point of contact for household management questions, and well, sometimes management by committee just doesn’t work.
If several members of your family are good at organizing and managing, the Co-op method might just work for you - one person is responsible for laundry, another deals with meals, someone else does the planning.
It’s a great idea, but a pure Co-op method won’t work in our family so we need a hybrid approach. And we have a hard deadline to implement it - if I’m still occupying the corner office in this household when the baby arrives in May . . . I don’t want to see the chaos I’ll come home to!
So here’s the plan.
I’m expanding upon my current household notebook, and will document a lot of the processes that I “just know” right now - like the stuff that I know goes on every week’s grocery list, and how long we can let dishes or laundry go before nobody can eat or get dressed. The overall goal here is to ensure than when/if I am gone for several days at a time, the entire household won’t grind to a halt again.
Wish me luck! This isn’t a small project, and I’ll post progress here as I go along.
