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Lately, my 7 year old is really into how things are made. Today’s question was “How is a Light Bulb Made?” And so we headed over to Google’s Video search to see if there was anything good available. Here are two 5 min. videos that pulled not only my 7 year old’s attention but also that of his older siblings. One is for an incandescent light bulb and the other for a flourescent bulb. Enjoy! …Shannon How An Incandescent Light Bulb is Made How A Flourescent Light Bulb is Made
Last summer, my daughter’s Chemistry curriculum introduced us to the idea that YouTube could be part of our homeshool science curriculum. Everyone would gather around the computer to watch the explosive reactions of alkaline metals hitting water and beg to watch it again. Since then, we’ve periodically used Google’s Video search to find other free online videos that demonstrated a concept or inspired our own experiments. As with anything, there’s a lot of junk out there we don’t want in our kids’ heads, but there is also some wonderful experiments and demonstrations that we wouldn’t be able to do on our own. We use these videos as springboards of conversation – not just on the topic, but also on safety and appropraiteness of the content. This week my 9-year-old ran across this video on how to make a simple “bb gun” from a toilet paper tube, a balloon, a penny. From this, we discussed velocity, force, safety, when it is okay to replicate the experiment and when it is not, and what we could change to test how it work under different conditions (different type of tube, different balloon sizes, a different type of projectile, etc.) Over time I’ll share more of our favorite videos with you. But for now, here’s my 9-year-old’s find for the week: Safety Alert! I’m a big believer in over emphasizing safety. When watching any science videos or demonstrations, it’s always wise, especially with active, indepenent-thinking, creative children, to explicitly discuss when it is okay to replicate an experiment and under what conditions…and be sure to explain why or ask what would happen if they don’t follow the safety instructions.
We love audio books! I might even say that audio books are my best time saving tool as a work-at-home, homeschooling mom. I love to read to the kids, but I just don’t have enough time. So, we listen to audio books – in the car, during quiet time, while doing mundane tasks… But buying audio books can get very expensive. Thankfully our library has a great selection, but they don’t have everything we want and my 11 year old has listened to nearly all that she’s interested in. Thankfully I found Librivox.org Volunteers from Librivox.org are turning public domain works into audio book format. So many popular works that are in public domain (copyright before 1923) are now available for free in mp3 format from Librivox.org, including homeschool favorites like:
The list goes on. Even classical history books like the ”Famous Men of…” series are available. The audio books can be downloaded onto your computer and then burned to CD or DVD or stored on a flash drive or your mp3 player. I use iTunes to subscribe to the audio book I want and then download it to my …my daughter’s… iPod. I also use iTunes to burn copies to CD, so they can be listened to on a regular CD player. We’ve even picked out stories from LibriVox.org to burn to CD as birthday gifts and Christmas gifts for friends and family. For the price of your time and the cd’s they make a great (frugal) gift! LibriVox’s “Our Catalog” search engine is better than many I’ve used. If you are looking for something specific, it’s worth using. The search results will show you both completed audio and works in progress. If a book you want is still in progress, they have a tool that will notify you via email when the audio book is completed and ready for download. The “Browse Entire Catalog” feature lists all the completed works in alphabetic order by author’s last name. If you are using classics in your curriculum or using curriculum that heavily uses public domain works (like A2, Robinson, or Old Fashioned Education), then this is a great resource to find the books on audio. Also, if you or your older kids are looking for a service project, I recommend checking out LibriVox’s volunteers page. Enjoy! …Shannon
I’m not totally sure how my older two children learned to count to 20. It just happened. I’m sure we played games, counted together, and did the usual stuff. Wanting to play hide-n-seek with the big kids as a driving motivation for learning to count to 20 for both of them. And counting to 20 just came together pretty quickly for the olders when they were ready. But this isn’t so for my 6 year old. Not only is he a visual-kinesthetic learner, he also has trouble remembering the names of things – like numbers and letters. He can remember amazing things, but the names of things (and people) are difficult for him. It takes a lot of repetition and many different methods to move names/labels into his long-term memory. Knowing how long it took for him to memorize 1-10, I’ve been taking a more diverse approach to teaching him numbers 11-20. These are the only numbers that don’t follow a clean rhythm that directly correlates to numbers 1-10 and thus require a little more effort to learn. (For example, my 6 yo already can do 21-100, he just doesn’t have 11-20 memorized.) Some of the methods we’ve used include:
But I was really missing having number tiles for ordering and matching. Letter tiles and alphabet Go Fish cards have been very good for helping him concrete letter and word-building concepts. So, I created some very simple 11-20 number tiles to use for matching games and tactile ordering games. I’m also going to use these for notebooking and lapbooking graphics.  Click to download a PDF version If you’d like to use these as well, feel free to download them here (opens in a new window). Simply cut them out on the lines and store in an envelope. If you have one available, a Xyron If you have other ideas or games for teaching numbers 11-20, I’d love to hear them. Please post a comment and share how any methods you’ve used. Thanks! …Shannon
Earlier I shared how I have to have at least one day (preferably two) at home during the week. Nothing gets scheduled on those days, unless I have absolutely no other choice. This is a sanity thing. There are just too many worthwhile activites that pull at our attention, but it all sucks time and more importantly, energy. A few years ago, when I first decided that we just had to have days at home with no outside obligations, I kept accidentally over-scheduling. With 4 homeschooled kids, a business, and numerous pets, it’s very easy to do. I had to come up with a better way. Now, a few times a year, when it’s time to plan for the next school year or term, or sign up for activities, I use a weekly schedule spreadsheet like this to help me SEE where our time commitments are.
In Excel, I’ve created a weekly schedule spreadsheet (which you can download below), that I use as a template. Using color coding (one color per child, plus grey for drive time and whole family activities) I can very easily see where our time is commited. My goal is to create at least one to two days during school week (Monday-Friday) with NOTHING in it. To start, I put in all the activities the kids and I wanted to do that term, then seeing the conflicts, I start whittling away (talking to the kids about it as I have to cut things.) Sometimes, if an activity (like Ballet) has an alternate time slot I’ll insert it on the calendar like this: (see the pink slots for Ballet)
That allows me to take a closer look at really what is possible. My goal is to create activity days, where if I’m going to consume energy running about, let’s just make it that type of day and if we can schedule whatever activities we can into it. But sometimes it just doesn’t work out. For example, my nearly 7 year old’s speech therapy is offered through the public school system, and they only offer it to homeschoolers at one time during the week. That’s just the way it is. So we work around that. I’m also looking for conflicts – where schedules overlap. I can’t be in two place at once and I refuse to run around with my head chopped off trying to get one child to one place and another child to another place. It’s not a productive, healthy mind-set for any of us. Using the chart, I can show the kids where there’s a conflict and we can discuss possible courses of action. For example, my sons really wanted to take fencing this year. But fencing was only offered on Monday and Friday nights. My 9 year old son had to choose – fencing or cub scouts. He chose cub scouts. But having the visual helped him see what his choices were and how he wanted to spend his time. Once I’ve figured out what the activity schedule is, I note each day as to whether it’s a Full schoolwork day or a Light schoolwork day. And then in the bottom part of my spreadsheet, I mark what subjects will be covered (in an ideal world) on each of those days. Obviously I’m looking for balance and reasonable work load. It’s not fair to the kids to ask them to do 3 hours of book work on a day where we are only home for 30 minutes. Those are light schoolwork days – which for us means they must read something, write something, and do some sort of math. Most of the time that’s all done through act of being out and about and in the car. This system has been great for saving my sanity and keeping the HOME in our homeschool. If you are interested in trying this out for yourself, feel free to download and use the forms that I use. I’ve included a sample for you to get a better look at what this looks like. Download the PDF Weekly Schedule Template Download the PDF Weekly Schedule Sample Download the Excel file with both the template and the sample (two worksheet tabs in the workbook) Note: You need a PDF reader to use the PDF file. You can get one free here. To use the Excel file, you’ll need Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, or will need to upload the file into a web-based spreadsheet tool like Google Docs in order to work with it fully.
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or similar sticker machine is a good way to laminate them or turn them into magnets or stickers. (I love my Xyron!) Otherwise, an office supply or teacher supply store may be able to laminate them for you. But it is also pretty inexpensive to just print a new sheet when you need them.
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