Category Archives: Home Schooling
Help Your Kids With Maths
Help Your Kids With MathsA Unique Step By Step Visual Guide
By Carol Vorderman
ISBN 9781405322461
Are your kids having problems understanding maths concepts?
Do you have problems understanding their maths?
I found this book in my local library and it is excellent -I am intending on buying it, it is that good.
This book is different from math textbooks, it shows maths concepts in a visual way. Most people’s brains think in images -visually, I know that I do.
This great reference book covers all the core subjects of maths, from basic arthmetic to geometry, from algebra to statistics. So it would suit elementary level to highschool.
See if your local library has it or purchase it from the book depository. (Why do I recommend The Book Depository? click and find out)
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Homeschooling Your Child For Free!
I stumbled across this extremely helpful book in my local library the other day and I must let you all in on it!
As Home Educators we are all looking for FREE resources right?
Well, this book is LOADED with free resources – more than 1,400 of them!
The free resources are links to very useful sites on the internet that help with our homeschooling. The authors have done a great job in organising the content so it is very easy to pick it up and flip to the information that you need - use it like a reference book. Here’s a list of the type of topics it includes:
- Why we homeschool
- Homeschool how-tos
- Curriculum Core: scope and sequence
- Education essentials
- Language literacy
- Mathematics mastery
- Art appreciation
- History highlights
- Music marathon
- Social studies skills
- Humanities home
- Science scholarship
- Health handbook
- Graduation guidance
Now it is not just a list of internet links – the authors describe why the website is useful for homeschooling and they add a bit in each chapter on how they have succeeded in each area. So you are learning so helpful tips and hints as you read.
This book is for veteran homeschoolers as well as new homeschooling parents. I have been reading up on homeschooling for 14 years and I gained from reading this book.
One section that was very beneficial was how to motivate students to learn. This book would not only be useful for homeschoolers but teachers and parents as well!
Check it out at your local library or buy it from The Book Depository
Why do I recommend The Book Depository? click here to find out
Enjoy Homeschooling!
Rachel
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Are you studying History – 30AD- 1799AD time period?
I have a new product on Currclick - perfect for those who are studying history – 30AD -1799AD.
History Pages: Words to Watch from 30AD-1799AD
The details:
These notebooking pages will help your student learn the vocabulary that covers the period of history that you are studying.
It contains 13 vocabualary pages covering
- Romans
- Early Middle Ages
- The Holy Roman Empire & the Vikings
- The Crusades and the Mongols
- Cathedral Architecture
- Seeds of Reformation & The Late Middle Ages
- Weaponry
- The Renaissance & the Reformation
- Puritans, Pietists & the Divine Right of Kings
- Astronomy, Physics & Chemistry
- Revivals & Revolutions
- Christianity.
It also contains the answers which is a great help for mum/teacher!
There are 3 blank notebooking pages that can be used to record interesting information that the student discovers as she/he researches the vocabulary.
This ebook complements Diana Waring’s history curriculum- Romans, Reformers, Revoluntionaires. In the Exploration and Discovery Week there are vocabulary words for the student to research. These notebooking pages are a fun way of recording the meanings that they uncover.
You don’t have to be going through Diana Waring’s curriculum to take advantage of these “Words to Watch” pages. These pages would be useful for all history students.
Rachel Larkin
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Zoology 3 – Land animals – Apologia Science
We are going through the Zoology 3 book by Apologia Science and it is a fascinating journey! The boys are loving it.
I have designed notebooking pages to complement the reading of the Zoology 3 text. The boys enjoy doing these as it helps them to keep interested while reading.
I have them for sale – at very low prices – at currclick. All the work has been done for you!
Here’s where to find out more Rachel Larkin’s Publishers account on Currclick
Enjoy!
Rachel
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Apologia Science – Zoology 1 free notebooking pages
I have some free notebooking pages for Zoology 1 click here to go to the download page
Enjoy
Rachel
Freebie — Bird Watching Journal—Apologia Zoology 1
We are going to be studying Apologia Zoology 1 next term and I have made up a Bird Watching Journal for my boys. I would love to share it with you!!
There is only 4 pages on this PDF file – I have left it up to you to make as many copies of pages 3 & 4 (the actal journal pages) as you like. I made one up with 15 journal entires. Once printed I took it down to the local printing shop and got it bound. It looks very professional. Please note that I have made it for A5 paper so that it is an easy thing to carry around while bird watching.
Please note – this is no longer available but you can purchase it on Currclick – an improved version!
I also have notebooking pages for sale on Currclick based on the zoology books
Rachel
Character Training your Kids Part One
The most important education is Character Training. What is the point of having a highly intelligent adult if their personality or character is corrupt or grating on everyone else? It is better to spend the time on gently guiding our children into God’s paths and His wisdom in dealing with life’s issues than to feed them lots of facts and figures.
The first character issue that I encountered with my oldest son was an extremely negative attitude. If someone said “yes”, he said “no” and vice versa. It seemed like he was determined to go through life miserable and making everyone else miserable.
After much prayer God showed me the cause of my son’s negative attitude. It was a lack of confidence in his own abilities. He didn’t want to try new things because he didn’t think that he would be any good – he thought that he was a big failure at everything.
So little things like learning how to tie his shoelaces to playing sports to attending a homeschool field trip seemed to be too hard for him to attempt.
Well, now that I could pinpoint what the issue was I had to sit down and work out a solution. I tried to praise him and encourage him but it didn’t seem to be very effective. I prayed some more and asked for God’s answer to our issue. God is so faithful , He showed me exactly what I had to do to help my son build up confidence inside.
My words weren’t being effective but God said that His Word is always effective. His Words work and they are alive. He showed me last year that His Words create something out of nothing. His Words – Light Be created light!. Jesus’ words to the fig tree caused it to die. His words to the rough waves and sea, calmed them.
So my job was to inject God’s words about my sons abilities into his heart. His faith in God and himself had to be built up. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). So I had to find God’s Words on confidence.
My son was 10 at the time so he was able to understand the things that I was to interject into his life. I wanted him to own these words for himself. So I encouraged him to do a bit of research and discover what the word confidence & courage means. Then I showed him how to look up God’s Word for verses on confidence. He came up with the following:
Proverbs 14:26
Ephesians 3:12
Hebrews 4:16
1 Corinthians 16:13
2 Timothy 1:7
I picked out two verses that suited my son and our situation and personlised them. Then at the end of everyday when I was tucking him into bed , he would read out his personlised verses.
Proverbs 14:26 In the fear of the LORD I have strong confidence and I will have a refuge”
1 Cor 16:13 I am watchful. I stand firm in the faith. I act like a man. I am strong”
The result was awesome! The Word of God sent forth always accomplishes that for which God has purposed it to accomplish. My son grew in confidence that year.
The answer to whatever character issue that you are facing is to be found in the Word. I highly encourage you to spend time in prayer asking God to reveal to you the perfect Word for your child.
“The Missing Link” Contest
There is a contest over at Learning at His Feet Blog this week. You can have a chance to win the fiction book called “The Missing Link”
is the first of The Truth Seekers Mystery four book series published by Media Angels, Inc. It was written by Christina and Felice Gerwitz, a homeschooling daughter and mom duo. I received a letter from Felice with the book and loved this excerpt from it:
“My then homeschooled daughter, Christina, at 14 said she wanted to write a mystery novel. I explained, “We don’t know how to write novels” and she said, “That’s okay, Mom! We’re homeschoolers, we can learn how.” (Well, how could I say no?)”
The Gerwitz’ wanted to help children stand up for their faith, so they wrote a book with good role models that are not only Christian, but homeschooled kids. These children are along for a wild adventure in The Missing Link: Found, helping out their uncle with his archaeological dig. It is believed that the Missing Link has been discovered which would be compelling evidence for the theory of evolution. This book is full of interesting tidbits and factoids and is written from a Creationist view.
I have been wanting to read this book for ages – it sounds awesome!
Productive Free Time List
DISCOVERING YOUR CHILD’S PASSION
When we pulled our oldest boy out of school, the words “Mum I’m bored” was heard frequently in our home. He had only one year of state schooling and was already infected with the boredom disease. Schooling seemed to have taken away his ability to have ideas and plugged up his creativity. He wasn’t able to stop, relax and enjoy spending hours on a project or hobby. I guess the school routine didn’t allow for periods of thinking and ideas and tinkering time. Boys need tinkering time!
So I had to come up with a way to get the thinking of ideas going, ideas of what to make and ideas of what to do. We spent the first year of our home educating journey getting to know one another again. Just enjoying reading a book, going on field trips together and getting to know our local area. Over this time several interests and passions started to emerge, it was exciting to see his mind become active and the sparkle in his eyes when we discovered something new.
He developed a love of climbing Auckland’s volcanoes. We captured our volcano discoveries on film and he gathered information as we went. It was interesting to stand back and ponder what was motivating his love of mountains. At first I thought it was the act of climbing them but he always wanted to get to the top and wasn’t really concerned with the process of the climb. I then thought that it was the mountain itself and was directing him to books on rocks and the history of volcanos but it wasn’t really any of that, he showed an interest but it wasn’t his passion it wasn’t what was driving him. His underlying motivation was…. what he saw when he got to the top of the mountain!! – the cityscape below him, the roads interlocking, the busyness of the cars, the people like ants scurrying around, the areas of industrial factories compared to the residential streets. That was what was interesting him.
From this experience (which took place over a year) he has developed his passion of cities and has moved onto road maps. At the age of six and a half he had very advanced mapping skills, owned his own copies of the Auckland street map and the road code. He would have passed the road code test if he was allowed to sit it.!
How can mum spark an interest in her child?
A start would be having a “productive free time” list. This is a list of activities that are fun and educational and may be the start of an interest or hobby for your child.
I found various “productive free time” lists on the internet where other mums had composed a list of possible productive activities for their home educated children. I sat down with my son and together we went through the lists and came up with our own. The list was printed double spaced and we cut each item into a long strip. We placed the long strips into a special box. When we had reached a point in the day when he didn’t know what to do with himself he had to pick two or three pieces of paper from the box and decide on one activity. Later on, when his decision making skills were more developed, the box was put aside and we had the printed list on the wall and he independently made a choice. The “productive free time” list had its place for a season and now we don’t seem to need it as the boys are fuelling their own passions.
The Larkin Family’s Productive Free Time List
1. Nature Walk – find some bugs
2. Build with Legos
3. Little Legos
4. K’Nex
5. Reading
6. Teddy Bears Picnic – big chest
7. Drawing
8. UNO
9. Building outside with wood
10. Climb a tree
11. Play in the sandpit
12. Make some cards
13. Write a letter to somebody
14. Collect different leaves and paste them onto paper
15. Play monopoly
16. Junior Scrabble
17. Jigsaws
18. Write on the concrete with chalk
19. Dress up
20. Crafts
21. Do gym outside
22. Do a treasure hunt
23. Tumble
24. Pick up sticks
25. Barrel of monkeys
26. Pasting – collage
27. Make your own comic book
28. Build a fort
29. Puppet play
30. Record your own radio play
31. Play dough
32. Dig tunnels outside
33. Build a parking garage and repair station for cars
34. Dictate a story into tape recorder for someone to type out
35. Build a spaceship
36. Cooking
37. Tent / cubby house out of blankets
38. Run through sprinkler
39. Press flowers
40. Pull weeds
41. Bird watching
42. Act out a play
43. Write a play
44. Invent a circus
45. Soccer
46. Throw a ball
47. Collect rocks
48. Play Frisbee
49. Make Frisbees out of plastic lids and decorate
50. Dust the lounge
51. Play dress up
52. Teddy bears picnic
53. Play store
54. Prepare a restaurant lunch/dinner with menus
55. Toy cars
56. Chase butterflies
57. Thomas trains
58. Gardening
59. Make homemade wrapping paper
60. Make bookmarks
61. Watch the clouds
62. Clean under your bed
63. Make music
64. Fold laundry
65. Sweep the driveway
66. Bike riding
67. Copy your favourite book illustration
68. Design your own game
69. Lemon juice painting
70. Hide and seek
71. Read a story to your younger brothers
72. Make up a song
73. Map of your bedroom/house/street
74. Cut pictures from magazines and write a story
75. Plan a treasure hunt
76. Make a treasure map
77. Plan an imaginary trip to the moon
78. Plan an imaginary trip around the world –where are you going
79. Sticks and mud and make birds nest
80. Make a family newsletter
81. Paper airplanes
82. Obstacle course outside
83. Read newspaper
Rachel Larkin
My Top Ten Books for the Home School Mum
1. Joyce Meyer Amplified Bible: I LOVE my bible! The Amplified version just opens up the meanings of words to me. I highly recommend it.
2.“Heartfelt Discipline: The gentle art of training and guiding your child” By Clay Clarkson: This is awesome for gaining that parenting wisdom that we need in those sticky situations!
3.“Educating the Wholehearted Child: A Handbook for Christian Home Education” by Clay and Sally Clarkson: This is an all in one book for Home Education. It is one that I pick up every year to refresh myself.
4.“Homeschooling the Easy Way” By Cindy Rushton: This is also one of those books that you pick up again and again when you need to get back on track in your Home Education – very encouraging – we can do it!
5. “The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach Bible-Based Homeschooling” by Robin Sampson: This is in the same category as the last two above – It gives me a framework to how to teach my children and how to be Bible Based.
6. “The Power of Praying” By Stormie Omartian: This is actually three books in one volume. The Power of a Praying Wife; The Power of a Praying Parent; The Power of a Praying Woman. This book is always close by. It keeps me praying the scriptures over my life in whatever role that I am finding difficult at the time. It is the kind of book that grows with you – when you are a new wife to when your children are all growing up and you are now praying for your grandchildren. The prayers for your husband that are in the book are so powerful.
7. “E M Bounds on Prayer” by E M Bounds: This is a giant book and one that I pick up about 3 times a week and read a couple of chapters and then put down again. I am SLOWLY going through it. But it is so meaty that I need to have time to really process and meditate on the information. My hearts desire is to pray more and also more effectively. This book will transform your prayer life.
8. “The Transforming Power of Fasting and Prayer” By Bill Bright: I bought this from YWAM’s Doulos ship while it was in Auckland this year and it is so encouraging!. It has heaps of personal accounts of people being committed to praying and fasting for their churches and communities – it is a real inspiration to me. I am not there yet with the prayer and fasting – I have a long way to go!
9. “Encyclopaedia of Bible Truths” By Ruth C Haycock: This is actually 4 books that cover different teaching subjects, like maths, english, science, geography etc. Ruth Haycock has gone through the bible and pulled out scriptures that pertain to these subjects – God’s take on teaching this subjects. She shows us what the Biblical foundation is of each subject that we teach – it is really an invaluable set of books. I have only started using them in the last couple of months but I can see that they will be with me until I finish home educating.
10 “Freedom and Simplicity in HisStory” By Lisa Hodgen: This book has really put me on the right track for teaching History Biblically. It includes practical notebooking pages and timeline. It helps me to lay the right Godly foundation in teaching history. I have only just starting working with the information in the book but have already reread it at least 5 times!!!
Rachel Larkin
