Inclusive Homeschool

I love homeschoolers. They are among the most supportive people I have ever met, especially in the online groups I belong to.

I was stressing out about a situation, and asked for help on one of my email group lists. It’s amazing the support and wonderful suggestions I received. As a single parent, it can be very challenging to homeschool your child, but while I’m responsible for putting together my curriculum, implementing it and supporting myself and my child, I’m not alone.

I’m fortunate there are two co-op groups in my area that I can participate in, but I also have 24 hour seven days a week support online from any one of my many homeschool email groups.

You don’t have to do this alone. If you’re considering homeschooling or are homeschooling, get on a homeschool list and let yourself reap the benefits of other people’s experiences. Plus, you deserve the emotional support. The curriculum reviews are valuable alone, but those encouraging words are priceless.

Yahoo Groups has tons of homeschooling groups for all topics and regions. There’s over 800,000 education and school groups alone! You can narrow down your search and find the group(s) for you.

So Many Uses
If you want to know about cyber schools, there’s a group. If you want to know about a specific cyber school there’s a group. If you’re interested in unschooling or Waldorf or classical education there’s a group. If you have a visual spatial child or you want to know more about lapbooking there’s a group. There’s actually more than one group on each of those topics and more.

Co-ops often have their own group to keep in touch with members and virtual co-ops exist online. There’s groups for virtual field trips, a valuable resource to find really awesome places to go to online, live cams, 3D museum tours and the like. There are groups for just about everything and anything. You pick. You choose. Or you can start one up.

I just read of a homeschooling family that created their own yahoo group for their family. This doesn’t take the place of family time, but really helped them to coordinate their school work and activities throughout the day. Plus, it was fun.

Just go there, type in your search and choose. I don’t know what I’d do without mine. Well, I do know…I did without before with my first two. I struggled. That’s what I did.

It’s still a challenge, but what a world of difference!

Tags: help, homeschool, network, online, Resources, single mom, support

Well, The Nickelodeon Spiderwick Chronicles upset me more than I realized. When I woke up feeling angrier the next morning than I did the previous day, I knew it was more than just because of a stupid movie.

This particular total disregard for the story hit a deep nerve in me. It underscores our culture’s general disregard for the artist, whether authors or musicians or any other art form, and evidently a part of me had an intense reaction to it.

It’s so prevalent in our society, this flippant disregard, that you can become desensitized, but at least for me, not this time. I wrote about it on my personal blog, Keeping the Dream, this morning. I’m sure I’ll be addressing this issue in further posts.

In Honor Of
Today, in honor of telling your story and story tellers everywhere, I want to acknowledge one of my favorite storytellers and include two good resources for stories.

Mountain Moon Storytellers, Bob and Barb Gingrich, two of my favorite storytellers in my hometown, York, PA. If you ever have a chance to catch any of their events, you have to. They are delightful and warm people both on and off stage, filled with rich stories and generous spirit.

National Storytelling Network: Find a storyteller, find support as a storyteller, learn about the art and develop your own skills.

Peace Corps Stories: Phenomenal resource of stories collected by Peace Corps volunteers complete with lesson plans. The stories are grouped by grade, region and subject area.

These are not just a collection of native stories from around the world, but include a collection of letters from Peace Corps volunteers themselves in the field, and that is where all good stories begin - from personal human experience. I just discovered this website this morning. I will definitely be using its resources in our homeschooling venture.

Tags: lesson plans, reading, Resources, Spiderwick Chronicles, stories, storytelling

From February 15th through February 18th, you and your child have a fantastic opportunity to not only engage in a scientific research, but to connect with others across the continent. Adults and kids alike participate in this four day bird count, tallying their count online at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ with other science and bird enthusiasts. It’s a wonderful online collaboration.

This from their website:

Participants count birds anywhere for as little or as long as they wish during the four-day period. They tally the highest number of birds of each species seen together at any one time…As the count progresses, anyone with Internet access can explore what is being reported from their own towns or anywhere in the United States and Canada. They can also see how this year’s numbers compare with those from previous years. Participants may also send in photographs of the birds they see.

Sparrow

Why Count Birds?
Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing where the birds are. Bird populations are dynamic; they are constantly in flux. No single scientist or team of scientists could hope to document the complex distribution and movements of so many species in such a short time.

We need your help. Make sure the birds from your community are well represented in the count. It doesn’t matter whether you report the 5 species coming to your backyard feeder or the 75 species you see during a day’s outing to a wildlife refuge.

The Great Backyard Bird Count for Kids

They have a section just for kids, http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/kids that’s written directly to kids. It has clearly written directions on how to participate, various puzzles, online quizzes, coloring sheets, bird song identification, and bird guides.

My only confusion is that on the kids page the dates are listed as 16th through the 19th, which is a day later than stated elsewhere on the site. I will email the webmaster and inquire about that. I’d start on the 15th if you want to do the full four days.

We’re not studying birds right now in our science adventure, but that’s what’s so wonderful about homeschooling. We can switch our “curriculum” anytime we want, depending on what life presents us.

[Thanks to internetclipart for sparrow graphic]

Tags: birds, network, Science

I just discovered this math site tonight http://illuminations.nctm.org/ that is an absolute treasure trove of resources.

It’s divided into four major sections: activities, lessons, standards and web links, and covers grades pre-K to 2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.

The standards are number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. The online activities are a lot of fun, though I did have one page freeze up on me using my Firefox browser.

I can’t wait to do some of these activities with Brhiannon when she comes home. She is more of a hands on and visual learner, and using more than one approach, utilizing as many of her senses work best for her. I anticipate her really enjoying this site. Brhiannon has not had a positive experience with math, and has developed a…oh, shall I say, dread, for doing math?

I have to be honest and say part of the reason for this is because of the inconsistency of academic practice between her two homes. It’s one of my greatest frustrations. Another part is because she is very right brained and she operates on her own time table. I must confess that I have periodically succumbed to pressure to “keep her up to state standards”, pushing her into abstract learning before she was psychologically or neurologically ready.

Between the two, she has developed a lack of confidence and self esteem in all things mathematical…except when she doesn’t know they’re mathematical. Which is another reason why I love another site so much. I’ll post on that one later.

For now, I want to say I think http://illuminations.nctm.org/ is a valuable resource and I’m very pleased to have discovered it. Rather than go through most of the site myself before posting, I want to post it now and give you the opportunity to explore it yourself!

I’d love to hear what you think - what you like best or recommend from this site. I’ll revisit this site and make further posts concerning which activities we like or find most helpful.

Happy learning!

Tags: Math, Resources, virtual manipulatives