Essentially, the idea here is that you can turn anything into a pretending game. The example the author used was a marketplace:

Occasionally, in the elementary years, we turned our entire house into a miniature town. Each room in the house became a place of business, with signs, menus, goods, and services for sale. Each family member became a character with a name, a costume, and a history and started the day with a pre-determined amount of play money. We put things around the house up for sale with price tags. We offered services for a fee. Other family members would stop by the rooms to buy goods and services. Even the kitchen became a restaurant with a menu. Family members had to purchase their own food and beverages. Business owners were required to put reasonable prices on their “products” and to give correct change to customers. They were required to write proper signs, menus, and instructions for their businesses. It was amazing to see just how much math and writing my students ended up doing and how their enthusiasm for it never waned.

There are other examples within the post. It’s a great idea, after all kids naturally lean toward make believe, so why not use that to turn learning into something fun? While I think we can all agree that school isn’t always a piece of cake, this role playing sounds like something everyone can enjoy, even parents!

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you use role playing in school?

One of the tricks that I used when I was tutoring is to write monster menus. You can adapt this to anything, really, we did Fairy and Clown Menus, as well, depending on the child’s interests.

Basically, what you do is design a menu for a monster restaurant. What would they serve in a restaurant like this? Write numbers down the side, leaving plenty of room for writing. This is supposed to be a fun way to get your child interested in writing, so focusing on form and neatness might not be the first priority.

Next, brainstorm with your child to come up with some seriously disgusting dishes. Younger kids can just come out with the type of dish (Earthworm Pasta with Dog Snot Sauce), while older ones might want to add a description (exceptionally gritty earthworms tossed in sauce made of dog snot, sesame seeds and ground lima beans). Fit the activity to your child’s ability.

Have more than one child? Why not make it a group activity with everyone taking turns writing up a dish? Trust me, they’ll be so involved in thinking up the grossest thing they can come up with that they won’t even notice they’re writing!

There’s nothing like fighting the feeling that your brain has become soggy as you try to get started at the beginning of a new year.  If fact if it weren’t for the treasure of a new box of 64 Crayola’s I don’t think I would’ve made it some years.

You can avoid this by just taking a little time each week – not even daily to review some of the lessons from the end of the year or reading an article or two on topics to keep things fresh in the mind.  This will avoid such a shock to the mental system when the school year kicks off.  Not to mention the fact that it will begin to build that all important habit and philosophy that learning is a lifelong and lifetime activity.

Don’t just review last year – move ahead!

There’s nothing that says you can’t take a sneak peek at some of the topics coming up for next year.  In fact if you take a little bite out of the workload for the next grade, you might be able to go at an easier pace through the whole year.  This can teach your kids that attacking an upcoming task early and often can really pay off in dividends and avoid the whole experience of cramming at the last hour to get things finished.  This never worked so well for me in college and it has become a hard habit to break for projects at church and at work!  Get a handle on it before it gets ingrained in their character.

Making it Count in the Real World

Of course you don’t have to limit yourself to learning about your studies over the break.  A great thing to do over the summer is to focus on finding ways to make what they’ve learned count in the real world.  They think math is pointless?  Have them balance your check book for a week or two.  They don’t think social studies is important?  Talk to them about how the decisions their national leaders are making can affect them and how being informed can make a difference.  Or take them to a concert or a museum and show them how people have taken their artistic talents and used them to impress and inspire others.

I guess to sum it up, don’t think of the summer as a break.  In life there are no breaks, just a change of focus.  That’s the beauty of homeschooling – you aren’t boxed in, spread your wings and find unique ways to challenge and teach your children.

What do you do with your kids over the summer?  (Maybe we’ll ask you what they did over summer vacation when school starts… get a head start on that essay today!)

What can you do to make sure things run smoothly and you get it all done?

The first thing to remember is that no one solution works for everyone. For example, lists work very well for some people, while others find it just doesn`t help at all. It could take some time for you to find what works for your family, but here are a few pointers to get you started.

Figure out your priorities. Choose three things that are most important to you and your family. Then make sure those things get done each day. It`s far easier to concentrate on a few important things than it is to run around trying desperately to finish twenty random items. Obviously you`ll have more than three things to do in a day, but focusing on the most important will help with scheduling.

Let kids have some input. Chances are they`ll be more willing to do things if they are allowed to choose the timing. You might want to start the day early and do the hardest subjects first but if your students work better after a little more sleep or after doing chores first, then why not give it a try?

Know where you are in the school year. At the beginning of the year, go through all the coursework and divide the number of pages or lessons by the number of days or weeks of the school year. This will give you the amount you need to complete each week or day. Even if you take a day off, you will always know exactly where you SHOULD be and that can be very helpful in planning.

Let`s hear from some readers. What are your favorite homeschool time management tips?

We want to create a place where parents can get help with questions and encouragement. We want to provide an online opportunity for kids to meet other homeschool students in a controlled environment. We want allow isolated homeschools the connectivity available through the Internet. We want to enable technically challenged homeschools to gain the skills and confidence to be responsible and fully capable Internet citizens. We also want to build relationships and share our collective journey with one another.

We plan to make Barnabas Way all those things, and also to hear ideas and suggestion brought forward and see what we can do about that as well. Sound good? Well what can you do? Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. You can comment on a blog post. Just click the link at the bottom of the post that says “Comments” and fill in the message box with your thought, ideas, suggestions, reactions, or questions. A blog is a great way to interact with people through the comments. You can put your input up on the web attached to our blog post.

2. You can sign up for community updates by filling out the form at the top of the page with your name and e-mail address. We will then be able to get in touch with you and let you know when new blog posts come out or when something exciting is happening.

3. You can keep coming back to see what’s being talked about in the blog. We keep adding new information all the time. That’s the beauty of a blog, it’s always being updated by new articles, thoughts, and tidbits. So be sure to mark this site as a favorite and stay informed.

4. If you are real savvy and know what an RSS feed is all about, you could click on the RSS icon and subscribe to our feed. If you don’t know what that’s all about. You really need to do one of the other options, because it’s stuff like that and how they can be used by you and your homeschool that we’ll be all over here at Barnabas Way.

So consider loading up your U-haul and moving to our virtual neighborhood…

(Comments are just below here. Yes, right here.)

]]> http://barnabasway.com/blog/barnabas-way-is-getting-ready-to-pre-debut/feed/ 0 http://barnabasway.com/blog/the-costs-of-homeschooling/ http://barnabasway.com/blog/the-costs-of-homeschooling/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:59:24 +0000 Traci http://barnabasway.com/blog/?p=91 No doubt when one first thinks of homeschooling, time spent is often the foremost consideration. While the time devoted to schooling your own children is time well spent, it isn’t the only cost of homeschooling.  Homeschooling isn’t free.

When people talk about teaching their children from home in the
absence of any definite or structured curriculum, it is perhaps
natural to think that homeschooling is cheap. But this is far from
the truth.

The cost of homeschool curriculum and materials used can vary widely and the variance depends a great deal on how much pre-planning the parents want done for them. Just as take-out meals are quick and easy (and costly), so too are pre-packaged curriculum ready to use.
Even for the most frugal of families who use the library, unit studies or an unschooling approach to learning; there could still be argument for the loss of income for the parent who stays home to educate the children.  Even if the mother were to have chosen to stay home otherwise, nearly every family buys some books and of course,  printing off worksheets or other learning materials still costs in printer ink and paper – there will still be some costs associated with homeschooling.

It is possible to keep your homeschooling costs to an affordable low; depending on the size of your family, the support group, the type of curriculum used and the availability of the curricululm and supporting materials. When successive children can reuse the curriculum, cost goes down. While curriculum is often purchased from curriculum vendors/manufacturers, often at homeschool curriculum fairs (or online!); other source options are a membership in a public library, theater, concerts, ballets and other cultural events also help in cutting costs.

Sometimes, it is even possible to barter expertise. For instance, the mother of an 8-year old gives dancing classes, and her daughter receives drawing classes for free. Support groups allow you to divide the cost of field
trips, science projects and fairs.

Whatever the cost, homeschooling benefits far outweigh these considerations. When you are able to decide what knowledge your child receives and when he or she should be taught and to what extent, it gives you a lot of freedom and a lot of power. Both the children as well as the parents benefit from this mutually enriching experience.

Kids tend to learn a lot better if they realize that there is actually a good reason to learn something. An example: I did very poorly in my last few years of math. I didn`t understand the need to learn things like geometry and algebra and since it didn`t come easily, I really didn`t make much of an effort. Fast forward a few years and I had a job at a construction site where suddenly all those abstract concepts became concrete! Suddenly, I DID need to know how to calculate an angle . . . it was necessary to figure out the beam positioning for a roof. In a couple of months, I learned everything that I had neglected to study properly for the past three or four years! Showing your kids how their learning fits into every day life is a great motivator.

So, how can you turn every day tasks into learning experiences? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Banking: Have your children open their own bank accounts, calculate interest on deposits, etc. Let older kids help you with balancing the checkbook and working out the family budget. They`ll gain a healthy respect for money and it`s a great way to reinforce math skills.

Cooking: Your kids can help you with everything from selecting the food in the supermarket (price comparison, reading ingredients, choosing quality over price, etc.) to cleaning, preparing and cooking the food. You can “teach” things like fractions, multiplication (measuring ingredients, doubling recipes, etc.) and nutrition to your children as you do this.

Mail: Whether posting or picking up the mail, this could be the perfect time to talk to your kids about how the postal system works, where the mail is coming from and maybe even bring up the history of mail . . . most kids find the idea of the Pony Express to be quite fascinating. It may even spark some research by curious young ones.

What other tasks do you do around the house or while running errands? What can your children learn from this?

The Three Main Learning Styles

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic

Visual learners prefer to have visual cues to help them absorb information. They do best with diagrams, charts, illustrated books and video.

Auditory learning like to listen to lectures, audio books, etc… as they pick up the subtle nuances of voice inflection to pull the deeper underlying meaning.

Kinesthetic learners (or tactile learners) are hands-on. They need to touch, feel, move and be directly involved to best learn. They have a hard time sitting still.

Each of us will use any of these three learning styles to some degree, but usually there is one more dominant style. Knowing that dominant style for your child will help you choose a curriculum that is best suited for them.

Your kinesthetic learner is going to have a hard time sitting through a lecture that your audio learner would thrive in, and your visual learner will be easily distracted through that same lecture.

If you have children in more than one learning type category, you can either buy completely separate curriculum for each that is tailored just for that child. Or you could mix up the curriculum so that each child is exposed to shorter bits of a different learning style. This is actually a good idea, as it helps them to train themselves to focus and learn in all types of learning situations. If done in shorter increments, it will not overwhelm and frustrate their learning efforts.

Watch your child and see how they play, that’s a good way to help determine their learning style and provide the information you need in choosing the right curriculum for your child.

If you have other questions that you would like to ask, leave them in the comments and maybe we can have another opportunity to interview Tim.  Or if you have other people that you would like to hear interviewed, let us know and we’ll see if we can make that connection.

Why should you join Twitter as a homeschooler?

Fellowship and Resources would be the top two reasons. As a homeschooler, your focus is on your children and Twitter is excellent for obtaining information quickly. While Google can often provide the same results; on Twitter, you can send a tweet asking for recommendations on a math program, or the answer to a specific science question and you will not only get the answer, but personal feedback and reviews at the same time.

Twitter is also good for receiving the latest news or breaking news quickly; including news pertaining specifically to the homeschooling community.

However, it’s the interaction you have with others in Twitterville (a common reference to the online community of folks on Twitter) that is where the real benefit of Twitter shines through.

Through folks I follow on Twitter, I have found new friends, new forums and groups I can join to engage in conversations longer than 140 characters, and more importantly, found some invaluable homeschooling resources and breaking news through links that have been shared.

If you have a home-based business….

Twitter can help drive traffic to your web site and increase your sales. Twitter is also a good way to find folks who may be interested in that used curriculum you want to sell. Whatever your business, Twitter is a great way to connect with people.

Is Twitter a time waster?

It can be. Depends on how disciplined you are with your time. Scheduling time each day to check in with Twitterville and share a link or two for helpful resources you’ve found, find new ones that have come across your tweetstream you haven’t yet seen and connecting for a short time with others who understand what your daily life is like as a homeschooler makes Twitter a true gem. The short, 140 character tweets keep it all short and sweet.

Want to Learn More About Twitter?

Genesis Blogging has some free video tutorials to help you learn the basics of Twitter.

Follow Barnabas Way on Twitter to get started.  Welcome to Twitterville.