History rocks.

History. I hated it when I was in school. I never learned a thing. Dry boring facts to memorize until two seconds post-test when they vanished into thin air.

I know that wasn't everyone's experience, but that was history to me. We definitely wanted something different for our kids. I refuse to waste their time with dry, boring facts.

Garrett started American history last semester. Although we will be spending more time on it than a lot of people would, we are incorporating literature and composition as well, so it's more than just history. I am very excited about it! We are using this book.

It has each stage in history and an extensive book list to go with the time periods, or people, or events. The book lists are divided into age groups as well, so if you are studying with different ages, you can get books on the same topic for everyone's level. The books are trusted, previewed, living books.

We started with Columbus and we've worked our way up to the Civil War. This year we will work through to the present. With each stage in history, we discuss what is going on during the specific time using summaries from this book. He then reads a biography or novel about the time period. As he reads the books, he either outlines the chapters on his computer (preparing for note-taking in college level courses), or he writes a summary or an extensive paper (allowing us to work on composition and grammar).

Reading biographies takes the dry facts that textbooks present and brings them to life! It's hard to get excited about memorizing dates and event names, but when you start to read about what really happened, all the gritty, messy details, you can't help getting roped in!

This style of learning history gives us the opportunity to learn about why things happened. To learn about the character behind certain leaders and how they became who they were.

I have a choice as I teach history. I can have my kids memorize the dates of the events that transpired during, let's say, the leadership of George Washington. Or I can use the opportunity to dive into a book like "The Bulletproof George Washington". Here is a summary:

Colonial George Washington's perilous experiences in the French and Indian War are chronicled in this riveting account of God's providence and protection. The only officer on horseback to avoid being shot down, young Washington openly attributed his miraculous escape from harm to the intervention of a sovereign God.

Now that's history that won't be forgotten.

We are also incorporating English literature into our history as we read classics that go along with the time period we are studying. This year we will read The Red Badge of Courage, The Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, and The Grapes of Wrath, to name a few. Right now we are reading Uncle Tom's Cabin since we are coming upon our Civil War study. Wow, classic literature takes on a whole new meaning when you are studying the time period alongside it.

As we read our books, we bring in quality videos whenever possible. We have been enjoying America, The Story of Us. And we will be watching Ken Burns' Civil War as we move into that event. I can't wait!

One of our educational goals is to enrich character through exposure to great literature and inspirational people.

We think history is the perfect place to put this goal into action.

More on writing

One of my favorite ways to teach writing/grammar is by letting my kids have their own blogs. We are fairly new at it and I pretty much allow them to write about whatever they want. I don’t edit or make suggestions on content because I feel like the more they own the writing, the more they will get out of it. I want this to be something they desire to do for fun. I don’t always correct spelling in the beginning, but as they mature in their writing, we discuss correct spelling more.

Yesterday with blogging we were able to discuss and practice writing directions, contractions, when to spell out number words, compound words, and capitalizing brand names. And it was all done in a natural way just from what they had chosen to write about. No worksheets that will be forgotten tomorrow, but real learning that meant something to them because it improved their creation.

The novelty of blogging encourages their writing. It’s fun to add pictures and to see the work appear on their own page instantly, knowing friends and family will be reading it soon. The feedback they receive makes it worth the effort! They love to get comments. And the thought of publishing for other people provides just enough awareness to make them a little more conscious of how they are writing. It’s a great tool! It’s fun and free and is only available to those who are invited to view the blog. I think it's also going to be a great keepsake for them.

On that scary grammar subject...

I've had several questions recently about what we use to teach grammar. We don't use a formal grammar program at this point and I don't predict we ever will. We learn grammar and sentence structure through reading and writing. The more they read, the more natural it is for them to form sentences and use words correctly. This spills over into their writing as well.

Instead of having a two day lesson on, say, quotation marks, we instead point them out each time we notice them as we read. From early on we discuss when to use them and what they mean in passing conversation. This method seems to stick with them a lot better than if we sat down and had a one-time formal lesson on it.

I've found that if I will just let them write, they will present themselves with every grammar lesson in existence. Riley has been writing a story called "Meet Riley, American Girl." I let her type her little heart out with no suggestions or guidance from me. After she got all of her thoughts on the screen, I broke her story into small segments for us to edit together. We will be doing a couple of paragraphs a day, which I copy and paste into another document so it doesn't look so long and intimidating.

During this process we are naturally able to learn and review many aspects of language. She has a lot of dialogue in her story, so today we were able to review where to use quotation marks, and we learned how to use capitalization and punctuation with the quotation marks.

She had a couple of different tenses, so we discussed keeping our stories in one tense only. Same thing with writing in first person only if that is what you chose in the beginning.

Also today we learned about using commas when listing.

And we learned about when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral (I had to call David to be 100% sure on this one. You don't have to be a language arts master to be able to teach great writing, you just have to be able to find the answer).

All of these lessons presented themselves in just a couple of paragraphs of her own creative writing. And the kicker was when she later went on to work on another story, she was correctly using the new information she gained today. Score!

I do the same thing with my older kids, except more in depth. This technique may not be neatly packaged in a checklist form, but it stays with them. It works!

Just go with it

I like themes. I just do. It makes me feel happy when things go together.

I love unit studies and honestly think kids learn better with them. It just seems natural to learn about things that are related to one another. The downfall is I am certain that sometimes I am a little too focused and this probably causes me to miss out on learning opportunities because "we aren't studying that right this very minute." What? The president of the United States is next door? Awww...too bad we are in the middle of a volcano unit...I guess we'll pass.

Alright, I'm not that bad, but I do admit that I could use some work in the area. Following my kids' lead even if it does take us off topic, usually results in some amazing learning experiences.

Since I have been more conscious of this lately, I seized the moment when Cole excitedly brought me a magazine with a picture of a walking stick bug. I admit, there was a part of me deep down that had a little anxiety attack because BUGS? That's for spring! It's winter! Stop the anarchy! But I kept it inside and dug into the topic with him.

We read everything we could find about them. We learned that they moult and eat their skin for the protein. We learned that if they lose a leg, no worries, they grow another one. We learned that they sway like the wind when they move so they are not only looking like sticks, but acting like them. Then we spent forever online looking at different camouflaged insects. By now we had several other participants looking with us. We marveled at how amazing God is that he could be so creative and care so much for something so small.

Then we headed out for a nature hunt to find the perfect sized sticks to make our own walking stick bugs.

It was an incredible learning experience. One that would have been missed if I would have stuck to my agenda or if I only did things that I planned.

.

Bugs have nothing to do with Antarctica. And I'm okay with that.

My name is Deleise. I'm a recovering themoholic.

The "trickle down" effect

Have you heard this term before? Not relating to economics, but to education. I remember hearing it when I first started researching homeschooling, but I didn't give it much thought. The trickle down effect is when kids seem to learn what their older brothers and sisters are learning even if they are just kind of hanging around. You know, the information trickles down. I am definitely seeing it come into play at our house. Usually it is small stuff, but a few days ago it was a little bigger.



We are doing Ice Worlds with Planet Earth right now. Riley and Cole are doing some fun stuff on ice bergs, penguins and other arctic animals. Garrett and Tyler are taking it a bit deeper, learning pretty detailed information about ice bergs and doing an in depth study on the Titanic.



Well, the other day Cole came in and told me he wanted to write a story about the Titanic. I wondered what he could have possibly absorbed, I mean it is all kind of over his head and I hadn't directed any of the study toward his grade level, after all. We sat down and I typed as he dictated what he wanted me to write. Here is what he said.


This is the Titanic book.

It sunk because they thought it was unsinkable, but they didn’t get that right. They thought wrong. There was a big iceberg and the bottom of the ship cracked open on the iceberg and it got filled with water.


The Titanic was sinking and when one tip of it was going up, it cracked into two pieces.



They were building it really fast and they accidentally built someone inside of it.


They let the ladies and kids go on the lifeboats first. Most of the dads had to stay on the Titanic and die. Some of the men jumped off the boat to swim away, but they died when they were swimming because the water was too cold .


They wanted the kids and moms to live so they let themselves die. In the last minute they let down the life boats and some of the men wanted to get on, but they couldn’t get on them. It was too late, there was no more.



Some people who were explorers, after it sunk, went down in the ocean to look for it. They saw all the plates, and a black bag. There was a lot of money inside the black bag and some gold watches and a ton of jewelry.


The people were trying to find the very bottom and at the bottom of it was 2 stories. They had one more dive down to the sea and in the last dive they found the whole piece of the bottom of the titanic.



1517 people died and 706 people survived. (He asked me to find those numbers for him).



Isn't that crazy? Who knew he was absorbing all of that? Ok, it's not totally coherent, but it is such a great illustration of how we don't need to dumb things down for our kids. And how they learn no matter what we think they are doing.

He ended up asking for help looking for images online to go along with all of his thoughts. We printed them out and he made a great little book. I never would have dreamed of planning this activity for my kindergartener.

So teach on. And count your lessons as double if you've got little ones hanging around! (Oh, and also, be careful what you say if you've got little ones hanging around!)

The power of learning by teaching

You know how you feel like you have learned so much since you started teaching? Of course it is because you really have to know what you are talking about to be able to relay the information to others. You have no choice but to learn!

I've found this to be a very valuable tool for getting my kids to own what they are learning. I have them teach me.

For example, today Tyler began a Ben Franklin biography. It is full of a lot of information beginning with Franklin's childhood. Tyler's assignment was to read the first 30 pages, and then teach me what he had learned about Ben Franklin so far. He did a great job of explaining details and trying to get me interested in what he had read. He even referred back to the book several times to check facts and remember something that had slipped his mind as he "taught" me. It was a great reiteration of facts for him and really helped reinforce what he had learned.

Having them actually teach you or their siblings puts a more interesting and fun spin on comprehension and review.

Try it!