Collette's Top 10 to Keep Homeschooling Simple

As homeschoolers it is so easy to make education complicated. At least I know I can. When I first started planning and outlining everything I wanted my children to learn and the time schedule to learn it in, my list was very long. Which made our schedule complicated. I easily packed the day from waking to after daddy came home, and still didn't get everything done each day.

Then I found the Robinson Curriculum, and the Robinson Users for Christ yahoo egroup.

I've slowly had to let go of my education paradigm and change my thinking in what was really important. It took me a while to finally admit that I only had so many hours in the day, and we could only do so much. My time was limited.

The ladies on the Robinson Users for Christ egroup have been such a blessing, and so instrumental in helping me to become more relaxed in our schooling, and making learning more enjoyable. They have also given lots of advice and opinions that have helped me to understand what true education is.

I don't want to get deep into the thoughts that have shaped my Home Education philosophy tonight. But I wanted to share a list from a wise woman on the group. I have this printed out and in my homeschooling notebook in a page protector, and it is one of the things I reference regularly when I need a reminder of what is important and not so important. (The other item is "Teaching the Trivium" by the Bluedorns, but that will be saved for later)

I really hope it helps some of you as well.

1) Keep everything as simple as you can. Jesus wrote with a stick in the dirt, and He was the greatest teacher that ever lived. He used no curriculum or flannel graphs or lesson plans. Homeschooling can be made far more complicated than it should be. A simpler approach is much more effective.

2) Stick to the 3 R's. They form the foundation of life-long learning in every field because they are the tools of study. There will be no need to formalize any other subject if the children are doing their best in these 3, because people who are well grounded in reading, writing and math will approach other subjects boldly, independently and confidently.

3) Let the children teach themselves as much as they are able to. This teaches them responsibility, intellectual independence, and builds confidence. It's also better for the parent/child relationship because you can focus on parenting instead of playing schoolteacher.

4) Use the most direct method available. For reading, read. For writing, write, for math, do it, and for Bible, read it. Don't fall for catchy curriculums or methods that are really just something else for you and your child to learn.

5) Don't worry about your child's age or grade. Just let him do the best he can each day. Children grow intellectually like they do physically: in spurts. Although we may have an audience of skeptical relatives, homeschooling is not a circus, and we refuse to train our children to do tricks for people.

6) Minimize distractions in the home. Watch for excessiveness in entertainments, snacking, outings, phone conversations and the like. These sorts of things can easily get out of hand and compete with the effectiveness of a homeschool and sap the family of time and energy.

7) Seek quality over quantity. A few tapes of great music, a small case of carefully chosen books, a few special play mates, and an occasional outing is better than a large, but poor quality collection.

8) If you must document your school activities, do it after the fact. This way you will not make promises you cannot keep. If you are required to make lesson plans, be as vague as permissible. Don't let transcripts, diplomas, records and tests determine your academic plans. Focus on learning and the rest will follow.

9) Put the needs of your youngest, most vulnerable children first. If an older child gets a little behind in school, I'm sure you can forgive yourself. But if something happened to the toddler while you were busy homeschooling, I don't think you would be able to say the same.

10) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and don't neglect to seek him early...giving him the first fruits of your day and teach your children to do the same. I know that you are tired and that there aren't enough hours in your day, but we serve a God who can make the sun stand still.

Shared courtesy of and with permission from

Colette Longo
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RobinsonUsers4Christ/
August 2001

Book of the Week - Tales from Shakespeare

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Tales from Shakepeare - by Charles and Mary Lamb

Shakespeare was a brilliant writer who brought contributed greatly to English culture. His plays, poems, and sonnets are to this day seen as the most brilliant literature works in English History.

When we were forced to read Shakespeare in my Public School days, it was boring to me and I did not understand it. I really believe that I've had no introduction to Shakespeare's works before that time. I had no knowledge of any of the stories, and little knowledge of the background surrounding the plays.

Later, now as a home school mother, I am quickly falling in love with Shakespeare. This past winter I found a copy of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb at a local used book store and read it myself.

My now 10yo daughter saw I was reading it, picked up the book, and has read several stories herself. During her free reading time this is her current book of choice, and it's been seen in the car quite frequently.

The stories are charming, written in a way that are easy to understand, even for children, yet accurately telling the stories keeping the wit and morals intact.

No, this is not the same as reading Shakespeare's original works. These stories are considered heavily abridged versions of his works. But they make for a great introduction for a younger child to Shakespeare. My thought is if my daughters are introduced to the plays in this way now, reading the original plays later in her school career will be less daunting and more enjoyable for them.

I highly suggest this to any mom who has been dreading reading Shakepeare as a mom time read. This would be an enjoyable family read aloud during a longer evening story time in the winter, with a family size bowl of popcorn and cider.

I have given you the link to the Googlebook version above. A preview of the GoogleBook is below You can download and print out the book, or download the book to an Ereader. This book can also be found used at Amazon.com and Half.com, or maybe as a lucky find at a local used book store.

An audio version is available Librivox.org. You can go to the Tales from Shakespeare internet archive page for the chapter by chapter playlist or MP3 download. Or click play below to hear Tales from Shakespeare from the beginning.







Be blessed and enjoy!

Go Fish - American Kid

Developing Thinking Skills Through Play - Bloxorz

I recently found a neat game at Cool Math Games.biz. It's called Bloxorz. The goal of Bloxorz is to move a rectangular block around the playing board of each stage. At the end of each stage is a square hole that the rectangular block must fall through when on it's end. The rectangular block can be flipped from end to end or rolled from side to side based on which direction key is pressed to move the block.
The first few stages are fairly easy in order to help you figure out how to maneuver the blocks using the direction keys. But as you progress through the stages you quickly find new challenges. There are 2 types of switches to open and close bridges on the level. There is 1 switch that will transport your block to another place on the playing board at random. And there are also tiles in the playing field that are fragile and will fall away.
While figuring how to move your block to hit each switch just right, and land on the hole just right, you also have to avoid falling off the edge of the playing board.
Fortunately the tutorial for this game is pretty easy to understand.
It's a pretty fun little game, but it does require thinking and some strategy. Once a child gets the hang of the controls they should be able to figure out the rest on their own. I would recommend this for about 8/9 years and older.
The website this is on has lots of good math games to help supplement your math and critical thinking curriculum. You can find the main index here: http://www.coolmathgames.biz/
This is a free site, but does have lots of advertising on it. Fortunately you can view the game alone in a larger pop out window, and minimize the window with the advertisements. This way your child is less likely to accidentally click on a wrong place on the website and click on an add. So far, the adds seem to be only for other games and pretty kid friendly. But they can be pretty annoying as well.
Parents: Please use caution when allowing your children to use the internet. I highly recommend you do not ever let a child use the internet alone and unsupervised. And please pre screen all websites before allowing your child to view them. The websites I recommend are kid friendly at the time of recommendation. But I can not vouch for them in any future time.

Audio Book of the Week - Black Beauty

Black Beauty - by Anna Sewell

All three of my daughters love horses, and my oldest has read through the book at least twice (that I know of). Since we have downloaded the .mp3 format and burned it to CD we have listened to it almost every time we are in the truck going to or fro running errands or such.

Anna Sewell really has a way of writing that emphasises the truth that all animals are God's creatures, but they really are at our mercy of how they fare. (I'm not a tree hugger, nor do I put animals lives on the same importance as human lives. But God did give us dominion over them and that includes the care of them.)

You may download the book version for your E-reader or to print out here: Gutenburg.org - Black Beauty Ebook Archive page.

Go to the Librivox.org Black Beauty Archive Page for the chapter by chapter playlist, download in MP3 format, or click play below to hear Black Beauty from the beginning.

Begining Piano

We were blessed this past weekend with a wonderful piano.

Now we are starting to learn piano. :)

I played when I was younger, and actually competed and won a few competitions. But in my lack of wisdom in my younger years, I didn't pursue it to a higher level after I graduated school.
So I know enough to start my children's journey in music. I will teach the girls up to a point, and then hire a professional instructor.

This morning we had a "formal" lesson, which consisted of reading the lesson out loud, and then re reading the lesson while at the piano and practicing what the piano lesson illustrated.
Since my middle daughter is still younger, I'm going to use the same book for both, and supplement with notebooking and more practice for my older daughter.

"Formal" lesson's will be once a week, then during the rest of the week use the lesson time for practice.

For beginning Piano, I am using the Alfred Basic Piano Library, Level 1A. For anyone just learning piano, I highly recommend this series. They are very thorough and begin at the very basic of skills. Plus the pages are very simple, clean, and uncluttered, but they are also illustrated with fun pictures to help a young child learn. The Alfred Piano Library has a series of books, covering a wide range of ages and skill levels.

There are also a few very good sites on line to supplement piano learning. One is Piano Play It which offers online reading, video, and printables. Another I found this morning that seems very good is How To Play Piano with Andrew Furmanczyk's Music Academy.

We read Lesson 1 in the Lesson Book, practiced a short time on the piano, and then watched Andrew's Piano Lesson 1.



Today's lesson was on learning the finger numbers. After the lesson, we traced outlines of the girls' left and right hands on a blank sheet of paper, and numbered them to re-inforce the illustration. If you have more time and don't mind getting a little messy, it would be fun to make finger paint hand prints, and then number each finger in sharpie.

For playing the piano, the finger numbers are both the same on the left hand and the right hand. The thumb is 1, pointer finger is 2, middle finger is 3, index finger is 4, and pinkie is 5. You can also look at it as numbering from center to outside when hands are held side by side palms down. This is illustrated here on Piano Play It Lesson 3.

We also learned how many keys were on the piano, the names of the notes on the piano, and how to find them in relation to the groups of black keys and white keys. And we learned how to identify middle C on the piano. Here's a printable page on Piano Play It showing the layout of part of the piano keyboard, and the names of the notes.

Both the piano layout page and the handprint fingering chart will be put into a Piano notebook for each of the girls. Anything pertinent or interesting we come across in learning piano will go on these notebooks.

New book for History read aloud!

I acquired a small gem this past week at the used book store. I was looking for books on my daughter's reading list. And among the shelf labeled "Olides but Goodies" I spied an old history book.

It's called "The Story of Our Nation", published in the 1940's. Browsing through it, this seems to be an history text from an old catholic school, and it teaches early American history and the Christian roots this country grew from. Seeing that it is from a Catholic school, I might have to pick over a few items. But the non socially/politically correct content is going to be so worth it.

This will probably become part of our read aloud time once or twice a week. We are already reading "Story of the World" once a week, but I think this would make a great addition to history. I'm also going to put this one on my daughters' book list for their 9th or 10th grade year.

This is on the front flyleaf"

"The Story of a Great Country

A Country is made up of people.
A country is good or bad, weak or strong, as the people in it are good or bad, selfish or unselfish.
Our country was discovered by a man who had Faith when all others doubted.
Our country was made independent by men who loved Libery and who were ready to die to obtain it.
Our country was made a Nation by men, who loved Justice and who made a Constitution based on the Rights of Man.
Our country was preserved as a Union by men who believed in Equality of the Soul and in Freedom for all men.
Our country has grown wealthy and prosperous through men of Endurance who worked while others slept.
Our country has been a Refuge for the oppressed from other nations.
Our country - What can we do to keep our country a great land?
We ourselves must be a great people.
Our Ideals must be:
Courage in our own lives.
Justice to our neighbor.
Loyalty to our government.
Peace with other nations.
Faith in God.
These are the things which make a people truly great.

St. Xavier College
Febbruary 2, 1940"

Yes this was published in the 40's and so much has changed. Our nation is in deep debt. Our legislature no longer has Faith in God. We are creating peace with the wrong nations, and shunning our true allies. And so few of us has real courage.
But, I believe, teaching our children the true roots of this country, and giving them a firm foundation of this nation's Faith in history, is a must if we are to have hope of raising up a generation that will make this nation great once again.