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Mundanes, Too-days, & Woe-is-me-days

February 3, 2005 by 1 Comment

Another week of sub-freezing temperatures. Another layer of snow and ice. Another bout of colds and flu. Just a few weeks ago, you would have loved to have a few weeks with no holidays; now you are doing lessons day after day after day without a break, and you think you will all go stark raving crazy. All members of the Average Family Homeschool are tired of the routine, tired of being stuck indoors, tired of having to wear socks and shoes and sweaters, tired of having to sit still and write lessons, tired of staring at the same faces everyday, and tired of being tired of it all. Cabin Fever has set in.

Sometimes my calendar had Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. At other times my days became Mundane with routine, some weeks had Too much of everything, and I felt as if someone would find me rocking back and forth in a corner, my head in my hands, sobbing Woe is me. (The nice, young men in their clean, white coats should come and take me away.) It was time for a change to the routine. Schedule be hanged — our mental health needed emergency first aid.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. When you need a complete break from normal — the wilder, the better. The important message to convey is that your family is what is most important to you, not your schedule. Taking even one day away from your usual routine can be very therapeutic for all of you. After a break, you will feel as if the cobwebs have been swept away from your brain cells — everyone’s mind will be able to think more clearly, and lessons that were difficult just a few days ago may suddenly seem simple.

Depending on the ages and personalities of your children, you may want to let them help plan for the Break Day, or you may want to spring it on them as a great surprise. However you decide to break up your routine, be sure to include all family members — especially Dad, if his job schedule will allow. If Dad’s work cannot provide him with time off, plan extra activities for after Dad gets home from work to include him in the fun. Dads like breaks, too, and Cabin Fever strikes everyone.

A friend of mine would randomly declare “Opposite Day!” on a winter-weary morning and serve her children hot dogs for breakfast, saving the oatmeal for supper. They all had to change into fresh pajamas for the day, and then sleep in their clothes that night. Throughout the day, anyone could declare an “opposite” activity from the normal, and all family members had to participate. The ideas that came about were always fun and always involved a twist on what we commonly expect as “normal.” “Set the table” for dinner, complete with placemats and napkins, on the floor; put a simple jigsaw puzzle together face-down; make turkey-shaped decorations for Valentine’s Day, etc. The only limitation was their imaginations. By the end of Opposite Day, everyone had enjoyed a wonderful break from routine, and their minds were refreshed with new thinking skills.

“Backwards Day” is a similar event, but differs in allowing individual activities to be done in reverse order. Your dinner menu can still come at its regular time, but everyone eats dessert first and finishes with a salad. Again, your imaginations are encouraged to run amok — smashing the normal routine is the goal — for one day, anyway. (I can think of a few energetic little boys who would eagerly accept the challenge to take every step backwards for an entire day.)

If your family has the means and the opportunity, taking a weekend away at a hotel can be a delightful break. The mid-winter blues can be effectively driven away with a few hours in the hotel swimming pool — especially now that many hotels are building complete indoor water-parks. (Those people really know how to fill a need!) Complete your weekend with a museum tour, family movie night, or shopping at different stores than you usually frequent.

A city near us is home to a Botanical Center: a huge glass-domed structure filled with exotic flowers, trees, and tropical plants of all types; hummingbirds and butterflies flit from petal to petal, and exotic fish swim lazily in the ponds and streams that wind throughout the Xanadu-like oasis. Winter coats must remain on the lobby coat racks — it is just too warm inside the dome for anything heavier than a t-shirt. Even the dreary gray sky outside looks warm and friendly when viewed from behind a banana tree. (Note to the pollen-sensitive: I finally had to restrict my visits to the dome: the exotic pollens sent my allergies into hyper-drive. If you are not embarrassed to wear one, a breathing mask made a short visit endurable for me, then I let my husband and kids continue their tour while I checked out the sofas in the peaceful lobby with a favorite book.)

Sometimes we took Get-Away Days, leaving town for a taste of new scenery; other times we planned Game Days: doing no bookwork, but playing games of all sorts for our educational activities. Whatever you choose for your break from the routine, enjoy it to the fullest — Guilt-Free. Once you are back at your regularly scheduled program, you will all think more clearly and have new memories to laugh about. You have worked hard to get yourselves to this stage of needing a break; now work just as hard at refreshing yourselves — you deserve it.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Family Unity, Homeschool How-To's

Letter and Number Recognition

January 12, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, every typewriter produced the exact same font and all printed books looked pretty much the same. Once upon a time, everyone learned handwriting in the exact same format, and (when done with care) nearly everyone’s handwriting looked the same as anyone else’s. I remember being fascinated that each of my teachers could write on the chalkboard exactly like each of the other teachers. (My own handwriting never quite measured up.) Now we live in a computer-driven world, with no limit to the designs of fonts available. This can present real difficulty for some children in recognizing the similarities and learning their letters. The same problem exists with numbers, sometimes posing an even greater stumbling block.

We overcame this obstacle with a simple, inexpensive, and fun activity. We made a notebook containing samples of each letter (one letter per page), and another notebook for numbers. We scrounged through newspapers, old magazines, and junk mail for examples to be included in our books. The children soon became great detectives, learning to decide for themselves if a certain letter was an “m” or an “n,” or a “P” or an “R,” and “Mom, is this right?” was heard less and less. Children are always attracted by scissors and glue, so the motivation was simple.

Many alphabet books will display numerous objects beginning with each chosen sound, but few will bother to show each letter in different fonts. I remember being stumped as a very young student when my older sister showed me the author’s name on her latest Nancy Drew book and asked me if I could read it. The name, CAROLYN KEENE, was printed in all upper case letters. I was learning to print my name with only a capital “C” and the rest in lower case letters. There seemed to be something very familiar about the author’s name, but it still did not look quite right to me. A generation later, I shared this story with my own children and explained my early confusion with the use of upper and lower case letters. As we assembled our letter notebook, we included both upper and lower case examples, making the variety of letter appearances much less confusing to them.

Our number notebook had individual pages for 0-19, and then grouped pages for the 20’s, 30’s and so on. Once the children had understood the concept from the letter notebook, the number differences were more easily grasped. The 0-9 pages were the most important, since they showed the variations in fonts and all the other pages built upon that principle. We did include a few pictures, usually clipped from grocery ads, showing groups of 3 apples or 5 bananas or a six-pack of soda cans.

The notebooks themselves were scrounged from whatever we had already lying around the house: old 3-ring binders and loose-leaf filler paper, or leftover spiral notebooks with just enough pages remaining. Making the notebooks was the primary exercise in learning the lesson; once the notebooks were completed, we rarely returned to look at them again, unless it was to add another unique example.

Children, from those just beginning to learn their letters to those beginning to read, will benefit from a lesson in the varieties of font designs. A few pieces of paper bound together in some form of booklet, scissors, and a glue stick will be the basis for your simple lesson. All you have to add is junk mail.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Math, Reading, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning

Summer — a Help or a Hindrance?

June 10, 2004 by 3 Comments

A common question among homeschoolers is: Should you teach through the summer or let your students have the time off? Perhaps your students need extra help on lessons, but you need the break? Summer can be a relaxing time and a difficult time all at the same time. (Sometimes students may choose to use summer to get ahead, but that does not usually upset routines too much, so I will save that topic for a later date.)

Speaking from personal experience, our family did something a little different each summer. When the extra help was really needed to catch up, a 1/2-lesson in math was assigned for each day. However, when only one student was assigned schoolwork and the rest of the household was operating on a looser summer schedule, getting those lessons actually done was often as tricky as threading a needle in the dark while wearing mittens. I must admit, on some days it felt like punishment for both student and teacher, rather than the reality of extra time devoted to learning.

Our best success in retaining knowledge came from playing many games that used math skills during the summer and finding other creative ways to keep using the recently-learned material instead of allowing it to slowly fade into oblivion. Any game using money or keeping a running point score provided painless practice in math. When all the board games and card games became boring, we invented new ways to combine them and keep on playing. The “Gee Whiz Quiz” came about during one of these summers, adding a scavenger hunt atmosphere (and some age-appropriate math) to the well-used game closet.

Once I suggested that my children host a backyard carnival for their neighborhood friends. The planning and preparing of simple, midway-style games kept their minds active in anticipating problems and finding solutions. Another time we researched the solar system and plotted it out across the length of our lot, starting at the front sidewalk near the street and ending at the alley behind our house. Seeing the actual scale-model distances between the planets gave us a better idea of the vastness of the universe. The family vacation could be chronicled as a newspaper for Grandma, or simply journaled one entry per day in a hardcover notebook.

Free reading time has always been a summer favorite. Reluctant readers can be enticed to try something different by letting them watch a video version first to capture their interest. My son watched Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and found it so fascinating that he read the entire book. I try to read a couple of books over the summer, too. It is a recharging time for me, and my students get to observe reading as a not-just-for-kids activity.

Our minds often need the summer break, just as muscles need a rest period after vigorous exercise. Whenever possible, allow the time off, but with a few mind-stretching activities mingled in to keep the thinking processes sharp. Encourage your students to use their “free time” to expand their knowledge of a hobby or pursue an interest they do not usually get time for during the school year. Just because the lessons are on hold, it does not mean they cannot be learning.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning
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