Posted by Cindy on December 9, 2011
{Although a silly story (needing some tweaking), the science mystery experiment pictured above is both fun and worthwhile as you step away from the textbooks this Christmas season. Enjoy the Christmas Cookie Mystery with Teacher Directions.}
Below is an article I wrote for CHEK’s December Newsletter. I thought I’d post it here just in case some of you are overwhelmed this Christmas season.
Are you tired yet? By the time December rolls around each year, I’m ready for a break – only to find all the busy moments surrounding the Christmas season staring me in the face! Instead of throwing in the towel on homeschooling in order to manage all the other to-do’s of December, we have “Christmas school”. That’s a fancy term meaning we relax the regular schedule and make the to-do’s part of our school routine.
During these two or three weeks just before Christmas, the textbooks are often replaced with practical things such as menu planning, couponing, baking, party planning and decorating, shopping for presents on a budget, crafting homemade gifts, addressing Christmas cards, practicing for plays and musicals at church, and more. We’ll spend extra time fitting in service opportunities, too.
We also replace our daily Bible routine with one that prepares our hearts to celebrate the birth of Christ. There are so many different Bible schedules and Christmas devotions readily available, even some with learning activities! I’ll mention just a few to get you started. We love completing a Jesse Tree and have done this several different years. We have completed several themed studies relating to Advent, the Symbols of Christmas, and the Names of Jesus. We’re also suckers for good literature. Our very favorite Christmas series is written by Arnold Ytreeide and includes three books (read one book per year) with readings every day of December leading up to Christmas day. If you are new to this series, I would read them in the following order: Jotham’s Journey
, Bartholomew’s Passage
and Tabitha’s Travels
.
Don’t let the craziness of December leave you feeling overwhelmed and spent. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your homeschool. Enjoy the to-do’s. Enjoy the extra-gushy time with our Lord and Savior.
Posted by Cindy on April 12, 2011
If you’re interested in planning unit studies, you might like to check out my four-part series over at the Heart of the Matter.
Posted by Cindy on September 15, 2010
We are absolutely LOVING Ancient Civilizations and the Bible by Diana Waring! There is SO much to choose from for every single learning style. We’re only skimming the surface of the depth that could be reached with this curriculum, and we’re still diving way deep into Biblical world history!
Here are some photos from our first unit culminating projects based on Creation and the flood. At the end of each unit, Diana Waring has included a huge variety of project ideas. Your children choose whatever most floats their boat as far as topic and learning style. This time around, Mahayla chose to create a poster of the lineage of the Seed line up to the point of Noah and a demonstration with research about the effects of the world-wide flood.
Caleb chose to rewrite Genesis 1 and 2 in the form of a comical puppet show.
I haven’t even included pictures of the mapping, timeline, vocabulary work, poster projects and artist study we did! I may put up another post of those soon, but more likely I’ll wait and try to include those in a unit 2 wrap-up.
Until now, I’ve never found a single curriculum that I haven’t had to add to in some way or another to make it exactly what I was hoping for. This is even more perfect than I had imagined!
Side note: I’ve had several people ask me about the age appropriateness of this program. I’m using it with an 8th grader and 5th grader. The 5th grader is a tad bored once in a while when we get into more technical or drawn out readings or discussion. That’s when I pull out the activities from the younger student activity guide. To really get the full benefit from everything available in the curriculum, I’d say it’s most appropriate for 7th or 8th and higher. I don’t have any regrets bringing the 5th grader along, but there are just some of the fascinating learning opportunities that are flying over top of him right now. On his own upper elementary level, though, he’s gaining a ton from the study, too! If you have the option, I’m just saying that I think waiting until upper middle and high school is better. Hey, it can count for a world history credit if you wait!
Posted by Cindy on February 5, 2010
Lots of people over time have asked where I find ideas for the project choices I give my children. At this point, most of the ideas are dreamed up in my head, but it hasn’t always been that way. Some of the books I use include:
Better Than Book Reports is book is full of great ideas for projects as they relate to literature. I’ve found the project ideas easily transferable to research/history/science topics as well. The following three are very similar to this one, but I’m finding that they are probably out-of-print. I’ve linked you to their webpages anyway since they can all still be purchased through Amazon new/used sellers.
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Student Product Development & Evaluation was sent to me as a review product. Although not quite as visual, there are lots of very thorough ideas – especially project ideas for older children and teens. A large list of project ideas is given, with about 40 of those ideas fleshed out for you with book lists, websites and possible rubrics. This is not my favorite of the books I use for ideas, but it has it’s place, especially for the upper school years.
Easy File Folder Reports is simple for mom and children. Each topic has reproducible pages where your child fills out the papers during their research and attaches them to a file folder. Usually, a small hands-on project is suggested for a 3-dimensional addition to the report.
I know you hear about the NaturExplorers units all the time, but I have purposely designed the writing and research activity ideas in the units to be project-based. In other words, with most of the writing and research suggestions, projects like creating file folder reports, dioramas, posters, charts, models and much more are part of the activities.
The following site is helpful, too.
More Ideas Than You’ll Ever Use for a Book Report
If you have any other resources for finding project ideas, please comment!
Posted by Cindy on February 3, 2010
Here’s one more really good question that has come in regarding unit studies specifically relating to projects…
“In regards to projects and presentations, how do you gently help improve the note taking, thoroughness of information and actual presentations? I know some of this will come with practice, but I’d like to improve on these things without stifling my child’s enthusiasm.”
Yes, better projects and better presentations come with practice. But, like anything else we teach, if we let too many things slide this time around, how will our children know what to improve upon next time?
During and just after presentations, I give lots of praise. Not fake praise that simply puffs my children up, but real praise. “I love the book you chose.” “It seems like you put a lot of time into your research!” “I can tell you really thought through the use of materials for your diorama.”
It’s hard to give presentations – even in front of your own family! During a presentation, your child is making him/herself very vulnerable and immediate criticism will stifle future presentations for sure.
Usually the next day, during our normal unit time, I’ll jump into any constructive criticism that needs to be discussed about the project or presentation. Again, I’ll always start with something positive before talking about the negative. Here’s how a conversation might go…
Dad and I were very impressed with your speaking yesterday. You remembered to keep your head out of your notes and look your audience in the eye! We could hear every word you said, too, which was a big improvement over your last presentation. Let’s talk about two things that stood out to me as needing a little work next time around.
Think about your poster. You spent a lot of time researching about Teddy Roosevelt, but I could tell you didn’t spend as much time making sure your poster was neat and organized. Do you agree? What do you think went wrong? Did I not give you enough time or did you get tired of the project and rush to finish it? What are some specific things you can do next time around to improve the visual appeal of your project?
One other thing I noticed was a big gap in the information you presented about Teddy Roosevelt. You told us a lot about his life before becoming president and several fun facts about his presidency, but I felt like the important work during his time spent as president was lacking. Again, it almost seemed like you started your project with a lot of gusto, but puttered out towards the end. Why do you think the second half of the report wasn’t as thorough as the first?
Every single time I’ve taken the time to gently discuss the major problems of a project, my children have improved on those aspects in following projects!
Here’s the catch, though!! Even if you see 10 things that really need improvement, try to focus on only one or two at a time. They can only process so much, and hearing about too many things at once will seem more like tearing them down causing LESS effort next time. As you talk about one or two main issues, you may be surprised to find your children paying better attention to the other issues that you didn’t even mention anyway!
One other thought that comes to mind is the use of a rubric to give your child a basic guideline of your expectations. Basically, a rubric tells your child what you expect from the project in order to gain a specific grade or score. See sample rubrics here. You’ll have to click on a link to see the particular rubric. Scroll down a bit to the “Research Process Rubrics” – they go along well with presentations. Take some time to go through the other subjects as well, then look near the bottom to find “Creating Your Own Rubrics”.
I don’t always use rubrics. Quite honestly, they take time to create and time is of the essence around here! But, when I have taken the time to create one, my children have ALWAYS done better on their projects. They tend to reach farther if they know where the higher goal sits. Something to think about for you and me!
