Take a road trip through the landscape of homeschooling with the Carnival of Homeschooling at Consent of the Governed. And be sure to make a stop at this blog post after my own heart:
Great Mathematicians
Ten historically significant mathematicians, from Pythagoras to Gauss, with links for further study.
From a recent e-mail:
“Hello! I am on the board of a homeschool co-op. We have had requests for a math club and wondered if you have any tips for starting one. We service children from K-10th and would need to try to meet the needs of as many ages as possible.”
There are several ways you might organize a homeschool math club, depending on the students you have and on your goals. I think you would have to split the students by age groups — it is very hard to keep that wide of a range of students interested. Then decide whether you want an activity-oriented club or a more academic focus.
When I started my first math club, I raided the math shelves in the children’s section at my library (510-519) for anything that interested me. I figured that if an activity didn’t interest me, I couldn’t make it fun for the kids. Over the years we have done a variety of games, puzzles, craft projects, and more — always looking for something that was NOT like whatever the kids would be doing in their textbooks at home.
MamaSquirrel has posted some great ideas for doing elementary math without a formal math program.
That is the question asked by The Gonzo Education Carnival at Principled Discovery. The answer includes two posts on mathematics:
W W Sawyer – a man before his time?
An unschooler in Germany reviews of one of my favorite books.Why study mathematics?
An “oldie but goodie” post of mine.
To organize a homeschool co-op requires an awesome team of innovative planners. The e-mails keep flying as we attempt to generate dynamic problem-solving strategies. Our goal for the fall semester is to orchestrate learning intensive experiences that will encourage real-world critical thinking in our upper-level students, while at the same time maximizing developmentally- appropriate enrichment for our preschool and elementary communities.
Now you, too, can talk just like a school system bureaucrat with this handy-dandy Educational Jargon Generator. Have fun!
[Hat tip: Matthew Tabor.]
Oops! No Alexandria Jones post this week. My writing time has been overtaken by the monster school supply catalog (“Mom, haven’t you ordered my books yet?!“) and by yesterday’s co-op planning meeting and today’s 13 (so far!) follow up emails.
Planning a homeschool co-op is a little bit like juggling kittens. No matter how careful you are, something is going to get scratched. Several of the classes I was hoping for did not draw enough interest in the public polling, but of those that remain, I would like my students to study:
dd#1 — drama, photography, sewing, Spanish, writing, guitar, and biology lab
ds — drama, photography, writing, Spanish, guitar, PE/health, and maybe biology
dd#2 — art, sewing, cooking, music, science, and maybe PE/health
[Wouldn’t you know it, not a single one of my kids wants to take any of their mom’s math classes. 🙂 ]
Problem: We only offer three class periods. And dd#1 plans to teach karate during one of those time slots.
Well, whatever else works or doesn’t work out, I sure hope we can get the lady who took these pictures to teach that photography class.
[Rescued from my old blog.]
Spring cleaning has made my desk look worse than before. Nobody feels like studying. The kids would rather be outside, and their mom would rather take a nap. Sound familiar? It is our annual attack of homeschool burnout.
If you, too, are suffering from lethargy and can’t face another day of school work, here are some ideas that have helped me:
(1) Re-read the homeschooling books on your shelves, or get some new ones from the library. Try to read about one a month, if you can, to help get your enthusiasm back. And then read at least one new homeschooling book per year to help you stay inspired.
(2) Connect with other homeschoolers. Meet with friends for tea, or have a Mom’s Night Out while Dad babysits.
(3) Attend support group meetings. I find that after so many years, I let the meetings slide. I think, I already know everything they are going to say. But being with other homeschoolers is encouraging, and if you find out that you can help a new homeschooler with advice, that gives you a boost, too.
Here is another highlight from my “To blog about it someday” folder: the Shakespearean Insulter. What fun!
There’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine.
It is all filled up with guts and midriff.Taken from: Henry IV, part I
And if you are interested in actually studying the bard, here are some links you may enjoy:
Shakespeare. Yes, again. And again.
Advice on teaching Shakespeare to children.Bardolatry
Many links to teaching advice, book recommendations, and more.
There is no reason to put off Shakespeare until your student reaches high school. My then-kindergardener enjoyed the Trevor Nunn version of Twelfth Night so much that she wanted to get her hair cut, “So I can pretend to be a boy.” This is homeschooling at its best: each of us learning at our own level — and loving it.
It is spring cleaning week at our house, and I thought I’d do some virtual cleaning, too. So from a folder where I stuff the “To blog about sometime” websites comes this quiz. It claims to determine whether you deserved your high school diploma — Ha! There is no way I could remember anything from that long ago.
So tell me, what did the quiz really measure?
These puzzles look like a lot of fun for whole number and integer arithmetic review. I think they would make a great warm-up at the beginning of a class or math club meeting.
Hat tip: MathPuzzle.com
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 