Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Planning a Homeschool Co-op

Home Spun comic strip #228
[Reprinted with permission from Home Spun Juggling.]

Summer is time for planning ahead to the next school year, which makes it a great time to think about starting a homeschool co-op. Would you like to get together with a few other families for semi-regular playtime or field trips? Or do you envision a large organization with several classes for each grade level?

As the Bible says, "Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with abundant advisers they are established." An excellent been-there-done-that adviser is Carolyn Morrison of Guilt-Free Homeschooling. Check out her articles:

Other homeschoolers weigh in with their experiences:
Finally, I offer a few peeks at our local (rural Illinois) homeschool co-op experience:
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Posted by Denise in IL at 5:59 AM 6 comments
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Monday, June 16, 2008

Homeschooling No-Brainer: Use the Library

[Photo by ReefRaff.]

Now that County Fair week is over, it's time to sign up for the library's summer reading program. Princess Kitten will be reading with or without the program, of course. With the other kids, when the house was too quiet, I wondered what sort of trouble they were getting into. With her, I know she's curled up with a book.

Kitten is a girl after my own heart. Like many homeschoolers, I have collected a ton of books over the years --- 11 tall bookshelf units at latest count, not including the ones in the kids' bedrooms. And yet, as I was going through the Ambleside Online book lists (adding the titles to my Frugal Homeschooling Store), I kept thinking, "Oh, I don't have that one, and I remember loving it as a kid... Ooh, I want a copy of this book, too... Hmmm, I should get one of these for Kitten..."

So now I have a lot of new (old, classic) books for my interlibrary loan list. As much as I'd love to have my own copy of every title, my budget just can't swing it. Yes, many are available used, some as low as a penny, but the shipping costs add up. Also, books do take up space, which means more bookshelves --- where in the world would I put another unit? But the library will store the books and deliver them for "free" (reminder: pay the property tax!) whenever I ask.

After all, the only thing one really needs to plan a great homeschool program is a library card. But our local library is so small that I can't find much by browsing the shelves, and I know how faulty my memory is. What other treasures have I been missing?

Thankfully, I don't have to rely on my own memory. The Internet comes to my rescue, with a wide variety of dream lists...

Book lists by grade/age level

Lists for sf/fantasy fans
Book lists for the college-bound
"Great Books" lists
Other specialized lists
Edited to add: Two more lists I found this week, recommended by lorem ipsum:

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Posted by Denise in IL at 6:30 AM 0 comments
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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Have Fun with Holidays

[Photo by vanlaar.]

Did you know that June is National Candy Month? Now that sounds like reason for celebration! If you would like to sweeten up your school plans with appropriate holidays, here are a couple of fun resources:

And looking ahead to Fudge Day on June 16th, I think we will plan a couple of chemistry experiments. These look promising (arranged in what looks to me as increasing order of difficulty):

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Posted by Denise in IL at 6:00 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Charlotte Mason Style Planning Template

[Photo by austinevan.]

Last Friday, I mentioned how impressed I am with the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason. I do like Ambleside Online, and we used the program for a couple of years, but I had so many other favorite books that I wanted to include in our schooling --- how could I bring everything all together?

Like a one-lady cavalry, the Headmistress/Zookeeper at The Common Room comes to the rescue with a wonderful blog post:

She guides you through the process of organizing a curriculum, with plenty of places to weave your family's favorite books into the schedule. Then she offers the beginnings of a weekly plan that helps you fit it all in without feeling overwhelmed.

I especially like how she organizes the "free reading" assignments:
"My husband laughs at calling assigned books 'free reading,' but they are 'free' because the children are free to choose what order and how quickly to read them. As my scholars grow older, they are also free not to read everything on our list. This is not an option for the younger students in my home, but I do give them shorter lists."

"Here's how we handle free reading: I pick out a few books (5-10, most of my Progeny are rapid and avid readers) and either put them in a stack, basket, or box, or I just write the titles down. I tell the children that for the next month or two, whenever they want to read, they need to choose from this stack. When they have finished reading through that list, they can read what they want. I usually give them a month or two in between free reading lists before I assign a new one."

"However, I have found that I seldom have to impose the new list from on high. What has happened for years is that the children read through their stack, read a few of their own choices, and then come to me and ask me for some more suggestions for what to read, and that's when I give them the next batch of free reading books."
Another valuable tip: The Headmistress doesn't write out too specific of a schedule, with dates and page numbers. Instead, she uses sticky notes as bookmarks, and on each note she writes which days of the week she plans to read from that book. What uncommon sense! Without a specific page assignment, we don't have to feel guilty about falling behind --- or (as is more likely with Princess Kitten) about reading ahead.
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Posted by Denise in IL at 6:22 AM 0 comments
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Friday, May 30, 2008

Free K-12 Curriculum: Ambleside Online

[Photo by cesarastudillo.]

As eclectic homeschoolers, my family borrows a little bit here and a little bit there, but we assert our individuality by never using anything quite as it was intended. The more I read about Charlotte Mason, however, the more I think her program would provide a nearly ideal education, exactly as directed, right out of the book. If you are intrigued by the idea of a Charlotte Mason education, here is a great resource:

Ambleside Online

"A free homeschool curriculum designed to be as close as possible to the curriculum that Charlotte Mason used in her own private and correspondence schools. Our goal is to be true to Charlotte Mason's high literary standards. Ambleside Online uses the highest quality books and costs no more than the cost of texts. The curriculum uses as many free online books as possible, and there is no cost to use this information or join the support group."
Sound interesting? Here's where to start:
Whenever I have free time, I am working to get the booklists for each Ambleside Online year added to my Frugal Homeschooling store. I know that many of the books are available for free download, but I prefer having an actual book on the shelf for my children to pull out and read whenever they like --- and for most of these books, used copies in good condition are available at a very reasonable price.
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Posted by Denise in IL at 6:30 AM 0 comments
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Monday, May 12, 2008

DonnaYoung.org Printables and Resources

[Photo by koyochi.]

Donna Young's amazing website is definitely THE place to start when you're looking for free homeschooling resources. She has everything you might imagine: planning forms, handwriting lessons, science schedules, math manipulatives, worksheets, and more.

Here are links to topical index pages. At the top of each page is a tabbed menu for further exploration. Enjoy!

General planning

Resources by subject

As always on the Internet, if you find Donna's site useful, be sure to thank her by looking at her advertisers. If you see something you intended to buy anyway, or something you hadn't thought of before but that looks interesting, making a purchase through her site will help support all the work she puts into building such a great resource.
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Posted by Denise in IL at 10:23 AM 0 comments
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Friday, May 9, 2008

Spending Time to Save Money

[Photo by Darren Hester.]

With one thing and another, our family budget has exploded out of control. It is time to reign it in, and I know there must be a way to do this without sacrificing a quality education for my children. In fact, I suspect that if we put some work into it, we could come up with an excellent homeschooling program for next to nothing.

No, I am not unhappy with the homeschool program we have been using. I enjoy having the whole year's schedule spread out before me, with the work divided into easily-digested daily chunks. I love the books we read --- at least, most of them --- and I appreciate the ease of one-stop shopping. But the price of everything keeps going up, doesn't it? Something has to give.

Of course, my problem is aptly summarized in the proverb: "You have to spend time to save money." Do you have extra time sitting around, just waiting to be spent? Me, neither. I am barely keeping up with my current obligations --- okay, I admit that many days I am not even doing that. Far too frequently, things fall through the crack, or off the back of the desk, or get buried in a stack of good intentions.

So where am I going to find time to trade for saving money? Discovering that will be part of the adventure!

Just think of all the wonderful resources we have available:

  • An extensive library loan system, in addition to our small-town local library.
  • Local and regional museums, parks, and historic organizations.
  • The Internet --- full of scams and garbage, yes, but also bursting with pages about any topic we may want to study, including lesson plans posted by other teachers, educational games, worksheet generators, and more.
I hope this blog will become one of those wonderful resources, too: a collection of links to the best of the best free and inexpensive homeschooling resources I can find. I don't know where this path will take me, but it should be an interesting journey....
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