Doing More With Less Since 1972
Head over to RichmondBookDrive.com for all the details, but here are the basics:
Here’s a sample of their cool music!
Death Taxes and Life Insurance – A principled argument against the death tax.
Delaying Tax Vote Could Crash Stock Market – No duh. Can’t believe someone was able to write an entire article on this obvious conclusion. Though it was nice to get a firm date on it. Don’t see a logical reason it would drop below 5%, but markets aren’t logical in the short term.
Higher IQ Scores Found in Cold Weather States – Thems can have smarts. Me takes heat.
Teva Stiletto Heels – Technology FTW!
Fixing the US Housing Finance System
NASA Goes Badly Off Course, Needs a New Commander – Hmmm. Interesting.
Thinking of starting your own homeschool co-op? Not sure how to find other people to participate? Not sure how to outline expectations? Here’s where we started…
We were really excited about the idea of homeschool co-ops long before Ana ever started one. But there were a couple of things we weren’t really sure about, like when we should do it and how to find other people who were interested. It had always been in the back of our minds, but was always one of those things we thought we’d get to sooner or later. We really started talking seriously about it when other moms in Pea’s loose-knit play group started asking about where/when she’d be attending pre-school. Our answer was always, “we’re homeschooling”, and since we sort of believe that education starts at birth, she was already “in” school as far as we were concerned.
We were discussing it one night, and Ana mentioned jumping right in and starting up a co-op for preschoolers. Why not? The beauty of a preschool co-op would be that even parents who planned on sending their kids to a traditional school later on but were currently staying home with them may want to participate. We also thought it would be a good time for us personally to shift Pea’s educational experience a little by exposing her to different teachers and other students. Playing the part of mommy and teacher at the same time didn’t always work out as planned for Ana.
Ana jumped online and went to our local MomsLikeMe site and wrote up a quick post, just to gauge interest, and the response was great. Actually, the response was a little overwhelming. There were a lot more people interested than we’d anticipated. We figured the ideal class size would be 6 or 7 kids, but there were way more initial responses.
A meet and greet was set up so that the moms and kids could get to know each other a little. This was one of the most important steps of organizing the co-op. Of course, not every family who responded showed up for the meeting. Not a problem–if you aren’t interested enough to come to the first meeting, you probably aren’t that interested long-term. The meetup also provided a chance to lay out all the things that would be involved in a co-op. Supplies and curricula cost money, so there would obviously be a financial commitment. More importantly, there needed to be a commitment to being heavily involved with teaching classes and providing care for younger siblings while their moms were instructing.
Most of all, there needed to be a real commitment to participate every day to help the kids establish a steady group dynamic in their school. Sure, kids get sick and scheduling conflicts come up, that’s understandable. But the kids needed the stable group and each mom’s unique creativity and perspective.
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I wouldn’t go so far as to say anyone was scared off, but if anyone expected this to be just another playgroup or a chance for moms to get together and gossip while the kids played with letter blocks, their eyes were opened to a very different idea. The group of moms that decided to continue on with the project was fully committed, and the results have been great. The kids are now getting a variety of classes taught by different moms, and they are having a blast with it.
I’d say the commitment of the families involved, and that especially means the MOMS, is the single most important factor in the co-op’s success so far. If you are thinking of starting a co-op, don’t feel bad about being selective and laying out firm expectations from the very beginning.
We were on a pretty long hiatus from posting here due to some big life changes like moving (twice) and having another baby, plus the general posting inertia that seemed to accompany those. But that hasn’t stopped people from visiting the site, thankfully. So here’s a list of the top 5 “old” posts people have been looking at for the last couple of months. I’m limiting this to lesson ideas and general info articles…
Reading’s Fab Five – an introduction to the basic elements of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension).
Who Let the Letters Out Song – a fun song to sing with your kids to help them associate letters and sounds.
Stump The Teacher – “trick” your young reader into reading a book for depth and detail in order to ask you questions you can’t answer about the book. This game really encourages them to read for comprehension.
Rhyming Down The Alphabet – I’m glad this one is popular, because our 3 year old loves this game. You give them a word, and they create words that rhyme with it as they move down the alphabet. This one seems to be great for a child who really (and I mean REALLY) likes to talk (and talk).
Exit This Way – another one that’s great for more advanced readers. This activity encourages your child’s comprehension by having them come up with an alternate ending for a book or story.
Don’t forget that Cheerios is once again running its Spoonfuls of Stories promotion this year, with free books inside each box.
Also, Amazon is having a one day sale on Melissa and Doug toys, which are some of our favorite learning and educational
See And Spell
We read “Mouse’s First Snow
In the book, Mouse goes outside to play in the snow with his dad and follows his lead as the father does all kinds of outdoor winter activities. We don’t exactly have a winter here in Central Florida, so we had to be a little creative.
First, we let all of the kids have a turn “being” a snow mouse by wrapping them in tissue paper and adding a hat and scarf.
Next the kids built their own snow mice out of marshmallows, raisins, pretzels, and peanut butter. Perfect segue into snack time, where they got to eat their project!
Sometimes you have to use your imagination a little to find ways to tie activities into a book, but the kids don’t mind. They have very active imaginations themselves, and the activities are great for tactile learners and to help them make connections between books and life.
If your pre-schooler is like ours, they love to be with you while you’re cooking. And if you’re like us, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen over the holidays. LeapFrog’s Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder
We’re giving away one of these toys in December. All you have to do to be eligible to win is become our fan on Facebook. Really, that’s it! And if you don’t have a pre-schooler, don’t worry. This makes an awesome gift for Christmas or birthdays!
We’ll be selecting a winner at midnight on December 15, which should give us plenty of time to contact the winner and have the prize delivered before Christmas. It also gives you plenty of time to spread the word!
I’m really surprised some wingnut out there hasn’t hypothesized the whole WikiLeaks fiasco was orchestrated by the current administration in an effort to weaken both the United States and Hillary Clinton at the same time. Maybe some conspirotist out there has come up with that, but I haven’t heard it so far.
Of course, that’s ridiculous. It would take a very high level of competency to pull something like that off. Then again, the wackos on the other side didn’t have any trouble painting G.W. Bush as both an idiot and an evil mastermind capable of single-handedly raising gas prices, so I guess it’s not too far out there.
Yesterday I was listening to Pea ramble on and on about princesses and all of things that being a princess entails. She was using some of her own Spanglish words in her descriptions, and I was reminded of something I heard a couple of years ago on an airplane. The man in the row behind me was traveling with two small kids. Based on the conversation I could overhear, these kids were obviously very sharp. One of the kids mentioned that someone had “shutted” the door. The dad was quick to correct him–“It’s ‘shut’, not ‘shutted’.”
This dad’s heart was in the right place. He obviously wanted his children to speak correctly, and that’s a good thing. But his method was a little off. The better response would have been, “Yes, he ‘shut’ the door.” See the difference? The second method is called modeling, where the correct past tense of the word “shut” is demonstrated for the child instead of making a correction of what the child said.
In this case, the kid was actually a lot smarter than the dad realized. The child is becoming fluent in the English language and has realized that the usual way to make a word past tense is to add the -ed suffix to it. He incorrectly applied this approach to the word “shut”, but that’s ok. He just demonstrated that he has a firm grasp on one of the rules of our language. Modeling the exception for him is a way to positively reinforce one of the many complicated exceptions to the rule without pointing out his error.
Modeling is a strategy commonly used with students who are learning a second language to correct them without making them self-conscious and accidentally discouraging them from continuing to practice. It only makes sense to do the same thing to help encourage fluency in a small child who is learning his or her first language.
Ana isn’t going to toot her own horn about this here, so I’m going to step in and toot it for her. A few months ago, she posted on a local website asking if there were any other moms in our area who would be interested in starting up a home preschool co-op for a small group of kids. The response was great, and before they knew it they were having a meetup so the kids and moms could all get acquainted.
The results have been so much better than we could have hoped for! I can’t speak for any of the other families/kids, but we’ve seen a huge acceleration in Pea’s learning since she started going to a “real school” with other kids who have different talents and abilities. The biggest benefit has been the different skill sets and creative ideas the other moms have brought to the group. Of course, Ana is teaching reading, but other moms are in charge of math, writing, science, cooking, calendar time, art, etc. Every session has a lead teacher and a helper which allows the moms who aren’t teaching to help take care of the smaller siblings.
The school meets Monday and Tuesday mornings for instruction, and Fridays are for field trips and play time. It has been an incredible supplement to the things we work on every day at home, and the introduction of other kids and teachers have had an impact on Pea’s behavior and interest in learning from other people.
I’m so thankful for Ana and the rest of the moms in the group for their huge efforts and contributions to our children’s educations!!!
There is a big difference between being able to read individual words and being able to comprehend what you read, and this is one of the common issues older readers struggle with. One of the best ways to prevent issues with comprehension is to help your young child develop comprehension skills by asking questions while you’re reading to them.
Relax…we’re not talking about grilling them about plot development or character motivation. After all, “Very Hungry Caterpillar
Obviously, these are very simple questions–mostly yes/no, and mostly subjective. But they help your child relate to the characters (or animals) in the books you are reading and make connections between the story and their own lives. Try to keep it fun and silly, and if your child needs help with questions that have right and wrong answers give them a little nudge. For instance, if they answer that the caterpillar ate more on Tuesday than Thursday, or if they aren’t sure, help them out by giving them a strategy to find the right answer: “Let’s count and find out!”
From today’s Tennessean, Dr. Frank Boehm calls for replacing t.v. time with book time:
If we began to encourage our children to replace screen time with reading books, they would be more able to counter ignorance in themselves and others by being able to enter conversations with real facts rather than sound bites from television programs and the Internet.
I won’t pretend our kids don’t watch any television. They do. But we’ve found it easier to limit their tube time by getting rid of cable and only using a Roku player
It’s been good for us (the parents) as well. We watch considerably less television now. Gone are the days of flipping through channels looking for something to watch. The only time the television is on at our house is when we sit down to watch a specific movie or an episode or two of a television program we’re streaming after the kids’ bed time. If you thought DVD was the best way to watch a series, you should try streaming it!
Again, no commercials, and we spend a lot more time reading and talking than we do staring at a screen.
We’re also saving a ton of money. For the cost of one month of cable we were able to buy the streamer to connect to the television, and Netflix is less than $10 per month. Cutting cable completely may not work for every family, especially if you like to watch sports live, but we love it!
We tried to check “Thanks for Thanksgiving
“Thanks for Thanksgiving” is a really well illustrated book for smaller kids–lots going on in the pictures and filled with images of fall. The book doesn’t deal with the history or Thanksgiving or anything like that, but instead focuses on all the things to be thankful for–friends, family, school, slides, leaves, etc.
We really wish we’d bought it earlier since it references lots of aspects of Fall, making it a great book to supplement the Autumn theme our homeschool co-op has been doing for the past few weeks.
The other night I was reading the girls a book at bedtime, and I picked up on something I think may be really important to our girls learning to read. Now, we seem to always be on the lookout for “teachable moments” around here. Sometimes that means stopping to ask questions about the book we’re reading or pointing out some aspect of the book that ties in with something else we’ve been working on. We’re lucky that they usually lead us into this , so it’s not as if we’re forcing them into it. In fact, we never push anything on them if they don’t seem interested because we want them to enjoy the learning as much as we enjoy the teaching.
But this time something weird was going on. Chick Pea wasn’t stopping me on every page to ask questions about the story, and Bug wasn’t grabbing at the book or pointing at the pages while yelling out made-up words. They were both sitting quietly, listening to the story. They were engrossed. So I went with it.
I realized later that I wasn’t actually missing out on a teachable moment. I was taking advantage of one.
The lesson I was teaching them is that reading is an enjoyable and fun thing to do! We don’t always have to have a measurable objective every time we pick up a book. Sometimes (most of time?) the best part of reading is getting so into the story that you lose yourself in it. If we can one day establish a love of reading independently in our kids, just imagine the gains they’ll be able to make in fluency and vocabulary on their own, not to mention all the other things they’ll be able to learn about.
We have to keep our long-term goal in mine: give them the tools that allow them to read to learn.
Loving to read is a pretty powerful tool.
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