Do you remember when and where you learned how to form contractions?  For those of us who learned English as our first language, we learned to speak in contractions, and then learned to write and spell them.  Teaching contractions sometimes falls through the cracks because we all speak using contractions and a lot of confusion can arise when possessives are added to the mix. My daughter has complained that she is just now learning to spell using all the letters and now I want her to leave some letters out.  She even told me, when I corrected a word she had misspelled by leaving out a letter, “Pretend it’s a contraction, Mama!”

We have tried writing contractions, but really, learning to form contractions through interactive games is the best way we have found to practice.  It especially works for my reluctant writer.  I compare learning contractions by means of online contraction games to playing card games online.  While playing Solitaire with “real” cards can be meditative, playing online saves time with shuffling, and dealing, the game moves much faster, the gratification is pretty instant. 

I’m thinking that anything that makes learning easy, fun, and instantly gratifying has got to be a good thing!

Does your curriculum include social studies? Do you think that social studies is an important part of your child’s education? I do, and I can tell you that I am eternally grateful that I don’t have to come up with all of the content to teach my child social studies. I firmly believe that if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it, but if I had to go out and collect every little piece of the information my child needed to be well versed in social studies, well, lets just say her education would not be as well rounded! The curriculum we use is Time4Learning, and they provide us with a great social studies program. It contains history, civics, social studies, and economics. Even though it is a well rounded curriculum, sometimes you just have to get something that is less…well….lesson-ish. On occasion we just need to expand on what we are learning. Take Ben Franklin for example. Historically speaking, the study of Mr. Franklin can be kind of dry. To lighten the mood and still get the information covered, you can certainly turn to word searches and true and false questions. Maybe add some special rewards if the fun material is mastered. My daughter certainly enjoys learning “the fun way” as she calls it, and it never ceases to amaze me that she will choose to start her day of lessons with something like social studies. It makes any extra work you have to put into the lessons worth it to have them say, “Can we start with social studies today?”

Did you know you were going to home school before you even had children?

Not me, I fought the idea of home schooling tooth and nail, and until I couldn’t fight it any longer. I’m an accidental home schooler. Part of being an accidental homeschooler meant that I was not home schooling as part of a lifestyle choice. I was not home schooling because it was a choice based on religious beliefs. It was purely a choice of my child needed something different than she was being offered in public school or private school. This posed problems that people who home school because of lifestyle, or religion, don’t face. I found that I was not only an accidental homeschooler but also a secular homeschooler. This is a growing segment of the home schooling population, and until very recently, a segment that was under represented in terms of curriculum choices. It was hard to find a place to settle, that wasn’t based on religion, and that didn’t require a full lifestyle commitment. In the process of trying to find out where we fit in, I discovered that Time4Learning was a perfect fit for us. That is not to say that Time4Learning couldn’t work for you if you choose home schooling for religious or lifestyle reasons. It just means that for those of us who choose to educate our children at home for other reasons, there is a place where we fit in. If you are also an accidental homeschooler, I hope that you, too, can find a place to belong at Time4Learning!

We were at the doctor’s office, waiting to go back. Since the majority of our curriculum is online with Time4Learning, we needed portable school work.  My daughter and I were doing word ladders together. I read the clue, she gives me the answer, spells it, and I write it in.

The previous word was “mall” and the clue for the new word is, “tiny, add one letter”. S+mall= small, right? Seems simple enough. She answers…miniature. I reminded her of the hint. Diminutive? I point to “mall” and tell her to add a letter. Microscopic? Miniscule? She knew four other words that meant tiny. I’m proud of that fact. I’m proud of her vocabulary. This kind of knowledge, the importance of vocabulary , will serve her well in the future.   I was frustrated that she couldn’t come up with the word small, but I know that the words she did came up with were more advanced than the word the exercise asked for. I know that reading, word ladders, and many vocabulary skill building games that we play, have contributed to her growing and useful vocabulary. If you haven’t tried word games, you should, they are easy, fun, and you will be surprised at the number of words your child retains.  Truth be told, I think my own vocabulary benefits from  these games as well!

Are you ready to get back to school? Many homeschoolers tend to do some school all year long, others enjoy the summer off and start back to school at the same time as the public schools. At my house we school all year long, though we take extended breaks during the year, consisting of a week or two at a time. Even though we school all year, we really redouble our efforts in August and September, when we get fresh school supplies and buckle down to serious lessons. One of the things I am most thankful for during the back to school push is the fact that I don’t have to come up with lesson plans. The curriculum we use, Time4Learning, not only follows state standards, but it plans my lessons for me. When I consider all the hats I wear in a single day, mom, cook, driver, washer woman, shopper, writer, and let’s not forget teacher, I truly appreciate not having to add hours of planning or record keeping to that mix.