Using PDF Files in my Home School

I'm really happy that so many texts are now available as PDF.  I love the freedom of being able to just print out the pages I need, as many times as I need them.  It's been especially useful now that I'm on round two with much of our curriculum. However, technology has started to change the way I've been thinking about using the PDF files.  For one, my child is forever losing the sheets I print out, or they become a wrinkled mess.  This leads to much frustration on the part of all of us.

Now that we have iPads, I've been looking into ways to utilize them more.  The kids never seem to lose their iPad or wrinkle it up.  So I've come across a few apps and I'm giving it a try.

App #1: Dropbox:  Dropbox is a fantastic file sharing app.  You can access your documents, files, or photos from just about any device.  It also makes it easy to share documents through its public folder.  You upload your file here and it creates a link that you can then share out.  You get two gigs of free storage, so it'll manage even your largest of files. We have found it useful for the kids to save their compositions into Dropbox so they can easily edit or print them from other computers.

App #2 Notability: Notability is another app that allows you to create notes and annotate those PDF files. It's not free, but at $2.99, and often on sale, it won't break the bank either--much cheaper than a ream of paper and ink!  It works along with Dropbox to get those files onto your iPad and make them more than just readable files.  You can use Notability to mark up and highlight, fill in blanks, you name it.  I recently uploaded my son's daily grammar work into Dropbox, and then used the import function on Notability to bring the file into the app.  Using a stylus, he can now use his favorite color to do his work, without all that wasted ink and paper.  No more loose pages anywhere! There will never be an excuse again for not knowing where his work is and if it's been done.

We are still working out the bugs, but I have great hope that these two apps will really help us out this year. To give some more instruction and insight, I've found this blog entry that really goes into detail. How are you using your iPads, tablets, or Kindles in your home school?  Do you have a clever way to utilize technology and school work?

Summer Reading

It's that time of year again! The school year is winding down and summer is fast approaching. Have you picked out your summer reading yet? Are you aware of the programs that are out there that reward your child for the books they read this summer? This week I learned of some great programs and tools to help encourage reading.

You can sign up now and start logging your minutes for the Scholastic Summer Reading program: Reading Under the Stars. They are looking to beat last year's reading record of 176,438,473 minutes! This reading challenge runs May 5 --- September 5, 2014. Scholastic also has age appropriate reading lists to help inspire your child to read something new.

It looks like the MWR Library page is up and running to begin registration for their summer program too. It officially kicks off June 15^th and runs through August 15^th. Even if you are not here this summer, you can still log your books/minutes and pick up your prizes when you return.

I know everyone knows about movie trailers and how excited we get when new movies are being released. Did you know there are book trailers too? These are too cool! The YMS digital resource site has several links to trailers, but you can also search for them online. In Google, put the title of your book in quotes, then follow it with official book trailer. Pinterest and Youtube are also fantastic places to search book titles. Who knew? If your kids have a creative bug, they can even make their own book trailer. YMS has lesson plans for this too. What a fun alternative to the traditional book report.

With all the e-readers out there today, the MWR library offers e-book rentals from Overdrive, for free. There's an app for that! You can download e-books, videos, and audio books to your computer, i-device, tablet, Kindle, or Nook. You will need to go to the library to get an account created for you. Fill out a digital request at the checkout counter, and you will be contacted via e-mail with your log-on information. (It will be a different site from the above Overdrive site.) I heard back the next day and downloaded my first book that afternoon. The MWR library really is an amazing resource and has so much more than meets the eye. Be sure to stop by to learn about all the tools they have, most offered for free!

Finally, maybe you'll be on a trip this summer or lounging by the pool, not wanting a book. Audio books are a great solution. Listen to your favorite book in the car, on a plane, or in a train. I love audio books for those longer, more difficult reads. It's such a wonderful way to introduce your child to the classics, especially with a narrator they might already know. There are multiple sources for audio books including Overdrive and iTunes. My favorite site is Audible. You can purchase individual titles or purchase a subscription that gives you a new audio each month and a discount on other books.

Here are some other Summer Reading Programs. If you're out traveling, check out the local libraries too, as they might offer something. I know our hometown library does a challenge for In-N-Out Burgers! (That one is always a hit with my kids.) Being overseas, and not having some of these options available, get creative and offer your own challenges. On a homeschool message board, I came across a thread where parents were mentioning their ideas. A penny a page, with a goal towards 2000 pages. Read yourself a Lego set: break up a Lego set and offer awards based on pages, minutes, or books. Someone even randomly taped money to the ends of certain books!
Barnes and Noble

Pizza Hut

Applebee's

Book Adventure

Check out Pinterest for even more incredible Summer Reading ideas!

 

Online Resources

Our board recently met with Ruth Russell, Yokosuka's School Liason Officer.  I really wish we had done this sooner as she came with a wealth of online resources that are available to military families, particularly Navy, dealing with education.  I haven't had a chance to look through many of them, but wanted to share and make sure that everyone is aware of these gems. 

First, we have Navy Knowledge Online.  In addition to resources for sailors, there are also resources for younger students: downloadable audio-books, foreign language lessons, e-books, college prep and so much more.  If you have any problems registering for the site, contact Ruth as she is an administrator for the site.  Connected with NKO is also tutor.com.   As military families, we have free access to 24/7tutors, in all subjects K-12 as well as college courses.

Do you have high school students needing test prep?  March2Success is the place to go.  This is run through the army, but still available to those of us on a navy base too.  March2Success provides online test prep for state exams, SAT, ACT, and ASVAB.

Please share any others you may have.  Always on the look out for more resources!

Science Resource: Seymour Simon

Seymour Simon is a children's science author whose books couple vivid photographs with good, easy to comprehend writing. He has a long series of books about bodies in space like the planets, comets and the moon.

His website SeymourSimon.com has an author blog, children's resource and game section and an educator section that might be of interest. The kids' and educators' sections have a registration process to ensure that kids have parental permission to use the site.

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

If you are working on music appreciation this year, you might find the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra game useful. It is a computer game that follows the pieces in the Britten symphony to teach students about the different instruments in an orchestra. The game is a production from Carnegie Hall Listening Adventures.
Listening Adventures also has a feature for Dvorak's New World Symphony. Rather than a game, it is more of an illustrated performance. Images of both the featured instruments and the notes of the melody help you to "see" what you are listening to.

Online Art Resources

I've been putting together my plans for artist study this year and found a great resource from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. It has essays on various themes from artistic movements to artists to specific subjects to specific objects. For example:

Japanese Art (over 30 essays)
Greek and Roman Art (over 90 essays)
Horse Armor in Europe, with links to related essays and exhibitions, including Let's Look at Armor, which compares European, Japanese and Ottoman Turkish armor.

There was some discussion on the KPHS email list about Janson's History of Art. There is an extensive companion website for Janson's that includes study guides and activities like fill in the blank, true false questions, essay questions and maps. If you hover above the chapter numbers at the top you can see what the chapter topics are. I haven't checked yet, but I would expect the base library to have at least one copy of Janson's History of Art in the collection.

One more nice art resource is the National Gallery of Art's website. It has both an art education section with lesson plans and activities by artist and topic; and an NGAKids section that includes fun online activities using various artists and movements for inspiration. They have children's guides and longer Family Guides. These can be helpful when visiting exhibits at local Japanese art museums, which might not have printed or audio guides available in English.

Books, Books and More Books

I am bad, really bad when it comes to books. I LOVE books and always have. I read constantly and usually more than one book at a time--which some people have a hard time grasping. I am currently visiting the US and going crazy with all the books here: discount stores, used book stores, library sales. It's almost too much! I find I can't part with my books either for I enjoy reading them over, and sometimes over. As such, I am also trying to work at instilling this love to my children. Yes, they too love books, but I want them to also love literature. I do think there is a difference. Right now, they too love books, but they haven't quite come to appreciate good literature, even children's literature. As I sit here at the computer on these last days of my vacation, I have been doing a ton of searches on the internet and have found all sorts of fun stuff involving good books.

First, I am so excited to discover that September is Roald Dahl Month. He has always been one of my favorite authors. I have fond memories of my second grade teacher reading us James and the Giant Peach. This was actually one of the first works of good fiction that I was able to get my son to read. He already knew the story from the movie and liked it, but the transformation that took place when he was able to compare the book to the movie. It was like . . .magic! And yes, he did agree that the book was so much better. I am really looking forward to following the activities and having the boys read some new Dahl books in the coming months.

As home schoolers, I see that trying finding literature guides is a common endeavour. I have recently come across a few more sites that might be of interest and include some free literature guides to popular titles. First, there's Glencoe Literature. They have a huge list of guides and seem to be adding new ones. There appears to be a wide range of offerings and for most upper elementary levels and above, everything from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to A Wrinkle in Time, classics and award winners alike.

A site that I just found today and has a smaller listing, but does include books for younger readers is Kidsreads.com. This site doesn't have guides as such, but discussion questions for book clubs. Another book club site that has quite an extensive listing of books is Litlovers. This site is fantastic! It has all sorts of book info, but from what I have seen the titles are for an older audience, although many classics are included too. I liked this one for in addition to the questions, it also includes book info, a synopsis, and reviews.

Finally, there's Books 4 Boys. If looking for guides is a big question, finding books that boys want to read is even bigger. This site has recommendations by age, author, theme and for all age levels, from picture books to young adult. There are no true guides, but several books do have discussion questions to accompany them. Some of the newer books even have excerpts available.

If you have a favorite book or author, please share. I am always looking for new books to read and share. Happy reading!

Having Your Own Summer Homeschool Conference

Again on the organizational front, I found this blog post from a homeschool mom who is having a personal homeschool conference (would this be home conferencing?). This is something that she started doing last year and you can also read about that here.

I've been listening to some of the Peace Hill Press conference lectures as I plan what we're doing this year. Susan Wise Bauer also has some cool classical homeschooling Q&A videos on You Tube.

There are also some helpful (and even some free) lectures available at Word MP3.

If you think about it, a typical school year would program in several days for the teacher to prepare for the beginning of the year, calculate grades and give feedback to students about their progress, transition to a new semester and even learn about and practice a new educational program. I don't think that it is unreasonable for us to take some of that same time to plan for our homeschool year.

Legos as Reading Manipulatives

If you have a beginning or emerging reader, you should check out the pictures at Filth Wizardry of Duplo Legos converted into reading manipulatives. It's worth checking out the rest of the blog too, especially if you have younger or crafty kids. There are some fantastic ideas mostly focusing on arts and crafts.

Free Elementary Life Science Curriculum

This website from Mr. Q has a free elementary level life science curriculum as an intro to his other science curriculum. You can also browse through the lab notes archive, which containes some interesting stand alone experiments. The blog section has been running a series of science posts relating to food.

There's some good science here using a lot of material that you probably have at hand.

Blank Homeschool Planners

I'm spending part of my summer planning for next year. I've finally learned that we really do best when I have a specific concrete and finite schedule for us to follow. For some reason, just have a specific to do list will get my kids (or at least some of them) to plug away from one subject to another. When I try to be more free form, we tend to drift more than I'm comfortable with.

So I'm working on consolidating our various school lists and schedules into something that can give us more of an overview of what we are doing, not just for the day, but for a semester.

If this is something that you're working on, you might want to check out the Donna Young website. She has a number of planners and calendars that are blank and printable. She even has a section that helps you think through the homeschool planning process, from deciding what subjects to cover to scheduling them out. This can be pretty helpful if you've recently taken the plunge into homeschooling or if you find you are making the transition from elementary days with a focus on reading and early math to something more structured. Or if you have older kids, who like mine, haven't mastered the art of keeping a calendar and planning ahead, you might want to check out the high school subject notebook

This isn't to say that you need to have your day planned out in 15 minute blocks. We went for years with our whole schedule being a half page of paper with subjects listed and blocks to check. We just did whatever was the next lesson in each subject. But the more that I merge and tweak curriculum or create my own, the handier it is for me to have an overview of what I'm trying to do. My hope is that by working consistently through what I think we Need to do, I will have more free time in which to do what I Want to do without feeling that I'm neglecting something.

As with anything in homeschooling, your mileage may vary.

More Free Homeschooling Resources

Guest Hollow has several free curriculum and resources for history and science. In particular they have American history, the human body, pre school and elementary level science and supplements for the Winter Promise Sea and Sky curriculum (which explores ocean environments).

Lord of the Rings Literature Study

I found another good free literature study, this time for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page for links to the unit study.) This looks like quite a good basis for a middle school or high school exploration of the themes in the books.

I also found that Cliffs Notes are available for free online.

Free Science and Literature Studies

One of the exciting things about homeschooling is the number of families who are writing their own curriculum to suit a particular interest or area of focus. Sometimes this is tweaking of something already in print. Sometimes it is a full fledged series of books and activities. Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer, for example, started out as a series to fill a niche that she thought was lacking, that of a world history continuum for the elementary grades.

Even cooler is the fact that the internet allows some families to share their creations with the world at large and for other homeschoolers to benefit too. And it is great when some of what you find is available for free.

Little Blue School has several literature units that the author developed for use in her coop in Norfolk, Virginia (which almost makes me want to put Norfolk on the top of our duty station wish list).
Aeneid
Treasure Island
Elections
Novel Writing (This is a great breakdown of the parts of a novel, even if you don't sit down and write your own.)
Jungle Book

The blog Handbook of Nature Study has lots of resources for focusing your time outdoors. Barb sells some of her studies as inexpensive ebooks, but also has lots of nature study ideas that can be downloaded for free. Don't miss the Outdoor Hour Challenges and the free downloads on the sidebar.

I also found a blog called Fieldwork that was posting a series of lessons in marine biology/oceanography. She ended up only finishing 24 of the 34 she had planned, but I still think it is a nice resource. Something that I like about her approach is that it is hands on and could be used as a basis for exploring any seaside, not just the east or west coast of the US. That's something that has been important to me since we've spent the last decade living beyond the scope of most English language field guides.

Online Weather Course

I find that I have to work hard to keep feeding the science interests that my kids have. I'm not sure if this is because they are still in the "What's that" and "Why" stages or if it is the influence of science related TV shows like Mythbusters or if it's just because they like science. Whatever the reason, I am always looking for interesting science relate books and websites for them.

Today I found an online weather course from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, called Jetstream. If you dig a little into the Lesson Plan Overview section, you can find an outline of all of the lessons and quizzes for each section.

Within some of the lessons there are Learning Lessons which are weather related experiments or demonstrations. You might want to review the Learning Lessons for the modules to collect all of the items you'll need. There's nothing as annoying as needing something like balloons or thumbtacks in order to do some cool experiment and not being able to find them.