Flubber Fun!

Cabin fever can hit the homeschool family in January. It's a time when family pets and parents feel like nesting in front of a cozy fire! But kids don't usually feel that way. With so much energy, it's a good time to measure and mix in the kitchen. Math skills can be developed while creating recipes for creative and fun play.

Flubber Fun

1 cup Elmer's white glue
1 1/3 cup warm water
food coloring
2 tsp. Borax
2 glass bowls

In one bowl, mix the glue, 2/3 cup warm water, and food coloring together. In the other bowl, mix the Borax with the remaining 2/3 cup warm water. Pour the glue solution into the bowl containing the Borax mixture. Stir until mixed. Then, let mixture rest so that the stretchy flubber can set. 

Enjoy hours of creative fun with your kids!

Courtesy & Respect

"Always remember that persons matter more than things. Don't say anything that will leave a sting."

Charlotte Mason

Writing a Book

Digital technology has opened up the world. We are able to send instant messages, share photos, and post on personal websites and blogs. Friendships are formed and creativity enhanced. It has also provided many with opportunities to publish. Several of my friends have written their own books. Clarice from Storybook Woods has written a delightful book called "Wren Bay". You might remember one of my blog posts where I reviewed her book. Wren Bay, the story of making a home, portrays charm, creativity, and warmth. It is skillfully mixed with grace and elegance, with a true mix of practicality, economy, and the careful use of natural resources.  Another friend, Marilyn from Delights of the Heart also authored a book. It's called "Tea Party in Your Cupboard" and is filled with ideas for creating impromptu tea parties with products generally found in your cupboard. She includes recipes from her own kitchen.

Clarice and Marilyn inspired me to give it a try! Step one is finding a publishing company online. There are several reliable companies that provide this service. Check out amazon.com, lulu.com, and blurb.com as a start. They offer simple instructions about writing, layout, color, and publishing.

My book is a simple "coffee table" book, although I should be calling it a "tea table" book instead! 

Since my book is simple, I wrote it in a way similar to writing a short story, article, or blog post. My main intent was to find a way to use some of my favorite tea themed photos. Therefore, my book was about tea and I called it "Steeped in Tea & Friendship". It was not only a labor of love, but labor intense as well. That surprised me, as I thought something as simple as my little book wouldn't take much time. I wrote about tea themes and included some of my favorite tea quotes. I enjoyed sitting for an hour or two at my computer each evening and adding to "my book". 

I enjoyed choosing photos and prose for each set of pages. Each pair was laid out by theme like an Asian tea, royal wedding, tea and sewing at a friend's house, or family tea times at the cabin.

Although I only published ten copies which I gave to family and friends for Christmas, I now feel like I have had an interesting peek into the world of self-publishing. It was a fun creative process! I treasure my copy and keep in on my "tea table" to enjoy during quiet moments of the day.

The resources available for publishing from your home computer are endless. And just think of the possibilities that homeschoolers have available to them if they choose to self-publish. Ideas abound! What a great way to teach across the curriculum. How about having your student(s) write a publish 

• a cookbook of their favorite cookie recipes (math, language arts, art, photography)
• a journal of a family vacation (social studies, language arts)
• a short story with illustrations done with colored pencil or photo they take (art, language arts)
• a book of riddles using story problems the student(s) write (math, language arts)
• a themed book on a subject enjoyed by your student(s); themes could include subjects like Lego creations, pets, wild animals, motorcycles, American Girl dolls, etc.

Have you considered writing a book in your homeschool? Please share!

New Beginnings

Wishing you awesome days of homeschooling as the New Year begins! May God's blessing warm your home. And may creativity, inquiry, and application be ingredients in your home school! New beginnings.

Warm Parenting & Delayed Academics

In our family, we chose to follow the Moore Formula approach to education. The focus on work, study, and service helped us keep a balance in our family life while presenting the value of learning to our children in every facet of our lives. I believe that the Moore approach, more than any other, allows learning to become integral to the whole child and the complete family system. With this approach, education is not placed in a box. Instead, the entire world is open to the child in a way that most other types of educational systems cannot replicate.

Sometimes parents who choose to follow the Moore Formula find that they can feel like a fish swimming up the stream instead of going with the flow. That's because they are thinking and teaching outside the norm. Our culture and the educational system are creating learning environments that take the parent out of the educational formula at an early age (preschool). One goal of the present public system of education is to do this at increasingly earlier ages. As homeschool parents, sometimes we forget that these are external, artificial pressures and we take them upon ourselves. Research shows that children who's parents practice delayed- academics later rather than early academics, catch-up with and exceed peers who have been educated formally and  starting at a young age. Not only are delayed-study children beneficiaries academically, but research shows that they exhibit more skills in inquiry and higher-level thinking than their traditionally educated peers. Traditionally "schooled" AND traditionally "schooled at home" children who are not taught by the work, service, study model of delayed academics that Dr. Moore promoted have been found to exhibit signs (across the board) of burn-out by 4th grade. These are only a few examples of the excellence that results in children who received an education with delayed academics.

"School Can Wait" is an example of a very well documented and highly researched book which proves Dr. Moore's educational philosophy. This book is highly research-oriented and the result of a $257,000 federal grant which thoroughly documented the importance of unbroken continuity of parental attachment wherever possible and the dangers of formal schooling until at least eight to ten. In it Dr. Moore states that:

"The preponderance of evidence indicates that the key role of a parent throughout the years of childhood is simply to be the kind of warm, responsive, and relatively consistent person to whom a child can safely become attached. Early development and learning are actively dependent on this relationship. Parents are chiefly responsible for a child's early learning by their attitudes and responses to the child in frequent interactions." [School Can Wait, page 47].

The Moore Formula encourages warm, responsive parenting and a delay in formal academics until eight or ten years of age. It is a plan that has proved itself over and over again. It really does work!

Delayed Academics

Thoughts on Dr. Raymond Moore's belief in delayed formal academics:

It seems that the Moore's emphasized that learning begins at birth. Some of their books outline concepts to be taught starting from birth. They share age-appropriate activities and events that help a child achieve appropriate milestones for their age. So, it seems that their idea of delayed education speaks of "formal" and "school-like" learning. Essentially, most early school concepts can be taught in a variety of ways. Teaching a child to write using finger-paints on a large sheet of paper uses different motor skills (more appropriate) than using a pencil and  paper. The key is to keep learning age appropriate and to avoid burn-out.

In the beginning of my homeschool years I was fortunate to be able to attend a week-end series of lectures by Dr. and Mrs. Moore. One of the key points that struck me was hearing Dr. Moore emphasize that from his experience, most early-schooled children might do VERY well with early learning when taught formally, but that by 4th grade they were generally burned out and it was nearly impossible to bring back the love of learning, exploration, etc. that most of us value so highly in childhood learning. So, although a child may seem to be doing well and advancing properly --- it could be possible that long-term damage could occur in the form of burn-out.

Guided, planned, purposeful experiences that are age appropriate are never out of line. I believe it is wrong to hold a child back when they want to learn. But, I would encourage them to learn in a relaxed, non-paper and pencil, bookish manner. It is so much more fun and interesting for everyone (parent and child) if collections, cooking experiences, field trips, building, etc. projects are done to create that learning rather than relying upon a book.

Autumn Leaf Craft

When the boys were young, we spent much time creating. One room was reserved for messy projects like painting, cutting, pasting. Sometimes other media were used like wax, cardboard, string, balloons, newspapers, glitter, and more. What fun we had! This was always an integral part of our home school.

Last week when we visited Dad and Alma, one of the boys early projects was sitting on the nightstand in the guest room. So simple, yet sweet, these leaf art pictures have graced the guest room for nearly 10 years now. 

If there are young children in your family, this is a great project to do with them! Here's how:

• Purchase small frames. They do not need to be expensive. Frames from a place like the Dollar Store or WalMart work perfectly. Remove the colored 'advertising' in the frame. In it's place, insert a piece of plain white paper.
• At the craft store, purchase a sheet of beeswax. With sharp scissors, cut it to the same size as the 'advertising' paper you removed from the frame. Place the beeswax on top of the plain white paper.
• Sprinkle extra fine "prisma" glitter sparsely on the beeswax.
• Place one dried leaf per sheet of beeswax. Center it carefully, so that it looks like it's falling from a tree.
• Put the frame together, with the glass layer going on top of the leaf and beeswax. Secure tightly and enjoy.

*This project also works well with dried flowers.

Teaching is Inspiring, Motivating, and Inducing

"Teaching is inspiring a student rather than filling him with facts. It is responding to him rather than demanding of him. It is motivating him to explore on his own rather than controlling his explorations. It is inducing him to think, rather than repeating others' thoughts. Teaching is leading others to be like you --- and more. It is finding lessons in everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, and bringing them together to give deeper meaning and fulfillment to life." 

Dr. Raymond Moore

Home-Style Teaching, A Handbook for Parents and Teachers