I found this awesome satire of the question about socializing home schooled kids, based on the “If you Give A Mouse a Cookie” books.

I am severely tempted to send the link to my sister, who is an elementary school teacher, and who is horrified that I’ve chosen to homeschool. She also gave David a copy of “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie” book, along with every other book in that series for his birthday a few years ago.

That fact just made the post more amusing for me.

Check it out at Principled Discovery

I was looking for a map of Canada to use, since David is beginning to ask a lot of questions about we live, and where Grandma lives, and where our city is, and what Canada is, and what a country is… there are more questions than I can count, and some visual help in explaining was needed.

Through another blog, I found this Sheppard Software, which not only has a downloadable, printable map David and I can color, but it has cool flash tutorials and games to help kids learn the provinces and capitals.

What did people do before the Internet anyway?

Now that David’s approaching 5, I have finally gotten to the point that I’m confident that I’ll be homeschooling him, and I’m looking at various curriculum options for Grade 1 and beyond.

As such, I’ve been signing up for Home School discussion and curriculum lists left, right and center.

I’ve seen a lot of people with three-year-olds ask about curriculum. And while I sure didn’t have a boxed set for David, I can perhaps help out by showing how we got to this point in his haphazard education.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s strange that, no matter how busy or lazy the day, we still manage to fill it up with activities.

Some days, at the close of the day as I wind down before going to bed, I think about all the things we did during the day, and wonder whether some of those moments could have been put to better use. Or if I should have read two stories instead of one. Whether we should have driven to the store instead of walked. Whether I should have David do two pages of math problems instead of one.

It’s almost distressing to know that those hours and decisions are gone. Yet there’s joy in what we did do. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading a great many books about homeschooling, and some of the ones that resonate with me speak of a classical education. In particular, Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise suggest in their book “The Well-Trained Mind” that a twelve year education be split into three repetitions of the same four-year pattern based on historical periods:

• The Ancients
• Medieval through early Renaissance
• Late renaissance through early Modern

I like the idea, but I also find sympathy with the “unschoolers” who suggest that children be allowed to explore what interests them when their interest is peaked.

Now, given that what my son is most interested in right now is Scooby Doo, how can I channel that passion into something a little more timeless?

I’m not opposed to feeding his Scooby Doo habit with books. In fact, I spent about $50 on Scooby Doo books this week alone.

But what I’ve decided is to expand one theme from each TV episode (and maybe from each book too) to see if I can add literature beyond the cartoonish.

For example, for the first episode from the first season (What a Night for a Knight), I found a few other books that included a black knight.

The first book I chose was one of The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne, “The Knight at Dawn.” I realize this isn’t exactly classic literature, but it is a very easy and simplistic introduction to medieval life.

Once we’d read that a few times, I told him a few of the tales from Canterbury Tales, including the Knight’s Tale… since I couldn’t find an age -appropriate version, I made one myself.

Then we set to work making a cardboard replica of a castle. We followed a pattern from a recent issue of Make Magazine, but this Build a Medieval Castle software looks great too, and we’ll probably give it a try in the near future.

Finally, we took on the beautifully illustrated kids version of Ivanhoe adapted by Marianna Mayer with paintings by John Rush. It is a little skimpy on plot, but what remains is all the action and adventure parts of the story, so David enjoyed it, even though it’s meant for kids a few years older than he. The first time I read it I ‘translated’ some of the larger words so he could grasp the plot better. Once he knew the story, I read the vocabulary in with few problems.

Now, in Ivanhoe, the Black Knight is King Richard, and Robin Hood makes an appearance as well, so that too could lead to further exploration… at least a book or movie or two.

It’s not exactly the trivium, but it’s getting David interested in all sorts of new things without taking him away from the things he really loves.

Well, after Snews proved itself a little too hackable, I’ve resurrected SeriousLearning.com with WordPress. I’m still not decided on a theme, but that’s a secondary decision after content, I suppose.