2019 is going to be in interesting an busy year in our house hold. We have transformed our learning to a complete digital platform. In the hope of developing self learning we have moved into using Google classroom. We will be using all of our digital skills from previous years and putting it into practice to develop our real life skills. We will be building web pages and add adding to our Blogs weekly.
As a home school family you soon realise how valuable the internet is to you and how much of the learning is just one click away. We use many of the Adobe apps as well as many of the google apps for our work. Using technology does not just aid in research but also increases the creativity of the users. I know many people say to much time on the computer is a bad thing but I have made it our friend. We will be working with other home school families to complete our work and to help generate ideas this will be done via Skype and also in person. When looking at the net there are so many valid curriculum based learning it is some time hard to choose but we are staying on our learning path of keeping it real. We will be focusing on financial literacy and skills that can be applied in real life when applying for jobs or working for yourself. In today's world it is increasing becoming more important to learn the skills of work collaboration and learning to work to a deadline. Many of the kids today do not understand how to bank and how to make a budget and live within their means. We are hoping that our boys will be self driven learners and that they are very independent happy. Wyatte will be to get a part time job this year. This will increase his independence and they have their 1st paid job to build a web site for their hair dresser which is very exciting. At 10 and 14 we could be prouder of the what they have achieved in the 5 years we have been homeschooling.
0 Comments
Taking our learning to a whole new level. There is noting better than making learning real by doing. Last year we bought ourselves a little van with the hope to take the boys on our travels to discover Australia. We are about to embark on our very 1st journey. The boys have been learning about how world evolved and how dinosaurs wondered the earth. What a better way to make the learning real than to go on our own dinosaur trail. Traveling the Thomson River on a Paddle Steamer, Learning how the stock man concurred the Australian bush, Riding a stage coach. Every where you look there a many learning opportunities. The day has finally arrived for us to leave. We are now locked and loaded ready for our 1st day of travel in the morning. It has taken many months to plan the family is so very excited it will be 6 weeks of Family Fun. we will be seeing 1st hand the history of Queensland as we go and sharing how we keep the learning real on the road. Wow the year is nearly over.....
I found I got lost this year in my focus on keeping everything real. We had the most fantastic year, the boys have loved every moment and their learning is growing everyday. Now that the year is over it has given me time to reflect and plan for the following year. We are going to keep with the learning theme of keeping it real. With one slight change I am making the one extra goal of some Me Time. As I am sure i am not alone there are many other mums out there that get so busy with the homeschooling journey we forget to have some time for ourselves. It got me thinking about if I am not the best me am I not able to participate in the learning as much as I want. I found that as I craved time for me this year the more I began to close off to the boys. This year as I seemed to close my self off I found that I also began to close off to friends and this also meant the boys had less social interactions. Now seeing the errors of my ways I woke up today with a plan for Me Time. I got straight out of bed today and went for a walk on my own. I had forgotten how much just 20 minutes of time to myself for reflection can improve your focus for the day. Next year we have planned a family holiday to complete the Dinosaur Trail. After buying a caravan an having our 1st family holiday for many years we came home refreshed and focused on next adventure. This has also helped me plan many real life learning experiences from fossicing for gems to being Paleontologists for the day. Mean while we will continue our journey of Photography and Coding. The only planned change is to ensure that everyday I will find time for me time to exercise relax and re-energize for the day. Oh and one more thing find time to blog and sort my thoughts. This year we have had so many new elements added to our learning.................. Staying focused has been a challenge.
Then I remembered my motto for the year it was Keep it real and relevant. I realise that even though the boys were taking us on a different learning path some days the questions they were are were real and were relevant to them. For example we were learning about the anzacs and we quickly were on the topic of the Iraq war and current every day events on terrorism. This then related into much research to ensure they got current and relevant information. Once again this has enforced that my belief that I am now raising 2 boys that are questioning the world around them and giving them the ability to form their own opinions and beliefs. Most days now we start on a topic of learning and we see where it takes our learning. Some topics may take hours and others only a few minutes more and more the boys are taking charge of their learning and are thriving. When I 1st home schooling my boys I was in a craft store and the lady working in the store asked why the boys were not in school. I began to explain we home school. She then asked why and was it good for them. I did not mind as I said how they were thriving now that they do school at home. An elderly lady came up from behind me and she said, "I would like to congratulate you in being brave enough to allow you kids question the world. The government is trying to raise our kids to accept what they are told and not to question. You will find you kids will have a far better life as they will question and discover new things." I must say this made me beam with pride, this made so much sense as I had seen that my boys have started to question what they where learning and ask why.
Even while we just recently moved house the boys were still were learning everyday. We kept our maths going and spelling they wrote about the move took photo's to document the changes in our lives. Every opportunity they got they were on their computers and iPad's doing some work. When our lives were not dealing with what is relevant I found that my days were full of stress and I was worried most days about failing my boys and not teaching them enough. This year I have found the more I relaxed, the more they took upon themselves to keep learning. Each week we sit and look at what needs to be covered and they help be choose some games tasks and learning ideas to build on what we are doing. Even when you go shopping it is important life skills to be learnt such as making list, keeping track of what you spend, setting a budget and keeping with in the budget. Our grocery days involve the boys helping me create a menu for the month, Then doing an inventory check of the Pantry. Finally they create a list of what is needed for month. Keeping them busy while shopping is always needed so they do not become distracted from the task they both get $50 to spend on groceries, while shopping they are marking off their list and keeping track of what they have spent. This teaches them to check prices on the shelf ensuring that they are buying the cheapest product. Often they want to buy a treat and just as in real life they have to budget for it. They can only buy a treat if they have money left at the end and if they have bought all Items on their list. Life lessons teach reading, writing, and maths. Home schooling has taught me to look at things that we do in our lives and see the lessons that can be used everyday. We could sit in a room all day and do the text books, just like school but we are homeschooler's. This enables us to access so many new opportunities. Have a look around you look at what your kids like to do if it cooking they are still doing math's, science, English, health. If they like to use cook books look at different recipes from around the world tie it in to history and geography. Get the kids to choose a country discover what the nation foods are look at the plants and animals in those countries. I found this has helped my boys learn more about the world than just sitting and looking a text book and reading what the educators want them to know. As home school Mum's and Dad's we have the ability to let our kids question the world and not just accept what we are told. Embrace this life and education does evolve around us. Like many of you my boys have just started back to school for the year. This year took us a couple of weeks to fall into the routine of being back. When planning for this school year I looked at what curriculum was expected looked a some of the modules that were being taught for that year level and broke it down. When planning like that I found that it lead me on a million searches of many different things, so many in fact I got confused. The thing is how do you make it relevant. Map the thoughts in you head it helps to group and narrow down learning. Taking a deep breath I began to beak it down, looking a projects to keep it relevant to our lives. Technology was taken care of as the boys attend workshops for coding and animation. As this is an area they love how could I keep technology relevant in every subject we do. Keeping Relevance the result is we are keeping a digital journal of the year which will have all of our English report writing stories, really anything that could be written. Maths ,Geography, History Art and science projects could also be documented in this journal. The boys have asked for camera this year this cover Art great way to help document our year and add a bit of fun. By breaking it done into smaller paper journals such as a journal for the Zoo as we are learning about animals this year so that's science. Tracking the weather every day this is science, maths, geography. We have a travel journal to document Museum visits, nation park visits, any special days we may do along the way. This year we are on a geocaching journey this is Incorporates geography maths (mapping) in our journals we will document terrain climate, as well noting environmental aspects of our search. My Goal was to plan all of the activities around involving as many subjects as I could. We still are doing the relevant maths and English i.e times tables, spelling but we have incorporated sites such as Spelling city and maths apps. By using games the boys do not even know that they are learning. Screen prints keep track for reporting. Some work books are used for maths and English but this year i am at the mercy of the internet, apps, and our computers to complete our tasks. As well as being out in the world many visits to the Zoo, museums and national parks. Even though I have only been dong this for a few weeks this year, the year is calmer less rushed and far better organised that it has been since we started home schooling. Looking at curriculum will over whelm even the best of us trying to cater for many levels of learning and trying to tie it all together keeping it real and relevant is the key. This keeps the children engaged and triggers curiosity to their learning. Many times my boys will go off topic I let them investigate let them take a journey to answer their question, there is always tomorrow...... always remember it is their time to learn we have already completed school we are here to guide and nurture the direction that they need to go. Last week I spoke about our journey of relevance. My boys just like many children their age they are completely addicted to Minecraft. This year in the spirit of their addiction I have found many Minecraft books for us to read. I have even planned one afternoon a week that they can en-devour to teach me skills of being a Minecrafter. I am not sure I will ever develop the same passion as they have. My children have not been passionate readers I have discovered that by reading to them that this passion has grown. What has really surprised me is how by just sitting with them on the lounge, or under a tree or at the beach and sitting huddled reading has change how they write. When our journey began writing would always bring the boys to tears which is more out off fear. They had not been shown how to set out a story, did not understand how the character determined how the story would evolve. Reading time was not just about me sitting and reading to them it was them talking about how parts of a book made them feel, we would discuss what it would be like to live in the places described in the book. By discussing the elements of the book I found that when it came time to write it was no longer a horrible experience but they are now imagining and dreaming of new worlds were wonderful things can happen. Reading time was not just me reading form books we would watch u-tube and listen to books being read by other people. You can get books on CD you can get books off Kindle. Buy mixing the formats added to the interest of our mornings. Also remember that your local library also has reading time every week this is also a good opportunity for them to discover books that they want to read. Ensure that they do independent reading each day as this will help develop their levels of reading and spelling. You do not have to spend an hour reading to get results some days we would only read for 20 minutes but it was long enough to start the boys questioning what the story was about. This down time was enjoyed by all especially me it helped me be more present and just gave me time to sit and be present with the boys. I found that by the end of the day when they had had enough of learning it was nice to sit and regroup and just read. The boys look forward to reading time it is really time to be calm relax with out the expectation of anything. This was our usual conversation about science last year
Austyn - " Mummy what is the point of this it does not work so why bother" Mummy - " Experiments do not always work that is why it is called an experiment" Austyn - "OK but it is not relevant to me so I do not see the point." Ever felt you have been told what you are trying to help your little ones learn to be a complete waste of time? I have to admit that every experiment we did in the past year felt random and did not seem to relate to anything. I have taken away from this is, that if our children are not engaged with the subject they will not want retain any relevant information or attain an interest in important facts. I read this year that learning was about creating the Ah Ha moments. If you can create this moment it will trigger investigation, creativity and learning. My Mission for 2016 is to start to generate this in my children. This year I took a look at what we are learning and what the boys like to learn. Came up with photography, computers, Visual learning. I then asked how can this be incorporated into say Science. 2016 will be the year we learn about animals. What does this have to do with the things they love. Well with a Zoo pass for the year each visit will involve photography, writing to document what they are seeing. Then to ensure that they can recount and process what they learn we are creating a magazine to document what we have seen. I found my children do not like to write but if they can type the amount of work they tend to generate is amazing. I have looked a incorporating as much of the digital world as I could. By using Google, Word, Publisher, Adobe formats we will be able to create a magazine to document not only our learning but will be a fantastic format to document our school year. How ever you choose to teach you child the biggest thing I have discovered in my journey is to listen to your child and help them to engage with learning and the world around them. Ever wondered how you could get to know what your kids think about what they are learning. Well that was my goal this year. We kept a mummy me journal. The boys had one each, they would write to me each day about something that they liked, did not like or did not understand. At the end of each week they gave it to me and i would write back. I found out many interesting facts about how they learn and especially how they did not learn. They were always excited to get it back to read the special message that I would write to them each week. It also gave me a chance to tell them how proud I was about something that they struggled with but achieved that week. I would also ask questions about how they wanted to change things. There were many things that I could invest more time in and there was many things that I have changed during the year. The changes were not always successful but I also learned how much they appreciated that I listened to them. Sometimes I did not have to change anything as they just needed me to have one on one time with them to explain what what they found confusing. I have to admit it was lovely to also learn how much they just wanted to tell me that they loved me. Sometime our kids just need another way to communicate, they did not have to talk about school all the time sometimes it was about something or someone we went to see. Sometimes they just would draw a picture. For two boys that hate to write they love this concept and it did also helped with their writing skills. The Journal also helped me identify the subjects they loved and things that they wanted to learn. For example they wanted to learn Italian. This is something I will do every year ....... well until think it is no longer cool to write to their mum. To be honest I hope they never get to big to write to their mum. Happy New Year bring on 2016! Time to make things relevant to learning...... It is finally time for me to start to share our home school journey. I have learned so much about my children in the last 2 years and it has amazed me how they learn and they now have a hunger for knowledge. You know thing have change in the house when your husband comes home from work and has to ask what have you done to the boys. This comment confused me for a minute but I listened the boys were quiet and happy. Which was not our house when they were going to main stream school every day my husband was greeted with yelling and screaming tears on all fronts. Many times he has said he should just go back to work as he was not coping with the mayhem in our house. Mark now loves to come home from work. Our first step in our journey was distance education. For me it was the answer at the time. It was great to establish learning routines. Gave me time to adjust to home schooling. Most of all I feel it gave me the best opportunity to work out and establish where the boys were in the realm of learning. I have to admit I knew that they were behind but I was shocked as to how far behind they were. I quickly realised that they had many sensory issues that interfered with their ability to learn. They both have different learning styles and learn at different speeds. This type of learning is clearly set out and opened my eyes to what they needed to meet curriculum requirements. Though it was not so structured that I could not investigate other options and add other things to their learning week. This year I introduced a mummy me diary to our weekly activities. In the Diary they wrote what they liked about anything that they like. this encouraged them to write. This book has also given the boys the opportunity to tell me things that they liked doing during the week and things they struggled with. I told them they can write anything at all as mummy would never get upset about what they needed to tell me. What a valuable book it became. I wrote back to them weekly asking questions about how I can do things better and with this the way they were learning changed. It was also great to find out that there were many thing I had gotten right. We learn every day and adjust were needed the mummy me diary will be a keeper in our house. This year we are doing school through the Home Education Unit (HEU). Big step for us. I was very nervous to start, after a short call to the HUE I discovered that I can access other curriculum and have the flexibility to change how we learn even more. The boys are very technology driven and love to discover hands on. We can incorporate a lot more hands on learning even photography. The boys are excited to be continuing their schooling at home and never want to go back to mainstream school. Most important thing to remember is we finally have our family back and we are all happy and enjoying life. |
AuthorI am a home school mum and wife. Our house is filled with laughter from two wonderful boys . We have been home schooling for two years. I am loving knowing that the boys are getting a better education at home than what they could at mainstream school. Homeschooling is also fun for me I have learned so much now it is time to share. Archives
January 2019
Categories |