Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

Tina Robertson

Homeschool Link Up Party – Homeschooling Middle & High School Years. Finishing Strong begins Wednesday March 5

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I am so excited to tell you about a new homeschool link up party that I will be co-hosting, called Finishing Strong.  Whether you are a homeschool blogger or homeschooling middle school or high school kids, you will want to visit my page each Wednesday to grab some encouragement.  If you are a mom that has only young children, you will want to follow the link up too so that you can find tips on what to avoid during those years and ideas of how to incorporate fun during that time.  There will be something for everybody.

Homeschool Link Up Party – Finishing Strong

I think this niche or grades in our homeschool journey is one that gets overlooked.  There are tons of preschool and kindergarten helps and resources, but those grades are such a short time compared to the rest of our homeschool journey.

Finishing Strong Link Up Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

If you are a homeschool blogger, your post will be hosted on 7 different blogs.  Yippee!

Homeschool Link Up Party Finishing Strong Homeschooling the Middle & High School Years Every Wednesday, we invite you to share your posts that focus on educating these higher grades. We’re looking for curriculum ideas, unique learning approaches, encouragement, and more.   Really, any post that focuses on homeschooling middle & high school students.

Homeschooling an older child is different from the younger years and presents its own unique needs.   Sure it can be challenging and sometimes lonely, but it’s not impossible, especially with support.   Our hope is that the Homeschooling the Middle School & High School Year Finishing Strong link up gives families the ideas and encouragement they need to continue schooling their children at home.

Homeschool Link Up- Finishing Strong Fabulous Co-hosts.

The link up will be live on all co-host’s sites and each week these ladies will be choosing their favorite posts to highlight.

Are you ready for this? Did you mark your calendars?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Free Homeschool Planner Cover– Point Well Taken

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, we are learning about the geography of France by creating a solar oven. And look at my page Free Quick France Unit Study and Make Easy French Bread for more ideas.

We want to add in a bit of geography by exploring about France. And we had read in our atlas how France will be providing the United Kingdom with enough electricity to power one light bulb in every home. 

This lead to our discussion of the world’s problem of energy consumption. Too, we learned how the sun is an unfailing source of energy.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

The only way to test out the power of the sun is to bake chocolate chip cookies of course.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Creating a Solar Oven

What you need:

  • 2 pizza boxes, one small, one large
  • craft knife
  • newspaper or polystyrene foam
  • non-toxic black paint, but we used black paper
  • non-toxic glue
  • aluminum foil and clear plastic sheeting to cover the larger pizza box
  • string, sun glasses, tape, a marker and either a single hole puncher or way to make a small hole. We used our ice pick.
  • chocolate chip cookie dough or make your own

Place the small pizza box on top of the larger pizza box with one side touching. 

Using the marker, draw an outline on top of the larger pizza box. You will be cutting on that line.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Cut on the line with your sharp craft knife. Don’t cut all the way through.  Basically you will be creating a lid on the bigger box when you cut on the line.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Then next we lined the inside of the bigger box with aluminum foil. And we stuffed newspaper or if you have polystyrene to fill the space on the outside edges. 

Soar Oven. Learn About the Geography of France by Creating a Solar Oven

We did our best in wadding the paper up small. This way it fits snugly all the way around the inside edges.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Next, we worked on the small pizza box. 

Instead of using non-toxic black paint to paint the bottom of the small box because we only had acrylic paint. And I don’t think it’s so non-toxic (you certainly could make your own natural paint too), we used black construction paper to put on the bottom inside box.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Then, we placed the small pizza box with black construction paper and put it inside the larger box. 

You see from the picture above, we have two lids as well.  

Be sure the lids from each box are next to each other and not both on the same side. You will be using the lids to grab the sun and form a “corner”.   

After that, we got more newspaper and wadded it up real good and stuffed more down in the crevice between the larger and smaller box just to be sure we had it insulated real well.

Learn About the Geography of France

By the way, we used plain old Elmer’s glue (non-toxic) to hold the black construction paper in place on the small box. 

Also glue black paper or use your non-toxic black paint to paint the outside edges of the bigger box too.  This helps to hold the heat in.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

As you can see in the picture above we have added our black construction paper to the outside bigger box.  T

he next thing we did was to line the inside smaller box and lid and the lid of the bigger box with aluminum foil. 

I wish we would have known earlier too, but try to keep the aluminum foil as wrinkle free as possible so it reflects light into the box and it is not bouncing.

Almost done!

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

The next thing now to do is to make a small hole at the top of both lids, wide enough for your string to go through. 

You want the lids to stand up and form that “corner” I mentioned earlier. 

Just tape the string on the back of the box after you pull it tight to keep the lids up.Make A Solar Oven 8

The final touch is to add some chocolatey goodness to your solar oven and you’re ready to bake!

One more thing, be sure to cover the cookies with some plastic wrap.  Seal it tight because you want to hold the heat in.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Using his sunglasses so the sun and reflection from the foil doesn’t hurt his eyes, Tiny adjusted the oven for best exposure, and we waited, waited and waited.

Doing this in the winter, we didn’t have real strong sunlight the whole day and the mornings were cool.  But even with those factors, we were pretty happy with the results after a few hours.

More French Revolution Activities and Learning About France

It could take anywhere from 30 minutes to hours before you see progress depending on weather factors.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

And then presto! Tiny was pleased. 

Our cookies took several hours to cook, (tip: don’t let your kids know, but try to keep them small so they will bake faster) but then again it probably didn’t help that Tiny had to check on them about 300 times and with a magnifying glass to speed up the process.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

It was a great way to spend the day waiting and anticipating chocolate chip cookies!

And oh yes, talking about the culture of France too!

Beware of the 3 C’s of Lapbooking

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Would you believe me if I told you after creating more than 30+ lapbooks with my children {I have lost track} that using lapbooks in our homeschool seemed like a turn off to us when we started homeschooling?

Today, using lapbooks as enrichment in our every day unit studies have kept them a delight and not overwhelming our day.  My journey did not start off that way. 

Beware of the 3 C's of Lapbooking

I made three basic mistakes when I initially folded in (corny pun I know) lapbooks into our day.

If you are the non-crafty person and have been avoiding creating a lapbook  with your kids, hopefully steering you clear of my mistakes will nudge you to try one or two.

I had to have an attitude adjustment first and I have to confess about it now.

  I knew that my kids were not the crafty loving (or so I thought) type of kids and I knew lapbooks were for those “other” homeschoolers.  You know the ones who pine to do crafts all day.

Interactive Tool or Time Waster Tool?

I just knew that lapbooks were more about crafts than conscientious and diligent learning. 

Because crafts are at the opposite end of my personality style or I should say as I understood crafts to be at the time, I missed out on several years of creating lapbooks with my older son.

Fast forward about five years after that thinking, my teaching methods were boring and blah. 

I knew worksheets didn’t take long for my children to do (I admit it, I was bad because that is all we did) and they took even less time for my children to forget about them.

Moving out of my comfort zone and wanting our homeschool journey to be a memorable one, I knew the hands-on element was missing in our every day learning. 

I wanted to capture that element of learning for my sons and gradually did more research on lapbooks.

Slowly, I started to see that the greatest benefit to my children about lapbooks is that they are a fantastic interactive learning tool. 

The interactive part to opening/closing the minibooks, turning the circle minibook and folding/unfolding to read information is much like— well— the learning that is done in museums.

Why did we prefer a day at the museum over doing a worksheet? 

Museums are a fun place to visit not because you look forward to doing a worksheet when you get there. 

Learning can be done informally and at your child’s pace while he presses buttons for information to light up, turns a wheel for more information, listens to the information and otherwise follows along to see the exhibits and read the information. 

Even adults still like this part of a museum. 

We never out grow a museum.

Beware of over Crafting!

Lapbooks are like a mini museum in a file folder.  Redefining my meaning of crafts, I first tried several months of crafts or I should say over crafting. 

I almost gave up because I tried to be something I was not and my boys weren’t having fun either.

When we would rather read something from a book than glue a bean on a paper, I knew I went too far the other way in trying to incorporate crafts.

Beware of Coloring!

That wasn’t the only mistake I made.  I remember when my sister who has all girls would meet up with us to school together when our kids were preschool.

Lapbooking Can Be for the Non Crafty Kid and Mom too!

Her girls would sit so patiently and sweetly as they couldn’t wait to color, doodle and create.  My boys ran from coloring and were outside using tree branches for swords on each other. 

Both my sister and I had a lot to learn as new teachers because we both thought the other family had something “wrong” with their kids.

Because I know boys learned differently and needed to strengthen their fine motor skills, I realized coloring was just one way to do it, not the only way.

As I created lapbooks, I understood the way my boys learned. 

For my sons the fun is not necessarily in coloring pictures so I added more and more pictures or clip art already colored to my lapbooks.

They could focus on learning the content, folding the books, and if they wanted to, they could do something crafty for the outside file folder flap. 

Still to this day, I add in color pictures and coloring pages so if the mood strikes they can choose either option or a combination of both. 

I didn’t restrain their creativity, but gave them options when they didn’t want to be.

Beware of Cutting!

I had already made two mistakes and this last mistake which was throwing a gazillion pages at my kids to cut actually did make us move away from lapbooking for a few months.  

In doing school, I had to remember I wasn’t teaching scissor skills necessarily.

minibooks - emphasize the writing and not the scissor cutting

There is nothing about cutting out minibooks that inspired my children to want to do another lapbook.  Quite the opposite, they wanted to run from it and I did too.

Realizing that I was not teaching my sons how to cut when we did lapbooks, I did a majority of the cutting for my sons in the early grades. 

What a breath of fresh air as we sat down to start the next lapbook because most of the pages were cut.

This is perfectly okay to do.  Just like any teacher would prepare flashcards or some other hands-on manipulative for her classroom, this was the part I did as a teacher for them.

 Even as they got older, I still help with cutting out the minibooks.

Focusing on my family, I redefined the meaning of crafts in our home.  Crafting now in my mind equates with hands-on and it can be virtually anything that your children enjoy doing. 

  It really is that easy and I had to understand that sometimes the house doesn’t always have to be a mess to enjoy them.

Today, my mind races with hands-on ideas, but I always weigh them against what my sons will really find delight doing and weigh the value of it against the concept I want them to learn.

Whether you have kids who desire to do crafts all day or run from them, you can still lapbook.  Adjusting lapbooking to work for your family is key to savoring them.

I certainly don’t consider myself a true lapbooker if there is such a thing.  Why?  Because the crafts, cutting and coloring are not reasons we weave them in our day.  While maintaining a hint of my classical roots while we do a fun hands-on easy lapbook, I have found a way to not miss out on something that brings learning alive for us.

It doesn’t have to be either or when you choose an approach to homeschooling, it just has to be good for your family.

Do you want to give lapbooks a try? Try one or two easy ones.

I have made it easy for you, I have divided  up my lapbooks by history time period or science topic.

Pssst..They are ALL free too!

Hugs and love ya,

French Revolution Lapbook–Minibooks

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Start out a unit study or lapbook with something hands-on instead of something that could be boring.  Necessary background information on your topic or even studying dates can come after you introduce something engaging.

I want my kids to learn those necessary facts of a topic like the French Revolution, but starting them out on things like the causes of the French Revolution or talking about the 3 Estates of French society may put them to sleep.  It may put me to sleep too.

Hands-on Learning First

Make learning palatable by deciding the order you want to present printables and for most kids its normally after you have presented something that hooks them on the topic.  It doesn’t have to be a hands-on project.  When we started our FBI unit study we popped popcorn and watched a documentary on netflix to kick off our unit study.

That is why I delay some of the printables for the lapbook.  So now my kids have had time to play a game about the French Revolution and make something sweet tasting like chocolate sandwiches.  It just makes the formal part of learning a little more pleasant.

French Revolution Lapbook

Today, I have minibooks 4 and 5 for you.  The above picture shows you where we are starting to place our minibooks.  Of course you can place them the same way or use part of our minibooks and others you find.  But my books are pretty easy and I like it that way since we do lapbooks for enrichment.

French Revolution Lapbook

Also, sometimes we add recipes that we did to our lapbook, but Tiny hasn’t decided yet if he wants to add them.  Even if you do add it later, you simply rearrange the minibooks.

French Revolution Lapbook. Label the three estates

Book 4 is an open face book to label the 3 Estates.  Class distinctions was one of the problems of the French Revolution.  The largest class was the common folks and most of them didn’t have the necessities of life, like bread.  So we looked up some scriptures about partiality in the Bible and discussed some about equality for all man.

Download Label the Three Estates minibook here.

Book 5 is a small layered book about the causes of the French Revolution.  You could add several more causes for the French Revolution than the 3 easy ones I included in this minibook.  The French Revolution is certainly a high school topic but chisel it down to make it an elementary or middle school topic like I have done here.  It certainly is easier to tweak it down for an age, than it is at times to flesh it out for a highschooler.

Causes of the French Revolution Causes of the French Revolution Minibook

Download layered book Causes of the French Revolution here.

We have at least one more hands-on project we did while on this topic and then the next minibooks to complete this topic will come.

Hugs and love ya,

Tina Robertson Blog

If you missed it:

Grab Book 1 Beethoven & The French Revolution? Minibook

Grab Book 2 French Revolution Unit Study + Beheaded. The Guillotine Mini Book

Grab Book 3 Free Printable Minibook–Timeline of Events Leading Up to the French Revolution

 

Homeschool High School Readiness?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschool high school readiness?  What is that?  Many years ago I read an article that said children are going to school longer and are learning less each year. That thought has resonated with me during my year of homeschooling.

So from the time my sons were young, I have used both online informal testing and formal testing to determine not only what I think they should know, but to determine their state of readiness for ALL grades.

Homeschool High School Readiness

We hear the term readiness associated with preschoolers entering formal schooling. Rightly so researchers put so much emphasis on a baby’s development, preparation or readiness, and a parent’s influence on their toddler.

However, readiness is more critical at the high school age when our children are getting ready to take on more responsibility beyond just academics.

So just what is readiness? How concerned with it should we be as we homeschool during the high school years?

Readiness is defined as preparation for what comes next.  Breaking this down further, it is not just about how  academically prepared they are to take on high school level work, but it is also about the level of maturity in their social and emotional development.

What I have learned from homeschooling one son through high school and having my second son in high school now is that readiness means that signs are present that they are ready to take on a high school course load. 

And homeschooling has advantages because sometimes it means they are ready earlier than high school for a high school load and may even show readiness for college courses too. 

You certainly do not have to wait until high school to start high school courses and you can also delay formal high school work for another year.

What it does not mean is that the year they become a freshman something short of a miracle happens and they have suddenly gained some maturity or advanced insight. It also doesn’t mean they have instant mature decision making ability, but can still be unsure about their goals including career choices and college.

I have one son who was ready for high school level courses or the academics earlier in junior high and another one who is not ready for a larger academic load until his Junior year in high school. 

Start looking for high school readiness signs early so you can determine when you begin. You do not have to wait until the formal high school years to begin with high school.

Also, there are advantages to waiting for a heavy course load until later in high school when they are ready and will move along quicker making up for a slower start to high school. 

Looking back, it is just as important to look for those tell-tale signs to begin high school as it was when I started formal kindergarten with them.

High School – Ready or Not?

Homeschool High School Readiness - 5 signs to look for in your teen's development. Check it out at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Below are 5 signs that helped me to determine when both of my sons were ready for high school level work regardless of when they actually started.

  • One son demonstrated not only an interest in academics, but a desire to move ahead in more rigorous subjects.  The other demonstrated a need to have them done or a goal to completing academics.  I have sons with two different personalities, but both sons realized this is their future and wanted to complete their goals. They now have intrinsic motivation to complete their goals.
  • Both sons were motivated on their own to begin their school day {this actually can happen quite young}, but the difference now was that they study at times of their own choosing that were not our regular school hours.  This comes from knowing that a goal is in sight and it now becomes their goal too.  It’s like having a true partnership with them in their education.  Teens can be a bit obsessive or is that motivated about everything they do from visiting with their friends, to working out to studying.  That same inspiration is now channeled to their future.  So yes they may be ready younger academically or ahead of their peers academically, but there is a certain maturity in reasoning that starts to appear too.
  • One of my sons started researching opportunities to be more involved in the community. This goes straight to the issue of wanting to interact with people and it demonstrates a maturity of understanding social issues.  My other son is more shy, but our private conversations demonstrated not only an awareness of social issues, but a maturity realizing that people make choices we can’t control.
  • Both sons argued with me {yep comes with the territory and you have to be padded with kindness and gentleness} over the curriculum I had selected.  Again, the I-am-not-sitting-back-and-letting-mom choose my curriculum marked another significant trait.  Like starting their day on their own, some children can reach this milestone early too.  The big difference demonstrating high school readiness is that it’s almost like your discussing with another adult why something would be beneficial for them.  It’s very different than explaining to a young child the benefits of why you chose a certain curriculum.
  • One son began to use an organizational system that suited him and sometimes that included using my curriculum planner after his student planner.  His system grew more advanced as he was cognizant of deadlines and I had to help him with a hanging file folder system that he much more preferred over my system.  My other son struggles in organizational areas, but has his own reasons for meeting deadlines like wanting to be completed with school.  He uses his phone as part of his organizational system.  Both of them have good systems, they are just different.

Transitioning from Teen to Young Adult

I know I mentioned it earlier, but it really bears repeating when understanding this age and that is regardless of how they look {it’s almost like two grown men have moved in with me and my husband} and act mature at lot of the times, they are still changing from childhood to adulthood.

Noticing a few of these readiness skills for high school and adulthood has helped me to avoid some of the arguments in my house. 

Completely avoiding arguments is not even realistic and we have had our fair share of them.

Remember that your teen is in transition to adulthood and he will alternate back to childish behavior. 

Keeping that in mind every day has helped me to keep those ugly blow ups to minimal.  In the best calm voice I can have when I feel my worse, I tell them we can discuss this at a later time.  I try not to resort back to treating them childish, but try to use adult to adult tactics with them.

Looking at the positive, if your teen never questioned you about decisions, then will he accept what anybody that comes along in his life tells him without question? 

Teens are honing their decision making ability and trying it out on you first.  I am glad my teens question my decisions because they will not be so easily convicted when something goes against the values they have learned in our family.

I wish I could completely conquer the desire to want to lash out at both of them, but realizing that I don’t want to get caught up in any childish arguments does help.

As you can see, high school readiness is not just about academics, but it is about the exciting time when your teen stands on the threshold of adulthood.

Homeschool High School Readiness - 5 signs to look for in your teen's development. Check it out at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Embrace that thrilling time while you look for signs of high school readiness. 

And remember though your teen may not say it or act like it, your guidance is more essential than ever as they seek to find their way through the challenges of entering adulthood.

Also, you’l love these other tips: