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5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

October 10, 2013 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have day 4 embrace homeschooling multiple grades. Also, grab more ideas on my page How to Homeschool.

Would you think I was insane if I told you that the word excited is a pretty poor adjective to describe how I really feel about homeschooling my children together?

I promise I have no “keep me on a homeschooling high” vitamin, but I feel at times that the unequaled joy and sheer satisfaction of seeing the blessing of your hard work gets overshadowed by the process.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Because homeschooling multiple children can be hard work, I think about this quote; something worth having or in our case worth doing is worth waiting for.

It reminds me of labor in a way (sorry guys I have to go there today). There is a reason it is called labor regardless of how long you were actually laboring.

For me, none of my sons were born easy or in a few short hours.

The Mr. and I spent more time reading books about the how to process and taking all those breathing classes and relaxation classes than we did visualizing what the actual moment was going to feel like when we held our firstborn in our arms.

As I share these tips today and on Day 5 on the how to of homeschooling multiple grades, I want you to “go there” and spend time imagining what you want from the end of your journey for each of your children.

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard.

One of the most common mistakes or misunderstandings about teaching multiple grades is thinking that we have to sit all of our kids down together in front of us and teach them at the same time.

While it’s easier to do this when they are very young, it gets harder to do as they get older.

An insider’s tip to teaching multiple grades is to remember that you are teaching multiple lesson plans on one topic.

A big difference.

So this means you have to know when to teach together at the same time and know when to teach separately.

Your time as the teacher is better spent because you are studying, focusing or gathering facts and resources for one topic, i.e: American Civil War, Inventions or Authors, but creating multiple lesson plans for each grade. Do you see the difference?

Can you see where you may become an expert along with your children on a topic because you have spanned several grade levels teaching one theme?

Give yourself some credit because a public school teacher may only teach one to maybe 3 grades during his or her career, but NOT you.

Master the School Subjects

When helping new and some not so new homeschoolers, I see scrolling huge lists of subjects they want to cover.

I am going to tell you about how to master the school subjects when teaching children together and some tips on how to know when to teach at the same time and when not to.

But before I can do that you need to understand how to categorize school subjects.

Math	Language Arts	Bible	Everything Else
	Grammar		History
	Reading		Science
	Writing		Art
	Spelling

Above is the secret formula. EVERYTHING you want to teach should fit into one of these general categories on this list.

Math and language arts are considered skill subjects and this means that its very important to understand how you teach these subjects or rather how you build on each concept.

For example, along with reading to your child, it is important to teach phonics. It is hard to learn to spell unless you have a systematic way of teaching phonemic awareness which is a fancy way of saying that your child needs to associate letters with sounds.

Too, do you skip right to algebra without learning addition? Teaching these subjects in a systematic order will avoid some of the gaps we all fear.

Content subjects like history or science won’t hamper your child’s future reading ability if he understands the parts of a cell in 5th or 7th grade.

It doesn’t matter if he covers the American Civil War in 6th grade or 9th grade. Content subjects don’t really need grade levels. You just cover them to your child’s delight and interest.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Grade levels were assigned back in the day to equal work load and the depth of information to cover. Unless, it’s high school, you can cover as lightly or as in-depth as you want to.

Even in high school you have some leeway but that is another topic we can talk about later.

I have added in Bible too because most of us are homeschooling for Bible based reasons and it is part of our critical foundation so it deserves a separate column.

Now, take ALL of your resources and fit them into one of the columns. I have made it easy for you.

I have created a form for what I visualize in my mind when organizing subjects.

Like the track your week form, this too is a working form. In other words, it is a way of seeing all of your curriculum resources that you have or want to use, what it covers and what subject area it falls under.

You can’t embrace homeschooling multiple children when covering all of the subjects may be a fog.

Here is a sample of how to fill it out. Just add ALL of your resources, and pencil in your child’s name if you want to and check the box that applies to that subject.

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Now, how to grab the free form. This is a subscriber freebie.

Just follow the steps below.

1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie now.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

Let’s look realistically at how to do this. If you are not sure where a subject goes, give me a holler because ALL of the subjects fit into these categories.

You know me, I always give you time to mull over my blog posts so take your time.

Switching subjects on you, I will be thinking about you this weekend but we are expecting family from out of town for our Texas Hoe Down Graduation. Even though we had to wait until now to celebrate, it is so much more special since the Mr. is feeling back to his old self.

Here is a quote I am inspired by today as I am thinking about the process of refining how to teach our children.

“You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures.”

~ Charles C. Noble ~

Hugs and you know I love ya,

Read the other posts in this series:

Homeschool Memorization Planning & Tracking Form

October 8, 2013 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’ve been bad, real bad. I have been off playing. It finally arrived. We got some fall weather, even if it is only for 2 days. Okay, well I have been doing a bit more than that and its almost time to let you in on the secret I have been holding in too. I won’t make you wait much longer. Don’t hate me, but its coming soon.

One BIG thing happening this week that I have been holding in and that has me so OVER the top that I am not sure if I can sit still long enough to tell you is that FINALLY I get to have the graduation party for Mr. Senior 2013. Because I am not a whiner and always, always prefer to focus on the positive I can tell you now that my summer was a bit more emotional than I let on. I kept thinking anytime now we could have what I planned for so long, but it just didn’t happen. Oh sure, he graduated because he finished the credits that I had planned, but the hubby was so sick in the hospital and no one felt like a party. Other things were more important in May and June.

The heart problems with the Mr. came back to haunt us and everything was put on hold. It’s just so hard to look at hubby (I know I say this all the time, but the guy looks great) and think he is a heart patient at such a young age, but we are fighting genetics. Its like trying to change the color of your eyes. He knows he will have problems, but you just do the best you can.

Too, I am not just saying this but don’t you think that our homeschool kids are just the best sometimes? Sure we have problems with rebellion attitude and oh yes they are trying to find their adult voice, but every minute spent with my teens have been precious.

Mr. Senior 2013 just stepped in and stepped up as he is helping us to run the business at the moment. I always thought he would sprout his wings and flutter and he has, but on line college has been a real life saver now as we continue to need him. Maybe because of how hard it has been this past summer, it really has me counting my blessings.

Besides, who else besides us doesn’t think its weird to have a graduation party in fall?

I promise to share all the pictures and ideas after we finish celebrating this week.

Homeschool Memorization Tracking & Planning

Before I get too off track, I wanted to share this form that I have been working on also. I finally, I think anyway, have it perfect to my liking. You know I don’t release a new form even if it means taking longer because I like to use them for a while and then change them if needed.

I did end up changing this one a bit as I went back to look at some of my lesson planning pages to see what else I wanted to add. At the top under Types of Memorization, I forgot about music, so I added that too. I went ahead and changed V = verses to B for Bible because this is more broad and can cover anything we want our children to memorize about the Bible.

I know P = Poetry is language arts but the reason I made it separate is because poetry is a major reason a lot of use memorization. L = Language Arts/Grammar is a broad category too because it can cover any types of list from foreign language to helping verbs to memorize for grammar. Keeping this area at the top a bit uncluttered and the categories broad will keep our form clean looking.

Also, I went ahead and made this both a tracking and planning form. You know I have said before planning pages ore different than tracking pages at times. So you have room to pen in the date, and check off the weeks you worked on a particular list or passage and then a place to categorize the type of memorization work done. So plan and track from this one page. It has 20 lines so that is 20 weeks of school if you are having them memorize one list or passage a week which is a good pace. But use it how you like it if you have more memorization lists you want to include as I kept the form flexible.

New Download here Memorization Planning and Tracking Form

I hope you love it, I am already loving it!

Hugs and you know I love ya,

How to Memorize the Countries of South America & Mountain Climate Zones Minibooks

October 3, 2013 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I went ahead and started planning and arranging the minibooks, that we have so far, on a file folder for our South America Unit Study. Remember these can be glued notebook style too. Nothing babyish about lapbooking or notebooking.

We still don’t glue them in our file folder at this point, this is just a visual so I know where else to place the upcoming minibooks too. We are up to 4 now.

Today, I have minibooks 3 and 4 for you.

Minibook 3 is Comparing Mountain Climate Zones. It is a book I prepared because I wanted us to focus on the climate of the Andes Mountain and compare them for our geography niche on this.

Near the equator the climate at the lowest elevation is tropical. If you were to climb midway up the mountains, you would find a more mild climate and then again at 15,000 feet you would find extremely low temperatures and icy winds.

Facts to Learn About South America

Notice on the book, the cover has 4 different colors so this is a visual to match the accordion fold minibook so that your child understands about each zone. The top part or light purple is the Tierra Helada and the light green is Tierra Fria and etc.

So here are the facts for using in the minibook. I probably should do an answer key to go with the book, but this information really finds it way to my website. So I just add it here for you in case you and the kids want to go ahead and do it.

Frozen Land or Tierra Helada .

Above 10,000 feet
Place for livestock like llamas and sheep

Cold Land or Tierra Fria

6,000 – 10,000 feet
Place for crops: Wheat, apples, potatoes and barley

Temperate Land or Tierra Templada

3,000 – 6,000 feet
Place for crops: corn, cotton, coffee and citrus fruits

Hot Land or Tierra Caliente

Sea Level – 3,000 feet
Place for crops: bananas, cacao, sugar cane and rice.

How to Remember the Countries of South America

Minibook 4 is a book that uses a mnemonic saying to remember the 12 countries and the one 1 French territory. Give me something that doesn’t make sense anytime to remember and that is what I will remember.

Too, help your child to understand that French Guiana is a territory like a state is here to us in the United States. If you don’t live here, then use one of your local provinces to describe a dependent area so they understand that it is not a country.

This came from a neat website called Memorize the World. Here is how it goes: The Biggest Country (Brazil). Arnie Takes his mom Tina to eat Chile. (Argentina and Chile). Cool Vegetable Guy Studies French (Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana). Every Person Boils Purple Unicorns. (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivar, Paraguay and Uruguay.) That’s it.

Project and Study Ideas for South America

To flesh out this unit some more, here are more ideas for each subject. There is NO shortage of content or ideas to spur your sparks of creativity. Unit studies have this affect on us.

How to Memorize the Countries of South America & Mountain Climate Zones Minibooks

Nazca Lines – The Monkey

Nazca Lines – The Dog (Pic Attribution)

History

Nazca is the name of the culture that flourished in Peru and also the name of the mysterious lines they created in the Peruvian deserts. These lines, carved into the desert rocks depict huge animals and geometric shapes. No one is really certain about what they mean.

Also, compare and contrast Inca society to Spanish colonial society.

Science

Research the Galapagos Islands and the animals unique to that region.

Math

Why did Ecuador change its currency from sucres to dollars? Also understand some about the metric system since its used there.

Geography

1. Create a travel brochure and map to show what journey you would take if you visited South America. Compare and contrast animals and plants living in the different mountain zones.

2. Also list some of the famous places like Machu Picchu in Peru. Indians build that walled city and for hundreds of years it was hidden from the rest of the world.

3. Famous places. People go to see the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia and there are emerald mines nearby too.

4. Quito is one of the highest cities in the world and it in Ecuador. It sits on the side of a volcano and is the oldest capital city in South America.

5. Make a map of South America and focus on the major regions: Andes, Amazon Basin, Guiana Highlands, Orinoco Basin, Rio de la Plata Complex, Brazilian Plateau, Pampas, Patagonia, Llanos, Pantanal, Wet Coast Flatlands, Southern Chile coast and color each a different color or make it different colors using salt dough.

Art

Find examples of the art of Manuel Rendon, Eduardo Kingman and Juan Agustin Guerrero.

Music

Research flutes played by native people from Ecuador. Listen to or watch an Argentinean tango, a Brazilian samba and a Colombia cumbia.

Did I tell you that I grew up dancing the cumbia? BELIEVE me, coordination and grace are not at the top of my skill set, but this dance is so easy and fun.

Look at a few of these videos. I love the first one because you can actually hear the music and watch the partner steps and the second one shows basic steps with no music.

Food

Make Fried Plantain

Colombians often eat plantains in place of potatoes.

(Cesar Vellejo)

Language/Language Arts

1. Cesar Vallego (1892-1938) one of the greatest twentieth century poets focused on poverty and injustice. Study his poems and his life.

2. Learn some Spanish

si = yes

por favor = please

gracias – thank you

de nada – you’re welcome

buenos dias = good morning

adios = good – bye

ayer = yesterday

hoy = today

manana = tomorrow

Como esta usted? = How are you?

muy bien = very well

Donde esta…..? = Where is…?

(quipu. Pic. Attribution)

3. Do some Inca Writing. Find a picture of a quipu, the knotted cotton cords of different lengths and colors with which Incas kept records. Using thick yarn, try to imitate the pattern.

I think we need some vocabulary words and we are going to focus next on some of the animals of the Galapagos.

South America Printable Minibooks

Also, look at these minibooks which come in the free South America lapbook 27 page download.

Animals of the Galapagos fan book which includes the Giant Tortoise, Lava Lizard, Marine Iguana, Green Turtle, Galapagos Penguins, Magnificent Frigate Bird, Blue-Footed Booby, and Blue-Banded Goby.
Comparing Mountain Climate Zones
Simon Bolivar Copywork
Map of South America to label and one labeled
Machu Picchu – Lost City of the Inca
Negrinho – A dessert from Brazil
How to Memorize the Countries of South America and Dependent
Map Flags to put on your salt dough map
2 – The Galapagos Island layered book. One prefilled with facts and one blank to add your own information.
Vocabulary Pocket and Vocabulary Words

More South America Unit Study Resources

How to Get the Free South America Printable Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

That means when you sign up to follow me, you get access to my subscribers library and this freebie.

However, not all my freebies are in the library (wink).

I like to keep up to date with what is valuable to you so I can give you more, some freebies you must sign up again on the form below even if you are already a follower.

And it’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.

► 1) Sign up on my list.
► 2) Go to your inbox and confirm your email from the automatic reply I sent you. If you’re already a confirmed subscriber, you will not have to do this. You’ll receive the freebie instantly.
►3) Last step. look for my reply AFTER you’ve confirmed your email.

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 3: Challenges of Teaching Kids Together

October 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have teaching kids together tips.

I would love to craft each blog post so that you come away more energized than the previous one, but there are times I have to tell it like it is when it comes to homeschooling.

I guess thinking about it though, saving you stress and plain downright frustration is a way of breathing life into your day.

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

The challenges of teaching kids together is not imaginary and it does have its drawbacks. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of homeschooling, any approach will have a negative.

There is simply NOT ONE approach that will fit every family perfectly.

Too, sometimes we just don’t have a lot of wiggle room to experiment with new approaches because of the age of our children, our limited time for a learning curve on a new approach and our age. (okay, okay maybe not our age unless you feel really old. Not me.)

Knowledge is power in understanding the downside to teaching multiple children so that we avoid wasted time and for goodness sake ALL that energy it takes as both a teacher and a child.

Here are the things that we need to be on guard for when we are homeschooling our children together.

It is not easy to accommodate ALL your children’s learning styles.

It is a known fact that among homeschoolers we have a lot of gifted children and this is not something just perceived by us as parents.

For me, taking Mr. Senior 2013 out of school was partly due to the fact that he was so above grade level academically than his peers.

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

Too, though we also have children that may seem delayed to the public school standards. Along came wonderful Mr. Awesome who just did not race to learning academically.

He was more comfortable doing hands-on things as he learned. He was just way more wiggly than Mr. Senior 2013 so I had to adjust my view of what is normal because by all rights he is brilliant using a different part of his brain.

Preschoolers and Toddlers Unite in their Mayhem.

It’s true or at least it seems like they unite in their efforts to sabotage your day with all your beautiful lesson plans written out so nicely. For being the sweetest and the littlest things in the house, they wield such power.

It gets quite the juggling act and your day may look more like a three ring circus as you try to manage the older children while keeping one eye on the toddler turmoil.

The young child may get out shined by the older child.

Because of the fact they are working together or side by side in some cases, a younger child may compare his work to his older sibling. Right away, he sees that his penmanship, drawing skills or art skills are different. As moms, we accept this and are so proud of all of our children’s work.

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

But, for younger children it can start to affect their confidence and sadly some withdraw emotionally.

They are always trying to measure up to some standard that you have not set, but have you unintentionally? Yikes. I made this mistake and I had tears (my tears) before I figured it out.

Now that we covered some of these things to earmark and watch for, how can we overcome some of those challenges? I will share some tips on Day 4.

Have you noticed any of these things creeping up in your school day repeatedly?

Read the other posts in this series:

Safe Email for Kids – Can you be too Protective?

September 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Like us, kids enjoy connecting with each other. So when I heard about Kids Email last year I was thrilled to use it. I was told about the trial period and one thing I knew that I absolutely loved right away about the way they do business was the fact that I did not have to give out ONE piece of personal information.

What I Heart About Safe Email for Kids

A lot of sites make you fill out every piece of personal information about yourself, including your charge card before you get to test drive any of the fancy features. Not so with Kids Email. They are so proud and sure of their product that you don’t have to give out ONE piece of information and that includes your billing information before you get to use it.

That appealed to me right away and then that is not even the best part about their service. It truly is very unique which is why I am proud to have them as a sponsor.

I saved some pictures when I set up Tiny’s personal and unique email so I could show you.

Isn’t that a cool sign in area? I can tell you Tiny was a lot more excited than I thought he would be when I finally set up his personal email.

Some of the things that Tiny enjoys besides having his own personalized email of course is how kid friendly it is.

The window is big and there are not a lot of complicated buttons and ways for him to get in trouble because there is no outside links on the pages.

I have to mention the “settings” button is just way too cute from a technical point of view. When he clicks it, the only setting he has is choosing a background. But he was way into it like he was really managing a high tech device. I got a good silent chuckle. It is absolutely a sweet way to introduce him to managing settings.

It also has quite a few adorable background choices. This one above was the first one and bit too young for his liking, but your guy may love it.

Plenty to choose from for both boys and girls.

Tiny finally chose the wolf background, his favorite. I had to email him right away so he could start using his inbox and receive an email. Well he had to get over the fact first that I would actually let him have an email way earlier than I did Mr. Senior 2013.

But, one of the reasons I like it is the parental control area which is the best part. From the beginning, it literally takes just minutes to sign up and get going AND each one of your kids can have their own email. You are still managing them all from one location. Goodness knows I don’t need to learn how to manage any more techie devices so this keeps it nice and easy.

After I registered, all I do is add children. Then I check to see if the email is available that we created. It is so I get going. Now here is the feature that sold me and the reason Jo Public can see his email if Tiny ever gives his email away without me knowing about it (yep I have no perfect kids over here) is that……………..

UNLESS I add an email to his contact list, he NEVER gets the email. It stays in the queue for me. Sweet!!!!!

There is even a setting for a format for older children so that the email does not look so babyish and the older child format gets a choice of an email that ends in a kmail.org suffix so it looks a bit more sophisticated.

And if all that protection is not enough for the kids, there is a message at the bottom of the email. So there is no doubt a person knows they are emailing a kid AND their emails are watched.

Too, because I know we have this problem around here and that is Tiny has to be reminded about when to get off devices. So there is a setting to post time limits. And, because email is a privilege, it also has a monitor for a

child that is grounded. Look at all those settings on the left side. It’s smart too because when I added Mr. Awesome so I could play with it, it automatically included him in Tiny’s contact list as a sibling.

I also like the fact that I can get a copy of Tiny’s outgoing or incoming email, decide if images will be allowed and remove links if I want to.

Email Writing By Kids

Did I tell you too that email is a great way to get writing phobic kids to write? Emails are still somewhat formal unlike texting. I used email with Mr. Awesome to help spur on his writing because there is so much satisfaction in getting emails from their friends. It makes them want to write and see a purpose in writing. Not that your kids have to agree with you when you assign their work, but you do want them to eventually see the value of the life skills you are teaching them.

Because Kids Email is kid friendly, I have a neat competition to tell you about. Kids Email is hosting their first Young Author Competition. Write a story and share it with Kids Email. Winners of each age group will have their books professionally illustrated and shared with other kids.

Check out Kids Email Young Author competition by going to their blog here.

You see, it would have been nice to have Kids Email around when Mr. Awesome and Mr. Senior 2013 were young, but I am grateful they are here for Tiny. It allows him to have an email way earlier than my other two boys ever did.

Remember, test out all the fancy features FREE, no obligation ever, by clicking on Kids Email.

One more thing, I want you to know, yep I am bragging proud just a tad bit about my sponsor, but they won an award for top homeschooling products of 2013.

They are such nice folks they never asked me to talk about this, but I wanted you to know. I am grateful for my sponsors because I am proud to partner with them because I feel they have unique products we can use. Too, I appreciate their support of my blog and websites and I ALWAYS have time to say Thank You.

Don’t forget to check out Kids Email young author’s writing competition!

Product: Safe Email Service for Kids

Website: Kids Email. Org

Ages: Young Children until you feel safe enough for them to have any other email. Is that 30 years old? Okay, okay.

Free things you’ll like: Free 30 day Trial Period, NO Credit Card info needed. Love it.

Price: Month to Month $4.95. They have a special going on right now and you get up to 6 email accounts for 13 months for $38.95 which is $2.99 per month.

Note: All prices are true and correct at the time of this blog posting.

Hugs and love ya,

Welcome

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 4: Embrace Homeschooling Multiple Grades

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

Master the School Subjects

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Read the other posts in this series:

Homeschool Memorization Planning & Tracking Form

Homeschool Memorization Tracking & Planning

How to Memorize the Countries of South America & Mountain Climate Zones Minibooks

Facts to Learn About South America

How to Remember the Countries of South America

Project and Study Ideas for South America

South America Printable Minibooks

More South America Unit Study Resources

How to Get the Free South America Printable Lapbook

5 Days Of The Benefits & Challenges of Teaching Mixed Ages Together – Day 3: Challenges of Teaching Kids Together

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Read the other posts in this series:

Safe Email for Kids – Can you be too Protective?

What I Heart About Safe Email for Kids

Email Writing By Kids

Categories

Archives

Welcome

Teaching Children At the Same Time – Insane?

Master the School Subjects

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

How to Get the Free Homeschooling Multiple Children Secret Planning Sheet

Read the other posts in this series:

Homeschool Memorization Tracking & Planning

Facts to Learn About South America

How to Remember the Countries of South America

Project and Study Ideas for South America

South America Printable Minibooks

More South America Unit Study Resources

How to Get the Free South America Printable Lapbook

Perfect Homeschool Approaches

Homeschooling Multiple Children Diversions

More Homeschooling Multiple Ages Tips

Read the other posts in this series:

What I Heart About Safe Email for Kids

Email Writing By Kids

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Categories

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