Crack the Egg

Does Latch Hook Provide Any Benefits Besides A Fuzzy Pillow? You Bet!

    Here's the deal.  My son needed an activity that crosses the midline in his body in order to build more connections between the two halves of his brain.  He is mixed dominant. 

    In parental terms, this means:

• We couldn't tell if he was left handed or right handed. 
• He hopped down the stairs instead of one foot after another. 
• He had difficulty reading the word 'the.'  One minute he read it fine, the next he was trying to sound it out. 

    Those are just a few of the signs.  (Drop me a note if you notice these in your child and I will happily describe what we've done to get him reading easily, riding his bike, etc.)  Once we had addressed these issues, I still wanted an activity that continued to cross the midline without it feeling like an exercise.  Latch hook is such an activity. 

    But, doing latch hook has other benefits, which is why I recommend it for any kid as a hobby and for any homeschooling mom looking for a project that isn't sticky and doesn't stain the table.

BENEFITS

• Gets to use a tool that won't hurt himself, wound others, or cut something we don't want cut. 
• Uncomplicated: One works with a pattern, yarn, the hook, and the grid. 
• Each addition of yarn builds finger dexterity.
• Mistakes are easily fixed.
• Involves counting.
• Causes one to concentrate.  
• Progress is visible and immediate.
• Doesn't make a mess.
• The end product can be decorative, useful, or both.
• One needn't be "crafty" to do latch hook.    

  Image by sallysetsforth via Flickr

• Inexpensive.

    So, there you are.  The latch hook pillow you remember making as a kid can be used in your homeschool for a number of benefits.  You may want to get two and work alongside your child!    

Robin

Reminder: Posts follow this schedule: Monday, Parent Personal Development and Inspiration; Tuesday, Best Homeschooling Resources; Wednesday, Great Hobbies, Activities, and Games; Thursday, Mini Unit Study; Friday, Entrepreneurial Club Info & Updates.

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Homeschool History: Nineteenth Century Whaling and Japan

• The lives of Japanese fishermen. 
• Nineteenth century whaling history. 

  Image via Wikipedia

• The California Gold Rush. 
• Commodore Perry and the opening of Japan. 
• The life of a samurai.

    All these are found in the life of one man - Manjiro Nakahama.  His fascinating story is found in the children's nonfiction book Shipwrecked! by Rhoda Blumberg.  (If you haven't read her award-winning book Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun," combine it with this book for an excellent look at the (forced) opening of Japan in 1854.)

    He began his odyssey - for an odyssey it was - at the age of nine when his father died.  Needing to support his family, he hired out as a fisherman only to be marooned on an isolated island for months. 

    Rescued by the American whaler, the John Howland, he spent the next few years learning whaling techniques, navigation, English, horseback riding, and even farming.

    He wrote observations on everything he saw, such as "A man sits on a chair instead of the floor," and "Ordinary men carry watches."

    Eventually lifted to the level of samurai (unheard of at that time), Manjiro became the consultant during negotiations with Perry on the treaty between America and Japan.  Afterwards, he educated others on railroads, telegraphs, steamships, ship engineering, and navigation. 

    Manjiro's story sounds like a movie script, but it's true.  Blumberg does an excellent job bringing it into the realm of children's nonfiction.  Definitely a good buy and a keeper.

    If you live anywhere near Fairhaven, Massachusetts, they hold a Manjiro Festival every two years.  The next festival is in October, 2011!  Check for more information here: http://manjiro1.tripod.com/.

Robin

Reminder: Posts follow this schedule: Monday, Parent Personal Development and Inspiration; Tuesday, Best Homeschooling Resources; Wednesday, Great Hobbies, Activities, and Games; Thursday, Mini Unit Study; Friday, Entrepreneurial Club Info & Updates.

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First Step Towards Building Enthusiasm for Homeschooling Moms and Dads

Image by Nevalenx via Flickr

    I'm amazed at the sheer variety of subjects we get to cover and the depth in which we can pursue them as homeschoolers. 

    I've also put it this way:  I'm overwhelmed at the sheer variety of subjects we need to cover and the depth in which we must pursue them.  

    One sentence spikes interest, one creates tension.  One sentence makes my mental antennae twang with questions, "What subject?  What do we get to learn?"  The second sentence causes my stomach to drop.  "How many subjects?  How much work will they be?"  I either get a mental picture of a widening horizon or of trudging along a rut. 

    Which view will serve me (and therefore, my family) better?  The first one, of course.  It is worthwhile taking a moment to rephrase sentences when I'm feeling down or discouraged.  This is a first step towards building enthusiasm when things are piled on top of crises on top of daily jumbles of laundry, meals, and wondering what the sticky stuff on the wall could possibly be.

 Admittedly, this can be difficult on some days, so start with rephrasing the issue.  YOU can choose your attitude.  Choose enthusiasm!

Robin

Reminder: Posts follow this schedule: Monday, Parent Personal Development and Inspiration; Tuesday, Best Homeschooling Resources; Wednesday, Great Hobbies, Activities, and Games; Thursday, Mini Unit Study; Friday, Entrepreneurial Club Info & Updates.

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Family Entrepreneurial Club: Homeschool Start-Up

    NEW SECTION!!

 

    Friday posts will now cover our homeschooling family's Entrepreneurial Club. 

    After hearing an excellent talk on microbusinesses by Carol Topp at the Midwest Homeschool Conference, my kids and I started our own entrepreneurial club to help us get moneymaking ideas out of our minds and into our day-to-day life.  This is where I will track our progress (or lack of it!) in the hope it will inspire your family to try something, too. 

YOU, TOO?

• If you've ever thought that it would be a good learning experience for your kids to have their own business, read on. 
• If you have ever wanted to have your own business, read on. 
• If you've thought that doing a business together with your kids would be a good idea, then keep reading to find out what we're doing and how you may do it, too.  (Click on Subscribe at the top of the page to get these articles without missing any.)


WHY WE BEGAN:

    My daughter is interested in creating artwork to sell on etsy.com and elsewhere.  She paints individual cards and envelopes.  She sold a few to people who received them from others, liked them, noticed her name on the back, and asked if she would paint some for them. 

    My son has two objectives.  He wants to pursue writing as a career, but doesn't want to wait until he's in or out of college to begin.  He also wants to create and sell his own board and card games. 

    I wanted to take both my blog and writing to a higher level.  More and better blog content, sending more manuscripts to publishers more regularly, and narrowing in on my niche and making it my own - these are my goals.

 

WHY HAVING A CLUB KEEPS IT FUN

• It's all an experiment.  There is no failure, only the failure to try.
• There is no pressure, but there is motivation and determination. 
• Progress is the purpose, not perfection.  We define progress as making and meeting goals, experimenting with ideas and options, and above all, doing something instead of wishing only.
• We get to cheer each other on.

 Robin

Reminder:  Posts follow this schedule:  Monday, Parent Personal Development and Inspiration; Tuesday, Best Homeschooling Resources; Wednesday, Great Hobbies, Activities, and Games; Thursday, Mini Unit Study; Friday, Entrepreneurial Club Info & Updates.

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Nuts for History, Geography, Art, and Health: Mini Unit Study

    I like using unusual things to study subjects.  It makes homeschooling more fascinating, more exciting, and more real.  It opens the kids' eyes to connections in the world between something as simple as the almonds we snack on with the economy of Spain.

    Use some or all of the suggestions below to create your own unique unit study, tailoring it to the subject you most want covered or know the least about.

GEOGRAPHY

• Make a country's popular ethnic dish that uses walnuts, pecans, almonds, pistachios, cashews, or macadamias. Look for Praline Pecan Dessert Bars from the US, ostkaka from Sweden using almonds, baklava from Greece using pistachios, payasam from India using cashews, or fish with macadamia sauce from Australia.
• Study these nuts with their large-scale producers: pecans and Georgia, walnuts and California, almonds and Spain, pistachios and Turkey, cashews and India, macadamias and Australia.
• Create a map of India as the greatest producer of cashews and arrows showing where they are exported.  Do the same for other nuts.

HEALTH / NUTRITION

• Study the nutritional benefits of eating nuts.  Go to websites, such as http://www.nuthealth.org/ from the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research and Education Foundation or http://www.diamondnuts.com for specific nutritional benefits of nuts and to compare nuts to each other. 
• Go to a health food store and buy a small amount of each type of nut. Taste test each kind.  Use one you like for a while by adding to yogurt, plain as a snack, baked in muffins, or on top of oatmeal for added nutrition. 

HISTORY

• Use the children's nonfiction book Hard to Crack: Nut Trees by Meredith Sayles Hughes to learn about the origins of six different nuts, how they were brought to the United States, who grows the most, and how nuts are used in different countries. 

 

  

 

       

 

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

SCIENCE

 

 

 

• Compare how each type of nut tree is grown and the nuts produced.  For instance, the cashew tree produces the best when planted about 35 feet apart with dry months plus rainy months.
• What else can the discarded nut material be used for?  Example, almond shells are ground up for charcoal briquettes.

ART

• Create artwork, edible or not, with the nuts themselves or their shells. 
• Sprinkle chopped nuts on top of a round cake in a pattern.
• String the shells for a necklace.
• Arrange the nuts in a mosaic on a snack plate. 
• Use walnut halves for turtle shells or the backs of animals, using clay or construction paper to create the other parts.

Robin

 

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Learning a Foreign Language: 7 Tips To Make It Easier

    Nous allons manger bientot. Vamos a comer pronto. Mangieremo fra poco. Wir werden bald essen. Vi skal spise snart.  "We will eat soon" is a phrase I want to know in many languages!  Help your kids with their foreign language learning by using one or more of these 7 Tips To Make It Easier.

Image via Wikipedia

 

1. Check out library books in another language.  If possible, check out the English version as well and read it alongside the other.  We have done this with picture books, Magic School Bus books, and the Chronicles of Narnia - all written in Spanish.  Many more bilingual books are now being published with the text in Spanish at the top and English on the bottom.  Look for these as well.
2. Find a radio station in another language. I grew up near the border of Canada and was able to get a French station that I listened to at night. Perhaps this is why a lot of my French is still with me.
3. Find a TV program or station in another language or watch the news from other countries with native speakers.  We listen to the TV channel that gives news broadcasts from other countries.  In this way, we have listened to Russian, French, and Spanish.  The trick is figuring out when they are on, so one can consistently listen to the language you want.
4. Find a speaker to converse with or someone who has worked or lived in a country that speaks that language.  We find missionaries to be great resources.  One tutor was someone who does mission work in the Latin American countries and wants to keep up her speaking skills in between times.  Another tutor was a man from Argentina who is now an American citizen.  A third tutor is a French major.
5. Listen to musical groups singing in your target language. The Putumayo World Music label puts out all kinds of music from other countries by singers of today singing current favorites or folk songs. We especially love the African CD's, but French, Spanish, and others are available.
6. Read labels or instructions in a second language. Almost everything these days has at least French or Spanish, but many also have German, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch.
7. Use magnetic poetry for practice and fun. Available in Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Chinese. We like to put these on the fridge or side of the microwave. This keeps them visible and useable.  Either I ask the kids to each build a sentence or I put out a selection of words that they play around with on their own. Either way they are using the words and thinking about them.

    Anything you or your student can do to use the language they are learning will help. It's not impossible, it just takes practice!

 

 Robin



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Nuts, History, and Geography In a Book

    Did you ever think you'd find a nonfiction book about nuts and nut trees that was actually interesting?  Hard to Crack: Nut Trees is that book.  It reads a little like a textbook, but the history of the nut trees, where they are found, how nuts are produced commercially, and how various cultures use the nuts is a great way to study world history and geography.  Here's what you'll find in the book.

Nuts that are covered: 

• Pecans
• Walnuts
• Almonds
• Pistachios
• Cashews
• and Macadamias.

Chapters include:

• Recipes for using each type of nut
• Origins of the names of nuts
• Health benefits
• Origins of nuts
• How they travel to world markets

Learn:

• How the Diamond Walnut Growers, Inc. handles eight million walnuts a day during harvest
• Who introduced marzipan to the Crusaders
• How pistachios reached America
• How cashews have their toxic cashew nutschell liquid removed and uses for CNSL
• Which U.S. state is the leading producer of macadamias and which country is close behind
• Why pecans went to the moon

    The author, Meredith Sayles Hughes, has written other children's books about food and is a co-founder of the Food Museum in New Mexico.  If food history is appealing to you, you can go to their exhibits or check out it out online at www.foodmuseum.com.

Robin

 

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How To Homeschool At the Zoo: A Mini Unit Study

    You've visited the zoo a few times, now you'd like to connect what you see with what you are learning. Here are nine ways to do this!

STUDY TIPS FOR THE ZOO

1. Mark each animal by its (home) geographic location on a blank map.
2. Create a list for your kids to fill in of habitat, size, social unit (solitary or in groups), status (rare, common), wild food, and zoo food of one or more animals. 
3. Prepare a brief list of questions for your child to ask a zookeeper or docent. 
4. Choose one area of the zoo - primates, reptiles, or hoofed - to read the information and discuss.
5. Keep a log of the activity of one favorite animal at set times during the day. 
6. Keep a photo log of one type of animal at different times during the day, in various positions, or doing different things - eating, gazing, sleeping, walking, playing.

   Image via Wikipedia

7. Practice sketching or drawing an animal. 
8. Write a monologue of what an animal is thinking.
9. Make a game of finding evidence of enrichment activities for the animals - balls in the tiger den, frozen food in the polar bear enclosure, keepers tossing food to the seals, or hanging ropes for the monkeys.


   Final Two Tips!!

    Place any papers that you'll need on a clipboard for each child.  This gives them a hard surface and allows for neater writing, drawing, or marking.  Tie a pen to the clipboard, so it doesn't get left behind.

    Don't do so many activities that the zoo trip becomes a burden.  Keep learning enjoyable!

Robin 

Did you enjoy this article?  Subscribe for FREE with RSS or email to get the next one.  As always, great recommendations for homeschooling your smart, curious kids are found under the Creative Home Learning Store button at the top of the page.  Enjoy!

Reminder: Posts follow this schedule: Monday, Parents: Straight Talk and Inspiration; Tuesday, Best Homeschooling Resources; Wednesday, Great Hobbies, Activities, and Games; Thursday, Mini Unit Study; Friday, Entrepreneurial Club Info & Updates.

 

Indoor Game For Hot Homeschoolers

    As one of the 23 states under a heat advisory this week, we've found it increasingly difficult to get (and keep) the kids outside.  Needing an activity that kept them off the sofa, we came up with some variations on a game my mom used at birthday parties when I was a kid.

 BASIC GAME  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, toss rolled up sock "balls" in buckets (any kind of large bowl, bucket, or ice cream pail) placed at different spots.   

VARIATIONS

• Make up point values for each bucket, keep track of scores

  Image via Wikipedia

• Throw over your shoulder while facing away from the bucket
• Toss into bucket while covering your dominant eye
• Toss blindfolded
• Toss sock balls into buckets placed behind chairs where they can't be seen
• Toss two sock balls, one from each hand at the same time
• Toss sock balls while repeating the alphabet, singing a song, or reciting a verse
• Speed - toss as many balls into the bucket as you can in thirty seconds
• Slow down - must throw as if in slow motion

    This game gets quite hilarious for us.  Why?  I'm really not sure.  All I know is we are doing something other than reading or watching TV and it's only as competitive as you make it.  Try it and see what you think!

Robin



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Music History Learning: Homeschool Resource

    A fascinating story connects Beethoven the classical genius, two contemporary men who loved his music, escaping Jews in World War II, and an orphan in Denmark.  It all comes together in a book entitled The Mysteries of Beethoven's Hair by Russell Martin and Lydia Nibley.  This children's nonfiction book explains how a lock of Beethoven's hair passed between generations and nationalities to end up in the United States.

    An account of the testing of the hair at the Argonne National Laboratory is fascinating.  It finally gives us insight into Beethoven's wild temperament, mood swings, and illnesses.  His hair had a 90X higher lead count than a contemporary sample.  In other words, Beethoven had lead poisoning.

    I like this book for its history - of Beethoven's life, his music, and common practices during this time period.  But, it also touches gently on a small episode during a deeper, uglier history that is often difficult to describe for kids, that of the persecution of Jews by Nazis.  As we follow the locket of hair through this period, there is an expecially poignant story of the kindness and courage of a Danish village who helped fleeing Jews.

Image via Wikipedia

    Middle-graders on up could read it themselves quite easily.  If you or your students are interested in learning more, the American Beethoven Society offers a fabulous in-depth study of Beethoven's life and music.

    In particular, the website has a great on-line exhibit of Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip and how Beethoven's music became part of it. 

    The famous lock of hair is now on exhibit in the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies in San Jose State University (also known for its John Steinbeck collection) along with Beethoven scores and other memorabilia.

    We enjoyed this book because it was a quirky thing to learn about, yet intensely interesting.  After reading any biography of Beethoven, this book can help fill in some answers to his behavior, personality, and ultimately, his music.

Robin

 

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