Practical Homeschooling

Yummy Lacy Oatmeal Cookies!

By Laura | March 1, 2010

I was on a baking kick for the previous few days and the girls were begging me to make something of their own. So I pulled out the best recipe book in the world AKA the Net and found this simple recipe for them to do.

They are super light and crispy-thin. You drop them onto the cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls, then in the heat, they run out till there are even small holes in them!

You will need:

1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 egg
1 ts. vanilla
1/2 ts. salt
1 ts. vanilla
1 c. quick cooking oats
1/4 c. flour

Preheat oven to 325 F. Line cookie sheet with aluminium foil and coat with a non-stick spray.

Combine all ingredients except flour and oats. Stir until well mixed. Add remaining ingredients and stir once again till well mixed.

Drop by teaspoons onto cookie sheet, leaving 2 1/2 inches between each cookie. Bake for 10-12 minutes till slightly browned. Let sit 2 minutes before removing. Peel cookies off foil and either allow to cool on a place, or roll up and dip into melted chocolate.

Makes 48.

Topics: our journey, recipes | No Comments »

61 Time Saving Tips

By Laura | February 27, 2010

If you’re anything like me, time management isn’t your strong point. A friend emailed me this article and I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d share it with you.

Want to know if you are a time saver or time killer? Answer these three questions:

Is your tight work schedule forcing you to forego your daily exercises?

Do your clients complain about delayed deliveries?

At tax-filing time, do you have to search for all the bills and important documents?

If you’ve answered yes to even one of the above questions, you probably aren’t managing your time wisely. The average person spends less than 7 hours of their day productively. The remaining time is typically wasted leaving us overwhelmed and stressed. So how do you squeeze an extra hour here and there? How do you achieve more in less time? Here are 61 time saving tips to help you get the most out of your day.

Topics: organization | No Comments »

Announcing Homeschool In A Box (HIAB)

By Laura | February 27, 2010

If you’ve visited the site lately, you may have noticed a new link hanging around in the navigation menu. It’s not active yet, but it will be soon…I am pleased to announce that this site is being taken to a whole new level!

In a bid to make home education as accessible and low-cost as possible, Practical-Homeschooling is launching a free program titled ‘Homeschool In A Box’

Launching April 1rst, the goal is to offer as many resources as possible for you to aid your child in his/her education for free or almost free.

It’s still a work in progress, but I’m positive that you’ll find the resources very beneficial for you and your children. Even if you don’t homeschool, there will be many gems that you will want to explore with your child!

I’m always looking for contributions. If you have files that you’ve created and want to share, please contact me via the online contact form.

Topics: Online Resources, free resources, homeschool newbies, homeschooling, in the community, in the news | No Comments »

Has Spring Sprung?

By Laura | February 27, 2010

The weather has been steadily in the above-freezing range for about a week. Cautiously, we ventured outside to be met with a wonderfully sunny day and a temperature of +8.

I relished the clean sidewalks and prayed that this wasn’t some sick twisted joke that Mother Nature is playing on us. I can see good ‘ol Mama Nature standing back, waiting for us to get accustomed to this lively weather, only to unleash her fury on us with the blizzard of the century and a temperature of -50. We are in Edmonton after all, and the only 100% guaranteed snow-free season we get here is the month of July.

…seriously, I know a guy who’s birthday is in August, and five seven years ago it snowed on his birthday.

Anyhow, I needed to buy a bus pass so thought that the girls would enjoy a trip out. We grabbed the train and headed to the library.

They had a blast. We hadn’t been there in a while, so they spent almost 2 hours playing with train sets, puzzles, colouring pictures and playing on the computer.

Oh yeah, we also grabbed some books. I limited their bounty to 3 books each. Since there’s a good chance that I’ll end up having to carry them in my back pack and my wheelchair doesn’t have it’s anti-tipper bars on well…you get the idea.

Topics: our journey | No Comments »

The World’s Best Tomato Sauce

By Laura | February 27, 2010

I can’t remember where I found it, but I discovered an AWESOME tomato Sauce that is so easy to make, you’re children could make it on their own with minor supervision when at the stove.

This sauce contains only 3 ingredients, but I have to say that this is the first tomato sauce that I really like, the girls loved it and they were happy that they were able to make it themselves!

Ingredients:

1 16 oz. can of tomatoes
1/4 cup butter
1 med. onion

Open can of tomatoes and place in saucepan. Crush them somewhat with a spoon or knife. You don’t have to do this too thoroughly since you can also break them down as they cook. Remove the skin from the onion and cut it in half. Place halves into the pan.

Bring to boil, then reduce temperature to a simmer. Cook for approx. 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. You may want to add a touch of salt if your canned tomatoes don’t have much sodium…give it a taste to find out.

Remove onion halves and discard them.

Serve over a plate of pasta…enjoy!

What do you think of this recipe? Share your thoughts in the comments section. Dawn and Emily now have a favourite new pasta sauce!

Topics: recipes | 1 Comment »

21 Sites Offering Free Homeschool Planning and Organizing Printable Forms

By Laura | February 24, 2010

Feel disorganized and are looking for some pre-made homeschool forms to organize yourself and your family? I’ve scoured the net for you to find the top sites providing free homeschool forms for you to print out.

Free Homeschool Planner and Organizer “TheHomeSchoolMom Planner is a comprehensive organizer for appointments, school assignments, lesson planning, record keeping, and family menu planning.”
Highland Heritage Forms 821 forms and counting…nuff said?
Homeschool Complete homeschool forms is a nice selection of homeschool forms, curriculum planning pages, science forms and free ebooks.
Oklahoma Homeschool has a section titled Homeschool Forms containing homeschool forms, thematic papers and coloring pages designed by the site’s author.
Printable Homeschool has printables of all kinds, from themed writing paper to transcript and planning forms.
Homeschool Launch files on organization. Dozens of great files have been uploaded here.
Homeschool scheduling forms.
DonnaYoung.org has a sizeable library of free printable forms and planners.
The Master Planner Not free, but for only $5 for the downloaded version, it’s worth the tiny investment. For those who don’t want to fork over the $5, they have a sample package available as a free download.
Free Downloadable Homeschool Forms While these forms are intended primarily for Pennsylvania homeschoolers, many of them can be useful for any home-educating family.
Talibideen has a nice selection of well-prepared homeschool forms.
Homeschool Tracker has a basic version or it’s awesome software!
Homeschool Incorporated offers a free web-based planner.
Homeschool Skedtrack -another free online planner.
PrintableChecklists.com has checklists of all sorts. This link defaults to the ‘children and education’ section.
TeacherVision has tons of lesson plans, forms, worksheets and more. While this is a subscription site, there is a free 7 day trial-period.
Education World Lots of juicy tidbits to be found here.
Hold that Thought has a small, yet nice selection of free homeschool forms.
Free Homeschool Resources A site which has a few nice forms for your use.
Homeschool Record Keeping Forms @ About.com has a short, but useful list of forms available to download.
Homeschool Helper Online has a small number of useful forms.

Edit: I unknowingly left out two of the links, this has now been rectified. My apologies.

Topics: free resources, groups of 21 | 2 Comments »

How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying

By Laura | February 23, 2010

Scott Young from ScottYoung.com just posted a guest post about how we learn, over at Zen Habits.

I really related to this article because, like Scott, I never studied in school (well, except for that one history exam) and I still managed to survive pretty well. People tend to envy people who have a higher level of intelligence when it’s really not what others perceive it to be. People in this position are often at the fringe of social circles, often too easily distracted (think ADD) and develop poor study skills since well…they never had to study! …and this is one of the many reasons I decided to homeschool my daughters.

Rote learning is (thankfully) becoming a technique of the past. People are beginning that understand that this form of learning only serves to frustrate students and drive them away from a given subject instead of encouraging them to explore it deeper. If you’re interested in helping your children to develop an appreciation for what they are learning, rather than force-feeding, take the time to read on…

In high school, I rarely studied. Despite that, I graduated second in my class. In university, I generally studied less than an hour or two before major exams. However, over four years, my GPA always sat between an A and an A+.

Recently I had to write a law exam worth 100% of my final grade. Unfortunately, I was out of the country and didn’t get back by plane until late Sunday night. I had to write the test at 9 am Monday morning. I got an A after just one hour of review on the plane.

Right now, I’m guessing most of you think I’m just an arrogant jerk. And, if the story ended there, you would probably be right.

Why do Some People Learn Quickly?

The fact is most of my feats are relatively mundane. I’ve had a chance to meet polyglots who speak 8 languages, people who have mastered triple course loads and students who went from C or B averages to straight A+ grades while studying less than before.

The story isn’t about how great I am (I’m certainly not) or even about the fantastic accomplishments of other learners. The story is about an insight: that smart people don’t just learn better, they also learn differently.

It’s this different strategy, not just blind luck and arrogance, that separates rapid learners from those who struggle.

Most sources say that the difference in IQ scores across a group is roughly half genes and half environment. I definitely won’t discount that. Some people got a larger sip of the genetic cocktail. Some people’s parents read their kids Chaucer and tutored them in quantum mechanics.

However, despite those gifts, if rapid learners had a different strategy for learning than ordinary students, wouldn’t you want to know what it was?

The Strategy that Separates Rapid Learners

The best way to understand the strategy of rapid learners is to look at its opposite, the approach most people take: rote memorization.

Rote memorization is based on the theory that if you look at information enough times it will magically be stored inside your head.

This wouldn’t be a terrible theory if your brain were like a computer. Computers just need one attempt to store information perfectly. However, in practice rote memorization means reading information over and over again. If you had to save a file 10 times in a computer to ensure it was stored, you’d probably throw it in the garbage.

The strategy of rapid learners is different. Instead of memorizing by rote, rapid learners store information by linking ideas together. Instead of repetition, they find connections. These connections create a web of knowledge that can succeed even when you forget one part.

When you think about it, the idea that successful learners create a web has intuitive appeal. The brain isn’t a computer hard drive, with millions of bits and bytes in a linear sequence. It is an interwoven network of trillions of neurons.

Why not adopt the strategy that makes sense with the way your brain actually works?

Not a New Idea, But an Incredibly Underused Idea

This isn’t a new idea, and I certainly didn’t invent it.

Polymath, cognitive scientist and AI researcher Marvin Minsky once said:

“If you understand something in only one way, then you don’t really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we’ve connected it to all other things we know.Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that’s what we mean by thinking!” [emphasis mine]

Benny Lewis, polyglot and speaker of 8 languages, recently took up the task of learning Thai in two months. One of his first jobs was to memorize a phonetic script (Thai has a different alphabet than English). How did he do it?

“I saw [a Thai symbol] and needed to associate it with ‘t’, I thought of a number of common words starting with t. None of the first few looked anything like it, but then I got to toe! The symbol looks pretty much like your big toe, with the circle representing the nail of the second toe (if looking at your left foot). It’s very easy to remember and very hard to forget! Now I think of t instantly when I see that symbol.

It took time, but I’ve come up with such an association for all [75] symbols. Some are funny, or nerdy, or related to sex, or something childish. Some require a ridiculous stretch of the imagination to make it work. Whatever did the job best to help me remember.”

The famous British savant Daniel Tammet has the ability to multiply 5 digit numbers in his head. He explains that he can do this because each number, to him, has a color and texture, he doesn’t just do the straight calculation, he feels it.

All of these people believe in the power of connecting ideas. Connecting ideas together, as Minsky describes. Linking ideas with familiar pictures, like Lewis. Or even blending familiar shapes and sensations with the abstract to make it more tangible as Tammet can do.

How Can You Become a Rapid Learner?

So all this sounds great, but how do you actually do it?

I’m not going to suggest you can become a Tammet, Lewis or Minsky overnight. They have spent years working on their method. And no doubt, some of their success is owed to their genetic or environmental quirks early in life.

However, after writing about these ideas for a couple years I have seen people make drastic improvements in their learning method. It takes practice, but students have contacted me letting me know they are now getting better grades with less stress, one person even credited the method for allowing him to get an exam exemption for a major test.

Some Techniques for Learning by Connections

Here are the some of the most popular tactics I’ve experimented with and suggested to other students:

1. Metaphors and Analogy

Create your own metaphors for different ideas. Differential calculus doesn’t need to just be an equation, but the odometer and speedometer on a car. Functions in computer programming can be like pencil sharpeners. The balance sheet for a corporation can be like the circulatory system.

Shakespeare used metaphor prolifically to create vivid imagery for his audience. Your professor might not be the bard, but you can step in and try them yourself.

2. Visceralization

Visceralization is a portmanteau between visceral and visualization. The goal here is to envision an abstract idea as something more tangible. Not just by imagining a picture, but by integrating sounds, textures and feelings (like Tammet does).

When learning how to find the determinant of a matrix, I visualized my hands scooping through one axis of the matrix and dropping through the other, to represent the addition and subtraction of the elements.

Realize you already do this, just maybe not to the same degree. Whenever you see a graph or pie chart for an idea, you are taking something abstract and making it more tangible. Just be creative in pushing that a step further.

3. The 5-Year Old Method

Imagine you had to explain your toughest subject to a 5-year old. Now practice that.

It may be impossible to explain thermodynamics to a first grader, but the process of explanation forces you to link ideas. How would you explain the broader concepts in simpler terms a child would understand?

4. Diagramming

Mind-mapping is becoming increasingly popular as a way of retaining information. That’s the process of starting with a central idea and brainstorming adjacent connections. But mindmapping is just the skin of the onion.

Creating diagrams or pictures can allow you to connect ideas together on paper. Instead of having linear notes, organized in a hierarchy, what if you had notes that showed the relationships between all the ideas you were learning?

5. Storytelling to Remember Numbers and Facts

Pegging is a method people have been using for years to memorize large amounts of numbers or facts. What makes it unique isn’t just that it allows people to perform amazing mental feats (although it can), but the way it allows people to remember information–by connecting the numbers to a story.

Pegging is a bit outside the scope of this article, but the basic idea is that each digit is represented by the sound of a consonant (for example: 0=c, 3=t, 4=d…). This allows you to convert any number into a string of consonants (4304 = d-t-c-d).

The system allows you to add any number of vowels in between the consonants to make nouns (d-t-c-d = dot code). You can then turn this list of nouns into a story (The dot was a code that the snake used…). Then all you need to do is remember the order of the story to get the nouns, consonants and back to the numbers.

The Way We Were Taught to Learn is Broken

Children are imaginative, creative and, in many ways, the epitome of this rapid learning strategy. Maybe it’s the current school system, or maybe it’s just a consequence of growing up, but most people eventually suppress this instinct.

The sad truth is that the formal style of learning, makes learning less enjoyable. Chemistry, mathematics, computer science or classic literature should spawn new ideas, connections in the mind, exciting possibilities. Not only the right answers for a standardized test.

The irony is that maybe if that childlike, informal way of learning came back, even just in part, perhaps more people would succeed on those very tests. Or at least enjoyed the process of learning.

Scott Young is a university student, author and head of an online service designed to teach you rapid learning tactics. The program is currently sold out, but you can sign up here to get announcements when it reopens.

Topics: homeschooling, unschooling | No Comments »

A Little Inspiration: Young Heroes

By Laura | February 22, 2010

Oddee has a nice and inspiring article posted yesterday titled 10 Amazing Little Heroes. It features 10 children who went beyond what any child would do, or even what most adults would do, to save someone.

It never ceases to amaze me to see what children can be capable of. We often assume that they are too young to understand or perform certain tasks, but in the long run, they always surprise us.

This article is worth the read but beware, this blog is addictive!

Topics: off-topic, parenting | No Comments »

You’re Not My Boss!

By Laura | February 16, 2010

Ode Magazine published an interesting article titled “You’re Not My Boss” which considers the potential harm of bossing a child around vs. allowing the child to make his own decisions.

Children should never, really never, be forced to do something against their will. That’s the starting point of a curious movement of parents who think that every form of coercion is damaging. Dawn Friedman describes a controversial view on parenting.

Are the ways we have raised children for the past thousands of years outdated and traumatic? Or are we taking the idea of child-abuse to ridiculous levels?

One day a mom posted a message saying that she was having trouble getting her toddler son to take his medicine every day. The medication was life saving and the parents had no choice, they felt, but to hold him down, force the spoon into his mouth, and hold his mouth shut until he swallowed. She was looking for ideas to make this more workable and less traumatic for her son.

Most of the suggestions were what one might expect: try hiding the medicine in food or try bribing the baby with promises of candy if he takes the medicine nicely. Then one woman posted something entirely different. This woman, Sarah Lawrence, accused the mother of abusing her child by holding him down and forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do. She said that she found the description hateful and terrifying. “If you were my mother,” she finished, “I would kick you with a hobnailed boot!”

The list exploded into what Internet regulars call a flame war. Though at first the uproar centered around the tone of Lawrence’s post, the argument eventually centered on whether or not children should have to do whatever they are told to do. Might it be more desirable to raise children without any coercion whatsoever? Might it be possible that using coercion in any form-no matter how lovingly presented-is damaging to children?

What do you think of this topic? Read the article here.

Topics: parenting | 2 Comments »

A Kid, A Camera, A Mom Who Isn’t Looking

By Laura | February 15, 2010

I had to laugh when I saw this post earlier-on today since I had just loaded the pictures from my small point and shoot camera not even 20 minutes earlier to find these: