History/Social Science
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Curricula, Elementary Level, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme
Learning Plan: Age 6
Well, the new year has started! This is our first official year, paperwork included, as a private school here in California. California doesn’t have homeschoolers. Those who are homeschooling without the support of a public school system (like a charter school), file paperwork just like any private school here in the state. So, we decided to have a name for our school. It took us awhile to decide, as we wanted something we could use until they’re out of school. We also wanted something meaningful to our mission as homeschoolers. It took us two days of lots of not so great ideas to come to one that, knowing us and…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School
Tot School: Community Worker (Helper) Theme
Another post that fell to the wayside with my second pregnancy…so mainly pictures here. 🙂 But, hopefully you’ll get some ideas and be inspired for your own look into it. I put “helper” in the title to help for those searching for ideas, but I always said “worker”. I think it’s a misnomer to call people “helpers,” because their job involves helping people. Pretty much any job does, but nobody ever says a community helper is a cashier. Yes, firefighters help people, but they also get paid to do it. They’ve chosen it because they like the job, and they get paid to do what they like. As is the…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Historical Fiction Book Lists, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Creek Exploring with Minn of the Mississippi
This month’s kids’ book club book: Minn of the Mississippi This is a 5th grade reading level book. It’s a wonderful mix of fact and fiction, but I’d say my newly turned 5 year old had a hard time focusing. We skipped a lot. I’d recommend this book for the 7 and up age range for sure. The illustrations are beautiful! Looking forward to reading more by the author. We live in an area that is not abundant in rivers, even in the winter. The nearest thing we have is a little creek. Since it was summer when we did this one, there was just enough water to make mud.…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Science, Teaching, the Give Way
Learning Plan: Age 5
And so it begins! For reals! Well, kinda. My homeschooling, in a legal sense, will start for real next year, but I’m going to use this year as a sounding board for the best way to keep records for the state. You can find my own goals and ways of doing things on my mentoring page. This page is for my oldest. She’s a go getter and has a really great memory, so lots of academic type stuff sticks, even though we aren’t doing any forced academic program, she loves to play school and do lots and lots of activities (more than I’m willing to provide, actually!). As long as…
- 3-5 Year Old, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way
What A Four Year Old Can Learn
Last year I realized that it was a bit of a misnomer to call this list “goals,” as I wasn’t really focused on trying to get her to accomplish them. It was more just keeping track of what she was learning. Moving forward to get something done is a pretty inherent aspect of the word “goal.” So, instead, I’ve been focusing more on my own goals and learning more about how to facilitate a natural way of learning. The baby was six months when my daughter turned 4, so we were not structured much at all early on. Fortunately, I had put together the letter of the week activities before…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, Adult Book Club, Adult Education, Book Clubs, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Book Club: A Southern Linner
This was our cookbook month for our adult/teen book club. The plan is to read a cookbook or read about a cook and everyone cooks and brings a recipe from it. This month’s book is: A Love Affair with Southern Cooking I chose this book first because everyone loves to read it and the recipes! I have to admit, it was tons of fun to read. She traveled the South for decades learning all about southern food. The book has great personal anecdotes, a timeline of food in the South, and histories of people and products that are from the South. Many of the recipes I liked, but some were…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Up the Rhine to Switzerland!
Book for this month’s kids’ book club: The Overall Boys in Switzerland (This link is for the kindle or hardback version. DO NOT buy the paper book! I did and immediately returned it. It was terrible! No pictures, tiny print. I ended up just printing a pdf of this Google ebook.) This book is a sequel to this reading primer. I don’t know if I’d actually read it again. My daughter loved it, but it was really basic. So, not really a classic. Just old. 🙂 But, it’s great as a secondary reader. And, it’s a great informative story. We had a Swiss book club get together, so a mix…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, Adult Book Club, Adult Education, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Life, the Give Way, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club
Book Club: A Tale of Two Cities – Bangers and Baguettes
Book for this month’s adult/teen book club: A Tale of Two Cities This book is about a 9th or 10th grade reading level and would interest 14/15 year olds and up. If you’d like to include younger kids, I would suggest Great Illustrated Classics: A Tale of Two Cities, which is a 5th or 6th grade reading level. But, again, the story itself is for older readers, with this kind of content, I would say a 12 or 13 year old might enjoy it too, but it’s unlikely that anyone under 11 would enjoy this story. I preferred this free audio version. I found she was easy to listen to…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: First Stop! China with Little Pear
Books for this month’s kids’ book club: Little Pear Little Pear and His Friend I found some translations, as well!! Petit Tang (French Edition!) Petit Tang et Ses Amis (French edition!) Der Kleine Shang (German Edition!) The book is a high 4th/low 5th grade reading level and would interest kids 3-10ish. There are two more books in the series. We did not read them, but plan to in the future: Little Pear and the Rabbits More About Little Pear The author, Eleanor Lattimore, actually wrote tons of books!! And they all look great! Many are out of print. I found a few at my local libraries and some reasonably…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club, Theme
Kids’ Classics Book Club
I started a classics book club for myself and my kids. For those who are like me and would like to start one up, but don’t have enough friends who are interested. LOL! I joined a few meetup.com groups in my area and posted each book club meeting and started a secret private Facebook group for those who I knew to join in as well. (Ultimately, it became just a Facebook thing. After about six months on meetup, we had about 40 members on the Facebook page, so it ended up starting to just be new people being added by word of mouth or if I met people at homeschooling…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Focus, English, Historical Fiction Book Lists, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Historical Fiction: The Great Depression
[Part of an ongoing series of historical fiction book lists for students and teachers. For the full list and to see more info, click here.] Lower Grades (K-3) Angels in the Dust-Raven (4.2/0.5) The Babe and I-Adler (3.2/0.5) Born and Bred in the Great Depression-Winter (no level) Don’t Forget Winona-Peterson (2.8/0.5) The Dust Bowl-Booth (3.8/0.5) Dust for Dinner-Turner (2.4/0.5) Finding Daddy-Harper (no level) The Gardener-Stewart (3.9/0.5) Hannah’s Way-Glaser (2.4/0.5) Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth-Burleigh (2.0/0.5) Lucky Beans-Birtha (4.0/0.5) The Lucky Star-Young (4.6/0.5) The Man Who Walked the Earth-Wallace (3.4/0.5) Mimmy and Sophie All Around Town-Cohen (2.9/0.5) My Heart Will Not Sit Down-Rockliff (4.4/0.5) Nobody Owns the Sky-Lindbergh (3.8/0.5) Potato: A…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Focus, English, Historical Fiction Book Lists, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Historical Fiction: War of 1812
[Part of an ongoing series of historical fiction book lists for students and teachers. For the full list and to see more info, click here.] Lower Grades (K-2) An American Army of Two-Greeson (2.9/0.5) The Battle for St. Michaels-McCully (3.1/0.5) The Battle of New Orleans: The Drummer’s Story-Evans (3.4/0.5) Chet Chestnut-Sargent (4.2/0.5) Snow (White)-Sargent (4.5/0.5) (Description: A beautiful, proud white horse carries General Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.) The Star-Spangled Banner-Winstead (4.1/0.5) The Town that Fooled the British: A War of 1812 Story-Papp (4.2/0.5) Washington Is Burning-Figley (3.5/0.5) Middle Grades (4-8) Abigail’s Drum-Minahan (4.6/1) A Call to Battle: The War of 1812-Chan (6.1/7) Cornstalks…
