This week I’m putting the final touches to our study schedule for the coming year – or for at least the next 6 months.  I’ve been reading Ruth Beechick’s A Biblical Home Education and have taken many notes which are forming the framework for our next season.

 Teaching children at home does not have to be as difficult as people make it by trying to follow too much of the world’s system that has developed layer upon layer over the years.  We can peel away excess layers by the one great principle of viewing language learning as different from the content subjects.  Language includes speaking, reading, writing, listening, and thinking.  These are skills to use for learning Bible and all other content.  Children improve these skills by using them in their content subjects.  That is more effective and more efficient than adding layers of skill classes. – Ruth Beechick, A Biblical Home Education

It is good to be reminded of this.  For the most of our homeschooling years we have incorporated our language study/skills into our other content subjects, like Ruth Beechick says.  But over the last few years I had decided to focus on writing skills and (whether right or wrong) set aside specific lessons and curriculum for that.  To be honest I’m not so sure we achieved as much as it looked like we would on paper.  This year I am going to attack it a different way – get back to incorporating speaking, reading, writing, listening and thinking into our core studies: Bible study and General Knowledge studies.

My main goals are that my children can

• Ask questions to formulate what it is that they want to learn
• Find relevant resources (books and online) for the information they want to learn
• Find the answers to their questions
• Take notes from what they are reading
• Organise their collected information in helpful way – outlines, notes, or graphic organisers
• Write summaries or paraphrases, full sentence answers, a paragraph or essay on their researched topic

Ruth Beechick outlines very simply but comprehensively how these processes can be achieved in a homeschool setting.   Though it doesn’t look like a curriculum resource, reality is that this book is full of the things you need to teach your children – across all the curriculum areas.  It is very much a big picture book, but with enough details to make it helpful and easy to integrate into family style learning.

Seeing the importance of incorporating language arts skills into our other subjects means that I have to set aside longer in order to achieve the work.  If I want my children to think, talk, research, question and record on a daily basis we need to have time to do so.  I have set 2 hours for us to read, research and record.

I’m looking forward to this change in our language arts studies.

On of the early writing tools that we gave our children was the RIC Publications “My Desktop Dictionary”.  It is simply a book of word banks.  A word bank is a list of associated words.   For example:

• Themes kids like to write about:  beach, dinosaurs, earth, insects, library, transport, weather, just to name a few.  For example under the heading of beach is listed words like: bucket, lifesaver, splash, towel, sand and more.
• Themes connected to their life:  family, community, feelings, at school, animals, things I can do etc.  For example under family is listed words like: aunt, uncle, grandad, mother etc.
• Themes that they need to refer to regularly:  Words that sound the same, contractions, seasons, days of the week, numbers, shapes etc
• Alphabet pages – For example listed under “O” is o’clock, octopus, often, only, opened, opposite, outside, owl and many more.  They also have plenty of space for the child to write words that they use and need help to spell correctly.  Daniel’s “S” page is very full with words like spectacular, stream, strange, shipwreck, survive, scoop and so forth.

When the kids where learning to write, or having difficulty with spelling, I’d expect them to have their word bank dictionary with them when they sat down to write.  When they can’t spell a word they are to see if it is already in their dictionary, if not, or if they can’t find it, they come to me and we work on either finding it or recording it in an appropriate place.

The benefits of having a word bank dictionary are:

• The child gets used to using a resource when they want to find information (how to spell a word – dictionary)
• Their vocab is expanded as they write about a theme, they can see all the other words they could incorporate into their writing piece
• Their spelling is improved as they consistently see words spelt correctly
• Their writing is improved as they don’t baulk over their spelling

I liked having a purchased dictionary – it gave the kids a sense of a real dictionary (they were 4-6years old when I gave it to them.)  It became theirs.  Their copies are very tattered now.

But there is no reason you can’t make your own.  Actually, when Daniel is interested in a particular subject, or writing a story with a particular theme or setting we will brainstorm words and write up a word bank for him to refer to.

Word Bank Dictionaries (or simply word bank lists) are the first step towards teaching your children to use a dictionary.  They empower the child because he has the information he needs right there at his finger tips – this independence in writing will encourage them to write more.

photo credit: www.123rf.com

Here is a series of articles that I’ve written on Routines from my website

Establishing Daily Routines

Writing a Daily Routine

Being Flexible, Having Choices

Maintaining Routines

Here’s a link to my Time Management blog posts

Birthday parties are always a learning experience - here they are trying to catch a waterballon in a sheet without bursting the balloon.

Grandad and Peter had to put an electric fence up - a great opportunity for the boys.

Nomi designed and made these puppets and Jess made the theatre - as a gift for their little cousins

While visiting with family we had a cousin sleepover - they played games together.

Josh, Jess, Nomi went to a youth camp where they met new people, and learnt more about God's ways

Naomi on the Giant Swing

Jessica on the giant swing (Daniel also did this but I don't have a photo).

An outing with Grandad

This photo was taken for a facebook avatar - lots of learning going on regarding facebook and how to use it wisely.

While driving home from holidays Pete used the GPS to give everyone a world-wide geography lesson.

Lots of sewing has been going on - mainly Kindle covers and t.shirt alterations

If you add to these photos things like family Bible study, reading books, and discussions on various topics such as ethics, beliefs, politics, business and many other topics, plus the things we didn’t take photos of (like a horse AI programme right at our back door)  - you have a very full learning month.  Have you considered what your kids get up to in family time as learning opportunities and therefore a part of their homeschool experience?

I’m linking in with OhAmanda’s Top Ten Tuesday

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Reading good books is a key for learning for many homeschool families.  There are many book lists that help us define what ‘good’ is – we try and keep away from twaddle (a word used by Charlotte Mason – read definition for twaddle here)  As my children have grown older and become independent readers and learners I have given them each a book list for the year.  (Read Joshua’s for 2012).  But reading good books isn’t enough.

I give my children good books so they can learn from what they read and yet, if I don’t guide them through this process, they simply read the story and enjoy it for what it is… a good story.  This is why reading good books isn’t enough.

We need to teach our children to learn from what they read, to interact with the ideas, ask questions and think about topics discussed in the books they read.  When they do this they are learning.

Our children started learning to do this with our studies with Five in a Row as we discussed deeper various subjects.  As they grew older and read more books independently they have been encouraged take notes with any questions or thoughts they may have, copy down any significant quotes or ideas, and to talk about what they are reading and learning.

It is important to talk to our kids about what they are reading because this is the only way we can gain an understanding of how they are processing the ideas they are reading about.  As they talk you will hear their questions or you’ll hear their beliefs developing as they apply ideas from their book to their life.  Once you hear these things you can take the opportunity to address things where necessary.   Just because our children can learn independently (academically) does not mean they need to do it without our encouragement, direction and guidance.

So though I love a good story and I see the power in these good stories to teach my children – it will only happen if they interact with the ideas.