Happy New Year!!!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take... but by the moments that take your breath away! May all your days be breathtaking in 2012 & may you be surrounded by true friends, loads of love & tons of happiness... Wishing you and your loved ones a very blessed & Happy New Year!!!

Just One Request
Dear Master for this coming year
Just one request I bring:
I do not pray for happiness,
Or any earthly thing—
I do not ask to understand
The way Thou leadest me,
But this I ask: Teach me to do
The thing that pleaseth Thee.
I want to know Thy guiding voice,
To walk with Thee each day.
Dear Master make me swift to hear
And ready to obey.
And thus the year I now begin
A happy year will be—
If I am seeking just to do
The thing that pleaseth Thee.
By: Chris Mostert

~::~ Christmas Gifts for Everyone ~::~

Wishing all a Blessed Christmas, to you and  the family.

Spend this time with loved ones sharing All The good things God has done in your Life

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Friends of Kloofendal

Jesse’s been on holiday in Shelly Beach with an old school friend since the 30th November and was only due back on the 16th. This has left Misha home alone, but I’m surprised to say that he’s actually been quite content on his own, although he’s used this time to sleep in Ouboet’s room every night…

When the email came around last week for the Friends of Kloofendal Adventure activities I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to allow him some independent learning close to home. Up to now, he’s always had Jesse with on activities to keep an eye on him, but flying solo was a new learning curve for both of us…

Monday ~ Bush Survival

The guide, made the children aware what is needed to survive in the bush, is not just food, as water, shelter, warmth, navigation are all important factors in bush survival. The children were then sent off into the bush with guides to ensure that they find all the essentials to survival. Back in the amphitheatre the guide checked whether the various groups found their survival ingredients with which, with under experienced guidance, they were able to make a fire and cook bush food, which included meal worms and crickets. Did you know meal worms contain more protein than meat? I was told they tasted like seafood and found it very amusing that this cook refused to eat her own cooking, but then I don't think I would have either.

I gave him a camera to use for taking photos, but Misha had so much fun during the activities that he forgot to take photos, so most of these I took when I came to fetch them afterwards.

Kloofendal Nature Reserve ~ Bush Survival VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Tuesday ~ Goldmine Tour

I wanted to see the mine myself and asked Misha if he would mind me accompanying him on the tour. Of course, he was not very impressed because he reckoned I's said I'd let him fly solo from Monday to Thursday. I decided to join next time when both boys go on the adventure activities.

The guide took the children on a gold discovery experience, which included a visit into the Confidence Reef, the first goldmine on the Witwatersrand (= the beginning of Johannesburg). They tried out gold panning, which is quite a skill, but no gold was found. They learnt about the history of the miners, and the stamp mill, what this huge machine is used for, how it works and why it came from all the way England to South Africa.

Once again, Misha forgot to take photos until his friend reminded him about the camera, so we these are what we got...

Kloofendal Nature Reserve ~ Goldmine Tour VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Wednesday ~ Bundu Bash Adventure & Action Programme

Experienced guides accompanied the children on this adventure for active children with inquiring minds. They explored what is all happening in the nature around them, discovering signs of animals, learning about the wonderful uses of local plants, tasting, smelling, feeling, hearing the different sounds (birds, frogs, insects?), collecting various required items on the way to discuss at end of the walk, finding a treasure using simple map reading skills, exploring mine trenches and adits. The boys came out there quite dirty and obviously had loads of fun.

Fortunately the guide's camera battery was flat thus he used Misha's for photos and we got a few more than the previous days...

Kloofendal Nature Reserve ~ Bundu Bash Adventure VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Unfortunately Thursday’s Rand Water Programme was cancelled due to too few bookings received so we went to the movies to see Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 (Chipwrecked) instead.

Misha had so much fun with these activities and said he’d be disappointed if he weren’t able to do them again, so I will definitely be looking into letting the boys take part into many more of these activities during the course of next year.

 

This post features on the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers (SACH Bloggers) where South African home schoolers share experiences, ideas, philosophies and much more. You can join the carnival too by heading to the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers sign up page. We hope you enjoy the carnival as much as we have!

SA Home Schooling Blog Carnival #14

 

Unschooling

After a very stressful year with the “school at home” approach through Le-Amen, I’ve been looking into unschooling for both my boys because the hate schoolwork with such intense passion. Fortunately Daddy has finally agreed to unschooling although just for a period until we’ve helped them restore their love for learning.

Here are some sites about unschooling worth checking out:

• What is Unschooling? by Earl Stevens
• by John Holt
• by Joanne
• by Sandy Dodd
• 
• 
• 

What we Achieved this Year

Since we finished our first year home educating last week, I’ve been asking myself what we actually achieved this year…

I must admit goal setting has never been one of my strong points. Generally I just take life in it’s stride, although I always managed to get things done…

Academically, however, I had their year all planned out. By the end of last year I had bought their “worksheet wasteland” curriculum and expected the schedules to run smooth sailing… but alas, my schedules were met with much resistance. By the end of the first term already they were getting annoyed with my insistence to get the worksheets done.  They wanted to wrestle and play instead of doing the boring bookwork.

During the second term I learnt about learning styles and realised that this approach wasn’t going to work for us and I was back on the internet searching for alternatives. I canned the schedules and decided instead to take one day at a time. I realised that for my own sanity as well as the boys I just had to find a better way to educate the kids.

Misha started with Le-Amen worksheets, changed to All-In-One programme, then we used Switched on Shoolhouse for Language Arts and Teaching Textbooks for Maths. Eventually we converted worksheets into lapbooks and finally we switched him over to Time 4 Learning. He has redone his whole Grade R foundation with Hettie and his gross and fine motor skills as well as midline crossing abilities are finally up to date. He has learnt to read and his overall confidence has improved a great deal. He’s discovered a love for art and has his future all planned out, wanting to become a Science and Art teacher.

Although I eased off on the bookwork with Jesse, he still had to do his assessments and write the Le-Amen exams. He did very well for a child that hated schoolwork so much. It took most of the year to get there, but he’s finally started to open up to me. All the “sit on mommy” time and wrestling have finally paid off. I’m getting to know him better and finally have a better idea how to approach the next year with him. The Technology lessons with the Tutor were a hit and he really seems to love the hands-on learning.

Thanks to HomeSchool Tracker Basic edition I was able to track all their activities and scores to give an accurate report on all they have achieved.

In spite of all the challenges, with curricula that didn’t work for them, both boys still managed to improve their grades substantially.

I was blown away after collecting the boys' reports today…

I have absolutely no idea how Le-Amen got to their scores but somehow, only Jesse's Afrikaans & Social Science results correspond with what I handed in and his 83% average has dropped to 70%.

Misha scored a whopping 86% average for all the assignments he has done, but their report classes him as an average student... Now how does this make sense?

Although the Le-Amen results don’t correspond with mine, at least they have promoted the boys to grades 4 & 9 respectively for next year. I don’t have the energy to put on a fight about it, so I'll just write this homeschool support center off to a very bad experience never to be used again... I will just ignore their reports and use our own instead.

Bringing them home, where they belong has been the best move ever. I just love having the boys around all the time. We’re enjoying our new found freedom and are not missing the daily trips rushing to and from school at all.

I, of course, failed miserably at being super organised (having been a secretary, PA & Office Administrator before becoming a housewife), have everything filled, up to date, know what’s happening where, complete tasks etc. Somehow time just didn’t seem to be on my side.

We did manage to get into a routine and even managed to get them doing some chores. Jesse’s become a master at making fudge and jelly. Even Misha’s been helping around the kitchen lately.

We managed to do many things together, from baking, to playing and of course we even managed to fit in more field trips than our whole family has had in all our schooling careers together. They loved the monthly ice skating trips and the horse camp in September was a major hit.

I’m most impressed with their personal progress though. All the sweat and tears this year were well worth it just looking at how much they’ve grown…

Misha is no longer a tired, stressed-out whiney child and the boys hardly ever fight any more. They play games together and get along so much better these days. Jesse also seems to be much more relaxed. He’s even started doing small maintenance jobs in and around the house. If he keeps it up, one day he may be able to teach Daddy a thing or two…

All in all, our whole family life style has changed for the better… I’m beginning to understand the way they learn and I have an idea of how to make “school” work for us next year… And of course we’ve saved about R20,000 on school fees, even with all the extra murals which included ice skating, Junior Engineering, Tutors as well as camping for both of them.

Misha’s starting to show interest in some forms of learning and I trust by the end of next year Jesse will be enjoying learning again too…

Well done boys, you did us proud!

Merry Christmas

It’s been a week since we finished & I’m still struggling to recover. I don’t know if it’s normal but I’m finding it hard to shut off from reading home education related emails, websites & books. I guess after a few days of scrap-therapy I might just feel different.

Jesse’s been off to the coast with a friend since last week & we’re missing him terribly. I miss the regular “Sit on Mommy” time sessions although this 14 year old is way to big to fit on my lap anymore. He has outgrown me by far and pretty soon I will probably also lose the weight advantage for all those fun wrestling matches…

I’m still finding it extremely hard to believe that it’s this time of the year again. Last year I vowed to do my Christmas shopping early so as not to have to brave the traffic in the centers during peak season, but alas I failed miserably at that… this year has passed me by so fast that I haven’t even had a chance to think about getting presents yet.

Somehow the Christmas fever seems to have bypassed me this year, or maybe it’ll still hit me later. We finally put the Christmas tree up this week because Misha wanted it up.

The closest I’ve managed to get to crafts or ideas thus far is this digi-scrap greeting card and since my brain is just too tired for creative writing at this stage, this will be a very short blog post just to thank you for all your valued contributions by means of comments & suggestions into our first year of home education.

In the interim we would like to wish you all a very blessed Christmas and all God’s richest blessings for 2010.

Yesterday is but a vision, and tomorrow is only a dream. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a dream of hope.

This post features on the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers (SACH Bloggers) where South African home schoolers share experiences, ideas, philosophies and much more. You can join the carnival too by heading to the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers sign up page. We hope you enjoy the carnival as much as we have!

SA Home Schooling Blog Carnival #13

Creating a Lapbook About Horses

by Katie Kubesh

I know I’m supposed to be on holiday, but I’m catching up on email backlog and just discovered this one… I don’t know why I didn’t notice this article in my mail when it came through in September just before the boys went on their horse camp. It would have made a good unit study for the boys in preparation for their camp… I will definitely have to keep it in mind before they go on the next one.

If you or your children have ever had the privilege of visiting a farm and riding a horse, you probably discovered how easy it is to fall in love with these magnificent creatures! Those dark eyes, soft coat, and long, flowing mane are hard to resist.

Did you know that horses are measured in units of hand length? A “hand” is equal to about 4 inches, and the average horse stands between 15 and 17 hands high. Speaking of hands, what better way to learn about these beautiful animals than with hands-on activities that are assembled together to create a horse lapbook!

You may already have heard that student learning improves when lessons incorporate hands-on activities. It’s true! Therefore, a lapbook would be a great way to teach children about horses and incorporate hands-on activities. Although creating a lapbook about horses may seem as daunting a task as riding the biggest, fastest horse on the farm, with a little research and equipped with some basic home office supplies, your student can learn about the horse and complete an attractive lapbook displaying everything he or she has learned.

Your student will need file folders, paper in a variety of colours, crayons, pencils, markers, or other writing tools. You can find many reproducible templates for mini books, pocket cards, and other booklets and graphics online. You can also make your own mini books by folding paper in various ways. Other items to use in your horse lapbook include clipart, stickers, scrapbook paper, die cuts, colouring pages, games, puzzles, drawings, and photos.

Key concepts will vary depending on the age/skill level of your student and on what you decide you want to learn about horses. Here are some ideas to choose from:

Scientific Classification

What is the horse’s classification? What other animals belong to the same family? Horses, donkeys, and zebras look alike because they are all in the same family. Encourage your student to compare these three types of animals, using a mini booklet or Venn diagram.

Anatomy

Find a picture of a horse and have your child label the anatomy. Important features include the back, belly, dock, eyes, fetlock (ankle), forelock, hock, hoof, knee, mane, muzzle, neck, nostril, shank, tail, and withers. Find out about the different facial markings and leg markings on horse breeds, and encourage your child to draw markings on a picture of a horse’s face and/or legs. Markings might include star, snip, stripe, or blaze.

When studying anatomy, this would be a great time to explore the purpose of horseshoes! Why do horses wear shoes and how are they put on? Have your child record his or her answers on a horseshoe-shaped booklet.

Diet

Horses need plenty of food and water. What do horses eat? Are horses considered omnivores, carnivores, or herbivores? Visit a local feed store to learn about the different types of feed available. It is important to feed domestic horses properly, including lots of good quality hay. Visit a local horse farm and ask the owner to explain the dangers of feeding a horse bad hay. Ask him how to tell the difference between good and bad hay.

Life Cycle

How long do horses live? What are some of the stages of a horse’s life cycle? On a yearly calendar, have your child record or count the gestation period for a horse (11 months).

Horse Senses

How do horses use their senses? Horses rely on all five senses, but four are especially sensitive. Encourage your child to learn how horses rely on their senses of hearing, sight, touch, and smell.

Horse Gaits

What are the different types of gaits? Pretend you are horses and try demonstrating each of the different gaits: walk, trot, canter, gallop.

Size and Age

How are horses measured? Compare the size of different breeds of horses and/or compare the size of horses to other animals in the Equidae family. Find out what the smallest breed of horse is and the largest. How is a horse’s age determined? Suggestion: Have your child write his or her answer to this question on a mini book with horse teeth on it!

Body Language

If you ever wonder what a horse is feeling, look at its face and ears! A horse’s body language is a good indicator of how the horse is feeling. Explore the different ways that horses communicate with each other and with humans. If possible, have your child observe a horse and record in a journal what he or she notices. Are the horse’s ears forward and flickering? Are the ears pinned back? Are its nostrils flared? Is one ear forward and one ear back? What do all these things mean?

Horse Breeds

What are the different breeds of horses? Have your child pick one (or more) of his favourites and write a brief report about that breed, including the average height and weight of the breed, common colour, where the breed originated, distinctive markings, and other interesting facts.

How Horses Are Useful

Horses are able to follow basic commands and have been very useful to man throughout history. Research at least five ways that horses have been useful to man. Visit a racetrack, recreational facility, or a farm where horses are used as part of the work team. Explore the etymology of the term horsepower to learn when, where, and how the term was first coined.

How to Care for a Horse

What do horses need to survive? Visit a local farm or veterinarian’s office to find out. Or do some research online and at the library to identify the basic needs of horses, including food, shelter, and veterinary care. Find out which basic pieces of equipment are needed to ride horses.

Identification Terms

A horse is a horse, but during your research you may come across a variety of terms that are used to identify a horse, depending on its age and gender. Encourage your student to become familiar with different terms used to identify horses, including these: foal, colt, stallion, gelding, filly, mare, dam, and sire.

Famous Horses

From racehorses to cartoon characters, horses have made a name for themselves throughout history. What are some of your favourite horse characters? Is your favourite horse a real horse or a fictional character? Famous horses your student may want to investigate include Black Beauty, Mr. Ed, Barbaro, Citation, Seabiscuit, Silver, and Trigger. Encourage your child to create his or her own imaginary horse character! Write a story about a horse, or create finger puppets to act out a horse-themed play.

Vocabulary Terms

As with any study, vocabulary is important! Find the definitions of relevant or new words as you go through the study. Some vocabulary terms you may want to include in your horse lapbook include these: breed, canter, colt, farrier, filly, foal, gait, gallop, gelding, herbivore, mare, reins, sire, stallion, thoroughbred, trot, walk.

Related Reading

Don’t forget to read some fun books about horses! Some horse-related books include these: Mrs. Mack by Patricia Polacco, H Is for Horse: An Equestrian Alphabet by Mike Ulmer, I Wonder Why Horses Wear Shoes by Jacki Gaff, The Kingfisher Illustrated Horse & Pony Encyclopedia by Sandy Ransford, and Horse Sense by Beth Gruber.

Completing Your Horse Lapbook

To complete your horse lapbook, simply fold the file folder(s) shutter style and attach the mini booklets and other graphics to the lapbook. Your completed horse lapbook has become a portfolio of your student’s study of the horse! Your horse lapbook is easy to store and will fit into a file cabinet, file folder, or magazine holder with ease. Pull the horse lapbook out again and again to review and reminisce about the great things you and your child learned about the magnificent horse!

Katie Kubesh is co-owner and writer/researcher for In the Hands of a Child. Recognizing that hands-on projects are essential to the learning experience, In the Hands of a Child has created project packs that go beyond the hands-on aspect. They have taken the preparation time out of the parent/teacher job description with complete, ready-to-assemble, lapbook-style units that are available in ebook, printed book, and CD formats. Please visit their website at http://www.handsofachild.com/.

Copyright, 2011. Used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in The Old Schoolhouse^® Magazine, Summer 2011.

Visit The Old Schoolhouse^® at www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com to view a full-length sample copy of the magazine especially for homeschoolers. Click the graphic of the moving computer monitor on the left. Email the Publisher at Publisher@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com.

We’re Finished

WoW, we have finally delivered our evaluations to Le-Amen on Tuesday afternoon and that officially marks the end of our first year of homeschooling. Little did we know that this "school at home" approach would make our journey such a hectic and stressful one for us.

Home education is not for the faint-hearted…

Honestly, I do regret using Le-Amen as our service provider as our experience with them has been rather disappointing. Their material for Misha was way too much "worksheet wasteland" orientated and boring to work with. He hated doing them, & I didn't enjoy marking them either. Needless to say, I’m still waiting for feedback on the missing activities in his environmental studies manual… After repeatedly querying this, I gave up and he was overjoyed when I finally discovered lapbooking and allowed him to cut the worksheets up for his lapbooks.

We eventually replaced all the worksheets with Smart Tutor, Switched on Schoolhouse Language Arts, Teaching Textbooks and many other alternative resources until we recently stumbled onto Time4Learning again. After all the chopping and changing, he still managed to do quite well for a child that was struggling through school years before.

We also discovered his sudden interest in painting after taking him to a tutor to help with his “way beyond his age” art project for his Le-Amen portfolio. We were amazed at the end result and this term decided to let him continue art lessons with Edward.

He thoroughly enjoyed these lessons. From building the frame for the canvas, to painting this picture with Edward’s guidance. It turned out quite pretty. He enjoyed it so much that he’s been asking for more lessons this week.

Thanks to HomeSchool Tracker I was able to track everything the boys did. Misha averaged 86.11% covering Afrikaans, English, German, Art, Bible, Environmental Studies, Social Studies, Life Skills, Maths & Science.

Jesse’s books were not at all homeschool friendly. Pushing this textbook approach, just fuelled his intense hatred for schoolwork instead of help recover his love for learning. The textbooks were classroom orientated & the teachers manuals were aimed at professional teachers and not homeschool parents. When I questioned this I was told English and Maths were important and I shouldn’t worry about the others as they were “poer vakke”. How on earth is a child's supposed to be able to self-study with material that’s not appropriate for that purpose? I finally replaced most of his textbooks with alternatives and also got him Switched on Schoolhouse Science to try out.

Technology VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

He thoroughly enjoyed the technology lessons with Edward. This year he’s had in depth training on architectural drawings, built a miniature sample to accompany the drawings. He also started AutoCAD drawing lessons. As a technology project he’s busy building me a new washing line for the back stoep. This entailed measuring, drawing, planning material as as well as welding lessons.

Although he hated the bookwork, Jesse still managed to increase his average with 14+% from last year to 83.72% covering Afrikaans, English, German, Accounting, Bible, Social Studies, Life Skills, Maths Natural Science, Science & Technology. Now if this is what he’s capable of whilst hating what he’s doing, I can just imagine what he’ll achieve when he loves learning again.

However, apart from the “school” stress, we did also have loads of fun this year. We’ve done more field trips in one year than what Clive & I had in our combined school careers. I love having the boys home with me. We’ve grown so much closer as a family.

Fortunately I have discovered learning styles and how that affects their ability to retain what they've learnt and we still have some time to salvage the damage caused by the "system". For next year I’m planning loads of hands-on activities and fun instead of the traditional “school at home” approach.

I have been inspired to write a home educating philosophy for our family… but this is as far as I got for now…

I must admit I haven't been this tired & stressed in ages. It's already taken me a few days to de-stress and I'm only now starting to feel slightly normal again. I've been in bed by 22h00 most nights this week and am still tired. Fortunately we have a few weeks’ break now and I trust next year will be better and less stressful as we explore educating the WAY THEY LEARN.

For now, I’m looking forward to a nice long break and I’m sure the boys are happy to be on holiday too…