The truth is that everyone can develop the ability to paint. Learning to paint is as hard as anything else. All activities require a certain level of talent, including writing, cooking and even talking. So, if you would like to develop the fundamentals necessary to paint, what makes that different from the other activities where the skill to do it is considered a “God given” talent?

Absolutely anyone can be learning to paint and there is no need for god given talent to do so. As is the case with acquiring most skills, the secret to success, lies in the passion and determination of the individual.

After all, all these manuals and art books have not been written for the “god given” painters, explaining all the techniques for the usage of adequate papers, colors, brushes and stuff. In other words, the authors who are creating those materials believe that anyone can learn how to paint.

The painting method that you select, is a highly individualized choice. You can choose with oils, acrylics, water colors and pastels.  These are the basics, and you can always move into other ones at a later time.

Of course people painted with everything they had, being it chalk, charcoal, coffee or anything else. It is also recommended that you try out several different techniques so that you can choose the one you are the most comfortable with when it comes to learning to paint. Stop using something if it does not work for you, it will only make you feel bad – there will certainly be the technique you will find your satisfaction.

Do not be scared to improvise with colors, mix them because it will make your learning more interesting. There are no guidelines or hard and fast rules that must be followed in order to experiment with color.

When you have finished a painting project, be satisfied and pleased with your accomplishment, because whether it is an abstract or true naïve, it should not be compared to anyone else’s work. You should never try to conform your painting to specific guideline, as art is a creative process without limitations. How art can remain art if we label it?

Tags: Art, kids, learn how to paint, learn to paint, learning how to paint, paint, painting, school tips, teaching, teaching art, teaching painting to kids

History is one of those subjects like math that intimidate moms. Some moms spend countless hours scouring the homeschool reviews looking for that one history program that is not going to be dry, boring, too easy, intense and loaded with workbooks and what not.

You can stop the insanity! Stop frustrating yourself. The first thing is to realize that you homeschool and you have the advantage, and the opportunity to teach not only what will be needed, but you get to choose what, when. You see, being home schooled means we get to be independent learners. We are privileged to choose what curriculum our children use, even if it has no workbooks at all.

You see, curriculum does not always have to be limited to what’s in a box. Curriculum can be inventive, fun, hands on and is in-depth as your children will go. The fun part of homeschooling is you get to choose how much or how little to teach, depending on how well your child is learning, interacting and enjoying history.

Make sure that history is fun and exciting and you will find a kid who has a thirst for more. Here are a few tips to help make history fun and interactive, even if you are working from a boxed curriculum.

If you are using a boxed curriculum, go over the different things the program will be teaching. Let the child choose what they want to study first out of the choices. That is right, you do not have to start in chronological order or in the order of the pages. Learn history and you hit the mark, plain and simple.

If you plan to use the free style approach, then you will want to
start the process by getting your child involved. Have a bit of a discussion about history and ask your child what kind of history they would like to study.

Music
War
Art
Cowboys
Knights
Queens
What sparks their interest?

After you decide what you are going to study, you decide if you need to break things down a bit. Say your child chose war. Now together, you get to decide what war. Revolution, Civil War, WWI what ever.

Now comes the fun part.
Start Googling things. Google stuff that you would like to learn about within your subject and you will be amazed at what you will find. Many moms, like myself, have been there before and we have oodles of information to share. Many moms, like myself, have links to their favorite resources on their websites just waiting to share.

Some sites are easily overlooked by the new homeschool family. The history channel always has something of interest for your wee ones. I enjoy the PBS for documentary and what not. The point is, if you are struggling to find a curriculum, stop the struggle. The fact that you do homeschool allows you to do things a little differently and not as rigid as institutionalized formats of learning.

Nothing teaches a hands on learner better than hands on. Museums and cultural centers offer an awesome way to learn history. Join a reenactment group and you will really be teaching your children something. Look for events like reenactments in your local area. Many State Parks or museums offer living history classes or special events. Those are great ways for a child to learn hands on.

Don’t be mislead by the whole you need a work book lie. Yep, that is a lie. Here is how you can reinforce what your child has learned. For younger children, it is easy for them to draw a picture of what they have learned. Tell them to think of the favorite part of the lesson and draw that. Not only are you covering history, but now you just did some art. Again, there are many resources that have activity pages you can download and print for free.

Depending on the Childs grade and skill level, you can implement the following: write a sentence, write a short summary or write a research paper of what they learned. For some of your older students you could have them make up test questions and then have them answer. That is a fun exercise for them to really use their reasoning skills. Let them know that they need to think of good and challenging questions as part of the assignment. And have them write sentence answers. Challenge them to see if they can stump you with a question. That will get them digging deep into what they have learned. Have them make up flash cards with key points or make a bulletin board showing what they have learned in art and labeling with key points. There are all sorts of great memory exercise you can do besides paperwork and tests.

If you really feel like you need a curriculum to teach that is fine too. Take the best choice of the bunch and add to it. If the curriculum is studying the civil war, you could supplement it with some of the suggestions I just offered. Then, they are getting textbook familiarity along with the hands on fun.

To sum things up. Whether you like curriculum or free style learning, there are options. Don’t feel like you need to fit into a box. If you are uncomfortable and don’t like it yourself, chances are your children will not like it either or they will play off or your frustrations.

Tags: encouragement, family fun, home school, homeschool, homeshcool, kids, parents looking for help, school help, school tips, teaching, teaching methods, training

“The Homeschool Coffee Club”
Feeling frustrated and overwhelmed? Is this your first year and your not sure what to do? Perhaps your child is entering high school and your not sure how to go about that? Are you looking for real advice from real moms who have really been there but you don’t have the time for Chat Rooms, Forums or Moms Nights? Look no further.

Get Tips, encouragement and resources right from your phone. Join A.V Homeschoolers for “The Homeschool Coffee Club” On the first Thursday of every month beginning in June at 9:00 am to 10:00 am.

Listen to real moms handle real issues and give you new ideas and advice to make your home school a success. Get the support and encouragement you need to help make your home school year a breeze.

Are you needing personal attention? An open Q and A session will be handled at the end of every teleconference. Cant make it to the phone? All calls will be recorded for you so you can listen at any time. {The call is free but, check your phone company for long distance rates} This is an hour call.

Here is Conference Dial-in Number: (641) 715-3300

This month:
June
Homeschool, is it for me? Charter schools, filing an affidavit, PSP! What should you choose and what’s the difference? This month we will speak to a couple of different moms and their experience with ISP, PSP, Charter schools and filing your affidavit. We will also find out what they like best about homeschooling and why they chose to do it. Through this call we hope to help you choose what will work best for you and your situation. Remember there is a Q and A at the end of each recorded call!

Check out The Coffee Club Schedule to get all the latest recordings and to find out what is coming up next!

Please feel free to forward this to any homeschooler you know!

Tags: coffee, coffee club, coffee club call, encouragement, first day of school, home school, homeschool, parents looking for help, resources, school help, school tips, starting school, teaching, teaching methods, training

Some fun art and a little learning for your Thanksgiving holiday

One thing that goes well with kids and school is arts and crafts. Kids love arts and crafts no matter how creative they are. As long as the craft is simple, kids want to do it.

I have always liked combining my arts and crafts with school and giving purpose to what we are doing. One way of doing this is with a bulletin board. Bulletin boards have always been a friend of mine. I love how they not only can brighten up your schoolroom walls, but they constantly reinforce what it is you are teaching. Until your students have the skill pretty mastered, a bulletin board should be around.

Thanksgiving bulletin boards are a great way to teach several things. First, they could actually teach students about geography. Plan out a course that the pilgrims took and have the students make a map charting the course. The younger students could have a very basic map and the older the children are the more details they could add. If you wanted to study mapping skills this would be optimum.

Perhaps the students could make a giant cardboard ship with the different levels of the ship. They could add supplies made from construction paper or raw materials that could depict what would be needed to make the journey. Different mediums could add a 3D effect to the project. This could be adapted to each grade level by offering pre made things to add to the ship and help from the teacher to the students making the project all themselves.

Another thing you could do is study the pilgrims themselves. What did they do that first year and how were they helped, making a big collage to depict that. Again, this could be very rudimentary or detailed depending on the grade and ability of your student.

You could teach art by going on line and looking at various artists and how they portrayed thanksgiving. Study about how Thanksgiving was portrayed in the 1600’s as compared to now. Look at greeting cards and see if students can notice how art has changed from then to now. Then, the students could design their own art pieces depicting what thanksgiving is to them.

It would be fun to study clothing of the period and find out when the black and white came in and when it went out or did they really wear black and white at all.

The possibilities are endless! So, while you are teaching your kids about this important holiday why not add in some fun by offering an art and craft to go with all that learning. It is like getting fries with your hamburger.

Tags: Art, Art and Crafts, home school, homeschool, kids, parents looking for help, resources, school help, school projects, school tips, teaching, teaching art, teaching methods, Teaching tip, Thanksgiving

A friend of mine wrote to me because she was concerned about a homeschooled family and their children. She was concerned because this family had a 9 year old who did not read very well. She thought the child could read small words, those of a 4or 5 year old. She wondered if she should say anything to the family or perhaps she should call someone about this. As a homeschooling mom, she did not want to start trouble but she felt as if this child really needs help. Should she call or not? That is a concern that some homeschooled moms face when meeting other homeschooled families who seem as if they are not teaching their children at the level they should be.

Where should the children be is the question one needs to ask themselves when it comes to homeschooling. I know it is hard to sit and watch others parent their children differently than we would. However, as we get older and wiser, we realize that we do not know everything either and we are not always “right”. Sometimes there is just no “right” way to school our children, just different.

Many homeschooled parents have received grief from family members because their children did not start reading or read at their peers’ levels. It can take a along time as a homeschool mom to realize that not all children learn at the same level. Many parents find out that when their children are behind in reading it is because they had dyslexia. Many children do not start reading well until 5th grade. Some families have children that could read at 5 with no help from parents because they are listening to Mom teach their older siblings. On the other hand, the family can have two other siblings that are much slower and are not reading fluently. Some children struggled with reading and are not fluent until about age 7-8 and become voracious readers after that. Studies have shown that children that learn to read later, age 8 or 9, actually do better than children that learn at age 5 or 6. Better Late Than Never by Raymond Moore is an excellent book on this subject. Not all children are at the same level in any subject which is one reason why we all homeschool.

You do not know the struggles this family has had financially, emotionally or physically to make a decision that they are just being neglectful. What if the parents lost their jobs and schoolbooks were hard to come by that year. What if the homeschool parent became ill that year and teaching was difficult. I know of a mother who came down with a heart condition and taught minimal school for an entire year. Should she have put her kids in school for that year? It is not for you or me to say. I do know this, the kids caught up the next year. What if the family in question had a death in the family? That could set someone back for a long time especially if the loss was a child. The whole family would need time to heal. I know my kids have been behind in the past and it has taken time to catch up to where we should be. If anyone had called the authorities, it would have been devastating to us as a family. I was not neglectful I was a bit behind.

Keep in mind; there are different learning and teaching styles that home school families use. Who are we to say what works for someone else? Some children are auditory learners and if parents do not pick that up right away, the children could easily get behind. Likewise, if a child is a visual leaner curriculum needs to be adjusted to fit their needs or they too will struggle and possibly get behind. My eldest son had a very difficult time with spelling and to ease the frustration we just stopped. In fact, we did no spelling for two years. When we picked it back up, it was easier for him. He was no longer frustrated by it. If you do not spend 24 hours a day with a family, you have no idea what goes on in their home.

Think about your children, family, and what you would do if someone called the authorities on you. Even though we may have good intent, it is not our place to say how others school their children. Instead, there are a few ways that you could be a help.
If the child is not reading because the parent is not taking the time to encourage them, maybe you could just sit down with the child, and read a fun book to them at their reading level. Sometimes it takes an outside person to spark their interest. My sons hated to read until the first Harry Potter book came out. Now, they read everything and anything. In fact, they rather read than watch T.V

One grandparent I know sat down with their 4-year-old grandson and just played alphabet games with him. Grandma showed him how to blend letters together with lots of giggles and the next day we got out the beginner books. Now, he is off and reading. His Mom had not thought he was ready… It took a grandma!

Perhaps, you could start home schooling together. Team-teach! Perhaps they do not know how to effectively teach certain subjects like reading. The best thing you can do, IMO, is invite them for tea and discuss home schooling. Find out where they are and if they need help and then help them where you can. If it will work out for team teaching then schedule it for twice a week or so.

If you call the authorities on another family, you very well may put your family at risk of being looked at. You must ask yourself; what if it were you? What if someone thought you were being neglectful? What ramifications would it have on your family and children? Think about what it would do to you and imagine it happening to them. If you are in a position to influence another family, I think encouraging them would be the most beneficial. Ultimately, the children are their responsibility.

Tags: Child failing in school, early education, early learners, education, encouragement, family life, getting started, home education, home school, homeschool, homeshcool, kids, learn how to read, learn to read, looking for advice, love of reading, parenting, parents looking for help, pre-reading, reading comprehension, reading readiness, resources, school tips, special needs, successful homeschooling, teaching, teaching methods, teaching tips, training, unschooling

One thing for sure is; when it comes to schooling we get creative.

I am not one to sit and push paper after paper at my kids. I never knew a kid that enjoyed learning that way. Kids like things that are visual. They learn and retain the information better. That is why I believe every homeschool classroom needs to have some sort of visual element to it.

Have you decided to homeschool your kids and not provide them with some sort of regular learning environment? If you have not put aside someplace for your kids to learn you are going to make your school year challenging for not only you but your children. This is especially true if you have grade school children. Visualization helps to reinforce what it is that you are teaching and what they are learning.

When we decided to study entomology we started off with a small bulletin board. But then, as we began making our projects we found that we were going to quickly run out of room. I had always liked when we made a tree for our wall and added our fall leaves for decoration but this year I thought I would go a little further and make it 3D. This began as a great idea but quickly turned into a challenge when I decided to look on line for others who had built trees. I had figured that I could find lots of ideas on line but I was totally wrong. The web had very few ideas and the ones they had were very elaborate and expensive to build. So, I got my creative juices flowing and Tada, a free standing tree in the middle of my classroom.



Now that it is there we can continue our study of entomology and we now have the freedom to study biology, learn about birds, discover the differences of regions and so much more.  Really, the sky is the limit.



Another great thing about having the tree is we can incorporate our art projects and add them to the tree to watch it grow. When we study birds we can make birds for art and attach it to the tree. Same goes for monkeys or snakes, anything that lives in a tree we can study and add to it.



We can study the seasons too and as they change we can change the leaves that are on the tree. With this project, we can leave it up all year and change with it. Then, periodically we can refer to it asking the kids questions about the things on the tree which will help them to remember what they have learned.

Now, I am not saying that you need to make a great big tree in the middle of your living room but I am pointing out that with homeschooling you can be as creative as you would like. I am saying get visual in your learn space. Don’t forget that school needs to be fun and educational for the children to have maximum growth.

Keep watching for more post about how you can make your school year not only victorious, but rewarding too.

L

Tags: bugs, bulliten boards, encouragement, entomology, family fun, homeschool, homeschool deals, homeschool science projects, insects, kids, resources, school help, school projects, school tips, Science, things to do with your kids, training, trees

Swimming in the pool every day, barbeques and parties are all the fine things that make summer so fun and relaxing. Well, those lazy summer days are just about finished. It is time to hang up your towels, put away your flip-flops and get out the schedules. The school year is about to start and there are a few things you can do to help make the beginning of your school year the start of something wonderful.

Start a schedule
You will find that having a schedule is the key to success. Schedule in when you will work, teach, clean house and take time for yourself. Most experienced home schooled moms will tell you that having a schedule not only keeps your life running smoothly, but it helps children know what to expect on a daily basis. Personally, I keep several calendars. It helps keep each thing that I have to do in order so I can jump from one thing to another easily.

Main calendar- This calendar sets aside the things that I am going to do in that month
For instance
7:00 to 8:00 will be my time for getting ready
9:00 to 2:00 is school. During this time, I pull out my school calendar.
2:00 to 4:00 is work. During this time, I pull out the work calendar.
4:00 to 9:00 is home and family. This is where I have scheduled any doctor’s appointments, kid’s activities, farm chores etc…

Then I have three more calendars, which tracks my daily work.
Work calendar- The work calendar list what work assignments and deadlines I have.
School calendar- The school calendar list what we are working on, our assignments, our deadlines of field trips
Home calendar- The home calendar helps me to keep household chores on time and in order. Now, I have a farm and farming tasks need to be done therefore, I have farm tasks and house tasks scheduled.

Now, you do not need to go crazy like me, I must be organized for my brain to think, but you must have some sort of plan for your school year. When are you going to school, what times, what days, and how many hours? You must decide and stick to it!

Have fun assignments!

I once knew a woman who complained that she could not get her kids to like school. She told me they only schooled for about 2 hours a day and the kids were unhappy and complained the whole time. She was worried that even though they seemed to do well, they were not reaching their full potential.
After spending time discussing what she did for curriculum I was lead to the conclusion; know wonder, your kids are bored. She would give them work sheets every day. Three for each subject and that was it. She tested on Friday to see their progress. Ugg! That is not school, that is torture.

School needs to be fun. Kids need interaction, hands on, gooey, messy and fun. Children need and want to be challenged. The libraries and bookstores are loaded with fun and interesting ideas for you. Get out of the box!

Take school outside.
No one said you had to do school in a classroom (or a kitchen table). Sometimes it is easy to take school outside. I am not just talking field trips here, which is a terrific idea but I mean school outside. After all, school just started and you will have warm weather for a couple of months. My kids have always loved when I packed a picnic and some schoolbooks and headed to the creek for some learning. After picking a spot and setting up our blanket and a picnic, we read aloud for a while and then have a discussion. Then we play in the creek pretending to be someone that we had studied. Perhaps we act out Lewis and Clark and pretend that we are in the wilderness. We will discuss what we are doing, perhaps draw a map, and pretend to make a campfire. After lunch we can discuss water current, trees, take water samples for science just about anything. The best part is the kids were learning as they were playing so it was really school in disguise.

Jammy school-

I am a believer in schedules and routines, but sometimes we are caught up in our days and lives and even though we should, we just do not want to get up out of bed. This is especially true when the weather turns cold and wet. That is why I love Jammy day. We read stories in bed and have great discussions about them. We cook a great lunch and call it cooking class. We play educational board games like Carmen San Diego for geography. Sometimes we watch a great movie that has an educational background like Really Wild Animals for the kids or Roots for the teens. Before we know it, the day is done and we had a full day of instruction. Sometimes you have to ditch the routine and just relax with school.

Arts and Crafts

Nothing breaks up a bunch of brainy days with some relaxing school. Arts and Crafts always provide a break from the dreary. Again, there are many resources for you to teach your children some simple arts and crafts, which not only will break up their day, but you can add it as part of the curriculum that you are studying.

Some people like to dive into the school schedule. Regrettably they find that 3 months into the school year they are burning out. Having a bit of creativity can increase not only your staying power but also your desire to teach. Break up your week with fun activities and your children will not dread going to school. School in places other than a classroom and your children will think they are the luckiest kids in the world, nope, on the planet!

Yep, school is just about to start for us. The classroom is ready and the books are bought. The kids are getting to bed a little earlier each night and I am getting to a morning schedule. Practice for the real show? You bet. School actually starts after Labor Day, so I am leaving my flip-flops out for a little longer.

Tags: family, first day of school, homeschool, kids, parents looking for help, resources, school help, school projects, school tips, starting school, teaching, things to do with your kids, training