He's reading without being told to

I can't tell you how excited I was to look over and see John reading a book in the car. His two older brothers have always been readers. I never had to tell them to read, they always carried a book with them. John has only recently discovered that reading is a gateway path to learn whatever you want to, go where ever you want to and to help you learn to be who ever you want to be.
He is reading the Magic Tree House book series. The have a great website called Passport to Adventure to encourage kids to read. There are activities for kids to learn from at their Teachers@Random page. Use the books to teach geography, history, spelling and more.

Made our own Chalkboard

We’ve added a fun new thing to our school room: a chalkboard! We bought three pieces of sheet metal and some wood molding from the local hardware store. We painted these with chalkboard paint that I found. We mounted these on the wall, then covered the edges of the sheet metal with the wood molding. It looks great and the kids love it! Not only can they draw on it, they can also use their alphabet magnets on it. Say good-bye to those little magnets all over your kitchen floor -- they are happily on the chalkboard! Hooray!

UHEA Conference part 1

I attended the Utah Home Education Association’s conference on Saturday. I came away from this conference, more than ever before, feeling that I heard exactly what I needed to hear and that, “I can homeschool!”
The first two classes I attend were Penny Gardner’s on Charlotte Mason. She talked about using living books, rather than textbooks. Read biographies, historical fictions and well-written core books. Penny said Living books capture imagination, changes your life, gives new ideas and broadens your mind.
A Charlotte Mason quote: “Persons matter more than things. Don’t say anything that will leave a sting.”
I’m going to give you my notes for the rest as I took them, if you have questions, let me know.
Language Arts:
Narration is the retelling – “act of Knowing”
Steps to becoming a good writer:
-Oral Narration
-tell a story – oral composition
-read linear stories together, then have child narrate
-Make it fun!
-Make a book and give as a gift
-bean bag toss- “your turn- what happens next in the story?”
-cube toss: six sides: plot, theme, setting, character, compare/contrast, favorite part
-encourage kids to tell Dad about the book
-show a picture, write a list- tell what they saw
-maybe make into a poem
-act the story out
-draw a comic strip
-make a poster
-Copywork or Transcription
-Worry about penmanship around age 7 or 8
-have kids trace
-use Italic Handwriting
-handwriting is an art
-“People will judge you on your handwriting”
-have a jar or basket with favorite quotes for copywork
-short, focused lesson
-copy great literature
-there they will pick up spelling, punctuation, grammar, usage, vocabulary, capitalization
-let kids make their own Book of Mottos – special quotes
Dictation
-do not repeat
-learning listening, attention, concentration, memory
-start with short things
-start with something they already know
-should use neatest penmanship, spelling, punctuation
Spelling
-take words from reading
-notice how the words are spelled
-picture the word in your mind
-spell orally
-repeat
-pronounce words correctly
-write with eyes closed
-write word in sentence
Grammar
-speak correctly
-restate properly
-learn Latin
Transitions from Oral to Written Narrations
-start as written, move to oral
-alternate between student and parent writing

Homeschool 1: K'Nex

A little while back, John researched different contests for a homeschool assignment. He wondered if K’Nex had a contest. We looked it up and found they did, but the real news was that they had educational kits to aid learning about physical science. We’ve been holding a class once a week and it has been a blast! The first kit was wheels, axles and inclined planes. We are now working on Gears. These kits are fun, whether you homeschool or not, they are a good thing.