Marching in the Roman Army - Last Co-op of the Year

We had an incredible co-op yesterday!  Thank you so much to the wonderful mom that led us! There was so much to learn as the children made Roman sheilds, learned about Roman armies and practiced Roman formations. 

It was a great day!

First the children made amazing sheilds. They used cardboard, red tagboard, cut outs of designs and plastic bowls and foil. It took alot of glue to make it work and we needed a heavy duty glue gun. We tried to make the size of the cardboard as uniform as possible.

They turned out very well! The children looked like they were in a regular Roman Army!

After making their sheilds the children watched this excellent video on Roman Armies. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JJlDlYGRM&feature=related

It really brought to life what they were doing. 

After they were finished they took their sheilds and swords (swimming noodles) and we did some formations. This was great. They saw how challenging it was to keep in formation. 

They had a great time afterward when the battle was on!

In the afternoon they were ready to settle down and draw and paint a portrait of a Roman god or goddess. This was a wonderful finish to a great year!

Next year on to the Middle Ages! This week we planned out our topics and who was going to lead... it will be so much fun! We will continue on with the art and drama focus in the afternoons. What a blessing! Thank you to all the Mom’s who gave their time and creative energy to lead our children!!

SEEK out Encouragement

We are in our 16th year of homeschooling. In January 2013 we will start 17 years! We have graduated 3 of our children while homeschooling and we have one left at home who is going into Grade 8. 

It is natural at times to feel a little tired, directionless, worn out and even vulnerable! 

Seek out encouragement. Seek it from your own family - especially your husband and children! It encourages me so much to hear one of my older children say that they would love to homeschool when they have children! Thank you to my husband and children!

Our family has been so fortunate over the years to make several friendships with other homeschooling families. This has been encouragement that goes beyond what I could have ever imagined. This is support for mother to mother, father to father and children to children. This is an amazing blessing and one that is so worth seeking. Thank you to those special families (you know who you are)!

I have been blessed to work with wonderful colleagues who are so encouraging when it comes to learning more about God, service to our communities, education and being a blessing to one another! Heritage Christian Online School is a community of encouragers! Thank you! You can check out our Superintendent's encouraging podcast at The Christian Educator Podcast on iTunes or here. 

I am blessed to join together with other mom’s once every month for our co-op day. Here we chat (when we are not leading) and support each other in so many ways. We share stories, resources, needs, challenges and so much more. Thank you to all you wonderful moms!

This year I have also done something different - I have signed up for the Ultimate Homeschool Expo. I wanted to get back to my roots in homeschooling and come up with some goals this year that were not based on Pre-Algebra and the Middle Ages. I want to seek higher goals for our homeschool. I thought that the encouragement through this Expo would give me that push to look higher than the subjects and to the heart. To our relationship with God as we educate. I am enjoying these podcasts so much. They are challenging, God-focussed and have given me perspectives that I had forgotten, put on the back shelf or even denied. Some are practical, some philosophical, some challenging and some encouraging! Thank you for all of those who participated in this amazing online event! I have been so encouraged. 

I titled this SEEK out Encouragement because that is exactly what I think we need to do. SEEK it. I personally need others and other’s perspectives to encourage me. For the past 16 years I have enjoyed the encouragement of so many other homeschoolers. I still remember homeschool meetings 15 or 16 years ago and nuggets of encouragement that I gained from others. I continue to seek out encouragement today!

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you”

Blessings!

Our Homeschool Co-op - The Next Installment - On the Roman Road

We had a great day on Monday learning about Rome. The focus was Roman roads and aqueducts. The mom who taught our children is a very gifted teacher! 

She was well prepared with supplies for her to teach the kids about the building of Roman roads, the importance of them, the interesting facts about them and how they influenced Rome’s control, military might and trade routes. 

The children then built their own model of a Roman road! There were all the layers represented and information was given along the way as to what they used to build the roads and how they were built! 

She then had a model of an aqueduct and showed the children how it worked. The got to see how the water ran into the cities. It was very well done!

What really struck me today as the children were released to run off some steam and then have some lunch is how very comfortable they are with each other. Prior to this, many of them didn’t know each other, several of them only see each other at co-op and yet they have become a unit!

In the afternoon was our opportunity to take in another wonderful drama presentation by our Art/Drama mom! This drama was about the Christians being persecuted in Rome. She did a fabulous job once again writing a play for 17 children to participate in! We had a few families that couldn’t make it this time so several of the children played more than one part. 

We had Roman politicians, Roman citizens, Christians, soldiers, even a lion!

You could certainly tell as they were practicing that Spring is in the air! There was lots of acting going on, lots of energy and lots of laughter! It was music to my ears!

Thank you once again to all the mom’s that participate in making this co-op such a great opportunity for learning!

Blessings!

Why I use Twitter and TweetDeck!

I was at the Associated Christian Schools International Conference recently where a very wise man (@paulkellybc) said that he had more professional development through Twitter during his year than any other source. I began thinking about that! 

Well, I came home and began looking at more hashtags. If you are not sure what hashtags are, they are groups of people that collaborate around a topic by use of the # sign and their topic name. I was already following several hashtags but they were not organized very well. I will give you a complete list of the hashtags I follow at the end of this post.

What I really love about twitter is that it is current. There are posts that people are making now, today, this moment. It could be an old article or even an oldie goldie site but when it is tweeted it has a renewed interest - a new life so to speak! 

A wonderful thing about hashtags is the collaboration between people from all over the world who want to share. Oh, yes of course there are some who have an “angle” but there are many, many others who are just wanting to share!

To organize my hashtags I use TweetDeck. I find this the easiest way to browse through any hashtag in a sequential manner. Your "deck" can be organized to your liking - it has pages and you can organize those pages. 

Using hashtags on Twitter means that there will be lots of skimming on your part. I trust that I will be led to those articles or resources that are right for me, the rest I joyfully let go of!

TweetDeck allows me to skim, see topics readily and then go to the article or website quickly and easily. 

Some weeks I only skim one column, some weeks many and some weeks I skim over them all! 

I encourage you to enjoy some professional development on Twitter! Oh, my Twitter address is @rnsing 

Blessings!

Hashtags I follow:

#edtech, #edchat, #elemchat, #engchat, #hiphomeschool, #homeEd, #homeschool, #hsbloggers, #k12media, #lessonplans, #literature, #midleved, #arted, #classicaled, #arteducation, #charlottemason, #hsttd, #onlinelearning, #elearning, #mlearning, #unschool, #sonlight, #hsmommas, #hsmamas, #lapbooks

Titanic Study “Carpe Diem” - Seize the Day!

This week we ended up taking time to to seize the opportunity to study the Titanic. I didn’t have it planned but when our daughter showed signs of really wanting to look into the Titanic more, I thought in my head... but our plan... and then I thought...why not!

Pass from the Museum Exhibit

We had enjoyed years ago going to our BC Royal Museum for an amazing exhibit of the Titanic. The wonderful part was that you were given a boarding pass as one of the passengers and you got to see where you would have slept, where and what you would have eaten and what you would have done on the Titanic. Then at the end you could match up your boarding pass with the manifest to see if you had survived the disaster or not. 

“Little One” remembered that time and rekindled an interest with the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Narration after Museum Trip

We are reading this book which was on sale this week at Costco. We are reading some together and then “Little One” takes the book away to her room and pours over the pictures and what is happening on those pages.

We watched this documentary from The Passionate Eye at the CBC (it may only be available to Canadians). We learned about the crew of the ship, we learned how they lost their lives so that more “above” could live. We also learned how they powered the ship. I don’t think we had really thought about that aspect of the voyage before.

We read several articles from this site:

We reviewed Primary sources and secondary sources and looked at the inaccuracies of the early articles. This was interesting and very eye opening for our daughter that news articles could be so untrue.

Our daughter also watched two videos from Discovery Education (you will need a login):

One was on Tales of the Titanic the other a Mythbusters on Sinking ships.

She also took a look at these pictures from the National Geographic site. 

Lately, when I come across a current event or something interesting I have been emailing it to our daughter. She then opens her email and there are pictures for her to look at, articles to read or craft ideas. Anything at the time that I might think, hmmm... she might be interested in this. I don’t see this as assigned reading but more hopefully Inspired Reading! The Titanic photos I sent her spurred on an interest in once again learning more...

I took a look at these unit studies to see if there were things that I could glean from them.

This one from The Old Schoolhouse Digital Magazine. And this one from The Living Books Curriculum. 

There are many more great resources that we can explore. We have a few documentaries on the shelf, but "little one" is feeling that they get depressing after awhile. All of the stories about real people with real families not surviving. The true meaning of tragedy. What great discussions we have been having about life, death, eternal life and salvation!

Blessings!

Co-op Day, Olympics, Drama and so much FUN!

On Monday, we had another great co-op day. How blessed we are to have this experience for our children!

This was our last ancient history co-op based on the Greeks. What better project than to have an Olympics! We had an indoor Olympics as the weather was not co-operating. The mom that organized this was so awesome, she prepared for both an indoor and an outdoor Olympics.

First, one of the moms talked to the children about the Olympics and then we watched a short video clip from Discovery Education on the Olympics. 

Then another mom helped them make their victory wreaths with fern fonds and pipe cleaners. These got set aside and then the Olympic Games began. We divided the kids up into small groups and they went from one event to another. 

We had: 

Arm Wrestling

Punching on a punching bag

“Shot Put” with cotton balls

“Discus” with paper plates

“Chariot races” with wooden spoons and rubber balls

The kids has such a great time and were laughing and smiling. The moms all joined in and measured, kept time and judged races. 

In the end the kids all got their shoes on and went out side for the torch race and got crowned with their wreaths. What a fun morning!

In the afternoon was a highlight as we had another amazing drama production by our children. They practiced their lines and went through several “dress rehearsals” with all their towels and sheets. 

This drama had weaved within it so much information about Greece. The highlight for me was seeing our children working together with joy, really enjoying their characters, taking direction and really listening to what they needed to do to make the drama better. They did such a great job!

We are so blessed to have our writer, director and producer mom!!

Well, next month we are off to Rome on the Roman Road! 

Blessings!

Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Lapbook

I have just uploaded a Canadian Immigration Lapbook to my Homeschool Launch page. 

I used the Susan Hughes book Coming to Canada as a resource for this lap book and added in some extra pieces to address other aspects of immigration and citizenship. There are a total of 20 pieces in this lap book. This is a great study for immigration!

There are notes at the end of the mini-books that will help you with this lap book. Enjoy!