ART: Where do I begin?

The definition of the word art is not a simple one. You can not have writing, architecture, magazine ads, television commercials, photographs, paintings, drawings or conversations with out it being a form of art. Indeed, because of its broad definition it can make deciding what you want to learn during art  time an overwhelming decision.

To begin with you must consider the following SHORT list of things before purchasing art curriculum/books. What goal do you hope to reach through art? Seriously, thing about it.

1. Do you want an art book that teaches basic drawing (like in Drawing Textbook by Bruce McIntyre), different art forms (sculpting, crafts, scrapbooking) , use of different media (pencil, crayon, paint, etc), or just an overall introduction to all of it.
2. How much money are you willing to spend for art supplies? Paint, brushes, clay, and other media can get quite costly especially if you are purchasing supplies for more than one student. (If there is a Hobby Lobby in your area they have great sales on art supplies in their weekly sale bill from time to time.)
3. Do you want to employ technical drawing (like blueprints)
4. Do you want your art to include history (like in Artistic Pursuits) plus all other media styles such as writing?
5. Do you want it to inspire creativity and freethinking?
6. How much time are you willing to spend? Obviously, things like painting and pottery take significantly longer than drawing with pencils and crayons.

Knowing what you want to do during art can greatly reduce the probability of picking a curriculum, workbook, or project that can become tedious. For example, this year I blindly purchased the Lamb’s Book of Art I. It had some great reviews and I looked through the sample pages online (which is not always a fair representation of a book) . At first we were more than excited and learned some good things but we were disenchanted with the latter half of the book when it began teaching forms of poetry and asking the children to write creative essays. Poetry and writing are definitely forms of art but not ones that I want to explore during our art time. What started as a fun experience turned to disappointment because we were not learning how to draw or paint.This could have been avoided if I had realized all that the word “art” could mean. Art is vast  rewarding subject and in the future I will more carefully weigh the methods I want to employ in teaching art to my children.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.  ~Leonardo da Vinci

Handwriting Worksheet Generators

Today I’ve spent the day trying to reprioritize my schedule and goals. It always happens during the year that shifts in the books we are using and in chores and other routines ends up throwing us off our daily schedule which makes for just more than a little bit of chaos in the house.

After another morning of pandamonious schooling –the toddler being into everything, nursing the baby, answering questions on three different subjects going on at the time and the five year old whining that he was bored — I realized my schedule had been undermined and compromised. During lunch we had a board meeting pointing out the haphazard way our days were going and I pointed us all back to the schedule of peace and happy days.

This required me to be more diligent in finding preschool worksheets for my five year old. Since part of his boredom is waiting on his teacher to create worksheets for him (like writing his name) then I decided I need to find something to make that tedious task much more enjoyable. After doing a search and trying out several handwriting worksheet generators I settled on this one from Softschools.com as producing the most professional worksheet with multiple lines, ability to choose font size, page orientation, and more.

Ambleside Online

For those of us who use the Charlotte Mason approach I was introduced to this website last week by a good friend. I’m really excited about it! Here is the introduction from their website, it says it all.

Welcome to Ambleside Online, a free homeschool curriculum designed to be as close as possible to the curriculum that Charlotte Mason used in her own private and correspondence schools. Our goal is to be true to Charlotte Mason’s high literary standards. Ambleside Online uses the highest quality books and costs no more than the cost of texts. The curriculum uses as many free online books as possible, and there is no cost to use this information or join the support group.

Announcing the 50 States Scrapbook

For those of you looking for a place to scrapbook everything you will learn about the 50 states this is the place to put it. Each scrapbook pages contains a place to:

1. Place the name of the state at the top of the page.
2. Draw the state or paste a picture of the state, the bird, the flower, and the flag.  (Amazon.com carries a  50 State Cartridge for the Cricut)
3. A place to write down facts such as the type of agriculture, famous American, state motto, capital, and main industry.
4. A place to write a small paragraph of interesting facts about the state that were learned.

Math U See: A Review

Primer, Alpha, Beta, Gamma,Delta, Epsilon…What does the Greek alphabet have to do with arithmetic?  Everything when you are using Math U See! Four years ago frustrated with my inability to be a great math teacher I began researching math curriculum. I had used A Beka, Modern Curriculum Press Math, a few small workbooks but we were really struggling to find a current we could swim in and build up our strength.  

We found our current the year I bought Math U See for the first time. It came with a teaching dvd that you could watch as a parent and teach or watch together with your child. For me — a military brat who moved enough to have learning gaps in math — this was a great asset! Another asset was Steve Demme’s awesome teaching style. My children feel like they know him personally. My husband has noticed MY improvement in math as well. Math U See has received several awards through the years and they deserve each one. And as if great curriculum with a teaching DVD wasn’t enough – Steve Demme has the cheapest math on the market that includes video school teaching (to my knowledge).  Just take a look at the prices.

If you are struggling for an easy to use math curriculum I urge you to head over to Math U See and ask for their free demo video.

What is a Unit Study?

A few years back I got all excited about Unit Studies.  A unit study is essentially where you leave the textbooks behind in search of living books that cover the same materials.  You can do a unit study about trains, bugs, trees, people, nations, etc.  Every bit of learning is drawn from the unit study subject.  For instance:

Bugs are my unit study…………

For Reading – Read The Hungry Caterpillar, Vocabulary is bug terms.

For Language Arts – write a creative story about a Lady Bug’s life & grammar is conducted using bug words.

For Math – bug word problems in addition to regular math

For Science – Bug Anatomy

For History/Social Studies - How about studying the war between man and grasshoppers.  (just saw an excellent documentary on this somewhere in a waiting room)

Okay – you get the point.  Here is a unit study in a basic breakdown.  They are fun but they really require a tremendous amount of planning if you are going to do it for more than one day.  If you are going to carry your unit study throughout the semester than you can plan on spending more time than you originally bargained for in the planning stage.  When I first planned a Unit Study I got exhausted trying to track down all the books I planned to use.  Having three children at the time that meant finding an age appropriate book for each one.  What I couldn’t find at the library (here in little ol’ Ripley County)  I ended up having to purchase (which was not cost effective).  Even if you buy a preplanned unit study you will run into buying a ton of books to go with it.   Near the middle of our unit study  I was completely frustrated trying to gather my materials and complained out loud, “I wish I could just find all this stuff in ONE book!!!!”  Suddenly the silliness of my struggles slapped me in the face as I realized “DUH!, its called a textbook!”

Weigh your options carefully and try not to fall for fads in education.  If you find a unit study that works and your excited about it don’t hesitate, go for it.  I just wanted to warn you it takes more time and more money (that is if you don’t have an awesome local library).  I just don’t want you to end up frustrated like I was wishing for a text book after all.

Beginning Homeschooling from Preschool

Beginning homeschooling in Missouri is such an easy task.  Although the law says we “may” send in a letter of intent it is not necessary.  I personally have never registered with the superintendent or principal of the public school system.  In this small rural community most people who know me know that I homeschool.  However, if you live in a heavily populated neighborhood with people that you don’t know it may be in your best interest to notify the superintendent of the school district your child would be attending that you will be homeschooling as this will help avoid truancy inspections.

Probably the biggest obstacle faced by any parent who is going to home school is the choice of curriculum to use.  In the beginning I taught my children how to read using the A Beka phonics program.  Once I learned the format to teaching phonics I left A Beka behind and now use a very similar format found in a MUCH cheaper book called Phonics Pathways.  For phonics practice I am now using Getting Ready to Explode the Code and Explode the Code for my two younger sons.  They have become my favorite phonics workbooks for content, ease of use,  and minimal preparation which is an important quality to me.

Not being very confident of my own math skills I wanted to find a curriculum that would be easy for me to use (and didn’t make me look too stupid)  After two to three years using various math curriculum my children and I were frustrated.  The books were either too advance or too simplistic.  If I wasn’t in tears my children were.  Then I stumbled upon Math U See’s website.   I got really excited.  He had a DVD that taught the lesson for that week so that I could either watch it and then teach the children or we could watch the video together.  The price was affordable – not much more than the expensive curriculum I had been buying PLUS this DVD!!! So, I bought it and we tried it and we LOVED IT!!!  We went from tears to happiness and I’ve consistently bought Math U See every year since and plan to continue doing so.  Not only have the children now enjoyed math but I have found new interest in an area I thought dull.  My daughter who cried at the sight of numbers know says Math is her favorite subject.  Hands down Math U See has my vote. www.mathusee.com 

I hope that this insight into what we have found to work for us be useful and helpful information.  When I’m looking for curriculum I’m looking for cost effectiveness, proficiency, and ease of preparation.  I think most of us could say the same.