Foreign language study can serve a few purposes. First, it is a wonderful way to learn about English. When you study a foreign language and learn about verb tenses and grammar, it can increase knowledge of the English language. It can also help you understand the differences between languages – for example, some have articles (the) and other’s do not.

Second, a foreign language is great critical thinking. It is often a way for colleges to see how well your child studies and learns, and if they have the study skills necessary for a new language. It does take effort and thought. Much like math, a language is easier to learn when you do it daily, even if small amounts if necessary.

Third, not all countries speak English. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about Americans is that they think everyone does speak English. One reason for the “rude American” stereotype is when people insist on speaking English-only in a non-English speaking country. In order to successfully interact with people in other countries, whether as a guest or as a missionary, speaking their language is considered the polite thing to do. Even if it is just an attempt at their language, it can make all the difference.

If you cannot fit a second language into your normal homeschool week, there are options. You can search for a college that does not require a foreign language. You can strive for an AA degree from a community college, so that a foreign language requirement may be waived. You can incorporate natural language learning, rather than textbook learning. For example, you might learn Spanish during a mission trip to Costa Rica, interacting with native speakers, rather than sit in front of a computer doing Rosetta Stone.

There are a huge variety of languages to choose from; languages that are spoken around the world, languages that form the basis of scripture. American Sign Language is accepted at most universities, and it is a great language for kinesthetic learners. Latin is accepted almost everywhere as well, and it can be a great fit for a logical or non-linguistic child.

Need help homeschooling high school? Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, helps parents homeschool to college. She is an expert in how to craft a winning homeschool transcript. You can find Lee online at TheHomeScholar.com.

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Online Homeschooling Programs

There are a lot of different types of online homeschooling programs that you can choose from now. Some of them are actually for free, while you will need to pay for others. Regardless of which way you decide to go, free or paid, these lessons will be very valuable for you. This is because they will offer you more structure in terms of learning, timing and goals. Each of these areas has a framework that you can use to facilitate your child’s learning.

Homeschool Lesson Plans

You will find that a lot of these homeschool plans are actually quite easy for both parents and children to follow. Regardless of what subject is being taught, you will be able to find online lesson plans for it. Since there are so many different types of homeschool lesson plans available, you are going to have to take some time to carefully review them to ensure that they will suit your child’s needs.

Homeschool Computer Programs

There are also a lot of different types of computer programs and computer software packages that you can use to help your child get the most out of their learning experience. It is also important to note that sometimes homeschool lesson plans will be a part of the software that you choose but this will be dependent upon each individual software developer. Sometimes this software is free and will offer you and your child a refreshing alternative to the textbooks and printed worksheets that you will otherwise be using. Allowing your child to do some of their homeschool work online will also provide a different approach to learning. This type of an interactive experience will facilitate even more learning. It will also help to keep your child’s education exciting and fun since this will provide them with a hands-on approach to use.

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The best thing about this curriculum is its incremental nature. It builds upon the foundations, line by line and percept by percept. The incremental teaching method slowly and gradually unfolds the intricate and significant structures of mathematics. The curriculum enables the learners to grasp and absorb the concept in chunks. Moreover, the curriculum emphasizes a lot on the retention of these concepts.

The curriculum is divided into three portions. It systematically links instructions, practice and assessment with each other. It simplifies all the concepts for the parents. The curriculum also suggests ways to improve the understanding of their children. It is based on simple and familiar terminologies and algorithms. After thorough instructions, the curriculum has practice exercises to keep on revising the previously introduced concepts. Finally, every chapter has cumulative assessment section. It consists of worksheets, based on the previous questions and problems.

The Saxon math, a home-school math curriculum is augmented with marvelous features to guide and teach you at every level. The home-school curriculum caters all levels from primary through middle to the high level homeschooling.

The Saxon Math curriculum is designed to teach the basic mathematic concepts such as patterns, geometry, time and comparison and ordering of numbers. The curriculum extends to teach basic addition, subtraction and multiplication concepts. The primary level curriculum focuses on the manipulative math. It offers a manipulative kit to help students to apply their learning in hand-on play. Thus, the Saxon primary grade math proffers a solid foundation of early elementary basics, enabling students to successfully branch out into excellent performance in the upcoming grades.

The Saxon middle grade curriculum smoothly shifts the learners from manipulative and worksheet math to textbook approach. It emphasizes on algebraic and geometric concepts. Following its iterative approach, the new concepts are merged with the older concepts. The new chapters include reviews of the previous concepts. It comprises of upgraded levels of learning ad teaching. The middle grade curriculum holds investigative approach to give an in-depth treatment of math concepts. For convenience, parents can have the solution manual, which offers step-by-step solutions to the problems.

Saxon high grade math curriculum covers algebra, geometry, advanced math and calculus. Algebra offers quite a challenging but enjoyable experience to the students. It explains the concepts with self teaching examples and thus develops a habit of understanding and inferring the concepts independently.

Apart from all its advantages, it has some weaknesses too. According to some instructors, though it provides solid mathematical foundation, but it is quite slow for the bright students, as reworking the same problems everyday makes it boring for the students with a quick pick.

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First you will need to organize your car so you can bring all the necessities, and then add your educational items. Car clutter is the enemy and will quickly turn your road trip into an energy sapping chore for which you will find yourself dreaming about being back at home. Invest in a roof top carrier such as a Thule to store travel items that you will not need immediate access too. If your budget allows, also purchase a second cargo hitch storage compartment to store even more items that would otherwise be taking up valuable space inside your vehicle.

You will find that there is now much more space inside your vehicle. Use it wisely by taking advantage of some great car organizers on the market. There are items that organize your DVD’s, Kids car organizers, back seat organizers that are insulated and hold snacks, travel trays with pockets that hold art supplies, toys, and more snacks, floor stand trash litter bags, 12V car vacuum cleaners and more. We always take advantage of organizing and consolidating our items in the car so everyone has access to what they need while we are on the road for days at a time.

Begin packing your entertainment and educational items for the kids. Our kids love to read, but reading while traveling can cause motion sickness, so we discovered Audio Books on CD. The selection is endless from fun classics, to educational audio books. We found that when we travel to a specific destination such as following the Oregon Trail, it’s good to bring a couple of movies and audio books on the subject. The kids are actually learning, while having fun. CD’s and DVD’s don’t take up much room when you store them in a CD visor organizer and provide hours, and even days of entertainment.

The kids always want to do arts and crafts, so be sure to bring some coloring kits and a lap tray travel desk that they can use while they are creating their back seat master pieces. I don’t usually recommend a deck of cards, but we picked up some interesting wildlife picture cards while driving through Wyoming that the kids still love to play with. They quiz each other on the names of each animal, and have even created their own, go fish type of card game for predators and prey cards. It’s amazing what kids can come up with on their own!

For the older kids, have each one bring a journal, and or sketch book to document their experience in. We actually brought along a science sample collection kit so my son could collect dirt samples from each state we drove through. The colors varied from deep black soil, to bright red dirt in Utah and he now has an intrinsic interest in geology from that one road trip.

For the little kids, it’s always good to bring a favorite or familiar toy along especially for those long trips. If there is some fear of losing the toy along your journey, carry a backup identical toy to completely eliminate a potentially traumatizing experience for your youngster.

Once you have packed your entertainment and educational items, put together your car menu and food storage system. Since our kids have severe food allergies and can’t take the chance of eating out, we carry all our food with us. I have organized a system for food storage and use some great food storage organizer bags to achieve success in this area. We always bring our homemade car snack food items like organic fresh fruit and veggies, to homemade granola, sandwiches, nitrate free jerky, homemade trail mix, and snacks. I also bring main course meals along that I can cook in our hotel room or at the camp site. Like everything in life, practice makes perfect and each time we travel, I find new ways to prepare meals, and add new entrees to our travel meal menu.

Now you are ready to get out and see the world, or at least North America on your Road Trip with the Kids. With maps, audio books, journals, coloring kits, toys and more, you will be outfitted for a successful car schooling trip with your family. Not only will you enjoy being somewhere other than home, but you will be able to teach your kids in a fun and exciting way about other States, wildlife, agriculture, and more.

Happy Travels!

Linda Walsh is a mother of 3 young children – one with special needs and a forth child on the way. She is also a family travel expert who has developed a unique system for traveling with babies and young kids, budgeting money, cooking from scratch on the road, managing life with special needs, and living an organized lifestyle to get the most miles out of raising her family. If you would like to find more ways to simplify and organize your travels through life with your children, visit her website at http://www.familytravelgear.com or her blog at http://www.blog.familytravelgear.com.

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First of all, in making a weekly schedule for home school, you must list down what are the necessary things that you need to do or events that you have to attend. From Monday to Sunday, ask yourself whether you have certain outdoor activities that you need to attend to like shopping for your grocery, attending some meetings or participating in certain occasions. Knowledge of these outdoor activities is very significant in making the schedule.

The next thing that you have to do is to assess the energy level of your child. As a parent, you already know the time of the day where your child is very energetic. From what you have observed, you can make this time as your schedule for doing your lessons and book reading. Usually, it would happen in the morning as soon as your child has properly rested and eaten breakfast. You need to make sure that this will be the routine of your child for 5 days in a week.

Follow the subjects on the home school curriculum that you have planned for this year. In your schedule, divide the subjects accordingly throughout the week. It solely depends upon the time that you have planned but you have to make sure that you will take up all the subjects in a week. You can follow what is done on usual campuses wherein different subjects are taken every day. For instance, you can maybe spend two hours in a day for science and another two hours for Math.

You must not only make a schedule for doing pure reading and writing. Home school education must include your child to have a break and be involved in fun, play and other extra-curricular activities. Try to explore activities that will still arouse the interest of your children in learning. If you are learning about History and early civilizations then spend a half a day with your child in the museum. You must include outdoor activities so that your child will still be exposed to what is outside.

You can follow this very same schedule for next week but with different planned outdoor activities. Once you follow this schedule, your child will also form a habit in managing the time for studying, playing and helping out with household chores.

This is how you make a schedule from the home school curriculum that you have planned for your child. Having a schedule helps you organize the time that you will spend for home schooling.

Home school education is one of the methods that parents use today in providing the learning that their children need. If you want to home school your kids, you have to be ready for a lot of tasks that you need to do. Visit http://homeschooljewel.com/ and learn more about your tasks and how you can handle them well.

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Taking attendance, making announcements and getting absent students caught up and other distractions use up too much of the teacher’s time.

While these things are not bad, they greatly dilute the teacher’s effectiveness in advancing the curriculum goals of the day. I know how this works because I was a classroom teacher for 28 years in public middle and high school schools.

In an online tutoring/teaching situation, the student and teacher can get to the point of the current lesson immediately. If the tutor has done a professional job of getting to know the student in the first few sessions, and has a good conversation with parents about the learning goals of the child, this interaction can be very powerful.

Classroom teachers can only give a student a few seconds of attention throughout the class time available, if any at all. In my experience, only a few students can gain personal attention of the teacher: the students who are aggressive in asking for the teacher’s time, the ones who are self-confident enough to ask questions, or the ones who impact the class negatively with their behavior.

None of those situations come to play in the one-on-one environment of an online class session. The experienced and talented tutors and teachers get to know the learning style and skills of their students, and can make extremely effective use of the session time. A parent consultation or conversation at the end of the class session is an important benefit to the student, also.

A online teacher can ask pertinent questions, allow the student to take their time in explaining their thinking process, and can really listen to the child to best help them.

So, when your child connects with a great online teacher, you will know that there will be no wasted time and that the student is definitely getting your money’s worth, unlike the typical overcrowded school classroom! So, think about this: during a school classroom lesson, your son or daughter could have experienced 3 quality learning experiences with an online tutor. 3 for 1, and much more effective, motivating, and targeted!

A middle school and high school classroom teacher for over 25 years, Terry VanNoy takes pride in his ability to engage his students with creative ways of showing important concepts. He and his students use a shared computer screen, whiteboard, and use text chat and live voice (like a phone call) to work together during the instructional sessions. His online tutoring business caters to middle and high school students who need a confidence boost to get to the next levels and feel excited again about becoming math students who can achieve amazing things!
Terry VanNoy’s class sessions, Math with Mr V are by appointment only… Call toll free 1-877-317-3317 to arrange a free consultation! Help your child feel more successful in his or her math classroom.

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I believe that these ideas are not taught effectively in most elementary classrooms. Teachers tend to move quickly through the lessons at this time in elementary school (usually 3rd or 4th grade), and tend to treat fractions as an abstract idea.

When learning to speak, infants are taught to point to an object and repeat the word that the adult speaks. These nouns become the building blocks of language, and numbers and counting is done the same way.

Primary grade students learn to count objects in their world, moving on to basic number pattern ideas and labels such as multiples of 5 and 3, and the concepts of odd and even. But these are whole number ideas, and partial numbers (fractions and decimals) tend to be introduced on paper as an abstract idea. In other words, teachers should be repeatedly showing students what a third of something is, or how to cut things up into equal pieces, etc.

I am not saying that this is avoided in elementary school, just that students are not given enough exposure to those ideas. Students should not be doing worksheets where they practice adding fractions with unlike denominators until they can draw pictures of these fractions, or show how to cut them up into equivalent pieces. The concrete learning idea of manipulating objects to show a mathematical idea needs to be embedded into the minds of young learners before they can practice similar math ideas on pencil and paper. This curriculum piece tends to be skipped or rushed in most elementary classrooms.

Students who are not ready to move on to do fraction work (or decimals or percentages) are either unsuccessful the rest of their math careers, or memorize the algorithms and get stuck later in higher level math courses.

Either case requires extra help to survive high school or college math curriculum because the developmental phases in mathematics cannot be avoided. If a student didn’t understand a fundamental concept such as fraction operations, they will not be successful in learning topics that use these ideas, such as solving equations, graphing linear relationships, or manipulating precalculus problems.

So, if you are a parent of a child who struggles in math, take a look at how your son or daughter expresses the ideas of fractions. Ask them to show you what 2 thirds looks like, or what 8.6 means, or to make a model of what percent 8 out of 10 represents. Can they do it?

If not, find a quality online math tutor who can diagnose the developmental phases of what your child has missed in the classroom. A highly skilled, experienced teacher can help fill in those gaps in learning, make it fun, and help your child to once again rediscover their math confidence!

A middle school and high school classroom teacher for over 25 years, Terry VanNoy takes pride in his ability to engage his students with creative ways of showing important concepts. He and his students use a shared computer screen, whiteboard, and use text chat and live voice (like a phone call) to work together during the instructional sessions. His online tutoring business caters to middle and high school students who need a confidence boost to get to the next levels and feel excited again about becoming math students who can achieve amazing things!
Terry VanNoy’s class sessions, Math with Mr. V are by appointment only… Call toll free 1-877-317-3317 to arrange a free consultation! Help your child feel more successful in his or her math classroom.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terry_VanNoy

For twenty-one years Basic Skills presented the Winter Home Schooling Workshop. Sono Harris was among the many speakers who made regular presentations. Sadly for us, on July 4, Sono passed away after battling cancer.

My wife Jenny and I met Gregg and Sono in the early 80’s when the home school movement was just beginning. While Sono was in the habit of saying “no” to a number of invitations to speak at various functions and events, she always said “yes” to our conference.

Many mothers came simply to hear her. While the men had something worth listening too, they were, after all, still men and did not (or could not) relate or address the topics these mothers needed to hear, to where they were living. While all of our speakers were respected, appreciated, and their expertise recognized and helpful, Sono was all of the above but more importantly, loved.

In the early 90’s she addressed basic, practical topics. But as the home school movement grew, her children as well everyone else’s grew up with it and her focused changed.

Mothers came not so much to hear her teach how to do something, but how to live. Sono filled with them with hope, and that’s what they needed. Many were ready to quit and were tired. But just being around her helped them stay the course. She was gracious, and she lifted spirits. She shared insights that could only be truly understood as spoken by one mother and wife to other mothers and wives. They listened to her because she was completely invested in whatever she was involved in.

I think of Sono when I read the kingdom parable described in Matthew 13:44. “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy, went and sold all he had and bought the field.” She was like that merchant. She held nothing back when it came to her Lord, family, and again, to whatever she committed to. She was, as one of the titles of a talk she gave, a “Joyful Mother of Children.” She invested deeply and completely.

Because of this, her life experiences were rich. She had a way of pulling back the curtain of her life just enough and then inviting the mothers in her seminars to get a glimpse. She related in such a way to those she spoke to that at times it was like having a personal conversation with her. She had the ability to distill ideas into something her listeners could easily take in and remember. If she felt she needed to present a correction (attitude, point of view, etc.), she did so in a way that her listeners did not feel scolded or reprimanded.

As I mentioned before, in her later presentations her topics and focus changed. Near the end our twenty-one years of home school conferences, she spoke more about the difficult issues of life that she and other mothers had in common. Mothers felt she identified with their struggles.

I remember one talk she gave which was titled, “An Anchor for the Soul” in which she introduced her presentation by speaking about the desire most wives and mothers have for stability. She then spent the rest of her session talking about change and in particular suffering. She said “motherhood is about change in a progressively painful direction.” She was talking about the separation we experience with our children as we move through the stages of life.” All of us go through this.

At the end of this particular session, she posed the following questions, “What am I to do with this, how am I to manage this? How am I to handle this suffering, loss, and pain.” She talked about “increasing the sacrifices we make (as mothers) while reducing the expectation of immediate returns.” She said, “It’s about spending all that you have, and letting go. When we embrace God’s will, everything changes.”

In referring to the kingdom parable described in Matthew 13:44, she said the key word was “bought.” We must buy the field. Often we think the field God wants us to buy will be attractive and pleasurable, but it’s often bleak, with trouble, pain, suffering, and loss. But there is treasure in that field. The loss and suffering we experience drives us to the only dependable anchor for our souls, Jesus Christ. That is where our suffering finds its greatest meaning.

For Sono, Jesus was that priceless treasure, and now she is enjoying his presence in person. Sono Harris was and is a joyful mother of children.

If you’d like to make a donation to help the Harris family during this difficult time, an account has been set up at West Coast Bank. Donations can be made at any branch in Oregon and Washington. The account number is 1141007201 under Sono Sato Harris.

To read more about the life of this remarkable wife and mother, go to www.joshharris.com.

Thank you for reading.
Curt Bumcrot, MRE

Please feel free to forward this to home schoolers you think would benefit. Also, you have permission to copy this article to your blogs, forums, social network pages, or other websites. We only ask that you provide the live link at the bottom of the article that leads back to www.basicskills.net

Curt Bumcrot is the founder and director of Basic Skills Assessment and Educational Services. He has earned degrees in Biblical Studies from Grace Institute in Long Beach, California, a B.A. in English from California State University at Dominguiz Hills, and a M.R.E. (Master in Religious Education) from Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary. He has been active both as a teacher and administrator in Christian Schools. He and his wife, Jenny, who home schooled their three children, currently reside in Oregon City.

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I started getting concerned when they mentioned the book “Discovering” for algebra and geometry, and said “It’s also the series our school district has chosen.” First of all, any time our school district chooses anything, run the other way. They have a 46% graduation rate. That is our local high school:-)

“Some of the highest-paying and most competitive careers are in science, technology and medicine – all math-intensive fields. Meanwhile, more colleges and universities are requiring applicants to take up to four years of math in high school.”

That is a very good reason to teach math, and a very good reason to be conscientious about it. I would also like to point out that it is not all about pay either. Nursing, for example, is a math-based careers that is more about mission than money.

But do you have to choose between math “investigations” vs. extensive explanations and practice? I love the fact that homeschoolers can have it both ways. You can take a traditional textbook and add supplements that encourage understanding. But you know, some kids need more practice, and some kids need more explanations. Some kids just flat out need more hands on activities! I am not sure how one math book can serve the needs of every student.

I know that homeschoolers feel very concerned about upper level math. How much harder would it be if you were a non-homeschooling parent? Imagine trying to help your child with homework when you did not choose the book, have not seen it all year, do not have a video or an 800 number to call. What a nightmare! My friend had a child who used the Discovery book in public school. The schools were not able to help her and so they hired a tutor. Even the tutor who had a math degree could not figure out the Discovery book!

It was interesting to see them comparing these math books to the whole language vs. phonics debate. I remember thinking that different children learn to read in different ways, and that a mixture of the two can help. Math may be the same way.

Lee Binz, The HomeScholar shares some of her time each week to provide free homeschooling advice to parents. She also shares many free homeschool resources to help parents in the noble cause of homeschooling their kids through high school. Find more information at TheHomeScholar.com.

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When you first to do this it is important that you evaluate what your child actually knows. You should use alphabetic flashcards and get your child to identify each letter. Very young children may not be able to do this but may only identify the letters using the alphabet song. If this is the case your first step will be to get your child to recognise each letter separately.

You should then start to connect sounds to the letters that are making them. There are many ways in which you can do this but one of the best would be to get an alphabet floor puzzle. You should make sure that your child becomes adept at putting all of the letters together and understanding the noises that each one will make.

You should also be getting your child to recount back to you the different sounds made by each letter. It is important that you accept that certain letters are far more difficult to grasp, such as those that have two sounds such as C or G, and those letters that do not really sound like their names such as Y or X.

It is also a good idea to invest in different learning techniques such as the use of phonics books. These can be purchased from different shops all you can even download them from different websites, and they will certainly be helpful in allowing your children to identify the different letters and begin to put them together into words.

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