Category: Daily Life

How to Keep Homeschooled Tweens Active

12/25/2014

Physical education is an integral part of the whole picture. Don't put it on the back burner when it comes to academics. In fact, physical activities may help boost student performance in other areas. Keep this in mind when developing your homeschooled tween's daily schedule and curriculum. This is one of the first things I learned when we started homeschooling years ago. Not only is keeping homeschooled tweens active a good idea for academic purposes, but it also helps encourage a healthy lifestyle overall. It also helps them expend any pent up energy and frustration, which can be a good thing for the whole family.

Exercise with your tween every day. This is extremely important in encouraging an active lifestyle. Whether it's family yoga, nature walks, bike riding, skating, playing basketball in the yard, or a workout routine, the family should include some form of exercise in the daily routine. It's easier for the tween to feel encouraged to participate when it is a part of the normal daily activities. Try to make it happen at around the same time every day. Switch up different activities for a more rounded physical education experience.

Get your homeschooled tween involved in athletics. Sports programs are available in most areas. These can be found with private leagues, organizations like the YMCA, and even with area schools. Homeschooled tweens have an advantage in that they can sometimes join either homeschool leagues or those with area schools if permitted. Churches can also have sports and recreational teams and programs. Not all areas will have leagues specifically for homeschoolers. But usually those with neighborhood organizations are all inclusive.

Take field trips often. Get out and enjoy your area and those surrounding it. Base the field trips on current lessons, as well as other things. The zoo, library, and museum are some of the obvious destinations. But also try nature reserves, wildlife reservations, railroads, the airport, historical buildings, monuments, and anything else interesting. If you're inventive and open-minded, you can find a field trip destination for every lesson every day if you want to. You may not choose to have daily field trips. But be sure your homeschooled tween does get out often and see the world - or at least the neighborhood.

Enroll your tween in dance classes. Many tweens love to dance. So this is a good way to get your homeschooled tween to enjoy being active. It also provides an extra way to get some social interaction. Even if dance is not really your tween's best talent, the classes may still be enjoyable. Let your tween choose the style. From ballet, to jazz, to modern, to hip-hop and more, any tween who is interested can find their style. If your tween is up to it, let him rotate between various styles for an even more interesting and rounded experience.

Encourage stretch breaks in between assignments. This is one of the easiest ways to keep your homeschooled tween active during the day. Make it a routine thing to get up and move around in between lessons. Movements may include dancing, stretching, jumping jacks, or other random actions. As long as your tween gets up and flexes, it's good. Try to make it fun so there isn't any protesting. The actual movement doesn't matter as much as the fact that your tween is not sitting in one place all day long.

*I originally published this via Yahoo Contributor Network

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How to Homeschool With Minimal Stress

10/18/2014

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by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

When you made the choice to homeschool, I bet the first thing on your mind was not the stress. You probably imagined some fairy tale where all the children sat still and listened to you lecture or followed along with everything you said and did. Then, once you got started, you were snapped back into reality. I can't promise you a fairy tale, but I can help you get things running much smoother. When you're fully organized and prepared, each day will be easier. Exact organization layouts will be different for each family, but by reading the following, you should be able to get your schoolwork and homeschool organized easily and effectively.

Plan ahead

The first step in organization is figuring out everything you have that will be used during homeschool. Planning ahead will often take off a big slice of stress. Get out a notebook or sheet of paper and take inventory of everything you use for schooling. Individual lists and lengths of lists will vary. Once you have your list, on a separate sheet of paper, group the alike things together. Check them off on your first list as you go. Be sure you are including furniture, craft supplies, and books (no need to list every book; just list them in categories like board books, fiction, non-fiction, simple books (non-chapter), first chapter books, readers, chapter books, etc...). Once you have that done, you are ready for the actual organization part.

Create a space for school

When homeschooling, if possible, you should have a separate space for school. The space can be an entire room if you have the space (I recommend this) or if your space is limited, you can make the spot in a room it will blend well with (home office, playroom, child's bedroom...). This will eliminate the stress of trying to figure it out each day. Remember that sometimes your children may want to do certain assignments outside or on their beds. This is fine, providing it's an assignment that your child feels comfortable doing at a space other than the desk. Also, sometimes assignments will be done during field trips and other school related outings. The school spot is just the "base", so to speak. This is the spot where the kids will be able to read, write, do crafts, do projects, do experiments, study, and listen to lectures. The area must be comfortable, quiet, easily accessible, have all materials handy, and be kept clean and ready to use.

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Choosing furniture

If you haven't yet purchased furniture or don't have anything in the house you can use, here is a breakdown of what I suggest. However, keep in mind that all households are different and what works for one person may not be universal. I suggest getting a desk that contains a drawer or compartment for storing basic materials (pens, pencils, stapler, scissors, glue, paper, notebooks, etc...). If you have more than one child, you may choose to use a desk-like table that will seat all the kids and store the supplies in separate drawers for each kid. This is ideal, but don't worry if it's not in your budget. You can always opt for using the kitchen table and keeping all supplies close by. I also suggest using an armoire that has shelves and drawers on the part outside of the doors. You can store craft supplies, messy items, items with small pieces, and items you don't want babies and toddlers to touch inside the doors. You can store the books on the shelves and papers, folders , and other supplies in the drawers. If this won't work for you, then you can also use regular tall bookshelves and a file cabinet. Store the "door items" inside plastic totes on the top shelves. Arrange the books on the lower shelves and store the papers, folders, and supplies in the file cabinet.

Scheduling

Once you have decided on your space, arranged your furniture accordingly, and put everything away, it's time to organize your daily tasks and schedule. Your schedule should include all the classes your child takes each day, break and snack times, and recess times. Don't forget to include electives and field trips. Sometimes you may stray from the schedule for some unplanned learning activities. But having a general idea of what you are doing can really help avoid stress.

Handy Hints:

1. Tear out and laminate workbook pages and put them in binders for each subject. Arrange the page order according to level. If you make a big one that contains all levels and areas of math, you won't have to purchase any more math workbooks the following years and you have work for all your kids. Just pull out the pages one at a time and give them to your child with a write & wipe marker or crayon. Then, when your child is finished and the work has been gone over, you can easily put it back in. You may want to take a Sharpie and number the pages in the order you want them. That way if more than one child has a worksheet, you can easily remember where they belong.

2. Take some relaxing time for yourself each day. If your kids nap, instead of cleaning during their nap, you could take a soak in the tub, curl up with a book, or do something else you enjoy. Your relaxing time may come after the kids are asleep, but be sure to take it. Even five minutes of locking yourself in the bathroom and praying can go a long way.

3. Plan ahead. If you try to do the assignments as they come, this can stress you out. I recommend taking a weekend to plan a month or so of assignments. That way you can easily give the assignments to your child/ren when it's time.

4. Organize each subject for each child. Each child should have a folder for each subject. The assignments should be placed in those folders in order of when they are to be completed. Even though some assignments won't have a worksheet, there should be instructions for each assignment (even if it's just reading). All assignments should have a date on them. You can even stick the write&wipe sheets in the folders, too. This makes the day run much smoother.

5. Never ignore a question your child asks. If you don't know the answer, don't stress. Just look it up.

6. Use different methods for teaching (chalkboard and lecture, books, games, worksheets, drawing, writing...). That way your child/ren won't get bored and they will also learn many different methods for solving problems.

7. Have Fun!

*I originally published this via Yahoo Contributor Network

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Incorporating Learning Into Your Child's Daily Life

10/10/2014

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by Lyn Lomasi, Staff Writer

Your child's learning is essential to success as an adult and in the business world. We must make sure our children are learning every day. This is not only important during school time, but also necessary during playtime and during normal every day activities. As a veteran mom, I have seen what incorporating learning into your child's daily life can do.

Go through the motions step by step. If you do not emphasize to your child what is going on while running through the normal daily motions, they will become just that, motions without reason. Your child needs to not only learn the hows of doing things, but learn the whys as well. Explain these things in a way your child will understand. For instance, there is no need to go into extreme details with a toddler. But an older child will want to know more information.

One way to make things easier for your child to pick up on is by playing mini games. You could turn a house cleaning into a trivia time, asking the child/ren related questions. Maybe you're doing dishes. Ask your child, "How come we have to wash the dishes with soap instead of just rinsing them with hot water?" The child may answer, "because soap gets them clean". Your response could be: "That's right because if we don't use soap, nasty germs can spread and cause infections. Yuck! We better make sure we always use soap and rinse it off really well so we don't have to taste the soap. Ewwww." So, you can see how easy that was. The child learns how to correctly do dishes, but also learns why it is important. When children know why something is important, they are more likely to complete the task than if you just tell them to do it "because you said so". This also gives them knowledge they can use in their adult lives.

Add extra bits of information to conversations with your child. Your child might be playing with her dolls and a question pops into her mind. She says, "Mommy, how come some people have dark skin and some people have light skin? Instead of saying a quick response like "That's just the way God made us", try saying something like this: "Well, honey, there's different weather in different parts of the world. Some people are around the sun more, so they get darker from something called melatonin that comes from the sun. We are all the same on the inside though, because that's the way God wants us. Wouldn't the world be boring if we all looked the same? How weird would that be? How would we tell each other apart, then?" A response like this not only teaches your child to respect everyone, but also teaches your child about melatonin and makes her think about why there are so many different colors of people, rather than just dismissing it, as the first response causes.

Make sure that none of your child's questions go unanswered or short-answered. Yes, sometimes we can inadvertently ignore our child's questions when we are tired, but we have to remember that their little minds have to be constantly fed. Ignoring their questions or telling them "not right now" can not only hamper their chance for finding that answer they're seeking, but it can discourage them from asking further questions. Not having the desire to question things can adversely affect your child's learning process.

Draw on what your child is learning in school. Take extra time after homework to go over what your child has learned. Research your child's topics further. If your child has been learning about frogs, go to a pet shop and have the pet shop owner tell your child all about them. Look up frogs online. Maybe your zoo or museum has a frog display. Buy a frog book. Play leapfrog. Just be creative and come up with ways to make the lesson "sticky" in your child's mind.

With these things in mind, be prepared to take your child to a whole new exciting level of learning and life. Don't be limited to just my ideas. Come up with your own as well. Have fun and happy learning!

*I originally published this via Yahoo Contributor Network

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ABOUT THE OWNER

Lyn Lomasi is founder and owner of the Brand Shamans Content Community. Services include ordained soul therapy and healing ministry, business success coaching, business success services, handcrafted healing jewelry, ethereal and anointing oils, altar and spiritual supplies and services, handcrafted healing beauty products, and more!

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How to Keep Homeschooled Tweens Active

How to Homeschool With Minimal Stress

Incorporating Learning Into Your Child's Daily Life

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