Backyard Science! Literally.

 Friends of mine really want to homestead.  They long for wheat grinders, raise chickens, and garden.  My friends embrace raw milk.  Friends use boric acid to control beetles around their chicken coops.  If you’re baking your own bread, making yogurt, and cultivating herbs, you’re doing science.  

1. As a family, create a map of your backyard, homestead, or farm.  Include all of the co-ops and varieties of poultry.  Do it to scale.

2. Make of list of all your kitchen skills: canning, baking, curing, fermenting, drying, etc.  Do a little research.  What is the science behind fermenting Greek yogurt?  What are different food preservation methods?  Look at this 4-H webpage for food science topics to research.  Have your kiddos write a report on food science topics, such as Sanitizing Dishes.  Be prepared for your kiddos to critique your dishwashing methods.

3. Do you raise poultry?  Which breeds?  Are you interested in Poultry Breeding and Genetics?  Do you incubate eggs?  How do you control pests?  Tons of science.

4.  How do you garden?  You might have volunteer plants in a compost pile, raised beds, or acres of crops.  All excellent science.

5.  Do you feel wild birds?  Make bird feeders?  What about bee hotels?  

Turn all of your homestead efforts into a science curriculum.  Do a bit of research.  Write brief reports.  Take loads of photos.  (Let your kiddos take pix, too.)  Change how you look your household.  When you do a project, such as bake bread, research the science behind sourdough.  Summarize in a report.  Handwrite the report.  Use a dictionary for unfamiliar terms.  Bake a sourdough boule.  Take a photo.  Just like that you have a mini science lesson.  Look at you upending your science curriculum!

A bit more about the free courses at Hillsdale….

 Hillsdale College offers a number of free online courses.  When I home-schooled Lacie, she took several courses.  One of my home-school friends is using them for her teen son and recommended them to another friend.  (We all were chatting after Co-op.)  Christine assigns one video and quiz each day to Max, four days a week.  I let Lacie map her own schedule.  She liked to work in batches.  But, a video and quiz daily is a great schedule.  Max is knocking out History courses right now.  The only issue we ran into was with the online school, Kolbe.  The consultant really wanted us to submit the courses in advance in order to get credit through Kolbe.  If you are enrolled in an online school and want to add Hillsdale courses, check with your consultant.  If you manage your own curriculum and just create a transcript, you won’t have to worry.  BTW, college courses of any stripe are terrific additions to your portfolio—especially for those of you who submit portfolios to the local school board.

My lesson is hard and I’m getting bogged down.

 I’m teaching Chemistry for the local Co-op.  We’re about to begin Specific Heat.  Theromochemistry or heat, in general, is hard.  Add in labs, data, and spreadsheets.  Then the kiddos need to calculate Q or heat.  You get the picture.  I’m going to need three or four 90 minute classes to do labs, collect data, and analyze it.  I have to review how to graph with a graphing calculator.  The teens need to be able to apply these skills and do word problems.  Additionally, they have to work at home.  See what I mean when Imsay this is hard?  

You are going to have sections in math which simply require more time.  Your kiddo might be stumped.  She isn’t ready to make a leap in understanding.  Take the time.  Stop the count-down clock in your head that tells you you’re never going to finish math this year.  Math seems to build; she’s likely to need the skills imparted in this lesson.  Resist the temptation to get frustrated.  Instead, take a few days and make sure this topic is clear.  You’ll know when your daughter isn’t crying anymore.  (Although, personally, when I see a complicated math problem, I like to take a few minutes to weep, too!)  

When we home-schooled my friend’s daughter, LaCie, she struggled with Algebra.  We tried Saxon.  What a fail!  We switched to Glencoe.  Algebra took a couple of years.  (Consumer Math was fine.)  But, we persisted—by ‘we’ I mean my husband, Rob.  We took the time Lacie needed to learn Algebra.  The next time you get bogged down with a lesson, hit pause.  Make sure your kiddo has the concept before you move on.  Yes, you might be working on Algebra I over the summer.

Do you really get those cheap prices on graphing calculators that work?

 Update.  Not every purchase is such a good deal. I just bid on another and went over my target of $35.  But, by in large I stick to the target.

There are 13 kiddos in the Co-op Chemistry class.  We lend out graphing calculators.  I prefer to lend TI 83 calcs; however, I haven’t found used TI 83 versions for my target price of $15 recently.  I like to buy them in lots.  Recently, there haven’t been any reasonable listings.  So, I’ve bought four or five TI 84 calcs.  I lent out two more calcs this week.  So I bid on two more.  I’m trying to have five or six on hand for labs.  Yes, these same kiddos should have their calcs with them for class.  In my experience, they don’t—especially when you really need them.  (Many Vernier sensors work with the Easy Data software loaded on TI 84s, especially the temperature sensor.)  I want to remain transparent.  Below are the two most recent invoices for graphing calcs I bought through Good Will.  Yes, I’ve tried used calcs on Amazon and eBay; those two experiments failed.  One calc had gritty keys.  I’m sticking with Good Will.  My target price for a TI 84 is $35 used.  Below are the two I just bought. (One was $35.87; I rounded up online as a small donation.  No, I don’t usually round up.  I will if it’s only a small amount.)  I was outbid on several other calcs because I estimate the total cost with shipping and handling and won’t go over more than a dollar or so.  Yes, one calc is a bargain.  The description says it will power on.   Every time, the calcs are a gamble.  So far, Good Will has delivered!

It’s probably cheaper at Walmart.

 I was kicking myself for forgetting to get some goods during the Amazon Prime sale.  For example, I look for deals on electric kettles.  I give graduating seniors an electric kettle and a case of ramen as a gift.  It’s my go-to.  Yes, the teens think it’s hysterical.  Then, I checked online.  It’s cheaper at Walmart.

Walmart’s prices match or beat many items, such as glue sticks, Sharpies, especially during Prime Days.  So before you click buy, be sure to compare prices!

Are you documenting for your portfolio?

 Yes, another question!  Are you documenting activities for your portfolio?  Online schools often require regular submissions.  Even families who do not subscribe to a formal program create transcripts.  Many states require annual portfolios to be submitted to the local school district.  Are you keeping tract of your classes?  What about electives?  Field trips?  Sports?  Music?  Arts?  Volunteer work?  Creative projects?  

Take photos! Get your family involved. Have your kiddos get in the habit of completing their work, making corrections, dating the assignment, taking and photo, and uploading it to Google Drive in a folder.  Voilá!  You have a work sample.  Remind the child to create work samples for each subject.  Do the same thing with quizzes and tests.

I use Google Classroom to keep track of grades.  I did this by subject when I home-schooled, too.  I got in the habit of creating slide decks for each subject and added photos.  Many districts prefer digital portfolios.  Keep a dedicated (and labeled) folder in Google Drive, sorted by subject, which has the slide decks and photos.  I prefer to add any photo immediately to the slide decks, as a record.  Just saving photos in a folder on your phone will save you time.  Ask yourself what is the best means to stay on top of your portfolio.  Make this another family project!  Explain to your kiddo she hasn’t completed an assignment unless she has also created and uploaded a sample.  

Art in Literature: Illuminated Letters

 Brit Lit is reading The Canterbury Tales, specifically the Longman edition.

These are easy to read stories.  Happily, like many versions of The Canterbury Tales, they are illustrated.  Since we are examining early British history, we’re going to create Illuminated Letters, using these instructions.  You might like this CD stained-glass project, too.  Why am I adding things such as résumés and illuminated letters?  Because it’s my Co-op class.  Art is another neglected subject when families home-school—like timelines.  So I like to add some art.  It’s fun!  In any case we’re illustrating our work with beautiful letters.