Showing posts with label 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair. Show all posts

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Art and Music Appreciation Resource Lists {Virtual Curriculum Fair}

Welcome to week four of the 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair.  Today's topic is Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World---includes any of the arts, handicrafts, but really ANYTHING at all that adds beauty to your homeschool. I'm sharing on Art and Music Appriciation, both what we do and some of the curriculum that is available in the homeschool market to help you in these areas in your homeschool.

Definition of FINE ART

  1. art (as painting, sculpture, or music) concerned primarily with the creation of beautiful objects —usually used in plural b : objects of fine art 
  2. an activity requiring a fine skill
Fine Arts is a relatively new area in our homeschool and one I hope to pursue with Sir N on a more regular basis.  Each year we plan to attend a few Melbourne Symphony Orchestra presentations as well as any appropriate school's ballet.  This year I am hoping we can go to see The Nutcracker. I am still researching resources so this is an every growing list.


Our Year Ahead 

Fine Arts
  • Music Appreciation: SQUILT Vol 1 Baroque Era (Super Quiet UnInterrupted Listening Time) This is a digital product written by Mary from Homegrown Learners and covers ten pieces of music along with notebooking pages, musical term definition and musical history.
  • I will be using The World's Greatest Composers by Confessions of a Homeschooler.
  • The Classical Kids Collection Vol 1 & 2. These are produced by The Children's Group and cover the lives of eight famous composers.They are available for purchase on iTunes too.
  • Classical Composers Monthly as a supplement to whichever composer we are studying.
  • We will continue with The World's Greatest Artists Vol 1 in which we will cover eight artists.  We have already studied Monet and will continue and learn about the other seven artists in the unit.
  • We did Shipwrecked earlier in the year and really enjoyed it so we will work our way through Bible Stories by See the Light

Resources



Blogs


On the WWW

Pinterest


Blessings
Chareen


Take some time this week to visit some of the other 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair participants.

Some of these links will not be live until tomorrow due to time zone differences as these bloggers are from across the globe.



Susan has invited you all to share what you are using and add your link to the linky
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Monday 20 January 2014

Social Studies & Science Resource Lists {Virtual Curriculum Fair}

Welcome to week three of the 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair.  Today I'm sharing on Social Studies {History & Geography} and Science, both what we do and some of the curriculum that is available in the homeschool market to help you in these areas in your homeschool.

My personal passion is teaching/learning history chronologically. My reasons for this are: dates help us to anchor our learning and every single subject you learn happened somewhere in history.  The stories of history are my personal favourite and I have shared more thoughts on this  here: Teaching History Revisited

Over the years I have found that geography is one area that is mournfully neglected in the home school community.   There are a few ways of teaching this interesting subject after all everything that has ever happened in history happened somewhere in our amazing world!

I have also come to appreciate the value of hands on science learning and as a result I am purposing to do more experiential learning with Sir N. I have shared more thoughts on this in these two posts: Science in the Junior Years and Science in High School.

Our Year Ahead
In our homeschool we are following an eclectic approach this year incorporating a Charlotte Mason approach along with Delight Directed education and Sonlight

History / Geography

Science

Resources
There are many many resources available to homeschool families in these areas.  If I started to add the lists here we will be reading for many years.  In order to make it easier I have compiled lists covering history, geography and Science.  Click on a subject graphic to access more information. 
You can find full internet linked lists covering Pinterest, Curriculum Choices, on the www, and freebies for the following subjects (click on the graphic to see the post)



Blessings

Chareen



Take some time this week to visit some of the other 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair participants.

Some of these links will not be live until tomorrow due to time zone differences as these bloggers are from across the globe.

What are you using for Math and Logic this school year? Susan has invited you all to share what you are using and add your link to the linky

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Monday 13 January 2014

Math & Logic Resources {Virtual Curriculum Fair}

Welcome to my second post for the 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair.  Today I'm sharing on Math and Logic, both what we do and some of the curriculum that is available in the homeschool market to help you with Math and Logic in your homeschool.

Math seems to be one of those topics within the homeschool environment that often comes up in conversation and here on the blog I've shared
In our homeschool we are following an eclectic approach this year incorporating a Charlotte Mason approach along with Delight Directed education and Sonlight.  We are working on strengthening Sir N's Math facts this year along with developing logical thinking via games.


For me one of the defining moments of understanding teaching math came after I read the article History and Research on the Teaching of MathI highly recommend you read this article before you make a decision on your math curriculum.

There are many benefits to playing logic (critical thinking) games  among which are the ability to tackle high school math.  With this in mind we will be making playing games a weekly feature to our homeschool this year.


Our Year Ahead

Math

Logic
Math
Scope and Sequence
When looking at changing math programs remember to take  scope and sequence into account.

  • Scope refers to the content.  In other words these are the topics covered(A to Z)
  • Sequence is the order in which the scope is taught (IE the order in which things are covered within the program)
It is important to know this about your math product or you might end up redoing math your child is already familiar with or you might end up skipping a whole lot of important content that your child needs in order to succeed at math.

Resources
Please go to my Math Curriculum page for a full page of links to resources.
Here are a few links to get you started.
Pinterest

On the Net
Logic


On Pinterest

FREE on the WWW


Curriculums
  • Critical Thinking Activities K-3 {Logic}Activities help students develop three important elements of critical thinking in mathematics: recognizing patterns, using visual imagery, and logical reasoning
  • Critical Thinking Activities 4-6Activities help students develop three important elements of critical thinking in mathematics: recognizing patterns, using visual imagery, and logical reasoning
  • Fallacy Detectiveintroduction to 23 logical fallacies and 10 propaganda techniques: what they are, how to spot them, how to avoid them
  • One Minute Answers to Skeptics' Top Forty Questions
  • The Thinking Toolbox Thirty-Five Lessons that Will Build your Reasoning Skills
  • Understanding the TimesThis 18-week curriculum helps you examine how each of the four dominant Western worldviews (Secular/Cosmic Humanism, Marxism/Leninism, Islam, and Biblical Christianity) uniquely interpret reality in different areas of theology, philosophy, ethics, biology, and more. 


Take some time this week to visit some of the other 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair participants.

Some of these links will not be live until tomorrow due to time zone differences as these bloggers are from across the globe.

What are you using for Math and Logic this school year?  Susan has invited you all to share what you are using and add your link to the linky

Blessings
Chareen


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Monday 6 January 2014

Language Arts {Virtual Curriculum Fair}

Welcome to my first post for the 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair.  Today I'm sharing on Language Arts, both what we do and some of the curriculum that is available in the homeschool market to help you with Language Arts in your homeschool.

I shared some of my thoughts on language arts in high school in two posts: Writing and Composition in High School as well as The Art of Language in High School.

In our homeschool we are following an eclectic approach this year incorporating a Charlotte Mason approach along with Delight Directed education and Sonlight.  We are working on strengthening Sir N's writing skills through copy work and hand writing practice.

We are currently working on narration skills at the moment as I have come to realise that it certainly pays high dividends in the high school years with the fruit of a student who is able to "Attend, remember, visualize, comprehend, synthesize (see the whole from the parts), and articulate as the result." A Charlotte Mason Companion page 115.  Narration helps a child to train his/her mind to "sort, arrange, correlate, select, reject and classify" information. A Charlotte Mason
"Narration develops the power of self expression and forces the child to use his own mind and form his own judgement." - Karen Andreola A Charlotte Mason Companion page 114Companion page 115.

Spelling is the servant necessary to be successful in all the areas of written language arts. We will be using copy work and once we have completed Explode the Code book 3 we will be working our way through Spelling Workout.  

Vocabulary is not synonymous with spelling and is often times missed in language arts programs and deserves equal mention and attention. Twaddle free literature introduces new words in context to the student. Do not make the mistake of only choosing literature that your child can read to themselves.

Poetry enlarges a students language ability and teaches the clever use of words in self expression.  With this in mind we will be enjoying poetry together.  As Sir N gains confidence in public speaking we will add in poems to learn and present with expression. We will try different types of poetry until we find some that we like and then explore it further.  Poetry comments on all human experiences, it is comprised of everything  from war poems and epics, to psalms of worship, to love sonnets, to delightful nonsense verse that trips off the tongue, to nursery rhymes - CMC Page 220

Our Year Ahead


Language Arts

Readers
Read Alouds


Resources
Grammar Programs


Spelling Programs
Narration & Copy Work
On Pinterest

FREE on the WWW
Language Arts Curriculums

Take some time this week to visit some of the other 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair participants.

Some of these links will not be live until tomorrow due to time zone differences as these bloggers are from across the globe.

What are you using for language arts this school year.  Susan has invited you all to share what you are using and add your link to the linky

Blessings
Chareen

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Friday 3 January 2014

Virtual Curriculum Fair

The new school year is about to commence in Australia and for some of my readers January is a time where we find some things are just not working for our students and we are on the look out for something new or fresh ideas.

It's time for the 2014 Virtual Curriculum Fair.

These year’s dates and themes 
(links will be added here as each theme goes live):
  1. January 6th---Playing with Words: the Language Arts---includes phonics, reading, writing, grammar, spelling, speech, literature, etc., etc., etc. Latin and foreign language studies could also go here.
  2. January 13th---Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and Science---includes anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.).
  3. January 20th---Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science---includes history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc., etc., etc.
  4. January 27th---Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World---includes any of the arts, handicrafts, but really ANYTHING at all that adds beauty to your homeschool.
Blessings
Chareen
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