Preparing for School -- Summer's Almost Over

I would like to offer some suggestions for preparing your children for the new school year. Whether you are sending your children off on the yellow school bus or homeschooling, schedule changes, demands on our children's ability to concentrate and control impulses, and lots of noise and activity may push our children to the edge.

Here are some suggestions for making the transition from summer vacation to highly scheduled school days:

Make bedtimes gradually earlier over the next few weeks. Enforce those bedtimes and provide calming music (worship CD's are best IMHO), soft lights, a cup of catnip tea, warm milk (if your child drinks milk), and a warm bath before bed.
Ensure that your child gets a high protein breakfast each morning. High protein foods combined with complex carbohydrates is essential to the brain functioning to the best of its ability -- has something to do with brain chemistry and the ability of brain cells to properly communicate. Eggs every morning provide lecithin and protein, and don't forget the whole grain breads. Do not allow simple carbs alone to fuel your child through to lunch. They will have a drop in blood sugar mid-morning that will send them into a downward spiral.
Begin to limit TV, video games and other highly stimulating activities to no more than 1 hour a day.
Read aloud to your child, asking him to tell you what you just read. This will help your child to begin to focus on language skills. Ask your child to look for different kinds of details when you read: the names of all the characters, what they look like, where the story takes place, when the story takes place and more. You could ask him to tell you all about where the story takes place, and then ask him to draw a picture of the setting of the story (great for younger children). This can be challenging for non-visual learners, so you could point out the details in the story that give this information and help them visualize the setting in their minds. Do the same with characters, story line, etc.
Start practicing math facts: in the car, at every meal, whenever there is a moment, work on those math facts. This includes skip counting by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 10's, etc. Math wakes up the brain and encourages logical thinking.
Buy a book of brain benders and play with these every day. A Case of Red Herrings, Mind Benders are a great place to start and encourage thinking "outside the box."
Begin to pray every day for your child's new teacher: a tender heart, favor for your child, understanding, openness to work with you, etc. If you are homeschooling, ask your husband and friends to begin to pray for you each day as you prepare for a new school year.
Choose one day a week for the next few weeks to pray and fast with your spouse for the success of this school year. See Fasting in the Bible for an online Bible study on this topic.

May the Lord guide and direct each of you as you prepare for a new school year. Rely on the fact that His mercies are new every morning.

Homeschoolers Prepare!!!

Back to School -- from Homeschooling -- Who Me?

I asked my children last night when they wanted to start school, August 26th or Sept. 3rd. I was chuckling to myself when I asked because I knew they would all say Sept. 3rd. I think we will start August 26th though, so we have more days we can take off during the school year. Life happens, and sometimes we just have to take a day off.

I have decided on a 4-day week with Friday being reserved for History projects and catch-up. If a child keeps up during the week, they will have a light day on Friday. Although we are going to be using more of a classical approach to education, I want to incorporate lots of KONOS ideas, so Fridays will be activity day with projects and activities being the focus.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished putting together three of my children's school notebooks. I used The Well-Trained Mind as a guideline with some adjustments for our own homeschool and just used one notebook per child to start. I know that after a few months we will need to expand to another notebook per child, but I was not going to have a binder for each subject. I don't have anywhere to keep all those binders, and that is too many binders to keep track of for ADHD children. Could you imagine 6 binders for each child? I have 4 school-aged children this year. No way!

In the front of the binder I placed a copy of each child's weekly schedule which includes each day of the week and how much estimated time each subject should take and a little detail about what will be done for set subjects like History, Science and Latin. See a sample 1st grade schedule and a 5th Grade schedule.

Behind this goes weekly lesson plans. I created a form that is laid out with the days of the week on the left-hand side vertically and subjects going across two sheets of paper. I created separate lesson plan forms for each child based on their scheduled subjects. I have uploaded my lesson plan file available in MS Excel lesson plan file and a Works for Windows lesson plan file format to the website. That way you can adjust them for your own personal use. Each child is expected to check off each assignment as it is completed. I keep the original in my notebook and the children get photocopies of the lesson plans to check off.

The following ideas have been adapted from the Summer Survival Strategies article.

Daily Routine

Time to set up fresh chore charts and schedules. Give your children a few weeks to become adjusted to the new schedule before school starts. Free Daily Routine charts are available for printing out and downloading.

A family meeting two or three weeks before the start of school will mentally prepare your children for the changes that are coming. Be sure to enforce those earlier bedtimes. This is essential to children having a fresh start each morning when school really begins.

Family Brainstorming:

Have a family meeting; with one parent or older child as Secretary (responsible for recording what was said during the meeting) ask each child to tell you what they would especially like to learn about this year in school. Do not comment on what is said, just write it down. After everyone has shared their ideas, type them up and draw on these for project days or field trip ideas. Children learn and retain more when they are motivated to learn.

When everyone gets in a school rut, prepare or purchase a week-long unit study on one of the topics the child presented. Be sure to do lots of hands-on activities during this break from their regular schedule.

Reading Program:

Children need to learn to love to read for their own enjoyment and to learn outside the classroom or formal homeschool environment. Be sure to keep a steady supply of interesting books available for your children at all times. We have quite an extensive home library and my children are able to find something that interests them most of the time. I especially like finding books at yard or garage sales, thrift stores and in used bookstores.

Reading Challenge: free summer reading program to print out and challenge your children to keep reading while school is out. Use this during the school year especially for children who don't seem to read on their own.
Public library: teach your children how to find books on topics that interest them. Teach your children how to use the Dewey Decimal System and computer cardfile.
Bookstores: Allow your children to earn gift certificates to bookstores by doing chores, projects, etc.
Make up your own reading program: encourage your children to reach a reading goal each week and reward them immediately with a small prize or a fun field trip. Have an Award Ceremony at the end of every 6 weeks or so with a trip to the bookstore or their favorite fast food restaurant.
Tape Recorder: To encourage reluctant readers, allow your children to read into a tape recorder, teaching them to enunciate and show emotion as they read. Teach them to read punctuation: short pause at a comma, longer pause at a period, etc.
Christian fiction: Order some good age-appropriate Christian fiction from Focus on the Family, Orion's Gate, or Christian Book Distributors.

Nature Exploration:

Nature Notebook: present a spiral-bound notebook and set of colored pencils to your child encouraging him to draw the wonderful creations of Almighty God. Encourage him to write a description of what he sees as well.
Nature Hike: once a week, take your child to a different city, county or state park to explore local habitats. Have your child bring their Nature Notebook and record what they see. Give each child a disposable camera. Teach them to quietly walk along, listening for the sounds of nature. If your child has a tape recorder, have them record bird calls or other sounds they hear. Introduce your child to the park ranger and ask the ranger to explain the rules of park usage including how to treat the wildlife, flora and fauna.
Creation Science: teach your child on which day of Creation each aspect of nature was created. You can study the field of science that is related to that day for one week:
1. Day 1: light and energy
2. Day 2: meteorology (weather)
3. Day 3: oceanography and horticulture
4. Day 4: astronomy
5. Day 5: ichthyology (study of fish) and ornithology (study of birds)
6. Day 6: zoology, biology and anatomy

School Fun Activities

Many of these websites have activities that are great for preschoolers. Keeping little ones busy while teaching the older children is vital.