As with most homeschooling blogs we've been a little slow over the summer. One of the joys of home educating is being able to enjoy the sunshine whenever you like and not having to stick to a schedule.
With that in mind, we don't actually break for the whole summer like some other families do. Although we don't formally hand in registers to our co-op, we continue with a relaxed pace - nothing to strenuous, but a little now and then to ensure that we don't get completely out of the habit of learning.
One of the games we've been playing is called synonyms. I made it up, but it's really fun and Cosmo loves it. We basically wrote lots of words on lolly sticks (actually they're waxing spatula's from my old beauty business, but lolly sticks would work just as well) in categories. For example, ten of the sticks have words that are synonyms for 'big', such as huge, gigantic, enormous, massive etc... and ten have words for 'small', ten have words that mean 'delicious', ten have words that mean 'brave'...etc...
Then I flipped them over, shuffled them and continued to do the same with more categories.
The game is then to shout a word, such as 'small' and then everyone has to try and snatch as many sticks that contain a synonym for that word. The winner is the person with the most sticks. They then get to chose the next category.
I'm trying to introduce games that a) broaden Cosmo's vocabulary and b) make use of grammatical terms. Being an avid reader, he has already grasped many grammatical rules (such as where speech marks should go, that a capital letter should start a sentence etc...) but you can't absorb the vocabulary to diagram sentences from just reading. Someone has to explain to you the difference between a noun, adjective and a verb for you to understand what those words mean.
I've been reading a bit more about the Charlotte Mason method of teaching, and I've fallen in love with the idea of a Book of Centuries. It's the perfect accompaniment to the Mystery of History curriculum that we already use.
A Book of Centuries is basically a timeline in a notebook. You have a double page spread for each century, and as your child finds out about a person or an event, they can write about it, draw pictures, or create a lapbook in that double page spread. It's a fun way to record what they are learning, and keeps it accessible to flick through and revise. Everything is in order, so it helps the child to get an idea of what happened when.
I know that since we started our timeline in our hallway, I have a much better understanding of how different cultures evolved world wide, and how the pieces of history fit together. I'm obviously a visual learner, but this stuff has never sunk in for me before.
As great as our timeline is though, there is not a lot of space for information, just a small picture to remind us of an event. I think the book of centuries is a great accompaniment to go with it.
If you'd like to start your own book of centuries, you can find a template for it on Simply Charlotte Mason and the best part is that it's free to download. There's actually some other really great resources on that site so I'd encourage you have a look around whilst you are there.
I suspect we are going to have to do a section on the olympics soon as Cosmo and Daddy have and such a great time attending some of the events. I'll blog about that soon, but in the meantime you can see a couple of the photos on our travel blog.
With that in mind, we don't actually break for the whole summer like some other families do. Although we don't formally hand in registers to our co-op, we continue with a relaxed pace - nothing to strenuous, but a little now and then to ensure that we don't get completely out of the habit of learning.
One of the games we've been playing is called synonyms. I made it up, but it's really fun and Cosmo loves it. We basically wrote lots of words on lolly sticks (actually they're waxing spatula's from my old beauty business, but lolly sticks would work just as well) in categories. For example, ten of the sticks have words that are synonyms for 'big', such as huge, gigantic, enormous, massive etc... and ten have words for 'small', ten have words that mean 'delicious', ten have words that mean 'brave'...etc...
Then I flipped them over, shuffled them and continued to do the same with more categories.
The game is then to shout a word, such as 'small' and then everyone has to try and snatch as many sticks that contain a synonym for that word. The winner is the person with the most sticks. They then get to chose the next category.
I'm trying to introduce games that a) broaden Cosmo's vocabulary and b) make use of grammatical terms. Being an avid reader, he has already grasped many grammatical rules (such as where speech marks should go, that a capital letter should start a sentence etc...) but you can't absorb the vocabulary to diagram sentences from just reading. Someone has to explain to you the difference between a noun, adjective and a verb for you to understand what those words mean.
I've been reading a bit more about the Charlotte Mason method of teaching, and I've fallen in love with the idea of a Book of Centuries. It's the perfect accompaniment to the Mystery of History curriculum that we already use.
A Book of Centuries is basically a timeline in a notebook. You have a double page spread for each century, and as your child finds out about a person or an event, they can write about it, draw pictures, or create a lapbook in that double page spread. It's a fun way to record what they are learning, and keeps it accessible to flick through and revise. Everything is in order, so it helps the child to get an idea of what happened when.
I know that since we started our timeline in our hallway, I have a much better understanding of how different cultures evolved world wide, and how the pieces of history fit together. I'm obviously a visual learner, but this stuff has never sunk in for me before.
As great as our timeline is though, there is not a lot of space for information, just a small picture to remind us of an event. I think the book of centuries is a great accompaniment to go with it.
If you'd like to start your own book of centuries, you can find a template for it on Simply Charlotte Mason and the best part is that it's free to download. There's actually some other really great resources on that site so I'd encourage you have a look around whilst you are there.
I suspect we are going to have to do a section on the olympics soon as Cosmo and Daddy have and such a great time attending some of the events. I'll blog about that soon, but in the meantime you can see a couple of the photos on our travel blog.
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