For most of us it’s almost four weeks before the local public schools are back in session, but those “back to school” sales are starting up already. Even if you homeschool or afterschool year round, this is a good time to stock up on supplies. We’re also in the middle of conference season, and I for one have been trying to catch some of the workshops at the Heart of the Matter virtual conference.

After two days of computer issues & other difficulties, today I was able to “sit in” on several interesting workshops. I learned more than I ever thought anyone could know about using time lines in teaching history, and was both entertained and informed on the subject of gender differences in education. I missed a bunch of other conferences, but will listen to them when the MP3’s become available, later on. Now that’s convenience!

I believe you can still get tickets for the conference, if there’s anyone who hasn’t yet had the chance. There’s a wonderful, huge grab bag of freebies that comes with the ticket, and remember there will be the opportunity to listen to any workshops you missed, so you’re getting the full value of your ticket even now that the conference is in full swing. Just click on the banner at left.

I also wanted to say that CurrClick is having yet another fabulous promotion: it’s the 3rd Annual Back to Homeschool Sale. I think there might be a more official announcement coming, but this is what’s up at the web site now:

Kick-off your school year with great savings on hundreds of titles! For the entire month of August, get 10-70% OFF of hundreds of curriculum choices from your favorite publishers. With our huge title selection, you can be sure to find something to please any learning style in your home. Here’s to great savings and a fun new school year!

Check out the great savings on homeschool curricula, textbooks, unit studies and more! There are several new publishers offering great products at CurrClick now, and so many really wonderful ideas to help you plan your homeschool year or just round out your lessons with a few special items geared to your family’s interests. You’re bound to find something, so take some time over the next month to take a good look at what’s on special. The list of discounted items is here.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

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This series of activity books will be of interest to parents whose children need a certain structure in order to stay on task, and for whom a long summer break might result in losing either the discipline or the skills gained in the previous academic year. Whether you are a homeschooler looking for a lighter academic activity, an afterschooler wanting to maintain or improve upon a student’s success at school, or the parent of a special needs child, these books from Evan-Moor are worth looking into.

Each book is intended to help transition a child from the previous grade and into the next one. Some students will be advanced to the next grade even though they have not mastered all the requisite skills. Quebec, for example, treats the primary years as three cycles of two years each. Students are expected to attain a final set of objectives at the end of the cycle (grades 2, 4 and 6) but may be passed through the odd-numbered grades despite a lower than expected performance. Although this is intended to respect each child’s individual learning pace, what your child experiences in the classroom may not live up to the ideal. Continuing to do some academic activities one on one with a parent over the summer may be enough to catch her up, and it will certainly boost her self-confidence.

Daily Summer Activities consists of ten weeks’ of activities. Each week breaks down into ten pages. There is also space to tick off the pages completed, and to check off each block of ten minutes’ reading. Finally, there is a spot to write interesting things that happen during the week. Activities cover skills in core areas such as math, language arts and social studies. There are also reading lists and activity suggestions for parents. The workbooks, in ebook format, are currently reduced as part of the Back to the Beach Sale at CurrClick.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

“Today we are going to see with our ears”, were the first words my father used in his introduction to a group of first and second graders. It was in the auditorium at one of the many elementary schools my parents visited, while touring throughout New England promoting their children’s stories, along with the virtues of storytelling and the important roll it plays in developing and inspiring young imaginations. The kids laughed. “What are you laughing about?” my father asked. “You can’t see with your ears!” a courageous little boy spoke up. “Really, you don’t think so?” my father asked with a gleam in his eye.

So says Laurence A. Kelley in CurrClick’s newsletter (17 June 2008.) He continues to describe how his parents led the children in that auditorium to discover that they could, indeed, see with their ears! Rich descriptive language and the absence of all the multimedia glitz we have come to accept as part of our era cause children not only to attend, but to stretch their imaginations. What is important is not that they all see the same thing, but that what they see becomes real for them.

Before Gutenberg’s printing press brought books into the reach of ordinary folks there were storytellers who would earn a meal and a place to stay for the night by reciting tales of faraway places, or perhaps just stories based on the gossip (um, news) of some neighbouring town. The history of a people was kept as an oral tradition, which the elders repeated to the youth at appropriate moments until the young folk had committed the stories to memory. Storytelling was a necessity as much as it was an art, and listening to a story told was perhaps an art too.

Today we hear claims that nobody reads books anymore. We certainly all know at least one child who has grown so used to being bombarded with multimedia input that the only books they want to even consider opening are flashy and colourful, and come with a CD stuck in a little envelope inside the back cover. And so, our kids are now at risk of losing out on all the wonderful literature out there - on Tom Sawyer and Heidi and The Secret Garden, on writers like Shakespeare and Nesbit and Carroll - simply because their “packaging” isn’t glitzy enough and because kids look at a pageful of text thinking that nothing interesting could possibly happen in those plain old rows of black print.

Eye in the Ear is classic literature in audio format, aimed at children aged 3-12. Produced by a husband and wife team who have been collaborating for 20 years, the tales have been rewritten to be told aloud. Writer Allan Kelley uses dialogue and what he calls “Picture Words” to help children create an image in their minds while listening to the story. The tales are told by Frances Kelley, who is known among other things for launching the Children’s Talking Book Program of the Library of Congress. Mrs. Kelley has a talent for voices, which makes the stories even more magical for a child.

Reading experts tell us that a child can improve his reading skills from just ten minutes of reading a day, and that he will enjoy the benefit even if he is read to instead of putting his own reading skills into practice. While I would never suggest that we substitute a prepared reading for the stories we share with our children, I have found that sometimes using an audio-book can pique a child’s interest in a story he previously considered boring. When there are several children needing help with reading and other academic activities, an audio recording can be a blessing that helps to stretch a parents’ time ad energy that little bit farther.

Listening together, to a story that was produced to be heard, can be a special moment for the aural child who struggles with the printed word, or the kinesthetic child who reads well enough - when you can get her to stop fidgeting and sit still to look at the text! We have often stretched our learning day by listening to our history reading while eating our snack. As Charlotte Mason noted in her discussion of recitation, children whose minds are otherwise engaged while hearing the reading tend to retain better. Narrations after snack time turned out to be some of our best!

Audio books are useful for travel time too. Our girls will be travelling to the end of the island once a week next year, to attend a drama class. Keeping them busy during that 2+ hours round trip without prompting travel sickness or giving in to their desire to watch music videos is a lot easier, knowing that we can play quality literature on audio for them. It’s a good warm-up for their acting lessons too!

Help your kids learn to see with their ears. You can find Eye in the Ear products at CurrClick and Amazon, or go to the producer’s own web site at their own web site.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

You are invited to 2 weeks of summer fun and savings at CurrClick’s Back to the Beach Sale! From June 16th through June 30th, you’ll find a huge selection of discounted summertime titles to choose from. Discounts up to 75% OFF! From beaches to The Beatles to biomes, from novel studies to dream diaries, you’ll get unbeatable discounts on books and audio, sure to entertain and educate all through the summer - whether you’re at the beach or in your own back yard!

*****

Check out the list of discounted products here

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

The movie version of Prince Caspian is set to be released within the week. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to round up a few resources for those who may be reading the book or planning to see the movie.

Homeschoolers and classroom educators alike can download a free educator poster from Walden Media - complete with colourful several pages of language arts activities. HarperCollins offers a number of resources for the Narnia books, include free online games. The Narnia Academy, also from Walden, offers a number of free resources for home or school use. If you are beginning your reading with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, check out their 40-lesson study plan for this book. Hopefully they will also offer one for Prince Caspian! One more from Walden is the Narnia Resources, which include guides for parents, teachers, youth leaders, etc. For older students they offer “teen tools.”

EasyFunSchool offers a summary of the book and some background on CS Lewis, plus a word search, some suggested vocabulary words and questions for discussion. Katrina also has some questions for each chapter, plus suggested fun activities. Activity Village offers a number of free Narnia themed activities, including crafts.

Wondering when to introduce the Narnia books to your children? Wondering what order you should follow when reading the series? Ambleside Online lists the series for reading as free reading in Year 4, and the books are rated for ages 9-12 by Amazon. This article from NarniaWeb discusses the several ways to approach this question, and also looks at how a reader’s experience of Narnia will be coloured by the approach taken. Not a definitive answer, by any means, but food for thought!

Maybe a little background information is in order? This page from Woodlands Junior School discusses why children (and other vulnerable people) were evacuated from London during WWII, and what it was like for them to live through this experience. Teacher resources for C.S. Lewis are plentiful at the Children’s Authors Home Pages and at eThemes (several state educational standards are listed, to help educators identify objectives covered.)

At CurrClick there are three Prince Caspian downloads available to suit a variety of homeschoolers. The unit study from Highlights of Homeschooling would work well for either younger students or older students who are very visually oriented. The unit study from Brandenburg Studies has a spiritual focus, and is appropriate for either homeschool or Sunday School use. The novel study from New Learning Publishing is a student-directed literature study that requires no parental preparation. Depending on the unit selected, there are questions for discussion, copywork, sequencing activities, multiple choice and fill in the blanks, colouring pages, and directions for creating journal entries, newpapers, etc. inspired by the book. These units are specifically designed with home educators in mind.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!