Everyone Homeschools Blog - Projects

Public Speaking 101

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:02:00 -0400

Oh no, I can't speak in front of a group of people! What will they think of me? Will they laugh at me? Will they like what I say? What do you think of when you hear "public speaking"? Most people become nervous or frightened. In high school, I joined the Debate Team. It was an excellent opportunity for me to hone my debate skills, become comfortable in front of people, both unfriendly and friendly, and just in general learn that most folks don't bite. I have used my skills at various times in my life, everything from making announcements at a party to speaking before legislators at a public hearing and everything in between. As I mentioned in Don't You Want to be a HAM?, we are amateur radio operators. Our daughter is also a Brownie in the Girl Scouts. So, what would any self-respecting Mom do when she realized there was a HAM radio patch for Girl Scouts? You guessed it. I volunteered for US, yes that would be myself, my husband and our daughter, to teach the Brownies, Juniors, Cadettes and Seniors about Ham Radio so they could all earn this patch. Since our daughter got her HAM license she met all the requirements and had already received her patch. The requirements we were teaching are listed at Ham Radio Patch. We decided to divide up the requirements so that each of us would have an opportunity to present. Of course, half of a presentation is being prepared and the other half is staying calm. So, my husband and I helped our daughter prepare her presentation. Her speech was double spaced, listed what she would say, what was on the handout for the girls, and even included a quiz item. As the day approached, she practiced giving her presentation to each of us. Each time we would offer her compliments on things she did well and suggestions to make it even better. Since she was going to be teaching 25 girls, we had a discussion about how she needed to speak clearly, look up at the girls, pause when she asked a question, decide how many girls to call on for an answer and so on. Each time she practiced she improved. On the day of the presentation, we went to lunch and over lunch my husband and I each shared some final ideas. My husband pointed out that it was critical that she speak loudly otherwise the girls would not pay attention if they could not hear her. I encouraged her to smile and have fun. At age 9, our daughter did her first real public speaking gig. She did great! All the girls learned about ham radio, they earned their patch and our daughter got to experience not only teaching others and helping them learn but she experienced speaking in front of a group of people. Because there was no grade tied to the presentation she just focused on doing the best she could rather then worrying about a single person making an arbitrary grade. She read the audience appropriately, engaged them, encouraged them, and had fun. I'm looking forward to her giving more speeches in the future.

Deeds, Documents and Town Hall

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:35:00 -0400

Part of the requirements to adopt from Ukraine is the judge wants to see proof that you have a residency. So, if you rent you need to show proof of a lease and if you own your home they want to see a notarized copy of the deed to your home. Enter another homeschool lesson. My daughter and I set out to our town clerk to obtain several copies of the deed to our home because we are hoping to adopt a sibling pair and need the copies for the dossiers. (And an extra copy should anyone lose a copy of the deed.) I expected that we would walk in to the town clerk's office, request the information, they would pull the book, copy it, notarize it and then we would pay and be done. What a surprise when the clerk told us to go to the vault and look it up ourselves. Huh? The look of dumbfoundedness on my face must have been pretty clear because the clerk then proceeded to explain the steps. I took a deep breath and realized I was going to experience this homeschool lesson first hand, side-by-side with my daughter. So, walked into the vault and found a locked area that contained all of our town's vital statistics, such as the births, deaths and marriages. As we looked in awe at books dated back to the 1800s, I could tell this was going to turn out to be a pretty cool experience. As most parents know, I could have completed the task in a record 10 minutes but realized that this would be a great hands-on learning opportunity for our daughter and quickly determined she needed to perform the task. (Did I mention I had no clue how to do this search?) We located a large book that listed all the home owners in town. Our daughter looked up our last name, first name and street and identified the book that our deed was located in. We then walked around the vault a couple times as we tried to orient ourselves with how the books were arranged. Once we figured out the order, our daughter quickly located the book volume that contained our deed and then found the pages of our deed. Wow! In a short period of time she had found the deed to our home and a new interest was seriously sparked. We proceeded to copy the deed, have it notarized and pay for the copies. Throughout this part of the process, she kept asking if we could go back in the vault. Through several questions she realized that we could go back and search our home's previous owners, see how much they had paid for it and so on. As our daughter asked questions, the clerks could overhear our conversation. Soon one of them offered some information on how to do title searches in the vault and I realized there was a serious field trip opportunity here. I learned that Town Clerk does field trips for the local kids to the vault and explains the clerk's job, the records and other interesting facts. So, what would any self-respecting mom, specifically a homeschool mom, do but realize that we need another field trip to the town clerk's office with some friends. Don't underestimate your local town resources. Children can learn about the history of their town and home. They can learn about economics and inflation as they identify home prices over the years, legal documents as they see how deeds are written and notarized, how to do research and of course, communication by asking for help from the clerks. This unplanned errand turned into a great educational experience.

Toast, Tea, Coffee and Creativity

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:00:00 -0400

Our daughter regularly spends time in creative play. One of the things she enjoys doing is running a pretend restaurant. She created a menu to hand out to her patrons. I offered that we could create menus on the computer if she wanted and she quickly took me up on the offer. We worked together to design the menu, write the selections, prices and even included pictures. Afterwards, we laminated them using clear contact paper and cut them accordingly. She really enjoyed making them and still uses them in her pretend restaurant. Recently, she decided to create a family breakfast menu. This time she figured out all of our breakfast options. She designed the cover with our family's name and titled it "Breakfast Menu". Then she listed all our drink options, food selections and options for how we wanted our food prepared. Yes, it is quite detailed and she developed it all on her own. We can even decide what number we want our toast heated to for crunchiness. Even condiment selections and spreads, such as butter, jelly or Nutella, were included. Finally, she folded the menu in half so that there were several pages in a booklet form. She even bound the pages together with yarn. Now, every morning we can select from one of many options. Often times we can even place our orders with her. She runs a real breakfast restaurant in our kitchen and we get to be the lucky recipients of a delectable breakfast prepared just so. What began as creative play developed into an exciting project, which she initiated. She utilized her design and creativity skills, spelling, penmanship, and writing skills as she described all of our selections. In running her restaurant she learned about maintaining the food stock and often reminds me when we are running low on breakfast items. She also has learned about time management as she sets out to prepare several items at once and finally she has learned about presentation. Breakfast has been delicious and we have never had soggy cereal or burnt toast. Hmmm, maybe that's why my husband and I like our daughter's restaurant so much!

Beautiful Works-How Many Can I Have?

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 13:00:00 -0400

So, what do you do with that beautiful picture your child makes? The story they wrote? What do you with the 500th beautiful picture your child made or 100th story they wrote? Whether you homeschool or not, deciding what to do with your child's beautiful works of art or learning, can become a serious challenge. After all, how many pictures can you really hang on your refrigerator? How many projects can you display? Over the years, I have tried to figure out what to do with all of these items. Throwing them out is not the best option but swimming in them isn't either. These are just some of the ideas that I have come across or implemented. Office Corkboard-Whether it is at work or in your home office, corkboards are a great way to easily display work. It doesn't take the paint of the wall and you can quickly change out the beautiful works as you get more. Simply hang a corkboard and make sure you have plenty of tacks to display the work. Scrapbook-If you enjoy this hobby, you could place the work of art, project or story in a scrapbook as one of several highlighted accomplishments for that year. Be sure to use archival and acid free pages and materials. This will make these beautiful works not turn yellow and last for years. Table Top Book-With this one you can photograph each project or art piece. Then get a large scrapbook and place them on each page. Again, be sure to use archival and acid free pages and materials. This can then be a Table Top Book to be displayed on your coffee table. Gifts-Share your child's beautiful works. Grandparents love getting gifts and showing off how gifted their grandchild is by displaying the beautiful works. The beautiful works can be sent to the troops or given to a nursing home to brighten the halls. Digital Photo Frame-This is a new type of frame that has become very popular. With this frame you can take your digital pictures that are on a SD or CF card, take the card and put it in the digital frame. Then you can view the pictures in the frame in a slideshow format or as a single picture. This is another great way to show your child's multiple beautiful works. Website-If you have a family website or blog, you can share your child's beautiful works of art by scanning or taking digital photos of the work and then sharing them with loved ones via these Internet tools. Box Them-If time is limited but your child's beautiful works are important then select what you want to keep. Then obtain an archival, acid-free box and place your child's beautiful works in the box. By doing this they can be brought out to reminisce about years later. If you have more ideas, PLEASE share them with the rest of us. Just click on comment and add your ideas. We are all looking for different ways to manage our children's beautiful works!