http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm Everyone Learns, All the Time en-us Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:27:14 -0400 Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:32:00 -0400 BlogCFC http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss ken@kenreiss.com ken@kenreiss.com http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/13/Bargain-Hunter Over the Easter weekend, we decided to have calm family time and play some games. One of my old, old games is Bargain Hunter. The game came out in the 1980s just as credit cards were becoming increasingly popular. Does anyone remember the old bulky metal credit card imprint sliding machines? You know the ones where they would take your credit card place it in the machine put the carbon copy receipt on top and swish, swish and then the credit card number would be imprinted on the receipt for the charge. Well, this game has a plastic version of that machine. The idea with Bargain Hunter was the first person who bought all 17 or so items on a shopping list with no debt won. Of course there are typical expenses that sap your cash such as visits to the auto mechanic and doctor. As we played the game, our daughter was faced with a challenge of either waiting to buy an item or charging the item and paying 10% interest. Her immediate reaction was that she was going to charge the item but when we pointed out that for that $300 item she would have to pay $30 interest every time she passed payday, she reanalyzed her options. She said she thought interest could only be given for savings accounts. We had a homeschool teaching moment as we proceeded to explain how many people end up in serious debt because of the very high interest rates and that if you don't have the money to buy something then you probably shouldn't. My husband explained how there are only a couple times when borrowing money makes sense. One case when borrowing is justified is if you are buying a tangible appreciable asset such as a house or when you need cash flow to build a business. Of course, these examples also included lessons on borrowing only what you can afford and not just what someone says is ok for you to borrow. We talked about the folks who are in a bind now because they chose variable interest rate loans, what variable interest rates are and how to address this problem. Once she realized that interest could be charged for borrowed money and how it worked, a very bright bulb went off in (and over) her head. In the end, she won with all the items purchased, no debt and an economics lesson taught one-on-one. Experimentation Math Learning Styles Business Life Skills Critical Thinking Games Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:32:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/13/Bargain-Hunter http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/10/Deeds-Documents-and-Town-Hall 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. Law Projects Socialization Experimentation Benefits Math Communication Learning Styles History Business Life Skills Geography Spelling Social Studies Writing Critical Thinking Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:35:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/4/10/Deeds-Documents-and-Town-Hall http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/19/And-the-Winner-Is He's the winner, no she did better. The day after a political debate you will always hear the political pundits debating about who the winner of the debate is, but what does your kid think? We recently watched part of a congressional political debate. I explained the format for this formal way of arguing. As with any communication, there is much more than just the words involved. Appearance and body language, particularly in debates, are very important aspects. As we watched the debate I asked who was making a better impression. Why? Was it because of their clothes? Their tan? The way they held their hands? What made her feel more confident in that person? Then we talked about the questions. The debate we happened to watch was sponsored by a medical association. As a result all the questions involved medicine, malpractice insurance and doctors. As we watched we discussed why those were issues for that segment of the population. I asked why everything involved medical questions? What was a sponsor? As the candidates answered the questions we discussed their answers. One candidate kept talking about how wonderful the state legislature was while the other talked about congress. So, I posed the following questions. Why would someone vote for the candidate that keeps saying how great the legislature is doing when this is a congressional position? Would you vote for someone that did not understand the difference between congress and the state legislature? Would you vote for someone that kept praising another political area instead of talking about what they would do if elected? My goal through it all was for our daughter to analyze the debate, critically think about the answers, see how they looked at the future, how these candidates solved problems, the different aspects of communication and why it all matters. If more people did this you would not hear Monday morning quarterbacks three months later complaining about their newly elected representatives. As one of the greatest countries we have serious responsibilities to not just vote but to vote intelligently and teach our children to do the same. Law Communication Learning Styles Business Life Skills Social Studies Critical Thinking Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:24:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/19/And-the-Winner-Is http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/13/Can-You-Read-This When our daughter was learning to write, I figured one of the best ways to encourage her was to purchase some stationary and stamps of her selection. My thought was then she would have all the tools to write to her grandparents. This worked out better than I had intended. After she would write her letter, she would come to me for me to address the envelopes. I quickly saw this as another real world learning opportunity. So, I explained how to address the envelopes. Why they were addressed that way and what happened when mail was returned. I remember in school learning about how to address envelopes but we always just wrote down the answer on notebook paper or on a copy of an envelope but never on the real thing. Additionally, the feedback we received was very limited since the only person giving feedback was our teacher. So, with these experiences in hand I decided to approach this a bit differently. I drew lines on the envelopes of where everything went. (You can also purchase envelopes with lines or get stickers with lines on them and place them on the envelope to guide your child.) Then I provided her with the individual's address and encouraged her to write neatly. I explained that we would know if she wrote neatly if the postal worker could read her handwriting. If the postal worker could, then the letter would be allowed to be sent, if not then she would need to rewrite the envelope. Our daughter eagerly set out to address her envelope, stamp it and seal it. When we ran our errands that day we stopped at the post office, went in and waited our turn. When she approached the counter, she asked the postal worker, "Can you read this?" The postal worker seemed a bit confused and so I explained that she was learning about how to address a letter properly and she wanted to mail the letter. I further explained that our agreement was she could only mail the letter if the postal worker could read the addresses. The postal worker was great. He immediately took the letter, seriously looked at it, read it out loud and declared he could accept the letter to be mailed. Our daughter was so excited that she had succeeded in officially addressing and mailing her own letter. To this day, she takes great pride in addressing her envelopes. She understands the process of mailing a letter and the importance of writing clearly. Communication Learning Styles Business Life Skills Spelling Writing Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:06:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/13/Can-You-Read-This http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/11/How-Much-Do-I-Get-Back As a child I remember learning about money two ways. One was the formal way at school. We would sit at our desk, pull out our book and look at a page with pictures of the fronts and backs of coins and bills. Then we would do math problems with the pictures of the money for classwork or homework. Now, as a child I saw several problems with this method of learning about money. First, it was not realistic because all the money was flat as a pancake on the page. Second, I could not get a real sense of the size of the money because I literally could not get my fingers wrapped around the money. Third, I had no real world context in which I could use my skills. Fourth, let's be honest about this one, it wasn't my money so who really cared if I got the answer right? Thankfully, my mother had a creative way to teach money to me that made it very real, very fast. Whenever we would go to a store, while I was learning about money, she would pay a little bit more and get change. Then, while we were still in the store, she would put the coins in my hands and tell me that if I could figure out the exact amount of the change on the first try then I could keep it. Whoa! For a kid, that was one very cool deal. While I definitely grasp that schools might not be able to implement this idea this is definitely something that parents can do on their own. My mother succeeded in allowing me to use real money so that I could wrap my fingers around them and relate their size and texture to this subject. She gave me a real world context and she succeeded in making me care about getting the right answer. After all, we were now talking about what could be MY money. Some of you might not agree with this method so I encourage you to think back to when you were trying to learn a skill, maybe cooking. Remember how reading about cooking was never the same as once you got to practice what you read in the kitchen? Learning about money is no different. During that time period, I probably earned less than $10 but it cemented in my mind how to count money correctly and why it was an important lesson to learn. And frankly, it was fun! Creativity Math Learning Styles Business Life Skills Critical Thinking Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:00:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/11/How-Much-Do-I-Get-Back http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/4/Toast-Tea-Coffee-and-Creativity 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! Creativity Projects Math Design Communication Learning Styles Business Life Skills Spelling Writing Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:00:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/4/Toast-Tea-Coffee-and-Creativity http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/1/100-or-Less-Learning What did you do with the box that you recently received at home? Ever wonder what happens to all the boxes at the stores and grocery stores? When was the last time you used a box? Was it for moving or storage? If you are like most adults, you overlook the measly cardboard box. After all, once it serves its purpose what use is it? There are many uses for a box beyond moving, storage or shipping. A simple box can become an imaginary car, train, sled or ship. It can be used for a table or desk when flipped over. This can then be used for the purpose of an imaginary restaurant, dining room table, or grocery store counter. Larger boxes can be used for huts or tents. Most boxes just get crushed once they serve their purpose so why not ask for a box to bring home. If you are looking for a larger box, check appliance stores. While the main learning experience will be the use of your child's creativity and imagination, many other lessons can be incorporated. If your child is very young you could ask them to tell you a story using their box as a car, for example. You could record their story or transcribe it and help them create a book. Then you could read the story they wrote. If the child is older you could ask them to write a story with a beginning such as: "One day, I sat in a box which magically became ." Now, spelling, creativity, writing, and English can be incorporated. Another option might be to set up a grocery store using the box. Let the child practice selling items and making change with real money. This allows them to practice communication skills, math and entrepreneurship. For older children you could invite them to decorate the box and collect cans for the homeless shelter or treats for the troops overseas. In these situations, they get to use many skills while learning the following: - Communication and persuasion skills can be developed while doing the collecting. - Math can be used for weighing and measuring so that packing can be done properly. - Geography can be used to locate the place to which the box will be shipped. - Current events as to what is going on in that part of the world and why the box is needed there. - Good citizenship can be learned by helping their fellow man. - If they drop off the box to a homeless shelter or food pantry, they can learn about how one can be in poverty, organizations that help individuals who are in poverty, whether it is the government's responsibility to get people out of poverty, and other ways to help. So, the next time you see a measly box bring it home for your kids. You will be amazed at the fun and learning that can take place for less than a $1.00. If you have others ideas of how a box can be used be sure to click on comments and share your ideas! Creativity Math Design Communication Learning Styles Business Life Skills Geography Spelling Motor Skills Writing Critical Thinking Games Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:46:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/10/1/100-or-Less-Learning http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/9/5/Welcome-the-New-EveryoneHomeschoolscom-Bog Welcome to Everyone Homeschools! What does it mean that everyone homeschools? Officially, there is no real definition of homeschool. Rather homeschooling is created by the individual homeschoolers. The taxpayers do not financially support homeschoolers. Some homeschoolers use a commercial curriculum, while others do not. In addition, there are different homeschool organizations, nationally, regionally and within the states. Except for individual state legal requirements, there is no clear definition of homeschool. Because of this there are those who homeschool with different methods. There are those who unschool, while others use a particular style of teaching such as Charlotte Mason. Some families use purchased curriculums such as Oak Meadow, Saxon, Sonlight or Alpha Omega, to name a few. Other families are considered eclectic, meaning they pick and choose teaching materials. They may use Singapore Math, Explode the Code for phonics, Story of the World for History, the library for reading materials, an electronics science kit for science, and the news for current events and geography. Most families who homeschool do so full-time while others homeschool and then seek specific instruction for certain subjects, such as a Spanish tutor. Some homeschooling parents pool their resources and offer co-op style classes. Some parents, whose children are in school, give extra math problems, have political discussions over dinner or help with their child's homework. Many families are involved on some level with teaching their child, yet they don't see this as teaching. For many homeschoolers, learning is not something done only between certain hours or at a specific location, rather it is a lifestyle. Essentially, homeschooling becomes life learning. With life learning, you don't need to be a certain age to be introduced to a subject or have to sit at a school to learn about the subject. Life learning happens in everyday opportunities, discussions, and books read. No assumption is made that one is not old enough to be introduced, even if it is cursory, to a subject. While a child of 5 might not fully understand a business plan, they certainly get the idea that they made some money at their lemonade stand and they quickly learn to count. Similarly, a child at age 3 might not understand all that Thomas Jefferson accomplished but a visit to Monticello certainly teaches them that Thomas Jefferson was a President, as they get introduced to history. By age 8, that same child grasps that Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence. Before long, that same child learns about Jefferson through a biography and the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France. When one realizes that homeschooling is life learning it becomes clear how everyone homeschools, whether formally or not. This website is dedicated to all those life learning opportunities regardless of the learners age, location or subject. We hope you enjoy it! Ken and Lisa Introduction Math Learning Styles Oak Meadow Saxon Alpha Omega Singapore Math Explode the Code Story of the World Sonlight Electronics History Business Tue, 05 Sep 2006 00:06:00 -0400 http://www.EveryoneHomeschools.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/9/5/Welcome-the-New-EveryoneHomeschoolscom-Bog