Low Effort --almost no work --Homeschool Learning,

**canadian gardener** · 02-05-2004, 11:02 AM

get teaching audio and video tapes and use them for all ages.

I used and enjoyed Diana Waring's What in the World is Going on here world history volumes 1 and 2 thru out our highschool at home years. I'd pop the tapes in whenever we had a long car trip ahead. Very fine tapes. For younger kids there are many good taped learning things around.

There are some hilarious and very good audio tapes that taught biology and chemistry facts believe it or not. Several age levels.

Many librarys have Blackstone Audio Books on tape with the classics on tape. My sis has used Blackstone for years at bedtime for her kids to fall asleep to. That kind of read aloud of Dickens and the classics means that her kids are really really really literate and enjoy (it pulls their attention span and ability to listen, big time) such things as Victor Hugo, Dickens, Shakespeare, Mark Twain and more.

I used a tape set of King Lear one year for ds's grade 11/dd's gr 9 and we did it intensely while ds and dd fiddled with lego as they listened. Ds has ADD/ADHD and it helps him concentrate to fiddle with his hands while he listens.

Can I suggest you hand them a bucket of play dough or lego and pop something like that into the tape player?

Bible is on tape too. I did my housework to it a lot one year.

Don't fuss if the kids wander off, or your attention wanders, that isn't the point with audio learning. Just keep playing the tapes, what sinks in sinks in. You'd be amazed.

It's better than getting cranky and turning it off "cause they aren't listening". It is still going in in the background of their lives. Later you'll see just how much sank in, when they didn't look like they were paying attention.

Then there is the Magic Schoolbus on TV, and Bill Nye the Science Guy. No harm in plopping them down in front of that kind of programming. You can tape it in advance, and pop the tape in when you need a break.

Shakespeare classics are on video often found in libraries.

Stick good maps up on the walls in the bathroom. My bathroom unit study consisted of some good books at lower than their reading/grade level, the sort of thing you could pick up and read tiny bits. USBORNE and Dorling Kindersly type books.

I had maps and the appropriate books in the bathroom. In fact right now, there is the remains of the very last unit I did on Astronomy up in the downstairs bathroom with a bunch of nat. Geographic star maps and pics of the universe so you can see where we are in the galaxy. Very fun. Along with a bunch of different types of stars and astronomical data.

Hang a time line on a long wall and just write in the title of any books they read or have read where they belong. Over the years the kids will grasp history better as a result.

My favourite lady, Ruth beechick wrote about using books a few grade levels BELOW their reading ability, because such books usually condense the facts down in a very readable way, easily absorbed.

Sometimes we want to pull their reading ability up, but when it's time to teach a set of facts like history or geography or science, these content based subjects, it's better to use stuff that is easily absorbed.

Skill based subjects such as math and reading and writing (the 3 R's) are best when you teach a little beyond their skill, and go back and review all the time, to keep the learned skills current and practice practice practice the new skills. (Saxon math is good at this after gr.4, so is Horizons math in earlier grades)

I found using Learning Language Arts Thru Literature to be the easiest and most painless method of getting the reading and writing skills into the kids.

hope it helps

**canadian gardener** · 02-05-2004, 11:03 AM

btw this isn't just something to blow all your brains out trying to keep up with ON TOP OF a heavy text book curriculum.

This is what you can do, instead of that in order to do the work in less time and effort, using your child's natural desire and curiosity to learn.

Yes you can enrich said textbooks if that is your leaning anyway. But a lot more learning goes in using this approach than you can ever hammer in via the texts and it will have a lot more meaning and context to the child soooooo

they retain it a lot better. Which is the whole point of learning in the first place.

This is wonderful news for exhausted, stressed homeschool mammas.

You can take a break, without taking a break so to speak. Just use a more low key approach. List the hours as normal.

1 hour of Bill Nye and the Magic School Bus is still 1 hour of science.

5 minutes 6 times a day in the bathroom is still half an hour of history

Listening to Shakespeare on tape for 45 minutes while playing lego is still Language Arts

Writing a letter to a friend is still writing skills. Writing an email is typing and writing skills.

USING SUPER MARIO TEACHES TYPING on computer is keyboarding. If you use a fun fast paced program that feels gamelike, your kids will learn more than if you use that rather dry and uninteresting Mavis Beacon. I figured that out early on.

so what is left? Reading? Great, sit down at bedtime and read Dr Seuss to your beginner reader and have her sound out the words. When she comes to one she can't read, you fill in so the story continues seamlessly. OOOPS that was reading wasn't it.

Oh didn't get enough time in on reading? Feeling guilty it was so easy and took so little time? A half hour of Reader Rabbit, broken into 2 fast paced 10 minute game type segments counts as Reading.

Got the 3 R's skill based learning done plus our facts/content type science and social studies

Didn't have a nervous breakdown

and best of all the kids enjoyed the day and forgot they were learning. Plus BONUS-- they retained it better too.

Chalk one up for homeschooling.

**canadian gardener** · 02-05-2004, 11:04 AM

for highschooler homeschoolers.

the Camelot Chemistry Primer is a chemisty colouring book/textbook combined. Wonderful, wacky sense of humour in the author who designed it to tutor struggling first year chem students.

In addition to Saxon Math, Douglas Downing's trilogy, Algebra the Easy Way, Trig the easy way and Calculus the Easy way

are wonderful. The explanations of math come inside a fast paced silly story that most teens find adorable and it' was very cheap to buy the three, we about wore the books out.

I loaned them out a few times to friends with kids in high school struggling with math.

They are worth their weight in gold.

**canadian gardener** · 02-05-2004, 11:05 AM

for heavens sake use the computer to teach with.

Triple Play Plus French and Hebrew were way more fun and taught my dd more than the drier Learn To Speak French by the Learning Company.

The Learning Company has some wonderful game type learning programs though.

Operation Neptune, and Treasure Math Storm, Treasure Cove are all good for math and I've used them for fun add ons, and fun practice drills.

Speaking of which, practicing the skill based subjects (remember the 3 R's above?) is what makes the skills second nature to the kids.

But drill is always more fun using the computer game type way.

So do it. Drill math facts with Operation Neptune, practice phonics with Reader Rabbit, and teach typing with Super Mario.

Make DRILLS FUN!!!! THEN set the timer (even with games you have to keep them at it) for 10 minutes or 15 minutes and GO AT IT!!!!!

**canadian gardener** · 02-05-2004, 11:05 AM

And why not use Saxon math after Grade 4 and up (I am less than impressed with the K thru3 Saxon, it's a lot of work and very clunky compared to something like Horizons)

Saxon has the drill and the teaching of new skills in there, in a form that even if you don't understand it, the text is designed to teach it without a teacher. Run into a problem? use Douglas Downings' books or ask a friend to help.

**QuilterMom** · 02-07-2004, 11:58 AM

My ds loves the Magic School Bus! He's seen the episodes many times over and I have no objection!!!!! He loves using the computer as well and has many educational cd's he likes to play.

I'll have to check out Horizons math at the upcoming homeschool convention. We've been using Saxon K this year and ds loves it.

**BlessedMommy** · 02-08-2004, 07:42 PM

I don't currently homeschool (although ds isn't going to preschool next year...collective GASP from the neighborhood!...I'll just work with him at home on what I'd be paying a preschool to do with him), I do totally agree with your painless suggestions for learing, Margery! In fact, we do a lot of those things with our kids already. If they watch something on tv (we only get PBS and 2 local stations, otherwise it's videos) it is almost always something educational (whether they know it or not

) Many times they are not just watching they show, they're playing with the wooden train set, duplos, etc. but they're listening and learning at the same time.
We're painting dd's bedroom this week and we're going to be painting Bible verses right onto her walls. We figure it's a fun and unique way to imprint them on her heart!
I keep a bin of books and amgazines in the van at all times and even for quick little trips the kids pull them out and dd reads to ds. They love the Your Big Backyard mag (Ranger Rick for the younger crowd) and both of them learn all kinds of animal facts as dd practices her reading skills.
Bathroom reading material gets rotated according to what this mom thinks dd needs to focus on a bit more (funny how this works for dh, too!)
Anyway, thanks for the great tips, Margery! They work for non-homeschoolers as well.

**Early Bird** · 08-12-2004, 06:07 AM

Margery,

I was hoping this thread was the one where you wrote about high schoolers: Write a page a day and ... one or two other things. Is my mind going? Or was it on another board?

Anyway, I'll keep looking. But if it's something you haven't posted here before, could you review what you did?

**canadian gardener** · 08-12-2004, 03:38 PM

You haven't lost your marbles, nope, that's me allright!!!

now mine are nearly done their BSc. degrees at university, so it's been a while now, but yes.

Page a day essay, plus a math lesson a day from Saxon and the rest was either unit study or unschooling.

I'm packing today to go to my sis, but I will be back online here around the 24th and if you poke me with a stick

I promise I'll talk more on homeschooling if you like, probably way more than anyone can stand, but I'll do a bookpost or 25 on the subject if you like.

Just poke me to remind me when I get back.

Hugs

**Early Bird** · 08-12-2004, 06:42 PM

Thanks much, Canadian Gardener. If I ever get organized, I should print off pages of these tips and put them in a notebook!

**canadian gardener** · 08-13-2004, 10:25 AM

you are so welcome. I'm glad it could be a help to your daughter. I'm off tomorrow morning and wont' be back on for a little but when I come back, I've promised I would talk more on this line.