Lessons Archives -

Family Time Fitness: Homeschool P.E.

September 14, 2012 by Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

As a child I can remember trying ALL sorts of different physical activities in Gym Class.
Juggling, Unicycle, Three Legged Race, Wall-Ball, Four-Square, Square Dancing………
Oh how I loved Gym class…..Tell me I’m not the only one!

I’m totally for recess and free play too,
but sometimes learning and participating in a planned activity can be just as (if not more) fun!

Especially for those of us with a competitive spirit.

Ahem.

Unfortunately, as a Homeschool P.E. Parent,
I’m not very good at “planned” physical activity.

Unless it involves planning to take my children to practice
where someone else teaches their own planned activity.

But even then, it isn’t very convenient
to spend twenty minutes dressing and loading up the children,
forty minutes drive time there and back,
and $8 in crazy gas prices
just to get in ONE hour of planned physical activity.

Spare minutes are hard to come by,
and I’m pretty stubborn about spending 60 of them just shuffling the children around.

So guess who has come to my rescue:

That’s Mike Hanik.

He has reached Homeschool Superhero Stardom as a co-owner
of an amazing Homeschool P.E. program called Family Time Fitness

Family Time Fitness sent us a great package of P.E. curriculum they have bundled
together and called Fitness 4 Homeschool Core 1
What’s Included in FTF Homeschool Core 1:
The curriculum comes in a download format, so you can print out what you need or load it up on your tablet. I printed up the first two sections and bound them together, hoping that by the third section I would only need the summary pages.

Start Up Guide
(tips, assessments, and required equipment)

260 Preplanned Lessons for ages 4-13
(Warm-Up, Activity, Cool Down and Suggested Outdoor Activity total time 30-45min)

1 Page Summery:
(all the days activities on one page….LOVE THESE!)

Video Demonstrations
(over 200 examples of exercises, here’s a sample)

And More!
(Encouragment Emails, Online Webinars…)

Here are some Action Shots:

(the scooter was part of our relay race…don’t you just love the leg!)

What I like:
-Activities are easy to learn
-Activities are varied and entertining
-Minimal equipment required
-One Page Summary is great!!
-Cost $57 for an entire year, and can reuse again!

What I don’t like:
-Nothing!

Family Time Fitness HS Core 1 Retails for $57
they offer other products that are worth checking out as well.
Basketball Sports Module
Foundational Strength Program for HighSchool

If you aren’t currently teaching P.E. in your homeschool,
(as I wasn’t) Here are some articles to think about:

P.E. vs. Playtime
Physical Fitness and Anger Control

Discalimer: As part of the TOS Crew Review I received Family Time Fitness Core 1 for free in exchange for my honest opinion about the curriculum. Â Affiliate links are used in this post. Â Read what other Crew members thought about Family Time Fitness here.

Can History be Engaging?

July 23, 2012 by Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

Warning: Soapbox Post Ahead
The printables and Free Curriculum Offers are at the bottom, scroll if you must.

So, what do you think?

CAN History be engaging?

If you would have asked me that 20 years ago,
I would certainly answer that with a big fat,

NO!

In fact,
I can even go further and tell you the specific night
that I decided that I HATED History.

H.A.T.E.D.
I would use a milder word,
but it really wouldn’t convey my actual (10 year old) feelings about History

(and yes, if you do the math that makes me 30)

Ahem…..

So, it was 20 years ago and
I vividly remember sitting in my uncomfortable wooden chair,
with my gigantic 5th grade (public school) History book propped on it’s spine.
The tendons between my thumb and pointer finger ached from holding
this monster of a book upright.
It was massive.

I was tired.
It was late,
Homework was due,
and I had more pages to read then I cared to count.

I tried my best to read. I willed myself to focus.
Self motivation kicked in; “You can do this!”
With heavy eyelids I read a full page.

Great!
Until I realized,
I hadn’t a CLUE what I just read.

(ever done this?)

Giggling at myself,
I started to read again…..this time outloud.

An hour passed, until I just couldn’t stomach any more.
I had no idea who these “historical” people were.
I had no personal frame of reference for where they were at in the world,
or even what period of time they existed in.
There were dates and numbers and facts,
graphs and arrows and lists of accomplishments.
I had no connection to any of it.

My brain was jumbled.

That was the moment I realized my complete ~~hate~~ disregard towards History.
(yes, I was a moody young girl and my feelings quickly swept from hatred to apathy)

I closed my book,
went to bed and
took an incomplete on my lesson the next morning.
No Joke.
Big fat ZERO.

And, now that I’ve written that all out,
It is almost sad to remember how much
I actually loathed History lessons.

I know better now.
I’ve actually become quite fond of History over the past few years,
Mostly from reading His-Story from an entirely different perspective,
but also out of a necessity to teach it to my own children.

I want my children to actually connect with the people and stories they read about.

This is one reason we will be using many living books
from our Heritage History Curriculum.

PSSST…..
If you are making a purchase at Heritage History use
coupon code: valerie7
It will give you the Spanish Empire Library FREE
with any Curriculum CD purchase! Ends 10/31/12Click Here for more details

So mostly I’ll be assigning these living books during independent reading time,
but for some of the titles I’ll be following up the reading time with
actual assignments. It is for those times that I made a set of Notebooking pages:

And of course I couldn’t wait to share them with you too!
If you use living books or any kind of chapter book as part of your weekly lessons,
you’re going to love this 5 day spread of self-guided notebooking assignments.

You can read all about each daily assignment and print the free notebooking pages here.

TIP: Print up an extra set and keep them in a folder
for one of those “mom is sick, everyone pick a book” moments.

Happy Notebooking!

Teaching Children to Follow Directions

July 19, 2012 by Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago we got a Super Duper package in the mail!

It contained something I was really looking forward to,
somthing that could only come from a Super Duper Store.

Isn’t is marvelous?

HearBuilder Following Directions CD ROM
Created by by Susie S Loraine, M.A., CCC-SLP and
Mark Strait, M.Ed., CCC-SLP

This fun and intereactive software will teach your child to
follow increasingly difficult directions using 40 basic concepts in five areas:

Basic Directions
Sequential Directions
Quantitative & Spatial Directions
Temporal Directions
Conditional Directions

Before recieveing this product to review,
I had never heard of such a product!
(You can be sure that I would have ordered it much sooner if I had)

You see I have one particular child who can really take advantage of this program.

Getting real for a moment here:
I have a boy that struggles so badly with listening
that I literally had his hearing checked.

Long story short:

He hears fine.

He just listens poorly.

You can imagine the problems this creates with three other children and a homeschool agenda.

So, I was almost giddy tearing open the package, and loading up the game.

This little child also LOVES his computer time,
so this was akin to giving him candy and ice cream for breakfast.

He kept saying, “Thanks Mom!” over and over through out the lesson.
(yes, he was talking during his lesson….hence the need for the software)

The main goal of the game is to build toys.

But you can’t build toys without tools.

And you have to earn your tools baby.

You earn a tool by listening to the directions and acting them out correctly.

Directions are based on the five concept areas I listed above.

To begin with he was told, “Click on the small boat under the car”
As the game progressed, the directions became increasingly harder;

“First, set the size to small. Second, set the temperature to hot.
Third, set the shape to square. Then, set the color to blue, and press start.”

You cannot start following the directions until all of the directions have been said.

The boy HAD TO STOP TALKING in order to get them correct.

He struggled at this point. He was not happy to get the questions wrong.
But instead of reverting to frustration, he became all the more determined
to earn his tool.

He went silent and really focused.
(I knew he had it in him)
The incentive to listen was great enough to override all the other
distractions going through his 6 year old ADHD brain.

And I hovered over him the entire time, congratulating him with each success.

After his lesson time was over he literally beamed with pride
at accomplishing something he knew was difficult for him.

And also, because his worn out mother has so often ~~yelled~~ said,
“You need to listen dear boy” and here he was being rewarded for such
a good job listening.

Pros:

-My favorite part about his program is that the directions are auditory.
I feel my son needs the most work in this area and that progress will help our homeschool experience immensely.
-Can be used with multiple children, up to four and game progress is saved.
-Classroom size program is also available. (also compatible with SMARTBoard)
-No subscription, you get an actual CD-Rom that you can keep forever.

Here are some other features that you as the parent can set:
-Set levels of difficulty for each activity
-Identify and print learning objectives for all levels
-Add background noise at any level (obviously unneeded in our house…snicker)
-Monitor progress and track data for an unlimited number of students
-Track all relevant data
-Customize and print reports

Here is a wonderful video
that explains the software in much more detail.

HearBuilder Following Directions Home Edition retails for $69.95
You can purchase this software from Super Duper Publications You can save 30% by using the code BLGFD30 before August 31st.

Super Duper Publications has HUGE selection of educational resources,
if you’re shopping for next year you want to check them out!
They offer free shipping to USA and Canada on $20+ orders
Be sure to check them out on Facebook for exclusive deals and coupons!

Disclaimer: As a member of TOS Crew I received free product in return for an honest review.
Read what other TOS Crew Members thought of HearBuilder here.

In Japan I think it’s called “Moku Hanga”

And it’s essentially the same as what we know as “woodcut” printing.

A design is etched into wood, rolled with ink and then printed on the paper.

I’ve been wanting to make these for a while now…..

But I’ve been afraid!

Not of the mess, but I’ve been shaking in my flip-flops over:

The Foam Meat Tray.

YUCK.

It’s bad enough that I have to touch that creepy thing just to get my Rib-Eye out.

But now (for the sake of ART) I actually have to handle this thing.

Creepy!

So after washing this thing for like 20 minutes…..

And a good round of Bleach….

It was finally ready for carving!

But before we made our first cut we took a little looksie at this:

Origami: Inspired by Japanese Woodblock Prints
from the Metropolitian Museam of Art.

There are lots of photos of Japanese prints, alongside some fun Origami characters for children to make. There are historical explanations for the prints, and children get to learn about fine art and also learn new origami techniques. You can see sample pages here if your interested.

Anyway, we had a blast….