Fri 5 Sep 2008
Mind mapping the Winged Insect World and more
We are starting the study of insects on Monday. At first, I have a lapbook in mind for it but we realized and agreed that mind mapping suits this topic best. I remember how they love to draw animals of all sorts including bugs. A Mind Map will definitely organize the gazillions of info they can get from various sources and they can add more as they find new data. Mind mapping is one of the faves they just love to do, it is fun-learning. In fact, we are currently doing a time map of Christiana's journey with her siblings to the Celestial city. It comes after our morning Bible reading and they always look forward to it daily. Remember, we tracked Christian's journey using time mapping last school year. That started the addiction, I suppose. Well, anyone can mind map anything!
On weekends, we already work on a lapbook project on Art Appreciation. I do not want to overuse lapbooking, else the magic would fade away too soon. Notebooking too has to be set aside sometimes. We use it more for history and some science lessons. Actually, they have their plates heaped with history. Aside from the regular read-alouds, we do some oral narration, notebooking, weekly memory cards, mapping, timeline and extra reads of related topics that capture their interest. And each would always have a living book, either a historical fiction or world history, on hand. That's plenty to keep their minds and hands busy. It IS a lot of work but they seem to enjoy these.
Fridays are set aside for the more tedious activities.Since, it is a Friday, you can now well imagine what we have been doing today with some Math and Grammar exercises thrown in. I am reading midway through Beyond Numbers ebook by Katherine Loop and realized that parts of the book may be read aloud to the children. I started reading to them yesterday before they wrestled word problems and geometry. Their response was great. It is indeed enlightening to know that Math is not a neutral subject and God designed it for our practical use. This ebook is a practical guide on how to teach Math biblically. If you have qualms about how to approach teaching Math in a Christian perspective, then I recommend this book. It is a must-read.
Great news! We just got a notice from the post office that the Building on the Rock, our Biblical Worldview materials from Summit.Org has arrived. It took over three weeks to get here though it was sent by air. I admit I got worried a bit. But since it is here, I do not have to think about that anymore. We might have it ready for lessons next week and we are excited. Boy, we do look forward to this and of course, Monday's Mind Map Magic!
Hmm, I guess that's about it for our first week. I must say it is a not-so-perfect yet productive, smooth one and I thank God, for His grace abounds always. |
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Thu 10 Jul 2008
Pondering Li'l Pilgrim's Progress
| We have finally come to the conclusion of the journey of Christian as he enters the gates of the Celestial City in this timeless well-loved classic by John Bunyan. We enjoy Helen L. Taylor's popular simplified version while Vibrant Bea delights herself with the old English of the unabridged version by Christian Classics publication during free time. Still, she listens to our read-aloud anyway and loves it. Fuzzy listened to the human-voice audiobook from Librivox months ago but decided that my reading voice is a lot better. Thanks, Fuzzy, but not always and you know that!
Taylor's version is light and easy. Written for the younger reader, Taylor used simple vocabulary without missing the vital lessons that Bunyan had so carefully embedded in his story. My children, thus, loved Christian, the child pilgrim, almost instantly. To their simple hearts, Christian can be anyone of them. BUt I can not over-emphasize to them that Bunyan's inspiration came from nothing less than God's Word. So, if you they love The Pilgrim's Progress, they should "desire the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby (1 Peter 2:2)."
This is one of our best read-alouds. What made it different? Apart from how the story unfolds from Christian's freedom from the City of Destruction to how he ,with his friends Faithful and Hopeful, made it to the Celestial City, Vibrant Bea and Fuzzy couldn't keep their imagination and creative juices from flowing. They got themselves busy with visual time-maps (we coined it from timeline and mind maps) as I read to them. Remember the mindmaps? We took that activity and added a different twist to it. They mapped out Christian's journey and added the time element to create a visual vertical timeline and mind map. Quite a mouthful, and thus the term time-map is born! (Ooops, just googled it and there IS a TimeMap software used in archeological field.) Same idea. Anyway, mine has a dash- or probably a hyphen? =)
Here is Vibrant Bea's work. A page is supposed to branch out from the left on the second panel but I am still figuring it out how to photo-stitch it with the rest.
Fuzzy is still working on his.
There's your Time-map! |
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Fri 4 Apr 2008
Would you mind Mind Maps?
Nope, this isn't some colorful starfish from an exotic nature study =). Neither it is a futile drawing of an image in broken kaleidoscope. It is a Latin Constellation mind map Vibrant Bea has made when trying to make Latin exercises a more colorful and livelier deal. And it works! One of the fun things we have discovered and probably our best find when we went book-hunting at the Colombo Annual Book Fair last year. It is called Mind Maps for Kids (Rev up for Revision) by Tony Buzan.
This book introduces Mind Mapping as a great tool for learning, primarily, for revision. A Mind Map is a diagram used to help the 2 hemispheres of the brain remember, think, plan, organize and sort information. It makes use of color and pictures while retaining information from previously learned subject matter. Revision for that matter, is the most common use for it.
In our homeschool where creativity oozes in some parts, we realized that we can use it in dozens of ways. It makes scheduling, organizing the desks, oral narration, outlining, creative writing, field trip planning, nature study, journaling, unit studies, lapbook designing, story telling, ... and so on, fun with a different twist.
It is a very handy tool for a learning family... I highly recommend it. |
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