Five things to try in your homeschool- part 4

(I've been working on a series of things to try in homeschooling. If you missed part 1, part 2 or part 3, check them out!)

What's the surefire easiest way to get your kids interested in something that they've been resisting? Gamify it! Gamification is when we take an assignment or task and add a game element to make it more interesting, engaging or fun. It's something we often naturally do as parents with our toddlers. Have you ever said "I'll race you to the laundry basket?" or "Let's see who can put away the shoes faster!" You've already gamified your task!

As our kids get older, sometimes we forget to spread games into everything and anything we're already doing. Especially as homeschoolers, we might get stuck in a rut of a worksheet or a book and leave our kids to it, even if they're rolling on the ground complaining about the torture of the page. This is exactly the ah-ha moment, time to gamify the assignment! There are many ways to make this work, depending on your level of commitment and the time you have available for lesson planning and redesigning your work.

Start Simple
Choose just one thing to make into a game. We started with a whole family experience in Chore Wars. I freely admit, I knew I'd win from the beginning and was hoping to prove a point. I did win and my point was proven, but it was also far more fun to do annoying chores along the way! You can start even simpler. If all you have right now is five minutes, cut the math page apart and scatter it around the house. Tell your child they have 15 problems to find and complete to win the prize. Lay a notebook and glue out on the table and say "Go!" Each child will tackle this differently. Some will try to find all 15 problems first, then put them in order, then glue them. Some will find one at a time to complete. Either way, the approach to strategy and thinking is his/her own and makes that math practice even more fun!

Add in board games for another simple way to have fun! Our favorites include:



Add in a little more
One of our favorite math games is DragonBox. This is a great way to add in digital learning and know that your kids are having fun learning math. DragonBox is available on most platforms, which makes it even more awesome! To add in a little more, it's quick and easy to google the subject area and "game" to come up with options. We have found that the best games usually come up from the BBC, PBS, Nova or National Geographic, though there are many others!

Go all in
How do you gamify the entire lesson? This is a challenge if you're planning on creating your own from scratch. Start early and play-test your game many times, so it's not a failure when you debut it to the kids. Or go with an already designed game that will make your life even more fun!
Our favorites:

• Mission US - Choose your own adventure style US history
• iCivics- Civics and Constitutional issues, a perfect match for Mission US
• Meet me at Midnight- Art appreciation and art history by the Smithsonian 
• CSI Science- Based on the TV show but made by Rice University
• Quandary- Logic, consequences and planning a new civilization all in one
• NovaLabs- Several choices of immersive science games
• Prodigy Math- Free K-8 math, set up Pokemon style with characters and leveling up!

Whatever you choose or however you do it, bringing games to your homeschool will make everyone find the lessons even more enjoyable!


*This post contains affiliate links to Amazon that help support this blog.*

Five things to try in your homeschool this coming year- part 1

It's nearly summer! My summer usually involves a little bit of sunshine, time at the pool, my personal professional development plans and tons of organization for the coming school year. The kid and I sit down towards the end of May or early June and try to imagine what the next year will look like and what direction we want to go. In general, we end up with about 50% of our plans sticking for the year. That seems to be an excellent success rate!

In planning for the new year, we try to think big and look at crazy ideas, not just choose a curriculum and a workbook. Recently, a family at school asked what have been our most successful big ideas and how we've incorporated them into our homeschool schedule. I realized that over four years, these ideas that were "big" in the beginning are now the regular part of our days and weeks.

What are those big ideas and what does it look like?


Part 1- Take learning online
It's no secret that we're big fans of online education and learning. We are living in a time where the whole world is at a student's fingertips. I personally feel that a fear of "screen time" is denying children amazing opportunities. I do understand the reticence of some families, but I promise- your foray into digital learning will be worth it.

For those ready to dabble, try these options:

• CurrClick- Totally free or very low cost, low requirements. Classes range from Lego Clubs and Magic Treehouse Clubs to high school science and math
  
• SuperCharged Science- Not sure you want to take an online class? Sign up for the email promotions and you'll receive several opportunities for free demo classes throughout the year.
  
• Athena's Academy- A fantastic resource for short and long term online courses. Students meet in a virtual classroom and discuss the topics of the course, as well as completing other assignments online. A short term 8 week class is a great way to get your feet wet.

Ready to go all in? Here are our favorites:

• Athena's Academy- Long term classes range from literature, history and science to philosophy and math for younger kids. Athena's specializes in elementary through middle school courses online. Your kids will love it!
  
• Gifted Homeschoolers Forum While we haven't specifically used GHF, it is well recommended among friends. The class topics are engaging, with subjects like "Beyond Percy Jackson" and "Minecraft Math". Your kids are sure to find one that looks exciting
  
• OnlineG3- I can't say enough good things about OnlineG3. We plan our entire school year schedule around the G3 schedule and what looks the best. Next year, the kid is tackling Writing From Sources in the fall and is hoping for a return of Science and Science Fiction Movies in the spring.
  
• Mr. Gelston- In a new partnership with OnlineG3 and Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, Mr. Gelston's One Room Schoolhouse is offering opportunities for older students and teens to study journalism, Algebra and to study data and statistics in a thoroughly interesting and tangible way. 

Each of these opportunities teaches digital literacy, online collaboration, online citizenship and encourages students to see beyond their own computers. As a homeschooling mom, it's extremely rewarding to hear your child having a thoughtful debate with other students all around the world!

If we can't predict it, how do we prepare for it?

In my most recent post, I wrote about a future that we can't predict and the speed of technology changing life faster than we can even comprehend. As an academic homeschooler, this is terrifying! What if I'm failing my son at every turn, preparing him for a future that I'm imagining but maybe isn't going to happen. How do you find a path that is suddenly all wiggly and in 4 dimensions anyway?

First off, you just do something! This is my advice to my Math Olympiad students all the time- just do something! Any plan is better than no plan, so seize the day and make a plan for 21st century learning.

Start with making
We started hands on, because tinkering and making is always fun and inspiring! Using EEME kits, as well as simple Maker ideas like those in "Tinkering: Kids Learn by Making Stuff and Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom you can gather ideas for creating, engineering and small scale design strategies. A huge favorite in our house is also diy.org with fantastic, inspiring and inventive projects. Plus DIY has badges- who doesn't like badges!

Learn to code
It's been said in so many places I can't even find the original- coding is the new typing. Kids who understand how to code will have the basis and understanding of everything, from Arduino and Raspberry Pi to hacking their own life. Even the littlest kids can learn to code with apps like Kodable and Move the Turtle. Bigger kids and teens will enjoy options like GameStar Mechanic, Scratch, Tynker and Code.org.  There's something for everyone at Codecademy too!

Collaborate
Collaboration for homeschoolers can be a stretch for families, particularly those of you without a charter support system. It's crucial for the new future that students know how to collaborate effectively, divide labor tasks and work through the tough parts of a team. Your collaboration may come through an organized project like a scouting project,  First Lego League or an Odyssey of the Mind team. Or it may be a student-driven, authentic collaboration like a few friends working on a Minecraft adventure map, producing a neighborhood play or building a giant cardboard house in the backyard. Regardless of the age or project, all students need to collaborate to complete a task if they'll be successful in the new future.

Read, research, read
The most successful students will still be those that are readers. The format may have changed- perhaps they're reading online news, blogs, a tweetdeck, tumblr or on reddit. Maybe they're not snuggled up with a great book on the couch, but walking the neighborhood with a book on their iPod. But great thinkers are also readers, inspired by ideas and seeking out more information. Whatever they're reading, turn them loose and let them read. Go to the library, forward them links, turn them to appropriate kids' news websites like newsela.com. Stretch their genres, the way they access the material and encourage reading at every possible corner.

Take an online class
I truly believe that even if nothing else dramatically changes in the next ten years, online classes will be the major change in educational advancement. Academic homeschoolers shouldn't just want to take an online class, it's a need that must be filled. Learning to work in an online classroom, navigating the technology as a base tool rather than the end goal, working with a teacher you've never met and classmates you'll never see in real life are all crucial, life-changing skills our kids require. The kid's favorite online classes have come from Athena's Academy and Minecraft Homeschool. There are plenty of options though, in every price range. MOOC providers like Coursera, Udacity and EdX are fantastic resources for a no-risk, free option to try. However, the interaction part of an online course is difficult in a MOOC environment and we encourage you to seek out fully interactive classes with a live teacher.

Be brave!
Most importantly, know that by doing something, you're creating a path for your student that will be more fulfilling, more creative and further down the road to success than if you did nothing at all. Be brave and learn along with your kids- since we can't predict the future, we'd better prepare ourselves along with them. You never know when we'll change human life expectancy to 200 years. That's a lot of future for us homeschoolers to contend with! Better go learn to code, just in case!

All Minecraft all the time

I had written over the summer about the benefits of Minecraft and why families should be encouraging use of Minecraft for homeschooling purposes. This piece was more of a way to convince families that it was ok to let the kids go and use this spectacular educational tool for whatever inspired them! Shortly after, several friends asked me about limiting screentime and how I manage to maintain balance at home.

As Minecraft becomes more ubiquitous, more people have asked me not why we're using it but HOW we're using it. The kid has managed to convince me that Minecraft really does relate to everything in life, so I encourage you to ask YOUR kids how you can use Minecraft at home as well. I promise, they have a hundred ideas if you just let them run with it!

Book Walk-Thru
The kid doesn't like to write. He hates to write actually, and due to some motor coordination issues, writing actually causes him significant pain and takes a million years. In discussing book summaries, and how setting is important, he asked me to allow him to do a walk-thru of the main setting of the book The Maze Runner. He did this project last year and it was his first attempt at screencasting a Minecraft walkthru. We talked a lot afterwards about controlling your video movement, using a storyboard and how to make sure your thoughts are clear before you start talking.

Historical Architecture and Tours
Remember having to make a California mission in 4th grade? Or building some other absurdly expensive, large project that your parents ended up having to help you construct at home? Take the same project, put it in Minecraft and you now have a high-interest, easily manageable and historically accurate architecture project. You could even find some villagers to work in your Colonial shop or man your California farm fields! In this screencast, you can see the immense amount of architectural work, and understanding of symmetry that goes into building in Minecraft. He also demonstrates a solid understanding of the components of a ziggurat. Still working on not making people dizzy though! In this screencast, nearly a year after the first, he's describing a study of ancient Chinese tombs. He's definitely gotten better at not making you feel like you're spinning in circles!

Online Collaboration and Netiquette
Perhaps one of the most unexpected lessons to come out of Minecraft for us, is the lesson of how to deal with people online. Quite often, the kid is playing online with people that he doesn't know in real life. He takes several online classes through Minecraft Homeschool and Athena's Academy and both require online collaboration, conversation and negotiation.

Learning how to get the rest of the group to work together, in a timely fashion and create a project that meets the requirements of the assignment is a tricky, political and complex requirement when you don't actually know the participants. Most of us growing up, learned how to navigate the group project but we always had the social stigma of going to lunch or presenting in class with the slacker that didn't work. How do you figure that out when the slacker lives 2000 miles away? It's been fascinating watching groups of 9-14 year olds sort this out, all online, usually in TeamSpeak but often using in-game chat. As the working world becomes more reliant on online collaboration, this is the most useful skill coming from Minecraft right now and it's not something I can replicate easily at home!

Creative Writing Sparks
As I mentioned, Minecraft Homeschool has several classes that all take place online in Minecraft. Their academic work is required to earn you money to buy bricks for building in Minecraft. It's high interest, engaging and always well managed. Soon, they're also starting up a creative writing class- which offers yet another pathway into using Minecraft for school. This is a pathway I hadn't considered and haven't tried, but I can see how for many kids, it would really spark imagination and creativity!

I'm always looking for new ways to keep our work exciting and engaging. How are you using Minecraft at home?