Imagery. Word association. Similes. Metaphors. Word pictures.

How we teachers all want our students to write with all of those stylistic elements!

Last spring a couple of my son’s students got creative with an assignment to write about a physical thing in the room using stylistic elements that they had been taught that semester.

Imagine our delight when they wrote their imagery-filled paragraph about our beloved “sticky notes,” those little post-its that all Character Ink Cottage Class students mark their homework for the upcoming week. I think you will like it too–

Sticky Notes = The Road to Success

“Sticky-note time! Sticky-note time! Everybody loves it when it’s sticky-note time.” Half a pack gone in only sixty minutes. Hundreds of traffic lights stopping the lives of children. Red lights signaling imaginations to pause, to think fast. One by one, sticky-notes disappear. One by one red changes to green. Our brains speed forward: assignments complete. We get over potholes. The interstate is smoother. Sticky-notes thrown off, fall like confetti; land marks to success.

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The post Sticky Notes = The Road to Success appeared first on Character Ink.

One of the most important things to do in going “back to school” is definitely incorporating chore sessions (including having trained everybody in their chores during the summer). I have been writing (and podcasting) a lot about this topic this summer, so rather than re-inventing the wheel here, I will direct you to some of those for more help.

I remember vividly the two summers before my August and September babies were born. I had double the motivation to get the chore schedules updated—a new school year and a new baby’s arrival. I made mini posters for above the washing machine, and we had “laundry lessons” for several days. I upped the look of the chore charts to try to excite the kids a little bit about the new divisions of labor. We timed the tasks to be sure they could be done in the allotted time. We instituted “room to room” for three to five minutes before each chore session to ensure that everybody’s things were up out of the way before the cleaner or assistant chef or little laundry lady started her tasks.

Those are fond memories (believe it or not). The kids were sweet. They were used to working and doing their part from a year old on (when they started putting their books in a basket in the corner of their crib and their toys in another basket). It was just another time in which we learned, grew, and accomplished together. After all, isn’t that what homeschooling is all about!?

Check out some of the links below to help you start your two or three chore sessions a day—or to get ideas for improving your existing ones!

Podcast Episode: Children and Chores
Podcast Episode: How to Get Your Kids To See Work At Home In A Positive Light
Podcast Episode: Five Homeschool Problems and Solutions
Blog Post: Delighting in the Dailies
Blog Post: Laundry, Dishes, and Trash
 

The post Getting Ready For School 2015: Incorporate Chore Sessions appeared first on Character Ink.

I have probably said this a thousand times in the past twenty years of speaking to and writing for homeschooling moms: do your dailies! I learned this the hard way (by not doing my dailies!), and once I learned this TRICK (and it does work like magic, so I guess you can call it a trick!), my days were amazingly better.

Because I have spoken about it and written about it so much in the past, I won’t re-invent the wheel here. But I did want to jump in to tell you to trust this fifty-something year old, homeschooling veteran of thirty-one years. When I say that this is the first, albeit simple, answer to a homeschooling mamas problems of not getting things done or feeling overwhelmed, I know what I’m talking about! 🙂

There are two specific posts in which I teach about this—one for learning to do your dailies and one for learning to delight in them….so check them out below!

Delighting in the Dailies Part I

Delighting in the Dailies Part II

The post Getting Ready for School 2015: Delight in the Dailies appeared first on Character Ink.

In addition to previewing textbooks with your student, you can help your kinesthetic learner even more by helping him label portions of his book.

Try this approach:

1. Do the first few assignments with your student. As you do, point out the things that you just discussed earlier during your textbook previewing. This step will help him see how usable the previewing session was. And it will further solidify the use of the glossary, sidebars, etc., as you show him how to use them to do actual assignments.

2. During another preview/run through, use large sticky notes to label the things that you find. You may do this in step one above or as you are helping him prepare for a test or quiz. These sticky notes will become guides for him in finding information—and will give him another tool that he can use in the future to prepare. For example, you could put a yellow one at the beginning of each chapter and a pink one on the page that has definitions for that chapter, etc.

3. In addition to labels with sticky notes, consider helping him develop some sort of system of noting user-friendliness or helpfulness of the study helps that his book contains. This step is good for during his first quiz or test prep because it is at that stage that you and he will come to see that some things help a lot and other things really aren’t that helpful. Also, by walking through this with him, you will see which things help HIM the most (not just things that you think are helpful).

+++ means something is going to be really helpful—a +++ beside the Table of Contents, for instance

+ beside a word he writes in the front of his book tells him that this might be somewhat helpful—Example: +Some graphs
– No study questions at end of chapter—again, he can make a list in the front of his book (on a large sticky note), etc.

Prepare your younger student for textbooks by using user-friendly non-fiction books

Maybe you are not in the textbook stage with your kids; however, you can begin preparing them for those all important study skills that I described above and in the “textbook previewing” post with quality non-fiction books. If kids at ages five, six, eight, and ten, learn to navigate around Dorling Kindersley, Eyewitness, and Usborne books (among many others), they will be heads and shoulders above other children who have only been exposed to fictional stories (more on the benefits of fiction later!).

 
These outstanding non-fiction books have literally hundreds of topics that interest kids, but they are so colorful and alluring, you do not feel like you are “teaching” at all. Additionally, they have many aspects that your child’s future textbooks will also have: glossaries, Tables of Contents, sidebars, graphs, pictures, inserts, definitions, bold font, italics, etc. Reading these to and with your children when they are younger will provide a natural step into textbooks later on.

Note: We teach our students (in our home, our cottage classes, and in our language arts books) a simple memory device for remembering fiction and non-fiction:

 
Fiction = fake (both begin with f)
Non-fiction = not fake (both begin with nf)

The post Getting Ready For School 2015: Help Students Label Their Books appeared first on Character Ink.

Homeschool benefits are many! One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is the opportunity to teach our children HOW to learn. Every time we walk them through a learning task or skill, we are teaching them how to learn. Every time we show them how to find or organize information, we are teaching them how to learn. Every time we make a discovery with them, we are teaching them how to learn.” 

With a new school year upon us, I want to rerun some information about developing study skills in our children, specifically, how to help our kids get accustomed to new textbooks.

Try these specific strategies for previewing textbooks with your student to help him or her get the most out of his or her texts this year:

1. Graphs and charts—Remind your student that charts and graphs usually restate (in another form) what is indicated in the text. He can use these for quick overviews, as well as for reviewing before tests.

2. Enumerations—If his text uses a lot of enumeration, it could be that this subject has a significant number of lists to be learned. Point him to these lists and show him that often what is listed in the margins or sidebars is also expounded upon within the text.

3. Section headings—The more headings a book contains, the easier it is to learn from. The student is constantly reminded, by the headings and subheadings, of what the section is about. Show him how helpful these headings can be as he uses the book during his reading and for test preparation.

4. Pictorial aids—Maps are always in included in history textbooks. If his textbook contains a large assortment of maps, show him how they can help him see the big picture. Maps usually show where something that is discussed in the text occurred.

5. Glossary—Books that contain glossaries give the student an easy way to find definitions that may be more obscure within the text. Teach him to use this for quick finds, but encourage him to use the text itself for most studying since students who learn vocabulary in context retain it better.

6. Tables of Contents—The Table of Contents can be used somewhat like an index to find where information is in a particular chapter. It is especially good for getting a big picture about a whole chapter.

7. Prefaces, introductions, and summaries—If a text has any of these three, some of the work is already done for the student. Show him how advantageous these are for quick previewing of a chapter.

8. Footnotes—If a student is in a class that requires research papers, footnotes can be a real plus. We teach our research paper students to use lengthy works’ footnotes to find other credible sources that they might use in their papers.

9. Appendixes—Appendixes are the “extra credit” of the book. I always like to thin of myself as a prized pupil, so I tend to gravitate to these right at first, since they’re usually for those who want additional information—and I always want to know more! Tell your students that sometimes the appendixes aren’t even used in the actual course, but they are good for learning more, for research-based reports, and for cementing what is found in the text.

10. Indexes—If a book doesn’t have an index, I say send it back and get a new one! Show your student how quickly he can find information with the index. The more specific the index, the better it is for the student.

11. Bibliography—The bibliography gives lists of books, articles, and documents relating to the subjects in the textbook. Like footnotes, we direct our research paper students to these.

12. Pronunciation guides—These guides give the phonetic markings to aid in reading unfamiliar words. Many texts do not have these guides, but they are helpful in a class where a student will be giving presentations so he can pronounce unknown words correctly.

Any signaling or sign posting that a book contains is that much more opportunity for the visual learner, especially, to learn and retain. If you have an auditory learner, you might have to record his vital info on audio. Don’t look at this time as “filler” or “wasted time” but rather look at it as helping your student learn how to learn!

The post Getting Ready For School 2015: Textbook Preview With Your Children appeared first on Character Ink.

Our children will only develop strong study skills to the degree that they have developed other strong habits and routines.

We had a rule of thumb for when “school” began in our home: When a child learned to obey and do the every day things required of him, he was ready to “do school.” This was not some half-baked theory we had. We knew that if a child could not be counted on to brush his teeth in the morning, he could not be counted on to do hard math problems. If a child did not come when he was called, he would certainly not follow through on his reading assignments when Mom or Dad was not there checking up on every move he made.

There are certain orders to things that just plain make sense. When we do this, this happens. When we are successful in smaller things, we can be successful in larger things. And on and on—all biblical principles that we see played out in all areas of our lives. Every time we fashioned a part of our life after these principles, we found success. Every time we tried to “put the cart before the horse” in some area, we did not.

In our home, each child got a morning routine chart around the age of three. This picture chart (links for many of these concepts will be given below) tells the child what he needs to do fist thing in the morning. Following through on these task, “reading” a chart and being accountable to Mom all help prepare the child for later “study skills.” Once the child has mastered morning routines consistently, he is ready to move on to “chore time.” Again, we used a picture chart for this.

After the morning routine chart and the chore chart were accomplished, we moved onto daily school charts—charts that showed what the child should do each day in the area of devotions, school, independent work, etc.

Obviously, if you have a five year old in school who doesn’t obey or brush his teeth, you probably do not have the option of going back and only doing these things until they become habitual. However, emphasizing those things, bringing in daily habits a little at a time, etc. will go a long way in helping your child also become a good student. A person who is lazy at home is nearly always lazy at work and at school. It is up to us parents to help our children become successful in life—and in school.

The post Back-to-School Study Skills: Building Good Habits With Young Students appeared first on Character Ink.

Once school starts and the textbooks have been previewed, you can help your students get into good study habits by doing their assignments with them for a few weeks as needed.

Here are some tips along those lines:

1. Taking the textbook preview further

There are a number of ways that you can take the previewing of textbooks that I discussed earlier even further with your children for more comprehension of the material:

a. Do his first few assignments out of the book with him, pointing out the things again that you observed in your first preview. This will help him see that those things are not just good things to know, but also helpful for completing homework quicker and more correctly.

b. Help him prepare for his first test with his textbook and you by his side. Show him how he can use the glossary, sidebars, table of contents, etc.,  to quickly fill in his study guide or quickly determine what the most important aspects of the chapter are in order to prepare for a test.

c. As you are previewing a text (for the first time or an additional time), use a large sticky note to record what you find. Write the title of the text at the top, then make notes about what it contains as far as study and homework helps. Stick this in the front of his textbook and help him refer to it when he is doing homework or test preparation. You could even record a plus and minus system, such as

+++ means something is going to be really helpful—a +++ beside the Table of Contents, for instance

+ beside a word he writes in the front of his book tells him that this might be somewhat helpful—Example: +Some graphs

– No study questions at end of chapter—again, he can make a list in the front of his book (on a large sticky note), etc.

d. Help him “label” different sections of his book with sticky notes along the edges. For example, you could put a yellow one at the beginning of each chapter and a pink one on the page that has definitions for that chapter, etc.

2. Prepare your younger student for textbooks by using user-friendly non-fiction books

Maybe you are not in the textbook stage with your kids; however, you can begin preparing them for those all important study skills that I described yesterday with quality non-fiction books. If kids at ages five, six, eight, and ten, learn to navigate around Dorling Kindersley, Eyewitness, and Usborne books (among many others), they will be heads and shoulders above other children who have only been exposed to fictional stories (more on the benefits of fiction later!).

These outstanding non-fiction books have literally hundreds of topics that interest kids, but they are so colorful and alluring, you do not feel like you are “teaching” at all. Additionally, they have many aspects that your child’s future textbooks will also have: glossaries, Tables of Contents, sidebars, graphs, pictures, inserts, definitions, bold font, italics, etc. Reading these to and with your children when they are younger will provide a natural step into textbooks later on.

Note: We teach our students (in our home, our cottage classes, and in our language arts books) a simple memory device for remembering fiction and non-fiction:

Fiction=fake (both begin with f)

Non-fiction=not fake (both begin with nf)

The post Back-to-School Study Skills: AFTER Textbook Previewing appeared first on Character Ink.

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” Robert M Hutchins

It’s that time of year again, so I want to re-run a three part article about textbook previewing with your kids to help them start out well with this fall’s school success.

Before I do though, I want to remind you to LIKE our Character Ink FB page, and sign up to receive our blog posts in your email and to receive our enewsletter (in the sidebar) which includes links to articles for the week and much more!

 Oh, and don’t forget to spread the word! Many of our Raising Kids With Character seminar/blog followers are not aware of our homeschool pages and updates.

Comprehension and study skills are not necessarily as much remembering all of the details that were read as much as knowing how to read for meaning, remembering the most important parts, and being able to locate information as needed. Students’ textbooks in the content areas (science, history, government, health, geography, etc.) lend themselves greatly to comprehending the information they contain—if students know how to interact with them.

I recommend that parents sit down with your kids (one at a time) and have them bring their textbooks to you, one at a time, and follow some of the tips below previewing their books with them. This will help them (and you) determine the signaling systems, layout, study tools, etc.,  that each book includes.

A student needs to know quickly how to find information in his book, whether there’s a glossary or index for quick vocabulary help, how each section is summarized, and many other tips that can be discovered right when he begins using that text (with some help from Mom or Dad). By previewing his whole text at first, he will know how user friendly it is, how to set up his notes, and even which study approaches will and will not work for that particular text.

Try these specific strategies for previewing textbooks with your student to help him or her get the most out of his or her texts this year:

1. Graphs and charts—Remind your student that charts and graphs usually restate (in another form) what is indicated in the text. He can use these for quick overviews, as well as for reviewing before tests.

2. Enumerations—If his text uses a lot of enumeration, it could be that this subject has a significant number of lists to be learned. Point him to these lists and show him that often what is listed in the margins or sidebars is also expounded upon within the text.

3. Section headings—The more headings a book contains, the easier it is to learn from. The student is constantly reminded, by the headings and subheadings, of what the section is about. Show him how helpful these headings can be as he uses the book during his reading and for test preparation.

4. Pictorial aids—Maps are always in included in history textbooks. If his textbook contains a large assortment of maps, show him how they can help him see the big picture. Maps usually show where something that is discussed in the text occurred.

5. Glossary—Books that contain glossaries give the student an easy way to find definitions that may be more obscure within the text. Teach him to use this for quick finds, but encourage him to use the text itself for most studying since students who learn vocabulary in context retain it better.

6. Tables of Contents—The Table of Contents can be used somewhat like an index to find where information is in a particular chapter. It is especially good for getting a big picture about a whole chapter.

7. Prefaces, introductions, and summaries—If a text has any of these three, some of the work is already done for the student. Show him how advantageous these are for quick previewing of a chapter.

8. Footnotes—If a student is in a class that requires research papers, footnotes can be a real plus. We teach our research paper students to use lengthy works’ footnotes to find other credible sources that they might use in their papers.

9. Appendixes—Appendixes are the “extra credit” of the book. I always like to think of myself as a prized pupil, so I tend to gravitate to these right at first, since they’re usually for those who want additional information—and I always want to know more! Tell your students that sometimes the appendixes aren’t even used in the actual course, but they are good for learning more, for research-based reports, and for cementing what is found in the text.

10. Indexes—If a content-area book doesn’t have an index, I say send it back and get a new one! Show your student how quickly he can find information with the index. The more specific the index, the better it is for the student.

11. Bibliography—The bibliography gives lists of books, articles, and documents relating to the subjects in the textbook. Like footnotes, we direct our research paper students to these.

12. Pronunciation guides—These guides give the phonetic markings to aid in reading unfamiliar words. Many texts do not have these guides, but they are helpful in a class where a student will be giving presentations so the can pronounce unknown words correctly.

Any signaling or sign posting that a book contains is that much more opportunity for the visual learner, especially, to learn and retain. If you have an auditory learner, you might have to record his vital info on cd or cassette! Smile…More study skills coming soon!!!

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