Pinterest, Some New Finds, and a New Project
Pinterest:
Oh Pinterest. You can be so addictive. I am actually glad Pinterest wasn’t around when I was teaching in the classroom. I always struggled with knowing when a lesson plan was “good enough” and Pinterest would have given me “just one more thing” to look at and consider adding. For some reason I have the opposite reaction to using Pinterest to help me develop NDEW and hubby’s homeschool plan. I really enjoy exploring the resources I find. I’m not sure what the difference is. Maybe it’s because when I taught I was always trying to tie every lesson back to an established state curriculum whereas I feel like I have a lot more freedom in developing a homeschool plan. Maybe it’s because when I was in the classroom I knew that an administrator could walk in at any time to observe my lesson so I felt that my plan needed to be air-tight whereas I feel I have more breathing room planning for homeschooling. Who knows? I’m just glad that it wasn’t there several years ago, but it is now! I invite you to visit our homeschool Pinterest page. You can find it at http://pinterest.com/walhomeschool/ (also listed in the links list to the right). Most of the boards are self-explanatory. A couple that might not be are “Other Neat Stuff”, which includes all those things that don’t really fit on another board or that cross subject matters, and “Interesting Information” which includes overarching homeschool information and information related to those areas with which NDEW struggles. I’m thinking about starting a board called “Things We’ve Actually Done” as a fun means of keeping track of what resources we’ve actually ended up using.
A Couple of New Finds:
I wanted to share a couple of things we’ve found this week.
The first comes from a blog I follow. It’s a little poem to remember the difference between a comet, a meteoroid, a meteorite, and meteor and a great visual/drawing to go along with it. I think we’ll be doing something similar in the next couple of weeks. You can find the blog with more info here: http://godmadeknown.wordpress.com/author/godmadeknown/
The second thing is a computer game called “Kerbal Space Program”. I’m not sure I really understand it (this is definitely an NDEW and hubby thing!) but you basically try to build a space program by designing rockets and space vehicles and trying to get your astronauts, the Kerbals, into space, along with satellites and space probes. I thought it was just a cute little game until hubby and NDEW started throwing around words like low-earth orbit, eccentricity, prograde burn, and transfer orbit. Huh? Apparently this game is actually really involved and follows all the laws of astrophysics. NDEW (and hubby!) seem to be learning a lot about space flight and all that’s actually involved. Sounds cool to me, and it fits nicely with our current astronomy unit for sure! You can find Kerbal Space Program at https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ and it costs $23.
A New Project:
In the continued effort to help NDEW become more self-directed with certain parts of his homeschool day, I’ve decided to put together some activity kits for him to choose from. The plan is to have all the materials NDEW would need for the project in the kit so he can take it and run with it. I haven’t made one yet, so we’ll see how it goes! When I get a few made I’ll post more about it with some pictures.
Our Homeschool Adventure Blog 