Sonlight Homeschooling Blog

May. 29, 2019

The Ultimate Summer Bucket List of Life Skills for Homeschoolers

Parents needs summer vacation as much as their children! It's a time to relax and recover. But summer days are also a great time to squeeze in topics that might be neglected during the homeschool year—like life skills!

Homeschoolers joke about having a life skills day when they put aside the books to clean house or prepare for a big move. But there are plenty of life skills outside of cleaning and downsizing that often get overlooked in the favor of grammar, geography, and geology.

Try these out this summer! Each skill can be adjusted to give the children the amount of information and practice they need for their age.

Home Economics Life Skills for Kids

There are several areas included in home economics, any of which would make for fun summer learning.

Cooking and Baking Being adept in the kitchen is a great skill to prepare your children for adulthood, but it has the added benefit of being helpful to the whole family right now. Teach your child how to make meals and snacks this summer so they can take some of the meal preparation tasks off your to do list in the fall.
Nutrition Teaching your children about macro nutrients, vitamins, and the body's insulin response will empower children to take better care of themselves with healthy food choices.
Child Development Knowing how to feed, change, and entertain small children can help your students prepare for life as parents or find jobs in childcare such as babysitting.
Home Management Let kids peek behind the scenes of what it takes to manage a home: paying taxes, basic upkeep, deep cleaning skills, and household repairs are all necessary skills for future homeowners.
Sewing From making clothes for themselves or for their dolls, to replacing buttons and hemming pants, sewing is a life skill that lengthens the life of your clothes.

Auto Repair Life Skills for Kids

Basic automotive repairs are skills every driver should be aware of. By the age of 12 (sometimes sooner), children can start to do basic car maintenance.

Emergency Skills Teach your kids how to change a tire, how to safely jump-start a vehicle with a dead battery, how to contact AAA for roadside assistance, what to do in an accident, etc.
Basic Car Maintenance Children should be able to check tire pressure, add air to tires, check the oil levels, and refill the wiper fluid.
Emergency Preparedness Skills Children should know about car insurance and how to contact emergency services. They can learn how to stock and check an emergency kit, check the spare tire to make sure it’s in good working condition, and regularly check to make sure emergency equipment (jack, jumper cables, etc) are in good working condition.
Vehicle Safety Teach your children what to do if their car starts smoking, steering stops working, or the engine stops while they are driving. Teach them how to respond if they get pulled over by a police officer and the need to always carry their license with them. Cell phone safety, dealing with friends who want to drive under the influence, what to do during a flood or blizzard, and road rage are all important to discuss.

Financial Life Skills for Kids

All children should learn how to handle money at some point. Saving money is a hard skill for some people to master, and budgeting confuses plenty of adults.

Budgeting Have your children help you with the household budget. Let them see how much you spend on different categories, and help them find ways to reduce costs in your household. Show them daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly expenses and how you keep track of when each needs to be paid.
Balancing a Bank Account Show them how to keep track of what’s being spent and deducted. While balancing a checkbook might no longer be a needed skill, it is important to keep track of how much money is in your accounts to watch for mistakes and catch when accounts have been hacked.
Taxes From property taxes to sales taxes, the amount that goes to taxes is usually stunning to teens. Help them see how sales tax is calculated, when it applies, and the other types of taxes they may encounter as an adult.
Giving/Tithing Explain how your family gives money, how you decide who to give it to, and how much to give.
Gifting From birthday and Christmas funds to general generosity to strangers on the street, go over the importance of giving money as well as spending it.
Saving There are two categories to teach when it comes to saving money. The first is how to save money on expenses by comparison shopping and cutting costs through frugal choices. The second is putting money aside for emergencies or for special projects.
Credit Children need to be taught to use credit responsibly, to keep credit under control, and not to spend more than they can afford to repay. The younger they learn this skill, the better the chances they will have fewer credit issues as an adult. Teach them how a credit score is calculated and start working on building their own credit score when they are older teens.

Computer Life Skills for Kids

Children grow up as digital natives today, but that doesn't mean they know all these practical computer skills! For those who like to limit electronics, teaching these topics over the summer keeps screentime from being a distraction to their regular studies.

Typing Most children can learn to type in a few short weeks, making this a great skill to learn over the summer. A fun typing program can help whittle away the hottest hours of the summer and give them a skill to help them with their writing assignments over the rest of the year.
Creating Digital Documents Writing a paper, creating a poster, or making a spreadsheet are all simple yet valuable skills to teach.
Programming Many children love learning to code and program and will happily spend many hours teaching themselves with a few resources.
Research Teach your child how to safely and accurately research. Sonlight includes tips on how to research each time they assign a research writing assignment in their Language Arts programs, but good research can always be improved. Teach them how to use keywords to search up information, how to evaluate the quality of a site, how to compile research, and how to structure a bibliography.
Internet Safety Show your children how to protect themselves online, how to restrict information they put online, and how to identify sites and people who may be misrepresenting themselves.

Safety Life Skills for Kids

In addition to the forms of online safety mentioned above, there are many other aspects of personal safety that are easy to teach but important to know.

Identification Safety Teach your child to memorize their full name, their parents' full names, address, and phone number.
Vehicle Safety Know car seat and seat belt rules.
Water Safety Cover swimming and lifesaving skills; avoid running near water. Touch on boat safety.
Fire Safety Hold simple fire drills. Teach your children to keep low, stop drop and roll, and alternate exit routes.
Kitchen Safety Train your children how to use knives, how to put out kitchen fires, and how to use a fire extinguisher.
Stranger Safety Make sure your kinds know what to do if they get lost. Teach them some basic self-defense tactics and what to do if someone asks them to do something they shouldn’t.
Body Safety Discuss good touch/bad touch and what to do if they ever feel uncomfortable about a touching situation.
Tornado Safety Teach your children how to identify the sound of a tornado siren and how to find a safe area.
Hurricane Safety Go over the difference between warnings and watches. Discuss your family’s evacuation plan.
Allergy Safety Make sure kids know how to read food labels, how to use an EpiPen (epinephrine auto-injector), and when to call 911.
Physical Safety Teach basic first aid.
Survival Safety Go outdoors to learn how to build a fire, catch food, establish a clean water supply, and build a shelter.
Firearm Safety Instill in your children both the dangers of firearms and, as appropriate for your family and local culture, how to use firearms safely.
Secret Safety Discuss what secrets are okay to keep and which are not. Make sure children know when to tell parents secrets.

Many life skills can be taught in a short time period. Some need as little as twenty minutes, and others can be covered in a couple of days or a few weeks. Consider adding in a few life skills over the summer to help round out your child’s education and give your children confidence in their ability to take care of themselves and meet any life challenges they face.

When looking for life skills resources, start with Sonlight Electives. They are carefully curated so you can trust they are the cream of the crop.

SEE ALL ELECTIVES

Tagged electives, Homeschooling, life experience, life skills, summer | 1 Comment

May. 24, 2019

3 Ways To Give Your Summer Structure

By Heather Mills Schwarzen

Summer promises freedom. And, oh, do we crave that freedom—freedom from the obligation of daily assignments, the to and fro of weekly practices, and the hectic pace of co-op schedules.

But then, sometime around the five-week mark of an extended school break, things begin to shift the slightest bit. That lack of structure begins to feel like a lack of purpose.

You’re working harder to get kids motivated to do much more than scroll a screen, stream another episode of their favorite show, or follow you around the house reminding you that they’re bored. Those grand plans for outdoor fun have played out, you’ve lost all interest in making yet another Pinterest craft, and you can’t spend every day at the pool without it, too, losing its luster.

What’s a mom to do?

1. When in Doubt, Read

The easiest way to inject structure into a summer that’s starting to fizzle is to create a loose, low-pressure reading list. Any Readers or Read-Alouds that didn’t get covered during the school year can be tackled in the hotter months, as can extra books that don’t fit elsewhere but you don’t want to miss.

Sonlight’s Summer Readers are also a fabulous, no-stress way to gain some balance in your days. From early readers to high school, adding some daily reading time anchors the day and gives it some shape—and offers some creative conversation points, too. My family maintains a daily reading time after lunch year-round. That little bit of predictability is often enough to ward off the summer crazies.

2. Field Trips That Won’t Leave You All Wet

Visiting your neighborhood pool is great. Trekking to the beach is fabulous. Dipping in the lake is wonderful. Even outings to local splash pads and fountains are fun. But eventually, the crowds and the heat will get to you… and you’ll crave something of the beaten path.

Summer is the perfect time for off-season field trips. Gather with a group of friends, or just journey as a family to find indoor and outdoor educational pursuits that will get you out of the there’s-nothing-to-do rut:

picking produce at a local farm
attending free workshops at big chain hobby stores
taking advantage of discount movie days
bowling
touring the printing press of your local newspaper
holding an ice cream crawl
roller skating

3. Did You Say School?

But what if what you really want is a little taste of, well… normalcy? Maybe the kind of structure you need to help your days is school. Before you panic or picture your kids mid-mutiny, consider: a super light schedule of just three math lessons per week might get your children's brains engaged, and help them enjoy (and appreciate!) that leisurely afternoon building a tent village in their own backyard.

School might feel like a dirty word between June and August, but it might very well be the answer to helping ward off boredom, cut down on bickering, and ultimately extending the joy of those long weeks of summer.

An interest-led unit study, or lessons in something you don’t get to during the normal school year (baking? sewing?) are educational, fun, and often just enough to help you and your children feel like their summer was an oasis of respite instead of a waste.

Tagged homeschool tips, routines, scheduling, summer | Leave a comment

May. 20, 2019

Six No-Fuss Ideas to Encourage Summer Reading

By Sarita

Wondering how to encourage your reluctant reader? Discover these six ways to help them fall in love with reading!

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Tagged enrichment, reading, summer, summer reading | 2 Comments

May. 10, 2019

8 Ways to Wrap Up Your Homeschool Curriculum in Time for Summer

By Laura Booz

Are you on track to finish your homeschool curriculum by your end-of-the-year target date? Or are you further behind than you had planned? If the latter, you could probably use some tricks for wrapping up your homeschool curriculum in time for summer.

As I write this, we are on Week 28 of History / Bible / Literature E and Sonlight 100. I keep counting the weeks on the calendar just to make sure we’ll be finished by the second week in June to the day. For this box-checking Type A Mom, that’s cutting it close! In the past, we’ve finished our 36-week Sonlight curriculum by the end of May, but this year we took some weeks off when we welcomed a new baby in December. I’m motivated to finish by June 14th so we can

fully embrace a summer rest
enjoy summer activities
get our homeschool portfolios together
meet with our homeschool evaluator
submit our report to the school district by the end of June

(Just writing that list makes my heart race!)

I need to remind myself regularly that I don’t have to check every box.

Sonlight Curriculum is less a law to be followed and more a country to be explored. It intentionally provides much more than we could ever tackle in one year so that we are immersed by goodness, truth, and beauty on every side.

My children and I have the freedom to read, learn, and explore at a pace that benefits us and suits our circumstances. That’s why I love Sonlight!

It’s okay if we don’t neatly check off Week 36 by 5 p.m. on June 14th. At the same time, we have a couple of strategies that could help us to finish the curriculum in a timely fashion or be at peace with what we have accomplished during the school year. We can choose from among many tried-and-true options when we come to June with leftover curriculum.

Option #1: Fulfill Your State’s Homeschool Requirements and Enjoy Your Summer Vacation

Did you know that we don’t have to complete the 36-week curriculum in 36 weeks? Actually, we don’t have to complete the curriculum at all. Of course, most of us want to complete each HBL because they are packed with fascinating books, projects, discussion questions, and lessons. The truth is that we don’t have to check all of the boxes.

We do need to adhere to our state’s homeschool requirements though. Here in Pennsylvania where I live, we must log 180 days or 990 hours of school work. The home educator decides what constitutes a full homeschool day’s work. If my child has logged the required number of days in earnest work, we’ve successfully completed a homeschool year. At that point, I am legally free to close the books right where we are and put my feet up for a couple of months. (If you have questions about your state’s homeschool requirements, consult your state’s homeschool law.)

Option #2: Keep Going Until You Have Finished the Entire Curriculum

Some families just keep going with the HBL until it is complete even if that means going into the summer months. They say that there is still plenty of summer fun, and they feel good about getting as much as possible out of the curriculum.

Option #3: Double Up

If you want your child to complete the 36-week curriculum, but don’t have enough weeks in the school year, consider doubling up some of the subjects. For example, each day read two days' worth of History, Bible, and Literature and finish in half the time. Or double up math lessons, doing one in the morning and one in the evening. Instead of doing science twice a week, do it every afternoon.

Option #4: Add Saturday Mornings as School Days

In a few hours on Saturday mornings, you may be able to read several days’ worth of history, do an extra math lesson, or read through an entire week’s worth of Bible. Adding Saturdays is a simple way to get ahead in plenty of time to wrap up your homeschool curriculum for the summer!

Option #5: Use Audio Books

While you are reading aloud the current week’s assignments, begin listening to the next reader on audio book. Then you’ll have extra time to double-up on lessons or read ahead in another book.

Option #6: Stop Where You Are and Pick Up Again In the Fall

Just because you wrap up the school year doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the unfinished curriculum. When the new school year rolls around, simply pick up where you ended in June. Begin the next Sonlight HBL whenever you are ready. Many families report completing two HBL’s every three years. Others intentionally take twice the amount of time to work through one HBL over two years. Feel free to make the curriculum work for your child and your family’s situation.

Option #7: Save the Read-Alouds for Summer Reading

Consider skipping the Read-Alouds for now and focusing the remaining school year on finishing the math, history, language arts, and Bible portions of the curriculum. Make time in the summer to double-back and enjoy those Read-Alouds at a more leisurely pace.

Option #8: Fit in Extra Work Throughout the Summer

Speaking of summer, consider portioning the incomplete curriculum items throughout the summer.

Use a Read-Aloud as a bedtime story.
Read the Bible lessons over breakfast.
Listen to an audio book on your vacation.
Do a few science experiments when it’s too hot to go outside.
Assign a packet for the summer with three journal prompts, three math pages per week, and three Readers. Kids get the packets on the last day of school and do them at their leisure throughout the summer.

Tagged behind, curriculum, scheduling, summer, tips | Leave a comment

May. 8, 2019

An Easy Way to Celebrate Growth in Your Homeschool

By Sarita

Some homeschool milestones feel huge. There's nothing quite like the joy of watching a child learn to read. But most milestones are a bit quieter than that. And they often go unnoticed.

As you go along day by day faithfully raising and educating your children, I suggest you take a step back and periodically look at some of those quieter forms of growth. They can be so encouraging, especially when you wonder if you're falling behind.

You may find this a great year-end activity, or a way to shore up your motivation as you plod along. Looking back can also be a huge testament to God's work in our lives.

Think back to the beginning of this school year and what your children were like then. Where were they academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically? Now think about how they've grown and changed this year. Take a sheet of paper and complete the following sentences at least five times for each child.

Let's say you have a child named Sam:

"At the beginning of the school year, Sam ______________. Now, Sam ______________."

Keep writing until you are rejoicing in how Sam has grown this year.

Perhaps he learned to ride a bike or how to share with his sister.
Maybe he finally grasped long division.

You could think about specific subjects, character issues, major accomplishments, relational growth, etc.

If you captured photos of your child’s first day, be sure to take one on the last day of school, too. Then you can compare the physical changes that have taken place as well. (They grow so fast, don’t they?)

Use this paper as a keepsake to review in the years to follow. In addition, a Sonlight Memory Book is a great tool to document your children’s growth throughout the year. After you have captured how much your children have grown, why not celebrate your own growth as well? Sometimes it may feel as if our struggles never bring change, but as we follow Christ, he does work in our hearts.

Taking the long view can be a true act of praise to see how God has grown us over the past decade. Try to write ten statements like this:

"Ten years ago, I _________________. Now, I ________________."

Keep it positive, and thank God for the ways he has grown you into someone a little more loving, a little more mature, a little more Christ-like. Although everything from academic growth to spiritual growth can seem painfully slow sometimes, when we take a longer view we can see that we are in fact growing up.

To paraphrase John Newton, may we all say, "I am not the person I ought to be, I am not the person I wish to be, and I am not the person I hope to be. But I am not the person I used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am."

Praise the Lord for that!

Blessings to you and yours,
Sarita

Tagged academics, celebration, end of year, growing, maturity, progress | 1 Comment

May. 6, 2019

Kitchen Chemistry: Testing pH Levels with Cabbage

By Gina Munsey

This kitchen chemistry tutorial shows you how to test pH levels with red cabbage. Use the free printable page to record your results.

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Tagged activities, chemistry, experiments, homeschool, Learning Activities, printable, science, tutorial | Leave a comment

Apr. 29, 2019

3 Ways to Know Your Kids are Retaining Their Homeschool Lessons

By Heather Mills Schwarzen

You’re convinced that the state-mandated, fill-in-the-bubble tests are not terribly helpful. Instead, you're certain that sitting with your child one-on-one day in and day out gives you a much better gauge of his skill mastery. But you’ve got a niggling curiosity… are your kids really retaining what you’ve covered in your homeschool lessons?

It’s normal to wonder what information is sticking with your kids. As homeschool parents, testing reveals just as much about us as it does our students:

Are we presenting information in the best ways?
Are we offering the right environment for learning?
Are we using the optimum level and right curriculum?

These can be important questions to ask. But is a written test the best way to assess what your kids remember and how you can do your job better? Usually, no.

Do Homeschoolers Test?

While tests, in all their incarnations, are a necessary evil in society, they aren’t usually required in homeschooling. Some states do require annual testing, and college aptitude tests in high school are generally unavoidable. But Sonlight’s History / Bible / Literature programs don’t actually come with written assessments. And your child can, with no ill effect, sail through four years of upper level Apologia Science without unwrapping the test booklet.

Assessing a child’s understanding of a topic in a creative way is often a more complete picture of what he or she actually knows. Plus it reveals insights about the effectiveness of your teaching methods. Most homeschooling parents have already realized that how something has always been done is often not the best way to do it.

Thinking Outside the Testing Box

So how does a homeschool parent test without, well… , testing?

Anything that digs into previously covered material can be used to assess retention. That conversation you and your 10-year-old had about Across Five Aprils while washing dishes at the sink? The one where he shared detail after detail about the Civil War? Put that down as an oral test because you now know how firm his grasp is on the history you presented.

Your first and third grader just cordoned off an area of the backyard and began a detailed reenactment of the action in Archaeologists Dig For Clues? Listen close, because you might get first-hand feedback on how well they understand the concept of uncovering ancient life—no true or false questions required!

Some other options that will get the job done painlessly:

1. Create a Review Game

Using any board game as a review is easy. Simply ask questions from the appendices of your Instructor’s Guide instead of rolling dice or pulling cards. Students must provide a correct answer before advancing their token. Nearly any game be used in this way! Make sure you play along as well, allowing your kids to make up their own questions to ask you!

2. Assign a Project

There are dozens of unique ways to know your kids are retaining their homeschool lessons without the confines of a test:

making a display board of facts
writing a comic book of a historical figure’s life
pulling together images for a slide show
presenting a scene from a novel
creating a diorama of a scientific discovery

3. Let the Student Be the Teacher

Let kids demonstrate what they know:

Have your child perform a science experiment while explaining what’s happening.
Let your child make a short movie to illustrate the steps of a math formula

By flipping the script and letting the study be the teacher, they might even be able to pass on their newfound knowledge to their younger siblings— a decided bonus!

Adding these assessment tools to your toolbox will help you revisit areas that need more work and move on from topics that have been thoroughly covered. They’ll help you tweak your presentation skills as you work to become the homeschool teacher your kids need. You will learn to use your strengths and teaching style to maximum advantage. Best of all, these creative assessment methods will answer any questions you might have about how your kids are doing— without stress!

Homeschool Placement Tests — Testing can be useful when choosing a curriculum!

FREE PLACEMENT TESTS

Tagged assessment, Homeschooling, mastery, measuring, Testing | 1 Comment