n/m

[Climbing Rose]

Is there a big list somewhere?  Like instead of saying "made cookies" it would give ideas like "explored fractions hands-on" and "changed chemical properties of substances using high temperatures" etc, etc?

I thought I saw one online somewhere, but now I can't find it.

We live in a high-regulation state and this would help.  =)

[Attila the Honey]

I don't know of a list, but subbing because I need help with that too.  Although, you seem pretty good at it! :)

[Climbing Rose]

Thanks.    Unfortunately, after baking cookies, I can't decide if I am making any sense or just getting weird.

I am watching my DS wash dishes right now and thinking, "hhmmm, what is that?!  studying temperature variances over time (as the water cools)?, osmosis (as the food spreads around in the water)?, home ec for sure, health, sanitation, water conservation, maybe even environmentalism - oh and the grease isn't mixing with the water- what is that called again? and what do they call it when the bubbles float like that on the water, or in the air like that one?!  ooh- and the water evaporating off the silver wear over there...."   and starting to feel like a nut.

[stik]

Making cookies is reading, following directions, and basic addition. 

Washing dishes is food safety.

If you want to work on fractions, grab an apple and slice it.

If you want to fill out the state-mandated forms so it sounds like your everyday life is extremely educational - make your everyday life extremely educational.  You have all the time in the world and the freedom to expose your child to the experiences and material that you think are most vital.  Why not find a way to actually teach your child about chemistry and fractions instead of faking it? 

[greenemami]

Umm how is the OP's example "faking it"?  Baking cookies actually is teaching chemistry and fractions.  Baking uses several chemical reactions and measuring with different sized measuring cups teaches fractions, for two examples.  She was asking for ways to translate the separate steps for formal reporting. 

OP, I like you "translations" lol.  I started a spreadsheet to practice this myself (dd is only 4, so we are not near ready to do this yet! lol) but I slacked off almost immediately.  I'm in PA, which I hear requires a lot of paperwork as well, so I will watch this thread for tips.  Hoping to keep it simple, i.e. one column with activity and then kind of put checkmarks next to subject areas it covered with notes on specific skills?  Good luck!

[Lisa1970]

I agree. None of that is faking it. I think you are doing a good job. I am not sure how specific you have to be, but I would probably just put down "math" "reading" "science" etc..generic subject names if that is ok. I do not know how specific the state is on requiring documenting everything you do, but it would really bother me. Good luck!

[Climbing Rose]

I have to laugh to see someone say that I have "all the time in the world." You should follow me around for a day sometime! 

My children do learn many things, I promise.  It's just that we live in PA, like another poster, and PA requires an extreme (can I say horrible?) amount of paper work, along with regulations on hours and days, and about everything else you can dream up.  I just moved here and it is mind-boggling.

One of the reasons I homeschool in the first place, is for the *freedom* it gives my children-- and if they choose to take a sunny day and just make cookies, actually wash up, and then go run outside... I don't think that day shouldn't "count" for the them because they weren't doing something "official" and so now they have to "make up" a day or the hours...  =(

I am just trying to do what the state-required evaluators suggest and find a good way to work within the system.  They said, "It's all in how you word it!" and seem pretty reasonable in that way.

FWIW, I do think cooking, learning to run a house, and free time *are* very educational in their own right.  I missed out on this as a child, and realized the hard way as an adult how vital they are really are.

[stik]

Honestly, I do believe that cookie baking is educational.  Baking offers an easily assessed and rewarding way for kids to practice reading and following directions, which are vital skills.  I just don't believe it teaches chemistry or fractions. 

If your child can actually explain the chemical reactions that take place in a bowl of cookie dough or on a tray of baking cookies, then, yes, I think you can assert that some chemistry was learned.  But merely being in the presence of those reactions does not automatically convey understanding of them.  Likewise, unless the children understand the mathematical relationship between the one cup measure and the 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 cup measures, they don't understand fractions. 

Don't get so sucked in to making the paperwork look good that you allow good-looking paperwork to stand in for meaningful educational experiences. 

[Climbing Rose]

I am trying to assume positive intent about your comments, stik, but I am having a hard time understanding why you are telling me these things.

I had a hard time as seeing your first post as anything other than rude.  Why would you assume I was "faking it" and not teaching my children, when I clearly said I was trying to make it easier to live in a high regulation state?  I think you could have assumed better things about me than that I was "faking it" because I was looking for a website to help with crazy laws.  Maybe you could have assumed that I was a good mom who doesn't want her children to have to jump through someone else's hoops everyday because of where we happen to live...?  Just an idea.

And baking doesn't teach fractions?  Don't tell my DD because that would really confuse her after she just learned all her fractions in the past few months by baking with her own set of measuring cups!

It saddens me that you think I need you to tell me to give my children meaningful educational experiences.  I mean, who are *you*?   Thanks if you were somehow trying to be nice, but it sounds demeaning/condescending to me. 

For the record, if you read what I actually wrote it says "changed" and "explored" *not* "learrned" so I wasn't "asserting" that DS "learned" anything by the baking anyway (even though I think they all do).... even if you are (for some reason) just assuming that my DS doesn't know those things in the first place...?

I think you are missing the whole spirit of what I asked, and of what the thread is about (or is supposed to be about except for this detour).

I was having some fun with this today while looking for the website, and I don't think you seem to understand that, or that I said I am just looking for ways to make the occasional 'free' day still count in an intensely regulated state.

Anyway, this has sucked all the fun out of this thread for me, so I will take my tired pregnant self somewhere else and this thread can live or die without me.

 

[rhiandmoi]

I don't know of a list, but you can probably find a lot of fun non-academic exercises on the web and put together a list of the things you want to do based off your grade level standards. Like a fun way to learn about osmosis is to dissolve the shells of a few chicken eggs by soaking them in vinegar. Then you leave them in bowls overnight in solutions of plain water, really salty water, and really sugary water.

You could match this activity with an acid/base discussion and you can make a Mentos cannon. (If you have a yard. It makes a huge mess. lol)

You can incorporate math lessons into garden planning. How much fertilizer do we need? How many seeds? How much room to we need to plant all the things we want to plant? Do we have enough room?

Our you can do Fraction Rules Cooking. This is when you set up some "rules" about which measuring cups can be used for each ingredient. Like only the 1/4 cup can be used for the sugar. Only the 1/3 cup can be used for the butter. As they master fractions you can do a big challenge and do something like "the Least scoops possible". That is when you only set out the smaller measuring cups, and they have to measure out the ingredients in the least scoops possible. This can be an ongoing activity where you always challenge each other to find the Least Scoops Possible when you try a new recipe.

I think it would probably be easier to start with the standard and build fun lessons off of that, than to have a lot of random fun and hopefully cover everything you need to if you have a heavily regulated state.

[lach]

I think stik might just be confused about why you're trying to be cute?  Asking how to massage your descriptions could be read as asking how to lie.  I don't think you meant it that way, but I can see how it was read that way.  If you were comfortable writing what you actually do during the day and having them pass muster, you'd just write that out.  I'm assuming that you're confident that your children actually are learning, and are just trying to be funny. 

As an aside, I hope you don't think she actually learned "all" her fractions.  There are a few more than 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4.  ;-)

[Climbing Rose]

For a young child, I think those *are* all the fractions.  =)  I also say my two year old knows 'all' her colors even though she rarely uses aquamarine. 

And I wasn't "trying to be cute", I was actually having fun trying to deal with not every single day being 'perfect' in a high regulation state.

I am comfortable, but that has nothing to do with just writing it out and having it pass muster.  Muster is unfortunately not about my comfort level.  It has to do with meeting certain hours/days requirements and specific subjects, etc, in a state with very hard standards, and being 'approved' by the higher ups, much more complicated than comfort.

*sigh* I can't believe my simple honest question turned into this.

I am just going to start a new thread because this one is too far gone for me.

[Attila the Honey]

Originally Posted by Love 

My children do learn many things, I promise.  It's just that we live in PA, like another poster, and PA requires an extreme (can I say horrible?) amount of paper work, along with regulations on hours and days, and about everything else you can dream up.  I just moved here and it is mind-boggling.

I am also in PA and I just wanted to point out that you only have to log hours OR days.  As long as you do something educational that day counts towards the 180 days of homeschooling!

Also, living in PA, I totally get it.  *hug*

[rhiandmoi]

In case anyone is still following this thread, the Mentos cannon is actually about releasing all the dissolved gas in the soda. Since the only way out is through the narrow opening it creates a geyser. So it's still science but not acid/base. I totally misremembered yesterday when I put that up. It's still a nice "wow demo" though.

[Aeress]

You could call is "edu-ease" or "teacher-speak". In fact I believe the basic skills of life are learned through living life and exploring. It isn't making up stuff or lying, it is taking what we call play into exploration and investigation, it is taking life skills like cooking and looking at from edu-ease. We are doing a whole theme next year on the science of cooking. :) Watch Alton Brown.

Parents aren't lying when they turn their way of looking at learning into edu-ease, they are using the language of the education system or they are using the scientific term for cooking. Dear Me, this thread is going in the wrong direction. In our house, we call baking cookies "hands on learning."

[rhiandmoi]

I think part of the confusion is that edu-speak is not the language of the education system. It's some pop culture invention of people outside of the education system.

[sapphire_chan]

Love, maybe you'd be willing to come in again and edit the title to something like "working with state homeschool laws"?

Because this is a good discussion to have, and other people would be interested if they knew what it was about.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by rhiandmoi 

I think part of the confusion is that edu-speak is not the language of the education system. It's some pop culture invention of people outside of the education system.

It's certainly used within my jurisdiction's educational system. Some gems from their documents:

"Moves through three-dimensional space in a variety of planes."

"Collects, displays and analyzes data to solve problems." 

"Segments sounds in 2- and 3-phoneme one-syllable words."

"Demonstrates understanding of the actions of simple and compound machines in daily life."

"Compares the effect of friction in objects travelling over a variety of surfaces."

"Number: referents and one-to-one correspondence for sets up to 20 elements."

As a homeschooling parent involved in a school-district-based program, I am (theoretically) supposed to understand and refer to and provide documentation indicating mastery of scores of such lovely "prescribed learning outcomes" for each of my children. Fortunately our liaison teacher is as unenamoured of this stuff as I am.

Miranda

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by moominmamma 

It's certainly used within my jurisdiction's educational system. Some gems from their documents:

"Moves through three-dimensional space in a variety of planes." Jumps and climbs? Slides and dances?

"Collects, displays and analyzes data to solve problems." This one seems clear, except the rest of the list seems like a 1st grade thing

"Segments sounds in 2- and 3-phoneme one-syllable words." Can make out the /c/ /a/ /t/ in cat.

"Demonstrates understanding of the actions of simple and compound machines in daily life." Uses seesaws, screws, slides, wheeled toys. Get a pulley to round that one out.

"Compares the effect of friction in objects travelling over a variety of surfaces."

"Number: referents and one-to-one correspondence for sets up to 20 elements."Can count to 20. Really, can count up to 20 of anything.

For fun, I tried translating in bold.

I found it interesting that they said "in daily life" for the simple/compound machine one.

[EviesMom]

Originally Posted by rhiandmoi 

I think part of the confusion is that edu-speak is not the language of the education system. It's some pop culture invention of people outside of the education system.

Actually, I used to write exactly that sort of edu-speak for the school system and mainstream education, for a living. We may call it something else like "Learning Objectives" as compared to the "Learning Tasks" or "Hands-On Exploration" that are the actual baking, or writing, or moving manipulatives around on a mat. Not really sure why you're saying this. 

OP, it would be lovely to have a site that references these kinds of things, but it seems that most are written in the reverse direction, by giving some "fun, hands-on activities" that meet state or national standards. 

I tend to find the educational jargon second nature, and I live in a less regulated state than PA, yet need to keep records. I write down what we actually do for each day. Sometimes they're already very edu-speak:  "Attended zoo class on birds; sorted feathers and talked about their functions including camouflage, warmth, flight, display."

When they're not, I just tag the subject area and then when I write the report, I look for trends that make the most sense to write up; like things we have done a fair amount of; and/or I look for what we're light on overall and if the activities fit into that subject. IE--we went to an apple festival at a farm, which also looked at the farm's history from 1850s to today. We had a ridiculous amount of history that quarter already, so I just listed it as one of a variety of field trips. But our health was a bit light, as was Math, so "Real world practice with charting and graphing, and creating tallies." And Health about "Investigating healthy foods and nutrition. Explored favorite type of fruit and many ways to include it in healthy recipes." (Voting throughout the day of favorite apple variety; a "winning apple" was announced at the end of the day; lots of apple based foods everywhere.)

Baking cookies, depending on the age of the child:

Science: baking is an irreversible change since it cannot be changed back to batter, which is a great first grade concept (older grades, chemical versus physical change);

Math: using fractions in real world problem solving; Understanding and using sequence of events and chronological order; Telling time to the minute.

Language Arts: Reading and following step by step directions (also easy to have them write down or draw the steps in the process in their own words/images, which can qualify for language arts even for non-writers. This is a big K-1 skill on standardized tests.)

Edited by EviesMom - 3/8/11 at 9:20pm