| Charlotte Mason |
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Aimee R. Natal examines the life and work of this extraordinary educator who looked to atmosphere, habit and living ideas. |
| Charlotte Mason and Classical Education |
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Are Charlotte Mason methods incompatible with classical education? Certainly not; Miss Mason was a classical educator herself, and although some of her recommendations differ from our recommendations, you should always remember that everyone who does classical education (including Charlotte Mason, the Bluedorns, Doug Wilson, Christine Miller, and ourselves) is adapting an old model to a modern context. |
| Creating Your Own Unit Studies |
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By Beverly S. Krueger. All unit studies are not created equal. For some the term applies to a cross curricular topical study which incorporates as many academic subjects as possible. Usually only math is left out, but even then most complete unit studies involve graphing or measuring or some other mathematical activity. |
| Designing Homeschool Unit Studies |
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Even if you use textbook curriculum for most of your homeschool studies, breaking out of the print mold and jumping headlong into a unit study is nice every now and then. For one thing, it makes your students think a little more about how the different parts of life actually fit together. For another, it gives you a break from the middle-of-the-year doldrums. |
| Empowering Students to Act |
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By Maurice Gibbons. Becoming self-directed is not easy. There is much for students to learn both about managing learning tasks and about managing themselves. Some students who have experience in self-direction or a proclivity for it will readily adapt to the process. Others who are dependent, have low self-esteem or come fresh from a pattern of failure in other classes will find it difficult and need special assistance |
| Fundamental Skills in Science: Observation |
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Though human senses are limited in range and are easily deceived, observation remains at the heart of science and is the final arbiter in
constructing and testing scientific ideas. Observation in science is more than "seeing"; it refers to skills associated with collecting data using all the senses, as well as instruments that extend beyond the reach of our senses, and it is influenced by the assumptions and theoretical knowledge of the observer. |
| Handwriting Instruction: What Do We Know? |
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ERIC |
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In the search for effective handwriting instructional practices, researchers have examined the following questions: How are printing and cursive handwriting usually taught? Should printing be taught first and then discontinued? What should be done with the children who are poor printers? Are special paper and pencils necessary? and Is there a single "best" method for teaching handwriting? |
| Home Schooling With Frugal Unit Studies |
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By Nannette Gilbert. Unit studies are both a fun and frugal way to homeschool your children. Unit studies are theme-based or one topic ideas studied thoroughly using art, literature, music, social studies, science and sometimes even math. |
| Homeschool Methods: School at Home |
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This is the traditional school transplanted to the home. It's what you generally think of when someone says "school." Families will select a curriculum that covers all subject areas, often with teacher plans, quizzes, and tests. |
| Homeschooling Guide |
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A guide to homeschooling from one of the best homeschooling websites on the net. |
| Homeschooling Methods: Charlotte Mason |
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Charlotte Mason opens you to the vast array of education possibilities beyond anyone one curriculum. Learning about the Charlotte Mason approach will rapidly bring you to the heart of homeschooling and help you start your own path best for your family. |
| Homeschooling Methods: School at Home/Structured |
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This is the traditional school transplanted to the home. It's what you generally think of when someone says "school." Families will select a curriculum that covers all subject areas, often with teacher plans, quizzes, and tests. |
| Homeschooling Methods: Waldorf |
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The Waldorf method addresses the three aspects of humanity as defined by Steiner, physical, emotional, and thinking often referred to as the hands, heart, and head. Steiner believed that the education system spent too much time on the "thinking" at the expense of the "physical" and "emotional." |
| Homeschooling Teaching Strategies |
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Although little research has been done specifically on homeschooling teaching strategies, homeschoolers can find research-based guidance from general education research literature and experience-based literature prepared by homeschoolers. |
| How to Create a Unit Study |
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By Eileen Heath. What is a unit study? It seems to be the "way to go" in homeschooling right now. It is actually a variation on what used to be called "themes" or "thematic units". It is a way to teach in a more practical, down-to-earth, applied manner. It is often an interest driven approach that helps children explore in depth topics that pique their curiosity. |
| Journal Writing in Experiential Education: Possibilities, Problems, and Recommendations |
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Educators who work in the field of experiential education often encourage or require
their students to keep journals. Journals are a time-honored venue for facilitating reflection, an important component of experiential education. |
| Learning how to learn |
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I realize that the quality of higher education has recently been cast in doubt by Spelling and company, but nonetheless, I think my post-secondary education has provided me with some valuable lessons for homeschooling. |
| Learning to Learn |
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Problem-based learning (PBL) is an educational approach that challenges students to "learn to learn". Students work cooperatively in groups to seek solutions to real-world problems and more importantly, to develop skills to become self-directed learners. Here, the goal of problem-based learning is viewed as learning for capability rather than learning for the sake of acquiring knowledge. PBL is unique in its integral emphasis on core content along with problem solving (Gallagher, 1997). Within the context of reading in the PBL classroom, learning thus becomes much more than the process of mere knowledge seeking. Students develop critical thinking abilities by constantly relating what they read to what they want to do with the information. They question the writer's assumptions and analyze information presented, all within the context of finding answers to "What can I do with this information?" and "What does understanding this mean to me?" This digest discusses some of the challenges in learning that students face, and identifies web resources that teachers can use to support student learning. |
| Literature Circles |
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Concise discussion of Literature Cirlces along with links to teacher resources. |
| Literature Circles |
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The purpose of this Digest is to introduce some procedures for implementing literature circles and to review some recent findings regarding the benefits of literature circles on students' learning. |
| Pulling Together Resources for High School History Unit Studies |
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By Beverly S. Krueger. Nothing says that you can’t do unit studies during your child’s high school years. Sure you want to cover the bases to create a successful college application, but you don’t have to do that by sticking to textbook curriculum. Creative unit studies can be made to serve as textbook replacements for many of the typical high school credit classes. |
| Teaching Fractions: New Methods, New Resources |
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The teaching of fractions continues to hold the attention of mathematics teachers and education researchers worldwide. In what order should various representations be introduced? Should multiple representations be introduced early, or one representation pursued in depth once? Does it matter if fractions are introduced as counting or as measurement? What is the relative importance of procedural, factual, and conceptual knowledge in success with fractions? These and other questions remain debated in the literature. |
| The A - B - C's of Charlotte Mason |
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This is the original on-line version of the FAQ offered to all newcomers to the Charlotte Mason Study Loop. Quotes from Charlotte Mason are indicated. The ABC definitions have been written by a number of our members, and may change as different ones are offered. |
| Unit Studies for Teachers |
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By Leslie Wilson. You’ve planned, plotted, and researched an exciting topic. You’re all fired up to teach it to your children, but the response is definitely ho-hum bored with school. It’s unit studies to the rescue! |
| Unit Study Basics |
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By Amanda Bennett. What is a unit study?
It is defined as an in-depth study of a topic (space, trees, cars, etc.) that takes into account many areas of the topic, such as geography, science, history, art, etc. It is a complete immersion into the topic so that the student will see things as a "whole" instead of bits and pieces learned throughout their education. |
| Using Primary Sources in the Primary Grades |
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What do a stamped Christmas postcard dated 1910, a Confederate one hundred dollar bill, soda pop bottles from Egypt, ice tongs, a rug beater, and a woven prayer rug from the Middle East with a picture of the Kaaba at Mecca all have in common? These and many other artifacts can become primary sources, the very real "stuff" of the social studies that can so effectively engage the young learner in active learning. The use of primary sources in the classroom is a way for students to develop the intellectual curiosity that leads to further research and increased awareness of the world around them. |
| What is Curriculum? |
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Curriculum is basically a grouping of subjects of study. We tend to think about curriculum by organization or subject. For example, any public high school curriculum in Texas is required to include math and science. Math and science are just parts of the curriculum. |
| What is Journal Writing? |
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Journal writing is a learning tool based on the ideas that students write to learn. Students use the journals to write about topics of personal interest, to note their observations, to imagine, to wonder and to connect new information with things they already know. |
| Writing Instruction: Current Practices in the Classroom |
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Over the past forty years, the emphasis in writing instruction has shifted from product to process. A companion ERIC Digest entitled "Writing Instruction: Changing Views over the Years" gives an overview of this development during the period from 1960 to 1999. The present digest focuses on the experiences of individual teachers as they searched for ways to put the principles of process writing into practice in the classroom. |
