[CindyLuWho]

Hey, all you homeschoolers (and any other teachers):

Some of us educators (from a variety of spectrums) are looking to start a new "movement" within SG - to use our digitally creative energies to supplement our school instructional settings/experiences. Whether you have a craft idea (that uses SG products) or any other kind of teaching aid (that uses SG products), let's use this forum to brainstorm and share those ideas. I love hearing what other people are doing in their classrooms, whether it's their own kids or a classroom full of kids. The key is to find ways to let SG products help make our jobs easier.

As a homeschool mom for the past four years (my son/student is going into 8th grade), we've done a lot of hands-on projects that could have been supplemented with digital scrapbooking in some way. Why didn't I think of looking at my digital scrapbooking stash (as well as the deep well of the Boutique) much earlier? Duh!

Well, it hit me last week that one of our upcoming projects this year could definitely benefit from some digital scrapbooking influence. He will be keeping a Composition Book that features all the good stuff he's going to learn about Texas history. Whether it's maps or historical notes, sketches or photos from field trips, I want him to fill that Composition Book with all kinds of details or drawings as he reads and learns through this Texas history course.

However, Composition Books are notoriously institutional looking... black and white, squiggly-lined monotony on the covers. I want to give him the chance to add some personalization to the book's covers through taking advantage of some my digital scrapbooking stash. I think if he "owns" the book by personalizing it, then it will be more engaging for him to use it during our study times!

I plan to print out BMU's map from her Route 19 Collection Biggie, which shows Texas and its neighboring Southern states. There are some other embellishments from that collection that I think he might want to pick to make this cover his own. Plus, we'll search for Texas-themed items to splash on the front/back covers.

At this point, I'm simply going to print out the items and let him cut, paste, glue. (That should satisfy my kinesthetic learner for a little while!)

I'd love to show you the finished product, but hey, it's not time for school to start yet! But that's my plan and I'm pretty excited about it and think it will supplement our use of that resource this year.

Soooo... put your thinking caps on - share some ideas in this forum!

If you want, give your thread a cue word (like Homeschoolers, Teachers, Educators, etc.) to help us all know that your new thread is an education-related topic!

Love/hugs...

Cindy

Attached File(s)

•  BMU_Route19_Paper_Map1.jpg (9.43MB)
  Number of downloads: 7

[Smiles]

Cindy, I think this is really a super idea, and I'm sure the discussion will spark lots and lots of other really great ideas. Flashcards ought to be pretty straightforward to put together. A dear friend of mine taught PE to K-3, and she worked really carefully to incorporate all the reading and arithmetic into her lessons that she possibly could. She spent a small fortune at the teachers stores on items for class. You could customize everything for your own lessons!

[CindyLuWho]

Smiles, on 21 July 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

Cindy, I think this is really a super idea, and I'm sure the discussion will spark lots and lots of other really great ideas. Flashcards ought to be pretty straightforward to put together. A dear friend of mine taught PE to K-3, and she worked really carefully to incorporate all the reading and arithmetic into her lessons that she possibly could. She spent a small fortune at the teachers stores on items for class. You could customize everything for your own lessons!

FLASHCARDS!!! What a great idea, Smiles! It never dawned on me to make flashcards with our digital scrapbooking stash. Especially for those first years of learning, flashcards would be super fun to make because they are so many ALPHAS to choose from to make A-B-C cards and number cards.

I did a quick Boutique search for "SCHOOL" and got 150 results, so there would be plenty to choose from in making flashcards with a school theme. Then, of course, if you were making "A is for apple, B is for boy..." cards, the search results would be broadened to include those particular items.

Thanks for the additional idea!

Cindy

[scrappinchar]

Hey. I don't homeschool, but I thought I would share a project I did about 4 years ago.
(I just noticed that your guy is past the age/grade of this project. But someone might get an idea from it.)
Word Flash Cards

[Amanda OutsideTheBox]

I homeschooled for five years, then taught for 9. As a High School Spanish teacher, I had my kids do a scrap book for the entire year. All journaling was to be either bi-lingual or in Spanish alone. We enjoyed it and they were able to cover a variety of topics throughout the year, thus having the application of the language. As a homeschooler and an artist, hands on learning was my favorite, so projects were a big part of what we did.
Personalization is a great first step...but oh my, the world and possibilities are endless!!

Journals are no longer filled only with text. Visual journals, also known as Art Journals, are very popular. Any subject matter can be expressed visually. I highly encourage every scrapper to stretch your stash by journaling- or other hybrid projects. My daughter is an English teacher and she allows visual journaling to be included in her student's work.

[SandiC.]

At the beginning of each school year I used to make each of my grandkids personalized composition books. Different for each child's interests. For one pictures of my GD and her friends and music themed, for another GS stars and another dinosaurs. They've sort of outgrown that now, but they were fun. I measured the front and back of the books and then scrapped that sized document just as any LO. Printed on presentation paper and modpodged it. Make sure to let the ink dry really well, at least 24 hours.

I made sight word cards for one GS as he was learning to read and then laminated them and put them on a key ring. We'd flip through them at breakfast.

[CindyLuWho]

Amanda OutsideTheBox, on 21 July 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

I homeschooled for five years, then taught for 9. As a High School Spanish teacher, I had my kids do a scrap book for the entire year. All journaling was to be either bi-lingual or in Spanish alone. We enjoyed it and they were able to cover a variety of topics throughout the year, thus having the application of the language. As a homeschooler and an artist, hands on learning was my favorite, so projects were a big part of what we did.
Personalization is a great first step...but oh my, the world and possibilities are endless!!

Journals are no longer filled only with text. Visual journals, also known as Art Journals, are very popular. Any subject matter can be expressed visually. I highly encourage every scrapper to stretch your stash by journaling- or other hybrid projects. My daughter is an English teacher and she allows visual journaling to be included in her student's work.

Do you think you could post a pic or two of some page/pages from your visual journal/art journal. I have in my mind what I think it might be, but I also tend to be a rule-follower and it sounds like this kind of approach breaks free of some rules! So please, enlighten us further (and visually!)!

Thanks,
cindy

[CindyLuWho]

SandiC., on 21 July 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

At the beginning of each school year I used to make each of my grandkids personalized composition books. Different for each child's interests. For one pictures of my GD and her friends and music themed, for another GS stars and another dinosaurs. They've sort of outgrown that now, but they were fun. I measured the front and back of the books and then scrapped that sized document just as any LO. Printed on presentation paper and modpodged it. Make sure to let the ink dry really well, at least 24 hours.

I made sight word cards for one GS as he was learning to read and then laminated them and put them on a key ring. We'd flip through them at breakfast.

Oh yea! This is just the kind of info I am hoping to get from people on this thread! This is awesome... and I appreciate your specific info on how you printed/Mod Podged it. That helps from a practical standpoint.

I have a VERY creative son and I am realizing that at age 14, he needs projects that give him an outlet for that creativity now more than ever.

Thanks for your tips!

Cindy

[CindyLuWho]

scrappinchar, on 21 July 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Hey. I don't homeschool, but I thought I would share a project I did about 4 years ago.
(I just noticed that your guy is past the age/grade of this project. But someone might get an idea from it.)
Word Flash Cards

Thanks! This is perfect! And what a great set of cards... it would be easy to do and perfect for a beginning reader!

Thanks for posting!

[NotAVampireLvr]

CindyLuWho, on 21 July 2012 - 10:08 AM, said:

Smiles, on 21 July 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

Cindy, I think this is really a super idea, and I'm sure the discussion will spark lots and lots of other really great ideas. Flashcards ought to be pretty straightforward to put together. A dear friend of mine taught PE to K-3, and she worked really carefully to incorporate all the reading and arithmetic into her lessons that she possibly could. She spent a small fortune at the teachers stores on items for class. You could customize everything for your own lessons!

FLASHCARDS!!! What a great idea, Smiles! It never dawned on me to make flashcards with our digital scrapbooking stash. Especially for those first years of learning, flashcards would be super fun to make because they are so many ALPHAS to choose from to make A-B-C cards and number cards.

I did a quick Boutique search for "SCHOOL" and got 150 results, so there would be plenty to choose from in making flashcards with a school theme. Then, of course, if you were making "A is for apple, B is for boy..." cards, the search results would be broadened to include those particular items.

Thanks for the additional idea!

Cindy

We do a lot with flash cards. Admittedly I scour the dollar store bins (especially Target as they have some great ones!) and laminate what I can find there. I'm not real motivated to design my own when there are so many inexpensive options out there. My time is worth $$ to me - especially as a homeschool mom trying to juggle everything. I did make my own bible verse cards - but it was before I learned PSE so I did them in Word. NEVER AGAIN! LOL Next time I'll do them in PSE, but what I have works for now.

Now worksheets, games etc. I think PSE is the perfect tool to make those up - especially since doing them yourself you can customize.

This year for HSng we did a Plant Life Cycle journal and a Transportation Scrapbook. The Plant life cycle was pretty straight forward so putting it in a sketch book worked for us. The transportation book though was ALOT of work for very little return I think so next time I'm going to do it digitally. My oldest really didn't enjoy making the scrapbooks (all the cutting and pasting was tedious for him) but he loves computers so I'm hoping next year we can do some sort of compromise - one paper and one digital. The only thing I'd miss not using paper is the extra flaps and all that, but to me its worth it not to have to deal with that since at this point its really me doing all the work, not them. When they are old enough to do it themselves then we can go back to paper!

I imagine that a tech savvy kid would really enjoy PSE for their journaling activities. I haven't done much scrapping of the actual homeschooling, but I have this layout here and another photo from the beach I plan to do a page of someday soon. It took me a while to get into the journaling groove so I've actually gone back to older photographs from when I was first married and scrapping those memories for the kids to get me in the habit.

[CindyLuWho]

Thanks, NotAVampireLvr, for your info-packed post! You really have a lot of good info in there about what you've done - and what you plan to do this year!

I started looking at our resources this week and need to start planning what to do when. This is the first year that I am planning/pacing the curriculum myself. I've bought curriculum packages the past four years that laid it all out for me, week by week. This year, however, just seemed to require that we go a different way. So I'm kind of scared, kind of jazzed....

But I will definitely be planning some hands-on stuff for DS to do - whether it's hands-on with physically creating stuff or digitally creating stuff!

LOVE hearing all these ideas, so let's keep 'em coming, folks!

Cindy

[NotAVampireLvr]

CindyLuWho, on 26 July 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

Thanks, NotAVampireLvr, for your info-packed post! You really have a lot of good info in there about what you've done - and what you plan to do this year!I started looking at our resources this week and need to start planning what to do when. This is the first year that I am planning/pacing the curriculum myself. I've bought curriculum packages the past four years that laid it all out for me, week by week. This year, however, just seemed to require that we go a different way. So I'm kind of scared, kind of jazzed....But I will definitely be planning some hands-on stuff for DS to do - whether it's hands-on with physically creating stuff or digitally creating stuff!LOVE hearing all these ideas, so let's keep 'em coming, folks! Cindy

Don't be afraid to branch out! We couldn't do the packaged thing (although I love the idea of it) because we're all over the place with my oldest. He's really into STEM subjects, so we're in higher levels of those, but he's at grade level for reading, writing, spelling, etc. I love history, so we're doing that on top of whatever else my MIL is doing with them (she does a science unit and a social studies unit). My upcoming kindergartener we're going the boxed curriculum route for the first few years because he's a routine kid and the organized chaos of my oldest child's schooling would be too much for him to handle I think. His sister, just one year behind him will probably be working side by side with him - but that could change as she has her own unique learning style. I have tons on my to-do list today, but I'll come back to this on Monday.

[Jeanne Lee]

Hello, Cindy and thanks again for posting this!

We are down to one left at home(we have graduated three from HSing..two in college and one just graduated this year)

I am a visual learner and have always enjoyed doing hands on stuff, and through the years have done a variety of things to help us learn! (some already mentioned)

Our last DS is going to be a sophomore this year and seeing how we can use PSE in our curriculum(I do a mix of things...no packages for me)would be interesting.

[CindyLuWho]

Jeanne...

I'd love to hear any ideas you have on incorporating PSE into your lessons! I have seeds of ideas, but they haven't sprouted yet!

Cindy