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Tips on Establishing a Home School Reading Program

Home schooling is an alternative to the traditional, classroom-based teaching. Today, home schooling is becoming more common, as more parents and guardians choose to teach their children at home. There are estimated to be nearly 1,000,000 students learning at home currently. Many parents believe that teaching the child at home provides the child with a more detailed education, more than that provided by traditional schools, public or private. The principle benefit of home schooling for these parents is the convenience of customizing the education to the specific need of the child and to suit his aptitude. Every parent, while home schooling the child, is able to choose the method of instruction, most appropriate. The choice of home schooling your child is not an easy decision. There are many considerations to be kept in mind. Given below are some of the things you should find out and prepare for, before starting.

Legality

It is legal to home school a child in the U.S, as well as many other countries. Each state in the US has different laws regarding home schooling. These can be simple guidelines or formal and stricter legal requirements. Each state also has it own home schooling requirements, with regards to the curriculum and adopted standards. The parent needs to ensure that he is qualified to teach the child at home. The parents need to be aware of the specific state requirements. Any local, regional or state home education organization is equipped to provide basic information about the prevalent laws.

Finding Support

For a parent considering home schooling for the first time, a support group can be of immense help. Although it is not a legal requirement to join a support group, it definitely helps to get in touch with other parents who are home schooling in your area. Some home education departments also provide a list of support groups within the local area. Volunteers run the support groups and usually comprise of other parents who are also home schooling their children. Their support enables you to get the encouragement and information required, from experienced people. Some of these home schooling support groups also conduct regular educational field trips and activities. There are private groups that can be extremely helpful too. Their services range from providing books and other resources to the material for testing, as well as distance education programs. These groups not only sell you the supplies and services needed, but also provide helpful information and referrals.

Preparing the Home Environment, schedule, and curriculum:

Some physical rearrangement will probably be needed in the home, to create an area for the schoolwork. You will also need to buy all the study material, stationary and required boards. You will have to create a study schedule for regular lessons and mark time for games. It is also advisable to maintain a book keeping system. This helps to keep track of the tasks assigned and completed. This is also a legal requirement in some states. Finally, and most importantly, you need to select the appropriate method. This choice must be based on the childs aptitude and learning ability. Some of the popular methods are Classic, Montessori and the Charlotte Mason home schooling methods.

Kris Koonar
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/tips-on-establishing-a-home-school-reading-program-90333.html

Technorati Tags: homeschooling

Origins of Face Painting

You will see many kids roaming around fair grounds, children’s parties and carnivals with painted faces. Face painting is one of the most popular activities for kids these days and booths can be found at almost every event. Face painting has been gaining ground the past couple of years and kids have been more than happy to close their eyes and sit still all in the name of having their face painted. Face painting started way back the early days of our ancestors and it’s not a newly introduced activity. It dates back to hundreds or even thousands of years ago when warriors were the ones who had painted faces and where ancient tribes and cultures used face painting for religious purposes, some for camouflage and others to separate one tribe from the next. Some of the people who used face painting before were the Chinese, Native Americans, and the Egyptians.

Warriors who paint their faces did it whenever they went out face enemies or to go to war. It was also used to intimidate their enemies or make them tremble in fear. Face painting were also used by some tribes to distinguish themselves from other tribes. Depending on the design and colors, the paintings on their faces imposed different meanings. When they are preparing for war, they would paint their faces in black color, while red stood for war and white is used to show or promote peace.

Face painting was also used by some tribes as camouflage for hunting and for going into battle. Those who did this would use paint from a natural source and would make their face and sometimes, other parts of their body the same color as the surroundings. This would help them hide from their enemies or secretly sneak up on animals they were hunting. Even in religious purposes, ceremonies, and rituals, face painting is being used too. There were tribes who believed that it meant powers when you wear certain colors of face paint.

Other than being a fun activity for kids during parties and in fairs and carnivals, face painting also has a very colorful history. Far much different from how we’re using it today, face painting back then was rooted on power, tribes, and spiritual beliefs. There is no harm in face painting children but explaining the wonderful history of this fun activity would also be a nice activity.

Technorati Tags: children's parties, face painting

Where to Buy Home Schooling Books and Other Materials

When people decide upon homeschooling their children, certain criteria should be considered. The essentials like the syllabus, methods of teaching and most importantly the course material to be referred to, should be selected according to the capacity of the childs grasping power and the level of the prescribed syllabus.

Basic Home Schooling Books

Following are a few basic Home Schooling books that should be included in every homeschooling kit:

. The American Heritage Student dictionary
. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus
. The American Heritage High School dictionary

The given reference books are helpful to shape the young minds. They allow the children to learn new definitions, spellings, meanings, synonyms and antonyms that assist their effective usage. The students learn many skills, while learning.

Saving Money on Home Schooling Books and Home School Supplies

Home Schooling expenses are sizeable and sadly they are not tax deductible. However, luckily many retailers have home school discount schemes. They are only given after verifying the identification of the parent and child. Stores accept a home school letterhead or school ID card, preferably from a local homeschooling support group. Some of the national retailers who offer money-saving offers include Staple Office Supplies, Joann Crafts and Border Bookstores.

Given below are some of the outlets where you can find books on homeschooling:

. Direct Buying.

People who are on the look out for books with traditional syllabi should buy from the publishing company directly. This not only makes transactions easier and flawless, but also makes it convenient to directly order the books. This could also be done by logging on to the company website and getting the books shipped. Besides, you can call the company and have the books delivered to your doorstep.

. Block Sales or Flea Market.

Families usually take an off from homeschooling during summer, very similar to the regular school students. As homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular, many parents offer educational material at church or yard sales. A used or a new schoolbook is easily available for few dollars, at any of these sources.

. The Internet.

Most of the homeschooling material is available on various websites. You can avail of great deals at auctions and book-swaps and you can also identify parents selling used books online.

Sometimes, the surplus books are given to schools, to attract more business. Schoolteachers very often sell these on Ebay. You can avail of a decent and reasonable price than the charges levied by the original book company.

. Local Stores.

Classic workbooks and other books can be easily found at stores like Target, Walmart and Kmart. You can access the books in the reading section, before you buy them. Teachers workbooks and other home schooling material are usually needed throughout the year.

Many websites also offer software, games, workbooks, booklets and more. However, they increase the prices and often the supplies are common on all the major home schooling material websites.

It is advisable to maintain the books and supplies, so that you can swap them with other homeschooling students when and as the need arises.

Kris Koonar
http://www.articlesbase.com/homeschooling-articles/where-to-buy-home-schooling-books-and-other-materials-86874.html

Back to School Supplies

Browse the full range of Back to School Supplies here.

When September rolls around, parents all across the country gleefully take to the stores, loading up their carts with all the supplies their little darlings will need to make it through the coming academic year. After all, school is a really busy time, and to do well, you need to be prepared.

The same holds true for tradeshows. Autumn is the busiest time of year for exhibitors—and just like those students we were talking about, to do well, your booth staffers need to be prepared. It’s time to do a little shopping! Instead of stocking up with notebooks, number 2 pencils and highlighters, your booth staffers need a different set of supplies. Here’s what you need for tradeshow back to school:

Notebooks
Staffing the tradeshow is a lot of work. There is a lot your booth staff has to know—about what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and what questions to ask. Luckily, if your team is prepared with lots of notes from the pre-show training you provided before the show season started, they’ll be well prepared.

What do you do if your team hasn’t been preparing? Even the worst student can occassionally pull off an A+ with some last minute cramming. Consider a day long intensive training session, attended by every member of your team. This is as important for the ‘old hands’ as for the newbies. Everyone needs to brush up on something!

School Uniform
Many school systems require uniforms. They say it promotes a more focused learning environment, cuts down on distractions, and helps their student body convey a specific image.

The same is true for the tradeshow environment. While it may not be appropriate for your booth staffers to wear a uniform, it is essential that they all present a similiar, professional appearance.

Be specific when detailing what you want your staffers to wear. “Office casual” doesn’t help. Instead, list the elements of the look you want: Shirt with collar, black slacks, blue tie, scarf, etc.

Pens & Pencils
In the course of a tradeshow, your staffers will speak with hundreds of people. There’s no way they’ll remember names and faces after the event. That means when they’re looking at a pile of business cards, it’ll be impossible to discern who was a likely prospect for a big sale and who was a nitpicker who only wanted to complain about his last purchase. As a result, often, neither lead gets followed up!

Select and implement a lead-gathering system. Train your people how to use it—especially important if it’s a newer, high-tech system—and insist upon its use. This way, your staffers will be gathering more high quality information. Follow up will be easier and more effective.

For ultimate results, make sure that your lead gathering system has a prioritization function. Hot leads should be handled immediately—perhaps overnighted back to the home office for next-day follow up—while others should be sorted into promising, maybe, and unlikely categories.

Listening Ears
This is the one supply teachers wish their students had! It’s crucial to listen more than you talk, especially in the tradeshow environment. Ask qualifying questions and learn what the attendee’s problems are. What do they need?

It’s only after you understand the attendee that you can start offering solutions to their problem. This is the crucial part of relationship building, the vital aspect of face to face marketing.

Too many staffers, eager to talk with as many people as possible in as short a time as possible, get in a pattern of repeating their sales spiel over and over and over, without ever listening to the attendee. This is not very effective. Insist your staffers wear their listening ears.

Assignment Book
Students use assignment books to write down what their teacher assigns for homework. Booth staffers don’t have homework, but they do need to know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, and when they’re supposed to be doing it.

Before the show starts, clearly deliniate who will be working the booth, and at what times. Assign break and meal periods—which need to happen off of the show floor. Don’t just leave this up to your team to decide for themselves. Otherwise, someone will wind up missing a break and become disgruntled and cranky, or someone else will take far too long of a lunch, leaving his peers to shoulder an unfair share of the load.

Additionally, delegate responsibilities. Who is responsible for making sure the display is set up properly? Who takes it down and prepares it for shipping at the end of the day? Someone has to overnight hot leads back to the home office, and so on. Make sure your team knows who is expected to do what.

Susan Friedman
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/back-to-school-supplies-54047.html

Why do parents go overboard with school supplies?

Back to School Supplies click here.

This was an interesting comment posted by someone:

I work at an office supplies store and these parents go crazy over supplies. They spend like 300 dollars one kid and they have to have all these items or else the kid will fail school. When I was a kid all I needed was notebooks, binder, paper and pens and pencils. Why do these parents find the need to buy so much useless crap for a 10 yr old???
even the lists are out of control

Have you really looked at these school supply lists????
they need state of the art calculators that perform certain functions, they need computer memory sticks, and the price of backpacks and trapper keepers. My son even needed clorox wipes, and hand sanitizer for school.
I dont think parents are going too overboard, I just think that the schools are becomming a lot more demanding. they feel that everyone is made of money.

Preparing Yourself For Home Schooling

Home schooling refers to providing educational instruction to children in the home. Home schooling supplies children with a more personalized education.

Home schooling has proven itself to be a very good method of teaching children their ABC’s. The home provides a very good environment for children to learn. More children feel more adjusted and more comfortable being educated at the home. And with home education, it is more the responsibility of the parents to teach their children. And because of the time spend with each other, this approach has made parents and their kids become closer with each other.

With home schooling, parents will also be able to save a lot when it comes to expenses. They no longer have to worry about getting schooling supplies for their children as required by most traditional institutions. Home school supplies are bought according to need as opposed to requirement. Aside from required learning tools, the parents are the ones responsible for providing other home schooling supplies such as pencils, notebooks, paper and the like.

If you plan on having your own kids home schooled, you might need to be prepared. One requirement is to find time to personally teach your children. With home schooling, you do not rely on anyone else to make your kids learn. That responsibility will fall on your lap. The same goes with preparing your children’s home school supplies. It won’t be as extensive a list as what public schools would require, but it would be wise to have your own list ready before you do your shopping. Here is a list of important things that you should always have ready on your home for

your kids’ home schooling supplies.

You should be able to have paper readily available in your home. This should include ample supply of typing and printing paper. You should also be including other paper supplies such as steno and college-ruled paper as your home-schooled children grow. Also include different writing instruments handy such as pencils, pens, colored pencils, crayons, chalk, markers, etc. Also include in your shopping list other items like all-purpose glue, scotch tape, rulers, erasers, staplers, paper clips, portable blackboard, and calculators.

In preparing to home school your children, you should also be able to have different learning tools available around the home. Different subjects may require various educational tools to help your children learn and understand their lessons better. For history and geography lessons, it is important to have a globe or a world map available as well as history and geography books within reach.

For science subjects, your students would require, magnifying glasses, prisms, a microscope or a telescope depending on your child’s grade level. You can also include musical instruments to teach music lessons as well as other items that you think would be helpful for other subject types.

Low Jeremy
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/preparing-yourself-for-home-schooling-67098.html

How to Teach Children to Read When Homeschooling : Supplies for Homeschooling Young Children

Learn what supplies you will need to use homeschooling to teach kids to read in this free home schooling and tutoring video clip.

Expert: Matt Nisjak
Bio: Matt Nisjak has been dedicated to education through homeschooling and tutoring for many years.
Filmmaker: Christopher Rokosz

Duration : 0:2:1

(more…)

Technorati Tags: alphabet, education

single parent in Austell Ga. looking for help with school supplies for 3 kids?


A lot of churches or the Salvation Army will have stocked backpacks for kids who need school supplies. Call around. Good luck.

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