Maggie Hogan’s Bright Ideas Press E-Zine
Welcome to the June 2006 edition. I hope you find the following information useful, as you spend time teaching and enjoying your children!
History Helps
Learning by Asking
Summer time is the perfect time to take a break from more formal studies
and implement the “Learning by Asking” approach. While discussing
history, show students that history is a series of stories about people
just like you. Capture the stories and you’ll capture their interest!
We’re all naturally curious. Unfortunately, that curiosity is all too
often dulled by an unimaginative education. Students who become
habituated to the “teachers ask questions and I fill in the answers”
type of schooling may lose interest. Answering questions may be seen as
an end, rather than a beginning. Students work when they are truly
interested in something. The search becomes relevant when they care.
Interest is generated and enthusiasm builds. This doesn’t happen
overnight though. Asking questions and then researching the answers is
an important part of the learning process. So is the hands-on aspect.
Put them together and you have the ingredients for a dynamic and
memorable course! Use this time to explore your kids’ interest. Everyone
will benefit.
Who might your students enjoy learning about this summer? Ideas:
- Grandparents/other relatives
- Missionary
- Favorite Sports Figure
- Favorite Author
- Someone in the News
- Military Hero
- 20th Century Inventor or Explorer
Check out:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/kids/index.cfm
One of my favorite places is the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Blessed to live near D.C., the boys and I have had many interesting field trips there. This is a great website!
http://www.historyforkids.org/
Includes loads of information as well as photos and projects to make.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/forkids/
This site has interesting materials for kids, from a British perspective. Learn about Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, find out what life was like for kids during WWII, and much more.
****************************************************************
Special Offer from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
19 Free Gifts for Homeschoolers -
Limited Time Offer!
(New and Returning Subscribers Qualify!)
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has an
incredible offer
that you won't want to pass up!
With your paid two-year subscription
to TOS you'll receive:
- A 2-year subscription to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine
- 19 FREE gifts for you
****************************************************************
Geography Corner
Salt Dough Map
Salt dough maps are easy, inexpensive, and unbeatable for tactile
learners! Making a salt dough map at the beginning of your history
studies is a sure-fire method for students to truly learn the “lay of
the land.” History is more meaningful when they have a solid grasp of
the “where” of it. And summer is a perfect time to make one!
Materials for Salt Dough
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- Water – enough to make dough sticky but workable
- Reference atlases
- Salt dough
- Heavy piece of cardboard
- Copy of an outline map (optional, but very handy!)
- Food coloring or poster paints (optional)
- Glue outline map to cardboard leaving at least one inch around the border for ease in carrying. If you’d like to have a key, leave a blank space for it.
- Mix dough ingredients.
- Optional: separate dough and then color it according to physical features i.e., blue for water, green for land, brown for desert, etc.
- Using a physical reference map in an atlas, place dough on map by color, according to physical features. Build up mountain ranges; make valleys and lakes, etc.
- Optional – when dry, paint with poster paints.
- Make a key and attach to the border of the map.
- After map dries, take a picture of it. Salt dough maps don’t “save” well, but pictures do!
*Cathy Duffy Top 100 Picks
See the books that Cathy loves: The Mystery of History Series and
The Christian Kids Explore Series at www.BrightIdeasPress.com
*****************************************************************
Check our schedule to see if we will be at a conference near you this season. We are heading soon to Sandy Cove in Northeast, MD and Phoenix, AZ. See you there!
http://www.brightideaspress.com/ourschedule.htm
We appreciate you, our customers.
Feel free to contact us:
Bright Ideas Press (Publishers of The Mystery of History series)
877.492.8081
contact@BrightIdeasPress.com
www.BrightIdeasPress.com
Come
blog with me:
www.homeschoolblogger.com/maggiehogan
Happy Trails,
Maggie Hogan