From Discounts to Pinterest

Good Morning Everyone!

It's going to be a hot week outside.  Are you the type that will just hibernate with a fan and the air conditioning cranked up, or will you take the opportunity to play in the sprinkler and blow some end of the summer bubbles?  No matter which you prefer, I am pretty sure some ice cold lemonade or raspberry tea is in order!

This is also a great time of year to look for the back to school bargains that we all enjoy.   I found a couple of websites that list many discounts available to homeschool families and teachers.  One great place is The Frugal Girls.  Their website is great.  Who doesn't get hooked in with a motto like, "Living Well with Less $$$"?  Another list is found at The Home School Mom.    I also found The Complete List of  77 Teacher Discounts at Gift Card Granny.

Many of these businesses ask for some type of identification to prove you home school your kiddos.  So, I have created a business card size membership card for the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program.  Stop by the room sometime and pick yours up!  You can keep it in your wallet and then, presto!  You have your proof when you need it.

Another great way to find discounts is to sign up for the weekly newsletter from CurrClick (Curriculum and Classes in a Click!)  If you follow the link, there is a place to sign up for their weekly newsletter.  It comes to your email and is always full of freebies and discounted home school resources.  You can scan it quickly to see if anything catches your eye and might be useful and delete it just as quickly if you don't see anything you can use.

A goal of mine this year is to use Pinterest as a place to collect ideas for you.  I currently have 13 boards on Pinterest that deal with education.  And here's the thing.  If there is something you would like to know more about and I don't have it there, just let me know.  I can create a board just for you.  For instance, you may notice that I have a board called All About Turtles.  A homeschool mom told me her daughter wants to learn all she can about turtles, so I made a board to help her out.  Now she has several online resources all in one place that are easy to find.

If you can think of other ways that I can help you be a better teacher, please let me know.  That's what I love to do :-)

Try not to melt this week,

Linda

Fun Changes in the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program

This fall brings cooler weather and some exciting changes for the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program. We are expanding! Tina Olson has joined the staff and will work with Linda Nichols. Together we will continue to offer services as supervising teachers and as a resource to you.

In addition, we will also be offering monthly Friday field trips and Thursday morning enrichment classes. At 9:00 and at 10:00 on Thursday mornings there will be classes offered for K-3rd and 4th-8th grade students. They will be in 4-5 week sessions, and we will offer three sessions each semester. You will have the opportunity each month to sign your children up for the next session.
Brown Bag & Books will follow from 11:00-12:00 on Thursday mornings. 

We have also added a new Mom’s Corner in the room. Come and check out resources and ideas that we will have posted there.

Enrichment Class Calendar

September 5, 12, 19, 26

9:00 K-3 Creative Learning-Linda

9:00 4-8 Lego Robotics - Tina

10:00 K-3 Folk Music - Linda

10:00 4-8 Lego Robotics, build time - Tina

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

October 3, 10, 17, 24

9:00 K-3 Creative Learning - Tina

9:00 4-8 Creative Learning - Linda

10:00 K-3 Lego Fun - Tina

10:00 4-8 Folk Music - Linda

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

November 7,14,21  December 5,12

9:00 K-8 Writer’s Workshop Linda& Tina

10:00 K-8 Operation Outreach Linda & Tina

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

January 9,16,23,30

10:00 K-8 YMCA Fun Linda & Tina

in YMCA back gym

11:15 Brown Bag & Books

February

Break for testing & parent workshops

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

March 6,13,27 April 3

9:00 K-3 Music of the Masters-Linda

9:00 4-8 Art of the Masters -Tina

10:00 K-3 Creative Learning-Linda

10:00 4-8 Creative Learning-Tina

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

April 10, 17, 24 May 1

9:00 K-3 Art of the Masters-Tina

9:00 4-8 Music of the Masters-Linda

10:00 K-3 Creative Learning-Tina

10:00 4-8 Creative Learning-Linda

11:00 Brown Bag & Books

Field Trip Fridays

We have a fun slate of Friday Field Trips planned for this year!
September 6 - T-Bone Trail Ride
MEET at 10:00 in BRAYTON with BIKES
and SACK LUNCH
October 4 - 3 Bee Farms
November 1 - Atlantic Food Pantry
January 17 - Swim at the YMCA
February 21- Brinks Flowers
March 7 - Hy Vee
April 4 - Environmental Day at Camblin Addition
May 2 - Des Moines Science Center

USA Treasure Map Progress

Some of the projects still need some paint, but here is what we have on our map so far:
Animals of Alaska
State animal of California, the bear
Lego Land, California
Hachi, movie made in Hollywood, California
Henry and his big dog Mudge in Oregon, the home state of author Cynthia Rylant
Mount St Helen in Washington
Fisher Towers in Utah
Texas longhorns and Texas bluebells
Bethany Hamilton in Hawaii
A bar of gold and the state flag of Colorado
A fighter jet at the Air Force Academy
Mt Rushmore in South Dakota
The state symbols of Nebraska
The large globe at the Henry Doorly Zoo
Amelia Earhart's airplane in Kansas
Busch Stadium in St Louis, Missouri
The Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
The Iowa Capitol Building
Farm ground (rich soil) in the midwest
Sheep in the midwest
Secretariat in Kentucky
Parisien, the first Simmental bull imported to the USA
Disney princess castle in Florida
George Washington in Virginia
Washington Monument, Washington D.C.
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
The Statue of Liberty, New York
Red Maple tree, Rhode Island
A map of the routes of the Underground Railroad
The Panama Canal (built largely by the USA)

USA Treasure Map Alive and Well!

The USA Treasure Map continues to evolve here at the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program.  The map now has a clear overlay with student's initials in the states they have visited. 

Most students have also started their USA Treasure research project.  It is really exciting to see the topics students have chosen.  If you remember, they are each doing research on something they believe is a treasure to our country.  At the end of their research -  when they are experts in their topic - they will create something to put on the map.  Perhaps a model, a small booklet or the link to a movie uploaded to YouTube. 

Here are some of the topics so far:

• The Henry Doorly Zoo
• Mt. Rushmore
• The Washington Monument
• Soil
• Sheep
• Disney Princesses (and how they were created)
• The Iowa Capitol building
• Busch Stadium
• The Underground Railroad
• The Panama Canal (although in Central America, the USA built it and it is beneficial to us)
• Mt. St. Helens
• Hachi the dog
• Bethany Hamilton

Students are learning about the importance of citing references and the definition of plagiarism.  They have picked topics that excite them and it's fun to see their innate curiosity.  

Spring Break next week, then hopefully progress and pictures in the weeks following!

Smiles,

Linda

USA Treasure Map Progress

National Treasure Map

Here's a little update on the progress of our really big map of the USA.  Lots of trouble shooting going on the first hour today.  Nate was my go-to guy and he solved some major roadblocks.  We realized that the power cord for our projector was not long enough.  After searching the entire school building, we found a power strip in a closet and a HUGE extension cord in the basement.  We decided to try the power strip.

After plugging the projector into the power strip, we had zero power.  Trial and error showed us that the power strip wasn't working, so it was back to the basement for the giant extension cord.  Nate drug it upstairs and that problem was solved.

We had other problems; picture was projecting upside down, wood trim was making it hard to trace, Texas was blocked by the shadow of some books, fabric marker was "dead".  More trouble shooting,  taking apart a large box to make a smooth surface behind our sheet, using a pencil, moving some books and we were finally tracing states.

In the next hour, Caleb and Hunter fixed a couple of new technical difficulties with the computer/projector and were able to finish the pencil tracing, take the fabric down and begin to go over the pencil markings with a marker.

Abraham and Chris joined me next.  They finished the marker tracing.  As they were admiring the map one of them said, "Wait, where is the rest of New England?"  Alas, a few states had not been traced in pencil.  So, we hung the sheet back up, turned the computer and projector back on, realigned everything and put New England on the map.

Labeling the states was the next step.   Abraham and Chris found some maps on the iPads that helped them with abbreviations for each state. 

When Kassidy and Kaler came at the end of the day, they designed a compass rose to add.  They also labeled the Great Lakes and the oceans.

Wow!  We made a lot of progress today.  The kids were great trouble shooters and problem solvers. 


Linda

An Adventure in Student Directed Project Based Learning

Good morning all!

I am really excited to share with you a new project here at the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program.  As you know, in our enrichment time we have been exploring and learning around the theme, National Treasure.  I have been trying to come up with a large project that the students can do sort of cooperatively this spring.  That is a little tricky, since we have 20 families, students of many ages and stages and you aren't all physically here at the same time.

A couple of years ago, you might remember The Castle.  We managed to build a HUGE castle in the classroom and each family became an expert in one aspect of medieval structure or life and added their section.  It just kept growing and expanding until it looked something like this:

So here's my big idea for this year... A HUGE map of the USA.  That's the first step.  A really large floor map of the country, but then, families or individual students will choose something that they want to become an expert about.  It could be a landmark, a National Park, a famous person, a building or institution.  The possibilities are endless and will be directed by the student's interests and passions.  Once they choose that special person, place, or thing to research, the end product will be some type of scale model that will be placed on the map.

All throughout this project, I will attempt to blog, tweet and do some video recording of the process.  I hope to make a short movie at the end.  

The first step is going to be deciding how to make an accurate floor size map of the USA.   In an attempt to make this an authentic experience, I plan to have students propose plans on how we should do this.  In the real world that adult live in, different firms make bids for jobs.  So, students can give me their ideas and proposals on how we should begin.  Once a process is chosen, then we will all work together to construct the map.  When the map is finished, it will be time to commence becoming experts in a narrower field.  The trick for me will be asking leading questions to quide learning without telling them how to do it.  If students take ownership, their learning will be higher.  I know it will be hard sometimes to keep my mouth shut.  I am confident that they will come up with better ideas than I have right now if I just let them and keep an open mind.

If you are interested in our progress, keep checking the blog.  Or, you can follow me on Twitter. (@mom43rs)  OR, you could also stop by and see our progress.  This is exciting!

Linda