Thursday, February 7, 2008 IEW Course notes. Posted in Home Schooling I really enjoyed this course - but one does have to be careful attending these courses - the speakers are speaking about their product & their ideal home school. There is NO right way to home school - each child is different NOR is their enough time in the day to do everything you want to do. So when the FEAR & DOUBTS crept in - and I know they crept in other mums heads too  I stopped & confirmed what is working & what I am doing correct to the speakers model of a perfect home school. My notes in no order. Spelling Years ago spelling was better than now a days. - I personally was taught the PC way - Mum told me teachers told her I was trying hence why my spelling words were ticked correct & not corrected grrrrr - so sorry folks if my spelling fair gets up your nose - It is getting better with blogging.- I have a purpose these days to be a better speller. My changes to our spelling - letting James spell oral - he was thrilled to hear this as we have had many head butts - when I make him write his words down. Andrew recommends word families & word sounds. Lots of frequent spelling work & going over the words. He suggested spelling bee winners win because they know root words & he shared how helpful it is knowing Latin & Greek root words - hence I brought Rummy Roots & James & Abbey have enjoyed playing today. The Basics I am pleased to say we did do the following when kids were younger - yes wish had done more but..... narration, dictation & copy work. All these three things are real important & if I was starting over I would really do it much more than we did - we did use primary language lessons which covers these 3 things. Dictation is still being done in Abbey's school work with Anne of Green Gables study. - So is copy work. Narration I will pull in more when we use IEW - we have been missing the step of writing the key out lines & then reading it back. I found Andrew really drove this home to me how important this step is. PLUS it is a brilliant step for when kids go to uni - if they can take their lecture notes & read it back to someone it helps cement it in their brain and then write it out- good thing! Public Speaking Ahhh an area we haven't done but I think is real important.  Andrew recommends very short & frequent. We will bring this in when the kids are doing their IEW - make notes re their IEW work. Practice with notes on music stand. Hold music stand look at notes - look up & speak. (I should point out here too that when Ab went to school she was one of the better public speakers in her class & her teacher wanted her on the school debating team - not bad for not covering it before in home I thought) Then branch out to using a triangle pattern to get your body moving while speaking then branch into actions with hands. A very good tool. Andrew stresses we want to move our kids from the hard to the easy - just like a sports coach would - by doing lots of frequent practice it will get easy. Even things we don't like! Motivation This was aimed at boys - getting them motivated He stressed it has to be relevant & meaningful to the child Pursue their interest! Inspire them more Contrive - eg the things one has just gotta learn eg times tables - have goals or games for them to achieve it. No home school should be a Martha Stewart type home school - now I LOVED this - if you could see my place at them moment - it is hardly Martha And get rid of the TV - read lots to your kids at least 3 hours per day. Or use books on tape. • Post A Comment! • Send to a Friend! Comments