Don’t forget the electives!

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Welcome to the July 2010 edition of A Living Education E-zine!

July and August are curriculum season for many who start their school year in September. If you haven’t already planned your children’s electives, I hope this ezine will encourage you to think further than the Three R’s.

Electives can be anything that you add onto your child’s basic curriculum. I love adding things for each individual child that help them develop their own talents and interests.

In our home we try to stay on the same basic themes when it comes to Bible study, history, geography and science but beyond this we tailor make our children’s curriculum to cater for their delights and passions.

This covers learning areas in:
Art (drawing, history of, painting, appreciation), craft (pottery, sewing, candle making etc), music appreciation and learning musical instruments

I also look at sports and extra curricular activities as part of my children’s electives.

In our home different children do rock climbing, mountain biking, swimming, ballroom dance, tennis, art lessons and horse riding.

The one reason I look at sport as an elective is for budgeting purposes. This last years planning session saw me adding up the cost of what our children’s extra curricular items would cost when we considered piano, drum and guitar lessons alongside their sports.

We also had to take into consideration the time involved in getting our children to and from their lessons and when everything had been considered, we realised that we could not afford outside lessons and the time involved.

Homeschool Music Programs.

This led us to looking for self tutoring programs for music. We felt that as our children were showing an interest in these instruments we needed to “take the gap” and help them to develop it. Music research has proven many things: better school and work performance, accelerated awareness, and increased learning potential to name a few. According to the College Entrance Examination Board, students with 4 or more years of music study scored 34 points higher than their peers on verbal scholastic aptitude tests (SAT’s) and 18 points higher on math SAT’s.

After having worked with the programs for the last 8 months I feel that we can give a thumbs up for each of these self tutoring programs and recommend them to other homeschoolers.

Drums:
As part of our homeschool curriculum budget we bought a set of digital drums. We chose digital as the child can work with ear phones or on a soft volume and not have neighbours and other family members disturbed with the sound of beginner drummers :-) My husband found a drum tutoring program for our two oldest children to work with. Tommy Igoe has a wonderful way of teaching anyone of any age to get basic and more complicated drumming rhythms with a series of DVD’s. So if you have keen drummers, then do consider this program.

Guitar:
Jean Welles’ Worship Guitar Class was a true Godsend as she teaches children from as young as 5 right through to adults how to play lovely simple worship songs on the guitar. The first DVD Kids Worship Guitar Class helps young learners to get clear notes on their guitar, 11 basic guitar chords, how to read guitar tab and chord charts and 6 worship songs that they can play and sing to.

Her Worship Guitar Class DVD’s are a set of 4 where she takes the student from reading and playing basic chords to full length worship songs. As our son learns these songs, our elder daughter gets the drum rhythm and our younger daughter plays it on the keyboard. It has been so wonderful to hear our children working together on their instruments – and praising the Lord in song – with the basic that Jean has taught them.

The price of the DVD’s and all the free extras are a fraction of the cost that lessons would cost with a tutor.

Piano:
We have discovered a great way to get our children learning the piano in leaps and bounds – courtesy of the creators of the Music Wizard Group.

MWG is offering a complimentary report entitled “How Music Can Dramatically Affect Your Child’s Development and Life-Time Success.” Written by The Foundation for Universal Music Literacy, this downloadable eBook contains current scientific literature concerning music and the mind. Click Here for your complimentary copy.

Whilst we bought this program (which by the way works out to less than one year of paying for a tutor) for only one of our children, we have found all 4 to have taken an interest in it and each child is working through it at their own pace.

Homeschool Art Programs and extras:

We love and regularly use Artistic Pursuits Homeschool Art Curriculum for all 4 of our children.

Homeschool Craft Co-op

As a way to keep elective costs down, for our one very craft orientated daughter, we have a small homeschool craft co-op where each parent in the group arranges a craft afternoon once a week. What they cover in this group varies each time from sewing to beadwork, cooking to card making. We also plan to bring in professional crafters to teach their skills to our daughter’s in the future.

I hope this little glimpse into our homeschool curriculum will encourage you to look for ways to include electives into your children’s curriculum for the 2010 – 2011 school year.

Take care until next time,
God’s richest blessings to you as you homeschool,
Wendy

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