I updated my unit planner to include a four-week calendar and some extra sections. I used it yesterday to map out our Ships and Floating unit per the KONOS Volume 1 Book. Please be advised, however, that if you CLICK on it... and it doesn't come up at first... it is probably because TOO MANY people have tried in the past hour. Try again later and you'll eventually get to see it. You can download it if you like (you must use Adobe Reader or a compatible PDF reader). Just please drop a tip in the jar if you do. I'll be forever grateful! Eventually I plan to get an entire plethora of PDF pages posted to the blog. Maybe after this June's re-design for my 2nd blogiversary?
Fluid Field Trips
The kiddos and I are excited to get to go on some boat-ish field trips in the next week. We are visiting a historical ship, a boat race, a marina, a river-boat, and building a model boat to float on a pond. At least those are the plans right now. I think this unit will take less than two full weeks if we play our cards right and stick to the tasks at hand. We might even go fishing with friends this Friday (which has a little to do with floating, right? Or rather, sinking). Maybe we will learn the art of picking good skipping rocks while we are fishing. I used to love skipping rocks across the water as a kid.
Putting the Ship Back on Course
After all the hullabaloo of the Homeschool Blog Awards, my hubby has reminded me of a few simple, but important facts. Here's what he said, and I quote to you: "Heather, you are a Christian first, a wife second, a TEACHER third, ...and THEN you are a blogger." Wow. How profound is that?! I suppose everyone around here was feeling a bit overlooked during the nominations and voting process for HSBA! Time to get back to my first three duties and put blogging on the back-burner.
Diving Deep into the Archives
So... in case you wanted some good reading, I'll encourage you to check out my archives for some meaty morsels:
Why I Homeschool
Homeschooling - Starting Out
Sprittibee's Homeschool Series (my homeschool records catalogue)
Field Trip Foto Friday: Bolivar Lighthouse
Field Trip Foto Friday: Houston Ship Channel Tour
Field Trip Foto Friday: Galveston Beach
Sailing the Seven Seas
..or you could wander over to the Homeschool Blog Awards and check out the nominees' and the winners' sites. Hopefully I'll have a PAGE up for the 2006 Nominees as soon as I can get around to finding some spare time in which to engross myself with mindnumbing HTML code. Until then, check out the link to the 2006 Nominee post... or the link to the 2006 Winners. I am sure at least one of the blog-stars has something more interesting to talk about than PDF files, floating field trips and putting first things first.
I saw a thousand fearful wracks:Sea you later, sailor!
A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon:
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
~ William Shakespeare
Buzz Words: Homeschooling, Time, Priorities, Boats, Floating, Friends, Homeschool, Fun, Field Trips, Plans, Archives, KONOS, Unit Study, Lesson Plans, Parenting, Blogging, Homeschool Blog Awards, Life, Education, Wife, Christian, PDF Files, Teaching, Blog Awards, Winners, Lesson Planner
7 comments:
Hi Sprittibee
I want to thank you SO SO much for the Homeschool Blog Awards that you and the other ladies organised. I was one of the nominees, and enjoyed the 2 fun weeks! You did well and I feel you ladies need a pat on the back!
I look forward to the next event!
Thanks
Fee
Thanks Fee. ;) I wish you lived closer. You seem like such a fun lady. I voted for you!
Wow! That planner is awesome! But, do you really need to do that much of the legwork yourself with KONOS? It looks like a great curriculum program but I need things a bit more pulled together as I tend to get distracted easily and soon would end up spending 3 hours researching books on the specified topic.
Thanks Jenny. A lot of the planning for KONOS is already laid out in the book, I just like to write it out on the paper because when I WRITE notes, I remember them better. If you don't like writing, you can buy the KONOS book and make notes in your margins in pencil (or make photocopies and mark them all up in pen and check things off as you do them). You could make photo copies of the KONOS Volume and cut them and put them on baseball card holding pages also - and pull out each individual cut assignment and throw it away as you do them. Or you could use my planner or one of the many other great planners out there. Cindy Pilling has a great planner, I hear. I just haven't ever been able to afford to buy a planner, so I made my own after seeing what a few other KONOS moms did.
I also tend to get distracted and have a hard time with follow through... so here is my method:
1. Read through the Volume in the Unit I am wanting to do and use my Planner to write down the books, examples, bible verses, activities and other items that I plan on doing (sometimes I even do this on scratch paper first and then re-copy it onto my planner because I might cross off activities as I need to save time in the unit).
2. When I write the activities down, I NUMBER or LETTER them so that I can add them to the calendar page on the days we hope to accomplish them (so I'll only have to write 1. or A. instead of the activity in such a small space).
3. Now that my unit is planned out, I use the checklist to remind myself of the things I need to get done, make notes as I need to as I plan wrap-ups or field trips, and I use the book list to check the books out at the library instead of taking my KONOS Volume with me (too heavy). If I don't find the book, I don't put a checkmark by it.
4. As I do the unit, I cross out the items I do while adding them to my teacher planner as completed items. That way, my teacher planner (lesson planner) has the completed items I've done as records for the children. The teacher planner is what I use to create my final lists of what we did for my blog. I have one for each year we have done school and continue to keep a book list that has all of the names of every book we have ever read at home.
If you can't tell, I like to make lists and keep records. I don't think I'll ever have any trouble if we end up moving to a place where records are necessary. I also keep boxes of paperwork from each year that we do school... so most of their work is available if I need to go back and look at it. One summer after we move to another house, I plan to let the kids help me make "Portfolios" from each year and get rid of the things they don't care about anymore. Then I'll have binders on a shelf instead of boxes in a closet!
Hi!
Thank you so much for sharing your planners and so many Konos ideas. Please know you are a blessing.
Beth
I was just wondering, if the konos planner is still available? I would love to see it, but, when I click on the link, it goes to geo cities and says that link is no longer accessible.
Thanks!
I had just started using your KONOS planner that I downloaded long ago toward the end of the year. I came back to print another and the link is no longer valid! :( Will you please send me a copy? mary.hawkins.wol@gmail.com
Post a Comment