Personal Finance class

This fall I'm going to teach a high school Personal Finance Class.  The idea is to learn about decisions they'll be met with in the next few years.  This will be 8 units, 3 weeks on, one week off, with discussion/field trip/discussion for each topic.  I think it will be a lot of fun.  (Figuring a half credit but the class lasts through the whole year -- not much homework)

Careers/Salaries/Resumes/Applications

• discuss with career coach

Banks and Credit Unions

• types of accounts, services
• field trip to bank or credit union
• credit

Renting an Apartment/Buying a house

• including field trip with realtor

Buying a car

• car dealership, loan

Insurance

• all types

Taxes

• 1040 EZ/1040
• where taxes go
• other deductions from a paycheck

Health Insurance and other benefits

and other things...

Two resources for this are:

• Financial Fitness for Life (highschool)
• Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers: A Parent-Friendly Curriculum for Teaching Teens to Handle Money, Live Moral Lives and Get Ready for Adulthood, 2nd Edition by Barbara Frank

Video: Teaching Reading

An interesting 10 min video about teaching reading and reading comprehension vs. teaching about the world and hooks in life to be able to interpret what is read.
http://youtu.be/RiP-ijdxqEc

Wonder if that's why homeschoolers (who are around adults and many other family interests day in and day out) often score higher on standardized tests...

Educational Philosophy Discussion

We just finished up a 3-month/3-session workshop on Educational Philosophy. Lots of great ideas. The co-facilitator and I both have high schoolers and younger -- but all of the participants of the workshop were homeschoolers (with experience) and their oldest was 5 to 8 yo.

Month 1: What is an Educational Philosophy
-- including what people are comfortable with as far as education and homeschooling
-- and what areas do people feel the most unsure about
-- how do you walk through an educational philosophy, what is the definition of education, what is a successful person

Month 2: Educational Paradigms
We all have lots of educational paradigms that we may or may not recognize. Nature/nurture, providing children with lots of free time versus helping them work within a structure, etc. The ones we recognize we feel strongly about are the ones that provide direction for the type of curriculum we choose, the type of framework we feel most comfortable with. The ones that are not as well defined in our minds are the ones that make us more vulnerable to others' opinions about what works most with them.

You can take a survey about your educational paradigms here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/educational_paradigms


Month 3: Based on your definition of education, what your long term goals are, and your educational paradigms, how do you actually plan out the year? Methods of planning objectives using math as the example were discussed, along with a few sources of organizational forms.

To see handouts and discussions from this workshop, check out the wiki:
http://homeschooltopics.wikispaces.com/

Decimal Street

Decimal Street:

My sons and I played this a lot while they were 3 to 6 yo — making up stories, moving people around, writing out the numbers (5 0 6).. By the time they approached carrying, they knew the how/why and concept of place value, carrying, etc. They also had Decimal Street pictured in their head for mental math problems.


The Story:

The Units Townhouse holds 9 of everything — 9 toothbrushes, 9 plates, 9 forks, 9 beds… (and the story goes on…). Units come to visit. If too many visitors comes, the Tens Moving Truck (a 10 block) comes down and moves them all over to the Tens Apartment with there are also 9 of everything. If too many 10’s come, the Hundreds Moving Truck takes them to the Hundreds Castle. If no one’s home, Mr. Zero looks after the place — he does not move in! If Units need to go to Disney World, a Ten may need to be moved back to the Units Apartment so enough units are there to go.

Materials:
Revised from Math-U-See and sized for Math-U-See manipulatives (which are great for building with and showing negative as well as positive numbers)

Directions: 
Print the "decimal_street.pdf" file on cardstock, cut out pieces and glue them to a large poster board. Decorate Decimal Street as the child desires.


Enjoy!

Initial Academic Plan for Kindergarten

Very initial look -- off the top of my head!
Of course, many more things to consider for Kindergarten than academics but I haven't planned them out yet.

Reading:
GOAL: 
To move from current level of slowly blending cvc words to:

• being able to recognize basic level K-1 Dolch words
• read cvc, cvcv, cv, and several cvcc words
• continue learning the phonics sounds of each letter and blends (from All About Spelling)
• want him to feel that he likes reading!
  

Sources:
Games for Reading by Peggy Kaye
Headsprout (online)
100 Easy Lessons
Leapster Star Wars Reading
Evan Moore Centers:  Phonics and Literacy (both K-1)
Some sight words

Books/Literature:
GOAL: 
To have him enjoy great books, the sound of language, artwork, creating books...

Sources:
Audio books
Magic Tree House
FIAR books


Hand Writing:
GOAL:  Improve handwriting so that it becomes more fluent.  Currently working on numbers and most lower case letters.  (Upper case letters are all recognizable).
Probably need to do a bit on hand position

Sources:
Games for writing
Handwriting without Tears -- manipulatives
LEGO, clay, sand/rice writing, sidewalk chalk, paint

Math:
GOAL:
To continue to explore numbers, quantities, measurements, and relationships between them
Continue to work on time and money
Place value, multiplication and division, writing number equations, functions, patterns, geometry...

Sources:
Evan Moore Math Center (K-1)
Maria's Math Club?
Singapore Math/other workbooks when it's helpful
Decimal Street games
100 chart
Add in some homemade Montessori methods?s

Science/History/Geography:
GOAL:  Explore all topics on a regular basis to get the "hooks" for more indepth learning later on.  Might be interesting to do 2 week units on topics -- alternating between Science and History?  Maybe a "theme of the 2 weeks" to focus all reading/internet videos/activities/games on...

Options:
Life cycles
Space
Magnets
Electricity
Water
Sink/float

Egypt
Greece
Rome
Vikings
Great Wall of China
Medieval Knights/Castles
Renaissance

Other:
Building
Animation
Tae Kwon Do?
Bicycling
Yoga?

Initial Plan for 10th Grade

Current plan (and this could definitely change!  I'm at the "extremely optimistic" phase!):

Literature/English/History/American Civics (2 credits):
English (Literature/Composition) and History will focus on American History and Civics.  The following sources will be used in combination to cover the topics.
The Great American Bestsellers:  Books that Shaped America
Institute for Excellence in Writing:  US History-Based Writing Lessons Civil War to Present
Connect the Thoughts:  History VII - American Civics—An Owner's Manual
Thinkwell's American Government

Geometry (1 credit):
Math-U-See Geometry

Biology (1 credit):
Pre-College Course in Hands-On Biology by the Contemporary Science Center
Supplemented with the following texts/study guides
Thinkwell's Biology
Campbell's Biology:Concepts and Connections

Spanish II (1 credit)
TBD

Electives

• Game Design (1/2 credit)
• 2D and 3D game design
  
• Personal Finance (1/2 credit)
• Physical Education (1/2 credit)
• Basic Engineering (CAD, Programming, ME, Robotics)
  
• Basic Business (marketing, graphic design, public speaking, presentations, meetings)

Montessori Materials Links

An excellent blog about making your own Montessori things at home...
http://homemademontessori.blogspot.com/search/label/math

What are "Grammar Filling Boxes"????
And other discount montessori things...
http://www.alisonsmontessori.com

I really like these number/place value boards
http://www.montessoriland.com/site/1270021/product/ID_%202051

Shiller Math -- look at this a bit and try the first year diagnostic to see where Jm's at or how useable it is:
https://www.shillermath.com/sm3/showitem.php?itemcd=K01-DL5-0408


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