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Category: Homeschool For Success

  • How to Help Your Teen Succeed on the SAT Math Exam

    Kathryn (Bell) Gomes
    Kathryn (Bell) Gomes

     

    By Kathryn (Bell) Gomes

    As a senior in high school I was guaranteed a full-tuition scholarship to Eastern University before I even officially applied.  It wasn’t because of my rigorous course load, well-written application essay, or volunteer service.  The scholarship was based solely on my SAT scores.

    You might disagree with this snapshot approach to accepting and awarding students, but it should convince your high schooler to study.

    The SATs are challenging, but it is realistic to think students can dramatically improve their scores.  Here are the three main reasons a student doesn’t score well and all of these can be addressed:

    1)     They forget. The math on the SAT is not that broad, it only includes the most essential concepts of Algebra I, geometry, and Algebra II.  But most students have moved well beyond these courses and need to brush up on the basics before the test.

    2)     They don’t prioritize preparing for the test.  Both the SATs and PSATs are normally taken in the fall.  Classes have just started and there are always countless assignments to be completed.  How do you balance AP courses, volleyball tournaments, and that hefty Gruber’s SAT Guide?  It’s difficult but in the long run earning a better math score might be more important than an “A” on that next English exam. (My mom found a way to count my SAT prep work towards my math or English credits for the year.)

    3)     They don’t learn time-saving strategies.  Many of the most difficult SAT problems can be answered quickly if students know certain tricks.  The questions are designed to be solved in a minute or less. Students who use an elaborate formula or work through 15 different steps have missed an easier method.  However, many popular math programs homeschoolers use do not take time to teach these strategies.

    I treated test prep as a part time job in high school. I took the SATs/PSATs a total of 5 times. (A bit obsessive?  Perhaps.) But considering the scholarship money my SAT scores earned me it was definitely a “well-paying” part time job.

    Kathryn Gomes teaches SAT math prep online for Aim Academy. She is in her seventh year as a high school math teacher outside of Philadelphia. She was a presidential scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was awarded 36 credits for her AP and SAT exam scores earned during high school.

     

     

  • College Prep Science at Home? Here’s What We Did.

    Vicki-Dincher-300x160My kids love to needle me by telling me the best teacher they had in high school was Vicki Dincher. She was also the coolest (she played bass guitar). Her science classes at our high school co-op were always the most popular — and they still are.

    Well, I know how to capitalize on a good thing when I see it: I convinced Vicki to join me in teaching online after we both finished homeschooling. And didn’t she just go and beat me at that game, too! I’ve never seen anyone master technology faster than Vick. Her lectures are punctuated with illustrations, video clips, live demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations with animation and, starting this year, a state-of-the-art microscope that she and all her students can look through simultaneously — no matter where they are in the world! Wow, I never thought teaching online could compete with a live classroom, but technology allows a teacher to do some things you just can’t do in person — and in some ways online instruction can be a better context for learning. For one thing, Vicki records all her classes and stores them in the cloud where her students can watch them repeatedly as they prepare for SAT, AP or CLEP exams.

  • Creative Writing: Interactive and Aware

    by Lilianna Serbicki, Aim Academy English Teacher

    While there are a myriad of writing guidelines and “best practices”, creative writing in particular has a very intuitive element. A delicate balance between discipline and individual expression is required. This is why detailed critiques – from both myself and student peers – are such a vital portion of my Creative Writing course. My students’ imaginations are given free rein and then continually “pared down”, with elegant and succinct writing as our goal.

    My creative writing class has a three-pronged focus: literary analysis, student writing, and peer critiques. Each section of the course focuses on a different element or genre: Character, Dialogue, Setting, Tone, Conflict, Point of View, Plot, Science Fiction, Realism, Poetry, Drama, etc. As we explore each topic, we analyze a work that highlights the appropriate element, complete a creative piece, and participate in peer critiques. We study short pieces by authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Katherine Mansfield, James Thurber, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and others.

    The goal of isolating literary elements is to help students write with a greater awareness. All of my recent students were bright, enthusiastic, eager readers. However, even a well-read high-schooler who is working independently may not consider how individual elements such as tone, point of view, and dialogue enrich a piece of fiction. A writer must deliberately use each of these elements to tell their story in the best way using the best choice of words; last year we often worked through several drafts of a single short story to experience how writing evolves. As we added new elements to our repertoire, students were able to “build upon” the skills learned in each project.

    I am immensely proud of my creative writing classes the past few years. My students were able to build a full writing portfolio for use in their homeschool portfolio, contests applications, literary magazines, and other venues. Several students have won  Scholastic Art and Writing Awards; others have won college scholarships for their writing.

    I look forward to a wonderful 2013-2014 year! I will close with a few words from Creative Writing student Carmen Paddock. Carmen’s sympathetic analysis of human nature and keen ear for dialogue made her pieces uniquely poignant!

    “Mrs. Serbicki’s Creative Writing class is a must not only for those students interested in fiction and poetry, but for any student wanting to expand their writing horizons beyond the research paper (and have a great time while doing so)…Covering both the elements and forms of fiction made it unique and well-rounded among the other online creative writing classes that I’ve seen.

    While there was some variation in the structure, we read and discussed a famous piece of fiction one week and then worked on a related fiction project the next; while prompts were (thankfully) often provided, there was a lot of leeway to pursue our own ideas and plot lines!  We also had weekly Skype chats which were wonderful for that jolt of inspiration – chatting with Mrs. Serbicki and classmates was a great way to free writer’s block!  Over the course of the year my favorite projects were the character study, the dialogue study, the speculative fiction assignment, and the poetry weeks…I feel that Mrs. Serbicki’s instruction helped me get past my fear of writing fiction – under her guidance I actually finished stories – and fine-tuned my narration and plot development, steering me away from melodrama into honest, engaging tales.  I highly, highly recommend this class to any high school student interested in honing storytelling skills or just looking for a fun alternative to traditional English courses.”

     

     

  • How Do You Get Kids Interested in Writing?

    It’s Dr. Deb Friday, and this week’s discussion question is about writing. Some children naturally love to put their thoughts down on paper and they start composing stories early. But many find the creative process daunting and the expectation that they must write things down frustrating. What do you do in the latter case? And is this practice even important?

    First, it is important. The process of composing our thoughts and crafting them into written language is a powerful brain-building technique. Many kids find writing difficult because there are so many choices to make: What is a good idea to write about? What words should I use? What order should I put my thoughts in? We can help them embrace this process by assuring them that making all these decisions is great exercise for our brains. The more they practice generating and ordering their ideas, the faster they will become at this decision-making process. More importantly, the practice of writing regularly is the key habit that produces good writers. And the future belongs to the eloquent. No matter what path they head down up ahead, they are going to have to use written language to open doors of opportunity and to complete their daily tasks on the job and at home. Look at how often you or your spouse must write today! E-mails, Facebook posts, texts, letters of protest or appeal, proposals, job queries, journal entries. We communicate far more often with written language these days than face to face.

    Here are 10 tips for getting kids interested in writing:

    1. Set aside a regular time to write. Stick to it. Slowly, even the most reluctant will start producing ideas to put to paper.

    2. Let them choose what to write about.

    3. If they are stumped, give them two or three suggestions, but let them choose.

    4. Find new experiences to prime the pump. “Hey kids, why not jot down what you noticed about some of the animals you watched during our field trip to the dairy farm this week.”

    5. Don’t emphasize spelling and grammatical correctness. Save that for only a few drafts you polish to perfection. Make their ideas what you talk about most.

    6. Give them an audience for their writing. It can be sharing in a regular writers’ group or around the family dinner table once a week.

    7. You write too and share your compositions as well.

    8. Give them cool writing gear or an online portfolio: a special pen, a unique journal, a personal blog or Facebook page they can share with family and friends.

    9. Encourage them to illustrate their stories and reports.

    10. Find opportunities for them to connect with favorite authors — most have websites where they interact with readers. Watch for author visits in your area to libraries, schools or book stores.

    What ideas can you add to the list?

  • Who Says Science Isn’t Creative?

    by Vicki Dincher

     

    Creativity isn’t just for the arts and humanities. It requires a great deal of creativity to think like a scientist. In fact, some of the world’s greatest scientists were also accomplished musicians and writers. One of the best ways to encourage a love of the sciences in your children is to foster their innate creativity when it comes to learning science principles. Think about what an engineer goes through as she attempts to design a new package to keep Oreo cookies fresh and unbroken until we get them home. (Did you know this is quite a large industry and pays newly graduated engineers big bucks!) There is a lot of creative thinking that goes into designing and refining the perfect package. And determining where to start and how to tweak things to produce desired results all require creativity. The same can be said for all great scientific advancements. Imagine where we’d be today if Alexander Fleming didn’t think creatively when he found mold growing on his petri dish of bacteria! Cultivating creativity in your home school science curriculum can help improve critical-thinking skills, motivation, and engagement in reluctant learners as well as helping students begin to understand the vital role of creativity in the development of new scientific information.

    So, what might this look like? Well, picture the average 8th grader who is studying the concept of motion. He should certainly read about motion and Newton’s laws, but I’m not sure how motivating and engaging that might be. But if you assign  him the
    project of designing a water rocket that will fly over a specific distance (say 50 meters or more) and then to spark his creativity tell him to study the physical characteristics of a variety of different balls (baseball, tennis ball, football, etc.) as they travel through the air, he just might learn something in spite of himself. (As a note, I do think these types of active learning approaches are great in small groups, so definitely include siblings or a small co-op class and you’ll find even more engagement occurring.)

    Make sure your student investigates the relationship between the ball’s physical characteristics (like mass, volume, density, shape, material, whether solid or hollow, etc.) and the distance it travels when thrown. Allow your student to decide how to analyze each relationship and how to control as many variables as possible – this will definitely bring out his creativity! For example – should each ball be thrown in the same manner, bringing the arm back to just the same spot, releasing the ball at just the same spot? how many throws for each ball should there be? how can we figure out where the center of gravity is? – see what I mean?

    After the data is collected, it should be analyzed in light of Newton’s laws and momentum and then another creative opportunity arises—designing a water rocket that has similar characteristics as the ball that traveled the farthest. With just a two-liter soda bottle, water, tire pump, and various household items used to modify the shape of the bottle and add ballast, students should be given the task of designing, creating, testing, tweaking (lots of creativity involved in testing and tweaking – how much water to use? ballast or no ballast? etc.), and sharing the ideas that led to their rockets. This, by the way, is the same process that engineers and working scientists use every day. I guarentee that your student will walk away with a better understanding of Newton’s laws of motion—not to mention how to approach and try to solve a problem—when learning through a water rocket experience than without one. And remember, there are no failures with this type of active learning. As Thomas Edison so wisely pointed out, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If you’d like a little more background information on building water rockets (but let your student figure things out on their own) check out the websites below.

    We can use water rocket (active) learning for all concepts of science. It does take a little more time and it might get a little messy (make sure to launch your water rocket outside), but the payout is so much greater. And isn’t that part of the reason that we home school?

     

    https://wwong.homestead.com/rockets.html

    https://www.instructables.com/id/Soda-Bottle-Water-Rocket/?ALLSTEPS

     

    Vicki Dincher has been teaching science to home educated students for 17 years and teaches physical science, biology, and physics for Aim Academy.

  • The Best of the Web for Teaching Writing

    Aim Academy Pre-AP English teacher, Lauren Bailes, has compiled a list of the best interactive writing tools on the web you can use to help your kids learn to love the process of writing.  We’re making it available as a free PDF file you can download here.

    Here is a snippet you will find inside:

    Select & organize
    https://www.exploratree.org.uk

    There are thousands of graphic organizers out there, but
    some are a little stale. Exploratree is the next generation of graphic
    organizer. With dozens of templates plus customizable shapes, colors, and the
    possibility for collaboration, this site is actually capable of capturing
    thinking as it happens – and as it changes. (Bonus tech tool: use this teaching guide
    for additional pointers with many graphic organizers.)