 How in the world am I expected to work full time, from home, AND school my children?This is the million dollar question! And while I can't spell out exactly what it will look like for your family, I can offer some insights based on 15 years of homeschooling, over 25 years working with kids, a psych background with studies in psychoeducation and developmental stages, and my work as a college professor. I also happen to be a single mother that's juggled working and grad school with homeschooling. Your children do not need to be schooled; they need to learn. There's a huge world of difference between the two. Stick with me here... school is only one way to facilitate learning. It's designed for 20-30 kids to be educated at one time by someone who does not know each individual well. Talk to any teacher; much of the day is not spent in actual learning but in transitioning from one topic to another. The US public ed system was also designed with the stated intent (seriously; read the history) to quell curiosity and creativity which are two of the driving forces for learning in children. Until kids are taught that learning is a boring chore, curiosity and learning are as innate to them as swimming is to fish and flying is to birds. Self-directed learners or unschoolers - kids 100% in charge of their own education - get into their top choices of colleges. They graduate college at higher rates than their public schooled peers and report higher than average job satisfaction and overall happiness. How is this possible? Because learning is innate. I get that you're probably not ready to unschool your kids and might even want them to go back to school as soon as possible. That's ok. I only want to demonstrate how learning can occur without school while they're at home - or with very little of anything that looks like school. Ok, so how do my kids learn without school?Now, you've got the right question! :) How do you learn something new? If it's a deep-dive for a career you might seek out schooling. Otherwise, you learn through real life, community, and relationships. Think about a topic you were recently curious about. You probably read a book or did a Google search. Maybe you watched a documentary. No doubt you found others with similar interests and discussed it with them. It probably came up in conversation with your friends and family too. Each exploration led to more knowledge, and each conversation gave you a chance to refine your thinking and articulate your knowledge on that topic. This is how kids learn best, according to research - when their senses and emotions are fully engaged in topics they are interested in, that are relevant to their real lives. Finally, remember, your kid learned to roll over, sit, crawl, walk, talk, go potty, feed themselves, dress themselves, and heaps more without any formal education - simply by being in relationship with you and others. They can learn to read, write and explore every other topic in the same way. I think I see the paradigm shift... But what does this look like in everyday life for us?Below is a sample daily rhythm. Adjust it to meet your own family's needs. Use it as a jumping off point to add in your own ideas. Family breakfast On Sundays you have a pancake tradition and you introduced the new "word of the week". The challenge is to use this new word correctly as often as possible throughout the week. Set a good example and make it fun! On other days, you read a chapter aloud to them from Tumtum and Nutmeg or other high quality literature at breakfast. Depending on their age, you spend an additional 5 minutes noting the weather, day/month, and on a math exercise. Literally, you're looking at 5 minutes here.... for littles you might do a counting finger play. For slightly olders you might skip count, or maybe you'll recite the 6 times tables together while banging out rhythms on the table. Kids returning to school? Add in 5 minutes reviewing their spelling list daily. Then you close your AM time with a song. Not morning people AT ALL? Maybe this is best done at lunch time and in the AM you want to let your kids sleep in so you an work before they're up. Or maybe you want to get everyone out for a few minutes of fresh air in the AM. Again, adjust this as needed. Subjects covered: English language arts, math, music, maybe more depending on the read aloud Bonus: Kids are much better at leaving you alone for awhile when you've spent some time filling their emotional banks up. Work time You begin your workday. Kids returning to school when possible should probably spend 5-20 minutes at the breakfast table doing their "work" - a math worksheet and an ELA worksheet to keep them up with the public school curriculum. Next, send them outside to play, run, vent some energy.... Back inside, they can have morning quiet time where they play with whatever toys while listening to an audio book. Choose something with some history or science in it. For example, Magic Treehouse is great for learning history/social studies. Set them up with a community resource in the AM. Maybe they have an online game time with friends or take an out school class or meet with an online tutor for an hour. Have them make lunch. Make a big deal of how big and responsible they are. Subjects covered: math, ELA, PE, social studies Lunch Break You quickly eat your lunch, review what was fact vs fiction in causal conversation about their Magic Treehouse (or other) audio book. Read a short nature story or part of one - fiction or otherwise. Then you go outside for a nature walk. Note what's happening with trees, leaves, plants going to seed, animals, insects, etc. At some point, you do another math exercise. You shout as loudly as you can or use a designated funny voice to recite whatever math facts are appropriate for their level. Embrace the crazy! Get some loudness out!! Shout/spell their spelling words together. They've had to be quiet a lot....! Alternately, end lunch break with wrestling or huge squeezes or whatever form of physical contact your kids enjoy best. Then slow it down with a back rub or something that settles them down for an afternoon rest watching a movie or reading a book or whatever. Again, this is about having a daily rhythm of energetic times contrasted with quieter down times. And it's about filling your kids' emotional banks so they can give you some quiet and space to work. Subjects covered: social studies, science, math, ELA, maybe PE Afternoon Set them up with a fun activity or another community engagement activity online. Designate more outdoor time. Bribe them with extra money or a weekly takeout from a fave place if they can get everything spotlessly cleaned up from lunch (seriously though...these are rough times for everyone so make it FUN, and give them a bit of slack if it's not absolutely perfect; help the to feel like you're all on the *same team* making this work for everyone). Have them explore and watch 3 BrainPop videos. Any school teacher should be able to give you access to this for free; otherwise the subscription is worthwhile. Know your kid's rhythms... do they need downtime after lunch? How about a movie or reading time if they enjoy reading? Realize that after that downtime they'll need to move again. That's a good time for you to take a coffee break, get them outside, and blow off some ENERGY. You'll figure out how it all works best for you... be willing to experiment, to discuss with your kids what did vs did not work about each day, and how to make it all better so that *everyone's* needs are being met. Kids are pretty wise when you include them in this stuff and they feel heard. And they're more likely to listen to you when you say "I really needed more quiet at x time when I was having my meeting, but I think you were needing more activity then. How can we make this work for everyone?" Subjects covered: many, depending on activities After work.... Again, you need to focus on connection when you're done working. Let them help make dinner. This includes math skills of measuring, sorting, dividing, counting, etc. Dinner This is a good time to discuss what they've been learning about. Let it come up naturally in conversation. "What did you decide to learn about on BrainPop today?" After they answer "Oh yeah... I remember when I was a kid and learned about that _____" or maybe "Oh that's so cool! I didn't know that. Tell me more!" or "Wow! you know I read in the newspaper recently that ______." The key here is to be an engaged parent/friend not try to sound like a teacher. :) Evening Take 20 minutes after dinner to check over their breakfast ELA and math worksheets and review anything tricky. Do a family cleanup. (Aim for easy to clean dinners, use of the dishwasher, or use of paper plates.) Make it fun! Let the kids pick the music. Have a cleaning dance party. Then do an evening activity. Maybe Mondays are for baking (math); Tuesdays are family game night and you listen to music of the 50's (math and music); Wednesdays are art night. You share a favorite painting from a book/online. Everyone does an arts/crafts project. You listen to classical music or jazz music.... (art and music). Thursdays are poetry night. You read poetry while drinking tea and eating deserts from fancy dishes (ELA). Fridays are pizza and movie night of course. Pay attention to how many subjects can be learned via movies/fiction. You might be surprised! Documentaries can be fun and informative, but so can historical fiction shows you watch (Little House or Call the Midwife). Sci-fi series can lead to discussions and google searches on AI and physics and space. Keep it casual and adventurous. Subjects covered - all required and more Bedtime A 30-60 minute read aloud at bedtime can calm kids and provides an incredibly rich opportunity for learning to continue. As you can see... with just a bit of intention, your child is learning every subject covered in school and more merely by engaging with real life! :) Hmm... Got any more ideas!When learning doesn't look like school it never ends! Weekends are great for a longer walk, hike, snowshoe, sledding or other nature adventure which counts as both science and PE. And don't forget about things like feeding birds, a weekly trip to the library (ask them what topic they want to learn about; it's great seeing what they come up with!!), outdoor sculpture parks, watching a play/ballet/musical or live music event online, following live-cams online that show their favorite animals in zoos or in the wild, online martial arts or dance or other classes, and so on. There is a world of opportunities for learning just waiting to be discovered. That's why during non-covid-19 times we see the world as our classroom (it's wonky even for us veteran homeschoolers right now!). Kids grocery shopping with you? Teach them about unit prices. Let them weigh produce and estimate cost. Teach them how to analyze your grocery spending by looking at the mean, median, and mode on the receipt. Let kids help plan and execute the grocery budget and menu planning. Gently correct grammar in real life. Play MadLibs and allow all the crazy "potty" words you don't normally allow. Discuss current events. Listen to audio books in the car. The more you think of learning outside of a school context, the more you'll find it happens everywhere. Finally, remember these things: 1. Play is the single best thing for cognitive development through the early elementary years! 2. Neuroscientists have found our brains are wired to remember things in the context of stories. Read to them! Tell stories! 3. Movement should be a part of play and is vital to brain development - let your kids get dirty! Embrace rolling, skipping, dancing, tiptoeing, running, swimming, sliding, swinging, climbing etc through mud, grass, leaves, snow, water, trees, pebbles, etc So that's all I have to do to homeschool?Haha you didn't *really* think NYS was going to be that easy, did you?
You'll need to record and file paperwork to the school superintendent's office if your child is age 6 or older. Check out my How to Homeschool in NYS post which gives you a brief overview in plain English and links to the NYS regs. For more resources and ideas, check the learning resources or homeschooling/unschooling tabs on the side of this page. Finally, be wiling to have fun and be flexible! You won't get your family's rhythms and needs all met perfectly on the first try. In fact, they'll change as your kids grow. Keep lines of communication open and keep being flexible. You can do this!
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 You've decided to homeschool. You've figured out the NYS regs (or whatever state you're in). The big question now is what curriculum to use - or not use.
Disclaimer. We're unschoolers. I believe strongly that curiosity is as innate to being human as swimming is to fish and flying to birds. Children want to learn about their world and become functioning adults - unless they have been taught by schools that learning can only happen in ways that are boring and that they aren't good at. Check out The Heart of Unschooling, Q&A to learn more and to find out if it really prepares kids for college and real life. That said, I fully support that each family must find what works for them and few will actually unschool. When folks first think of homeschooling they think of replicating school at home. Ultimately, very few homeschoolers stay in this place. There's a very wide spectrum from school-at-home on the one hand to unschooling on the other hand. Most homeschoolers end up somewhere in the middle, finding out that reading/writing/worksheets/textbooks are not usually the most ideal way for their child to learn. In fact, research shows that children learn best when in relationship with others with multiple senses engaged in an activity that interests them. Think about when you want to learn something... I bet you seldom order a textbook, fill out worksheets, and take a test. ;) You probably Google, read a *REAL* book, talk to people who know more than you, and do some hand's on experimenting. You probably talk to people about what you're learning because you're excited about it and discuss it with other folks interested in the same topic. This is the real life way that knowledge gets reinforced and built upon. Most folks starting off want a curriculum at least for reference, but keeping an open mind to how learning can work outside of that curriculum is important too. Ask around on homeschool pages and you'll get 101 different recommendations for curriculums. Go ahead and choose one. Just hold it loosely. Use the wording I recommend in my How to Homeschool in NYS post so you can change things up if you find something else that works better. And be willing to follow your child's lead when they go down a rabbit hole and want to veer off the curriculum. That's the joy of learning happening right there! Celebrate it! See my post on some of our favorite learning resources along with our homeschool/unschool posts over the years for ideas of how subjects can be covered via real life. Here are a few ways learning has happened naturally, over the years, in our home.... in note form for each subject. Math - we skip counted, counted by 5's and 10's and 100's in the car. We made up stupid/nonsense/gross poems for the times tables. We watched the zany math antics dot com and the British Maths Mansion on YouTube. We played the Dragon Box app and the Prodigy math game. We read library story books on math topics such as Multiplying Menace. This got us through middle school math. For high school, my daughter meets weekly with a tutor. I don't do high school math! English - we read 1001 library books; we read books we own; we listened to audio books; usually I did the reading since my daughter has dyslexia and never loved to read. Now, at age 15, she reads just fine, but still prefers an audio book. We didn't label her as "learning disabled" just because her learning style was different from the school-norm. There was no need to label her at home. Vocabulary was learned through real life and reading. Grammar was learned through me gently correcting thing she said with explanations of why one way was correct - plus MadLibs. Everyone should play MadLibs with their kids and allow them to put in as many potty words as they want! ;) Your kid will be an expert on verbs and nouns and adjectives and adverbs in no time and you'll all be laughing hilariously! For writing, see my post on How Unschoolers Learn to Write. Social - we watched Little House and talked about what life was like in those times. We read Native American stories and stories about holidays in other cultures. We read Magic Treehouse and talked about fact vs fiction. Historical fiction - whether through books or films - has always been a HUGE part of learning history here. It's by far more engaging than the dry facts and dates in a textbook, and of course you want to look up a few facts to see what's real vs not real. Liberty Kids is great for little ones (free on YouTube). Howard Zinn's Young People's History of the US book, Crash Course videos (US History, World History, European History), and the Seeds of American Trilogy (books) are all engaging for older kids. We did use Story of the World (SOTW) for World History the first time around, but I have a lot of reservations about it, key being that it centers around "now so and so was the richest and most powerful man in the world". See my Ancient History post on how we used SOTW for discussion of who gets to write history and how we supplemented it. Science - have you ever wondered why kids learn about cells and molecules but can't tell you about the plants and animals in their neighborhood? We started with several years of natural science, focusing on feeding and identifying birds, reading stories about the lives of animals around us, learning about the seasons, learning about the migration of a hummingbird from a fictional story, going to wilderness school, foraging for wild edibles, growing a garden, and so on. Books I read to her featured heavily here - enchanting fictional stories that taught real life science about the world around us. There are so very many wonderful books! From there, Helena branched into topics like biology, regenerative ecology, and now astronomy. In truth I suppose this should be titled "How my Unschooler has Learned to Write" or maybe "Can a Kid Really Write Without Sequential Lessons?" Let's talk about curriculum for a second. Curriculum is an artifical construct - something not found in real life - that's created to progress the skill of 20-30 kids at the same time and in the same way in a classroom setting. There's nothing natural about that from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. I'm not saying we should never have classrooms or curriculum. Heck I'm finishing up my 2nd masters and have 40 doctoral credits. I'm familiar with curriculum. Thing is, I chose this path of my own free will because the degrees mean something to me. On the other hand, most kids would not willingly choose any or much curriculum if they knew there were alternatives; and curriculum is by no means the only or most natural way of learning a skill. It's not how humans generally learn. It's not how humans evolved to learn. That's what I mean when I say it's an artificial construct. I mean it's something people have made up for a specific purpose and place. We all accept that each child learns to walk and talk in their own time and their own way. If I were to propose talking classes for toddlers it would sound ludicrous to you. But what's the difference between talking lessons and writing lessons? If humans are capable of learning spoken speech all on their own can't they also learn the intricacies of written speech all on their own? Yep. They can! And unschoolers are great evidence of that. I can hear the arguments running through your head, because many of the same ran through my head at one time or another...
Take a deep breathe! Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple - or more difficult. Difficult, because to trust children we must trust ourselves - and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted. John Holt I find John Holt's quote there eternally inspiring and endlessly challenging. My daughter Helena has dyslexia. Though she could sound out a few words at 4 she didn't start reading early readers until age 8 and to this day letters still flip 360 degrees in all directions sometimes. The biggest mistake I ever made was trying an Orton Gillingham curiculum and forcing reading. She HATED it and it put a strain on our relationship. I backed off because I valued our connection and didn't want her to hate reading. We eventually learned from Davis' book, The Gift of Dyslexia, what a cool process her brain is capable of in shifting things for increased awareness and understandng. It's pretty brilliant actually! The same book also helped her be conscious of the process and able to put her "mind's eye" in the order needed for reading.
In the ensuing years, Helena has challenged everything I once believed about education and how children learn, specifically the role of reading and writing in learning. (Hint: it's super overrated!) Over the years I've learned - sometimes the hard way - to back off my fears, to focus on connection and relationship first, and to trust her. In time she's shown me that she is learning all the "basics" in ways that are uniquely and beautifully her own, on her own timetable, and not at all the way I would have predicted or planned. In 4th grade she came to me wanting to write an APA style research paper like I do for grad school. She decided she wanted to write it on snowy leopards and her primary question was "Do snowy leopards in zoos have more toxins in their blood than those in the wild due to being closer to civilization or are toxins higher in wild cats from environmental pollutants?" Wow! That sounded more like a doctoral thesis than a 4th grade project, but ok. Together we read a few library books on these cats, made notes on cards and organized them into piles of topics, and then delved into Google scholar and peer-reviewed articles. We never were able to answer her question but we did learn a ton and had fun! And her paper impressed our public school teacher/neighbor. I think it's important to note that prior to this Helena had never written more than a couple of sentences. There was on linear progression from sentences to paragraphs to essays to research papers. But what if she hadn't done this paper? No problem, she'd learn APA fomatting and about peer-reviewed scientific literature later - if and when she needed that info. After this project, Helena wrote nothing for a long time. Then in 5th grade she wanted to write fiction. She used voice dictation to write down her stories and met with local homeschool mom and international award winning author Jennifer Roy for a writing club. Jennifer wisely advised "Don't make her finish what she starts writing" explaining that she'd lose the joy in it if forced and telling me that she herself started stories all the time as a child that she never finished. Sage advice even if it did leave me hanging in suspense a number of times when not one story was finished. In 6th grade Helena wrote and published a few articles for iGen21.com and created her website Paws for Herbs. In 7th grade, thus far, she's begun one story. You can read it here on her IG account. I read it and thought, "Wow! This. Without worksheets, grammar lessons, or forced writing...!" It's a great beginning for a story!" Thoughout the years I've exposed Helena to topic sentences, making a heartmap to get ideas out and turning that into an outline, basic parts of speech by playing MadLibs, and other proper grammar and punctuation mostly by noting when it's improper in articles, books, and so on. No worksheets needed. Just living real life. Your own child's path to learning written speech might look very different from Helena's, and that's ok! Bottom line is if you're living life together with an ounce of intention it will happen. And let me tell you from exprience... there are MANY college students, graduate students even, who can't string together a coherent paragraph with a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and conclusion. 12 years of curriculum and they never learned the basics! Trust your child to learn. They mastered the spoken word in their own unique way and will master the written word likewise.  Math:
Math Antics, a series of funny and usually very short videos on basic arithmetic through lower algebra concepts Life of Fred, a series of simple math stories about a goofy 5 year old math professor at Kittens University and his doll Kinge. Dragon Box, a math game that teaches you all of the basic principles of solving algebraic equations Youtube - various short math videos Amazon and/or local library - for math stories and riddles Sir Cumference - all of the books in this series are great! Neuroscientists have found that our brains are wired to remember information in the form of stories, so we're big fans of learning through fiction! Maths Mansion - a British tv show for 9-11 year olds (or whatever age at which your kids like it); it's modeled off of a reality tv show in which kids are stuck in a creepy Maths Mansion until they learn their math lessons; super duper weird humor in my opinion; my daughter loves it though; very educational Real life - nothing beats real life! Budgeting, baking, cooking, Lego's, Minecraft, building, statistics, math games, board games, card games, dominos, price comparisons, measurements, weight, temperature, time, and so much more! Science: Flying Deer Nature Center - these guys are such lovely and amazing souls who run this program - homeschool Forest day, summer camps, and coming of age programs. You could also count them under "social studies" for the primitive skills and Native American lore the kids learn or PE for all of the exercise they get. They'll come home exhausted, muddy, tired, and INSPIRED. It's great! Herb Fairies - This is an amazing series of stories, coloring pages, recipes, word searches, journal activities and so much more for children. We mostly just listen to the stories and use the herbs in real life. So incredibly well done! Wildlife Bio and Careers Resources: Smithsonian National Zoo - brief info and some videos on various zoo careers Jobs in Wildlife - more detailed info on various areas and jobs Wildlife . org - list of jobs and functions Animal Wonders - YouTube channel of a wildlife rescuer and rehabilitation lady Girls Who Looked Under Rocks - a great book about pioneering women naturalists. Fun stories! Feminist. Women who overcame odds to study science. Science Clubs - our local homeschool center has a number of science clubs, everything from a middle school exploration of basic chemistry or physics to a weekly class by a college professor that combines math and science. Birding - we've done our homeschool birding club and mostly just fed our backyard birds and observed birds in the wild. We've done the Audubon national backyard bird count on several occasions. Wilderness School - Flying Deer Nature Center was a wonderful place to learn a lot of naturalist skills! Wilderness Awareness School in WA has an online naturalist program that would be great for teens as well as a children's program. Ranger Rick Magazine A huge stack of nature stories, seasonal stories, and field guides that we own.... We collect and identify nature objects, track animals, do bark rubbings on trees, identify autumn leaves, forage for wild herbs and edibles, pick wildflowers (never pick more than 1/3 of something at most, and don't eat food from near roads), identify animals and their homes and scat and signs and so on... Little Bits - super fun for learning about electronics. We've also picked up various basic electric kits here and there, some about circuits, some solar, and so on. Physics Girl on YouTube. Awesome explanations of weird phenomenon by a young woman scientist. Biology for Kids - brief info and brief videos on a variety of bio topics Wolf Conservation Center - especially fun to follow them on their FB page. Helena follows a number of animal rescue and conservation places. And we never tire of any sort of cute animal videos. Crash Course Kids on YouTube - multiple science topics SciShow Kids on Youtube - again many topics List of science shows for kids - mostly younger crowd but not all... AnimalWonders Montana on YouTube - we've watched a few; looks like mostly wildlife bio SmartLearning for All - also on YouTube. Note that this is the chemistry link; also includes maths; various topics Local farms, children's science museum, NYS museum.... Other Crash Course on Youtube - great brief reviews on hundreds of subjects. We love these! TheKidShouldSeeThis - brief videos on a million topics! Haven't watched any yet... but they look great! STEAM - a huge list of STEAM YouTube videos/channels that I'm looking forward to exploring more with Helena Brain Pop - these are great brief reviews on just about any subject imaginable; done by a boy and his robot friend; if you know a local teacher ask if they have a username and password from your school district so you can access them for free! Note that there's a Brain Pop Jr section for younger kids through early/mid elementary and a regular Brain Pop for older kids. Art/Music YouTube - great resource for music, art demonstrations, cartoon drawing, how to make Lego stop motion animations, how to tutorials on iMovie and so much more! Art Museums - As soon as your kid is old enough to focus for about half an hour start bringing them! I've brought Helena since she was a baby. We'd hurry through and I'd say "Ooh! Look the artist made a horsy in that one!" or "Wow! Look at that pretty sunset." It evolved to looking for animals and pretty dresses with some occasional comments "I wonder what the artist was feeling when s(he) painted that one?" And Helena would talk about what she thought. Or I'd say "Hmm... where do you think the sun is, where's the light coming from, in that picture?" and she'd note the direction. The key is to keep it short and sweet. Plan a picnic lunch outside or something else to do in the town as well. Go see *just* the Van Gogh exhibit and read about his history, but don't do the entire art museum - unless your kid really, really loves art. Get hot cocoa afterward. Buy a postcard in the gift shop for a friend. Make an adventure out of it! Free music events, folk festivals, and so on. Theater plays, ballets, etc. Look for school productions and you can get deeply discounted tickets. Homeschoolers can go to school productions. Health Paleo Girl book - some great stuff in here although I do think she emphasizes weight and some poor body image things too much Omnivore's Dilemma for Young People by Michael Pollan New Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice Gardening, foraging, menu planning, cooking Continually reading short articles and giving information; being aware of health, toxins, exercise, diet, meditation and so much more Daily guided meditations Talking about emotional intelligence issues Documentaries such as Food Inc; The Secrets of Sugar; Plant Pure Nation; Cooked and many others emphasize to kids the importance of a healthy diet and reveal the awful details that food companies and marketers go to with food additives to make us crave more. TV shows like Master Chef Jr teach a lot about culinary traditions and cooking techniques - and are super fun! Social Studies Great list of books for kids, about slavery Photo essay of child labor in US history Story of the World audio books; I only recommend these with the caveat that they are history as usual: largely the story of white, male, patriarchal, domination. They do give a somewhat decent timeline of historical events, but I would only use them listening with my daughter and discussing the issues of social injustices, who gets to write history and so on. And we supplement them with a number of other story books and videos and such to learn more about the people's history, history of minorities, slaves, women, and so on. Howard Zinn's website is full of amazing resources examining history from the perspective of the common people rather than the few, elite, powerful. Be sure to check out the educational resources link above as he has another website that is about him and his work A Mighty Girl website and FB page have really great book suggestions and brief blips about "mighty girls" in history from all ages and times through the present. Google Maps! Helena just told me (in 3/2016) she wanted to learn more about maps/explorers/navigation/orienteering. So we got out a pile of books from the library; have poured over atlases of old maps and old explorers routes; and she's discovered that she can become what she calls a "virtual explorer" and go to any nation, any city, any street, any landmark location, and explore on the ground through Google Maps! She's been excitedly exclaiming over all of this, exploring the city her ancestor's are from in Spain and just having so much fun! NYS History River of Dreams, The Story of the Hudson, by Hudson Talbott is a beautiful picture book that explains the history of NYS along the Hudson River. All of the local libraries should have a copy, and I can't recommend it enough. It's both beautiful, informatiive, and fun! Hudson, The Story of a River by Baron & Locker is also beautiful and commonly found in local libraries. The library is generally a great resource for NYS history. Pick a short book of boring facts like the state bird and economic info... There's a great book out there about the history of NYC from the Native Americans until now... Just don't get bogged down in memorizing facts. Instead check out the field trips below and some GOOD books that excite you! Crailo is a Dutch home/museum in Rensselaer NY along the Hudson River.$5 for adults and children under 12 are free. A wonderful field trip to see what life in this region was once like! Cherry Hill Mansion - a museum of Albany family life from 1787-1963. Can you believe we haven't been here yet?! It's on the list for this year!! NYS Museum - Free; about $5 to park. Worth it to visit over and over and over and over again! There are just so many things to see here, and we prefer to take it a little at a time along with a few rides on the historic carasoul on the top floor (also free). Everything from Sesame Street to 9/11 to a super fun Iroquois longhouse where you can hear grandmother telling stories. (Photo at top of page!) Corning Tower - ride the elevator up to the 42nd floor for amazing views of Albany. Right across the street and up the stairs from the NYS Museum, off the outdoor plaza area. Olana, the home of Hudson River School Painter (you'll learn about them in the first book above) Frederic Church. The home itself is amazing and it's full of his art. Home, art, and landscape combine into a unique artistic expression. Amazing! Beautiful! My advice for kids and art: take it as quickly as they like... find a few fun things to note and comment on... bring a picnic lunch and bubbles and enjoy running around the landscape too. Kids enjoy art if they aren't forced to "endure" it for long periods of time. This place is perfect because after a short tour of the house there are plenty of places to run! Thomas Cole's house in Catskill is another great place to visit. The grounds here are not as expansive, not as much room to run. I recommend surprising the kid(s) with painting supplies and a picnic in the garden! Again, if you don't get to every last bit of art, no worries. Let kids enjoy art at their own level! Albany Institute of History and Art - another one we haven't been to yet, but have heard great things about. It's on our list for this year! Saratoga National Park contains several historical and Revolutionary era sites to visit. I highly recommend learning about the Revolution via Liberty Kids on YouTube and maybe a library book or two. We have a journal kept by an actual child (teen girl) during the Revolution. What was it like to live during the Revolution is a great book (title goes something like that...). The Who Was George Washington, book, while we generally (ha!) like that series, is actually quite boring. American Girl Felicity series is set in the Revolutionary era. General Herkimer Home - I remember this being super cool when I went as a kid. I haven't been back since then, however. I think it's only open weekends in summer. Oriskany Battlefield - not much to see here, but I grew up near it and it's a nice little ramble through the woods and meadows with a few historical markers - if you happen to be in the area. Fort Stanwix is another place near my hometown, and one I think is worth the 2 hour drive from Albany. There's an indoor museum with objects and movies as well as the ginormous rebuilt fort full of things to see and TOUCH. Unlike most museums, this one is hand's on. We climbed on bunks and canyons, tried on clothing and skins and so on. We went during the week and had a private tour - yay! The guide was quite impressed with Helena's knowledge of the Revolution based primarily on watching Liberty Kids. Erie Canal Village - we were hoping to visit this on our last trip up to Oneida County before my family all moved to NC, but it seems it was just bought out by another organization and is being remodeled. Not sure what it will be like, but keep it in mind. English Language Arts Animated Shakespeare - just one here; we'll have to look for more... Shakespearean rhyming - old English so different from ours... MadLibs - buy online, gift stores, bookstores; super fun way to learn basic parts of speech Book Creator - an Apple app for creating e-books complete with illustrations and music |
Rebecca Grace AndrewsWelcome! I'm a college professor, herbalist, writer and photographer. Archives
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