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Count Your Homeschool Blessings - Collage Friday 1.4

Count Your Homeschool Blessings - Collage Friday 1.4

Our week has been busy and FULL. 

It has been one of those weeks where many times I have  stopped and been THANKFUL for the blessing of homeschool. 

It has been a week where many things both of my children have been learning collided and the pieces of the puzzle just "FIT". 

It has been a week of fun activities, HARD work, and interesting discoveries.

It has been a week where we could adjust our time and work whenever it best suited us to get the work done. 

In short - it's been a GOOD week, and I want to count my homeschool blessings. 

The Blessings of Small Group Opportunities

I have come to learn something about my Anna through homeschooling:  she does NOT learn well in (or even enjoy) large group activities.  Whenever a personal connection can be made, it is always best.   

{She is my introvert and one day I will write a post about parenting an introvert when you are an extrovert!}

One of the biggest blessings of homeschooling is that we can seek out and create opportunities where Anna learns best.  Most of these opportunities involve just a few children, and/or one-on-one opportunities with other children and adults.  

 

Math, Tennis, Challenge I and more -- counting our homeschool blessings!

  • Tennis - Anna plays on a homeschool tennis team and takes lessons each Friday. The group is small, supportive, and perfect for Anna's personality.  She enjoys playing with a friend from Challenge who is also on the team. 

  • Challenge I classes - There are only 5 children in Anna's Challenge I class.  This week, when I was sitting in on a portion of the day, she volunteered to give her classmates a challenging order of operations problem.  Now, to most people this wouldn't seem like a big deal - but I could have nearly cried. First, she willingly volunteered to teach her class about MATH (thank you, Mr. D!), and second, she was excited about it.  This week, in our community assembly, the Challenge students were recognized. Our community now has over 20 students in A,B, I, and III.  It is so exciting to see this program growing!  

  • Music - Another HUGE blessing of homeschool is that Anna can pursue her love of music... REALLY pursue it. She doesn't slide in a piano practice every now and then. She practices every.single.day. It is just a part of her academic homeschool day.  She gave me permission to post a short Instagram video of her playing this week... 

The blessings of homeschool high school are TIME, RELATIONSHIPS, and FREEDOM! 

The Blessing of CREATIVITY

Grant, my 10 year old, is my extrovert. 

He is happy in any type of situation, but I do notice that he loves his alone time. 

This week he would strive to finish his school work so he could practice baseball in the back yard, draw, or make Rainbow Loom creations. 

Games, Crafts & Memory Work - Count Your Homeschool Blessings

I have no clue how to make anything with the Rainbow Loom, but Grant can make anything. This week he has been working on lots of charms.... I love the Incredible Hulk charm (complete with orange backpack) he made for me! 

We are back in the swing with all of our extracurricular activities, so we use the Cycle 1 Memory Work CD quite a bit to review in the car!

D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
By Ingri d'Aulaire, Edgar Parin d'Aulaire

Grant continues to love D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths and the study guide from Memoria Press. He has completed Units 1-5 and LOVED the 50 word vocab quiz at the end.  At dinner he practices the words on us to see if WE know what they mean.  

Pages of History Volume 1: Secrets of the Ancients
By Bruce Etter; Alexia Detweiler

Couple the Greek Myths study with our current read-aloud (Pages of History), and everything is connecting SO WELL! 


When I have a doctor's appointment or anything else that takes me out of the house during our school day, I always leave a dry erase board full of assignments for Grant.  One morning this week he did map tracing, PreScripts, iPad app memory work, and reading while I was away.  This system works very well for us! 

Finally -- we've been playing a lot of Ancient History GoFish (which actually is so much more than GoFish) as a family  -- this game is SUPERB and I highly recommend it. The Classical Historian makes them for all different time periods, too.  

This weekend will be very busy in our home.  September 11 is my husband's birthday so we will be celebrating with him -- while also trying to be mindful of what an important day it is our nation's history. Saturday evening I cross an item off my bucket list -- a Josh Groban concert!!  Sunday I am delivering the sermon at our little church.   So... much going on and much to be thankful for! 

Collage Friday

Talk to me about the blessings of homeschool!  What are the blessings you have seen in your homeschool this week? 

Collage Friday weekly link up at Homegrown Learners

Join me each Friday for a wrap up of the week - or just to share pertinent thoughts that have been rambling in your head during the past week.

Be sure to include your photo collages!

Then, visit other bloggers that have linked and leave them a supportive comment.  I love the Collage Friday community!

Add your link using the widget below. Additionally, if you'd like to join further, use the hashtag #collagefriday on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. 


Using a Chromebook in the Homeschool

We are, admittedly, a tech family -- Apple snobs to be specific.  

<wink>

My husband is an IT consultant. I am a blogger.  

Needless to say, we are picky about our devices. We are picky about compatibility, security, and parental controls. 

A Chromebook was never on our radar until a certain teenager spilled an entire glass of water on her inherited MacBook Air, which promptly fried the entire machine.

Knowing that she really needed her own device for homeschooling high school, but not wanting to pay the Apple price tag, we began to search for options for her... options  SHE could afford, since she would be footing the bill for the new machine. 

After much research, we helped her decided on a Toshiba Chromebook, and what a GREAT decision that has been! 

The Chromebook fits the needs of our homeschool high school student perfectly. 

*These are my personal opinions based on usage of the Chromebook. I have not been compensated for this post. This post may contain affiliate links. 

Using the Chromebook in Our Homeschool

What IS a Chromebook?

With all of the new devices out there, it is important to educate yourself. 

To be honest, we had heard a lot about the Chromebooks, and also liked the price point. (Anna's machine was under $300.)

Rather than go through all of the specifics right here, I'm going to send you to a Chromebook buying guide so you can see exactly what they can (and can't) do. 

“A Chromebook is a laptop of a different breed. Instead of Windows or Mac OS, Chromebooks run Google’s Chrome OS. These machines are designed to be used primarily while connected to the Internet, with most applications and documents living in the cloud. As a result, these clamshells don’t have a ton of onboard memory, but they don’t have very large price tags, either.”

Why We Like the Chromebook

Let me preface this by telling you we have a family computer - an iMac - that resides in our school area. It can be used for online classes, big print jobs, and other special things. 

The Chromebook does NOT take the place of this main computer -- it is a "supplement computer", if you will - perfect for our teen - a device for her alone. 

Basically, if it is in the Google suite of products, you can do it on your Chromebook. 

For my daughter, word processing, research, and an online math curriculum are on our priority list. The Chromebook allows her to do all three. 

  • Google Docs

Anna writes a lot of papers and annotates many documents. She does all of this in Google docs, which simply requires a Gmail account.  She can work on a paper and then SHARE that with me through Google docs. I receive an email to read and make comments on a paper when she shares it with me.  I can write comments on the paper (via my computer) and they are automatically added to the document. 

In this way we communicate in a very professional, efficient manner about her schoolwork. It is working WONDERFULLY for us!  

Look where she sent me an invitation to read over her latest essay... 

Using a Chromebook in the Homeschool

  • Security/Parental Controls

I have heard criticisms of this feature, but we think the parental controls are sufficient -- coupled with good old discipline and common sense. 

Basically, the Chromebook has a main user, who controls what sites can be accessed and has the ability to see every site that has been visited.  My daughter is just a SUPERVISED USER.  My husband is the main user.  He can see each and every thing she has done on her Chromebook.

You can read more about supervised users and see how it all works. 

There are no time restrictions on the Chromebook, but my daughter has access to her computer during school hours, and all other times it lives in my bedroom and she has to ask us for permission to use the computer.  

  • Research

Any research that can be done online can be done on the Chromebook.  After all, it is just a Chrome internet browser. 

  • Online recorded classes

We are using Mr. D math this year, and his online platform is fully accessible through the Chromebook.  Anna can watch the recorded math lessons, complete her lessons, and enter grades. 

Simple.

There is a conflict when it comes to LIVE classes, however, and this is why we always have the family machine.  I was told by the tech support person through another online academy we use (Memoria Press) that Google Chrome has a conflict with Adobe and that the microphone feature will not work in some instances.  This is something they are working on, but for now Anna has to use our iMac for her online Latin class. 

Potential Concerns about the Chromebook

I want to honestly share some of the concerns we had about the Chromebook, so you can make an informed decision for your homeschooler.

  • Printing

Chromebooks use something called Google Cloud Print, which to be honest, took a little bit of research and setup.

Now, however, it works like a charm and my daughter prints with no problem from her Chromebook.

Here's a helpful video if you have no idea what Google Cloud Print is.  

  • The "Cloud"

Since a Chromebook doesn't have any memory (everything is stored in the Google cloud), some people may be uncomfortable with that.  

This is a very personal decision.  If you don't feel comfortable with all of your homeschooler's work being stored only in the "cloud" -- and not locally -- then a Chromebook might not be for you, or you might want to get an external hard drive. 

  • Doesn't support all online classes

If your child has online classes, you should check with that particular institution to see if their class format is supported by the Google Chromebook.  Many aren't, because they are plugins that will only run on a Windows or Mac machine. 

Again, I believe a Chromebook is a great STUDENT computer, but not a main computer that they would rely on for 100% of their classwork -- make sense? 

 

Final Thoughts about the Google Chromebook

I need to reiterate my thoughts from above:

The Chromebook is a great homeschool middle/high school machine. It can do many things and is a great entry level laptop if you want to spend less than $500 (many times less than $300). I would advise, however, that you also have a family computer (Windows or Mac based) for your student so online classes and any other applications that are not supported by Google Chrome are possible.

Our Toshiba Chromebook has been the PERFECT fit for what my 9th grader needs this year in her Challenge I studies.  

Using a Chromebook in the Homeschool

So -- does your homeschooler have their own laptop?  Are you in the market for one?  What is the technology like in your homeschool?

*Note:  I will not be able to field technical questions in the comments of this post, but if you have a general question about the Chromebook I will do my best to answer.  Please remember, I reserve the right to delete any inappropriate comments since this is my "home" on the web.  Thank you!

 

*Post update:  7/17:  We have purchased another Chromebook for my son to use in his Challenge years.  This time we picked the following model:

Chromebooks for Homeschool High School