"" -- A Homeschooler's Notebook Subscriber.
An interactive, FREE, twice-monthly ezine packed with great reader tips, reviews, & practical encouragement for homeschool families.




[SEARCH]
[ARCHIVES]
[CONTACT]
[RSS/FEED]
[HOME]


Some of Our Sponsors

Time4Learning

Landry Academy

Math Mammoth

Great Homeschool Conventions

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine


Resource Links

All About Spelling
Homeschooling ABCs
Upper Level Homeschool
HomeschoolChat.us
HomeschoolingBOYS.com
HomeGrownHearts.com
FIRETIME Notebooking
FREE Funschool Units
EasyFunSchool.com
Homeschooling Help
More Homeschooling Help
HS Gifted and Talented
Homeschool Country Life
Beloved Books & Audio


 

 
[SEARCH] | [ARCHIVES] | [SUBSCRIBE] | [CONTACT] | [RSS/FEED] | [HOME]

This Week in Sports, Homeschool Project Fairs

By Heather Idoni

Added Friday, February 24, 2006

=============================================================
The Homeschooler's Notebook
Encouragement and Advice for Homeschool Families
=============================================================
Vol. 7 No 8 February 24, 2006
ISSN: 1536-2035
=============================================================
Copyright (c) 2006 - Heather Idoni, FamilyClassroom.net. All Rights Reserved.
=============================================================

Welcome to the Homeschooler's Notebook!

If you like this newsletter, please recommend it to a friend --
We all need to be helping each other with our homeschooling!

Directions for subscribing and unsubscribing are below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

==============
IN THIS ISSUE:
==============
Notes from the Editor
-- This Week in Sports
Helpful Tips
-- Printable Cards
Question of the Week
-- Your Questions
-- Your Answers
-- Our Email Group
Announcements
-- Subscriber Information
-- Sponsorship Information

=======================
Notes from Heather
=======================

This Week in Sports

Tonight is the last game of the season!I'm talking about basketball,
of course.And before you doublecheck the title of the newsletter you
are reading, I assure you I am not talking about the NBA.:-)

Tonight is my son's last game of his first season playing basketball
for our 2 year old homeschool sports organization, C.H.A.S.E. --
Christian Homeschool Assoc. for Sports Excellence.(CHASE Michi-
gan is the corporation a friend and I founded 2 summers ago in the
Flint area to provide structure and oversight for a variety of sports for
our children.)

Tonight he is playing a team from Lapeer -- another team that is very
new on the scene.Maybe we will even have our first win!While
some of the teams we have played are pretty good matches, others
have you scanning the crowd for NBA scouts.Some have been
playing for years and only the best make the team; others have more
of an "everyone plays" philosophy or just have enough participation
to give them enough to play.It is quite interesting to watch the birth-
ing of a full-fledged movement like homeschool sports.

I know many of you have stories about the pursuit of sports opportu-
nities for our children, so I made the "question of the week" this issue
an opportunity for you to share.

In the next few issues I will share with you our journey from seeking
participation in public school sports to staking out on our own.I will
also begin to explore the problems and rewards of either choice.

I hope this will be helpful to all of you whose husbands worry about
this issue and whose children desire organized, competitive team
sports at the highschool level!For those with young children, I hope
to help you avoid the pitfalls and disappointments that may be on the
horizon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

=======================
HELPFUL TIPS
=======================
[Here's your chance!Send YOUR ideas along to
HN-ideas@familyclassroom.net]

"I get a freebie newsletter that always has loads of great free ideas
in it.One I got recently had the following link in it.It is for Jan Brett
cards and envelopes.You can have the card generated with your own
personal message or leave it plain and you can write what you want in
it yourself." -- Jackie Schlageter

This might be just the thing you need to inspire a young child to write
a personal letter to a friend or a grandparent -- thanks, Jackie!

http://www.janbrett.com/pdfcards/main_page.htm

---

Send YOUR ideas to:HN-ideas@familyclassroom.net

========================
Last Issue's Question Was...
========================

"This is only my 2nd year homeschooling - but I'm part of a won-
derful homeschool group full of people who have helped us to be
successful.At our next "Mom's Breakfast", I would like to suggest
that we do a "project fair" next year.I've heard of them done by
other bigger homeschool groups - ours is only about 30 families -
and it sounds as if it would be a really worthwhile event, and a lot
of fun, to boot!So I was wondering if anyone has any experience
with organizing this sort of thing.If so, I would love all the advice
I can get - because from my experience, when someone has an
idea like this, that someone is usually the one who ends up doing
the work!I would like to be as prepared as possible with answers
to any questions when I present it at our meeting in March.Thank
you." -- Kim from OH

======================
Our Readers' Responses
======================

"I've been the contact person for our Project Fair for the last two years.
I have found it to not involve much work, really.All the organizers
really have to do is arrange for a suitable space (in this case, a
church's gymnasium), get the word out to people through emails and
newsletters, and be a contact for people to call and sign up.

We have a 'comment sheet' for each child to post with his/her display,
so that visitors can write down what they thought of the display.
Those have been nice to have.Parents can add them to their child's
portfolio, but more importantly, the kids love to read the comments
they receive!

This is an opportunity for the child(ren) to show what they've been
working on this year, or what they're passionate about."Project" is a
loose term hereā€¦ displays in the past have included typical science
fair projects, but this is a chance for the kids to share other things
they've been working on.We've seen in previous years: collections
(Legos, seashells, rocks), arts (sewing, painting, etc.), cooking, pets,
models, homemade movies shown on TV or computer, gardening and
writing projects, family and group projects, even a homemade
hoverboard!

Most kids love to show and tell others what they're passionate about!
-- Lisa in PA

---

"I sponsored a book fair last year and it was a lot of fun.We had three
areas.

1.Visual displays.Where kids could make posters, dioramas or
collections representing their favorite books. They could also bring
stories or reports they had written. One child had made an "I Spy"
poster that was a hit with all the kids.(I made labels for the kids to
fill out so we could tell who did what)

2. Oral presentations.For oral book reports,acting out favorite
chapters, Reading short stories they liked or hadwritten themselves.
My son and I acted out Green Eggs and Ham with audience participa-
tion. It was a blast.I had each child fill out a card introducing them-
selves and explaining what book they were going to do.During the
presentation portion I just read off the cards and had the kids come
up as their card was read.

3. We had a book exchange.I printed up book tokens they could
exchange for their "already read" books.Then they could use their
tokens to purchase books brought by others.

It was a lot of fun and didn't take a horrible amount of time to get
ready either for me or the participants." -- Sandy in UT

---

[Editor's note:My husband and I were invited to be judges for a local
homeschool Art, History, and Science fair about 2 years ago.It was
very well organized!The children chose a topic that was related to
science or history... or presented an art project.For the science dis-
plays they had an experiment and showed all the steps, standing at
their displays to explain to visitors and/or judges.For history, most
dressed up as a person from history if doing a biography... or in the
appropriate wear if representing something specific (coal mining,
Depression era, Victorian costume, etc.)The judging was divided by
age group and art, history, or science.The judges were alotted a
specific amount of time to spend with each entry, but my husband and
I suggested extending the display/judging time as we only had 12 min-
utes with each exhibitor and it just wasn't enough time!Some of the
history exhibits also had living history oral presentations prepared.
They really gave it their all and we had a blast.As far as organization
it looked to me like it just was a matter of early planning so the kids
have plenty of time to prepare, arranging a gymnasium or other large
room for the displays, getting volunteers to help set-up and/or judge,
establishing criteria for the displays, and preparing forms for the
judges, purchasing ribbons for 1st place, 2nd place, etc.Obviously
you can go as big or as small as you like.One last thing to keep in
mind is to find judges that have no relation to the participants.It was
very hard to choose the winners and it helped us to not have had any
bias toward any one child.If you need some parents to be judges,
just assign them to a category or age group where their own child is
not going to be judged.Also encourage your children to keep their
displays for exhibiting at other community events including entering
county fairs, etc.Take your time planning and have fun!-- Heather]

======================
Answer our NEW Question!
======================

This week I am inviting everyone to write regarding their experiences
with organized homeschool sports.Tell me all about your journey in
pursuing opportunities for your children at different ages, especially
when it comes to highschool sports.Have you had a disappointing
experience with your local public, charter or private school regarding
participation?Have you started your own homeschool sports organi-
zation or have you helped with the founding of one?Have you worked
out a compromise with a non-homeschooling group for participation?
These are just some questions to consider, but I would love to hear
YOUR stories.Feel free to share about the emotions of your struggle
and how you and your child(ren) have dealt with any setbacks.I
would also like to hear from those who are a part of a successful
homeschool sports organization and/or league and what you think
made it work.Looking forward to reading your stories and sharing
them in our next issue!

---

Send your responses to:HN-answers@familyclassroom.net

===================
ASK YOUR QUESTION
===================

Do you have a burning question that you can't ask just anyone?
Send it to HN-questions@familyclassroom.net and we'll see
if our readers can help you out.

===================
Interactive Email Group
===================

In an effort to help our readers become more of an interactive
community, we have set up an email loop at YahooGroups called
"Homeschool-Notebook".

Please sign-up for the group and take our poll, even if you want
to go "no mail" for the loop.This will help me to understand what
ages your children are, how you school, etc.(The information will
be kept anonymous and private, of course.)

Here is the link to sign-up and take the poll:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschool-notebook/

===========================
SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION
===========================

There are opportunities for you to be a sponsor of this
newsletter. If you are interested, drop an e-mail to
marketing@stretcher.com with "Homeschoolers-Notebook"
as the subject. We'll send you some information on how to
become a part of this ministry!

=====================
ADDITIONAL NOTES
=====================

All contributed articles are printed with the author's prior
consent. It is assumed that any questions, tips or replies to
questions may be reprinted. All letters become the property of
the "Homeschooler's Notebook". [Occasionally your contribution
may have to be edited for space.]

Again, I welcome you to the group!Feel free to send any
contributions to HN-articles@familyclassroom.net or
HN-ideas@familyclassroom.net.

Our main website is:
http://www.familyclassroom.net

More resources and links can be found at Lynn Hogan's site:
http://www.unitstudyhelps.com

===========================
REPRINT INFORMATION
===========================

This newsletter may be copied in its entirety without special per-
mission.To use any single part of the newsletter, please direct
your request to:Heather@FamilyClassroom.net

===========================
SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
===========================

To subscribe, just send a blank email to the following address:
join-hs-notebook@hub.thedollarstretcher.com

To unsubscribe send a blank email to the following address:
leave-hs-notebook@hub.thedollarstretcher.com

=============================================================





Next - High School Sports Expectations, Gifted and Talented Support
Previous - Managing a Home Library, Scheduling Apologia Science, Single Dad Teaching
Home




     Site content copyright individual contributors and FamilyClassroom.net 2001-2011 - Digital duplication expressly prohibited.
Privacy Policy | Advertise