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Summer Break or Summer Study?
Get Both with Time4Learning!

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Notes from Heather
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More Gardening with Kids!

This AMC Montessori Summer 2011 Hands-On Creative Lesson Planning Newsletter includes some great activities for gardening with children -- and the following sites have free information and ideas about gardening with children, as well:

http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/Children/children.htm

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art171221.asp

http://eartheasy.com/grow_gardening_children.htm

http://www.kidsgardening.com

http://www.amonco.org/montessorisummergardening.html

(Excerpted from: http://amcmontessori.blogspot.com/2011/06/summer-gardening-montessori-style.html)

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Your feedback is always welcome! -- mailto:heather@familyclassroom.net

Online Writing Tutors - Another Possibility

"Another alternative could be looking at your local community college and seeing if they offer a free writing lab. I looked at my local community college and found that they even have online coaching. However, I don't know if you can use it without being a Salt Lake City resident. You'll have to check with your own local colleges for a similar service." -- Sandy

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Reader Question
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Economics for a Pre-Teen?

"My son is very interested in money, being debt free, how loans work, budgeting, what the market is, basic economics, etc. Has anyone used any books or programs that they really enjoyed that were not extremely expensive? Thanks!" -- North Texas Mom

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Our Readers' Responses
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"I recommend The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton and any books by Mary Hunt, especially Debt-Proof Living." -- Mary Beth

"I recommend Money Matters for Kids by Larry Burkett. There are also sample pages you can view." -- Kris

"For economics I absolutely love the Uncle Eric books:
http://www.bluestockingpress.com/curriculum_packages.htm

For Personal Finance:

NEFE High School Financial Planning Program -- check your local extension office; sometimes they give the course:
http://hsfpp.nefe.org/

Other good material:

Go through Clark Howard's website on the topic of interest and you will learn a lot!
http://www.clarkhoward.com/categories/personal-finance-credit/

Clark Smart Kids is excellent, but so are all the other books:
http://www.clarkhoward.com/advice/books/

You can also put together your own curriculum using material from the U.S. government and online resources. To get you started:

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/ - lots of great info you can order. I put together a financial curriculum from publications of the Consumer Information catalogs when our children were in elementary grades. The cost was a postage stamp at the time, but now you can order online!

http://www.edpubs.gov/
http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/learning/what/index.html
http://www.classhelper.org/articles/learning-about-banking-finance-part-1/banks-and-credit-unions.shtml

And here is Personal Finance from a Christian teacher:
http://www.daveramsey.com/school/home/

-- Judy

"Here are some resources we've used:

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? - by Richard Mayburg (and any of the other books in the Uncle Eric series).

The Crash Course: http://www.chrismartenson.com/

(My usually bored son actually liked watching and discussing this.)

We also discuss articles about economics from World magazine or our local newspaper.

I haven't used these yet, but we're going to...

Stock markets in real time

What is a Stock?

"I have a recommendation! Dave Ramsey’s Jr High and High school curriculum on money for kids, found at www.daveramsey.com. Sometimes you can get a bargain by doing it with other homeschoolers in a co-op type setting." -- Tonya in TN

"We have a very close church family -- I went to the bookkeepers and asked permission to bring my daughter to them whenever they counted the tithes and offerings and did the bills. She is learning 'hands on', and by the time she is older, the next generation bookkeeper will already be there -- trained and ready!" -- Deb R.

"I can't recommend Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University (FPU) classes highly enough. They literally, literally changed our family, and our family history. He has books and workbooks for kids as well as adults. His premise is to live debt free, but with money, not depriving yourself, but funding and blessing yourself. He gives clear, step-by-step instructions.

My husband and I attended a seminar, followed a few months later by a class. We had our then 11 and 12 year old sons attend the class right along with us and we did the class work as a family. What an opportunity to learn with our boys! Doing the Financial Peace class together brought all of us on board with making a budget, keeping a budget, saving, having money for tithes, and gifts. The boys made their own monthly budgets and two years later, by choice, still use them. They learned to tithe, put aside monthly for spending money, save for retirement, put money toward a focus goal, and money into savings -- all out of the $35.00 -$50.00 they earn a month cleaning with me. They divide whatever extra income they receive into their budgets the same way. My now 14 year old son already has a fair amount of money set aside for a car when he is 16, since that is his focus goal.

There is never any argument about money in our house. We simply say 'We have to consult or rework the budget'. The emotion is gone from the choices and decisions. They will be taking this training and skill into their lives and marriages and businesses. In their youth group they always help lay out the fund raisers because they have a firm grasp on how costs and profits work. They think in terms of P and L statements (Profit and Loss) when they are making spending choices. This is by far the BEST learning tool and gift we have ever given our men in the making. They are so good with money, budgeting, forecasting, and understanding how economics at large work.

The class taught them about investing too, and they are working their savings to a point they can buy CDs and stocks. Our eldest already enjoys listening to the nightly Stock Exchange for tips and trends. Having said all that, they are also normal boys who love sports, camping, reading, Go-Karts, music and life with friends, but they fund most of those activities in part or whole... and they have more confidence." -- Jalet

"We used both A Bluestocking Guide to Economics by Jane A. Williams and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? by Richard J. Maybury with our son when he was in high school, but I'm sure they could be used by a middle schooler as well. I don't remember much about what the course covered, but I do remember the books came highly recommended by homeschooling friends and I kept the books to use with our daughter." -- MaryEllen

"We use The ABC's of Making Money for Teens. There is so much that school curriculums do not ever cover, that it really sets kids up to fail. They need to know they can be in charge of their own money and a bank doesn't have to (and really shouldn't!) do it for them. The really must understand the rule of 72 -- this takes a 5th grade education yet it is never taught, and is used against us every day!" -- Tricia

"One of the books we used for my son's Economics class was Understanding our Economy by E. Richard Churchill. We also used Whatever Happened to Penny Candy by Richard Maybury, which I liked, but I'm not sure I agreed with his point of view all the time. We also used these videos/DVDS: Three History Channel Modern Marvels videos: Money; Banks; and Making a Buck. We also watched a video about the stock market, and a Better Business Bureau video: Know Fraud: Don’t Be a Victim. I got all these videos from the library, so that part was free! Crown Financial Ministries has a program for students, which is very Biblically based, called Discovering God's Way of Handling Money." -- Alise

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New Reader Question
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"I homeschool 3 children ages 7, 9 and 10. The nine year old is a special needs child which makes our days interesting. She is legally visually impaired and can't write. I want to teach all of them keyboarding, but not sure how. I think this would open up a whole new word for my nine year old, but I just need to figure out how to do it. Any ideas??" -- Donna

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Would you like to respond to our Donna's question?
Please send your email to: hn-answers@familyclassroom.net

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