Homeschooling Methods

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Time Flies

Time Flies, its seem like only yesterday I was busy constructing this web log and then failing to update it as regularly as had initially hoped I might. It has certainly been a long time since I last maintained and updated my blog, I think there was only one post for 2008, and a few miserable blogs in 2007.

I’m off to see my parents in the UK after an absence of almost 6 years to the day. I plan, of course to see family, friends and colleagues while I am there. It will be most interesting for me to contrast the changes in both countries over the space of half a decade.

I only regret that I have not travelled much during this time. However one must consider that I have immersed myself in the culture of three countries for fairly significant periods of time: South Africa, the United Kingdom and Australia. I feel that I might be able to utilize these experiences in some way to “Further the Kingdom of Heaven” and to fulfill my responsibly to my wife and family.

So there are a few things to ponder: Has it all been worth it? I am currently “Head of Information Technology” in a Christian School (of 500 students) in South East Queensland on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. Unfortunately it has been neither a pleasant nor prosperous journey for reasons I shan’t go into now.

In less than a week I shall have been in the UK for a few days and wonder now how I might feel about these three countries mentioned earlier.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th means means very little more to me than perhaps another day on God's wonderful earth. Today I bought my son JJ a present, he is now the proud owner of "Woody" from Toystory. I set up this section of my homeschool website and I am very much looking forward to catching up with a backlog of edits and posts, contributions, ideas and information.

Youth Group

We have over the past 5 months or so been supporting a local youth group. In fact, together with another family and their church we have been part of the initial set up of the youth group which takes place on a Saturday night in the local village. Admittedly I have a very small part which is to turn up and to help out however it has been a lot of fun and has reminded me of my own experiences as a youth in the youth group I attended.

Here are some games we have played which have been successful:

Name Game No. 1

Gather everyone into a circle, facing inwards. This probably works best with 10 to 20 youth although it would quite possibly work with more but may be quite difficult to learn so many names at once. Once everybody is in a circle, each person needs to identify themselves by calling out their name and enacting, for instance I might introduce myself as rowing Roland and pretend to row my boat. Jack might introduce himself as jumping Jack and hop around for a few seconds. The rest of the circle need to listen attentively as each person introduces themselves and enacts an aspect of their name. Crazy Carol may pretend to be insane. Once you have gone around once or twice you may pass the token to someone else whose name you remember, for instance I might say "rowing Roland to crazy Carol", Carol would continue "crazy Carol to stinky Steven". Each person enacts their own name association and the association with the person they are calling to. This is a fun way of introducing yourself and surprisingly easy way to remember other people's name and it is also a pleasant ice-breaker.

Name Game No 2

Get everyone to stand in a circle looking inwards, I guess in this case the size doesn't really matter although 15 to 30 might be a reasonable number. Each person calls out their name as quickly as possible, going in a clock-wise direction and as they call out their name they look into the face of the person on their right (you may want to warn people to pay attention to the person on the left and right). Once you have gone around once or twice or perhaps more times, remember speed is essential, a sort of Mexican wave. Change direction and repeat the process the other way. Good, now you know the person on your left and your right. Now the tricky part, you need to call out the persons name on your right while looking into the face of the person on your left. The person you have just looked at needs to call out your name and look into the eyes of the person on their right. Go around as quickly as you can (it is really not too bad as long as you can remember the person on your left and shout it to the person on your right). Now the fun part, at any one stage you can change direction of the wave so if somebody shouts the names of the person on their left to you, you can keep looking at them and shout the name of the person on your right. This will change the direction. It is all good fun but should probably be demonstrated but I hope that these instructions will be enough to get you going.

Pass the Semaphore (a Semaphore is a signal)

Create two rows of chairs, back to back, the row can be as long as you like as long as the group remains manageable. So for a group of 30 you would have two rows of 15 chairs with the kids sitting on each side of the row of chairs holding hands. The flagmaster sits at the one end with a large coin which he flips. If it is heads each team must squeeze the hand of the person next to them remembering that only the first person on each team closest to the flagmaster may look at the flagmaster and everyone else looks down the line. At the other end of the row a chair, a ball or an object on top of another chair. So everyone sitting holding hands looking in the direction of only the two persons nearest the flagmaster are waiting and looking at the flagmaster because he or she is about to flip the coin. If the coin lands heads up, the two on the closest to the flagmaster must squeeze the hand of the person next to them, the signal needs to be passed down the line as quickly as possible and the person closest to the ball grabs the ball and wins. The team who win rotate so the person who holds the ball moves to the head near the flag master. If a false signal is sent down the line ant that person grabs the ball (which happens quite frequently) then that team rotates but the other way so that the person at the head goes to the tail.

The first team to completely rotate there team members is the wining team.

Roland Munyard