Home schooling with WISDOM

Supporting traditional home schooling, where parents have control over what is taught to their children, how it is taught, and when it is taught.

It should be noted that some solutions for signing a PDF are about putting your actual, visual signature (or something that is good enough to be one) on the file, while others are about adding a digital "signature" in a different sense to the file to show that it was you who signed it. Sometimes one or the other is what's needed and you'll want to make sure you've picked the right one.

On computers

While Adobe Reader might be treated as an industry standard, there are other options.

  • Foxit has a free reader with signing capability.
  • On macOS, the built-in Preview app, which is the default app for opening a PDF file, has an option add visual signatures and few handy ways to create them that are easier than clicking and dragging with your mouse.
    1. Open the file
    2. In the menu bar, go Tools > Annotate > Signature.
    3. From there you can pick an existing signture, or add a new one with a simple webcam scanning process to digitise one written on paper, or finger-draw one on the laptop trackpad or a connected phone. (This is also where you'd remove existing saved signatures.)

On mobile phones & tablets

Here are a few suggested apps for filling out and signing PDF documents while on the go! 

iOS

Android:

When I look back on my years of home schooling through high school, I am sure that I will have many fond memories of WISDOM’s Online Courses. Since the autumn of 2003, I have taken seven online courses, all of which were profitable. I take one every season – In fact, one season I took three at the same time! My plans are to continue into my eighth course in the upcoming school year. I do not wish to stop!

I was not sure that I would feel this way when I first signed up for a course three years ago. This was the “Introductory Great Books” course. When I looked at the reading list initially, I was uncertain as to whether I could manage the weekly reading assignments, or discuss them adequately. After all, books such as the “Iliad”, the “Aeniad”, and, at that time, “War and Peace”, can seem rather intimidating to a nearly-thirteen-year-old! I thought that the conversation might be over my head, especially as there were students in the class several years older than me. However, encouraged by my parents, and made hopeful by seeing that such favourite authors of mine as Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien were on the list, I took a deep breath and signed up for the course.

How many containers do you need to fill a science program?  Peculiar question, huh?  Perhaps I should ask:  How many weekends does it take to fill your science program containers? 

 

Here is a summary of information that should be helpful to those who want to participate in the WISDOM Homeschooling Science and Technology events:

The event is NOT a competition. There will be no ‘judges’ and there are no prizes. Rather, this is an opportunity for a student or family to summarize their course of study in an area of science and/or technology. No one should feel as though someone else has a ‘better’ topic. Rather, this is an opportunity to share YOUR learning with others.  Thereby, everyone can benefit by being exposed to a greater variety of topics that might not be achievable on one’s own.

with sistersOnce upon a time in the not too distant past, there was a home schooling family.

Pa worked, and Ma stayed at home, teaching their five children. They had begun their home school adventure much like many other families, merely bringing school home...

Happy Home Schooling to all of you – especially to the families new to WISDOM. This eLetter (Terry’s Terrific Learning Connections or Terry’s Tender Loving Care) is meant to encourage and inspire families homeschooling their children. 

We are living in uncertain times. Some of us have homeschooled for years, while others leaped into homeschooling this September. No matter what lies ahead of us, homeschooling our children is a great choice! There were times when I got distracted by academics or parenting issues and those were what I focused on. 

Today I encourage you to focus on your relationship with your child / children. Why not add relationship building activities to your daily / weekly plant? 

Make a list of what each child loves and try to include that in your homeschool week / life as much as possible. Talk often.  Eat good food together slowly. Play games. Go for walks. Read great books aloud. Read the Bible and pray together to relieve stress and anxiety. Hug often. 

Do whatever builds your relationship with your child as much as possible. Our days together might seem long, but the years are so short. 

When Gayle and I began the journey of home educating our children, I applied my efforts to seeking out useful science resources.  Since science was my interest and strong point, Gayle welcomed my initiatives.  We were encouraged by a friend to add a lot of science to the children’s learning – especially in the primary grades.  So, we set off to find books that could help us bring science to life in the minds of our young children. 

tree Are you beating your head against a wall? Is your thirteen year old impossible to teach? Is the curriculum that has worked so well in the past suddenly "boring?"

I recently spoke with a mother of many who, after completing an enjoyable unit study of reading and discussion on Holland, decided her fourteen year old son should follow-up this project with something concrete. She asked him to write an essay on the history of the development of the tulip industry - a topic they had all found to be interesting. As days of reluctance dragged into weeks of resistance, a normally affable mother-son relationship became outright antagonistic....

I would venture to say that most people have enough interest in robots that they would give a few moments of their time to allow themselves the amusement of watching robots in action. Beyond this, I have observed that fewer people actually have enough interest in robots to wrestle with how they work and to learn what their abilities and their limitations are. I think that there also exists a middle-ground camp of those who imagine that they might have an interest in robots but they are just not sure of ‘where to start’.  

ken marlane It was with the support of their local school principal that Ken and Marlane Noster brought home their eldest child, half way through grade 3. The superintendent threatened to charge them with truancy. The late 80’s were rife with inconsistencies in treatment of home schoolers.

In response to the first Alberta Home Education Regulation of 1989, Ken was invited to help a school board develop its program for administrating home schooling. He and Marlane began to pray for an answer to two burning questions: how can a board designed to administrate schools administrate home schooling? and what am I being called to do?

 
 
 
 
Part of The Gilbertine Institute