Affichage des articles dont le libellé est in english. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est in english. Afficher tous les articles

mercredi 15 octobre 2014

Livre des siècles à télécharger

«Le livre des siècles est une source de joie pour son propriétaire, et on peut toujours trouver un petit moment, même les jours les plus chargés, pour y ajouter une illustration de temps en temps. Les enfants prennent un grand plaisir à compléter leur livre. Nul besoin d’être un grand artiste pour faire un livre intéressant - la propreté et la précision sont les seules qualités requises. Les musées ont bien plus d’intérêt pour les détenteurs d’un tel ouvrage: il rend capable de reconnaître des objets qui sont déjà devenus de vieux amis, à travers le livre des siècles.»


«The Book of Centuries, is a great joy to the owner, and even in these busy days it is possible to find some time, however short, to add an illustration from time to time. Children always take a keen delight in their books. There is no need to be an artist in order to have quite an interesting book—neatness and accuracy are essential though. Museums will be clothed with fresh interest to keepers of these books, who will be able to recognise objects which have already become familiar old friends through their Books of Centuries»


Charlotte Mason




Voici la version téléchargeable du livre des siècles, conçu pour mes petits homeschoolers et partagé pour vos jeunes découvreurs de l'Histoire. Il est en format paysage, pour être perforé et inséré dans un classeur ou pour être simplement collé dans un cahier horizontal. J'ai cherché à rester fidèle à l'idée que Charlotte avait du livre des siècles: une frise dans un livre. 


Le but n'est pas de confectionner une frise exhaustive avec tous les Pharaons, rois, présidents, toutes les batailles etc… Le livre des siècles n'est pas une frise ordinaire, c'est un livre unique: l'enfant n'y consigne que les personnages rencontrés dans ses lectures; César après avoir dévoré La Guerre des Gaules, Ann Frank après son Journal, Helen Keller après le récit de sa préceptrice,… Seuls les hommes et les femmes avec lesquels l'enfant a développé un lien affectif fort y ont leur place. 



A la fin, il n'y a pas deux livres similaires: chaque enfant peut parcourir le sien et y retrouver ses vieux amis, ceux qui vivent encore dans son imaginaire. 



Enjoy!

En vente sur Comptoir des Cours

Quelques liens utiles pour s'inspirer:

mardi 19 novembre 2013

Le Petit Journal à compléter - Newspaper to complete - free printable

My 6-year-old enjoys writing like a real journalist. 
To help him, I made a model of a newspaper to complete. As he learns english, very motivated by his lovely Australian pen-pal Bethesda, I made a French and an English version.  


Mon aîné a eu l'idée fantastique, il y a quelques semaines, de devenir le rédacteur en chef d'un journal hebdomadaire pour la famille.

Il aime beaucoup cette activité, qui l'encourage à organiser ses idées en une rédaction construite. Je le laisse faire certains numéros totalement seul, mais il arrive aussi qu'il requière ma collaboration et que je profite de l'occasion pour lui suggérer quelques tournures… tout en corrigeant les inévitables fautes d'un journaliste de 6ans.

Pour améliorer son concept, j'ai élaboré une fiche "type", qui lui donne une trame à remplir chaque semaine. Nous avons deux exemplaires, à télécharger plus bas: Le Petit Journal et The Times (qui a sa préférence pour sa légendaire devise chevaleresque).

J'ai voulu que cette trame respecte une progression temporelle de haut en bas: d'abord les évènements de la semaine écoulée, écrits au passé. Ensuite un évènement "scoop" au présent (cette rubrique est un haut lieu de fraternelles délations, mais nous travaillons sur l'éthique!). Et enfin, le programme des jours à venir, rédigé au futur.

In french:

In English:

mercredi 23 octobre 2013

Homeschooling in France, for my english-speaking followers

When I started to homeschool, I tried to find as much information as possible about this way of life.
The most interesting things were on American websites and blogs. You are so lucky to have this huge and great community (No, I am not jealous, much!)

In France, homeschooling is extremely rare.
It´s a legal choice, but French homeschoolers are just 30 000 because it's unrecognized.

But such as in the USA, we are more and more each year.


French schools

Almost all little French kids go to school from 2 or 3 years old.

Between 2 and 6 years old, they are schooled in some sort of kindergarten, which is free and funded by the state. Before six years old you are free to provide your kids with formal education or not: these "écoles maternelles" are not complusory but almost 100% of 3 to 6 years old are full-time schooled there.
The teacher does her best, alone with about 30 young children in the same classroom.

Between 6 and 16 years old, instruction is required by the law.

You have the choice to put your child at school, or to homeschool him. This second possibility is known by very few parents: only 0.3% of school-age kids are homeschooled. All the others go to primary school.
The level of these schools is very disparate.
Schedules are crazy: kids have to sit and listen six hours per day. A school week has four and a half working days.
The school day begins at 8.30 AM and ends at 4.30 PM. But many schoolchildren have both parents working, so they have the possibility to arrive earlier (at 7.30 AM) and to go home later (at 6 PM). Therefore, they stay at school almost 11 hours per day.

At the present time, French schools make the promotion of contraception and abortion from an early age, and they promote the gender theory from kindergarten.

French teachers

Almost all of French teachers are women (more than 80 per cent).
Some are proficient, some are not. But both have the same earning and the same career.
A good teacher won't be rewarded, and a bad one can't be fired. Accordingly, a lot of good ones suffer from a lack of recognition... a normal feeling isn't it?
National education curriculum is rigid: their options to manoeuvre are few.

The result is not glorious: French schools have poor results. 
At 17 years old, every teenagers are tested by the army: twenty percent of them are illiterate.
France has very low PISA results , and it's going from bad to worse.


The choice of homeschooling

For French homeschoolers, it's a bumpy ride. First of all we have to register with the department of education. Then, every year, an inspector from the department of education tests the children to check their level. Those inspectors have often been accused of bad-faith in the past on this point; evenso, they are powerful, and they can require us to school kids if they want.

Schooled kids have no obligation of results while homeschoolers have.

The country's political regime is very hostile to our minority. Homeschool is prohibited in Germany, wich is our neighbour country, and politicians regularly propose to ban it in France too.


The French homeschool community

We are a very small team but oh so punchy!

We start to mobilize but we feel like pioneers and it's quite a lot of fun!
In my city and around, we are the only homeschool family. We know other ones, but they live far away and we can't see them very often. In daily life, my children's friends go to school, so they play together in the evening or during the week-end.

Some great groups are emerging on facebook. Thanks to that you feel less alone and it's easier to get that extra boost of energy when fatigue starts to set in.
We have no HSLDA to defend our rights, but work is being done on that.


My own experience

It's our third homeschool year.

My husband and I decided to homeschool because our first son was unhappy at school. At 4 years old, the little smiling boy at the time became gloomy and sad. He could not speak, he was very delayed in speech, and had no friends. He was smart but deaf, and there was no satisfactory solution: there is no place for different people in French schools.
We observed that he was doing huge progress during holidays, with us, but that he had no rising during school periods.
So we decided to drop him out of school, and to teach him by ourselves.

To be fair to the youngests, I started to homeschool the full family of four kids, and we discovered an incredible way of life.

We buy a christian curriculum, but I add many funny things thanks to pinterest and other great websites.
My little homeschoolers play many sports and participate in outside activities. I really enjoy this way of life, and I'm trying to do the job: to make my children happy and feel good about themselves.



And I would like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU, the american homeschool moms: for all the things you provide us! Pinterest is a gold-mine thanks to you. I'm a great Penelope Trunk blog fan, and I can't help following the homeschool classroom, homeschool creations, and 1+1+1=1.

And thank you for reading this blog in such great numbers!