I’m feeling rather puffed up with my own cleverness just now. (It doesn’t happen often, so let me have it.) I was casting about for a way to get Sandra to do a book report that wasn’t a book report. She likes Pinterest, which is a visual way to bookmark things. You can use it just as a bookmarking service or as an inspiration board.
I realized that I could have her make a board for a character! It would force her to think about what she thinks the defining characteristics of the character are and then track down images to ‘pin’. She’s reading “Anne of Green Gables” and has to do 2 characters, at least 10-15 pins per character, and include both pictures and words.
She felt rather stumped by this. Because of all of the things that go with needing vision therapy and then needing to get her reading up to grade level, she’s never done a book report or a character study. Our work has focused on getting her to read more quickly, with more confidence and enjoyment. To help her, I helped her brainstorm on one of our runs. (Running with your children, by the way, is one of the great pleasures of life and one of the secret tools of parenting.) I had her think of three words for several characters, three places you’d see them, three things they’d dream of or hope for, and three words to describe their looks. That seemed to really settle her and give her ideas to start the process of searching.
In the end, she chose Anne and Matthew. It wasn’t a lot of work, but she found it gave her a sense of creativity and accomplishment while also pushing her to think deeply about each character.
Her boards are here:
Anne
Matthew
I’d love to hear other ways that you’re using the internet to homeschool. I know that teachers are doing interesting things in the classroom, and I really wish I had more time to research it all.
Handmade Homeschool 
You are so brilliant! And Sandra did a great job on her pins. My 9yo and I are reading Anne just now and you can bet I’ll be sharing the boards with her, and keeping this idea in the back of my mind for the future.
Oh … another way we are using the internet. My dd has been struggling with motivating herself to do her violin practicing. I set up a SurveyMonkey questionnaire for her to complete after each practice, in the hope that she and I can use the data to identify patterns, issues and stumbling blocks — and ways to improve things. She really enjoys completing the survey, and it encourages her to think critically and creatively about the factors that control her enjoyment of her violin.
What a fantastic idea!!
You are clever!! I think this is such a creative use for Pinterest and for a literature response! I’ll have to give it a go with my own kids.
I love this idea! I’m going to share it right now!!
What a fine job she did. I am going to share these with my girl — who is a huge fan of Anne and Mathew.
Hi,
I’ve followed your blog for a while now – I love it! I home ed my son and although he’s only 7 I’m storing up some of your ideas for the future.
What a marvelous way to use new technology. And, her boards are very nice!
Awesome idea! I will be sharing it w/ my 14 yr. old daughter who is having a bit of a learning curve w/ lit. studies:{ We are taking online classes and doing Music Theory through Currclick online classroom. Like you, I would like to integrate using the “good aspects” of the internet into our daily curriculum more often.