Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers #6

Welcome to another edition of the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers. I hope you enjoy reading the entries as much as I did.

Kathy from Home Chemistry makes science fun for homeschooled kids. Her blog post about surfaces and density promises a lot of science related fun.This week we did a number of experiments with oil, water, food coloring and various props to explore the property of surfaces. The physical properties like surface tension and solubility are related to the strength of Intermolecular Forces -- the attractive forces between molecules. She even gives instructions on how to make a lava lamp.

I'm always looking for crafts that reinforce what we are looking for. Sometimes I become so tired of the search as I end up getting book after book from the library, only to find that the projects are too complex, don't work, or just not on target. I was excited to discover Home Education Magazine writer, Kathy Ceceri, has recently published a book, Around the World Crafts The key about this book, for me at least, is that it was written with homeschoolers in mind and that it has been tested on children already. Too many craft books are like recipe books. The crafts appear to have been written but never tested. The book has great activities for kids who like history, math, art, science and more!

Scott Palat presents YOUR CHILD ACHIEVES BEST WHEN ABLE TO CHOOSE HIS LEARNING STYLE AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENT posted at Shari Nielsen. I've seen with Ben and Shira, that even though they are twins, they learn very differently. I am slowly, but surely, learning about their different styles and am tailoring my teaching to better suit each child.

Elena LaVictoire shows how a homeschool mom can effectively cover all learning styles and bring History Alive! on her blog My Domestic Church.

Kelly Curtis of Empowering Youth attempted a one year homeschooling experiment. She blogged about it here.

Kelly has two GREAT giveaways on her blog - Kris Bordessa's books.

I’ve written about the colonial decoding project Darla made with Pringle’s cans. This project was one of dozens of hands-on activities in Great Colonial Projects You Can Build Yourself. Did you know that spies were crucial to the colonists, and a large part of the reason we won the American Revolution? We also made a secret mask for messages and had fun giving each other notes to decode.

My son’s favorite project was creating and using an abacus. He learned how to do this by reading one of the 15 activities in Tools of the Ancient Greeks: A Kid’s Guide to the History & Science of Life in Ancient Greece. It was eye-opening to read about the incredible contributions the ancient Greeks made to science and technology.

Both books look marvelous. I can't wait for my copies to arrive with "Mr Brown Box". Ben and Shira don't like calling the UPS man, Mr Brown, they say that their moniker better describes him. He visits our home so frequently that his truck can find us on autopilot.

Heather Johnson presents Homeschooling – Is it for Your Child? posted at Weapons of Mass Discussion. This, to me, controversial post says, "

Probably one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is that it brings out the special ability in a child and allows the parent to focus on that aspect of development without worrying about how the child’s grades are going to be affected. But this very freedom is also the reason some homeschooling attempts fail miserably, because the parents are not dedicated or up to the task or because the kids are too lazy and disobedient to fall in line with the schedule set for them.

Parents must choose wisely, after analyzing all the pros and cons associated with the process not from what they’ve heard from others, but from their own child’s point of view. Does the child have it in him/her to be a good homeschooled student or is he/she better off in a conventional setting? This decision can make or break a child’s future, so if you’re looking for guidance on whether you should homeschool your kid or not, look nowhere else but at your offspring!

Tiffany Washko reviews educational computer games in her post Knowledge Adventure Games for Homeschoolers at Natural Family Living Blog.

Mary writes, Saving your trash for kids to do art work is a good cheap way to have art time. You can give them ideas like building a train, car, bug, drum, doll or any other thing your child may like they can make. As you can in some of the pictures I did add other stuff whatever you have bring it out it is a let them go at it kind of thing. Be ready for a mess, make sure they help you clean it.

Read the entire post Trash to Treasure on her blogA Mom Learning More Everyday.

We're old hands at using trash for art projects. I am always fascinated by how creative my 7 year olds are. This past weekend Shira turned the packaging from a new fluorescent light fixture into a coffin. Yes, a coffin, for some reason she wanted to pretend to be a corpse. She spent half an hour pretending to be dead and then the game was done. Who knows what was going on in her little mind. Ben took pieces of paper and turned them into a snake cage. He's becoming really good at creating 3-D paper buildings. The main ingredient was tape. I have tape, string and glue on my monthly shopping list - I buy it in bulk and we still seem to run out of the stuff. A girlfriend of mine told me many years ago that the only toys a boy needs are string, tape, sticks, stones and empty boxes. Those were very true words.

Piseco's family had an awesome time at their library where they learned:

The knight told lively stories and demonstrated things as he added each piece to his outfit. He explained all about how chain mail is made, and why they made it that way, and demonstrated how swords don’t cut or pierce it and regular arrows can’t pierce it either. As he brought out each piece of armor, helmet or weapon, he described it, explained how it came to be developed, and what it was good for.

She posted at Mind Games. Our botanical gardens has a History Alive! weekend every fall and the local SCA chapters demonstrate medieval clothing, weapons, food etc.. It's one of my favorite activities of the year.

A very useful post comes from The Eclectic Female, who shares tips on how to develop speed in Spanish speaking posted at Women's Lifestyle.

Alasandra presents Embracing the Joys of Summer, with Kids posted at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog Awards. This is one of those posts that I wished I had written. I was nodding my head with every word Alasandra wrote. She ends by saying: "Maybe the parenting choices I made is why I actually enjoy being with my kids all year.". I am constantly amazed at how many women resent having their children home with them over the summer. I've become so tired of explaining to people that we have no intention of sending Ben and Shira off to sleep away camp. I would hate to lose the wonderful summer time with them. This is the time where we have no schedule, no pressures and we get to bond and have an enormous amount of fun.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the carnival of cool homeschoolers using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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