Homeschooled twins

Reading Comprehension

2010-06-08T18:41:00.003-04:00

I received a review copy of Jacob's Ladder from Prufrock Press a few months ago and started using it immediately. This is the first time that Ben has enjoyed a comprehension program. He and Shira ask to do Jacob's Ladder and are upset if it isn't included in a day's schedule.

So what is Jacob's Ladder?

Jacob's Ladder is a supplemental reading program that implements targeted readings from short stories, poetry, and nonfiction sources. With this program, students engage in an inquiry process that moves from lower order to higher order thinking skills. Starting with basic literary understanding, students learn to critically analyze text by determining implications and consequences, generalizations, main ideas, and/or creative synthesis.

Jacob's Ladder uses "ladders" to guide the children. Ladder A teaches the children how to draw implications and consequences from their reading. For example, the children read a story about a young boy whose father forced him to shoot a blue heron against the boy's wishes. The story goes on to deal with the what happened after the shooting and how the relationship between the boy and his father changed. Ladder A starts by asking the children to list the five most important events of the story in order. Then it asks why the boy receives a camera for his birthday at the end of the story. (this is because the father finally realizes that the son prefers shooting with film and not bullets). Finally, the children are asked to predict how the story would have been different had any one of 4 different events happened.

Ben and Shira love this final part of ladder A. They like to engage in "what if" scenarios.

Ladder B teaches children to make generalizations from the details in the readings. In the story I discuss when talking about Ladder A, Ladder B starts off by asking the children, "What are the reasons for Jon's father wanting to kill the heron?" and "What are Jon's reasons for not wanting to kill the heron.". They are then asked to classify their answers into positive and negative reasons. Finally they are asked to make generalizations about the following based on the story: a) Hunting, b) People who like to hunt, and c) People who don't like to hunt.

Ladder C focuses on themes. Children start by identifying settings and characters and then make inferences about the literary situation. In the story about Androcles and the Lion Ladder C starts off by asking: "How would you describe Androcles? Support your answer with evidence from the text."

It then goes on to ask, "Why doesn't the LIon eat Androcles? Did it surprise you that the Lion spared him? Why or why not?. Finally it asks the child to write a moral for the fable and to explain why her moral is appropriate, providing evidence from the text.

The final ladder, ladder D, focuses on creative synthesis by leading students through paraphrasing and summarizing activities. In Androcles and the Lion, Ladder D starts off by asking the children to rewrite the following quotation in their own words: "But as soon as he came near to Androcles he recognized his friend, and fawned upon him, and licked his hands like a friendly dog. The Emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him, who told him the whole story, whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed, and the Lion let loose to his native forest."

Then the children are asked to write the main idea of the fable from Androcles, supporting their answers from the text.

Finally the children synthesize this all by writing another fable about the main idea they identified for this fable, using characters, settings and a plot of their own choice.

Ladders A and D are Ben and Shira's favorite ladders. I should mention that not all ladders are done for each reading.

I find that Jacob's Ladder is easy to use and thoroughly enjoy how it helps light a spark in my children. They truly do not consider working on Jacob's Ladder to be school work, for them, this is a treat. This is in such stark contrast from the reading comprehension programs of my day. I used to be bored out of my mind. Many of the current programs I've seen mimic the ones of my youth and are simply multiple choice questions about facts within the story. Jacob's Ladder is an entirely different animal. It engages higher order thinking and takes the children far beyond the texts they are reading.

This is a good training ground for when the children finally enter the great literary debate when they read the Great Books of the Western World.

This is the first comprehension program that I've seen that I can wholeheartedly recommend. While it's targeted at gifted children, I think that all children will enjoy this program as you can guide the answers as deeply or as shallowly as you wish. If you have children, how like mine, love to engage in philosophizing, this is definitely a program they would enjoy.

The Carnival of Homeschooling

2010-06-08T13:27:00.004-04:00

Welcome to this week's edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. Compiling this carnival has been a welcome break from the remodeling we are doing. Homeschooling and writing about homeschoolers is so soothing to me compared to making all the choices about countertops, granite, faucets etc, that I have been making.

I am truly thankful that I scheduled the remodeling to be done from May to August. I can't imagine being stuck in the house with remodeling during winter. My brain is so fried by all the decorating choices I have been making that I could not come up with a theme for this carnival, so instead of having a theme, I broke the posts up into topics and have placed pics of my delightful offspring at random spots within the copy. We start this topic off with posts that recap this last school year.

Recapping the 2009/2010 school year.

Co-ops play a large part in the lives of many homeschoolers and summer is often the time when we analyze how well the co-op worked for us during the preceding year and what we want from the co-op for the following year.

These children were having fun pretending to be horses and charioteers at our co-op during their Aeneid class.

Homeschool Dad shares a video of that recaps his family's co-op experiences for the year. His video shows what a great experience a co-op can be.
My family attends the Homeschool Out of the Box co-op where my children took an awe inspiring literature class. Lydia, of Little Blue School taught the Aeneid to children from the age of 4 to about 13. (not all at the same time of course, she taught an enrichment class to the little ones and then had academic track classes for the older children). The children took part in gladiator games, chariot races and learned the Roman virtues. My favorite part of the entire endeavor was listening to the children recite the first 14 lines of the Aeneid in Latin.

Here are all the children singing some of the Aeneid in Latin.

Katherine of No fighting, no biting. speaks about her family's piano recital.

Home Economics.

Home economics is a topic near and dear to my heart. I believe that too many parents, homeschooling or not, do not give their children sufficient skills in running/caring for a home, cooking and needlecraft. It's good to see homeschoolers blogging about how they are going about teaching their children to be self-sufficient within their homes.

Mrs. White of The Legacy of Home has started an ambitious project with her 15 year, daughter. For the next 60 days, they are hand-sewing an apron a day. She sees this as a seamstress apprenticeship for her daughter. Visit her page to see links to her sewing and Facebook pages.

Mrs. White, you have my fullest admiration. Hand-sewing, when a machine is available, takes more patience and fortitude than I have. You are giving your daughter a great gift.

Roscommon Acres finds that homemade birthday cakes make celebrating birthdays much more special. The Thinking Mother teacher's her 10 year old son to make chicken fajitas.

Teachable Moments

One of the beauties of homeschooling is that it sensitizes parents to teaching moments.

I lived in the states for a few years before I realized the real purpose of Memorial Day. I never even gave the holiday a thought and if I did, I just thought of it as the official start to summer vacations. I was mortified when I finally realized that it was a holiday memorializing all those members of the armed forces who have given their lives to protect our freedoms.

Jessica of Teachable Moments found this Memorial Day particularly poignant as her brother is preparing for war with a group of young marines.

Summer Schooling

What are you doing this summer? Do you take the entire year off, or do you school year round? Perhaps you do something else?

I Capture the Rowhouse is taking a break from regular schooling and is studying movies.

I hope that this will be a little bit of the science of movies, a little bit of art and a little bit of culture. Classic films are cultural reference points the same way that plays, music, and other works of art are. However, I’m also hoping this unit will add a little more media literacy to my kids’ lives. We already talk about commercials and the way that things are sold. However, I think there’s more to media literacy than that. I’m hoping to work on Mushroom and BalletBoy’s ability to talk about how moving images, music and story can make us feel certain ways and how that works.

Charlotte Mason

Living Charlotte Mason in California gives details on how to run a Charlotte Mason study group. I found this blog post to be immensely useful as I've never been sure how to go about doing something like this. I like how her study group encompasses art, science and foreign languages.

Book Reviews

Kris of At Home Science reviews "Finding Darwin's God", a book that attempts to reconcile religion and evolution.

Evolution, Creationism, Microevolution, Intelligent Design, Materialism, Science and Religion...where does one begin to understand what all controversy is about? Start with Kenneth Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God.  Kenneth Miller is a Catholic cell biologist that clearly explains all of these subjects. He begins by taking us through the volumes of evidence supporting Evolution, including the scientific meaning of "theory" that is often misused by opponents of Evolution. He then gives the details of Creationism, Microevolution-only, and Intelligent Design, describing not only where these proposals are wrong based on the scientific evidence, but also where they are philosophically insufficient to explain God's relationship to His creation.

Alasandra reviews, "Love in a Time of Homeschooling".

Her experience with homeschooling seems very different then mine. Maybe it was because they knew it was only for one year. Also because she still had two children in public school her family didn't enjoy the same amount of flexibility that most homeschool families enjoy. At first it seemed as if what they were really doing was "school at home" although toward the end they did seem to grasp the freedom homeschooling allows and the creativity that can spring from it. I actually found the rest of the book slow going and didn't enjoy it as much as the first few chapters.

Homeschooling Creatively.

One of the reasons I homeschool is for the flexibility it affords me in how, what and when I teach my children.

Her Own Copy discusses how she has successfully used Journal writing with her reluctant writer.

Henry Cate of Why Homeschooling compares the time that is wasted in schooling out of the home vs. schooling in the home. Unlike Henry, our children do not go from the breakfast table into school. Our children go from bed to school. I only make breakfast about an hour into their school day. Lest you think I am a totally evil mom, my kids decided to do school this way. They wake up and start doing their assigned schoolwork. They often start school between 6 and 6:30am. I take my time getting, make breakfast for all of us and then we start with mommy instruction.

Dwarves and Blokus discusses how a simple computer game Dwarf Fortress lead to huge amounts of learning. Her son started learning Python, magma flows and much more.

Quirky Mamademonstrates how she uses post card swaps to teach geography to her preschoolers.

Let's Play Math has written a brilliant post on 5th grade Hobbit Math. I can't wait to give my kids her worksheet on decimals, ratios and percents as it is written around "The Hobbit".

Little Blue School discusses why you should teach your child to write a novel.

In encouraging a child to write a novel, you're not just asking them to produce a book. You're promoting several important benefits in their education, and in their development as a person. Writing a novel, for kids and teens, really has very little to do with the final product, you see. While their books are fantastic and we love to read them, the true purpose of writing at this age is not to create the Next Big Book that will bring the publishing industry to its knees. It's all about the process, and kids learn much from the process of writing a novel.

My entry in this carnival is my review of Prufrock Press' reading comprehension program, Jacob's Ladder. I give this program a wholehearted thumbs up. It makes teaching fun (for my children at least). We all thoroughly enjoy working with this program.

Summer Reading Programs

Beverly Hernandez is one again running a Summer Reading Club for Homeschoolers.

The 12th Annual Summer Reading Club begins today! Get those library cards out! The purpose of the Summer Reading Club is to encourage students to read for pleasure, help the reluctant reader along and reward them for their efforts. Get your kids signed up and reading all summer long.

The Homeschool Buyers Co-op is giving away an iPad and 12, $15 Amazon gift certificates in their summer reading program.

Parenting

Home Spun Juggling ruminates on testing and testing anxiety.

Rational Jenn discusses kids and money. In the first post she talks about her stance on kids and money and in the second she gives an update on how allowances are working for her family.

Explaining about financial constraints, and how to make purchases based on your values, has been really beneficial, for the most part. One of the things I'm doing these days is planning our dinner menu for the week in advance and then buying according to my list and plan. This helps me stick with eating right and keeps our grocery budget in balance, too. So when we're at the store and one of them asks to buy something, I feel free to say "No, I don't think I'll buy that today. I have enough money to buy the things on my list, but no extra money for extras today." Or when trying to make a purchasing decision, I'll speak out loud and often enlist their assistance:

Living Charlotte Mason in California discusses the differences between two graduation ceremonies she attended and how different teh homeschooled children were compared to the public schooled children.

This day was the perfect reminder to me to think about the other things. To remember the countless hours I've spent with my children doing so much more than school. To think about the relationship we've developed with one another. To remember the victories and triumphs we have shared.

Parenting Squad discusses the topic of behavior contracts with teens.

Freebies

We end this carnival with two freebies.

Linda Dobson is giving away approximately 20 years of copies of Home Education Magazine.

Here’s the deal. These issues have been kept in a filing cabinet inside a closet. I have them all out, but I apologize that I just don’t have time to go through them to confirm how complete, or even when they begin. I did see 1986 in there somewhere…which would mean we’re talking well over twenty years worth of timeless information, resources, and personal stories that can help anybody get started homeschooling, or support anyone who is already on the journey!

iPad Weekly reviews a free app: This Day in History.

The application’s one and only feature is providing 4-10 historical events that happened on any specific day of the year. The application defaults to the current date. For example, Today (June 4th), Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, was born on 1808. The Dutch West India Company was chartered in 1621 and King George V was born in 1865.

This ends the this Carnival of Homeschooling. Why not share your blog posts and ideas in the next carnival. You can post your entries here

Having fun with language arts

2010-04-29T11:38:00.003-04:00

This has been a good week in our homeschool. I decided to start slowing down because of the beautiful Spring weather and to concentrate on one subject a week. We do some of the others but not every day and only as the mood takes us. I find that Spring is the hardest season in which to do school, so we take it easy every Spring. We enjoy the warm weather before it becomes too hot and humid.

This week we concentrated on Language Arts. I dislike that term. Why Language Arts? Why not just grammar, literature, creative writing etc.? Anyway, be that it may, we did a lot of work with Shurley English. The kids were really enjoying the grammar part of Shurley this week. We ended up doing 3 chapters instead of the single one we normally do each week.

This was the week we wrote poetry. I have never heard so much giggling as I did while the children were writing their poems.

Archie
Larger than Hershey and looks funny,
Very short ears and large tummy.
Likes running, playing and walks,
Balls and sometimes sock.
He likes balls but not crates,
and has been neutered so he has no mates.
~ Ben, age 9

We spent hours reading poetry. Jack Prelutsky had us rolling on the floor.

I think they read Poetry Speaks to Children so may times that they know it by heart.

Shurley English had an exercise where the children had to write a personality poem based on a particular outline. These are some of the ones the kids wrote:

Shira,
Temperamental, funny.
Very tall, long hair,
Reading, riding, writing, sleeping ,walking,
Congenial.
~ Ben, age 9

Shira
Brainy, careful,
Grey eyes, tall figure.
Horses, watermelon, friends, family, peace and quiet.
Lovable.
~ Shira, age 9

Mom
Demanding, brainy,
Tall figure, stern grey eyes.
Teaching, reading, Facebook, e-mail, mothering.
Kind
~ Shira age 9

Dad
Cheerful, clever.
Brown eyes, charcoal hair.
Parenting, reading, technology, astronomy, Wagner.
Lovable.
~ Shira, age 9

Notice how differently Ben sees Shira from the way she sees herself?

They wrote a lot of limericks. I think the worse they were, the more the kids laughed. This is the only one that survived in print.

There once was a king of Parcheesi,
He always forgot his sneezy.
Snot few wild
and hit a child,
He said it was very easy.
~ Ben, age 9

Much to Shira's delight, we worked through a bunch of exercises in Prufrock Press's reading comprehension program, Jacob's Ladder. I'll write more about this program in another post. Suffice to say that it is streets ahead of any other comprehension program I've seen. It's not a check the box program. It has the children thinking beyond the story.

One of our favorite online stores is Mindware. The kids love their building toys and adore their puzzle books. This week they were having fun with Word Winks. Each book contains over 300 visual verbal puzzles.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my children are better at these puzzles than I am.

I was tickled pink when Ben made one for "No one left behind".

Children, Charity and Geography

2010-04-29T10:21:00.006-04:00

The children have recently started earning wages. They start each week off with 500 pennies. They can increase this money be doing any number of activities that we're trying to get the children to do. Currently these are things like personal hygiene (why is this so difficult for children?), kindness to others, not being bossy in certain situations, putting dishes into the dishwasher, feeding the dogs and taking out the trash.

They can also lose pennies by not doing something that is part of what they are expected to do to earn their 500 pennies. Currently these are things like switching off lights, keeping their bedrooms tidy, not leaving shoes and coats everywhere. Sometimes we provide incentives for things they should be doing but aren't doing as this works so much better than taking things away from them. As the activity becomes habitual, I start reducing the size of the incentive and then let it drop and make it part of the set wages.

At the end of every week they divvy up their wages. Twenty percent goes to long term savings, 10% to charity and they get to keep the rest.

The children have opted to use their charity money in an interesting way. Instead of just handing it over to a charity, they are using it to provide micro loans to business people in developing countries. They use Kiva.org to do this.

I am a huge fan of Kiva's. I like how they empower people to earn better livings and how they do not do handouts. Every person who receives a micro loan is expected to repay it over a set time that is agreed upon, loan by loan.

What this means is that the money you lend out is repaid and you can lend it out again. This way you make a difference in many more people's lives than if you just gave handouts.

Kiva personalizes the site by listing all the people who are asking for loans. You know what country they are in, who the local lending partner is (and their track record), why they want the loan, a little bit of history about the person and their track record in repaying loans if they have had any loans before.

The loans are also sorted by sector, so you can choose to make loans in agriculture, manufacturing, retail etc.

Born in 1957, Mrs. Hanu AWOUDJA is married and mother to five children. Her income-generating activity is the production and sale of cassava flour. She is requesting this loan in order to stock up on cassava from farmers in her town, so that she can increase her production capacity, income and profits.

Delgertuya is 39 years old and a widow who lives with her two children in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. She and her family live together in a ger, the traditional Mongolian nomadic tent. She operates a grocery store in her yard. Delgertuya has been operating this business since 2006 and has built a stable operation over the past four years.

However, her husband passed away and she was left to raise her two children. At that time it was hard for her to continue her work, but she has since worked diligently to grow her business to its current successful position. Her grocery store is in a good location and her business is stable. Delgertuya has been planning to purchase large amounts of products for her store to increase her sales. She is a very hard-working person and says, “I would like to expand my grocery store and to open a supermarket in future.” She is requesting a loan to increase her inventory.

Important Information About This Loan
About Credit Mongol:
Credit Mongol’s mission is to contribute to the prosperity of Mongols by providing diversified financial services to micro-loan and small and medium enterprise (SME) clients and to become the best-performing company in micro-loan and SME financing in Mongolia.

Ben and Shira spend hours going through all the loan requests before they decide on who they want to lend money to. The beauty of Kiva is that you can make loans as small as $25. If a person requests a loan of say $800, they might receive funding from 32 different people.

Kiva sends out updates from the field so throughout the loan period you hear about how the people who received your loans are doing, how the country is faring and what factors are influencing the loan holder's business.

It's amazing what the process of choosing who to lend to and reading the follow up emails does for the children's geography. They have been looking the countries up in maps and on the globe and are starting to realize what charmed lives they lead.

If you are looking for a charity to support, I highly recommend Kiva.org.

Neat idea for Mother's Day

2010-04-22T13:04:00.004-04:00

I'm no fan of fabricated events. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, etc. make me shake my head. Such a performance is made over a single day. Heaven forbid someone forgets to send cards or flowers. All of a sudden, this lack means that you aren't loved. I read Facebook and email lists on these days and wonder how a single Hallmark holiday can take on such importance. To me, it's the day-to-day living that shows love and respect. We shouldn't need a special day to show this, especially if our year-round actions don't say this.

That said, StoryCorps has launched a book, Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps, in time for Mother's Day that really appeals to me.

In Mom, Dave Isay, StoryCorps founder and editor of the bestselling book, Listening Is an Act of Love, presents a celebration of American mothers from all walks of life and experiences. Selected from StoryCorps’ extensive archive of interviews, Mom presents the wisdom that has been passed from mothers to their children in StoryCorps’ recording booths across the country.

This book doesn't harp on the actions of a single day, instead it shows how mothers throughout the country and decades have inspired their children through their longterm acts of love.

You can read interviews such as this one between Jerry Johnson and his mother Carrie Conley who raised 6 children as a single mother.

StoryCorps is offering a a free gift card to add to the book (if you buy it, that is) to truly give the gift of listening. The card entitles you to record an interview between you and your mother, inspired by the StoryCorps interviews in the book. The simple act of interviewing a loved one is one of the most meaningful gifts you can give and a wonderful way to show someone you care.

I think this is a really neat Mother's Day gift.

I'm fascinated by StoryCorps.

StoryCorps is a nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, over 50,000 everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages. The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary. By helping people to connect, and to talk about the questions that matter, the StoryCorps experience is powerful and sometimes even life-changing.

I love the idea of setting Ben and Shira a project to interview family members for posterity. I tried to have them do this two years ago but they were still too young. I think now is the time to float this idea again. They have such diverse stories in their heritage, ones that deserve to be remembered.

Book Arts Bash winners

2010-04-10T12:48:00.003-04:00

I want to dedicate this post to homeschool parents. You are giving your children the most incredible gift. The gift of having the time to follow their passions. The entries in the Book Arts Bash were "knock your socks off" good. I doubt that children who are rushed to within an inch of their lives could have written novels of this calibre. It makes me so proud to be part of this creative and incredible community.

Kindergarten and First Grade:

Winner:
A Big Problem by Brianna T.
Runners up:
Adventures of Big D and BMC by Emma W.
Zoo With A Strange Zookeeper by Vivian L.

Second and Third Grade:

Winner:
The Adventures of Blue Flame the Heroic Giant Squid-Fighting Hero by Sage M.
Runners Up:
Ruby, A Twisting Tale by Emilie M.
Mittens the Cat by Melea von T.

Fourth and Fifth Grade:

Winner:
1 by Nicci M.
Runners up:
One Girl Revolution by Sadie Z.
Blaze by Alexandra S.

Sixth Grade:

Winner:
The Princess by Lena G.
Runners up:
Becoming Callie by Lena G.
Trixie by Lydia A.

Seventh Grade:

Winner:
Happy Ending is a Place by Mandy H.
Runners up:
Violet Fire by Bryn B.
Kite by Hannah S.

Eighth Grade:

Winner:
Hollin by Garrett R.
Runners up:
Common Animals by Thomas B.
Little Angel by Adayla S.

Ninth Grade:

Winner:
Why I Missed the Second Set by Rose C.
Runners up:
Untitled by Larissa S.
Tales of the Humbats: The Seventh Piece by Raven M.

Tenth Grade:

Winner:
Children of the Stars by Holden M.
Runners up:
Shattering Darkness by Vienna H.
The Scouser Cap by Emily V.

Eleventh Grade:

Winner:
Cadence by Scout G.
Runners up:
Vengeance: 25 cents by Kathleen M.
Don't Look Down by Tanya S

Twelfth Grade:

Winner:
If Pearls Could Sing by Pamela C.
Runners up:
Broken Things by Emily D.
Falling Night by Anna W.

Big thank you to our generous sponsors:

Dreambox: Visit Dreambox for an incredible interactive math curriculum for kids from preschool through third grade. For kindergarten math, Dreambox is unparalleled in fun and pedagogical value. Check out the free trial and see what you think!

Shurley Grammar: A grammar curriculum that takes your child from first through seventh grade, using drills and jingles to teach writing skills (and also reading skills!) along the way. A trusted name in home education, Shurley will not steer you wrong.

Classical Academic Press: If you're contemplating teaching Latin or Greek in your homeschool, you definitely need this system. With audio, video, fun activities, and online Latin games, as well as standard workbooks and quizzes, anyone can teach Latin.

Prufrock Press: Parents of gifted children often have difficulty finding work that will challenge their kids' abilities while still being fun. Prufrock's gifted education materials are a godsend. Kids see them as a treat!

Explode the Code: Many of us have used Explode the Code workbooks with our kids and enjoyed the progressive phonics curriculum. Now Explode the Code has launched an online version, taking their reading education to a whole new level.

Can you help us by republishing the results and sponsor links on your blog, supporting homeschooled writers and this novel-writing contest? Please email us or leave a comment to let us know you can help. We need twenty blogs to participate. Would you donate a post on yours?

You can use this text file to copy and paste into your blog editing software. Right click to download.

Son of a gun!

2010-04-02T19:28:00.003-04:00

Ben obviously misheard this urban legend:

An urban legend sometimes states that a story reported in the October 7, 1864 The American Medical Weekly about a woman impregnated by a bullet that went through a soldier's scrotum and into her abdomen was the origin of the term "son of a gun." The story about the woman was a joke written by Dr. Legrand G. Capers; some people who read the weekly failed to realize that the story was a joke and reported it as true.

In Ben's retelling, the bullet ricochets off the soldier's knee and then enters the woman's abdomen, making her pregnant.

Ben was full of outrage that anyone could believe anything so ludicrous as any fool knows that there is no way a bullet can ricochet off a knee.

Oh, to be young, earnest and innocent again.

Bite-Size Physics

2010-04-01T11:21:00.002-04:00

I am pleased to announce that my search for an upper elementary school/middle school physics program is over. The winner of this long and frustrating competition is Science Jim's program, Bite-Size Physics.

He's taken high school physics and made is accessible to elementary aged children. Some of the lessons contain math, but those are optional. Leaving the math lessons out does not detract from the program.

So why am I in love with this program?

Each lesson is written up in a friendly, easy to use format. I don't have to search through the net and the library for supporting information. What you see, is what you need. Each concept is backed up by easy to do, fool proof, experiments. You don't need specialized equipment.

As an example, in the first chapter, he explains what the scientific method is and then he has the children do experiments to practice the essential five steps of the scientific method. My kids think his mnemonic is hilarious - "Orange Hippos Take Classes Regularly". The first experiment is titled, "The Diabolical Diaper Dilemma". You need a disposable diaper, water, a large bowl or sink, a measuring cup and two people, to carry out this experiment. He carefully walks the students through the entire process.

His script has the children doubled over with laughter. I love that. Laughter and learning go well together. For me, the best part is that I can use the script without having to decipher it into plain English.

The second experiment is called, "Drops on a penny (A.K.A. Underwater Presidents). The goal of this experiment is to work out how many drops of water a penny can hold by using the scientific method.

After a third, fun and interesting experiment, he recaps the essential points and then there is a quiz.

Many of the experiments are supported by videos featuring Science Jim doing the experiment.

The program covers: The scientific method, mechanics, friction, energy, sound, atoms, static electricity and thermal energy.

I'll keep you updated but for right now, I am as happy as a clam. This is a plug and play program that is funny, academically rigorous, and very easy to use.

Dreambox, an adaptive math curriculum

2010-03-31T14:13:00.004-04:00

As you are no doubt aware, math is a great love of mine. Another great love is adaptive curricula. I love the idea of using computer programs to help teach our children. Computer programs allow our children to receive many, many more positive reinforcements while learning than they can do with real live people.

I try to approximate this instant positive reinforcement by marking each math problem as it is done. My kids do a problem, then we check it. That way they get the immediate positive feedback on a job well done or they get immediate correction before they have the opportunity to make the same mistake over and over again. Now that my kids are older, this is easier for me to do, however, when they were just starting out with math/arithmetic, it was much, much harder for me to do as they were at such different levels.

I had the same problem when they were learning to read but managed to solve it by using an adaptive computer based curriculum called, Reading Horizons at Home. Using a computer based program allowed me to do two things. I could gainfully occupy one twin while I was doing intensive, one-on-one work with the other. The combination of mom taught phonics and the computer program worked a charm.

How I wish that Dreambox had been available when Ben and Shira were doing K-3rd grade math. Lydia has been raving about Dreambox for quite a while, so a few weeks ago I signed up for a free trial to see for myself what the big excitement was.

Oh, my goodness, this is a great program. It addresses one of the bugbears I have with so many math curricula for the wee ones. It addresses number sense. The children who use this program are not only learning how to count, but they are developing a really good sense of how the various numbers relate to each other. This makes math so much easier later on.

I was pleased to see that Dreambox teaches the children how to add mentally the same way I taught my children. My kids were adding double and triple digit numbers mentally long before they learned how to do it on paper. Place value can be a difficult concept to teach children and unless they understand place value, adding multiple digit numbers on paper can be tricky. It's much easier to teach children the mental tricks.

I like how everything in the program has a learning component (even the games) and how all learning has a fun component. Ben and Shira spent a good few hours working through Dreambox and pronounced it to be a good program. Ben, in particular would have benefited from this program as fine motor skills came to him later than to Shira. He spent far too many hours being frustrated by his difficulty in getting what was in his mind onto paper. In retrospect, this difficulty was a blessing because it forced me to do a lot of mental arithmetic with the kids and to devise systems that made it easier for him. However, it would have been so much easier for all of us if we'd had a computer based program of this calibre available to us.

I would also have appreciated being able to give intensive practice on Dreambox to one child while working with the other. You have no idea how many issues we had for a while as a result of my twins asynchronous math and reading development. I had to keep them well out of earshot of each other during instruction as the twin who struggled with a concept in comparison to the other would give up learning and think s/he was stupid. I am so glad those days are over.

I know this program is geared to the K-3 crowd, but I think it is also perfectly suited to gifted preschoolers. These youngsters are often hamstrung by their inability to put pen to paper effectively. Dreambox allows these gifted youngsters to feed their inquiring minds without being held back by their physical development.

I want to thank Dreambox for being a sponsor of this year's Book Arts Bash for without sponsors, our homeschooled novelists would not have a forum to showcase their work.

Math over the last 8 months.

2010-03-15T19:02:00.005-04:00

Math is one of those subjects where I am never totally happy with just one curriculum. This is probably why we work out of up to half a dozen at any one time.

Until early this school year, our core curriculum was Professor B Math. I'm a fan of mastery curricula like this one. Prof B tells stories to teach his math and I found when Shira was younger, she needed the extra verbal cues. This program stresses understanding the concepts and mastering them. I still use it to teach some subjects. I moved away from it as my core program when we hit a roadblock with long division. For some reason, Shira could not grasp it using his explanations.

She had become so worked up over the issue that when we moved to Singapore Math I did not start at long division. Instead I started in Book 3B which was well below what Ben and Shira had been doing, but because it uses different methods and includes those great word problems, I thought it would be good to work through it.

This was one of the best decisions I ever made. Shira's confidence sky-rocketed because she was finding all the work easy. I appreciated all the word problems and the Singapore methodology for solving them. I think it's really neat that children this age are given the tools to solve word problems without using algebraic equations (which is how I would have solved most of them).

One fine day, about 2 months into Singapore Math (we were now in one of the 4's, can't remember which one), Ben and Shira put some math problems up on the board for each other. Ben gave Shira a long division problem. I was floored when Shira calmly completed the problem correctly.

I find this often happens. I hit a brick wall, move away from the issue and a while later the children show me that they've internalized the issue.

I then decided to start teaching the children fractions and used a combination of Professor B Math and Jump Math.

I discovered Jump Math after reading a piece on the Ashoka Foundation. This foundation, that keeps a rather low profile, funds social entrepreneurs.

One recipient of their grants is a Canadian, Dr. John Mighton, who is convinced that every child can master true mathematics.

Thanks to his Ashoka grant, Mighton is able to provide his math curriculum for free. (you have to register, at no cost to you, in order to see and download the teachers' guides). I fell in love with his methodology while using his introductory unit to fractions.. His approach is much like Kumon's in that it builds up in very tiny increments. He's broken each concept into tiny components and teaches them so that they slowly build on each other. Before you know it, the children have mastered quite large concepts with no pain whatsoever. I initially worried that it might be too boring for my math driven kids, but happily it wasn't. They breeze through the easy stuff and love his meaty challenges. I've found that every concept I've taught using Jump Math has been painless for the kids.

You can't go wrong with this curriculum, especially since it's free.

We supplemented with Life of Fred: Fractions. I've been reading about this program for years so I thought I'd give it a bash. Life of Fred: Fractions should definitely not be used as your children's first exposure to fractions. The instruction is too light and will leave a newbie confused. Use it to cement the concepts you've already taught. The story is engaging and fun and the children love doing it, once they already know how to work with fractions.

I also bought Funny & Fabulous Fraction Stories by Dan Greenberg. My kids say that you should not waste your money and repeat my mistake. They found it trite and annoying.

Currently, my children's favorite part of math is geometry. This is thanks to Prufrock Press's book, Hands-On Geometry: Constructions With a Straightedge and Compass. The kids beg to do this every morning before we do any other schoolwork.

I've been really happy seeing how the children have taken their math lessons from this book and are using them in art. Both children have been making fabulous geometric pictures (of course, now that I want to show you one, I can't find any).

I've promised the children that once we've finished with this book that we will move on to Drawing Stars and Building Polyhedra.

Ben is itching to start constructing three dimensional shapes.

My plan is to use this book together with Jump Math's geometry is level 6. Ben is itching to work with transformations, rotations and reflections. He's been reading ahead and has started making isoparametric drawings and mat plans. I can't say that this is going to be a treat for me to teach as I really struggle with rotating 3D items, but Ben (and I think Shira) are going to love it. Both children have far better spacial abilities than I do. This is all new work to me. I never did stuff like this in school.

I nearly forgot to talk about the Fibonacci unit we did. We used, Fascinating Fibonaccis: Mystery and Magic in Numbers and it's workbook, Fibonacci Fun: Fascinating Activities With Intriguing Numbers. We did this when we were in a particularly stressful period and I did not want to tax the children's minds. It served its purpose. The kids enjoyed it, learned a little and weren't mentally taxed.

I know that I could use just one of Singapore, Prof B or Jump Math as a core, but I enjoy how they each approach math very differently. I find that it's good for my kids to learn how to do things many different ways.

My plan for next year is to continue combing these three programs and add in enrichment from Prufrock Press titles. (We've not had a dud from them. Shira particularly likes their books on analogies and Poetry a la Carte.)

However, these plans may go awry as another mathy mom has been talking to me about Math-U-See. Both of us had written it off as we don't like manipulatives, but she's been testing it and is loving how it teaches algebra. This means that Math-U-See is on my horizon.

Learning Latin is Fun!

2010-03-14T12:19:00.004-04:00

"Learning Latin is fun!" are words I hear multiple times a week from my 8 year old twins. This is in such marked contrast from what I heard from my peers in high school. They all hated it. I never got the chance to hate it as my father insisted that since I was offered a choice between typing and Latin that I had to do typing. He felt that typing would stand me in greater stead as an adult than Latin would. Knowing how to touch type is a huge boon to me, however, I have always felt shortchanged that I spent 2 years learning to type when I could have been learning Latin. I started teaching my children to type last August and my daughter is already typing 50 w.p.m. with 98% accuracy. If an 8 year old can do that in half a year, why was I, as a teen, subjected to typing lessons for 2 full years?

As luck would have it, I have been given a second chance because I homeschool my children. Prior to starting homeschooling I read copiously about different educational philosophies. I realized that a rigorous, hierarchical, neo-classical education fit our philosophy and needs. Learning Latin became a must. I faced a barrage of naysayers though as many people I know feel that Latin is a dead language and that I will just be wasting my time teaching my children Latin. I'll let Classical Academic Press respond to that objection.

Well Latin isn’t dead after all, it lives on in the mouths of all of us who speak English, as half of our English words are derived from Latin. For those who speak French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian or Portuguese (the “Romance” languages), 90% of the vocabulary comes from Latin. These Romance languages are actually forms of Latin that have evolved over the centuries in various regions with some interaction from other local tongues. As you might guess, studying Latin is fantastic preparation for the Romance languages! Studying Latin is one of the easiest ways to become fluent not just in one but in several Romance languages. There are other good reasons to study Latin, cited below:

1. Studying Latin prepares a student to master English and the Romance languages. Students of Latin, for example, typically score the highest on tests on English vocabulary!

2. Latin prepares a student for several important professions that are steeped in Latin or English words derived from Latin. Examples: law, medicine, science, music, theology, philosophy, literature.

3. Latin enables a student to have improved access to English literature prior to 1950 which is replete with references and citations in Latin. As well, the history of art and architecture is replete with Latin. Monuments and art all over the world are frequently graced with Latin.

4. Latin enables a student to more fully understand and appreciate the Roman empire which has had profound and continuing effect on western civilization.

5. Latin enables a student to enjoy some of the most influential literature the world has known in the original language. Learning Latin well enough to read original Latin works is attainable and imparts great satisfaction and enjoyment.

6.The study of Latin is an ongoing study in linguistic puzzle-solving that generally helps students to become close and careful readers and writers. Many believe it also hones the mental faculties generally. One well-known cancer researcher asked what best prepared him for a life of medical research. His response: “Studying Latin and Greek as a child.”

I think you can see why studying Latin is a way of doing advance study in several subjects simultaneously. This is why we regard it as a master subject—it is a subject that like a tool enables one to master other things, other subjects. It is no wonder that it has been a required subject in schools for centuries.

I found that choosing a Latin program was especially tough. I looked at "Latin is not so Tough" and found it too lack lustre. In the beginning book I looked at no grammar was taught, only vocabulary.

Minimus was cute, the kids loved the story, but I struggled with the pronunciations as a neophyte. I also found that it was too lightweight.

I discovered Latin for Children at a HEAV conference.

I was hooked, even before starting to use it with my kids. I really like how it works from parts to whole, how it is very systematic. Learning the pronunciation is a cinch with Latin for Children. The program comes with a CD that contains chants for all the vocabulary learned. Each week my children learn 10 new vocabulary words and have them well memorized within one lesson thanks to the chants. Declinations and conjugations are all set to chants which makes it so much easier for the children to keep them in their memories.

In addition to the lessons being in the primers, you can purchase a DVD with the author teaching the lessons. We watch the DVD lesson on day one and then I teach the lesson again on day two. This works well for us.

I have lost all my fear over teaching Latin thanks to this program. A Latin neophyte, like me, can easily teach using this program. I learn alongside my children without them realizing that my Latin knowledge is on a par with theirs.

My children's vocabulary has increased dramatically despite the fact that we have only completed 21 lessons in Primer A. After we've learned each lesson's vocabulary, we work on derivatives. Whenever my children ask me for a word's meaning, I have them first think if it might be a derivative of a Latin word they know, and then I send them off to the dictionary. It's heartening to see how their faces light up when they realize they can work out an unfamiliar words' meanings on their own.

Latin practice is also fun at Headventure Land. Headventure Land is Classical Academic Press' practice website. Here the children can play games that quiz vocabulary, read short books in Latin and watch movies in Latin. The movies are my children's favorite.

We supplement our Latin studies with Latin Clash Cards and a weekly Latin Club.

The Latin Club, run by my good friend, Lydia, is one of the highlights of my children's week. Here they spend an hour laughing, learning and competing. It's fun to watch how a little competition inspires the children to greater diligence in memorizing their declinations and conjugations.

Latin for Children covers three years of Latin with Primers A, B and C. Once your children have completed these three primers they move into Latin Alive!. Classical Academic Press has currently only published the first in the series but I hear that the second is due out at any time. By the time my children read this level all the books in the series will have been published.

Once the children have finished Latin Alive! they will be ready for Wheelock's Latin, a college text.

An added advantage of Latin for Children is that it dovetails perfectly with Shurley English, the English program I am using in our homeschool.

As a homeschooler who is firmly committed to ensuring that my children are good writers, i'd like to thank Classical Academic Press for sponsoring the Book Arts Bash.

Shurley English - A Success Story for Our Family.

2010-03-14T10:19:00.005-04:00

This is the time of year where I review all our curricula. I thought that, this year, I'd write up my reviews and post them on my blog.

We started off our homeschool journey using "First Language Lessons" by Jessie Wise. My kids and I are still trying to work out why people rave about it on TWTM boards as it bored us to tears. My children would beg me not to subject them to any more First Language Lessons torture. I finally gave it up as a bad job.

I then started thinking that teaching grammar formally was not necessary as I never learned formal grammar and I speak and write far better than average. However, as we progressed in our study of Latin using Latin for Children, I realized that I was shortchanging our children by not formally teaching them grammar.

I looked at many grammar programs but discovered that my lack of formal grammar knowledge was a huge problem for me as almost all of them presupposed a basic knowledge on the part of the teacher. Since Latin for Children was written to dovetail with Shurley English, I decided to have a look at the program.

I'm the first to admit that my first look at the teacher's manual nearly had me in tears. It looked so complicated and difficult to master that I nearly put the book back onto the shelf. It was only the high recommendation that the program received from Classical Academic Press, the publishers of "Latin for Children", and my dear friend Andrea, that gave me pause to re-look at the program.

A closer look made me realize that this program does not presuppose that the teacher has any grammar or writing knowledge. So, despite my misgivings, I bought the program.

It took me about 2 weeks to get into my stride with this program, but after that it was plain sailing. Now, we all love using Shurley English.

I love how it is a complete grammar and writing program. When you use Shurley English you do not need to buy separate grammar and writing curricula.

One of the strengths of this program is that all the parts of speech are taught using jingles. You start each lesson by singing all the jingles you've learned to date. My kids just love singing the jingles and will often ask to sing them more than once.

"This little noun, floating around,
names a person, place, or thing.
With a nick-nack-paddy-whack,
these are English rules.
Isn't language fun and cool?"

An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun.
An adjective asks, "What kind? Which one? How many?"
To find an adjective: Go, Ask, Get.
Where do I go? To a noun or pronoun.
What do I ask? What kind? Which one? How many?
What do I get? An ADJECTIVE! (clap) (clap)
That's What!

I find my kids singing these jingles under their breathe when they are unsure of how to to work out the parts of speech in a particular sentence.

I have a very math driven son who really struggled with First Language Lessons. Ben needs to be able to reduce everything to a pattern or system. Shurley English does just that. You are given a "question and answer flow" to use for every sentence that you mark up. It makes working out the various parts of speech so much easier for the children (and mom).

Ben, in particular, loves that he can now see the pattern and he happily marks up his sentences. In fact, my kids love doing this so much that they do not like that they only get three sentences a day from Shurley to mark up. I have to make up more for them every day.

Another huge benefit is that the program is structured to give immediate feedback to the children as they work through a lesson. The children identify the parts of speech in a sentence and then I immediately go through it with them. This allows for immediate correction of mistakes and hopefully they learn not to make this mistake the next time.

I've transferred this concept to our math lessons. We mark each math problem as they do it. They love the immediate feedback and I've found that their skills progress at a rate of knots compared to when they did the same number of problems but only had them checked once they'd done them all. By giving feedback immediately after each problem, the children never repeat the same mistake over and over again. When they repeat the same mistake over and over, they learn the mistake and then you have to spend much more time rewiring their brains as they learn the correction.

Both my kids love how Shurley teaches writing. They like that they are taught a basic skeleton for each form of writing they do. The Shurley method appeals to both my math driven son and my verbal, arty daughter. They both appreciate being able to see a system and then to make it their own by adding their own creative touches. I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly my children's writing improved once we started using Shurley English.

Every week I have my children write two or three paragraphs answering questions based on the previous week's history lessons. I was ecstatic to see how much my children's writing of these paragraphs improved once they did Shurley's lessons on how to write paragraphs. I'm always happy to see skill transference.

I'm in love with their editing and revising charts for writing. Nothing is left to chance. The children are taught, step-by-step, how to revise and edit their writing.

I initially thought that the exercise Shurley gives the children in sentence construction was pretty lame. That only lasted until I saw how much my children enjoyed it. Yesterday I had children jumping up and down with excitement because I wrote one of these up on the board. It's difficult to explain what you do, but I'll give it a bash.

You write the parts of speech labels for a sentence on the board. For example, A Adj SN A Vt Adv V P PPA OP. The children then write up a sentence that follows that format. For this sentence it could be, "The beautiful girl threw the ball to her dog."

That's not the fun part though. Once this sentence is written the children have to change words using one antonym, one word change and one or more synonyms. So, the sentence could turn into, "The rotund boy tossed a fish to his feline." My kids do one serious sentence and one silly sentence each time. I find that it is a great way to bring humor into our school day.

Little do the children realize that they are learning how to revise their writing when they practice this little exercise.

I've heard homeschoolers say that they don't use Shurley because it is too scripted. I like the scripts because it leaves nothing to chance. I know exactly what to teach and how to teach it to my children. That said, I will often read the lesson and then use my own words to teach it. If you are a script hater, please do not let this put you off this program. The benefits to you and your child far outweigh this minor irritation. See research on the benefits of using Shurley English.

I have no doubt that children who are taught English using Shurley English will turn into strong readers and writers. Schools in Athens, GA are finding that Shurley English is causing a dramatic improvement in language arts scores. Here's an article on this here.

Mrs. Shurley is a great supporter of homeschooling and a promoter of writing in the young. Thank you Mrs. Shurley for sponsoring the Book Arts Bash, a writing competition that celebrates our homeschool writers.

Birthday cupcake

2010-01-28T10:39:00.001-05:00

Birthday cupcake
Originally uploaded by Sherene Silverberg

Thank you Shira for my birthday cupcake. The sparkler candles started falling over and nearly created a fire.

Book Arts Bash

2009-12-28T16:17:00.004-05:00

Entries are pouring in for this year's Book Arts Bash. I've been glancing at the synopses am in in awe of the imaginations of our young homeschoolers. I was expecting to be drowning in fantasy like we were last year. Not so this year, we have novels set in medieval Japan, on the DC metro, and in orphanages. There are angst filled teen love stories, girls disguised as boy hockey players and pen pal guinea pigs.

It's going to be such fun reading all the creative submissions.

I'm envious

2009-12-14T12:37:00.002-05:00

Marc and I often talk about how we'd dearly love to both be at home all the time with the children. Unfortunately Marc has to spend his days at the local hospital. Pathology is not a field that allows for working from home and fitting work into your life schedule.

I am always envious of families who have managed to organize their lives in a way that allows both parents to be home and to be actively involved in their children's homeschooling.

This means that I am exceedingly envious of the Berry family. Jon and Julia have an enviable homeschooling set up. Jon works from home running a successful web hosting business that allows him to be intimately involved with his children's education.

Sometimes I feel sorry for poor Jon. He's generally the parent who brings their children to park day. Just imagine the single male amongst a host of knitting, crocheting and kibbitzing moms. He's made of stern stuff. Jon takes everything in his stride. Sometimes he interacts with us, sometimes he's on his phone doing business, all the time calm and collected.

Jon, being the generous, homeschooling committed, business owner he is, hadGreen Olive Tree sponsor the G.U.E.S.S. Homeschooling Science Fair.

This web hosting company provides all kinds of server management, virtual server solutions, and dedicated servers. If you need complicated internet stuff, they are your answer. Don't go with a big company that treats you like a number -- Green Olive Tree's customer service is unparalleled and their record is spotless. Even if you're just looking for reliable web hosting, and you don't want to pay a lot of money, how about this: $25 a year for web hosting for a personal site. That's wicked cheap. Find out more about their web hosting plans and prices here.

If you're reading this and you appreciate their support of our science fair, their support of their kids, and their involvement in the community, please follow their Twitter feed and fan them on Facebook. These are good people, doing a great job raising their children and making an exceptional business out of hard work and excellent service.

204th Carnival of Homeschooling

2009-11-23T21:13:00.001-05:00

The carnival is up at the Norfolk Homeschooling Examiner.

Steal this post.

2009-11-23T20:59:00.001-05:00

The sponsors of our 2009 GUESS Homeschool Science Fair generously provided our young scientists with exciting prizes for the winners. Their donations also allowed us to underwrite the cost of all the kids' science fair day at the VASC, including an age-appropriate science class, an electricity demo, and an IMAX movie. Part of what we do to thank our sponsors is generating links for them on homeschool blogs and sites, pointing to their web presence from descriptive anchor text, to boost their Google ranking on those search terms. That's where this post comes in!

We need your help to spread these links across the internet, to say thank you to these businesses for supporting our young homeschooled scientists. If you have a blog, or site, and you can help us, please steal this post! For maximum impact on search engines, it's very important that the links go along with the post, attached to the appropriate text, so if you need the plain HTML to put into your blog, click here for a .txt file.

So, how can you help the GUESS Homeschool Science Fair?

1. Copy this post, or the .txt file with the HTML.
2. Post it to your blog.
3. Let us know when you've done it so we can link back to your blog!

Here's the part of the post we want you to "steal":

Thank you to the following homeschool-friendly businesses for supporting the GUESS Homeschool Science Fair and the young scientists of Hampton Roads!

Green Olive Tree is an internet company based in Portsmouth, Virginia and owned and operated by a homeschooling family. They offer a broad range of internet services, from reliable web hosting to corporate infrastructure solutions and server administration.

SKS Science supplies homeschoolers and other educators with all the science supplies you need to turn your dining room table into a proper laboratory. Browse their site for test tubes, bottles, face masks and other lab supplies and books.

Book Exchange is the largest used bookstore in Eastern Virginia. Unlike most musty and confusing used stores, this one is clean, bright, inviting, and has a huge selection of used homeschool books. There's always an interesting curriculum find on these shelves!

Folkmanis Puppets makes the most delightful animal puppets available outside Santa's workshop. Meet their most unusual creations like llamas, Chinese dragons, ostriches, flying squirrels. Unusual materials create realistic textures, and they all move in very realistic ways. Irresistible.

The Happy Scientist, Robert Krampf, hosts an online wonderland for budding scientists. With online science lessons, experiments to try at home, a science photo of the day, and new content added all the time, you'll love setting your kids loose on this site.

Mad Science is Hampton Roads' premier provider of science enrichment classes for children. Summer classes include "Crazy Chemistry" and a space camp developed with NASA! New homeschool science classes are being offered in Norfolk and VA Beach, with more planned for fall.

Moore Expressions is a homeschool bookstore in Virginia Beach, VA. They sell used and new homeschooling curriculum, host a support group, and publish a newsletter called the Bayith Educator. They are the premier source for homeschooling books in the Hampton Roads area.

Norfolk Karate Academy offers classes in Tang Soo Do (Korean karate) and Gracie Jiu Jitsu (Brazilian grappling and self-defense). With classes for children, teens, and adults, it's a great way for anyone to get in shape and kick things in a socially acceptable way!

Brooks Systems offers standalone software and web applications that check legal compliance in all municipalities in all fifty states, and create truth-in-lending documents for residential lenders. Using Brooks for your automated mortgage compliance, you can be sure your loans are safe.

eScienceLabs creates boxes of joy for science loving homeschoolers. In each kit is a complete science experience -- from individual lessons to full years of high school labs. Hands-on science kits are the answer to your laboratory woes. Everything is in there: test tubes, goggles, and fun.

Mariner's Museum has amazing programs for homeschoolers learning about maritime science, history, and even pirates! Their spring homeschool series features lessons about the Civil War. Visit Mariner's Museum for historical exhibits and educational programming.

Virginia Air and Space Center was host to the homeschool science fair this year, and delivered awesome science classes for homeschoolers from their education department. The VASC is the educator resource center for the NASA Langley Research Center.

Halloween

2009-11-05T11:20:00.004-05:00

History at Our House

2009-11-05T11:16:00.001-05:00

IMG_3599
Originally uploaded by Sherene Silverberg

Couldn't resist posting this pic of my kids as they do a History through Art lesson with Scott Powell from History at Our House.

Every Monday to Thursday, from 11-11:30 a.m., the children call into their history class. I've discovered the trick to keeping Ben focused to to have him bounce on a Pilates ball.

I always quiz them about what the've learned immediately after and before a lesson. I discovered that the children retain substantially more of what they hear when they bounce on the Pilates balls during the lesson.

I can't believe it took me so long to have them bounce during a lesson as I've used movement successfully so often in our homeschool. We practice Latin conjugations, declensions and translations while we walk, jump, climb stairs and swing. Ditto for math facts. Now I see it works for history as well.

I've transferred this lesson to the rest of our schoolwork. Now, when I teach them something new, I make sure they are sitting on the balls or marching around.

I feel sorry for all those children who are institutional schools all day and who don't get to move while they learn.

Plural of curriculum

2009-11-02T19:11:00.002-05:00

I am writing on my blog to prevent me from being rude on a list. When will homeschoolers learn that the plural for "curriculum" is NOT "curriculums"? It is "curricula".

It's like the homeschooler in Hampton Roads whose address is "grammerworks@....".

I die a thousand deaths when I see homeschoolers make mistakes like this.

Promoting Happy Scientists

2009-11-02T16:03:00.003-05:00

The Science Fair is nearly upon us. On Monday, 9 November, close on a hundred homeschooled students descend on the Virginia Air and Space Museum to show off their scientific prowess.

We have really great sponsors this year.

Robert Krampf, The Happy Scientist has donated 10 memberships to his website. We've been members of his website for a few years. My kids love nothing better than to spend an afternoon surfing his website. He makes science come alive in his videos and his experiments are easy for the children to do. Best of all, they don't require any special materials. The kids don't need me to run around buying obscure items, they just raid the pantry and cleaning supplies to make science magic. Our annual subscription of $20 is some of the best money I spend for our homeschool.

My favorite used book store, The Book Exchange in Norfolk is repeat sponsor. I've found homeschooling gems in this store. My entire library of books on American government and American history was bought at the Book Exchange for a fraction of the retail value. Everyone at this store understands homeschoolers and their needs. They go out of their way to help us. One of my deepest wishes is that every homeschooler in Norfolk would recycle their homeschooling materials and libraries through the Book Exchange which would make it an even better resource to our community.

Another repeat sponsor is Mad Science of Hampton Roads. These guys are a hoot. They are all about the drama of science while still providing instruction. One of the neatest things they do is to come into your home and do a scientific presentation with drama and flare at your children's birthday parties. What's not to love about an organization that entertains while it teaches?

e-Science labs is once again providing science kits to our winners. If you are looking for the best hands-on science kits available at the middle school, high school or college levels, e-Science labs is your best bet.

Their hands-on science kits are designed to fit with any curriculum or teaching style. Engaging online content is provided to supplement a complete series of hands-on labs and to reinforce key concepts.

Their kits are designed to be safer for students and friendly for the environment. Each kit is complete and contains everything a student needs to perform all of the experiments. Their PhD-level educators and scientists have written manuals that are clear, concise and easy to follow.

In both their hands-on and online content, they show how fundamental scientific concepts play a role in our daily lives. By making science relevant, they engage students and enable them to better understand the world around them.

Norfolk Karate Academy provides the best karate instruction in Norfolk. Mr Odom understands that squirrelly young children need gentle care to keep them focussed but at the same time, he allows no misbehavior. His karate classes provide the perfect mind/body balance by exhausting the young homeschoolers while at the same time teaching them mental discipline. I promised my kids that they could start karate with the Norfolk Karate Academy in the fall but life has conspired against us. I've had to swear on my life that as soon as we return from Key Largo in December, that they can sign up for Monday and Wednesday classes. It's going to be good for Mr Ben. He needs another male teacher in his life, especially one who takes no crap from bright young boys.

I count myself very lucky to live in Norfolk. We have many of the facilities you find in a large city without the stress of living in a large city. One of the biggest draws, for me, is that we have such a large, active and diverse homeschooling community. Best of all, we have our very own homeschooling bookstore, Moore Expressions.

I've had reason to thank them twice in the last few months. I needed to change both our math and our English curricula. I did tons of research online, but that only helped me narrow the list down to 2 contenders for each category. I can't tell you how much it helped me to be able to tootle off to Moore Expressions and page through my options. It particularly helped me to be able to page through many Singapore Math books as I couldn't work out where to place Ben and Shira. I ended up buying books two levels too low because we had not covered everything Singapore did. We spent a week barreling through the work and then when we were done, i took the books back to Moore Expressions where they gave me a store credit and sold them on to another homeschool family.

This is one store that Ben and Shira don't mind tagging along to as Moore Expressions has a great children's play space and they always meet fellow homeschooled children when we go there.

Puppets have always played a huge part in my children's creative play. Our favorite puppets are those from Folkmanis. I'm always blown away by how realistic and CUTE their puppets are. These puppets are in a world of their own. You want to hug and stroke their puppets instead of giving them to the kids to play with. I've lost count of the number of naps I've had while snuggling a Folkmanispuppet.

There are going to be more than a few happy children at the Science Fair as Folkmanis has again donated puppets as prizes for the younger set.

Are you looking for petri dishes, pipettes, tubing, test tubes or any other lab equipment? Look no further than SKS Science, yet another returning science fair sponsor. Their website helpfully allows you to search for equipment by scientific field. It's a little late for this year's entrants, but SKS Science has an entire section on their website devoted to science fair projects. I truly appreciate doing business with a company that is not just out to make a quick buck. They provide info for free to the community.

We have great museums in the Norfolk area. One of my favorites is the Mariner's Museum. I love spending time looking at the beautiful replicas of small craft from around the world. Their homeschool days are well worth it. Read all about the last one I attended over here.

Fellow homeschoolers Jon and Julia Berry are the owners of Green Olive Tree a web hosting and internet services company. They offer web hosting, dedicated servers, virtual private servers, enterprise anti-spam solutions, VoIP servers, hosted exchange, and server administration and security.

They also provide consulting for companies with complex infrastructure needs. Jon has been working in the Internet Industry for over six years and has the expertise to evaluate your needs and come up with the most cost effective solution possible.

Another returning sponsor is Brooks Systems. Brooks Systems has been a provider of cutting-edge technology for the residential finance industry for over 20 years. Brooks Systems has serviced and supported over 10,000 clients in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Canada.

They offer products that help maintain TILA and Predatory Lending Compliance. Customized solution programming is also available to solve many additional lending problems.

To all our sponsors, a great big thank you. Our children thank you for helping make this science fair possible.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-02T15:55:00.002-05:00

I was planning on having Ben and Shira write a 5,000 word novel for NaNoWriMo, but life has conspired against us. November is going to a brutal month for us and I can already see that my kids are feeling stressed. I decided that adding writing to their workload will be the tipping point, so no NaNoWriMo for the twins.

I have no intention ever of writing a novel, however, I am taking up the challenge to write a blog post every day in November for NaNoWriMo. I need something to give me a good old kick to get me blogging again. I have all these things I want to say but then don't get round to blogging about it.

If your homeschooled kids are writing a novel for NaNoWriMo have them submit their novel to the The Book Arts Bash. I can't imagine a better opportunity for a child to have his/her writing critiqued by someone who really knows what s/he is doing. Judges are such luminaries as Holly Black, the author of "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and Sara Gruen, author of "Water for Elephants". The winners in each age category will receive an in-depth critique from a leading NYC or LA editor or literary agent.

Book Arts Bash

2009-10-12T17:08:00.003-04:00

This year's Book Arts Bash is now underway.

The Bash is an amazing opportunity for budding homeschool novelists to showcase their writing. Last year over 300 homeschoolers entered their writing. Judges like Lois Lowry (The Giver) and Robert Pinsky (former US Poet Laureate) judged and critiqued these homeschooled writers.

This year we've made it easier to enter the Bash. Entrants simply send a .txt file to the Bash. Because all entries are digital, our entrants will have the opportunity to share excerpts of their entries online.

All judges will all be best-selling novelists, such as Holly Black (Spiderwick Chronicles) and Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants).
The top three entries in each age group will then be sent to leading literary agents in New York and Los Angeles for constructive critiques. The top entry in each category will also win $100.

The Bash starts accepting entries on November 1.
The deadline for novels is January 1.

This is a great opportunity for homeschooling parents to help their children find relevance in their writing curriculum. Your children have a chance to win cold, hard cash and more importantly, they have a chance to have a top notch, industry professional critique their work.

If your child, like my son, is a reluctant writer and science geek, don't despair. You can have him write a living science book.

Feel free to steal this post and publicize the Bash on any and all homeschool lists to which you belong. The more homeschoolers who hear about the Bash, the better.

Lego Mindstorms NXT

2009-08-30T11:48:00.003-04:00

A friend and I have lost our minds. Despite zero experience with First Lego League and Mindstorms programming, we're running a First Lego League team for our four children and another friend's 2 children. Thankfully we have a homeschooled teen who is Mindstorms crazy as a mentor for the robotics part of the tournament. I've spent the last week learning how to do and teach Mindstorms programming.

Since all 6 children are new to Mindstorms, I thought that I should spend some time with with each sibling team to bring them up to speed. I figured that it is easier to teach 2 kids rather than 6 kids at a time. Today we my children's turn. I must admit that I did not realize how time consuming this little exercise would be. We spent 5 hours on today's little project. I think that when I do this with the other sibling teams that I'll just concentrate on the programming and the thinking process being breaking the tasks down into their component parts. We'll use the already built robots. Most of the children in the team are Lego fanatics and have great experience building things with Legos. Their knowledge deficit is in programming.

I found a great book that we're working through that teaching the thought processes necessary to successfully design, build and program a robot. In case you are looking for something similar, I highly recommend Lego Mindstorms NXT: The Mayan Adventure . It's part of Apress' "Technology in Action" series.

The book tells the story of a young boy who accompanies his uncle on a Mayan archaeological dig and helps his uncle overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles by designing and using Mindstorms robots.

At each obstacle, the author takes the children through the thinking required to design a robot and to design the programming. Then he teaches them how to do both.

We've just spent a fun morning designing and building a robot that navigates a tunnel full of turns, depresses a pressure plate and then returns to its starting point.

I highly recommend both Lego Mindstorms and The Mayan Adventure.

Overheard.....

2009-08-18T15:10:00.002-04:00

Shira: "Ben, when you bake, it's important to stir and beat the batter well." (said in her most officious voice)
Ben: (said in his most "know it all" voice) "Shira, I know how to bake. I've baked countless loaves of bread on Disney Fairies. I know that the more you mix, the better!"
Shira: (with a large sigh) You just watch me, I'll teach you how it's done in real life.

Learning to apply make up

2009-08-05T09:18:00.004-04:00

There is nothing quite as deflating to the ego as having young children. This morning Ben and Shira were standing next to me as i started applying my make up and seriously punctured my ego.

Shira watched me take out a brush and start applying concealer. She wanted to know what I was doing and I explained how it smoothed out the uneven color. She and Ben thought this was a really neat idea and proceeded to point out all my skin imperfections. Who knew I had so many blemishes? It must be those 8 year old rods and cones that are so discerning.

Shira was fascinated by the entire make up process and asked to be allowed to make up my face. My instinctive reaction was to say "no". However, then I realized that I have no issues with her using face paint on my face and hands. I let her turn me into clowns and butterflies, why not let her practice more subtle skills on my face?

I realized that I was having an instinctive response to an 8 year old and make up. She wasn't asking to put make up on her face, she was asking to put make up on my face. I had to get over my fear that she would want to start wearing make up if she gets to do my face. She's still young socially, so that's not an issue. For some reason, I see her face painting as an expression of her artistic skills and doing make up as a social skill. I need to think of this as a life skill and an artistic expression.

Tomorrow Shira starts practicing her make up skills on my face. Hopefully she'll have enough practice that when she is old enough to wear make up, she won't start off looking like a clown the way so many young girls do.

Today is Towel Day

2009-05-25T09:31:00.002-04:00

This morning, as I was making breakfast, I reminded the children that today was a public holiday. "Yes, we know," they barked, "It's TOWEL DAY!". Mmm, our eccentric homeschooling ways are showing. Our kids know all about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" but don't know about Memorial Day.

Marc and the kids plan on wearing towels around their necks for the entire day. Marc has already proven how useful a towel is. He proudly showed me all the spinach he brought inside from the garage freezer, all neatly packaged in his towel.

Just in case you are not aware of the towel's import in a hitchhiker's life, I leave you with this quote:

A towel (...) is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan
Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself
off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

I'm blogging over at the Examiner.com

2009-05-25T07:40:00.002-04:00

I've started writing for the Examiner.com. If you've been following this blog, you will probably enjoy following me over at the Examiner.com.

Separation of Church and State.

2009-05-07T16:27:00.003-04:00

One of our local Congressmen Randy Forbes has introduced a legislation to recognize the role of religion in official America"

During a visit to Turkey last month, Obama said, “One of the great strengths of the United States is, although I have mentioned we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

That’s just incorrect, Forbes said Wednesday.

Forbes wants to establish the first week of May as America’s Spiritual Heritage Week to mark the involvement of religion in “official American life.” He and other sponsors of the resolution will hold a news conference in Washington today , the National Day of Prayer, to publicize the effort.

Just what part of the separation of Church and State does Forbes not understand?

Hopefully his resolution is voted down by saner minds. I'm no Obama fan, but it is truly refreshing to see a President who understands that there is no official American religion and that religion should not play a role in official life. I wish our politicians would keep their religious and private lives private.

Eggheads

2009-03-15T11:33:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was the annual egg drop competition at Nauticus.

Ben's feeling miserable with his broken collarbone so he decided not to take part. Yesterday turned out to be a great lesson in actions having consequences. Shira won second place in the parachute drop and Ben is seriously bent out of shape that she won a gift card to the Discovery Store and he didn't.

I love teachable moments like this. Ben and I had a little chat about actions having consequences. He was convinced that this was only applicable when you did something bad. LOL. It was good to be able to demonstrate that inaction as well as action results in consequences. He decided to play instead of testing egg drop contraptions while his sister spent hours working on different solutions. She entered and won while he didn't.

I've been working with Shira on building her confidence. The child is a perfectionist and never thinks she does things well enough. She also always defers to everyone else and thinks that their efforts are better than her own.

Marc discovered that my little talks are paying off and that she'd been psyching herself the evening before the competition.

Shira's parachute was the cutest there. When she held it up to launch you could hear the collective, "Oooh's and Ahh's". Interesting choice of parachute for a a little Jewish kid don't you think? Shows you how well the dominate culture percolates into our thinking.

Shira's parachute landed closest to the target but lost first place because it weighed too much. She was thrilled with second place though and is already working on ideas to help her win next year.

We were convinced she'd win "Most Creative" but alas, it was not to be. A young girl who used more padding than I ever imagined was possible, won that category.

I took the above picture about half way through the unpacking process.

Padwan Shira

2009-03-15T11:24:00.002-04:00

The highlight of Shira's trip to Hollywood Studios was being chosen to take part in a Star Wars Academy.

As you can well imagine, Ben was not impressed that she, and not he, was chosen. It's tough when children start to realize that life is not always fair.

Georgia Aquarium

2009-03-15T11:05:00.002-04:00

In early January we visited the Georgia Aquarium with my cousin, Roy.

I have to say that this is a most impressive aquarium. However, the cognitive dissonance was almost too much for me.

When I think of aquariums, I think of quiet places filled with the sounds of moving water and lit by subdued lighting. This aquarium is as far from that as you can ever imagine. There is loud, obnoxious music spewing forth at decibels far too high for comfort and there are neon lights and bright colors everywhere.

Our little family became quite overwhelmed by all the stimulation outside of the exhibits.

Thankfully the exhibits were calmer and quieter. We made the mistake of visiting on a holiday Saturday. Thankfully, as is my wont, we were at the doors as they opened so we had a good few hours of quiet before the crowds hit.

I've never come across such knowledgeable and vibrant docents. I've trained the kids to always go up to docents and ask them questions. This way we find that we can almost guarantee private tours around facilities. This facility was no different. We made our way from docent to docent who were only too happy to impart all the encyclopedic knowledge about their areas of expertise.

Also, as usual, we arranged a behind the scenes tour and this was one of the best we've ever been on.

Our tour leader excelled at engaging young children.

As always the touch tanks were a hit.

My favorite part of the entire tour was being on a gantry above the whale shark tank.

This was my first visit to Atlanta and definitely not my last. Shira has asked that we go back to Atlanta in warmer weather so that we can do all the area museums. I've even joined an Atlanta area group, Homeschool Passport so that I can discover when all the homeschool days are. Hopefully we can combine a trip with lots of other homeschool activities.

I thought of taking the kids to the Coca Cola museum but seeing as my kids have never drunk soda and have no intention of ever drinking soda, I wonder if the museum will be a bust for them. I think that when they are older, I can talk about Coca Cola and American culture, but for now, I think it will be all lost on them.

Behind The Scenes at Epcot

2009-03-15T10:30:00.002-04:00

Whenever we visit a museum or park, I try to arrange a behind the scenes tour for our family as my experience has shown that this greatly enhances the visit.

One of our favorite "rides" at Epcot is the "Living With The Land Boat Ride".

When we were at Epcot last September with my parents, I discovered all the behind the scenes tours you can take at Walt Disney World. The "Living with the Land" one is one of the few that Ben and Shira are old enough to do. This January, when my cousin was visiting from South Africa, we went to Epcot and did the Living with the Land Behind the scenes tour.

I highly recommend the tour to all homeschooling parents. The educational aspect has just enough cookiness built in to make it a whole lot of fun for the kids.

They put growing pumpkins into Mickey Mouse molds and force the pumpkins into those shapes

They also do the same with cucumbers

My kids, the tomato eating fanatics, fell in love with the tomato tree.

Ben was fascinated by this brand new display of aquaculture combining with hydroponics

Did you know that they try to grow enough produce hydroponically to fulfill the needs of the table service restaurants?

Hampton Roads Tax Day Tea Party

2009-03-15T09:50:00.002-04:00

I can't wait to take Ben and Shira to our local Tea Party on April 15 in Virginia Beach. They've learned all about the Boston Tea Party and were actively involved in campaigning to get Ron Paul onto the Republican ballot.

A blogger buddy, Rational Jenn took her kids to the Atlanta Tea Party and came under a fair bit of flack for doing so. I am stunned that people think that children should not be involved in political activism. Jenn writes a lucid argument for why they should be involved in activism.

What is happening in government right now is going to have a lasting effect on our children and their grandchildren. As the trustee of my children's future, I need to become active and as the recipients of their future, they need to be aware and active as well.

I was very active as a teen and young adult in the anti Apartheid movement and know well how disapproving non activists can be of those who stand up for their principles. Even though I benefited from Apartheid, I can live with my conscience as I was an active part in the movement to change it.

I want to be able to look my kids in the eye and tell them that I did what I could to ensure that (to paraphrase Jenn), their futures are not shackled by today's idiot politicians.

From Hampton Roads Tax Day Tea Party

Fed Up with High Taxes, Bloated Budgets, and Pork?
We are organizing a tax protest “tea party” to take place on April 15, 2009 at Central Plaza, Towne Center (across from Senator Webb’s Office) Virginia Beach, VA. This is a non-partisan event designed to be creative and effective. Our representatives are not listening to us on the bailout, TARP, the stimulus A.K.A. “porkulus” bill, and now the 3+ trillion dollar budget. We in effect have “taxation without representation”. Both major parties are to blame. Our children and grandchildren will pay the price with their future. Our country is being sold to foreign interests through bonds.

This has got to stop. Washington is on a spending orgy. ”Going forward” is become code for “we will do what we want, call it what we want, and give the public meaningless verbage about responsibility. Later. When it’s convenient for us”.

It doesn’t matter if you are a low-tax, fair-tax or flat tax supporter. Our country is on a tipping point. Our Founding Fathers were keenly aware of the addictive power of government and sought to limit it. They took a bold move and created a nation unlike any other in the history of the world. It’s a precious heritage. We need to protect it.

You can help. If you live in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton, or anywhere in the state of Virginia, please join us! If you are on Facebook, join our group. Tell your friends, co-workers, peers, and family about what we are doing. Opt-in to our email list, so that we can keep you up to date about locations, times and other important details. When you opt-in, you will only receive emails about the Tax Day Tea Party. Hampton Roads Tax Day Tea Party is a non-partisan group, and not affiliated with any political party. We love our Country, our Constitution, and the Liberty that our Founding Fathers sought to create.

Thank you for being a part of the Hampton Roads Tax Day Tea Party. We have a voice - let’s use it!

Karen Miner Hurd
Coby D. Willard
Founders & Patriots
Hampton Roads Tax Day Tea Party
http://Twitter.com/LongevityCoach (Karen)
http://Twittter.com/cbwillard (Coby)

Earthbox gardening

2009-03-15T08:13:00.004-04:00

I am a green thumb challenged homeschooler who has been cursed, um blessed, with two children who are desperate to grow things. After it cost me in excess of $200 per tomato last year I swore off ever growing vegetables again.

In my defense, we have little or no room in our backyard and what room we do have is severely sun challenged. Last year I tried growing veggies in containers in the tiny area that does receive sunlight but they required so much watering (at least twice a day), that our water bill shot up by over $100 a month. I don't quite know what I did wrong, but I got weird vegetables that were eaten by wild creatures before we got to pick them.

Today I received a notification that Green Alternatives, a neat little ecostore around the corner from me, is hosting an Earthbox Meet Up on Saturday, 21 March at 2pm.

The little blurb got me excited that perhaps my plant killing days aren't yet over.

"An EarthBox is ideal for aspiring and experienced gardeners that are tight on space or just enjoy having a controled environment for their fruits, veggies, and herbs.
The class will be taught by a local professor who currently uses about 30 EarthBoxes for his gardening. "

I just had to google Earthboxes and discovered that these little boxes are on casters that allow you to move the boxes to the light. They also have the watering problems solved.

The EarthBox's plastic cover drastically reduces the water evaporation rate and returns condensed water vapor to the potting mix. As the plants draw water from the reservoir, they consume only what they need to stay healthy. Plants cannot be over-watered or under-watered if the reservoir is kept full. The plastic cover also prevents fertilizer from being diluted or washed away by rain.

The Tobagan government is using Earthboxes to solve their food security problems.

If a country can use Earthboxes to ensure they grow enough vegetables for their country, perhaps I can grow just part of the Silverberg family's vegetable needs.

Earthbox also has an entire education site. You can purchase the earthbox, together with education manuals for different grades.

I had a look a the sample on their website for the 2-5th graders and it looks like it might be worthwhile.

The website says

The curriculum support of the complete edition provides 17 standards-based sequential lesson plans divided into 45 minute classroom periods that require 60 days to complete in their entirety. Elementary Sample Lesson Plan.pdf. The 60 day time-line includes the treatment intervals between the real time experiments, but the actual lessons can be completed in twenty-seven, 45 minute periods. Not all lessons are interconnected. Instructors can choose the lessons appropriate to their objectives to focus on individual goals.

They also have pared down educational programs.

I'm really excited about the possibility that I too can have tomatoes like this

or spinach like this

Who knew spinach grew on vines?

This looks promising for someone like me. Perhaps I could have a real veggie garden this year and educate the children at the same time. Is anyone interested in joining me at Green Alternatives on Saturday 21 March at 2pm to find out about Earthboxes?

Kim's Play Place: Academy of Science and Technology 1

2009-03-13T22:11:00.000-04:00

I've been on a mission lately about finding a science curriculum for the kids. To this end I've been searching through all the homeschooling message boards to find information on science programs.

I couldn't get over the fact that more time is devoted by homeschoolers talking about history than about science. I suspect that Susan Wise Bauer and her "The Well Trained Mind" is to blame. She spawned an entire cult of homeschoolers who believe that history should be the backbone of their children's education.

Science seems to get short shrift.

I fully agree that history is vitally important in our children's education, but science is as well.

So much of the science programs that are on offer to the homeschoolers confuse religion and science. I hate that I have to read subtext to find out whether a so called science program teaches mythology or science.

I also become rather irate when science is not taught hierarchically and when children are taught concepts for which they do not have the requisite context.

I think I have a solution. I need to check on a few things and then if I am correct, I'll blog about it.

In the mean time it was a real treat to see that Kim from Kim's Play Space has started a science blog carnival called theAcademy of Science and Technology 1

Patience

2009-03-13T19:40:00.001-04:00

Just heard a great quote, "Patience is just procrastination without the stress."

The Homeschool Showcase is up.

2009-03-09T20:59:00.002-04:00

As usual, Kris has published another great edition of "The Homeschool Showcase"

I can't wait to make the origami boxes she featured.

Have fun with augmented reality.

2009-03-09T20:00:00.003-04:00

Marc and the kids have just spent a few happy minutes playing with the digital hologram at the GE site.

Plug in your webcam, print out the graphic from the website and have fun with the digital hologram of the smart grid.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Math Fact Drill

2009-03-09T10:43:00.003-04:00

Over the last few decades I've noticed a very worrying trend amongst math educators that downplays the importance of knowing math facts well enough that you don't have to think when asked one. I've seen arguments that suggest that calculators take the place of knowing math facts.

For a while, when I lived in South Africa, I tutored underprivileged high school junior and seniors in math. These were all strong students who wanted to go onto do something that required math in university. They were hamstrung by the poor math teaching they received in their schools.

I generally tutored algebra and trig and discovered pretty quickly that they were also hamstrung by the fact that they couldn't easily find factors and common denominators.

My first action became going back to basics. I become a tyrant about math fact drills. I expected all my students to be able to give me the answers to the 1-12 times tables (and the divisions), squares of 1-20 and square roots of a long list of numbers within seconds of my asking them. I wanted these things to be automatic. I didn't want anyone having to think what 17+22 was, I wanted them to immediately know it was 39.

Without a single exception, all my students started excelling at their higher level math once they had their math facts down pat and we'd done some basic tutoring on methodology.

I had almost forgotten about all this until I started homeschooling my own kids. I have twins who love math and who want to scream ahead in the syllabus. I have no doubt in my mind at all that they could cope with the concepts of beginning algebra right now. The problem is that they'd be frustrated by their slowness in math facts.

I've spent the last year looking for tools to drill math facts.

We've done pages upon pages of written problems. There are a host of different free worksheet webpages, but the one I used most often was Math-Drills.com.

Whenever I added a timer to them, Shira fell apart. I struggled to keep Ben focused. Shira would complete her worksheets in record time, as long as there was no timer, Ben could do it, but became bored.

We tried games at Multiplication.com, Timez Attack, the river crossing game at AHA Math, flash cards and mom asking questions while we drive.

Flash cards and mom asking worked well but it took up too much of my time. I tried having each child quiz the other but it ended up in too many tears.

We discovered that the computer games helped the children learn new math facts but didn't do much for speed. Both my kids hated Timez Attack. I was surprised at that because I had only read great reviews. I realized that since we're not a video gaming family, my kids were becoming too frustrated learning how to play the game. They just wanted to focus on the facts and the extraneous activities were driving them crazy.

Before I forget, we also had a subscription to Big Math Time. This worked really well for addition and subtraction of small numbers but it fell apart for us on multiplication, division and addition and subtraction of large numbers because of the strange way they had the kids show the carrying.

About a month ago a fellow homeschooler reminded me about FlashMaster. She'd used it with her children and was convinced that it would solve my issues.

I am so glad I listened to her and bought two for my kids.

My only complaint is that I didn't buy them sooner.

Our goal is for the children to do the "timed flash cards" so fast that it takes them less than 1.5 seconds per problem.

Every morning, my kids know to do 20-30 min on the FlashMaster while I make breakfast and feed the dogs. Each child competes against his/her self. This is a BIG deal in our overly competitive household. I love anything that takes the focus off competing with a sibling and onto competing with one's self.

I love how I can go into each unit and see how the children are doing on their problems. It's also useful that besides the standard, 1+3=?, 4-3=?. 3x4=? etc, you can also do things like, 32/?=4 or 3+?=12.

Last week I sat down and quickly taught the kids the basics of the next few things we are going to learn in math; long division, factorization, lowest common denominators, factor reduction, improper fractions and mixed numbers. I have two children who are champing at the bit. They are desperate to sink their teeth into meatier math. I can see that they understand the concepts but I know that if I let them loose on this math without automaticity of their math facts they'll become disheartened because everything will take too long to do.

it's wonderful, now they have incentive to work on their math drill. They know what exciting math is just around the corner but that they are not going to be let loose on it until they can do anything, in 1.5 seconds, that the FlashMaster throws at them.

The FlashMaster has made my life so easy. The children can practice math drill while we're driving, waiting on a sibling at an extramural activity or anytime I so wish.

What are you doing for Pi Day?

2009-03-02T12:43:00.002-05:00

Celebrate Pi Day!

Pi, Greek letter (), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi = 3.1415926535... Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th.

Read about Pi Day here

We'll start off the day by rereading, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi

Will have to think on some other things to do. Part of the day we'll be participating in an Egg Drop Competition at Nauticus. We missed the one at the Virginia Air and Space Museum this weekend so I am adamant we won't miss the one at Nauticus. I've been planning my contraption for an entire year and can't wait to let it drop.

Touching stingrays

2009-02-17T14:26:00.002-05:00

Fun in Seaworld in the warmth

Shira's story

2009-02-08T08:53:00.002-05:00

Shira is writing a story. She outlined the beginning of the plot to Marc. Here's what she said:

The hero is Karog is a dragonslayer which is only one of two jobs available to boys in that village. The other being a councilman. The heroine, who is currently nameless wants to be a good witch but is unable to cast spells. The only professions open to women in her village are, witch, fairy, housewife and hag.

When her hero tells his mother that he is going to be a dragonslayer, she does not answer him in words, she simply reaches into her robes and pulls out a sword.

The two heros leave their respective villages to seek their fortunes whereupon they meet elves and gnomes.

She is still working on the plot, but thus far I think it sounds adorable.

My Kids Are Growing Up.

2009-01-29T13:32:00.003-05:00

Both kids told me today that they are going to use their own bathroom from now on. They've both showered in their bathroom and now they have moved their face wash, moisturizer, toothbrushes and pastes into their bathroom.

I thought I was dying for the day to come when Marc and I would have our bathroom to ourselves, but now I find myself all sad. They are growing up. These baby steps towards independence are so bitter sweet.

The last laugh is on me.

2009-01-29T12:38:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, a homeschooling buddy, Deva was mocking the Snuggie. I wholeheartedly joined in. I've been tickled by this strange product ever since. I should have known that it would be a successful product when Ben asked for one. He thought it was the most perfect product he'd ever seen.

You have to love a company that gives you the code to publish their ads on your web page.

Advertising Age reports:

The Snuggie blanket launched nationally on direct-response TV in October, just as the economy was slowing to a crawl, so the timing seemingly couldn't have been worse. However, it turns out the timing couldn't have been better.

The quirky little blanket with sleeves has become the raiment of the zeitgeist, with more than 4 million units sold in just over three months and more than 200 parody videos on YouTube. Fox News honed in on a woman wearing a Snuggie as she braved the cold attending Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, five days after Ellen DeGeneres donned one on her daytime talk show.

With 4 million of the blankets already shipped or on order, or just under $40 million in retail sales, Scott Boilen, president of Allstar Marketing Group, Hawthorne, N.Y., is laughing all the way to the bank. The company behind the Snuggie is moving the blankets out the door as fast as it can get Chinese suppliers to crank them out.

Great bright hope to end battle of the light bulbs

2009-01-29T11:23:00.003-05:00

A story in the Mail Online is one of the most heartening stories I have read for ages. I would never have dreamed 2 years ago that light bulbs would be a subject near and dear to my heart.

I totally detest those energy efficient fluorescent ones. I struggle enough coping with light because of my frozen left pupil without having to deal with the nauseating and headache inducing flicker and color.

A lighting revolution is on the way that could end at the flick of a switch the battle between supporters of conventional bulbs and the eco-friendly variety.

Cambridge University researchers have developed cheap, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that produce brilliant light but use very little electricity. They will cost £2 and last up to 60 years.

Despite being smaller than a penny, they are 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and three times more efficient than the unpopular fluorescent low-energy versions.

The bulbs fully illuminate instantly, unlike the current generation of eco-bulbs.

It is reckoned the bulbs, which were unveiled yesterday, could slash household lighting bills by three-quarters.

If installed in every home and office, they could cut the proportion of electricity used for lights from 20 per cent to 5 per cent a year. As well as lasting 100,000 hours, ten times as long as today's eco-bulbs, the LED bulbs do not contain mercury, so disposal is less damaging to the environment, and they do not flicker - a problem that has been blamed for migraines and epileptic fits.

I can't wait for them to reach the market in the US.

Mercury in corn syrup? Food made with ingredient may have traces of toxic metal

2009-01-29T11:09:00.002-05:00

The Sun Sentinel has this story.

A swig of soda or a bite of a candy bar might be sweet, but a new study suggests that food made with corn syrup also could be delivering tiny doses of toxic mercury.

For the first time, researchers say they have detected traces of the silvery metal in samples of high-fructose corn syrup, a widely used sweetener that has replaced sugar in many processed foods. The study was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health.

Eating high-mercury fish is the chief source of exposure for most people. The new study raises concerns about a previously unknown dietary source of mercury, which has been linked to learning disabilities in children and heart disease in adults.

The source of the metal appears to be caustic soda and hydrochloric acid, which manufacturers of corn syrup use to help convert corn kernels into the food additive.

This is not a definitive study as the sample size was small (20 samples with 9 positive), however, it is yet another reason to avoid corn syrup like the plague. This is one of the few food stuffs that I am a total fanatic about. If we see it listed as an ingredient, we don't eat the product.

The Homeschool Showcase is up!

2009-01-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

Kris of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers has just published the latest edition of The Homeschool Showcase (formerly the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers.

I loved this carnival but two posts in particular made it really worthwhile to me.

Jenny Wren's Nest post on how shemade homemade soaps with her daughter gave me great inspiration. This is a craft that Shira would adore. I can't wait to get to Michael's to purchase the necessary materials.

The other post was by fellow Objectivist, Michael Gold. Michael is one of the few educators in the States who is reintroducing reason and logic into education. Others are Scott Powell from History at Our House and Lisa Van Damme from The Van Damme Academy.

Michael talks about Educational Regifting i.e. marketing spin by educational facilities on what is basically a case of The Emperor's New clothes in education.

Getting back to the educators I mentioned a paragraph ago, if we lived in or near Laguna Hills, CA, I would have given serious thought to sending Ben and Shira to school outside of the home. The Van Damme Academy is the only school I have ever considered for my children, but the commute would be too great from Virginia.

My kids and I learn history from Scott Powell from History at Our House. Before he went solo he taught at The Van Damme Academy.

I am not able to say enough good things about Scott's teaching abilities. Marc, my husband, who is no mean teacher himself, said that he likes to listen to Scott's history lectures to re-energize himself and to remind himself of how a truly great lecturer teaches.

Scott is passionate about his subject and imparts that passion to his students. His history program is so much more than Wise Bauer's Story of the World. Rather than just telling a story, he draws connections for the children, helps them understand why they are learning what they are learning and shows them how the great story of history impacts on their lives today. Better still, the only work it requires from me is for me to download the MP3's, to listen to them with my children and to do test prep with them. I don't have to rush around finding tons of reference books, setting up crafts or even digesting material before teaching it. Scott does all that for me in 3, half hour lessons a week. As a historian and gifted teacher, he is far more able to teach history than I am.

While his history course is outstanding, the true gem for me is his "History Through Art" program that you get when you sign up for his history lessons. I have no background in art appreciation and feel the lack most deeply. I feel that I am receiving the education I so sadly lack by sitting in on the lessons with my children. During one half hour a week, we look at a beautiful piece of art and learn how to truly look at and appreciate it.

One of the perks of homeschooling, is that I get to choose the best ways to educate my children. I fully understand that I am not their best teacher in al subjects, but that I am the best facilitator that they will ever have.

My goal is to have my children taught by the best people I can find in each field of study (sometimes that's me, but often it is someone else). Right now they are taught history by Scott Powell, art by a professional artist and art teacher, Lee Gerry Wertheimer, literature by my dear friend, Lydia who has a masters in English literature and who taught at the university level and chess by Coach Kala Dawson from Championship Chess. I teach the rest of the subjects because, for now, I consider myself their best teacher.

However, I am eagerly awaiting the release of David Harriman's elementary school science program. I hope that it will be MP3, video or live internet based. I want my children to learn science within a historical context with connections being drawn between concepts. Kim from Kim's Play Space, is doing a science class in her area that looks really good. I wish that we could attend it.

I can foresee a time when I may hand over the math to Michael. Even though I did three years of math at university, I suspect that once we get to calculus, that I will probably prefer to have someone else teaching my kids. My two appear to really enjoy math. The other day they told me that they want to start 6th grade math in September. This means that we need to finish the rest of 4th grade and the whole of 5th grade in 7 months. I think it is doable. These kids are so competitive. I mentioned in passing that their friend Benny, who is a grade ahead of them, is doing 6th grade math. That's all they needed to hear. Now they want to do math the entire summer so that when they are in 3rd grade, they too will be doing 6th grade math. Oy, vey, the genes of the parents are alive and well in these kids.

Dog Trainers

2009-01-24T14:38:00.002-05:00

My dogs are expert trainers, they have me trained to perfection.

We tried to train the dogs to ring a bell when they need to go to the potty. Archie is not interested in bells, but Hershey loves them. She's discovered that if she rings the bell a human, generally mommy or Shira will open the door for her. Then she discovered if she body slams the back door, a human will let her come back inside. Some days this dog rings the bell every 10 min or so. You can see her little doggie brain working, "got to practice with these humans so they don't forget. Let's see if it will work this time".

Archie has decided that the only way to be fed is from my hand. He will sit and look at the food in his bowl and then look at me. I move the bowl to him and he ignores it. I put a put a little bit of food on my hand and he gobbles it up. I then give him the food in the bowl and he ignores it. Will only eat his food if it comes from my hand.

I created this feeding problem when he was ill. Archie and Hershey were victims of dehydrated Chinese chicken. Thankfully an on the ball animal nutritionist told me that their anorexia and vomiting was probably as a result of the Chinese chicken. I was at my wits' end. The dogs had gone almost two weeks refusing all food except the odd chicken treat. I tried food after food, I sat them on my lap and tried to coax them into eating. Nothing worked. Then we found out about the chicken and small dogs. I stopped treats on Tuesday and slowly but surely the dogs have been improving. Archie discovered that he rather liked sitting on my lap and being hand fed so now he expects it.

My Saturday

2009-01-24T09:26:00.002-05:00

Ben has a playdate this morning and we weren't successful in arranging one for Shira. Ben has big plans for "boy" play today and Shira has no real interest in it. She asked if we couldn't have a "mommy and Shira" day.

I LOVE days where I do things with just one child. They are so different on their own. Shira, in particular, is far more vocal when she doesn't have Ben around.

Here is what she has planned for us.

She wants to paint my hands. Yesterday we received our first edition of Ask Magazine. Cricket Magazine Publishing bills it as a magazine of arts and sciences for kids. This edition of Ask has a feature on Guido Daniele's hand paintings. (You have to follow the link to see his hand paintings.). Wish me luck. LOL.

Then she wants to bake. We can't bake until later today because I don't have some of the ingredients.

She wants to bake, this vegan, gluten free pumpkin pie, these strawberry and chocolate chip scones, banana chocolate chip bread and and Mexican chocolate cake.

I hope these recipes work as vegan, gluten free baking is not the easiest way to bake. Everything else we've made from Karina's Kitchen has been great, so I have high hopes for these dishes. The only problem I foresee is that I'll have a duty to help the children eat the cakes.

Last night Shira and I made this fabulous Gluten Free, dairy free "tapioca" pudding. It was so simple to make and is loaded with good fats (and calories, but we'll forget that for now).

Wish me luck. I am about to have my hands painted

I'm back

2009-01-21T07:44:00.003-05:00

The whole episode with my eye left me feeling very burnt out and even after my eye was no longer so painful, I had no inspiration to blog.

Yesterday, however, when something happened that had me wanting to blog, I realized that my spark had come back.

Shira and Ben are reading Erin Hunter's "Warriors" series. Yesterday Shira finished a book and our library did not have the next one so we trekked off to B&N to buy it for her.

While we were there I saw a bookmark with the cat charm and pointed it out to her. She was enchanted. She begged for the bookmark and spent the next few hours telling me all about how awesome it was to have a bookmark with a totem from the book she was reading.

She opened a whole new world for me. I am not a bookmark type of gal. I tend to use whatever scrap of paper I find lying around. My bookmarks are typically those reply cards that fall out of magazines, old kids' artwork or receipts from my shopping. I didn't realize that a kid could become so excited about a bookmark.

I think that as she starts new series of books, I am going to endeavor to make her a bookmark that is specific to that series. For instance, she has the "Frog Princess" series and a dragon series waiting in her "to read" queue. I'm looking for a frog and a dragon charm and will make her book straps with a few jewel like beads and the relevant charms.

I wonder if this isn't a neat gift for young girls. A book and matching bookmark?

I have to read a few books from this Warrior series as I am currently excluded from many of the conversations in this house. Ben and Shira are obsessed with these books. They talk about intricate details of the lives of the cats and they spend countless hours playing very involved games where they are cats from the various tribes.

It makes my heart sing with joy as it brings back all the most wondrous memories I have from my childhood. I think I spent half my childhood living the lives of the characters in the books I read (the other half was spent reading said books).

King Tut and Gluten free goodness

2009-01-02T15:46:00.005-05:00

We're in Atlanta for a few days to see the King Tut exhibition and to visit the Georgia Aquarium.

Ben was underwhelmed by the King Tut Exhibition, but Shira loved it. Even though Ben was bored, I was pleasantly surprised that to see that much of what he learned about Egypt during Scott Powell's History at Our House lectures was retained. He and Shira had great fun identifying where in the "heartbeats" the various pharoahs fitted. (Scott designed a neat little timeline for the kids that showed periods of greatness - the heartbeats).

I was nearly doubled over with laughter when Ben shouted out, "look Shira, there's Queen Hot Chip Soup" and one old lady sternly corrected him to "Queen Hatshepsut". He turned to her and dripping condescention the way only a 7 year old can, replied, "I know that, but it helps us remember her name when we call her Hot chip soup".

After the exhibit we went to Pizza Fusion for lunch. Ben and Shira had their first ever commercial pizzas and are in love. They've asked for pizza for dinner as well. Jeff, the owner of the Buckhead branch was wonderful. I'm in love with this chain as they do organic, gluten free and vegan pizzas. What more can a girl want?

Apparently they are opening a branch in Richmond, VA. Ben told me that a 2 hour drive is nothing if it means he can get safe pizza. LOL.

Tomorrow we see the aquarium and do a behind the scenes tour. I can't wait.

Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers: Homeschool Showcase (Formerly The Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers) #14

2009-01-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

Kris has published the second edition of Homeschool Showcase . This is what Kris renamed the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers that I used to run. Kris has done a splendid job and I thank her once again for taking over when I was in a bind.

My good news is that the inflammation in my eye has completely resolved and I have a provisional bill of good health from the retinologist. He is 98% certain that I don't have a tear in my retina but there is so much debris in the vitreous from all the surgeries I've had on that eye that he can't be certain. I go back in a month for a check up. It's so good not to have to use steroid drops hourly (you have no idea how much they hurt me as they destroy the tear layer of the eye).

Also, a big thank you to Janice Campbell who hosted The Carnival of Homeschooling in my stead when it was my turn and I was not able to do so because of my eye problems.

The Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers has moved to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

2008-12-15T18:04:00.002-05:00

I've been having a problem with my left eye. I have an inflammation of the vitreous that is not responding to medication. This has resulted in an eye that is extremely light sensitive and extremely painful. Added to this, what little vision I did have in that eye is almost entirely gone. As you can imagine, I have been restricting activities that require use of my eyes Blogging and reading blogs is one of those things.

I have no idea how long this inflammation is going to take to clear (after a week of heavy doses of steroids it had shown no improvement. I am now fasting and have doubled the steroids. This means I am now exhausted from lack of food and in pain from the steroid toxicity in my eye.)

All this conspired to me not being able to host the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers.

Kris of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers has kindly agreed to take over the carnival.

Read the first of her carnivals here.

She's done a sterling job showcasing some very interesting blogs.

Homeschool Biggest Loser

2008-12-15T17:56:00.002-05:00

My friend Lydia has organized a Homeschool Biggest Loser competition. I'm the "super secret data collector" so please make sure I am super busy by entering if you want to lose weight,

The Biggest Loser is a show on NBC where overweight people compete to lose weight over a course of three months of diet and exercise. Each week they weigh in and compare their weight loss as a percentage of their total weight. There are benefits to winning the “weigh in” each week, and then the winner at the end gets a large sum of money. All over the country, groups of friends, co-workers, and neighbors form their own “Biggest Loser” groups, combining public accountability with friendly competition to motivate them to lose weight.

I am organizing a group like this, locally, for homeschooling moms/dads/grandmas/whatever and you are invited to join us.

Are you happy with your jeans size, your resting pulse, and your energy level? Then I salute you. If you’re not, then you and I have something in common. We’re not as skinny as we’d like, as healthy as we’d like, as active as we’d like, but basically we’re happy with life and it’s not that much of a priority to get fit. I’d like to lose forty pounds, but my weight isn’t an urgent issue for me. Most of my clothes fit, I manage to struggle around, and my husband likes me alright. I suffer from a lack of motivation, but as soon as competition is introduced, I am suddenly motivated.

We start January 1 and go for 12 weeks. So, the first official week ends on January 8 and the last ends on March 26. This is for locals in Hampton Roads only - sorry!

You weigh in each week on the same day with at least one other person. The aspect of public accountability is key to the “Biggest Loser” concept. You can sign up with a buddy or you can have a designated weigh-in person. That person reports your weight to our super secret data collector (Shez, who is not participating) and it gets put into the tabulation device (an Excel spreadsheet) and at the end of every Thursday, she will announce who lost the biggest percent of their total weight. If you’re switching the day you weigh, or if you don’t weigh in with someone else in a given week, you forego your chance to win that week’s prize but from then on you’re back in the contest. You could theoretically report one weight at the beginning and another one at the end and still win, if you have lost the biggest percentage of your starting weight.

The “buy-in” is two ten dollar bills which you put in the communal “pot” when you sign up. Each week the winner for that week gets one ten dollar bill. At the end of the 12 weeks the overall winner gets the $120 that’s left in the pot. This is assuming we get 12 people. If we get more, there will be more left in the pot. Or we may up the weekly winning, depending on what everybody wants once we get rolling. Shez will be operating the "pot" also, so you'll need to get your two tens to her at some point before January 1.

Everyone has to continue to love each other dearly.

Did I leave anything out? Do you have any questions? It’s late, and I’ve been formulating my plan to lose weight. It involves the Wii fit, a required number of tomatoes per day, and dog-walking.

If this contest sounds awful to you, I totally understand. Maybe it’s completely backward and wrong to combine money and competition with health and wellness. However, if this sounds like something that might be fun, might get you into an exercise routine or a healthier diet, then you are welcome to join us.

What do you think? Any takers? We have 7 members so far, and we have just launched a community on Ning where we can share photos, reports of celery consumption, whines about exercise, and keep track of weekly winners and fun events. You can see that here: http://homeschoolbiggestloser.ning.com

Very disturbing pictures of a poodle with a crazy owner

2008-11-23T20:35:00.002-05:00

The pics on this website are very disturbing. I can't imagine going to all that trouble to trim and dye my dog's hair to make it look so weird.

Here's one of the pics to whet your appetite.

A reminder of how good we have it today!

2008-11-23T07:15:00.002-05:00

I had one of those rotary telephones he talks about until I was in my mid 20's. Had to laugh at what he had to say about people with zeros in their telephone numbers.

StoryCorps is declaring November 28, 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening.

2008-11-22T16:53:00.002-05:00

from StoryCorps

This Thanksgiving, StoryCorps asks you to start a new holiday tradition—set aside one hour on Friday, November 28th, to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone you choose: an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or a familiar face from the neighborhood.

You can preserve the interview using recording equipment readily available in most homes, such as tape recorders, computers, video cameras or a pen and paper. Our free Do-It-Yourself Guide is easy to use and will prepare you and your interview partner to record a memorable conversation, no matter which method of recording you prefer.

We hope that you’ll make a yearly tradition of listening to and preserving a loved one’s story. The stories you collect will surely become treasured keepsakes, growing more valuable with each passing generation.

I'm reminded of the wonderful stories my grandfather Brian used to tell me. How I wish I had recorded them as a youngster. I plan on having Ben and Shira call their grandparents and great grandmother this Friday and record a story from each of them. They are both entranced by the stories Marc and I tell them and they love the story that their great grandmother tells of how the doctor wrote out her birth and death certificates at the same time, 94 years ago. She was born prematurely, in a blizzard in rural Maryland and weighed a scant 2lbs. The doctor wrote out the death certificate because he said there was no way she was going to survive and no way he was coming out in the blizzard again. Her aunt put her in a shoebox and placed her at the back of the coal stove. It worked! Two weeks ago we celebrated her 94th birthday.

I think that this is a great project for the kids. This is a project with legs. Seeing as my parents live half a world away, we'll wait until we see them again so that the children can video tape them telling more of their stories.

Gore's "Farenheit 9/11"

2008-11-17T10:58:00.002-05:00

The Irish Times reports:

A new Irish film claims that climate change guru Al Gore is an alarmist and that those who think they are saving the planet are only hurting the poor

IF THE ADVANCE publicity is anything to go by, Not Evil Just Wrong will do for Al Gore what Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 did for George W Bush.

"This is the film Al Gore and Hollywood don't want you to see," declares the website for the latest work by film-makers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. The site even features a big picture of Gore, with his lips in the photograph seemingly digitally enhanced to make them look like Heath Ledger's Joker from the latest Batman film.

The website goes on to say that their latest film - which takes on what are described as global warming alarmists - is "the most controversial documentary of the year". Indeed, it could very well be the most controversial. And Al Gore and Hollywood may well not want you to see it

Homeschooling cranky, convalescing children

2008-11-13T07:29:00.003-05:00

We're just spent nearly 2 weeks in the Silverberg home battling the crud. Each child had a high fever for around a week, of course, there was very little over lap so it felt like it was never going to end.

Ben is now well but Shira, while her fever has broken, is still not feeling great and is very, very, very, very delicate. Did I say she was delicate? Perhaps I understate things when I use the word "delicate". She's my child who cries at the drop of a hat, who becomes frustrated at the drop of a hat and who beats herself up at the drop of a hat. That's when she's well. Take this behavior and multiply it a thousand fold and you have Shira when she's not feeling well.

We had half a dozen eruptions before 8am. I then decided that school was just not going to happen today. Instead we're listening to Patricia Wrede's, "Dealing with Dragons".

Amazon.com Review
Cimorene, princess of Linderwall, is a classic tomboy heroine with classic tomboy strengths--all of which are perceived by those around her as defects: "As for the girl's disposition--well, when people were being polite, they said she was strong-minded. When they were angry or annoyed with her, they said she was as stubborn as a pig." Cimorene, tired of etiquette and embroidery, runs away from home and finds herself in a nest of dragons. Now, in Cimorene's world--a world cleverly built by author Patricia C. Wrede on the shifting sands of myriad fairy tales--princesses are forever being captured by dragons. The difference here is that Cimorene goes willingly. She would rather keep house for the dragon Kazul than be bored in her parents' castle. With her quick wit and her stubborn courage, Cimorene saves the mostly kind dragons from a wicked plot hatched by the local wizards, and worms her way into the hearts of young girls everywhere.

We're having such fun. While we're listening, Shira's drawing dragons, Ben's building dragons with legos and I am having peaceful times blogging and futzing around in the kitchen.

Every time Cimorene tried to do an activity she enjoyed, she was told that "girls did not do that", when she questioned it, she was told, "because that's the way it is". This was a great springboard for a discussion about perceived roles and societal pressures.

Our children are being brought up by parents who make choices that don't fit the mainstream or their extended family's preconceptions of what is right and proper. It's good for Ben and Shira to read literature that deals with these issues.

Thermins

2008-11-13T07:12:00.003-05:00

One of the reasons I am so attracted to Marc is that he always has some odd interest on the go. One of his odd interests is playing odd musical instruments. The theremin is one of his favorite odd instruments. What is a theremin you ask? I'll let the guys at Theremin World explain:

The theremin was invented in 1919 by a Russian physicist named Lev Termen (in the United States his name was Leon Theremin). Today, this marvelous instrument is once again in the musical spotlight.
Besides looking like no other instrument, the theremin is unique in that it is played without being touched.

Two antennas protrude from the theremin - one controlling pitch, and the other controlling volume. As a hand approaches the vertical antenna, the pitch gets higher. Approaching the horizontal antenna makes the volume softer. Because there is no physical contact with the instrument, playing the theremin in a precise melodic way requires practiced skill and keen attention to pitch.

Originally, the theremin was intended to play classical music and even replace entire orchestras with its "music from the aether." While that never quite happened, it has been used in many recordings over the years. Several big band conductors featured the theremin in numerous specialty ablums. During the 60's and 70's, bands such as Lothar and the Hand People, the Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band, and Led Zeppelin brought the theremin into the public eye for a short time. (However a theremin did not play in the song "Good Vibrations", but the instrument used was based on it.) Then, the theremin slipped back into obscurity until the recent revival of the 1990s. Today, lots of bands use theremins, though few in a musical context.
The spooky sound of the theremin was used in several movie soundtracks during the 1950's and 1960's. It provided background mood music for such sci-fi classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still, where it played a serious musical role, and It Came From Outer Space, as well in classic, well composed, thriller soundtracks such as Spellbound and The Lost Weekend.

Here is a theremin master, Clara Rockmore playing The Swan (Saint-Saëns)

One of my equally odd friends, Shell sent me a link today to a Make video on how to make an optical theremin in a petrie dish.

Might be a fun project for a teen.

Beep-it from Michael Una on Vimeo.

We've had some fun with the theremin. One Halloween Marc played spooky music but we had to stop that after we ended up scaring the daylights out of some of the littlies.

The Food Miles Mistake

2008-11-13T06:54:00.004-05:00

My favorite magazine, "Reason", has written a good article on why the concept of food miles is flawed.

So just how much carbon dioxide is emitted by transporting food from farm to fork? Desrochers and Shimizu cite a comprehensive study done by the United Kingdom's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) which reported that 82 percent of food miles were generated within the U.K. Consumer shopping trips accounted for 48 percent and trucking for 31 percent of British food miles. Air freight amounted to less than 1 percent of food miles. In total, food transportation accounted for only 1.8 percent of Britain's carbon dioxide emissions.

In the United States, a 2007 analysis found that transporting food from producers to retailers accounted for only 4 percent of greenhouse emissions related to food. According to a 2000 study, agriculture was responsible for 7.7 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. In that study, food transport accounted for 14 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture, which means that food transport is responsible for about 1 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Food miles advocates fail to grasp the simple idea that food should be grown where it is most economically advantageous to do so. Relevant advantages consist of various combinations of soil, climate, labor, capital, and other factors. It is possible to grow bananas in Iceland, but Costa Rica really has the better climate for that activity. Transporting food is just one relatively small cost of providing modern consumers with their daily bread, meat, cheese, and veggies. Desrochers and Shimizu argue that concentrating agricultural production in the most favorable regions is the best way to minimize human impacts on the environment.

Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish tomatoes. The difference is British tomatoes are produced in heated greenhouses. Another study found that cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London. In addition, U.K. dairy farmers use twice as much energy to produce a metric ton of milk solids than do New Zealand farmers. Other researchers have determined that Kenyan cut rose growers emit 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12,000 roses compared to the 35 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by their Dutch competitors. Kenyan roses grow in sunny fields whereas Dutch roses grow in heated greenhouses.

Entire article here.

I sometimes feel as our entire society has suspended rational thought when it come to the environment. People grasp at poorly thought out ideas and then take them as gospel. I am finding it dreadfully difficult to keep Ben and Shira from believing some of the environmental nonsense that abounds today. I thought that being homeschooled would help. I suppose in a way it does, but every outside activity they do is full of this poorly thought out, environmental gospels.

I am now on the look out for a book/program/blog/anything that can help me teach young children how to question everything they read/hear. It's tough because young children are genetically programmed to believe what their elders teach them. Our poor children have mom and dad teaching them one thing and the masses of humanity teaching them something else.

Shira asked me a question the other day that made me realize that she's been reading "Reason". This is good. I leave copies in the bathrooms and she and Ben are obviously picking them up. It's been great for their reading skills. Most of the topics are too complex for them to understand at age 7, but it does give me good starting points for discussions.

The Woman Who Lived On The QE2

2008-11-13T06:40:00.002-05:00

This BBC story piqued my interest. It tells of an 89 year old woman who made the QE2 her home on and off for 14 years.

She pays about £3,500 a month and says she prefers it to any retirement home.
With elegant surroundings, lavish meals, cocktails and dancing every night it is easy to see why Mrs Muller fell in love with the ship.
She said: "We're spoiled to death, we get to see the whole world and meet the most incredible people."
In the morning she reads a print-out of The New York Times, works on her memoirs and calls on friends.
Then she plays bridge until tea, followed by cocktails and dancing.
Once the liner reaches Dubai, Mrs Muller, known as Bea to the crew, will be without a home, although she has no plans to return to dry land.
"I'll keep on staying at sea, I don't want to go back to housekeeping," she said.

What a wonderful way to spend your retirement if you can afford it.

This story made me wonder if there isn't a more cost effective method of doing this so that a homeschooled family can sail the seven seas for a year or so. I know there is the option of sailing your own yacht, but that defeats the purpose, sailing your own boat involves work. I really like the idea of having a serviced cabin and all food cooked for you. Then all I would have to do is see the world and educate my children. Mmmm. another dream to add to my list. LOL. Of course, I would have to overcome my antipathy to cruise liners. I had the misfortune to spend a week on one in the Indian Ocean. I couldn't find any privacy. Cruise directors made it their job to make me miserable. They ferreted out everyone who wanted quiet, alone time with a book and tried to cajole them into having "fun". UGHH. It was horrid.

Parenting beyond belief

2008-11-12T19:26:00.003-05:00

Dale McGowan, author of "Parenting Beyond Belief" has compiled a very useful list of rational, secular, parent bloggers over at his blog The Meming of Life

Our greatest deficit — the lack of a connected, mutually supportive community — is slowly being erased. Equally important, this chorus of voices helps us to build consensus about the best practices for nonreligious parenting. So visit ‘em, read ‘em, comment and link up — and let me know who I missed.

Next week he's listing secular homeschool bloggers.

""Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake,"

2008-11-12T08:34:00.003-05:00

According to the Houston Chronicle, this December The American Humanist Association will run an ad campaign where they will write, ""Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," on the side of busses.

As you can well imagine, certain sectors of society are up in arms about it.

The humanists' entry into the marketplace of ideas did not impress AFA president Tim Wildmon.
"It's a stupid ad," he said. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

I worry about people who need an extrinsic reason to behave morally. If the fear and punishment factor were to be removed from these people, are they telling us that they will stop behaving morally? Are they saying that the only reason they behave morally is because they fear their punishment in hell? Or if it is not punishment, why do they feel that they need an external authority to tell them how to behave?

The Objective Standard has a good article that addresses the root of "good" behavior for non-theists.

Todays ramblings

2008-11-12T06:50:00.003-05:00

from today's Virginian Pilot

More than 60 percent of its investors lived in four areas: Norfolk, New York, Chicago and Israel, the report said.

I see this all the time in the American media. American "things" are given greater status than those in the rest of the world. This is like Africa being a country (and Palin is not the first American that I've come across who believes this. We walked out of a library storytelling session when the librarian told the children that they were going to learn about the animals from the country of Africa. She then proceeded to start with the tiger. I was willing to let Africa go, but when she started on an Asian animal, I was out of there. I called the librarian later to discuss her errors. Her reasoning was that continent was too large a concept for little children. What total BS.)

Anyway, back to the Virginian Pilot. Norfolk has less than a quarter of a million inhabitants but it's an "area" just like Israel, a country is an "area". LOL.

The story that was attached to this sentence is very sad. Joseph Shereshevsky was a neighbor who defrauded millions from the orthodox Jewish community. I think he is the lowest form of pond scum. I am really irritated by the entire fiasco. He lived large and very visibly donated vast sums of money. I keep on hearing people talk about how he is a good man and should be let out on bail. He was arrested at the airport with a one way ticket out of the country. This is not a good man. He was convicted on fraud charges before he came to live in Norfolk. Then he milked people of their hard earned money so that he could live a life of luxury and have his name associated with a myriad of charities

Is effective solar power around the corner?

2008-11-11T08:27:00.002-05:00

IT Business reports that researchers from MIT have discovered a new way of storing energy from sunlight that could lead to unlimited solar power.

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and researcher on the project, said in a statement. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

The problem, however, is how best to harness that energy.

The research is a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale, said James Barber, a biochemistry professor at Imperial College London who was not involved in the solar project.

Nocera said he's hopeful that within 10 years people will no longer power their homes using electricity-by-wire from a central source. Instead, homeowners will be able to power their homes with solar power during daylight hours and use this new energy storage method for electricity at night.

Ragamuffin Studies: Making Ready: Cross Quarter, the Election, and Saecular Winter

2008-11-09T19:08:00.000-05:00

Ragamuffin Studies: Making Ready: Cross Quarter, the Election, and Saecular Winter

Elisheva Hannah Levin has written an excellent blog post in response to Christine over at The Thinking Mother's suggestion in her post Election Outcome a few days ago:

"Now that we have elected a new President I have an idea. How about if we all write down our thoughts about our futures and our hopes or worries?"

Marc and I have been talking about nothing else for days. I was going to blog about it but then I read Elisheva's post and knew that I had very little to add. So when you read her eloquent words, know that I agree with them wholeheartedly.

I liked this quote from her post (the emphasis is mine):

As an American who loves and respects the Constitution of the United States, I accept Obama as the Constitutionally elected President of the United States. However, my loyalty must be to the US Constitution, not to his person, or the person of any president or government official. Government is our servant, not our master; the duty of government is to protect our rights, not to save the world. I am uncertain as to whether Obama and his supporters understand this. (I am certain that his predecessor did not). I will know by what he does and not what they say. At his inauguration, he will swear to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in this duty I wish him success and resilience. The Presidency is an awesome job and a great responsibility, and so I wish him health, long life, and good courage. But I do not promise him unquestioning loyalty or unwavering support. That would be inappropriate. I am a citizen, not a subject.

Project Feeder Watch

2008-11-09T15:28:00.003-05:00

This info came through on a homeschool list I am on. We've signed up and are eagerly awaiting our materials.

You can download your handy, dandy, Homeschooler's Guide to Project FeederWatch -- a free science module for homeschoolers that focuses on Project FeederWatch! You can also learn about your backyard birds here.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has just released its newly revised, FREE Homeschoolers Guide to Project FeederWatch.

For more than 20 years, Project FeederWatch has been an easy, fun way for children to learn about birds and strengthen their skills in observation, identification, research, computation, writing, creativity, and more. FeederWatchers keep track of the numbers and kinds of birds at their feeders through the winter and report what they see to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The Homeschoolers Guide to Project FeederWatch will guide you through bird-related activities that promote learning across many disciplines, including science, math, history, and the arts. Examples of these activities include:

Natural history: Observe and research a birds behavior and life cycle
Math: Calculate average seed consumption rate and graph data
Writing: Keep a nature journal to write stories and poetry
Geography: Research the geographic ranges of birds
Art: Keep a feeder-bird sketch book or create a papier mache mask To download the Homeschoolers Guide to Project FeederWatch, visit www.FeederWatch.org and click on the Education/Home School button. Youll be able to download the PDF in low (2.2MB) or high (6.7MB) resolutions.

You may choose to use the free guide as a stand-alone resource, or sign up for Project FeederWatch to submit the data you gather. If you would like to be a project participant, the signup fee is $12 for members of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, $15 for non-members. There are discounts for group participation.

If you have any questions, please let us know how we can help by emailing feederwatch@cornell.edu.

Sincerely,
David Bonter
Project Leader, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Searching for a spelling program

2008-11-09T15:12:00.003-05:00

I'm looking for a computerized spelling program for my kids. I want something that teaches all the rules, then gives them practice with that rule. I'd like something that uses programmed instruction.

I know I could teach this manually but I am looking for something my children can use while I am doing one-on-one teaching. If Ben isn't working on something while I teach Shira he becomes disruptive. I find that something computer based works better than if I give him pencil and paper work, or worse, reading to do.

When Ben and Shira were learning to read we used a great program called, Reading Horizons. I truly believe they are the strong readers they are today because of this superb program. It touches on spelling but does not focus on spelling which is why we now need a spelling program.

Do you know of a good computer based spelling program that works on Macs?

I tried Spelling Time from Big IQ but it is a joke. It just provides 5 days of playtime for a set of words. The words they set for each grade level are way too easy and it relies on brute memorization. I want something that teaches from rules.

Before you comment about all the exceptions. I know there are exceptions in English, but if the kids get the rules down pat, the exceptions become easy. Also please don't comment that spelling programs are unnecessary, that if the children read, they will learn to spell. I agree, the more a child reads, the better their spelling, but I like to work with rules as I feel it helps provide structure. I'm also becoming tired of all the "mom, how do I spell......?" questions when I am focussing on something else.

Just like fluent handwriting, good spelling makes a child's life easier and gives them more time to focus on the more interesting things there are to learn.

Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers # 12

2008-11-09T14:27:00.004-05:00

Welcome to another edition of the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers. I've taken a break from blogging for a few weeks and now am pysched about blogging again.

Before we launch into this edition, I'd like to talk about two carnivals that are targeted at homeschooled children.

The first run by Julie and her daughter from Homeschooling Ideas. They host Homeschooled Kids Carnival.

This is THE place to show off your blog if you are homeschooled - and to see what other homeschooled kids are blogging about.

The second is one that I am have started. Hopefully once it is up and running, other homeschool bloggers will start hosting it. Read all about it here. This is your child's chance to showcase his/her creations, be they something made with legos, a frosting work of art, a drawing, a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, a poem, a short story or something I haven't yet thought of that shows his/her creative spirit. Each carnival, the winning entry will receive a book of the child's choice from Amazon.com (max value $8).

Kris from Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to make papier mache projects.

If your children, like mine, have celiac disease, or a wheat allergy, papier mache projects become a problem. I sent a query to a large celiac listserve and was given this recipe to use instead of the flour mixture and then follow Kris' instructions..

Gluten Free Papier Mache mixture- Take 1 heaped soup ladle of powdered cornstarch
- Place in a heat proof bowl
- Add enough COLD water to form a paste and to dissolve powder to consistency of thick cream.
- Pour in one kettleful (1.7 litres) of RAPIDLY BOILING (MUST be bubbling away...) and stir like crazy...!

It is very very HOT like porridge and it can form lumps so I usually give it a whisk or beating with my electric mixer to smooth it. Paste should change from opaque white to translucent once the boiling water is added. It will keep a few days and can be microwaved to be heated so it's less "jelly-like". Kids love to use it while it's warm, but it works equally wellcold.

Salt can be added to prolong shelf life."

Amy Smith presents Fun With Paper . She gives a good list of websites that give patterns for children to do fun paper projects. Definitely a keeper.

Kris presents Bird Cinema

Bird-Watching meets You-Tube at Bird Cinema. You can upload your own clips or view other amateur and professional videos about birds. I find this great for matching bird sitings with bird sounds, and other informative videos are available, too. Here is one from the BBC:

Shira is entranced by this website. She's crazy about birds and this feeds her need to identify every bird she sees. My kids have asked that we register for Cornell's Orinothology Bird Feeder Project

Julie of Homeschooling Ideas writes about her family's experience with Computer games in their homeschool

I can only speak for myself and my children, but thinking about it, we have seen some wonderful learning opportunities that have arisen as a direct effect of computer games. Of course, I couldn't dictate these results - we have played many games where nothing educational seemed to happen and the children enjoyed only the entertainment value! But looking back, a lot of valuable learning has been initiated by certain games.

I wanted to give some specific examples so my thoughts on this are below. Note that I am not recommending these games - merely outlining the effects of computer games on our homeschool learning.

Have a look at her post, there are good reviews on various computer games.

We fit into a very strange subset of homeschoolers. We use the computer as a learning tool but don't often play computer games. I see that Ben has a tendency towards electronic media addiction. The best way for me to manage this is to keep his screen time severely limited.

Alison from Homeschoolers' Guide to the Galaxyreviews Nebel's Elementary Education saying: "If you were to ask me to recommend just one reference book to guide you through homeschooling the elementary years I'd recommend Nebel's Elementary Education. Keep reading and I'll tell you why."

Amy Smith from Kids Love Learning writes about a fun way she taught her son to read.

We love Raggedy Ann and Andy and the original stories written by Johnny Gruelle. In one of the many books I have read, I came upon a great idea to encourage beginning readers to practice reading. The idea was to have the child's doll or stuffed animal do the reading for them. I tweaked the idea a bit and this is how it worked

read more here. I love this idea. I met Johnny Gruelle's books when Ben and Shira were around 4. We listened to them over and over again. Audible.com has a very good reading if you are interested.

Amy also blogs about one of my all time favorite preschool activities, viz felt boards

Felt boards are a fun and useful learning tool and we have been using ours to teach Rosa about numbers and shapes. I made my own numbers and shapes felt set which was quite simple to do. The numbers were traced from

Alasandra reminds us to Vote for our favorite homeschooling blogs

You can vote for your favourite adult, group and teen homeschool blog in the side bar. There are 58 days left for you to vote in Alasandra's Homeschool Blog Awards. So far 170 people have voted. Little Blue School is in the lead for Adult Homeschool Blog, The Homeschool Classroom is in the lead for Group Homeschool Blog and Quilted Story is in the lead for Teen Homeschool Blog.

. I'm very excited because my friend Lydia's blog is currently winning the race.

Talking about Lydia, she has posted a great song about The Wreck of Odysseus' Ship.

These lyrics remind us of the folly of Odysseus' silly crew and their willingness to eat anything that wasn't nailed down, including the cows of the sun god, which they had been specifically told not to eat. The song is sung to the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. If you don't have this song on CD, go to Project Playlist and search for it, then add it to your playlist and listen to it whenever you like!

Ben and Shira are full of songs about Odysseus' travels as they are studying the Odyssey with Lydia at our co-op.

Sharp Brains addresses the problems of children multitasking.

Today's kids are into multi-tasking. This is the generation hooked on iPods, IM'ing, video games - not to mention TV! Many people in my generation think it is wonderful that kids can do all these things simultaneously and are impressed with their competence.
Well, as a teacher of such kids when they reach college, I am not impressed. College students these days have short attention spans and have trouble concentrating. They got this way in secondary school. I see this in the middle-school outreach program I help run. At this age kids are really wrapped up in multi-tasking―at the expense of focus.

If you only do one thing for your family this week, reading this article should be the it.

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.

the carnival of cool homeschoolers, blog carnival.

New Blog Carnival - Carnival of Homeschooled Children's Creations

2008-11-09T13:19:00.005-05:00

Few things inspire my kids more than being able to show off their creations. Every time they create something of which they are very proud, they ask me to photograph it and post the pic to my blog.

Working on the Book Arts Bash has shown me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that homeschooling children are incredibly creative.

I thought that a blog carnival dedicated to children's creations would be a perfect way for children to showcase their work.

Do your children love creating with their building toys? Ben's latest craze is building vehicles with his Zoobs.

Or do they, like Shira, love to walk around the neighborhood with camera in hand?

Perhaps they love to cook. Ben made his first ever gluten free, dairy free flat bread the other day.

Shira loves to bake gluten free, dairy free, soy free chocolate chip cookies.

Perhaps your children have been inspired by the Sorted Books Project, like my two have. Notice the sentence the kids made here. Think my political cynicism has rubbed off on them? Please note that this is not meant as a dig to the current president. They took this picture during the primaries.

Enter their poetry, short stories, photographs, pictures, collages, lego creations, just anything that your children have created - please include your child's age and first name.

There are two ways you can enter, write a blog post about your child's creation and then submit to the blog carnival via the Blog Carnival submission form or email the entry to me at shez dot silverberg at gmail dot com and I'll include it into the carnival.

Each carnival, the best entry, as judged by me, will win a book of their choice from Amazon.com (valued up to $8)

Call for Carnival Submissions

2008-10-27T20:47:00.000-04:00

Do you have something controversial you want to say? Have you done a really neat craft with your children that you want to share with other homeschoolers? Do you have an interesting, or different "take" on how to teach a subject? Have you written a lesson plan you want to share with other homeschoolers? Have you discovered some interesting resources? If the answer is yes to any of the aforementioned questions, or if I've missed something that you want to share, here is your chance to share it with other cool homeschoolers. Please submit your blog post to the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers by clicking on the link below.

Browse the archives

This is not a spoof

2008-10-26T17:32:00.001-04:00

I was convinced this video clip was a spoof when Marc showed it to me. I was convinced that no one could be that stupid or dogmatic.

In case you think that McCain's supporters are all idiots. Here's a clip of idiots on the other side.

This election, more than any other, has convinced me that we should require restrictions to voting. If you are not sufficiently educated to be able to understand the issues at stake you should not be allowed to vote. Heck, I"m happy if you just understand your candidate's position.

2008-10-21T07:58:00.002-04:00

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Melissa's Idea Garden.

The first post touched on a topic that I've worried about ever since I gave birth. What plans to make in the event of the homeschooling mom dying. In our case we've bought enough life assurance on me to cover the wages of a teacher to come into the home and teach the kids. If something should happen to Marc, we have enough life assurance to allow me to continue staying at home and maintain our current lifestyle. Our big worry is what will happen if both of us die. Marc's sister, who will be their guardian, has a very demanding job. We need to talk more about the children's education should ever happen.

Carl Sagan : Pale Blue Dot.

2008-10-19T09:16:00.000-04:00

Ron Paul: Bail Out Means We All Suffer

2008-10-19T09:00:00.003-04:00

At least one politician speaks out with some good sense. We're seeing the end to our monetary system, inflation is on it's way and the market, not politicians, is best suited, and able to solve this crisis.

Ru-eeend!

2008-10-19T08:54:00.003-04:00

Marc and I love watching "Family Guy". Last week we watched an episode that featured this clip.

The two of us were on the floor laughing. This typifies our marriage. We've been together almost 9 years and still we have these moments of sheer blankness followed by hilarity over how the other one pronounces something. Being the lone South African within an American family, I am the one who is usually the one who is laughed at. It doesn't bother me though because I take comfort in the fact that I'm the one with the hoity, toity accent who knows how to eat with a fork AND KNIFE at the same time (and how to eat peas from the back of the fork.) LOL

Today's levity from the Onion

2008-10-19T08:39:00.000-04:00

Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

The Book Arts Bash Finalists

2008-10-18T15:06:00.004-04:00

When Lydia broached the subject of running a writing competition for homeschoolers I was a little leery of the idea. However, her enthusiasm soon carried me away and before I knew it, I was, working along side her setting up The Book Arts Bash - An Exhibition Of Literary Arts.

I can't even begin to tell you how great it is to work on projects with her. My history is littered with projects where I've had many great ideas that have been shot down by others in the team who felt they were too different or too risky. Lydia is the total opposite to everyone with whom I have ever worked. If anything, I am the one who has to reign her in. It's so great working with someone who truly believes the sky is the limit.

The two of us really got ahead of ourselves when we tried to decide on categories for our homeschooling writing competition. After some brutal cutting we finally settled on a hundred categories. In retrospect we should have been more brutal with our cutting but we loved all the categories so we were unable to cut them down further.

I was totally in love with the picture book, pop-up book, drama and storytelling categories. So much so that I was convinced that we'd be inundated with entries in these categories. I was beyond excited when Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart agreed to judge the pop-up book category.

To say I was less than enthusiastic about the novel excerpt category was putting it mildly. I was convinced that no one would take the time or trouble to write so many words.

Talk about not knowing your market!! We had not one pop-up book entry and hundreds upon hundreds of novel excerpts. Who would have thunk it?

We, plus a team of other homeschoolers and educators, put in countless hours reading all the entries. It was beyond difficult to cut own each category to a mere three finalists. Sometimes we just could not do it and ended up sending a few more finalists to the judges. As you can see in the short story category, more than a few age groups have more than three finalists.

The most difficult age range to judge was the grades 7th-9th. The quality of writing in this age group is superb. We finally gave up trying to cut the novel entries down to the top three and settled on six.

While the goal of this writing competition was not to obtain contracts or book deals for our entrants, I harbor a not so secret wish, that one or two of our entrants will do just that. I am in awe of how well a some of our highschoolesr and middle schoolers write. Awed and humbled because I am not able to meet their standards.

I'm waiting with baited breathe until we hear back from the judges. We've asked them to all get back to us by 1 November, so watch this space. In the mean time, if you go to the Bash's website and look under each category, you will find the finalists.

Once the judges have sent us their critiques and ranking, we'll publish the final winners and excerpts on the website.

We've learned some good lessons from this first Bash. Our next one is slated for early 2010. Based on the entries we received this year, the next Bash is going to be for novel excerpts only. We'll create categories within this broad one. Categories like thrillers, sci-fi/fantasy (the most popular categories with the kids), historical fiction etc..

Another lesson we learned is that we have to ditch the paper and go digital. For the next Bash, entries will be submitted digitally. This will cut down mailing costs (paper is heavy and expensive to ship to judges).

Writing skills

2008-10-18T14:57:00.002-04:00

I've been listening to friends who have chosen institutional schooling for their children talk about homework. I am stunned at how much handwriting is expected of even kindergarteners.

I don't know how anyone can expect a lot of handwriting from young children as I truly do not think that their fine motor skills are sufficiently well developed.

I've seen how my kids get really tired when I expect them to write out spelling words or do their math on paper. That's why I switched to white boards a while ago.

I find that the kids don't need as much fine motor control when they write on white boards and thus don't become as tired as quickly as they do when they use pen and paper.

In the above pic you see them working through their math. They were reading the instructions off the Professor B math program on my computer and then doing the problems on the white board.

When we do other lessons each child has his/her own board.

This is yet another reason I love homeschooling. It allows me the freedom to find solutions that work for my kids.

Our activities this term.

2008-10-18T14:38:00.006-04:00

Ben and Shira have been having a blast with their art teacher, Gerry Lee Wertheimer.

Gerry is a gifted artist and art educator. She's been coming to our home every Tuesday afternoon to give the children a 2 hour private art lesson. The kids have done both group and private lessons and private lessons are the way to go. Gerry is teaching the children to really look at their subjects and is teaching them how to translate that onto paper.

The last few lessons have been devoted to learning how to sculpt.

Their first sculpting lesson involved learning to sculpt heads. Gerry's is the one in the middle.

Another week they made seahorses. Shira's has the baby in the pouch.

I love how Gerry teaches the children about their subjects, so while they were sculpting their seahorses they also learned about the animal and its habitat.

Shira's rather proud of the dog she sculpted

I just have to show you this collage that Ben made when he did a class with Shara Wertz from the Norfolk Parks Department.

I think it is absolutely fabulous.

Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers # 11

2008-10-18T10:51:00.003-04:00

Welcome to another edition of the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers. I hope you enjoy reading the entries as much as I did. This edition is host to a plethora of science related blog posts.

Lydia from Little Blue School presents the finalists in The Book Arts Bash. She writes:

The most competitive category, unbelievably, was the novel excerpt. No one could have predicted this! We received dozens and dozens of novels. Stacks and mountains. We certainly had no idea there were so many excellent novelists out there in the homeschool world, typing away at their masterpieces. We are so impressed. The most difficult categories to narrow down to finalists were the novels, the short stories, and the poems, all deep in quality and chock full of entries. At times we had three different people looking at your work, trying to get it down to three finalists in each grade division, each genre. That wasn't always possible, as you'll see in the results! I can honestly tell you that just being a finalist in these categories is a real accomplishment. The competition was fierce.

Lydia, other than being my partner in the Book Arts Bash and the Get Up and Explore Science Spectacular - Homeschool Science Fair, is the person who finally helped me get red and blue states sorted out. Everyone has something they can never remember and I am no different. I, for the life of me, cannot remember which party has the red states and which as the blue states. Lydia's bog tagline is all I need to remember, "Little Blue Children. A Big Red State" and then I know that Republicans are red and Democrats are blue. However, it looks like she might have to develop a new tagline as it looks like Virginia might swing to blue this year.

Alasandra presents Alasandra's Homeschool Blog Awards. Entries for this year's blog awards closed yesterday. Go on over to her blog to be vote for your favorite homeschool blogs. Mine's nominated, hint, hint, hint.

Alasandra has a great rant asking people to Stop harassing homeschoolers.

Some public health officials are concerned the growing popularity of home schooling has created gaps in the vaccination safety net, leading to outbreaks of rare childhood diseases

Grit from Grit's Day has written a series of posts on Why her family homeschools.

A new month needs a new focus, so thanks to the Pig whose fault this is, and October, because it is here already, I shall record the many reasons why Shark, Squirrel and Tiger do not go to school, but play all day long under the guise of home education. And when they plead Why, Mother, Why? I can point them to the blog, go open a beer, and hope that they can read.

The first reason we educate from home may as well be attention span.

Another reason

All these are excellent reasons to home educate, and we use them daily. You can talk about what you like. You can find out things together. You can decide what's important to know, and you can pursue it in any way that works for you and your child. Really, this is empowerment of the greatest kind, because you can explore cultures and create knowledges together, and there's no-one to stop you. No blank faced Whitehall civil servant with a tick-box form because it's Wednesday, so today you should do commas and fractions, and stop crying. Next week we're going to test you.

They homeschool because they feel like running

Sometimes we do, make, pursue ... and there's no intention and purpose to that ... we follow the sniff of the air, the beat of a heart, the sound of a hand clap, the shadows and the sunlines, and we make our day on impulse and do what we do, because we want to, and we feel like it.

I believe this is precious in childhood: this tidal surge of confident inquiry, thinking comes later; a sudden, irresistible urge to run at a clap across a field because limbs can take us there, those legs running across the grass surprised by energy and impulse, followed by laughter. In those moments of childhood, there's no self-doubt, no difficulty, no constraining hand to stay us and control us. There needs to be no thoughtful significance to the act, no result, no textbook, no purpose, no discussion. We enjoy.

They also homeschool because they like to watch sport

We get to watch when Shark steps with singular determination to the sailing dingy; when Squirrel twirls, and with that face she thinks a serious ballerina should have; we get to watch how Tiger's eyes light up when she clings to a horse, and we even get to bite our knuckles and pray they don't all fall in, fall over, or fall off.

Every week throughout their lives we see some new and wonderful physical ability. From standing up to chew on the table edge, to falling off the climbing frame in the playground and not dying, swimming for the first time, cycling without pink princess wheels, then archery, abseiling, skiing. This month alone I've watched gym, trampoline, tennis, ice skating, kayaking. And the best of it is I can be right there when it happens. I can seek out any type of lesson that's wanted, we can choose the places and times to go, the instructors we like; and I can look at my little faces delighted and excited as a sudden new skill is found and disbelieved and found again.

They also homeschool for the creativity it allows grit to engender in her children (this btw, is one of my major reasons for homeschooling. I firmly believe that institutional school sucks the creativity out of children and teachers.

Art art art. This is one of the biggest reasons why I home educate, if not the biggest, most important, and dearest to my heart. I have seen art, craft, dance, music, drama, play, imagination and creativity, all steadily removed from the primary curriculum. That is a loss to children; that is a loss to all our lives. And I know I am not a lone voice in the wilderness shouting that one.

But complaining in a staff room didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Marching right in, taking control to put a creative education in place, changing a state of mind from consumer to producer, imagining ourselves doing, learning for ourselves, and getting out the paints. That's creative.

Sonja Cole presents Video Wednesday: Rick Riordan Author Study posted at Kid Lit Kit.

I need to read a copy of one of Rick Riordan's books as the blurb on Scholastic's website makes them look really good. I've been burned too many times to allow my kids to read a book I've never heard of before I've vetted it. One of the librarians recommended "Animorphs" to my kids. Since I had no idea what was in these books, I decided to read one for myself. On the second page I saw the young boys referring to a young girl as a "skank". I was dumbstruck. I wondered if this librarian had ever read the books or if she was just recommending them based on the sheer number of books in the series and their obvious popularity.

I don't care that they are popular, I was not giving my then 6 year old children a book to read that was so insulting to females. It must be said though, that they have never heard that word, but still, they don't need to learn it, at least not yet.

Riordan's series, Peter Jackson and the Olympians sounds like a series of books that will be right up my kids' alley. They are obsessed with Greek Mythology and love mysteries. At the moment they are studying "The Odyssey" in their co-op bookclub. Unfortunately the Mary Pope Osborne translation was not available so they are using Rosemary Sutcliffe's one. Sutcliffe's rendition of the Odyssey is most disappointing. Thankfully already had a copy of Osborne's rendition and the kids know it inside out and back to front. We also have Osborne's rendition on audiobook and we have the Naxos edition. Ben tells me that The Odyssey is his favorite story in the "whole wide world" and he listens to both with amazing regularity.

Greg Laden always has exceedingly interesting and useful science related blog posts. This blog post deals with The Science Museum of Minnesota's exhibit"Race: Are we so different?".

First, the parts we agree with: There is no such thing as race (biologically), race is a social construct used as a political and economic tool, even efforts to use race in a "positive" way such as in medicine or forensics are doomed to failure because of the lack of biological validity of the concept, and so on and so forth.
Here, the idea of the exhibit is really to help people to realize that well formed thoughts about their fellow humans that are based on the race concept are like well formed thoughts about the world they live in that are based on the flat earth. But more destructive.
The main thing we did not like about the exhibit and the AAA race model is the AAA version of the origin of racism. The AAA story couches racism in the context of American colonial history, slavery, etc. etc. It states that racism is a purely Western invention, and distinguishes racism from other forms of hating your fellow human being. The rise of the modern capitalistic system, the nation state, the colonial and post colonial economies and societies, and slavery are the kitchen and racism is the bitter and poisonous buffet, manifest in myriad ways.
True enough, but not broad enough.

Stephanie Zinn has good commentary on Laden's post.

Julie presents Homeschool Anatomy Resources posted at Homeschooling-ideas Blog. Julie reviews online activities that help children learn about human anatomy. She writes, "games and puzzles including Whack-a-Bone and Brain Jigsaw. It seems aimed at teenagers, but I played with my 10yo with no problems. The games are well designed and you do have to learn the bone or muscle structure to succeed"

PisecoMom presents Batteries and Bulbs posted at Mind Games.

Piseco reminds me that I need to start doing some electricity experiments with Ben and Shira. Ben has a neat building kit that makes electric circuits, but somehow doing activities like the ones Piseco has done with her son seems so much more satisfying.

Kim, a fellow Objectivist homeschooler, writes about her third elementary science class. Kim has developed what looks like to be a rather good science program for her science club. I'm saving all her blog posts so that I can use her structure for my kids. She's teaching science in an historical context, ensuring that each new concept builds on one that the children already understand.

Sarah Natividad (aka Wacky Hermit) presents The Return of T.E.S.L.A. posted at Organic Baby Farm.

T.E.S.L.A. (Totally Educational Science Learning Activities) is our science club for kids ages 7-11. We do hands-on experiments and learn from Galileo's "book of the world". We invite both homeschoolers and public-schoolers (it's not their fault their school's science program sucks!) These are our plans for the months of October and November.

If you are looking for resources to teach chemistry to your children, Jennifer Hill has some resources for you on herFamily Blog

I recently discovered Lisa Bergantz's blog, SMMART ideas(Science, Math, Music, Art, Reading, Time-out for skills).

I originally started compiling Science and Math activities when my first little girl was born. Because of my Science background, the intent was to introduce my children to these "hard" subjects through simple learning activities. I want my children to gain exposure and confidence in Math and Science. I have expanded the compiling to other subjects as well, including Music, Art, and Reading

Watch Lisa demonstrate how to make ribbon streamers

Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers presents Step-by-Step: How to Make a Rain Stick. As always, Kris' projects look like so much fun. I think that homeschoolers need a blog like The Crafty Crow for fun learning based projects. I wonder if Cathy Ceceri would be interested in doing something like this? I love Cathy's craft ideas. If you haven't yet seen her book, Around the World Crafts, go and take a look.

Amy Smith presents Learning Through Dress Up posted at Kids Love Learning.When I was growing up, one of my friends had a dress up trunk which I thought was the coolest thing. There were old lady wigs, long dresses, high heel shoes, gaudy beads, and big clip on earrings. I wanted my own children to experience the dress up fun I had as a child so I set out to stock a dress up bin for them.

Thomas J. West presents When Should You Get A Private Music Teacher For Your Child? posted at Thomas J. West Music. He writes:

Whether your children are enrolled in a traditional public school, private school, or are home schooled, the study of a musical instrument (including voice) can be a vibrant and important part of a child's education. Many parents are not experienced musicians, so they are unable to help their children at home when they are practicing. Eventually, the subject of private lessons is bound to come up. Here are some helpful tips for determining whether or not hiring a private music instructor is right for your situation.

I wish that Thomas West lived in Norfolk. We desperately need a piano teacher like the one he seems to be. We've just had an experience with the piano teacher from hell. She came highly recommended and is the president of the local piano teachers' association. Despite proclaiming that she had taught kindergarteners for over 30 years, the woman had no idea how to teach young children. She taught way too many concepts in a lesson, didn't ensure that the children understood what they had to practice each week, or even if they had understood what she had just taught them, and wrote inadequate notes. We ended up with daily tears over practicing and Marc had to reteach each lesson. At our sixth lesson with her, I asked her to slow down on teaching so many concepts and to ask the children to demonstrate what she had taught them instead of asking them if they understood. Of course a child is going to tell a crotchety old woman that they understand what she's said, even if they don't. The witch started screaming at me that there was something wrong with my children because no one else had ever questioned her teaching methods. She had Shira in tears over her intimidation. Needless to say, we resigned, never to return to her studio.

Now we're taking a break. We're loathe to start up with a new teacher just yet as the children have been thoroughly traumatized by this last one. I want to make sure that they still love music and the piano and when we go back to a teacher, will love practicing.

We've been wondering if one of those electronic teaching programs might not be a useful stop gap. Serendipitously, One Family's Blog posted about one of those online programs I plan on having a look at his program. I just wonder if it works with a real piano and not an electronic one.

I need to do some research. Wouldn't it be great if there was a piano teaching program that used programmed instruction? One of my biggest worries when the kids practice the piano is that I am musically inept and I can't hear if they are doing something wrong. Often I think they've had a good few days of practice and then Marc hears them and I find out they've been doing it all wrong. Programmed instruction for practicing will make life so much easier for me.

Silvia presents Feedback Wanted for Make:television posted at Po Moyemu--In My Opinion.

It's looking like a great show! If you're into making things, looking for inspiration, or just seeing what some really creative people are doing, check it out! And if you're a kid--maybe you'll want to make some of these things out of your toys instead of the larger parts. I think they ought to have a showcase of kid-ventions too!

keri@Sunny presents Tropical Storm Kyle posted at Sunny. This blog post is a photo essay of her children's treasure finds on the beach after Tropical Storm Kyle. WARNING: This blog has a loud sound track that starts as soon as you open the page. Great pics if you can stomach the obnoxious noise.

Theodore Pappas presents There He Goes Again (Charles "Bell Curve" Murray on Education) | Britannica Blog posted at Britannica Blog.

A controversial but important topic for all educators, including the homebased: Charles Murray (of the controversial "Bell Curve" book) has a new book out on education that argues, says the blogger, that some kids "are not worth the time and trouble to educate because they are 'just not smart enough,' in his words, to learn anything more than manual skills. And he can prove it! Scientifically!"

I would have written this with more tact, but I do agree. I think this move to expect every child to go on to university cheapens the worth of a degree. I've watched babysitters work on their university course work and have been horrified at the dumbing down of tertiary education. Not everyone is cut out to go to university. We should start looking at the German education system where they have non academic tracks. Where children can finish school with useful trade qualifications. Murray does make an assumption that bothers me immensely though. He suggests that it is poor children who do not have the intellectual capacity to go on to university. I disagree with it intellectual ability being economically based, but do agree that not all children should go on to university. Read the review of the book. It's a good one, the review I mean, can't comment on the book as I haven't read it yet.

Spanish Kit presents An Introduction to Spanish Irregular Verbs posted at Learn Spanish.

the carnival of cool homeschoolers, blog carnival.

Growing like weeds

2008-10-14T10:12:00.003-04:00

My kids are growing like weeds. They both put on an inch in the last 6 weeks. Shira is now 4ft 6inches and Ben's 3/4 of an inch shorter. That puts Shira at the 97th percentile for height and Ben at the 96th percentile. Both are at the 84th percentile for weight.

I'm just hoping that this growth spurt does not mean we're going to have to buy new shoes again. This summer both kids grew out of brand new shoes in 6 weeks. Shira went from a 2 to a 3 1/2 in six weeks. It hurt badly to have to buy two sets of New Balance sneakers for each child in such a short time.

Fury Over Cat Eating Festival

2008-10-14T09:47:00.003-04:00

I found this article in The Sun very amusing and perplexing.

ANIMAL rights groups are up in arms over an annual festival in Peru that serves up hundreds of fried CATS to locals.
The 'Gastronomical Festival of the Cat' – dubbed the 'Massacre of the Moggies' – sees townsfolk in Canete, near Lima, feast on the fluffy pets for two days.

I have never been able to understand why meat eaters get all bent out of shape when other meat eaters eat cute and furry animals. If you are going to kill an animal for it's food, surely any animal will do? Just because it has cute eyes, is soft and cuddly and purrs shouldn't make it off limits.

I can understand the Peta types being upset over this cat festival as they manage to become upset over just about everything, but I truly do not understand how the average burger eating Joe can become upset over eating cats and dogs.

Geometry

2008-10-14T09:22:00.002-04:00

I bought Maria Miller's Early Geometry last week. The kids are loving it. Ben's in 7th heaven as he can read the text and work at his own speed. I just check on him to ensure he understands the concepts and once in a while insist that I get to teach a concept.

It's so exciting to see that one of my offspring has inherited my love for geometry. I used to spend hours doing geometry problems for fun as a kid.

Right now the kids are playing with Mighty Mind. This is the perfect tool for helping cement the concepts of shapes and how they fit together.

Update on the Book Arts Bash

2008-10-04T19:41:00.003-04:00

Lydia and I spent Friday afternoon sorting the entries to the Book Arts Bash.

Lydia wrote:

Biggest surprise: There were no pop-ups. Not one. After we humbly petitioned and then raucously celebrated getting Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart as judges, there were no entries. Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, people! These are paper engineering artists! They have an entire studio dedicated to pop-ups in NYC. They did the official pop-ups for Disney, for the Narnia books! They are the authors of Encyclopedia Mythologica and Encyclopedia Prehistorica, the cutting edge pop-ups that are redefining the genre. Shez collected a marvelous list of resources and how-tos for the pop-up page at the contest site, just in case people needed help finding tutorials. No entries. Not one.

Another surprise: There were fewer than 10 entries in all the K-2 categories, total. That shocked me! I thought the younger kids would be more involved.

The biggest stack on the table *by far* was the 7-9 grade group and the biggest category in that group was the novel excerpt! Amazing! I am so surprised and impressed with these middle school aged authors! The huge outpouring of prose, the staggering pile of pages -- completely glorious and inspiring.

Hey, it is ALL GOOD! Having said all this, we received another huge post office crate full of entries on Friday that we've yet to sort. Maybe that one is full of pop-ups -- who knows?! We've got a ton of entries and more coming in. We're going to be able to afford nice prizes and all the postage. We are very excited. It's awesome opening up these packages and seeing everyone's work. There are some beautiful, beautiful ABC books, some really awesome comics, lots of short stories and poetry, and even some novel cover art (my favorite category!). The panel is going to have a hard time narrowing it down in some of these categories! Very very gifted writers doing excellent work.

I'll keep you updated as we go along. This is fun!

McDougall on Presidential Health

2008-10-04T12:13:00.002-04:00

Dr. John McDougall, physician and promoter of low-fat vegan diet, has prepared the following report on the health of the presidential candidates McCain and Obama. It makes interesting reading for anyone, but as McDougall asserts, may be particularly important for the consideration of American voters.

Note: This is not a political post, LOL, it's one on health. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

He ends with:

You Must Be Kidding Yourself If You Are in Doubt
While it is impossible to predict with certainty any person's future health, time of death, or degree of disability, the evidence at hand clearly says John McCain is in relatively poor health and Barack Obama is in excellent health. All politics aside, no one could conclude otherwise. To McCain’s credit he appears to be holding up well during this grueling campaign, but his current appearances do not negate the medical facts.
Additionally, although it is impossible to accurately merge all the figures that predict mortality—38% (actuarial figures), 27% (cardiac risk), and 44% (melanoma mortality)—it would not be unreasonable to guess that McCain’s chances of dying within the two terms of Presidential office far exceed a coin toss. Add to this the risk of him becoming disabled to the point of non-performance, then who among well-informed voters would bet their stock portfolio or their subprime-mortgaged home that, if elected, McCain will still be our President come 2017? Would you, or the company you work for, hire an employee with McCain’s medical problems? How about someone with Obama’s health history? Of course, there are many other important issues that will determine the vote you will cast come November 4, 2008, but the health of our candidates is of paramount importance and should be weighed appropriately.

Why, oh, why could Ron Paul not be the Republican nominee? If not the nominee, at least the VP. I shudder to think of Palin as president.

Spelling list for this week, October 4, 2008

2008-10-04T10:06:00.002-04:00

Ben and Shira are practicing for the Spelling Bee in January. I'm using KidSpell.com to help them practice their words. Here is this week's list.

carnivore
gregarious
ostentatious
prosaic
herbivore
prodigal
magnanimous
benevolent
mercurial
simile
jovial
ridiculous
innate
obstinate
discern
mediocre
insidious
rupture
precipitate
erudite

Last week the kids decided that the words were too difficult and they didn't want to take part in the spelling bee. However, on Wednesday when they saw a friend merrily spelling the words, they decided that they wanted to do spelling bee again and proceeded to spell all their words correctly.

Petition YouTube for Pat Condell - a victimless criminal

2008-10-04T09:55:00.002-04:00

Pat Condell supported the petition against Sharia law in the UK with his video, "Welcome to Saudi Britain."

As a result of his usual brave and dignified stand in favour of freedom of speech his video has been removed.

He merely criticised the Saudi-based Islamisation of the UK. He did not incite violence nor hatred of Muslims.

find more details and the petition here

Richard Dawkins asks a very important question, "If a voice as humorous and high profile as Pat Condell's can be silenced when asking people to sign a legal petition, who's going to hear our voices, we little people? "

Entrepreneurs

2008-10-04T09:02:00.002-04:00

Benny, Ben and Shira set up shop yesterday. My kids need better entrepreneurial skills. Benny convinced them that Ben would supply the products, Shira would set prices and they'd all sell them. For this, Benny would receive 50% of the profits and my two the remaining 50%.

My two thought this was perfectly equitable because Benny thought up the project. On one hand I am glad they think this way because they are giving credence to intellectual capital but on the other hand, I wish they had stood up for greater profits.

Children who spend time with their fathers have a higher IQ

2008-10-04T08:11:00.002-04:00

From the Telegraph we hear that:

strong fatherly involvement in their early life can also improve a child's future career prospects, the research shows.
Academics at the University of Newcastle, who carried out the study, also found that men tended to pay more attention to their sons than their daughters.
The researchers warned that it was not enough for parents to live together, but that a father should be actively involved in a child's life to benefit their development.
The study looked at more than 11,000 British men and women, born in 1958.
The scientists asked their mothers how often the father of their child took part in activities with them, including reading, organising outings and general "quality time".
The findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, show that those children whose fathers spent more time with them had a higher IQ and were more socially mobile than those who had received little attention.
The differences were still detectable by the age of 42.
Dr Daniel Nettle, who led the research, said: "What was surprising about this research was the real sizeable difference in the progress of children who benefited from paternal interest and how thirty years later, people whose dads were involved are more upwardly mobile.
"The data suggest that having a second adult involved during childhood produces benefits in terms of skills and abilities that endure throughout adult life," he added.

Lost WWII sub USS Grunion found

2008-10-04T08:08:00.002-04:00

Over sixty years after the sub went missing, an expedition hired by the sons of the commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Mannert L. Abele, found the sub.

Abele's sons, Bruce, Brad, and John, began working on a plan to find the sub after finding information on the Internet in 2002 that helped pinpoint USS Grunion's possible location.

In August 2006, a team of side scan sonar experts hired by the brothers located a target near Kiska almost a mile below the ocean's surface. A second expedition in August 2007 using a high definition camera on a remotely operated vehicle yielded video footage and high resolution photos of the wreckage.

No political blog posts this weekend.

2008-10-04T08:04:00.002-04:00

I am going to try to avoid reading any political news or posting any political blog posts this weekend. We have a month to go before the elections and i am already tired of all the politics. I can barely contain my anger over the bail out bill and am mortified beyond belief that a woman such as Palin is embarrassing us on a daily basis.

My blood pressure requires a politics free weekend. Let's see if my morbid curiosity can keep me away from it all.

Scents can stimulate more than just the nose.

2008-10-04T07:55:00.003-04:00

Ladies, next time you need to get your husband in the mood, waft the scent of some doughnuts, lavender or pumpkin pie past his nose. According to Dr. Alan Hirsch a nationally recognized smell and taste expert and the founder of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago scents can stimulate more than just the nose.

Women's interest was aroused by baby powder (can guarantee that anything relating to babies does nothing for this woman. it would rather make me run a mile) and a combination of Good & Plenty candy and cucumber (just the scent strangely enough).

Dr Hirsch also discovered that you can use bad smells to generate nightmares. I found this particularly interesting as Ben insists that when I don't give him an aroma therapy massage before bedtime he has nightmares. I've always thought that it was a ploy to get them more often. Perhaps the good smells help give him good dreams rather than bad dreams he has without the good smells.

Make Tracks!™ Family Trail Weekend!

2008-10-04T07:40:00.002-04:00

I find it truly sad that we have to encourage our families to go outside for a short hour.

a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that the average American child spends 44 hours per week (more than 6 hours a day!) staring at some kind of electronic screen. Studies have linked excessive television viewing to obesity, violence, and even lower intelligence in kids. Now, a growing wave of research indicates that children who spend time outdoors are healthier, overall, than their indoor counterparts.

Children who regularly spend unstructured time outside:
Play more creatively
Have lower stress levels
Have more active imaginations
Become fitter and leaner
Develop stronger immune systems
Experience fewer symptoms of ADD and ADHD
Have greater respect for themselves, for others, and for the environment
The National Wildlife Federation recommends that parents give their kids a "Green Hour" every day, a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. This can take place in a garden, a backyard, the park down the street, or any place that provides safe and accessible green spaces where children can learn and play.

To give parents and caregivers the information, tools, and inspiration to get their kids -- and themselves -- outside, NWF has created GREENHOUR.ORG, a website rich in family-friendly content and which hosts a supportive virtual community where families can learn, explore, and share their outdoor experiences and backyard adventures.

That 6 hours a day chained to an electronic media item shocked me. It made me realize, yet again, how far out of the mainstream we are. Our kids go days at a time with no electronic media input, Often the only screen time they get is school related screen time.

Where are you going to walk/ride for your outside next week? Marc and I will be in DC so the kids will have to rely on Loraina to take them to a trail. They love going to First Landing State Park. I need to check if dogs are welcome. I'll bet the pups will love going there for a walk.

Objectivist Round Up - Financial Crisis Edition

2008-10-02T16:55:00.000-04:00

The Crucible and Column has published the latestObjectivist Round Up

This week we're focusing specifically on the Financial Crisis from an Objectivist perspective. This is a crucial point in our nation's history, and one which illustrates the value of good ideas, and the failure of bad ones. Your voice is necessary in this time of high anxiety. Hopefully, the Objectivists here help make things a little bit clearer. This issue is quite full so let's get right to the substance.

Also, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has set up a web site dealing specifically with the Financial Crisis and offering insight and analysis on this crisis and capitalism in general.

Hurry on over to The Crucible and Column to read this excellent round up of Objectivist thinking.

7-Election '08

2008-10-02T16:24:00.003-04:00

This is my third US presidential election (2nd one that I get to vote in) and I am loving it. I think it's a crazy system, but oh, boy, do I love all the high drama.

Today I heard about something that really tickles my fancy. 7-Eleven customers can choose between Obama or McCain coffee cups and the results of the informal poll are tallied daily. Apparently this poll correctly predicted the results of the last two elections.

In the 2000 7-election their George W Bush coffee cup outsold the Al Gore cup by just 1%. The 2004 7-election results tracked identically with published national results. 51% for Bush and 40% for Kerry

As a former marketer, I think this is a brilliant marketing campaign. Kudo's to the marketing team at 7-Eleven. You can follow the results daily.

I hope that this year, before all the journalists start commenting on polls, that they do a short statistics course so that they can correctly report on polls. I become rather irate when I read reports that claim that candidate x has overtaken candidate y in the polls by 2 percentage points, only to discover that the margin of error is 6% and the difference between the candidates is only 2%. How difficult is it to understand the concept of a margin of error? Then there are all the gleeful reports where the journalists haven't checked the study design...

Christian Radio Exposed

2008-10-02T11:00:00.004-04:00

UPDATED 18 November. This was apparently a farce that I fell for. LOL. It sounded so perfectly legit to me.

My friend Kim blogged that Christian Radio has been on a continuous loop for the last 20 years.

Except for the obvious dishonesty I don't see much wrong with it:

None of the ministers heard on Christian radio have actually taped a program for two decades. As some ministers died or left the ministry, the program directors introduced "new" ministers by changing the pitch of a previous minister’s voice. For example, after the death of Christian radio personality Martin Wyse, Wyse’s old shows were digitally manipulated to give him a Scottish brogue, resulting in the creation of Alistair Begg, who does not actually exist.
The only other thing that changed over the years were the advertisements, the director says.

Isn't radio about giving people what they want? Their advertisers were still advertising with them, so their ratings must have been good enough. What's the big deal if the people were still tuning in and enjoying it. I wouldn't mind a business like that.

I wonder if I could start a homeschool radio like this? I could spend a year taping shows then stick them on a continuous loop. Once in a while I could let Ben manipulate them digitally to make it sound as if we had different hosts and Bob's your uncle, we have a business with very low input costs. Think homeschoolers would fall for it?

Update on acorn collection

2008-10-02T09:31:00.004-04:00

I received a comment on my blog from Kate McNamee of Growning Native about my post on Virginian Acorns.

Potomac Conservancy's Growing Native is a partner with the Virginia Department of Forestry for seed collection. Growing Native is a year-round volunteer project that collects hardwood seeds and plants trees to help restore and protect rivers and streams in the Potomac River watershed.

This fall, Growing Native has launched a "Get Out and Get Nuts" Challenge. For every pound of seed that is collected, Ford will donate $1 to Potomac Conservancy's tree restoration projects. So, as you collect, don't forget to enter!

After you collect your seeds, let us know how many pounds you have gathered by entering the "Get Out and Get Nuts" Challenge. VisitGrowing Native for more information!

From their website:

What is Growing Native?
Volunteers of all ages and backgrounds participate in Growing Native by collecting native tree seeds and planting trees along streams and rivers across the region. Not only are participants creating forests for tomorrow, they are also learning the important connection between healthy, forested lands and clean waters.

Since Growing Native’s inception in 2001, nearly 30,000 volunteers collected more than 94,000 pounds of acorns, walnuts, and other hardwood tree seeds. These seeds have generated seedlings that will be used to restore sensitive streamside lands.

In addition to providing native tree stock, Growing Native builds public awareness of the important connection between healthy, forested lands and clean waters, and what individuals can do to protect them

Growing Native evolved out of a need for native hardwood seedlings to support expanding reforestation and restoration efforts in the Potomac River watershed. Maryland and Virginia state nurseries are experiencing a shortage of native seedling stock due to the ever-increasing demand for trees, particularly for new streamside forest projects. To replenish the supply of native seedlings and ensure diversity in the nursery's tree stock, Growing Native was established in 2001. A majority of this program's tree seedlings are used to create diverse and healthy streamside forests, which are key to maintaining and improving water quality and providing wildlife habitat.

You can register your seed collection here.

Growing Native is looking for ambassadors:

Growing Native ambassadors have a passion for the outdoors and want to share it with others. As a community representative for Growing Native, ambassadors encourage others to “get nuts for clean water” by organizing and leading seed collection events in their area!

Ambassadors attend a fun and free training, where they are trained to identify native trees and their seeds. Sign-up today and take advantage of this great opportunity to meet other nature lovers and give back to your community!

Join one of our Growing Native Ambassador Trainings in September! To view training dates, click here. For more information, contact Kate McNamee, Outreach Coordinator at mcnamee@growingnative.org or by calling 301.608.1188, x211.

Growing Native provides educator resources, a boy scouting badge and a handy dandy tree identification guide.

Virginian acorns need to be collected by 20 October.