Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling. The Carnival of Homeschooling will be held next week at Dave Out Loud.

This will be the 336th edition.

BlogCarnival is up right this moment, but it is still probably best to email your submission.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

Dave has posted a video calling for submissions:

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

The latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is up at The Holistic Homeschooler.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

The Informed Parent is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling.

She starts the carnival with

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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. Last week’s invite included a John Taylor Gatto quote. I saw Mr. Gatto speak when we first started homeschooling years ago at Finney Chapel in Oberlin, Ohio . His speech went straight into my heart and has stayed with me and inspired me through the years.

Whether you are just starting down the path of home eduction, in the middle or about to see your children leave the nest, thanks for stopping by. I hope you will visit all the blogs participating in this week’s carnival, find different ways to trust your instincts, follow your heart and enjoy the path your family follows that best meets each of your needs.
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The fear of speaking

I really enjoy Toastmasters.  I think it has great value.

Speak: The Movie look like a fun documentary:



Here is a synopsis of the movie:

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SPEAK is a documentary film about the fear of public speaking, and the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking.  Filmmakers Paul Galichia and Brian Weidling embarked on an almost two year journey  - conducting hundreds of interviews about public speaking anxiety, and capturing every stage of the tense, highly competitive World Championship of Public Speaking.  It all culminates in a week of fascinating human drama in Calgary, Alberta, after which one person is crowned “World Champion of Public Speaking”.  Funny, inspiring, moving, and utterly absorbing,  SPEAK follows the trail of those brave souls who take on the fear of public speaking – the world’s #1 fear – and live to tell the tale.
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For train buffs

A friend told me last week about the Tehachapi Loop.  A railroad company wanted to run a line up a canyon, but it was too steep to go straight up, so they built a loop:



Pretty cool. 

The video is a bit long, but my son greatly enjoyed watching the whole thing.

Good thought

My cousin posted this on Facebook:

Don't look back,
you're not going that way.
Dr. Wayne Dyer

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling. The Carnival of Homeschooling will be held next week at The Informed Parent.

This will be the 335th edition. 

BlogCarnival is up right this moment, but it is still probably best to email your submission.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Floatin' Down the River Edition

Mama Squirrel is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Dewey's Treehouse.

She starts the carnival with:

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This week's carnival takes its theme from a post at Tea Time with Annie Kate. Annie Kate recently took her homeschooled crew Floatin. Down the River Again (AKA Homeschool Phys Ed). No boats, no rubber rafts--just a few lifejacketed kids (and mom) getting close--really close--to the elements.

I thought there might be a few homeschooling--or life--metaphors in there somewhere.
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Lab Sciences

Providing good lab science experience for our homeschooled children has been a bit of a challenge and is something that I don't feel like we do very well.   We've done experiments from time to time but nothing in a systematic method.

The curriculum that we use for science has not included enough hands on activities.  Or maybe, it is just that we haven't taken the time to do them.  What ever the reason, I want to do something to change this. During the school year, I'm just can't add another thing to our long list of activities.  So, a summer program seems like the way to go.

In our area, there are quite a few science based summer camps.  I found a few that had potential but the cost was quite high.  Also, 30 hours of lab crammed into a week, doesn't sound like such a good idea to me.

Next I started checking out chemistry science kits.  I found a few that had promise.  However, I didn't want to be the one directing this activity.  I don't want to juggle another ball in my over-the-top schedule.

All of this brought me to Plan B: create our own chemistry lab camp.

Step 1: Call my homeschool friends and find a two week period during the summer that we are all available.  (This was a very hard step).

Step 2: Find someone who would be interested in teaching a chemistry lab class. (This step was surprisingly easy).  I have a friend who teaches high school math. She has a degree is chemical engineering and would love to teach chemistry over the summer.

Step 3: Pick out a chemistry lab kit that is affordable and well designed.  Hopefully we've got that step right.  If anyone has used Standard/Honors Home School Chemistry Laboratory Kit by The Home Scientist, let us know how you liked it.

Step 4: Find a location (which turns out to be my screen room.)

Step 5: Decide how much to charge so that my friends with multiple students can afford the class while making it worthwhile for the teacher.

My high school age girls studied chemistry this academic year.  With our do-it-yourself  chemistry lab camp, I will feel justified in listing chemistry with lab class on their transcripts.

Has anyone seen "The Lamp?"

The Lamp looks like it could be fun:





Has anyone seen it?  Do you recommend it?  I'm surprised that out of the 50 votes on Youtube for the trailing, there are 16 dislikes.  It is available on Netflix.

Hat tip:  Home School Courier.

The May 2012 Home Educator's Family Times is up

The Home Educator Family Time's May 2012 edition is up.  There are a number of good articles.

I especially enjoyed:

Has Something Come Between You and Your Children? by Barbara Frank
Barbara makes the point that driving our children to places gives us a unique chance to get to know our children better.  She warns against ignoring our children an escaping into cell phone land.

Why Aren’t you Homeschooling? by Jim Willson
Jim warns that public schools today are not fair in their teaching of American history and then addresses three common excuses for not homeschooling.

The "Friends of Stossel in the Classroom" mailing list

I like John Stossel.  He does a good job of framing important issues in ways that are easy to comprehend. 

He has a "Friends of Stossel in the Classroom" mailing list.  You can enter your email address at here.

If you haven't watched this recently, or every, you might enjoy John Stossel's 2007 Stupid in America:



I love his line: "Most Americans don't know what stupid schools are doing to American kids."

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling. The Carnival of Homeschooling will be held next week at Dewey's Treehouse.

This will be the 334rd edition.  We'll be just over a third of the way to the first 1000 carnivals!  :-)

BlogCarnival seems to be having trouble again, so please email your submission.
Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission. 

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

The latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is up

The latest Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival is up at Delightful Education.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

Katherine is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at No Fighting, No Biting!

She starts the carnival with:

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This week is my 3rd time hosting the carnival of homeschooling and it also happens to be the 333rd carnival, started over 6 years ago. If I think about what I was doing on that very first day the Cate family published this weekly collaborative resource, it was, of course, homeschooling. My two oldest children were just learning how to read and write the most simple of book reports and I was also coping with a toddler and expecting baby #4.

Today we have our oldest child in Catholic school, are homeschooling four of the others and still have a toddler underfoot. But it won't always be like this, in another 6 years I will have graduated two children and the youngest will be finishing 3rd grade.

But we must focus on what today asks of us and so...
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Experience

From Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Homeschooling will change for us this fall

Our oldest daughter will be graduating from homeschooling in the next couple weeks.  She has been taking classes at the local junior colleges and will start full time this fall.  She is excited to start.  And I think she is well prepared.  She has been doing just fine in the classes she's taken so far.

It will be a bit weird for me.  Ever since she "started" kindergarten we have been homeschooling her.  The current plan is she'll live at home for the next year or two.  She isn't gone yet, but she is taking her first steps to moving on with her life.  I'm already missing her.

But the bigger change this fall is we'll start homeschooling our son. 

Our long time readers know that Baby Bop joined our home over four years ago as a foster care placement.  It was supposed to be short term.  For over a year it was supposed to be short term.  Then two years ago we were able to adopt him.  Now this fall we'll be officially homeschooling him.

It is a bit weird to be starting over, after all this time. 

He seems ready.  Recently he has started asking for his school work.  He is excited to start.  He likes to write his name. 

I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our homeschooling adventure.

Claiming to be busy relieves us of the burden of choice

I like this article: Are You As Busy As You Think?

Laura Vanderkam makes some great pionts.

If you feel overwhelmed by all you are trying to do, take five minutes and read column.

Charity Navigator

A friend at work was in a really nasty car accident two weeks ago.  A drunk driver going around sixty miles an hour in the wrong direction hit the car.  My friend is lucky to be alive.  They airlifted him to a hospital.  It looks like he will evidently be OK, after a few months of recovery.

His family has been providing updates via CaringBridge.org.  This is a nonprofit group.  One of the things they do is to help people set up a temporary blog to share information as a patient progresses.  The web site asks for donations.  At lunch recently we got talking about CaringBridge and wondered how much money they receive and how it was spent. 

One of the guys at the lunch whipped out his phone and went to Charity Navigator.  This site provides easy access to financial information on non profit organizations. 

Charity Navigator reports that last year CaringBridge brought in $7.37 million dollars.  The CEO has a salary of $138,000.  They spend about 80% of their money on "Program Services" and only 6.5% on fund raising.  Charity Navigator says these are in a reasonable range.  I dug around a bit and found the 2011 financial report.

The next time some "charity" asks you for money you might use Charity Navigator to see where the donations go.

Life is good

My son and I went on a father and sons activity yesterday.  We had a good time.  My son would be happy to go camping again next week!

We just returned to find our internet access has been restored.

Life is good. 

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling. The Carnival of Homeschooling will be held next week at No Fighting, No Biting!

This will be the 333rd edition.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

The latest Homeschool Showcase is up

The Homeschool Showcase #94 carnival is up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

The NerdMom is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at NerdFamily Blog.

She starts the carnival with:

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Welcome to the Carnival of Homechooling! Won’t you come on in, get a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable? We have quite a few great entry’s this week so lets jump right in!

No matter what your education style is we all agree that life happens. One of the blessings of homeschooling is that homeschooling can work with the chaos of life! We have some great entries that specifically look at life and the flexibility of homeschooling!!!
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Life goes on

We have blogged several times about how homeschooling provides great flexibility.  This week we have another example.  Over the weekend we moved back into our house!  Saturday was a long day.  We are grateful for the family and friends who showed up to help us move out of the apartment.

It has been wonderful to be back in our home.

But we are not completely settled in yet.  There are still many disruptions.  We still have over hundred boxes to unpack.  And we can’t do anything with about half of them because the contractor isn’t done yet.  He still needs to build a set of shelves in the garage and the pantry.  Another challenge we’re working around is not having internet access; our DSL line is still being setup.

Since we homeschool it is easy for us to adjust and keep moving forward.  Janine has used our daughters as her minions to bring order out of chaos.  They will spend several hours each day this week cleaning up the house, sorting through the boxes and putting stuff away. 

Our daughters will continue to learn some important lessons about hard work and how to maintain a house. 

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

Please remember to send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling. The Carnival of Homeschooling will be held next week at NerdFamily Blog.

This will be the 332nd edition.

Blog Carnvial was repaired for a bit but is now down again, so please send in your submissions directly via email.

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.

We're home Auntie Em!

It has been a long three months.  We moved out of our home on the first of February into an apartment across the street, and down just a bit.  It was a small 900 square foot two bedroom apartment, on the third floor.  It worked fine.

Today we moved back into our home.  The apartment is cleaned out.  We still have boxes and stuff scattered around everywhere.  We're expecting it will be another month before we are truely settled in.  But it is so nice to be home.

There is one small cloud.  DSL hasn't been set up yet.  I bought the children into work and set up the laptops so they can check their email and watch a favorite television.

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Pioneer Edition

The LaughingLioness is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Golden Grasses.

She starts off the carnival with:

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Each carnival writer has the option to put their compilation to a ‘theme’ if they so choose. I’ve chosen the on a Pioneer theme for 2 reasons. First, I live in the Territories and have some great pictures to share (I’m shallow like that). Secondly, because those of us who homeschool, chose, by intention or default, to Pioneer. One of the definitions for Pioneer is one who is first or among the earliest in any field of inquiry, enterprise, or progress. Love that. And the synonyms for Pioneer are just as rich: leader, trailblazer, forerunner, pathfinder. Homeschooling is pioneering a new educational landscape and one that is and will change the face of the future. It takes a hardy soul to pioneer. And while each of us has our own unique hopes and dreams of what homeschooling might afford, we do so with the common effort of providing well for our children.
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