Friday, November 28, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Let Them Be Themselves!

Karen is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at My Own Mind.

She starts the carnival with:

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Welcome to this, the 464th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

I have hosted the Carnival of Homeschooling here on my blog several times and it is always such a pleasure to read blog posts that homeschooling parents are willing to share with the homeschool community.

I hope you enjoy this edition particularly for the theme: Let Them Be Themselves! Most of these blog posts in this carnival have a basic message about celebrating the children than we have in our homes, just for who they are.
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Enjoy!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Interesting thought

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

Men weary as much of not doing the
things they want to do as of
doing the things they do not want to do.
                            -Eric Hoffer

Monday, November 24, 2014

The daughter's side of "Taking my daughter to work"

Last week I wrote Another cool benefit of homeschooling - Take your daughter to work day.

Today my youngest daughter shares her thoughts about the trip:

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On Wednesday of last week I went to work with my dad. His career of a software engineer doing quality assurance has been interesting to me for a while. It was nice to be able to just take a day to go with him, something I wouldn’t be able to do if I went to school.

My dad takes the train to work, so it was fun to do that with him. It was a relatively short walk to the train station. It was nice to chat with him. The train had a lot of commuters. Looking out the window for the ride was really interesting. It was about 45 minutes to get to his stop.

When we arrived at the train station we got a quick doughnut and headed over to his work, which was about two blocks away from the train station.

When we got to his work he introduced me to a lot of his colleagues. Then he started working and I did some school work. I spent some time watching him work, and I was able to use his computer to do MyMathlab when he went to a meeting.

After his meeting we went to a nearby burger joint and grabbed lunch. Then he worked some more. At around 2 o’clock I went to a near by used book store and read for a while. There was a great selection, so it was fun to browse.

We rode the train home later in the evening. It was nice spending a day with my dad. My favorite thing about it was seeing his work place and watching him work. I’m glad I’m available to do field trips like this.
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Saturday, November 22, 2014

Please remember to 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 next carnival will be held at My Own Mind.


This will be the 464th edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

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.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me. 

Carnival of Homeschooling

Friday, November 21, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Looking Forward, Looking Back

Janice is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Janice Campbell - Making time for things that matter.

She starts the carnival with:

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It seems just yesterday that all the trees were glowing with reds, oranges, and yellows, but now “all the leaves are brown, and the skies are gray,” a line that I now cannot get out of my head (click and listen at your own risk). We’ve had an extended autumn it seems, with many beautiful days, and now we’re tucked in until spring. Well, except for the holidays, of course.

This 463rd Carnival of Homeschooling offers a smorgasbord of creative ideas, inspiration, and practical tips. As you read each post, I hope you’ll find kindred spirits among the bloggers, and lots of good things to read as you sit by the fire and sip tea.
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Enjoy!


Monday, November 17, 2014

Another cool benefit of homeschooling - Take your daughter to work day

I've worked most of my career as a software engineer.  I recently joined Snowflake Computing.  The last seven months have been a lot of work, but I'm excited by the potential of the company.

For the last couple weeks my youngest daughter has been asking if she could come with me to work sometime.  I think she is motivated by the adventure, spending time with dad and a really cool used book store.

So come Wednesday we'll take the train together and ride to work.  She'll bring her school work along.  I'm sure we'll chat on the way up and we'll go out to lunch.  She'll spend some time in a conference room and the company break room.

I think it will be a great exposure to the real world.  She'll have a better understanding of what it is her father does.  It will be more real to her.  And it may even become a more interesting option for her to consider.  (Though right now she is very interested in neuroscience.)

This is another cool benefit of homeschooling.  We didn't have to ask permission from some school official.  We didn't have to fill out any forms.  We have the freedom to make our own schedule without having to worry if someone else would let us.

I love homeschooling!

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Please remember to 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 next carnival will be held at Janice Campbell - Making time for things that matter


This will be the 463rd edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

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.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me. 

Carnival of Homeschooling

Friday, November 14, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

Monique is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Living Life and Learning.

She starts the carnival with:

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I love hosting the carnival of homeschooling because I get to read these awesome posts and learn about new blogs as well. We are getting into the cold weather here so I’m not looking forward to our super cold winters full of snow just yet. We’re spending a lot of time outdoors, cleaning up leaves and enjoying the cool fall weather.

However, this morning we woke up to snow which makes me so sad but the kids loved it and couldn’t wait go get out there. This time of the year I’m really looking forward to Christmas and the holidays but it’s also a great time to evaluate how things are going in our homeschool.

How well are we progressing and how well is our homeschool curriculum working for us are things that I start to think over and see where I can improve or streamline.

I’m definitely looking forward to taking some time off of our regularly scheduled curriculum to do some fun lapbooks and notebooking as well. We read a lot of Christmas books and take more time to play board games and do the fun arts and crafts as well.
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Enjoy!


Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, November 10, 2014

Unexpected fruits of homeschooling, or another reason why I love homeschooling

Awhile back someone gave my wife some gift cards for Barnes & Noble.  For a family outing we recently took our youngest two children to Barnes & Noble and told them they could use some of the gift cards.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my fourteen-year-old daughter decided to buy two books on neuroscience.  Currently she is fascinated by the human brain.  She had already been doing a little reading on the brain, but she is now planning to work through both books.

Homeschooling is wonderful for helping children to be open to possibilities sooner.  Rather than waiting until the "normal" time to learn about the human brain, my daughter is studying now, because she is interested now.  If she was in a public school, it would be much harder for her to find the time to study on her own.

This is just another reason why I love homeschooling.

Saturday, November 08, 2014

Please remember to 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 next carnival will be held at Living Life and Learning


This will be the 462nd edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

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.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me. 

Carnival of Homeschooling

Thursday, November 06, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Living and Learning

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

She starts the carnival with:

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Is he well educated?”
“Yes, I think so, as far as he’s gone,” I answered. “Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about ‘finishing’ your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day…”  – Gene – Stratton Porter –
We never really do stop learning do we?   Every day the sun rises and sets and within those waking hours, we are busy living and most often learning as well.
I hope you will join me and visit all the submissions for this week and share the link here on your own site or within your social media accounts.
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Enjoy!


Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, November 03, 2014

An important lesson to teach our children

Sometimes as homeschooling parents we can get caught up in the mindset that academic topics are the most important things to teach our children.  And while I agree that it is important for our children to know how to read, write and do arithmetic, academics are not the most important things we teach our children.  I love history, see great value in science and even understand how the arts help round out a person, but I would be sad if my children got perfect SAT scores and straight A's through college, and turn out to be lazy and/or rotten people.

Some of the areas Janine and I focus on are: having a relationship with God, knowing how to work and being kind to others.

Recently I've thought of another area that I'll work with my children.

For more than a year part of my planning process is to consider the following questions:

Why am I doing what I am doing?
Is there something more important that I should be working on?
If so, why am I not working on it?

Part of this goes back to a post I wrote: Why do you do what you do?

I try to use these three questions to stay in Quadrant II activities and not get distracted with busy work.  Reflecting on these questions helps.

It occurred to me this last week that I haven't encouraged my children to ponder on these questions.  They are developing into competent people who love God, can work hard and are kind to others.

I'll now try to encourage them to make sure that when they get busy, they are busy with important tasks and not just busy work.


The job of a parent never ends.

Saturday, November 01, 2014

Please remember to 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 next carnival will be held at The Informed Parent


This will be the 461st edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling.

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.

I have a reminder mailing list. If you would like email reminders, please tell me. 

Carnival of Homeschooling