Friday, August 29, 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, which will be held at:  momSCHOOL.

This will be the 453rd 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, August 28, 2014

The price of freedom

I like this thought from Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

                Responsibility is the price of freedom.
                                   -Elbert Hubbard

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The back to school edition

Gary is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at HomeschoolBuzz.com.

He starts the carnival with:

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Here at the Davis home, we are busy planning our school year after a nice summer break from routine. We know you are all busy too but a few homeschoolers took the time to send us a post for the carnival.
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Enjoy!

Carnival of Homeschooling

Monday, August 25, 2014

What do you value?

I recently had a conversation about school/homeschooling with a friend who is very involved in the local school district and who plans to send her children to the neighborhood school.

I realized that we valued many, if not all, the same things.  The difference was in how we prioritized that list.


I value time with family over what I would call a “need for affiliation” with friends.   Yes, my children have friends and we do value those friendships, but less than the relationships with members of our own family.

I value the academic success of my children over the academic performance of the children in my community.   In our family, sometimes one child’s needs do take precedence over another child’s needs for a season, but I don’t expect any of my children to perpetually work below his/her capacity for the benefit of another child.

I value my children’s moral and character development over academic achievements.

I value the control over my children's education more than my "alone" time.  I value my "alone" time quite a bit



I value teaching respect for my country over political correctness.  (I don’t value politically correctness at all.)  I do value good manners.

The next time you discuss education with a friend in the public school system, remember that you probably do value the same things, just in a different order of priorities.

Friday, August 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, which will be held at:  HomeschoolBuzz.com

This will be the 452nd 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, August 21, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Homeschool Lives, Homeschool Places

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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Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile may be startled to see a completely new look. I’ve been wanting to do a little housekeeping for awhile– the previous theme has been up since 2007 or so, and was getting a bit long in the tooth. I was finally pushed into the update by suddenly having the blog lock up and refuse to let me log in for a week or two.

My son was able to fix it (hurrah for homeschooled software developers who still take time to fix mom’s website when there’s a desperate need!), but the theme was apparently part of the problem, so it had to go. The current theme isn’t the final design, but I’m hoping that will be up soon.
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Enjoy!

Carnival of Homeschooling

Saturday, August 16, 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, which will be held at: Janice Campbell 

This will be the 451st 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, August 15, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up

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

She starts the carnival with:

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Are you thinking about homeschooling this fall? This is the time of year when many families begin thinking about whether they want to reenter the local elementary school and get a bit skeptical about all that goes on there.

If you are already homeschooling, this is the time of year when we marvel at the YAY, Kids Are Back in School posts because we are thrilled to not be back in school. We are thrilled to have the parks and attractions to ourselves. We are ready to see the change of season with our children. 

In this, the 450th Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling, let's look at the experience of Starting Fresh. 

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Enjoy!


Sunday, August 10, 2014

I love this time of year.

I really enjoy this time of year, when I make plans for the upcoming school year.  I take a little time to research some of the curriculum options like math, history, grammar, handwriting and so forth and plan out our year for both our homeschool and our homeschool co-op.

This is also when I start signing up for the outside classes and activities like theater, gymnastics, tae kwon do, and so forth.

We never really stick exactly with the schedule, but it is fun to plan anyway.  It is exciting to find materials that "match" the learning styles of my children.  There is a certain amount of trial and error, but it neat when you find just the right thing that "clicks" with you and your child.

I'm trying a new math program this year with seven-year-old son but I'm pulling out the History program that I used with our oldest two daughters years ago.  It is fun to sort my shelves and make everything look nice even though It doesn't stay that way long.

Our fourteen-old-year daughter is at the easy stage where she does most of her work on her own with a little follow up on my part thanks to wonderful online resources like Khan Academy.

And it is really nice when school starts.  All of a sudden there are no lines or crowds for the places we want to go because most children are back at school. [Though I admit that I hate school field trips.  There is nothing worse than a school bus full of kids with only a handful of adults to ruin a museum or park experience for the reset of us.]

Saturday, August 09, 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, which will be held at: On My Mind.

This will be the 450th 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, August 07, 2014

This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up - Wordless Wednesday

Heather is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at Sprittibee.

She starts the carnival with:

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Welcome to the Wordless Wednesday (oops) Edition of the (normally on a Tuesday) Carnival of Homeschooling! If you are new to ‘blog carnivals’, please read the link at the bottom of this post to find out more. This post has many links that take you off-site to other homeschool blogs where you can read their ‘showcased’ article submission.

If you would like to submit an article for a future carnival or host the carnival on your site, please see the bottom section to find out how. Each carnival writer has the option to put their compilation to a ‘theme’ if they so choose. Being a little absorbed with our crazy life lately, I just couldn’t get it together yesterday when it was due… so Wordless Wednesday it is! Of course, the people who submitted links are not just sending in Wordless Wednesday submissions – they are actual homeschooling posts for the most part. I’m really OK with letting THEM do the talking (I went to bed at 5am last night with a severe case of insomnia).
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Carnival of Homeschooling

Jason Fried makes some good points in Why Work doesn't happen at work

I don't agree with everything Jason says, but Jason Fried does make some good points in his TED talk on Why work doesn't happen at work:


Paul Gram makes many of the same points in Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule.

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Another good thought from Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, 
they don't have to worry about the answers.
-Thomas Pynchon,
writer (b. 1937)

Monday, August 04, 2014

You should marry one of those Cate girls!

I had a fun conversation today with a mother who is very interested in homeschooling. I love to talk about homeschooling.  We are beginning our 15th year of homeschooling and I have acquired quite a few fun experiences along the way which I love to share.

Some of these you can read about here.

Since we have been at this so long, sometimes I forget what it felt like at the beginning to step out of the mainstream educational system into the great unknown.  I think many parents are not happy with the public educational system, but they choose the devil they know over the unfamiliar world of homeschooling.

Many times I think parents are absurdly concerned with grades and miss the more important things like actual mastering of useful skills.  For example, will their children be able to balance a checkbook, live on a budget, hold a job, express themselves coherently and read through the lines of a deceptive political flier that will show up in their mail box one day?


These days I am feeling pretty secure in our choice to homeschool because our children are turning out so well.  Our older daughters did very well in college academics and are otherwise successful in life.  Our younger children are on the same path and doing well.  (I was going to list their accomplishments but decided that would be bragging.)   But I will share something that happened last year which gives me great satisfaction as a parent and homeschooler.

I had hired a friend's mother-in-law to babysit while Henry and I went out for the evening.  We hired her because we had a very challenging foster child at the time and we didn't want to place all the responsibility on our teenagers while we were gone.  The babysitter left us a beautiful note describing how our girls had really handled everything, that in her years as a teacher she had not seen better child management skills and that she felt bad taking our money.  While this made me feel like a successful parent, it was what happened next which I found the greater compliment.

After returning home, our babysitter sat down with her grandson and very earnestly told him, "You should marry one of those Cate girls."



I'm prouder of that than their college (3.95 and 4.0) GPAs.




Knowledge and enthusiasm

I like this thought from Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

Knowledge is power and enthusiasm pulls the switch.

Saturday, August 02, 2014

A good point about how to be effective

Greg McKeown makes a good point in The Simplest Way to Avoid Wasting Time.

Basically he writes that we need to step back and focus on doing a few things really well rather than try to do lots of things.

It is about a two minute read.  Worth spending the time.

Interesting observation on why the New York Times is having trouble

I found WHY THE NEW YORK TIMES IS IN TROUBLE fascinating.

It starts with:

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The New York Times appointed a task force headed by “Pinch” Sulzberger’s son to analyze the paper’s market position and recommend strategies relating particularly to its digital products. The resulting report was leaked and has gotten a lot of press attention. You can read it here. Most observers have focused on the report’s relatively negative assessment of the Times’s market position; no doubt it is galling to the Times to be surpassed by schlock outfits like the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed.

But this is what struck me: on page 23 of the report, there are charts showing the paper’s internet traffic. The Times currently gets around 6 million page views per day. That is a lot, to be sure. But Power Line averages over 200,000 page views per day. On a big news day, we may get more than 500,000. So day in and day out, the New York Times gets around 30 times the traffic that we do.

No wonder the Times has trouble finding a viable business model! We are four guys running a web site in our spare time. We have no expenses other than hosting fees of around $1,000 a month. We have no payroll and no advertising expenses. And yet the vast, expensive apparatus of the nation’s supposedly premier newspaper can muster only 30 times our traffic.
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Hat tip:  Instapundit

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, which will be held at: Sprittibee.

This will be the 449th 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