Archive for home education
August 1, 2008 at 9:37 am · Filed under home education
If you’ve not discovered the Periodic Table of Videos, take note. This is - in my opinion - pure brilliance. I remember trying to memorize that %#&*! table. This site has a short video for each different element, making it a bit easier to understand exactly what each element is. The hair on the narrating professor? Purely a bonus.
UPDATE: I passed this site to my 15 year old last night and he watched these videos for *an hour*. He kept going from one element to the next, thoroughly fascinated. I watched over his shoulder a bit and discovered just how much I didn’t retain about the periodic table. Neon is an element? Who knew?
July 18, 2008 at 12:37 pm · Filed under home education
The other day, my eldest wondered aloud what our country would be like today had we elected Al Gore as president. Oh, wait. We did. But what if he had actually been honored with that position? No one knows, but I’d wager a guess that at least once in awhile, someone would make a statement that I haven’t heard much lately: “Our president is so smart!”
Check out this snippet from a speech Gore recently made:
…our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises.
We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.
But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
…when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.
But wait! We can’t survive without those fossil fuels. How could we possibly get by?
We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
President or no, that man is smart. The entire speech is here. I’ll be sending that link to my eldest, so he can do some guesswork as to what our country might look like, if only.
July 15, 2008 at 6:54 am · Filed under home education
I’ve wondered about introducing my kids - esp my youngest - to a speech and debate program. Anyone know of a secular organization like this one?
I’m also interested in suggestions for logic programs/lessons/instruction. My youngest worries me sometimes in that he seems to lack a certain amount of common sense and the ability to deduce likely consequences. We’ve used logic workbooks (the series name is escaping me) and he likes the process of deducing who was wearing the green dress by using the grids provided. However, he seems unable to translate that skill into real life. If you’ve got a product suggestion, I’m all ears.
July 9, 2008 at 5:26 am · Filed under home education
Beyond Nutso!
July 8, 2008 at 5:06 am · Filed under My Musings, home education
In my earlier post about teens and drinking, Tim said:
I wouldn’t draw too heavy a connection to the fact that the kids are in the public school system. My wife and I came from similar middle-class backgrounds and attended similar public high schools in Texas. She drank in high school, I didn’t.
While I agree that kids differ and lines are not always drawn along the homeschool/public school boundary, there is a difference in how kids are perceived in the different camps.
Becky said:
I think many parents, especially institutional school parents … have a certain set of expectations for teens, not limited to alcohol (and/or drugs). One of the biggest ones seems to be about the withdrawal of teens from family life in particular and adults in general, which I’ve watched sadly in my own nieces — it seems “natural” to expect them to become surly, snarly, and silent around adults, not to want to spend leisure time with their families. And once a family has this expectation, whether it’s the drinking or the withdrawal, it does seem to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is what I was alluding to in that drinking post. Not by any means that parents of traditionally schooled kids are consciously causing their kids to drink. I think it’s more of a cultural mind set. When these parents see that everyone else at school has a cell phone, it’s harder to deny that privilege to their own kid. Likewise, when they see that everyone else at school is drinking, there comes the expectation that their kid too will fall into that trap, like it or not.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told to “just wait” until my kids become teens because all sorts of attitude will emerge. Maybe this is the first step in conformation to the crowd, the self-fulfilling prophecy - parents dole out warnings about dire behavior, and the next parent hears it so often that s/he begins to believe and accept it as normal, which in turn makes the first parent feel like the dire behavior is normal.
I think this is where homeschooled parents in general differ from those of traditionally schooled kids. Parents who homeschool have a tendency not to just accept that our kids fit the one mold. We’ve already bucked the system, dealt with unsupportive family members, discovered new ways to solve old problems. We’ve tried to provide an alternative type of education; why not provide an alternative kind of lifestyle, where kids are free to be themselves beyond the expectations of the crowd?
This is not to say that parents whose kids are in a more traditional setting can’t provide an alternative to the norm. I just think it’s much, much harder to do so when the people you and your kids are surrounded by on a day to day basis believe that there’s only one “normal” behavior.
July 7, 2008 at 4:28 am · Filed under My Musings, home education
I spent one day this weekend with friends whose kids are in the public school system. Over glasses of wine, the discussion turned to our kids. I listened as these parents expressed their expectations of trouble in the future of their teens, specifically teenage drinking. I was surprised that these parents took for granted that this would be an issue. But then, with peer pressure in the schools, maybe it is? I certainly know what my own high school years looked like in public school.
I wonder if by assuming that teens will start drinking as teens, parents are feeding the possibilities? I don’t expect my kids not to drink. But I also don’t automatically assign the problem to them just because they are teens, as if the only possible answer to the equation is teens = drinking. Each child differs in personality and every choice will be different. For instance, my eldest - a teenager - has expressed an interest in being like his uncle who has never had a drink in his life. I think that’s a pretty unlikely scenario, but I haven’t discouraged him. We are very clear with both of the boys that while drinking alcohol is not taboo, driving after drinking is - regardless of age. They also know what the legal drinking age is (21 in CA).
As parents, we’ll do our best, as most parents do, to be aware of any trouble with the kids and even keep our eyes open for possible consumption of alcohol. But I won’t assume that it will become a problem just because they’ve reached a certain milestone. Is it naive of me to think that teenage drinking is not automatically a given? Thoughts?
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Edited to add this link to Miranda’s post on this topic.
June 24, 2008 at 4:06 am · Filed under home education
With a teen in the house, one can’t help but think about college as one of the possibilities for the future. As such, I appreciated reading Tammy’s post today at Just Enough, and Nothing More. In particular, the first paragraph of the quote cracked me up:
My son had his first college class today, and I’m thinking I’ve finally discovered a negative to homeschooling - his expectation was that he would learn a lot today and he was disappointed.
June 16, 2008 at 3:08 am · Filed under home education, California
…you played in the mud? I mean truly got in the mud and felt it squish between your toes? Mucking through puddles in boots going about your adult business doesn’t count.
When we moved into this house - the first time, ten or so years ago - we decided it would be grand to have a pond. The boys and I spent countless days excavating, sometimes with shovels, sometimes with Tonkas. It’s about 8′x10′, and three feet deep at it’s deepest point. We realized that it could become a mosquito breeding ground so we tossed in a half dozen goldfish, not knowing if they’d survive or not. Certainly not expecting them to thrive. But, year after year the fish multiplied and the pond became a science experiment and a great place to muck around.
Our tenants managed to keep the fish alive and the pond relatively full, but upon our recent return we decided that it’s not a very good use of our limited water supply. We allowed the water to start evaporating and Evan went in with a net, in search of the surviving goldfish. He caught one and couldn’t find any more.
Today, I passed the pond and noticed movement. Mind you, there is maybe a half gallon of water left, and it’s floating atop six inches of slippery, dark brown mud. In the middle. My kids were not here, so I tossed off my slippers, put on my cape, and stepped into the muck (only two of those are true) to save the flailing fish. I’m pretty sure the stuff that was oozing between my toes was made up primarily of fish poop.
Turns out, I rescued half a dozen full size fish that were struggling to survive in the muddy water, along with a bunch of babies. What we’ll do with them, I don’t know.
June 7, 2008 at 7:48 am · Filed under home education
I read about this book at Farm School awhile back and was interested. Now Geek Dad has a review up. This looks like exactly what my kids have been looking for - real experiments without the cheap and cheesy chemistry sets. I think I’m going to have to add this one to my wish list!
May 31, 2008 at 4:46 pm · Filed under home education
When we came home to trashed carpet and a house in need of paint, we made what seemed like a good decision: we went green. We’ve repainted 75% of the house with low VOC paint and the carpet we chose to undo the damage is made from plastic bottles. We’ve also wrestled our way into a new hybrid vehicle.
When I spotted the Consumer Consequences quiz on Larramie’s site, I thought surely I’d do well. Um, not so. My impact on the earth? It would take 2.5 earths to sustain all the people in the world if they lived like me. Color me amazed. In watching my score, I did well - .7 earths - until I hit the travel and food portions of the test. Flying between here and Hawaii is not so helpful to the environment, nor is my consumption of coffee and wine. I wonder how many homegrown tomatoes I’ll have to eat to negate my splurges?
I’m curious to know how the rest of you stack up.
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