Our Homeschool Adventures

U.N. protocol used to regulate homeschoolers

2009-06-17T11:20:00.001-06:00

U.N. protocol used to regulate homeschoolers

Shared via AddThis

Highlights from the Texas Legislature

2009-04-09T15:11:00.002-06:00

Here is some news that came out of the Texas Legislature. I'm not a big Perry fan but he does support us homeschoolers. The veteran stuff I'm not too sure about. It might mean an influx of people coming into the state solely for the purpose of going to school. That would mean that more jobs and housing would be needed. On one hand that would be good because the housing market would benefit but the job market isn't so great right now and I don't expect it to get too much better in the coming months (years). Will have to watch this and see how it pans out.

HOMESCHOOL RALLY

Republican Gov. Rick Perry revved up a crowd of home school families at a rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday, telling the group that government regulation needs to stop at their front door.

Perry said he is committed to improving public schools, but said, "I really do understand that public school education may not be the best choice for every family." He said home-schooled children are "some of the most gifted students in our state."

The governor and others speaking to the crowd urged them to support a bill by Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, that they said protects parental rights when grandparents are seeking custody of children.

VETERAN TUITION

Out-of-state veterans could get a major break for higher education in Texas under a bill that got initial approval from the House on Tuesday.

The proposal would allow veterans and their families to pay in-state tuition regardless of how long they have lived in Texas

"This is a very good benefit for our veterans for the service they have given to our country," said Rep. Frank Corte, a San Antonio Republican and the bill's author in the House.

But some lawmakers object to an amendment that would allow children of soldiers paying in-state tuition to be fully exempt while their parents are serving in combat zones.

Opponents of the amendment said the loss of funds could crush some schools, particularly community colleges near military bases.

But Rep. Marc Veasey, the Fort Worth Democrat pushing the amendment, said the provision is limited enough that it will not be too hard on the schools. He estimated that fewer than 1,000 students would be affected because the majority of soldiers serving in combat zones are not old enough to have college-aged children.

As approved, the proposal would require the state to pay colleges back for losses under the amendment.

The bill still has to be called up for a final vote on third reading. It passed the Senate without the House amendments last month.

Homeschool group

2009-03-09T16:04:00.003-06:00

A short time back I wrote that I had asked another lady in my homeschool group to be a moderator. I was feeling low and useless and needed to have someone else take some of the pressure off of me. I'm really glad that I asked her when I did because we had a situation come up on the forum that if I had addressed the person posting it, I could have been accused of being biased. Instead, my moderator responded to this other person and dealt with the situation. She did let the person know that her type of post was not going to be tolerated.

The group is growing by leaps and bounds. We have an activity planned for every Friday of the month. We found out that our teens aren't too old for park day afterall! lol! They hang out with their friends and just enjoy being together. It also gives us mom's a chance to talk and socialize. Our movie and game days are well attended. We had about 34 teens come to the first one. Not everyone can make every activity but usually there is a core group of us that goes to all the events (or as many as we can). I haven't met everyone in the group and some don't participate at all. But that's okay. They know that this group is there for them in case they do want to get involved. Maybe it's harder for them to do stuff with us right now. Come summer, I expect that a lot of these people will be able to do things with us.

More and more people are joining my group. There are so few teens groups out there and some are very exclusive. Even though this group is mostly for people living in the Ft. Worth area, we do have some that are from as far away as Plano. If someone wants to join the group, I always ask them where they are located and if it's not in the area, I let them know where we are so that they can decide on their own if they want to join. They are the ones who will be doing most of the driving.

In addition to park, movie and game days, we also go to the roller skating activity even though my son doesn't roller skate. He hangs out with his friends and has a fun time. We also have some major upcoming events planned such as a dance and a camp-out. Some of us are going to Scarborough Faire. I look forward to all the activities we can do during the summer when most of us are taking a break from schooling. We plan on having lots of pool parties at our house. Lots of fun things to look forward to, and lots of great people to do them with.

I'm posting some of the pictures of my son and I at the various activities we've had so far. You can tell by the big smile on his face that he's a happy teenager!

Yahoo Homeschool group

2009-02-03T10:51:00.003-06:00

I asked a lady in my Yahoo group to take over the list. I have some personal issues going on right now that I need to take care of. Not having to worry about the list will help some. I was always worrying about how the other members would react to things said on the list and what my response would be. I didn't want to offend anyone and always tried to see both sides when posting my response to things even when I don't agree with the other side. I found myself going out of my way to do things for people in the group just so others wouldn't be left out or uncomfortable in awkward situations. I was being torn in several different directions and with all that is going on in my personal life right now, I just don't feel that I can't cope with that sort of thing. So this dear, wonderful, sweet lady agreed to take over for me and I am so grateful to her for doing this. She even cared enough to call me to find out what is wrong. Now I can't be accused of trying to sabotage things. It's out of my hands.

The Party

2008-12-23T08:19:00.002-06:00

We had our party and it was a success. This is how the day(s) went down.

My son and I went out the day before and got all the food and drinks for the party. We went to several different stores looking for "prizes" to give away to the winners of the games. I wanted to get more reindeer antlers for the "Santa Hat" game but the store I got them from last year were all out. I was going to skip that game but my son figured out a way to play it anyway and plus some people wore Santa or elf hats. I did find a container for the M&M's to go in for the "Guess How Many" game. We picked up several types of candy to pass out to the winners of the group games. Then it was off to find some deli trays. I went to Krogers but they didn't have any so ended up over at Albertson's. We had already decided to cook some of those Cocktail Weiners or whatever they are called. Little Smokies? I would put them in the crock pot in the morning and let them cook all day. I also picked up some carrots and celery for a veggie tray. We got chips and dip and even a couple of summer sausages. I wanted to make sure we had enough food. I asked my son what kind of soda we should get since our family only drinks Dr Pepper. He said "Dr Pepper" and water. I asked him "What if some people don't like Dr Pepper?" and he said they would probably drink water anyway. I decided to get twelve packs of Coke and 7UP anyway. I figured that if I had any of those left over, hubby and I could mix up a couple of mixed drinks. Yeah, right! lol! We were done with the food shopping. Yay!

That night we worked some more on the house. I was busy trying to figure out what kind of dishes to put the food in. I decided to just leave the chips in the bags so that I could close them up in case there were any chips left. There were just some odds and ends to do in between watching TV and eating supper. Plus I was tired from all the running around we did.

The next day we just finished straighten and picking up. Hubby came home at noon to help out with the vaccuming and mopping. I had hurt my shoulder the week before and it was still bothering me, so his doing that really helped out. I had forgotten to start the little weinies, so hurried up and got that started. I got the deli tray packages opened up and noticed that one of the packages of meat looked bad. I had hubby look at it later and he said it was bad too. Good thing I bought that summer sausage! I got all the trays arranged, cut the summer sausage up into slices and arranged the other one in another dish with Ritz crackers around it. I got the veggies in their dishes and the dips in their bowls. My son who is kind of anal about things being sorted out and put in order, fixed up the prize basket. He did a great job. I had a bunch of doilies from last year and found some more to use as coasters, so I placed them all around on our wood coffee table and end tables. I didn't want to end up with some water rings or soda spills on our furniture. My son opened up the Christmas hard candy (you know the ribbon candy and mints) and put them in the candy dishes. He was a big help. I printed out all the handouts for the games and made sure I had what I hoped was enough copies for everyone. As it turned out, I didn't. We finished up and I was able to take my shower and get ready with plenty of time to go.

Hubby made it home in plenty of time and the three of us waited anxiously for everyone to arrive. I think my son was more excited about the party and everyone coming to our house than he let on. After all, he wasn't real interested in having a party. I guess our first guests got there about 6:45. A.J. handed out the reindeer antlers and told them they had to wear them. We decided to wait till everyone got there before we told them the rules of the "hat" game. People gradually started arriving. We the toys they brought for "Toys for Tots" on the card table. I did find out that we were having extra people. I was a little worried because I didn't think I had enough prizes. But that worked out okay, and I even had goodies left over. Everyone that was coming arrived so the party really got started then.

The first game was the "Santa Hat" game. The object of the game is sort of like the game "Spoons". The last one wearing a "hat" was the "loser". My son was wearing a Santa Hat. No one could take the hat off until he did, and he wouldn't be doing that until later on in the evening. Once he took his off, then everyone else could take off theirs BUT you didn't want anyone to notice that you had taken off your hat. A few of the kids would ask me if A.J. had taken his hat off yet, and I would just look at them and shrug my shoulders. When A.J. finally took his hat off, it was funny how many of the kids did not notice. He even stood next to people and talked to them several times waiting for them to notice. We eventually ended up with a "winner" and she got to pick out the antlers that she wanted as her prize. The kids and adults loved it. It was quite funny watching my son and the reactions of the kids when they realized he didn't have his "hat" on. lol!

While the hat game was going on, we played other games to distract everyone. The first game was to guess how many M&M's were in the snowman container. Everyone made their guess and I announced the winner. I made a mistake though. After I told who won, I realized that I had said the wrong amount. I wasn't going to change it though. What difference did 30 M&M's make anyway. Afterall, it was done in fun. Guy got to keep the container with all those M&M's in it and I'm sure his mom will use the container for other things. The second game was called "Christmas Carols". It was a list of Christmas song titles written in different words. For example: "Decorate the entry-ways" is "Deck the Halls". I did find out that some of the "titles" were actually a line from the song. I tried to go through the list beforehand and change those to the titles but I must have missed some. This was a group game where I tried to have one adult and four youth. Somehow I miss calculated that one. We ended up having a tie between two groups - they each had two wrong answers so at the suggestion of our newest friend, I chose the group that had finised first. They each got one of those big candy canes. The next game was "Christmas Alphabet". I gave each person a sheet of paper with the letters of the alphabet on it. They had to fill in the blank with a word for each letter that related to Christmas. The original rule was that the first one who completed their list with legible words was the winner. But my friend Betty suggested we do it kind of like Scattergories which I thought was a great idea. So I had one of the Chris's give his answer for each letter and then those that had the same as his or even the same answer as someone else had to scratch off their answer. We had some great answers and then there were some really weird ones. Chris had put "reefs" for his "R" letter. I guess he thought that was how "wreaths" was spelled. He didn't live that one down the rest of the night! ha! I think we all learned some new words and our vocabulary lists have grown from some of these answers. I really got confused on one of Chris's words. The letter was "V" and he said "vibrant" but I thought he said "vibrator". When he said it, I looked at him really funny and had to go over to him and ask him to repeat it. When I finally understood what he said, I cracked up. A few people across the room figured out what I thought he said and they too joined in the laughter. I didn't live that one down! lol! Tiffany's son Liam who was visiting from Chicago won that game (he was the one that had all the new vocabulary words) and got to pick out his own prize. On to the next game. This one was called "Christmas Find Out Who". You had a list of questions that you had to fill in with the name of the person who had done or not done that item. For example, one of the questions was "Who has celebrated Christmas in another country". You had to go around to each person and ask until you found someone who had done it. This was probably a game we could have played at the beginning of the party, but it worked out well. I eventually gave up on this and just let everyone else do it. I didn't award any prizes for this game. The prize was getting to know people you didn't know. Steve and I were the only ones who had ever celebrated Christmas in another country anyway. He's done it in three different ones, Japan, Italy and Korea and I've done it in Okinawa and Italy. We give our thanks to the U.S. Air Force for those experience. lol! Most people have re-gifted a present. I actually did it that night. I had a plastic boot that had been filled with candy before and I used it for one of the prizes (filled with candy of course!), but don't tell anyone. lol! It was after 10 by this time, so I figured it was time for the kids to play Guitar Hero. We only had one guitar so they had to take turns. There was no fighting over it and I think everyone had several turns at it. There were several that were pretty good at it too! I was finally able to actually sit down and rest my feet and back. It felt so good!

We all had a great time. Everyone enjoyed the games and I don't think anyone got bored. We made some new friends and introduced our friends to new ones. We got reaquainted with old friends that we hadn't seen in a while. Now that everyone was gone, I finally got to sit down and actually eat some of that food that I had. Then it was time to clean up. Hubby wanted to just leave it and go to bed, but I didn't want to wake up to all the trash. So we picked up trash and cans and put away the food. We were all very tired but it was great having our friends over. I look forward to having them over many more times.

A.J. and I went to deliver the toys on Monday. I was a little disappointed that the store had taken down their "Toys for Tots" sign to put up their own sales signs but was glad that we were able to contribute to those less fortunate. The "Toys for Tots" program is a great one even if it is run by the Marines. LOL!

Here is a slideshow of a few pictures from the party and our delivery of the toys:

Holiday Christmas Party

2008-12-18T21:43:00.000-06:00

I'm having a Holiday Christmas party tomorrow. It should be lots of fun. I found several Christmas games on the internet to play. If we get them all played before the party is over, then the kids can play Guitar Hero or we might play Cranium.

I have so busy getting the house cleaned up and decorated. I haven't done as much outside as I usually do but I plan on putting more lights around my porch. It's so nice to have a big porch now to really decorate with lights. I can't put as many things out on my end tables and coffee table as before because of the little one being around. She is pulling herself up now, so she's able to reach things on the tables that I didn't think she could. But the house does look nice inside and it has that Christmasy feel to it.

I'm really looking forward to having everyone over to my house. It's going to be a mixture of people. We've got people from the teen social group, some I've never met and the kids from Judo. Some of the people coming I haven't seen in a long time. It'll be interesting to see how they interact.

I still have some things to do, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to finish up. I'm really tired after going from store to store today, and then coming home to get more stuff picked up and put away. I've still got a sink full of dishes and I have to run the dishwasher. I'll do that before I go to bed. Hubby is coming home at noon to vacuum and mop for me. Isn't that sweet? I would do it, but I hurt my shoulder the other day picking up my granddaughter and it hasn't healed up yet (guess I should quit using it). He'll head back to work for a meeting at 4, then join us afterwards for the party. He wasn't here last year when we had the teen party, so he missed all the action. lol! Unfortunately none of the kids that came last year will be coming tomorrow. Most were in another homeschool group that we no longer belong to. Several of them weren't able to come due to other obligations either theirs or their parents. Hubby has met most of the kids coming tomorrow. It'll be nice having him home to meet my friends.

I'd better get to bed now. Long day tomorrow and if I know me, I'll be up either at 3:30 a.m., 4 a.m., 6 a.m. or what I'm hoping for is 9:30 a.m. like the other day. I just want a good nights sleep.

I'll post more about the party this weekend after it's all over. I'll be able to post about my son's bowling tournament that he's in on Sat. He's playing for a big chunk of scholarship money, so wish him luck!

SOS and more

2008-10-26T21:21:00.000-06:00

It's been about 3 weeks now since my son started doing the SOS English and History programs. It's going well for the most part. I've been checking over his work either before I go to bed or when I get up in the morning. He's doing well in all his subjects. His problem seems to be the projects and essays. I did not set up a term so there are no due dates on any of the lessons. He has skipped over the essays in English and some of the Projects/Experiments in Chemistry. I told him he is to have the essays done by the end of this coming week, or I will go back in and set up a term. Then he WILL have due dates. He's been doing two or more lessons/quizzes a day which is good. So I'm happy about that. I just wish he'd do the essays/projects/experiments a little faster.

He is suppose to be doing Wordly Wise too. I get frustrated with him because he doesn't tell me he's completed something and then give me the paperwork. He says he puts it on the cabinet, but how am I suppose to know unless he tells me? I guess I'm going to have to redo my assignment calendar so that he will do the other work that I want him to do. I still want him to do some of the worksheets I printed out for History. We are watching a video on English grammar from Standard Deviants that I hope will help him to understand grammar better. We have other videos to watch also.

I've thought about finding a tutor to work with him on his writing/composition. Maybe that's why he's been putting off the essays in English? He has some problems with writing complete sentences that actually make sense. I think he writes the way he talks sometimes. I should have made him write more when he was younger. That's mostly my fault. My own reading disability caused me to shy away from having to try and understand what he had written. I should have had someone else (like my husband) do that for me. So now we have to buckle down and work extra hard on that.

I am concerned about my son's social life or rather lack of it. He is more interested in playing his online video games than anything else. If he didn't have bowling, judo and now teen court to do, he'd never go anywhere. He likes being around other kids his age and always has a great time whenever there is some sort of activity going on. Unfortunately, there aren't that many kids his age to hang out with, and the ones there are, don't live close by. Everyone else is so busy, that I can't even get the teen group I started to do anything. I've tried to plan a couple of events but only got a couple of responses so ended up canceling the event. I'm getting real discouraged and have thought about doing away with the teen group. I could always keep in touch with those people in the group if I wanted to have a get-together.

I remember when I was in high school. I had a core group of friends that I always hung around with. Unfortunately, I am no longer in touch with them. My daughter has a few people she knew in public school that she still talks to, and there are some from the youth organization she was involved in she still sees. Who will my son have to talk to from his childhood? That really makes me sad. When we left a couple of homeschool groups that just weren't fitting our needs anymore, the few teens that were in those groups have never gotten in touch with him. I have since found out that they are all buddy-buddy with each other. It makes me wonder then, what's wrong with my son? Did he do or say something to the other teens to make them mad? I don't think he did. I'd like to think it's one of those "out of sight, out of mind" type things. I guess I just worry so much about him. It took a long time for him to come out of his shell. I'd hate to see him go back into it. It would be nice if he found someone his own age to be his "best friend" rather than only want to hang around mom and dad (although it's nice he likes to be around us, but he needs more than us). I will continue to do what I can for him to see that he has other teens to be with. He should be out there just hanging out and talking on the phone or perhaps going on a date, doing something besides sitting at home all the time.

Changes

2008-10-01T08:36:00.000-06:00

I have been having a difficult time going over my son's English and History work. I find that I have a hard time comprehending what it is that he's doing. For some reason I just don't focus as well as I use to on what I am reading. I've always had a problem with comprehension but in the last couple of years it's gotten much worse. I think it's a result of the medications I am on, coupled with the fact that I have Hypothyroidism (which is being treated). Unless his answers are a straight yes/no, true/false or multiple choice, I sometimes am not able to make heads or tails of his answers. When I read the answer that is in the book to my son, he says that's what he has written. Either I'm just not "seeing" it or he is lying to me, and I don't think that's what it is. lol! So to make things a little easier for me and him, I have decided to use Alpha Omega's SOS for English and History (we already use the Geometry and Chemistry).

My reasoning was this: he is assigned a lesson/project/quiz/test and it grades it automatically for him. He gets instant feedback. The only time I have to grade a problem is when he has to give a written answer or it's a project. It's not that the work is easier, it's the end result that is easier. I can spend more time on other things and not so much on reading and grading papers (no wonder the public school teachers complain about that all the time).

My son likes to know exactly what he has to do and when. SOS can provide that. It will let him know exactly what his lesson is and even when it's due. He does tend to put his projects off until right before they are due. In the past he never really got in trouble for not getting his work done on time but that will change this year. If he doesn't get it done on time, he will have his computer time taken away from him. The only time he won't be punished for it is when he has a good excuse such as these last few days when he's been sick with the flu.

I tried so hard to keep up with him on his U.S. History. I had this big idea that we could just sort of wing it this year. I printed out handouts of information, time lines, tests, work sheets and an outline of each period that he would be studying. I wrote up each lesson outline and put the correct handouts with each one. I put each lesson in the folders I'd made up for each unit. I posted what pages he was suppose to be reading each day in my planner and what unit he was to be working on. I had good intentions, but not enough know-how I guess. I still plan on using some of the handouts I printed out. I'm not going to waste the time and money I spent printing those out. And he will be watching the videos I have. I may not make him do some of the lessons that I printed out for those videos but we will definitely go over the discussion questions. Depending on what the lessons want will be the deciding factor. He'll also be reading some historical books and biographies. I want him to continue to read "A Patriot's History of the United States". I think it will give him the facts and not someone else's view points which is what almost all of the public school textbooks do. That will be discussed more later. I may just go through the book and have him read sections of it.

The English really wasn't all that hard. I just never got around to correcting his work. Between the lessons in the book, to the pre/middle/post tests he had to do, then the vocabulary tests and the Wordly Wise lessons, I was overloaded with paperwork. When I looked at the English for SOS, I saw that it covered exactly what we were covering, except for the fact that it requires him to read "The Old Man in the Sea", which he has already read. We will skip over that section. No sense in making him suffer through it again. I have novels and stories that I want him to read this year. Those he will continue to read. I told my son that I wanted him to read more this year. In the past, he only read maybe one or two books. He needs a variety and hopefully I've done that with the books he is reading.

I'm real happy with the SOS program. We've used it in the past. My only issue with it, is that it comes with a Christian perspective. My son does not mind if religion is mentioned when it is presented as part of what he is studying. His problem comes from when it says things like "What you want to remember is that God has uniquely created you with the capacity to think and reason." My son has already stated that he does not believe in God. That is his choice. If God gave us freewill like everyone says, then my son is using his freewill to choose not to believe. I have told him that he has the right to believe whatever he wants but that others may not agree with that belief. So to avoid confrontations and any problems in the future, I have told him to be tolerant of religious people even if they are not tolerant of him. We've already discussed the religious issues. If there is a problem that is religious and it has nothing to do with his subject, then he is to skip it and I will go back later and grade it so that his total grade will not be affected.

Now I am waiting on the new cd's to arrive so that I can install them. Then I'll have to go in and see if there are any parts that he can skip over. That should be fun. We will work on the schedule later, when he feels better.

He said this?

2008-09-09T15:16:00.000-06:00

I was looking around and came across this and couldn't believe that our wonderful governor who insisted that every teenage girl get vaccinated with Gardasil actually said this:

"Every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child" - Texas Governor Rick Perry (Jan. 26, 2005)

Just because he supports homeschooling, doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for him in the next election!

New school year

2008-09-01T21:41:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow begins a new school year. My son will be in the 11th grade. Wow! Hard to believe he's so close to graduating. If he had continued with public school, he would be graduating this year. That's an eye opener! I'm glad though that he won't be graduating this year. He just turned 17, and I feel that that's too young to graduate from high school. I was 17 when I graduated and I remember I was the youngest one in my grade level. Of course, I graduated from public school, so it might have been different since we homeschool. I'll never know though.

I am not quite as prepared as I normally am. I think I've gotten all the English lesson written in the planner. I haven't finished the U.S. History yet. I still have to write up the Chapter/Lesson plan, then fill in my daily planner. Whew! Lots of work. Thank goodness his Geometry and Chemistry is on the computer. I didn't have to do anything there except put in the beginning and end dates and any holidays. It set up the lessons for me. I still have to sign him up for the online Photography class. I'm not too concerned about it. I'll wait until we know exactly what we are doing in the other subjects, then add it. I won't have to do anything with it either. I will have to come up with some lesson plans for his Foods and Nutrition course. It's mostly reading some information online and watching videos. Not too hard. He'll put what he learns to practice in the kitchen and when we go grocery shopping. I'll start him on his Current Events in a week or so. Probably after the Republican Convention and the hurricanes are over. Too much other stuff going on right now. We'll work on his Bowling lessons. He knows how to bowl, but he needs to delve more into the history and techniques of bowling. I've got to get some Critical Thinking books for him to do. I've looked into a couple so I just need to decide which one(s) are best. We have got to get to the museum to see the impressionist paintings. I can't wait for that. Just to see something by Van Gogh or Renoir or Gauguin up close is exciting. I've also got a video on the impressionist and some other types of art for him to watch and complete the lesson on.

I know it sounds like a lot of stuff to do, but it will keep him busy and hopefully interested. He'll have to do a lot more thinking this year. He's been kind of lazy in that department. There is a lot of writing and reading too. There will be times when he's reading two novels at once.

I was reading today about the CLEP exams and some of the other tests for college credit. I never even thought about those. I'm hoping that my son will be able to take some of those tests by the end of the year. That would be great if he could get some college credits now. Who knows, if I help him study for them, maybe I can take a few of them too and get some more college credits under my belt! Not that I plan to go to college. Plus it would look good on his transcripts.

I just hope that he enjoys this year of school and that he will be more excited about learning than he has been in the past. I don't want him to just muddle through school like I did. I couldn't wait for school to be over. School was not exciting for me.

I'm off to bed. I know I usually get up early, but tomorrow I have to get my son up early. He's not happy about getting up at 8 a.m. ha! He tried to convince me to get him up at 9. The thing is, he never gets up when I tell him to. He may come out of his room 30 minutes to an hour later. Not tomorrow though. If he's not out within 5 to 10 minutes, I'll be in there waking him up again. He'll get use to it.

Preparation

2008-08-17T08:15:00.000-06:00

I am in the process of preparing the lessons for this coming years courses. Thankfully I don't have to worry about Chemistry and Geometry. Both of those are SOS so all I have to do is put in the start and end date and any holidays. Then the program does all the rest. It will assign a lesson for each day that class is in session. I think the same will be for the online Photography course my son is taking. I will find out more when I enroll him in it. So right now all I really have to work on is the plans for U.S. History and English. English isn't going to be all that hard. My son is using a textbook, so it's pretty much a lesson per day, maybe longer depending on what all the lesson requires. U.S. History is another story. For this class I have made up my own curriculum. I have found some wonderful resources on the internet and have saved off any lessons, tests or facts that I think would be useful. I also have some great websites for my son to use for researching certain elements of each area that I feel he needs to learn about in more depth. I have to be honest, I have not read any of the books that my son will be using. I don't pick up much when I read. I'm more of a visual person. I get so much more out of watching a video on a subject than to read about it. I'm still trying to figure out how my son learns. I think he's a little bit of each. Anyway, I have managed to find some great outlines of U.S. History that I am going to use. We will skim over certain parts of U.S. History and delve more into others. I'm hoping that by doing this, my son will learn the actual facts of our nation's history and not so much what is politically correct now a days. He is also going to be learning about foods and nutrition. There's a couple of websites that will teach him about cooking and baking. They also go into food safety, planning and more. Current events and critical thinking skills will also be included. Of course he will get his P.E. from bowling and judo. Not too stringent of a schedule but enough to keep him busy and hopefully not too bored! :-)

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

2008-07-27T10:06:00.004-06:00

I was sent a link to an interesting article in the Washington Times that talks about a book written by two homeschooled twins. Their book called "Do Hard Things," attempts to explode the myth about adolescence. When did the term "teenager" come about? Why did we start classifying them as teenagers instead of just children? It must have all come about after WWII when we had kids 16 and 17 years of age lying to enlist in the military. There must have been some outrage when people found out that there were soldiers that young fighting (although it had happened all through history). After all, they were just children. But they weren't "just children" because they were older and could make decisions (albeit not always the wisest decisions) so let's make up a new category to stick them in. It's funny though that even though a person at the age of 18 can register to vote and enlist in the military, they are still considered a teenager. In fact, they are a teenager until they turn 20. BUT, they are still not an adult. That doesn't happen until they turn 21. Then suddenly at 21 we expect them to act like adults. Why aren't they acting like adults when they are 18? Why aren't we as parents preparing them to be adults when they are old enough to start making decisions for themselves? We should be preparing them to be responsible adults when they are little children. After all, isn't that why we send them to school, so they can learn how to cope in the real world? I like the part in the article that says:

"The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities."

That's true. We don't expect them to be productive people until they become "adults". I am guilty of this. I expected my children to suddenly become mature, responsible adults as soon as they turned 18. I thought I had taught my child how to be that person but I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to train them for life as an adult. It was just a gimme because my parents had done the same thing. I guess I was sheltered from a lot of that responsibility and so I did the same thing. And I'm still doing the same thing. I plan on reading this book and I will have my two children read it also. Maybe it will help all of us to understand why our teens are not living up to their potential.

Here is the article in it's entirety:

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

Michael Smith

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "teenager"? For many, it is not positive.

Teenage rebellion has become commonplace, and our culture has responded by expecting less and less of teenagers. But is teenage rebellion inevitable, or are there new ways of thinking that could address the problem? Responsibility for teenage rebellion and underperformance must fall primarily at the feet of parents and other adults. This is because our current expectations for teenagers provide very little challenge.

Alex and Brett Harris, 19-year-old home-schooled twins, are trying to give adults and teens a wake-up call. In their book, "Do Hard Things," they attempt to explode the myth of adolescence. They show that prior to the early 20th century, people were either children or adults. Family and work were the primary occupations of the group we now call "teenagers." Teens, though it was often driven by economic necessity, were given real-world responsibility. Today, few teens are expected to imitate responsible adults, but are rather immersed in a frivolous peer culture.

The Harris twins are not the only writers to question the conventional wisdom about teenagers. Robert Epstein, a longtime researcher in psychology who received his doctorate from Harvard, has exposed the myth of the teen brain in his book, "The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen." He argues against the common belief held in the scientific community that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of many teenagers.

Mr. Epstein shows the differences in the teen brain are the result of social influences, rather than the cause of teen turmoil. He concludes that a careful review of the research shows the teen brain we read about in the headlines — the immature brain that is supposedly the cause of teen problems — is nothing less than a myth.

For example, if the teen brain was really fundamentally different from an adult brain, then we would see similar patterns of teenage rebellion throughout history. We do not. Teens in other cultures, and our own until the early 20th century, held responsible positions and were expected to imitate adults rather than children.

Mr. Epstein says teens are extraordinarily competent, even if they do not normally express that competence. Also, long-standing studies of intelligence, perceptual abilities and memory function show that teens are in many instances far superior to adults.

Mr. Epstein concludes that the peer culture of teens, where they learn virtually everything they know from one another, rather than from people they are about to become, is the cause of the problems we see today. Almost all teens are isolated from adults and wrongly treated like children.

What is the solution? When teens are treated like adults, they almost immediately rise to the challenge. Parents must trust their teens by giving them more and more responsibility, accompanied with the proper mentoring. This is a strong admonition to parents and adults to challenge our teens to act more like adults rather than traditional teens.

The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities. They challenge teens to join the "rebelution," which is a revolution against rebellion, and spell out five steps to responsibility for teens.

First, teens should "do hard things" that take them out of their comfort zone. Second, teens should go beyond what is expected or required of them. Third, teens should attempt tasks that are too big to be done alone to learn teamwork and collaboration. Fourth, teens should do things that don't pay off immediately. These are the unexciting things that may seem like an endless round of chores that go without recognition. These chores, however, build character. Finally, teens should stand up for their beliefs even if the majority opposes them.

"Do Hard Things" is a book for teens and their parents. I firmly believe this book, if taken seriously by the current generation of teens and their parents, could prove to be one of the most life-changing and culture-changing books of this generation.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He may be contacted at 540/338-5600; or send e-mail to media@hslda.org.

New name?

2008-06-29T09:50:00.001-06:00

I'm thinking of calling our homeschool by a different name than Sutton Academy. I want something with a little more flair to it. A friend of mine has hers named after the street she lives on. Another one has a cutesy type name to hers. So I got to thinking, what name would I choose if I changed the name of our "school". I thought about the street we live on, "Alabama Street Academy" but I decided that since I am from Texas, I didn't want to name my school after another state. Just didn't seem right. lol! I thought about naming it after the housing addition we live in, "Bluegrass Academy", but naming it after a music style just didn't seem right either, even though I like to listen to Bluegrass once in a while. We have a creek running through our property, so I thought I might use that name. The thing is, I can't find the name of the creek anywhere. There is a "lake" that this creek flows from, but I didn't like the sound of it - "Clark Lake Academy". Since our creek merges with another creek and then runs into a much bigger lake that is part of the Trinity River, I thought I might name it after the Corps of Engineer park that is closest to it. It's called "Mustang Creek". I thought that might be a cool name to call my school "Mustang Creek Academy". Sounds outdoorsy and it could be the name of my creek.

I ran these new names past my son, but he said that he didn't want to change the name of our school. He also said that our "school" really isn't a school since he's the only student. So that brought to mind what the definition of a school really is. I looked up the definition of school on the web and this is what I found:

An institution for the instruction of children or people under college age.
An institution for instruction in a skill or business: a secretarial school; a karate school.
1. A college or university.
2. An institution within or associated with a college or university that gives instruction in a specialized field and recommends candidates for degrees.
3. A division of an educational institution constituting several grades or classes: advanced to the upper school.
4. The student body of an educational institution.
5. The building or group of buildings housing an educational institution.
The process of being educated formally, especially education constituting a planned series of courses over a number of years: The children were put to school at home. What do you plan to do when you finish school?
A session of instruction: School will start in three weeks. He had to stay after school today.
1. A group of people, especially philosophers, artists, or writers, whose thought, work, or style demonstrates a common origin or influence or unifying belief: the school of Aristotle; the Venetian school of painters.
2. A group of people distinguished by similar manners, customs, or opinions: aristocrats of the old school.
Close-order drill instructions or exercises for military units or personnel.
Australian A group of people gathered together for gambling.

There were several other words listed in The American Heritage Dictionary under the heading with school in it so I clicked on the link to see the others. I found homeschool. Under that definition I found this:

VERB:

tr.

To instruct (a pupil, for example) in an educational program outside of established schools, especially in the home.

VERB:

intr.

To provide educational instruction in a homeschool.

NOUN:

A school operated outside established educational institutions, especially in a home.

In the previous listing, the word "school" is listed as a noun as were all of the other words with school in them except afterschool which is an adjective and homeschool which is listed as a verb. I guess it makes sense that homeschool would be a verb, after all it is an action since we as parents are homeschooling our children. Normally I write homeschool as one word because I am talking about how I am teaching my son. Other times I'm talking about where we do our schooling so I really should write it out as home school instead of one word. I will have to think about how I am using the word in a sentence next time and write it the "correct" way.

BTW, I decided to just keep the same school name we've always used. After all, it tells exactly who we are.

Unschoolers, transcripts and books

2008-06-29T07:51:00.001-06:00

A new friend of mine is an unschooler. Now I'm not real sure what exactly an unschooler is and apparently unschoolers have different opinions of what it means too. The way I perceive it is that they have no set of curriculum, no schedules, no real structure and they just kind of learn as they go. Now I'm no unschooler, but I'm not as regimental as some homeschoolers I know. I do like some structure, a plan and most times a curriculum. I like having most things laid out for me. BUT I'm not stuck with a schedule. I do plan a schedule for him to follow as to what he is suppose to do each day but if we have other plans for that day, then he just does those lessons the next day or whenever he can. My son also likes knowing what he is suppose to be studying that day. I think it helps him to stay on track. I'm not set on any one type of curriculum. I do use textbooks, workbooks, computer courses, and worksheets but I also use videos, movies, websites, field trips, outside classes, etc. as a supplement for those courses. I'm always looking for something that will help my son to better understand what he is suppose to be learning.

A few of us homeschoolers got together a while back and we asked this unschooler about grades and doing a transcript. When we met up with her yesterday, she gave us each a copy of the transcript she made up for her daughter. It was very simply done but it had all of the information that a college really needs, that she met the requirements for a high school education and what subjects were taught. There were no grades listed, just a statement saying "We do not 'label' or 'grade' students. Subjects are studied until material is integrated and mastered." This is exactly what I have been trying to get through to some other homeschoolers I've talked to. You don't need grades for a transcript, and colleges could care less if you made straight A's in high school. They only care if you get them in college! I loved the way this transcript was done. It's similar to the one I have written up for my son except mine has a description of the courses. I think I'll go back and redo his transcript. I realized that I don't need to put the description down for the courses unless they are so off the wall that they need further explanation. After all, colleges teach English, Math, History and Science too. I think they know what those are.

Another homeschooler made a very good point when it comes to English and History. The student is taught the same thing over and over all through school. In elementary school we were taught about grammar and sentence structure and that continued all the way through high school. The same thing with history. We learned about the presidents, constitution, Civil War, all the way through the present time, and that continued through high school. The only thing that changed with them was the reading level of the books. We didn't learn anything new about how to conjugate a sentence or how the Civil War ended, it was all just a repeat of what we had learned earlier in our education. Math is a little different only because we go from the basic math skills to Algebra and Trigonometry. The public schools even touch on Algebra in elementary grades! But nothing changes with math. The only subject that changes is science. New concepts and discoveries are happening all around us, so the child leans something new every time they turn around. If a child reads and is able to comprehend what they are reading, then they will be able to learn anything they need to know about any subject they want. So why must we constantly teach them English and History each and every year? If a child does not read well, then they cannot learn. So why don't the public schools focus more on teaching a child to read and less on spelling tests (the child would learn how to spell correctly if they could read the words)? My own son has missed out on so much because he was not a good reader when he was in public school. It wasn't until we took him out of public school and started homeschooling him that his reading got better. He's still not big on reading but he's a lot better than he would be if he was still in public school! I wish I had made my kids read more when they were younger and not just fiction either. They could have been learning so much more. So I have decided that with these last two remaining years that I have to teach my son, we will focus more on reading all sorts of books and a little less on busy work. Hopefully it will open up a whole new world for him.

Ah Summer!

2008-06-25T09:25:00.001-06:00

Summertime is upon us. Most of us take the summer off. We haven't had a summer off in several years. Usually my son is finishing up work that he didn't get completed during the normal school year due to this and that. This year he finished up his work one day after my "deadline". I was impressed. He finally kept to the schedule...well sort of. There are some things that I want him to work on over the summer, but they are for enrichment and to keep him busy. Mostly this summer he will be working on getting together with other teens in the area and practicing his driving for his license. That's my main goal. Then school will start up again probably the first part of September. I haven't really decided when the first day of school will be. I'm looking at the day after Labor Day. I usually plan on him finishing up his last day of school by the end of May but that's flexible too. I'm just going to take it easy this summer. First time my son's really had a summer off since he was in public school, and that was the summer of 2000! Wow, a long, long time ago. Poor kid. He won't know what to do with himself! lol!

Hours, lessons and credits.

2008-05-30T09:28:00.001-06:00

I have had conversations with some of my homeschooling friends concerning awarding credits for classes and how to determine what a credit is. Some of these conversations have gotten rather heated, especially by those who seem to think that you have to have credits in order to get into college. Not so. But I won’t go into that. That’s a whole ‘nother subject altogether! I found some interesting information regarding what an “hour” is and what might be considered a “credit”. Sounds reasonable to me, especially since that's the way I’ve been doing it all this time. But some people you just can’t convince that they are the ones who decide what an “hour” and/or “credit” is. They are determined to follow what the public school system says is an “hour” and “credit”. As for me and my house, we choose to follow the homeschool way!

Requirements.
As a homeschooler in Texas, you legally have to teach reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and a study of good citizenship. Other states require that you teach the “core subjects”. What do they mean by “core subjects”? In most states those subjects would be science, social studies, language arts, math, etc. In Texas the public schools are required to meet 180 days per year and students must attend school for 170 days. This does not apply to homeschools. Texas also does not require you to teach a minimum amount of hours in a day. Some states require that you log hours for the school year. What does that mean? In some states the “hours” must be logged in each of the “core” subjects during that school year. Some require that your student must have 1000 hours total of logged “class time” to complete a full school year.

Logging.
Now “to log” means to record that a “lesson was completed”. To “log an hour” of class time is to record in a ledger or log book that the student has successfully completed the lesson in that subject that was assigned for that day. Remember, an “hour” is not necessarily 60 minutes of time. The class could take 10 minutes; 20 minutes; or 1 ½ hours. You are just verifying that “legally” the child completed the assignment.

So where does the 1000 hours come in—well, let’s say that you take your child to choir or band—you record that your child attended the class. You can then also record each time the child practices. If you do “art” projects or take lessons—that can be part of the 1000 hours. If you take a field trip—mark that as well (the way to mark a field trip is the time it takes from when you leave the house until you return). If your student only does 1 or 2 other subjects that day (and they normally have 8 subjects) log the field trip as “6 hours”.

“How” to log the hours.
You need to understand what an “hour” is. The word “hour” does not necessarily refer to actual minutes of an hour—but refers to a “complete daily lesson”. For instance, if you were teaching your student in mathematics, you would have a set lesson to teach your child that day. If your child learns and does the work in 3 hours, or in 3 minutes, it makes no difference—the “hour” refers to the completed lesson for that day. You have to get past the idea that you are clocking–in and clocking-out, as if you were on a time card. What if your child does not understand the material and they work for several hours and still do not understand it? Just as in the public school, “hours” are not just determined by whether a child masters a lesson, but is determined beforehand by the instructor. There is a difference between mastering a lesson and completing it. I will explain: you can spend 1 week on a particular lesson in math and that would be “logged” as 5 separate lessons (or hours) even though you were working on 1 lesson in the math book. On the other hand, you might have the opposite situation— your child handily finishes an assignment in 15 minutes, instead of taking 45 minutes to an hour. Can that be logged as “1 hour”? Yes it can. They have successfully completed the assigned lesson for the day. The critical idea is that “hours” refer not only to time spent in a subject, but also material covered. And an “hour” specifically means a predetermined lesson assigned for that day’s work. Who does the predetermining? YOU do.

How much is a lesson?
How do you find out “how much is a lesson”? Here’s a very easy method—look at the textbook you will have your student use. Find the last page of the “text” in the book. Take that number and divide it by 150. The answer will be the number of pages that should be covered each day (the number of pages for each lesson). Since the student should be in class 180 days in a school year (a normal school year), by dividing by 150 you have 30 days to “play with”, days that can be used for field trips, tests, working on papers or project, etc. And then, if your child completes the textbook in less than 180 days—they are done! That’s it. They finished that subject early! Yippeee!

Credit Hours and GPA's.
The High Schools assign “credits” to each subject—normally a subject is worth “1 credit hour” if it last the entire school year. If your child takes a subject for 1 semester only, then that course is assigned “1/2 a credit hour”. The standard used in computing a student’s G.P.A. (Grade Point Average) is usually a 4.0 for an A; 3.0 for a B; 2.0 for a C; 1.0 for a D; and 0 for an F. Advanced Placement courses, honor courses, and all college level courses are often given 1 additional point since the material is more difficult: in other words, for a dual enrolled student, they would receive a 5.0 for an A in that college level course; 4.0 for a B in the course; 3.0 for a C.

I have discussed credits in a previous post so I won’t go into too much detail about that. YOU as the parent/teacher determine what the credit is for the class, not the public school system (at least in Texas). Even though my own son used one book for grammar, one for vocabulary and one for writing, I only gave him one credit for English. I could have given him a credit (or ½ credits) for each subject but to me they were all related to English. My son spent two years doing World History, but I only gave him credit for one year. Normally World History is covered in one year in public schools but then again, they don’t cover everything in the book whereas we did. To me it all depends on how in-depth the subject is as to how much “credit” I give.

Too much going on to remember!

2007-08-31T07:33:00.000-06:00

America the Beautiful

The national hymn, "America the Beautiful," was published in "The Congregationalist" in 1895. The poem was written by a Wellesley College English literature professor, Katharine Lee Bates, to commemorate the Fourth of July.

Museums, galleries

Ancient art was displayed in caves. As time went by, artists' work was displayed in homes and then in galleries and museums; art museums developed from great private collections assembled by royalty, the aristocracy, and the wealthy. A form of art collecting was practiced in the earliest civilizations, with precious objects and artworks stored in temples, tombs, sanctuaries, and the palaces and treasuries of kings. Such collections frequently included booty taken from conquered peoples, and served to exalt the power and glory of a king or a priestly caste rather than to display art objects for their innate significance. The great private collections of European royalty began to be opened to public viewing, and eventually monarchs and aristocrats began donating their holdings to the public. The movement of artworks from private collections into museums has been a dominant feature of art collecting ever since.

Airship

In July 1919, a British dirigible, R-34, made the first round-trip transatlantic flight. Despite great achievements, airships were virtually abandoned in the late 1930s because of their cost, slow speed, and intrinsic vulnerability to stormy weather.

Aborigines

Aborigines are those believed to have been the first inhabitants of a country ab origine, i.e., "from the beginning." The nomadic natives of Australia have been called Aborigines, which means "first people," but it was the original possessors of Greece and Italy who were first referred to by that name; the term was later extended to the original occupants of other countries such as Australia. The Australian aborigines arrived from Asia thousands of years before the Europeans discovered Australia at the end of the 18th century. They were expert hunters, even in the desert, and used the boomerang and the throwing spear as weapons.

Buddha's Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path teaches that the way Buddhists lead their lives should be correct in eight important aspects. Those who follow the noble Eightfold Path are freed from the suffering that is an essential part of human existence and are led ultimately to nirvana, or enlightenment. The Eightfold Path consists of: (1) right understanding-faith in the Buddhist view of the nature of existence in terms of the Four Noble Truths; (2) right thought-the resolve to practice the faith; (3) right speech-avoidance of falsehoods, slander, or abusive speech; (4) right action-abstention from taking life, stealing, and improper sexual behavior; (5) right livelihood-rejection of occupations not in keeping with Buddhist principles; (6) right effort-avoidance of bad mental states and development of good ones; (7) right mindfulness-awareness of the body, feelings, and thought; and (8) right concentration.

More Facts of the Day

2007-08-28T08:22:00.000-06:00

Star Wars
The first Star Wars movie was released in 1977. The studio was unhappy with Star Wars as a title after negative market testing. A competition was held during shooting for cast and crew to come up with a better one, but nothing stuck. The film was initially budgeted at $8 million but production problems forced the studio to contribute an additional $3 million. Within three weeks of the film's release, 20th Century Fox's stock price doubled to a record high. Its success spawned a host of other science fiction films using the same newly developed computer-based special-effects technologies that Star Wars had used so effectively. The famous opening title sequence of the Star Wars series was first used in a series called Phantom Creeps (1939). George Lucas is said to have based the character of Hans Solo (Harrison Ford) on his friend, director Francis Ford Coppola.

Stratosphere
In 1931, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer made the first manned balloon flight into the stratosphere. They were launched in a balloon, designed by Piccard, from Augsburg, Germany and in a pressurized cabin they rose almost 10 miles (51,775 feet) during the flight. During the flight, Piccard gathered valuable information regarding the intensity of cosmic rays in the stratosphere and also recorded a wide range of stratospheric temperatures.

Guillotine
The guillotine was named for Dr. Joseph Guillotin, the French physician and member of the National Assembly during the French Revolution, who proposed the method of decapitation for death sentences. He saw this method as less painful and more certain than previously used methods. The guillotine was first used in April 1792 for the execution of highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier. At first the machine was called Louisette, or Louison, but soon became known as la guillotine. In September 1981, France outlawed capital punishment and abandoned the use of the guillotine.

Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 is recognized as the world's largest one-day sporting event. First run in 1911, it is an annual Memorial Day weekend tradition. The race was not run in 1917-1918 and 1942-1945. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built in 1909 as a testing facility for the local automotive industry. The track was first paved with crushed rock and tar but then repaved with brick; hence the speedway is often called "the Brickyard." Resurfacing with asphalt has covered all but a 36-inch strip of bricks at the start/finish line. The 2 1/2-mile track has two 3,300-foot straightaway’s, two 660-foot straightaway’s, and four quarter-mile turns each banked to around 9 degrees.

Fireworks
Fireworks originated with the ancient Chinese, from military rockets and explosive missiles. During the Middle Ages in Europe, fireworks spread as a type of military explosive. Later, pyrotechnics came to be used in celebrations of victory and peace.

Lax on Facts!

2007-08-28T08:18:00.000-06:00

Preakness
The Preakness is a Triple Crown race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses held at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland, annually. Fillies carry 121 pounds, colts 126 pounds. The course is 1 3/16-mile; the race was first run in 1873. It follows the Kentucky Derby and precedes the Belmont Stakes. The Preakness was the brainchild of Maryland governor Oden Bowie, a sportsman and racing entrepreneur. Governor Bowie, whose term had ended in 1872, named the race in honor of Preakness, an impressive colt who had won the Dinner Party Stakes in 1870, at the opening of the Pimlico Race Course.

Crater Lake
Crater Lake in Oregon was first discovered by white explorers in 1853. A couple of years later, William Gladstone Steele saw the lake and made it his mission to establish the lake (6 miles in diameter) and surrounding area (286 square miles) as a national park, which finally took place in 1902. The lake is within a volcanic caldera and it may be a remnant of Mount Mazama, a volcano that rose to probably 12,000 feet until an eruption about 7,000 years ago destroyed the upper portion - or it may be of meteoric origin. Its maximum depth is 1943 feet, making it the deepest lake in the United States and the seventh deepest in the world. Its waters are extremely clear and it is often possible to see to a depth of more than 100 feet.

Victoria Day
Victoria Day commemorates the birthday of Queen Victoria, the British sovereign, in 1819. After Victoria's death in 1901, an act of the Canadian Parliament established Victoria Day as a legal holiday, to be celebrated on the Monday before May 24. It has now become a day for Canadians to celebrate all British sovereigns' birthdays.

Geography Bee
In the last National Geographic Literacy Survey, about 11 percent of 18-to-24-year-old citizens of the U.S. could not even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent. More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in the TV show "Survivor" was in the South Pacific than could find Israel. Each year thousands of schools in the U.S. participate in the National Geographic Bee using materials prepared by the National Geographic Society. The contest is designed to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography.

Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention met at the State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and there were 55 delegates to the Convention. Twelve of the thirteen states were represented; Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Convention. The Constitution was drafted in 1787. The Constitution became law on June 21, 1788 after 2/3 of the states ratified it. Not all the states had ratified the Constitution by April 30, 1789 when George Washington became the first President of the United States. The structure of the document has not changed since it was written but amendments have provided the flexibility necessary to meet changing circumstances. The Constitution is preserved for all to view at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Moving update

2007-08-28T08:09:00.000-06:00

We are not moving after all. Hubby didn't get the job. It's good in a way. We won't have to deal with packing things up and moving them clear across the country. Our son won't have to leave his friends. And we won't have to worry about what to do with our house. I was getting kind of hyped up about moving though. I guess after spending 20 years with the military and having to move about every 4 years, you never really get over the moving bug. I was sort of looking forward to living in an area that had lots of big trees and not just the scraggly looking mesquites like we have here. At least now I don't have to worry about having to deal with the local public school superintendent. Whew! I haven't had to deal with the local school district in all these years and I wasn't looking forward to doing it now. Thank goodness! My son is happier too. Although I'm still not happy that my husband has to continue to work in another city and the fact that we only get to see him on weekends. We are still hoping that he will find a job that is closer to home. Until then, I'm happy to continue on with homeschooling my son in a state that is very homeschool friendly!

Oops, I'm still bad...Facts of the Day

2007-08-20T07:34:00.000-06:00

Academy Awards

The first Academy Awards were held in 1929 with about 270 people attending at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The silent film Wings won Best picture and there were only 12 categories for awards the first time; there are now 25 categories (not including scientific and technical, special achievement, and honorary awards). The Academy Awards was first televised in 1953. The design for the award statuette - a knight standing on a reel of film and holding a sword - is credited to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) art director Cedric Gibbons. The statuette stands 13.5 inches tall and weighs 8.5 pounds. The true origin of the nickname Oscar has not been determined.

Brown v Board of Education

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation of public schools "solely on the basis of race" denied "equal educational opportunity" even if "physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors may have been equal." The case, Brown v. Board of Education, was argued by Thurgood Marshall, then director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who went on to become the first black appointed to the Supreme Court. Marshall presented evidence showing that separating black and white students discriminated against blacks, placing them at a severe disadvantage. He argued that segregated schools were not and could never be equal. Such schools, he said, violated the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment.

Gertrude Elion

Gertrude Belle Elion, American pharmacologist who was the co-recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, was the first woman to be inducted as a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame (1991). Elion won the Nobel for developing drugs for the treatment of leukemia, autoimmune disorders, urinary-tract infections, gout, malaria, and viral herpes. Even in retirement, Elion helped oversee the development of azidothymidine (AZT), the first drug used in the treatment of AIDS.

Gone With the Wind

After an ankle injury in 1926, Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) left the Atlanta Journal newspaper and for the next 10 years worked slowly on a romantic novel about the Civil War and Reconstruction as seen from a southern point of view. For six years after it was finished, the novel was set aside by Mitchell. But in 1935, Mitchell was persuaded to submit her manuscript for publication and it came out the next year. Within six months 1 million copies had been sold; 50,000 copies were sold in one day. It has sold more copies than any other novel in U.S. publishing history, and was eventually translated into 25 languages. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and made into a movie in 1939. Mitchell, who had trouble adjusting to her celebrity and never attempted another book, died after an automobile accident in 1949.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, departing Newfoundland, Canada and landing near Londonderry, Ireland - 2026 miles total in a record time of 14 hours 56 minutes. Earhart refused to wear typical flying gear; she wore a suit or dress instead and a close-fitting hat instead of a helmet and no goggles until landing. She died on July 2, 1937, en route from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island; the U.S. spent $4 million looking for Earhart, making it the most costly and intensive air and sea search in history to that date.

Oops, my bad...Facts of the Day

2007-08-14T08:22:00.000-06:00

Sutton Hoo
The Sutton Hoo ship burial mounds of the 6th and 7th centuries, discovered in Suffolk, England in 1939, were the richest treasure found in British soil. It was the Royal Cemetery of the Wuffingas, early Anglo-Saxon kings of East Anglia. The largest of the burial mounds was found to cover a Saxon boat, its form preserved only by the impression left in the sand by its vanished timbers, with their iron bolts still in their original positions. The boat had been propelled by 38 oars; there was no mast. The grave goods include a decorated helmet, sword, and shield; ceremonial whetstone; gold belt buckle; purse and cloak clasps; Millefiori glass; cloisonné garnets; Merovingian gold coins; and Byzantium silver vessels and spoons. It is likely to have been prepared as a cenotaph in honor of Redwald (d. 625), an important East Anglian king. The treasure shows a higher cultural level and wider commercial contacts than had previously been figured for the early Saxon period in England. This type of funerary ritual is known from Migration Period Europe and is described in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The ship and artifacts are now housed in the British Museum.

Odometer and Speedometer
An odometer registers the distance traveled by a vehicle. An odometer consists of a train of gears (with a gear ratio of 1,000:1) that causes a drum, graduated in 10ths of a mile, to make one turn per mile. A series, commonly of six, such drums is arranged in such a way that one of the numerals on each drum is visible in a rectangular window. The drums are coupled so that 10 revolutions of the first cause 1 revolution of the second, and so forth; the numbers appearing in the window represent the vehicle's accumulated mileage. A speedometer is an instrument that indicates the speed of a vehicle. The speed-indicating mechanism of the speedometer is run by a circular permanent magnet that is rotated 1,000 revolutions per mile of vehicle travel by a flexible shaft driven by gears at the rear of the transmission. The magnet turns within a movable metal cup that is attached to the shaft carrying the indicator. As the magnet rotates, it exerts a magnetic drag on the cup that turns i t against a spiral spring. The faster the magnet rotates, the greater the pull on the cup and the pointer. Thomas Jefferson was the first to use the word odometer in writing in 1791; speedometer did not appear in writing until 1904.

Pope
The pope is elected by the College of Cardinals. Nine days after a deceased pope's funeral, the cardinals gather to elect a new pope. The voting is very secretive and the new pope must get over two-thirds of the votes. If after a week, the cardinals still have not picked a new pope, then they can choose someone who only garners half of the votes. The results are sent to the people outside the Vatican using smoke signals. Black smoke means the cardinals have not made up their minds yet. White smoke means they have chosen a new pope. There have been more than 265 holders of the office of pope from Saint Peter to John Paul II.

Migration
Migration is the seasonal movement of a population of animals to a different environment, most common in certain species of birds - such as Arctic terns, which migrate annually 17,600 km between their breeding ground in the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic. Migration is also observed in mammals such as porpoises, fish like eels and salmon, and some insects. Birds' migration is fascinating and it is based on their high metabolic rate, which means they require a rich, abundant supply of food at frequent intervals. Birds employ sighting - using landmarks and geographical features like rivers, coastlines, and mountain ranges. They also monitor the Earth's magnetic field, apparently with their visual system and with tiny grains of a mineral called magnetite in their heads. Birds also observe the stars, use the Sun for guidance, rely on their sense of smell, and may follow their neighbors.

Hurricane Season
The hurricane season generally is from June to November, with a great many in September when the surface ocean temperature warms to over 27 degrees C. Meteorological and oceanographic conditions are conducive during most of this period to the formation of hurricanes. Tropical storms reaching a hurricane velocity of more than 75 miles per hour are common in the northern Caribbean as well as in the Gulf of Mexico; they are almost nonexistent in the far south. The Caribbean has fewer hurricanes than either the western Pacific (where these storms are called typhoons) or the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes are divided into five categories, ranging from minimal to catastrophic.

Moving?

2007-08-14T07:56:00.000-06:00

There is a very big possibility that we will be moving to Georgia. Not that we really want to, but my husband may have a job there. He flies out there Wed. for a Thurs. interview. Now to me, that would indicate that he has the job if he wants it. A company doesn't spend all that money just to tell you no. I am really torn about it too. My son has said that he will not move (of course he will since he's underage) and I don't really want to leave my home. I'm not real concerned about the homeschool laws out there. I can circumvent those, but the "rules" are so ridiculous it's funny. I do object to having to report anything to the local school superintendent though. I've never had to do that.

Just in case we do move, I've been doing some research on local homeschool groups and other activities that my son can become involved in. If the job does happen, then I will be able to find out more about the area we will be moving to and also get connected to the homeschool community ahead of time. My son doesn't want to leave his friends...really I think it's his one best friend. It's taken him a while to make some friends and I really don't want to take him away from that. That's why I want to get involved before we would move so that he would have some connection beforehand with other kids out there. I think though that now that my son realizes that people do accept him for who he is, that he won't have any problem making new friends. He is more outgoing now. He may not go right up to someone and start talking to them, but if they talk to him, he will converse with them.

I considered the possibility of putting my son back in public school, thinking that would be easier for him to acclimate himself into the local teen scene. But after looking at the requirements for kids going into public school, I changed my mind. They require several vaccinations and a letter from the health dept. that the child received those vaccinations. Now my son has had almost all of his shots except chicken pox and meningitis. For one, I've heard that some people who have gotten the chicken pox vaccination still get the disease. So what's the point in getting vaccinated? I don't know about the meningitis one. I don't really believe that either vaccination has been around long enough to know what the side effects are of the shot. If it wasn't for the shots, I seriously might consider putting him in public school. He would hate it I'm sure. He doesn't like most p.s. kids. Guess he's prejudice. I told him not all p.s. kids are bad. Just look at his bowling teammate. She's a great kid, but then she is an exception. Anyway, the vaccinations are my main reason for NOT putting him into p.s. in Georgia.

I'm still checking into all of the other rules and regulations. I've got to really investigate the driving requirements. It may take longer for him to get a license out there. And I wouldn't be able to use the driving program I bought which would suck.

I think it's so much harder to move while homeschooling than it was when my kids were in p.s. Seriously! I didn't have to deal with the different rules and regulations when they were in p.s. They were up-to-date on their shots and I had all their school records either with me or sent to the new school from the old one. With homeschooling, you have to find out what the other state requires and if they are homeschool friendly (and Texas is!). I would have to keep records for things that I didn't do before. And then submit some of those records to the local superintendent! I really don't want anything to do with the local schools. A lot of them tend to overstep their bounds.

Guess there's no reason to get all worked up about it though. I will have to wait until hubby goes for his interview and then he should know something within a few days of that. I'll let you know what happens.

MOMSENSE

2007-08-09T09:14:00.000-06:00

Facts of the Day!

2007-08-07T12:27:00.000-06:00

Sack of Rome
The Renaissance ended with the Sack of Rome by the armies of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, in May 1527. In eight days, his Spanish troops and German mercenaries killed around 4,000 Romans and looted works of art and literature. Even the Pope, Clement VII, was imprisoned. Though the Renaissance was effectively ended, Rome bounced back and by 1600, it was once again a prosperous city.

Inauguration
The first

U.S.

inauguration was held in 1789 - for George Washington - at Federal Hall in New York City. Washington's second inauguration (and that of his successor, John Adams) was held in Philadelphia because the capital had been moved there. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Any Presidents who assume office upon the death of their predecessor take the oath wherever they are and do not have inaugurations: Chester Arthur took the oath in New York City; Theodore Roosevelt in Buffalo, New York; Calvin Coolidge in Plymouth, Vermont; and Lyndon Johnson in Dallas, Texas. The word inaugurate is from Latin and it meant "to take omens from the flight of birds and to install or consecrate after takes such omens (or auguries)."

Mother's Day
The second Sunday in May is set aside in the

United States

to celebrate mothers. There is also a Mother's Day celebration in the

United Kingdom

Denmark

Finland

Italy

Turkey

Australia

Mexico

Canada

China

Japan

, and

Belgium

. England's "Mothering Sunday", similar to Mother's Day, is also called Mid-Lent Sunday and it is observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent, though it has largely been replaced by Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis, born in Grafton, West Virginia in 1864, started the movement to have a Mother's Day. She wrote letters to politicians, newspaper editors, and church leaders and organized a committee called Mother's Day International Association to promote the new holiday. She wanted Mother's Day to be close to Memorial Day so people would recognize mothers for the sacrifices they made for their families in the same way that service people had for their country. The first official Mother's Day observance was in May 1907. President Woodrow Wilson gave the day national recognition in 1914. Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being, because she protested its commercialization.

V-E Day
V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the unconditional surrender of Germany to Allied forces on May 8, 1945. Adolf Hitler declared that Germany had proved unworthy of him and committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. Hitler's successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, started negotiations with the Western powers, hoping to save as many troops and refugees as possible from Soviet reprisals. But the U.S.S.R. refused to recognize the surrender ceremony at U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters on May 7 (the hostilities set to end at one minute past midnight May 9, 1945 - or 9:01pm Eastern on May 8 in the U.S.). A separate German surrender to the USSR was signed and a separate Soviet V-E Day held, in Berlin on May 8 to end the war once and for all.

Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad Company extended the American railroad system to the Pacific coast - built westward from Omaha, Nebraska, for 1006 miles to meet the Central Pacific Railroad's line, which was built from Sacramento, California, at Promontory Point, Utah. On that day, a golden spike was driven by Leland Stanford, present of the Central Pacific, to celebrate the linkage in 1869. This was a very important part (1800 miles' worth) of the first American transcontinental railway line.

Missed the weekend, so here's todays Facts of the Day

2007-08-06T08:59:00.000-06:00

Skyscraper
The first skyscraper was built in 1884-1885 in Chicago. The 10-story Home Insurance Company building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney. It had a steel frame (steel-girder construction) to carry the weight of the building. The walls provided no support, but hung like curtains on the metal frame. This method of construction revolutionized American architecture and allowed architects to build taller and taller buildings. This first skyscraper was demolished in 1931. From the debris of the 10-story Home Insurance Building rose a 43-story tower framed by four 22-story wings: the LaSalle National Bank Building, which was the last major skyscraper built in Chicago before World War II and the Great Depression. The term skyscraper, which came into use shortly after this first one was built, originally applied to buildings of 10 to 20 stories, but by the late 20th century the term was used to describe high-rise buildings of unusual height, usually greater than 40-50 stories.

Mother Goose
Who was Mother Goose? "Mother Goose" was first associated with nursery rhymes in an early collection of songs and lullabies sung by British nurses/caregivers, "Mother Goose's Melody" (or "Sonnets for the Cradle") published in 1781 by John Newbery. The Newbery Company may have derived the name "Mother Goose" from the title of Charles Perrault's French collection of fairy tales "Contes de ma mere l'oye," (or "Tales of Mother Goose" - which means fairytales or old wives' tales) published in 1697.

Orthodox Easter
Why is Easter on different dates for the Orthodox Church? Since the Council of Nicaea in 325, Easter has been the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. However, there is still a difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Orthodox churches, mainly because almost all Orthodox Churches, even those who otherwise use the Gregorian calendar, use the Julian date for the equinox. Thus the date of Orthodox Easter sometimes coincides with the western Easter date, but it is usually one or four or five weeks later.

Pitcher's Elbow
Pitcher's elbow or thrower's elbow is a term used for the injuries associated with a baseball pitcher's throwing method or overuse. Professional baseball pitchers produce arm speeds of 7000 degrees per second as the arm rotates inwards. The elbow is subjected to violent forces during all phases of the pitching motion. There can be damage to the triceps muscle, its tendon, and the olecranon process (the tip of the elbow) which may suffer stress fractures. Pitchers are also predisposed to osteoarthritis in the arm. Until about 1870, the pitcher was merely a player assigned to put the ball in play by pitching it to the batter to hit. Now, until a batter hits the ball, the game is a duel between the pitcher (and catcher) and the batter. Of a major league's team roster of 25, usually 11-12 are pitchers.

James Beard
James Beard (1903-1985) was called the "Father of American Cooking." He wrote more than 20 classic cookbooks and appeared on television's first cooking show ("I Love to Cook") in 1946. He championed American cooking throughout the world. Beard's Greenwich Village (New York City) brownstone was the site of his cooking school and is considered America's only culinary historic landmark. It is the headquarters of the James Beard Foundation.

End of the first week

2007-08-03T09:17:00.000-06:00

Today is the end of the first week of the new school year. Even though he hasn't started todays work, it has been a fairly good week. There were only three days this week so it wasn't all that strenuous. My son managed to do all of one assignment in one day so that left him extra time the other days. In fact yesterday he only had to do Algebra, Geography and Biology. Even though I have things assigned on certain days, it doesn't mean that he can't work on the other days assignments that day too. He can work ahead all he wants but he is not to do so much work on one subject that he neglects the others like he has done in the past. I told him that I don't want him to become overwhelmed by the amount of work he has to do each day. He still hasn't started some of his other subjects like computer and foreign language. Those will come later when I see how well he is doing and what days he will have more time to work on other subjects. He hasn't started his outside classes yet either, so that will be a challenge for him once he begins those.

Now if I could just get him to get up out of that bed when I first wake him, instead of getting up an hour later!

Today's Facts of the Day

2007-08-03T09:10:00.000-06:00

Audubon
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was a youngster growing up in

France

when he developed an interest in drawing birds. At 18, he was sent to the

United States

to avoid having to serve in the army and he became fascinated with North American birds - which he studied from Florida to Labrador in

Canada

. In 1824, he started to consider publishing the exquisite drawings but was advised to seek a European publisher because the methods for printing the drawings were more advanced there. The engraver Robert Havell of London undertook the project and published the four-volume The Birds of America with its 435 hand-colored plates between 1827-1838. The Audubon Society was founded in 1905. Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James's widow.

Morse Code
There are actually two codes called "Morse Code," though Samuel F.B. Morse invented only one (during the 1830s) - which was for telegraphy. The second one, a variant that proved simpler and more precise than the original, the International Morse Code (or Continental Morse Code), was devised in 1851 and it is the one with which we are familiar. In both, dots, dashes, and spaces represent the alphabet, numerals, and punctuation marks. Except for some minor changes in 1938, the International Morse Code has stayed the same and is still used for certain types of radiotelegraphy, like amateur radio.

Biological Clock
In 1994, researchers at Northwestern University announced the discovery of the so-called biological clock. It is purported to be a gene that governs the daily cycle of waking and sleeping called the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are patterns seen in virtually all animals and plants. These rhythms are controlled by biological clocks - which are not perfect timekeepers. When there is an absence of external clues, as is the case in long airplane flights that cause jet lag - the rhythms tend to get off course and need to be reset. Light seems to be the key to reset many biological clocks - specifically, blue light. That is why jet lag can be helped by exposure to sunlight.

Arbor Day
Arbor Day is a day to honor and plant trees and its celebration (the last Friday in April, though dates can differ due to local climate) is generally a good time for planting trees in the U.S. J. Sterling Morton, the U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Grover Cleveland (1893-1897) was the founder of Arbor Day. An early proponent of forestation, Morton urged Nebraska, where he lived, to set aside a day to encourage the planting of trees. The holiday was first observed in April 1872 and was very successful; more than a million trees were planted on that first Arbor Day.

Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny debuted in 1938 in the theatrical short "Porky's Hare Hunt." Chuck Jones and Tex Avery further developed the character to ask, "What's up, Doc?" in 1940, when he also kissed his foe, Elmer Fudd. The rabbit's noisy munching on carrots was based on Clark Gable's carrot chewing in the movie It Happened One Night (1934).

Yesterdays Facts of the Day

2007-08-03T08:59:00.000-06:00

Kindergarten
Kindergarten (German for 'children's garden') is a term coined by Friedrich Froebel of Germany, who was a pupil of the Swiss originators of the idea - though Maria Montessori had the same idea in Italy. In 1837 in Prussia, Froebel opened "a school for the psychological training of little children by means of play." By applying the name 'kindergarten,' he tried to describe it as an environment in which children grew freely like plants in a garden.

Daffodil
The daffodil's name is a variant of the obsolete affodill, from Latin asphodelus and Greek asphodelos. The daffodil is of the genus Narcissus and was first written about in English in 1548, though back then it referred to both the white daffodil and yellow daffodil. The term, which took an unexplained initial "d" somewhere along the line, now refers only to the yellow Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus, which has a long, trumpet-shaped central corona (outgrowth of the corolla). This flower is also playfully called the daffadilly.

Passover
In Judaism, Passover (in Hebrew, Pesach/Pesah) commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the "passing over" of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the first-born of the Israelites, when the Lord "smote the land of Egypt" on the eve of the Exodus. Passover starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan (March or April) and extends for seven or eight days. All leavened products are prohibited but matzo may be eaten and it symbolizes the Hebrews' suffering in bondage and the speed with which they left Egypt. A special meal called the Seder is held on the first night, featuring foods also symbolic of the liberation.

Lunar Eclipse
When the Moon moves through the shadow of the Earth, it loses its bright direct illumination by the Sun, although its disk still remains faintly visible. Since the shadow of the Earth is directed away from the Sun, a lunar eclipse can occur only when there is a full Moon - that is, when the Moon is on the side of the Earth opposite to that of the Sun. The longest that the total eclipse can last is about one hour and 45 minutes. During the eclipse, the surface of the Moon cools, depending on the makeup of the lunar soil, which varies just like the Earth's soil varies.

ANZAC
ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and it is an abbreviation made famous during World War I in the Gallipoli (or Dardanelles) Expedition in 1915 in which combined Allied naval and military forces tried to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey so that a route would be opened to Russia. ANZAC, with a reputation of being elite troops, took much of the brunt of the battle, which lasted nine months and which was ultimately lost to the Turkish-German military.

Oops, forget Facts of the Day

2007-07-31T10:43:00.000-06:00

Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) was a comic actor, writer, director, and producer in motion pictures. His father was a music hall entertainer and his mother was a singer. Charlie made his stage debut at age five, filling in when his mother lost her voice on stage. By age eight, Chaplain became a professional entertainer when he joined the Eight Lancashire Lads, a clog-dancing act. Chaplin improvised an outfit with a too-small coat, too-large pants, floppy shoes, and a battered derby - plus a postage-stamp mustache and a cane as a prop. His screen alter-ego, the Little Tramp, appeared in the second of the Keystone comedy films (1914).

Verrazano
Giovanni Verrazano 1485-1528), an Italian navigator and explorer for France, was the first European to sight New York and Narragansett bays. In early 1524 he sailed to the New World and reached Cape Fear, then sailed northward, exploring the eastern coast of North America. He made several discoveries on the voyage, including the sites of present-day New York Harbor, Block Island, and Narragansett Bay, and was the first European explorer to name North American sites after persons and places in the Old World.

Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual foot race. It starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and goes eight cities and towns to the Back Bay section of Boston, a distance of 26 miles, 385 yards. It was first held in 1897 and is run on the third Monday in April - the date picked, basically, to honor the 1775 ride of Paul Revere. In 1972, it became the first marathon race to officially admit women runners.

Switzerland
Why is Switzerland the site of neutrality in time of war? The nation's geography determined its role as the guardian of Europe's natural trans-Alpine routes. The country's neutrality was sanctioned by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and reinforced in 1919 at Versailles and in World War II was the only democracy in central Europe to be left alone by Hitler.

Caddy
In France, military cadets carried golf clubs for royalty. Some speculated that Mary, Queen of Scots, who grew up in France, brought the custom to Scotland, where the term evolved into the word "caddie/caddy." However, the Oxford English Dictionary finds the word for golf player's attendant in writing in 1857 - and Mary, Queen of Scots, lived from 1542-1587. Though Mary's existence coincides with the origins of golf, it does not coincide with the recording of the word "caddy" in English.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-27T07:10:00.000-06:00

Tour de France
The Tour de France, the most prestigious road bicycle race in the world, takes place for three weeks in July. The Tour de France was established in 1903 by Henri Desgrange and covers some 2,235 miles, usually in 20 stages of one day each.

Edible Flowers
Which flowers are edible? Among the most common edible flowers are peonies, pansies, carnations, chamomile, chrysanthemums, dandelions, daylilies, gardenias, geraniums, gladioli, lavender, lilies, nasturtiums, primroses, roses, squash blossoms, sweet violets, pot marigolds, and yucca blossoms.

Scrabble
Scrabble, originally called Criss Cross, was developed by Alfred M. Butts, an out-of-work architect, in 1931. It was redesigned, renamed as Scrabble, and marketed by James Brunot in 1948. A Macy's executive saw the game being played at a resort in 1952 and the store (the world's largest at that time) began carrying it. Manufacturing of the game was turned over to Selchow & Righter. Scrabble has 225 squares on a board and 100 letter tiles, each imprinted with a point value for different letters, approximately corresponding to the frequency of occurrence of the letter in English words. More than 100 million sets have been sold, in 24 languages. It is considered the world's most popular word game.

Khaki and Chino
Khaki (from Hindi 'dust-colored') is light brown fabric used primarily for military uniforms. Khaki uniforms were introduced in 1848 for British colonial troops in India. Chino (from American Spanish 'toasted') is a cotton twill fabric, usually khaki in color.

American Dictionary
The first dictionary of American English was published in April 1828. The two-volume dictionary was written solely by the American lexicographer Noah Webster. He began work on it in 1807 and finished in 1824-1825. It contained 12,000 words and 30,000-40,000 definitions that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary. The rights to the dictionary were sold in 1843 by the Webster estate to George and Charles Merriam.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-26T09:58:00.000-06:00

Pirate
"A pirate or buccaneer was a person who seized a ship and took the property aboard. They stole from any ship that came by and disrupted the trade of many nations. There are many tales - tall and true - about pirates. The stories go back 4,000 years, but we are most familiar with those who were active between 1500-1800 - Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, and Jean Lafitte. Pirates used small, fast ships that were easy to maneuver. They had lots of weapons and cannons. There are still pirates today - especially in the South China Sea close to Vietnam. Pirates are often confused with privateers who have the blessing of their nation to seize enemy property. Famous ones were Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, and Sir Walter Raleigh. True pirates only stole for themselves. Pirates often buried their stolen treasure in secret places and some drew up treasure maps and charts marking the spot with an X."

Happy Birthday
Mildred J. Hill, a schoolteacher born in Louisville, Kentucky, composed the melody "Happy Birthday to You." Her younger sister, Patty Smith Hill, wrote the lyrics. The song was first published in 1893 as "Good Morning to All," a classroom greeting, in the book Song Stories for Sunday School. Mildred Hill died in 1916 without knowing that her melody would become the world's most popular song, but her sister Patty did not die until 1946. The lyrics were amended in 1924 to include a stanza beginning, "Happy Birthday to You." It is now sung somewhere in the world every minute of every day. Though its writers earned very little from the song, its copyright owner earns about $1 million a year. The song is expected to enter the public domain upon expiration of the copyright in 2010.

Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied and Associated Powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France. It took effect on January 10, 1920. The population and territory of Germany was reduced by about 10 percent by the treaty. The "war guilt clause" of the treaty deemed Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the war. The Treaty of Versailles was revised and altered over the years, mostly in Germany's favor. Numerous concessions were made to Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler, and by 1938 only the territorial settlement articles remained in effect. The harsh treaty and its lax enforcement are blamed by many historians for Hitler's rise and his militarism setting the stage for World War II.

Leap Second
June 30 is one of the two times (the other being December 31) when the addition or subtraction of a second from our clock time is allowed to coordinate atomic and astronomical time. The determination to adjust is made by the International Earth Rotation Service of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Paris. A leap second is an intercalary, one-second adjustment that keeps broadcast standards for time of day close to mean solar time. Leap seconds are necessary to keep time standards synchronized with civil calendars, the basis of which is astronomical. The announcement to insert a leap second is given whenever the difference between UTC and UT1 approaches one-half second, to keep the difference between UTC and UT1 from exceeding ±0.9 s. After UTC 23:59:59, a positive leap second at 23:59:60 would be counted, before the clock indicates 00:00:00 of the next day. Negative leap seconds are also possible should the Earth's rotation become slightly faster; in that case, 23:59:58 would be followed by 00:00:00.

Postage stamp
The first postage stamps were issued for sale by the United States Postal Service in 1847. The 5-cent stamp depicted Benjamin Franklin and the 10-cent stamp depicted George Washington. Prior to this date, stamps were issued by private postal services.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-25T07:56:00.000-06:00

Baby Boom
After World War II, many industrialized countries experienced a "baby boom." Four countries in particular - the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - experienced sustained and substantial rises in fertility from the depressed levels of the prewar period. In the U.S., for example, fertility rose by two-thirds, reaching levels between the 1950s and 1980 not seen since 1910, before World War I. Some even demarcate the Baby Boom period as being January 1, 1946-December 31, 1964 - in which over 77 million births occurred.

Tornado
Tornadoes are violent windstorms that are also called twisters or cyclones. Extremely fast, rotating columns of air descend from cumulonimbus clouds and the winds can either cause explosions within buildings or sweep objects up into its eye. A tornado sounds like a thundering train coming through. Tornadoes occur all over the world except on the two poles and are the most common in the U.S. A tornado over water is called a cyclone. They occur in unstable air, as that caused by a thunderstorm. In the center of a tornado, winds can get to 400 miles per hour (650 km).

Typewriter
In 1867, the American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes read an article in the journal Scientific American describing a new British-invented machine and was inspired to create what became the first practical typewriter. His second model was patented the next year and "wrote" at a speed far faster than a pen. Though the first typewriter was crude and large, it underwent improvements each year and in 1873 Sholes signed a contract with E. Remington and Sons for its manufacture and the machine was soon named a "Remington." It wrote capital letters only; the first shift-key typewriter (Remington 2) appeared on the market in 1878 and could write uppercase and lowercase. There was a serious problem with jamming, so one of Sholes's business associates, James Densmore, suggested splitting up keys for letters commonly used together, thereby creating the slowest keyboard arrangement possible. This arrangement - known as the QWERTY keyboard - is still used in almost all computers today. Mark Twain purchased a Remington and became the first author to submit a typewritten book manuscript.

Custer's Last Stand
The Battle of Little Bighorn, otherwise known as Custer's Last Stand, was fought at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory between federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer and band of combined Indian tribes. Custer and all of his men were killed. The outcome of the battle was so upsetting to Americans that government troops flooded the area, forcing the Indians to surrender.

Korean War
The Korean War started out being between North Korea and South Korea. After World War II, Korea was hurriedly divided for administrative purposes at the 38th parallel. Almost immediately, the Soviets began a short-lived reign of terror in northern Korea that quickly politicized the division by driving thousands of refugees south. An independent South Korea became UN policy in early 1948 and southern communists opposed this, so warfare began in parts of every Korean province below the 38th parallel. The war became international in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviets, invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans, and the People's Republic of China came to North Korea's aid. In 1953, Joseph Stalin died, and within weeks the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party voted that the war in Korea should be ended. After more than a million combat casualties on both sides, the fighting ended in July 1953 with Korea still divided into two hostile states.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-24T07:11:00.000-06:00

Watergate
Watergate is the political scandal involving illegal activities on the part of the incumbent Republican administration of President Richard M. Nixon during and after the 1972 presidential election campaign. The first inkling of the scandal was the arrests at Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., of five men who broke into the headquarters - which eventually led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974. So much did the Watergate scandal affect the national and international consciousness that many scandals since then have been labeled with the suffix "-gate."

War of 1812
"The War of 1812 was fought between the U.S. and Great Britain from 1812-14, though some fighting continued after the Treaty of Ghent was signed in December of 1814. Most of the fighting took place along the Canadian border, in Chesapeake Bay, and along the Gulf of Mexico. After the American Revolution, the U.S. was anxious for the British to withdraw from American territory and their unwillingness to sign trade agreements with the U.S. The British were keeping the U.S. from trade with themselves and with France, with whom they were battling (French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars). They captured U.S. ships and took hostages and goods and, by 1812, the British had blockaded America's coasts, ruining American trade and finances. So, the U.S. attacked the British colony of Canada. There was fighting on land and at sea - and though the Americans were not prepared at first, they started to gain power. There was strong opposition to the war from its citizens. In 1814, Britain defeated Napoleon and France. They could easily have turned all their force against the U.S., but they were tired of war. They signed the Treaty of Ghent (Belgium) in December, in which neither side gained anything, but the war ended. The War of 1812 marked the first time the U.S. got involved in foreign affairs and it was the beginning of its movement to becoming a world power."

Wagon Trail, Wagon Train
In U.S. history, the most famous wagon trail was the Santa Fe from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was an important commercial route (as were the Oregon Trail, Smoky Hill Trail, and later the Southern Overland Mail route) between the 1820s until railroads took over around 1880. Merchant wagon caravans traveled in parallel columns and when they were attacked by Indians, which was often, formed a circular line of defense. A wagon train was a caravan of settlers emigrating to the American West. One type of wagon, the Conestoga, became famous as a freight wagon and as part of wagon trains, and its descendant, the prairie schooner, was the most common vehicle used by settlers in the opening of the American West. Wagon trains tended to follow a fixed daily schedule from 4am rising to 7am departure, then 4pm encampment.

Ed Sullivan
The "Ed Sullivan Show" premiered in 1948 - but was first called "Toast of the Town" (till 1955). It became the longest-running variety show (through 1971) and showcased all types of acts. Thousands of performers made their television debut on the show, among them Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin, Victor Borge, Walt Disney, Hedy Lamarr, and Jane Powell. The largest audiences were attracted by the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Wimbledon
Wimbledon, England, is the site of the All-England Championships in tennis. The tournament, first held in 1877, is now one of the four grand slam events in professional tennis. Wimbledon was originally played by amateurs but the championships were opened up to professionals in 1968. Women joined the tournament in 1884, mixed doubles and women's doubles in 1913. Rod Laver of Australia and Billie Jean King of the United States won the singles events in 1968.

Facts of the Day finally!

2007-07-23T08:32:00.000-06:00

I missed a couple of days because our computer was messed up. Hubby had to restore/rebuild it. We think a cd game we bought from Best Buy (hate that place!) corrupted our cd drive. That's the only thing we can think of since we didn't have ANY problems before we tried to install that game. Of course no one is at fault for this (only the designer and manufacturer!) and we are out $30.00. When I tried to explain to the geek at BB, all he wanted me to do was bring my computer in for a diagnostic. Well I'm not so stupid that I will let some else work on my computer and my husband for sure isn't going to let someone else mess up the computer when he can do it all by himself! lol! From what I have read on the internet, you don't want to take your computer to BB to have them check it out. All they'll do is mess it up even more. Sure wish I could take that game cd back to them and have them try to install it on their computer. Then they'd find out that it was bad and refund my money!

Okay, so here are some Facts of the Day:

Mint
The first U.S. mint was established in 1652 - in defiance of English colonial law - by John Hull, a silversmith in Massachusetts. The first coin issued was the Pine Tree Shilling. The initial issue consisted of simple round planchets with NE punched on the obverse and the denomination on the reverse. John Hull's share in the profits of the mint was fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings and he rapidly amassed a fortune. With the exception of Maryland, where Lord Baltimore struck off a few silver coins, Massachusetts is the only one of the 13 colonies that had a mint before the American Revolution. The mint in Philadelphia was founded in 1792 and still makes the majority of the coins used in daily circulation in the United States. The mint in Denver, founded in 1906, also produces general coinage. The mint in San Francisco, founded in 1854, discontinued making general coinage in 1955; but was reestablished in 1965 to make proof sets of coins for collectors. The mint at West Point, New York, is now used primarily for gold minting.

Baseball Hall of Fame
The National Baseball Hall of Fame was dedicated in Cooperstown, New York, in 1939. The year 1939 was chosen to celebrate the supposed centennial of baseball as it was then believed that Abner Doubleday had developed the game at Cooperstown in 1839 - a story that was later discredited. Of the 25 immortals who had been elected to the Hall of Fame up to that point, 11 were still living; and all of them journeyed to Cooperstown to attend the centennial celebration. Selections to the Hall of Fame are made annually by two groups: the Baseball Writers' Association of America and the Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Baseball Veterans. More than 200 individuals have been inducted into the Hall of Fame and the first players chosen (in 1936) were Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.

Flag Day
A Presidential Proclamation (1335) was issued in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson declaring June 14 as "Flag Day," but it was not until 1949 that President Harry Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14 of each year as National Flag Day. The idea started in 1885 when BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of "The Stars and Stripes") as "Flag Birthday." In 1983, the world's largest flag was displayed in Washington, D.C. The flag, which measured 411 feet by 210 feet, weighed 7 tons and each star measured 13 feet across.

Magna Carta
In 1215, King John of England sealed the Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter") - the first charter of English liberties and one of the most important documents in the history of political freedom and human rights. It became a symbol and a battle cry against oppression. It guaranteed the freedom of the church, restricted taxes and fines, and promised justice to all. Four original copies of the 1215 charter survive; two are held at the British Library while the others can be seen in the cathedral archives at Lincoln and Salisbury.

Golf
Though the Dutch game of kolf has been claimed as the origin, the first undoubted reference to golf was in 1457 when the Scottish Parliament deplored its popularity, since it took young men away from archery practice. At first, golf was played on seaside links with their crisp turf and natural hazards. Later, play on downs, moorland, and parkland courses began. In the U.S., golf balls and sticks from Scotland arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in the mid-18th century, but not until the late 1880s did the nation's first permanent courses and country clubs get started, mainly for elite white males.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-18T08:57:00.000-06:00

Drive-In Movie
The first drive-in movie theatre was opened in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey by Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr. Hollingshead designed it for his mother, who complained about the uncomfortable seats at theatres. A drive-in would allow her to enjoy the comfortable, plush bench seats of a vehicle of that era. Then known as an "automobile theater," the drive-in had room for 500 vehicles and charged a rate of 25¢ per person or $1 a car. The sound was provided by a public-address system with a single large speaker mounted on the projection booth. After the locals complained about the noise, Hollingshead tried other solutions before deciding to install smaller speakers mounted on poles at each parking spot. At the height of their popularity (1958), there were more than 4000 drive-in movies in the U.S. Now, only a few hundred still exist.

Volcano
"A volcano is an opening in the earth from which molten rock and gas erupts. The molten rock (magma) forms a hill or mountain around the opening and the burning gas, ash, and hot lava may explode out or pour down the sides. The explosion of a volcano is called an eruption and can do much damage, as seen in Pompeii and Washington state's Mount St. Helens. There are about 800 places in the world where volcanoes are active, including 80 below the sea. There are belts were there are volcanoes, including one large one circling the Pacific Ocean and others running east-west in Indonesia and the Mediterranean Sea. The materials deep underground move around and push up to the mouth of the volcano. The theory of plate tectonics says that huge plates of material making up the Earth's crust shift and volcanoes erupt where the plates meet and push together. Some can be dormant for years and then suddenly erupt. Others become extinct. Mauna Loa in Hawaii is the world's largest volcano. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology."

IMAX
IMAX is a cinematographic technique which produces an image approximately ten times larger than that from standard 35 mm film. The name is probably "i" as a representation of "eye" or "image," plus "max" as short for "maximum." It is a trademark for a giant-screen, large-format movie and motion-simulation entertainment complex, with a motion-picture screen that is eight stories high and compatible with 3-D technology. The first IMAX film was demonstrated in 1970 and first system set up in 1971 (in Toronto) on which was shown North of Superior. Film types are usually described by their gauge, or approximate width. The 65-mm format is used chiefly for special effects and for special systems such as IMAX and Showscan. It was formerly used for original photography in conjunction with 70-mm release prints; now 70-mm theatrical films are generally shot in 35-mm and blown up in printing. With some exceptions the 35-mm format is for theatrical use, 16-mm for institutional application s, and 8-mm for home movies.

Hong Kong
A lease was signed by Great Britain in 1898 for the 400 square miles of Hong Kong. The 99-year lease expired in 1997 and Hong Kong's sovereignty reverted to the People's Republic of China. Hong Kong Island was originally ceded by China to Great Britain in 1842, the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters (Ngong Shuen) Island (now joined to the mainland) ceded in 1860. The New Territories, which include the mainland area lying largely to the north, together with 230 large and small offshore islands were part of the 99-year lease. The name Hong Kong (in Chinese, Xianggang) means "fragrant harbor."

Pens
Reed was the first real "pen" (c 3000 BC) and the first inks contained a gelatin derived from boiled donkey skin, which gave the ink its viscosity - but also a very unpleasant odor that had to be perfumed with musk oil. Around the 6th century BC and for more than a thousand years thereon, the quill reigned as the standard writing instrument for people of many civilizations. Swans, turkeys, and geese's large wing feather made the best quill pens. Archaeologists discovered bronze pen points embedded in the ruins of Pompeii but not until the late 1700s were steel-point pens used. A century later, fountain pens were developed - the name chosen because the ink of these pens flowed continuously, like water in a fountain. L.E. Waterman, a New York stationer, devised the practical ink reservoir system. Lazlo Biro relied on improved methods for grinding ball bearings for machines and weapons and produced the first ball-point pens suitable for writing on paper around 1944. The Pentel, introduced by Tokyo's Stationery Company, was the world's first felt-tip pen, c 1960.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-17T13:05:00.000-06:00

Spelling bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee was actually started by The Louisville Courier-Journal with nine contestants in 1925. In 1941, Scripps assumed sponsorship of the program. There was no Scripps National Spelling Bee during the World War II years of 1943, 1944, and 1945. Co-champions were declared in 1950, 1957, and 1962. The word "bee" as in "spelling bee" is not referring to an insect but to a community social gathering at which friends and neighbors join together in a single activity (sewing, quilting, barn raising, etc.), usually to help one person or family. The first attested use of the term in writing dates to 1875.

Bahamas

"The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is a string of about 700 islands (and 2400 uninhabited islets) in the West Indies, spread across the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south of and north of Cuba. It is believed that Christopher Columbus first stepped on San Salvador when he found the Americas in 1492. The Arawak Indians were the first inhabitants of the Bahamas. Many of the islands are uninhabited and the rest are flooded with tourists looking for beautiful beaches. The main islands are New Providence, Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Abaco, Andros, Cat Island, and San Salvador (Watling's Island. More than 80 percent of the 230,000 people are black, having descended from slaves brought to the island. The Bahamas were a British colony until 1973 when they became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The capital is Nassau and there is approximately 5,380 sq. mi. of land."

Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway, June 3-6, 1942, was one of the decisive Allied victories of World War II. The battle, fought mostly with aircraft, resulted in the destruction of four Japanese aircraft carriers, crippling the Japanese navy. The Yorktown, which was damaged at the Battle of Coral Sea, was the U.S. carrier lost at the Battle of Midway at the hands of the Japanese carrier Soryu, which was also destroyed in the battle. The Battle of Midway brought the Pacific naval forces of Japan and the United States to an equal standing and was the turning point of the military struggle between the two nations. The islands are now administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is an open square in the center of Beijing, China - one of the largest public squares in the world. It was originally designed and built in 1651, then enlarged to four times that size in 1958; it now covers 100 acres and each flagstone is numbered for assembling parade participants. The square gets its name from the massive stone Tiananmen ("Gate of Heavenly Peace"), which was once the main gate of the former Imperial Palace.

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for outstanding public service and achievement in American journalism, letters, and music. The prizes, originally endowed with a gift of $500,000 from the newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, have been awarded each May since 1917. Currently there are 14 prizes in journalism, six prizes in letters, and one prize in music. The first prizes for letters went to Laura E. Richards and Maude H. Elliott for the biography Julia War Howe and to Jean Jules Jusserand for the history With Americans of Past and Present Days. The only U.S. president to win a Pulitzer was John F. Kennedy (1957) in Biography for Profiles in Courage.

It's getting closer!

2007-07-16T08:22:00.000-06:00

The new school year is getting closer. My son finally picked up one of the novels he was suppose to have already read, and has started reading it. He still has to read "Antony & Cleopatra" and do the book study on "Hans Brinker". All this I want done by Aug. 1st. Think we'll make it? I'll make sure of it, even if it means cutting him off from the computer. He seems to think that I'll just let him carry over his work from this last year into his next year just because "we homeschool". He's got another "think" coming! Bwahahaha! lol!

I filled in and faxed the letter to the publisher of the biology book I wanted. I only ordered the teachers edition because my son is suppose to be able to access the book online at their website. I'll get the code when I get the book. That not only saved us money but I don't have to worry about having another book on my bookshelf. He'll be able to read his assignment online, then do whatever activities and tests he is required to do. If the internet is down for some reason, he can always use the teachers edition for that day. If the TE is like the others I have, the text will be the same but the answers will be in a different section.

I have already changed my mind on one of the books I had planned to use. After looking through the student workbook, I realized that I did not have the answers to the worksheets. I could probably figure out what is right or wrong, but just in case, I don't want to have him think it is correct (plus I don't want all that extra work!). Since I decided to discard that book, I decided to not do any of the lessons suggested in the teachers book I have too. It's not really necessary for me to use these books. He will already be doing a writing program that covers what was in these other two books. I'll have to throw in some vocabulary and maybe some grammar, but that's no big deal. I'll probably just go into that when he writes out his lessons or posts things to his journal/blog.

My next project is getting his assignments written up and all the other paperwork done. Since we have decided to go with a weekly assignment chart for each individual subject, I have to figure out what I want him to do when. That's not really that big of a deal. I did it when I had all of the subjects on the same chart. My problem is, he has two algebra books and he suggested that he do both at the same time. I'm a little concerned that he'll be going over the same topic at the same time and get bored, but then again having him go over the same thing might be a good idea since he had such a hard time last year with algebra. I just have to figure out how to assign these two books so that he doesn't go into overload. I'm thinking of doing it "2 on 2". Do two days out of one book, then the next two out of the other then just start over again. What I have to do is figure out how many pages/chapters he'll have to do each day. Then I'll have to divide up his schedule so that he does each book on different days.

I'm kind of trying to go by a regular 6 week, 2 semester schedule. I don't want my son to be in the middle of a chapter or lesson, then have the next week or two off and have to come back to what he was doing. That would mean reviewing what he had been doing which would take time away from his new stuff. That's part of my problem in this scheduling. I want to try and stay on this type of schedule because I want him to get use to it so that when he goes to college, it won't be that new to him. But we are also flexible and as long as he gets what I want him to get done before the "next semester", then I'll be okay with it. My schedule though is a little bit weird. I have him on a 6 week, then one week off type thing. I decided to put a week break in there just to have a kind of "vacation". He won't actually be on vacation. It will be for him to work on other stuff, catch up on work he hasn't completed, watch instructional videos, etc. It'll be time for me to have him do projects that don't actually follow what he's suppose to be learning this year. But it will be more relaxed (as if we aren't already relaxed!).

I am going to make myself be more involved this year. Last year I was kind of ho-hum in my involvement (slacker was more like it). I started off the year by checking his work and making sure it was correct but after a while I quit doing it. It just became too much work and I just didn't have the energy to do it. I'm sure that his answers were not what they were suppose to be on his lessons but hopefully he actually learned something. If not, then I'm in trouble! EEK! I'll especially have to be on top of things when it comes to his writing. I'm suppose to go over his writing and make sure he's doing what the lesson says he's suppose to do. That will be hard for me because I have such a hard time comprehending anything and I'm finding that things are just not clicking as fast as they use to. I'm going to have to rely on my husband to check some of these things. Thank goodness for the internet. I can type in my sons writing and email it to my husband to read. He can give me his opinions and suggestions. A homeschool friend is doing the literature class using "Movies as Literature" so I won't have to worry about anything there. I may have to help him format his reports or essays or whatever he decides to do but she'll be the main person to help him with all that.

Most of his work now is just reading the information and then telling others in some format that he knows what he just read. He's pretty smart about some things but it's his mechanics that need work. He has a hard time articulating what he has to say. That he will be working on this next year not only in that literature class but also in his theater and chorus class. He's also going to be doing Y.A.G. which is "Youth and Government" through the YMCA. He'll have to get up and speak in front of other people and that will help him in that area.

I'm also looking at some type of grading system. I'm not really keen on grades but I think he needs some type of good/bad, pass/fail type of thing. I may look at percentages. This will not only let him know what he's doing wrong, but will help me to know where he needs help. I'm not so interested in the grades for his transcripts though. I've already covered transcripts in another post so I won't go into that here. It will be just another little helper for me to gauge where he's at and what he needs to do.

Oh did I mention that my son took the exit exam for the Texas TAKS test? He passed all of them except the math which was no big surprise. I was really proud of him (am proud of him!). That told me that he was on track with the public schools. Now we are just filling in the blanks where his schooling is concerned.

It will be a busy year but I think it will be one of the best.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-16T08:16:00.000-06:00

Buddhist Holidays
Buddha is Sanskrit for "the enlightened one," and he is regarded as the founder of Buddhism. Buddha's given name was Siddhartha, the family name Gautama, and the clan name Shakya or Sakya. Three major events of the Buddha's (c 563-483 BC) life - his birth, Enlightenment, and entrance into final nirvana - are commemorated in all Buddhist countries but not everywhere on the same day. In countries observing the Theravada tradition, the three events are all observed together on Vesak, the full moon day of the sixth lunar month, which usually occurs in May. Among Buddhist holidays, the birthday of the Buddha (Day of Vesak) is the most important.

Barbershop Quartet
Barbershop quartet (or barbershop) is unaccompanied male singing, with three voices harmonizing to the melody of a fourth voice. The voice parts are tenor, lead, baritone, and bass, with the lead normally singing the melody and the tenor harmonizing above. The musical arrangements usually use syncopated ragtime and nostalgic song styles. The exact origin is uncertain, but the style dates from a time when barbershops were an important social/neighborhood and, also, musical center. Barbers through history had a tradition of singing.

Memorial Day
Memorial Day was originally set aside to honor the Civil War dead from the North by decorating their graves with flowers and it at first called "Decoration Day." In 1866, the first commemorations were held in Waterloo, New York, and in Columbus, Mississippi. The American flag was flown at half-staff and a veterans' parade marched to the village cemetery, where patriotic speeches were given. The first national Decoration Day was held on May 30, 1868 by Union Army veterans known as the Grand Army of the Republic. The May 30 date was close to the date of the final surrender of the Confederate Army (May 26, 1865). The Southern states started remembering their soldiers on a Confederate Memorial Day on various dates. After World War I, the American Legion took over the observance, renaming it Memorial Day, setting it for the last Monday in May, and dedicating in honor of all those who died in U.S. wars. Some southern states continue to observe a separate day to honor the Confederate dead.

Copyright
President George Washington signed the first U.S. copyright law in 1790, which gave protection for 14 years to books written by U.S. citizens. Copyright developed out of the same system as royal patent grants, though the purpose of such grants was not to protect authors' or publishers' rights but to give the government revenue and control over the contents of publication. In a major revision of copyright law in 1976, the U.S. Congress specified that copyright subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. The general term of copyright protection is now the life of the author plus 70 years. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire, the term of copyright protection is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from the date of creation of the work, whichever is shorter.

Heimlich maneuver
In the June 1974 issue of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Henry Heimlich published an article outlining a better method for aiding choking victims. The method up to that time had been sharp blows to the back - which actually pushed foreign objects further into the airway. Dr. Heimlich advocated "subdiaphragmatic pressure" to force objects out. Three months later, the method was dubbed "the Heimlich maneuver" by the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Heimlich maneuver is used when the victim's airway is totally obstructed and he/she is unable to speak, breathe, or cough the object out.

Facts of the Day

2007-07-15T07:18:00.000-06:00

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is the head of the dominant Dge-lugs-pa (Yellow Hat) order of Tibetan Buddhists and, until 1959, both spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. The first of the line was Dge-'dun-grub-pa (1391 - 1475), founder and abbot of Tashilhunpo monastery in central Tibet. In accordance with the belief that lamas are reincarnated, his successors were conceived as his rebirths. The present Dalai Lama is the 14th in this succession. He set up a government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, in the Himalayan Mountains when he had to flee Tibet. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his nonviolent campaign to end Chinese domination of Tibet.

April Fools' Day

There are several explanations for the origin of April Fools' Day, but here is the most plausible one. April 1st was once New Year's Day in France. In 1582, Pope Gregory declared the adoption of his Gregorian calendar to replace the Julian calendar and New Year's Day was officially changed to January 1st. It took awhile for everyone in France to hear the news of this major change and others obstinately refused to accept the new calendar, so a lot of people continued to celebrate New Year's Day on the first of April- earning them the name "April fools." The April fools were subjected to ridicule and practical jokes and the tradition was born. The butts of these pranks were first called poisson d'avril or "April fish" because a young naive fish is easily caught. A common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke. This evolved over time and a custom of prank-playing continues on the first day of April.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid), first isolated in 1928, was identified as a cure for scurvy in 1932. Vitamin C is a water-soluble, carbohydrate-like substance that is involved in certain of the metabolic processes of animals. This vitamin is essential in a variety of metabolic functions, including synthesis of collagen, maintenance of the strength of blood vessels, metabolism of certain amino acids, and the synthesis or release of hormones in the adrenal glands. Fairly large amounts are needed; an adult is said to need about 60 milligrams per day. Citrus fruits and fresh vegetables are the best dietary sources of the vitamin.

Tomb-Sweeping Day

According to Chinese custom in China and Taiwan, there are days in April observed in the maintenance of ancestral graves. The graves are swept, food, wine, and flowers are presented as offerings; and the burning of paper money at the gravesides is thought to help ancestors in the afterworld. People also picnic at the gravesites.

Modern Olympics

The first modern Olympics opened at Athens, Greece, in April 1896 after a 1,500-year hiatus. Thirteen nations participated - represented by 235 male athletes. The architect of the modern Olympics was Pierre, baron de Coubertin (1863-1937) who proposed its revival on November 25, 1892, at a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris. He was a founding member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president from 1896-1925.

Behind again but catching up!

2007-07-12T06:46:00.000-06:00

I was really hoping that my son would be through with his school work by this time but he still has a few things left to do. He has three books to read. I have downloaded book studies for two of these books that I wanted him to do with them. Now I'm thinking that I will just have him read the books and have him write up his thoughts on the books. Now that's an idea. Have him read the books then write his thoughts on them into his blog. I can kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I've been wanting him to write stuff on his blog but didn't know what. What a great idea! I knew that if I starting writing about something, I'd come up with something else. I know that doesn't make sense. What is something? My old 11th grade English teacher used to get on to me about using the word "thing". She always asked what was that "thing". I still do the same "thing". lol!

But back to the school year. He has completed most of his school work. He's still working on the computer lessons but that isn't any big deal. Mostly it's the books. I am trying to get him to read more. I wasn't into reading at his age either. It wasn't until I got older that I started reading. Now that I am older still, I find that I can't keep my mind on my reading and end up losing interest in it. I have so many new books that I really want to read and finish but I just can't get into them like I use to. That makes me sad. But I'm getting off subject again.

We will beginning our new school year in a few weeks (Aug. 1st). I would really like to get these books read before then. I guess it's not a big deal except it will mean that he has extra work to do. Instead of concentrating on his new school year, he will have both years to do. I don't think he will care if reading these books will overlap into the new school year. He's pretty flexible about it. I guess I should ask him. I know he'll say to just let him skip reading the books (and before I have discarded some of the lessons) but I really want him to read them. I think it's important for him to read these books not just because they will improve his literary knowledge but it will help him in his reading ability.

It's partly my fault. I didn't make sure that he was on task. I got sidetracked again by other people in our lives when I shouldn't have. I should have been concentrating on him and his school and I didn't. Now I'm paying for that mistake.

I've been working on all the preparations for next year. I'm getting all the forms I'll need printed and filled out. Now I've got to sit down and start working on lesson plans. We both decided on a chart that is for each individual subject but covers the whole week. He'll have individual binders for each subject, so all he'll have to do is open that binder, and there's his chart showing what is to be done for that week. Each chart will cover 6-weeks so it will be easy to keep track of when the next break/grading period is. I really think this will be easier for him and me too. I will only have to just take the binder I need to look at and will be able to go right to the work that needs to be checked. Before I had to look through several pages in order to find what I was looking for. Plus the chart has lots of room for me to write his assignments. Most of the pages have separate columns for the books or materials we will be using, so I will be able to write in exactly what he is to do from just that book. He said last years assignment sheet was just too small. There wasn't enough room for me to write assignments in that didn't make it hard for him to read. I'm going to type in his assignments this year but I'm sure there will be times when I have to handwrite something in.

I've got all of his curriculum except Biology. I am planning on contacting the publisher of the textbook I want to use to find out info about accessing the website. The book itself looks pretty good but there is stuff for him to do on their "classroom" website that I want him to be able to do also. If that is only accessible to public school students, then I will have to find another book which I don't look forward to doing. He's not into science but I want this year to be more interesting than previously. He did mention that he'd rather be doing chemistry but I don't want to get into that until his 11th grade. I'm trying to stay along the same lines as the public schools when it comes to what they study when. I know last year I ventured away from that when he took Earth Science but it was one of the suggestions from another place. He is also doing Algebra I over again. Not because he "failed" it but because he didn't quite grasp it. I just feel that he needs more practice. If he zips through the Algebra and finally understands it, then we will move on to Geometry. He will have a lot to do this coming year but I don't think he'll mind too much. He won't be bored that's for sure! He will have several books to read along with doing the literature study called Movies as Literature. I think he'll like that class even if he doesn't care for some of the movies. Maybe after watching the movies, he'll want to read the book to find out what they left out! His history is just a continuation of the book we used last year. He said he didn't mind this book. We will add some other supplements to the course. Then there's Geography. I've got the Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide that I have been really trying to use since I first got it a couple of years ago. I am going to use the country study that's in it for this year. Then in 11th grade, I will use the history section to study U.S. history. I don't plan on buying an actual textbook for that. He's already learned so much U.S. history over the years that anything he does now is just a refresher. We can delve into a topic that piques his interest at anytime. I know he has an interest in wars...Civil War, WWI & II, Vietnam and quite possibly some that he has heard of but can't remember. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The UGTG has got a good country study section. He doesn't know the location of most countries (and I can't tell you the names of some of them since they have changed since I was in school). He will also be learning about manners and etiquette. He is kind of rude at times (what teenager isn't?) but he also needs to learn how to act in different situations so that mom isn't embarrassed! lol! He'll continue with his theater and chorus at Arts Fifth Avenue. He was so wonderful in the play he did and he has come so far in his socialization skills. I'm so proud of him. A friend is suppose to be starting a Y.A.G. group for our area and I think he'll really enjoy that too since he has mentioned becoming a lawyer (what happened to being a writer?). Y.A.G. is "Youth and Government" and it's sponsored by the YMCA. He'll be learning about all aspects of government and will get to use the house and senate at the state capital! Woohoo! He has also stated that he'd like to learn Italian now. What happened to Japanese? He said that Japanese is too hard although he still wants to learn it. Italian is fine by me. Maybe my friend Judy can help him with that. I'm not too good with learning a new language but having lived in Italy for 2 1/2 years, I can kind of understand some of the words. Once we get logged in to Rosette Stone through our library, he can study any language he wants. Just so he sticks with a language for longer than a few months. It would be more useful if he learned Spanish, but not necessary. He is also going to learning more about the computer. His dad brought home a CD on Visual Basic. I want him to also learn more about html and designing web pages. In this day and age almost everyone can make their own web page. I showed him how and where to past codes into his MySpace. He picked it up pretty easy but then it is pretty easy to post stuff to your MySpace. Designing a web page is different unless you use a premade page. So we will look into those two things. The Visual Basic may be something that he and his dad can do on the weekends. Only if his dad lets him do it instead of making him sit there and watch which is what he normally does (how did his dad ever become an instructor for the military??? lol!).

Well my computer keeps bringing up this pop-up window wanting me to restart my computer so the updates can go into affect. It's really starting to bug me so I guess I'll let it do it. I'll write more later on my progress with pre-school year preparations.

First Five Facts

2007-07-12T06:41:00.000-06:00

I will try to post five facts each day. Here are the first of those five facts:

Crosswords
A crossword puzzle consists of a diagram, usually rectangular, divided into blank (white) and cancelled (black, shaded, or crosshatched) squares. The first crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were of an elementary kind apparently derived from the word "square," a group of words arranged so the letters read alike vertically and horizontally. The first modern crossword puzzle was published on December 21, 1913, in the New York World Sunday supplement, constructed by Arthur Wynne. By 1923, crosswords were being published in most of the leading American newspapers.

Old New Year's Day
In Great Britain and its North American colonies, this day was the beginning of the new year up through 1751, when the adoption of the Gregorian calendar changed the beginning of the year to January 1. On this day in 1857, the first photograph of a solar eclipse was taken.

Board games
The earliest game boards and pieces that can be positively identified were discovered during excavations at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley in 1926-1927. The artifacts date from c 3000-2500 BC. Evidence suggests that they were racing games with rules similar to Parcheesi. Boards and their pieces have also been found in Egyptian tombs and depicted on wall paintings, mostly from c 2000 BC onward.

Rocket and cow
In November 1960, an American rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, went off-course and a piece of debris fell in Cuba, killing a cow. The Cuban government gave the cow an official funeral as the victim of "imperialist aggression."

Pencil and eraser
The first pencil with an attached eraser was patented by Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia in 1858. The pencil had a groove into which was "secured a piece of prepared rubber, glued in at one end." Erasers weren't always called erasers, though. The item was originally referred to as a "rubber," because the tree resin it was made of "rubbed out" marks made by a pencil. To eraser manufacturers, those little erasers on the ends of pencils aren't called "erasers" at all. They call them "plugs." More and more of today's erasers are made from something other than rubber. While some of the "pink" erasers you find on pencils are made from synthetic rubber blended with pumice (a grit that enhances its ability to erase), an increasing number of erasers are made from vinyl, a type of durable, flexible plastic.

The History Of Flag Day

2007-06-12T07:26:00.000-06:00

Flag Day

The Fourth of July was traditionally celebrated as America's birthday, but the idea of an annual day specifically celebrating the Flag is believed to have first originated in 1885. BJ Cigrand, a schoolteacher, arranged for the pupils in the Fredonia, Wisconsin Public School, District 6, to observe June 14 (the 108th anniversary of the official adoption of The Stars and Stripes) as 'Flag Birthday'. In numerous magazines and newspaper articles and public addresses over the following years, Cigrand continued to enthusiastically advocate the observance of June 14 as 'Flag Birthday', or 'Flag Day'.

On June 14, 1889, George Balch, a kindergarten teacher in New York City, planned appropriate ceremonies for the children of his school, and his idea of observing Flag Day was later adopted by the State Board of Education of New York. On June 14, 1891, the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia held a Flag Day celebration, and on June 14 of the following year, the New York Society of the Sons of the Revolution, celebrated Flag Day.

Following the suggestion of Colonel J Granville Leach (at the time historian of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution), the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America on April 25, 1893 adopted a resolution requesting the mayor of Philadelphia and all others in authority and all private citizens to display the Flag on June 14th. Leach went on to recommend that thereafter the day be known as 'Flag Day', and on that day, school children be assembled for appropriate exercises, with each child being given a small Flag.

Two weeks later on May 8th, the Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution unanimously endorsed the action of the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames. As a result of the resolution, Dr. Edward Brooks, then Superintendent of Public Schools of Philadelphia, directed that Flag Day exercises be held on June 14, 1893 in Independence Square. School children were assembled, each carrying a small Flag, and patriotic songs were sung and addresses delivered.

In 1894, the governor of New York directed that on June 14 the Flag be displayed on all public buildings. With BJ Cigrand and Leroy Van Horn as the moving spirits, the Illinois organization, known as the American Flag Day Association, was organized for the purpose of promoting the holding of Flag Day exercises. On June 14th, 1894, under the auspices of this association, the first general public school children's celebration of Flag Day in Chicago was held in Douglas, Garfield, Humboldt, Lincoln, and Washington Parks, with more than 300,000 children participating.

Adults, too, participated in patriotic programs. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, delivered a 1914 Flag Day address in which he repeated words he said the flag had spoken to him that morning: "I am what you make me; nothing more. I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself."

Inspired by these three decades of state and local celebrations, Flag Day - the anniversary of the Flag Resolution of 1777 - was officially established by the Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson on May 30th, 1916. While Flag Day was celebrated in various communities for years after Wilson's proclamation, it was not until August 3rd, 1949, that President Truman signed an Act of Congress designating June 14th of each year as National Flag Day.

When and How to Display the U.S. Flag

2007-06-05T07:45:00.000-06:00

The United States Flag Code stipulates that as the symbol of a living country, the flag is considered in itself a living thing and should be properly displayed and cared for. The code outlines the proper ways to display the American flag.

Raise the flag briskly. Lower it ceremoniously.
Never allow the flag to touch the ground or floor.
Do not fly the flag in bad weather, unless it is an all-weather flag.
The flag can only be flown at night if properly illuminated. Otherwise, it should only be flown from sunrise to sunset.
The flag should always be allowed to fall free.
The flag should never be used to carry, store, or deliver anything.
Never fly the flag upside down except to signal an emergency.

Ceremonial

When hung over a sidewalk on a rope extending from a building, the stars are always away from the building.
When the flag is hung over a street running east to west, the stars are always toward the north. When the flag is hung over a street running north to south, the stars are always toward the east.
When a group of flags is being displayed, the U.S. flag should be at the center and at the highest point. The only exception is when the flag of another nation is being flown—national flags should be of the same size and fly at the same height.
When covering a casket, the stars should be at the head and over the left shoulder. The flag should never touch the ground or be lowered into the grave.

Inside

When on a speaker's podium, the flag should be either above and behind the speaker, or to the speaker's right as he faces the audience.
When displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union (blue field) should be uppermost and to the flag's right, that is, the observer's left.
In a window, or suspended above a corridor, the flag should hang with the union on the viewer's left.

Government

The flag should be flown daily at the main administration building of public institutions.
Polling places should display a flag on election days.
School buildings should display a flag when school is in session.
Flags should fly at half-staff on the deaths of certain government officials.
When the flag is displayed against a wall with another flag from crossed staffs, the U.S. flag should be on the right (facing the audience) and its staff should be on top of the other flag's.

Parades

When the flag is carried in procession with other flags, it should be either on the right of the line of flags, or in front of the center of the line.
On floats, the flag should be displayed on a staff.
The flag should not be draped over a car, train, or boat. When displayed with a car, the flag's staff should be attached to the right fender, or the chassis.
The flag should be held upright and should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental, state, or organizational flags may be dipped.

Decorative

The flag should never be used as clothing, bedding, or drapery. Red, white, and blue bunting may be used as decoration instead, with the blue on top, white in the middle, and red below.
The flag should never be part of a uniform, but a flag patch or lapel pin can be part of a police or other uniform.
The flag should not be used to cover a statue or monument.
The flag should not be used to cover a ceiling.
Advertising banners should not be hung from the same staff as a flag.
The flag should not appear on napkins, boxes, or other disposable items, nor should it be embroidered on cushions, handkerchiefs, or similar objects.

Flag Maintenance

The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.
Care should be taken not to let the flag get torn, dirty, or damaged.
The flag should never have placed upon it, nor attached to it, any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing.

When to Fly the Flag

The flag can be displayed on all days, but in particular it should be flown on:

New Year's Day, January 1
Inauguration Day, January 20
Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday, third Monday in January
Lincoln's Birthday, February 12
Washington's Birthday, third Monday in February
Easter Sunday (variable)
Mother's Day, second Sunday in May
Armed Forces Day, third Saturday in May
Memorial Day (half-staff until noon*), the last Monday in May
Flag Day, June 14

Independence Day, July 4
Labor Day, first Monday in September
Constitution Day, September 17
Columbus Day, second Monday in October
Navy Day, October 27
Veterans Day, November 11
Thanksgiving Day, fourth Thursday in November
Christmas Day, December 25
Other days as may be proclaimed by the President of the United States
The birthdays of States (date of admission)
State holidays

*On Memorial Day, the flag should be hung at half-staff until noon, when it should be raised to the top of the staff.

Pledge of Allegiance

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The pledge should be said while standing at attention and facing the flag with right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag and render the military salute.

The same behavior applies during the raising or lowering of the flag, or when it passes on parade.

Flag Day - June 14th

2007-06-05T07:35:00.000-06:00

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the first flag act: "Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation." Education World celebrates Flag Day by visiting a few great Web sites devoted to the U.S. flag.

Did you know that a schoolteacher started the idea of an annual holiday honoring the American flag? In 1885, Wisconsin teacher Bernard J. Cigrand arranged for his students to observe June 14 -- the 108th anniversary of the congressional act establishing the first national flag -- as the "flag birthday."

2007-06-01T09:02:00.000-06:00

Homeschooling a Return to Normalcy

by jesset
"Your child needs to be in school, he needs to know how the real world works", so says my mother-in-law, I couldn't have asked for a better platform to argue my point from.

"You think school is a reflection of the real world?", well, a very distorted view of the real world, I give her that much. Where else do you have an atmosphere where every emotion is amplified, where the raging hormones of teenagers will dictate the hierarchy of popularity and social acceptability in said school. Adults control school administration, children control the social strata in a school. What's the saying?, place a child with thirty fools and you'll soon have thirty one fools.

As a teacher you would like to be accorded the respect that your position entitles you to, as many have found out, respect cannot be demanded, rather, it has to be cajoled out of students, you have to hit the campaign trail to up your "likeability" rating so you can have a better rapport with your students. Gone are the days of unquestioning obedience and ernest study, because the students know that their falling grades reflect poorly on the teachers performance not their own - still wondering how someone can get through 12 grades and not know how to read?

Numerous school shootings that have occurred around the country is the other argument I raise, the response is, "That couldn't happen here, the odds are too great". As far as I'm concerned the "odds" are not a consideration, it happened more than once and even one time is too many. The safety of my son is paramount, so survival shouldn't be part of the curriculum.

Homeschooled children interact with children of similar age, older sibilings/cousins, adults and are exposed to a wide range of maturity and as they say the early years in a child's life are the formative ones, where they soak up everything like a sponge, why would you want to stunt their emotional growth? Studies have shown these children are more self confident, mature and better able to adjust to unfamiliar situations (sounds like real life to me). Whereas if they were only with children their own age emotional growth would stagnate and be at the whim or, more accurately, mercy of adolescent vagaries.

"Thank goodness it's the start of the school year, I needed a break from the kids", I ask them if they're glad to have their state approved babysitter back - I get alot of odd looks when I ask that question. They ask, "What babysitter", I say, "You know the one you pay school taxes for, the one that watches your kids 6 1/2 to 7 hours a day, the one that feeds them and plays with them - dodgeball remember?". "You know the place where we picked up all of our bad habits and, where soon, your kids will be picking up those same habits".

That was the argument that finally cracked the fragile shell of fantasy land; I could make all kinds of arguements for homeschooling and against public schools and be met with a brick wall of denial, but, mentioning the memories of public school and letting those unbidden images come to mind was enough to get grudging acknowledgement that I could possibly, maybe, have a point - I bet that must have hurt to say.

A well adjusted, self-confident child or a child adjusted by peer pressure and popularity, the former you'll have complete control over the latter left up to fate. I don't like leaving things up to fate - of course, I am the naive one.

About the Author

Husband and father, one time itinerate merchant and story gatherer, that has settled down to live the simple life and recount some of the experiences that have led me here. Author and Admin. at homestead articles
.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Students Taught by Mom Achieve at High Levels

2007-05-22T08:01:00.000-06:00

Here is the second part to the other post. You will notice it includes not only the section about homeschoolers outperforming traditional schools, but there is also sections on working from the office and home while homeschooling your child; socializing your child (a huge misconception to the non-homeschoolers); the child's choice of schooling and then the cost of homeschooling. Both of these articles from Park Cities helps others to know that we homeschoolers are not weird, that we are normal people just like them. :-P

Issue Date: May 4, 2007, Posted On: 5/4/2007

Students Taught by Mom Achieve at High Levels
Study claims children educated at home outperform those in traditional schools

By Karen Eubank
Special Contributor

Staff photo: Allison Slomowitz
Vanessa Trevino made the transition from being educated at home to classes at SMU.
The most recent and comprehensive study of American homeschooling, done by Dr. Lawrence Rudner of the University of Maryland in 1999, concluded, “In every subject and every grade level of the tests, homeschooled students scored significantly higher than their public and private school counterparts.

“Overall, test scores for homeschoolers fell between the 75th and 85th percentiles. Public school students scored at the 50th percentile, and private school students scores ranged from the 65th to the 75th percentile,” it said Universities around the country, including Harvard, New York University, Purdue, and the University of Texas are welcoming homeschooled students.

Southern Methodist University even has a dedicated admissions counselor in place for homeschoolers, Sarah Spooner.

Spooner urges homeschooled students, as well as those from traditional educational backgrounds, to get in touch with colleges they are interested in during their junior year of high school.

“Get to know your admissions counselor; they are your advocate. Don’t wait until the last minute,” she advised.

SMU typically receives 20 to 30 applications a year from homeschooled students.

Vanessa Trevino is in her first year as a dance major at SMU. She was homeschooled her entire life and said she had no trouble being admitted.

“I just sent in my application and had my dance auditions,” she said. Transitioning into a classroom environment was not a problem, and she loves living on campus.

“Homeschoolers are very bright students and are doing really well,” Spooner said. “I don’t know of one school that would not want a homeschooler.”

HOMESCHOOL AT THE OFFICE
Families have found clever ways of educating kids at home without giving up their jobs.

There have been cases where employers allow older children to come to work with Mom or Dad and “office” down the hall.

The parent checks on progress during coffee breaks and is able to have lunch with their child. Parents have worked out flexible schedules, changed shifts, and hired tutors and nannies to work with kids to enable them to fulfill work obligations and school at home.

Cecile Evans works full time as an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. She also manages to educate her son at home.

“We rise at 6 a.m., study until 10, then I go to work from 10:30 to 7:30 [p.m.]. My son works on the lessons and projects that we covered that morning,” she said.

Evans’ son was struggling in ninth grade at a private school. Last October, she found out he was reading at a fifth-grade level. Evans took him out of school, had him tested, found out his learning style, and went to work.

Within four months, she said, he was reading at an eighth-grade level. While she focused on reading, her husband worked on math.

SOCIALIZING YOUR HOMESCHOOLER
The comment that seems to elicit the biggest laugh from homeschooling parents is asking them about the “socialization issue.”

The Fraser Institute, a Canadian independent research and educational organization, reports “The average homeschooled student is regularly involved in 5.2 social activities outside the home.”

David McCullough, a professional artist with a show at the MAC, made a lifestyle choice to homeschool his four sons.

“They all played sports and played with neighborhood kids. If anything, they were more socialized, and in a more sensitive way to the different socioeconomic levels in our neighborhood,” he said.

THE CHILD’S CHOICE
Homeschooled children head back to public and private schools for many reasons. High school is often a time when they want to try out the traditional experience.

Vela Tomba has three daughters. Her oldest is now a sophomore at NYU.

“She had a very successful homeschool career and was offered scholarships to several universities,” Tomba said.

Her youngest daughter ended her homeschooling in eighth grade.

“She did not miss a beat transitioning into a traditional school setting,” Tomba said.

COST OF HOMESCHOOL
You can homeschool with a library card. There are homeschool stores that carry both new and used curriculum, most of which can also be ordered from the Internet. Most families spend an average of $200 per child in the elementary years, and that can double in the high school years.

Some Parents Opt for School in the Kitchen

2007-05-22T07:56:00.000-06:00

The following came from my state associations e-newsletter. Since it was about some "local" families, I wanted to post it to my homeschool blog instead of my educational issues blog. The next week’s article will examine the issue of the proper socialiation of homeschooled children, as well as their prospects for higher education, according to their website. BTW, Park Cities is over in the Dallas area.

Issue Date: April 27, 2007, Posted On: 4/27/2007

Some Parents Opt for School in the Kitchen
Locals bypass private, public choices to educate their children at home
This is the first in a two-part series examining the experiences of local residents with homeschooling.

By Karen Eubank
Special Contributor

What do a plastic surgeon, a talk show host, a veterinarian, an artist, and the maitre d’ at The French Room have in common? They have all chosen to homeschool their children.

The face of homeschooling has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.

According to the National Home Education Research Institute, in 2002 almost 2 million students of all ages were being homeschooled. This is a 500 percent increase from the 1990-91 school year.

Tim Lambert of The Texas Home School Coalition reports that about 300,000 children are educated at home in Texas and cites research from NHERI showing a national growth rate of 15-20 percent per year.

Why are the homeschooling ranks growing at such a rapid pace?

The Fraser Institute, a Canadian independent research and educational organization, has published some of the most recent information on homeschooling. In the report “Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream” by Patrick Basham, findings indicate, “the principal stimulus [for homeschooling] is dissatisfaction with public education.”

WHO’S DOING IT?
Park Cities resident Amy Pruitt and her husband, Bryan, a plastic surgeon, are in their ninth year of educating their five children at home. They had three main reasons for homeschooling: academic excellence, instilling their own spiritual values, and efficiency.

“We can accomplish more at home, in less time, and we feel we can offer academic excellence that will surpass what a private school can offer,” Pruitt said.

She customizes a curriculum for each child and in doing so maximizes their individual potential.

“No one loves our kids more than we do, and I felt I had the dedication, commitment, and discipline to educate them at home,” she said.

Homeschooling has allowed the Pruitt family the flexibility to travel and educate along the way. They have had American history lessons brought to life on trips to Washington, D.C., and Boston, and the family headed to France for the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

New York, Philadelphia, Rome, and Florence are on the agenda this year.

BECOMING A QUALIFIED TEACHER/PARENT
Even parents who long to teach their children at home often doubt their ability. Parents don’t have to be teachers, college graduates, or even high school graduates to homeschool their children.

The Fraser Institute’s research shows, “having at least one parent who is a certified teacher has no significant effect on the achievement levels of homeschooled students.”

The children of parents who never completed high school still scored 55 percentile points higher than public school students from families with similar educational backgrounds.

Parents don’t have to take on calculus, either. There are tutors, co-op classes, online courses — something to fit every need and level. Most families take advantage of co-op classes at some point in the homeschooling years.

“Co-op classes are not designed to take the place of parents educating the children at home, but to provide enhancement opportunities in the overall education of the student,” according to the Richardson Home School Teaching Co-op registration packet.

The class descriptions read like a syllabus from the best private school. Latin, Government and Justice, Introductory Logic, and Multimedia Art are included in the extensive catalog.

Most of the teachers hold degrees in their fields, and the classes are run in an organized manner, meeting one or two times a week. Students get to select one class or several and experience a classroom situation.

“Before children are school-age, most parents have taught them to walk, talk, and count. They’ve already ‘homeschooled’ their children. It doesn’t take someone with a teaching background to be a homeschool parent. It just takes someone who is willing to work at it, learn along the way, and who loves their children,” said Cindy Eckhoff, a mother of four who has homeschooled for 14 years.

Are we done yet?

2007-05-07T07:38:00.000-06:00

It's getting closer to the end of May. Almost all of my sons outside classes are done. He has one more theater/chorus class tomorrow and then the presentation on Friday, then he is all done. I will be glad though. I won't have to drive him all over the place (but I'll still have to drive my grown daughter to wherever she needs to go...sigh!). Now he can spend all his time on finishing up his studies. I guess the extras that I had planned can be done once he finishes all his regular book work. It's no big deal. He'll still be learning something even if it's not done in coordination with his textbooks. I wish he would do things a little more systematic, but he just isn't that type of kid. He does learn and he is smart. Maybe he's not Mr. Genius, but he is a smart kid. And he's turned into a normal kid. Something I never thought I'd see. It must be the blonde hair. lol! Anyway, his learning style is not what I had planned but if it fits him and it works, then I'm okay with that. You see, he doesn't like me to "interfere". He is quite happy doing all his work on his own without me "butting in". He's at an age now where he really doesn't need my help anyway and if he does have a question he comes and asks me or he looks it up. I plan on giving him the exit test for the Texas TAKS test once he finishes all his textbook work. Although he's only in 9th grade, if he does well on the TAKS test, then I'll know that he is up to standard according to the Texas Education Agency which I could care less about anyway, but it's one way to judge how well your child is doing. I do plan on taking what find out from this test and using it to plan my next years curriculum. Any gaps that I find will be filled and any subjects that he knows well enough, I can skip over. I'm trying to get him to think outside the box when it comes to outside activities (a professional baseball game, a visit to a gardening site, motor cross racing, etc.) so I need to start thinking outside the box when it comes to his curriculum (which in turn would get him to thinking outside the box too!). I need to be a little more forceful when it comes to getting him to do things that he doesn't want to do. I really feel that by doing stuff that may not interest you, can help you to learn about those things and also develop a little respect for the people who do those things for a living. For example, gardening and landscaping. You add math and science to the mix along with physical education. You develop a respect for the people who do this sort of thing for a living. It could also lead to a love of doing this sort of thing for yourself. Education is where you find it. You can get most of your education from books but you need to experience some of that education personally by doing things. Book learning is good and a person needs it, but if you only learn from a book, how can you experience life too?

Update on my son

2007-02-28T08:51:00.000-06:00

My son seems to be feeling better. He still gets tired though which is to be expected. We haven't done much in the way of school work though. He went to his theater and chorus class yesterday and did fine. They sit mostly anyway so he didn't overdo it. Today he has a history class but it's just watching a video and he can either sit or lie on the floor to watch it. Tomorrow we are going to the zoo. I plan on getting a wheelchair for him. I don't want him to get too worn out. I figure by sitting in a wheelchair and having your mom push you around would give him a laugh. After all mom hasn't pushed him in a "stroller" since he was little. lol!

Found out about this driving program coming up in May. The kids learn about driving safety, drunk driving, what to look for in a used car, automobile safety tips and get the opportunity to learn and practice handling a car in emergency situations. They practice controlled skids and maneuvering out of a skid and hydroplaning. The class is taught by actual race car drivers. Now how cool is that? They do require the kids have either their driver's license or a valid learner's permit by the time of the class. So we will have to get him the driver's handbook so he can study for and take the test to get his permit. When I told my hubby about this class, he said he wanted to do it too. Too bad it's for 21 and younger. lol! I guess I should get over to the site and sign up for it before it's too late. We have about 2 1/2 mths to study for this, so that should be long enough for him to memorize the manual and pass the test. Don't you think? ha!

I found another algebra book. This one is called "Illustrated Effortless Algebra". I skimmed through the book and it seems to be very helpful. There are loads of illustrations that help explain the different formulas and equations. I think that I could even learn algebra from this book! I just hope it helps my son better understand what he is doing.

We are going to Scarborough Faire during school days. We will meet up with some other homeschoolers. We've been a few times in the past on regular days and really enjoyed ourselves. There aren't as many vendors during school days, but that's okay. The kids get a free coupon so we can come back again with hubby. I think it'll be fun for the kids. Someone suggested the teens dress up. I think that would be fun. If they do, I'll post pics here with the new digital camcorder/camera my hubby got me.

Next week it's back to work for my son. I didn't push him to do any school work this week. I figured he needed to just rest and relax. It was kind of like an early spring break for him even if we normally don't do spring break. I'm going to have to fix our school schedule since he'll be going past the time I had set for school to be over. Oh well, it's not like we haven't gone past our deadline before!

Thank goodness we homeschool!

2007-02-25T17:13:00.000-06:00

I am so glad we homeschool otherwise I might be faced with my son missing many, many days of school. He had been sick last week from what I thought was a cold. But as the week went on, he started complaining of his throat being sore and extremely tired. I didn't think he had strep throat because he didn't have the telltale signs of it. I also didn't think it was the flu because he didn't have an upset stomach or any of the other symptoms of the flu. So I reached back in my memory of when my daughter had the same symptoms, and my first thought was mono. But I thought, no that couldn't be because he doesn't drink or eat after anyone and I KNEW that he hadn't kissed anyone either (or at least I didn't think he had). I decided though on Friday that I had to take him to the doctor just to ease my mind. Sure enough after blood was drawn and the doctor finished his exam, he concluded that my son did indeed have mono. Oh joy! At least it wasn't leukemia which was one of the diseases running through my head!

It will take several weeks for him to recuperate from this disease. He will just have to take things easy and not over do it. Good thing he doesn't play any contact sports. He does bowl on a Sat. morning league so that may have to be curtailed for now.

We have several events coming up that I'm a little concerned about. One is our local homeschool zoo day. I've already sent in my reservation along with my money. They do have a limited number of wheelchairs at the zoo, so I'm thinking I will get one. I'll have to take the paperwork the doctor gave me showing that he has mono just so the zoo staff won't think I'm trying to pull a quick one on them. He also has a Theater and Chorus class on Tues. in which they are working on a play they will perform at the end of the year. I told him I would talk to the instructors and explain the situation, but I felt that he could sit there and read his part or sing or whatever it is that they do. He can participate in the physical activities only if he feels like it. There is a homeschool dance coming up March 10th. I think he'll be okay to go to this. It's still a few weeks off. He can always not dance if he wants to.

I remember when my daughter had mono. She was home for about a week, then went back to school but was only there for a few days I think before coming home again. She missed a lot of school that semester. I remember when she did go back to her history class, there was a student teacher who was not very nice. I don't think she cared if my daughter was sick or not. She expected her to turn in the work that was assigned even though the student was allowed so many days to turn it in after being out sick. That probably contributed to the many reasons we decided to homeschool.

We will take our time with his school work. I'm not really on a schedule, but I would like for him to be finished with all his work by the end of May this year. Anyway, I won't push him to do several hours of school work at one time each day. I told him he can do a little bit, then rest for a little bit, then go back to his school work. He'll be fine and things will work out in the long run.

Where do YOU homeschool Seuss-style!

2007-02-23T07:54:00.000-06:00

I thought this was kind of cute.

I will homeschool in the bed, I will homeschool on my head.
I will homeschool on the floor, I will homeschool out the door.
I will homeschool in a group, I will homeschool eating soup.
I can homeschool in a car, I will homeschool near and far.
I can homeschool in my lair, I can homeschool ANYWHERE!

Texas Driver License Requirements

2007-02-16T12:10:00.000-06:00

There is a new bill in the Texas House concerning stricter requirements for kids to get their license. The new bill would require students to be in class a certain amount of days. Normally something like this would not affect homeschoolers but in this case the writer of the bill, State Representative Ryan Guillen has added that homeschoolers must also be in attendance for 80 days. If they aren't in class for that amount of time, then the parent or guardian is suppose to report this information not to the DPS (who the public and traditional private schools report to) but to the local public school superintendent. Now if I don't normally have any contact with my local school district, why should I want to start now by reporting that my child hasn't attended class? If my child has not attended his/her homeschool classes, then that's my fault. My state homeschool association has this posted on their website:

http://www.thsc.org/hb1091.asp

HB 1091 by State Representative Ryan Guillen would change the law to make it stricter for students to get and keep a Texas driver license. It treats home schools differently from private schools – requiring the current number of days (80) rather than 90% of the classes offered, as is required for private and public schools. 90% of classes would be 153 days for public school or traditional private school attendance. The bill requires automatic revocation of driver licenses for students who fall below attendance of 90% or 80 days for home school students. While public school and traditional private school officials are required to report this to the DPS, home school parents would report to the local public school superintendent rather than DPS as other school officials. This is a major issue for us. Finally, if a high school student over age 15 withdraws from public or private school to home school, it appears that they would be required to wait at least 80 days before they could obtain a license.

THSC representatives have visited with Representative Guillen’s staff and expressed our concerns and opposition to the bill. They were completely uninformed about home schooling and said it was inconceivable that parents should have this kind of freedom from state control. We made clear that we intend to keep it that way. We will continue to monitor this bill and let you know if and when action is needed.

Representative Guillen evidently doesn't like homeschoolers since he states that us parents should be more controlled by the state as far as schooling our children goes. Where does he get off? He doesn't represent me. And I resent the fact that he wants to force me to have contact with a school district who I normally have nothing to do with! You can check out his website at: http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist31/guillen.htm
There you can see exactly which area of Texas he resprents and then maybe you'll understand why he wants to get something like this passed.

I really hope that this bill gets shot down. This is an unfair bill not only for public and traditional private schools but also for homeschoolers because according to the TEA are private schools. Just because they crossed out the word "homeschooler" in parts of the bill, does not mean that we are exempt from that section. To me it only confuses me more. Is my child subjected to the 90% of the day classes are offered or the 80 days preceeding the date of the application? Which is it? Am I a private school or just a homeschool?

You can check out the bill yourself at: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/80R/billtext/pdf/HB01091I.pdf

I'm so mad about this bill that I couldn't even think straight enough to write a proper blog. Plus the fact that my internet is messed up or something weird is going on with it.

Links to interesting posts

2007-01-24T10:24:00.000-06:00

Here are some interesting posts that I have found. I am including the link and a snippet from the post.

Superstition Ain't the Way

The central issue, for me, is the same as with speculative evolution:What is real and what is fictitious?

Public education is presented as the only "natural" and "observable" form of education, the obvious common sense choice for any rational person. Homeschooling is presented as the choice of irrational kooks, manipulative hypocrites, vicious child abusers, and illiterate hill jacks.

More parents choosing to homeschool their children

Homeschooling is growing in popularity as an alternative to public or private school.

Susie Smith, who began the North Greenwood Home Educators group, said homeschool parents "want the best education they feel that they can get their children."

Smith's main reason for choosing homeschool, however, was the desire for her daughter Morgan, 10, to have a Christian education.

Public schools' bonds with homeschoolers grow

SEATTLE -- Students at the tiny, nondescript public school building in North Seattle have no playground, no formal cafeteria, no sports teams, no bells signaling the end of class.

They come and go as they please, and the nearly 250 who pass through the halls don't even consider themselves public school students.

They're among the more than 20,000 children statewide who are thought to opt out of public schools each year. They and their parents are drawn instead to the flexibility and freedom of homeschooling.

Families homeschool for a variety of reasons

Their school day starts at 10 a.m. and ends at noon.

Mom is the teacher and field trips include visits to the grocery store, Amish Country and the family's organic food store where they learn the basics of running a business.

Six-year-old Samantha will complete the first grade by the end of the month and her brother, 5-year-old Tommy, is in kindergarten.

Valerie Mozena of Roseville made the decision to homeschool her children for many reasons, and it's a decision she and her husband made together.

Sex assaults by teachers on students an 'epidemic'

By Bob Unruh

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

An estimated 5 million students in United States schools have been assaulted sexually by teachers, according to a congressional report. But no one is calling for investigations or law enforcement crackdowns, there have been no campaigns to ban the offenders from schools, and in many states there aren't even any requirements such predator attacks be reported to education licensing agencies.

Transcripts and college

2007-01-21T12:37:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine and I were discussing whether or not colleges require you to have a high school transcript. I told her that one was not required and she said that it was. So I decided to do some research on this subject. I have come to the conclusion that while there are some colleges that do require a transcript, most colleges now are not requiring them of homeschoolers. I think the reason is because some homeschoolers do not follow a strict course schedule and/or grading system. Take for instance unschoolers. They allow their children to choose their own way of learning. People that use unit studies also do not have a grading system because usually the "course" covers several different subjects/topics inter-mingled together. There are some that use an eclectic approach like me. Even though we use text books for most of our core subjects, only one of the books actually has a grading system for their tests. I suppose I could count the number of problems, add up the number of correct answers and divide...blah, blah, blah. That's just too much trouble! Besides, when I do grade an assignment or test, we always go over the incorrect problem and correct it. So, should I grade the assignment or test before we do corrections or after? To me it is more important to correct the problems and grade on that than it is to grade before hand and not do any corrections. The one issue I had with public schools is the grading system. They correct the assignments or tests, pass them back to the child and never go over and correct the problems. What are the kids learning from this? Absolutely nothing, except humiliation. The humiliation of knowing that they did poorly on the assignment or test and now all your classmates know how bad you did too. I would rather my child know the correct answer than how many they got wrong and not know the answer.

So back to transcripts. On the transcripts that I have found, they all require a grade for the course taken and any credits given. Hmmmm, I homeschool, therefore I am the one awarding the grades and credits. If my child did not understand the subject well enough to "pass", then I am not going to continue on to the next subject. I am going to work with my child until they do understand the subject. Eventually my child will earn the credit they need in that subject. To me if my child understands what they have learned, then they deserve an "A", which in turn means that they now have a 4.0 G.P.A. I would put this "grade" on the transcript because that is what they want. As you can tell, I don't like grades. I think they are distracting because then the child is only trying to get an "A" instead of trying to learn the subject. Anyone remember those "A" and "A & B" honor rolls the public schools love to post?

When I mentioned to my friend my feelings on grades, she was pretty much aghast that I don't "grade" my childs papers. She wants actual scores to use and not what I call "made up" scores. Her approach to homeschooling and school work are quite different than mine, but that's her choice. (Ah, the joys of homeschooling)

In doing some research on transcripts I came across this: "The documentation allows admission officers to rank students with other applicants and determine if a student is capable of doing well at their school." (see Cafi Cohen's article entitled "And What About College?" below) and “[Transcripts are] irrelevant because a transcript is basically a comparison to other students in the school.” Since my child is the only student I have, how then can this documentation compare them to another student and even rank them since these other students didn't use the same curriculum I did?

Then at the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) website, I came across this: Testing - Colleges rely more on tests than transcripts for home schoolers. Find out which test(s) and what scores are required for admission to the colleges or universities your student is interested in attending. The school he eventually attends might be determined by his test scores. The site lists some of the tests that colleges might request - THEA, GED, PSAT, SAT, and ACT, the same tests that public school kids take.

On the Home School Texas site I found this:

A common question parents ask when considering homeschooling is, "Can homeschoolers go to college?" The answer is a resounding "Yes".

If your son or daughter is considering a specific college, contact the college and ask them what their enrollment requirements are for homeschoolers. Although each college independently establishes it entrance requirements, at a minimum those requirements will normally include a review of the following:

1) SAT or ACT scores
2) Possibly review work you done during your home schooling and
3) Discuss your involvement in community activities.

Trinity Christian College had this note on their website - * Home schooled students may substitute an academic portfolio plus verification that the home school program has been completed. If the student has been part of an association that issues transcripts, a transcript should be sent.

In my research I found many other colleges that had similar policies for homeschoolers. It is mostly up to the college whether or not they require you to have an "official" transcript. If that is so, then by all means you should make one.

When my daughter was trying to enlist in the Air Force, I made a transcript for her. I did not send off for the "official" transcript from the public school that she attended. All I did was go to the schools website and copy the course information from their listings. That is what I did for the courses she took while homeschooling. I did not put a grade on the transcript although I could have if I wanted to. I could go into more detail on how the military handles homeschoolers, but that's another blog. I did put on there whether she passed or failed (of course she passed the homeschool classes but she also passed her public school classes too).

When it comes time for my son to enter college, I will probably make out a transcript. Whether it will have grades is another story. If the college he chooses to go to requires grades, then I will put a grade down for each subject. In the end he will get an "A" in the subject because he will know the material he has been studying well enough to warrant an "A" grade. I'm not going to give him an "F" and go on to something else. I'll leave the "let's promote them to the next grade level even though they don't know the work" attitude to the public schools. As for me and my child, he'll end up with a 4.0 G.P.A. in my book.

Just as our children have their own learning styles, we as parents have our own teaching and record keeping styles. I hope that this will clear up some of the confusion associated with transcripts. Just check with the college that your child is going to attend and find out their requirements, then go from there.

Meanwhile, I'll think about the grade thing and get back to you.

I have listed a few more links about transcripts, portfolios and what some of the other colleges I found require.

Waycross College - Scroll down the page to "Homeschool Admission" for info on their policies.

Univ. of Washington - Info for homeschooled applicants.

Trinity Lutheran College states: "When applying to Trinity, we require an application, character reference, transcripts, and SAT/ACT scores for admission. Students should submit any parent-made transcripts as well as any transcripts from distance learning and/or online high schools. If such transcripts are not available, a portfolio of high school completion should be submitted."

Pacific Northwest College of Art had this to say on their website: "Students who have completed their secondary (high school) education by home schooling must demonstrate the federal standard of Ability to Benefit. Along with the home school transcript, home schooled students must submit a diploma recognized by their local school district or an official copy of the GED. Students must also include a letter explaining why the family chose to home school." They also have homeschool students fill out this document: - Home Schooled Requirements

Mary Baldwin College has a Homeschool Transcript Form for students/parents to fill out.

The Wall Street Journal has a very good article listed in their Classroom Edition called "Remaking the Grade - Colleges Devise Formulas to Interpret Applicants' High-School GPAs"

At Homeschoolers.com there was this article "Homeschoolers, Colleges Want You!" that will answer some of the questions about college.

At Houghton College I found this Homeschool Curricular Template which you may find useful in preparing your records for college admission officers. It's a different approach to the traditional transcript but it is very informative.

Another option I have seen is a portfolio. From what I have seen, a portfolio is more or less a collection of work that your child has done but can include just about anything of importance to your child's schooling. The Oklahoma Homeschool website has loads of information on homeschooling to begin with but they did have this example of what should go into a portfolio.

And finally, I am including a link to an excerpt from Cafi Cohen's article entitled "And What About College?" Chap 5: Recordkeeping & Transcripts-Transcripts vs. Portfolios.

New classes, new help

2007-01-10T10:25:00.000-06:00

My son began taking theater and chorus yesterday. He was only suppose to be taking theater, but his "girlfriend" is also taking chorus, so he decided to take it too. That's fine with me. If it takes spending time with the girl you like for him to take a class in something that he has already told me before he didn't want to take, then I'm all for it. The two classes are actually necessary for what this group is to do at the end of this "semester". The kids will be putting on a play as their final show. That's cool. As long as my son learns something and has fun, then it's all good.

After discussing my problem with Algebra, a friend told me to bring my son over to her house and she would help him with his Algebra. Never mind that her daughter is the girl my son likes. lol! Maybe though she will be able to help him enough to where he will understand the Algebra because I sure don't.

My son is also going to be taking some dance classes at the same place he takes theater. There is going to be a teen dance through the homeschool association I belong to and this place is offering the kids dance lessons. Pretty cool if you ask me. The music will be from the 40's all the way to now. I don't know what kind of dances they will be taught but any type of lessons are good. I never had dance lessons. I always copied what I saw on American Bandstand or from my friends. The one time I did take lessons, it was country and western dance and it was with my husband. Mostly it was for him because he didn't dance. He still doesn't dance. He wasn't very good at it and we just didn't "click" when we were dancing. I think I wanted to lead but really wanted him to lead me and he just didn't do that. Oh well, no one is perfect. I wouldn't mind taking some other types of dance lessons myself...salsa, swing, mambo, etc. I just like to dance. So hopefully these lessons will help my son with his dancing and he'll want to learn more. Who knows, maybe we'll have another dancer for "So You Think You Can Dance?"

Are you REALLY intelligent?

2007-01-07T00:21:00.000-06:00

I have a spot over at MySpace and I did a quiz earlier about how intelligent one is. I decided to post the results here too so all you lovely people could see how smart I am. LOL!

Are you REALLY intelligent?

Einstein, or "Little Einstein" you've got smart synapses going on in your brain. Good for you!

Take this quiz!

Quizilla |

Join

Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

The new "math"

2007-01-04T15:25:00.000-06:00

Last week I purchased an item at Burger King for $1.58.

The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her.

She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register.

I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.

Why do I tell you this?

Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:

Teaching Math In 1950

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20.

What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.)

Teaching Math In 2005

Un hachero vende una carretada de madera para $100. El costo de la producción es $80 ...

Some family slideshows

2007-01-04T15:11:00.002-06:00

Our family and my dad.

Some of my favorite photos.

Old Posts, New Blog

2007-01-03T11:38:00.000-06:00

I am gradually moving some of my posts over from homeschoolblooger.com. It's not that I don't like the other site, it's just that I feel kind of out of place over there. Most of the people I have noticed are very religous. Not that I am against that, that's their choice. I'm just not one of those people. I respect them for their views but I did not want to feel that I had to "hide" any of my own personal views. People have the right to their beliefs and views as I do. I just didn't (don't) feel like having my views questioned.

That's all.

SCATTERGORIES...

2006-12-13T10:23:00.000-06:00

I got this from another site and thought it was a fun thing (and kind of educational) to do. Even though is says that if you can't think of anything to just "skip it", I did a search for items in that catagory that started with my first initial. (Note 9, 14 & 15)

SCATTERGORIES...

Your Name starts with a(n): T

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. Athlete: Thorpe (Jim)

2. 4 letter word: tree

3. Street name: Throckmorton Street

4. Color: Tan

5. Gifts/presents: Toe socks

6. Vehicles: Taurus

7. Tropical Locations: Tobago

8. College Majors: Theater Arts

9. Dairy Products: Tillamook cheese

10. Things in a Souvenir Shop: thimbles

11. Boy Name: Tom

12. Girl Name: Tandi

13. Movie Title: TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

14. Beers: Topper

15. Occupation: træskomager (Norwegian for " wooden Shoemaker"-it doesn't say it has to be in English :-P)

16. Flowers: Tulips

17. Celebrity: Donald Trump

18. Magazine: Texas Highways

19. U.S. City: Terlingua

20. Pro Sports Team: Tennessee Titans

First Day Jitters

2006-09-04T23:39:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow we start a new year of homeschooling. This one is a big deal because my son will be in 9th grade. Yikes! Where did the time go? Just yesterday I was watching a video of him when he was only about 2. He was so innocent then. And a little pill! I had forgotten how onery he was at that age. I also noticed that my daughter was quite a talker then and hasn't shut up since! lol!

So now I have a high schooler. If I had kept him in public school, he'd be going into 10th grade this year. I can't imagine that. He just turned 15 only 2 weeks ago. He's mature enough now that he could handle high school but several years ago, I couldn't see him in the grade level that the p.s. system said he should have been in. He was very immature when he started p.s. way back in kindergarten - the youngest in his class. His maturity level showed with the way he acted in class. Once we took him out of p.s., he started to change. He listened better, his reading got better, and I think he was actually starting to like school again. Now he could care less, but I attribute that to his age. Even though he "says" that he doesn't want to start school tomorrow, I think he's actually glad. We really just finished up last years work a week or so ago, but he's had nothing to keep him occupied since then. I caught him watching a show on the Military Channel the other day. My son, watching something educational without me telling him to? No, can't be! Must have been someone else! lol!

He will have to get up a lot earlier than normal. He hasn't been getting up until noon on some days. Tomorrow he will have to get up at 8:30 a.m. so we can go over some "pre" school stuff. I want to discuss the schedule that we will use, go over the documentation he and I will be using, discuss the curriculum we will be using along with the supplements. Then hopefully we can begin our school day at 10 a.m. and get done between 2 - 2:45.

I'm still concerned about the Algebra. I sent off for what I thought was the student's book. Come to find out it was only the Student Solutions book. I guess they don't have a students edition for this particular book. I'm not happy about it as I will have to come up with some way to cover the answers in my book when my son has to do the exercises. Either that or I will have to write them out or recite them to him to write in his notebook. One good thing, if this Algebra book doesn't work out, I am free to choose another one and get a tutor for him. We will see. Who knows, maybe I'll finally learn how to do Algebra myself! lol!

It should be interesting, that's for sure. And of course hubby is still home. He was a Master Instructor in the Air Force, started as a trainer in his previous job and was a trainer in his last one. Hopefully he won't critique me on my teaching skills. I may have to run him out of the room while we are trying to do school work. When I told my son that I may have to get a job and that his father would have to teach him, he was like "nooooo!" lol! He KNOWS how his dad is. His dad is really technical in his teaching. He "thinks" that everyone else knows as much as he does about certain things, so forgets to teach the simple things. I remember years ago when I was first learning about computers. I asked him what the difference was between a bit and a byte. His explanation was so complicated that I never did figure it out. It wasn't until I took a computer class at Angelo State that I found out what the difference was. I went home that night and asked him why didn't he tell me that. He said he did. I'm like, "You did? Sure could have fooled me!" I rarely ask him to explain something technical or complicated. I just end up getting more confused. I just look it up myself now.

I will post tomorrow what schedule we decided to use and how our day went. If I end up pulling all my hair out, I'll take a picture and post that. lol!

G-Day and goodbye dear Matey!

2006-09-04T11:29:00.000-06:00

I am one of the thousands, perhaps millions of people who are saddened by the death of that famous crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin. He was killed today after being "stung" by a stingrays barb. Since the venom isn't that strong, they think that it was the impact of the barb itself...perhaps puncturing a hole into his heart. I feel for his family especially his children. As much as his wife may love Australia, I have a feeling that she will leave that country and come back to America to be closer to her own family. I would have a hard time staying somewhere that reminds me on a constant basis that my husband and the father of my children is no longer there. Maybe she will stay just so Australia Zoo will continue to live up to the high standards that Steve Irwin brought to it. Maybe her son will grow up to be another "Crocodile Hunter" although his dad will not be there to teach him as Steves dad did. I know I for one will miss Steve Irwins antics, his enthusiasm, his sense of adventure and his compassion along with his infamous words, "Crikey" and "Danger, danger, danger". We will miss you Steve-o!

Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet

2006-08-24T09:10:00.000-06:00

(Note: This story came from the AP over at Yahoo. Unfortunately the link no longer works so I took it out 1/4/07)

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn't — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.

"It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called 'planet' under which the dwarf planets exist," she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

It was unclear how Pluto's demotion might affect the mission of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group's leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto's planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.

That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto's undoing.

Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has nicknamed Xena.

Charon, the largest of Pluto's three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.

My question is, how will this affect the education of our children? Every piece of information I have in my home library states that Pluto is a planet. Should I just throw out all my books that make reference to that statement? I don't know that I'm willing to give up my belief about Pluto. Pluto being a planet has been ingrained in me for too many years to speak of here. I'm sure the publishers of educational materials are rushing to their presses to start printing out new books with the new information in them. Will the schools stop using their current books? The information is now incorrect in them so they shouldn't be using them, right? Let's spend more of my hard earned money and buy all new books with the new information in them. I think I will just tell my child that some crazy scientists are now convinced that Pluto is not a planet. Instead of calling them planets, why not just call them "heavenly bodies" and leave it at that. Next thing you know, they'll start calling our moon a planet. I refuse to throw away my model of the planets. Am I being ignorant? No, just stubborn. I happen to like having Pluto as a planet. It means that something is still the same as it was when I was a kid. After all so many things have changed since I was a child and some of those things aren't so good. I say let's start a petition to keep Pluto a planet. What say you?

Some Unit Study Pictures

2006-08-15T12:12:00.000-06:00

I thought I would post some pictures of the unit studies we have been working on. We finished up Australia and are now working on Volcanoes. Today we had to make a model of Mt. St. Helen's before the 1980 eruption using a topographic map. I made the mistake of having my son do it on a piece of red construction paper (what on earth was I thinking???). In the one picture you can't really see the different elevations but you can in the others. I also took a picture of the different displays I put up on our bulletin board. I'm going to let my son paste those pictures into his binder that he has for both units.

I think he had fun doing the play-doh thing. We did one last week and had so much fun doing it together. We were laughing so hard that my husband could hear us over the TV out in the living room! You'd have thought that my son and I had never played with play-doh before. Well, actually we've never played with homemade play-doh before. I had to make some play-doh for the volcanoe project. All we had was clay, and it was so gooey and soft, that it just wasn't going to work. I had to get on the internet and find a recipe for play-doh. It turned out pretty good if I say so myself. My son has had fun messing with it (I keep it in ziplock baggies on the desk). Our dogs try to eat it. And of course my son has to make a ball out of it and then tease the dogs with it. Shame on him! lol!

Anyway, check out the pics. Hope you enjoy them!

Some interesting quotes about education

2006-06-20T14:08:00.000-06:00

Today’s HOME Spun Wisdom

Never stop learning! Here are some quotes about education from some of history’s brightest.

RISMEDIA, June 20, 2006—It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
- Alec Bourne

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.
- Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Education is the best provision for old age.
- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner (1904 - 1990), New Scientist, May 21, 1964

The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people.
- Claiborne Pell (1918 - )

Everyone has a right to a university degree in America, even if it's in Hamburger Technology.
- Clive James

The number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.
- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784)

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
- Diogenes Laertius

Education begins a gentleman, conversation completes him.
- Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734), Gnomologia, 1732

Only the educated are free.
- Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
- Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.
- G. M. Trevelyan (1876 - 1962), English Social History (1942)

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
- Gail Godwin

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
- H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946), Outline of History (1920)

College isn't the place to go for ideas.
- Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
- Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)

Cool link

2006-06-16T11:12:00.000-06:00

A friend from one of the homeschool groups I belong to sent out this link:

Homeschool.com's Top 100 Educational Web Sites of 2005

I thought y'all might be interested in it.

Happy Flag Day!

2006-06-14T08:21:00.000-06:00

This is the poster I remember from my school days. Happy Flag Day Y'all!

Flag Day, is a day for all Americans to celebrate and show respect for our flag, its designers and makers. The American flag is representative of our independence and our unity as a nation.....one nation, under God, indivisible. Our flag has a proud and glorious history. It was at the lead of every battle fought by Americans. Many people have died protecting it. It even stands proudly on the surface of the moon.

I am the Flag

by Ruth Apperson Rous

I am the flag of the United States of America. I was born on June 14, 1777, in Philadelphia. There the Continental Congress adopted my stars and stripes as the national flag. My thirteen stripes alternating red and white, with a union of thirteen white stars in a field of blue, represented a new constellation, a new nation dedicated to the personal and religious liberty of mankind. Today fifty stars signal from my union, one for each of the fifty sovereign states in the greatest constitutional republic the world has ever known. My colors symbolize the patriotic ideals and spiritual qualities of the citizens of my country. My red stripes proclaim the fearless courage and integrity of American men and boys and the self-sacrifice and devotion of American mothers and daughters. My white stripes stand for liberty and equality for all. My blue is the blue of heaven, loyalty, and faith. I represent these eternal principles: liberty, justice, and humanity. I embody American freedom: freedom of speech, religion, assembly, the press, and the sanctity of the home. I typify that indomitable spirit of determination brought to my land by Christopher Columbus and by all my forefathers - the Pilgrims, Puritans, settlers at James town and Plymouth. I am as old as my nation. I am a living symbol of my nation's law: the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. I voice Abraham Lincoln's philosophy: "A government of the people, by the people,for the people." I stand guard over my nation's schools, the seedbed of good citizenship and true patriotism. I am displayed in every schoolroom throughout my nation; every schoolyard has a flag pole for my display. Daily thousands upon thousands of boys and girls pledge their allegiance to me and my country. I have my own law—Public Law 829, "The Flag Code" - which definitely states my correct use and display for all occasions and situations. I have my special day, Flag Day. June 14 is set aside to honor my birth. Americans, I am the sacred emblem of your country. I symbolize your birthright, your heritage of liberty purchased with blood and sorrow. I am your title deed of freedom, which is yours to enjoy and hold in trust for posterity. If you fail to keep this sacred trust inviolate, if I am nullified and destroyed, you and your children will become slaves to dictators and despots. Eternal vigilance is your price of freedom. As you see me silhouetted against the peaceful skies of my country, remind yourself that I am the flag of your country, that I stand for what you are - no more, no less. Guard me well, lest your freedom perish from the earth. Dedicate your lives to those principles for which I stand: "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." I was created in freedom. I made my first appearance in a battle for human liberty. God grant that I may spend eternity in my "land of the free and the home of the brave" and that I shall ever be known as "Old Glory," the flag of the United States of America.

Should I only write about homeschooling?

2006-06-13T10:01:00.000-06:00

I have been reading a few other blogs and they all seem to talk about other things besides just homeschooling. I started to wonder if I should talk about other things too. I do have another blog and a MySpace blog. The first one is my venting site. I don't give out that address because I keep it as my own personal online journal. Whenever I get really frustrated with things going on in my life, I go there to vent. No one else reads it (as far as I know since I've never had any comments left on it), and I don't expect anyone to read that blog. The MySpace blog is just a place where I can have fun posting crazy things like different surveys I've taken. It's also a way for me to connect with friends of mine that I don't normally get to chat with. Most of those people are under 30, although I did connect with a friend from high school. I found this homeschool blog, and was only going to use it for homeschool stuff. I find though that I want to post other things going on around me than just the homeschool things we are doing, which really isn't much. I can only write so much about my homeschool schedule that I'm writing up for next year. Besides, who wants to read only about that?

So I decided that I am going to write about more things that just homeschool stuff. For instance, I sat here this morning watching the mockingbirds flittering around in my mesquite tree and my hanging flower pots that are hanging in it. One of them snatched something out of one of the pots and took it down to the ground. I'm hoping it was some kind of bug that was possibly eating my flowers. Another bird flew down to see what the first one had. I was really enjoying watching these four birds flitter around and have fun doing bird things. I can only enjoy this when my dogs are inside as they love to chase the birds away.

Before we arranged our computer desks the way they are now, I only got to look at a wall. Now I am able to look out the back window towards our creek and the occasional cow that resides on a neighbors property. Luckily, I can't see any of the gas wells that have popped up around me from where I sit. If I was to move to my right some, then I could see the eye sore that some land owner decided to put in.

Here is a picture of what I can see from my backdoor:

Unfortunately, from this view you can see the gas well off in the distance (it's a beige dot just above the 1st fence post to the right of the gate). Luckily I can't see it from where I sit. But this gives you an idea of the view. I need to take another picture but with no recordable rain in a while, the grass and every other living thing is suffering. I love living in the country though!

10 Science Questions

2006-06-11T14:48:00.000-06:00

These came from a homeschool list and they received it from another list. I thought it was interesting.

In the USA there is much consternation over the fact that students are falling behind other countries in science. Sunday's paper had a list of 10 questions that various scientists felt every high school graduate should be able to answer.

What percentage of the earth is covered by water?

What sort of signals does the brain use to communicate?

Did dinosaurs and humans ever exist at the same time?

What is Darwin's theory of the origin of the species?

Why does a year consist of 365 days and a day of 24 hours?

Why is the sky blue?

What causes a rainbow?

What is it about diseases caused by viruses and bacteria that makes them often hard to treat?

How old are the oldest fossils on earth?

Why do we put salt on sidewalks when it snows?

Bonus question: What makes the seasons change?

The scientists acknowledged that most American adults would probably get only half of these right, so don't feel bad if you don't know all the answers.

It's Saturday

2006-06-10T09:05:00.000-06:00

Yay! It's Saturday. It means we can relax and enjoy our weekend. Maybe. Hubby is out mowing the grass. Hopefully we will be able to go to see the radio control planes today. I would like to go watch the planes. They are model airplanes but BIG planes. Not little ones. These people spend thousands of dollars on these planes. I've looked at the pictures on the website and they are amazing. I'm sure we could incorporate some type of learning thing into this, but I'd rather just go look at the planes, and watch them fly them.

I finished my sons daily schedule. Of course it can be modified but this will give him an idea of when he is suppose to be working on a certain subject and for how long. My next step is working out a schedule telling him what he suppose to be doing every day or each week in each subject. In my planning notes I have down how many pages he is suppose to be doing each day. I may just let him keep his own record of what he does each day/week. I have two different forms: one for daily academic record and the other is for weekly academic record. You use a daily one for each subject. You write down the date and what pages they did. On the weekly record (also one per subject) you write down the week(s) covered, what pages were done, and what the content or activity was. I like the daily one myself. When the kids did School of Tomorrow, they each had cards that they had to write down all that they did each day in each subject. It was a way for them to keep track of what they were doing themselves and to make sure that they stayed on track. All I had to do was check their cards to make sure that they were doing something each day. They were required to do several pages a day and this helped them keep track of that. I'll give my son an estimate of how much I want him to do in each subject and hopefully, he'll do more and not less like he's done in the past. If I notice that he's not doing as much each day or if he has been skipping some things, then he'll end up having his computer game time taken away. I really don't think we'll have a problem though since I plan on being more involved in his core subjects. After all, that's why I have the teacher's editions!

Hubby is done mowing. He'll go take a shower now and then maybe we can go watch the airplanes. I hope so. See ya!

Decisions, decisions, decisions

2006-06-05T09:47:00.000-06:00

I have been trying to work out a daily schedule for my son for next year. I can't remember what time of day they say is the best for learning things. I seem to remember that early morning was good for math but can't remember the rest. I'm sure I'll figure out something though.

Another thing too is his Algebra. The book is for beginning and intermediate algebra. I'm not sure if most people do the whole book in one year or not. I'm doing it in two years. My only problem is that I am not sure where to stop at the end of the first year and then pick up for the second year. And do I skip a year to do Geometry then go back to the Algebra or what? I'm really confused. I'm thinking of just picking up in 10th grade where we left off in 9th with Algebra, then do Geometry in 11th. It realy doesn't matter since we homeschool and we are free to teach whatever we want, when we want as long as it includes the subjects that the state requires. But I don't want him to get around other kids who have already taken the subject. I don't want him to feel out of place. Although most homeschool people are more forgiving and understanding than public school people. I've already figured out where we are going to stop in the book, I just don't know when I'm going to teach him the rest of it.

I'm almost finished with my planning notes for my son's courses. I still have to do Algebra and Computer. I'm also coordinating the pages in the "humanities" book with his history lessons. I've already gone through and written down all the pages that have some type of "art" on them and put them next to the section of the history book they coincide with. Now I just need to write down some notes about what the picture/drawing is about and how it relates to that particular period in time. I don't want to get into too much detail from this book as I want to use it as a humanities book later on in 12th grade. Hubby used it in his college class, but I think I can use it for my son. Hubby has the workbook to go along with the book, I just have to adjust the lessons to my sons age level.

I'm really looking forward to next year. I don't know why though. I think it's because my son is older and I will be able to relate more to him than in the past. He's better able to make more knowledgeable statements I guess is why. I haven't been real involved in his lessons in the past. I plan on being involved this next year. Not so much with the writing part but with the reading and discussions. Because he doesn't like to read books, I will have to stay on top of him to read. Maybe we'll read the books out loud? That sounds kind of little kidish. But it may be the only way I'll know for sure that he is reading something. There will be other things he can do on his own though. Some of his courses are on the computer. He can do those and all I have to do is go back and look at what he did. I will have to keep a record though of what scores/grades he got on the different things though. I want to keep good transcripts of his courses and the grades he got. I will also keep some of his written work in case some "proof" is ever needed. Although some of the text books I have gotten are for older grade levels, I don't think there will be a problem. They are mostly just reading material anyway. The only one that new concepts are introduced is the Algebra. That one will be hard for me. I will pretty much be useless to him un less I can really understand what is going on. I'm hoping he will be able to pick it up on his own or can find an answer at the textbooks website or some other website. I hope we don't end up getting a tutor.

I find that I am having a hard time concentrating myself. I really have to force myself to read something and not just skip over most of it. I hope that's not an early sign of something worse. I want to stay focused and alert so that I can help my son with his school work. I want to be more involved in his learning process and help him through the times when he isn't able to understand something. Hopefully by my being more involved, it will help me with my concentration too. Maybe I should see a doctor about Adult ADD?

And now Algebra

2006-05-29T11:47:00.000-06:00

The Beginning & Intermediate Algebra book by Lial finally arrived. I was surprised though because it is the Teacher's Edition. I tried to locate the Student Edition on the LIAL website, but the only thing it had was the Student's Solution book. I don't know if that is the correct book or not. I can still use the teacher's book. No biggie. I just have to figure out how to keep my son from seeing the answers. I figure that on the exercises, reviews, quizzes, and tests I'll have to either copy them or retype them so that I can print them out for him to do. I did download the InterActMath plugin so that now he (we) can go to the website and get some help with any problems that may arise. It looked pretty good considering I know nothing about Algebra.

Another book

2006-05-25T11:44:00.000-06:00

Received the Teachers Edition of the Earth Science book yesterday. I like it better than the one for history. It has more helps in it and I understand it a little better. There was a sticker on the outside of the book that stated it was for 11th/12th grade. Oh well, guess my son will be doing that grade level next year. Still working on some forms. I'm trying to keep ahead of schedule this year. I've got a couple of forms I need to redo, and I had to download the correct calendar. Now I'm waiting to get the math book. No biggie, it'll get here soon enough...I have time. More later after I've returned from my shopping excursion.

Organization

2006-05-24T11:41:00.000-06:00

I received the student Earth Science book by McDougall/Littell the other day from the Amazon.com seller. I'm very excited about using this book except for one thing. I don't have the lab sheets I need that go with a few of the lab activities. I checked the website and I didn't see anything there, so I'm not too sure what these are. Maybe I'll find out more when I get the Teacher's Edition. I got an email from the person sending me the algebra book by Lial. They "found" it just sitting somewhere and realized that they had forgotten to mail it to me. So they are going to refund me my shipping cost. I was surprised. The website said it could take from 4 to 14 days, so I wasn't worried about it. I guess I'll have to write a note to the seller and thank them. That was nice of them to do. Guess if you want peoples business, you'll be nice to them and refund their S&H for forgetting to mail out their order even if that person didn't know it was late!

So, I've been working on some of my paper work for next year. I've got several forms that I've downloaded from the internet that helps with getting things ready for next year. I've used some of the goal charts, curriculum planners, and transcript planners. I don't know how useful these forms will be during the next year, but I feel like I'm doing something useful, so I figure why not. I will at least have a record of what we wanted to cover and what we actually covered when it comes time to fill in that transcript form. Plus when I get rid of the books we used for those years, I'll have a record of what books we used and what they covered. Not that I really need a record of what I teach. I'm in Texas, I don't have to show proof of my curriculum. Mostly I decided I needed a record of what my son is learning because of the problem I had when I made up my daughters transcript. She was trying to join the Air Force and they needed a copy of her transcript. Since she went to public school for 9th & 10th, I kind of figured out what she took those years by going to the schools website and scanning through the courses for the years she was there. I did manage to find some old report cards for those years too, which helped to straighten out some confusion on some of the classes we thought she had taken. When I went to get the records for her homeschooling classes that she took from School of Tomorrow, I could not find them. Luckily I still had the books she had been using and was able to record the subjects and grades from that. It wasn't until a few days ago that I found the actual report card/progress report for both kids stuck in the back of a folder in a filing cabinet. I was really relieved to find those reports. I knew I had them but just didn't know where. With all the moving around we did a few years back, I'm surprised I can find anything!

My son has fallen behind even more in his school work. I asked him why he hadn't done any work in some of his subjects. His answer was that he was stuck. I asked him what he should do when he is stuck, and his answer was "Ask you?" I couldn't believe it. I could understand not wanting to "raise your hand" in public school when you have a question, but at home? He got in trouble for that. I asked him if he wanted to be grounded from the computer? Of course I got a no from him. lol! We will be working on those subjects more intensely. There's no excuse for him to not do the work. I think he was just too lazy and was way more interested in playing his computer games (even though he's not allowed to do that until 4 p.m.).

I think I'll have to limit his online playing some more. He normally can't get on until 4 p.m. and has to quit at 10 p.m. I know that's a long time but you've got to understand that he doesn't have any "real" friends. The kids that are around us are either too young or too old. We have never met the family to the north of us. The one son that is close to my sons age is a real snot. He threw a diaper (whether it was soiled or not I don't know) at my son one time when he and another boy (who just happened to be a friend of this kid) came up their drive-way with their water guns. This kid told my son to get off his property. Nice neighbors huh? The boy who is friends with this kid (I guess he still is, I don't see them hanging out too much) is several years younger than my son. They really don't get along too well. When we first moved here, they played together but the boy doesn't "play" very well and broke some of my sons toys. My son is real particular about his toys and takes good care of them. They would play video games, but my son is better than this boy and he would get upset with my son because he beat him all the time. Needless to say, they don't hang out together. The kids across the street from us are a lot younger than my son. I've only talked to the parents a couple of times. We only have 7 families on our street and two of those only have adult children. Nobody associates with anyone. The one family (kid with the diaper) have a problem with one of the families across from us. I know the older boys would get into a shouting match every once in a while. The "diaper" family I don't think rides the school bus anymore. Maybe they were banned? Wouldn't surprised me. Their house is up for sale, so hopefully someone will buy it soon. It would be nice to actually get some people in that my son could hang out with. Kind of hard to make friends in the country with everyone spread out so much. I have tried to find other outlets where he can interact with other kids close to his age. He is on a bowling league throughout the school year. We did 4H but will probably quit that or find another club to join. Not real happy in the one we were in. We have been doing outtings with a Yahoo homeschool group. They are from the local area and try to have activities for the "tweens" to do. I'm thinking about getting a group going that maybe does his online game or even Anime. He likes that and I found out a lot of kids do too.

Planning for next year

2006-05-22T11:37:00.000-06:00

I have been gradually planning the curriculum we will be using next year. I think I am done. I just received the Earth Science student book in the mail today and it looks like it will be a good one. There is a website to use with the book that the publisher set up. It looks like it has a lot of interesting stuff on it. I am still waiting for the teachers edition to the science book along with the algebra book I ordered. It also has a website to use with the book. Thank goodness because I know nothing about algebra. This should be an interesting year.

I changed my profile to read that we are Eclectic homeschoolers. We use some textbooks (a lot really) but I intersperse other books and supplements with the textbooks. I have several educational videos that I have taped as well as print-outs I downloaded from several internet sites.

I still want to use a time schedule with my son, but it will be flexible. Mostly it's to give him a general idea of how long he should spend on a subject. I'm thinking of just using a weekly planner (as opposed to a daily assignment schedule) and listing what I want him to cover for the week. Maybe that will work. He can do as little as he wants or as much as he wants each day just so he gets that particular assignment completed during that week. That kind of blows the time schedule out the window though doesn't it? Hmmm, I'll have to think on this a bit.

I picked up some software at the bookfair a week or so ago. Some of it is very useful and some I will just be using as a reference. I did manage to find a Japanese language program. He's been wanting to learn Japanese and hopefully this program will help. It's not as intensive as a regular language class, but it will give him the basic tools he needs to speak the language. If he is really interested in learning the language, there is a place I have heard about that I can take him to. We'll see. There was also a computer lesson in the one software package I bought. It's pretty simple and he probably knows most of what is covered on the program, but it will satisfy his technology requirement. I have been writing down what is covered on all of the software programs so that I can write down the goals for next year. I'll write more about them as I get to them.

I haven't been very involved in his homeschooling except to work out his schedule. Mostly he does his work on his own without my help. He mentioned earlier about some problems with his geography lessons and I asked him why he didn't tell me. He said he did, but I don't remember him saying anything. He normally doesn't come to me with his problems. I only notice that he's having a problem when I get around to grading his work. I'm pretty lazy in case you haven't noticed. I know he's learning because I can tell in the way he talks about different things. I just don't know if he's retaining the stuff he's learning. Hubby sent me an Exit Level English, Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science TAKS test from last year that I guess he must have downloaded. I guess he wants me to administer it to our son. I don't put much "faith" in these standardized tests. Some people can't pass tests. Some people just don't do well on tests. Hubby should know that, he did lousy when it came time to test for his next stripe in the Air Force. He's a really smart person but really sucks on test taking. I'm not much better. I do terrible on tests. I get all stressed out and nervous. Anyway, I may just give my son the TAKS test just for the heck of it. I guess hubby is a little worried that his son might not be learning. Of course he's wrong...he's got a very smart son.

Schedule

2006-02-28T12:35:00.000-06:00

I have decided to put my son on a time schedule. The schedule we are currently doing isn't satisfying me. In each subject he is assigned certain pages to do each day. He does what is required but nothing else. He has talked about wanting to try unschooling but with him not taking any initiative to do more than what is required each day, I'm not ready to do that. He usually finishes all his work in 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. His father and I don't feel that he is doing enough. My son only wants to do what's in front of him and nothing else. I guess that would take too much effort. So I have decided that I am going to "assign" him a certain amount of time for each subject. He will still be assigned a certain amount of pages a day but if he finishes with that work, then he has to find something else to fill the rest of the time. For instance, he does science and health on the computer using Alpha Omega's SOS program. The lessons are set up for him to do certain ones on certain days. There are days when he has nothing to do in either or only one of those subjects. So what he'll have to start doing, is find some other science thing to do for the rest of the time. I'm not going to be real picky on what that is. It could be cruising the internet looking at different science websites or reading a book on a famous scientist, just as long as he is doing/reading something that has to do with science. He's also going to have to start writing in a journal or even the blog that he started a while back. I'm also going to make him start doing more exercise. I need to doing something more physical because of my heart problems and since walking is suppose to be the best thing for me, I think he and I will start walking. We took the dogs out today but the park we went to wasn't very good. I think next time we will find a better one. I want to try for 3 times a week but may start off at just 2. It will do him good to get out since all he does most of the time is sit in front on the computer and play his games. I'm not going to implement my time schedule until next week. We are finishing up our Presidents study this week and since I am scheduled for about 5hrs of dental work Thursday, it will just be best to wait on my plan. I'll keep things posted here as to how it all works out.

Presidents

2006-02-27T12:31:00.000-06:00

We have been studying Presidents in honor of President's Day. I taped the shows on the presidents off of the Discovery channel and the History channel. The Discovery channel has lesson plans that go with the shows. I enjoyed the ones we've watched from the History channel so far. They did a good job on it. I found other lessons plans about the presidents on the internet. I'm having my son do a timeline on the presidents too. He'll be doing a map too. After we get done with this lesson, he's going to put all the information into a folder. I think it'll be interesting for others to look at and also for him to add to later on. We've put off his other history lessons for now. Maybe we'll try this with some other subject? He likes chickens so maybe we can do chickens.

Just a little info

2006-02-14T12:27:00.000-06:00

Hi! My name is Terry and I am in my 6th year of homeschooling. I started out homeschooling my daughter and son. My daughter graduated in May 2002. It was a lovely graduation and to me was so much better than the public school one I had so many years ago. I had been wanting to homeschool for several years, ever since we moved to Plano, Texas. My daughter had changed schools a few times during the middle of the year in the past, so I knew she wouldn't have any problem this time. Boy was I wrong. When she transferred from Austin to Plano, she was so far behind that she never did catch up. She went from taking honors classes in Austin to the basic ones at Plano. Her grades went from mostly A's to some B's and C's and a few F's. She lost all interest in school and trying to do better. When my son transferred, he actually did better. He was stuck in a bi-lingual kindergarten class in Austin. We were not "allowed" to transfer him to another classroom that spoke mostly English. When he started kindergarten in Plano, he blossomed. The teachers had no trouble with him at all. Little did I know what was in store for him in 1st grade. He had horrible teachers (yes, that is plural) in 1st grade. His second grade teacher was a little better and his 3rd grade teacher was the best. I was worried about him going into 4th though, so after talking it over with my husband, we decided to try our hand at homeschooling. The first year went pretty well. We used what I call a satellite school. I graded the workbooks and sent the tests to the school for them to grade and to keep all the records. The next year I switched my son to a different company (same type of curriculum though) and kept my daughter with the other "school". That was so that she could participate in their graduation at the end of the year. Well things don't always turn out the way you'd like. My daughter "dropped out" of school. We had some problems at home with her and she ended up moving out for a couple of months. We had already planned on her graduating with the homeschool group we belonged to and had purchased all the items for that graduation. She assumed that she would be able to graduate with them even though she had not completed her school work. We gave her a choice, either finish the books or get your GED. She got her GED. She actually did quite well on the test but then she's always done well on the state required tests. She was just lazy when it came to doing the actual work. I continued to homeschool my son but he kind of got pushed to the background when the problems with my daughter started. Plus we had other problems going on in our life at that moment. But I did the best I could. My son ended up doing 6th grade work twice because of the upheaval going on in our lives most of 2002 until about June 2003. Hubby had lost his job in March 2002 and we sold our house in Dec. 2002. We lived in our RV for a few months and moved from Plano to just south of Ft. Worth. After purchasing some land and buying a new home for it, we finally could get back to normal. Or as normal as possible. By now my son was doing his schoolwork all on the computer. It was great for him and me. I pretty much didn't have to do anything but check over his work and make sure he was on track. Then Dec. 7th, 2003 hit. I had a heartattack and had to have a stent put in. I wasn't up to par after that and was feeling hopeless which is not unusual after a heartattack. I thought things were getting better until my new cardiologist wanted to do another angiogram to check my stent. Come to find out it had closed and the other blockages had gotten worse. I needed by-pass surgery. So on April 13th 2004 I had a triple by-pass. I came through with flying colors and one long scar in the middle of my chest as a reminder of all I went through. My dear son says that he was so concerned about me that he couldn't do his school work (I really want to believe him! ha!). I got him back on track and he finally finished up his 6th grade work while at the same time doing 7th grade. I switched some of his curriculum back to books because I wanted him to write his answers in his own handwriting instead of doing it all on the computer. His handwriting is atrocious, so thankgoodness for computers! We supplement some of his work with videos of shows I've taped and other sources I can find. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to his schoolwork, so I guess I unschool but at the same time use textbooks. He continues to do his work from his textbooks but I'm not as vigilante about making sure that he's doing that days worth of work. After all, we aren't really on a schedule like the public schools. He's learning everyday and that's what really matters. We are all happy with our arrangement and don't ever want to be tied down to the public school schedule. I can't imagine not having my son around all day. I remember when my daughter was little and in public school. I hated seeing her leave everyday. How different things would be now if we had started homeschooling her sooner. At least I had a bigger hand in my sons growing up and can see how different he sees the world. He doesn't have the "you owe me" attitude that the public school instilled in my daughter. So that's about us. Probably more than you wanted to read. I do tend to go on and on about things. lol!