Welcome to the 73rd Carnival of Homeschooling!
First things first: Two weeks ago, a School of Thought post got bumped out of
the carnival
because a reader of the host blog objected to language found elsewhere
on the School of Thought blog (but not in the post submitted to the
carnival). I’m including the
deleted post here, in case you missed it before it was zapped.
The offended reader wrote:
When blogs are being considered for the Carnival, the whole blog should be taken in consideration not just one post.
I beg to differ.
A carnival host will spend hours just reading the submitted posts.
It would be impossible for a host—a volunteer, not to mention a busy
homeschooling parent—to comb through the archives of every
participating blog, searching for "objectionable" content.
Besides, my idea of "objectionable" may not line up with yours.
On my blog, I get to spout about things to which I object
(dumbing-down, Shrek, and
unlabeled mockolate, for example) and things of which I heartily approve (such as, say,
my husband, who occasionally uses "objectionable" language, and who is going to mock me for calling him a "thing"—but who
keeps me well supplied with real, not mock, chocolate).
So, gentle readers, be warned. I can’t guarantee you’ll all
approve of everything contained in the blogs participating in this
carnival.
In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you
won’t approve of every thought expressed below—because homeschoolers are a diverse and opinionated bunch.
If there is anything that unites us, I daresay it is a passion
for knowledge. As I read through this week’s submissions (all of which,
by the way, I included in the carnival, even a few whose connection to home education seemed tenuous), I was struck by the intensity
of the posts, the excitement and eagerness expressed therein. Such
enthusiasm! Enthusiasm to recount an experience, enthusiasm to explore
a train of thought, enthusiasm to share learning resources.
(Enthusiasms, enthusiams, enthusiasms. Do you hear my husband standing behind me quoting
The Untouchables? Since
bashing in heads with baseball bats is one of those things I find
objectionable, here endeth my Al Capone impersonation.)
What are you enthusiastic about? Here’s a look at what got other homeschoolers revved up this past week.
(Butterflies: a Lilting House family enthusiasm)
Some folks had meaningful experiences to share
Megan and her kids had a lot of fun with Volcanoes in the Backyard
, as you’ll see at Home Schooling Aspergers.
Are there Volcanoes in Paris? No, but you can make a volcano
out of paris: Plaster of Paris. Come ride the lava flow with us as we
show you how we turned a simple kitchen science experiment into a
frugal and fun volcano model that has been bubbling away for days.
There’s plenty of gently pulsating lava flowing but the only explosions
are when I try to take the model off the table so we can eat!
In the "you had me at a cow named Buddha" department, Dianne of
manifestingsuccess shares a story of "compassion, animals, and charity" in
Buddha’s Birthday at The Gentle Barn.
A cow named Buddha was the intake counsellor for rescued animals. They
arrived at the shelter overwhelmed, often not eating or sleeping well,
certainly not playing. Buddha would sleep in the yard right next to the
frightened newcomers, and over a few days the the animals typically
recovered enough of their emotional balance to function again, even
interacting with humans.
Sherry of Semicolon shows how The Lazy Days of Homeschooling can be packed with rich learning experiences.
Starting last night: We watched the video, Building Big: Dams with David Macaulay,
that I got from Blockbuster. Last night’s viewing was the second time
we watched it because Engineer Husband wanted to watch it, too. This
time two of the urchins decided to build a dam, but it was too late
last night. So Engineer Dad got out the sand and the rocks and left
them for the urchins to build their dam.
A waiting-room vending machine provides unexpected learning opportunities for Shannon‘s children in
The World Really IS a Classroom, posted at The Achesons’ Homeschooling Blog.
As we sat in the Canadian Tire Service waiting area eating our bagels discussing what we could do all morning, a gentleman
came in wheeling a dolly with a case of pop strapped to it. I knew it
was for the vending machines that commanded almost one full wall of the
sitting area, but Jonah, Lilly and Meg had no idea.
Judy discusses Homeschoolers’ Proms And Graduations
at Consent Of The Governed.
While Miss Manners wrote that only large formal graduation ceremonies
done at a school are appropriate for marking these kinds of occasions,
I think that we can safely say that is total nonsense.
Tara is sizzling with enthusiasm for Zumba at
Waldorf Our Way.
I had to modify some but I really enjoyed being able to do a few salsa
moves (after 14 years of asking hubby for latin dance lessons I’ve all
but given up on us ever burnin’ up the dance floor) and working up a
good sweat. T said, "Mom, I’ve never seen you sweat like this!"
Laura discusses yogurt-making in
That’s one way to get toddlers to eat at
The SeaBird Chronicles.
I read the details of making yogurt in the book Super Baby Food,
but the process seemed rather daunting and I was tempted to buy a
yogurt-making machine. My friend Margaret assured me that once you
make it yourself a couple of times, it’s quite easy…. and she was
right!
Melissa and her children encounter Bees on a
A Familiar Path.
Today we got to witness what we read. We watched a bee whose job was to
gather nectar from clover flowers. It seemed we suddenly had some
secret information that no one else knew.
Leslie presents My twenty cents keeps moving!—School Year Review in Pictures
at Never Alone.
These aren’t the 13 best moments in school, necessarily, just
representative pictures from our school year. They give an idea of
what we did, what we liked, what was fun.
Kimberly‘s family is offering a home to a recovering burn victim from Honduras. She tells us about learning with him and from him in
My 4th Child at All About My Boys.
He is here for medical treatment. He was burnt on his legs. He had
fireworks in his pocket. The 1st hospital turned him away (no
resources). The second kept him for a month, no painmeds- daily
scrubbing of his burns, but that is all they could do—scrub the burns.
A bird-feeder results in some Impromptu Nature Study for
Pamela and her children at
Tootle’s Time.
Prior to this we rarely observed anything other than crows, robins and
starlings in our yard, with the occasional visit from some passing
juncos. Since installing the feeders, we have regular visits from the
cassian finches with their beautiful singing, redwinged blackbirds,
sparrows, evening grossbeak and today we had a little goldfinch at our
window feeder for a long visit.
I wish I could drop by with dinner for Dana
of
Principled Discovery, who is experiencing the adventure of Homeschooling with a new baby. I’ve walked a mile in those particular shoes!
The last month has been a bit of a challenge as I have been trying to
keep up with my eight year old’s full homeschooling schedule,
continuing my four year old’s early literacy program, caring for our new baby, and most recently dealing with the fact that daddy is gone.
At My Domestic Church Elena discusses Getting Sam through high school.
I’m getting ready to bite the bullet and prepare my curriculum for
Sam’s four year high school experience! This is going to be very fluid
and subject to change according to Sam’s interests and other unforeseen
forces.
Other people, including some of my favorite deep thinkers, pursued interesting lines of thought
At The Common Room, DeputyHeadmistress considers what educated people talk about:
People, Events, Or Ideas?
"An education, and a good one, is entirely possible outside of college
walls, and a college degree is by no means evidence that one is
educated. It is a credential, and a useful one in many cases. It’s
largely an artificial construction, the need for that credential for
remunerative employment, but we live in an artificial world."
At Farm School, Becky and her kids are in search of freedom and independence, and big bangs. Will they find them in The Dangerous Book for Boys?
Snitching it from my son to read, at first I wished that the like
chapters were lumped together, all the Famous Battles chapters and
Extraordinary Stories (about extraordinary lives) together, and the
various astronomy chapters (Astronomy, Charting the Universe, The Moon,
The Solar System) together too, but then I realized I was looking at
the book as a home educating adult woman in her forties, when what the
average seven to 12 year-old boy (or girl — and anyone who lets the
title of a book stop her has other problems) probably wants is the
surprise of discovering what’s next.
MamaSquirrel lauds
The stuff of nonsense at Dewey’s Treehouse:
So we have to give our children more than facts, more than vocabulary
drills. Knowledge, yes…the DHM’s post points that out well, along
with the sad fact of our culture’s anti-knowledge bent. But also
another kind of knowing…an understanding of laughter and nonsense
that goes beyond the usual nose-picking humor found in childrens’
books. They need to meet characters like my aged Uncle Arly, sitting on a heap of barley…and the Humbug…and the White Knight, one of my favourite characters in any book.
At Life Without School, Laureen examines the
Assumptions people make.
The point is, this woman perceived a huge risk where none existed, not from any angle I could possibly examine it from.
She assumed Rowan was some form of turnip. At least, that’s the
conclusion he and I came to. Because all of her fear mongering and
aggressive speech was right there in front of him (since, did I
mention, I was holding his hand? So invading my space was most
certainly invading his too.)
Angela of Mother Crone’s Homeschool exclaims, "That wasn’t in the lesson plans!"
By working with my children, day after day, and watching them in their
struggles, I gained compassion. I learned to be patient to wait until
they “got” it, instead of being a slave to a clock or calendar. Teaching them was the first thing I had ever done that was not all about me.
Christine, The Thinking Mother, ponders Little Ripples Moving Outward.
I think that in our homeschooling community that we need to support and
to encourage each other. Since the homeschooling movement is a
grassroots movement it means that we (busy) homeschooling parents have
to step up and offer things like homeschool support group meetings,
enrichment evenings, presentations, seminars and conferences. In the
midst of our busy-ness I feel that we must take the time to do work
like this in order to help others in our community.
Maureen shares quotable quotes in Great Books: Great Impacts at
Trinity Prep School, saying, "Sometimes others just say it better than I do…."
"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."—G.K. Chesterton
(Also of interest: Maureen’s Thomas Jefferson Education Carnival.)
Tammy turns her thoughts on How to Teach into poetry at
Just Enough, and Nothing More.
Teach like you might explore an uncharted cave, or go on a safari…
Rachel waxes eloquent on the joys of small ones at
Inklings.
Twenty years is a big spread between siblings, even if there are ten
others to fill in the gap. Not many girls my age have a baby sister
who’s still well under four feet tall. It’s a privilege–a gladsome
joy–to have a small one in my life.
Summer shares her thought on The purpose of education at
Mom Is Teaching.
What does it really mean to educate a child? Does that mean teaching
them the basics of reading, writing, and arithmatic? Does that mean
showing a child the information they will need, or showing them how to
find the information on their own?
Here at The Lilting House, I’ve been writing (with much enthusiasm, I might add) about the comforting aspect of a Waldorf-inspired element in education.
What I’ve been doing these past few weeks, in our one-on-one time, is
bringing more creative activity to our time with the stories: drawing,
painting, and modeling. This seems to be very beneficial for Rose; her
stormy moods have mellowed since I shifted gears. She loves the quiet
hour we spend together, listening to me read while she warms a lump of
beeswax in her hand. She ponders the stories deeply and later comes to
me with questions or insights, her serious little brow furrowed with
thought.
Barb wonders Whose Education is Biased at
Barbara Frank.
Educrats love to accuse homeschooling parents of providing their
children only one viewpoint (their own) instead of exposing them to all
sides of a controversial issue. While it’s true that we parents are
going to bring up our kids with a belief system that’s our own, it’s
also true that schools are almost incapable of providing kids with a
variety of viewpoints. In most cases, someone’s agenda is usually in
force.
Dunno admits to running The Secret Homeschool at
A Family Runs Through It.
Most
of our friends and family did not support our decision to
homeschool. Last spring, when we told people that we were going to do
this, the reaction was almost uniformly negative. The worst comment
came from my 92-year-old grandmother, who looked at me in horror and
said, "Oh God, no!"
Jana lays out her Closing Statement: Why We Homeschool at
The Joy Box.
…when Gabrielle
and I were
hating math, we discussed it, I observed her learning style, we talked
through possible causes of our frustration and things we’d like to see
different. I researched till I was sick of it, and I found a new math
program that we BOTH absolutely LOVE. And Gabrielle’s math skills are
shocking me.
Carol Baldwin asks, Does Fiction Writing Help Students Write Nonfiction?
Leticia Velasquez encourages others to
Find the courage within yourself to achieve greatness at
cause of our joy.
It’s tempting to think that our decision was validated by the fact that
everything turned out O.K. But for me that’s not the point. Our
decision was right because she was our daughter and we loved her.
At Living Waters, one mother explains that
Everything I Need to Know I Learned Homeschooling a
Kindergartener.
The biggest surprises for me were how much I would love this thing called home education and how much I would learn.
IndianaJane ponders
All the knowledge in the world at
IndianaJane’s Homeschool Notebook.
There is so much to know, and we homeschool parents tend to worry
about ‘holes’ in our kids knowledge. We all have holes, but we find
ways to get the knowledge that we need and our kids will,
too.
Jocelyn at
Lothlorien asks
Can you stop
learning?
Schooling should not be something you cram into 12 years.
Learning is something that will last forever. It’s something that you will
always do and will and is preparing you for your adulthood. So don’t stop
learning when you’re done with your books… learn in everything you do.
A cliche among a certain subset of the Christian homeschooling
community is the saying "I’d rather my child get into Heaven than
Harvard" as if the two were mutually exclusive destinations.
Allan considers the ways in which a teaching method may
Work For Some, Destroy Others at The BFU Journal.
Occasionally a hammer is needed to drive a nail straight
into hard wood. But as I’m sure you have heard; when your only tool is
a hammer, every problem becomes a nail. Nails and hard wood need a
hammer, scroll work in brittle thin wood does not.
Other folks shared insights about learning resources and methods.
At PalmTree Pundit, Anne evaluates her year with the Omnibus materials in her
Omnibus I Debrief.
We have only 2 more weeks left in this school year, so I’m thinking about what I
learned this year. Maybe it’ll be helpful to you. Here are some things
I wish I’d done differently and some things I learned along the way.
The always inspiring Ann has learned a thing or two herself. At
Mozart & Mudpies, she shares some thoughts on what to do When Narration Is Difficult.
So, what
happens after a delicious tale filled with vivid imagery and new ideas
is read to (or by) such a thinker? When asked to narrate, she would
simply say, “I can’t.” Or, she would give a vague, terse answer clouded
by genuine frustration.
Speaking of "a delicious tale filled with vivid imagery," have you heard about the fabulous production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that recently made its way From Cottage to Castle? The Cottage Blessings clan and their fairy friends staged a full-length production, and the pictures are magical.
It may be spring in the Cottage Garden, but some moms are looking ahead to summer. eeeemommy discusses Making the Most of Summertime at
For the Sake of the Call.
For many home educators, summer is the time to catch up on all the things that we’ve “put off” all year long. Unfortunately,
many of us fail to plan and find summer over all too soon and our “To
Do List” not any shorter than it was at the beginning of the season.
Annette has lots of ideas for Cheap and Educational Summer Fun
at Homeschooling Journey.
Libraries often have wonderful music, nature and reading
programs running from June through August. Most of the programs are
free but they do require you to reserve a place ahead of time, so call
early to avoid a last minute disappointment.
At The Heart of Harmony, Barb is also thinking ahead. She shares ideas for
Doing Art Over the Summer.
When it is hot outside in the afternoons,
drawing and sketching are fun indoor activities or you can take them on
the road with you when you travel.
Jennifer‘s family has been studying the Impressionists, and now the
Diary of 1 blogger is the proud Owner of a Monet. Sort of.
I’m here to encourage you that it doesn’t matter if you know Monet from Manet,
if you even care about shadows and shading, or if you’re artistically
clumsy like me. You can successfully teach art to your kids, and the
method that’s working for me is Classical Immersion.
Denise of Let’s play math is sharing an interactive math game:
The Secret of the Pharaoh’s Treasure.
Professor Jones sliced a sandwich diagonally into two triangles. “Every
farmer in Egypt had to pay a property tax to the Pharaoh each year,
based on the size of his land, so the rope stretchers spent most of
their time measuring farm land. The scribes could easily calculate the
area of a rectangular plot of land: Area = length x width.”
Speaking of math, Kevin Heath presents
Math Concepts and Skills by Age.
Math skills can start to be developed at a very early age. Here is a
quick guide or cheat sheet that home schoolers can use that shows what
math skills to work on based on your child’s age.
Caroline Latham recommends Taking the Senses Challenge at
SharpBrains:
Here is a fun educational tool from the BBC—a series of
brain teaser questions about the brain and your senses with good
descriptions. There is also an interactive brain with a great map of
the brain.
Planning a visit to the grandparents soon? Melitsa suggests
11 Fun kid activities to do at Grandma’s house at Play-Activities.com.
You
are away from your child’s usual toys, games, DVD player and at your
folk’s house, or maybe an aunt. The supply of things you brought are
losing their
appeal. After all, you can’t bring everything. So what can you find and
use at their house?
Lynn shares a long list of links in her Reptile Unit Study
at
Eclectic Education.
Well,
Saturday I was feeling sick and was on the computer a good part of the
day and the Reptile study just came together. So here it is a couple
months earlier than I thought!
Alasandra‘s Book Club discusses Anthem by Ayn Rand
.
We are using this book in our American Literature unit. First we will
study Ayn Rand, and discuss how difficult it must have been to write a
book in English, when her native tongue was Russian. Anthem was written
in 1937, so we are also going to discuss what America was like during
that time period.
Jimmie presents Lapbooking on Squidoo at
One Child Policy Homeschool.
Have you seen Squidoo
pages come up on any Internet searches? It’s basically a place where
anyone can (for free) create a web page. You use their modules to
create link lists, text boxes, YouTube videos, Flickr picture
collections, RSS feeds, and more.
April of Question the Culture shares resources for introducing Linnaeus to Little Ones.
One of the challenges of science for the younger set is that most
material is written for older kids. We’re "studying" biology right now.
Other than the basics of identification and observation, we really
aren’t going into much depth. I’m really just focusing on giving the
girls a taste of the beauty and diversity and weirdness of creation. But when I got my May Smithsonian and saw this article, I knew we had to go a little deeper.
At
Wired For Noise, Summer enjoys the way her little one is getting bigger every day .
Can you tell how excited I am? Every day E gets bigger and learns new
things. And every day we can do more and more. The million things I’ve
had planned to do with him since he a tiny baby are finally going to be
done.
Did you know? At Why Homeschool, Janine reveals that
Johnny Quest Was Homeschooled.
As a kid, I loved the old Johnny Quest cartoon. Recently, I’ve found that you can watch old episodes on the internet for free here.
T. compares book-sorting tools Readerware and LibraryThing in Where there’s a Will at At Home With The Kids.
I’ve been trying out ways to manage my book collection. Why? Because
although I really like the database I created in MSAccess, I take way
too long to enter the data. The result is a large pile of books under
my desk, another larger pile under the couch and a few more piled on
the floor or in boxes here and there. Yes, the problem may be that I
own too many books.
Going to a homeschooling conference this summer? Jenny of Little Acorns Treehouse has some advice for you, beginning with
Conference Preparation Tip #1: Personalize Your Schedule.
In preparation for my first homeschool
conference, I have been researching what makes for a good conference
experience. The #1 tip that I have come across is to be prepared.
Jacque writes about Scrapbooking, Notebooking, and the HOW Approach.
For the past 5 months, we
have used an eclectic, unschooling approach for our learning. I like to
refer to these moments as Living Learning Moments. That’s my term of
endearment for learning by living and applying what we know, need to
know or are in the process of learning.
Julee shares an overview of the
Learning Language Arts through Literature Orange Book at Homeschool Daze Blog.
I just ordered this curriculum for my son for English next year. I like
that it is a complete program so I won’t need a bunch of different
books for English. It looks like it will be challenging, but no
overwhelming.
About Homeschooling‘s
Beverly shares a link to some Memorial Day Printables.
Here’s an idea I’m enthusiastic about:
The Always-On Carnival, the brainchild of Sarah at
Unbridled Learning.
You can submit the homeschooling-related articles you’re enthusiastic about for all of us to enjoy.
Well, I know where I am sending my favorite blog posts, websites, or cool resources from now on. I hope you will join me! At unbridledlearning.com
I am starting to add things that I enjoy reading or doing, or just
think are interesting (and relevant to unbridled learning) to the site.
That’s
it for this week, folks! If I left you out, it was either an oversight or the
work of my three-year-old, whom I caught expressing his enthusiasm for
the computer by pressing the keys with his nose a short while ago. Drop
me a note and I’ll put you back in, and I’ll even use my fingers.
Next week’s Carnival of Homeschooling will be hosted by About Homeschooling. You can submit your posts with this handy-dandy
carnival submission form,
an invention I am (guess what?) enthusiastic about. Makes your humble
host’s job ever so much easier. For more information about past and
future carnivals, visit the CoH info page at Why Homeschool.
(And don’t miss this month’s Carnival of Children’s Literature at Chicken Spaghetti!)
Technorati tags:
carnival of homeschooling,
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