The Carnival of Homeschoolig is hosted this week by No Fighting, No Biting!: carnival of homeschooling # 365
Welcome to the last homeschool carnival of 2012! The season of Christmas is a time of kindness, love, joy, and being grateful. One of the gifts that makes us the most grateful is homeschooling, because it helps increase kindness, love, and joy. Our family wishes yours peace and much success in the coming year.
Kathy found this great post on Edudemic: 30 Surprising (And Controversial) Ways Students Learn. If you have been homeschooling for a while you probably are aware of many of these. Some are new to me and some I’m not so sure I buy into. However, I still run across people who believe old, outdated myths about learning. Worth a read.
Have you checked your assumptions about student learning at the door? People in general, hold onto beliefs that are shaped by early experiences, the media, and faulty influences. The following list is a compilation of research that may surprise you. Video games, e-books, playtime, and music are all a part of an educator’s repertoire. Read on, and be prepared to put your traditional beliefs aside as science points to innovative methods that indicate future success.
Last minute gift giving? Or are you looking to read something on that new Kindle you received? Here is a roundup of education and learning titles that would interest any homeschooler.
How Children SucceedGo beyond test scores and into character skills such as perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control.
The 5 Elements of Effective ThinkingLearn concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change.
The One World School HouseSalman Khan of the Khan Academy is not a homeschooler but his criticisms of the school system should ring true to homeschoolers. It’s interesting to see this re-imagining of school not so far off from what you may already know.
Why School?Don’t teach your child a subject, teach him/her how to learn the subject. The tools we need are more available in the age of the internet that ever before.
Book LoveAll homeschoolers need to teach reading, but not all who are homeschooled like to read. This book gives parents of kids ages three to ten engaging, playful, out-of-the box ideas for growing a reader, assisting kids who are learning to read, and gently encouraging reluctant readers.
Brain RulesRead our review from way back in 2008. This book on brain health is now available for kindle.
Rock Your PlotHave an older student who is the next great American (or insert your nationality) novelist? This book teaches a sure-fire system for defining and outlining your plot scene by scene.
Introduction to Mathematical ThinkingWritten for students geared toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – Mathematical thinking is valuable to everyone, and can be mastered in about six weeks by anyone who has completed high school mathematics.
Memory PalaceIf you are into learning (or required to learn) long lists of facts, figures, names, titles or dates, this book will help you master the techniques to remember anything.
How to Raise Emotionally Healthy ChildrenIf we have one great advantage as homeschoolers, we can teach our children emotional skills as well as academic skills. Meeting these needs in childhood provides the foundation for success in life.
Education: Keep it in the family via The Economist
Every morning five-year-old Tristan starts his school day by reading in bed with his mother. He especially likes Enid Blyton. And even though he often doesn’t bother to get out of his pyjamas in time for his first class of the day, at the age of five he has a reading age of between seven and eight. He is also ahead of his peers in a variety of subjects—all, his mother reckons, thanks to home schooling. Three decades ago home schooling was illegal in 30 states. It was considered a fringe phenomenon, pursued by cranks, and parents who tried it were often persecuted and sometimes jailed. Today it is legal everywhere, and is probably the fastest-growing form of education in America. According to a new book, “Home Schooling in America”, by Joseph Murphy, a professor at Vanderbilt University, in 1975 10,000-15,000 children were taught at home. Today around 2m are—about the same number as attend charter schools.
For home-schooled kids, ‘socialization is not an issue’ via the Grand Forks Herald. It starts with some common reactions. I have actually had more than one person tell me the couldn’t homeschool becasue they couldn’t stand to be around their kids all day.
People who un-school their children say they get a range of reactions from others — from incredulity to curiosity to thinly veiled disdain. When Janet Gerla of Climax, Minn., started un-schooling her children in the late 1980s, she would hear comments like, “I could never do that. That would be way too hard. My kids don’t listen to me,” she said. Five of her six children have since “graduated” and are doing well, she said, noting that among them are a sales engineer, a physics teacher, a law student and an animation artist. They are all “sharp kids,” she said, “and I maintain it’s because they were given the freedom to learn what they wanted on their own timetable.”
Via the Ipswich Queensland Times: Outside the regular classes. Note, “uni” is apparenly a contraction of university.
THE belief home school and distance education children are weird, unsocialised and not able to go to uni is an old-school way of thinking and a stigma Coast parents are eager to quash. Kunam Mani preferred distance education over home schooling for her son Nimai as the curriculum was set by the Brisbane School of Distance Education and marked by a distance education teacher. “I do self-directed learning as well … that’s the beauty of it, I can adjust the curriculum to suit his needs while still meeting the school’s requirements,” she said. “The one-on-one attention has been really marvellous and I know him well in terms of how his mind works. “It’s been really enjoyable watching him grow and it really surprised me at times with what he knows.”
Via WND: Parents shed tears over homeschool-crackdown horrors
BERLIN, Germany – Countless tears were shed at the first Global Home Education Conference here as homeschooling parents told horror stories of having to flee vicious persecution in their home countries – mostly Sweden and Germany, but other places as well. One German homeschooling mother, sobbing, explained that it was the second time she was forced to escape oppression in her homeland. First, she fled from the clutches of the brutal communist regime of East Germany. More recently, she went into exile from the now-united Germany to avoid the ruthless persecution of homeschooling families, which can include massive fines, jail time, and even loss of custody over children.
Sprittibee is the host of this weeks’ Carnival of Homeschool : Vote! Edition
Welcome to the VOTE! Edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling! If you are new to ‘blog carnivals’, please read the link at the bottom of this post to find out more. This post has many links that take you off-site to other homeschool blogs where you can read their ‘showcased’ article submission. If you would like to submit an article for a future carnival or host the carnival on your site, please see the bottom section to find out how. Each carnival writer has the option to put their compilation to a ‘theme’ if they so choose. Being voting day, I figured it would be good to reflect on the process and the politics of making our voices heard.
QUICK HISTORY OF VOTING IN AMERICA: In 1787, the passage of the U.S. Constitution gave white male property owners the right to vote if they were 21 years or older. In 1807-1843, a series of acts changed the rules so that any white man could vote. In 1870, all men who were 21 years of age or older – no matter what race – could vote. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.
The Washington Post has a story about Susan Wise-Bauer: Home-schooling pioneer Susan Wise Bauer is well-versed in controversy – explaining her absence from Homeschooling conferences this year (among other things). Susan is the author of the popular The Story of the World book series. Susan herself comments on Why Homeschool that the story is a bit misleading.
At dusk on a farm near the confluence of the Chickahominy and James rivers, about 26 miles west of Williamsburg, home-schooling pioneer Susan Wise Bauer is out raking manure. She cleans her sheep pens, douses her four horses and her donkey, Athena, with bug spray, and fills water troughs for her goats. It had been 103 degrees that afternoon, but the setting sun has brought in a breeze to cool the tomato fields and peach and apple groves on Peace Hill, a property that has been in her family for several generations. “I love livestock,” says Bauer, 44. “There’s something about animals: You just feed and water and clean them, and then they are content.” The farm offers Bauer a respite from battles she has fought with her detractors in America’s increasingly diverse home-schooling community.
National Review Online posted a story recently: The Last Radicals. Definitely worth a read.
There is exactly one authentically radical social movement of any real significance in the United States, and it is not Occupy, the Tea Party, or the Ron Paul faction. It is homeschoolers, who, by the simple act of instructing their children at home, pose an intellectual, moral, and political challenge to the government-monopoly schools, which are one of our most fundamental institutions and one of our most dysfunctional. Like all radical movements, homeschoolers drive the establishment bats. In the public imagination, homeschooling has a distinctly conservative and Evangelical odor about it, but it was not always so. The modern homeschooling movement really has its roots in 1960s countercultural tendencies; along with A Love Supreme, it may represent the only worthwhile cultural product of that era.
Our friend Izzy Lyman sent us a link to a great report she wrote regarding a study: Homeschoolers Happier, Better-Adjusted in College for Heartlander Magazine
The nation’s approximately two million homeschoolers, whom others frequently scrutinize and even stigmatize as socially inept, are better emotionally adjusted in college than their non-homeschooled peers, a new study concludes. A peer-reviewed study titled “The Impact of Homeschooling on the Adjustment of College Students,” by Cynthia K. Drenovsky, a sociology professor at Shippensburg University, and Isaiah Cohen, compared the self-esteem and depression of conventionally-schooled college students to college students who had a homeschooling background.
Homeschoolbuzz.com was born November 1, 2002.
Time for Learning is hosting this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling — Time For A Homeschool Checkup!
With flu season upon us, many of us will be going for checkups and to get flu shots. This is also the perfect time of year for a homeschool checkup. Most of us have gotten a few months of schooling behind us by this point so it’s a great time to take the pulse of our home academies. Checking the Pulse of Your Activities Just when you think September is the busiest homeschool month, along comes OCTOBER!! There’s just something about fall-time that screams “overschedule me”, isn’t there?! It’s like our systems know that not only will the weather be taking a turn for the worse, but that we’re going to be extra occupied with holidays, family, and food soon. So, we want to get in every last possible field trip, playdate, and hands-on project, don’t we? Let’s take a look at what you’ve been up to this month out in the homeschool blog-i-verse…
Homeschooling is about freedom via Sj
An alien shapeshifter boy helps his mother create light potions, prepares to fight for “the Resistance,” and flees for his life from killer galactic DoomHounds. This is the stuff of my 10-year-old son’s schoolwork this week. Several weeks ago he decided to write a book. As homeschoolers, we gave him the freedom to follow his interest and allowed him to use his writing as language arts class. This boy who would never volunteer to pick up a pencil has managed to pleasantly surprise us with his creativity and especially his diligence. Why? Because the task at hand was his.
Welfare reforms may limit home schooling via New Zealand news site Newstalk ZB
Children of beneficiaries who are home schooled may be forced into a registered school under the Government’s welfare reforms. Under the Social Security Amendment Bill, only beneficiary parents in limited circumstances will be able to home educate their kids, where transport is unavailable, or because of severe physical or learning disabilities.
Home-Schooling, Comic Con Style (Part 1) via the NYTimes.com Also see Part 2.
Ask your average Comic Con vendor if he’s got any educational titles, and prepare to be met with the rather-too-swift assertion that his cyborg-superheroes and rotting zombies “promote literacy.” Mmm. Actually, what my 12-year-old home-schooled son and I were in the market for was something closer to the “Epic Battles of the Civil War” series we picked up at the New York Historical Society. I was surprised to learn it was published by Marvel Entertainment, something that failed to spark any recognition or even interest in those working Marvel’s huge Javits Center booth last Sunday. In their defense, it was the final day of a well-attended convention, and the cacophony of the surrounding video game demo stations rivaled that of the Kid’s Day throng. Surely that’s why they treated me like the nun who blundered into a porn shop, in search of Holy Host. I mean, it’s not as if I was wearing a nun costume … or any costume, for that matter.
Home-School 101: How the system works via MyWebTimes.com
Lori Cook, of Ottawa, believes Illinois can be a difficult state to live in with many of its laws and regulations. However, when it comes to home-schooling her two young daughters, Cook is grateful to live in the Land of Lincoln. “Illinois is one of the easiest states to home-school in with regard to regulation,” Cook said. “We don’t have to report to anybody. We’re just left alone. There’s no standardized testing.”
Forever, For Always, No Matter What is hosting the Carnival of homeschooling this week with 10 Ways to Lighten the Load.
I’m at The Homeschool Village today, writing about some ideas that might help make life easier. As homeschoolers we have a lot to do each day, here are 10 Ways to Lighten the Load and maybe make the day go a bit more smoothly! Also this week, I’m hosting the Carnival of Homeschooling. On Monday I wrote about 10 Ways to Keep Kids Active in Winter, which will hopefully help lighten the homeschool day too. Take some time to go through the links, explore and get inspired!
Kathy (AKA Mrs. Homeschoolbuzz) has started 2 new sites!
Life-verses is provides an inspirational quote each day with hundreds already posted on the site. The site grew out of a idea Kathy had to offer her patients quotes printed on little cards after their visit. The patients are always amazed at how each quote seemed to speak to them personally.
The second site, davisfnp is Kathy’s personal blog where she shares her experience about being a Family Nurse Practitioner, practicing addiction medicine, health, parenting, homeschooling and what ever she feels like.
Take a look, leave a comment, bookmark them and check back often.
The Carnival of Homeschooling is hosted this week at As For My House: Reflections from the End of the Road. We can identify. Our oldest will be graduating soon and there is definately a lot of reflecting going on here.
The biggest “news” in our homeschooling life is that one chapter of it has closed. My eldest, Nick, graduated in May, and is in the process of moving out as I put this post together. There are plenty of issues surrounding that in all areas of our life, but for the Carnival, naturally, I’m going to focus on those related to homeschooling. But “the end of the road” is really a dramatic exaggeration, because my homeschooling days are far from over! I have a 2nd grader and a four year-old still “enrolled”. Having one coming out the far end does make for a natural point of reflection – a “post-mortem,” you might say. But you don’t have to wait until then to pause and take stock.
