Website of the Day: Best Homeschooling

I found myself looking through this site today and thought it would be a good resource today. With the Holidays passing by it seems that many have had their homeschooling decision challenged by "well-meaning" family, friends. Nothing like debating your choices over the holidays, right?

Best Homeschooling has a lot of balanced articles as well as links to more resources than I would probably ever be able to read.

Some of the well written articles are:
What My Children Taught Me, by Helen Hegener

Considering Methods & Styles of Homeschooling, by Lillian Jones

and

Growing a Writer, by Miranda Hughes one that I will definitely re-read since I have a budding writer in the family

and their "Gateway to the Internet" provide links to a variety of other resources like

• Our World and Beyond - Earth, Science, Space and Technology
• People, Cultures, and the Making of History
• The Written Word, Reading and Language
• Great Gateways to Interesting Educational Sites
• Fine Arts, Fun Arts, Music, & Theater
• Cool Educational Resources from the U.S. Government
• Myths & Folklore

So, if you have some time, pull up your chair, get comfortable and check out BestHomeschooling.Org. Huge Kudos to Lillian Jones who I believe put together this easy to navigate website.

New Year Traditions

In keeping with the holiday theme. Here are some web resources having to do with various New Year traditions.

http://wilstar.com/holidays/newyear.htm
http://www.fathertimes.net/traditions.htm


Happy New Year everyone!

Look what I found

Our Christmas Playlist

Before the New Year comes I just wanted to share our Christmas Tunes. Stay safe! Stay educated

Another Holiday to learn about

Today is Boxing Day in Canada. What a great opportunity to learn about the holiday and the country.

Here is a bit about the holiday courtesy of Wikipedia:
Boxing Day is a traditional celebration, dating back to the Middle Ages, and consists of the practice of giving out gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name has numerous folk etymologies^[3]; the Oxford English Dictionary attributes it to the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: "To give a Christmas-box (colloq.); whence boxing-day." Outside the Commonwealth, the day is celebrated with a different name.

Here are some more webpage if you want to learn more about this holiday:
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/boxingday.asp
http://www.annieshomepage.com/boxingday.html
http://holidays.kaboose.com/xmas-around-boxingday.html
http://www.calendar-updates.com/info/holidays/canada/boxing.aspx

Have fun learning!

Games

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. One thing I find is after all is said and done the gifts I enjoy the most are ones I can share with others. Board Games are still a huge hit in our family. My son is also learning games from other countries - Shogi and Go being two that I am trying to learn also. I do hope that I can get a GO board down the road. I have found about some groups for GO when I was at the Japan Expo. I will share the links with you all as soon as I find the paper in case there are others who enjoy the game or want to learn more about the game. If you know of other groups, games that you suggest for family time, please share

The History of Christmas

I believe that there are learning opportunities everywhere. One fun way to involve education with the holidays is to research the origins of this Holiday. You can also research the foods and traditions served in various places for a Geography, Humanities and Cooking tie in..

One site I found today was The History Channel's - The History of Christmas but there are many, many resources found on the web and internet.

Enjoy your Holidays!

Homeschooling in the News: Homeschooling Missionary Family Narrowly Avoids German Deportation for Now

You can find the entire story at this site. Here is an excerpt.

Homeschooling Missionary Family Narrowly Avoids German Deportation for Now

By Peter J. Smith

UELFELD, Germany, December 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A US Baptist missionary family has narrowly avoided deportation from Germany for their commitment to educate their children at home thanks to successful eleventh hour negotiations by home school advocates.

The International Human Rights Group (IHRG) reports that its European Counsel, Dr. Ronald Reichert, convinced German officials to drop a deportation order that would have required Mr. Clint Robinson, his wife Susan and their three children to leave Germany on Thursday for the outlawed practice of homeschooling their children.

"The deportation has been postponed while we continue to negotiate a settlement on the visa and homeschool issue," Joel Thorton, President of IHRG, told LifeSiteNews.com. "I think they were convinced because Ronald Reichert convinced them that it was best to resolve the issue rather than act rashly."

Thorton explained that the authorities have been feeling pressure from a number of political fronts as well.

Help Provide Books & Promote Literacy

Education & Literacy is very important to us as a family. Please consider supporting worldwide literacy efforts by clicking the link below

Have a wonderful & Safe Weekend

Do not stress over shopping. Enjoy each day to the fullest and enjoy each person in it.

Homeschooling Apparel

As more and more people homeschool, you will find more and more companies going after the homeschool dollar. I'm not criticizing but being honest. I've often bought Homschool related T-Shirts. The reason is quite simple. I will not hide nor be ashamed of the fact that we have chosen to homeschool after much research and prayer. I also know that we usually break the norm that many have in their stereotype filled head.

Anyway, I can't find the place that I last bought shirts from. I did come across this website but I haven't used them before. Anyone familiar with them?

To be honest, I prefer to support a homeschooling family, so if you know of one, please past on their information

Wishing everyone a wonderful day today

Look for the learning opportunities that are always present

Homeschoolers in the News: Celine Dion

I notice that people who don't homeschool often have problems trying to understand the homeschooling family. They try to define it in one way when each family approaches homeschooling in its own way. I hope that by letting the world know about various homeschoolers, they will knock down misconceptions.

While reading my Parade magazine I noticed that Celine Dion and her family homeschool their son.

Here is a snippet of the article:

Her son is being home-schooled. “It’s working extremely well,” she told me. And is Mom or Dad le professeur?

“Neither one,” said Céline. “We have a wonderful teacher. Her name is Kerri. There! Now she will be the world’s most-famous teacher.”

When Céline flies in February to Johannesburg, the first stop on her yearlong world tour, both Renés will join her—Angelil running the show, and their son in tow. How big is her traveling party?


You can read the entire article at Parade.com

Homeschooling in the News: Home-schooler to lead S.C. Board of Education

Found this in the SCNow.Com news section. I personally think it is great.

Here is a bit from the news story:

Home-schooler to lead S.C. Board of Education

Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007 - 05:51 PM

By Rebekah Carter and Robert Kittle

COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s Board of Education has a new chairperson, and it’s a woman who has never sent her four children to a school.
Kristin Maguire, 39, of Clemson was elected Wednesday morning by the state’s Board of Education, which is responsible for public elementary and secondary schools.
Maguire was elected to lead the board after members rejected Trip DuBard of Florence by a vote of 9 to 7 by the 17 board members. One member abstained from voting.
DuBard was the selection of the board’s nominating committee. After his defeat, Maguire was elected by voice vote.
DuBard, who has three children who attend public schools in Florence, said he thinks he would’ve made a good chairman but respects the decision of his fellow board members.
“It is what it is,” DuBard said. “I’m going to keep working for South Carolina schools. I think I would’ve done a good job.
“ ... hopefully we can focus on a couple of really key issues that have high impact on student achievement,” he said.
DuBard’s main concern is the state’s graduation rate, which he described as “bordering on the immoral,” as well as teacher retention and early childhood education.
Maguire said she is “totally passionate” about reading, and wants every child in the state reading by the third grade. She said she also wants more attention put on math in the classroom.
Maguire has been a member of the board for eight years and has won admirers for her dedication and hard work. Board member Rick Adkins, who represents Anderson and Oconee counties, said she’s the most-prepared member for board meetings.
“She knows the education system, public education system, backwards and forwards so I had absolutely no problem supporting her. She’s absolutely the best person for the job,” he said.

A new widget I found

A bit about the fellow homeschoolers - Will & Jada Pinkett Smith

I love this quote because I truly believe it reflects what so many homeschoolers believe:

In 2005, Jada Pinkett Smith told Essence that the decision to home-school was based partly on the family's extensive travel schedule – but also on dissatisfaction with the other options.

"The school system in this country – public and private – is designed for the industrial age," she said. "We're in a technological age. We don't want our kids to memorize. We want them to learn."

The complete article can be found at People.com

Homeschooling in the News: Heisman winner has priorities in order

Many people know by now that Florida quarterback, Tim Tebow, won the famed Heisman Trophy this year. What some do not know is that he was homeschooled. Here's a piece of an recent article in the Baptist Press:

"I love the University of Florida, I love being a Gator. I love Gator Nation," Tebow said. A homeschool student who played for Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Tebow helped Florida win a national title last season as the Gators' backup. He is the first major college player to run for at least 20 touchdowns and throw 20 TD passes in the same season. This year's 22 rushing TDs are tied for the FBS record (formerly Division 1-A) for rushing TDs in a season by a quarterback.

You can check out the article in its entirety here

-OldSchool

Hope everyone is having a wonderful December

This seemed timely so I wanted to share - Stay Safe!

A Website Resource: LearningPage.Com

Becoming a member of this website is free - so you may want to try it out

http://learningpage.com/

-OldSchool

Field Trip - History, Culture

I got this off of a board I'm a member of so I thought I would share:

Little Tokyo Walking Tour - December 27

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Found this while looking through Sushi&Sake Magazine (pg 6)

Little Tokyo was once a thriving residential business and cultural center of one of the largest Japanese American Community in the U.S. until World War II. On Saturday, December 27, relive history and learn about present-day Little Tokyo with National Museum docents on this historic walking tour. Reservations, along with comfortable clothes and walking shoes are recommended. The fee is $8 for National Museum members, and $13 for non-members, which includes Museum admission. Weather permitting, meet at the National Museum on First and Central at 10:15 a.m. The tour concludes at 12: 15 p.m. (213) 625-0414

Foreign Language - Japanese

With the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) being held yesterday I thought I should keep with that theme and have a Japanese Language resource.

I came across this site while looking for more information on the JLPT. It seems pretty easy for beginners. The URL is http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/language/index.html

-OldSchool