Posted in challenges, games, geography on Aug 31st, 2009 1 Comment »
Here’s a fun little online challenge. Type in as many countries as you can in 5 minutes and see how you compare to others! This was harder than I thought. I only got 39. Egads! I kept drawing a blank. What a fun way to get kids thinking about countries. Plus, they can read [...]
Posted in deep thoughts, Teens and high school on Aug 30th, 2009 3 Comments »
This article is really thought provoking! The author asserts that teens are more like adults than children and that our culture is infantilizing them with our combination of overblown control, lack of responsibility, low expectations and high restrictions. Here’s one bit that I thought was very relevant to homeschoolers: Teens in America are in touch [...]
Posted in art, Daily log, Fun, Home ec, magical moments, nature, pictures on Aug 30th, 2009 4 Comments »
With the end of summer we’ve been doing way more playing than schooling (even for us, when play usually finds a way to be educational!) but here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing… 1. We’ve been hitting the local libraries lots and loading up on great books. Anna is devouring kiddie novels while Jack [...]
Posted in deep thoughts, reading on Aug 28th, 2009 3 Comments »
Lately I’ve been looking for new read-alouds to read with the kids (both for fun and because some books just “should” be read!) and I’ve been revisiting books that I had to read in school. I am a little unnerved at how many of them involved death and dying! I also wonder if this is [...]
Posted in Field trips & tours, freebies on Aug 28th, 2009 No Comments »
Saturday, September 26, 2009, enjoy free general admission for you and a guest to hundreds of museums and cultural venues nationwide. Fill out the information at the Smithsonian Magazine page here to print out your admission card. You can find a participating museum near you here.
Posted in freebies, lesson plans, nature, science, social studies on Aug 27th, 2009 1 Comment »
Moody Gardens offers some really great curricula for educators on all sorts of subjects from whales and dolphins to the Grand Canyon to bugs to The Titanic. I checked out the bones file and was really impressed with the information and lesson plans. They’re in PDF format and the one I viewed was 70 pages [...]
Posted in science on Aug 26th, 2009 2 Comments »
Need a refresher for what the difference is between a comet, an asteroid and a meteor? Check out this cute little Brewster Rockit comic. This would be great to print out for the fridge.
Posted in deep thoughts, personal on Aug 26th, 2009 2 Comments »
I’m not ready for next week. I’m not ready for September and the closing of the pool and the opening of school, even if my kids aren’t marching off to it. I’m not ready for all of the endings that are coming. I don’t want to let go of sprinklers, roses, open windows at night, [...]
Posted in Field trips & tours on Aug 24th, 2009 4 Comments »
Daryl took us on a surprise field trip yesterday. He told me Saturday night that he was taking us someplace and I should perhaps wear a sundress. It sounded good to me! We drove about an hour and got to our destination — Fieldstone Vineyards! Lately I have been interested in drinking wine with supper [...]
Posted in Fun, science on Aug 23rd, 2009 No Comments »
We had some fun tossing random things like flour into the campfire last week to see if it would affect the flames. My fabulous friend April found this site that lists different ingredients you can add to affect the color of the flames, plus directions for making little wax cups that contain the ingredients for [...]
