Tag Archives: homeschooling

Curiosity Journal : Jan. 12, 2011

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Lord willing, this is my first of many updates in my new Curiosity Journal. Every Wednesday, I report what I’ve been reading, enjoying in play, learning about and reacting to in my life.

Reading: The Myth of Ability (Nurturing Mathematical Talent in Every Child) by John Mighton (Amazon affiliate link)

This book, written by a man who once struggled with math in public school, and now has a doctorate in mathematics, gives me hope when it comes to my own math ability. I vividly remember giving up, not caring anymore when in the the fifth grade. According to Mighton, I’m not the only one to give up when math became a tearful chore; to accept the belief that I lacked a “math gene” and to muddle through the rest of my school experience believing I couldn’t grasp higher mathematics.

I’ve always been careful not to project my own misgivings about math to my children. Encouragement is easy. Teaching not so much. As I’ve watched my daughter struggle learning certain concepts, I accepted she also didn’t have a God-given talent for numbers.

Mighton shares stories of students who appeared to have no ability to understand math, but blossom in their understanding with his teaching techniques.

I’ll be reading the rest of this book carefully, especially as Mighton moves into the second part of the book when he explains the how-to teach math concepts.

Wish I had this book years ago when we first started homeschooling.

Playing: Nintendo Wii. Did I tell you that we got our first gaming system for Christmas? We’re all having a blast. Lucy, 5, beats us at bowling. Peter, 11, beat Aragorn’s Quest in only three days. I want to try my hand at Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but I know I be toast in a matter of seconds.

Racko (Amazon affiliate link):  We hosted a Family Game Night on Sunday, a good excuse to dust off a few games neglected due to the business of life, computer use and the new Wii. I’ve been a Racko fan since I first discovered this simple, yet strategic, game as an adult. I’m not too good at explaining how it works, so I’ll just link you to a page that is more eloquent than I.

Note to self: Introduce the kids to Racko. No batteries required.

Learning: If you have a Wii, you know you can live stream certain movies and TV shows from Netflix.

As a homeschooling mom with a strong-visual learner boy, all I can say is, “This is gonna be fun!”

So far we’ve watched a lot of Mythbusters and other kid shows we never bothered to get on DVD (Hello, Veggie Tales!). Personally, I’m on a social documentary kick – seriously, I could watch them all day. The kids and I watched “Super Size Me” (FYI: the F-bomb dropped once, two references to s*x and p*nis said twice.)

I didn’t think my almost-teen daughter and 11 year old son would be too interested in “Super Size Me,” but they watched it, engaged me in conversation about fast food, nutrition, health and choices American’s make in their diets. I won no converts to the anti-fast food camp, but at least now they know how chicken nuggets are processed.

Reacting:

OWN – the new Oprah Winfrey network - have you seen any of the programing yet? Thoughts?

I’m by no means an Oprah fan (long time readers here know I have issues with her beliefs), but thanks to Klout and SheSpeaks, I had a chance to preview the reality show, “Your OWN Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star”. You know me: I’m curious, so I just had to check it out. It was okay; reminded me of “The Apprentice” with Donald Trump.

Prior to watching “Your OWN Show,” I read an article about Oprah’s lack of desire to run for public office (wish I had the link to the article. Sorry! It was on Time, if you want to search for it.) I must say, it makes sense for Oprah not to run for office. Why should she? Oprah already has her TV network where she can influence millions of viewers.

That’s smart.

Sadly, after the tragic events in Tuscon, serving in government just got to be much more dangerous. Oprah now has another reason to stay away from political office.

What was your week like in reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing?

Share-a-Link Friday : Jan. 7, 2011

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Good morning, welcome to Share-a-Link Friday, my little attempt to encourage you to share the best of what you found from your weekly travels on the Internet.  Let’s get right to it.

The link I am sharing today comes from Theresa at Our Life in Words, a blog kept by a homeschooling mom with two young daughters. This week, Theresa featured a guest writer, Dr. Janet Johnson, assistant professor at The University of Texas at Dallas. I’m pointing you to Dr. Johnsons’ comments because I know if you are a homeschooling parent, you need to hear what she has to say about having a former homeschooler in her college classroom.

Be encouraged, doubting-homeschool mom! What you’re doing is working.

Now it’s your turn: Share a link with me – what appeared in your RSS feed this week that made you glad you turned on your computer that day, the random good link you followed off of Twitter or Facebook. What did you bookmark because you knew you wanted to read it again? If you want, leave a comment letting us know what link you submitted.

Ready?

Go!

Like sharing interesting, educational, and lovely links?

Consider joining my Diigo group for Christian homeschoolers.

We would love to have you!

Thoughts regarding online v. offline homeschool community

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As a homeschooling mom, I rely on my online friendships and communities more than my flesh-and-bone relationships. I’m not sure that’s the best thing for me, but it is what it is.

Can you hear the sadness as I type?

When I first began homeschooling officially, when my firstborn turned six, I already had a community of online support I visited frequently. You know how I love books. Using the Five in a Row guides for our early learning kept our days full of fun. We read, did the activities, tinkered with math and lived life. When I needed a mental break, sort of a “Mommy needs to check in with her girl friends”, I logged onto the FIAR message boards.

Don’t you just love message boards? Conversation not reduced to just 140 characters. You can lurk. You can comment. Laugh and cry  together. Lift each other up in prayer. Just the thing for a newbie homeschool mom who loves to talk and write.

After a few years, when I grew more confident in what I needed to concentrate on or ignore with our little “non-school at home”, I left behind FIAR. Reluctantly, I left the message boards too.

Housekeeping immediately improved.

Then I discovered blogging.

Housework again tossed aside to write, meet other homeschool, blogging moms. The blogosphere : joy!

By this time, I plugged into two local groups.  One a co-op with lots of kids, with moms actively engaged in getting the best learning opportunities for their children. The other is a support group for the Christian homeschooling family.

We didn’t last long at the co-op. The story of why is too long to tell in this post; perhaps sometime I will. As I sit here typing all of this I can see the faces of the lovely moms I felt a true kindred-spirit connection. I miss them. We talked when we met together. We had fellowship.

Now I think of this other group – the Christians-only group in which I currently serve on it’s leadership team – and it’s all frustration and disappointment. And I don’t like laying out criticism on the Internet to whine and complain about an all-volunteer organization, so I will keep this rant brief.

Oh, how I wish my homeschooling, Christian friends would be more flexible and took time for more mom-fellowship, pursued opportunities to get together just to talk and encourage each other. I’m so tired of asking these moms to gather together at a park on a beautiful day so our kids could be together, yet all I receive in return is silence.

Yes, I value my online community – all of you reading this blog, Twitter  – far more than the offline world that is nothing like I thought it would be when I began homeschooling six years ago.

It’s online where I know of other Christians learning the unschooling way.

It’s online where I can go with a tweet when I’m having a bad day to get an encouraging word to keep going.

It’s online where I can read the words of a mom just like me and not feel weird, alone or crazy for rejecting government schooling.

I continue to homeschool with the hope that I would find a local, sold-out-to-the-Lord family who doesn’t think textbooks are the only way to learn.

Maybe I need to join another message board.

This week The Homeschool Village is comparing notes on online communities. Write your own thoughts on your experiences with online communities and your homeschooling, then link up. Don’t forget to visit the other blogs participating.