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| | 1) ONE HOMESCHOOLING BOOK YOU HAVE ENJOYED
The Heart of Homeschooling by Chris Klicka
2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT
The library!
3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT
I will be "boo-hissed" for this, but I did not agree with the theology in For The Children's Sake so I was disappointed by the purchase and read
4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR
The History of the World by Susan Wise Bauer made history teaching from the beginning of time accessible for the range of children I have
5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR
The History of the World......this time on CD to let me voice rest a bit.
6) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY
Sing Spell Read & Write for first grade....though I won't because the expense, I think, is not a necessary one.....it just looks like my daughter would find it fun.
7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED
Still looking for a piano teacher who will come to my home to teach the lesson.
8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOGUE YOU ENJOY READING
For true homeschooling use - Veritas Press....I like the book suggestions & I see what they share as grade by grade information as a great challenge.
9) ONE HOMESCHOOLING WEBSITE YOU USE REGULARLY
For quick print-outs & the like, enchantedlearning.com
Thanks april61 for tagging me with this....I was quite late in filling it out, but I liked having to think about such things....
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| Oh - my - well, my priorities scream "NOT XANGA!" It may also scream "NOT MY MENTAL HEALTH!" But I'm not telling.... My eldest has a friend who still attends traditional school. It's an academically above average school - parochial in nature - diverse economically & ethnically. And yesterday I got a list of what they will be covering. I ask for these lists because I love pain & stress. Well, not really - not so much pain nor stress. But I do ask for the lists. I like to know what is happening in the 'real world' It's interesting to know what is taught in schools when they teach according to standardized tests. And, the cruel reality is, I need to be at least moderately interested in this information. The problem occurs when the lists make me second guess my decisions. It's detrimental to my teaching skills and it's equally so for my children. I need to work on getting to the point of gleaning information without taking it and immediately adjusting my lessons plans or, at the very least, my entire math curriculum. I am educating, not replicating a classroom. Regardless of whether the classroom in question reflects my religious beliefs, my educational standards, or any other mores that may apply. We gather at home - not the classroom - and at home we work at achieving stability, even within the dreaded curriculum decisions. WHEW - no wonder I've been gone from Xanga for a while. My brain hurts!  | | |
| Spent yesterday's late lunch discussing the merits of Joe Lieberman, being Republican, and the changing face(s) of US politics.
Joe Lieberman, of course, the uber Democrat cum Independent. Voting, for the most part, his moral compass. Never quite looking good enough to pull of a Presidency (I'm not sure he'd look great on a quarter, bill, or stamp.) Frightening Democrats because of the precious balance they want to sway this next election year.
Being Republican - like being happy, being fat, being rich, being jealous....it is a state of being? Can one avoid being Republican if they have certain personality traits. Is it just plain unavoidable? The definition of Republican certainly has changed over the years. It would be really hard to be Republican and be an economically poor agnostic. Interesting how a political party can have such common traits among its adherents.....
Faces - it's hard to get elected in this country is one is not good looking. Sort of along the lines of the Joe Lieberman discourse. You can only get so far in politics by being really smart or really rich. You need to have a good fashion team as well. The same thing has happened in our television news world. Gone are the Walter Cronkites and Maurey Schaefers (sp), David Brinkley.....granted we have Britt Hume, but he's followed by Shep Smith - who obviously loves his stylist. | | |
| I am an accountant. I can't help but organize numbers, place them in appropriate columns, read the business section of a newspaper, and salivate over a new adding machine. It's part of who I am.
Yet I have always turned up my nose at the term "frugal". I really have no good reason. I have always been amazed at the extent of money savings earned by the frugal folk. I am challenged by their consumer restraint. I am humbled by their pantries.
So why does the term occasionally make me shudder?
As soon as I left my job in the corporate world I purchased a copy of "Miserly Moms"...it seemed the thing to do at the time. Of course, had I read the book first - or understood the concept - I would have checked it out at the library instead! I was a rookie.
"Miserly"....it's a good term, though perhaps Dickensian. Images of Scrooge rear their ugly heads. Granted that story had a happy ending, didn't it?
"Thrifty"....this one works for me a bit better as well. It brings me to my Dutch roots. We are a thrifty people. We even once had a local grocery store chain called "Thrifty Acres". Granted "thrifty" is often once step away from "cheap" - and while being cheap may be privately good, I'm not sure anyone wants to publicly be called "cheap".
Why is it something so good - saving money, being responsible, being good stewards of what we are given, living naturally, and everything else that goes along with it - can be ruined just because of a name?
If we called being fiscally responsible something like being a "stylish consumer" would I wear the badge with honor?
Probably not.....
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| The good Lord blesses us with certain innate abilities. Some are natural Emersons, others are Tiger Woods-types, and some (very few) are Einsteins. And while I believe we can teach, and teach very well, there are limits.
Take my son....he can easily memorize his tables of factors. He can memorize the steps in doing something mathematical. Yet I can see that wall come down. Sometimes more slowly than other times, but a wall nonetheless. He is my student of whom I am quite happy when we score about 65-70 on the Iowa Basics standardized tests. He will not be a mathematician.
It has been a frustration for both he and I. He spent a couple years in 'traditional' school and part of our motivation in moving him home revolved around math. The very public nature of timed math tests had him believing he was "dumb" or "not smart" or "unable to do math". None of these things is true. He simply doesn't move as quickly when doing math - at least not if he is to continue without frustration.
And, unfortunately for him, no one does timed grammar tests. He could have excelled there. And there are no timed reading tests, but he's been known to complete a complicated book in a couple days.
Instead it's math and it was the bane of his existence.
But now he's home. We can pick and choose curriculum, we can vary our math lessons, and while we do timed tests at home, he is instead competing against himself instead of a group of peers. And we throw in a set of jumping jacks on occasion when the wall is trying to come down.
Our frustration level now? Fractional.... | | |
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