Today's Google Reader Starred Items

At Home Where They Belong I learned about edgezonegames.com. She shared the site because of the great free printable Bible lessons - , and they are great, but I also like it for the kid safe internet games grouped by age appropriateness. Little one (2yo) and I had great fun there today.

From Robin and a discussion, that I'm thinking was brought on by a Journey North Mystery Class activity, she had with some friends I learned how to make an egg stand on it's end. I haven't actually tried it yet but I plan to.

Loved this post by Ann about how the small stuff is the big stuff, which also inspired a post from Headmistress along the same lines.

Also from Ann I discovered a great site, called The Tongue Untied, for teaching upper level grammar. I hope to use it with DD if not this year then definitely next.

Barb had an excellent post today on how to make your own field guide. This is number 7 in a series of Green Hour Activities she's been posting lately. I confess I haven't done any of the activities yet but I really am hoping to do some of them soon.

Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers

I love reading blogs written by fellow Canadian Home Educators so I decided to start a Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers.

If you are a Home Educator living in Canada I invite you to submit a post to the first Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers. I have decided not to assign a particular topic for this first Carnival. You can submit a post in the topic of your choosing.

The deadline for submissions is April 4 and the Carnival will be posted here on April 7.

Submit your posts to me at jacquelinehillieratgmaildotcom. Please indicate in your email what part of Canada you are in as I am thinking about using a "Home Educating Across Canada" theme in organizing the links.

Please pass the word along.

Edited to answer the "What is a Carnival?" question in comments

Wikipedia explains it this way:

A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic....

There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog....

Communities of blog readers, writers, and edition hosts form around specific carnivals. The carnivals provide an aggregation of recent posts by the community on a given topic, and the host provides a level of editing and annotation that helps readers find posts they are interested in. Writers who submit their articles to blog carnivals are rewarded with traffic...

Edited to answer size limit question:
No, there is no size limit for submissions. The post you submit doesn't get posted in the Blog Carnival, just a short write-up of some sort about it and a link to the post so that people can visit your blog to read it.

Chance to win new Rosetta Stone Language Program

I found out about this contest here. As you will read below, apparently Rosetta Stone, a well known foreign language program, has a new homeschool version and they are giving this lady, who will be representing them at conferences, a copy of it to award to someone through her blog. I have read about this program many, many times and I'd love to have a chance to get my hands on it, so I figured I'd give it a try. To have a chance to win you had to copy and paste the following paragraphs from her blog into your own blog and then post a link to your post in her blog post comments.

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE!

This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian.

This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking. Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included! For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports.

To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/501132/ and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it. And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it. And good luck! The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg. And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win. Yay for free stuff!

Note: in her post all the text that is indented here was blue, so that was what needed to be copied about pasted. Oh how I hate doing that!

Life Has Been Crazy

It's been a little over a month since my father-in-law was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Our life has been crazy since then. DH, of course, wanted to be with him and help out as much as possible while they awaited news on treatment and as he went through treatment. That meant lots of travel and away from home time for us over the last month. It also meant that I was away from my computer. I did have access to other computers but I was having all kinds of trouble, especially with blogging, on them so I gave up until I got home.

We finally got home a couple of days ago. FIL is doing good. He's had surgery and has had his first round of treatment without any difficulties. DH felt confident enough to leave him for a while and come home, though he's ready to run again in a minute if need be. I've been trying to get back on track with things at home but last night threw another monkey wrench my way.

Little One is sick. I don't think it's anything serious but I was scared for a bit. She was complaining of a headache, her temperature was rising and then she started throwing up. It's been almost 24 hours now and she's still fighting a temperature and hasn't eaten anything but is throwing up whatever she drinks. She's spent most of the day in my arms. I'm hoping it's just a 24 hour bug and she'll be on the mend tomorrow.

Life will settle down again some day, won't it? Thank goodness I can find some solice in prayer.

Still Enjoying the Iditarod

I can't believe I didn't know about it before this year. It is so much fun and so interesting. It's amazing to read about all the different elements that these racers have to battle and figure out. And it's so much fun to watch as different ones take the lead at different times. I still haven't spent much time learning the history behind the race yet because there's so much interesting stuff to learn about this present race.

Today I enjoyed learning more about the racers, called mushers. There were 114 mushers that signed up for the race but only 96 started it. Of the 96 that started, 22 were females. Most of the mushers are from Alaska and other parts of the US, but there are 6 Canadians, 2 Germans, 2 Norwegians, 2 Belgians, 1 Italian, 1 Englishman (who is actually an English lady) and 1 Frenchman. I found it interesting to note that some of the mushers are racing against relatives - Blake and Jennifer Freking are husband and wife, Cim and Ramey Smyth, and Lance and Jason Mackey, and Darin and Robert Nelson are brothers. Darin's and Robert's father Louis is also racing. Martin and John Busers are another set of father-son rivals.

Another interesting couple of mushers is Rachel Sedoris and Joe Runyan. Rachel is legally blind and veteran Joe Runyan is running the race as her guide. He drives his team ahead of her and by two-way radio lets her know of any hazards, such as hanging branches, etc., that she might not see.

There have already been stories of broken sleds, run away dogs, spills, etc. Lots of excitement.

Writing Contest for Homeschooled Students

I just wrote a post on the Newfoundland blog about a writing contest for homeschooled students. You can read my post here if you're interested or you can go right to the Sylvan Dell Publishing site that is offering the contest here. Although it would be kind of rushy to participate now it would be a good experience. I will definitely be watching to see if this publishing company offers this contest again next year.

Following the Iditarod

Have you been following it? Do you have any idea what it is? I didn't, until I read a news article about 4 Canadians participating in it and it caught my curiosity so I went searching, and now I'm hooked.

The Iditarod is often referred to as "The Last Great Race on Earth". It is an annual dogsled race that takes place in Alaska and draws participants from North America and Europe. This is the 36th edition of the race. It started Sunday and runs for about 14 days. You can read all about it and follow along at the official website which I've linked above. I have their newsletter coming into my email and I've also been following the two official blogs of the race - Eye on the Trail and Zuma's Paw Prints, a blog for children written from the perspective of a dog. There are some great stories coming through all ready.

Right now the 6 Canadians are standing at 9th (Gerry Williamitzer), 12th (Hans Gatt), 16th (Sebastian Schnuelle), 30th (Warren Palfrey), 47th (Karen Ramstead), and 52nd (William Kleedehn). It is so much fun to watch as the positions change. The results are updated about every 15 minutes.

The latest news report said that weather may start interferring with the race. I found that interesting because in my research I had discovered that the Canadian Challenge - who know there was any such thing before! - had been called because of weather in February this year.

Real Math

Here's a post that everyone needs to read before they start trying to teach their children math, and then they should read it again, and again, probably every month, at least every year, so that they don't forget what real math is and so that they can instill in their children, and themselves, "The 'Aha!' Factor" of real math.

Here are some quotes to whet your appetite and esure you can't resist checking it out:

"For young children, mathematical concepts are part of life’s daily adventure....Most children enter school with a natural feel for mathematical ideas.... And then comes school."

"School ruins mathematics for most people, distorting a discipline that is half art and half sport by turning it into boring lecture and drill.... And then there are the modern “reform math” programs, which avoid lecture and drill, keeping the children busy with hands-on group activities while teaching neither the how nor the why of math." Here she gives perfect word pictures to show how terrible both methods are.

"As every coach knows, skill grows through practice, practice, practice. But practice is meaningless unless the team has a real game to play. And the best practice takes advantage of the benefits of cross-training by emphasizing variety rather than repetitive drill....Mathematical cross-training is games, puzzles, story problems, and the challenge of thinking things through."

"As a homeschool mom who loves math, I want to help other homeschoolers see the variety and richness of the subject. I encourage parents to look beyond their textbook — a useful tool, but such a limited one — and explore the adventure of learning real mathematics, math as mental play, the essence of creative problem solving. This is what we need to teach our children."

Take some time to explore Denise's blog and you will find a great number of ways to help you, and your children, discover the "Aha!" factor in learning real math.

World Math Day - March 5 2008

Did you know there was any such thing? I didn't, but I learned about it, and the cool website, from Denise at Let's Play Math.

Apparently World Math Day takes place on the first Wednesday in March - this year that is March 5. WorldMathDay.com invites people from around the world to join them in a "celebration of numbers". Individual students and/or classes of students can register, free of charge, at the World Math Day site to participate in a "quest to set a world record in answering mental arithmetic questions" on March 5, 2008. You can register now and practice at the site until the big day. Registration is fast and easy.

If you register as a school you can create accounts for each of your children/student ages 5-18. You get a sheet of sign-in cards to print and cut and distribute to your students. After World Math Day the site will forward the teacher a snapshot of how your students performed, as well as a full report of the event. Teachers can also access their accounts for student results at any time and can print out certificates for the students after the event.

The first thing students get to do is to create an avatar for themselves. Once that is done they can start to play. The computer searches the globe, and shows it on a world map, to find real life people for them to play against in mental arithmetic games. They get 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. The program has a ranking system that tracks how the student performs and matches them against students with similiar abilities. As you play you can gain points - the more you play the more points you get. Students can use these points to add special details to their avatars.

Besides opportunities for practicing basic math facts there is also the chance to learn about time zones and different places around the world as you take notice of where the people are that you are playing against at different times.

I hope you take the time to check it out. I think it's going to be fun. Let me know what you think.

Two Homeschooling Magazines

Homeschooling Horizons is founded, owned and produced in Canada. Published 10 times per year, Homeschooling Horizons Magazine is Canada's only homeschooling publication to reach out to home educators of all philosophies. Check here for subscription rates or to request a free sample copy.

I have recently been asked to be a "Blog Editor" for the magazine. My role is to find and follow blogs by Canadian Homeschoolers and to make the content editor aware of posts that could possibly be the basis of articles for the magazine. The content editor then contacts the blog owner advising them of their interest and working out the details of permission to use. If you know of blogs by Canadian homeschoolers please leave a comment telling me about them and how I can find them.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is a quarterly publication that boasts it can be found "across North America and on almost every other continent too". You can learn more about this magazine here.

The Old Schoohouse Magazine has started an online worldwide homeschooling network called Homeschool Nations. I have recently volunteered to be the co-ordinator for the Newfoundland and Labrador blog in the Homeschool Nations. If you are homeschooling in Newfoundland and Labrador I'd love for you to drop by and leave me a note.

Nan Gert's Button Box

Nancy at The King's Kreation has posted Blogger Friend School Assignment #15. She says, "For this assignment I wanted to see who's got the funniest, craziest, saddest, most creative or just best story about the family button box, button can or button jar." This is one I just had to do.

I have many memories of my Nanny Gert's button box. I think for a while she may have kept her buttons in a jar because niggling in the back of my mind is a memory of playing with buttons kept in a jar. I remember being fascinated with all the buttons - counting them, sorting them, stringing them on thread or wool. There were so many different styles, colors, and sizes. When my grandmother died I was blessed to recieve her sewing basket and to my surprise tucked in the bottom of the basket was her button box! I still have the sewing basket, button box and some of those buttons. A while ago I used some of Nan's buttons on a scrapbooking layout I did about her.



Also tucked away in the sewing basket was a promise from a promise box of scriptures. I just went looking for it only to discover that it is gone! I remember that it was a scripture about forgiveness, which is something I know my grandmother struggled with. Her parent's divorced when she was quite young and she struggled with that, as well as other things that came up in her live. I found it interesting that this was the promise she kept in her sewing basket. I imagine that she kept it there to constantly remind her of the importance of forgiveness. I know God's word was important to her because she is the grandmother that gave me my Bibles.

Part of the Blogger Friend School Assignment is to share your favorite verse. I have many favorites but these two passages are among my top favorites as they help me get through the days:

Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You."

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - mediate on these things."

Another part of the assignment is to invite friends to join the assignments, so consider yourself invited. :)

The Uncertainties of Life

A week ago this past Sunday we received a call that my father-in-law was in hospital. Our life has been pretty much put on hold since then as we await tests to tell us what is wrong and what will happen next. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some answers.

Our Homeschool History (Part 1)

Jessica, at Trivium Academy, has an excellent post which shows the twists and turns that we often go through as we develop Our History & Philosophy of Homeschooling. I can relate so well to so much of what she has written. She inspired me to write about our homeschool history. Our philosophy, and really our history too, is still a work in process and I'm not ready to put it in print yet, but I'll try to present our history up to the present time. :)

I was a public school teacher before I got married and had my own children. When the children were little I was a substitute, or supply, teacher, called in to fill in for teachers that were sick or had leave of some sort for a day or so. I hated leaving my children! It was during this time that I read an article in a magazine about homeschooling. I'd never heard of the concept before and I was intriqued. I took a year to research it before taking the plunge.

Being familiar with the school curriculum, I decided to use it as the basis for our schooling. Though it took some adjustments to suit it for home/individual use, instead of class/group use, it worked out pretty good.

The next year I discovered ABeka and gave it a try. For the most part I really liked it, but it, too, was geared more to class/group use. The cost was also a major factor in my researching other options.

It was sometime in this period that I first heard about Charlotte Mason and the living books philosophy of education. As a book lover myself, I loved the idea of using real books, instead of text books. I didn't really learn much about Charlotte Mason's methods at this time because I got carried away with the living books philosophy, especially when I discovered the idea of unit studies. This philosophy resonanted with some of my teacher training and I set out to create my own unit studies for our learning. Though it was a lot of work, we had a lot of fun learning together.

While I enjoyed this time of learning I was starting to feel the need for more guidance to ensure that I covered everything my children needed. It was at this time that I discovered The Well Trained Mind. It seemed to be what I was looking for, but I found the process of trying to gather all the resources really overwhelming. I decided to just take some ideas from the book and incorporate them into our schooling as best I could.

Well, this has become quite a long post for me and my time for computer is up so I'm going to have continue with our homeschool history later.

Meet My Bible

Nancy, over at The King's Kreation, has posted Assignment #13: Meet My Bible for Blogger Friend School. I've never done any of their assignments before but I thought I'd give this one a try.

Assignment Questions and my answers

1. How old is your Bible?
Which one? :) I have a number of different Bibles. My main Bible that I take to church and use most often for personal devotions I've had for almost 25 years. It is very dear to me. My maternal grandmother prided herself on giving me my Bibles as I was growing up. She'd give me a new one as each old one wore out or got lost. She gave me the money to buy this particular Bible for myself the year I graduated from Bible College. It is the last Bible she bought for me.

2. Why did you chose this Bible?
I liked the nice, soft, black leather, and the fact that Jesus words were in red.

3. Do you highlight/mark passages in your Bible?
Yes, I do. My Bible is quite marked up.

4. If so, what is your system for marking passages?
I don't have a system. I mark verses that strike me and sometimes note in the margins verses that have similar wording or themes.

5. Do you have notebooks to record things?
Not at the present time, though I often do. Lately I've just been noting things on loose note paper.

6. If so, how many and what do you record?
I have many old notebooks around that I have used over the years for different purposes - to record notes from messages I heard preached, to record my own thoughts as I studied the Bible, to record scriptures I wanted to study further, etc.

7. Where is your favourite spot to read your Bible?
It varies. Right now I like to read at my kitchen table as I eat my breakfast. A short while ago I liked reading in a rocking chair by our fireplace. I also like to read in the car while someone else is driving.

8. Are there any special thoughts about your Bible you want to share?
My Bible is my most treasured possession. A while back I did a scrapbooking layout featuring my Bible. The title is "Nothing is as valuable as a well worn Bible". The little diamonds at the bottom say "Read it", "Learn it", Live it". Here it is:

Canadian Homeschool Bloggers

I'd like to create a list of Canadian Homeschool Bloggers. If you are either a homeschool/home educating parent or student blogger living in Canada I invite you to add your blog to my Mr. Linkie. Your blog need not necessarily be about homeschooling. If I get enough I may eventually take the blogs listed and categorize them according to writer and/or topic.

Would you like to help me build this list? Tell others about it. Post about it on your blog. Link to this post. Let's see how many Canadian Homeschool Bloggers we can find.



Edit: To add your blog, or to see the links already, added you have to click on the Mr. Linky. I wish I knew how to make the Mr. Linky show up with the links in the post like I've seen in other blogs but I don't know how to do that so instead I'll do something else. I will make a list of the added links at the bottom of this post and every time I notice new links I will edit the post to add the new links. Also, if you have more than one blog I'd love for you to add each one.

Blogs listed on Mr. Linky
1. Jac's Scrappin' - my scrapbooking blog
2. Our Nature Study - a family's nature blog
3. Sombra
4. Birdy's Blog
5. Cornings at Home

A Wonderful Plan for Lent

I don't know about you but I have never done anything at all with Lent. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I know next to nothing about it, but the blog post I just read has me thinking I might want to do some research into it. By Sun and Candlelight has posted what she calls A Little Plan for Lent but I think it is a remarkable plan. I love the visual this lady is creating for her kids during the lent season. It's well worth checking out.

Motherhood - My Chosen Career

I just read a wonderful post called A Career Woman at The Well Drained Mind. Motherhood is my chosen career. Before I was married I was a public school teacher but I traded that job in when I had my first child and motherhood become my career of choice. I wouldn't trade it for anything, though there are times when I can't seem to quite kick the world's thinking that it is not a real career I know deep in my heart that it is and in my mind it is the most important career of all. I guess that's why I so enjoyed the post.

Working on Morning Routine

Inspired by this post by Crystal at Biblical Womanhood, I have been trying to get a morning routine in place. Years ago I discovered FlyLady and developed a morning routine, along with other routines, and it was really helpful, but I somewhere along the way I let it all slip. I've decided I need to start working on it again, and I will be taking baby steps, just like FlyLady suggests.

Crystal suggests to make a morning routine of 5 things, only 5, you want to every morning in the same order. Here's my Morning routine as it stands right now:

1. Pick out clothes for Anna.
2. Check the laundry and put a load on if needed
3. Fill water bottle
4. Get Breakfast and do devotions
5. Check email and google reader

Mystery + Learning = Enjoyable Learning

A nice while back I read about The Journey North Mystery Class in a blog post. I checked it out, even talked to DD about it, but soon forgot about it. This week Melissa, at Here in the Bonny Glen wrote a post about it again and I'm so glad she did.

This year's Journey North Mystery Class started this week, but it's not to late to join in. It is a great way to have some fun trying to solve a mystery and learn some things along the way. The FAQ's state that "The Mystery Class investigation is an 11-week hunt in which students try to find 10 secret "Mystery Classes" hiding around the globe." Every week clues are given to help solve the mystery.

DD and I started our investigation today. We were a little late starting because we needed to have the sunrise and sunset times for this past Monday for our location. After some searching we did find it. Then we got this past Monday's sunrise and sunset information for the 10 mystery classes for the Journey North Website. Starting a Journey North Data Sheet for each mystery class, and also one for our location, we recorded this past Monday's sunrise and sunset times and then figured out and recorded the photo period for each place. Then, using a different colored pencil lead for each place, we marked the photoperiods on the Mystery Class graph. While we were doing all this we were discussing how the clues so far seem to already give some indication as to the general area of some of the classes. We can't wait for next Friday to get more clues!

What are you talking about?

Just read Kim's post and this jumped out at me:

"Spirit-led understanding of God's Word is the standard for how we are to live. We are to rejoice in His commandments (Psalm 119:111). How can we rejoice in what we never think about?"

Kim's post talks most about teenagers and their need to be spending more time thinking about God's word and allowing it to shape their lives. Another statement she makes is "I have a hard time understanding why a young Christian person would rather sit around and talk about Britney Spears' latest idiocy." The sad thing is that we adults are often just as guilty as the teens about having our talk filled with the unimportant. Kim addresses this in her statement "It is a process to direct our thinking from those things to our God. Even for us older folks."

I am challenged by this today. I want to make a more conscious effort to think on God's word and allow it to permeate my conversations and actions today...and everyday.