Challenging and Inspiring Posts

I had saved these posts to possibly blog about, or to at least share, as I found them challenging and inspiring.

Christian Women Online's "Teach Us to Pray" devotional from a while back struck a chord with me, as did the more recent "Feathers Plucked for a Nest" devotional.

Kysha particiapted in an "In Other Words Meme" that started with this quote: "We must assess our thoughts and beliefs and reckon whether they are moving us closer to conformity to Christ or farther away from it."~ by John Ortberg Her post is worth reading. I'm thinking the "In Other Words Meme" is also looking pretty interesting.

I really liked the two simple, but not always easy things that Willa suggested in her post Keeping Intentionality - an evening reflection of and a morning list of things to do. I've been trying to incorporate those into my days and they do help. She also pointed to a couple of posts by Elizabeth at In the Heart of my Home that made me go "Ouch". I could identify with the messy friend she talked about in Why Bother. She has great suggestions in On Being Intentional. I need to work on that.


The Two Shall Become One "Our Calling" posts are hitting close to home, too. I was especially struck by part two and the fact that being my husband's helper and loving my children are tied together. I've always thought I tried my best to love my children, but I haven't always tried my best to be my husband's helper, so I have failed to love my children as I should. Need to work on that too.

Let's try this again...

I missed Menu Plan Monday last week because I was so busy the first part of the week. I really enjoyed participating the week before, however, so I've decided to try it again this week. Following Stephanie's example, I'm also going to give a little review of the meals we had the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago I posted my menu plans for the week. While I really want to try the Taco Salad Bowl I didn't get to because I sent DH shopping. :) He bought kits and the shells were too small. Also, he bought Fajita kits instead of taco kits so I didn't have the spices to make the tacos! I wasn't impressed, as I had started cooking the meat for the tacos while he was at the store. Sooo...I went searching on the internet for a recipe for Taco spice and I found one! I made just plain tacos rather than the salad bowl. They didn't turn out too bad. The Lazy Chicken Enchiladas and the Meaty Chili are always a big hit in our house. The Pulled Chicken Sandwiches were a big hit! So easy to make. It ended up being a great week meal wise.

The first part of last week was crazy because we were out of town so we ate out. Wednesday, however, I cooked a big turkey dinner - roasted turkey and dressing, potatoes, carrot, turnip, cabbage, onion pudding, peas pudding, all smothered in gravy. Yummy! Thursday I used left over turkey and gravy to make clubhouse sandwiches with poutine on the side. Once again, yummy! Friday I once again used left over turkey and gravy and made hot turkey sandwiches with fries. Umm, ummm, good! Saturday we had chicken nachos and wings. Yesterday I cooked a big cooked dinner again, much like Wednesday, but we had chicken and livers with it instead of turkey.

This week rather than give a day by day plan I've decided to just make a list of things I am thinking about having sometime in the week.

- Lasagna, from a recipe for Company's Coming Lunches.
- Slow Cooker Pot Roast - found this one a week or so ago at Weighing in on Life
- corn casserole
- Chicken and rice
- Burgers and fries


Looks like Weighing in on Life has some yummy sounding stuff posted again today.

Found a couple of sites to check out for recipes. Thanks to Mama Squirrel for pointing me to A year of Crock Potting and telling me about the Carnival of Recipes Southwestern Edition.

The Organizing Junkie has started a list of recipe sites where you can enter in your ingredients and they'll tell you possible dishes you can make with them.

Recent findings in cyberworld

April is Poetry month. At Farm School I found out about SemiColon, a blog that is featuring a poem and a poetry activity a day for the month. Love the poem, I had a Reading Mother, that was posted by hiddenart recently. Adapting the poets.org idea of a Poem in my Pocket, this lady is emphasizing the Biblical poetry book and posting "A psalm in my Pocket".

Here are a couple of Carnivals that I've been meaning to check out - Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival and Carnival of Homeschooling #119.

Jacci's taking a slightly new direction with her blog and will be posting more about CM in the preschool years. She recently did a series of posts on Charlotte Mason style copywork that is really worth checking out. Her latest post pointed to this post by Lindafay "dictation and Copywrok are not one and the same". Great post!

At Dewey's Treehouse I found out about the New Look at Ambleside. Great job!

Dana informed us that the April issue of Heart of the Matter is up.

Music Festival time!

It's been a crazy few of days at our house. DD participated in a Musical Festival in a community an hour away from us, so that meant we were out of the house and out of town for most of the days, though we didn't stay overnight.

This was DD's first year participating and I am so proud of her! She did great!

Her very first performance was Monday morning at 11, at least it was scheduled for 11 but I think it was a little closer to 11:30 before they actually started the session. She was very, very nervous, and it showed, but she did a great job. The adjudicator told her she did a great job and she didn't understand her being nervous because she sure didn't need to be. She mentioned how DD looked especially nervous when the music changed to a higher key and the adjudicator was nervous for her because she thought that the key must be too high for her and then she was shocked when DD hit the key changes perfectly! Then came the time for the marks and awards. There were only five people in the class and everyone but DD got an award. There were only first, second and third awards but there was a tie for third. DD was devastated! All the words of praise were forgotten. I think even the adjudicator was shocked that she had awarded two third place awards, meaning there was only one person that didn't get anything. I think she even felt bad. I tried to console DD by reminding her of the encouraging words and pointing out that the first place person's score was 85.5 and her score was 83.5 so there really wasn't that much difference, but there was no consoling her. She said she was finished with singing and begged me to take her home.

Her next performance was scheduled for 1:30 that same day. We didn't get out of her first performance until after 12. There wasn't much time. She was in tears and begging me to take her home and I just couldn't do it. I knew in my heart that she needed to make that next performance, but I honestly didn't know how she was going to pull herself together and do it. I knew she could do it but she needed to want to do it and she didn't want to. Anyway, I proceeded to the next venue with her still begging me to take her home. We parked and I told her she needed to do this. She got out of the van, slammed the door and went in to sing - and she did amazing! She wasn't nervous this time because she was too mad at me. :) Once again the adjudicator sang her praises. She didn't get a place but there were 8 people in this group so she wasn't the only one that didn't get placed, and she felt good about her performance. I was so proud of her! I gladly took her home for a night's rest before her next performance.

There were 10 people in the group for her next performance the next day. She was scheduled to be one of the first performers but there were some changes made and she ended up being in the middle somewhere. I'm glad she was because she got to see some of the others struggle and keep going. A couple of them had to start over. Finally it was her turn and she hit every note dead on! Man, was I proud of her! Honestly, she was the only one of the group that hit every note dead on and didn't stumble over the words. She received second place award in the class and I know she would have received first place if she had been a little more animated. It was a broadway/movie class and the others dressed the parts and really acted out their songs, but DD just stood there and sung her heart out. She had no idea before hand that people actually acted out their songs.

Inspite of a terribly beginning, DD's first experience with a music festival was a good one, and she's even talking about what she might like to do "if" she does it again.

Last night we took in the family concert that was a part of the festival. What a fun night! It was so neat to watch so many different families do so many different acts. We really enjoyed it.

So, that's where I've been the last few days. They've been busy, but great days.

First Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers!

Welcome to the first Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers. Though we are off to a very meager beginning, it is a dream of mine that this Carnival will grow quickly over time. I know there are many, many Canadian Home Educating Bloggers out there and I'm hoping they will come together much faster than the 82 years it took for everyone to come together to form the nation of Canada. :)

Just like the confederation of Canada started off with representation from 4 provinces, so the Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers is starting off with representation from 4 provinces, but the represented provinces are a little more spread out in the Carnival than they were in the confederation. Also, though Newfoundland was the last province to join confederation, it is a representative of Newfoundland ( me :0) )that was the instigator of the Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers.

As my submission to this carnival I point you to a very short post of mine from a while back, where I shared a link to a post that resonated in my heart as I reflected on the fact that Motherhood is My Chosen Career.

Michelle, in Nova Scotia, was the first one to respond to my request for submissions. She shares some devotional thoughts about the important jobs of mothers and how our most important job is to work on having a right relationship with God so that we can help our children have a right relationship with God.

Julie in Saskatchewan, encourages us not to be fooled by bow ties as she shares how she discovered another side of Pierre Berton as she read his book The Secret World of Og with her children. I love the comment she made about his children knowing that side of him and it got me thinking about whether my children see a side of me that nobody else does.

Though not a homeschooling parent, Sarah, now residing in Alberta, has devoted much time to helping homeschooling students and parents, so for that reason I agreed to accept her submission to the carnival. She has put together some wonderful information for homeschoolers applying to university. Be prepared to spend much time on her site.

And there we have the first edition of the Carnival of Canadian Home Educating Bloggers. Spread the word and help us grow. Hopefully next time we will have more representations from other provinces and also more representations from the provinces already represented.

I will host the next Carnival in two weeks time so that will give everyone lots of time to submit a post. It can be a new post or an old one, doesn't matter. It can be short or long.

If you need inspiration on what to post, check out the lyrics of My Way, a song written by Canadian Paul Anka. State your case. Tell about your full life. Tell about your travels. Share your regrets. Tell about your planned, charted course, your careful steps. Tell about the times you bit off more than you could chew. Share about when you loved, laughed and cried. Tell about home educating your way.

The deadline for submissions will be April 18 and the next edition will be posted April 21. Send submission to jacqueline hillier AT gmail DOT com, but leave out the spaces and use the proper symbols for the capitalized words.


Edited at 11:45

Before closing my email program for the night I noticed that the sp*m folder was getting pretty full so I decided to delete it. Then I remembered that the last time I went to delete it I discovered that there was a message from my sister in there, so I decided I should check the messages before deleting them. Boy am I glad I did! There were 4 more submissions for the Carnival in there! Here they are:

Linda, in Newfoundland, tells about her son unschooling himself cartooning and shares some of his cartoons.

Penelope, in Nova Scotia, has a great post to remind us about the frustrations that are often experienced when we try to learn something new, and how important it is remember that in teaching our children and to teach them how to deal with frustrations.

Dawn, also in Nova Scotia, tells about how the lovely weather had her picking up butterfly nets for her children and how it reminds her of how she often picks up stuff with intentions that never get followed through. I think we can all relate to that.

Mama Squirrel, in Ontario, shares a funny from her squirrelings.

Thank-you each and everyone that participated in the first Carnival of Canadian Home Educators. I hope you will all join in again in the next one, and help spread the news.

Speaking of Writing Opportunities....

...here's one...



Sponsored by Art Bookbindery

In Ann's Christian Women Online Honors Mothers post I found out about the "Her Life Reflected" Writing Contest put on by Christian Women Online Magazine. This is an online magazine who's purpose is "to unite women of faith, regardless of our differing ages, our roles as women, or the signs that mark our church doors." Getting ready for the Mother's Day edition of the magazine they, along with Art Bookbindery, are putting off this writing contest. The winner will receive a a great prize package that includes a book, a mug, a CD, a DVD, etc. To enter you must submit an essay of less than 1000 words telling "how your mother, or a mother that you know has reflected the heart of our Heavenly Father in her life". The contest is open to women age 18 and up who reside in Canada or the United States. The deadline for submission April 21st. All entries must be made through their online submission form, which is at the bottom of the page about the contest.

and here's another one...




I discovered this one in the Homeschool Share's Annual Blast post at One Child Homeschool . Homeschool Share is an "on-line cooperative effort of several homeschooling moms to provide free but quality literature-based unit studies and resources". They are having a "curriculum drive in the form of a contest", the Back to School Blast. They are inviting people to create and submit literature-based unit studies that they will make available to the public through their site for the next school year. They will start accepting submissions Thursday, May 1, and the deadline for submissions is Tuesday, July 1. Their guidelines for submissions should be read before starting to plan the unit and can be found here. They already have a number of unit studies on the site that you can check out.

Where did the week go?? Forget that, where did last month go?!?

I really meant to participate in Dana's Home Education Week activities this week but I never did get around to it. I have enjoyed reading Dana's posts, and some others that are on my blog reader, but I want to find the time to read more. She sure had a lot of people participate. If you're interested in checking it out click on the link to Dana's original post above. She has made the daily topics into links to her post for each day and at the bottom of her post is the Mr. Linkies with links to all the participants. I'm hoping to find the time to read more of them, and I still haven't given up hope of maybe posting on a couple of them myself.

Speaking of not giving up. I had signed up for Nancy's Book in a Month Club for last month, but life was too crazy and I had to give up on it. That doesn't mean, however, that I've stopped thinking about it. I have lots of ideas in my head. I really learned a lot from following Nancy's posts all month, too. I am hoping to actually do this some month.

I did have an accomplishment or two the past month. I was put on the blogroll at Let's Play Math! I thought that was pretty exciting. I just love her website! I've been working with her getting some of her posts published in Homeschooling Horizons Magazine. That's another thing I've been doing, and enjoying this month, working on the magazine. Love it! I've also enjoyed working as the co-ordinator for the Newfoundland and Labrador blog at The Old Schoolhouse's Homeschool Nations network.

Recent Findings

In this post Anne gives a great review of Beowulf, "the oldest Epic in the English Languages", that makes me almost want to read it. I've read much about it before but nothing has tempted me to it like this review. Anne quotes Doug Phillip as describing it as "one of the ten most important works of Christian literature in history." This got me wondering what the other 9 are but I couldn't find a list. If anyone can point me to one I sure would appreciate it.

A couple of things at Lifestyle Homeschool caught my eye this week. Here is a great article on Reading Journals. I have tried many times over the years to get my kids to keep reading journals, and even to keep one myself. We would succeed for a while but then it would fall by the wayside. I wish it was something I had been more diligent about. In "Tweaking Homechool Methods for Highschool Students" and "Scope and Sequence The Discipleship Way" she shares how she gradually moves her children into taking more responsibilities for their learning. I loved these two quotes from these pages:

"If we don’t have a heart to heart relationship with our children by this stage this needs to be our priority - no school work comes close to the importance of our relationship with our children and their inner heart."
"By the time the children are getting towards their teens the discipline that previously was seen as “boundaries” set and monitored by the parents begins to become the young adults responsibility. Setting goals, monitoring progress, asking for help etc becomes their responsibility (and depends on their self discipline)"

Menu Plan Monday

I learned about Menu Plan Monday at Stephanie's and Christina's blogs. I had to go check it out. It was started by Laura and in her post today she had pictures of the things she planned on cooking this week. I just couldn't resist checking out the Taco Salad Bowls and the Pulled Chicken Sandwiches. They definitely sounded like something my family would enjoy and thus I was inspired to plan my menu for the week.

My youngest son, 18, who recently moved 6 hours away from home to work and live with his aunt, is home with us this week so I decided to cook some of his favorite meals for him while he's here.

At my house I only actually plan for one meal a day. Breakfast and lunch, or dinner as we call it, everyone is pretty much responsible for themselves. Mind you, it's often only myself and my two daugthers (2 and 15) that are at home for lunch so we just grab whatever whenever we're hungry. Supper, which is otherwise known to others as dinner, is the meal I try to have something good planned for.

We may all be heading out of town for the weekend so this week my plans are only for Monday - Friday. Here are my plans for this week:

Monday - Tacos/Taco Salad Bowl
Tuesday - Lazy Chicken Enchildas - from Company's Coming Lunches
Wednesday - Meaty Chili - from Company's Coming Lunches
Thursday - Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

Participate in a Research Study

At the end of Ann's post "Interested in Easing Parental Stress" she invites people to "Feel free to repost this post in its entirety." so that's just what I did.

A university student (and mother) who reads here contacted me, inquiring if any parent who passes through this out of the way place might be interested in participating in a research study to reduce parental stress--- through practising gratitude... Yes! Care to join me?

She writes:

WANTED: Parents who desire to reduce child-related stress.

COST: A little bit of your time.

PERKS: Improved outlook and better parenting relationships! HOW? Introducing an exciting study in the works with an outcome that will benefit you! We are happy to present you with the chance to participate and hope that you will find this helpful to your daily life. Read on for more information ~

The Purpose of the Study:

- To consider gratitude as a method for reducing stress in parenting
- To measure instances of parenting stress using the method below
- To measure the potential benefits (and maintenance) of gratitude as a means of stress reduction in parenting

The Method of the Study:

The 2 Simple Steps:

[Prior to beginning, compile a list of 10 specifics for which you are grateful. This should make the required expressions of gratitude easier.]

#1: When you experience a moment of stress related to one or more of your children, “reset” your thinking by verbally expressing gratitude, either in reaction to the current stressor, or by reading/saying something from your list.

#2: Add a mark to your daily tally (so that we have a record of how many times this happens each day).

That’s it.

This exercise will be carried out for seven days, beginning on Tuesday, April 1st, followed by a seven day break, and then repeated for a second seven day period.

If you want to participate, please e-mail gratitude.study@gmail.com by Tuesday so we can have an idea of the size of the study. Give your name, age, and gender—although you are welcome to participate anonymously, if you like. Feel free to spread the word to as many adults that you know that wish to participate. (This would make a fun project to do with friends and/or a spouse—men being specifically encouraged to participate as most studies tend to neglect the impact of gratitude from a male perspective.)


What’s in this for you?

Multiple studies have shown that people who feel more gratitude are much more likely to have higher levels of happiness, lower levels of depression and stress. They are seen as more empathetic, agreeable, and extraverted. Grateful people should be more likely to notice they have been helped, to respond appropriately, and to return the help at some future point.

You mean, you’ll get all that, just by adding some gratitude to your life? YES!

Definitions, for the purpose of this study:

Gratitude: Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks.

Parenting Stress is defined as those moments when life as a parent seems overwhelmingly unpredictable and uncontrollable (based on the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale). Within the context of parenting,

- you become upset because of something that happens unexpectedly.
- you feel you are unable to control the important things in your life.
- you feel nervous and “stressed.”
- you feel you cannot cope with all the things you have to do.
- you become angry because things are outside of your control.
- you feel difficulties are piling up so high that you cannot overcome them.

Obviously, this will be a largely subjective assessment—that is the difficulty in measuring an emotional state. Just try to be as aware as possible.

Thank you! We look forward to sharing the results of the study.

Join us at gratitude.study@gmail.com by Tuesday.
(Feel free to repost this post in its entirety. Let's give thanks in all things!)

I'd love to hear from you if you decide to take part. Just leave me a comment telling me so.

more starred items

Great Spring devotional here.

This article by a Homeschool Senior (as in highschool senior, not senior citizen) is an interesting read. He reflects on the benefits homeschooling brought to his life. Learned about this article here.

Lysa TerKeurst posted a post a while ago called The Muffin Top Diaries that cracked me up. I have to admit that I, too, suffer with the same condition that she does. Check out the post and take the test to see if you suffer with it too. This week she posted Muffin Top Diaries, Part 2 and it is hilarious. She writes a letter to her bathroom scale outlining why it is no longer her friend.

In Becky's Uh-oh Canada post she shares about Pierre Berton's History for Young Canadians series and also points us to the Extraordinary Canadians site where you can learn about a set of 18 biographies geared for adults and older children that the Penquin groups is releasing over the next three years. Her post was prompted by a literary salute to Canada on another blog. Lots of links to check out there.

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.