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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 in all about me, homeschooling, in the news, Them kids o' mine

Reader’s Digest – am I in it?

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I almost forgot to mention. I haven’t had a chance to actually look inside February’s issue of Reader’s Digest Canada, but there’s an article in there on raising A+ students. I was interviewed for it shortly after my surgery last year. I read it before it went to print, but sometimes things change. :) I won’t have a chance to see it before Thursday, and it doesn’t appear online, so if you see the issue while oot and aboot, flip to the article and see if we’re there.

They made us sound pretty awesome, I think.

Thursday, November 8, 2007 in education, homeschooling, how my children learn, I'm a computer geek, linky love

All that screen time wasn’t wasted

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Over at the awesome educational gaming site Super Smart Games, they are running a series of posts on homeschooling and computer games. Intriguing, huh? I’m sure you know we love computer games, utilizing them in our children’s schooling, and I’ve always said that a well-designed game is educational in itself, no matter how fluffy it may seem to the parent, and…

Well, I wrote a whole article. You should go read it.  There’s even a picture of me not smirking like usual. Then you should poke around the rest of the site and bookmark it and stuff. Elle is my new bestest friend.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 in homeschooling, humour, I'm a computer geek

Some things that might not be G rated

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It’s come up recently in some circles about how a certain h0meschool blog awards is only accepting nominations for G-rated blogs. Now, I ran mine through a checker, but it comes back fast enough that I can assume it’s only checking the first page.

Because I know I used to be PG-rated. And yes my kids read. So in the interest of science, here’s some keywords that I have mentioned in the past (check the archives):

- breast feeding
- strip quilting
- butts and boobs
- female body parts like uterus and cervix. Oh, and boobs.
- sex
- groan-inducing food

If I think of more, I’ll add more.
ETA – I found these phrases:
dangerous
knives
sexual
fart
naked
pain
zombies
blood
death
kill

Now, I’m thinking if someone wanted to, they could probably comb through my extensive archives and find *something* objectionable to someone somewhere. But to me that would be the sign of someone taking virtual blog awards just a tad too seriously.

Son of Edit: I have now passed into PG territory with 1 use of the word “kill” on the main page. I would say I could kill for a piece of chocolate, but I have a stash right here in the desk drawer. So I don’t have to kill anyone.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 in education, homeschooling, Them kids o' mine

The theory bears fruit. Smug fruit.

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In some Addison news, in case you don’t read his blog, he got a couple of part-time jobs at the college. One as a tutor and one as tech support. He told me when he went to the office to apply for them (or some reason), he ran into the lady who does the homeschooling admissions. They got to talking, and she remembered his application. “Yeah, that guy was me!” He told her.

“What’s your average?” she fired back.

“85.” Sweet. She grinned. Then she related to him that she was thinking of homeschooling her own children.

Why yes, I am feeling rather smug about this at the moment.

***

For the backstory,  because this is spread out in the archives, Addison’s last few years of homeschooling were mostly interest-led and self-directed. That’s the scary unschooling word, folks. Plus he had a major accident and recuperation time, and then worked full-time for a year. When we applied for him to go to college, we talked to the lady mentioned above who is the one contact person for the entire province for alternative admissions in the the provicial community college system. I engaged in a dialogue with her before I even considered filling and sending an application form. We were able to prove to her satisfaction – without transcript or test results – that Addison was a smart guy and they should let him in. And they did. By the time we sent in the application with deposit, it was on her say so and pretty much a done deal.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007 in education, homeschooling, in the news

More studies, same results

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A Canadian study on homeschooling was recently revisited, peer-reviewed and updated. Guess what? Same results were found. Here’s a few choice quotes.

“Poorly educated parents who choose to teach their children at home produce better academic results for their children than public schools do.”

“The research shows that the level of education of a child’s parents, gender of the child, and income of family has less to do with a child’s academic achievement than it does in public schools.”

“The average Canadian home schooled student is regularly involved in eight social activities outside the home. Canadian home schooled children watch less television than other children, and they show significantly fewer problems than public school children when observed in free play,”

“While home schooling may be impractical for many families, it has proven to be a successful and relatively inexpensive educational alternative. It merits the respect of policy makers, the attention of researchers, and the consideration of parents.”

To all that, I say a big fat, “DUH!”

Tuesday, August 7, 2007 in homeschooling, how my children learn

Remember how I used to talk about homeschooling?

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I can honestly say that over the past year or so, homeschooling (as it were) has been the furthest thing from my mind. You’d be incorrect to assume that the children didn’t learn anything or weren’t taught anything though. Lack of “school” does not equal lack of learning.

I read or skim far too many posts about planning, angsting, second-guessing, decision-making and the like from many homeschoolers. In the end, the kids learn stuff anyway. That’s the biggest thing the last few years have taught me, and now I don’t really do anything but let that knowledge wash over me. Melissa coined the phrase tidal homeschooling and in many ways it seems the tide has been out here for some time. Looking deeper, you;d see that despite that, things are moving along. I just no longer worry about it I guess. It just *is*.

Maybe this nonchalance about the whole thing led to the following conversation Emma and I had at the library.

Me: “Do you want to get more story books and easy readers?”
Emma: “No. I want to learn stuff. I want to learn about.. .OCEANS!”
Me: “Okay.”
Emma: “Mommy? Am I in grade one yet?”
Me: “You wanna be in grade one?”
Emma nods anxiously.
Me, shrugging: “Okay, fine, you’re in grade one.”
Emma BEAMS. Then she heads to the desk and flags down a librarian, “Excuse me, can you show me where the books about oceans are?”

Meaghan asked me recently when kids here start school. It’s earlier than the rest of the province because it all centers around the potato harvest. She’s planning on starting next week, and to that end went around the house gathering books she wants to read and study. No word from me beforehand, this was all on her own. She is almost done reading the entire Harry Potter series all the way through from start to finish. Again. this is how she “does school”, which may not be how you pictured it or how others do it, but it works for us, so we run with it.

There’s all sorts of other things going on in the background, things that the kids are involved with that don’t look anything like school but will eventually help them become independant adults. And to us, that’s what matters.