In Praise of The Carnival of Homeschooling

If you have been following this blog you know that since I hit post 300 earlier this year I have been writing some tribute posts to my top 25 labels over that time period. Now with 12 posts left until # to 400 I am inching to the # 1 label.

Tonight's Episode: # 7 The Carnival of Homeschooling.

I have been a contributor to the Carnival of Homeschooling since January 2009, my first month in the blogging business. It was a little ditty called No Child left Ahead. I have also hosted the carnival 3 times since then. My last time was with reflections on the panorama of homeschooling. I need to move on because this is teetering towards self promotion, and I am really here to talk about the carnival. Here are a few reasons why I like the Carnival of Homeschooling:

1. It's better than a meme.

I say this because, while I love a good meme they can have 100's of linked articles. Good luck reading 1/2 of them and having any semblance of a life. The carnival has a finite amount of submissions each week and can usually be read cover to cover without abandoning your loved ones for weeks at a time.

2. It covers a lot of bases.

While all the articles are home school related, the carnival is generally an eclectic mix of ideas, opinions and insights. Homeschooling flakes are a lot like the snow variety as no two are exactly the same. It is good to have a 1 stop shop each week that will cover such a vast spectrum of home schooling issues.

3. It is an excellent networking tool for home educators.

Since there is this vast spectrum of home school banter, the reader is exposed to many great ideas to implement in their own classrooms. From field trips, to curriculum, to coping skills the carnival has been an invaluable asset.

4. It helps unlock the Internet.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that each issue has Easter Eggs with cheat codes on how to unlock the Internet. I'm not saying that each issue doesn't either. So knock yourself out if you want to search for them. What I am saying is that in many ways the Carnival of Homeschooling has helped me better navigate the web. If you look at my blog roll you will see many frequent contributors to the carnival who I am only familiar with because of said carnival. I also have picked up followers to my blog because of some of my submissions here.

I became aware of the HSBA that I wrote about in my last post through the carnival.

I have nominated many blogs this year that I learned about from this carnival. You could nominate your favorite home school blogs by clicking here. My great humility and desire to not promote myself prevents me from mentioning that you could also nominate my blog if you wanted to. Good thing for my legendary humility.

5. It's a blast and a half (kaboom, kab.) to host the carnival.

Honestly, hosting the carnival is a lot of labor. But anyone who's ever done it knows it's a labor of love. It gives you the opportunity to get the first look at all the articles before hand. It also gives you a back stage view of the carnival. If you have never hosted, you would be surprised by how many non home school related carnivals come in each week and how about 1/3 of the submissions come in the last day (including this one). Hosting is also good for me because a theme topic is usually one that I would not have written about otherwise.

So there we have it, I like the Carnival of Homeschooling. If you are reading this from the carnival, I imagine it that you like it too. You can also click here to check out the most recent edition.

Next Time: The United Guitar Trilogy

In which I give away Mavis Beacon.

It's been a little while since I participated in WFMW and it's also label time here at Home School Dad. Today we complete the 3 way tie for # 12 with Crazy Dave's Giveaways.

One of the things I first noticed when I started reading blogs were the cool give-a-ways. I love winning things, but more importantly I love to give things away. The problem has been that for many of my give-a-ways I have had too few people participating, even though I linked it to several give-away sites, some that are now defunct.

Even when I did get a winner, I sometimes had trouble getting the winner to come forward. This has kept me from expanding this section of my blog and Crazy Dave has gone into semi-retirement.

Today he comes out of retirement to offer areal cool product for any one willing to enter.

About a year ago my Dad called me up and wondered if I wanted a typing program he had on CD ROM. My Dad and I are very similar in that we don't mind clutter. We are a little different in how we don't mind it. I don't mind it because If I had my own way I would collect every scrap of anything on the off chance I might need it again. My Dad doesn't mind clutter as long as it's not in his house. So, he calls me up every couple weeks with something he wants to unload on me. Now my wife likes to curb my propensity for clutter by putting my clutter on the curb. So we have come to an understanding. I say no to my Dad as often as I can. My Dad just moves on to the next child in his Rollerdex. (Yes, our last name is Roller, and that was a bad pun.)

On this occasion, I said yes to my Dad because Amy and I had been talking about getting the kids involved in a typing program. My Dad gave me the disc and I put it somewhere and moved on with my life.

Fast forward to June 2010. Amy and I are at the Home School Convention and we remember that we want the kids to take typing. So we bought a CD Rom called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I forgot all about the fact that I already had a copy of it that my Dad gave me.

About a week later I found the copy my Dad gave me and the 2 oldest kids and I started using it. It is a fantastic program that allows children and adults to progress at their own pace. What I like best about it is that the kids just love using it.

Here is what the opening screen looks like when my oldest starts her lessons.

Here is a sample lesson that I have been working on.

That is why Mavis Beacon works for me. I'd like it toy work for you also. We are using version 15 and I am offering an unopened copy of version 18 to the hundredth caller. I have been advised I do not have a radio show and have not given out my telephone # so I will go ahead and give this copy to a random commenter. If you post about this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page or other social media, leave another comment with the link. Also, if you are a follower of my blog just say I am a follower on your comment and I will give you one more entry. If you are not a follower of my blog, this would be a good time to do so.

This give-a-way will end at 6 pm central time Sunday October 3rd. So please leave a comment and join my give-a-way. I will believe it will be just your type.

For more of the Carnival of Homeschooling click here. To get back to WFMW click here.

Next Time: Summer Reading

A strange request for a day off.

We took yesterday off school as is our custom on a child's birthday. We spent the morning at my folks house where I am helping my him with some grunt work on their new deck (I grunt expertly). As we were packing what we wanted to bring over to my folks house the kids came to me with a strange request. Bunny Girl served as spokesperson.


"I know we don't do school tomorrow, but is it okay if we bring Handwriting Without Tears?"



We didn't end up getting to it, but it still shows a drastic shift in handwriting instruction at our home school. My children hate to write. They would rather (insert gross disgusting boring or painful activity here. Ex: Have their hair set on fire) than practice their handwriting.


So last year at the home school convention my wife bought Handwriting Without Tears books for all 3 of them. I was skeptical. Skeptical? No, I was dubious. Dubious? I was more apprehensive. Apprehensive doesn't quite do it either. I was thinking, my kids will be the kids who make Handwriting without tears change their name. I thought that when we are done with it, it would have to be called "Handwriting Without Tears except for students at the Izola Becker Home School, they cry quite frequently".




The truth is the kids love it, as their desire to do it on a non school day attests. It is very easy. My 4 year old, 8 year old and eleven year old all work independently and often ask to do another page. Today they enjoyed it so much they broke into whistling. I immediately got the camera out and took some footage.

I can see that the kids are getting better with their handwriting and this is just the second week.

Here are some examples of their progress. . .

The simplicity of the instrtuction and the compelling illustrations make this one of the best programs I have ever used. I would recommend it highly to anyone who might be looking for a handwriting curriculum. Handwriting without Tears works for me. Unless of course you like tears, then you may have to try something else.

For more Works for Me Wednesday head over to We Are That Family. For more of this week's Carnival of Homeschooling click here.

Next Time: The Time Traveler's Wife.

The panorama of homeschooling

It's carnival of homeschooling time again and I am serving as your host. I just discovered recently that our digital camera has a panorama setting. It allows you to take up to 3 shots and it will automatically blend the image into one shot.

I recently took a picture of some items on our kitchen counter.

I then took a picture of each individual item and combined them in the panorama setting.








I have decided that this week's carnival will look at the panorama that is home schooling. I will intersperse the fine posts offered by fellow bloggers with panorama shots I have taken with my camera since my discovery of the setting.

To get us started Rhonda Miller of Time4learning offers up some beginning of the school year encouragement in Extreme Makeover - The Homeschool edition. So move the bus and head on over there.

Our next post is from Jennifer Lavender of Princess Momma. She introduces a new feature of her blog in Home School Answers. What's it all about? Need I say more?

Alasandra of Alasandra's Homeschool blog says You are not a homeschooler if you send your child to public or private school.






I asked each of my children to run towards me and as they did I took their picture and combined it here. My kids all responded to that task differently. One aspect of the panorama of homeschooling is the many different types of students it involves.

Sandy Davis talks about dealing with students who are creative, easily bored and highly distractable in Sizzlers at Falling Like Rain.

Jennifer presents How To HomeSchool PreSchool - What I Have Learned posted at HomeGrownMommy.

Mama Squirrel presents Another year of boxes, bins, notebooks: trying not to duplicate posted at Dewey's Treehouse.

Deana shares a Lesson Plan Outline for A-Beka at The Frugal Homeschooling Mom.

This is a panoramic view of spider droid's first horseback ride. It kind of looks like clones on horseback.

Speaking of nature, (You might not have known we were, just try to keep up.) Laura Grace Weldon of her eponymous blog www.lauragraceweldon.com says: "Consider making a nature study of something nearby. A tree's lifestyle through the seasons, the activity around a wasp nest in the eaves, the behavior of birds at a feeder." Interested? read her fine piece entitled How to make spiders your teachers, trees your guides.

NerdMom presents A Day in the Life posted at NerdFamily Blog.

E-mom shares 13 Bible Trivia Questions: Patriarchs and Matriarchs at Chrysalis. She says: Test yourself first. Then test your kids. I Say: There are no questions about the Noaharchs.

Sebastian of Percival Blakeney Academy shares their plan for music appreciation focusing on pieces written for and about children in Music Appreciation - Children's Music.








I am not the only one in the family taking panorama shots. Last weekend the girls were sick and we took the t.v. out of theoretical mothballs and put on Star Trek Generations. My son snapped these pics near the end of the film. I like it because the height of the pictures gives the illusion of 3 different televisions all showing Star Trek at the same time.

The next section will feature the various "treks" that our intrepid home school explorers have made. Starting off is Kim at Homeschool Peeps with a couple of firsts. Our Summer of Learning: Part I is the first of hopefully many posts "dedicated to sharing the fun and educational experiences" they had this summer. It is also their first submission to the carnival.

Lizzie at a Dusty Frame takes us on a trip to an art museum for an "amazing visit with" La Donna Velata, The woman with the veil - Raphael.












The next panorama is pure genius. Word Girl (Word Up!) sandwiched between a sandwich villain (Chuck, the evil sandwich making guy). Word Girl survives to lead us into our next section a panorama of language:



Alphabet

Cristina of Home Spun Juggling presents Home Spun Comic Strip #514 where she begins to unveil her homeschooler's alphabet.

Words
April from Question the Culture presents a post on the power of words to develop our minds in Words, words, words.

Reading Books
The Family presents Once Upon a Family: Book List for Grades 4th - 7th posted at Once Upon a Family.

Understanding Grammar
Nak presents "Why Should Anyone Be Tense About Tense?" posted at Sage Parnassus.

~Kris~ presents Top Ten Ways to Review posted at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Janine Cate of Why Homeschool gives an update on whether Math Counts counts homeschoolers in Banning Homeschool teams - Update.

There are several posts about hopping right back to a new school year.

Jamie Gaddy another blogger from www.time4learning.net shares A peek in my Window.

Now that school has started, Lynn from Electic Education is going to show us what to do when our kids say Mommy I'm Bored. I've never had my kids say that to me, but then again, I am a Home School Dad.

Mrs. C of Homeschool + Etc. poses the question How much do you spend on back to school items?

A question Andrea from Notes From a Homeschooling Mom answers in How much does it cost to homeschool? What we pay. Speaking of paying, I'd like to pay it backward, and say that Andrea did a fantastic job with last week's carnival. Way to go, Andrea, Way to go. Clap. Clap.

Water is more than just to swim in. As Pamela fron Blah, Blah, Blog tells in Well, well, well .... Water Troubles.

Charla Pearen presents High Park Home Daycare: Playdough Recipe posted at High Park Home Daycare.

In the blog Thriving in the 21st Century, Barbara Frank lets us know The Skills Every Worker Needs. She says "Homeschooling gives parents the best chance of raising their children

with the job skills they'll need in the new economy.".

Speaking of the economy, Margaret Simpson of Two Kid Schoolhouse gives her musings on the future of education as she'd like to see it in This is How Education Should Work.

We have come to the end of our panorama of homeschooling. Homeschooling, like the expressions of my children in the above photo, can be painful, thought provoking and goofy, sometimes at the same moment. I hope you take time to read all the fine articles assembled here.

Amy Bayliss is hosting next weeks carnival. To submit an article click here.

Next Time: Wordless Wednesday

Skills Round Up

Six weeks left until school starts!

Howdy Homeschool Pardners! How are your doggies getting along now that summer's breaking at your home school on the range?

Well lissen up cowpokes. I want to tell ya something we use during the summer to make sure we don't have any strays when we start driving facts and figures in the fall.

It's called Skills Round Up and it works for us. But lissen up City Slickers, how ya say it. It is not pronounced skills round-up. It's skeeeeeeeeeels round up. Plus when ya say it, you have to motion with your hands like your throwin' a lasso. That is, if you don't have your own lasso to throw.

Okay, Buckaroos here's whatcha do! Perty much once a week during the summer, gather up at the table and review some of the stuff you've learned in the past. Amy likes to put 'em through their paces in state capitols, continents and Bible verses. You can do it with just 'bout anything from historic dates to the periodic table. I think they call it the periodic table cause you have to review it periodically.

The nice thing about skills round up is you can do it any time, anywhere. In the back 40, in the van, in the store, anywhere! All the prep work is on the parents end (Amy can never remember that French fella that's the capitol of South Dakota.)

So, the next time things are slowing down on the home school ranch, mosey up to your tool kit and pull out your lasso and skeeeeeeeeels round up!

Howdy WFMW folks. Skeels rounds up works for me. It can work for you whether you home school or not. To find out what else is working. head over to We Are That Family.

If you are stopping by from the Carnival of Homeschooling click here to mosey back.

Next Time: Tennis Anyone?

Washington Trip Day 5

My fellow blogger Cristina of Home Spun Juggling is hosting the upcoming carnival of home schooling. I have decided to submit today's DC journal entry to the carnival. I do this for 2 reasons: 1) The entire DC excursion was like a home school field trip on steroids. 2) when I read this journal entry to Amy shortly after I wrote it she said that it sounded like I was making a blog post.

Day 5

My parents may have the right idea: Take 1 kid on a vacation at a time.

Of course, they didn't get or implement that idea until they were grandparents. What they do is take 1 grandkid at a time to Orlando for a week, usually the spring or summer before their 10th birthday. This is because at Disney 10 and over pay the adult rates. (What do you think I made up fun on a budget?)

When I was a young warthog, they did not have that idea and took all 5 of us kids for 2-3 weeks of vacation each summer. This may be why they came up with the 1 grandkid at a time scenario.

I mention this because today only 1 of my 3 kids behaved well.

It was a day where many things went wrong:

Our alarm clock said it was 15 minutes earlier than it actually was, so we left late. Then we went on parts if a military base, civilians are not meant to go. The signs about being allowed to use deadly force should have been a clue!

After that we took the wrong train. It went to the right place but since we missed the last commuter train we had to pay 200% more than we had intended.

Well we got to where we were going without further incident. The Smithsonian is awesome, but it can be very overwhelming. This may have been why we only had 1 kid behaving.

Amy was awesome. She knew when they need a break for lunch and also when to call it a day. Here are a few hints I learned from our initial foray into capitol land for any prospective DC goers out there:

1. Packing a lunch is a good idea. Because of our alarm clock synchronization problem, we did not. This means we spent $38.00 for 5 people (2 kids shared a meal) at the food court. Yikes-O-Rama!





2. You can bring library books into the library of congress without triggering security. Taking them back out is another matter entirely!





3. There are many people begging nearby the exhibits. One time I gave loose change. Twice I offered food. One time they refused it and 1 time they took it.





4. There is sometimes an up side of having your 3 children shouting "Let's go to Quantico! Let's go to Quantico!" over and over again when you are boarding a train with 50 commuters. The benefit is if the train you were boarding was not headed to Quantico. We got off and annoyed a new set of commuters.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE CARNIVAL!

Next Time: DC Trip Day 6

A School by Any Other Name

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at About Homeschooling with the theme Celebrating Life. I am celebrating our home school by telling you a little about the genesis of it's name.

I am not sure if I ever told you people out there in blog world why our home school is named the Izola Becker Home School.


My Grandma's name was Izola Roller. Her maiden name was Becker. Now, no one called her Izola. She was "Mom" to her kids, "Grandma" to her grandkids and great grand kids and "Babe" to everyone else. My grandma was a wonderful woman and when she died a few years ago we decided to honor her by naming the homeschool after her. Even though she had 30 grandchildren, and over 40 great grandchildren, she remembered everything! A few weeks before she died, she told Amy to make sure that even though Emma is homeschooled, that she's involved in some type of art class because that was her major area of interest. How did she KNOW that, with all of those kids in the family? Even on her deathbed at 97, she was trying to remember a poem, and I called home and had Amy read me the lines after she googled it, and Grandma said, "I need to memorize that poem." I am not sure we would have named it at all, otherwise.

I got to wondering the other day what else we might call this school.


Here are some ideas:


Izola Becker Home School & Grill.

The Izola Becker Institute for Conduct Unbecoming an Officer.

The "Please settle down, I'm trying to blog about home schooling, Home School."

The "Your Mileage may Vary" School of Cartography.

Hansel and Gretel's Edible Home School.

International Home School of Pancakes.

The Socialization, Smotialization Academy.

McHome School: Over 2 Taught.

Roller Coasters Home School Theme Park.


I also thought of a few slogans for our school:



Need a home schooler, take a home schooler. Have a home schooler, leave a home schooler.


Students may look closer than they appear.


Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Star Trek.


Look where your tax dollars aren't going.



Well that's enough craziness for one day. If you have any home school name or slogan ideas let me know.



Next Time: C&H

Structured and Unstructured

Party! Party! Party! This weeks carnival of homeschooling is a party edition hosted by Misty at Home School Bytes.com. She has asked me to contribute an article, as I had submitted one last time she hosted.

I actually started this post yesterday, until I realized that it was my last day to blog about the book One Million Arrows (Which, by the way, tells some excellent stories about home schooled families.) That is what happens to the avid procrastinator, you put off Peter to meet Paul's deadline. Or in this case Peter is Misty and Paul is Julie. Well enough with the nonsense, let's get this party started.

I am constantly fighting between myself as to whether my home school personality/style should be structured or unstructured. I have always been a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. At times it has been a necessity. When I was a missionary in Russia, more than once I was asked to give remarks or a sermon 5 minutes before the service started. Doesn't the Bible say "always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you." (1 Peter 3:15 ESV)?

Ah! There's the key word, prepared! Often when I am unstructured, it is precisely because I am not prepared. I roll with the punches, rather than put a few jabs in of my own. Most people, like myself, who think they like getting things done at the very last minute are just fooling themselves. They like it because it's the only thing they've ever known.

Unstructured maybe a good style for some. but if unstructured is just a euphemism for lazy, then you have big trouble!

So here I am making a good argument to be structured. But here is the problem, when I try to be structured, I drive my kids and myself crazy. The problem is that when I structure myself, I am a very unforgiving master. If school is supposed to start at 9 and we don't start until 9:05 then the whole day is ruined! There are constant disruptions in our class day. It's the kind of thing you would expect when one of your students is nicknamed Destructo!

What I have been learning the hard way these past 2 years is that structure is good, but too much structure is suffocating. I think structured and unstructured can be on the same boat as Pete and Repeat, if you have good understanding of what structured and unstructured mean.

To me, structured means being prepared and unstructured means being flexible. This is problematic in our house as I have described my procrastination trouble in the past two posts and one of my student's has been telling me for years "I'm not flexible!". Problematic or not I see that I need to be prepared and flexible at the same time. Not unstructured because I wasn't prepared or structured because I'm inflexible.

I, like all of us, am a work in progress. On this past Friday, I got the idea for this post as I was both structured and unstructured at the same moment. On Friday, the last thing Emma does at the end of the school day is to work on her blog. The problem was she had just taken her spelling test and had not done as well as I would have wanted. We were running late (says the inflexible teacher), and I wanted her to move on to her blog, but I also wanted her to write sentences using the missed spellings words. That's when structured and unstructured were sitting in a tree s-c-h-ool-i-n-g. I told her to write a blog post using her missed spelling words.

Here is what my Bunny Girl came up with . . . (This is also available at her blog by clicking here)

I will create a story using these five words: allegiance, geometry, appearance, biennial, and disturbance. Get ready for a cool story about bunnies right now!

At school By Alice

Told by Jenny the Bunny

I was at school, during geometry when there was a sudden disturbance. "Jenny!" said my brother, Benny. " We just saw the appearance of Nero!" I whispered to him, " That cat is for show and tell. He is for the biennial of Whiskers!". Nero is my cat. He is a ancestor of Whiskers, the most famous cat in the B.S.B! I told Benny to bring me Nero after we pledge allegiance to the flag. Mrs. Honey told us to write a report of famous cat or the ancestor of a famous cat. She told us to bring a ancestor of a famous cat or draw one. After we pledged allegiance, Benny came in with a basket. A yowling basket! "Benny! What are you doing?!" I asked. Mrs. Honey asked me,"Will you please do show your show and tell please?" I looked in the basket, put it on the desk and said," Look in the basket. What do you see? The one in the middle is my pet cat, Nero. It looks like she just had kittens. Nero is related to Whiskers. And so are her baby kittens!"

The End.

By the way, B.S.B stands for the Bunny States of Bunny world. Good Bye!

So what do structured and unstructured mean to you? What other interior struggles does home education bring out in you? Please fell free to comment and let me know. Also hop on over to my daughter's bunny blog (pun intended) and let her know what you think of her story. Then do the hop back to the party at Homeschoolbytes for the rest of this weeks carnival.

Next Time: More about One Million Arrows

Poems for Children Nowhere Near Old Enough to Vote.

In preparing for our unit on poetry I checked out many volumes from famous poets. Being from Illinois, Carl Sandburg came to mind. Carl Sandburg lived from 1878 to 1967. Poems for Children Nowhere Near Old Enough to Vote is a volume of his work found and published after his death. I like everything about this book: the title, the introduction, Istvan Banyai's clever illustrations, and especially the poems.

The poems are about body parts and common objects. There is simplicity and logic in them. The first four lines of "pencils" gives us a glimpse of this:

Pencils are to hold when you write.
Pencils come loose unless you hold them.
One pencil writes many thousand words, if you know the words.
Pencils too pointed break their points and then laugh at you.

I enjoyed sharing these poems with my kids. I think the benefited from seeing how to look at familiar things from differing perspectives. In another of his poems, Sandburg describes music by saying, it is when your ears like what they hear. If poetry can be described as when your eyes like what you see, I would have to say Poems for Children Nowhere Near Old Enough to Vote is pure poetry.


Next Time: Sickness Disease

Carnival of Home Schooling: Library Week Edition

This is week 212 in the carnival of home schooling. If this was the carnival of home schooling for dogs it would be week 1,484.



Before I get started with the theme of this week, I thought this would be the best time to talk about the big news story going on right now. I certainly don't mean Leno vs. Conan. Laura presents 21 Ways For Your Children To Help Haitian Earthquake Victims posted at Practical Homeschooling.



Twice a year, our family embarks on library week. It is a week where we go to at least 1 library every day during the week. It serves our family as both a break in the academic year and also an opportunity to discover the various amenities and learning opportunities afforded at these libraries. In past years, we have crossed state lines to see how the other book lives. This year we kept it strictly in Illinois. Interspersed amongst the fine articles that I have assembled for you this week, I will tell you of our library travels during our Christmas break.

Our first home school article comes from Jenn who presents More Homeschooling (Plus Bonus Funny Interlude!) posted at Rational Jenn. She says: "As the needs of my kids (ages 7.5, 4.5, and 1.5) change and grow, things are getting harder to juggle in our homeschool! Yikes! "

Speaking of juggling, Cristina presents Home Spun comic strip #435 posted at Home Spun Juggling.

Not all schooling takes place indoors as Becky Johnston informs us in Animal Tracks posted at Wide Open Campus.

The outdoor learning continues, as Amber presents October Nature Walk posted at The Mommy Earth.



Day 1: St. Charles Public Library. I previously blogged about our trip there but for those who missed it is Emma's report of our time there:


Name of Library: St. Charles Library. St. Charles, IL.
Something I liked: I liked all the Animal Ark Books they had.
One thing I didn't like: They didn't have one of my favorite books, Bunnies in the Bathroom.
A book I read while I was there: 2 Minute Mysteries by Donald Sobol author of Encyclopedia Brown.
Dad asked me to ask the Librarian a question. Lucy said she would, so I followed her with my notebook.
Lucy: Knock Knock
Librarian: Who's There?
Lucy: Emma
Librarian: Emma Who?
Lucy: Emma Kayrene (My Middle Name)

Next up, we have Cindy who wanted to get into the nitty gritty world of the planning of her unit studies. This she has done with gusto in Unit Studies Revisited, an informative Q&A, posted at Our Journey Westward.

A good homeschooling book to add to your personal library is The Socialization Trap by Rick Boyer. Click here for my review. I thought of that book when I received a carnival submission from Molly Cook of Southern Spunk. It seems she wrote this piece in response to having had her fill of ignorance outside of the homeschooling circle. She had heard the socialization word one too many times and decided to set some people straight. Well, you go girl! Here she is with, Don't Go Hatin' On The Homeschoolers.

Molly is not the only one out there confronting stereotypes and misinformation. There seems to be a plethora of education "experts" out there essentially making up their own facts and bending those facts to meet their agenda. To that end, last week's host Alasandra presents Robin L. West takes a potshot at homeschooling posted at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog.



Elena LaVictoire weighs in on the Robin L. West issue with The Double Standard of Robin West - Author of The Harms of Homeschooling posted at My Domestic Church.

Day 2. Our library Journey continued to Lake Zurich, Illinois where we visited the Ela Public Library. Emma and Lucy had a play date with some girls from our church. Things we liked: We could use our library cards there and what we checked out would show up at our regular libraries website. They also had a cool super hero section that Charlie enjoyed.


Sebastian from Percival Blakeney Academy has submitted Egyptian Art Projects for Kids. It is an insightful post rounding up links on ancient Egypt.



Sandra Foyt presents A response to the New York homeschooler arrest case, describing our typical homeschool day, and arguing that there is no such thing as "no-schooling." in Homeschooling, Unschooling, But Not "No-Schooling" posted at On Living by Learning.


e-Mom presents Family Life: Top 100 Books for Kids posted at C h r y s a l i s. This is an excellent list. A great place to get a hold of those books would be your local library.


And speaking of libraries that brings us to day 3.




That's a picture of Charlie and me at the entrance of the Oak Park library. Oak park is a lovely Chicago suburb that actually feels more like downtown than a suburb. No offense to my friend Patti who grew up there, and has fond memories of the previous library building, this one has all the warmth of a bus depot. A children's section that is on tile rather than rugs did not add to that impression. They did have a very good selection of books to choose from. I also taught Charlie how to use a microfilm reader, which he was extremely keen on.

When I visit libraries I spend a lot of time with a kid and a book in my lap. Lapbooking is the subject of our next post, as Lynn presents Lapbooking Ideas posted at Eclectic Education - Homeschool Blogger.


Here is a quick family science experiment submitted by The Family which I give two big thumbs up. It is aptly titled Genetic traits of the thumb and posted at Once Upon a Family.


Michelle Dennis Evans presents an excellent work titled Freedom and Kids posted at Michelle D Evans.

One thing I have noticed about libraries, is that they often have good craft ideas especially around holidays. Libraries aren't the only ones with good holiday ideas. Here are some valentines day articles worth looking at . . .


Shannon Dodds demonstrates with Valentine Craft (sun catcher) posted at Mommyapolis.




HappyCampers presents Valentine's Day Homeschool Ideas posted at Reese's View Of The World.

Day 4





Johnsburg is a small town in Mchenry County in Illinois. It has a population of less than 7,000 people. Yet it boasts one of the finest libraries I have ever been to. For homeschoolers it is a special library. It houses a homeschool resource center with shelves of curriculum and other materials available for checkout. Homeschoolers can check out material for 6 weeks at a time and renew for an additional 6 weeks as long as there are no holds on the material. I am test driving an Abeka spelling book I checked out from there with Emma.

Since socialization gets brought into the home school discussion so often, I have decided to bring it into this week's carnival again. Janine Cate wrote a very insightful article on socialization based on a recent conversation she had. She says it comes down to what socialization means to you. I proudly present It depends on what you value posted at Why Homeschool.




Kathy says Read my review of the first Camp Club Girls book, a fun new book series for your tween girls. You can find Camp Club Girls and the Mystery at Discovery Lake posted at Homeschoolbuzz.com Reviews.



Misty shares a couple of tricks to make multiplying by 9 more fun. Check out (Library Pun Intended) Fun Multiplication Tips and Tricks – 9’s posted at Homeschool Bytes.

Katherine from No Fighting No Biting went out on the first non-frigid Saturday in a long time and took her big kids to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. She says the inspiration was worth the long lines. Read all about it in National Archives.


You know what else has archives? That's right, libraries. Let's get this fun over with and move on to day 5. Amy read on-line that Downers Grove library was having a game day so we decided to end our library week there. There were tunnels and little rooms for the kids to explore. Lucy played on a children's computer while Amy and the kids played games. Their favorite was a dice game called Shut the Box. We liked it so much we ordered one from amazon.


Speaking of Downers, very few downers are more depressing than thinking about the many terrorist acts that have been in the news lately. ChristineMM shares ideas about how to talk to young children and tweens who ask about news stories about terrorist attacks against American civilians. Take a peek at Thoughts about Parenting Kids in Times of Terrorism posted at The Thinking Mother.


We check out all manners of things out from our library. The main 2 staples are books and DVD's. With that in mind, Rachel Lynette presents Comparing the Book to the Movie posted at Minds in Bloom.



Linda Dobson revisits The Animal School saying it's a wonderful classic. It's posted at PARENT AT THE HELM.

Lynn presents 10 Ways Save Money on Homeschooling posted at Lynn's Gather Page. I just want to say that 3 of the 10 ways include using the library. Way to stay on theme Lynn!

Well we did it! We got through library week. 5 days, 5 libraries in 5 different counties. There were several things we did during library week that didn't involve going to the library. I'm sure we ate, shopped, I think we might even have bowled once. I didn't really go into detail about them here because I was focusing on the library part of library week.

In the same way, I received many submissions this week that had nothing to do with homeschooling. Some were fine articles, but I just didn't think they fit here, so I left them out. One exception to that was a fine article from Leah, The Danger of Parenting Books posted at Ingathered. It really described a perspective to parenting that I think is similar to my home school tale on it.

Next week's carnival is being hosted at Corn and Oil. Susan has a post this week entitled Don't burden the innocent. She says The public schools seem to be making attempts in several states to close in on homeschoolers by using truancy as their weapon of choice

Announcement: The library week carnival of homeschooling is closing in 5 lines. Please select from the articles above and then go on with your homeschooling Day. You can submit a post by clicking here.

Next Time: Looking forward to our trip to Washington DC.

A Serious Call For Help.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Alasandra's Homeschool Blog. I urge you to stop over and check out her cat and dog edition. Next Week I am hosting. If you home school I encourage you to submit a post. Especially if you never have before. Submission ends Monday night. But the more time you give me, the better off it will be for all of us.

Speaking of time, this is a busy week for me. I am trying to restore order to a chaotic home school class room, prepare my classes for our home school co-op that starts Monday and prepare 2 blog carnivals that I am hosting next week: The Book Review Carnival on the 17th and the Home School Carnival on the 19th. As a result I will not be posting here again until Saturday.

• Click here to see the current issue of the Home School Carnival. Click here to submit an article for the issue I am hosting on the 19th.
• Click here to see the current issue of the Book Review Carnival. Click here to submit an article for the issue I am hosting on the 17th.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday

My First Tutorial!

You Can Do Better Than This!

Tutorials to show that some people are less crafty than others.

When my wife was teaching two elementary school children and one preschooler at home, it was pretty easy for her to see that crafts work very well for these age groups. The problem is that very few people are less crafty than my wife. Now that we have switched roles and I teach the aforementioned elementary kids and preschooler, it is extremely easy to see that I am one of those few souls less crafty than her!

This doesn't stop me from trying! Last week I was reading a post at Sandwichink.com when I came across several ideas for making Advent Calendars.

I decided that as a class we could make an advent calendar ourselves. You can also try it yourself. Here is what you'll need . . .

1 piece poster board 24-25 index cards or 3-4 pieces construction paper, markers, scissors, tape, glue stick.

Not Pictured: Foil Star stickers, colored pencils and pencil.


Step 1: Fold 3-4 pages of construction paper in half left to right and then fold in half top to bottom then fold again in half top to bottom.

Step 2: Cut out pieces.


Result: you will have 24-32 pieces a little smaller than the size of 3" by 5" index cards. 3 sheets is perfect if you are doing a 24 day calendar and not planning on making any mistakes. We used 4 sheets!


Note: Step 1 and 2 are not needed if using index cards.

Step 3: Fold cards in half lengthwise.

Step 4:. Color inside cards with Christmas or any other pictures. (My students had to include at least some bunnies and Star Wars pictures.)

Step 5. Number the fronts of the cards in pencil and then color with colored pencil. It's as easy as ...

Step 6: When all cards are colored and numbered place on poster board how you want them displayed. This way you can get a preview how it will look before applying the glue.


Step 7: Glue cards in place on poster board.



Step 8. To close cards use tape or stickers. We used green and red star stickers. One sticker did not seem enough to close flap so we used 1 green and 1 red on each flap.



Step 9: When calendar looks something like this . . .


(Cute 8 year old not included)


Tape calendar and display in prominent place in house.




Now that the Calendar is complete it's time to put it to use. Beginning December 1st have a family member open 1 tab.




So, that's our craft and we're sticking to it. I want to hear about your crafts especially if you are as craft challenged as our family is.



Next Time: And the Winners are (Not Me) . . .