Today is in fact the day. It seems odd to start school 2 whole weeks before Labor day. Amy's school started classes last Monday so I guess I shouldn't complain.
I have been promising to post about our recent vacation. That doesn't look like it will happen.
Starting today, I will be including some vacations pics in the next few posts. That will have to do.
I'll be back tomorrow with the Carnival of Homeschooling. Right now I have actual homeschooling to attend to.
Summer has many great traditions and events. From outdoor movies (which sadly we did not partake of this year) to weekend getaways, our summers are filled with some great activities. Some are relatively new, like home school baseball on Thursday nights and some have been going on for years, like my sister and her kids' annual visit from D.C. to the old homestead. Last year a new summer tradition started which starts again today. Allen Levi will release a new song on his blog today (http://www.allenlevi.wordpress.com/) and continue to release a new song each day until Sunday. Yep 7 songs in 7 days. You can also link to the blog from his web site http://www.allenlevi.com/.
Now wait just a minute, you might be saying who is Allen Levi and what kind of music does he perform?
This video may begin to answer those questions.
I am not sure if I have posted about Allen before. I know I have periodically put up links to his website and blog before. I met Allen about 15 years ago when I was living in South Carolina. He performed concerts at the church I was attending 2 years in a row. He was in the early years of his transition from full time lawyer to full time singer.
Allen quickly became of my favorite musicians. He is a prolific song writer/story teller who at both of those concerts sang songs he had written only hours earlier. Unlike Bebo Norman who is featured with Allen in the above video, Allen has not become a Contemporary Christian Music star. I am not sure this was his intention.
A good # of Allen's concerts are played at Young Life (A Christian parachurch youth ministry) camps and training events. He also plays churches like the concert I saw him at. He also has performed at many more intimate venues. He told me once he even plays at birthday parties. I found this out first hand in 2004 when Amy flew him from Georgia to Illinois for my surprise 40th birthday party.
I reviewed all of the songs Allen played last August in preparation for this week. I thought I would link one up here to give you an idea of his music. The problem is they were all awesome and I had hard time deciding which one to choose. You can find them all by clicking here.
If I had to choose one I would choose Proposal (A Love Song). I chose this one because a) I like the premise of a proposal song following the advice Elisabeth Elliot's father had for her brothers: Never tell a girl you love her until you are ready to propose. and b) because I once told a girl I loved her in a song and then proposed in the same song. (She said "sure" btw.)
The indecision in picking 1 song is understandable as I vacillate easily when trying to determine which of Allen's songs is my favorite. Yesterday it was A Frazier Fir in Florida from that album I bought 15 years ago. Today it's back to Love to Give Away, a beautiful song about his singleness. I am sure after this week I will (and hopefully you too) will have some new gems to choose from.
I could probably go on and on about Allen, but instead I will let his music speak for himself. Not only is he my featured blog this week, he is also listed in my blog roll. Give him a listen, and a read, as his song explanations are often as poignant as the songs themselves. Who knows? maybe he will play at your surprise birthday party as well.
I am starting to get ready for our home school co-op for this fall. I will be teaching a class on blogging and yes I have been consulting the above referenced book for a few pointers. One thing I will be emphasizing in the class is Internet safety. I will be instructing my students not to use their own names on their blogs. To that end, I will be no longer using the names of my children and replacing them with nicknames. My oldest will be called by the not surprising moniker, bunny girl. My son will be known as Spider Droid to combine his love for Star Wars and his previous passion for Spiderman. My daughter with the penchant for Lucyisms will be referred to as Princess puppy. (Lucyisms will be referred to as puppyisms)
I blog using blogger and will be teaching my students this platform. One of the things I like about blogging is the ease of removing or editing previous posts from blogosphere. In the weeks to come, I will be editing past posts and replacing the kids names with their nicknames.
I am excited about the class. I have created a new blog just for the class, but will still be linking things here as well.
4 weeks left till school starts Dave is out helping people today, so I thought I'd take this moment to infiltrate his blog. Shh...don't tell him. Dave is all heart. When anyone needs ANYTHING, he is right there to help out, to give of himself. His dad broke his shoulder this week, so he needed some help on a household project he was working on. Then the Illinois floods came and ruined the basement of his sister-in-law. So today Dave is taking time to shuttle between places to do some grunt work. Dave is not a fix-it man, but that doesn't matter. He is all heart. You need something, I'm there. That's his attitude. While we'll miss hanging out with him today, we are thankful that he's out there, helping people who really need it. We love you Dave! Amy/HSD's wife
Five weeks left until school starts! Charlie started a 4 week summer school class at our local public school today. It is 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. He is not yet reading at grade level. Last summer we had him tutored by a special ed teacher and that really seemed to help. We are hoping for some good results from this class as well.
Charlie has never been part of a daily classroom learning environment before. The local school understands that this is just for the summer and has been very accomodating.
When we walked in the school this morning there was a piece of artwork in the entryway. It is a picture of a tiger cub frolicing. Besides the tiger are the words: children are not things to mold, they are people to unfold.
Emma used to have Girl Scouts at that school, so I have seen that poster before. But today, the first day I was entrusting my child to its care I got to thinking as to what that saying means.
My first thought is that pithy sayings like that are more for molding than unfolding. My second thought was the unequal word association with molding and unfolding. If you choose to mold some one's character than that person is a thing; but if you are going to let them unfold then they are a person. My third thought was that this phrase would seem like the credo of an unschooling advocate and thought of what strange bedfellows unschooling advocates and public school administrators make.
I think parenting and any other type of educating is part molding and part unfolding. My kids are all different with different strengths, interests and abilities. Some of those abilities need to be unfolded or in my words, unwrapped. Other character traits need to be molded or in my words, modeled to my students.
I will post more about Charlie's progress as his class unfolds. Sorry I couldn't resist.
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.
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Then with the help of my lovely and talented wife we pieced together a tenative schedule that looks like this . . .
