Category Archives: Misc. Education

General or non-LED-specific education information

Who Owns the Children?

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"the educational program of the State of California was designed to promote the general welfare of all the people and was not designed to accommodate the personal ideas of any individual in the field of education."

"Their "sincerely held religious beliefs" are "not the quality of evidence that permits us to say that application of California’s compulsory public school education law to them violates their First Amendment rights."

recent CA court ruling

"The words echo the ideas of officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation’s youth."

World Net Daily, Feb 29, 2008

A Little Class Friday – Lapbook Key Sheets

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I’m always looking for ways to add a little extra spark in our studies and notebooking. I’ve blogged before on lapbooking, a fun way to journal our studies, and (I think) on key sheets a style of “learning map” we use to help in our principled studies. (If I don’t explain it in a blog post, it is well explained in Freedom & Simplicity™ in HisStory.) This idea is a combination of those two things.

We’ve done many things to “spice up” our key sheets. And at other times we just take a sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it into quarters. This last term I came up with a new idea that has become a hit!

I designed 1/4 page “book covers” for the authors we studied, with their picture, name, and a heading, on the “front cover”. (In my “sampler” – see below – the children will glue on a picture and write the info themselves.) I printed these on cardstock and we cut them apart and folded in half to make our “book covers”. Then the children made 4 page booklets, 1/4 sheet size, (called “bound books” in Dinah Zike’s Big Book of Books. You could also use mini stapled books.) Then they glued these into their book covers. They wrote one of the four “key sheet” categories on each of the pages and filled in the info for each writer. Ta-da! Fancy, fun key sheet!

These key sheet booklets can then be glued into a regular lapbook, or (as we did) glued – 2, 3, or 4 – onto a sheet of cardstock. (We then slipped these into a page protector in our notebooks.)

I’ll try to get a pic or 2 added to this post later. AND (Lord willing) a “sampler” and full instructions will be our next newsletter Free Gift! So if you are not receiving our monthly newsletter yet, click here to subscribe. In addition to getting monthly news, tips, and ideas from Me and My House, you’ll also get our (near) monthly Free Gifts, including this Lapbook Key Sheets sampler (or whatever name I give it.) 🙂

 

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

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Thinking seems to be a lost art. (Hmm, have I posted on this before?) Is it just because people are lazy and don’t have to think? Or have they truly lost abilities to think?

I read this book many years ago, (I notice this one has a new cover.) It gives plenty of food for thought on why we aren’t thinking! 🙂

65204: Endangered Minds Endangered Minds
By Jane Healy / Simon & Schuster Trade SalesEver stop to wonder why children can’t concentrate like they used to . . . or why record numbers of today’s kids are being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder? Dr. Healy blends scientific knowledge with professional insight and common sense as she examines how contemporary practices (especially TV-watching) can affect children’s brain development. 384 pages, softcover from Simon & Schuster.

 

What School?

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I have yet to read the article that has caused so much buzz in the blogging world this week. Every time I try to open the Pulpit magazine article on Home, Private or Public School, it freezes up my browser. So I can’t directly comment on the article, but here is a link to a great biblical response to the article.

Update: I’ve now read the article, and even more believe the above article should be read. I’ve also posted more on it at my ‘from me’ blog,.

 

13 Favorite Books for 1-13 Year Olds

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I’m not sure if these are my TOP 13, if I really took time to think about it, but they are 13 GREAT books for this age group.

1. Moo Baa La-La-La

2. Good Night Moon

3. Big Red Barn

4. Blueberries for Sal

5. Winnie the Pooh

6. Charlotte’s Web

7. Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin

8. Elsie Dinsmore (girls)/ Oliver Optic (author- boys & girls)

9. Black Beauty

10. Robin Hood

11. Robinson Crusoe

12. Swiss Family Robinson

13. Pilgrim’s Progress (all time favorite for all ages!)

 

Notebooking Quote of the Day

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Many people tend to get hung up on Notebooking and what should be going into them. Here’s a quote for your ponderance:

“(3) The notebook is not a filing cabinet to catch every piece of paper throughout the year. It is a permanent record of the year’s work collecting the substance of the study of the subject. (4) The object is not to contain all the facts in the binder. The object is to make a record of research, reasoning, and relating of the subject throughout
the year.” (Noah Plan Lessons Kindergarten, pg. xiv)

 

Biblical Principles of the Constitution

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The Old Schoolhouse has links to over 40 free gifts (no purchase necessary) in their Homeschool Freebie Directory 2008.

The first one to catch my eye was Biblical Principles of the Constitution. It is a free downloadable mp3 (audio) file from Christian Liberty  presented by Archie Jones. I just downloaded it and am looking forward to listening.

If you don’t have the Kingdom series, be sure to get the audio file from Perfect Praise to listen to over an hour sample of these SUPER books.

No doubt I’ll find a few others worth clicking on when I get a chance to read the whole page.

 

How to Read a Book – Weblink Wed.

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Ever wonder how to get the most out of the books you read? In addition to reading the book with the same title as this post, here’s a quicker help for you. I found this YouTube video that gives GREAT pointers. (Not endorsing anything else by them.)

Thanks to These are the Generations of…

And – I’m adding this to the Weblink Wednesday meme by Homeschooling with Encouragement. I think you’ll find this helpful as you learn and teach and teach your children to learn.

I have to admit though, I usually do all this on paper, not in the book itself. It’s hard to break my old habits of not writing in books.

You may find this helpful in working through the Puritan Reading Challenge.

Just for Fun – Quiz

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Want to take a quiz to see how many “details” you know about American Civics? Just for fun!

I certainly don’t think we should judge our Biblical understanding of law by this test, but it was kind of fun to see what I knew.

It’s a college level test, so don’t be dismayed if your students don’t know it all yet. 🙂

 

NE Home Ed Legislation

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I rarely have to write anything about this. We have been blessed to have a law, that was fought for at high cost just before we began home educating in the mid-1980’s, that is one we can live with. Our state “acknowledges” our exemption from the standard NE education laws, with some stipulations, but ones we’ve been able to live with.

As of this week new legislation has been introduced that would, if passed, change all of that. It would take the jurisdiction of our children out of our hands and put it in the hands of the state, IOW, this bill would require us to be “approved” by the state to teach our own children. If we didn’t live up to their standards, they would “force” our children to attend government educational institutions.

I’m not going to write up all the details here, but give some links – for those of you in Nebraska that need to know what’s going on to take appropriate action, and for the rest of yo,u that will, to know how to earnestly pray for us.

NCHEA, our state Christian home education organization, tells the basics.  HSLDA only gives the briefest of summary. The Nebraksa Legislature site gives the progress of the bill, and you can read details there.

Dana blogs about this bill and some of the requirements it would impose upon us.

Father God, have mercy upon us.