And who am I to argue with the eloquent, hard-working Pioneer Woman?
I think part of being a homeschooler is being somewhat of a nonconformist, somewhat of an anarchist, with a healthy amount of “freak” thrown in there somewhere, as well as an overall absence of good sense.
The rest of the post is, as usual, funny. With photos.
Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day! If you loves you some comic books, stop by your local comic book store and see if they’re participating. Or better yet, search for participating stores in your area before venturing out.
Just by showing up at a participating store, you’ll get at least one free comic book. Some stores give out two or three. It’s up to each store to decide. We learned about this event last year and found out that yes, stores really do give away comic books on this one day per year. You’ll probably have to choose from a limited selection and you won’t be able leave with arms full of free stuff, but that’s how it should be. If one free comic book isn’t enough for you, then you’re really kind of greedy, aren’t you?
Comic books are having something of a renaissance in America right now. In fact, they — along with their more lengthy and haughtily named cousin, the graphic novel — are downright acceptable in schools these days, to the point that some are being written and published for the school and library markets. Unfortunately, once they’re deemed “educational,” they get saddled with vocabulary lists and glossaries and comprehension questions in the back of the book. Talk about a buzz kill.
So skip the library this time and support your local businesses. Go get yourself a non-school-market, free comic book, buy one or two more at the regular price, and corrupt your children’s minds and morals the old fashioned way.
Today isYesterday was National SpankOut Day. I don’t usually care for these kinds of days of observance — mostly because there’s a day for everything, including the unbelievably trivial, but also because I don’t see much of a purpose to making the days official in some way — but if SpankOut Day helps just one parent stop spanking his/her kids, then it’s worth it.
Chris O’Donnell has collected some posts on his Evolved Homeschooler Wiki.
Sure, they look all comfy and innocent….
Spring, the season of rebirth and renewal, has finally arrived in New England. Our forsythia blooms, the tulips push through the cold earth, and the magnolia buds ready for opening. Outdoors, signs of life abound. But spring has also brought new life indoors … to me.
Each winter, I tease my husband that he and the kids are trying to collect on my life insurance policy by leaving their shoes and boots all over the staircase landing — and particularly close to the steps themselves — thereby increasing my chances of tripping and falling head first into the full-length window directly across from the stairs. This would be the same landing that’s always dark because the overhead light burns through bulbs like Mexican water runs through American tourists. With my klutziness, the perfect storm brews all winter.
Note the forced casual look of these strewn-about
shoes and boots. Even the dog is getting in on the
act! (See red arrow). Also, note that not a single
pair of my shoes can be found on
the landing.
A few days ago, as I was noting that I could finally put the menacing snow boots away for the season and breathe a sigh of relief at having survived yet another dangerous winter on my own staircase, my husband reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode “Living Doll.” In it, Telly Savalas plays a grumpy newlywed who’s peeved that his bride somehow neglected to mention that she had a daughter… until after the wedding. Savalas’ character is bitter and just plain disdainful of his new step-daughter. But he meets his match in her talking doll, Talky Tina. The supposedly inanimate Tina seems like a regular toy around most people. She recites the appropriate prepackaged lines in front of them. But Tina secretly torments Savalas, who doesn’t like the doll because he didn’t want his wife to buy it for his unwanted step-daughter in the first place. (To make matters worse, Savalas’ character is also bitter because he’s infertile, which, given his anger management issues, is not necessarily a bad thing.)
Anyway, Talky Tina doesn’t like Angry Daddy, and she tells him that. He’s a little freaked out, starts to get paranoid (and, not surprisingly, angrier), and throws her in the trash. Of course, he later finds the doll back in the house. You just can’t throw Tina away! She has feelings. Eventually, when Talky Tina has finished playing with Savalas’ sanity, she places herself juuuuuust right on the stairs, where Savalas trips over her and falls to his death. Tina ends the episode by telling the little girl, “My name is Talky Tina…and you better be nice to me!”
After my husband recounted the Twilight Zone plot, I thought, “Am I now supposed to believe all those shoes on the landing are not there for some nefarious reason?” I mean, if you were trying to convince me that you hadn’t put the shoes at the foot of the steps to trip me, would you tell me a story about someone tripping and falling down steps?**
But then I realized what Mr. Enigma was trying to say. He wasn’t reaffirming his role in my future demise. But he wasn’t saying I was safe, either. He was saying, “I’m not out to get you, honey, the shoes are.”
Check this out: a study by Vanderbilt University indirectly supports the value of homeschooling. It concludes that kids learn best when they explain what they’re learning to their mom. Previous studies (if not oodles of personal experience) have shown that people learn more when they generate explanations of what they’ve learned. The Vanderbilt study examined whether it’s important if the explanation is for oneself or for a listener, and also if the specific listener mattered.
In other words, do children learn better when they explain something to someone else?
Don’t we all?
And does it matter if that someone else is one of the most important people in a child’s life?
Shouldn’t it?
From “Learning from explaining: Does it matter if mom is listening?”
The goal of the current study was to examine whether explaining to another person improves learning and transfer. In the study, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 54) solved multiple classification problems, received accuracy feedback, and were prompted to explain the correct solutions to their moms, to explain the correct solutions to themselves, or to repeat the solutions. Generating explanations (to selves or moms) improved problem-solving accuracy at posttest, and explaining to mom led to the greatest problem-solving transfer. The study indicates that explanation prompts can facilitate transfer in children as young as 5 years and reveals that it matters if mom is listening. [emphasis mine]
Well, DUH. It always matters if mom is listening. And she usually is, as is dad. Most parents naturally help their babies and young children learn new things by talking to them (even when they’re too young to “talk back”), answering their questions (even the thousandth “why?” for the day), and listening and otherwise showing genuine interest when their kids say, “Hey, Mom, look at this!” or “Hey, Dad, guess what?” This is the natural state of early exploration and learning for all humans raised by other loving humans.
Should this relationship be any different as kids get older? Would a parent’s genuine, natural interest in what’s going on in his/her child’s mind (and life) not continue to exist and nurture the child’s learning? It seems obvious to me that if a parent doesn’t drastically change the way s/he interacts with and listens to his/her kids, the benefits of having that parent as a “listener” would never dissipate. It also seems obvious that the more time a child spends with his/her parents actually learning and talking to them, the better.
Homeschooling, then, naturally provides a superb learning environment for children.
Keep reading… »
Last weekend, my son’s UU religious education (RE) class learned about labyrinths, which many UUs and people of other belief systems use both metaphorically and as a spiritual practice. The assistant RE directed noted that another local church has two labyrinths in the woods on their retreat property, Rolling Ridge.
So we took a ride over there yesterday afternoon to walk the labyrinths and, perhaps, meditate while on our path. (Okay, with my kids, meditation — in the silent, pensive, inward-looking sense of the word — was but a pipe dream.)
It occurred to me only after I parked the car that it’s winter in New England. We still have snow on the ground. A labyrinth is, in fact, a path. On the ground. And therefore under the snow. Suddenly I was reminded of last winter when we (and when I say “we,” I mean “I”) decided it would be fun to finally try letterboxing with the kids. In the snow and 20-degree weather. It was not fun, nor, as you might expect, did we find the boxes. We did learn something that day, however: walking around in the woods, looking for something someone else has left there, on an Arctic-cold, overcast day does little to bring about family peace or unity.
See the curved path outlined by the rocks?
Given that I’ve made the same mistake two years in a row, I must be in some sort of deep, soul-level denial about winter. Either that, or I’m just incapable of learning from past experiences. The jury is still out.
Anyway, luckily, we don’t have all that much snow left, and the labyrinths were somewhat visible because they’re marked with logs and large stones. If you looked closely, you could see the curved patterns in the snow, but you couldn’t see for certain the specific path laid out. So we did the best we could to follow the intended labyrinth paths, but I’m sure we’ll have better luck once the snow melts.
Sometime in June.
We began President’s Day weekend with a flurry of activity out of the house, and then returned home to a cozier flurry of activity inside the house. Some of us chose to doodle, while others dabbled in 3D programming, while still others cooked and wrote and read.
Mr. Enigma sat down to draw in his sketch book. The Duke walked by on his way to do something else, noticed that Dad was drawing, peeked over his shoulder and asked, “What are you drawing?”
Monkey see, monkey do
They talked about the drawing for a moment while my husband kept working. Suddenly, The Duke grabbed a chair and pulled it up alongside Mr. Enigma’s recliner. Then he went into his room, grabbed his sketch book and pencil, and sat down next to his Dad and began drawing.
They worked that way for at least half an hour, and what a special, bonding time it was. Completely unplanned and uncoerced, creativity begot creativity.
While this side-by-side drawing was going on, my daughter was hogging my laptop, programming her first 3D animation in Alice. She took the tutorial and spent about an hour noodling around. Her finished piece was, as she put it, “A Shakespeare kind of thingy,” by which she meant a whole bunch of characters fought, declared their love for each other, and died, all in a 20-second animated movie.
What was I doing? Well, my daughter was using my computer, so I read, started getting dinner ready, and took pictures of my family just hanging out and doing stuff. It was a good day.
To see scenes from my daughter’s first movie, click the link below.
