• May 17, 2008 - Meeting Blogging Friends
I have met (IRL -- in real life) two of my blog readers! Deanne and Beth are both American, homeschool mom, bloggers who live in Hong Kong. Deanne blogs at Robertson Tribe Updates. And Beth blogs at Beautiful Feet on the Mountains. Since you enjoy glimpses into living overseas, then visit their fascinating blogs!
When they read on my blog that I was in Hong Kong, they contacted me about meeting! What a blessing they were to me! Here I am with Deanne. She is an amazingly smart and adaptable woman with four adorable children. Sprite had a great time playing with them.
She totally took me under her wing, taking me to church, inviting me to a great performance by the Watoto Children's Choir, cooking a meal for me, including me in her homeschool group and mom's group meetings, and just being a friend! We even went to Disney together. Thanks, Deanne.
Beth cooked an amazing Mexican meal, all homemade, accompanied by a fabulous pumpkin cake -- her original creation! She's a very crafty mom of one adorable little girl Miss K. Beth took me to Spotlight to browse around the most fabulous craft shop I've seen outside of America! I didn't know stores like that existed in Asia -- fabric, buttons, costumes, yarn, punches, scrapbooking, everything!! She really knows how to make a friend happy -- CRAFTS. Thanks, Beth! Your friendship really means a lot to me!
I never knew that blogging would open doors to real life friends! I assumed that being so far away in China, I'd only have online friendships. But God has blessed me with two new friends not too terribly far away. We already have plans to meet again on our next trip to Hong Kong.
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• May 12, 2008 - Please Don't Worry
Some of you are hearing about an earthquake in China. Please be assured that we are fine. We are in Hong Kong, far from the earthquake. We will go back to China tomorrow, though. We are not in danger and will not be in the affected areas.
Oh, and in case you were worried about the foot and mouth disease, we are all healthy.
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• May 11, 2008 - Notebooking/ Lapbooking the French and Indian War
One of the changes to our homeschool since we've switched over to Winter Promise has been more notebooking.
Our WP American Story 1 curriculum includes a Make Your Own History Notebooking set. We've been using it in some creative ways, sometimes cutting out the text and repositioning it on another page with photographs of a related craft (like here). Other times, we do a lapbooking/notebooking combination like this page on the French & Indian War or as in an earlier post about Zuni pottery.
We simply added some embellishments to the pre-printed notebooking page from Winter Promise. The template for the minibook on the causes of the French & Indian War came from Peakmore Academy.
Then the notebooking page goes into our notebook timeline in the correct time period.
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• May 11, 2008 - Colonial America Lapbook
• May 11, 2008 - Caution!!
A very needed sign -- they can be so dangerous, you know.
(This is basically a "baby on board" sign, hung in the back of a bus. But without context, it's pretty humorous. Sprite was the one who pointed it out to me as funny.)
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• May 8, 2008 - Field Trip to Lei Cheng Uk Han Dynasty Tomb
• May 7, 2008 - Artist Study -- Monet
Our artist for this term is Monet. (We study art in a Charlotte Mason styled approach.) Although we haven't completely finished this master, we worked on a "reproduction." Actually it is a coloring sheet from a Dover publication. (I'm not sure which one.) I subscribe to the Dover samplers. And I download a lot of great freebies from what they offer.
This is our book of art prints with Sprite's coloring page on top.
My original intention for Sprite's Monet reproduction was to use the new watercolor pencils I brought from America. But since we're away from home (in Hong Kong), this coloring page was quite a bit easier. Although we didn't have a wide assortment of colors to work with, I encouraged Sprite to make do as best she could with what we had on hand.
Here are Sprite's and Monet's side by side.
If you plan to study Monet, I strongly recommend the title Linnea in Monet's Garden. It's a delightful book that has history, nature study, and art all wrapped up in a lovely story with beautiful illustrations. I bought this book and feel that it's well worth the money! (Don't you love it when you are pleased with a purchase?)
But this piece below below was what really showed me that Sprite is absorbing Monet's style. She did this on her own and gave it to me as a gift. I noticed right away the similarities to the Impressionists -- the blurry colors and the reflected images in the water. She admitted that she was trying to make it like Monet's artwork. I was thrilled!
During our three weeks so far in Hong Kong, I've seen Monet's artwork on a courtyard wall and on a candy package! Fine art is everywhere. And it's so wonderful to be able to recognize the artist or even the name of the piece!
I'm updating this entry to include Sprite's notebooking page.
We used a combination of lapbooking and notebooking. Several matchbooks were mounted on cardstock for a notebooking page.
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• May 2, 2008 - RSS Awareness Day
This blog entry is a techie one, not my usual fare. But I hope it's helpful to you.
What is RSS? It's a subscription function for a blog. It's sometimes also called a feed or even an RSS feed. Instead of visiting each of your favorite blogs, you can go to one site and read what's new on all of the blogs you love to read. That is, you read all their feeds or your subscriptions). It's super convenient if you like to read more than just a few blogs.
The site where you read the blog feeds is called a feed reader (or RSS reader). I use Bloglines. But other popular ones are Google Reader and Newsgator.
Sign up for a free account, add in your favorite blogs, and you'll never go back to visiting individual blogs again.
But as a blogger, you also need to know about RSS to make sure that you publish one. In your blog settings, make sure that your RSS feed is ON. That way, readers who like to use a feed reader will have access to your blog.
Many of my readers realize that a great majority of blogging platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, etc.) are blocked in China. But the amazing thing is that I can read RSS feeds of those blogs via Bloglines -- unblocked. So for me, RSS feeds are super wonderful! I can easily access otherwise blocked material. I don't know how many of your readers may be in countries where certain sites are blocked, but it is something to be aware of.
Another issue is what kind of feed to offer. Some people publish only a partial feed. So, in the blog reader, the reader sees only a headline and the first paragraph or so. This forces the reader to visit the original site to read the rest. (For those who are trying to make money through advertising, this is an obvious choice. They want lots of hits to their blogs.) Other feeds are text only, so all your lovely pictures are invisible to those reading via a feed reader.
I publish and love to read a full feed. That way my readers get it all. If the material they see moves them, they can always visit my blog and comment. I've often subscribed to an intriguing blog later to discover that it offers only a partial feed. How disappointing. I don't think I've ever stuck long with a partial feed. I just find it very irritating that I have to click over to read the entry. Why coax me with an exerpt? Give me the whole post!
So bottom line --
sign up for a blog reader and make sure your RSS feed is on.
Along these lines, here are a few blogs about blogging. I subscribe to all of them and find them helpful or interesting.
Blogging Basics 101
This is a great site for the newbie who wants to start a blog or learn about blog functions. (Sadly, this blog offers only a partial feed --a major negative for me.)
Daily Blog Tips
This site has great writing and blogging ideas! It's geared towards those who want to earn money from blogging, but you can disregard those types of posts and just glean from the writing and techie tips. 8 Post Types to Expand and Highlight Your Blog's Content is a good example of the great ideas this blog provides.
Problogger
This is also mainly focused on blogging for profit. The author, Daren, is a Christian, by the way. I appreciate that he is kind and doesn't use profanity or suggestive talk like so many other blogs about blogging. I've learned so much about blogging and online communications from him. Take for example this post on 7 Ways to Make Your Blog Stickier. It could also be called 7 Ways to Make Your Blog BETTER. What he offers are simply great blogging tips -- ways to engage your readers, reach more people, get more comments, provide better content, make an easy to use and navigate site, etc.
Copyblogger
This blog is focused on your writing. Once again, the assumption is that you want to earn money from your writing, but I think the principles of improving your writing can be used simply for the purpose of being a better writer! This is a good example of the good ideas offered on this blog. Oh, and this one too. Just because we're homeschooling moms doesn't mean that our writing has to be a boring grocery list of "Sally did math, Josie did art, Sam lost a tooth."
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