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Your Vocabulary Score: A
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Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary!
You must be quite an erudite person.
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| You Are an Espresso | 
At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic
At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung
You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping
Your caffeine addiction level: high |
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3.29.2007 - Yet Another Reason... To Keep Them Home
Does this even surprise anyone?!
"Every year spent in such centers for at least 10 hours per week was associated with a 1 percent higher score on a standardized assessment of problem behaviors completed by teachers"
And how many kids do you know who go to daycare for only 10 hours a week?! Try 40-50... at least 30...
"The study was not designed to explain why time in day care could lead to more disruptive behavior later on. The authors and other experts argue that preschool peer groups probably influence children in different ways from one-on-one attention." (no, really?!) "In large groups of youngsters, disruption can be as contagious as silliness, studies have found, while children can be calmed by just the sight of their own mother."
“What the findings tell me is that we need to pay as much attention to children’s social and emotional development as we do to their cognitive, academic development, especially when they are together in groups,” Huh? Imagine that...
“I have accused the study authors of doing everything they could to make this negative finding go away, but they couldn’t do it,” said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education. “They knew this would be disturbing news for parents, but at some point, if that’s what you’re finding, then you have to report it.”
What disturbs me is the way so very many people today think they can just give birth and then pay other people to attempt to raise their children and somehow expect them to turn out perfectly behaved and well-adjusted?!
Anyway, head on over and read the entire article if you have the time to waste... or if you just needed one more reason to keep your kids home. Just think, if they're used to being home for preschool they'll never even notice the transition to elementary... because it won't be a transition- it'll be the way of life!
Thanks to shaunms for pointing out the silly article...
Well mommies,
enjoy your children,
ali
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1.11.2007 - Another Reason, or Two...
A child isn't safe walking to school... click here to read a horrible story about a 13 year being brutally attacked on her way to school Monday morning in Saint Paul. It's sad and scary and maddening all at the same time.
"I am nervous for my kids in this community. I am scared to death," said Amy Ames, who sends nine children to St. Paul schools. "I think the whole community is up in arms."
Ames, like many parents, changed her daily routine in the wake of Monday's attack, which happened as the 13-year-old walked to her bus stop about 7:10 a.m. Most days Ames stays home, but Tuesday she walked her two older kids to their bus stops and then accompanied her seven grade-schoolers across the street and into John A. Johnson Elementary.
(click link to read full story)
And then we have this nonsense to deal with- kids getting kicked off the bus for speaking English... ugh...
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A school bus driver let Rachel Armstrong's three children board the bus Monday morning, but he warned them that he wouldn't give them a ride home that afternoon, nor could they ever ride his route again.
The problem: Armstrong's 10-year-old twin girls and 8-year-old son speak English. According to their mother, the driver told them the route had been designated for non-English speakers only.
Armstrong said Wednesday that she got a call from a worried daughter who didn't know how she was going to get home. "She thought they had done something wrong," she said.
So a furious Armstrong had to leave work early to pick up her stranded kids from Phalen Lake Elementary School.
(Click link to read full story)
These unnerving stories, both out of Minnesota just this week, add to the pile of reasons we choose to keep our kids home. The pile is getting pretty big...
Enjoying them,
because of Him,
ali
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10.2.2006 - School Shootings, Enough is Enough
No, it's more than enough. This is a tragedy, it just tears me up everytime I hear about another one... and 3 in the last week? People are out of control.
By The Associated Press
Mon Oct 2, 3:25 PM ET
A list of some fatal shootings at U.S. schools in recent years:
•
Oct. 2, 2006: A gunman took about a dozen girls hostage, killing at
least three of them, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's
Lancaster County, police said. The shooter was among the dead, and a
number of people were injured.
• Sept. 29, 2006: 15-year-old Eric Hainstock brought two guns to a
school in rural Cazenovia, Wis., and fatally shot the principal, a day
after the principal gave him a disciplinary warning for having tobacco
on school grounds, police said.
• Sept. 27, 2006: Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at
Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo. Morrison, sexually
assaulting them and using them as human shields for hours before
fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.
• Aug. 24, 2006: Christopher Williams, 27, went to an elementary
school in Essex, Vermont, looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He
couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another,
police said. Williams also killed his ex-girlfriend's mother, according
to authorities. He shot himself twice in the head after the rampage and
was arrested.
• March 21, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed five
schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard at a high school on the Red
Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota before taking his own life. Weise
had earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.
• Nov. 22, 2004: Sixteen-year-old Desmond Keels is accused of
fatally shooting one student and wounding three others outside
Strawberry Mansion High in Philadelphia. The attack apparently was over
a $50 debt in a rap contest. Keels is set to stand trial on murder
charges later this month.
• April 24, 2003: 14-year-old James Sheets shot and killed the
principal in the crowded cafeteria of a junior high school in
south-central Pennsylvania, before killing himself.
• May 26, 2000: 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill killed his English
teacher on the last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla., after the
teacher refused to let him talk with two girls in his classroom. He was
convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a 28-year sentence.
• April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17,
killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing
themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
• May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people
hurt when a teenage boy opened fire at a high school in Springfield,
Ore., after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was sentenced to
nearly 112 years in prison.
• May 19, 1998: Three days before his graduation, an honor student
opened fire at a high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a
classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. Jacob Davis, 18, was
sentenced to life in prison.
• March 24, 1998: Two boys, ages 11 and 13, fired on their
Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls
and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of
murder and can be held until age 21.
• Dec. 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five wounded at a
high school in West Paducah, Ky. Michael Carneal, then 14, later
pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.
• Oct. 1, 1997: Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Miss.,
fatally shot two students and wounded seven others after stabbing his
mother to death. He was sentenced the following year to three life
sentences.
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6.24.2006 - Test Scores Are In!
Well, they
came! I was a bit nervous, only because I didn't glance over his
test before mailing it off so I truly had no idea of how he did... but
my oldest did very well. His overall test battery was 97%!!! That
means that only 3% of 7th graders across the country scored
better.
I'm so excited, and I really don't mean to sound pridefull about
it, but I'm just so excited. You see I felt like we really got
off to a grand start in homeschooling way back in kindergarten.
Very diligent, every page in the workbook, ahead in reading, exposeure
to great art, great music, foreign languages, etc... Along the way I've
changed curriculum choices many, many times mostly to go along with the
flow of our changing family, but also because people keep coming up
with new, great, curriculums!
There is a gap of 6 years between my first two sons... so while
I've got my oldest starting 8th grade right now, I'm just starting to
get into some meat with the next ones (7, 5, 3, & 16 months) and
things have grown steadily busier and slightly more complicated as so
many little ones are coming up behind... keeping them occupied enough
to get through some real meat with the junior higher.
So he has been practically teaching himself this past year...
things have taken on a bit more of an unschooling atmosphere around
here- which is a little weird for me as I started out with a very
structured classically-inspired type of homeschool. Well, it
seems the shift has been good for us- for the year that I felt like I
put the least into his education (at least as far as getting through
books, etc...) he managed to do remarkebly well. I have felt so
distracted for the last year or two and was really beginnng to worry
that his education must really be suffering... I was seriously
beginning to doubt my ability to school him through high school with
such a busy nest of little ones clamoring for my attention.
Well, I know test scores don't mean all that much in the real
world, but it does reassure me quite a bit... he can at least pass for
educated in the eyes of the beaurocrats...
It has renewed my positive outlook regarding the rest of his
education, and given me new hope and excitement as I plan the year
ahead! I really am looking forward to getting him through 8th
grade and then high school, by the Grace of God, I really think I CAN
DO THIS!
Yay!
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4.26.2006 - Bright Spots
Yesterday, while at the Kelley Farm I had two wonderful moments.
Well, more than that really, but two moments that really make a
homeschooling mother's day.
First, fairly early
in our visit to the farm we were talking to one of the costumed workers
and got on the topic of accidents and bike crashes (my friend mamatc's
daughter was showing off her road rash) and he got to telling about his
bad crash just before the start of 7th grade and how he broke his- this
is where it gets good- (pointing to his upper arm) HUMERUS. How
many people say that? Don't most people say they broke their
arm?! Anyway, our kids had spent the last couple of weeks
learning the names of the major bones in our bodies. They've made
paper model skeletons (The Body Book-
great resource) and filled in worksheets and diagrams, even some of my
little ones have been getting in on it and having a blast. So it
was funny enough to hear someone say humerus, add to that the fact that
every one of us standing there (kids included!) knew exactly what he
meant. And then they proceeded to start pointing every which way
and listing off bones faster than you can say tibia and fibula!
(Later... last night... my 6 year old fell off the trike he was
"poppawheeling" on- I told him that's why I always say to be
careful. He said "don't worry, I just hit this side of my
ilium"!!!)
Bright spot number two came as we
were leaving. Walking along the path back to the visitor center
and parking lot suddenly my 6 year old exclaimed "mom, it's one of
those things like I studied in science!" and there it was, a big
bracket fungi! which he had just read about the evening before!
I love those moments! When they put it all together! It
just makes it all mean so much more. He'll probably never forget
what a bracket fungi is now! And this one didn't exactly match
the picture in his nature book so we looked it up on-line and found
pics of others and read about them a bit more. There are a ton of
types, and they're also known as a shelf fungus.
So, anyway, I just love times like those. It made me smile inside!
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