To tell you the truth, I had some big time reservations about voting for the not-completely-conservative, not-150%-prolife [click for link] McCain. BUT this morning, his pick for V.P. really did it in for me! I LOVE his choice! Sarah Palin is just wonderful! She is currently the pro-life conservative Republican governor of Alaska, mom to 5 children, and is 44 years old. Her youngest, diagnosed with Down's Syndrome, was born in April. Here she wrote about his (Trig's) birth.

John McCain Selects Pro-Life Champion Sarah Palin for Vice Presidential Slot

Public schools and homeschoolers have two very different ways of looking at reading.

Most public schools tend to believe that reading is an important skill to have but that it doesn’t really matter what you read – just as long as you do. So, why is it important? Maybe so you can read the warnings on your prescriptions or the clauses in your healthcare plans or the terms of employment on your contract so a greedy employer can’t take advantage of you. Then there are the street and restroom signs – and the menu, of course.

Homeschoolers, on the other hand, tend to believe reading is a means to an end. That end is wisdom, which means that what we read is of the utmost importance. What we put into our minds comes out in our attitudes and behavior. That’s not to say that we can’t read for relaxation or entertainment, but homeschoolers understand that even this is important – that entertainment reading does not have to be vacuous reading, that what we consider fun and funny is also a reflection of the sort of people we are and want to grow into.

What we read is critical because it shapes our worldview, and our worldview determines how we will respond to life’s trials and triumphs, how we will treat others, how we will conduct ourselves every moment of every day in every situation.

Here are some quotations to fuel your thinking about reading…

“Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensations and cheap appeals.” - G. M. Trevelyan

“I read my eyes out and can't read half enough. The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” - John Adams

“When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.” - Harold S. Geneen

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Few are sufficiently sensible of the importance of that economy in reading which selects, almost exclusively, the very first order of books. Why, except for some special reason, read an inferior book, at the very time you might be reading one of the highest order?” - John W. Foster

“Read good, big important things." - Peggy Noonan

“Live always in the best company when you read." - Sydney Smith

“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." - Mortimer J. Adler

Tammy Drennan homeschooled her sons from 1985 through 2003. She now works as a writer and tutor and maintains several web sites and blogs, including www.educationconversation.wordpress.com and www.homeschoolstarter.com

Here is a fun free project to do with your kids.  I bet you even have the supplies around the house!

You will find the directions HERE.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

These are a complete course, from a Christian perspective, for grades 3 through 12, they consists of a 2-book set which includes the  Student Booklet and the Master Lesson Plans book.  

The student textbook include:

• history,
• geography,
• state symbols,
• weather,
• major cities,
• local and state government,
• industry,
• and agriculture.

With:

• text,
• maps,
• color state symbol pictures,
• 6 quizzes,
• 2 tests,
• an answer key,
• a study guide for the Alabama state constitution, and
• a 10-page appendix with information about all fifty states.
  

Students remove the text and pictures from the consumable textbook and transfer them into a project notebook which they will construct about their state.
 
The Master Lesson Plans give instructions for 30 lessons which can be completed in 6 weeks or expanded to a full year or more using instructions and additional project options listed at the end of each lesson. The difficulty level may be easily and individually adjusted, allowing you to teach all grade levels simultaneously.

These will give your children all the tools they need for a great study of whatever State you choose!  Each State is only $25.00!  We have all 50 States available, you will find them all HERE.

I read about this new book due out soon over at Homeschooling is Life.  I got very excited, as John Taylor Gatto is a hero of mine.  He is so smart, and he makes so much sense.  You know, when it comes to education, that's what really seems to be missing - common sense. 

Here is the product description at amazon.com:

John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put that now-famous expression of the title into common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.

Here is a demonstration that the harm school inflicts is quite rational and deliberate, following high-level political theories constructed by Plato, Calvin, Spinoza, Fichte, Darwin, Wundt, and others, which contend the term "education" is meaningless because humanity is strictly limited by necessities of biology, psychology, and theology. The real function of pedagogy is to render the common population manageable.

Realizing that goal demands that the young be conditioned to rely upon experts, remain divided from natural alliances, and accept disconnections from the experiences that create self-reliance and independence.

Escaping this trap requires a different way of growing up, one Gatto calls "open source learning." In chapters such as "A Letter to Kristina, my Granddaughter"; "Fat Stanley"; and "Walkabout:London," this different reality is illustrated.

This has most certainly whet my appetite.  I can't wait to read it!  I will add to this a quote my daughter sent me the other day.   

"Before you can teach children, you must get the silver key of kindness to unlock their hearts and so secure their attention.  It is of no avail to attempt teaching those who do not love you.  So, try and make them love you, and then they will learn anything from you."  ~Spurgeon