Why blogging is so great reason #5,287: You get to meet some of your favorite homeschool celebrities without having to attend a conference! Amanda Bennett has been blogging here at HSB ever since it started back in 2005. Blogging builds good business, but it also builds good relationships, and Amanda is very friendly and relational.
You may think that the author of numerous unit studies has her life perfectly organized and that all of her science experiments turn out with nary a problem. Not so! Even Amanda learns from her homeschool lessons.
This Christmas will be a meager one for many families. Yet we can still make it special. The first step is remembering what it is that makes the season so important to us, aside from Christ, it's family. Amanda shares a story about a tough Christmas she had as a little girl. Be sure to also read Christmas: A Study of Love.
As this week, and next, we are talking about Thanksgiving I thought this post, Thanksgiving Learning--Gratitude? would be of interest to you.
Next week there won't be a new Featured Blogger, so you get two whole weeks to explore Amanda's blog and wish her tidings of comfort and joy! (Such greetings aren't just for Christmas!)
Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB
This year has been rough on me physically. I am spending most of my day in a wheelchair now due to possible MS. I am use to being up and cooking for hours on Thanksgiving day. I wake up early and cook through the day making all sorts of special side dishes, baked goods and of course the big turkey. This year I physically can't do it.
How many of you also deal with these restraints? Maybe not a mobility issues but a fatigue issue. How do we accomplish this grand plan without leaving us useless or not able to finish? For me Thanksgiving has highlighted a problem that I have been ignoring for a couple weeks now.
I need to realize my weaknesses and plan accordingly. I tend to plan with high hopes and higher expectations of myself. If I don't reach those I can get discouraged and guilty feeling. This is not how the Lord wishes me to be. Paul exhorts believers to be strong and run the good race.
I now realize that my race may be slower than others. I chose to keep running. I chose to not stop. I need to learn to pace myself. This Thanksgiving may not be like we have had in the past. I believe it will be better!
If you are dealing with physical problems stop blaming yourself for the differences between your family and the "normal" family. You are normal, for you!
So join me in being thankful to the Lord for where we are right now! Blessings to you and your family! Happy Thanksgiving
Heather lives in West Virginia. She and her husband have been homeschooling their 5 children for 8 years. Due to a genetic disorder their children have multiple special needs. Living life to the fullest for the glory of God is their goal! Visit Heather's page at www.homeschoolblogger.com/gfcfmomofmany/ or at Special Needs Homeschooling.
The Power of Thank You!
By JoJo TabaresDid you ever notice how little kids show appreciation? My son comes to me several times a day and says things like "I love you! You are the best mommy in the whole world!" The conviction of his words and the look on his face as he utters them are what touch my heart! That's what true appreciation is.
Most of us teach our children to say thank you, but few of us really understand its power. Showing appreciation is not only etiquette, but it is a responsibility especially during the holidays.
I was privileged to have been in the audience when Florence Littauer was speaking on "Silver Boxes". It's what she calls her philosophy on appreciation and edification. She quotes Ephesians 4:29. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." She says that words are like a gift we give others that come in little silver boxes with bows on top. This is how we should show proper appreciation.
Many of us remember to say thank you when we get a gift, but often forget to show others appreciation for the things they do for us on a daily basis. And just how much appreciation does our "Thank You" show?
"Gee thanks" isn't much of a Thank You. "Gee thanks" is what is interpreted when you say..."Thanks for the gift Aunt Millie!" or even "I love it!" Even if your voice is excited and your face lights up when you say it, it can be empty. Why? Because in order for Aunt Millie to feel appreciated, she has to know what exactly you appreciate: The thought behind it? Money she spent? Time it took? Trouble she went to? And what exactly did you like about the gift: The features? The time it will save you?
A proper thank you is one in which you show as much time and trouble to give thanks as the person did in choosing your gift. Consider this: "Oh Aunt Millie! This is so generous of you! I can hardly believe it! This is a beautiful sweater and just the perfect color to go with the dress I was going to wear for my interview! Oh it feels so soft and I just love how it fits!" How much more appreciated does Aunt Millie feel now? Notice you haven't even said the words "thank you". It isn't the words you speak; it's the message it conveys that is important.
And how often should you thank Aunt Millie for this sweater? MORE THAN ONCE! I make it a point to wear my gift when I go visit the giver, call them on the phone when I am using it again, mention how I used it the other day and what a pleasure it was that I had it! NOW how appreciated does Aunt Millie feel?
What about all the thank yous that go unsaid to the people in our lives who do little things for us day after day? How many of us thank our mothers for raising us or our fathers for working so hard all those years we were growing up-not just on Mother's and Father's Day and not just a card or gift. How many of us have told our parents exactly what they did that we appreciate? Details! A Mother's Day card once a year is an obligation. A letter or conversation regaling them with the details of what you
appreciated about them over the years is true appreciation!
Is appreciation limited to our family? Many of us never thank our friends or associates for what they mean to us or do for us each day. How many of us belong to online communities? How many times have you emailed the owner of the list or site to thank them for all the behind the scenes work they do every day that allows you to participate, fellowship, and learn?
Take your appreciation public. How much more appreciated do you think Annie would feel if you posted a public message of appreciation for all her hard work behind the scenes at your favorite Yahoo group?:
"I want to thank Annie for all the wonderful articles she posts each week! I have really learned a lot and I have used many of these articles as homeschool lessons for my children. Annie must work so hard to create all these fun activities and I want to thank her for donating her time and all the prizes and certificates she has given away over the years! This group has been such a blessing to me and I have had so much fun as a member. Thanks Annie!"
A little thank you goes a long way! If Annie was feeling a little frustrated by the time the group takes to maintain, I bet she has renewed vitality after your post! On the job, employers can get more out of their employees by showing them a little appreciation now and again. You can create a closer relationship with your family and friends by showing them how much you appreciate what they do for you.
So this Christmas season, why don't you give the gift of true appreciation. The most appreciated gift is appreciation. It's free to give and priceless to get! Thank you for reading along with my thoughts today!
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JoJo Tabares holds a degree in Speech Communication. Her Christian and humorous approach to communication skills has made her a sought after speaker. JoJo's articles have appeared in various homeschool magazines and websites such as Dr. Laura.com. Her Say What You Mean curricula is endorsed by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and her eBook, Say What You Mean When You're in Business, has been used by direct sales leaders and small business owners alike. For more information, please visit http://www.ArtofEloquence.com or
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/CommunicationFUNdamentals/
HR 3200 that passed the House of Representatives, currently has a provision for funding states that implement a "voluntary" home visitation program for parents with young children or who are expecting. (See Sec. 1904 sec. 440)
The intended purpose is to " improve the well-being, health, and development of children by enabling the establishment and expansion of high quality programs providing voluntary home visitation for families with young children and families expecting children."In America we used to believe that was the role of the parent, but now it's the role of our benevolent and compassionate Uncle Sam. A gaze over the Atlantic will show us exactly where we're headed,
"Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.
Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks.
The draft guidance by a committee at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been criticised as intrusive and further evidence of the “creeping nanny state”.
Where are the safety devices for the "creeping nanny" who keeps sticking her nose into our personal lives?
Why homeschoolers support this bill or President Obama is beyond my understanding.
-Spunky
Cross-posted, with permission, from SpunkyHomeSchool
Since my children were very small, I have tried to be very deliberate about establishing and keeping family traditions. Many came from my own childhood, and were "imported" to my new home once I was married. I still carry so many fond memories of the Thanksgivings of my youth back in Michigan, waking up to the wonderful sounds and smells of my mother's early Thanksgiving morning cooking routine. I was determined that my children would awaken to the same things, and they do!
The onset of the winter holidays here in the USA lets me know that time is about to really FLY for the next 2 months. It is easy to get overwhelmed, between holiday preparations, houseguests, shopping, and the rapidly approaching end of the semester. I think that the high school years are unique in that there isn't always room in the schedule for too many interruptions, no matter how wonderful the interruptions may be. Gone are the years when we could take an entire month to study pilgrims, make model Mayflower ships out of popsicle sticks, or read nothing but books about Thanksgiving. Our schedule is particularly heavy this year...so how can we put an old-fashioned "focus" onto Thanksgiving in the midst of Algebra 2, C++ Programming, Chemistry, American Government and Economics, English Composition, Foreign Language, Logic and Rhetoric, and CLEP prep?
We enjoy turning to the Psalms in the evenings, seeking passages dealing with being thankful in the midst of tumultuous times. Aren't we in the midst of a tumultuous time? Do you think things are going to get even more tumultuous in the coming months and years? I sure do! What a wonderful habit for ALL of us to be in: giving thanks in all things! And what a wonderful habit to instill in our young adults who, should Christ's return be yet a ways off, will have to live out their lives in a world far different from the one we grew up in.
Our copy of William Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation" finds its way to the dinner table as well, and we enjoy reading it out loud. There is nothing better than going directly to the source when the desire is to know the truth of an historic event. Today's commentators and writers, whether secular or Christian, were not present in Plymouth with the pilgrims...but William Bradford was. To read his words is such a treasure! I pray that every Christian high school homeschooler (and every homeschooler, period, for that matter) would have the joy and privilege of reading Bradford's account of the entire journey, from start to finish! It was translated from Elizabethan English into "modern English" in 1909, but it is still a challenging read to get into...at first. By the end of the first chapter, especially if reading aloud, I found my brain and my tongue pretty well adapted to the style, and no longer had to read and re-read every other sentence to have it make sense! It is well worth the effort.
(An aside here...if American History is yet in the future for you and your students, strongly consider obtaining a copy of this book, and have your students begin it early, perhaps over the summer. You will have a source of original "American truth," and can then use it as the standard by which you judge the material your purchased curriculum offers.)
Another fun, relaxed, and entertaining way to enjoy and focus on this special season of giving thanks is through a unique and free resource called "Homeschool Radio Shows." Homeschool dad and entrepreneur, Jim Erskine, from Canmer, Kentucky, has long had a passion for old-time radio shows. He's collected and catalogued hundreds (thousands?) of them, and makes them available at no charge to those who join his mailing list. Right now, he has a couple of Thanksgiving-themed shows available for downloading. You will receive links to a new show every week, and will, from time to time, be offered a collection of stories for a small price. But they always maintain a wonderful weekly offering of free shows. I have been a member of Jim's mailing list for many years now, and I've purchased a few of his marvelous collections. The mp3 files can be burned to CD's, and we've enjoyed doing this in order to have wholesome listening entertainment during road-trips, or vacation days. We love to gather around the CD/mp3 player during the colder months with a crackling fire, a sketch book or some hand-work, listening and laughing together.
May God bless you and your homeschool this week!
Lori
Lori Havens has been married to Kevin for 24 years. They live in Illinois with their two sons, Bryan (17) and Nathan (16), and dog Sunny (9). Lori enjoys writing, gardening, reading, and the outdoors. She is the author of "Should I Be A Nurse? A Journey of Self-Exploration for Those Considering a Career in Nursing" and "7 Essential Questions Every Future Nurse Must Ask." You can find her blogging at both Homeschool Blogger and Homestead Blogger .
The article is called, "Can Dyslexia Be Artificially Induced in School? Yes, Says Researcher Edward Miller" and it's written by Samuel L. Blumenfeld, a name many homeschoolers should recognize because he's the author of Alpha Phonics.
Now, I admit that I know next to nothing about dyslexia. So I thought I'd do a little research on what dyslexia is. Interestingly, it isn't just about seeing and writing letters backwards or upside down, that is only one symptom, and someone with dyslexia may not have that symptom at all. Basically, it's anyone who struggles with reading. Not necessarily a dislike of reading, but someone who truly struggles with decoding and comprehension. That is not a medical description, but the sum of what I read from several dyslexia help websites. All of them agreed, however, that dyslexia is always either inherited or neurological in nature.
Mr. Blumenfeld and Mr. Miller disagree with the above theory. They believe that the cause of this artificially induced dyslexia is caused by the sight word reading method and they offer evidence that backs their theory. Read the article, it's very fascinating! (Note: There was one "bad" word in the article but not so bad that I didn't want to write this post and link you to the article. Just be aware that's it's there and I know that it's there.)
Now one of the things mentioned in the article are the Dr. Seuss books. Dr. Seuss himself apparently thought sight word reading was a lot of twaddle. Still, he wrote the books and made tons of money. Why this interested me is because two of my children went to bed one night with Green Eggs and Ham and the next day they could read nearly anything I put before them. Wallah! The mystery of decoding words was revealed! So if sight reading can cause dyslexia why could my daughters read anything and with a voracious appetite? The simple reason is that I had been teaching them phonics, not how to sight read. They didn't memorize the words in the book, they sounded them out.
My youngest daughter didn't learn to read until the end of her third grade year. She struggled with reading until that point. All of her symptoms pointed to dyslexia. After reading the linked to article, I began to think more about the change. If what the article says is true, then my youngest daughter should still be dyslexic, and yet three months after she started learning to read she was reading The Hobbit. It struck me that what I had been using to teach my daughter to read prior to the few months before her night with Green Eggs and Ham had been sight word books like Dick and Jane, and Rod and Staff Pathway readers. The books themselves don't teach using phonics, but I was still trying to use them to do just that and supplementing with phonics because I knew phonics was the best way to teach reading. My daughter was caught in that limbo state mentioned in the article.
Because my daughter struggled with reading, I kept reading her schoolwork to her knowing that when she was ready to read, she would. We never made a big deal out of it. Then in the middle of her third grade year I switched to just a phonics reading program. The night my daughter went to bed with Green Eggs and Ham she read the words by sound, not sight. She then took off with her reading, the method of reading set. Praise the Lord it was phonics and not sight reading! By fourth grade many of the students reading method is set, and for many of those it was set before then. I think my daughter wasn't set before that because we weren't forcing her to learn to read like they would have in the public school.
All I can say is that the article totally fit the pattern that my family experienced. I know that it was teaching reading by sight that caused my niece in public school no end of struggle and tears for many years. The public school system still believes that sight word reading is a valuable tool and it refuses to look at the evidence that shows the dangers of it. I won't say that sight reading is bad for all students, it is used to teach the deaf, but we are talking about a handful of students who need to learn to read this way. If the schools would quit pushing students to learn to read before they are even ready, and use phonics to teach reading in the mean time, they would have a much better success rate at making children literate.
Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB
-Home Where They Belong
— Make things ahead: I make up the fruit salad, mashed potato casserole, green bean casserole, bread, deserts, and a few other sides ahead of time. I like to have thickening made up for the gravy the day before as well. When feast day arrives, I typically only have the turkey and gravy to finish up! I even set the table before guests arrive.
— Use a few commercial time savers: I've become great friends with turkey oven bags and disposable turkey roasters! They make clean up easy. Sometimes near the holidays ready-made veggie platters are available in the produce section as economically as whole vegetables.
On an entirely different Thanksgiving note, "Thankfulness" is a great guide in decluttering. As you walk through your home, evaluate whether to keep items by the "Gratefulness Gauge" When you think of that object, are you thankful? Is it appreciated? If it isn't, pass it along to someone it might bless, or toss it entirely.
Domestic Chaos Tamer and Homeschool Mom of Five, Dell writes about home, heart and hearth.
It is time to get your kitchen (and yourself) prepped for Thanksgiving, if you haven’t already done so. Make those lists (menus, shopping, cleaning, etc.) and check them twice. Better yet, dictate the lists to the children and let them check them for you … an easy way to sneak in a little learning, and make your job a bit simpler.
Now is the time to locate those family favorite recipes. It’s no fun digging through the recipe pile on Thanksgiving morning searching for the recipe for that special dish; trust me, I’ve done that more than I care to admit. If you don’t already have a holiday planner or recipe binder, perhaps that could be another project for your family to work on this week. Get out the cardstock, paper, recipe cards, stickers, stamps and so forth; and create a Family Holiday Favorites binder, or one for each of you. It will create memories for your family, and help out when it’s time to plan the holiday menus.
If you are looking for new menu ideas for this Thanksgiving, I suggest you drop by the HomesteadBlogger community. There are several bloggers there who post all kinds of delicious sounding recipes. Grandma Rosie’s Texas Home is a treasure trove of recipes, as is THECFARM. If you are interested in herbs, here’s a link to my blog post on Sage, as well as a how-to for my version of cornbread dressing. Go to this post for my family’s favorite roll recipe, a holiday staple at our house; and since they can be on the table in an hour, they are great anytime you want fresh, hot dinner rolls. Another place for finding many Thanksgiving ideas is Audrey’s Thanksgiving Page at teacherhelp.org. There you will discover not only recipes, place cards, place mats and so forth, but links to lots of learning activities, games, puzzles, worksheets, etc.
Now that you’re prepped with the holiday plans for the kitchen and homeschool, please don’t neglect to take a few moments to prepare your heart and mind, as well. We have so very much to be thankful for; giving thanks to God should be our main focus during the Thanksgiving holiday.
O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. Psalm 105:1
Blessings,
Catherine
Catherine Love lives in the heart of Texas with her husband Carl, and their 3 daughters, Sarah, Hannah, and Cana. They enjoy cooking, gardening, and learning new things as they pursue a lifestyle of learning together as a family. You can read Catherine's Kitchen Adventures and more on her blog- Seeds of Love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSqmDC28jPk
You can read Chuck Norris' article about the bill on World Net Daily.
Huckabee, Norris, and Farris also discuss how international law may be used to judge a case on juvenile heinous crimes instead of American law. This is important for homeschoolers to know because because the international law that may be used is from Europe and Europe has made the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. So Europe is telling us how we have to judge our juvenile criminals and that can lead to telling us how we have to raise our children as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrtiEAC1wlk&NR=1
Hat tip to Lisa Barthuly
Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB
It's less than two weeks until Thanksgiving, and it's certainly not too early to begin decorating. Here is some great ideas to help get you started!
- TOS Digital Holiday Supplement ~ This completely FREE E-Book offers lots of recipes and crafts for your holiday enjoyment!
- Country Topiaries ~ Create these lovely table decorations with your children, to strategically place on your Thanksgiving table
- Harvest Linens ~ Another table decoration to spice things up that can be easily made with your children,
- Native American Family ~ Your harvest holiday simply can't go on without these darling, easy to make, and simple decorations.
- Reverse Applique Turkey Tutorial ~ What a cute idea for dressing your children on the day of thanks, or any other day this Fall, come to think of it!
- Child Drawn Turkey Cards ~ Such a fun and charming idea! I think I would do it, if I had any glitter...
- Thanksgiving Journal ~ Decorate this sweet idea to remember all of things you have been thankful for over the years. This should become a tradition!
- Cereal Box Turkeys ~ How could anyone resist these colorful birds?
Miss Eyebright enjoys crafts of all kinds, especially knitting. You can find her blogging at Defective Compositions.