Loudspeakers There…Media Here

A few years ago, I visited a friend East Africa for my thirtieth birthday. The loudspeakers sounding off from mosques several times a day (and night) were terribly annoying. Of course, the language was unintelligable to me, so I tried to imagine it as background music. I cannot imagine if I understood the words how I could have blocked out the constant brainwashing.

In this eJournal from July 2006, Chris Davis makes a valid comparison between loudspeakers spouting off propoganda in foreign countries, and the media here in the United States.

Chris explains his experience with blaring loudspeakers in Muslim-controlled areas of Israel and goes on to say:

“I once heard John Gatto give [a talk] about his visit to a country undergoing a Communist revolution. There were loudspeakers set up at every street corner so that during all of their waking hours the citizens heard propaganda encouraging them to devote themselves to the Communist way of life. Gatto went on to say that he has become convinced that Americans are surrounded by constant propaganda, but we just don’t realize it because it is not in the form of blaring loudspeakers, but in the form of television, radio, magazine ads, billboards, and the countless other types of media that are continually trying to influence the way we live.”

Are you aware of the subtle and not-so-subtle influences of the world around us?

As American Christians, we need to learn to see life through a biblical worldview, allowing the living Word of God to be the filter through which we process EVERYTHING, not just religious issues. Too often, after compartmentalizing our lives and offering some areas to God, other areas to Psychology or popular experience, we simply don’t realize that the Lord is Lord over all of our lives.  He deserves respect in each arena of His children’s lives — and we’ll be much more content with our lives as we learn to seek His ways.

A thoughtful book on the subject of the effects of media on children is Marie Winn’s The Plug-In Drug. Click to read “Good-Enough Families” to understand the purpose of her book).

Chris encourages the reader to chew on the words from “What an Educated Person Must Know,” quoting much of this speech right in the ejournal and adding a link to the entire speech. Like anything written by John Taylor Gatto, Teacher of the Year in New York State and New York City, it is worth reading and considering.

Christ in the (gluten-free) Passover and more Easter ideas!

The real Passover celebration won’t be until April 20-27 this year, but we decided to study and celebrate (in a more simple way) Passover within the context of Holy Week this week. It seems appropriate, as Christians, to choose Good Friday to honor Jesus as our Passover.

For photos of our fun celebration a few years back, click over to our old-and-completely deserted blog. To see a round up of other Easter traditions, books, and activities to help make Easter Week a special time to focus on Christ, please see this post.

I was trying to figure out how to have a gluten-free Passover this year. Just googling these words turned up many webpages I didn’t have time to wade through. Gluten Free Bay has a ton of recipes and RecipeZaar has 71 more!

I did decide that attempting the following recipes will be as adventurous as we will get this year:

Matzah Crackers

Potato Dumplings to use for Matzo Balls in Soup

I’m thinking Chocolate-Dipped Macaroons or Chocolate Chip Macaroons for dessert!

Did you know the infamous Easter Story Cookies are naturally gluten-free? The only problem is, I wonder if they are more legend than reality. I’m curious to hear if any of you had haver had success with this little object lesson. I’d love to try them again, if I had some hope of them turning out right!

Oh, and I almost forgot! I found this recipe for gluten-free paper mache. Now we can make our little paper mache lambs without me having to go purchase real flour :)

Education: A Science of Relationships

I’m enjoying listening to the audiobook version of For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer MacCauley.  I read this book several years ago when we first began homeschooling, and it shaped my views of education.  Here’s a quote I heard today that I simply had to stop and record here for you:

“When I was a child, education for me often meant memorizing French verbs or remembering someone else’s answer to a question.  Now I find it helpful and liberating to enjoy Charlotte Mason’s view of Education.  It does not mean that adults think of a child as a blank sheet of paper on which they imprint their ideas, impressions, and knowledge.  Neither does it mean leaving a child unattended, like a weed growing in the sidewalk.  It is a balanced understanding of education as the provision of possibilities for a person to build relationships with a vast number of things and thoughts.  We must take steps to provide a diet which opens doors for each child to build a relationship with God, other persons, and the universe.  If it sounds broad, it is broad.  A child should not be left to stumble upon educational material by chance. Charlotte Mason took great care to provide a wide variety of curriculum, otherwise the children would be deprived of the best of ideas, culture, literature, science, etc.”

Ensuring Your Kids Aren’t “Dumber than Dirt” (and a hilarious homeschool parody video)

I liked this author’s ideas on how to ensure our kids become smarter than rocks. Among other ideas, he mentions turning off the TV, reading aloud to the kids, eating together often, becoming a parent who loves to learn for herself (or himself!) and homeschooling. Personally, I thinking turning off the TV would bring the quickest and greatest educational success to this generation of American children! I just wish I had the guts to chuck the ‘ol boob tube (means something different today than it used to, doesn’t it?! Still pretty accurate description, I’m afraid, only now with a double entendre!).

On the subject of homeschooling, if you haven’t seen this hilarious parody called A Homeschool Family, you’ll laugh. If you’ve been around the homeschooling community at all, you’ll laugh until you cry. Comedian Tim Hawkins made this video with his family and several other borrowed children. His wife is fighting cancer right now, so please say a prayer for her!

Actually, if you need a few laughs, you may want to spend a few minutes looking around Tim Hawkins‘ website. My husband found the video called Cletus Take The Wheel absolutely side-splitting!!

14 Days of Homeschool

This is a fun one this of year:

THE 14 DAYS OF HOMESCHOOL

(written by an anonymous homeschool mom and her kids — Sing this to the tune of “THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS”)

On the first day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can you homeschool legally?”

On the second day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the third day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the fourth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the fifth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “YOU ARE SO STRANGE! What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the Sixth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How long will you home school, YOU ARE S0 STRANGE, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the seventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Look at what they’re missing, how long will you home school, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the eighth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the ninth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “They’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the tenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the eleventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the twelfth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can they go to college, I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the thirteenth day of homeschool I thoughtfully replied: “They can go to college, yes you can do this, they can have graduation, we don’t like the prom, we do it cuz we like it, they are missing nothing, we’ll homeschool forever, WE ARE NOT STRANGE!, We give them P.E., and we give them tests, they are socialized, AND WE HOMESCHOOL LEGALLY!“

On the fourteenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How can I get started, why didn’t you tell me, where do I buy curriculum, when is the next conference, WILL PEOPLE THINK WE’RE STRANGE? I think we can do this, if you will help us, can we join P.E. and we’ll home school legally.“

Summer “School”

(I wrote this a month ago and forgot to post it!)

So many people have asked us if we are “done with school yet?” From the cashiers at the grocery stores to friends and family who know we homeschool, everyone asks with eager anticipation for the children if summer has yet begun! My children and I have, for the most part, returned these questions with quizzical stares.

I do understand the reasoning behind this question. It wasn’t so long ago that I experienced Spring Fever year after year — looking longingly out of classroom windows and wishing I could be swimming or even just sitting somewhere comfortable chatting with my gal pals! When asked about summer break for our family, I have found myself tongue-tied, uncertain as how to explain to everyone that my children have yet to experience Spring Fever.

Then I came across this wonderful little post at First Things. Sally Thomas attempts to answer the question “What do you do all day?” by explaining a bit about their holistic view of learning. I thought Thomas’ description may help some people understand how different learning at home can be from going to school to learn. In other words, our little home school is not something that we really need a vacation from — we aren’t beating the children over their heads with giant text books all summer, simply learning and living as we go!

Math + Holidays = Fun, Fun, Fun!

I receive a daily email from ClickSchooling, each with a recommended website. I love bookmarking these websites for rainy days or when we need a little extra for a certain lesson. Today’s featured site is all about incorporating math into the holiday season. There were so many fun ideas I just had to post them here.

Following is the today’s Clickschooling email:

Recommended Website:
GoogolPower: Christmas Math

GoogolPower.com (the makers of my favorite math songs) have created a Family Math curriculum page themed around Christmas. This is a delightful way to incorporate learning into every aspect of the holidays. When you get to the site you will find all kinds of links to fun Christmas activities for families to do together that build math skills and comprehension too. They
include:

*Baking - Find recipes & recipe converters.
*Budgeting - Discover how to fill out a spreadsheet.
*Holiday Lights - Learn how many watts of power they use.
*Wrapping Presents - Use your tape measure to determine package dimensions.
Make tessellation wrapping paper.
*Trees & Snowflakes - Measure the height of a tree, and investigate snowflake symmetry.
*Christmas Cards - Make a card with a cryptarithm or a tangram.
*Ornaments & Decorations - Make your own polyhedras to put on the tree.
*Santa Claus - Find out how Santa uses math to circumnavigate the Earth.
*The Twelve Days of Christmas - Learn what the song has to do with Pascal’s Triangle.
*Christmas Worksheets & Math Problems — Includes dot-to-dots, mazes, logic problems with candy canes and much more!

Don’t forget to bookmark this website and come back after Christmas to explore the many math lessons and activities that incorporate learning about other subjects too.

Have fun!

Diane Flynn Keith
for ClickSchooling
Copyright 2006, All Rights Reserved
http://www.Homefires.com
http://www.Carschooling.com
http://www.UniversalPreschool.com

Note: We make every effort to recommend websites that have content that is appropriate for general audiences. Parents should ALWAYS preview the sites for suitable content.

Click Schooling (Clickschooling) is a Federally Registered Trademark.

Homechooling a preschooler? For FREE activities visit: http://www.UniversalPreschool.com

Shortcut URL to this page:
http://www.yahoogroups.com/community/ClickSchooling

LOUD EMILY, Five-in-a-Row Style!

For those unfamiliar with Five in a Row, it is a wonderful introduction to teaching your child at home using living books. The idea is to read a delightful book 5 days “in a row,” concentrating on certain lessons or activities that revolve or spring from said book. Five in a Row taught me so much about homeschooling. When our family first discovered homeschooling, I tried the school-at-home route (recreating the classroom experience here at home) — yuck!

Five in a Row rescued me from becoming too “schoolish,” and was a nice introduction to how “real” learning can be, how wonderful it can feel. I highly recommend this resource to beginning homeschoolers or parents of pre-school children.

Anyway, we have spent the last several years learning about American history, and find ourselves today in the mid-1800’s. A particular fictional story recommended by Truthquest History for young children on the subject of “whaling days” caught my eye as a Five-in-a-Row type book. LOUD EMILY by Alexis O’Neill is a charming and fun book that seems just perfect for a little unit study.

Here are some of the ideas I thought of…feel free to use any and all of them in your own educational activities!

LOUD EMILY by Alexis O’Neill, Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Social Studies: Geography/History

In the Author’s Note found at the end of LOUD EMILY, O’Neill suggests this story took place in New Bedford, Mass, during the 1850’s. Find Mass. on a map or globe. At the time, New England was the whaling capital of the world. Cities that whalers took off from and came back to became busy, wealthy centers. Note how the location of cities along the East Coast could have become bustling whale cities.
A whale voyage would last 2-5 years with a crew of up to 35. They would sail to South Seas or the Artic — find these on a map/globe as well.

A nice summary of American whaling may be found at the New Bedford Whaling Museum (Click on Overview of American Whaling – if you keep following the links, you can learn about the different types of ships, what went on whaling ships, what a voyage was like, how they captured whales, etc. etc. etc.)

Social Studies: Individuals and their place in the Community
(Bible Study: The Body of Christ and Its Members)

“GOOD MORNING!” Emily said in her Emily voice.

Talk with the children about the Church being the Body of Christ, how the individual parts have individual functions and different purposes, yet work together to glorify God. Talk about the importance of different roles in marriage, in a family, in a business, in the community at large. Emphasize that differences that glorify God need to be celebrated. Discuss how should not all strive to be exactly the same as each other, but instead strive to become what God has intended for us individually, so we can work together corporately.

Study I Corinthians 12.

Language Arts: Literary Device - Capital Letters

Explain to the children that authors may use all capital letters to express that a character is speaking loudly or yelling. Have your child write (or dictate to you) a sentence or paragraph using this technique.

Language Arts: Development of Language/Slang

One of the first pages of LOUD EMILY lists common phrases whalers used along with their modern-day translations. E.g. “All hands on deck!” means “Everyone must come up to the top platform of the ship!” After reading through LOUD EMILY at least one time, it may be nice for your child to hear what some of the whaling phrases actually mean.

Speak with your child about how people from same geographical areas often develop their own words for things. Click here for brief definitions of different kinds of language varieties

Wikipedia has a long list of the dialects of the English language, including a nice little piece on California English.

An excerpt from Wikipedia:

One difference between California and most of the rest of the U.S. has been the way residents refer to highways, or freeways: where most Americans may refer to “I-80” for the east-west Interstate Highway leading from San Francisco to the suburbs of New York, or “I-15” for the north-south artery linking San Diego through Salt Lake City to the Canadian border, Southern Californians will typically say “the 80″, “the 15″, etc. Northern Californians will typically say “80″, “101″ to refer to freeways. Similarly, California State Route 1, which runs down the coast, is called “Highway 1″ or simply “1″ in Northern California, but “PCH” (for Pacific Coast Highway) in Southern California.

Just for fun, check out Talk Like a Pirate website!

Science: Uses of Whale Products and the idea of Recycling

Many products were made from different parts of the whale, Americans didn’t waste anything but found uses for everything. Eventually, new inventions and discoveries (such as petroleum) gave less need for whale products.

Whale bone – fishing poles, buttons, umbrella ribs, skirt hoops

Whale oil – lubricating machinery and lighting lamps in houses/lighthouses

Spermaceti (fatty substance) – used to make smokeless candles

Ambergris (waxy gray material) – used in perfumes

This could be an opportunity to go over with your student the idea of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. You can find practical ways to observe these 3 R’s this week.

Science: Extinction of Whales, Whaling in Modern Times

This website provides a short and sweet summary of which whales are on endangered species list, giving a synopsis of current situation and including photos of each type of whale on endangered list

Click here for a chart on current population of whales alongside what the estimates of whale populations were pre-whaling.

Click here for one reason why we as humans need whales, and click here to read about current laws and programs to protect whales.

You can surf the World WildLife Fund website to learn about endangered species in general, and whales in specific (this is a pdf file which can be printed nicely).

Science: Varieties of Whales

The New Bedford Whaling Museum has nice descriptions of several types of whales.

Search Google Images for specific whale photos/illustrations.

Science (Older Students): Maritime History and Oceanography Project

Click here for an involved lesson which includes plotting the track of a whaling voyage and relating it to ocean currents.

Art: American Folk Art

The paintings created by Nancy Carpenter in LOUD EMILY were inspired by American Folk Art. Many artists would travel around towns painting portraits and scenes. (See the last page of LOUD EMILY, under Illustrator’s Note for more interesting information.)

Click here to see examples of folk art from the Metropolitan Museum.

Click here for a list of 19^th century artists and their works (follow links of folk artists for more info on those that interest you, e.g. Edward Hicks)

Art: Scrimshaw

In New England whaling towns, people would pay a lot for portraits. Many sailors took up art as a side business, spending long hours on the boat carving pictures onto whalebone. This type of art was called scrimshaw. (Type in “scrimshaw” to Google Images to see many photos of these carvings).

You can create your own version of scrimshaw, without hurting any whales! You will need IVORY soap, sharp knives or other carving tools, and shoe polish. Click here for more details!

Addendum:  A Few More Ideas!

As we were studying this book/era, my kids wanted to know more about boarding schools (Emily is almost sent away to one).  This may be a good time to talk with your children about education through the ages and modern choices in education.

You may also want to look into lighthouses, their purpose and locations.  This could be a great field trip, if you live near the coast!!

At the end of the story, Emily has power over the waves and fog with her loud voice.  This may be a good time to read Luke 8:22-25 and discuss how God is the only One with power over nature, and imagine how incredible it would have been to be with Jesus the day He calmed the sea.

Homeschooling for Preschool

I have several friends and family members who are interested in “homeschooling” their preschoolers. Honestly, the word “homeschooling” in connection with a preschooler should simply be replaced with the term “parenting.” Homeschooling a preschooler is a piece of cake — you have already been at it for years!

Think about it: Who taught your daughter “ma ma” and “da da”? Who guided your little guy with his first few steps? Who taught him to eat without slobbering all over himself (most of the time)? Who trained your sweet gal which toys go in which bin? You are already an expert instructor! :)

Spunky Homeschool recently wrote a post on homeschooling preschoolers. She gives a lot of tips and web links, along with this good advice: At the preschool stage, curiosity is the best curriculum and exploration the best teacher.

I highly recommend clicking around the links in Spunky’s post, especially Preschoolers and Peace and anything having to do with Charlotte Mason (my heroine!). The only thing I’d add to Spunky’s list would be Universal Preschool.

If you are planning on homeschooling a preschooler, try to slow down and enjoy every minute of it. Children don’t stay little forever.

Stupid in America Returns!

Thanks to a tip from Spunky Homeschool, I just became aware that John Stossel’s program Stupid in America will be re-airing tomorrow evening on ABC. And (isn’t the Internet amazing?) if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow night, you can view the program in its entirety right there on YouTube (no commericals!)

My thoughts on schooling in America have been heavily influenced by John Taylor Gatto, especially his collection of essays entitled A Different Kind of Teacher. Gatto was Teacher of the Year for both New York State and the city of New York in the 90’s, before he finally threw in the towel. Gatto has respect for teachers, a love for our youth, and serious disdain for our educational system. I was shocked to learn first from Gatto how our schooling system is set up in the manner of Germany and Prussia (and can I say that I think we are headed toward the kind of mass mind control that set Germany up to be accepting of Hitler?).

Both Stossel and Gatto think the way to success in education will come from a more “Capitalist” view of schooling, and to stop Government from micro-managing our education.

You can read a few of Gatto’s essays online. I recommend The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher and Against School. Gatto’s newest book, The Underground History of American Education is also available online.

If you watch Stupid in America, or read any of Gatto’s works, I’d love to hear your opinions of these.

(See ABC’s article on Stupid in America here).