Bisy Backson*

Mama Squirrel is taking a short pre-summer blogging break...the Treehouse and the Squirrels all need attention. Back soon.


*If you don't get the reference, try here.

Math Mammoth Sale

Nobody asked me to promote this sale--I'm just passing it on.

"END-OF-YEAR SALE! 20% off of all Math Mammoth downloadable products and CDs. Enter the coupon code MMSALE2010 on the shopping cart page at Kagi to receive 20% off. The sale is valid till June 1, 2010. At KAGI STORE ONLY."

After the fireworks...it's carnival time

Yes, it's Tuesday already, isn't it? Victoria Day always messes me up. And any good intentions I had of submitting to the Tuesday homeschool carnivals got waylaid.

Oh well. Bugs, Knights and Turkeys in the Yard hosts this week's Carnival of Homeschooling.

Adventures on Beck's Bounty hosts the Charlotte Mason Carnival. Handwriting, nature study, geography and more--lots of interesting resources that CM homeschoolers have found.

And here's the latest edition of Festival of Frugality, hosted at Penniless Parenting.

Free geography worksheets...made to your specs

I posted about WorksheetWorks.com about a year ago, but I thought I'd give them another plug since I was just looking at the site again and think it's very neat. Originally I had posted about their handwriting worksheet generator; but check out their geography section. It's not quite complete--you do get some "under construction" pages, but what's there is very helpful. Examples: you click on Europe, choose Portugal, and have a choice of several Portugal maps (labelled, unlabelled etc.). You click on Canada, get a choice of provinces and territories, choose Ontario, and are given not only maps but a word search of place names. The U.S. has not only political maps etc. but historical as well, though those are still under construction.

There are also math sheets, graphic organizers and such.

Worth checking out!

Beauty and the Blogworld

Ruth Anne, recently returned from Thailand, posts photos of her beautiful friends there.

Barb at Harmony Art Mom has been studying Thailand and other countries with her family, and posts her Weekly Wrap-Up--including photos and butterflies.

Sebastian takes in a festival in Yokosuka.

The Deputy Headmistress has been on a family trip to Philadelphia.

Ann, as usual, shares thought-provoking photos of her world.

DL on Frugal Hacks muses on the difficulty of living in one's own skin. "In no way am I minimizing the blessing of nurturing family and our own souls by the environment we create. It is just that it can be so easy to lose sight of the beauty of life lived with what is ours. Many times I have found that it is me that needs to change and not my circumstances."

Brenda posts her Sunday Afternoon Tea with a list of things that give her bliss. She wants to hear your list too.

Another list: some of the 1000 Gifts on Beck's Bounty.

A highly entertaining review

Sharing this for your entertainment: a review of Lesson Planet by the lone male crewmate on this past year's TOS Review Crew. Way to go, Tim!

Photo post: CM-style reading lessons

Richele posted this almost a month ago, but in case you missed it: First Reading Lessons, including a photograph of a very interesting Victorian-era set of "loose letters."

Great job!

Oh-so-cute squirrel books

And bunnies, and more. I just liked these photos of vintage picture book covers (on one of my favourite lost-books sites) and thought they were worth sharing.

(So does anyone out there recognize the story about the squirrel using a daffodil for a telephone?)

Neat learning site with lots of links

Maybe you all know this site already: 4HimKids for Homeschoolers. It has a useful Notebooking page (with a link to Cheryl Bastarache's math notebooking article that I mentioned in a previous post). But there's more: there's a Proverbs study, a geography notebooking outline, Summer EduFun, AND an interesting idea for incorporating Ruth Haycock's Encyclopedia of Bible Truths for School Subjects into actual schoolwork. (I don't own this book but our support group has it in the old four-volume edition. ChristianBook.com sells it in a newer four-volume version.)

So many homeschoolers are both talented and generous! There's a lot of good stuff on this site. Thanks, Tammy.

Math is more than minusing

Ruth Beechick once complained that school readers used to push all the really interesting stories to the back of the book, and maybe you got to them at the end of the year. Supplements in math class can be like that too--if you do them when you get around to them, you may never get around to them. We don't always have to be bound to the Big Fat Math Books, at least not all year long.

I think that's what was wrong with most of the math education I got during school: most of it, progressive as we were all supposed to be in the '70's, was simply arithmetic. A few angles here and there, but mostly it was about doing the basic operations. Once in awhile they hauled out the expensive kits of attribute blocks, or gave us laminated cards with "math experiences" on them, but even the teachers didn't really know how to use that kind of math stuff, so it was always back to arithmetic in the end.

Which, in a way, didn't serve us too badly; at least, as I've said before, I do know my times tables and I don't get caught too often on those silly trick questions like "what's 8 divided by 1/2?".* But I also hit that girl's grade 4 math block around long division, and it was never the same after that. I do know for sure that we never did any math research, or studied mathematicians, or looked at mathematics as something big and interesting that grownup people did. It was just what you did after reading class and before gym.

So I was very interested to read "Mild-Mannered Math No More" by Cheryl Bastarache in The Old Schoolhouse, Winter 2008-9 issue, and to also find it online. This article talks about basing your math course around a math notebook that's full of more than just sums: you can include "notes, copywork, research, challenges, responses, and fun stuff." In other words, like a scientist's journal, or a Book of the Centuries, or a Latin notebook, or any other notebook-with-a-plan like that. A book full of stuff that's actually interesting...and, as Cheryl says, if you're brave enough, you could make that "the centerpiece of your curriculum."

*The answer is 16. 8 divided by 1/2 means how many halves fit into 8?

Ooh, oxygen!

Fun with chemistry and Jean-Henri Fabre: click on the PDF of Eleanor Doorly's Insect Man and read the chapter on pages 20-21. (Penelope, Geraldine et al are an English family visiting France and trying to find all the places where Fabre lived.) We happen to have a set of Bonjour magazines from Mama Squirrel's own school days and one of them has photos of Avignon, which we used along with this chapter. Since most people haven't saved their 1977 Bonjours, you can look at these pictures on Wikipedia.

Well, at least nobody got killed.

Crew Awards: the favourites!

The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew choices for the best of this year's review products are up at the (newly revamped) Crew Blog. Congratulations to the winners! Stay tuned over there...the new Crew will be coming on board very soon.

On learning classical languages

Worth reading and pondering! (H.t. to the Bookmarks at Holy Experience--thanks, Ann.)

Rummage Sale Geography

Something neat we found last Saturday: the Interfact Reference Children's Atlas. And the CD-Rom still runs on our XP system, even though it's ten years old. Not bad for a dollar!

One more reason I am still liking Math Mammoth

Is it only coincidence that the two math programs we have liked best both have the initals MM?

Actually, so did one we didn't like as much, but never mind.

This is what I'm happy about: included in the support materials with the downloadable Grade 3 Light Blue curriculum is a worksheet generator for all the Grade 3 topics! Times tables, measurement, money, clocks, addition, subtraction, everything.

I also like that you get a Canadian version of the money chapter (there's a European one as well)--very helpful.

Switching to this program is probably one of the best things to come out of the Review Crew this year for Crayons. I'm only sorry that I didn't use it earlier with Ponytails, because I think she would have liked it too. (Ponytails has been using some of the Key To books this year.) I know there are lots of other good math programs out there, but I'm happy we got a little shove into using this one.

On birthdays and frugality (links and thoughts)

Getting Freedom From Debt (or Cents to Get Debt-Free) has a guest post about DIY Birthday Cakes.

Nothing New Nothing Wasted has some thoughts on the wastefulness of birthday decorations and disposables.

Here's our own post about Birthdays, Frugal and Otherwise, from a few years ago, with a link to this frugal-birthdays post at The Common Room. And here are the posts from Crayons' Horse Party (last year), Flower Fairy Party Menu (two years ago, with extra comments about the cupcakes), and Butterfly Birthday (five years ago). Other ideas we've used are meeting friends at a park (booking a (free) gazebo in case of drizzle) or having a party that's mostly outside--does save on decorations. Or a tea party for little girls--if you already have the teacups and things, your decorating problems are solved. I read, I think in the Tightwad Gazette, about a parent who took birthday guests to either a flea market or a thrift shop, giving them each a couple of dollars to spend. As far as the issue of the guests bringing presents goes...we've struggled with that one, and solved it at one party by asking them to bring supplies for MCC school kits instead. (That inspired one of the guests, who asked the kids at her own next birthday to bring needed supplies for an animal shelter. We've also been to a wintertime party where it was requested that we bring mittens, hats etc. for a mission for homeless people.) Our kids have been to some very creative parties too where the main activity was sewing or some other craft...one of them brought home a rice-filled hot bag one time. For the Apprentice's ninth birthday, we hot-glued things on painters' caps (cheap from the paint store) and had backyard games like charades.

One idea that was less successful for us was the time we took little Apprentice and her friends to a McDonald's playland--I posted about that a long time ago. That was a year when we opted for "simple" (as in "make it simple for us") instead of "frugal"--but some of our "frugal" parties have gotten better reactions from the guests. This weekend's bowling party was more on the "simple" than "frugal" end, and we did use some disposables (because it's hard to manage china plates at the bowling alley), but there's nothing to say that you should never have parties like that either. We like to support that family-run business, they charge a reasonable price for an hour's bowling plus free chips and drinks, and it was something that Crayons was really looking forward to. We thought about doing a home-based superheroes party, but this time around, she really wanted to do something like bowling...and after a busy rest-of-the-weekend, I was just as glad not to have to figure out party games. So I don't apologize for that. (Besides, we lucked out--the people who had the party room just before us left all their pink balloons up on the wall!)

Anglewings or angelwings?

We're not sure--anyway, this looks just like the butterfly that Crayons found this morning. Folded up, it looks like a dead leaf--but when it opens, you can see the tortoiseshell pattern.

Around the Treehouse, and a trivia question

This weekend I ran into my high school German teacher, the midwife who delivered one of our Squirrelings, and then a whole lot more faces from the past at the memorial service for a former pastor and family friend. Even at a sad time, there is something reassuring about meeting up with so many people that you don't need to be introduced to...even if it is a bit disconcerting to see everybody that much older, it's nice to know that so many of them are still there.

Crayons celebrated her ninth birthday this month and today we had a bowling party for her and a few friends. Ponytails was a great help icing the purple cupcakes. We found miniature bowling sets at Everything For a Dollar, to put in the loot bags. Maybe not as original as last year's horse party, but some years are just like that!

We are just a few weeks from finishing this year's spring term. Plans for this week include winding up the dinosaur study, which has been kind of an on-again-off-again unit. Crayons and I finished Geography Can Be Fun and At The Back of the North Wind last week, along with her Balance Benders workbook and the Math Mammoth chapter on telling time. She was supposed to write the test on that last week but I put it off until tomorrow because we were doing some other review work. Ponytails finished reading Belles on Their Toes. We're still reading Kim together...that one doesn't go too fast. We're also reading My Side of the Mountain (the book where Sam Gribley runs away and lives in the woods).

Books on Mama Squirrel's nightstand: Math Power (re-reading); For the Family's Sake (re-reading); a biography of Robertson Davies.

Blooming in the back yard: lilacs (still going) and dandelions (still going). In the side garden: Swiss chard, enough to make a small salad for tonight (along with burgers and barbecued polenta).

Here's a trivia question based on Crayons' reading from Kingsley's The Heroes: "Go feed thy tortoise thyself." Who said it and why?

Reposting this link just because it's funny

I had forgotten about this little bit of Sesame-Street-related humour, until I found it right here in an old post.

If you're not familiar with the book they're referring to, you can read it online at Michael J. Smollin's website.

Just because I like this...

Silliest joke I heard today

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo?










Great big holes all over Australia.

Review Crew Parting Thoughts

Treehouse Review Week

Grapevine StudiesEducational Diagnostic Prescriptive ServicesBarnum Software -Quarter MileMaverick BooksSue Gregg CookbooksWeb Design for Kids - Click Drag SolutionsSense and Sensibility PatternsAleksCollege Prep GeniusJourney Through LearningRocket PhonicsBright Ideas PressGrowing Healthy HomesMaster InnovationsBonnie Terry LearningGuardian Angel PublishingStudypod / GENIO, LLCABC TeachVantage LearningSarah BooksPasskeys FoundationBible Charts and Mapseducaching/ SDG Creations LtdACT, IncSue Patrick's Workbox SystemBrill Kids/ Kreative LandWe R Fun Life on the Farm3 P Learning/MathleticsExploramaniaNature Friend MagazineAVKOAll About SpellingProfessor in a BoxAmerican Heritage Education FoundationVirginia Soaps and ScentsTektomaMath Score/ Accurate LearningWorship Guitar ClassMaestro ClassicsSaxon HarcourtMathTutorDVDKinderbachBarchowsky Fluent HandwritingApologiaKregelHomeschool Library BuilderEnglish for Life/Madsen MethodChristian KeyboardingDollar Homeschool/Ray's ArithmeticZeezok Publishing/The Book PeddlerMath MammothClassical Legacy PressBeeyoutifulGreat Software ToolsPandia PressFamily MintLesson PlanetArtistic PursuitsCritical ThinkingHomeschool In The WoodsGalaxy of EducationAlphabet BeatsSuper Star SpeechMedia FreaksTime 4 LearningPeterson HandwritingChildren's Bible HourTerrestria ChroniclesIdeal CurriculumCerebellum Corp-Standard DeviantsLobster Network

Mr. Fixit and I are not strangers to focus groups and get-paid-to-help-the-psych-students kinds of things. Over the years we've shared opinions on burger restaurants, baked beans, online banking, radio stations, first-time parenting, and pain relievers. Little Apprentice helped us review tropical-blue-flavour toaster strudel, bran cereal, and chocolate milk. I've also shared my vociferous opinion on books, particularly homeschool books, on the blog and in our homeschool group's newsletter. Our kids have learned, if nothing else, that it's okay to have strong opinions, but you'd better have reasons for them. And that sometimes opinions are worth a free box of cereal or a movie coupon.

So when the opportunity came along last year to jump on the Review Crew ship for awhile, I was interested. We weren't so settled on this year's materials that we couldn't work in some additional products; actually it seemed like a good opportunity to try out new things, especially for a middle-schooler whose school year could do with a bit of spicing up.

I think a lot of what I learned this year had less to do with my children's schooling and more to do with homeschool marketing. That's not to say at all that selling stuff to homeschoolers is all about marketing, in the coldest sense of the word. Many of the products are "labours of love," or at least very worthwhile. But the reason for asking a large cross-section of homeschoolers how they liked a timeline chart, a math website, or even a shampoo bar, was that these vendors are or could be advertisers in the Old Schoolhouse magazine--partly depending on the reception they got from this "test group." Would their products be a good fit for an "average" homeschooler? Would typical OS readers actually spend money on these products?

And if you read enough of the Crew blog and reviews--or, as I did, got to know the Crew through a message board--it's more obvious than ever that very few of us are "average," even within the Christian-homeschooler slant of the Old Schoolhouse. But, taken together, our experiences with the review products add up to, I guess, a good micro-version of the OS readership.

We received a number of very generous downloads and actual products...probably fewer than some of the Crew members did, since some vendors did not ship to Canada or we didn't fit into the target group (parents of preschoolers etc.). (I'm glad we got just the amount to review that we did--what we did get kept us busy enough.) Some of the products were guest memberships on websites, which have already expired. Some were things that we tried out once to be good sports, but probably won't use again. Some were exactly what we needed and we're still using them. Some might get taken off the shelf next year.

There were products I would never have tried on my own that turned out to be useful: like the literature-based writing lessons from Educational Diagnostic Prescriptive Services. There were a few things that we didn't know much about, like Web Design for Kids. There were new ways to look at old subject areas: Aleks (math website), Mathletics, Math Tutor DVDs, All About Spelling, Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting. There were old ways too: Dollar Homeschool's Ray's Arithmetic downloads. There were a couple of products that we didn't get to review but that we were using anyway: Artistic Pursuits (we used this only the first part of the year because the girls did a lot of art at co-op), Christian Kids Explore Chemistry from Bright Ideas Press. There were some products that stretched ME a bit, like Sense and Sensibility Patterns. We are still using the Workbox System, in our own very modified version.

I think all I have left to say at this point is that I wasn't sure how all this would fit into our frugal-oriented, CM-based, Treehouse-style homeschooling, or how it would come across on Dewey's Treehouse. But all in all, it's been an educational year; I've met some wonderful new online friends who have interesting (and often non-typical) lives and families, and who also have creative and interesting blogs. I've gotten to take a new look at the materials we use for learning. If the chance came along again, I'd take it.

Virtual Vendor Hall is now open

I was asked to pass on a message from the organizers of the Old Schoolhouse Expo. I was actually going to post about that anyway, because I had started checking out the Vendor Hall this morning and already "visited" the Econobusters and Creation Ministries International pages. You don't have to pay to get into this vendor hall--and there are lots of discounts, samples and things like that. The pages will be up for awhile after the Expo is done, not just this week.

Here's the rest of the message:

"Browse through companies such as Rainbow Resource, WriteShop, Apologia, Latin Road/Phonics Road, Multiplication Shake, Go Phonics, and MANY MORE!

"Latin Road/Phonics Road has freebies in their booth. Rainbow Resource has a free shipping offer. Spears Art Studio has a free CD. Real Science by Gravitas has a 25% discount coupon.

There is just so much to see. Stop by and meet the virtual hostess from each company, browse their selection, and look for 'conference specials.'"

Lobster Network (TOS Review)

Treehouse Review Week

"If you want it, chances are someone else already has it, and they may be willing to lend it, sell it, trade it or even give it to you."--Lobster Network Site

Yes, this is it--our last official review this year as part of the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew.

What's a Lobster Network and what does it have to do with homeschooling?

"LobsterNetwork is a social networking utility that helps you keep track of your stuff and, if you choose, to advertise it within communities of like-minded people or friends. You can use it to borrow a movie from your friend, and it will help you keep track of the loan. Or you can lend your items out to other people. Similarly, you can use it to buy, sell, trade, or give items out to other people."

This is the website.

Here's where you sign up.

Does this mean you have to lend your Light Speed A.P. Exam Prep DVD to people in Florida if they ask for it? No, you can sign up and then start or join a private community, and exchange items only with your own "friends" or with people within that community--such as a local church or homeschool group.

Does that mean that everything on the site is meant to be lent? No, there are items for swap and sale as well. Or you could just use it, as the site explains, as a tracking system for your own things or stuff that you've lent out. With the "Custom Communities" feature, you can have an item shown only in whatever communities you choose.

How much does it cost? It's free.

Want to know more? There are some videos here to give you an overview of the Lobster Network.

How secure is this? No actual addresses are given in registration, so it's not too likely that robbers are going to come looking for your DVD collection. Security concerns are discussed here.

Are we using this? I joined up as an experiment, through the Review Crew. But since the Review Crew members are mostly in the U.S., I don't really see it working well for our own family's needs, unless a group within our local community (like our church) decided to make use of the site. I do some lending out (mostly of books) but it's generally limited to people I know in our local homeschool group, and I just write down who's borrowed what on a piece of paper. But I agree that an online community does offer possibilities for making better use of resources.

P.S.: The creators of the Lobster Network are homeschoolers.

For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew website.

Dewey's Disclaimer: Although membership on this site is free, we would like to state that we were encouraged to subscribe for purposes of review. No payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

Light Speed A.P. Exam Prep DVDs (TOS Review)

Treehouse Review Week

Cerebellum Corporation
Educational Library of DVDs and videos
All Light Speed Learning products
Light Speed History of the U.S. A.P. Exam Prep DVD set

From preschool to end-of-school...our second-last Review Crew product is the lengthily-named but zippy-to-watch Light Speed History of the U.S. A.P. Exam Prep 2-disc set.

This is mostly going to be an "informational" review, because, as you can probably guess, we do not have anyone here writing A.P. U.S. history this year. Or probably ever. Actually A.P. courses and exams are not that common around here, although one of the Apprentice's friends is writing the Chemistry exam this spring (with a group at school).

So Ponytails and I watched the 73-minute DVD (well, most of it--I fast-forwarded through some of the tariffs and political stuff once we had the idea) and I looked at the accompanying study guide afterwards. This is what you get: a short run-through of the types of questions, timing, scoring etc. of the test; brief but useful tips on managing essay-format questions (using a thesis, trying to get all your points to hang together), and then about half an hour of "pivotal events in U.S. history," featuring a cast of seven young people who mostly look like they could be students at the Apprentice's high school. The whole thing had a feel of some of the educational-station programming we watch that's aimed more at my younger Squirrelings' age group, except that this was talking about constitutional amendments and the Origins of the Two-Party System. Lots of little sound effects, graphics popping up, flipping back and forth between the speakers, and a friendly, entertaining style of delivery. You might say this is A.P. History for Zoom alumni. Please note that this DVD isn't supposed to be teaching you these topics--it goes way too fast for that. It's just a recital of the main points, the things you had better know if you want to do well on the test.

The accompanying study guide offers a little more of the same--matching and fill-in-the-blank exercises, the printed version of those same key points, and a few sample essay questions such as "Write an essay analyzing how ideas and experiences of the Progressive Era influenced three major reforms made during that time. Cite relevant historical evidence in a clear and logical argument."

We watched the clips from the other Light Speed test-prep DVDs, and they all seem to be similar in style, combining animation and graphics with facts read by real live people who might pass for twelfth graders. The Spanish DVD clip includes a tongue twister involving the trilled r; the Vocabulary DVD shows a brief skit demonstrating the word "versatile." In addition to the A.P. and more general Light Speed DVDs, there's one for the S.A.T. The same company produces many other DVD/video products, some to teach or help with school subjects and others, like Cutest Kittens, that look like they're more just for fun.

Final Take: As far as this DVD's historical correctness or its helpfulness with the actual A.P. history exam, I don't have an opinion to give! But it seems to me that if you're studying for one of these big exams, anything you can get to keep you on track is helpful, and at US$14.98 (on sale right now for $11.24), it doesn't seem like a huge investment.

For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew home page.

Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

Ideal Curriculum (TOS Review)

Treehouse Review Week

This will be our last Treehouse Review Week, as our year on the Review Crew is almost at an end. I'll post some thoughts about that at the end of the week.

Ideal Preschool Curriculum home page
Ideal Curriculum info and order page for Transportation Theme
Homeschool Curriculum Page

"Some people want to start early teaching academic skills, while others want to keep the preschool years free for discovery and play. In either case you can help your children gain a strong foundation for learning. Done in the right way, a structured preschool time, can be a fun and engaging way to teach new skills. New skills can also be modeled and practiced in a very informal way through play and discovery."--Ideal Curriculum Website

Recently a homeschooling friend of mine (whose children range from upper elementary through early high school) wanted to increase the family income by doing some daytime childcare. She applied to our region (next level of government up from municipal) to be one of their approved childcare providers, and she also advertised privately. What she heard both from the region and from individual parents was that it isn't enough any more to be a "babysitter," even an experienced and caring "babysitter." Out of fears that childcare providers will just plunk children in front of the T.V. , the requirements for home daycare providers now equal those of any institution. It isn't enough for the care provider to work the children's needs into the life of the family; everything must be scheduled, everything must be planned, including walks and circle times. Even parents responding to the advertisement expected a full-bore preschool program.

Needless to say, my friend decided that she did not need to disrupt her always interesting but fairly relaxed homeschooling day just to sing Eensy Weensy Spider at predetermined times.

However, those who do find themselves in the position of having to answer to someone in that way may appreciate the pre-to-K packages offered at Ideal Curriculum. There are different options for print or downloadable materials, and various curriculum threads (or whole packages) available, some of which are more suitable for formal daycare situations but some of which may work for homeschoolers. You get very thorough daily plans, songs, e-books, suggestions for more books, suggestions for incorporating the curriculum objectives into informal activities (such as looking for vertical lines while taking a walk), and advice on things like guiding dramatic play time. In fact, it reminds me a lot of some of the Sunday School and VBS curriculum I've been given, except that here you're expected to be working on early language, math and science/social studies concepts instead of Bible stories.

Since I do not have little ones around, I was not able to test-drive any of the plans or activities from the Transportation unit. However, looking through some of what's there and remembering how our own children learned, I have to say that I don't think it would have worked well at our house. That's not so much because I didn't like the alphabet marching songs or the e-books about wheels, but because, in my mind, the learning concepts are just broken down too much. It would never have worked for us to break down pre-reading skills (which quickly became just Reading) to just one concept per day or per week, or to know so far ahead of time what that concept was supposed to be. Our own children, as toddlers and preschoolers, learned a lot of different things at a time, but gradually--kind of like the way babies grow all their different parts at once, not eyes-then-ears-then-feet. In defense of the curriculum writers, I'm not sure that they do expect experienced parents or childcare providers to have to do everything in order of X, Y, Z; their general advice sounds a bit more relaxed and realistic than the specific lessons would suggest; but my feeling is that somebody out there does, or at least wants to see everything chopped up like that, and what's being created reflects that demand.

Is all this scheduling practical or necessary for most homeschooling parents of preschoolers? No, not for most situations where a lot of real-life learning is already going on, although you might get some ideas for stuff to do, like pulling a heavy bag of something (or maybe another person?) across the floor on a mat to show why it's easier to move things with wheels. The website says, "One of the big benefits to homeschooling is to be able to speed up or slow down learning depending on your child’s needs. Our homeschool curriculum products were designed to meet individual needs of students. Our built in progress monitoring assessments, which is a big part of our homeschool curriculum, make it easy to determine exactly where a child is in learning concepts and when they are ready to move forward." It sounds like Ideal would like to work with homeschoolers, but the homeschool page just takes you to the ordering page for the monthly kit--I couldn't find any "homeschool curriculum products" there.

Cost: The other downside is that these packages are fairly expensive, in homeschool terms: each month is US$55 for the print version (plus extra for each additional child), or $30 for the downloadable version. Whole-year packages or kits containing only one part of the curriculum (such as the transportation activities without additional math and language) are also available.

Final Take: Unless you are in a situation where someone is demanding that you cover all the preschool bases, and you don't feel you can cover those bases with library books, online freebies, and everyday learning situations, you probably don't need this much of a spelled-out curriculum for a young child.

For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew website.

Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.

"Landscape of death" link fixed

For some reason I just noticed now that the link I posted to the Camille Paglia interview in The Globe and Mail, "A landscape of death in the humanities," went only to the main Globe and Mail site. (That was in the Charlotte Mason #29 post.) I have fixed it in that post but thought I'd post it here as well, since it had such a lot of good points about education.

In Honour of Mama Squirrel's Dad Squirrel

Mama Squirrel's Dad Squirrel is spending a milestone birthday visiting FarAwaySis and the Cutest Nephew in Creation. We'll celebrate with him when he gets back to this part of the world.

In the meantime, this talented rodent reminded us of him. Happy Birthday Grandpa!

School Plans for This Week: Repost

O little soldier with the golden helmet,
What are you guarding on my lawn?
You with your green gun
And your yellow beard,
Why do you stand so stiff?
There is only the grass to fight!

--Hilda Conkling

Backyard Nature Study: Dandelions. We have lots. done

(Printable dandelion notebooking page here)

Picture Study: John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit done (explanations and musings at that link)

Mr. Pipes Comes to America, pages 56-70
Kim, pages 65-72 or beyond
Ourselves
Readings from the Gospel of John done
Added: started My Side of the Mountain together

Crayons: readings from The Insect Man, At the Back of the North Wind, Geography Can Be Fun, poems. Handwriting. Math Mammoth chapter on time. Added: learning about regular solids from Mathemagic and folding a printable dodecahedron. Extra reading.

Ponytails: readings from Tom Sawyer, Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, poems. Easy Grammar Plus, Liebman's Analogies. Ongoing math, science and history. Plutarch's Life of Dion. Making things. Blogging things. Extra reading.

And I'm not sure what else.

Philosophers welcome

The Deputy Headmistress and the three other homeschooling Moms of Many are talking about the philosophy of education today.

"How to develop our personal educational philosophy? At that time, it hadn't even occurred to me that I needed one- I was just going to homeschool, after all.=)"

Forgotten fractions?

I found this article (and quiz) by Brian D. Rude through a comment on another blog.

Can you pass the fractions test he gives his first-year college students? Can your kids? And what does that say about the success/failure of North American education?

Carnival of Homeschooling is up

You can visit this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at the Home of Mrs. Mama Hen, and offer your wedding anniversary congratulations at the same time.

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #30 (On Dandelions)

How are we supposed to end this?

We started with A Leisurely Education. Freedom from the small round of busywork, opportunity to grab hold of something bigger, learning to see ourselves (including our children) more as we are in God's time and in God's universe. Living without futility.

And I'm ending with dandelions.

The Treehouse backyard this week has been covered with yellow dandelions. Much-maligned little flowers that provoke criticism from the neighbours (spraying's in disfavour, but they would like to see us at least hard at work rooting them out). They're not good for much except making more dandelions (okay, I know you can eat them too). The first big batch are either going to seed or were cut off last night with the lawnmower, but they'll be back. [As in, within 24 hours.] Nobody really gets rid of dandelions forever, even if they want to--they're stubborn. And we don't want to get rid of them. In spite of the seasonal allergies kicking in around here, we like our dandelions.

I get the feeling that cultivating a yard full of unfashionable dandelions is somewhat like our approach to education, and maybe our approach to life. This is a time of too many conflicting ideas, at least around lawn care. Lawn spraying is now illegal here (we didn't spray anyway), but people still expect you to have a weed-free, dandelion-free, well-trimmed piece of grass around your house...more or less the same as anyone else's. Educational powers talk about diversity while squeezing out the individual. They dump a lot of fertilizer, if you'll pardon the metaphor, and try to control what grows and what doesn't.

Keep the dandelions growing, if only as a reminder that our natures are stubborn and won't be satisfied with educational sludge. Leave enough room for the intangibles and the poetry--as Cindy said, we can always catch up on grammar later.

A game of romps (better, so far as mere rest goes, than games with laws and competitions), nonsense talk, a fairy tale, or to lie on his back in the sunshine, should rest the child, and of such as these he should have his fill.--Charlotte Mason

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #29: Fragmentation, trivialization, and redemption

"Our four children came home from their private boarding school in Rhodesia for the last time. They were well-dressed, well-shod, well-fed, prosperous-looking children. Only when one listened to their vapid chatter, limited by both vocabulary and knowledge, did one glimpse the distressing poverty of their minds."--Joyce McGechan, "To Prosper in Good Life and Good Literature," Parents Review, 1967

I've been struggling to write the last two posts in this series, trying to decide on an ending. I think I just had this one handed to me in one of Grandpa Squirrel's Toronto weekend papers. Click over to Saturday's Globe and Mail and read Margaret Wente's interview with Camille Paglia. [LINK FIXED] (Warning: several of the comments afterward contain language that is just not nice.)

I do not agree with her viewpoint on other important issues, but she has gotten the problems of education absolutely correct. Just--wow.

"When I went into graduate school at Yale, the professors of poetry were the leading lights on campus. Can you imagine anything comparable today?"

"Art history survey courses are in the verge of extinction. Teachers have no sense that they are supposed to inculcate a sense of appreciation and respect and awe at the greatness of what these artists have done in the past. The entire purpose of higher education is broadening. But since then we've witnessed the fragmentation and trivialization of the curriculum."

"The long view of history is absolutely crucial....I believe in chronology and I believe it's our obligation to teach it. I've met fundamentalist Protestants who've just come out of high school and read the Bible. They have a longer view of history than most students who come out of Harvard."

"Educators need to analyze the culture and figure out what’s missing in the culture and then supply it. Students find books onerous. But I still believe that the great compendium of knowledge is contained in books."

"At the primary level, what kids need is facts. They need geography, chronology, geology. I'm a huge believer in geology – it's all about engagement in physical materials and the history of the world. But instead of that, the kids get ideology. They're taught that global warming has been caused by factories. They have no idea there’s been climate change throughout history. And they're scared into thinking that tsunamis are coming to drown New York."

How can we stay out of this "landscape of death" and create an oasis of hope? According to Camille Paglia, the answer is not in teaching critical thinking, ideology, or hysteria over drowning polar bears. It's in poetry, geology, the long view of history, physical books, geography, art appreciation. It's the struggle against fragmentation and trivialization. Question is, will anyone listen?

"Our shabby little crew, with few material advantages, have a good life. They work hard at lessons and on the farm. Then duties done, they run free on the veld, catching butterflies, collecting stones, watching birds, gathering wild flowers. Evenings for them are all too short. Specimens must be identified, labelled, catalogued. There are still unread books on the bookshelves, as well as old friends to be re-read. Daddy must hear someone's latest effort at poetry composition, or told the anecdote about George IV's false teeth.

"Thanks to Charlotte Mason and the PNEU school these children of ours are, in fact, rich."--Joyce McGechan

A Month with Charlotte Mason, #28: Sunday Ponderings from the Parents Review

"Geology I dabbled in, having met with "Lyell's Principles" in the School Library. A piece of spar still remains which I obtained from the lowest Lias at the deep cutting, then being made, on the London and Birmingham Railway; I loved to gaze from the top of its banks on the three spires of Coventry. The slight knowledge acquired of what was then a new science was like a seed thrown into the ground, which did not germinate till long years after. I still eagerly pursued Entomology, chiefly with Wratislaw."--"Memories of Arnold and Rugby 60 Years Ago," by a Member of the School, in 1835, '36 and '37. Parent's Review, Volume 7, 1896, pg. 127

"Fifty years ago, when that famous pioneer of science, Dr. William Buckland, was Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford, it was his pleasant custom on occasion to announce to his class at the close of a lecture, 'Tomorrow, gentlemen, we shall meet at the top of Shotover, at ten o'clock.' And to the top of Shotover Hill the class would ride or walk from Oxford the next morning, and there the professor would talk to them in his vivacious, impressive fashion about the formation of the hill on which they stood, its limestones, clays, ironstones, gravels or fossils, on the evidences of denudation or the methods of stratification. And if things got a bit dull he would take especial delight in giving the most fastidious of the equestrian freshmen a practical lesson in geology by leading their horses through the stickfast mud on the slopes so that they might remember the nature of the Kimmeridge clay. And, doubtless, they did remember it, with the help of Common Room jokes thereon.

"Dr. Buckland, like every great man of science (and if one may presume to judge from programmes alone, like the truly scientific promoters of the work of this Union) was thoroughly convinced of the supreme importance of the school out of school, of out-door education. Buckland used often to say that such geological terms as stratification, denudation, faults,--to mention only a few of the commonest--could never be understood through lecture-room teaching alone. Shotover Hill was to him a lesson in geology, far superior in force to any which could be learnt from books or lectures, however admirable, and however rich the illustration by diagrams or pictures, or even by actual specimens of rocks and fossils. And all such illustrations in the lecture-room itself, Buckland used with a liberality that was utterly astounding and disconcerting to the academic Oxford of his day.

"Yet Buckland was teaching young men, not mere children, and might justly have relied to some extent on their fairly mature intelligence to grasp his verbal explanations of geological phenomena. But with the true teacher's instinct he studied his own mental processes, and asked himself, 'Now, could I really, thoroughly understand what a fault looks like, could I have a vivid mental picture of it from books and diagrams if I had never seen the thing itself in the rocks?' And being aware that the intense reality of his knowledge came purely from his early friendship with the rocks themselves at Lyme Regis, and Bristol, and elsewhere, from a long-continued intimacy with the thing and not the name or even the picture of the thing, he made it his business to bring his students to see the thing itself, since in such a case the thing could not be brought to the students.

"This, then, is the testimony and the practice of one who was a master of earth-lore. No less significant is the evidence of one whose study lay amongst the great stone-books of art. As Buckland was the pioneer of geological studies in Oxford, so was John Henry Parker (now resting in the quiet of St. Sepulchre's, near Jowett and T. H. Green) the pioneer of the study of Historical Architecture. In one of his books on Gothic Architecture, which have been the source of a new joy in life to throngs of students, Mr. Parker tells us with the brief unmistakable words of a master: 'The only real way of thoroughly understanding architectural history is to go about and see the buildings themselves.'"

"If Buckland and Parker thus insist on the necessity of bringing the real thing before the eyes of students of university age so that the thing may teach its own lesson, how much more essential to right understanding is this 'real' teaching for children of school age, and how absolutely the only right sort of teaching for the very young whose school days have not yet come."

--"At School on Hampstead Heath," Parent's Review, by Mrs. Grindrod, 1897

The Common Room on the CPSIA, or, I want to paint it black (pink is definitely out?)

The Common Room has posted some updated links and comments on recent CPSIA happenings.