Homeschool Happenings

This page will be dedicated to sharing ideas, cool books that we’ve read, field trips we’ve enjoyed or anything that has to do with homeschooling.

I just had a friend share a great creative writing idea  involving Valentine’s Day. Buy the little candy hearts with the words on them, and use them to let your kids write their own funny story.  They can use a little glue to attach them to paper at the places where they want to use them.  This is a great use for some candy that I don’t really enjoy eating! 🙂

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February 22, 2009

Book recommendation (soft cover – 161 pages)

This is a wonderful book that begins with early Egyptian physicans and ends with a discussion of medicine in today’s world. The chapters are short and interesting, discussing such topics as how bacteria was discovered, the father of modern surgery, Dr. Lind’s limes(scurvy cure) and how x-rays came into existence. Each chapter ends with a simple quiz. My daughter read this a few years ago when we were doing a unit study on the human body. Recently, my son and I read through it together, mostly because I wanted to enjoy it all over again.  The stories behind some of the medical breakthroughs that have taken place through the years are amazing.  One of the most fascinating stories to me was the discovery of using ether to deaden the pain of surgery.  The tale is one of pride and jealousy between 2 men that both claimed responsibility for the discovery, Dr. William Morton and Dr. Charles Jackson.  To make a long story short, Morton ended up having a stroke and dying after reading a newspaper account that was favorable towards Jackson. Sometime later while Jackson was walking through a cemetery he happened to come across Dr. Morton’s tombstone. The tombstone gave Morton credit for being the “inventor of anesthetic inhalation.”  Upon reading this, something snapped in Jackson’s mind, and he was found raving at the tombstone. He spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum. It’s a sad story, but it clearly illustrates the terrible snare of pride and jealousy.  Another theme that was brought out in a lot of the stories was the scoffing and skepticism that many received at first, because their findings were different from things that were previously taught and believed.  Even when things were proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, sometimes they weren’t accepted right away because the new truth was inconvenient or there was a not wanting to admit that what was formerly believed was incorrect.  This book is geared toward 7-9th graders.

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April 1, 2009

There’s A Whole Lot Of Spellin’ Going On

We have discovered this spelling game online called Text Twist. If you go to Yahoo.com and click on “games”, you’ll find it. You are given six scrambled up letters and a grid with spaces for 6,5,4 and 3 letter words. The object of the game is to try and find all these words by unscrambling the letters within a 2 minute time frame. To go onto the next round, you need to figure out at least one six letter word. (sometimes there is more than one six letter word)For instance, the letters on the screen may appear as E D A D N C.  The six letter word in this case is “danced”, but there are a lot of smaller words you can make too, such as dance, cane, can, dead, dad, cad, ade,dean, and, etc. Whether you love spelling or have someone that’s a reluctant speller, I would recommend this game.

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June 14,2009

Bill Peet Revival and Graduation!

        

Okay, I think my teenage children are entering into their second childhood. When they were a lot younger, we discovered Bill Peet books. Most of his children’s books are quite imaginative and sometimes hilarious. His artwork is great too. We’ve read every one of his books – probably several times. About a week ago we were at Barnes and Noble, and Jennifer begged her dad to buy her Big Bad Bruce.  Not being able to resist the earnest, pleading look in our 17 year old daughter’s eyes, he consented. Then, I was asked if we could check out some of his books from the library, just like we did when the kids were younger. We’ve checked out 5 so far and will probably go back for more. If you’ve never read Bill Peet to your kids, I highly recommend them. I must admit that I enjoy reading these as much as my kids do. My favorite is No Such Things. If you try them, let me know what you think.

Also, Jen will be graduating from highschool on the 27th. We are having a small cermony with just family and afterwards a small party with a few of her close friends. I am proud of the fine young lady that Jennifer has become and thankful for God’s leading in our homeschool journey. I know we could not do it without His help. Paul will be graduating from 8th grade as well.  I am proud of his accomplishments too and am enjoying watching him growing into a young man. (though at times I miss his baby face!)

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December 29, 2009

Informal Grammar During Christmas Break

When I was looking for inexpensive gifts to give my son, I spotted a giant book of Mad Libs at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Both my kids have enjoyed these in the past, the price was right, so this was a nice little Christmas present. Unbeknownst to me, my husband also picked up one of these when he was shopping. We decided each kid could have one. The past few mornings we have laughed and  had a fun time doing Mad Libs together. It’s almost impossible to do just one. We usually end up doing 3 or 4. It’s always nice when the kids can do something educational and have fun without really realizing that they’re learning something. Know what I mean? 😆