My children were born natural learners, constantly exploring, questioning with a curiosity that gave me sheer joy to be a part of. Trouble was, as they progressed from being toddlers and ventured toward compulsory attendance and school age, instead of being a joyous participant, I began to lose some of that joy as I began to pay more attention to societal educational standards. Eventually those standards and the drive to test children younger and younger led my family to the homeschool choice. Still, it took many years for me to deschool and I’d like to share some past articles and deschooling resources for anyone looking to reach that deschooled spot sooner rather than later. If you have any questions or need help.

HEM Deschooling Articles

Decompression – Frequently Asked Questions by Cafi Cohen

Go light on the teacher aspect of home education. Don’t be the nightmare homeschooling parent, the one who insists on researching the country of origin of every piece of produce in the grocery store. Yes, it can make you – the parent – feel good to point out the educational aspects of everyday life. Your teenagers will probably find such antics more boring than the school they just left behind.

Instead consider spending time on activities both you and your kids enjoy. You have very few years remaining to share the same household. Learning occurs as a by-product of fun events – like travel and playing games and cooking together and outdoor sports. Enjoy – and don’t sweat the small stuff.

Interview with Luz Shosie and Ned Vare by Mary Nix

Whatever you do, be flexible. Kids’ needs and desires change. Be ready to let go of your ideas and go with theirs. They will always love you for the trust you give them.

Live with your children as though school did not exist. If your kids have been in school, take time off before starting any homeschooling routine. Children may appear to be “doing nothing,” but they are actually healing or detoxing. Parents may need an activity during this process. Find something you enjoy doing, learn something new. Your kids need to see that you have a life. You will probably be surprised at how much they are doing and learning. Do not hover.

I Am An Unschooled Adult by Susanna Wesley

Knowing what I know now, it is clear that those years were a time when I was “de-schooling.” I was growing up. I was figuring out that I had always lived from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. I had never heard of the disadvantages, much less the detriments, of formal schooling, so I had no logical explanation for why I was feeling completely lost in a great big world which was supposed to be full of opportunities. I felt stuck in time, as if I had no past and no future.

Dealing With Doubts by Janet Keip

When we first began homeschooling six years ago, I felt a raw defensiveness when someone challenged or questioned my choice to homeschool. Now I feel that same surge of defensiveness when someone questions unschooling. In the beginning, my conviction of the rightness of homeschooling for us and our daughter was firm. However, homeschooling was still too new and too fresh for me to easily articulate our philosophy.

Gaining Confidence In Our Homeschooling by Larry and Susan Kaseman

Homeschooling works because children learn well with the help and guidance of parents who know them well and care deeply about them. They can learn at their own pace, when they are ready and eager, so learning is easier. They can spend extra time on things that especially interest them, which motivates them. They often discover interests that lead to their life’s work. They do not have to deal with disruptive schedules that interrupt their learning, peer pressure, humiliation or failing grades if they make a mistake or haven’t learned something yet, teachers who do not understand or appreciate their strengths, a curriculum that does not suit their needs, approaches to learning that do not work for them, and other inevitable parts of standardized schools run by the government and designed to try to educate many children at once, regardless of their individual differences.

Dear New Homeschooler by Mary McCarthy

Notice how many ordinary people have written books about their successful homeschooling program. They’re just like you, having once stood in those same shaky shoes. that’s what you should be getting out of all those books: That ordinary parents, just like you, can achieve success in homeschooling. Each one found little tricks and experiences that helped them, and may help you too. But the basic message is that they all succeeded.

From Homeschooled to Homeschooling by Dawn Colclasure

If anything, the experience of being homeschooled gives these parents a source to turn to in times of distress–their parents. “I know from watching my mom and others that all homeschoolers go through the same doubts and if they just persevere, they figure out a comfortable and effective way of doing it for their family,” Humphries says. She adds, “That gives me courage on those doubting days.”

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom by Carol Wanagel

It seemed like I wasn’t teaching them anything anymore, and yet they were learning at a furious pace. It became very clear that every time I started up with my assignments and lectures I was interfering with their education. Whatever I told them they had to learn, they slowly and painfully memorized, then quickly forgot. Whatever they wanted to learn, they learned instantly and for life.

On Self-Doubt - Lenita Harsch

Albert Einstein, The greatest minds of our century, felt held back in school and was considered a poor student. (I wonder if his teachers ever doubted their abilities when trying to teach him?) He later spoke of the need for freedom in education – the freedom to be curious and inquisitive, and to explore independently. His own education blossomed only after he took charge of K himself. No longer held back, his curiosity led him to new and wonderful discoveries about the universe.

Peaceful Unschooling – Charlotte C. Monte

Yes, I definitely have an opinion that unschooling, or child-led learning, or whatever similar term parents choose, is best for children. And I’m sure that for every person you ask, you’ll get a different definition of what unschooling means, and it may look vastly different from house to house, and even child to child. What I really think unschooling boils down to, in whatever form, is this: A peace, a harmony and a love of learning that does not get squelched over time.

Other Deschooling Resources

Deschooling for Parents by Sandra Dodd

Deschooling Society – Ivan Illach

Reading her columns again has been a walk down memory lane as I have checked to see if the books I’ve listed are still in print. I’ve listed some of them below along with links to her original column and some occasional snippets from her reviews. I hope your family enjoys each of her recommended books as much as we did!

I distinctly recall borrowing and reading Steven Kellog’s I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago after reading Joan’s review in her July-August 1997 column. She wrote:

No one retells a tall tale with more panache than Steven Kellogg. In this one, which was adapted from a nineteenth-century American folk song, multiple narrators boldly take credit for some of the most outrageous claims in history. One by one, they brag about having seen King Pharoah’s daughter fish Moses out of the water, of seeing Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden, of showing Columbus the way to the New World, of secretly marrying Queen Elizabeth in Milwaukee, even of playing hopscotch with spacemen on the moon (with plans to visit Saturn). All of these outlandish boasts are embellished with Kellogg’s own verse and typically exuberant illustrations.

In that same column she reviewed A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipplle, the first book in the Dear America Series, A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder, by Walter Wick and Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (and What the Neighbors Thought.)

In her January-February 1998 So Many Books column, Joan Torkildson reviewed:

• Cracked Corn and Snow Ice Cream A Family Almanac, by Nancy Willard
  Joan writes this about the book: Perfect for browsing during long, wintery afternoons (even if you don’t happen to live in the Midwest), the almanac is both an engrossing read and a poignant reminder of a quieter, less complicated time not so very long ago.
  
• I Wonder Why Trees Have Leaves and Other Questions About Plants (Kingfisher books by various authors)
  The books are an eclectic mix of bold, easy-to-read type, beautifully realistic illustrations, and humorous cartoon-like drawings. Questions range from the sensible (“Why do leaves change color in the fall?”) to the quirky (“Which bird sniffs all night?”).
  
• The Kingfisher Young People’s Atlas of the World
  Extensively indexed, the book also includes detailed charts of facts and figures for each continent.
  
• I Saw a Purple Cow by Ann Cole, Carolyn Haas, Faith Bushnell, and Betty Weinberger
  The emphasis here is on the simple and homemade, a feature that will no doubt be appreciated by budget-minded homeschooling families. Most of the activities in the book use recycled or common household items, such as cardboard boxes and tubes, egg cartons, newspapers and magazines, cans and jar lids, old clothes and jewelry, crayons, and watercolors. Have plenty of white glue and tape on hand.
  
• The Best of Shakespeare: Retellings of 10 Classic Plays E. Nesbit

In the So Many Books March-April 1997 Column, Joan wrote this about

• With Needle and Thread: A Book About Quilts , by Raymond Bial, With Needle and Thread would make a nice addition to a unit study on quiltmaking, or could simply add depth and background to a family quiltmaking project. Ambitious types might try researching a few of the hundreds of colorful names (Broken Dishes, Chinese Coins, Drunkard’s Path, Trip Around the World) to uncover more of the history of this gentle “art within.

In this column she also reviewed

• The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families
• Mapping a Changing World
• My Brother Sam Is Dead

Here is a list of other books that she recommended via her column:

• Pass the Peas Please
• Crinkleroot’s Nature Almanac
• Grandfather’s Christmas Tree
• Amelia Erhart, Young Air Pioneer

I’ve linked many of the books to sites where you can purchase them, whether brand-new or well-used, but don’t forget to see if you can borrow them from your local public library first!

Time Travel with a Teaspoon Archaeology For Kids by Rebecca Rupp was featured in the September-October 1998 issue of Home Education Magazine. Rebecca opened the column by writing:

Caleb, our youngest son, wants (just now) to be an archaeologist when he grows up. Accordingly, he reads everything he can find on archaeological topics, surfs the Internet in search of the ancient, and subscribes to the magazine Archaeology, published bimonthly by the Archaeological Institute of America. Archaeology, which is aimed at adults, has a fairly sophisticated text, but the pictures – all in color – are great for persons of all ages. Each issue includes several feature articles about archaeological discoveries worldwide.

In this one paragraph, Rebecca explains the beauty of learning and that children do not have to be limited to age appropriate material when exploring their passions in the real world! The column was written over ten years ago, but as always, much of what she shared remains available today. Here are some of the Archaeology resources she shares:

Society for American Archaeology (SAA) http://www.saa.org. This first one offers many great resources, but I was delighted find Frequently Asked Questions About A Career In Archaeology In The U.S.

Next she offered these recommendations:

• Calliope http://www.cobblestonepub.com/magazine/CAL/
• Faces http://www.cobblestonepub.com/magazine/FAC/

I was able to find the following book suggestions at my local library:

• Dig This! How Archaeologists Uncover Our Past (Michael Avi-Yonah; Runestone Press, 1993) Also in this series; Scrawl! Writing in Ancient Times; Fired Up! Making Pottery in Ancient Times; Piece by Piece: Mosaics of the Ancient World; and Sunk! Exploring Underwater Archaeology
• The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells: A Book About Archaeology (Jackie Posner; Scholastic, 1997
• The Young Oxford Book of Archaeology by Norah Moloney (Oxford University Press, 1997)
• Gods, Graves, and Scholars by C.W. Ceram (Bantam, 1976

I could not find these at my local or statewide library, but as Becky writes, many can be found in libraries or used bookstores.

• All About Archaeology by Anne Terry White (Random House, 1959)
• Archaeology by Dennis Fradin (Children’s Press, 1983)
• The Practical Archaeologist by Jane McIntosh (Facts On File, 1986
• Archaeology: A Brief Introduction by Brian Fagan (Addison Wesley, 1996)

As always, Rebecca offers some interesting hands on resources as well.

• Prehistoric Cave Painting Kit and Rock Art Painting. Both kits are available from Ancient Graffiti, 52 Seymour St., 888) 725-6632 fax (802) 388-7104; e-mail: ancientg @ sovernet.com. (I could not find the company on line, so I’m not sure if they remain in business or not.



• Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin (AFOB)
• PIT (Passport in Time) Traveler
• The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training

In this column Rebecca also reviews some other great resources. was able to find: Reading Through the Ages By Linda Thornhill and Sally Barnard, The Game of Shakespeare, Beaver Tooth and Days of Knights and Damsels

HEM columnist Rebecca Rupp has a Ph.D. in cell biology, has written for many magazines, and has published several books. She lives in Vermont with her husband and three sons.

Not only is Cafi the author of several homeschool books, she was also a columnist for Home Education Magazine for a few years and many of her excellent articles can be accessed online.

One great sample of her Older Kids column was featured in the July-August 1997 issue of Home Education Magazine. In this column Cohen wrote about Less being More. Although the column is over ten years old, the information remains relevant today. She writes this about the vendors’ area of a homeschool conference she had attended:

Hundreds of exhibitors lined the aisles at the last homeschooling conference I attended. There were educational games; nifty self- instructional computer math programs; complete lab science kits; history and art and music videos; all the “basics” of K-12 education on CD-ROM; even some wonderful books.

It all beckoned, promising to make my life easier by selling me the tools for The Perfect Homeschool Program. With unlimited funds, I would have had no trouble spending thousands of dollars. Good thing, with both kids in college, we are no longer in the homeschool shopping mode.

She also writes:

With adulthood around the corner, those parents want to do the right thing, the right thing often defined by the statement: “I don’t want to do anything that will wreck his chances of…..” You fill in the blank: getting into college, finding employment, joining the military, living on his own, etc. It is easy to be scared into trading big bucks for the assurance that you are doing the right thing.

What I learned from homeschooling in the old days, when large conferences, indeed any conferences, were unheard-of and when finding resources was like pulling teeth, is that you really don’t need the glitzy stuff to succeed. In fact, avoiding glitz may be the key to more productive home education.

How is it that Less Is More? Could refusing to spend $500 to $1,000 on new instructional materials not only save you money but also result in a better homeschooling experience for your family? The short answer is “Yes.”

Cohen suggests looking to community models to find great resources for your children. Here are some of the models and resources she suggests. Please note that some of the resources might be gone, but I’ve updated some and added a few of my own.

Public Library

Reference librarians, Books (including any text) not on the shelves I can order inter-library loan and generally have within two weeks, tapes, instructional videos, (dvds) for everything from algebra to zoology, historical documentary films, Internet access, science project idea books, announcements about cultural events in town, reading groups for all ages, magazines

Other Homeschooling Families

Generally you will find these individuals through support groups. You can explore Home Education Magazine’s Support Group Listings to find a group near you.

Community Groups

It seems there are special interest groups for everything. Some my teenagers liked were church sports teams (basketball and volleyball and softball), skiing clubs, ballooning groups in Albuquerque, drama groups, special interest groups for environmental and other political causes.

Catalogs

And resource number four is catalogs from homeschooling suppliers. Some catalogs are full of information for beginners, most notably the catalog from The Elijah Company . It describes various homeschooling approaches and coordinates them to resources. It also has outstanding age-appropriate reading list recommendations.

Other catalogs I like for their reading list and alternative learning materials recommendations are Holt Associates (617 864-3100), The Drinking Gourd (800 TDG 5487), and Grace Llewellyn’s Genius Tribe (541-686-2315).

What to do with all the money you save from using the library, talking to experienced homeschooling parents, joining community groups, and reading catalogs? Here it is, the exception that proves the rule, Less Is More: buy a computer and join us online! The computer is the key to information access, and information can save you frustration, money, and time.

Here are a few more resources I’d like to add:

Community Groups

I did a google search with “my town + community groups” and found a few organizations, but I found many more by visiting my city’s chamber of commerce and again by visiting my local library. These days, the Internet allows us to find almost anything instantaneously, but I think when it comes to taking my kids to meet a group of people, I proceed with caution and appreciate a face to face meeting with the adults first.
In addition to support group listings, HEM offers some online community opportunities at HEM NEWS and Commentary and their Editorial Blog.

They also offer several discussion groups:

• HEM New Homeschoolers
• HEM Unschooling
• HEM Writers
• HEM Recipes
• HEM Networking

Catalogs

I love the catalogs that Cafi shared, but some of them are no longer available. John Holt’s site still exists , but the bookstore is now a part of Fun Books. By doing a simple, “curriculum +homeschool ” search you will find more resource companies now than were available when Cohen first wrote Less is More. Additionally, there are many sites where you can buy gently used resources as well.

Does this mean you should not use a curriculum, nor find as many resources that you can? Of course not, but what it does mean is that you must make sure that any resource you might find serves your child and that you or your child do not become a slave to a program that you paid a lot of money for, but might not be a good fit.

I picked this particular column for Closer Look because I believe the additional pressure to buy, buy, buy to make sure your child excels causes more stress to our homeschool community than it helps. Mark Hegener, HEM Publisher and homeschool Dad once said that all you need to homeschool is love and a library card. That continues to remain true as well and I hope you will read and take to heart Cafi Cohen’s sage advice in Less is More.

I thought I’d show you just what I mean by looking at one of the earliest Good Stuff columns that HEM shares online, All Aboard! The article was published in 1997, but I was still able to find many of the resources she listed today that I’m sharing below. I hope you see how you could easily do the same.

In this March-April 1997Good Stuff Column she wets our whistle by writing:

Almost everybody loves a train, from small-sized admirers of television’s Thomas the Tank Engine to teen-aged students of American history, who want to know what happened to the much-talked-about Golden Spike that completed the Transcontinental Railroad. (For those who have rosy visions of driving to Promontory Point and extracting it, forget it: it’s in the Smithsonian.) Our kids were first introduced to the appealing train through Watty Piper’s classic The Little Engine That Could (Platt & Munk, 1930), now available in any number of editions, but all starring the determined little pale-blue train who finally (“I think I can; I think I can…”) made it over the mountain with a load of toys. It’s supposed to instill the virtues of courage and persistence in the very small; parents can quote bits of it comfortingly to frustrated five-year-olds, who have thrown a failed project on the floor and are stomping upon it.

So beginning with the Transcontinental Railroad’s Golden Spike and the beloved Little Engine that could, she begins to share resource after resource and I always feel as if I’m in a candy store and don’t know which one to pick first. Let’s look at these she refers to in the first paragraph:

This is America, Charlie Brown,Volume 3: The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad. I found a copy of it at the Railroad Bookstore and was also able to reserve it at my local library, along with Watty Piper’s Little Engine that Could.

Next she reviews the following books, all of which I was able to find at my local library. I’ve also added a few resources that I discovered as well to illustrate what great jumping off points Becky provides:

• Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express (Margaret K. Wetterer; Carolrhoda, 1991
  1. Hero Book from Crayola
  2. Reading Rainbow

• The Boxcar Children (Gertrude Warner; Albert Whitman & Co., 1989)
  1. Boxcar Children Website
  2. About Gertrude Warner

• The Death of the Iron Horse (Paul Goble, Bradbury, 1987)
  1. Other books by Paul Goble

• The Transcontinental Railroad by Peter Anderson (Childrens Press, 1996)
  1. Other books by Peter Anderson
• Great Trains to Cut Out and Assemble, Bellerophon Books (I didn’t find this one at my library, but is still available for purchase here
• Jackdaw Publications, “James Watt and Steam Power” portfolio which is still available, but the price has gone up.
  1. Steam Engine History
  2. James Watt

Then she offers up some games. (Again, some of the prices have gone up, but the resources still look like interesting finds.)

• Uncle Happy’s Train Game - I couldn’t find this game for sale at Mayfair, Inc. any longer, but
  I did find several new railroad games that you can look at here.
• The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons (If anyone has a copy of this game, it was going for a mighty high price on Ebay. The link that I share is a free download, but I can’t vouch for the site that offers it.)
  

• Music for Little People offered a train whistle which they didn’t seem to have any longer, but I found one at Windy City Novelties, Inc. along with more whistles than I’ve ever seen.

In this column Becky goes on to review ElementO, Gumshoe Geography, PBS Home Video/The West, Dino Math Tracks, My Best Math Puzzles. This certainly seems as if it would be more than enough, but she shares more that you can explore at Home Education Magazine Content Archives here.

HEM columnist Rebecca has a Ph.D. in cell biology, has written for many magazines, and has published several books. She lives in Vermont with her husband and three sons.

Home education allows the individual who is not a fan of math to see that the subject goes far beyond the math text book. There are so many different ways to study it and a variety of hands on resources to explore it. Below you will find some great math articles and resources.

Articles

Measuring Up – Becky Rupp

Everything, in homeschooling, connects; sometimes home education has a lot in common with “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” You know how it goes: you’re reading Aesop’s “The Grasshopper and the Ants” and somebody asks how grasshoppers are different from crickets; and in no time at all you’ve wandered off into how to determine the temperature by timing the rate of cricket chirps and then they decide to read The Cricket in Times Square and then somebody wants to know how the New York City subway works and then… You all know what I mean. A case in point around here was the study of measurement.

Starting in kindergarten or so, according to the math manuals, kids should be encouraged to investigate the science and mathematics of measurement in active hands-on fashion, comparing and contrasting the lengths, heights, weights, areas, and volumes of various objects using nonstandard (how many pencils long is the kitchen table?) and standard (inches, feet, yards, centimeters, meters) measures. My initial forays into this flopped: our kids, no matter how charmingly encouraged, showed little interest in determining how many paper clips could be lined up end to end across a desk top or how many teaspoons it took to equal the length of the piano bench.

Time Travel with a Teaspoon Archaeology For Kids Rebecca Rupp

A pair of bimonthly science magazines for upper-elementary through high-school students from New World Publishers. Atom is targeted at readers aged 9-12; Cogniz is aimed at teenagers. Each magazine issue contains several color-illustrated feature articles on a wide range of scientific and mathematical topics.

Past features in Atom, for example, have covered lightning, whales, infinite numbers, and the geology of the Grand Canyon. Regular columns include “Space Scoop,” accounts of recent astronomical events and explorations; “Science Reporter,” which includes interviews with scientists and researchers; and “Water World,” which covers oceanographic studies and research updates.

Sample feature articles in Cogniz have centered around the biology of elephants, the laws of gravity, and the geometry of the Eiffel Tower. Each issue also includes “Chat,” a column of interviews with working scientists; “Space Beat,” on astronomical phenomena and space missions; “Earth Life,” on all aspects of life on Earth; and “Every Body,” on human health and physiology. Both magazines also contain science news, book and software reviews, web site recommendations, and science-related puzzles, problems, and exercises.

User Friendly Homeschooling Records – Larry and Susan Kaseman

* Children playing with blocks or legos are learning arithmetic and geometry as they discover from direct experience how various shapes fit together, how smaller units can be added together to form larger ones, how numbers as represented by blocks relate to each other, and other important principles.

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom – Carol Wanagel

Math is one thing that’s still handled in a more-or-less traditional way, I’m not sure why. Justified or not, I insist that Jonah do algebra before he goes off to finish his latest graphics animation, and Luke may have to figure out negative exponents before he goes upstairs to play drums. They all have other texts in their school book slots too, and sometimes they actually read them. I’ve seen Jocelyn read quite a bit of an American history source book before going off to do gymnastics and Jen has been known to do stuff in a grammar workbook before disappearing into the woods with Jill to work on their fort or invent a new game.

All Aboard! – Rebecca Rupp

In “Dino Math Action,” players draw The 36 “Action Number” cards after moving their dinosaurs, and follow the instructions. “Your red dinosaur skips ahead 2 thousands.” “Your ones dinosaur has a thorn in its foot. Hobble back 2 spaces for help.” And in the more challenging “Prehistoric Problem-Solving,” players draw The 36 “Problem-Solving Cards” after moving their dinos and tackle the listed problem. “A flying dinosaur flew 520 kilometers last week and 603 kilometers this week. How far did it fly altogether? Move that many.” “Archaeologists must ship 25 tons of dinosaur bones to the museum. If each truck can haul 2 tons, how many trucks do they need? Move ahead that many.”

My Best Math Puzzles

Author/mathematician Theoni Pappas – of “The Children’s Mathematics Calendar” – and her mathematical cat, Penrose, have devised this illustrated 52-card deck of “My Best Math Puzzles” for mathematicians aged 12 (or so) and up. Puzzles, which vary from the mildly tricky to the mindboggling brain-buster, include logic problems, number puzzles, optical illusions, and geometry puzzles. Answers are included on a separate little paper booklet; we lost ours, which adds considerably to the challenge. The cards also work as conventional playing cards; if mathematically exhausted, you can play rummy with them.

“My Best Math Puzzles” is also available as a double deck of 104 different puzzles.

So What Do You Do? by Lisa Bugg

By homeschooling my daughters, I am giving them room to develop into young women who do not know that math and science are still considered boy subjects. I have daughters who, during their young lives, are completely unaware of what it means to be graded and judged on what they wear. They think nothing of taking months to master a skill or, conversely, figuring something out in an afternoon.

No Fear!, by Jeanne Mills

According to our favorite math text, Dr. John Paulos hated math as a kid but is now a widely respected mathematics professor. He admits he learned to love mathematics by browsing through books in the library. Though my son doesn’t know it yet, he is learning what Dr. Paulos already knows: “Doing mathematics depends on computational skill no more than writing novels does on typing skills.” My son is also learning he doesn’t have to be afraid. He’s a homeschooler now. He’s free to learn in his own way at a safe pace. Learning is now his adventure, not his fear. Jeanne Mills lives in PA with her family.

Resources
Closer Look: Math

APlusMath

Geometry Web Page

Living Math

Math Study Guides from Sparknotes

S.O.S. MATHematics

S.O.S. Math offers free math review material from Algebra to Differential Equations!

The ArithmAttack
How many computer-generated arithmetic problems can you answer in 60 seconds?

HEM Back Issues: Six Issue Pack on Math & Science $20.00 postpaid “Math articles include: learning math through construction, unschooling math, math anxiety, understanding math through language, measurement, algebra, money and business, learning math with games.”

A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

This edition of Closer Look:Blogging will explore a few of the blogs offered by HEM, blogs offered by other homeschoolers around the country and some resources for those who would like to start their own blog. If you have a blog you would like to share with us, please contact us and we will include it below. Enjoy!

Blog Posts

HEM News & Commentary editor, Valerie Bonham Moon is a prolific blogger whose wisdom and wit draws thousands of visitors to the Newscomm blog each month. Here is one of my favorites:

No homeschooling to write about
OK, so I’m trying to make heads or tails of the forum post an online friend found in which one commenter has confused public-school-at-home with homeschooling and is railing about homeschooling being a scam and a money-pit for taxpayers. After two days the blog post I’m working on still sounds as if it was written by a reactionary buttressing the dikes against the seas of change.

The waters of change are slopping over the top of the dike and I’m tired of being wet. Maybe there is an interesting story I haven’t yet picked up from the news alerts? I save the blog post, refresh the screen, and skip over to my blog reader.

You can bookmark HEM News & Commentary here.

Helen Hegener posted a must read post this month at her HEM Editor’s blog:

Perspective from the Past
A friend and I were discussing homeschooling recently and she mentioned an editorial I wrote many years ago titled “On Jumping Through Hoops,” and said that although it’s still available on the HEM site, I should make it more easily available for new readers, especially as we were headed into the “not-back-to-school” end of summer season. I pooh-poohed the idea at the time, thinking that piece was rather dated and I could write something much better expressing the same sentiment.

Realizing it’s August and the school season is almost upon us, I started a post with that idea in mind this morning, but then I hit a wall, writer’s block, and the ideas I wanted to share just weren’t coming together right. I thought maybe re-reading what I’d written before would jog my writing, so I hunted it up and started skimming, then slowed down and started reading… And then I realized that the piece is still relevant and valuable and says just what I want to say, all these many years later. The question posed at the end, about what homeschooling might be like in ten or fifteen years, can be answered now, eighteen years later.

You can save the HEM Editor Blog to your favorites here.

The HEM Guide to Resources Blog is edited by Mary Nix along with guest editors Susan Ryan, Toni Nierman, Tracy Merritt, Valerie Bonham Moon. This blog offers a variety of resources several times a month. Here are a few posts from the blog:

Cardboard Castles
Cardboard fairy-tale castles made completely out of recycled materials! Complete instructions from the site builder, who says: “Well, ok, we did have to buy some spray paint, brown wrapping tape, and ribbon. Everything else we had around the house. Our castles were fairly large (several photos of their creation are included). You can make your castle as large or as small as you want. Using your imagination, just about anything in your house can be used to make and decorate your castle.”

Cast Iron
Now that we raise chickens, we have a nice abundance of eggs on hand that the kids enjoy. That lead me to re-evaluate the pans I use to cook with.
After some thought, research and conversations with my mother in law, I decided to try cast iron.

My pans were reasonably priced (bought the Lodge Pro Logic), heat pretty evenly. I don’t have to worry if the kids use a metal turning utensil when cooking. I also found the pans were also very reasonably priced when compared to the Teflon pans, which I inevitably had to chuck out after a few months of use once the Teflon started flaking – and yes, I’ve been through both generic and expensive name brands.

“Free” homeschooling curriculum
My newsreader settings include blog entries, and a blog post about free homeschooling curriculum was included in one of the alerts. I was intrigued, because many of us like to refer new homeschooling parents to free information to ease their transition into homeschooling.

Free curriculum that spell out the process and make themselves readily accessible are the kinds I like. There are no gags, gimmicks or enrollment. The instruction information is right there.

Conservation Book Repair
This book repair resource was recently shared on many of the HEM discussion lists. Lynda gave me permission to share it here. Thanks Lynda!

Youngest is in 4-H and one of the mothers decided to do a new project this year, Book Repair. It’s only a two day project and youngest signed up to be Teen Leader. She got this cool “book” and then we found out anyone can get it.

So, for those of you with old books that are falling apart or those who have kids who like to tinker with stuff and fix stuff, you can get the book online. And it is soooo easy to do, the book repair, that is <g>

http://www.library.state.ak.us/hist/conman.html

Enjoy! ~Lynda

HEM Support & Networking Blog offers news and comments by editor Mary Nix and guest editors Natalie Criss, Toni Nierman, Tracy Merritt. You can visit the site here to learn more and read the latest posts.

The HEM Conference Blog provides a listing of conferences, conventions and other events, with contact information and links.

Other Blogs and Resources

• Closer Look: Blogs
  You will find some HEM blog articles and other blog listed here from this previous Closer Look piece.

• Day by Day Discoveries
  
• The Falcon’s Nest
• Farm School
• Learning in Freedom
  
• Principled Discovery
• Periwinkles and Pine
• Po Moyemu–In My Opinion
• School is Hell

A few “how to blog” resources

• Wordpress Introduction to Blogging

• Blogging Tips for Beginners

• eHow video tutorial for starting a blogger blog
  

Of course that was just the beginning of a whole new world of gaming that they still enjoy a great deal, but we also enjoy our good old fashioned card, board or word games that allow us to relax and spend time with friends and family in today’s fast-paced world.

Here are some game resources and articles to explore.

Articles

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom – Carol Wanagel

REVELATION #6: The pursuit of any one interest will result in a complete education.

A major portion of my kids’ education began with an interest in video games. Ten years ago, for entertainment only, we got an Atari computer and PacMan game cartridge. The system incidentally came with an operating manual and a book on programming. I didn’t know how to set the thing up but the kids figured it out in short order. Before long I heard them whispering things to each other like, “Wouldn’t it be neat to break into this program and give ourselves more power?” Soon they were looking into other computer systems and more challenging games.

Getting It Down – Ways to Encourage Reluctant Writer – Sue Smith Heavenrich

If only writing were a dice game… That’s it! I thought. A game of chance.

When we gathered, I had three sheets of paper. At the top of one I wrote “The Setting”. I numbered down six lines, and filled in six different settings: a forest, a school, a pirate ship, a castle, the ocean, and a cave. Another paper was titled, “Your Character”. On this sheet I listed: an enchanted frog, a cowardly dragon, a giant, a clever spider, a boy, an inventor. On a third paper I wrote “The Problem” and listed six topics: hunting for lost treasure, stopping aliens from invading the earth, losing a favorite object, getting stuck in quicksand, overcoming magic, and getting lost in a storm.

“We’re going to roll stories by chance,” I explained. “The cast of your die will determine who your character is, as well as the setting and problem. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to use our wits to solve the problem…. and do it by writing.”

MATH… and Other Tales of Horror – Leslie Wilson

On and off over the years we’ve resurrected the Wonder Numbers Game, each time playing a different variation of our own. We especially enjoy imagining the board is the land of Mathematica, where interesting things can happen in different locations: side activities tied to certain squares, prime number “cities” where you draw a word problem card worth bonus points or a prize. We sometimes use felt numbers or bear counters or Cuisenaire Rods to collect as prizes. They are added up at the end of the game, or certain ones multiplied, subtracted, divided to find out the winner. Infinite variations are possible.

A Gift of Time – Sue Smith-Heavenrich

By homeschooling, you give them the gift of time to discover ideas. If you let children play around with blocks and puzzles and balances, they will discover math. I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t refer to LEGO® or DUPLO® blocks by counting the knobs on top. My children learned to call blocks by shape names so they could discuss castle architecture. They used counting frames to keep score in card games, and loved weighing things on the kitchen scale. When they discovered what rulers and tape measures were for, they went around the house measuring. How long is a shoe? How big are daddy’s ears?

How’s School Going? – Mary Kenyon

Rainy days and cold winter house bound days ensured time for math worksheets, science videos, phonics lessons, and educational games. As Beth advanced in school she chose to use textbooks for more of her learning. Her writing flourished as she wrote and edited a bimonthly newsletter for girls her age.

Resources

• ELLIOTT AVEDON MUSEUM & ARCHIVE OF GAMES

• History.com offers these interesting articles on the history of games and toys:
  • Game Timeline
  • Monopoly
  • Scrabble
• Interactive Timeline of Gaming from PBS

• Online Guide to Traditional Games

I am a huge fan of my local public library. I’ve been a patron since I was six and I’ve always enjoyed visiting the quaint century home that is a part of our city’s historic district. Our library was said to be the first one established west of the Alleghenies. All the librarians from my youth have long ago retired, but the spirit of helping visitors find resources lives on in our wonderful librarians.

You’ll find many great library articles and resources below.

———————

How I Learned to Balance a Checkbook – Lia Mastropolo

I sometimes wish I was still sixteen and could spend four hours combing the library shelves for the perfect novel. I might have turned out much the same if I’d gone to school, but I know for certain that I wouldn’t have had as much free time to spend reading as I had through homeschooling. I would have been copying out multiplication tables instead of hunting through stacks, and memorizing dates rather than reading historical novels. Impossible to weigh the merit of one against another, but I for one am happy to have learned about the world through novels and outdoor explorations rather than fact lists.

Messy Homeschoolers – Mary Kenyon

The ready availability of books and magazines gives me that same sense of satisfaction. I never owned books as a child and thought only a rich household would have shelves of books. Now, I have my own shelf of books, two shelves of educational books in our playroom, and each of my children have a shelf of books to call their own. We attend a dozen library book sales a year, paying for our own habit with the extra books we buy to re-sell on eBay.

Older Kids - Cafi Cohen

Encouraging Reading

Accumulate a lot of reading material. Build a good home library by frequenting garage sales (books for pennies), library sales, school give-aways. We found that large school districts, especially, scrap great stuff. They do not know what to do with a book like Little House On The Prairie because it lacks a study guide. Call your district and ask what they do with discards.

Finding Volunteer Opportunities – Laura Weldon

Many homeschoolers have found the library to be a good place to volunteer; some already have homeschool volunteer programs or junior friends of the library programs in place.

An Interview with Cafi Cohen - Marsha Ransom

I used many of the library resources mentioned in the July/Aug ‘97 article, “Less Is More.” Since you asked, I think that – while many homeschoolers visit libraries regularly – they tend to under-utilize the resources there.

We were living in Colorado when my teenage daughter got very interested in old movies. First it was Bette Davis flicks, then Katherine Hepburn, then a certain director, and so on. She started reading books on film-making. Eventually, after a couple of years, we called all this a course: The History of Film. Our daughter eventually saw hundreds of old movies for free because of the marvelous collection in the Denver Public Library.

A Visit with Mary Hood - Janine Calsbeek

Her guidelines include providing a few well-chosen library books and other old favorites. Get rid of the beat-up books with covers ripped off, or at least stick them in the attic. Keep the good books in a clean, well-lit and somewhat organized place. If there are fewer books, orderliness is easier. These days, she frequents the library more often than bookstores, and she really does use the “throw it on the couch” method of getting kids to read a certain book.

Get Started with a Little Help from Your Friends – Carol Narigon

Get it at the library.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, don’t buy a bunch of stuff right off the bat. I know all those companies with their curricula and books and kits and CDs and DVDs are singing their siren song, tempting you to fill your house with “product,” inspiring dreams of that picture-perfect homeschool family who builds a nuclear reactor together, promising your child’s acceptance into an Ivy League school by the time he’s 16.

Closer Look: Libraries # 1

Homeschool Information Library

Horn Book
Publications about books for children and young adults include a bimonthly magazine, and a guide to new titles published twice a year.

The Free Library
3,457,369 articles and books

Paperback Swap

Young Adult Library Services Association Book List

Where can you find the best resources for your child without breaking your budget? Many times instead of purchasing resources, they can be found for free, or almost free. After all, many home educators are living on one income and their choices are sometimes limited to a budget. Many find free resources at the public library, community learning opportunities via local museums, parks and other interesting places. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of free resources and Wikipedia and MIT’s OpenCourseware are two excellent examples. Many resources can be found at a fraction of a cost at flea markets, thrift shops, swaps and online auctions. Just do a web search for any of these and you will be amazed at what you find.

Who doesn’t want to stretch their dollar? Here are a few articles and resources that may help you to do just that.

Articles

Free the Curriculum – Helen Hegener

One of the more fascinating websites and blogs I’ve come across recently is Lawrence Lessig’s; Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He chairs the Creative Commons project, and serves on the boards of several foundations related to electronic frontiers and public knowledge. Here’s a link to his entire impressive bio.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals - Julie Bogart

Because we have five kids and a small budget, I’ve discovered that B-HAGs can also be pursued on the cheap. As I mentioned before, instead of purchasing season tickets to the Shakespeare performances, we usher the shows we want to see and take the seats that are left.

I couldn’t afford to pay for both kids to take the Vintage Dance lessons, but suddenly they both wanted to. The director allowed us to distribute flyers to pay for the lessons. I drove through neighborhoods and the kids ran up and down sidewalks tucking yellow advertisements into mailboxes. Not only did I save money on the lessons, but the kids owned the activity so much more. Their commitment to “earning their way” revealed their commitment to the classes.

Learning to Fish – Cafi Cohen

In person, and via the web, telephone and snail mail, I probably talk to 50-100 homeschooling families each month. During these discussions, I repeatedly hear the same query:

Where can I find ____________ ? Fill in:

* An independent-study school for high-achieving teens
* Flying lessons
* Book with hands-on math units
* Driver’s training
* Mentor for a future veterinarian
* Other teenagers
* Inexpensive microscopes
* Free, on-line Spanish course
* Grace Llewellyn’s Homeschooling Camp for Teenagers
* Remedial Spelling Program

As a military family, we moved a lot when we were homeschooling. As a result, we all learned to find resources fast. I am also an information junkie and enjoy networking for other homeschoolers. But I can only do so much. My choice, often, is to give you a fish or teach you to fish. This article is an attempt to teach you to fish.

Homeschoolers, Is Our Good Name For Sale? – Larry and Susan Kaseman

We can show parents that it is not only possible but highly desirable and rewarding to homeschool without assistance or resources from public schools or the government, that you don’t have to be connected to or regulated by the government to learn, and, in fact, for many families it is much better not to be. We can share ways we have discovered to homeschool inexpensively. We can communicate such information through magazines like this, inclusive grassroots state organizations, local support groups, homeschooling conferences, and meetings to inform the general public about homeschooling.

From Boring To Board Games: Math Really Can Be Fun!

Pretending is a marvelous way for children to practice math skills, and even older children can have fun with these family activities:

Set up a grocery department in one corner of your home. Shelves can be simple and small. Arrange empty food boxes on the shelves, mark prices on them, and open the store for your toddler’s enjoyment. You’ll need an inexpensive package of play money, and a play purse or wallet. Take turns acting as store keeper and clerk. When your child hands you his selection and money, count out his change the way the cashier would do. Encourage him to do the same when you finish shopping (of course, he isn’t going to be able to count change accurately, but pretending to helps him understand the concepts).

Less is More – Cafi Cohen

First consider that your community often provides better outlets for your kids’ explorations than any program you could buy. For example, our daughter Tamara completed 4-H’s Public Speaking Project two years in a row. This project required her to deliver a prepared speech, memorize and present a poem to an audience, speak extemporaneously on a topic, and compile a record of the experience, including an essay. Great “hands-on” Language Arts. Membership in 4-H was a fraction of the cost of many language arts programs; and 4-H yielded many other opportunities for education, socialization, and entertainment.

Second, looking first to the community for resources encourages autonomy and creative problem solving. A young homeschooler I know trades housework for pottery and Spanish lessons. Another teenage homeschooler attends her church’s adult comparative religions class because she has a consuming interest in the topic and nothing is offered for her age group. A third has taught herself to sew, using a neighbor’s machine and occasional help. Yet another has found algebra help through an online web site. And so on.

Resources

As the internet evolves, free resources can be found in many places, but here are just a few:

• Free Services From Home Education Magazine
• HEM Guide to Resources
• Ambleside Online
• HOAGIE
• Great Website for Kids from the ALA
• Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)
• National Gallery of Art
• Library of Congress
  
• A selection of MATHEMATICS WEB SITES
• Freecycle
• HEM NEWS