It’s been a crazy busy week so far this week! Sunday was Doodle’s actual birthday. The kids spent the day with their dad, since it was Father’s Day, too, and came home for dinner. In our family, the birthday kid gets to pick what they want for dinner, and Doodle picked Chicken with Shallots and Buttered Noodles. It was tasty!
Today, we had a field trip with our homeschool group. It was a walking tour of our downtown. It was really interesting, and fun, too. If you live in a city, I highly recommend calling your city’s historic society and seeing if
[Continue reading Green Chile Roll-ups (or Pinwheels, or Rollers, or Whatever) Recipe]
My 10 year-old boy and my 15 year-old girl both want to be chefs when they grow up. They also both love sushi. They’ve been wanting to learn how for a long time, and yesterday, we finally did it. (The 13 year-old boy doesn’t like sushi or cooking, so he sat out.)
I had bought a little “How to Make Sushi” kit at a bookstore on clearance awhile back. It included a DVD, a mat, and a cookbook. We watched the DVD a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday, we made the California rolls.
We couldn’t find any sushi rice at any of
[Continue reading Making Sushi with the Kids]
One of the things I aim for in my quest to do my job as a parent, is that my children be independent and self-sufficient. One of the all-important life skills is being able to get from Point A to Point B.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewblack/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
My oldest daughter, who is now 23, was riding the public buses since she was a young teen. That’s something I did as a young teen, too, and it really instills a sense of freedom and responsibility — “I can go anywhere in the city I need
[Continue reading Rocking the Public Transportation System]
On Five J’s, Joy posted a great link to a free site about practicing for the SAT, including a free “Question of the Day”.
The Hillbilly Housewife wrote an awesome post about manners. I love the quote she used, “It’s not a list of dos and don’ts designed to trip us up. It’s a GPS that talks us through unfamiliar new territory.”
Well, this isn’t from a blog — my son found a free online version of Lemmings! It’s one of my all-time favorite video games, and it really sharpens those critical thinking skills.
I am so going to run with this idea and
[Continue reading From Manners to Homeschooling to Passwords and Painting Shoes: Cool Links This Week]
My thirteen year-old son knows more about grammar than I do, and I’ve been called a Grammar Nazi (I prefer “Grammar Advocate”, thankyouverymuch). He’s really taught himself the majority of what he knows. In addition to a great understanding of English grammar, he’s also got a fantastic grasp of how our language works.
How? Through “Conlanging” – constructing languages.
He started out by learning Esperanto, probably the most well-known constructed language — although that honor might be shared with Klingon and Tolkein’s elven languages. Now he spends his spare time constructing his own languages.
Awhile ago, I had him write an essay about constructing
[Continue reading Constructed Languages – A different way to learn about OUR language]
I came across this site recently: Academic Earth. Now, I’m guessing that most homeschooling moms are autodidacts, but these are useful for the kids, too. For example, my 12 year-old son is very interested in science, and while I can find lots of interesting books for him about advanced science, being able to point him to college level lectures from top colleges is pretty exciting. (And I’m spending my spare time listening to lectures, too!)
Another site I recently found is The Teaching Company. They aren’t free, but their courses are outstanding. They’re available in audio CD, DVD and audio download. They
[Continue reading Free College Lectures Online]
Our car in the snow this morning
We’re getting hit by a lovely snowstorm here. It started snowing in the wee hours yesterday, and isn’t supposed to let up until tonight. We’re getting a good amount of accumulation.
We’re measuring the snow every three hours (during the day – I’m not THAT dedicated) and recording it. Tomorrow, we’ll make a graph of the snowfall. It has felt very steady, and it will be interesting to see if it really has been, or if it has fallen in waves.
We’ll
[Continue reading Snow day – seizing the moment]
This is one of the most amazing things on the internet, at least to me: A completely free math curriculum. This page has math curriculum from first grade all the way to high school. There are printable worksheets, full lesson plans, and even online interactive curriculum. And the whole thing is free.
It makes it really simple for me to email math assignments to my kids. My kids don’t respond well to a “mommy lectures us” form of teaching, so this way they can learn independently, asking me for help when needed.
We do supplement with lots of real-life math (cooking, writing checks,
[Continue reading Free Math Curriculum]
A year and a half ago, we moved to the opposite side of town from where we’d lived for years (the reasons are kind of pointless now). Now it takes 45 minutes to drive to my mother’s house, and at least that to drive to field trips with our old homeschool group. My kids would object to even the most fun field trips, because the drive was so boring for them.
Then a few months ago, I bought a CD set of an audiobook of the history of the United States and we started listening to that in the car. The kids
[Continue reading Learning in the Car]
We are very excited. Today is the second day of training for International Towne!
One of our favorite yearly experiences in our homeschool is participating in Young Ameritowne. We’ve done Ameritowne for four years now, but this will be our first time at International Towne.
Doodle as a college counselor at our first year at Ameritowne
I feel incredibly lucky to live in a city that offers such a neat resource. Ameritowne and International Towne are usually offered to public school kids, but the organization who
[Continue reading Exciting Field Trip – International Towne]
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June 22nd, 2010 | 
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