Did You KNow?

Recently I had the opportunity to watch some of the Did You Know? videos. The original was called Shift Happens, and it along with the Did You Know? updates share statistics about our rapidly changing culture and the effects of technology upon our culture. Some of it is very interesting. For instance, it took radio 38 years to reach a target audience of 50 million. Television reached that same size audience in only 13 years. The internet reached 50 million people in only 4 years, the iPod did it in 3 years and Facebook...only 2 years.

We currently have 540,000 words in the English language. That's 5x as many as during Shakespeare's lifetime.

The amount of new technological information is doubling every two years. That means for a student going to school to get a 4 year degree in a technological field, the information you were learning would be outdated by the 3rd year of study.

While all of this is very interesting and certainly has relevance to how and what we teach students in this day and age, I think it's important to remember that while technology is changing at record breakneck speeds, some things don't really change at all.

I find myself thinking that there are some "most important things" that I need to teach my kids that will be relevant no matter how our society changes. It is my responsibility to purposefully and diligently teach my children my values and core beliefs, and to teach my children self-discipline. If I fail to teach my kids, they'll still learn values, but they won't be mine. They'll learn from the culture.

From an educational standpoint, I believe it's crucial to teach kids to be independent, creative thinkers and problem solvers. They need age appropriate practice solving problems and making decisions, and yes, using higher level thinking skills. It is true that we are preparing kids to work in jobs that have yet to be created and they will be functioning and communicating in a different type of world. But knowing that, it becomes even more important to prepare them for their futures as family leaders...mothers and fathers. When the family falls apart, then the whole fabric of our culture will follow and it won't matter how much technology we have.

Click on the links and watch the videos. Let me know what you think.

The Brothers Grimm

I can't believe how many tales the Grimm Brothers collected in their native Germany. Did you know that there are a total of 211 tales in the complete collection? They collected stories in a section of Germany now known as Fairy Tale Road. It goes from Hanau in south central Germany all the way to Bremen in northern Germany. There is a good website that shows the road and stops along the way, complete with pictures of the split timber houses popular in that area, and pictures of Sleeping Beauty's castle and Rapunzel's tower.

I've been reading quite a few of the tales in their original form in the collection. Some of them are a little darker than their Disney counterparts, but I've been amazed at the truth hidden within them. In Snow White, the evil queen finds out from her mirror that Snow White is fairer than she and this is how she is described;

This gave the queen a great shock, and she became yellow and green with envy, and from that hour her heart turned against Snow White, and she hated her. And envy and pride like ill weeds grew in her heart higher every day, until she had no peace day or night...

I was struck as I read that with how hatred grew in her heart. The truth that our actions reflect the condition of our heart is big as life in this story.

Last week I read Mother Hulda, a lesser know tale to 3 precious little girls. It has the classic step mother who loves her child but mistreats her step child. In the story, the hard working and kind step child is rewarded by another character (Mother Hulda) and the lazy child ends up being covered in sticky tar. As the story closed, one of the girls said to me, rather emphatically, "What that girl needs is a bath and some lovin'!" and her sister added, "Yeah, and mommy's should love all their kids the same!"

Wow! Out of the mouths of babes! I wasn't expecting so much truth out of these old tales. I can hardly wait to read another and see what other nuggets of truth I can find.

Thanks for sharing your kids with me. They are truly amazing people!

Another Year Off To A Good Start

Well, another year is off and running. Forms are turned in, the schedule is set and I've even met with a few families already. Today I've enjoyed reading the old Grimm Brother's version of Snow White and have experimented with injecting "poison" into apples to see what happens and how they change. Did you know that many fairy tales have 3's and 7's in them? I did not know that until recently and it's amazing when you start looking. In Snow White, of course there are 7 dwarfs, but there are also 7 mountains. The wicked queen visits Snow White 3 times at the cottage and there are 3 birds who visit Snow White as well. Kind of interesting, huh?

For those of you who would like to see my September schedule, you can go to my web page and download it as a PDF file.

Also, I wanted to let you know that the Atlantic Nursing and Rehab Center has asked our home school assistance program to host the September birthday party for the residents on Tuesday September 22 at 2:30 pm. We are responsible to provide cake and ice cream for 50-60 residents. We have the honor of serving the goodies and then are welcome to provide any entertainment we may have. Would any of you like to volunteer to bring a cake or some ice cream? Do you have any entertainment ideas? Let me know and we'll get something planned.

If you are receiving this as an email, you can also find this post on my blog. I use the blog as a way to communicate information and ideas to the families I work with in our program. You can make comments there and those are always welcome! You can also find older posts from last year and links to learning styles inventories and more. Check it out. And have a great week!

Where did the summer go?!!?

I can hardly believe that summer is almost over! We just finished up a busy week at the Cass County Fair and now it's time to regroup!

By now you should all have a packet of forms from me for the new school year. I have started getting a few back in the mail already. Thanks!

Just wanted to let you know that I will be gone for about 10 days. I am leaving tomorrow with my husband and his family for a trip to Alaska, and will not be available to answer any questions till I get back. I will be in my office on Monday August 17, and also on Wednesday and Thursday of that week. On Tuesday of that week, I'll be at the State Fair watching my kids show calves :-) So, if you need to talk to me, call today (Friday August 7) or it can probably wait till I'm back.

Hope you enjoy the last few weeks of summer. See you soon!!!

Sweet Memories

I've spent the past couple of days updating forms, filing curriculum, putting away books and art supplies and reminiscing about memories from the past few years. As each school year draws to a close, I say good-bye to your children for the summer. Most of them I will see over the summer...at church, at the YMCA, the pool or county fair. Most of them will be back next year, but there are always a few that move on, some to public high school, some move to new communities, some just grow up, darn it!

Thus the reminiscing. I have some great memories from this year. I hope your children do. Some snippets running through my mind include eager children packing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, the chaos of cutting fleece and sewing machines buzzing as we made hats for children in Pakistan, cutting, measuring & messy gluing trying to make models of the Washington Monument, and the White House. I remember giggling with kids as they wrote stories and showcased their humor and imagination. We laughed through Hank the Cowdog books and were sad when we thought Hound Dog Bates was murdered, and later were touched to find out what really happened. We were amazed at the number of stupid pets different presidents had. With your children I have learned about crop circles, possible locations of the Ark of the Covenant, tasted new chocolate concoctions and solved the mystery of the Art Fraud Detective. We've twisted nursery rhymes into mysteries and created I Spy pictures.

Thank you for trusting me with your children. Thanks for allowing me to share in the joy of who they are and who they are growing up to be. Have a wonderful summer!

A Hammock and a glass of Lemonade

Ok, so I have several favorite times of year. Today I would say my favorite is late spring/early summer (but if you ask me in September, I may say football season) There are many reasons I like this time of year so much. Winter is really over!! School is almost out and summer dangles out in front of me like a piece of chocolate on a string. The bugs are not bad yet. It's not very humid yet. The lawn still looks nice. The birds sing in the morning outside my window. Everyone around me is happy, and smiling. I could go on and on.

When the weather gets like this, one of my favorite things is to find a great book and read outdoors. On the deck, (or in my new hammock I got for mother's day) Books and words facinate me. I love how a good author puts them together and I love being taken away to a different world. Right now I am rereading C.S.Lewis's The Last Battle, from The Chronicles of Narnia.

I wrote my mom a short letter for mother's day. In it I thanked her for giving me such a love of reading. She had such a huge part in cultivating that in me. She took me to the library and helped me find books she thought I would like. She read to me and with me. I saw her take time out of her busy day to get lost in book after book.

You are also having a huge impact on your kids and their love of reading and books. Not every kid will spend countless hours lost in a great story, but even if your child doesn't live to read, they can have a great appreciation for a good story.

As summer approaches, I know it will be a little of a battle for me to get my youngest son lost in literature. If I follow my own mom's lead and guide him toward a book he can get hooked into, that will help. The statistics show how important it is.

• Students regress three months in achievement and these losses are cumulative creating a wider gap each year. By the time a student reaches middle school years, the reading loss can add up to two or more years of lost reading achievement (Franzen & Allington, 2003).

Yikes! The good news is, reading only 5 to 6 books over the summer is sufficient to prevent a decline in reading achievement.

Looking for some good ways to encourage your kids to read? The public library has a great summer reading program. New this year, I will be joining the "Principal's Challenge", providing an extra incentive for home school students to read over the summer. Ask Julie at the children's desk for more information.

Also, Scholastic has a summer challenge you can join on their website. You can have your kids journal about what they read. Discuss what they like and don't like about a book. Have them act out or illustrate a scene from a book. They could write an alternate ending or draw out part of the plot as a comic strip. Or... just curl up in a hammock with some lemonade and get lost in Narnia!

Garage Sale Bliss

You can pull into a million driveways and not find a single treasure, but then there is that one garage, the one where you find the perfect thing at a better than bargain price. That's what keeps me going back for more. I am guilty like the rest, of taking something home just because it was cheap, only to take it to Goodwill a few years later, untouched. But then there was the time I found a solid oak nightstand, painted of course, brought it home for a few dollars and then let my son refinish it for 4-H. It now has a prominent place in his room. Or one time, I round the whole set of math manipulatives for Saxon for under $10. Wow! It's the thrill of the hunt that makes the car slow down when I see the familiar array of junk in someone's lawn. As they say, one woman's trash is another woman's treasure!

If you enjoy the hunt, or even if you don't, you don't want to miss the opportunity to look through treasures at one local garage sale this coming weekend. It's at 2501 Olive Street and is being put on by several families. I happen to have the inside track that among the merchandise, Galynn will be selling most of her homeschool curriculum and many great books at this sale. As many of you know, she has home schooled 4 children and has a wealth of materials. You won't want to miss the chance for some great bargains. The doors open at noon on Friday May 8 and it will go till 7:00 that evening. Then they'll be open again for business on Saturday from 8:00 till noon.

I may just see you there!