Kids' Collection

 Good morning!

I can't believe how fast this school year is flying by.  I need to start putting together the annual Kids’ Collection (a collection of student writing and artwork from this past year)  As in years past, I have collected some writing that the children have done for me, but I am sure they have done much more with you!  If you have anything that you would like to submit, please send it to me either as a hard copy, or in electronic form as a Word document or PDF file no later than April 23.  I would really like to get the books together and distributed to all of you before I get swamped in graduation!  Our middle son, Rob, graduates this year (where does the time go??)
And if I don’t get it done during the week of April 23, I fear it won’t get done till after graduation.

So, to recap; poetry, stories, artwork, reports or anything else you think would be interesting to share.  To me by April 23 at the latest.  Earlier would be better.

Thanks so much!

Linda

I Just Love a Good Picture Book!

Today is National Children's Picture Book Day!  I just love a good picture book and there are so very many good ones out there.  I came across this list of Top 100 Children's Books of all Time.

I really enjoyed a walk down memory lane as I scrolled through the list.  Some, like Tikki Tikki Tembo and Are You My Mother, bring back powerful childhood memories.  I can still see my mother taking a huge long-drawn-out breath each time she said, "Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo has fallen into the well!"  And in our household, a crane was forever (yes, my mom and brothers still even now) referred to as a "snort".

Other books are cherished titles that I read with my own boys.  I adore I Love You Forever, and  Brown Bear Brown Bear.  The first I can never get through without getting choked up, and the second reminds me of those preschool/pre-reading days when the boys would memorize the text and think they were reading.

I also can't walk past a marvelous retold fairy tale.  A couple of my favorites in that category would be The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.





A more recent find that made the top 100 list is a book I recently sent to my niece in Tennessee for her birthday.  It's called Press Here, and it's just an awesome little book.  It starts with a single yellow dot, and the simple instruction to press it. From there you are sent on a  magical journey that shows you things are not always what you think...

Yep, I just can't help myself.  Children's picture books just make me giddy!  Check out the list  and take your own trip down memory lane.  I'd love to have you share some of your favorites and the memories that go along with them!

Still in one peace,

Linda

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

Infrastructure and communities have been the enrichment focus lately here at the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program.  Water, power, roads, bridges; boats, planes, trains, and automobiles!  It's really amazing when you realize that a mere 150 years ago there was hardly a road in the state of Iowa.  Take a look at a map now!  We have roads crisscrossing the entire state, and every one of them was built by someone.  The Romans taught us a lot about how to build roads.  They actually built them in layers, just as we do now.  Did you know the Roman empire had over 50,000 miles of roads, some of which (the Appian Way for example) are still in use today?

We are just starting to take a look at bridges.  Some of them are pretty amazing structures!  (Can you imagine going back to life without them?)  Beam bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges, cable bridges, suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges and even bridge/tunnel combinations! (ever heard of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel?)  One of the country's oldest bridges is the Philippi Covered Bridge in western Virginia.  The double-barreled 286-foot long, covered truss was completed in 1852 by builder Henry Hartley and cost  just over twelve thousand dollars.   Another modern marvel is the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, (pictured above) one of the world's longest cable-stayed bridges, spanning the mouth of Tampa Bay.  It's a real beauty and has won numerous design awards since opening in 1987.

Well, we will be swimming in raw spaghetti and glue before long, as I attempt to mentor your kids in the building of bridges.  Hopefully I will have pictures to share in the future.  Until then...

Still in one peace,

Linda

Ok, right up front I need to apologize for being a terrible blogger this year!  Having a fuller schedule is wonderful, but I have not done a very good job of keeping you updated on the wonderful learning happening in our home school assistance program....sorry.

I am really enjoying seeing science through the eyes of children!  In late December we started delving into physical science.  I brushed up on force and motion (the big ideas) and tackled teaching Newton's Three Laws of Motion to young people.  We used stuffed animals and balloons to illustrate the concepts and even found examples of all three laws in children's books.

January has found us putting knowledge into practice.  The children designed and tested "balloon racers", speedy little vehicles that travel on a string course in the hallway.  We found through testing, trial and error, that design, balloon size and many other factors determine how speedy those little guys are.  We also learned how to calculate speed, and averaged distances and times.  (And learned that spit really accumulates in a balloon that is blown up over and over, and that when it pops, said spit is also a speedy traveler)

The next big idea was energy!  We started by timing ourselves running up a flight of stairs.  The stairway was measured and converted to meters.   We found our weight in Newtons and then did some scientific calculations to determine how many joules of work we did.  Then we used that to find out how many watts of power we used to run up the stairs.  It was really fun to compare and contrast our magic number of watts to the number of watts used by common household items.

But the energy fun in only beginning!  The last couple of weeks we have had a small solar panel and wind turbine in the room.  Ask you children about alternative power sources.  They have been coming up with lots of great ideas.  If you have a chance to stop by the room, you will see their plans for everything from televisions powered by hamsters running on a wheel, to solar/wind/water powered robots that will clean up your town!    Who knows, maybe one of these little ones will solve some of our world's energy problems.

So, that is the past couple of months in a nutshell.  Stop by anytime.  I enjoy your ideas and input, and as always, I love that you share your precious children with me.

For now,

Linda

Wordle

I discovered something that I just LOVE this morning.  It's called wordle.  It just sounds fun!  Wordle is a free application you can use, and you don't even need an account at their site!  (www.wordle.net) I also watched a free tutorial video that showed me how to use the site and gave me some great ideas for ways to use it in teaching.  How fun is that! 

In a nutshell, wordle takes any group of words; a document, poem, speech, blog or any other group and finds the most prominent words.  It takes those words and makes them into an interesting word picture, or word cloud.  The wordle above was created from this blog.  You can change fonts, color schemes etc or just let the program do it for you.

One interesting application for wordle would be to use it as a tool for comparing and contrasting ideas.  You could enter the text from a speech made by Woodrow Wilson and create a wordle, then create another one using the text from a speech made by Teddy Roosevelt.  Have your children put the two wordles side by side and compare and contrast what they see.  Below I have an example of a wordle made from the encyclopedia text on an entry for mammals and one for reptiles:

Try having your child take a poem she has written or a list of vocabulary words and making a wordle.  The possibilities are endless!  Since I just love words and I'm a little bit of an artsy gal who loves design, I think this is really great.  (And so, of course, I HAD to share it!!)

Loving learning with your kiddos,
Linda

How Does That Work???

The 2011-2012 school year is off to a great start! I have had many encouraging conversations with parents about exciting things going on in your home schools. As always, my hat it off to each of you for the great jobs you do in educating your children!

As you know, the theme for this year's enrichment in the Atlantic Home School Assistance Program is How Does That Work?, and I found myself asking that very question over and over as I was trying to make a change to my blog. You will notice a new feature. The HSAP schedule is now to the right of the latest blog entry. I have decided to embrace technology and am now using Google Calendar to keep track of my schedule. Thanks to a patient (and much younger) friend, I finally got it figured out!

The first thing we will be trying to "figure out" in enrichment is the wonderful human body! Staring with the brain and nervous system and moving on to the circulatory system, respiratory system, digestive system, muscles, bones and skin, we are off on an anatomy adventure! I hope to make real world connections in our learning to think about how experts in the field would use this information. Who knows, we may be educating future doctors, nurses, medical specialists, researchers and physical therapists!

Hope you are off to a great start this year, and as always, let me know how I can help!

Linda

Another Great Year!

I can hardly believe how fast this year has flown by! I can honestly say this has been one of the most enjoyable years for me in the home school assistance business. I have the privilege of working with involved parents and awesome kids. Not many teachers can say that. So thanks for making my job so much fun!

Some of you were able to be a part of the Abraham Lincoln presentation last Friday given by Lee Williams. He does such a fantastic job of bringing our 16th president to life and the children (and adults too) were a captive audience. Thanks to Kelly for making that happen!

The new Kids' Collection is done and many of you have your copies. Each year I enjoy seeing that come together.

So, time to look ahead to next year. The enrichment theme will be...drum roll please....How Does That Work? A year focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM is the buzzword in education) I have plans to study the systems of the human body, a unit called Engineering the City, some hands on physical science (including the science of roller coasters...hmmm maybe a field trip to Adventure Land?) and some really cool hands on Algebra stuff. I'm excited to try to make science and math come alive for the kids.

Also, if any of you would like help in setting goals for next year, or would like to conference with me for any other reason, let me know. I will have some time open next Tuesday and Thursday and also on Tuesday May 24.

Look for registration packets in the mail by late July, and have a GREAT summer!

Linda