Field Trips ~ A List
March 9, 2010
A list of field trip ideas. Most are obvious but some, not so much. It’s just nice to have a list! If you live in Washington state and would like a complete list of local field trips, click HERE.
- Zoo
- Aquarium
- Fire Station
- Police Station
- Community Pool
- Ice Arena
- Local Bakery
- Museums
- Factories ~ Ice Cream, Candy, Milk, Bread, Bottling…
- Train Station
- University Campus
- Professional Ball Fields
- Local Gardens
- Farms, Dairies
- State Capitol, Mayors Office
- Veterinary Clinic
- Pet Shop
- Performing Arts Theaters – Plays, Music Performances
- State Historical Society
- National Parks
- Library
- Historical Churches
- Radio Stations
- TV Stations
Look for local speakers on the following topics:
- Personal Hygiene
- Dental Hygiene
- CPR Classes
- Fire Safety
- Crime Safety
- Poison Prevention
Please feel free to add to the list. I will be posting a list more specific to western Washington in the near future.
Cramberry
February 25, 2010
Cramberry could be useful in many ways. It is a virtual flashcard program that you can use to test yourself. Create sets of online flashcards with questions on the front and your answers on the back and then test yourself. This would work great for scripture memorization, vocabulary, math facts or virtually anything you want to study and memorize. You can mark the cards that you answered correctly and incorrectly so that it will re-show your incorrect cards until you have them right.
-”Study Less, Remember More”
Intelligent scheduling
Cramberry builds a studying schedule for you based on your progress on each card, letting you study more quickly and efficiently.”
Take your cards with you
Study away from your computer by printing each set as either cut-out flash cards or a list of terms, or use our iPhone app.
Popcorn Science Fair Project
February 11, 2010
These were the resources my kids used for their science fair project on popcorn. We recommend this project. It was very fun!
How Stuff Works TLC Channel – Great video on the processing of popcorn kernels.
Science Experiments You Can Eat
Planning Ahead: Presidents’ Day
February 10, 2010
Presidents’ Day, originally known as Washington’s Birthday, falls on the third Monday of February. As the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, February 22. By the mid-1980s, with a push from advertisers, the term “Presidents’ Day” began its public appearance. This day has since expanded the focus of the holiday to honor another President born in February, Abraham Lincoln, and often other Presidents of the United States. Although Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was never a Federal holiday, approximately a dozen state governments have officially renamed their Washington’s Birthday observances as “President’s Day”, “Washington and Lincoln Day”, or other such designations.
There are many websites to read about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. President Washington is almost universally admired. President Lincoln is viewed from several different perspectives which I won’t go into in this post, but may be worth further study. Below are two sites that interest me and that I will be using on Monday with the kids.
Read about George Washington here.
Read about Abraham Lincoln here.
Now for some activities to help celebrate the day. Dress up like the Presidents of the past with this fun “Powdered Wig“. This looks so easy and fun. We don’t do a lot of crafts in our home but this one has to be done. I just need to run over to the paint store to get the paper painters hats. I think it will be fun for all of us to put on our wigs and read about these two popular Presidents.
If the wig isn’t easy enough, you can fall back on these wonderful coloring pages. I am thankful that I downloaded these last year from the White House Kid’s website. The Obama administration has since removed them from the site. You are free to use and pass them on as long as they are used for personal use and not for profit.
Download a full coloring book of all 41 Presidents:
Download a George Washington coloring page only
Download a Abraham Lincoln coloring page only
Happy Presidents’ Day!!
Original posting February 13th, 2009
Planning Ahead: Valentines Day
February 4, 2010
Here are some ideas to plan a fun day for celebrating the holiday of the heart.
Do something totally different this year; a unit study of the human heart:
Purchase a beef heart at your local butcher. You can discuss the chambers of the heart, and the blood vessels. Compare this heart to a human heart diagram or model. Talk about the differences and likenesses.
Linkage:
History of Valentines Day Videos
Printable Valentine Stationary
Printable Puzzles and Activities
The following is one of my favorite posts from February 2009
The fruit of the Spirit is love. This is the first quality of the Spirit divinely inspired by God. You will find two kinds of love in scripture. Philos love which is a friendly love or the love one has toward a friend or companion. Agape love which is a caring love, the first quality of the Spirit. Agape is a divine capacity to love. Only God is capable of perfect Agape but we should strive to love as He loves us. Agape is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, and it is not proud. 1Corinthians 13:4-8
Agape seeks the highest and best for another. It is not self seeking, thus the ability to be slow to anger. Psalm 145:8. Agape keeps no record of wrongs and does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Praise God for His Agape upon us!
If you want to learn more about Agape love and other qualities of the Spirit, I recommend taking Beth Moore’s study Living Beyond Yourself, Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit.
Happy almost Valentines Day!
Here are some bible verses in the romantic King James version to help you celebrate this holiday of love:
Fill your heart with Gods word
Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11
Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Romans 10:10
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. Mark 12:30
Search me, oh God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. Psalm 139:23
Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Psalm 37:4
Verses that speak of God’s Love
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31:3
God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Behold, what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3:1
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10
We love Him, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
Memorization ~ Pledges
February 1, 2010
PLEDGE TO THE CHRISTIAN FLAG
I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again with life and liberty to all who believe.
PLEDGE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
PLEDGE TO THE BIBLE
I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God’s Holy Word, I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and will hide its words in my heart that I might not sin against God.
Martial Arts Spring Break & Bible Camp 2010
January 30, 2010
Church of the Good Shepherd and Gung Fu for Christ
present our Camp for
K-8th Graders 10am-2:30pm Monday-Friday
Camp 1: March 29- April 2 and/or
Camp 2: April 5-9
Our fun will include Bible teaching from Pastor Tim, Gung Fu training from Sifu Steve, archery, pugil stick fighting, airsoft target shooting, star/knife throwing, nunchuck training, games, crafts, and much more!
*All safety equipment provided.
Your tuition will include a Gung Fu t-shirt, training equipment, and snacks.
$80 for your first child, 2nd child 10% off, and each additional family members are 1/2 price.
Please call Lisa @425-512-6225 or the Church of the Good Shepherd @ 425-774-4474 to pre-register with a $15 non-refundable deposit.
Church of the Good Shepherd is located at 2609 Larch Way, Lynnwood, WA 98036
Gung Fu for Christ is really fun and energetic. I highly recommend this camp and the weekly classes as well. Your kids will absolutely love it! If you are interested in signing up for homeschool martial arts classes with Gung Fu for Christ you are welcome to enroll now as well. This is a great way to get your kids moving and in shape while learning self defense. You can find more information and pricing at their blog or at their website GungFuforChrist.com.
The Common Question
January 22, 2010
(Originally posted on Accredo Christian Academy Family Blog March 2008)
Since socialization seems to be the first thing people wonder about when they find out we are homeschooling the kids, we’ve included an excerpt from one of the books that influenced us as we investigated which path of education would be best for our family. If this is a question you have, hopefully this excerpt will help you understand this issue as it relates to the path we’ve chosen.
FROM ch.36 The Well Trained Mind:
The most convincing proof that home-educated children develop normally is a conversation with a home-educated child who’s bright, engaged, polite, interesting, and outgoing. Home-school graduates get into college and do fine; they get jobs and excel.
But it’s important to understand what socialization means. According to the dictionary, socialization is “the process by which a human being, beginning in infancy, acquires the habits, beliefs, and accumulated knowledge of his society.” In other words, you’re being socialized when you learn habits, acquire beliefs, learn about the society around you, develop character traits, and become competent in ths skills you need to function properly in society.
Who teaches all of this? Agents of socialization include the family (both immediate and extended), the religious community, neighborhoods, tutors and mentors, the media (TV, radio, films, books, magazines all tell the child what’s expected of him, for better or worse), clubs (social or academic), the arts (both in observation and participation), travel, jobs, civic participation. And formal schooling is an institution.
Taking the child out of school doesn’t mean that you’re going to remove him from the other “agents of socialization” that surround him. Furthermore, think about the type of socialization that takes place in school. The child learns how to function in a specific environment, one where he’s surrounded by thirty children his own age. This is a very specific type of socialization, one that may not prove particularly useful. When, during the course of his life, will he find himself in this kind of context? Not in work or in family life or in his hobbies. The classroom places the child in a peer-dominated situation that he’ll probably not experience again.
And this type of socialization may be damaging. Thirty years ago, Cornell Professor of Child Development Urie Bronfenbrenner warned that the “socially-isolated, age-graded peer group” created a damaging dependency in which middle-school students relied on their classmates for approval, direction, and affection. He warned that if parents, other adults, and older children continued to be absent from the active daily life of younger children, we could expect “alienation, indifference, antogonism, and violence on the part of the younger generation.”
Peer acceptance is dangerous. When a child is desperate to fit in — to receive acceptance from those who surround him all day, every day — he may defy your rules, go against his own conscience, or even break the law.
We live in an age in which people think a great deal about their peers, talk about them constantly, and act as if a child’s existence will be meaningless if he isn’t accepted by his peer group. But the socialization that best prepares a child for the real world can’t take place when a child is closed up in a classroom or always with his peer group. It happens when the child is living with people who vary widely in age, personality, background, and circumstance.
The antidote for peer-centered socialization is to make the family the basic unit for socialiation — the center of the child’s experience. The family should be the place where real things happen, where there is a true interest in each other, acceptance, patience, and peace, as far as it possible.
Socialization in the family starts when very young children learn that they can trust adults to give them answers, to read books to them, to talk to them, to listen to music with them. Socialization continues as the child learns to fit into the lives of his parents and siblings, to be considerate and thoughtful of other people, to be unselfish instead of self-centered. A two year old can learn to play along for a few minutes while the parent teachers a ten year old; an eight year old can learn not to practice the piano during the baby’s nap time. It’s the real world when a child learns to play quietly because Daddy is working on his income taxes….
In our society, children, taught by their peer groups, learn to survive, not to live with kindness and grace. Exclusive peer groups — cliques — start forming around age five. Even in kindergarten, children are accepted or rejected on the basis of what they wear, what toys they own, what TV programs they watch. Even when adults are supervising, these cliques survive — and strengthen — as children grow. And only the strongest flourish.
The trend in our culture is to devalue — even bypass — the family as a basic unit of socialization. But it’s within the family that children learn to love by seeing love demonstrated; learn unselfishness both through teaching and through example (choosing to teach a child at home is unselfishness at work); learn conflict resolution by figuring out how to get along with parents and with each other.
The family unit — the basic agent of socialization — is itself a place to communicate with people of different ages. But socialization doesn’t stop there. As a family, you should make a wide range of friends of various ages. Home-school parent and lawyer Christopher Klicka points out that home-educated children are continually socialized through community activities, Little League, Scouts, band, music lessons, art classes, field trips, and the numerous events sponsored by local home-school support groups.
Below is a Christian news article on homeschool socialization:
Socialization: Homeschooling vs. Schools
CBNNews.com
Michael F. Haverluck
May 2, 2007It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
Many homeschoolers share this sentiment when it comes to public schools, believing that the moral relativism, violence, peer pressure, drugs and promiscuity found inside their gates provide an inadequate setting to properly socialize their children.
Yet 92 percent of superintendents believe that home learners are emotionally unstable, deprived of proper social development and too judgmental of the world around them, according to a California study by researcher Dr. Brian Ray .
What makes homeschool socialization such a hot topic?
With approximately 4 million children currently being homeschooled in the U.S., along with a 15- to 20-percent yearly growth rate, many professional educators and school boards are concerned that this exodus will keep funds from entering the public education system.
Many teachers also believe that successful home instruction by uncredentialed parents undermines their expertise and jeopardizes their jobs.
Questions about inadequate socialization are often brought up as a means to disqualify homeschooling as a viable alternative form of education, but are the arguments valid?
A look at the research on this socialization debate shines further light on the issue.
There’s no place like home Read more
Spelling Resources
January 17, 2010
Spelling City makes it easy to teach spelling. They have a great variety of spelling lists such as colors,numbers to ten, possessives, homophones and words of latin origin. You can just type in your spelling words and have the child be tested online, taught how to spell them or play a game with the words.
All About Spelling is a great resource for words. They have free spelling lists for grades 1st through 7th. They also have the Ayres Spelling scale which contains the 1000 most frequently used words and the Dolch word list which contains the 200 most frequently used words. If you sign up for their free newsletter you will receive their free report called “20 Best Tips for Teaching Spelling”. A great resource to have in your spelling
Spelling Time - SpellingTime.com is a virtual spelling tutor that presents quizzes, spelling bees, spelling tests, and fun spelling games all customized to each child’s abilities.
Everday Spelling – Spelling Lists by grade.
Kids Spell- Fun spelling games
Fun, Interactive Online Game Spin and Spell
Great games to improve spelling :
Turbo Twist Spelling by Leap Frog
Book List Links
January 13, 2010
Another list of links to invaluable tools for the homeschool…BOOK LISTS! You will find a wonderful variety here. If you have a favorite place to look up books for your students please let me know. Enjoy!
Classical Christian Homeschooling
Christian Children Book Review Blog
Five in a Row Curriculum Book List
Lists and Reviews by Focus on the Family
