Debut

Recently, I happened upon a fellow homeschooler's blog, Jimmie's Place who shares many of my same views on all things homeschool related.  On Jimmie's blog was a link to her darling daughter's blog, Sprite's Craft Corner.  Well, that started the ball rolling and now Ms. Priss has debuted her new blog, Me & My Brilliant Ideas with her "pen name", Lizzy.  (She wanted "Me & My Big Ideas" but that blog name was already taken so Li'l Bit suggest "brilliant" and it stuck).  First order of business...she's describing how to draw a face. 

Please stop by and leave her a comment.  She'll be pickled tink.

Science bits and bytes

As many of you know I was using My Father's World curriculum last year.  But I just was not "feeling it" this year.   So I mixed it up a little bit regarding curriculum. 

Recently I have had several revelations and/or signals telling me that I, indeed, need to be teaching and inspiring my girls more scientifically.  I firmly believe that this nation is in a mess and ONE of the only hopes we have for it is this homeschool generation.  And if they're not scientifically prepared - well, that's just not good on so many levels.  So, how do we motivate and prepare them?  We've got to get motivated and prepared as their teachers.

So, over the next few days (because I just don't have a long blog post in me) I'm going to share some science links, ideas, tips, etc.. that I think are worthy of sharing.  All of these are NAYY...

#1

Teresa Bondora of How to Teach Science is a phenomenal lady.  I purchased and read her ebook, What We Must Teach Our Children In Science , and it has totally changed my outlook.  Even as an engineer I have been somewhat reluctant towards teaching my girls in sciences.  She forever changed that.  Period.


#2

I have talked about this little jewel before but Ellen McHenry is a great resource too.  She graciously offers so much free on her site.  I can't say enough good things about her gift to homeschoolers.


#3 Greg Landry's Homeschool Science Academy offered a Mom's retreat in the NC Mountains this year.  What a treat to spend a few days recharging with other like minded Christian homeschooling Moms.

Greg is a great resource especially if you have older homeschool children.  Send 'em to one of his camps and let them do dissecting with him.  Because I've realized Life Sciences really aren't my bag, baby.


#4

Science Jim is heavy into physics - something this applied scientist appreciates just a hair more than dissections.  He has some really great stuff for teaching the young-uns.


#5

I mentioned earlier that I have chosen to not use My Father's World this year.  However, I still wanted to include geography into our curriculum.  We are using A Child's Geography by Ann Voskamp.  It is really so much more than simply learning geography and cultures.  There are a LOT of scientific terms and concepts covered as well. I will share some specifics on this later in this series of blog posts.


#6  

While at the Mr. Landry's Mom's  retreat, I found out about this gem of a book, Handbook of Nature Study.  Can't wait to finally start REALLY scheduling and going on nature walks.  Something I intended to do last year but never actually prioritized.


#6

Christian Kids Explore Science is the science curriculum I have chosen to go with.  I discussed this with Greg Landry at the retreat.  I had found another great curriculum that I absolutely fell in love with but he warned me not to go that route because they have an evolution view of science and even though that viewpoint is not covered in the lower level of their science curriculum Mr. Landry expressed concern of (mom and/or kids) being sucked into that fallacious line of thinking.  And he didn't say this but given the choice I would rather support Christian curriculums/companies.


That's all for now but stay tuned...more ideas to come.