National collection week for Operation Christmas Child is next week, November 16–23. Visit the Samaritan’s Purse web site to learn more about Operation Christmas Child, find out how to pack a shoe box, and locate your nearest local collection site. If you make your donation online instead of enclosing a check in your shoe box, you can track your shoe box to its destination country!
In the video below, Mummy Deals shares 10 tips for packing a shoebox frugally for Operation Christmas Child. By shopping for items throughout the year and taking advantage of sales, freebies, and rebates, she was able to pack 45 shoe boxes for $45 this year! You won’t be able to take advantage of some of the tips if you’re still packing this year’s box, but she gives some great ideas for making your dollar stretch further, allowing you to pack boxes for more children.
Karen at 33 for a Moment also offers helpful tips in her post Operation Christmas Child: Shoe Boxes on a Shoestring.
Boxes for Katje is a lovely children’s book that would be great to read and talk about with your kids while you’re working on a shoe box. I shared other ideas for teaching children about poverty and compassion in my post Teaching Kids About Poverty.
Take a look at these helpful resources for helping your student (or yourself!) with grammar and language mechanics.
Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl, has just released a follow-up to her successful book Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. The Grammar Devotional: Daily Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl features 365 language lessons, including quizzes, writing tips, memory tricks, and puzzles. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks like a great addition to my collection of style guides and writing books. Read a week’s worth of sample lessons from The Grammar Devotional here, download the first 4 weeks of lessons here, and check out 10 Common Grammar Girl Questions.
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If signs and online forum posts are any indication, apostrophes confuse many people. They aren’t difficult to use correctly if you’re familiar with the rules for their use, but some people seem genuinely afraid of simply adding an S to form a plural! How to Use an Apostrophe playfully explains when to use an apostrophe and when not to use one.
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The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue provides an excellent collection of writing instruction materials, including tips on mechanics and grammar. You can also find exercises to help students apply what they’ve learned.
My family received a copy of Kenneth N. Taylor’s delightful picture book Big Thoughts for Little People: ABCs to Help You Grow. The book was originally released in 1983 and has been updated with colorful, playful illustrations by Andrea Petrlik Huseinovic.
Each lesson begins with a rhyming verse and features a different letter of the alphabet (e.g., A is for asking, B is for behave, C is for crying). A one-paragraph lesson explains the featured biblical concept or value, and discussion questions reinforce the message. Related Bible verses from The Living Bible are included on each page and are ideal for preschool memory work.
The 64-page book is geared toward ages 3 to 7. My impression is that it would be better suited to the lower end of that age range, and the lessons are just right for my preschooler. She enjoys looking for the lady bugs on each page and finding the items in the illustrations that begin with the featured letter of the alphabet. The illustrations are engaging and inviting, and she likes to look at the pictures in the book even when we aren’t reading it together for devotions. The questions include some open-ended questions that require her to think but aren’t hard for her to answer. The lessons work well as devotions for preschoolers.
Taylor, the translator of The Living Bible, died in 2005 at age 88. I appreciate his heart for children and his contribution to helping parents teach them valuable lessons about the Bible and God.
Big Thoughts for Little People retails for $14.99. Thank you to Tyndale House for providing a review copy to our family! To see more reviews of this book, visit the Mama Buzz blog tour.
Publishers Weekly posted its annual lists of best books of the year. Have you read any of PW’s top picks for children’s books in 2009? The only one I’ve read is Suzanne Collins’s Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games.
For the past 2 days, my girls (especially my older one) have been enjoying some outdoor recreation that is not usually associated with October. The younger one comes back inside frequently to warm up with hot chocolate and hot rice bags.
I think I need to remind her to pull her ski cap down over her ears, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
With Halloween right around the corner, I’m reposting Candy Math, originally published November 1, 2007. Here are a few additional activities I just found that will help you get rid of some of the candy your kids will soon be collecting.
Sweet Sorting: A Fun Activity to Practice Categorizing
Get Halloween Math Practice with Candy Calories
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If you have leftover Halloween (or Easter or Christmas) candy, use it for some fun math practice! Here are a few suggestions:
- Sort the candy by type, color, or other categories
- Make a graph
- Group the candy into sets and practice counting by 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s, or 10s
- Do greater-than and less-than comparisons
- Find sums of two different types of candy and the difference between one type of candy and another
- For older students, find the mean, median, and mode
- Find the percentage of each type or color of the whole candy stash
We dumped out all of our candy and decided to sort it into the following categories:
-suckers
-chocolate bites/rolls/drops
-candy bars
-gum
-chewy candy (not chocolate)
-hard candy
-Smarties
We then sorted and counted each piece of candy and made tally marks for each category. I modified this worksheet to match our categories, and we filled it out together. We then sorted all the candy into piles of five, and my daughter counted by fives to find the total number. I modified this graphing worksheet to match our category designations. We unwrapped all the Smarties candies and sorted them by color, arranging them into a graph (albeit not a straight, precise one). Finally, because we had several packages of Smarties Money (larger Smarties with different dollar and cent amounts stamped on top), we added up the total amount of Smarties Money in our pile ($71.86!).
Quote of the Morning: “All this candy sorting is making me hungry!”
You could also do this activity while making gingerbread houses or at any other time of year. What other math activities have you done using candy?
Other Resources:
Candy Coated Classroom Activities
We also really liked Loreen Leedy’s fun children’s book, The Great Graph Contest, which shows different types of graphs and how they’re used.
What are your favorite homeschooling blogs? Consider nominating them for the 2009 Homeschool Blog Awards! Go the the HSBA Post to read the rules and nominate bloggers (you can nominate one blog in each of the 25 categories), then check back in November to vote on the finalists.
Since I originally published Alternatives to HSLDA on December 18, 2007, I’ve received more feedback on it than any other blog post. I’ve updated the post and verified that all links are still working. Please note that I am not anti-HSLDA, though I have come across homeschoolers who vehemently oppose the efforts of this nonprofit organization. I simply believe that homeschoolers should make an educated decision about membership and that the decision shouldn’t be based on fear, peer pressure from other homeschoolers, or the notion that HSLDA provides legal insurance (they do not). I am troubled by the almost religious fervor with which so many homeschoolers push HSLDA membership and admonish those who question the need for it, and my intent is to provide some balance to the discussion. If you want to join and benefit from membership in HSLDA, that’s great! You have the right to financially support any organization for any reason. I am providing this information as a resource only, and I don’t personally endorse any of the links below. Glean from them what you will.
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I appreciate the Home School Legal Defense Association for providing information, advocating for home educators, and standing up for homeschooling rights. I use their site as well as their alerts as a resource. However, I am not a member and don’t plan to become one. I did have a 3-month trial membership previously but didn’t renew it for several reasons: I don’t agree with their legislative stance on several federal issues that have little if anything to do with homeschooling; I don’t believe that they are the mouthpiece for American homeschooling that many believe they are, nor do they represent the views of many if not most homeschoolers; and I simply don’t see HSLDA membership as a necessary part of my homeschooling journey.
But to hear some (many?) homeschoolers put it, I am a fool and am putting my homeschooling liberty and religious freedom in jeopardy by not joining HSLDA. I wonder if some supporters even think of them as lawyers at all but rather as some sort of homeschooling superheroes that have more knowledge of the law, the Constitution, and civil rights than mere lawyers. I appreciate the efforts they have made to protect homeschooling rights, but I think it’s also important to recognize that many other individuals, groups, and state organizations are strong advocates for homeschooling rights though they don’t have the HSLDA’s level of name recognition.
Many homeschoolers describe HSLDA as legal insurance, but as the organization clearly notes on its application: “HSLDA is not an insurance company and cannot guarantee legal representation in every situation.” Given the limitations and restrictions on cases that HSLDA will represent, a prepaid legal insurance plan that covers a much broader range of legal issues than just homeschooling-related ones might be a better option if you want the security of having legal insurance. But is prepaid legal insurance a necessity for homeschoolers? Perhaps.
As I see it, the most important thing homeschoolers can do to protect their educational liberty is to be thoroughly familiar with their own state’s homeschooling laws and ensure that they are following all requirements and keeping good records to back that up should they ever have a need to prove it. And they need to be assertive and be their own advocate. Yes, in rare circumstances they might still need to obtain legal representation (preferably from a family lawyer familiar with homeschooling law), but having all records in order will help make a stronger defense.
I have no problem with people joining HSLDA as long as they understand that membership is not legal insurance and HSLDA does not guarantee representation in every circumstance, including parental custody disputes involving homeschooling. I also think that HSLDA uses scare tactics to convince people to join and am not comfortable with some of their manipulative wording; fear shouldn’t be the only reason on which homeschoolers base their decision to join HSLDA. There are benefits of joining as well, and I certainly don’t begrudge anyone for joining the organization.
Here are a few of the resources and organizations I have found so far that are alternatives to joining HSLDA or additional resources to check out if you’re already a member. I have not yet researched all of them but have seen all of them referenced in more than one place. Feel free to comment further on any of these groups you are familiar with, and let me know of any other organizations or alternatives you know of.
National Home Education Legal Defense:
“NHELD is an acronym for National Home Education Legal Defense, a national organization open to all who wish to join, that seeks to protect and defend the rights of families who wish to educate in freedom.”
“Founded in 1982 by constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute is a civil liberties organization that provides free legal services to people whose constitutional and human rights have been threatened or violated.”
Association of HomeSchool Attorneys:
“AHSA is an informal network of attorneys and legal experts in the United States supporting homeschooling and homeschoolers by providing legal information about homeschooling issues, empowering homeschoolers to have the legal tools they need to meet homeschooling challenges, and providing a network of attorneys for legal representation.”
National Home Education Network: (site is not currently active, but NHEN’s Facebook fan page indicates it is being upgraded)
“The National Home Education Network exists to encourage and facilitate the vital grassroots work of state and local homeschooling organizations and individuals by providing information, fostering networking and promoting public relations on a national level. Because we believe there is strength in a diverse network of homeschoolers, we support the freedom of all individual families to choose home education and to direct such education.”
Other Resources:
Home Education Magazine’s Laws and Regulations Page
Alternative National Legal Organizations
A to Z Home’s Cool Legal Resources
Dana has a great post related to this topic in CA, HSLDA, and Protecting Homeschooling.
In February of last year, I wrote a blog post informing readers about a new social network for homeschooling moms—The Homeschool Lounge. At the time, there were around 500 members. Since then, the site has grown exponentially, and THL is currently holding a celebration after welcoming its 10,000th member!
If you’re a bibliophile like I am, come join my Book Nook group to chat about what you’re reading or your favorite read-aloud books. You can find dozens of other groups based on location, common interests, curriculum, or homeschooling method as well as general homeschooling discussions. Click here to check out THL, and if you decide to join, please say that Shauna referred you! During the 10,000 Member Milestone Celebration, prizes will be given away at random to new members who join with a referral and existing members.
