just a thought

If you can’t feel confident about your own parenting choices without tearing down the choices of others, making sweeping generalizations about them, and assuming their choices can only have been motivated by stupidity—then perhaps you aren’t as confident about your own parenting choices as you presume.

free Jesse Tree Advent Devotional

Ann Voskamp has rewritten her Jesse Tree Advent devotional, The Glorious Coming, and you can download A Jesus Advent Celebration free at her site! Just go to this page and follow the instructions in the blue box at the bottom of the page to access the free download.

on questions and unexpected answers

Asking questions can be a tool for determining a child’s comprehension. But how the person being asked a question answers it depends on how she perceives the question. The question I think I’m asking isn’t necessarily the question my daughter hears.

While talking to my daughter about her school’s combined kindergarten Thanksgiving feast the other day, I asked her who the Pilgrims were. Her reply: “the other class.”

I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving!

free Squanto audiobook

Christianbook.com is offering a free audio book of Squanto: An Unknown Hero Who Changed the Course of American History for a limited time. Visit the link above, then click the Add to Cart button under “Buy M4B Audio.” (The price should be listed as $0.00 on the next page.)

if you must leave a nastygram, at least spell correctly

I skipped posting yesterday even though it’s my goal for NaBloPoMo to post daily, as I didn’t have anything to say and didn’t want to post just for the sake of posting. I also got a comment from a drive-by visitor searching the web for Tux Paint who let me know that my site “suks.” I’d like to say it didn’t bother me what some kid  who stumbled over here thinks, and I don’t really, but it still affected my mood. I know the anonymity afforded by the Internet makes people act like jerks at times and say things they would never say in real life, but I still don’t understand what is the point of engaging in behavior that is essentially the online equivalent of flipping someone off. I get so little real (i.e., non-spammer) feedback here, and that is what someone takes the time to tell me? And on a post that gives a detailed review of the program the person was searching for and directed her to the site where she could download it in the very first sentence?

I do sometimes wonder why I bother continuing to blog and whether what I share here is useful to anyone. That’s not whining—it’s just a statement of fact. It has been a good experience to write every day (or close to it) this month, and I enjoy blogging at times and always like sharing ideas and resources. I definitely prefer microblogging and sharing links or interesting thoughts or things that amuse me, which is why I do most of my blogging at Facebook now. However, I’ve realized this month that I don’t have to save up links or write only long blog posts; I can microblog here, too. I will continue to blog daily for the rest of November, and though I won’t keep doing it every day, I will blog more frequently than I have in the past.

combining handicraft with math

I’m in awe of the impressive Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project, “a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.” You can see a TED talk with Margaret Wertheim, the founder of the project, below.

The reef is currently on exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

c-a-t

 

Plimoth Plantation virtual field trip

Scholastic has some good Thanksgiving lessons and activities for different grade levels on its First Thanksgiving site, including a virtual field trip of the Plimoth Plantation, which you can see here.

House of Dark Shadows—free Kindle edition

If you have young adult readers at home or enjoy reading YA fiction yourself (if you think you’re too old, you’re missing out!), check out Robert Liparulo’s action-packed Dreamhouse Kings series, a modern-day fantasy adventure with so much spooky suspense you might not want to read it at night (maybe that’s just me!). The Kindle version of House of Dark Shadows is available at Amazon for free the week of November 15 only (if the price at the link above is not $0, you missed the deal). I previously reviewed it and the second book in the series, Watcher in the Woods, here. Whenever anyone asks me to recommend books for teen boys, it’s the first one I mention.

I Love to Write Day

November 15 is I Love to Write Day. Schools, libraries, bookstores, and other community centers all over the country will be participating in the annual event with students of all ages. The goal is simple: Spend time writing today—whether it’s a short story, poem, essay, letter to the editor, love letter, or anything else!