Wow–add another blogger to the home schooling section of Families.com and what do you get? A whole bunch of great blogs to read!! While our newest blogger, Andrea Hermitt officially started last week, a few of her blogs were post dated and not covered in last week’s Sunday Evening Review. I didn’t want you to miss anything, so here are the post dated blogs as well as blogs for this past week!
First of all, if you haven’t read Andrea’s Introduction, make a point to check it out! As any of us who home school know, frequently the first question we have to answer is in regards to socialization. Andrea gave us her take on the issue (or I think she would say it’s a “non-issue”) in Let’s Just Stop Answering the Socialization Question and Beating a Dead Horse (More on Socialization).
In a daily (well, almost daily) series on ways to incorporate the Christmas season into your home schooling I encouraged everyone to go take in Handel’s Messiah this season. Other articles in this series that were published this week are: Christmas Science, The North Pole, Crafty Activities at Families.com, and unit study suggestions for Chris Van Allsburg’s The Polar Express.
We also weren’t short on blogs in the practical home schooling activities and ideas section either. We finished looking at what your second grader should know in social studies, and language arts. Then Tristi Pinkston treated us to some great ideas on using Scrabble and Monopoly as learning tools. (A big thanks to Tristi for guest blogging for us!)
However, we definitely weren’t short on the issues blogs this week either. In Disclaimer: I am Hardly an Expert in Education, Andrea examines the question of what actually makes someone an expert in education.
In Dads Homeschool Too Andrea highlighted several examples of dads who are home schooling their own. Andrea then went on to share with us a few reasons why she’s glad that she home schools in Integration/Segregation Issues and Bad Days.
In Vocabulary Word of the Day: Exacerbate, Andrea creatively shares with us not only an essay on the educational system and why homeschoolers don’t exacerbate the problems we see in education; but she also gave us a model for an essay in vocabulary. She suggests choosing one word a day and having your child write a short essay as modeled.
Andrea then answers the following rant (written in 2001 by a public school teacher):
Instead of slagging public schools for these serious problems, then withdrawing children, why not raise loud voices to governments who direly underfunded schools, and seriously underpay teachers? Instead of merely standing up for their own kids, why not stand up for all kids? “
In I Don’t Judge You For Not Homeschooling, Andrea answers critics who often take our decisions to home school as a personal offense. I can’t speak for others, but I’ve certainly run into those types.
Later in the week, Andrea shares with us a few Things that Homeschoolers Cannot Teach Their Children. My personal favorite thing that I cannot teach my children is how to be followers. Andrea also pays tribute to Spunky from the Spunky Homeschool blog in You Have to Have Spunk to Homeschool. Spunky is leaving her blogging endeavors and I have to say that if you missed her blog–you definitely missed out!
I also wrote an article outlining some ‘empirical’ evidence that home schooling works and a brief overview of HONDA–The Homeschool Non-Discrimination Act of 2005. That concludes our Sunday Evening Review and I have to say that if you’ve gotten behind on reading this week–it may take you awhile to catch up!!
Other Blogs People Are Talking About:
What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Science
Who Says Homeschoolers Don’t Have Prom?