The Homeschool Handbook

July / August 2012$6.50 USA/$15.50 INTL

This issue is dedicated to those in search of excellence in homeschooling

By Vicki Bentley, HSLDA Toddlers to Tweens consultant

Vicki Bentley, author of Home Education 101 and a veteran homeschool mom of many, offers help and encouragement through Home School Legal Defense Association’s Toddlers to Tweens. This article is adapted from the Home School Legal Defense Association Toddlers to Tweens website at

www.hslda.org/earlyyears. For more information, see http://www.hslda.org/earlyyears/MSResources.asp.

CiviCs is the branch of political science that deals with duties and rights of citizenship; academically, it often includes government studies, so students can learn how our political and economic systems are supposed to work and what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens.

Some of you live in states whose home education statutes specifically require studies of civics and/or government and you wonder what resources you could use; others may simply be looking for a starting point to educate your children (or possibly yourselves) in the basics of state, local, and federal government. In his article, “Teaching Government Right” (http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p1004.htm), Dr. Arthur Robinson comments, “The last and best hope for the long-term preservation of American freedom and the remarkable legacy of the constitutional republic created by our founding fathers is in the education of young Americans to think and learn for themselves the truth about government as it ought to be.”

Inge Cannon of EdPlus.com (http://www.edplus.com) reminds us that the prophet Isaiah described the three-branch structure of government long before Christ was born: “For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us” Isaiah 33:22 (KJV). (Read Inge’s article at http://heav.org/assets/files/tvhe/v15_i2/MagazineV15Iss2_10.pdf about studying academic subjects from a biblical worldview.) The Bible was the standard for civil law from the Mayflower Compact through the constitutions of all fifty states (http://www.teachinghome.com/newsletters/newsletter167.cfm).

Maybe you had—as I did—a marginal education in civics and government; I don’t recall ever being exposed to any original documents, or more than a cursory introduction to how our government’s political or economic systems should function. So where do you begin?

For primary students, it is usually most effective to introduce government in the context of early American history, using biographies, autobiographies, and original documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html), examining these documents in a context of biblical principles or foundational references. As your students understand the colonists’ grievances and their struggle to obtain liberty, they can more rationally observe the current operations of our governmental system.

By reading and discussing the Declaration of Independence first, students can gain an understanding of why the founding fathers chose to risk their lives by defying the king and army of Great Britain. In For You They Signed (), Marilyn Boyer chronicles the lives and character of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and offers a year’s worth of family devotional character studies; the companion Family Activity Guide includes coloring pages to include even young ones in this family study.

https://www.thelearningparent.com/products.asp?cat=1&product=6

If you have several children, you may wish to cover as much of civics in a multi-level- approach as possible, teaching to the level of your oldest student and modifying assignments for the others; they will get off the “mental bus” at their own “mental bus stop.”

For more information on teaching citizenship to children:Check out the HSLDA Homeschool Heartbeat radio

broadcast archives http://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/archive.aspx for topics related to civics studies for younger (and older) students, including:

“Principles of Freedom” –Michael Farrishttp://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/85/hshbwk6.asp

“What is Civics?” –Dr. Stephen Kinghttp://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/83/hshbwk6.asp

“Teaching Citizenship to Children” –Michael Farrishttp://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/63/hshbwk4.asp

And visit www.ParentalRights.org to learn more about how a constitutional amendment is proposed and passed.

(This article was adapted from the Early Years e-newsletter, September 2009.)

Beginning Civics

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[email protected] The Homeschool Handbook is published bi-monthly by Brilliant Publishing LLC, 9034 Joyce Lane, Hummelstown, PA 17036 Telephone: (717) 571-9233, Fax: (717) 566-5431. Postage paid at Michigan City, IN and additional offices. POSTMASTER please send address changes to The Homeschool Handbook, 9034 Joyce Lane, Hummelstown, PA 17036. Volume 3 Number 04. The Homeschool Handbook subscription rates: one-year $19.95 USD, Canadian $59.95 USD, Foreign $89.95 USD. All subscriptions are non-refundable. Copyright © 2012 Brilliant Publishing LLC. All rights reserved. the publisher reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising or editorial material. Advertisers, and/or their agents, assume the responsibility for any claims against the publisher based on the advertisement. Editorial contributors assume responsibility for their published works and assume responsibility for any claims against the publisher based on published work. No part of this publication can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher. All items submitted to The Homeschool Handbook become the sole property of Brilliant Publishing LLC. Editorial content does not reflect the views of the publisher. The imprints, logos, trademarks or trade names (collectively the “Marks”) displayed on the products featured in The Homeschool Handbook are for illustrative purposes only and are not available for sale. The Marks do not represent the implied or actual endorsement by the owners of the Marks of the product on which they appear. All of the Marks are the property of the respective owners and are not the property of either the advertisers using the Marks or The Homeschool Handbook.

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Although I am not one to label and certainly do not like being labeled…I recently read an article about the effects labels can have and how simple word

substitutions can help your children feel great about their personality.

What stuck with me most was the following:

“Old Label: Shy New Label: Careful Why It Works: A shy child hides from the world, but a careful one just takes smarter steps when he goes out into it.

Old Label: Wild New Label: Energetic Why It Works: Wild implies out-of-control, while energetic describes a child who’s enthusiastic about life.

Old Label: Fussy New Label: Selective Why It Works: Fussy connotes crabbiness and pickiness, while selective means he won’t settle for anything less than the best.

Old Label: Stubborn New Label: Tenacious Why It Works: A stubborn child refuses to give in without knowing why, while a tenacious one is a fighter who won’t quit.

Old Label: Slowpoke New Label: Thoughtful Why It Works: Slowpoke sends the signal that a child is lazy, while thoughtful indicates he’s taking the time to consider his options.

Old Label: Defiant New Label: Courageous Why It Works: A defiant child refuses to do anything that’s asked of him, while a courageous one sticks up for what he believes in.”1

And who doesn’t want to feel great! We hope you enjoy this issue of The Homeschool Handbook Magazine, feel great after you read it and label us your favorite homeschool magazine!

As always let us know how we are doing and if there is something you would like us to address. Be sure to follow us on our social media sites as well as email us your information for your chance to win a FREE one year subscription to The Homeschool Handbook Magazine!!

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Education Matters!

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Publisher’s Letter

1 “Boost Your Child’s Confidence”, Your Daily Parenting Tip – Parents.com, excerpt from “What’s Your Toddler’s Personality Type?’ Allison Winn Scotch, August 2007 Issue of Parents magazine.

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Your resource, support & inspiration for a successful at home education & lifestyle.What’s inside lifestyle3 Beginning Civics

8 How Sight Words Sparked My Child’s Love of Reading and Prompted Me to Start a Company

10 The Section 3 Child

solutions12 Inspire Your Child to Want to Learn

14 Table Manners, Part 3

curriculum16 What is Classical Education in History?

18 “If you use crummy words, people will think you’re a creep.”

20 Six Ideas to Encourage Summer Reading

22 Dear Andrew…Q&A with Andrew Pudewa

24 Teaching vs. Reinforcing: Huh????

26 Stop ‘Torture’ Reading with the Logic of English

28 Putting the M in STEM

inspiration29 The Paradox of Our Age

6 Homeschool Handbook | July / August 2012 www.TheHomeschoolHandbook.com

contents|2012volume 03, issue 04

Your resource, support & inspiration for a successful at home education & lifestyle.What’s inside

christian corner30 Reality Check: Homeschooling

Alone Isn’t Enough

organization33 Organized Travel with Kids

special feature34 Homeschool Physical Education

Can Improve Your Child’s Brain

extra activities36 Celebrate the Fall Harvest

health & hearth38 Do you really know what your kids are drinking

columns40 Product Spotlights

resources42 Index/Resources List

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the to and you it in said for is go we not my me come where here he was that she on they but at with

canlifestyle

My eyes jetted down to the bottom of the score sheet handed to me by Laura, the lovely, but extremely serious, woman who had recently administered a standardized exam to my then 5 year old son, Evan. Passage Comprehension = 28th percentile. I blinked and re-read the result. Indeed, Evan, who performed beautifully on standardized measures of intelligence had a glaring deficiency in reading.

Now, there are all sorts of ways to be intelligent, and there are probably even more ways to measure intelligence, but there is little debate that a deficiency in reading is a serious problem which can severely limit a child’s overall achievement in life. All else flows from reading, and that is why the first years of education are so intensely focused on learning how to read. As the saying goes, “First you learn to read, and then you read to learn.”

A child who struggles to read may miss out on the humor of Roald Dahl and the magic of C.S. Lewis, which is a shame, but he may also miss out on basic lessons of history, science and social studies, if he is an inadequate reader. Even arithmetic, when presented as word problems will be unnecessarily challenging to him, and this is more than a shame. In our case, it was a call to arms, and we quickly developed a plan to boost Evan’s reading ability.

Luckily, we had a fantastic partner in this effort. Laura, the woman who had tested Evan, was an education specialist. She laid out a clear path of intervention for Evan. Priority number one, we were told: “Have Evan memorize the common sight words ASAP.”

The common sight words are those words that show up the most frequently in the English language. Often they are called helper words, and while they do not contain much meaning by themselves, they make up

60 to 80% of the text in children’s literature. Examples of sight words include:

the, to, and, you, it, in, said, for, is, go, we, can, not, my, me, come, where, here, he, was, that, she, on, they, but, at, with,

First identified in 1936 by Dr. Edward William Dolch, there are about 200 sight words altogether. Memorizing sight words is not reading, but it is a necessary prerequisite to success in any reading program. Here is why - sight words appear frequently in young children’s text but often cannot be easily sounded out by young children.

Take for example the word –said-. It looks simple, but doesn’t make phonemic sense. Decoding sight words requires mastery of the advanced code of English, a skill expected of much older kids.

Young children who are working on letter sounds and simple word families (hat, bat, sat, mat, cat, rat) are encouraged to read similarly simple text to practice their

emerging reading skills. To do so, however, they must also be able to either sound out - or recognize by

sight - numerous complex sight words. For example

She said the cat sat on the hat.

While -cat- -sat- and –hat- can easily be sounded out, a young child will likely get tripped up on –she- -said- and –the-. Sounding out these words is not easy. If, however, the sight words have already been committed to memory, an emerging reader can easily read the entire text, sounding out the words that are phonemically simple and reciting

By: Kate KoffmanHow Sight Words Sparked My Child’s Love Of Reading And Prompted Me To Start A Company


the to and you it in said for is go we not my me come where here he was that she on they but at with

can

Kate Koffman is the co-founder and president of teachSTIX™, which produces educational decals for young learners. She is the mother of two sons, ages 8 and 10 and lives together with her family in Washington DC. Kate can be reached at [email protected].

By: Kate Koffman

from memory the more difficult sight words. In essence, memorizing sight words allows emerging readers to read. It enables them to practice their skills and to gain quick mastery of children’s text.

This is powerful for a young child, and creates a cycle of reading & reward. Reading experts recommend that all children memorize the entire set of sight words by first grade. Knowing this, almost every pre-school classroom in America has a word wall full of sight words.

Back at home, we had our marching orders for Evan. He was to memorize the sight words immediately, and begin work with the Phonographix and Wilson reading programs soon after.

To memorize the sight words, we tried flash cards – boring. We tried word rings – boring. We tried some fancy computer programs – tedious. While Evan made progress, it was slow. One night I took 10 of the sight word flash cards and taped them up on Evan’s ceiling. I turned out the lights, handed Evan a flashlight and asked him to light up his words one at a time and read them as we lay in bed. Evan was thrilled. We practiced every night before bed. Soon, we added 10 more words to Evan’s ceiling, then 10 more. After a few months, Evan’s ceiling was covered with sight words. Wielding his flashlight, Evan, read those words up & down and in zigzags across his ceiling.

At the same time, Evan was working hard on the reading programs that Laura had assigned to him. Suddenly – and it did feel sudden - Evan began reading real books. First simple books – some of them homemade – then more complicated books. We couldn’t get him away from his reading – Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and even

The Hobbit. He read before bed, in the car, on the floor, outside on the porch. I caught him reading a book in the bathtub one night. His confidence soared and when we had Evan re-evaluated by Laura seven months later, Evan’s reading comprehension score was at the 95th percentile. A remarkable improvement, especially when you consider that it is a relative score, comparing him to classmates who were also working hard on their reading skills.

Evan’s teacher, Emily Thomas (CCC-SLP), was impressed with Evan’s rapid progress and improved reading comprehension. She suggested that I create a product out of those words on Evan’s ceiling. Together, we founded a company – teachSTIX™, which produces reusable sight word decals. Made of fabric, they are colorful and fun. They can stick on almost anything without damage and can be moved from place to place.

Some kids we know pack them up for family vacations. Others make designs out of them on the wall. Some kids wear their words. One kid we know plays a nightly game of hide and seek with his dad who hides three words around the house. There are endless possibilities for using teachSTIX, but all of them lead down the same path that Evan strode on his way to becoming a reader. Master the sight words to facilitate reading.


lifestyleBy Carolyn Henderson

The Section 3Child

if you have more than one child, then you know three things (obviously, you know more than three things or you’d be lying prostrate on the bathroom floor by now, but for the purposes of this article, let’s limit ourselves):

They all share a lot of the same characteristics, behaviors, and facial expressions – to the point that it’s uncanny.

They are all so incredibly different and unique from one another.

At least one, but possibly more, is so different that you question whether the trolls came during the night and made an exchange.

I want to talk about this person described in Section 3. Many families have one of these, generally someplace in the middle, and parents spend an amazing amount of energy and angst struggling to draw this child into the flock, but it never quite stays there – at least, not in the way that the parents expect.

My own Section 3 is Child Number 2. Vivid memories abound, but the most searing is when she was two, and I was in the grocery checkout line with her and Child Number 1, who, like many Children Number 1s, was seemingly quiet, perfect, obedient, faultless, and totally the opposite of Child Number 2.

“Is that your little girl – running out in the middle of the parking lot?” the checker asked me.

Danged if it wasn’t. In the time it took me to sign my name on the check, my Incandescent Water Sprite had flitted out the doors and was dancing amidst the cars, all of which were at the time, fortunately, parked.

This was not an isolated experience.When we schooled, while Child Number 1 (and

3, and 4, incidentally) devoted themselves quietly to coloring or writing or reading or manipulating colored blocks that were somehow supposed to prepare them for trigonometry in their later years, Child Number 2 fidgeted.

Fortunately, some miniscule nugget of wisdom lodged in the recesses of my brain told me that this is the way the kid was, and clamping her down on


Carolyn Henderson is an 18-year veteran of homeschooling and the manager of Steve Henderson Fine Art, the online and studio gallery she operates with her husband, artist Steve Henderson (www.stevehendersonfineart.com). More of her writing may be found at her Middle

Aged Plague site, www.middleagedplague.areavoices.com.

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The Section 3

the seat wasn’t necessarily the answer nor verbally berating her for being so active nor sedating her with a small pink pill.

“Why don’t you run get the mail?” I suggested. The mailbox was 500 feet away – 500 feet there, 500 back – just shy of a lap on the track.

When she returned, announcing that the mail had not come, I handed her a letter to be posted. “Will you please run back and put this in the box?”

Back again, I asked her, “Did you remember to put up the little red flag? Better check.”

Years later, she told me, “If I had gone to public school, I would have been labeled ADHD, but I wasn’t – I just had a lot of energy.

“It felt good to run it out, and when I came back, I found it easier to study.”

Today, she is a personal trainer – she runs, bicycles, swims, lifts weights a phenomenal amount each day and she is buff, very buff – the exact opposite, indeed, of what many of us have been trained to be and unwittingly train our own children to be – sedentary, and able to sit for long periods without significant physical movement.

She is the only one of the six of us quite like this, and through the years, as we have accepted who and what she is without trying to stuff her into a little box of what we think she should be, we – her parents and siblings – have changed and grown in more ways than learning to develop better exercise habits.

Her jokes push the limits. Via Facebook, she sends me totally inappropriate YouTube clips, some of which are quite funny (and some of which are just dumb). In the car, she plays with the radio and forces me to hear songs I would otherwise avoid. Throughout her childhood, at the oddest times, she blurted out unsuitably odd observations that often were embarrassing, but other times profoundly on the mark.

She didn’t conform, didn’t fit in, didn’t behave in the expected manner that we, initially, assumed she should. Some people would call her a black sheep, but we chose to call her ours. Rather than lament that she was so “different” from the rest of us, we looked around and saw that we were all – despite being in the same tribe – so different from one another, and she was the one who pointed this out.

If you have a Section 3 child, you know it. But what you may not realize is that this person, so singular from your expectations, is a gift.


solutions

By: Donna Vail

Inspire Your Children to Want to Learn

it’s as simple as this: You can’t expect your children to love learning if you don’t love to learn. If learning isn’t a joy it’s difficult to expect them to develop a joy for learning. Children learn what they live so as parents we must ask ourselves how we are living whenever we want our children to change or aspire to greater learning.

As humans we are wired to model what we see. In younger years, this behavior is even greater as a child is learning how to adapt to his environment. This is built in for our survival so that we can live and thrive wherever we land. When we cooperate with nature we are able to find great success. When we work against it we create difficulty, stress and struggle. So I ask you to model what you want to see develop and expand in your children. A great leader, Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” When we are raising and educating our children, doesn’t that world begin at home with our children?

You can begin inspiring your children to want to learn by being an inspiration and cultivate your own love for learning. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to do math or history; that is unless you want to. What you will do is take three important steps to create what you want for your children and your family as a whole.

1. Live so you have more to give. This means being a student yourself. What do you find of interest to learn more about? Can it be about your profession, a hobby, travel or special interest? Read plenty of books, write in journals and notebooks, and subscribe to magazines for greater knowledge such as National Geographic, a scientific magazine, or one in your specific field of interest. Go to your local library, purchase books from your local bookseller as well as a used bookstore and seek out books regarding particular information you are intending to learn from. Don’t forget to include in your reading list the classics as well as biographies from leaders and great minds that have shaped our world. Don’t make this hard on yourself. It needs to be demonstrated and lived as a joy rather than a duty. You want to be seeking out information to increase your knowledge and to have a continual flow of inspiration as the result of your continued learning. What you will find is that you have more passion for your life and less fear and stress, in fact much of what you do will become easier as you increase your knowledge. This will improve you personally, professionally and as a parent, spilling over into your family life creating a constant flow of inspiration. Your children can’t help but be inspired to their own learning.

2. Create an inspiring learning environment. This does not include chalkboards, bells to ring, desks in a row or posters on the wall. All you need are a warm and loving home with plenty of everyday living and interacting with the world in which we live in, locally all the way to


globally. Your children can’t help but be inspired to learn when they are surrounded everyday by people (parents, children, family, friends and community); a natural flow of everyday living, events in the home, community and world; quality books; time tested education plan for academic excellence; love and encouragement; common sense and curiosity; and time and space to explore and learn. Don’t let them be distracted or bored. It is important that they be engaged, challenged as well as supported. This is where the greatest growth takes place.

3. Partnership between parent and child. As you create partnerships with your children you will move from always telling them what to do to mentoring and guiding them in the direction they need to go. As you share your enthusiasm for learning they will be empowered to love to learn. Children need positive social feedback from the leaders in their life. As you encourage them to keep moving forward during the times when it’s hard, remind them that you know it’s hard now but within a few months it will be much easier. This is because your brain is continually expanding in intelligence. When your children are saying, “Look at me!” or “Come see what I did”, this is when you want to encourage them. They are asking for your input and this is the precise moment when they are open, ready to be inspired, and ready to soar. Create family habits around sharing the learning. Take time around dinner to share what was learned today. Give positive feedback and don’t forget to take your turn to share as well. You are partners in everyday living; join them in being inspired to learn more.

As you are inspiring your children to learn, you yourself will discover how inspired you are to learn. It doesn’t have to take hours and hours out of your day. Just learn one thing every day. This is the important stuff, the stuff that really matters. I’ve often wondered if I am learning more or are my children learning more. I know I am a better person for homeschooling and for becoming a student myself. It enables me to be a better parent and spouse. I am able to communicate and relate better personally and professionally. I see this growing and blossoming for my family too. I share this quote that speaks to me often as I self-educate and parent: “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” –Epictetus.

Parents Inspired to Action: Choose a subject of interest to study and begin pulling

together resources. Read, write and apply what you are learning. Be sure you are sharing with your family your passion for what you are discovering and learning.

Set up your environment to support whole family learning. Eliminate distractions or anything that negatively affects your ability to learn. Find a comfortable balance between plenty of time for reading, writing and contemplation as well as being active in your community.

Decide to be your child’s partner. Support them with positive feedback and set them up to receive positive social feedback.

Children Inspired to Action:Support them by paying close attention and being fully

present when they have something to show you or want to share their discovery. As you are passionate for them learning they will grow in a passion for learning.

Read aloud something you are learning that your children may find interest in. Likewise, read aloud something from what they are learning to better understand. This shows them you are fully invested.

Let your children get messy by trying new things. Let them explore projects that will give them hands on experience matching their current study.

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Donna Vail is the Founder of An Inspired Education, a company devoted to empowering families around the world to a lifestyle of true freedom through homeschooling, inspiration and entrepreneurship. Donna and her husband have homeschooled their six children for the past 16 years

and now help today’s homeschoolers find their way. For more about her company, visit http://www.aninspirededucation.com.


solutionsBy: Monica Irvine

WelCoMe to our final phase of our discussion on “table manners”. I hope your family has been discussing dining etiquette and enjoying practicing their new skills. This month we will begin our discussion with the subject of “breaking bread”. The correct way to set out bread plates is to bring the plates at the same time the bread is brought to the table, not before. Bread plates are not part of a “proper” place setting according to the “Laws of Etiquette”; however, in intimate settings with your friends or family, it is perfectly acceptable. Bread plates are usually placed to the left of our dinner plate at approximately 11:00. Bread is usually served in a breadbasket. The appropriate way to serve bread is to “score” the bread, so it can be easily broken for our guest. As the breadbasket is passed, we are to “break off” a piece of bread and then continue to pass the basket. To butter our bread, we take the bread knife and cut a piece of butter and place the butter on the edge of our bread plate. Then we return the butter knife to the butter plate. We use our own knife to then butter our bread from the butter on our bread plate.

Now, let’s discuss the polite way to respond if we don’t particularly care for an item being served. The polite way to handle these situations is: we never speak of our “dislikes” at the table. If we don’t care for something, we simply keep this to ourselves. A simple, “no thank you” is all that is necessary to say. It is also acceptable to go ahead and accept the item and then leave it on our plate, although this could be viewed as “wasteful”. If one of our favorite “dishes” is being served, we still only take a sensible helping. We never know, but our favorite might be another’s favorite too. A component of proper etiquette that we must always remember is we must never compromise our integrity. This means we are honest in all things. It is not necessary to say we love something that we simply do not like. However, we can concentrate on the things we really enjoyed which helps keep the conversation positive and shows appreciation to the host.

It is not polite to ask for “seconds” when we are a guest in someone else’s home. If the host offers “seconds”, then it is perfectly polite to accept the offer. We demonstrate our etiquette by not taking the “last one” of anything,

Table Manners:Part 3


without first asking those around us if they “mind”. For instance, if there’s one piece of cherry cobbler left; before we dig in, we need to say something like, “Would anyone care for this last piece of cherry pie before it disappears?” Of course, we have to be prepared to share it or give it up when we ask such a question.

OK, now for the trick question. Are you ready? Let’s see how many of you get this question right. The question is: How do you properly remove unwanted items from your mouth at the dinner table? Now, I’m not talking about something that just doesn’t taste good. If you bite into something and you do not like the taste or feel of it, you must swallow it. Before you answer, let’s not forget our “protect the linen” rule. The correct answer is: we take our forefinger and our thumb and very discretely remove the unwanted item from our mouth and set it on the side of our plate. These items might include such things as a hair, a rock, a foreign object, etc. I know it’s unpleasant to even think about, but we do face these types of awkward situations from time to time. Discretion is the key. We NEVER, NEVER, NEVER spit something out into our napkin. Test your friends on this question and I’ll bet you get a lot of “napkin” answers. Yuck! Poor waitresses.

Now on to just a few more etiquette considerations at the table, before we take a sip of beverage, we first chew and swallow all our food. Of course, it is not polite to make any “yucky” weird noises at the table such as slurping, gulping, smacking, crunching, etc. We are careful to never speak with food in our mouths, even if we think we are very good at it. I have seen people push their food over to one side (like a chipmunk) and then proceed to have a conversation. This is very unsightly. We chew with our mouths closed. When we are not “cutting” or taking a bite, our hands return to our lap. Sometimes, we may be faced with an “unexpected” sneeze or cough. If we do not have time to reach for a tissue or excuse ourselves from the table, then using our napkin is an acceptable choice. However, we do not want this to become a habit. We never take care of any personal hygiene items at the table. Simply excuse yourself and take care of these issues in private. Lastly, it is not polite to wear a hat at the dinner table. It is a sign of respect to remove our hat when we enter someone’s home, so we most definitely want to remove our hat at the dinner table.

Wow, we’re finished. Have we covered everything? Well no, not

exactly. However, we have covered everything that would hinder your guest or your family from experiencing a joyful dining experience. It’s really “all about” being considerate of those around you. Most of these considerations come naturally if we are the kind of people who consider the feelings of others. In our home, we try to concentrate on one or two items each week, so our children do not feel overwhelmed. Remember, enjoy mealtime. Designate meals that etiquette will be discussed and practiced and the rest; simply look for ways to compliment your children on their progress. Bon appetite!

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Monica Irvine, a certified Etiquette Instructor, owns and operates The Etiquette Factory. A master motivator and dedicated instructor, she is the author of several books on etiquette and also operates Etiquette Summer Camps. As a home school mom herself, Monica is passionate about giving parents the tools they need to successfully

teach proper etiquette in the home. For more information please visit www.theetiquettefactory.com.


ClAssiCAl education in history ideally teaches students the tools of learning, gives pupils independence to think on their own, and compels them to create their own perspective and defend it in speech and in writing. For the student, ages 12 and older, classical education is interesting, because the student gets to think and analyze and express, as opposed to just memorize and regurgitate.

There are five steps in the process of studying history with a classical approach. 1. The Grammar of History 2. The Tools of the Historian 3. Research to answer open-ended questions 4. The Socratic Discussion 5. Analytical Essays

The Grammar of History The grammar of history refers to basic facts of an historical event. Answers to the questions of “who, what, when, and

where” make up the grammar of history. Unfortunately, most students of history stay at this level. In the public and in home schools, students spend a great deal of time memorizing dates, historical figures, timelines, and coloring. It is essential for a historian to know the grammar of history, but it is merely a first step to the more challenging and interesting area of history: analysis, discussion, and imagination.

curriculum

By: John De Gree

The Tools of HistoryThe tools of learning refer to the thinking, speaking, and

writing tools essential for analysis and expression and are as follows: 1. Distinguishing Fact from Opinion 2. Forming Historical Judgment 3. Supporting Evidence That May

be Used in an Argument 4. Understanding Primary and

Secondary Source Materials 5. Making a Counter Argument 6. Understanding Cause and Effect 7. Understanding Compare and Contrast 8. Understanding Bias 9. Using Evidence and Not Emotion

to Form Judgment 10. Writing a Thesis Statement for an

Analytical History Essay 11. Writing an Outline for an Analytical

History Essay 12. Writing a Rough Draft for an

Analytical History Essay 13. Revising an Analytical History Essay 14. Citing Sources in the Text of an

Analytical History Essay 15. Writing a Works Cited Page

What is Classical Education in History?


16. Understanding the roles the following influences play in history:

a- Technology b- Social forces c- Institutional factor d- Revolution e- Individual in history f- The role of ideas g- Power h- International organization i- Causation j- Loyalty

17. Understanding how to approach critical thinking questions in history as they are found on high school Advanced Placement tests and on college level exams such as:

a- Change Over Time b- Cause and Effectc- Compare and Contrast d- Define and Identifye- Statement/Reaction f- Evaluationg- Analyzing Viewpoints

Research to Answer Open-Ended Questions

Behind every good historian is the research he conducts to form his analysis. The beginning historian may use one reliable resource. As the child ages, he should use primary source documents, conflicting sources, and as many varied texts that he can get his hands on. The idea is that once the tools of history are embedded in a student’s mind, he can use these tools and apply it to various author’s interpretations of history.

The active reader recognizes the bias of the writer, and the active student grasps the importance of primary source documents. History is primarily taught from one perspective. However, the problem with this approach is that if the child does not learn how to analyze history and practice this analysis on various authors, the student will leave the home or school unprepared to analyze conflicting viewpoints.

Because much in history is left up to interpretation, this subject is excellent for discussion. Open-ended, interpretive questions are those that are impossible to answer with a simple yes or no, but need explanation. Questions that will stimulate thought and discussion are such as these: “What caused the Roman Empire to go from persecuting Christians to adopting Christianity as the state religion?” “How did American society change from 1950 to 1990 because of technology?” “What caused the fall of the Soviet Union?” “Compare and contrast the Incas with the Aztecs.” “Compare and contrast the reasons Martin Luther and King Henry VIII founded new religions.” In their discussions, students will learn that it is possible to look at history from varying vantage points. This exercise in logic trains the mind.

-The Socratic Discussion in History One key element of the tools of learning history is

the Socratic method. Students first learn short lessons involving logic, as applied to history. Once we have taught our students how to analyze history, we will teach them how

to discuss and debate. Whereas Socrates used questions to pursue the truth in philosophy, we will use questions to pursue the truth in history.

One point that parents need never worry about is whether they themselves know enough to conduct a Socratic discussion in history. Socrates noted that the best teacher and most intelligent philosopher is one who knows what he does not know. It is essential for the parent, that instead of knowing historical information, the parent adopts certain habits of thought and of questioning. Beyond the introductory level of “Who, what, where, when why, how?” however, the parent must ask, “What evidence do you have that supports this?” If the evidence is weak, then the student’s judgment will be weak as well. For how can there be a strong conclusion with weak evidence? The open discussion stimulates the mind to think of other possible conclusions.

The teacher’s role in the discussion is not to tell the student what to think, but rather to question and challenge the student’s conclusions, forcing the student to continually clarify and defend with historical evidence and sound judgment. If other students are available, the teacher can encourage students to debate each other’s ideas, with the intention of arriving at the best possible conclusion. If there are not other students available, the parent should encourage the student to be able to present a perspective that is contrary to the student’s own perspective. The teacher’s goal is to create a scholarly atmosphere where students are free to express their ideas but careful to cite the historical evidence that supports their thesis statement.

Analytical EssaysIn analytical writing in history, substance takes

precedence over style. It is more important that the student takes a perspective that can be defended with evidence, and that the thesis is one where an opposing viewpoint is possible.

Products from The Classical Historian provide questions that compel the student to write analytically. Each essay assignment is crafted so that the student must take a stand on an issue that can be answered from a variety of perspectives. The prewriting activities give students the necessary guidance to find evidence that will support or refute their thesis. And, simple to read but effective lessons on how to write all pieces of the writing process guide the student to create strong essays.

By: John De Gree

John De Gree is the Founder of The Classical Historian (www.ClassicalHistorian.com), an Author, a Teacher and the father of seven children. After working in education for 20+ years, John realized that there is a great lack of critical and independent thinking, when history is taught. The

Classical Historian is his effort to promote these skills and to show teachers how to teach their children to search for the truth in history.


this is the advice given by Wally Cleaver to his little brother Beaver. Beaver was whining about how hard English is to learn, and asked why it was so important. Wally said “People judge you by the words you use. If you use crummy words, people will think you’re a creep.” Or they might think you’re not very well educated. In a previous column we learned that vulgar language is literally the language of the losers of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

A limited vocabulary makes it difficult to express yourself both verbally and in writing. If you’re writing a report about a battle, it adds interest to mix in the words conflict, action, attack, campaign, onslaught, and crusade instead of using battle 20 times. A good vocabulary can reduce the “ums” in public speaking and it also makes you sound more intelligent in an argument! A good writer uses a rich vocabulary to envelope the reader in the sights, sounds, and smells of her story.

Malapropisms and DogberryismsHaving a limited (or crummy) vocabulary is quite different

from using the wrong word at the wrong time. Yogi Berra once said, “Texas has a lot of electrical votes.” These gaffes are called malapropisms, from the French mal á propos meaning inappropriate. Richard Sheridan wrote a play in 1775 titled The Rivals. The main character was named Mrs. Malaprop, because she often used the wrong word at the wrong time. She said “...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.” I think she meant obliterate. Shakespearean characters are also famous for malapropisms, particularly the character Dogberry from the play Much Ado About Nothing (1598). Constable Dogberry said, “Comparisons are odorous.” I think he meant odious. More recently, Archie Bunker of All in the Family referred to his “last will and tentacle.”

“If you use crummy words,

people will think

you’re a creep.”

curriculum

By: Jerry Bailey


Eggcorns and SpoonerismsAn eggcorn is a substitution of a word or phrase for a word

or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker’s dialect. The term was coined in 2003 by linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullman after hearing of the case of a woman who substituted the phrase egg corn for the word acorn. Examples are “Old-Timer’s Disease” for Alzheimer’s Disease, and “On the spurt of the moment” instead of on the spur of the moment.

A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. Spoonerisms are named after the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844-1930) who was Dean and Warden of New College in Oxford. These are lots of fun to create and play with. Examples include “A well-boiled icicle” (instead of a well-oiled bicycle) and “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?” (customary to kiss). These days spoonerisms are widely used in music and comedy. “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy” and “The Shaming of the True” are two examples. Did you know that the Latin root FORM (meaning shape) is a spoonerism of the Greek root MORPH? The fancy term for switching the first and last sounds of a word is metathesis. You could say MORPH MORPHED into FORM, or FORM was FORMED from

MORPH. Say that five times fast! Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself.

The rest of what Wally should have said to Beaver

Regardless of the various language arts curricula you may use, have fun with language! When students play with words and phrases they get excited about language and want more. My oldest son and I have played a little substitution game (making spoonerisms) with professional athlete’s names for years. We swap the first letters of the first and last names. Barry Larkin becomes Larry Barkin. Sometimes you have to move two letters, as in Chipper Jones to Jipper Chones, but the results are often hilarious. Our favorite? Former Chicago Bulls great Scotty Pippen becomes Potty Scippen!

Jerry Bailey is the Chief Operating Officer of Dynamic Literacy and one of the authors of WordBuild®, A Better Way to Teach Vocabulary™. He proudly calls himself a word nerd, and can be reached at [email protected] or www.dynamichomeschool.com

or as VocabularyMan on Twitter™.


curriculum

By: Sarita Holzmann

Six ideas to encourage summer reading

1. Keep reading! Even if you take a well-deserved break from other studies,

most children benefit from continuing to read every day. This could mean sharing a read-aloud together at bedtime, having your children read to you, or setting aside 20 minutes a day for everyone to grab a book and read silently.

This steady little bit of work each day can pave the way for a reading breakthrough. It also keeps your kids from losing whatever reading confidence they’ve built up over the school year.

2. Read to a dog. Several different studies show that reading out loud

to dogs can help kids gain confidence and fluency in reading. A quick Google search for “Reading to Rover” will turn up interesting studies and various library programs around the country.

It seems that kids love the fact that the dog won’t judge them, won’t correct them, and listens with endless patience. Plus, these pets tend to calm children who would otherwise be nervous about reading out loud.

So if you have a cooperative dog at home, consider encouraging your children to read one-on-one to their furry audience.

3. Let your children read books a notch below their ability level.

Sometimes, we eager mothers want our children to push themselves all the time. But when you’re helping children fall in love with reading that may not be the best strategy. It’s often better to let them read books that might seem too easy for them.

You want great stories to draw your children in so they’re compelled to keep going. But when kids are frustrated because they struggle with each page of a book, they will probably miss the joy of the story. They may decide that reading is an unwelcome, unrewarding chore.

But if children are allowed to read exciting books a bit below their ability, they will slowly gain confidence and (we trust!) eventually catch the reading bug. When that happens, they’ll probably shoot ahead and start choosing harder

When summer break comes around, you

couldn’t stop some book-loving kids from

reading if you wanted to. But what about

children who still struggle to read? What

can you do this summer to encourage

them? Here are six simple ideas:


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Sarita Holzmann is the co-founder and president of Sonlight Curriculum (www.sonlight.com). She cherishes a legacy of family-centered, literature-rich home education and seeks to provide families with the rich resources they need to raise life-long learners.

books. Better to lay a foundation for the love of reading before pushing too far ahead.

4. Check out audio books for long road trips. Summer road trips are the perfect opportunity to catch

some great books on CD. Just head to your library and check out some audio books before you take off. When my husband and I would take the kids on car trips, I used to get books on tape from the library and a small tape player for each child.

The only thing we’d hear from the kids for hours on end was, “Can you pass me another book?” I must say, it’s a nice way to promote reading … and some peace and quiet in the back seat.

5. Join (or create) a summer reading program. Whether or not your kids are already hooked on reading,

they might enjoy a local reading program. With fun events and prizes, these programs can have great influence in getting kids to read. If your local library or bookstore doesn’t host a program, consider creating your own. A simple sticker chart with some basic prizes (such as an ice cream cone or a special date with mom or dad) could be all that you need for some serious reading fun this summer.

6. Model reading for your children.Don’t forget to pick out some great books for yourself, too.

When your children see you enjoy reading on your own, it helps them realize that reading is a worthwhile activity. So don’t feel guilty for heading out to the porch with a good book this summer. It may actually help your children!

If you’re wondering what to read during your break, take a look at the Sonlight Summer Readers (my own kids have great memories of many of these titles) or the remarkable Readers and Read-Alouds in Sonlight Core programs. But be careful, parents tell me the pleas for “One more chapter!” never diminish once they start! You could also introduce your kids to a book from a series. A series can keep them busy for a while, and helps them read with discernment as they learn to skim the information repeated in each book.

Happy reading!


curriculum

Dear Andrew…Q&A with Andrew Pudewa

Q: I teach a writing class for a small co-op, and have run into issues of possible plagiarism. I’ve been asked by a parent to submit papers to a site that checks for these things. Even helping my own daughter, I found she relied heavily on her outline. She was able to find key sentences in her sources, take key words from those sentences and finish her essay, but I wondered whether that was really legal. My question is this: at what point do these services mark something as plagiarized?

A: Plagiarism has been and will continue to be a problem as long as people are writing. The New Oxford American Dictionary offers this definition: “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.” It comes from the Latin plagiarius, meaning

“kidnapper”, which definitely contributes to the connotation of criminality. For purposes of clarity, let us divide the concept into three aspects: 1) Commercial, 2) Academic, and 3) Literal plagiarism.

The first category, commercial plagiarism, is not likely to be an issue for our students, unless they are publishing magazine articles or books and using external information without proper references, quotations, and citations. This problem would fall more under copyright law and is not something to discuss within the context of this article.

Academic plagiarism is a much trickier problem. Wilson Mizner, American playwright and entrepreneur, wittily observed: “Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research.” While not quite true in a literal sense, his statement does illustrate a basic idea we try to teach students to help them avoid plagiarizing: If a statement is in the category of


Don’t get frustrated! Check out a different approach!

Videos, sample pages,

teaching timelines,

and more available at

www.analyticalgrammar.com

Make a difference today!

All I want is a grammar program that will...• Be logical and sequential.

• Not take years and years to complete.

• Leave me PRECIOUS TIME for teaching writing and literature.

• Not start every year at the beginning.

• Get to the end of the subject (there is an END, right?)

• Actually TEACH my child so that he MASTERS it!

general knowledge and considered to be a fact, it doesn’t need to be referenced, but if it is an idea or opinion specific to an individual or small group, a source is required or expected. Students, however, often don’t have the life experience or general sense of things to know when something is general knowledge or not. That’s why they need the help of parents and teachers, and even among educated adults there will be disagreements about what is fact and what is opinion.

Will scouting around the Internet for possible “thesis statements for a paper on Hamlet” lead to plagiarism…maybe, but not always? Borrowing an idea for a paper is probably not a problem; buying a finished paper is. This is why most colleges and many high schools now use electronic paper-vetting services; they are forced to police plagiarism because it’s just too easy for a student to download a paper, change a few words here and there and add his or her name to the top. Generally these services work by flagging papers that have a certain percentage of words or phrases that are repeated, indicating that the paper may be the same or very similar to one in their database. At least in the old days the plagiarist had to retype the paper and might learn something in the process. Now it’s just too easy. The funny thing about kids who get caught doing this is their attitude: “Hey, I’m just using technology—that’s what we do!” Old guard teachers just can’t understand it.

The real problem is this: How similar is too similar? And that will often be a judgment call. The climax of the movie Finding Forrester revolves around this question of when does anyone really “own” an idea or a phrase or an expression? Mark Twain, in a letter to Helen Keller lambasted her critics as being hypocrites, pointing out that there really are no completely original thoughts:

“To think of those solemn donkeys breaking a little child’s heart with their ignorant rubbish about plagiarism! …Why, their whole histories, their whole lives, all their learning, all their thoughts, all their opinions were one solid rock of plagiarism, and they didn’t know it and never suspected it. A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they think they’ve caught filching a chop!”

Of course Solomon noted the same thing, millennia before: “…and there is no new thing under the sun.” So I think we must not jump to be too critical of students borrowing ideas, since the expectation that they will have some kind of uniquely original idea is somewhat unreasonable.

It’s this problem of literal plagiarism that we worry about—children copying chunks of text from a source and not changing enough words. Teachers have historically given students the brilliant advice to “put it in your own words.” But children, of course, don’t “own” many words, and in many cases can’t possibly figure out how they could move the information from the source to their paper without copying most of it verbatim or else distorting the meaning. Thus we should not be too hard on them, but gently show them ways in which facts can be restated but not altered. The Benjamin Franklin approach of taking “short hints of the sentiment of each sentence,” or making a “key word outline” is an ideal way to model this for students. Then adding to that a checklist of things to do in each paragraph (word usages, grammatical constructions, sentence patterns, literary devices) will gradually empower the student with techniques for putting it in his “own words” and protect him from the temptation towards plagiarism.

Andrew Pudewa is the Director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and a homeschooling father of seven. Presenting throughout North America, he addresses issues relating to teaching, writing, thinking, spelling, and music with clarity and insight, practical experience and humor. His seminars for parents, students, and teachers have helped transform many a reluctant writer and have equipped educators with powerful tools to dramatically

improve students’ skills. He and his beautiful, heroic wife, Robin, currently teach their three youngest children at home in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. For more information please visit www.excellenceinwriting.com.


curriculum

WhAt would you think of a math curriculum that started every year having the kids learn their numbers and how to add and subtract and such? You’d probably think, “Well, for Pete’s sake, don’t they expect the kids to learn that so they can move on?” My guess is that you wouldn’t choose that curriculum!

And yet so many grammar programs do that. Every year, year after year, the book starts with nouns and verbs and so on. We just don’t question it. “Well,” you say, “grammar’s different, isn’t it?”

Not really, in my opinion. Grammar is a lot like math, only using words rather than numbers. It’s linear, logical, and sequential. So, I say teach it as you teach math! But what does that mean?

First of all, in math the concepts are put into a carefully thought-out sequence. You teach addition before you teach subtraction and so on. Secondly, math is always taught in a “spiral” way. Whenever you learn something new in math, you’re actually adding it to the skills already learned. Thirdly, you learn a portion of math and then you’re given a period of time to reinforce that skill with practice, so that

the new skill – mixed with the ones already learned – can “marinate” for a while in the student’s brain.

Years ago when I began to put together a grammar program for my students (because the books available were so terrible!), it seemed reasonable to me to put it together as I would a math program. In my head, grammar was a tidy little body of knowledge, which sorted itself neatly into a sequence of concepts and skills. So I organized it that way. Over a period of about 12 years, every summer, I’d “tweak” that sequencing to avoid some problem that had cropped up the previous year.

By the time I’d finished with the re-arranging and so on, I had a program, which I could teach in about 23 weeks. My public school eighth-graders had zero prior grammar knowledge, yet I could move them to a point where they had mastered grammar, punctuation, and usage in that time. I called that my “grammar season” because that’s all I taught at the beginning of the school year. That left me the rest of the year to

teach the essay, the research paper, and literature. During that latter half of the year, I discovered that I could

keep my students’ grammar skills razor sharp if I periodically reinforced them with activity sheets which I designed. I didn’t need to REVIEW the grammar curriculum; I just needed to reinforce it. What’s the difference, you may ask? Well, to me a review is a quick re-teaching of the concepts, in the order in which they were taught. Reinforcing, on the other hand, is just practice of the final collection of concepts. The magic time seemed to be every two weeks, so it was easy to do that while I was teaching the writing and literature material.

I think it’s important, especially in putting together your Language Arts materials for the year, to differentiate between TEACHING and REINFORCING. In the teaching phase kids are working every day. In the reinforcing phase, however, they just need to revisit the skills every two weeks. That leaves the teacher precious time to cover other all those other Language Arts skills.

Now homeschool teachers have a couple of advantages, which I didn’t have in my classroom. A.) They know their

Teaching vs. Reinforcing: Huh????

By: Robin Finley


learners better than anybody else in the world, and B.) They have precious time I didn’t have. I knew where my students had been academically (with no prior grammar knowledge) and I knew where they were going. They were headed to high school teachers whom I knew very well. They were going to be teaching literature and also writing from a structural and fluency and elegance perspective. They were going to expect their students to know their writing mechanics by the time they got to high school. These were all reasonable expectations, and these teachers were going to be doing what high school English teachers should do: teach literature and writing.

So I only had one year to get it all in. My Analytical Grammar program can be taught that way, if you have an older student who has grammar “gaps.” But I strongly believe that if you have the time, take the time. What does that mean?

If you have a 4th or 5th grader, that’s a good time to start formal grammar. So I have my Junior Analytical Grammar and Junior Analytical Grammar Mechanics books for that age group. My regular Analytical Grammar material ideally should be started with a 6th grader, as long as he or she is reading at grade level. With 6th or 7th graders, I’ve divided my materials into three logical “seasons” to be spread out over three years. The seasons last 10 weeks, 8 weeks, and 15 weeks respectively. In between the seasons I have reinforcement activity sheets which should be done one day every two weeks and self-corrected.

If you have an 8th or 9th grader, you can schedule your three “seasons” over a period of two years, with the periodic reinforcement in between. If you have a 10th, 11th, or 12th grader, you can easily cover it in 23 weeks. Home school kids usually have prior grammar knowledge, and they can often cut a few weeks off that schedule.

What about after everything has been taught? Then I have four high school reinforcement books, each of which contains 18 exercises so that busy high school students can just pick a day every two weeks, do a reinforcement activity, correct themselves, and get back to their other work.

So take the advice of an old classroom war-horse! Given the right materials, you don’t have to teach grammar every day for years and years. Teach it well, and then REINFORCE!

Providing exceptional,

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The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is an equal opportunity educator and employer. ©2012, The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. 13-305-06160

Robin Finley is a veteran middle and high school language arts teacher. She began writing her course in grammar, punctuation, and usage in 1981 when her Language Arts department refused to purchase any grammar books for her classes, grammar having been deemed “useless” in the

improvement of their writing! She lives in Raleigh, NC, with her daughter Erin Karl, the other half of the AG team, Erin’s amazing husband Rob, and Maddie and Tripp, her two beautiful grandchildren (and her pride and joy!). Robin enjoys nothing more than sharing her materials and her teaching techniques and skills with home teachers in her workshops.


curriculum Stop ‘Torture’ Reading with The Logic of English

In the United States, approximately one third of children read well, one third are struggling, and one third are functionally illiterate. In my observation, this rule of thirds is also present in the homeschool community. One child appears to teach herself to read, another in the same family struggles but makes progress, and for another child reading seems to elude him despite lots of practice.

Sadly, parents often tell struggling readers to try harder and subject them to countless hours of “torture reading.” Yet most children are not able to express what confuses them about reading, and rather act out or give up. When children experience repeated difficulty in learning to read, they often internalize that they are not smart and develop a lifelong aversion toward reading.

Fortunately, there are ways to improve almost any child’s reading proficiency. Students need to be systematically taught the building blocks of words: phonemes, phonograms and spelling rules, then how to build words into phrases and sentences, and sentences into paragraphs.

Since English has more than two million words and a student must master between 60,000 and 200,000 it is impossible to memorize individual words by rote. Rather it makes sense to teach students the 104 tools, which logically explain 98% of English words. Knowing these tools provides a way to break the code underlying words rather than being left to guess.

If students ask questions about science, we would never dream of saying, “that’s an exception,” when we didn’t know the answer. Yet this is our most

Reading is the most important skill that kids need to be successful in school and the workplace. Unfortunately, many parents and teachers have been misled to believe that children learn to read in the same manner they learn to speak, naturally, by being exposed to the written word. Though a few children appear to learn “naturally,” a majority of children need systematic reading instruction to succeed.

By: Denise Eide


common answer to their questions about English. The countless “exceptions” generated by the fact that most adults do not now the linguistic structure of English leaves countless students confused and struggling with the written word.

Below are a few ideas on how to aid struggling readers and to provide emerging readers a strong foundation.

Practice Gluing Words Together Aloud - Many students guess wildly while reading because they’ve never realized words are made of sounds glued together. Put away the books and practice saying words aloud with a space between each sound. (k-a-t) Then ask the child to glue the word back together.

Teach all the Sounds - Many letters say more than one sound. For example the letter S says /s/ as in sad and /z/ as in is. Many students misread simple words, simply because they do not know all the sounds. Teaching all the sounds also prevents the need to constantly say, “that is an exception.” Finally, knowing all the sounds prevents logically minded students from becoming frustrated.

Stop Torture Reading - When students do not know the 104 tools, which unlock 98% of English words, reading aloud is torture for them and for their parents who are listening. Take a short break from required reading and teach the student the 104 tools. Then begin to assign books to read. When a student misses a word, you will now have a logical explanation for how to sound it out.

Make Reading Instruction the Priority - Reading should be the priority of every school day for non-readers over five years old. This is especially true of older students who struggle. Fortunately, studies have shown that with as little as 80 hours of systematic reading instruction (learning the phonograms and rules), most students will make dramatic improvements. Set aside other course work for a few months. You will save your student countless hours and much heartache by teaching him to read.

Teach all 9 Silent E Rules - Many people only know one reason for a silent final E: the vowel says its name because of the E. This rule only explains 50% of silent final Eʼs and leaves many kids struggling to read simple words such as have and give. Learning the nine reasons including English words do not end in V, prevents students from needing to memorize thousands of exceptions.

Cover pictures - Many young students

struggle with the left to right eye movement of reading. Allow students to look at the pictures then cover them with a blank sheet of paper while reading. Covering pictures makes it easier to focus on the text.

Make it fun - Learning the basics does not need to be boring. Engage young children through play. Practice the phonograms with games, large motor activities, and art projects.

Find Answers - Too often we answer questions about reading, “that is an exception.” This frustrates many bright students and discourages them from reading. Rather than dismissing words as exceptions, look for answers and explanations. English is far more logical than most Americans think.

Answers to questions about English reading and spelling can be found in “Uncovering the Logic of English” and by visiting www.logicofenglish.com.

Denise Eide is the author of the award-winning book Uncovering the Logic of English, and the Logic of English™ series of curriculum. She has homeschooled her four children since birth. Please visit Denise at: http:// www.logicofenglish.com


curriculum

With STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) becoming a recent buzzword across the educational landscape, the “M” should be boldfaced since the “S”, “T”, and “E” all have a vital dependence on Math. The significant number of careers that Math influences is notable:

Programming/Software Engineer - Math is the basis of logic for a software developer to write rules which influence the functionality, speed, and application of software programs across the web, phone, and other technologies. There is a concentrated effort at making existing automation faster and more efficient, and with this efficiency increase come mathematical algorithms that determine the steps to make this happen. Did you ever run a search on Google that was misspelled and see the prompt: “Did you mean…?” The suggestion that appears is based on a mathematical algorithm, which checks to see the highest probability search occurring directly after the one that was spelled incorrectly. Similarly, with an Amazon shopping session, the section that says, “Customers who bought x also bought y”, is a math based algorithm which checks to see related searches and purchases in a historical fashion.

Data Trend Analysis - If you have ever wondered how certain websites tailor advertisements specifically to your browsing habits and your geographic location, math is an integral (no pun intended) part of this. For example, if 75% of people on a certain website visiting from Pennsylvania purchase a certain book, math based trend analysis would serve up digital ads to Pennsylvania users catered to this book and related products of the book.

Quantitative Finance - With respect to stock and options trading, there exists an entire field of machine based as well as human-controlled financial software applications to analyze trends, outcomes, and general feel of the market. Known as the “quants”, these software engineers tirelessly build mathematical models to track and model movements in the stock market. An intensely competitive field, quants must be at the top of their class in advanced mathematical modeling.

Actuarial Science - If you have ever wondered how insurance policies are crafted, or how pension plans attempt to model mortality trends of men and women in certain fields, actuarial scientists with strong mathematical backgrounds are the face behind this skill. One of the higher paying careers

in a recent CNN survey; an actuary requires an intense set of math-based exams for credentials. Risk management also comes into play in this field, as actuaries are called upon to manage risk and return.

Statisticians - Sports and statistics go hand in hand, and math is a driving force behind this analysis. In the last 5 years, more companies have been created gearing toward detailed analysis of in-game performance. What is the probability that a certain left-handed Major League Baseball player will hit the ball to right center field against a left-handed pitcher at a certain temperature? Questions like these have inspired a host of math-based applications and analysis tools. In conclusion, math based advancements will make the next 20 years an exciting time to be alive. The applications of math and technology will be a cornerstone to some incredible advances in society. For people who are focusing on a STEM based career path, do not forget the importance of the “M”!

By: Don Sevcik Putting the M in STEM

Don Sevcik is the President and Creator of MathCelebrity.com and Webmaster for BarryCode.com. Don created the MathCelebrity.com as a low-cost math tutoring system. Students and teachers can enter a math problem, push a button and have every single line of math work appear immediately.


The Paradox of Our AgeWe have bigger houses but smaller families;

more conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

more knowledge, but less judgment;

more experts, but more problems;

more medicines, but less healthiness;

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet

the new neighbor.

We built more computers to hold more

information to produce more copies than ever,

but have less communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods

but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It’s a time when there is much in the window,

but nothing in the room.

… His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

By: Don Sevcik

inspiration


christian corner

one of the dangers we face as homeschooling parents is believing that being at home, removing our children from “sinful” situations alone, will make the difference in their lives and character. We sometimes believe that simply preventing a public or private school experience, or removing our children from these systems, will be the thing that saves them. How the enemy loves to see us buy into this lie! Add to this fear-based belief the notion that “homeschooled children are much stronger academically and so well-mannered,” and we can quickly deceive ourselves into thinking that simply by providing our four-walled homes as their educational environment, we will produce perfect little disciples.

Here’s the truth: It’s just not that simple.We all know children who grow up in loving, Christ-

focused homes (even homeschooling families) who rebel – I was one of them. By the same token, we know those children who have lived in horrific circumstances – neglect, alcohol and drug abuse, and more – who choose the narrow path and walk it faithfully.

The reality is that the same thing that exists in the world, the same “yuck” we want to protect our children from, dwells in our homes, in our very hearts.

Sin.

I believe that the only way we can disciple our children and navigate the waters of dealing with sin is through relationship; the same way Jesus Christ wants to help us navigate through life – in relationship with Him. Let’s begin by acknowledging that the sin in our homes is no less vile than the sin in the world. It sounds like a basic concept, but if we’re honest, we are all guilty at times of rating some sins as worse than others.

In looking at the relationship factor, the leader of a ministry my husband used to work with tweeted this:

“You can’t be a disciple without being a son.” Galatians 4:3-7 brings clarity to that statement:“In the same way we also, when we were children,

were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

By: Paige TimerReality Check: Homeschooling Alone Isn’t Enough

The reality is that the same

thing that exists in the

world, the same “yuck” we want to protect our children from, dwells in our homes, in our very hearts.


?language?

in theirGod’s Wordhear

Paul goes on in verse 9 to say that we have come to know God and be known by Him. That sounds like relationship to me! If we have any hope of discipling our children, we must begin and maintain personal relationships with them.

So how do we do that? What does a healthy thriving relationship need? Though this list is certainly not exhaustive, here are six things we are practicing in our home.

Six Rs of Relationship- Roots: Dig Deep!

All of us want to be known. To know that for better or for worse, someone sees us and loves us completely. As parents, we are our children’s first understanding of the heart of Abba Father. Now, we will fail at showing unconditional love because of our humanity, but we can strive for His type of love (agape) to flow out of us in the power of the Spirit. Noticing and remembering small details that are important to our children teach them that we care about the little things. We are shown time and again in scripture how God cares about the details of our lives. It is vital that our children see our interest in what concerns them.

What is your middle daughter’s favorite color? What game does your son love to play and why? Dad, what book series is your child reading through and what happened in the last chapter? We can’t simply exist within our families. We must do life together and know our children. Nothing will help our children to feel connected and grounded more than being known and loved deeply by their parents.

Reach: Turning Our Hearts, Holding Theirs

Several years ago as I was searching out wise tools for parenting, I read a book that encouraged moms and dads to turn their hearts toward their children. Quoting Malachi 4:5-6:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and

the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

And speaking about John the Baptist in Luke 1:

“…and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Wait. Isn’t my heart naturally turned toward my offspring?

Nope.We are selfish, sinful creatures. How

many times a day do we have to ask God for patience…for kindness…to rescue us from ourselves? That’s because we cannot do it on our own. Too often my agenda for the day does not value the moment my child needs me to stop, sit, and simply cuddle on the couch.

If we are to develop roots in our children’s lives, they MUST see us reaching toward them, not simply walking along the way with them. How often do we see the God of Israel pursuing His people? The heart of Jesus pursuing the lost, the hurt, the broken? Pursuit is ACTIVE. It says, “I want you.” Our kids need us to want them.

Response: No Volcanoes Allowed

I must confess that my mother had a volcanic personality. If she was happy, the world knew it. By the same token, if she was upset, it was evident immediately. She was never mean, but she struggled at times with her reactions. Unfortunately, I learned there were certain things I just couldn’t talk to Mom about. Her volcanic responses closed a door in my heart.

Why do we react poorly when our children disappoint us? Years ago at a homeschool conference in my home state of North Carolina, I heard a speaker put a very clear label on it.

Pride. We react poorly because we don’t

like it when our children make us look bad. (My toes were super sore that day.)


christian corner

When my child misbehaves or does something sinful, the core of my frustration is not always a pure desire for their good – see, I’m a sinner, too. I’m embarrassed, inconvenienced, and fearful that someone might think I’m not a good parent based on my child’s action.

If we want to hold our children’s hearts and have continual access to them, we must think before we speak. If the Spirit gives us the fruit of self-control, this is the time to see that manifested! To be slow to speak, slow to anger. We must stop and evaluate what our child needs in that moment. Our anger can be a hot wind that dries up little souls like a desert.

Reveal: In the Same BoatPart of knowing someone and having a full relationship

with them is allowing them to know us back. I believe this to be a crucial element in the parent/child relationship.

Do your children know what you struggle with? Have you confessed your short-comings in front of them? To them? Apologized for the times they’ve been injured by your lack?

Friends, I tell you, in order for your children to have a proper view of their own humanity, they must be helped to understand yours.

Are we or are we not in the same leaky boat as our children? Yes, we are the authority in their lives for a duration of time on this planet, but we are to be a tour guide. A help in navigation toward fullness in Christ. If your children do not see your struggles, they will assume you have attained some level of righteousness in which struggles disappear. How misleading that would be!

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)

Do not hide your troubles for fear that seeing them will cause your children to doubt your authority. Instead, use them as lessons to show your kids how to cast their cares on the One who has the power to overcome! Your vulnerability will teach them that we have a true, perfect authority – one who does not stumble. They will see you and know that their own struggles can be dealt with by that same loving Father.

Repetition: Tick-TockThere’s an old saying that never gets old, “Love is spelled

T-I-M-E.” It is so true. Sara Groves sings a song called “Just One Thing” in which she laments how easily we give away our time for “good things” only to find one day that the kids are grown and have moved away.

Don’t. Miss. It. Don’t let missions or church or good deeds or your job or your hobby rob you of your children’s hearts. If love is truly spelled time, and we are the adults in the parent/

child relationship, we have to carefully choose what we say “yes” to. It could make all the difference in the world

Revel: Chocolate Chip CheesecakeCan I tell you how much I love cheesecake? Especially

chocolate chip cheesecake. To use a southern saying: “It’s shoot-your-mama good!”

When I eat cheesecake – my mouth is watering right now – I don’t just eat it, I experience it. My eyes roll back in my head and I want to stay in that moment of enjoyment for as long as possible. Everything around me goes quiet…and I just…enjoy. Often times as the first bite is swallowed, it’s followed by a sing-songy “Mmm’mmmm!”

Take a look at this – Zephaniah 3:17:

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

When was the last time we had that type of chocolate-chip-cheesecake reaction to time with one of our children? When was the last time you reveled in the goodness of what you saw of the heart of God in them? How often do I savor the pleasure of the company of my daughter? My son? And let them feel my pleasure with them?

We must! We MUST rejoice over them with gladness, quiet them with our love, and exult over them with singing! Let’s not reserve those moments for things like food – how much more lasting joy do our children give us than cheesecake?! Showing our children how much we enjoy them teaches them how deeply their heavenly Father enjoys them.

Oh that you and I would swing our heart’s door wide open to our children. That we may receive them in and know them. That we create an environment that says, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” As we launch our kids into the future God has for them, let us do it with full knowledge of them – their strengths and weaknesses, and with a vulnerability that says “I’m not afraid for you to know me, too.”

Paige Timer, the daughter of a pastor and lover of music and theater, is passionate about building relationships and strives to lead others to engage and invest in the lives of those around them. A self-titled free spirit, Paige is an encourager who loves helping parents discover tools for leading their families toward success. She and her husband,

Josh, have been homeschooling their two children for the past eight years. They now work for My Father’s World, where Paige is a curriculum consultant and speaker.


Have a Kid-Friendly StrategyTry to plan your travel at a time that works best for

your child. If you’re traveling by car, it might be helpful to start your trip closer to your child’s naptime. Avoid long layovers or late-night flights if traveling by air. Also, when boarding a plane, consider having one adult board with the luggage and the other wait until the last boarding call to get on the plane with the child — that means less time strapped into a seat for your child. Keep travel documents for each family member together and put one person in charge of keeping track of them.

Let the Kids HelpInvolve your child in as many aspects of the trip as

possible, from selecting the destination to choosing which items she’d like to bring. When preparing to pack, you should pre-select clothing options that are appropriate for the destination, then let your child choose which ones she’d like to bring. This allows you to have control over what’s packed, but she has a say in what she will wear. Pack complete outfits (top, bottom, undergarments) in clear, re-closable bags so that it’s easy for your child to have everything she needs to get dressed each day.

Bring the FunProper preparation should be made in advance to

ensure kids don’t become unruly and impatient when faced with delays. Take along an assortment of favorite toys, crayons, books, snacks and a bottle of water for each child. Some parents like to bring new toys when traveling with kids — the novelty may keep them entertained for longer periods of time. Think about quiet toys if traveling by airplane. Give kids travel bags that they can pack with their own favorite things — and that they can carry.

Be prepared for life’s little emergencies

Pack a kit with first aid supplies and other necessities that is always easy to access when you’re traveling. Store it either in an outer pocket of a suitcase or in your carry on or day bag. Consider carrying a small supply of the following items: bandages, pain reliever, stomach medicine, first aid ointment, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, stain removal pen and a sewing kit.

organization

Organized Travel with Kids

No matter if you’re traveling by plane, train or automobile, you can enjoy a stress-free and organized vacation with the kids! Follow these tips and you’ll be on the road to organized family travel.

Pictured Left: Penguin Luggage by TrendyKid, Line:Travel Buddies

The Container Store stands for ‘organization with heart’ and recently celebrated its 13th year on FORTUNE magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.” The Container Store

continues to give back to the community with a focus on supporting nonprofits that promote women’s and children’s wellbeing and health. For more information and ideas, please visit www.containerstore.com

All readers of The Homeschool Handbook Magazine,

Receive 15% off! Enter code HSPA15 @ www.trendykid.com


PhysiCAl Education or the P.E. requirement for homeschoolers is often overlooked as an opportunity to enhance the organization and growth of your child’s brain. The reality is that by putting a minimal amount of attention and organization into your children’s P.E. activities you can enhance the overall learning ability and neurological organization of all of your children.

Specific motor movements are needed to organize the lower levels of the brain, or to build a good foundation. In typical development, this motor organization begins at birth. An infant begins to randomly move their limbs. Eventually they are able to organize the movement so that they can move forward on their bellies and reach out to grasp objects. When given ample stimulation and opportunity this initial movement should organize into a very coordinated crawl on the belly (army crawl). Meaning: the right arm reaches out as the left knee bends and the toes on the left foot dig down and push…propelling the infant forward. Using an opposite hand and leg in unison, in an organized fashion, is the beginning of both hemispheres of the brain being used together (communicating together). The reaching out and grasping objects, as an infant in moving is the beginning of eye-hand coordination, which is so important later for handwriting and other academic pursuits.

After mastering a very coordinated army crawl, the next level of development is where the child gets up on their hands and knees and begins to creep. In this position the eyes begin to practice converging as the little fingers become adept at picking up tiny things all over the ground. As the infant continues to creep for mobility they are also developing many important muscles that will be useful later. Creeping increases the strength and coordination of the upper body and the hands, as well as the muscles in the lower body. As the hemispheres of the brain continue to work together (right hand and left leg moving forward together, then left hand and right leg moving forward together) the foundation for establishing ‘laterality’ is again being laid. Laterality is

when the body organizes and begins to choose a side –such as becoming a right-handed person or a left-handed person (which typically is not fully established until around age 5).

Without these early organized motor movements a child may walk too early, missing out on critical motor opportunities. Problems arise later, in the school years, with children who have missed these steps. Typical issues we see when these lower steps are missed or not completed are: lack of overall gross motor coordination (not good at sports), clumsiness, difficulty with eye-hand coordination, poor penmanship, weakness in the upper body and fine motor muscles, inefficiency of the eyes tracking and/or converging together (making reading laborious). As you can see the complete organization of these early motor movements is critical to academic output later. The good news is that no matter what your age, you can go back and establish this foundation by doing the movements now. Once the lower level movements are mastered, you can begin to work higher up in the brain by doing activities such cross marching (marching with knees high and tapping the left knee with the right hand and the right knee with the left hand as you march forward). Cross skipping (tapping opposite knee and hand as you skip). Add in some vestibular movements, which can help to integrate multiple systems together such as vision, motor and balance, and you are now addressing multiple areas which will help all your children improve in not only their coordination, but in their academic ability.

Crawling and creeping can also help some children with late bedwetting problems and overall emotional stability. A retired NeuroDevelopmentalist named Marcia Blackwood was

special needs

By: Cyndi Ringoen, BA, BS Neurodevelopmentalist,

Homeschool Physical Education Can Improve your Child’s Brain


Cyndi Ringoen, ICAN Certified Neurodevelopmentalist, mother of 6 children and 12 grandchildren. Working in the field of Neurodevelopment since 1983, as a homeschooling parent, foster and adoptive parent, volunteer branch director and certified neurodevelopmentalist with degrees in Developmental and Applied Psychology. She is the owner of CAN-Do Inc. and currently travels the U.S.

conducting functional neurodevelopmental assessments and writing individualized home programs for parents to implement with the children. For more information please visit www.ican-do.net or email Cyndi at [email protected].

the first to come up with the L. O. Course for homeschoolers. Below is a revised version of her course for you to begin to incorporate into your daily homeschool activities.

L.O. COURSE (Lateralization Obstacle Course):

Put the physical exercises together in ‘a course’ of

things to do with specific times, distances or repetitions to accomplish the activities in a Physical Education type of format. These activities work on many of the developmental levels and can become boring or tiresome if done in isolation. Any way you can string these activities together into a creative ‘course’ to make them more ‘fun’ for your children will be helpful.

Brachiation (Monkey Bars- hand alternating) - 2 minutes •Cross Crawl (Army crawl, with tummy on floor) - 2 minutes •Creep (Up on hands and knees) 2 minutes •Cross Skip (Slapping opposite knee and hand) - 2 minutes •Cross March (same as above but with marching instead) - 2 minutes •(You can use light wrist and ankle weights for these to improve tactile awareness and strength) •Cross Skip Backwards (Slapping opposite knee and hand) - 2 minutes •Cross March Backwards (same as above but easier) - 2 minutes •(You can use light wrist and ankle weights) •Fast walk/Jog with light wrist and ankle weights (goal 1 mile) – work up •Forward Roll (somersault - use caution with neck) - 2 minutes •Jumping Jacks (with mouth closed) 4 times for 1 minute each •Log Roll (hands may be straight at sides or straight overhead) roll both ways - 2 minutes (uphill is great!) •Wind Sprints (to be done as fast as possible) 4 x 50 ft. done consecutively (with light wrist and ankle weights) •Tire Spin—in a tire swing, spin 3 times one way, then 3 times the other way - 2 minutes •Jump Rope—Change the type and make it harder as they improve - 2 minutes •

An example might be like this:

Stretching exercises for 2 minutes • Cross skip from point A to point B • Climb into the tire swing and spin 3 times in each direction repeatedly for 1 minute • Drop and crawl on tummy through tunnel (pretend)-mark off the length • Sprint to the other side of the yard (50 ft.) 4 times (good time to use stopwatch) • Forward Roll 3 times • Creep to the garage (measure off length to be done in __ seconds) • Log Roll- down hill or up hill • Brachiation and then go back to skip and repeat until time is up • Then proceed to fast walk/jog •

* Try to use last 5 minutes to walk and cool down or do some stretching to relax muscles.

IDEAS:For the young guy into army stuff…it can become an

army course. Parents can use actual strings or bars so Johnny can pretend he is going under barbed wire. Creeping involves avoiding ‘land mines’ so it’s not just a boring straight lined creep. Log rolls help them get under fences, sprints across open fields, etc.

For the young guys and gals a stopwatch is a great gift. They can push themselves to beat ‘yesterdays’ distance or timing on the running or jogging. 50’ x 4 is great, but if they can do 50’ x 6 in the same time with good cross pattern—Super Great!

Some of our young ones love animals. Therefore everyday they must be a new animal (of course it must be 4-legged). Creeping is accomplished with animal

sounds and the animals ‘feed’ is scattered about the ‘field.’ He must creep to each feed station in order, collect the food, and on to the next station, which helps break up the monotony of creep, creep, creep everyday.

Be Creative and Have Fun While Organizing Their Brains.

Choose from the activities below to create your ‘course’ and feel free to change up the ‘course’ in time.


extra activities

Fall is soon approaching, and what better way to celebrate the fall harvest than with a fun classic craft: Apple Stamping! Younger children will love to make an apple painting, older children will have fun putting their apples in a fall colored woven basket. To complete these projects children will need to use their measuring and fine motor skills.

By: Sandra Volchko

Celebrate the Fall Harvest

Apple Paintingsupplies:• Apple(s) • Knife • Paper • Paint in fall colors • Paper plate

Directions:1. With your knife cut your apple in half vertically, parent should complete this step for young children, (cutting the apple vertically will give you the apple looking stamp - cutting it horizontally will give you a circular shape) 2. Pour some paint onto a paper plate and dip your apple into the paper plate. Stamp your apples on the paper in as many different fall colors as you’d like.

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Sandra is a Registered Nurse, a Mother of two, and the founder of www.busybeekidscrafts.com, a free resource for children’s crafts and activities. Sandra created this online resource to share with the world creative and inexpensive ways to spend quality time with children while at the same time teaching them valuable skills.

Celebrate the Fall Harvest Apple Basketsupplies:• Construction paper • Scissors • Glue • Apple • Paint

Directions:1. Cut strips of colored construction paper about 1” in width. From brown construction paper cut out a basket shape and make 1” slits all the way across the basket, making sure not to cut all the way through!

2. Weave your paper strips into your basket. Glue strips on either end and trim off excess. Glue entire basket onto a piece of paper.

3. Cut an apple in half and dip it into red paint. Put your apples in the basket.

If you want, draw on a handle on your basket with a brown marker, or cut one out of brown construction paper.

There are many different ways to do apple stamping. If you are doing this project with a group of children make a big apple tree with a big sheet of butcher paper. Have the children work together to make leaves and apples on their tree. You can make a small apple painting into a placemat by covering it with contact paper!

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KiDs love fruit juice, and parents love convenient juice boxes. But a quick look at the ingredients and careful attention to recent health news reveals some horrifying facts about what your kids may be drinking.

Fungicide – A major fruit juice company recently reported to the FDA that orange juice they were getting from Brazil contained a fungicide called carbendazim, a chemical not approved for use on orange trees in the U.S. Carbendazim is considered dangerous, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a special risk assessment to determine how unsafe and widespread the problem could be. The EPA determined the levels found in the orange juice did not present major health concerns1, but this highlights the danger of importing foods from countries that have more lenient regulations over toxic chemicals. At Maximized Living, we recommend you read all juice product labels, and pay special attention to where the ingredients come from.

Flavor Packs – Some juices contain ingredients the FDA doesn’t require the manufacturer to disclose. Many of the most popular orange juices undergo a process of pasteurization and de-aeration that takes up to a year. After being held in storage for that long, the juices lose much of their natural flavoring. So, juice companies add “flavor packs,” created from the volatile compounds that are removed by the pasteurization process to enhance the flavor of the juices. Many doctors and scientists believe it is misleading to call juice ‘natural’ or ‘not from concentrate’ after it has undergone this process. A California mom recently sued Tropicana in a class action lawsuit that claimed the juice company was being deceitful in calling their juice ‘natural.’

Arsenic – Several recent investigations have revealed the most popular apple juices sold in supermarkets contain arsenic at levels above FDA standards. Some pundits were quick to point out the apples in question were being imported from China, where arsenic rules are more lenient. Unfortunately, lab tests showed domestic apples contained the same amounts of arsenic as the imported variety. For years, lead arsenate was used

as a pesticide on orchards all over the world. Although it stopped being used after the 1950s, arsenic remains in the soil today and can contaminate products. Arsenic exposure is linked to cancer.

High Fructose Corn Syrup – Many experts have linked high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to skyrocketing obesity rates among kids because the sweet additive can stimulate hunger, even when you are full. Research has also linked HFCS to tooth decay and increased risk for heart attack.

Many parents are shocked when they discover most “fruit juice” marketed to kids is mostly just a mixture of sugar and water. Water is always the best choice.

health & hearth

By: Dr. Joseph Cannizzaro, MD, NMD

Dr. Joseph Cannizzaro, MD, NMD (Dr. C.) has practiced pediatric medicine for thirty years with specialties in holistic integrative pediatrics, nutrition, and preventative medicine. The founder and managing pediatrician for the Pediatricians Care Unit and the Accordo Health Institute in Longwood, FL, Dr. Cannizzaro received his MD from the University of Bologna Medical School in Bologna, Italy. Dr. C. recently released a book Answers for the 4A Epidemic: Healing for

Kids with Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies and is co-author of Eat This and Live for Kids. For more information, his websites are www.drcannizzaro.com and www.facebook.com/DrCannizzaro

1- http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/Product-SpecificInformation/FruitsVegetablesJuices/ucm288004.htm

Do You Really Know What Your Kids are Drinking?


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the truly Alive ChilDThe Truly Alive Child by Simon Harrison provides powerful tools and techniques for all adults to support children in re-connecting with child-like wonder, love for learning and natural creativity. The tools include honoring uniqueness, developing deep relationships with nature, embracing the “real” child and many more. Education and parenting are explored from a holistic point of view, including how all adults can play a conscious role in creating environments that promote inner peace and compassion. A visionary book that will change the way we think about education, what we are creating for the next generation and the future of our children. Please visit www.trulyalivechild.com.

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ArounD the WorlD in 80 WAys: 80 fun things to Do With little trAvellers on long triPs This book, available in both eBook and paperback formats, contains dozens of conversation starters and activities, loads of facts and figures, and countless hours of fun to keep children entertained when they travel. Not a single crayon is needed--just add imagination. Each activity encourages children to think about the world around them. Written by Jane Tara, an award-winning writer, teacher and travelling mom, the book is designed to entertain kids on a plane, on a train, or in the car... guaranteed! Visit Itchee Feet’s website for details at www.itcheefeet.com also check out their blog at www.itcheefeet.com/blog.

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CreAtion to the greeKsCreation to the Greeks, a one-year curriculum, takes you and your students back in time to Old Testament days and explores ancient history. Provide a firm foundation for your study of history as you see how the history of the Bible fits in with other civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, and Babylon. Enjoy the many hands-on projects, timeline, and history notebook. Year 2 of the My Father’s World Family Cycle, Creation to the Greeks, is a multi-age curriculum, combining Bible, history, science, art, music, and literature, allowing parents to teach all their children in grades 2-8 together. Add math and language arts for a complete curriculum. For more information or to order, please visit www.mfwbooks.com or call (573) 202-2000.


resourcesADVERTISERS:Page # Company/Title Author Web Address

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BC My Fathers World® www.mfwbooks.com

Contributors:

3 Beginning Civics Vicki Bentley www.hslda.org/earlyyears

8 How Sight Words Sparked My Child’s… Kate Koffman www.teachstix.com

10 The Section 3 Child Carolyn Henderson www.middleagedplague.areavoices.com

12 Inspire Your Children to Want to Learn Donna Vail www.aninspirededucation.com

14 Table Manners: Part 3 Monica Irvine www.theetiquettefactory.com

16 What is Classical Education in History? John De Gree www.classicalhistorian.com

18 “If you use crummy words, people will… Jerry Bailey www.dynamichomeschool.com

20 Six Ideas to Encourage Summer Reading Sarita Holzmann www.sonlight.com

22 Dear Andrew…Q&A with Andrew Pudewa Andrew Pudewa www.excellenceinwriting.com

24 Teaching vs. Reinforcing: Huh???? Robin Finley www.analyticalgrammar.com

26 Stop ‘Torture’ Reading with… Denise Eide www.logicofenglish.com

28 Putting the M in STEM Don Sevcik www.mathcelebrity.com

29 The Paradox of Our Age H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama www.dalailama.com

30 Reality Check: Homeschooling Alone… Paige Timer www.mfwbooks.com

33 Organized Travel with Kids The Container Store www.containerstore.com

34 Homeschool Physical Education Can… Cyndi Ringoen www.ican-do.net

36 Do You Really Know What Your Kids are Drinking? Dr. Joseph Cannizzaro, MD www.drcannizzaro.com

38 Celebrate the Fall Harvest Sandra Volchko www.busybeekidscrafts.com

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40 MathCelebrity www.mathcelebrity.com

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41 teachSTIX www.teachstix.com

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to Do With Little Travellers on Long Trips www.itcheefeet.com

MathTwister www.mathtwister.com

Creation to the Greeks www.mfwbooks.com

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