denise

I think this is a great idea and I might just have to add another show to my must see TV list (which as of now only contains Gilmore Girls and Survivor).

I was talking to the little kids in the car about this, about what it might be like to be on this show. RJ said, they had books right? I said duhhhh. She said well then I’d be fine, who needs cable and video games anyway???

Spunky Homeschool had a post recently about making curriculumn choices and I’ve been thinking about it ever since it went up. I’ve been thinking about curriculumn choices though almost non-stop for a year!

When we made the decision to homeschool last year in April I had absolutely NO idea what we were going to do. Making curriculumn choices is difficult but it felt even more difficult for me because my daughter was moving to 9th grade and that seemed really daunting!

I got lucky because our local homeschool fair just happened to be the week after we made our decision. This gave me a huge opportunity to explore what was out in the “mainstream” of homeschooling and get my hands on what everyone in the blogosphere and on message boards was talking about. It’s difficult to really know what curriculumn is like just by hearing people you don’t know review it, ya know?

Being a non-Christian family (well at least Michelle and I are non-Christian), it seemed even more difficult to choose. I’m not anti Christianity and a little Bible tossed into core curriculumn doesn’t bug me a bit. Too much though just isn’t for me and it certainly isn’t for Michelle.

So, I bought a couple of workbooks for “classics” that Michelle wanted to read – Frankenstein and To Kill a Mockingbird. These workbooks contained religious exercises and discussion questions alongside “core” exercises and discussions. We just read through those and pondered them together but didn’t actually “do them” in the way we did the “core” stuff. That worked great for us and we didn’t turn up our noses at that type of curriculumn when we attended this year’s homeschool fair. We were actually disappointed not to find more of the type of workbooks we purchased last year.

I couldn’t find a science curriculumn I liked so we wound up using FLVS for science and for math and then wound up using it for Algebra and a Webmasters class as well. Great experiences and we’re signed up for another math, science and Spanish class for next year too.

I’m looking forward to using the Writers Inc/Write Source books next year and an interesting “Daily Religion” type book for journal writing everyday that TW picked up at BN earlier this month.

TW also picked up a language through memorization poetry thingy that we started with all of the kids a few weeks ago. I’m not 100% sure we’ll be successful, we’re not good at following through with that sort of thing, but I’d like us to really give it a shot. Hopefully we’ll get into a routine with it and the planning of the poetry parties suggested upon completion of each module will encourage us all to keep moving through it.

It looks like we’re going to play around with the Apologia Around the World in 180 Days workbook for Social Studies along with the current events that we both really prefer over bland American and World History offerings.

We’re still pondering the list of literature to read for next year but I’m not feeling quite so stressed now that I’ve sat down and sorted it all out in my head and written about it here. Curriculumn choices are STRESSFUL!

OK fine, I’ll jump on the tagging train, if I have to. I don’t want to, just let me make that clear right now. It’s just one more thing for me to add to my world(s). I fought del.icio.us and flickr, and blog comment boxes that ask for tags – forget it! I’ve steadfastly refused to join the game of tag. (I hated playing tag as a kid, could that be part of the problem??)

I found myself spurling just to share my bookmarks with TW and of course there are those darn tags to include. Pst, I don’t always tag what I spurl! I know, that’s bad. I finally gave in to flickr but ummm, I don’t always tag my pictures. Bad again, I’m sorryyyyyy.

But now, it appears I’m going to have to really start getting use to tagging because the boss has jumped in and wants to play tag the board post. Sigh. It’s a damn conspiracy or something to force me to tag when I don’t want to!

Which brings me to what I’m bugged about right this moment – if I don’t want to tag, because it’s just one more thing and I’m someone who actually understands why tagging is cool (or could be) and someone who has spent a zillion years working in online community then how in the hell am I going to convince normal members to tag their posts or their blogs or whatever publshing/communications tools we give them? These are just regular people who rant and rave about threaded vs linear and how many “re:” should appear within in a discussion and whether they have avatars to play with. How do you convince the normal Jane and Joe that tagging is good for them and will help THEM in the long run?

iVillage had those dumb keyword fields on message boards years and years ago and if they worked, I don’t really know how they worked. And if they did work, I don’t know anyone who used them – even the community leaders and moderators didn’t. Granted there wasn’t a “folksonomies” buzz in the air and there wasn’t a huge game of tag going on throughout the internet world, but still… I wonder if people are all that different today than they were five years ago.

Happy birthday to you!

I know this is way late but I was dumb. I sent you an ecard at an invalid email addy (yea I know, I should have changed my address book the last time I did that) and then forgot all about it!

I’m SORRYYYYY! I’m horrible about these things and getting worse as the years go by. I think I’m going to create one blog post or board post and wish everybody a happy birthday and tell them to save the damn link and then just click it when it IS their birthday!

Philocrites: The new and improved number of the beast.

616 – isn’t that a Michigan area code? Hmmmm

Life After Your Transplant: New Health Concerns, Day-to-Day Living, and Transplant Support

Now THAT is one fantastic use of message board quotes!

“somebody had to die for me to live, somebody’s brother or sister…mother or father…somebody’s child.- by kariblue1968, WebMD message boards”

If that doesn’t catch your eye and make you want to click, I’m not sure what will.

South High Sucks.com — Minneapolis Public Library Caught Throwing Books in Dumpster

This is just depressing! I’ve got a couple of kids who love our Friends of the Library sale simply because they can purchase a LOT of books just like these for very little money! What were these folks thinking?

Andover-Harvard Library – Images of Congregations

These are great old photos of UU churches and/or congregations!

Not School: The little things

OK, why hadn’t I ever thought to hang the darn map upside down for just this reason???? Michelle goes away for the summer and while she’s gone, I will hang it upside down. We’ll see how long it takes her to notice and then we will definitely talk about this idea! Thank you!

“My kids will grow up with the Peters Projection map:
…and they will know that Greenland is not as big as Africa. We have this hanging on our wall upstairs. I plan to take it down and re-hang it, upside down. The only reason north is at the top– and consider all the positive connotations to “up,” “above,” and “top”– is that the white people live there.”

The Science Museum Presents The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – 24 Hour Museum – official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage: “THE SCIENCE MUSEUM PRESENTS THE HITCHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY”

I want to go!!