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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Attempting Spanish on our own

My son, and his friend took Spanish last year in a local classroom setting.  Not getting the results they hoped for we are going it on our own.  

The action plan: 

Review Spanish 1 and tackle Spanish 2 over the summer.  Then take the Clep Exam at the end of September.

We are using:
Learner.org free tutorial, Destinos (A telanovella that teaches spanish), plus the accompanying book that we ordered used from Amazon.com.
Rosetta Stone to teach pronunciation.
If they need more help, we will hire a Spanish tutor for the last month of study before taking the Spanish Clep Exam.

My daughter who has not taken Spanish 1 will follow the same program, but at a slower pace, hopefully taking the test next summer. 

Wish us luck, and if you have any experience preparing for the Spanish Clep exam, please leave a comment with tips and suggestions.

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

An answer to the case against homeschooling

I was over at Henry Cate's blog and came across a comment that lead to a blog with a catchy title... ""The case against homeschooling". The funny thing was the comment used the word 'respectfully' when introducing the link. However, this rant was anything but respectful.

Still, I thought I'd join the fun and chime in and present my answer to 'The case against homeschooling'. I encourage you to do the same. To save time, I will paraphrase the writers "points".

Here goes:

10. College students think homeschooled peers are geeks?
(Who cares what college students think... aren't the geeks the ones that end up rich and the ones that called names... aren't they trained to be employees?)

9. Students shouldn't learn at the same table where they eat?
(Huh? It there a study that has proved this is detrimental? Besides my daughter does her work under the table on a blanket.)

8. Homeschooling is selfish as homeschooled kids are increasingly rich and (gasp) well educated, which takes away from public schools.
(Jealous much?)

7. God hates homeschooling... he said to go forth and be a witness.
(Even Jesus stayed home until he was 30, most homeschoolers go forth in their early 20's.)

6. Homeschool parent/teaches are arrogant and crazy. We can't teach all subjects to the level that a group of teachers can.
(Have you ever heard of tutors and interactive online curriculum?)

5. Homeschooling (peaves) this teacher off?
(Insecure, uninformed teachers tick me off too)

4. Homeschooling can breed intolerance and racism due to race separation.
(When was the last time you were in a high school or college cafeteria? Most kids tend to choose seating according to race.

3. 1 hour of socialization a week is not enough.
(I guess it's good thing that my kids spend about 12-20 hours a week with other kids, as do most other homeschoolers.)

2. Arrogant again? We are gambling with our kids education.
(Look at the bright side, for once we can't blame their failures on teachers.)

1. Geeky part 2.
(refer to answer #10, besides I know you are, but what am I?)




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Are more boys being homeschooled than girls?

Recent studies suspect so.

Why Homeschool is running a poll to do further investigation for themselves.

You can participate by going here: http://whyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/05/survey-how-many-boys-and-girls-do-you.html


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Bullied to stop homeschooling

This is the first YouTube video I have made in AGES. I just got a new computer with a webcam though so there may be more videos... alot more videos.


Anyway, this video addresses an instance where a parent felt bullied to stop homeschooling the child. In my estimation the only way the grandparents would have any power is if they were being asked to help homeschool the child or if they were adding financial support for the family.

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Recent Articles at Examiner.com

Here are some of the articles I have written at Examiner.com regarding homeschooling and education.

Thursday, May 28th, 2009
SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design, is a great college for artistic homeschoolers.  Being the mother...
Keep Reading »
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 ·
school, stopping is out of the question. My family likes to switch gears during the summer.  During the school...
Keep Reading »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
If you asked my what I thought my biggest failure as a homeschooling mom was, I would say that we have fallen short...
Keep Reading »
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 ·
Back when I was in college, I discovered that some classes could only be aced if taken solo.  As an art major,...
Keep Reading »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
I remember returning to school for sixth grade year.  Fifth grade had been a very enjoyable and successful...
Keep Reading »
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 · 
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, is passionate about eduction. She graduated from Princeton University...
Keep Reading »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Fort Hays State University in Kansas is the first brick and mortar college to accept credits from a company called...
Keep Reading »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009 · 
Abuse and bullying have been a large theme in these last few weeks of the school year.  Articles from the...
Keep Reading »
Friday, May 22nd, 2009 · 
Parents in California are feeling bullied to accept curriculum that addresses bullying.  It includes lessons...
Keep Reading »
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
It seems American students are heading north to Canada in order to secure an affordable college education. The...
Keep Reading »


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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Dragging them kicking and screaming to college seminars

Yesterday I took my kids and my unofficial third child to a seminar given by SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) that was given at the local arts center. The seminar explained how to create a good art portfolio for entry into SCAD or another Fine Arts College.

Out of the three kids, the youngest was the most interested and excited. She is just beginning highschool level in the fall at age 13, and is already pretty set on her college choices. The older two, the boys age 15 and 16 both going into their Jr (ish) years, acted more like It was my responsibility to internalize the information for them. But then in my experience, boys are less likely to make life decisions early on. I can see them scrambling to make college choices late in their senior year... Over my dead body.

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Monday, May 18, 2009

Education funny

Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for posting about this homeschool funny.

Teacher takes a new approach to combating grafitti.

Instead of painting over it, she corrects the grammar.

"Hey, Tagger!" she wrote. "We'd like you to work on your grammar, please! Your tag SHOULD read as follows: Where are the female dogs?"


If schools had more teachers like this, we'd probably still have our kids in school.

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Friday, May 15, 2009

Doctor was very encouraging today

Our Pediatrician Encouraged Our Homeschooling!

by Andrea Hermitt

TODAY AT 06:10 PM

We went to visit the doctor today. The kids hadn't been there in 18 months. They actually thought we had changed doctors, but the truth is the kids hadn't been ill enough to visit a doctor, so we just didn't. read more




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Monday, May 04, 2009

Video courses for clep exams

This site tells you which Anneberg media video courses to use when studying for CLEP exams

http://www.freeuniv.com/outside/annenres.html

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Friday, May 01, 2009

Assigning Letter grades from CLEP Scores (updates)

I was curious so I googled.
Someone on my CLEP email list mentioned that their sons took the CLEP today and one got an 80 a perfect score and the other got a 66.
I wondered how that translated into letter grades, and here is was I found:

**update:

I just got an email that lists (unnoficial) A and B grades for all cleps

Click Here! to increase your chances of passing.

This is straight from the College Board



Business
Financial Accounting6550
Introductory Business Law6050
Information Systems and Computer Applications5950
Principles of Accounting25350
Principles of Marketing6550
Principles of Management6350
Composition and Literature
Analyzing & Interpreting Literature6050
American Literature5850
English Composition with Essay6350
English Composition without Essay5950
English Literature6250
Freshman College Composition5950
Humanities5650
Foreign Languages
French Language, Level 16450
French Language, Level 26959
German Language, Level 15950
German Language, Level 26760
Spanish Language, Level 15650
Spanish Language, Level 26863
History and Social Sciences
American Government6350
History of the United States I5650
History of the United States II5750
Human Growth and Development6350
Introduction to Educational Psychology6250
Introductory Psychology5950
Introductory Sociology5950
Principles of Macroeconomics6250
Principles of Microeconomics6450
Social Sciences and History6250
Western Civilization I5750
Western Civilization II5650
Science and Mathematics
Biology5750
Calculus6450
Chemistry6550
College Algebra6350
College Algebra-Trigonometry25850
College Mathematics6250
Natural Sciences6250
Precalculus6150
Trigonometry25850
1The American Council on Education (ACE) granting of credit at the C-level.
2These examinations are no longer available to students.




previous findings:

http://www.back2college.com/clepgrades.htm


CLEP Exam
'A' Score
'B' Score
'C' Score
American Government
71
65
50
American Literature
64
55
50
Analyzing and Interpreting Literature
60
53
50
College Algebra
60
54
50
English Literature
67
55
50
Freshman College Composition
59
54
50
History of the United States I
59
54
50
History of the United States II
59
55
50
Principles of Macroeconomics
61
54
50
Principles of Management
60
56
50
Principles of Microeconomics
60
54
50
Psychology (Introductory)
58
54
50
This does not include all of the CLEP exams but you can reason that a 50 is a C and a 70 is an a+ at least




Examination PC Courses Credit Minimum Required Scores for:
A-Level B-Level C-Level
Biology (general) BIOL 1408 4 64 57 50
Business Law, Introductory BUSI 2301 3 70 60 50
Macroeconomics, Principles of ECON 2301 3 74 62 50
Microeconomics, Principles of ECON 2302 3 78 64 50
College Composition ENGL 1301 3 68 59 50
English Literature ENGL 2322 3 60 55 50
General Chemistry CHEM 1411 4 76 63 50
American History I* HIST 1301 3 62 56 50
American History II* HIST 1302 3 64 57 50
American Government (federal) GOVT 2305 3 76 63 50
College Algebra MATH 1314 3 76 63 50
Trigonometry MATH 1316 3 66 58 50
Calculus/Elem. Functions MATH 2413 4 72 61 50
General Psychology PSYC 2301 3 68 59 50
Human Growth & Development PSYC 2314 3 76 63 50
Sociology, Introductory SOCI 1301 3 68 59 50
College Spanish SPAN 1411 & 1412 8 60 55 50


This one is from panola college




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