Not Another Homeschool Blog

I think I need some comeback lines. A very nice lady moved into my neigbhorhood, right across the street from me. She is about 70 years old, but had far, far more energy than I do. She is very helpful, and always has advice to give out... and she gets on my nerves. Besides using the culdesac and all the properties surrounding it as her personal dog run (she likes the freedom and space to play catch with her dog), she likes to inform me on how I should raise my kids. It doesn't help that she does not approve of homeschooling. I didn't realize there was a problem at first. My daughter and I went over and helped her whenever she wanted. Sure, she asked questions about homeschooling. Who doesn't? Then one day, my child asked me a question about astonomy that I could not answer... I told her we would have to take a special trip to the planetarium in NY where my dad worked to learn all about it this summer. My neighbor seemed a bit bothered. The next day she showed up with a book...

We had some changes and a blogging hiatus at families.com, but we are back now. Check out my blog On reasons to quit homeschooling as well as... my homeschool glossary I just finished. In addition, you will want to check out the homeschool curriculum glossary I am working on. It will take a while to list and explain all of the curriculums I have found, but it will surely be worth the wait.

Bill Cosby once said, “Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them.” I say Amen to that. All children must learn the same lessons in the same order. Students must dress a certain way. Children must eat at the same time. Children must play at the same time. Children are graded the same. Children must go from point A to B to C. While the rules are made for the good of all children like no tolerance rules for instance, they are also made for the detriment of the individual. To top it off, schools have too many conflicting rules that leave children confused. Get in line. Stay in line. Sit and Wait. No talking in the halls. No talking in the classroom. No talking in the halls. No talking out of turn. No running. Move quickly. Slow down. Learn in this order. Learn faster. Learn slower. When my son was in the 3rd grade in public school, there were kids that harassed him for no other reason that his first name was also the name of the school. He was smacked in the ...

In case you missed the homeschool special: Homeschooling is Profiled in Atlanta Special News Program. Tonight a news program was aired here in Georgia where John Pruitt sat down with a number of homeschooling families and talked about homeschooling. Outside of a story by John Stossell, this was the first positive depiction of homeschooling I had seen in ages. John Pruitt interviews a black family positively about homeschooling including both parents and the children individually. He asked the kids the usual questions. “Do you like homeschooling?” “Why do you like homeschooling?” The children’s emphatic nodding answered his questions. The love it and would not do it any other way. Next, John interviewed an Orthodox Jewish family and asked the old Socialization question. He seemed satisfied with their answers. The next subject of his study was a family of unschoolers. The parents are professional actors and the children perform in plays. They “did not decide to homeschool”. They “decided...

I can't say I am really shocked about 6th graders having sex during shop class in Indianapolis. I am more shocked the report got out. When I was in public school in the early 70's in first grade, I remember inappropriate scenes in school. With a kid in the 5th and a kid in the 7th grade, I am glad I homeschool. The school of course, is not talking.

For me, it feels like time for a working vacation. For us, a working vacation means we pack up out laptops and go somewhere interesting, usually midweek to avoid the crowds and to make sure we still get the kids to their Monday and Tuesday classes. We spend the rest of the week somewhere beautiful homeschooling by the beach or on hotel room balconies and just enjoying each other and the change of scenery. Ain’t homeschooling grand? Rocky Point rentals has lots of great options for a working vacation. We can rent the ‘La Bunanilia’ which has 3 bedrooms and three baths and is located on the Mexican Beachfront town of Las Conchas. They also have ‘Flores Escondidas’ with 2 guest houses, each with 1 bedroom, or we could rent to ‘Nextasea’ a two bedroom two bath Condo. A homeschool vacation in Mexico, you might ask. Why not? With a little planning, and little interruption to our homeschooling schedule, we could leave Tuesday night and return Sunday without ever missing a beat!

A post by the anchoress caused me to recall an incident that happened when my daughter was in school. She quoted: the students had been building an elaborate “Legotown,” but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore “the inequities of private ownership.” According to the teachers, “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.” The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys.” these assumptions “mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.” Here is what happened to us: The first grade class at my daughters first school was doing an exercise on market places. According to the assignment, they were to make items to sell. The first surprise when I showed up for the sale was that they were ...

I don't want to be right. Let's face it... this is really a win-win-win situation. ~I win because I get to blog which really is a labor of love. ~I win because althoug I love blogging, I get paid and therefore can spend more time on blogging. ~You win, because you get to read all of my wonderful blogs. Among other paid to blog websites, I get paid to blog from payperpost . To find out which of my blogs are sponsored, look for the logo "sponsored by payforpost " bar at the bottom of my blogs. Getting paid to blog is really easy. Payperpost has many opportunities from which I pick and choose which ones might go best with my blog theme, in this case homeschooling. (You can do them all if you want). In this case I was asked the following questions : How much have you made on payperpost so far? So far, just through Payperpost , I have made $131.65 and am currently expecting $10.00 for the last paid post I did a couple of days ago. That will bring my total to $141.65...

The homeschool Cafe wrote this weeks Carnival of homeschooling featuring my blog post "I can't believe I get to Homeschool My kids. (posted at families.com homeschool blog ) Honestly... she did a really good job on this... This carnival gets the creativity award.