My daughter wants to learn to sew correctly. She technically knows how to sew and use the sewing machine but she skips steps and makes mistakes. As usual, I surfed the internet for instructional videos for her to watch, but it dawned on me that she can't be the only homeschooler looking to learn these things... so I put it all in a Squidoo page (a site where you earn commission from people viewing and buying things from your page.
I can't tell you how many tutorials I have done for her, then turned around and did my website work separately. Why did it take me so long to figure out that I could homeschool at work at the same time.
Well, I guess I have a whole lot of material to get uploaded to websites... and from now on, as I create a program for her, I will be sharing it.
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HOPE Scholarhip, Budget Cuts, and Homeschoolers
With serious budget cuts on the horizon, there are a lot of grumblings about how the HOPE Scholarship should be cut.
It seems that most Georgians want to return the scholarship to it's original intent and draw a top income line cutting off upper income families... (they seem to forget there was also a lower income cut off too as you could not get PELL and HOPE at one time.) As a homeschooler, whose children have different and more stringent set of rules of earning the HOPE scholarship, my family would just miss that upper cut off amount and my kids would not get the scholarship if this happens. But I am not fretting over it because I am not counting on it anyway, because homeschoolers have to be beyond exceptional to get the scholarship first year anyway. Beyond that first year, my kids could get HOPE if they don't place the income restrictions, unless they use the sliding scale (also suggested), in which case my kids would probably get 80%. But regardless, come hell or high water, as my mother used to say, if my kids want to stay in college, they will figure it out... I did. ... Although I might help them more than my parents helped me.
Anywhooo... my point is this. If homeschoolers need to score in the 85th percentile (SAT approx 1800, ACT 26) to qualify for the HOPE scholarship first year, why are public school kids getting the scholarships with "B" averages only? And then, if they get the "B" average, why do they need remedial math and writing classes. HMMMM... Homeschoolers have to jump through these extra hoops because there is a fear that homeschooling moms will inflate grades. Meanwhile there is no doubt that schools are inflating grades.
Fair is Fair.
In all fairness, I propose that anyone who can get into the 75th percentile on the ACT or SAT (SAT approx 1680, ACT 24) should be eligible for the HOPE scholarship. Period. This is less than what is expected of homeschoolers... it is what should be expected of ALL students including homeschoolers.
Ok, but there are arguments that the SAT and maybe even the ACT is culturally biased. So let's make an exception. If the student does not fall into the 75th percentile on the ACT or SAT, but is in the top 25 percentile in his class based on GPA then he should also be eligible for the HOPE scholarship. This exemption would leave homeschoolers out, but we are already used to waiting a year to qualify for the HOPE scholarship, and our kids still seem to manage to pay for that first year of college.
So either 75% or higher on the SAT or ACT OR top 25% in class rank and a student could get the HOPE scholarship. These simple guidelines would eliminate any extra administration on figuring out who gets the Scholarship, and would still cut out the possibility of student who are not ready for college getting the scholarship based on inflated grades. But to be fair to those students, if they can get a 3.0 average in their Freshman year, they should also be eligible for the grant.
Just saying...
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It seems that most Georgians want to return the scholarship to it's original intent and draw a top income line cutting off upper income families... (they seem to forget there was also a lower income cut off too as you could not get PELL and HOPE at one time.) As a homeschooler, whose children have different and more stringent set of rules of earning the HOPE scholarship, my family would just miss that upper cut off amount and my kids would not get the scholarship if this happens. But I am not fretting over it because I am not counting on it anyway, because homeschoolers have to be beyond exceptional to get the scholarship first year anyway. Beyond that first year, my kids could get HOPE if they don't place the income restrictions, unless they use the sliding scale (also suggested), in which case my kids would probably get 80%. But regardless, come hell or high water, as my mother used to say, if my kids want to stay in college, they will figure it out... I did. ... Although I might help them more than my parents helped me.
Anywhooo... my point is this. If homeschoolers need to score in the 85th percentile (SAT approx 1800, ACT 26) to qualify for the HOPE scholarship first year, why are public school kids getting the scholarships with "B" averages only? And then, if they get the "B" average, why do they need remedial math and writing classes. HMMMM... Homeschoolers have to jump through these extra hoops because there is a fear that homeschooling moms will inflate grades. Meanwhile there is no doubt that schools are inflating grades.
Fair is Fair.
In all fairness, I propose that anyone who can get into the 75th percentile on the ACT or SAT (SAT approx 1680, ACT 24) should be eligible for the HOPE scholarship. Period. This is less than what is expected of homeschoolers... it is what should be expected of ALL students including homeschoolers.
Ok, but there are arguments that the SAT and maybe even the ACT is culturally biased. So let's make an exception. If the student does not fall into the 75th percentile on the ACT or SAT, but is in the top 25 percentile in his class based on GPA then he should also be eligible for the HOPE scholarship. This exemption would leave homeschoolers out, but we are already used to waiting a year to qualify for the HOPE scholarship, and our kids still seem to manage to pay for that first year of college.
So either 75% or higher on the SAT or ACT OR top 25% in class rank and a student could get the HOPE scholarship. These simple guidelines would eliminate any extra administration on figuring out who gets the Scholarship, and would still cut out the possibility of student who are not ready for college getting the scholarship based on inflated grades. But to be fair to those students, if they can get a 3.0 average in their Freshman year, they should also be eligible for the grant.
Just saying...
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Boo Math! NO... Yay Math (sample video)
If you are like me, ever since your kids finished Algebra, you have been at a loss of how to help them. You have hired tutors, purchased video based curriculum, and prayed. Well, that's what I have done anyway.
My youngest is currently doing Algebra 2 and every now and then she presents me with a problem I don't understand... I don't want to understand it either. It put us both in very boo-math moods.
But in my quest to find new ways to explain old problems to her, I turned to YouTube and therefore discovered Yay Math. Ahhh... It's awesome.
Math videos are recorded in an actual classroom by a full time math teacher. There is interaction between the teacher and student and important questions are asked and answered. They videos do get kind of silly, but I like that... If you need dryer material, there's Khan Academy which I also like... but Yay Math is my new favorite for free math help online.
Here's a sample of a Yay math video:
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My youngest is currently doing Algebra 2 and every now and then she presents me with a problem I don't understand... I don't want to understand it either. It put us both in very boo-math moods.
But in my quest to find new ways to explain old problems to her, I turned to YouTube and therefore discovered Yay Math. Ahhh... It's awesome.
Math videos are recorded in an actual classroom by a full time math teacher. There is interaction between the teacher and student and important questions are asked and answered. They videos do get kind of silly, but I like that... If you need dryer material, there's Khan Academy which I also like... but Yay Math is my new favorite for free math help online.
Here's a sample of a Yay math video:
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Getting Excited about Science with the Global Experiment (Guest Blog)
In his State of the Union address a few days ago, President Barack Obama stated that “We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair.” Yet it is sometimes difficult to get students excited about studying science. Enter the International Year of Chemsitry (IYC), a yearlong, worldwide celebration of chemistry sponsored by some of the leading international chemistry organizations in the world. As Andrew Liveris (president of the International Council of Chemical Associations, one main sponsor of the event) notes, “95 percent of the things that touch our lives — such as food, water, shelter, transportation, and medicine — are made possible through chemistry,” and the goal of the IYC is to help show people just how important chemistry is in daily life.
To get students involved in the celebration, the IYC designed a Global Experiment called “Water: A Chemical Solution,” which has the potential to be the largest chemistry experiment ever. Students from all over the globe will participate in the water themed experiments by testing how chemistry can be applied to purify water so it can be consumed. More specifically there are four activities that students will complete while taking part in the experiment: 1) acidity 2) salinity 3) filtration 4) solar still. Here is a more in-depth look into what students will be exploring in each required activity.
Acidity- In the first activity students will use pH strips and learn about the pH scale in order to measure the pH of their local body of water. They finish by learning methods for testing the reliability of their results.
Salinity- The Salinity activity provides students the experience of making their own water meter and testing the conductivity and salt presence in their particular water sample.
Filtration- Students must work with household or classroom found materials to construct a functioning water filtration system. In addition, they must test out and rank the filtration abilities of different materials. Then they will end this activity by carrying out an actual water treatment and filtration and record their findings on the Global Experiment website.
Solar Still- The Solar Still activity provides students experience in alternative methods of purifying water, with specific attention to the distillation process.
The Global Experiment assumes that teachers will direct students when they are carrying out each experiment, but the experiment encourages guidance and supervision from any adults willing to get involved. It does not matter if a teacher or parent has background in chemistry; the experiment comes with specific directions with regard to the methods and materials necessary for the successful completion of the modules. According to the IYC, the experiments will cost very little, if anything at all, to get as many people participating as possible. Finally, they designed experiments based on the level of education for those involved. Elementary school children can follow simpler experiments while those in middle or high school have increasingly complex and challenging tasks.
The International Year of Chemistry kicks off February 6th, and the Global Experiment runs all year, so if you believe that your child or your class would enjoy participating in the experiment visit the website! It is an easy yet terrific way to get students excited about science, and it also gets students involved in helping to solve the problem many countries have accessing clean drinking water. When Liveris was in grade school he says he became “hooked on the knowledge that chemistry would open the door to innovations that would make the world a better place.” Hopefully, by getting involved with the Global Experiment, more and more students will start to feel this way!
Alan Parker is a blogger based out of New York, NY who writes about alternative energy, green business, sustainability, and climate change.
Follow on Twitter @AGreenParker
(Thank you Alan Parker for this very valuable guest blog)
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12 grade year of homeschooling, Finishing Strong
We are almost done with my college prep series. There will still be a video on completing the transcript. Stay tuned... meanwhile, ...
