Homeschooling in California

For those who don’t know it, 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.  Since a lot of kids love outer space, this is a good time to take advantage of some special events.  For the most up to date info, you can visit the official International Year of Astronomy website at: http://www.astronomy2009.org/

One of the things I’m looking forward to, is getting a Galileoscope.  It is an inexpensive telescope designed to be used inurban areas that allows us to see what Galileo saw with his telescope 400 years ago.  We should be able to see the rings of Saturn and some of Jupiter’s moons.  It isn’t available yet, but I’ve signed up to be notified when it’s ready.  If you don’t want to wait for me to post about it again, you can sign up too at: http://galileoscope.org.s24296.gridserver.com/

 So if you’ve been interested in tracking down a local astronomy club to join a stargazing session, now is a great time.  I bet a lot of local groups are planning extra fun stuff this year.  I think in the spring, we’ll make a special camping trip to go out an see the stars.

In response to all the toy recalls for lead paint in 2007, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (aka, the CPSIA).  It requires all children’s products (defined as any product designed, marketed toward, or appealing to those 12 and under) be tested by a 3rd party lab for lead and phalates (that bad stuff that softens plastics.)  It all sounds well and good.  None of us want harmful substances in our kids toys.  But there are problems with this law.  Big problems that have gotten surprisingly little press so far.

There are some really good blogs about the problems from those in the children’s toys and apparel industry, but I’m going to share a couple links to a more impartial source, Forbes.com.  They do an excellent joy of explaining how a good idea went so wrong:
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/22/cpsia-waxman-cpsc-oped-cx_wo_0122olson.html

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html

So what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with homeschooling?  Well, this law affects all products made for kids, so it therefore affects parents since it directly affects or choices as consumers.  But that isn’t the only homeschool issue here.

While the CPSIA is a direct reaction to recalled imported toys That were breaking already existing lead paint laws I might add.), it does not only regulate imported toys.  It regulates ALL children’s products.  Clothes, books, science kits, toys, art supplies, etc., etc.  Many smaller manufactures cannot afford the testing costs of hundreds to thousands of dollars per item.  Even if the items are made from supplies that have already been tested and certified lead-free, this law requires that the finished product be retested again at additional expense.  Some homeschooling books are published in small batches since it’s a fairly niche market.  Can they afford the additional testing costs?  If they do, you can bet the price for all the stuff we use and love is going to go up.

The scope of the CPSIA even covers libraries and thrift shops.  Children’s books may be disappearing from the library.  We may soon not be able to donate or buy used kid clothes and toys to Goodwill.  If you think I’m overreacting, visit the American Library Association website.  The country’s librarians are not happy: http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?cat=4

I urge everyone to read the Forbes articles to better understand these issues.  Then please write to your representatives and ask for common sense changes that will allow our children to be safe without destroying American companies that have always been consciencence about their products.

I’d read a little about lapbooking when I was first learning about homeschooling, but I didn’t really know what it was.  Now that we’re starting on our first one, I feel like I have a better idea, but I’m sure I will have lots to share as we learn and experiment more.

Basically, lapbooks are folders that hold lots of mini-projects that all revolve around a certain topic.  Our first one will be about dolphins.  Then each project or worksheet or whatever, the child does while learning gets put inside the lapbook.  I know we’ll have a diagram with the parts of a dolphin labeled on it.  Probably some drawings.  What makes a dolphin a mammal.  That kind of thing.  It’s great because they can be adapted or made for any level.  We’re covering the basics because we’re doing kindergarten stuff, but a high schooler could get really in depth into dolphin behavior or communication or conservation if they were interested.

It’s also a way to have everything together if the child wants to look back over what they learned.  Or if you need a work sample to show a charter school or your relatives. 

I know there are a ton of resources out there, but I spent all night exploring all the neat stuff at this site: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

Obviously you can always make up your own items to include, but the neat thing about this website is that they have all the little books and projects already ready to fit inside a lapbook perfectly.  Great for beginners like us, and it’s a totally free site. 

If your child has done any lapbooking, I’d love for you to leave a comment and tell me about it.  I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with ours.

There won’t be many, if any posts made to this blog in the month of November,as I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as it’s also known.) The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write novel (a novel by this definition is at least 50,000 words) in the month of November.

It doesn’t need to be a good novel. In fact, to keep up that word count, it probably won’t be. It only needs to be a 50,000 word first draft. Editing is for December, as they say. There is a wonderfully fun, supportive online community for this huge event at http://nanawrimo.org and there are even local events, and write-ins held all over during the corse of the month.

My kids are way too young to participate or enjoy this kind of event, but I love it, and there are many young writers who participate. If you have a middle or high school aged child (or a really ambitious, younger kid) who loves to write, send to the NaNoWriMo site to check it out. It’s a great experience for anyone who ever thought about someday wanting to try writing a novel.

Another favorite in our house is Sid the Science Kid, a PBS program. Since this comes on in the morning at a time when I assume most kids are in school, I’m assuming this show is actually aimed at preschoolers. Even so, I think it’s a great show for introducing basic science concepts, and the scientific process to children. Slightly older kids could expand on the basics in the show, but I’d guess that once you get a few years above the demographic for Sid the Science Kid, you probably would be bored with the show anyway.

What I like best is that there is a simple, usually quick to set up, experiment that goes along with each show. It gives us something to do at home so we can see that what we saw on TV is what really happens when we do the same experiment ourselves. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the child to try to predict or hypothesize on their own, but at the preschool, and kindergarten level, that really isn’t the most important aspect of science yet.

If you’re more organized than me, and want to have your experiment ready to go as soon as the show is done, parents can even hop online and see what experiment goes with each show ahead of time. For that matter, if you’re anti-television, but want to use the experiments from the website, you can easily do that too. See http://pbskids.org/sid/index.html for links to local schedules, and info for parents, as well as games for kids.

My daughter is learning to read right now. I stumbled on Starfall.com well before I started any formal reading instruction with her, but now that she’s learning phonics rules, we visit Starfall together to read the stories there.

I thought at first that she loved this site only because she loves to play on the computer, but she is only allowed to do it for a short time, and not every day. It was bonus computer time – what’s not to love? Now I know that isn’t it. She has plenty of computer games that she doesn’t care for, even ones featuring some of her favorite cartoon characters. But she loves the Starfall stories, and works really hard to read each story by herself.

The stories in the section we use the most, Learn to read, are arranged by what phonics skill they work on, like the short ‘a’ sound, etc. It makes it easy for me to find a story that will compliment what we are learning about, and that she’ll be successful reading on her own.

The stories all can be read by the computer too, if you want. It starts by just displaying each page, but if you click on a word, it will show you how to sound it out. So there’s help for any words that she needs it for.

There are other, more advanced, reading sections too. We haven’t done much there yet, but I’m sure we will eventually. There is also a preschool section for learning letters and letter sounds. You can even print out writing worksheets that go along with the stories.

There are also some other activities there too, but learning to read, and phonics seem to be the main focus of the site. Last week we talked about calenders and the days of the week, and we made a calender at Starfall. I was disappointed that I didn’t see an obvious way to print out the calender my daughter made, but the game really did help her get the days of the week straight in her mind.