Home school week and organization

  It was a pretty good week.  We still worked on the basic math, but ventured into some three dimensional shapes.  We went around the house pointing out different cubes, spheres, cuboids, cones and cylinders.  Then Superman started thinking of things outside the house that matched the shapes.  He enjoys doing shapes and they're easy enough.  I think we'll incorporate some of the shape learning into arts/crafts.  On Valentines day the math was an add and color the correct sums, to form a picture of a heart.  The Batman had his own paper that was color matching to the number, instead of adding.
                                                    Math home work from co op

                                      
  We officially covered compound words this week.  He knew what they were already, but phonics road covers it and we finally reached it.  Just a sheet that has one word + one word = combined word.  I pulled some sentence worksheets out to do, to break up making up one each day.  The comprehension story was about pets, which Superman seemed to enjoy illustrating.
                                                  
                                           Week 16 words, some sentences and a worksheet

                                       An illustrated sheet from the story and some compound words

   I found some very cool science workbooks, by accident.  I checked one out of the library, intending to flip through, check it out, and copy anything I liked.  It turns out there is a small series.  Gifted and Talented Science workbooks.  They seem like a nice addition to any science curriculum.  We also found some nature series books at Target.  They are a level 2, so grade 1-3.  We of course got 3 bug ones.  A few of the words are a little above my guy, but I'm amazed he knows most of them, as well as comprehends the material.  He excitedly was telling me that yellow jackets live underground, and some type of caterpillar had stingers.  I am so happy he enjoys reading.
                                                     Reading a super hero book.

 

   This week I also started to tackle the extra home school supplies that I have.  I don't know how I ended up with so much.

                                    
   And that's only some of it.  I have some curriculum on the office bookshelf that I'd like to resell.  I took all these workbooks and papers, and ended up with this-
        

    Two piles for the Batman-a prek/k one and a first grade one.  A current pile of various things for Superman, and a third grade pile.  Another pile got the trash, and the final pile is going to a friend-extras that I had.  I'm actually glad I have these extra workbooks.  Now I just have to file away the extra books in the file cabinet.  I spent a long time looking for the curriculum I wanted to use, and actually changed a few.  But on days I'm looking for something extra, or we're having a light day, I can pull a worksheet or two from one of these books for my guy to do.  They also work for summer work, since I believe in year round schooling.  Especially for the lower grades.  Too much information is forgotten over the summer.  We school a few weeks on and a week off.  I admit, I was a bit more scattered until I read Susan Wise, "Well Trained Mind".  It makes sense to me, so we are following the path, until/unless it doesn't work out for us.

Overlabelled kids

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011

   This video needs to be seen.  It needs to be heard.  The religion behind it, is seriously crazy, but the message is very true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv49RFo1ckQ
  And you need to have an open mind about it, obviously.  And I'm bringing drugs into it, because with labels on kids, drugs usually follow.  There are people who do need medication, if proper diet and other things do not help. Or if there is an injury, damaging the brain and they have no choice.
   But too many parents turn to drugs for their child who just can't sit still in class.  Who just can't focus, or the work is too hard.  I know parents of teens where one set turns to drugs, and the other take a different approach.   They cut out the extra curricular fun stuff.  They change the diet.  They crack down and become stricter with the teens.  Sure, both may work, but at what cost does the drug taking child suffer?  If they've already been taking drugs since childhood, whenever a problem arises, as an adult, they'll most likely chose drugs to help when they can't deal.  When work is too hard or too stressful.  And then, when they have kids, the cycle repeats.  The child  not taking drugs-learns to deal with life and live healthy.  They're not going to turn to drugs at the first sign of a problem in their child.  Are they?
  I'm curious the studies done of these kids.  Long term effects of psychiatric drugs anyone? Other than them becoming prescription using adults.  I'll not apologize for the sarcasm.  I said that some people actually do need help.  I bet some of us can think back to our childhood and realize all these labels just didn't exist.  Parents were more involved and strict.  Children had respect for elders and each other.  Food, might have been a better quality-you know, our food wasn't drenched in food coloring, bad oils and sugar, the way it is today.  Kids weren't running around on Ritalin or some other sit still drug.  When did the numbers start to rise and we start to fail our children? Another thing to think about-long term safety studies of these drugs?  Short term safety studies?  Neurological effects of these drugs?  Yet people will give them to their kids, instead of looking at another way.
  As an adult, I suppose I have a label.  It's many things, and I'm sure  I would have been called a witch and persecuted in Salem.   Many, many great thinkers and scientists would have been labelled, and actually, though dead, are being labelled now, as a reason why they thought a certain way.  I do have a lot more to say on this subject, but right now it's about recognizing that too many kids are labelled and tossed drugs. 

Home school co op starts

  We had a light week for schooling.  Both kids had colds, but the nice thing about home school, is that we are home!  No missed work.  No make up assignments.  No absent marks.  And though ill enough to have been taken out of school, the little guy was well enough to do some work.
  We started our comprehension stories from Phonics Road.  It was, "The little red hen".  He had to read the page, then illustrated what he read.  By Friday, he had his own five page, illustrated book.  It's a nice way to see if the kids understand what they are reading.  He'll be doing a weekly book now until the end of the school year. Along with the comprehension, there are still new spelling words for the week, and review of spelling rules, along with some other new things like compound words-which we will be doing next week.
   We did a little math review of addition and subtraction this week.
 Thursday was the first day of our local home school co op classes!  The kids were well enough to go, and I figured we could leave if they started to feel sick.  Wow!  So many families were at the co op.  And we didn't even see half of them, since they were taking other classes.  We singed up for four classes-math bootcamp, science, music and art.  Everything went well.  Both the science and art classes are very cool.  The science teacher had a bunch of neat animals for the kids to see and learn about.  In the art class they did wet on wet painting.
   In all, the day went pretty well.  The sun came out and started to dry off the play ground, which was good, since I was going in and out of the classes with my youngest.  I'll be better prepared for him next week, on things to do.

  Now of course, the cold in my youngest has progressed to a nice wet cough.  The eldest still has a slight dry cough, but since my youngest had a very odd cough back in December for 2 weeks, I figure some of the cilia in his lungs was probably effected, hence he is showing more coughing symptoms than his brother.  All is good though.  I'm mainly using high dose Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), along with Borion's cough syrup and cold calm.
 
 

1918 Influenza part 1

  So I'm reading, "Flu, the untold Story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918, and the search for the virus that caused it", by Gina Kolata.  I'm a few chapters in.  I started reading it, because there seems to be a mystery surrounding this particular flu, if it was indeed a flu at all.  Anyhow, I came across something interesting today.
    In the chapter on Swine Flu, page 136 there is an analysis of the 1976 flu outbreak at Fort Dix.  This is what the officials are basing their evidence of a new and deadly pandemic, related to the 1918 flu, and starts the vaccine campaign. pg 136- "One death, thirteen sick men and up to 500 recruits who evidently had caught and resisted the disease, all in on Army camp, were the only established instances of human-to-human swine flu found around the world as February turned into March, the last month of the flu season in the Northern Hemisphere."   The scientists could not compare the Fort Dix virus to the 1918 flu virus, because no one had any samples for comparison.  So, they are basing a possible future epidemic on what then???

Our weekly home school wrap up

  It was a good week.  I thought I'd share some photos of things we are doing.  If you check my home school page, it goes over a month in review, and some of the programs we are using.  As you know, we are using The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading.  It's a fantastic program.  I really can't say enough about it.  We just wrapped up week 14.  We review daily the last 15 or so phonograms.  This past week we did sentence structure, how one starts and ends.  Here is a picture of some of my guys sentences.  Pretty good writing, I think, for an almost six year old.  These were done by dictation, and the only thing I had to explain in detail were the punctuation marks.

   For math, we are using Singapore 1.  We finished up the first half, and will be starting the second half shortly.  Until I get the workbook, we've been reviewing basic addition and doing flashcard work.  The photo shows the Singapore workbook for 1A, Spiderman, and in the binder, some of Math Mammoth, that we also use, for extra practice.

Singapore-creating math sentences. 

    For science we are using Elemental Science.  So far, I find it a nice program for elementary.  We are doing the, Biology part right now.  That covers animals for 20 weeks, body for 10 weeks and plants for 6 weeks.  the only problem I've had is the basic spine.  So we use various animal books.  This week we learned about whales, dolphins and walrus.  We also use some Planet Earth books and stickers.  We find the habitat of the animal, and then place it in the book and also on a wall map.  This way, it also incorporates some geography.

We covered a little mapping this week, which we'll continue into next week.  I found a few nice books at the library to use as a review of the United States.  Because Galloping the Globe includes some animals that live on each continent, we can combine our science and history, when it comes to animals.  By accident, after finding the Nat Geo book, I found a Toot and Puddle series.  One of the pigs is adventurous, and travels to different countries.  They make a nice story, and we can pull a lesson or project out of the book too.

Lastly, we finally started reading some Bible stories.  I have not been able to find a children's bible that wasn't too detailed, or sided more on one religion.  So far, the one I found seems to be working.  We read one or two stories at bed time.  Also, out of all the many, many books we check out from the library, we finally read, "Ferdinand".  

Until next week...

Who is watching over us?

Ah, there is hope yet, at least within the family.

  On occasion, my other half surprises me and eats something healthy, or passes along a bit of information, that, normally, I figure would pass right by him. Today, was one of those days. He tells me the bill to ban BPA in the US, failed to make it  to the senate table. So I dug around a little-just a little, because I already try to avoid all unsafe plastics. But, since I was both surprised, yet not surprised at the news....
   A few months ago you read that BPA is bad, and you start seeing infant products and plastics, labeled, "BPA Free". Yet, these people here will tell you it's safe-http://www.bisphenol-a.org/

  In January,  the FDA actually sides with the National Toxicology Program, and says that infants are particularly vulnerable to BPA, and to stop production of BPA in infant and kids products. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm197739.htm They go on to say this, The American Academy of Pediatrics and other health authorities recommend breastfeeding as the optimal nutrition for infants.  Infant formula, including infant formula packaged in cans, is a safe and acceptable alternative that provides known nutritional benefits and prevents life-threatening nutritional deficiencies. 

FDA is not recommending that families change the use of infant formula or foods, as the benefit of a stable source of good nutrition outweighs the potential risk of BPA exposure. 

   Yes, women have breasts, meant to feed babies, a small percent actually can not, and many chose not to. But, even breastfeeding moms occasionally pump and store milk-in bottles, cups etc-made of plastic. So even if you start out with the best intentions, that liquid gold, can be tainted with BPA. Now which is it-the FDA supports the knowledge that BPA is bad, or does not?

  Anyhow, BPA has been around since the 1960's, and only recently have studies been done with more than just a small amount of BPA. The good stuff-what my husband drew my attentions to-Nov 20th, 2010, the BPA ban does not make it to the senate table-http://inhabitat.com/us-senators-fail-to-approve-ban-on-use-of-harmful-bpa/  According to the Wall Street Journal, on Wednesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), facing major opposition from the chemical industry, withdrew the amendment to ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups from consideration. Pressure from the chemical industry, along with other major organizations, has freaked out the government and the chemical industry has gotten what they want – the privilege to keep putting BPA into baby bottles and sippy cups.

  Now, my question would be to Sen. Feinstein, if the information is correct-why withdraw? Didn't David beat Goliath?  So, we need to ask ourselves, who is looking out for us? We can't  get a BPA ban on the senate table? We can't get regulations on harmful chemicals in the US, yet in Europe, they can? We can't get harmful food additives removed from our foods, and our foods labeled against GMO's? We can't seem to get toys or clothing checked for harmful chemicals. I mean really, as we get sicker, who are we supposed to trust and turn to? And who reaps the benefits?