A Stellar School Day!

A pretty good day in our Homeschooling adventure! This is what we did today.

RELIGION -

• Faith and Life Chapter 19 - The Acceptance of the Father's Love  
• Preparing for Sunday's Mass - At lunch we read Sunday's Gospel as a family and discussed it. We used Scott Hahn's post @ Catholic Notebook as a guide and, of course, we watched the Godspell clip!  
• We also discussed today's reading (Matthew 15:29-37) and the significance of the Loaves and Fishes as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.
  

MATH - Investigation 4 (Statistics 101 - Data Collection and Surveys) Cool stuff!
There are 5 data gathering assignments - including surveys, quizzes and population samples. This gives Pablo the chance to work with "hands-on" statistics basics -- qualitative and quantitative, closed and open-option surveys, and representative samples. Two of the surveys require collecting and analyzing survey data over time (10 days and 12 days). 
SCIENCE -
pgs. 68, 69 in our science book: Insects by Jean Henri Fabre
Internet research: Fabre's Narbonne Lycosa or Black Bellied Tarantula 
READING -   
PETRONIUS AND THE TWO-FACED JANUS via The Baldwin Project
I found a wonderful resource that organizes a collection of eTexts, links and tools for educators and students 
SearchLit.org 
HISTORY - PETRONIUS AND THE TWO-FACED JANUS via The Baldwin Project

	Augustus Caesar aka Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus  BC 63 - AD 14

LANGUAGE ARTS -  The Witch of Blackbird Pond - study guide pgs 15 and 16    
  VOCABULARY - Wordly Wise; Lesson 9 
  2 BICs 
  POST @ Red Door 
GEOGRAPHY - Review - finding Barbados (The Witch of Blackbird Pond)  
SPANISH  - on-line - para mi (for me) and tiene (it has)  
KEYBOARDING - 32wpm j,f  & 33wpm d,k  
TECHNOLOGY -
Surveys conducive to online communication were distributed via a FB Note
Red Door post with graphics   
P.E. - w/ neighborhood kiddos 
LINK SOURCES:  

• Heritage History  (used for Augustus Caesar) An on-line library that contains hundreds of entertaining and easily-read history books which were written for students and non-specialists many years ago.
• Roman-Empire.net (used for Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus ) The Children's Section is fun!
• The Baldwin Project - Bringing Yesterday's Classics to Today's Children    (used for PETRONIUS AND THE TWO-FACED JANUS) 
• Fabre's work @ eFabre.net - Welcome to the Amazing World of the Insects / Life of Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre (used for Narbonne Lycosa)
• Fabre's work @ The Baldwin Project  (used for Black Bellied Tarantula) 
• Catholic Notebook for reflection on Sunday's readings (used for Scott Hahn's post)
• USCCB NAB online - Book of Matthew; chapter 15   (used for today's Gospel reading)
• Wordly Wise
• Spanish on-line
• Keyboarding

Don't You Want Your Children to Experience the Real World?

You know the questions. Sometimes they even come from well meaning friends and family members.

• “What about socialization?”

• “How will you ever teach math and science?”

• “You don’t have a teaching certificate. Are you really qualified to teach your children?”

• “Don’t you want your children to experience the real world?”

And on and on the list goes.

As those of us who are homeschoolers know, these are loaded questions that have little to do with what is best for our own children. Rather, they convey to us what the questioner actually thinks about homeschooling as an educational choice, and sometimes it is even a passive aggressive way to express their disapproval.
That last question, especially, always makes me laugh.

Is a 30 X 30 foot classroom full of boring textbooks and 29 other equally foolish and insecure young people the real life of which we speak? The ludicrousness of this statement hit me again over the weekend as I stood at one of the Wal-Mart “intersections,” waiting for my poorly socialized and inexperienced homeschooled children to finish their shopping.

In an act that I am certain would make Margaret Sanger proud, in strolled a teenage girl pushing a cart that held a doll-sized infant carrier that slid back and forth in the basket as the driver rummaged in her purse. Circling around and heading down the make-up aisle, another 5 girls appeared and all began talking at once.
“I was sooo wasted last night.”
“Yeah. Did you hear about Cassie? She was so wasted, too. They thought she died.”
“She didn’t die, she just passed out in her own puke.”
“No, I heard she died.”
“Whatever.”
“Hey, I forgot to take the kid along last night,” said the “mother” of the group, pointing at a 5 pound bag of flour that had been dressed in a pink knitted hat and wrapped in a pale pink blanket. “Yeah, but I brought it along today.”
One of the group reached down inside the cart and, picking up the “baby,” laughed as she adjusted the blanket and held the bundle under one arm.
“So, you wanna go out tonight?” asked another one of the girls.
“OK, said the “mom.”

“Hey, did you see who Tyler left with after the game?”
“Yeah, I saw. And they were both so wasted.”
Tossing the “baby” back into the seat, but failing to fasten the seat belt, all six of them disappeared into the nail polish as I pondered this notion of the “real world.”

In my real world, most homeschoolers have instant access to babies, whether it is younger siblings or nieces and nephews of older ones or fellow homeschoolers little ones. No one needs to tell them that babies require responsibility and hard work because they watch their moms every single day.
They are the most often requested babysitters of parents in the church because they know how to change diapers, make healthy snacks, and they actually enjoy being with little children.
“I was so wasted” is not in their vocabulary because they are too busy writing computer programs, attending NASA science camps, maintaining home businesses, creating culinary works of art in the kitchen, and writing novels.

I can’t help but wonder if those people so busy passing judgment or offering unsolicited advice even know what “the real world” is in 2010. And if they do, then my question is, "What are you doing to change it and create a better world?  I homeschool."
And, by the way, in my real world, flour is used for baking. I wonder how many of those girls knew that.

SOURCE: http://www.thatmom.com/?p=5280
Edited by Soutenus
Cartoon Source: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/whynot.htm