Happy New Year
A very Happy and safe New Year to all of our myhomeschoolplan customers. This has been a great year and we hope 2010 will be even better.
The Annotated Turing
I generally don’t cross-link from one of my blogs to another but the audiences overlap in this case so I’m making an exception.
I recently read The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold and wrote a brief review on my personal blog.
Slow down and enjoy…
It is very easy to get caught up in holiday planning and get stressed out about the details. Homeschooling parents are no different in this regard. And when you finally look up, you’ve missed the actual holiday. I saw this cartoon today, and it struck me how appropriate this message is for this time of year.
Happy Holidays to all, make sure you take time to enjoy them.
Thanks for a great year at myhomeschoolplan.com, I hope we’ve added somewhat to your ability to be great homeschool teachers.
kevin
Field Trip!
One of the things I love about our homeschooling journey is the field trips. Tomorrow, we are going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts where they are hosting “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” from through January 10, 2010.
From the site:
Marvel at superb art objects from France’s great museum. Drawing from each collection area, this fascinating exhibition explores why some artworks are considered masterpieces, while others are runners-up. Feast your eyes and get art smart by looking at side-by-side comparisons of objects spanning 4,000 years. And find out how the Louvre used science to spot a forgery in its midst. A once-in-a-lifetime event!
I am very impressed with how museums are leading other companies to having an integrated experience. The website posts images to get a preview of the exhibit. In addition, you can download an audio guide and map for the exhibit.
As an added bonus, for our family of 5, they cost of an annual membership is only a couple dollars more than the cost of this special exhibit. Hopefully this will encourage other families to go with the annual membership and visit the museum more often. I’ll post after the event with a review.
“The teacher is crazy; I love that”
My kids are giving me such rich material to write about lately. Today I asked my oldest how he’s progressing on biology. We are trying Thinkwell’s online biology course. My son replied, “Dad, you don’t have to worry about me doing my biology, the teacher is crazy and I love it.” We were in the car and I laughed, turned to look at him with a crooked eyebrow, and before I could ask him to explain, he expanded upon his statement, “he’s really excited and passionate about biology. He gets so excited sometimes he trips over his own words. It gets me excited about it.”
Wow, just wow. I can’t say whether the teacher is faking it or not, I have no idea, but what I will say is what a testament that my son basically said ‘I got this course taken care of dad’ because he enjoys it, in no small part because the teacher is having a good time teaching the material.
Hats off to Thinkwell and to the biology teacher George Wolfe, you have new fans, my son and me!
“Latin doesn’t feel like work!”
My 9 year old daughter just said that as she put The Critical Thinking Company’s “Word Roots” software in the computer. She went further, “it feels like a totally awesome computer game,” (okay, my daughter likes hyperbole, but still.)
This is what a parent loves to hear, a child diving into learning, knowing it’s learning, but loving it like a game. My daughter loves Indiana Jones, and this game helps her pretend she is an archaeologist, but she’s digging up words instead of treasures.
From the back of the CD box:
In the late 5th century A.D., many Roman cities are destroyed by earthquakes. The ruins are buried and lost for centuries. A brilliant archaeologist (your student) comes along and finds documents written in Latin that explain how to rebuild city. Your student must learn Latin word parts, assemble words from parts, and apply words in context in order to decode the documents and rebuild.
This is our first product from The Critical Thinking Co. and surely not our last.
Activity Scheduling
A prospective user asked via email about creating a schedule in myhomeschoolplan.com and I thought the answer was worth sharing. (If you have tips on how you schedule activities please post in the comments.)
1. Generic Recurring Activities: There are activities where the description does not vary. An example would be “Reading for fun.” We create an activity called “Reading for fun”, make it a recurring activity Monday through Friday with an end date of the end of the quarter, and assign to all three kids.
2. Recurring Activities with Specific Descriptions: My wife creates a recurring activity for the quarter, for instance she will create an activity called “Life of Fred Math”, Monday through Friday. Then on Sunday night, she will go to the list for the week, and edit the description line for each day with the specific assignment, e.g. read chapter 1 (Monday), read chapter 2 (Tuesday) etc.
3. Specific Activities: On Sunday nights, she looks at the week and inputs any non-recurring activities. Perhaps we are going on a field trip, or there is a show on TV or a DVD she wants someone to watch.
We have found this to be a good method to make the most efficient use of our time. Anyone else have any tips?
Adding A New School Year
Have you been using MyHomeSchoolPlan.com since the spring? Getting ready to start a new school year?
Click on the School Years link and you can add the new school year. We’ve also added a ‘title’ so you can name the school year (we like to call it the 2009/10 school year for instance.)
Once you have added the school year and clicked save, you will see the ‘Edit Terms’ link, as well as ‘Add Existing Courses to School Year.’ The terms link will allow you to set up your calendar (quarters, semesters, etc.)
The courses link displays all of your courses from the previous year. Simply select the checkbox for any course you wish to add to this new school year. NOTE: You still need to enroll your students in the new courses, so after you have done this go to the enroll screen.
This is our first “new school year” so please let us know how it goes, and how we can make this better.
Here’s to a great new school year for you and your children, we hope in some small way we can aid you in having a terrific year.
PS and to new users who are using this for the first time, just go to the settings page and it will walk you through the set up process.
Starting a new school year
We are working on how users move from one school year to the next in myhomeschoolplan.com and would love your feedback. You can @ reply me on twitter, use the suggestion area, or the comments area in this blog post.
We want it to be super easy, and we want to remove clutter. In other words, we don’t want to automatically move all of your courses from the previous year. What are other key considerations you have for creating a new school year?
Podcasts for Tolkien fans
My kids are huge J.R.R. Tolkien fans. My oldest has read everything including “The Silmarillion.” I often forget to check on itunes for podcasts but checked this past week.
The best way to find good podcasts on itunes is to go to the itunes store, and in the right hand side of the page select ‘power search’ in the quick links box. Then, in the drop-down that says All Results, choose iTunes U so it will filter just for items on iTunes U. In the description area type Tolkien.
Corey Olsen has a series on The Hobbit, and a website, http://www.tolkienprofessor.com/ ; and we downloaded the Tolkien at Oxford podcast, two sessions about Tolkien and language.
Enjoy.