Haley’s Gig

Can you stand another post where I go on and on and on about how lucky we are to live the life that we choose? No? I don’t blame you. But if you can and you’d like a real treat, stick around.

A couple of weeks ago, I found out about a contest that was going to be happening close to where we live. It’s the Acoustic Rising Star competition happening at Levee Music Bar and Grill. I inquired about age limits and the like and found out that it was something that Haley could participate in. We decided to go to the open mic night run by a new friend of ours Michelle Dalziel (who puts on a terrific show, by the way), so that Haley could see what this was about and whether she wanted to participate.  The venue is a local pub and I wanted Haley to understand that this was a little more “grown up” than the audiences she’s used to performing in front of.   Michelle is so warm and welcoming that Haley decided almost immediately that she wanted to give it a shot.  We scheduled her for the second week of the competition and decided to attend the first week as well.

We had a great time the first week and were sure that this would be a fun thing for Haley to do as well as a great learning experience.  As the second week approached, Haley started to get a case of the nerves and quite honestly, although I tried very hard to hide it, so did I.  Before we knew it, Wednesday was here.  We took it easy all day, picking out an outfit, straightening hair, arguing over how much makeup was appropriate for a twelve year old.  You know, the normal things.  We got to the restaurant at about 6:45 and as usual, were fully supported by our friends – a bunch of whom showed up for the show and those with little kids, who couldn’t get a sitter sent well wishes.

When it was Haley’s turn, she got up and can I tell you?  She blew everyone away!   She was the youngest competitor and she was awesome! Honestly, there was a ton of talent there and we were so happy to have Haley be a part of it.  At the end of the evening, they did the tally of audience and judges votes and Haley came in 2nd place!  Outstanding!  Needless to say, she has been even harder bit by the performing bug and we’re going back again tonight!

I truly believe that if it weren’t for our choice to homeschool, this would not be possible. We really have the opportunity to change our schedule to fit anything that we want to do, all while leaving room for learning in any and every place.

Lovin’ Life…

How About Radical Tolerance

Ok, so if you’re a homeschooler (and maybe if you’re not) you know about the GMA piece and George Stephanopulous’s blatant bias at the beginning of the segment.  In the time since that piece aired I have seen so many articles and posts and tweets about how bad everyone “else” is and how crazy “those other people” are.  Even going so far as to claim that “those people” don’t love their children enough.  It seems that society in general thinks that there are two camps of homeschoolers – the fundamentalist, religious, bible based homeschoolers and the ultra-liberal radical unschoolers.  I’m here to tell you that nothing is ever that simple, or that black and white and in my seven years of homeschooling, every family I’ve met as fallen somewhere in between those two poles. I know of families on either extreme, but I’ve never actually met one.

When I first started this journey, there was an “us against them” mentality.  Homeschooling was such a radical idea that those who chose that path felt that they had to defend it (no matter the ideology) and those not doing it, seemed to be attacking it at every turn.  Over the years, homeschooling has become more main stream and now it seems that a lot of groups want to claim their ideology as the right one.  I’d like to ask, can’t we all just get along? And if not, then can’t we just leave each other alone?

I know unschoolers, school-at-homers, virtual learners, private schoolers and public schoolers and at each turn the common thread is usually that we’re doing what we think is best for our family at that particular time.  If we can stop for a minute, criticizing everyone else’s choices and oh, I don’t know, support each other? Wouldn’t the world be a better place?

My family is what you would call “eclectic”, we use virtual courses, text books, unit studies, child directed learning and mom directed learning (recently we used Grandpa directed learning) and I, for one, like to keep my options open.  Every style has its benefits and I’m not going to shut myself, or my children off from any of these experiences.  I’d like to humbly suggest that we stop attacking others and try supporting them.

Thank you for indulging me.

“Across the Universe” Science Project

Gather your materials.  You’ll need some twine, a tape measure, planet cutouts, scissors, calculator, and a long hallway, driveway or yard.

You also need to familiarize yourself and your student(s) with the term Astronomical Unit. Basically it’s a unit of measure equal to 92,955,807 miles, or the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

From the lesson plan:

For your conversions, remember 1 meter = 1.094 yard or 39.38 inches. If you are using
yards/inches for your project, you should convert all of your meter measurements into
inches by multiplying. For example, Mercury is .387 m (in scale distance) from the sun,
which is .423 yards (.387 x 1.094) or 15.24 inches (.397 x 39.38).

These will be the distances that you measure out and actually place your planets

Planet (or Dwarf Planet)	Distance from the Sun (Astronomical Units)
Mercury	0.387 AU
Venus	0.723 AU
Earth	1 AU
Mars	1.524 AU
Jupiter	5.203 AU
Saturn	9.539 AU
Uranus	19.18 AU
Neptune	30.06 AU
Pluto (a dwarf planet)	39.53 AU

Choose an item to represent the sun and place it at one end of your space.

Measure out each planet and place along side your measuring tape

We did this outside, so we placed rocks on the planets so they wouldn’t blow away.

Haley and Travis represent the distance from the Sun to the Asteroid belt in this picture

And there’s Travis aaaaall the way out by Neptune!

Then it started to rain in space, so we collected our things and went inside.

Additional Source: Enchanted Learning’s Planet Page

Netflix and Homeschooling

A couple of months ago, some friends of ours were talking about a terrific documentary they had seen.  We were fascinated by what they were talking about and this was probably the third conversation we’d had with them regarding different documentaries.  I asked the mom where she had seen these, was there a new documentary channel or a website?  No, she was getting them through Netflix.  I had toyed with the idea of Netflix, but for one reason or another had never signed up.  I decided to give it a shot and I am so glad I did!  (This might be the biggest homeschoolers’ secret yet!)

We all know that Netflix will send you DVDs, but what I wasn’t really aware of is that not only can you download streaming content on your computer, but you can do it via XBox 360, PS3, a Roku box and coming this spring the Wii.   With an instant queue that you can access online, or directly on your TV screen, you can choose from a seemingly endless supply of movies, documentaries, and TV shows and in between sharing movies from my childhood, as well as the latest action flick, we’ve also watched a ton of documentaries, ranging from historical to scientific to social.  All for less than the cost of going to one movie.

Not everything is available on streaming, new movies are DVD only, so I chose the account that allows one DVD out at a time with unlimited access to streaming (on however many devices, or computers that you have) for $8.99 a month.

I was pleased with the service immediately, but when I realized that there is a social community as well, I was even more thrilled!  You and your friends can create profiles and share movies, recommending things to each other.  We’re even talking about co-ops where we all watch the movies at home and then get online to discuss our thoughts about them.  You can also connect your account to your Facebook account, sharing your choices and ratings with all your friends.

Additionally, as you watch and rate more movies, Netflix will recommend other things that are similar to what you’ve rated.  I’ve found that the recommendations are pretty spot on.

In a time when we’re all tightening our belts and trying to save money, even on curriculum and learning tools, I’ve found Netflix to be a great source for low cost learning opportunities.

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this review in any way.

The Room to Grow

Last week my daughter announced that she was going to give a concert at the park.  Ok, I thought, I’m just going to roll with this. She had put a couple of songs together and she planned that she would perform at the next park day.  She asked my advice about how to get started and I suggested that she just take out her guitar and start playing;  If people were interested, they’d listen and if not, she shouldn’t take it personally and to just regard it as practice.  She seemed ok with the idea and began to plan her “set”.

When we got to the park, it was mobbed!  We hadn’t realized that the public schools would be off that day and there were dozens of kids running all over the place.  We got out of the car to go play and she left the guitar in the car, she hadn’t counted on so many people being there and was unsure about whether she wanted to follow through.  Trying to give her the room to make more of her own decisions, I stayed silent.  She played with her friends and met some new children, we had lunch and then she whispered to me, “Can I have the keys?  I want to go get my guitar.”

She got her guitar and walked over to a picnic table that was just a little outside of the play area.  She opened it, set up and began to strum.  I stayed at my table so that I could stay out of her way and let her figure out what she wanted to do on her own.  After a couple of minutes, she started to sing.

Her friends were already gathered around her (we have the most supportive group, ever!), but then an interesting thing happened; more children started coming over from the play area and sat down on the ground in front of her.

At this point, I decided to set the camera to video and record a little bit:

She was so good and so brave that I thought my heart would burst!  After she was done the kids ran up to her and hugged her and told her what a good job she had done.

On the way home that day, she said, “Mom, I thought I was going to throw up, but in a good way.  Do you know what I mean?”
I do indeed sweetheart.  I do indeed.

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