
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Norah's First Solids/Second-Hand Stores and "Haves/Needs Lists"

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Thomas Edison Approach to School
Got the house cleaned up, dinner prepped and was researching a Thomas Edison approach to homeschooling on THIS SITE.
Thoughts anyone?
I got my list yesterday from this site and had a 'sticky note in my mind' to check it out. Although I do agree with MUCH of it, I'm not sure I agree with all of it. I don't know about letting my child learn on his/her own for the first 8 years of his/her life. Exploration and natural learning is HUGE, don't get me wrong, but my daughter has a natural desire to read. Should I not teach her? I love the Seven Keys of Great Teaching, but like I said, I'm not sure I agree with all of it.
I'm going to hunt around some more on this website and maybe see if our local library has any books about it. I'll probably take some from it (we're doing a lot of it anyway, focusing a lot on character qualities, making good choices and beginning leadership skills) and incorporate it into our family.
This is your chance to participate parents. I know you all check this blog. I can see the numbers. So, let's discuss! :)
Famous People That Were Homeschooled

There are a bunch of athletes that weren't added and Venus and Serena Williams (tennis) as well as Tim Tebow (football) are just three of them. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. =)
Constitutional Convention Delegates
* Richard Basseti – Governor of Delaware
* William Blount – U.S. Senator
* George Clymer – U.S. Representative
* William Few – U.S. Senator
* Benjamin Franklin – Inventor and Statesman
* Alexander Hamilton – Lawyer and Economist
* William Houston – Lawyer
* William S. Johnson – Columbia College President
* William Livingston – Governor of New Jersey
* James Madison – 4th President of the U.S.
* George Mason – Justice of Virginia County Court
* John Francis Mercer – U.S. Representative
* Charles Pickney III – Governor of S. Carolina
* John Rutledge – Chief Justice U.S. Supreme Court
* Richard D. Spaight – Governor of North Carolina
* George Washington – 1st President of the U.S.
* John Witherspoon – President of Princeton
* George Wythe – Justice of Virginia High Court
Presidents
* John Adams
* John Quincy Adams
* Grover Cleveland
* Jefferson Davis (the only president of the short-lived Confederate States of America)
* James Garfield
* William Henry Harrison
* Andrew Jackson
* Thomas Jefferson
* Abraham Lincoln
* James Madison
* James Polk
* Franklin Delano Roosevelt
* Theodore Roosevelt
* John Tyler
* George Washington
* Woodrow Wilson
Statesmen
* Henry Fountain Ashurst
* William Jennings Bryan
* Winston Churchill
* Henry Clay
* John Dickinson
* Pierre du Pont
* Benjamin Franklin
* Patrick Henry
* William Penn
* Daniel Webster
Military Officers
* John Barry – Senior Navy Officer
* George Rogers Clark – Revolutionary War hero
* Nathanael Greene – Revolutionary War hero
* Nathan Hale – Revolutionary War hero
* Stonewall Jackson – Civil War General
* John Paul Jones – Father of the American Navy
* Robert E. Lee – Civil War General
* Douglas MacArthur – U.S. General
* George Patton – U.S. General
* Matthew Perry – U.S. Naval Officer
* John Pershing – U.S. General
* David Dixon Porter – Civil War Admiral
* Joseph Bradley Varnum – Revolutionary War hero
U.S. Supreme Court Judges
* Charles Evans Hughes
* John Jay
* John Marshall
* John Rutledge
* Sandra Day O’Connor
Religious Leaders
* Joan of Arc
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* William Carey
* Jonathan Edwards
* Philipp Melancthon
* Dwight L. Moody
* John Newton
* John Owen
* Hudson Taylor
* John & Charles Wesley
* Brigham Young
Explorers
* William Clark – Lewis & Clark Expedition
* Meriwether Lewis – Lewis & Clark Expedition
* John Wesley Powell – Colorado River Expedition
* Sir Ernest Shackleton – Antarctic Expedition
Scientists
* Wilson A. Bentley – “The Snowflake Man”
* George Washington Carver – agricultural research
* Pierre Curie – discovered radium
* Albert Einstein – theoretical physicist
* Paul Erdos – Hungarian mathematician
* Michael Faraday – electrochemist
* Pierre-Gilles de Gennes – French physicist
* Oliver Heaviside – electromagnetism researcher
* T.H. Huxley – biologist, zoologist, Darwinist
* Ruth Lawrence – mathematician
* Gilbert Newton Lewis – physical chemist
* Ada Lovelace – founder of scientific computing
* Benoit Mandelbrot – pioneer in fractal geometry
* Blaise Pascal – French mathematician
* Joseph Priestley – father of modern chemistry
* Samuel C. C. Ting – Chinese American physicist
* Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – Russian rocket scientist
Inventors
* Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
* John Moses Browning – firearms inventor/designer
* Peter Cooper – built the first modern skyscraper, the first commercial locomotive, and patented the first gelatin dessert which was later named Jell-O
* Thomas Edison – invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and electric light bulb
* Benjamin Franklin – invented the lightning rod
* Elias Howe – invented sewing machine
* William Lear – airplane creator
* Cyrus McCormick – invented grain reaper
* Guglielmo Marconi – developed radio
* Eli Whitney – invented the cotton gin
* Sir Frank Whittle – invented turbo jet engine
* Orville and Wilbur Wright – brothers who built the first successful airplane
Artists
* William Blake – painter, engraver, poet
* John Singleton Copley – American Colonial painter
* Evelyn De Morgan – Pre-Raphaelite painter
* Christian Grew – American Painter
* Donal Hord – San Diego sculptor
* Akiane Kramarik- 10-year-old art and poetry prodigy
* Claude Monet – French Impressionist
* Grandma Moses – American folk artist
* Charles Willson Peale – American portrait artist
* Lu Pinchang – ceramic sculptor
* Leonardo da Vinci – Renaissance artist, sculptor
* Andrew Wyeth – American realist painter
* Jamie Wyeth – American realist painter
Composers
* Johann Sebastian Bach – Baroque
* Irving Berlin – Patriotic
* Anton Bruckner – Symphonies
* Noel Coward – Musicals
* Felix Mendelssohn – Romantic
* Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Classical
* John Porcaro – Experimental
* Francis Poulenc – Choral
* John Philip Sousa – “March King”
Writers
* Louisa May Alcott – author of Little Women
* Hans Christian Anderson – fairy tale writer
* Margaret Atwood – Canadian novelist, poet
* Fawn M. Brodie – biographer
* Pearl S. Buck – Nobel prize-winning author
* William F. Buckley, Jr. – conservative writer
* Willa Cather – American novelist
* Agatha Christie – mystery author
* Samuel Clemens – a.k.a. Mark Twain
* Charles Dickens – British novelist
* Robert Frost – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
* Charlotte Perkins Gilman – early feminist writer
* Alex Haley – African-American novelist
* Sharlot Hall – poet, writer, Arizona historian
* Joshua Harris- pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye
* Bret Harte – frontier California journalist
* L. Ron Hubbard – science fiction writer
* Helen Keller – blind and deaf author and lecturer
* Rose Wilder Lane – journalist, ghostwriter, daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder
* C.S. Lewis – Christian writer and apologist
* Amy Lowell – Modernist poet
* Gabriela Mistral – Nobel-prize winning Latin American poet
* Sean O’Casey – Irish author
* Thomas Paine – political writer during the American Revolution, author of Common Sense
* Christopher Paolini – teen author of Eragon
* Isabel Paterson – conservative political author
* Beatrix Potter – author of Peter Rabbit Tales
* Jedediah Purdy – author of For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today
* Kenneth Rexroth – poet, translator, critical essayist
* Carl Sandburg – American poet
* George Bernard Shaw – Irish-born playwright
* Mattie J. T. Stepanek – 11-year-old author of Heartsongs
* Rosemary Sutcliff – historical novels for children
* Rabindranath Tagore – Bengali poet, essayist, dramatist, songwriter
* Leo Tolstoy – Russian writer
* Mercy Warren – American Revolution eyewitness
* Phillis Wheatley – African-American poet
* Walt Whitman – American poet
* Laura Ingalls Wilder – children’s book author
* Virginia Woolf – English novelist
Educators
* Amos Bronson Alcott – innovative teacher, father of Louisa May Alcott
* Catharine Beecher – co-founder of the Hartford Female Seminary
* Jill Ker Conway – first woman president of Smith College
* Erik Demaine – associate professor of Computer Science at MIT
* Timothy Dwight – President of Yale University
* William Samuel Johnson – President of Columbia College
* Horace Mann – “Father of the American Common School”
* Charlotte Mason – Founder of Charlotte Mason College of Education
* Joyce Reed – Associate Dean of the College, Brown University
* Fred Terman – President of Stanford University
* Frank Vandiver – President of Texas A&M University
* Booker T. Washington – teacher and founder of Tuskegee Institute
* Noah Webster – “Father of American Christian Education”
* John Witherspoon – President of Princeton University
Medical Practitioners
* Clara Barton – started the Red Cross
* Elizabeth Blackwell – first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree
* Florence Nightingale – Nurse
* Susan La Flesche Picotte – first American Indian woman physician
* Albert Schweitzer – Physician
* Mary Walker – Civil War physician; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
Business Entrepreneurs
* Andrew Carnegie – wealthy steel industrialist
* Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
* Horace Greeley – New York Tribune founder
* Soichiro Honda – creator of the Honda automobile company
* Peter Kindersley – book illustrator and publisher
* Ray Kroc – founder of McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain
* Jimmy Lai – newspaper publisher; founder of Giordano International
* Dr. Orison Swett Marden – founder, Success magazine
* Adolph Ochs – New York Times founder
* Joseph Pulitzer – newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
* Colonel Harland Sanders – started Kentucky Fried Chicken
* Dave Thomas – founder of the Wendy’s restaurant chain
Others
* Abigail Adams – wife of John Adams; mother of John Quincy Adams
* Ansel Adams – photographer
* Susan B. Anthony – women’s rights leader
* John James Audubon – ornithologist and artist
* Alyssa Buecker – director, Milbo Productions
* John Burroughs – naturalist
* Jennie Chancey – historical costumer
* Davy Crockett – frontiersman
* Edward Curtis – photographer
* Robin Lee Graham – youngest person to sail around the world at age 16
* Alex and Brett Harris – twin teen writers and conference speakers for “The Rebelution,” a Christian ministry/youth organization
* Eric Hoffer – social philosopher
* Sam Houston – lawyer; first leader of Texas
* Abraham Kuyper – Dutch politician, journalist
* Mary Leakey – fossil hunter
* Charles Fletcher Lummis – journalist, historian, photographer, founder of the Southwest Society
* Harriet Martineau – first woman sociologist
* Margaret Mead – cultural anthropologist
* John Stuart Mill – free-market Economist
* Charles Louis Montesquieu – philosopher
* John Muir – naturalist
* Raymond Parks – Civil Rights activist, husband of Rosa Parks
* Sofia, Susan, and Judit Polgar – chess masters
* Bill Ridell – Newspaperman
* Will Rogers – Humorist
* Eleanor Roosevelt – wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt
* Bertrand Russell – Logician
* Drew Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, director of Jim Ryun Running Camp
* Ned Ryun – co-founder of Generation Joshua, president of American Majority
* Deborah Sampson – female soldier in the American Revolution
* Emerson Spartz – 12-year-old internet entrepreneur (MuggleNet)
* Herbert Spencer – philosopher, sociologist
* Gloria Steinem – founder of Ms. magazine
* Timmy Teepell – chief of staff for Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana
* Lester Frank Ward – Father of American Sociology
* Martha Washington – wife of George Washington
* Frances E. C. Willard – educator, temperance leader, and suffragist
* Frank Lloyd Wright – architect
* John Lloyd Wright – architect, toy designer, inventor of Lincoln Logs
* Sho Yano – gifted child prodigy
* Elijah ben Solomon Zalman – Jewish scholar
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
You Asked For It, You've Got It...Why We Homeschool and Two-Year-Old Curriculum
Lincoln trying out his counting and alphabet posters
A little background...
In terms of why we homeschool, the number one reason is plain and simple. I refuse to fork out hundreds of dollars a month for daycare. Number two reason: I'm home with Lincoln and Norah anyway. Number three: I also have an education degree. This is my passion in life, teaching. I may not be a great singer like my husband. I may not be great at sports or a doctor and heal people, but I love to teach. I love to see lightbulbs go off in children's brains when the "Ah-ha" moment is there and I had a part in it. I love children, even when they're having an 'off day'. We all have 'off days'! Number four: I honestly don't know how we would squeeze in daycare right now. Avonlea is involved in a classroom setting 3-4 times a week already at church or at homeschool group and she loves it. Kids are too involved these days anyway. Sometimes, they just need time to play at home and be uninvolved.
It's not a competition who's kid can read the fastest or who's kid is the smartest. Sure, we all take pride in our children's accomplishments and want to share, but my goals as a mother and teacher have always been to nurture the teachable moments and feed a child's desire to learn. When you're in a classroom setting, you're not always going to be able to hit each child's 'nitch' or what they're interested in. You have a classroom of 20+ kids, it's just not possible! BUT, (I know, never start a sentence with 'but') when you're homeschooling, you CAN! You can feed those desires to learn and achieve. If Avonlea is interested in insects, we can go outside and capture insects, observe them, make graphs and learn in that way. If Lincoln is interested in garbage trucks (this is a true story), we can take him to the city dump and observe it kinesthetically, not just from a book. Now, can you do this all the time? No. There must be a time for sitting still and learning as well. This is why we use textbooks and things we can do at the table.
On to homeschooling a two-year-old...
For a two-year-old, they learn SO much just through creative play (pretending, playing outside, with blocks, puzzles, artwork, cooking, etc.) that a tight-knit school schedule isn't necessary. They're just learning about how to communicate with others, feelings, emotions, fine and gross motor skills and more. However, don't underestimate these little minds. They'll surprise you right and left at what they pick up. Use this to your benefit. Buy educational toys and activities. Turn off those electronics and have them do a puzzle or some artwork! Do my kids watch tv? Yes, but only when I'm cooking dinner and sometimes in the morning, after chores are done.
I recently decided to start Lincoln on learning his alphabet. Avonlea had hers memorized by this age and was actually learning the sounds. Lincoln likes to learn more kinesthetically (hands-on), so I have to be more creative with his learning style. Anyway, I found these posters at the Dollar Store (don't you love this place?) and they have the alphabet and a number chart all for a buck! We taped them on Lincoln's wall next to his bed and now we say the alphabet (pointing to each letter) and do some counting before his nap and bed time. When he has the actual letter memorized, we'll move on to saying, "Ah in apple", "Buh in bear", making the sounds (short sounds for the vowels). He's still working on the colors, but Freight Train by Donald Crews has saved us. Lincoln LOVES trains right now and so this book has been great at teaching him his colors. In terms of counting, it's hard for little ones at this age to coordinate putting their index finger on an object and counting it. That's why it's important to do this in repitition, counting and pointing over and over again. You can count apples, bananas, cars, balls and my kids' favorite, marshmellows. =)
Good luck as you're learning at home with your two-year-old and let me know some things or ideas that have worked for you! I LOVE hearing others' comments and ideas, so please share.





