Lisa Russell's Blog

Posted by Lisa Russell

It's called Building Blocks and they have readers for preschoolers, plus activity books, music CD's and parent's guides, teacher's guides and just plain lots of resources. Check them out, great for homeschoolers, playgroups, homeschool co-ops, and anywhere else where you might want to get kids busy with character activities. I think learning through positive examples is really the best thing, but I like activities like these because they can give a child a vocabulary for character traits and open up discussions. Have fun!

Posted by Lisa Russell

The Education Revolution is a great site Their goal is to help you find educational alternatives. They are a worldwide organization and their focus is to be the central clearing house for alternative educational resources. Check them out...

Posted by Lisa Russell

In her blog, Mixing Home Business and Home School, Susan Critelli shares her experiences with educational television. She shared some of the same resources that I listed in Homeschooling Videos On Demand, and so much more.

Her personal experience is refreshing to read, when so many so-called experts are claiming that television is the devil. It's just another form of media, and one that kids happen to love. I love reading more than most people, but there's something passive and relaxing about watching television with the kids. I've never understood how people can snuggle up with a book for hours because after reading out loud for 20 minutes or so, my throat dries out and it's difficult to reposition myself while holding a and snuggling with 3 or 4 kids at a time. We read bedtime stories and we usually have a mid-day read-along that we're working on, but I have never been able to read for as long as we've been able to watch TV. Call us lazy, but educational TV exists, and it's a lot of fun to learn and veg at the same time.

Posted by Lisa Russell

It was very inspiring to read the stories of these families who are living on one income. The one that impressed upon me the most was the family with no mortgage payments. They paid off their 30 year mortgage in only 15 years, even though they had unexpected emergencies along the way. I learned a lot of helpful tips for saving money . I can't think of anyone who doesn't have a bit an extra financial burden these days. Anyways, the e-book is a very good read, the writers listed several resources, I almost want to print it out (does that defeat the purpose of an e-book) and hit it with a highlighter so I can look up a few things.

The families are diverse, both in their learning styles (Yes, there was an unschooling family) and in their financial situations. I was pleased to see a family that traveled frequently (that matters to me!) and the families were both large and small.

They did an excellent job of giving the reader the impression that "I can do this, too." And i hope that's what other readers take away from it.

Posted by Lisa Russell

Trivium Pursuit is offering two free e-books for subscribing to their newsletter (new subscribers only) #1 is Ten things to do with children age 10-12 from the Bluedorns and #2 is about Ancient Literature.

One warning about the Bluedorns, many people are offended by their discipline practices. As with anything else, take the best and skip the rest. Apparently they feel strongly about it because it comes up frequently in their teachings. You dont' have to agree to see that their Classical Ed experiences are worth learing from.

The Fallacy Detective newsletter is offering new subscribers a free logic quiz with answer key, plus an ebook called "The Thinking Toolbox" 35 lessons that will strengthen your reasoning skills

Posted by Lisa Russell

How to Keep Homeschool Records

How to Ignore Parenting Advice

How to Find Free Online Homeschooling Resources

How to Find Used Homeschool Books

How to Choose Educational Toys

How to Teach reading with Video Games

How to Avoid Homeschool Burnout

I've been listing three articles a day, Ehow won't know what hit them! I'm making a poll to determine if readers are interested in a weekly Homeschooling newsletter. I write for Bella Online, too and the weekly newsletter feature that they have is fantastic, readers really look forward to receiving it and it's a great way for non RSS savvy readers to keep up with the new articles, via email.

So be sure to vote in the poll and have a great November!

EDIT- Nevermind, the poll feature is gone and I didn't realize it. Big apologies. I think I"m just going to do it. I'll find the best way to subscribe and let you know.

Posted by Lisa Russell

We're listed in the alltop directory's Homeschooling Section.

I've seen some internet gurus predict that directories like Alltop and Mahalo will replace search engines, because sometimes the results from a google or yahoo search bring up low-quality SEO articles designed to just bring in visitors and have them click on ads to get away.

I don't know about all that, I'd like to see google develop something we can use to flag bothersome sites like that, they mae it so hard to find what you're really looking for.

Anyways, Alltop is a fantastic directory. I love the way it's laid out and they have so many topics. The top 4 or 5 articles from Homeschooling on Suite101 will be featured alongside several other Homeschooling sites. I urge you to check out their site, enjoy getting lost in some of the blogs and other resources listed there.

Happy Homeschooling!

Lisa

Posted by Lisa Russell

At every level, the girls are supposed to know and follow the Girl Scout Promise and Law.

According to the new program model, Daisies are in Kindergarten and First Grade

Daisies earn petal patches based upon each line in the Girl Scout law.

The law says;

I will do my best to be

honest and fair,

friendly and helpful,

considerate and caring,

courageous and strong, and

responsible for what I say and do,

and to

respect myself and others,

respect authority,

use resources wisely,

make the world a better place, and

be a sister to every Girl Scout.

You can click on the lines above to find advice for helping girls learn about each of those characteristics.

Brownies are the next level in Girl Scouting. Currently, Brownies are in grades 2 and 3. This is a recent change, because they used to also be in first grade. Brownies earn try-it patches.

If Girl Scouts isn't what you're looking for, there are also alternative clubs for girls and boys.

Posted by Lisa Russell

These resources teach nutrition from perspectives that differ from the USDA Food Pyramid.

Living Energy is home to Dr. Radka Ruzicka, HD(RHom), DNM, NCP. She teaches that "healing is a process that encompasses the body, mind (including emotions) and the Spirit. When all three aspects of self are addressed during times of ill health, or "dis-ease", the healing potential is greatly enhanced. In this manner, we strive for "Wholeness" and consider every aspect of a person"

Simply Nourished is a website by mother and nutrition and whole foods guru Claudia Castillo. From her site: "At Simply Nourished you'll find many answers to these questions, but most importantly, you'll learn how easy it is to find the right food program for you and/or the youngsters in the family, respecting your lifestyle and adapting to your family situation."

Shirley's Wellness Cafe is a website maintained by Shirley (surprise!) Lipschutz-Robinson. Shirley describes her mission here: "I was once a victim of the never-ending flow of propaganda from the medical establishment - which I think of as the "disease" establishment because they focus on disease rather than on prevention and wellness. The orthodox medical establishment wants to maintain a monopoly on the word "cure"; they want us to believe that we have no control over our own health and that our only hope to get "well" is with drugs, surgery and radiation. In the story of my Journey Into Health you can learn how I achieved radiant health without drugs, surgery or radiation."

Posted by Lisa Russell

E.B. White's Charlotte's Web has been made into several versions of cartoon and live action films. You can read the book and then watch each version of the movie. Comparing old and new special effects and discussing the differences between hand drawn and computerized animation techniques would be an interesting study. You can research the techniques, create your own animations using a flip book, or the computer. GIMP is a free downloadable program that allows ou to turn your drawings into animations.

Whenever I see a movie after having read the book, I end up noticing all of the things they left out of the film, and sometimes things that weren't in the book at all. Discuss with your children why this is done (either for time or because some things are hard to translate into film)

Friends of ours recently did this with War of the Worlds, comparing the original book to the old movie, then to the newer movie. You could do this with nay book that has been turned into a movie, but when there are several versions of the movie, the lesson gets a little deeper. Keep that in mind when they're both telling you about their sibling rivalry issue. There are more than two sides to every story.

Posted by Lisa Russell

My husband has never been a "work-for-someone-else" kind of guy. Being raised by my Entrepreneurial father, I knew first hand what some of the self-employment challenges were, and I was eager to face them. What a trip this marriage has been.

Some of our children are showing signs of an entrepreneurial spirit, and we're hoping to nurture their preferences, while also making sure they don't learn too much the hard way.

So our goal is to counsel, advise and make sure that they have the resources and opportunities to excel in whatever they chose.

When they were 9 and 7, they opened up a lemonade stand. They filled out a loan form from the "Bank of Mom & Dad" and bought cups and lemonade mix. My woodworking husband built them a really cool stand. The loan was satisfied and they enjoyed making money for several summers, remodeling the stand and eventually passing the stand down to their sisters.

Our 11 yr old has had a dog sitting business for a few years. One of her regular clients is a Yorkshire terrier and his Lhaso Apso brother. She's invented a few small-dog products and we're making prototypes, test-marketing them and she's using Wordpress to build a website, and blogging her progress. We're hoping to pitch the products to a distributor by the end of the year.

Our 14 year old has always been an amazing artist. She has created some paintings and drawings and is in the process of building a Café Press store, and an accompanying website to sell her products.

So much of the help we've given them is simply product recommendations, and help starting a financial records accounting process. They're using excel spreadsheets to document their expenses and income. The question "How much would I make if..." Is often answered by punching a few numbers into the spreadsheet and seeing what happens.

I'm sure that if they continue to be entrepreneurs, they'll stumble upon learning lessons we haven't prepared them for. Hopefully when they figure it all out they'll share their knowledge with us!

Posted by Lisa Russell

Joseph Chmieleski is a teacher and school administrator who has created a product called "Classroom Toolkit." Without fully checking it out, I have summized that is has classroom management stuff, teaching helps, record-keeping bla bla bla (things we don't generally need as homeschoolers.)

Maybe teachers weren't buying it, or maybe he just wanted to sell to homeschoolers or maybe it really IS just a mean-spirited way to slam home schooling. Whatever the reason, he has created a Squidoo lens called "homeschool teachers" and published several google Knols (bits of knowledge) that have discouraging, inaccurate and potentially dangerous information about homeschooling.

So today's blog post is basically this:

Do not take homeschooling advice from someone who is clearly biased AGAINST it.

Posted by Lisa Russell

How many extra curricular activities should a child be participating in?

There's a train of thought that says "If you keep them busy, they won't have time to get into trouble." A family that's very close to us kept their two children involved in several kinds of sports, and occasional dance classes, spending every evening and every weekend focused on the children's activities. It just never seemed balanced to me. The kids were in school all day and barely had time to think straight. They're in college now, I think the daughter might carry on with the busy lifestyle and I suspect their son will spend a few years partying before he finds his footing. I guess my main beef was the idea of both parents working full time and then spending every spare minute devoting every spare minute to the children's sports.

I always wondered, since these kids started their extracurricular activities in Kindergarten, I wonder if they really ever had a choice. Sure, they could have quit at any time, but without any exposure to the "real world" why would they?

There's one end of the spectrum.

The other end would be children who never get to do anything outside of school.

Adding homeschooling and unschooing to the mixture turn the whole mess into a multi-faceted prism, instead of a nice neat little rainbow.

In our house, for time management and financial reasons, each child chooses one extracurricular activity and they can have friends over as often as they want.

In our house, that's balance. My 11 year old chooses to operate several clubs, Last year she had a cooking club. When she was 6 she had a book club. This year, there's a "Twilight" club and, goodness, I forgot the second one.

We also participate in monthly co-ops.

So far it feels balanced, but this is only the second week in September.

How do you find balance?

Posted by Lisa Russell

Sorry about the title, it sounds a bit like a debate, or maybe like I'm pitting one method against another. I'm really not, the title came from a lack of creativity. I just really wanted to write about a few of the different things I noticed at the Rethinking Education Conference that I haven't seen at a Homeschooling Convention.

1. At the unschooling conference, young adults and teens were welcome to attend the sessions that you'd think were intended for parents. The age guidelines for every session weren't crystal clear. Some families found it confusing, not sure whether or not their 15 yr old could, for example, participate with the teen sessions for 16 and up. The intention, was for people to folow their bliss and be guided by their interests. As a result, in a session designed for parents of teens, we got the perspective of a teenage girl, who came to the session possibly to give us the heads-up on the teenage mind, or maybe even to understand her parents better. I think the result was both.

2. At homeschooling conventions, I have noticed, an undercurrent of seeking outside validation in the conversations that says "Look how good my kid is doing academically." In comparison, the unschooling parents didn't seem to have an overall scale of pride, but focused more on the individual personalities of each child. As a parent, my desperate feeling of "What will I do with all these personalities" was transformed into a drop-jawed "I get to watch them develop first-hand" feeling of being extraordinarily lucky to get a front row seat.

3. At the unschooling convention kids ran wild and free. It was uncomfortable at first, I'm not used to children in a public place managing their own comings and goings. My children do it sometimes, but I often viewed it as a result of my failure to 'control" them. After this experience, however, I can focus on the fact that I do trust my 5 yr old to walk across the grocery store and get a box of wheat thins, instead of the fact that she ran off when I said "I forgot the wheat thins."

4. The seminars were focused more on a lifestyle, with topics being more like "ways and reasons to leave your kids alone about stuff" rather than "ways to trick your kids into liking ___" The focus, all-around was one of personal responsibility, from the parent's workshops to the young adults. Some of the kids workshops were taught by kids. Namely, there were classes on how to master certain video games, how to film stop-motion videos with legos, how to do the Thriller dance, and various arts and crafts classes.

5. Religion at the unschooling conference wasn't assumed, and instead of basing "good decisions" on the grounds of a specific religious text, "good decisions" were based upon what personally benefits everyone involved, and the planet.

Overall, the Unschooling conference was a very peaceful environment that left me feeling energized and full of awe regarding the natural process by which learning occurs. Conversely, I always tend to leave homeschooling conventions with a list of curriculum items I want to buy.

Posted by Lisa Russell

Just a quick note to let you all know I will be at the 12th annual Rethinking Education Conference in Dallas Sept 4-8, 2008

The speaker lineup is fabulous, and I am so amazed to be in the presence of Joseph Chilton Pearce. I urge you to check out the website for the conference, and if you're in Dallas, stop in for a visit. For more details on the trip, visit my personal blog. Even if you can't make it to the conference, stop in and visit the website for the conference, the resources and links to other speakers are just amazing. I am humbled and honored to be part of this event.

One of our Suite101 writers recently published a great article about unschooling; Making the Unschooling Decision, by Dianna Griffis. Rethinking Education is an unschooling convention, so you won't find run-of-the-mill speakers, it's a diverse mix of people following their bliss. The teen program is phenomenal. Seriously, check it out.

I plan to bring home books to review, so be sure to subscribe to my Suite101 feed so you don't miss a thing!

Posted by Lisa Russell

I just wanted to share some helpful tips that I use when I am planning out my homeschool year. I'm the first to admit that halfway through the year the plan has changed, but making a plan to begin with really keeps us focused.

an excel spreadsheet document

a spiral notebook

On the spreadsheet, I have a page for each girl. This coming year, I have 4 that will be homeschooling

On each spreadsheet, there is a column for each subject and a row for every day of the school year.

First, I black out the days we're busy. I black out vacations, birthdays and Fridays. I don't black out weekends, weekends don't exist for us. I grey-out the days that kids have outside activities. This is different for each kid.

In the spiral notebook, I make notes from each of the curriculum programs we're using. How many lessons are there? How many days a week do I plan to devote to those lessons? Divide the first number by the second one to divine how much work we should be doing on each day.

Once I know how much work we're "supposed" to be doing each day, I type it into the spreadsheet. There should still be plenty of white days because I only "plan" for 5 days a week and the weekends are still white.

Once a week, I go over the spreadsheet to make sure we're on track. If not, we use our weekends to catch up. I allow the girls to make up their own research assignments and follow an interest. When they do this, I just replace my "assignment" with the one they really did.

I hope this helps. I know when I first started homeschooling, my unanswered question was always "What do you DO exactly?"

Posted by Lisa Russell

My Homeschool planner usually consists of a few excel spreadsheets, a big wall calendar and a journal. This year, our oldest daughter will be in 9th grade and I'll be using a computer program to create homeschool high school transcripts.

Last year we started using a software program for record keeping. The instruction manual was over 80 pages long, so I was a little intimidated but it was really easy to use. It was set up so that we could record time spent on everything from homeschool worksheets to things learned at scout meetings.

Check out my latest article comparing different homeschool planning software products.

Do you use planning software? Shout out in the homeschool polls.

Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed for homeschooling articles at Suite101 so you don't miss a thing.