RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

BEWARE: PROGRESSIVE MATH TECHNIQUES

The Tail of Two Otters

Our 9 and 7 year old boys have written a wonderful little puppet show for two sea otter sock puppets that we made back in our first year of home school. I'd like to share it with you. You may use it and the sock puppet idea if you like. Feel free to print and perform the play for friends and family as much as you like.

Here are the materials we used for the sock puppets:

• tall brown socks
• buttons for eyes
• tan or cream colored felt for mouth (sewed on)
• tan or cream colored felt for ears (also sewed on)
• black felt for nose (sewed on top of mouth piece)
• cotton balls for stuffing nose and mouth area to give it shape
• fishing line for whiskers
• black felt tipped marker for shading felt in ears and around mouth (optional)
• needle and thread to sew on felt pieces (use a whip stitch as shown in video below)

How to Sew a Whip Stitch -- powered by eHow.com


I have attached patterns for the mouth, nose, and ear pieces here. Forgive my lack of artistry on the drawings. They are rough, but they work.

Here is the play!

From our house to yours, enjoy!

*Please do not copy this to any other sites without permission. You may link directly to my site or directly to this post if you wish.

Unit Studies ~ Oceanography

Here we are halfway through our 4th year of home school with our children. We are definitely enjoying it and looking forward to some awesome stuff for the second half of the year.

Our middle boy, who is at a 2nd grade level, is working on an Oceanography unit right now. (I'm using Evan-Moor's pocket book Ocean Habitats from the August Theme Pockets book to supplement.) It's a repeat study for me since our oldest has already gone through it once. My goal is to eventually have them studying the same material at different levels. For now it's fun to go back and try things again!

Today we're talking about tide pools. I found a fantastic video about hermit crabs. It shows a hermit crab changing shells. The video can be found here. We also did a little talking about painted shells and whether or not they should be used when keeping hermit crabs as pets. This site has some information about why not to use them.

We also talked about bat stars. What a fascinating creature! God is so creative! Monterey Bay Aquarium has some fun info about them.

Plan for the rest of the day is to watch 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and listen to Claude Debussy's La Mer!

Back to our day before it gets away!

Blessings on your home,
Erin

Today is...

While I know very little about the organization promoted on this banner, I hope and pray that all of us (especially those in the Church Body) will be educating ourselves about this very real problem and begin getting involved. There are tons of amazing organizations around the world dedicated to eradicating this problem.

Check out Samaritan's Purse. They've got a program designated to help rescue children from bondage and abuse. Make a Chain to Break a Chain is building safe houses to give victims a fighting chance.

There are zillions more out there like these. Find one you trust and start helping out! Amnesty International has a listing of organizations to help you out. There may be organizations in your area that need volunteers.

How does this have anything to do with home school?
50% of transnational victims are children. 80% are female.[1]
We need to educate our kids about this danger. We also need to raise our children with self-control and respect for God's creation and His people.

Get talking with your kids about how to be safe. What are the rules for your house?

Check out these kids videos, books, and resources*:
The Safe Side

• a company founded by John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted and Julie Clark,  creator of Baby Einstein
• free resources available for download

The Safe Side: Stranger Safety  
The Safe Side: Internet Safety
The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers

Get talking with your girl(s) about what is appropriate behavior with their bodies, clothing, and looking for a mate.
Get talking with your boy(s) about self-control and what the Lord desires for his body, his thoughts, and his urges as he grows into a man.

_________________________________
[1] Human Trafficking Statistics, Polaris Project

* There are many more out there, but these are ones that I can personally vouch for in content. There is such a fine line between frightening children and showing them an awareness of the world around us. Only you know what your child is capable of handling at his or her age. Use caution when talking about such matters.

As we sit by...

I realize of course that this may be slightly uncomfortable for some to watch, but it's necessary for us to be awakened to the things that are going on in our world. When we are, may God guide us in what we should be doing to get involved.



Please check out the following websites:
Take No Glory
Make a Chain to Break a Chain

You Are Loved

This is totally unrelated to home school anything, but I wanted to share it with you anyway.