Thanksgiving

It's funny how once you have kids you start to think more about the assumptions you've made during your life. What is Thanksgiving? Why do we celebrate it? What really happened between the pilgrims and Native Americans

I told my kids it is a time to give thanks for our family, friends, home, food and health. I just don't think they are old enough for the ugly truth of the history of this holiday. Maybe in a couple of years, but right now I want them to be innocent a little longer. 

Once they are a little older I may share these with them:

-Plimoth Plantation - Thanksgiving Interactive: You are the Historian
There is also a great teachers guide that goes along with it.

-The Plymoth Plantation Story by Chuck Larsen
The last narrative is written for kids, but if you scroll up there are two narratives written for adults that include "more" of the history of Thanksgiving.

Book It!

I saw this program mentioned on the Well Trained Mind forum and thought I would check it out. Book It! is a reading incentive program for K (age 5 by Sept 1st) - 6th graders and homeschoolers are eligible to participate. The program runs from October 1st and ends March 31st and during that time children can earn free pizzas for reaching their reading goals. I think Blue would really enjoy this incentive and it could be some nice mommy alone time for him, maybe it will become our monthly "date"!

How to SMILE (Science and Math Informal Learning Educators)

How to Smile is another great free site for STEM focused hands-on-activities. From their site:

Howtosmile.org is collecting the best informal science and math education activities on the web, and creating tools to help those who teach school-aged kids in non-classroom settings.

This site is free to register and free to contribute. They have an in depth advanced search function with age, subject, material costs and even a special search by chemical. I did a quick search for Acetic acid (vinegar) and it came up with several fun experiments using this household item.

I think this resource along with Teachers Domain will be a wonderful supplement to Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, since Blue loves hands on experiments.

 

Living Math Books

LivingMath has some wonderful living math book lists, everything from early concepts to geometry to spacial ideas. From their site:

This site is dedicated to sharing resources for learning, exploring and enjoying math in a dynamic and holistic manner, for all ages.

They also have a Yahoo groups page LivingMathForum,which I plan on joining. I can't wait to delve into this site and Yahoo group and will report back!

A Beautiful Evening

We have a beautiful pond right off of our deck and last night while eating dinner outside we had one of our first springtime visitors. A beautiful Mallard that splashed and preened in front of us while eating all the goodies out of the pond. The kids were fascinated and spent a half an hour looking at her and asking questions. I found an old copy of a field guide for birds and we looked her up, discussing why she wasn't a certain duck and how we determined she was a Mallard. Blue grabbed his nature journal and drew picture of the pond and duck and practiced writing his name and date on his paper. Red showed some interest in drawing in her journal and Yellow just enjoyed taking in the scene. I'm looking forward to many more days like this.

Teachers Domain

I just found this wonderful site called Teachers Domain! Here is some information from their website:

Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities.

They receive major funding from the National Science Foundation and seem to have an especially rich collection of science resources. As a registered member (which is free!) you have the ability to create folders to organize your resources, by child, by topic, etc. There are also several ways to filter which I think are particularly helpful for educations: Grade Level, Content, Media Type, Permitted Use and Accessibility Features. There is also the ability to join groups and create your own groups which I have not had the opportunity to look at.

*Thanks to Only Small Things blog for posting about this fantastic site!*

Update:
It looks like the groups are for pre-formed groups, I have not figured out how to join one or create one yet. Does anyone else know anything about the group feature?

Also, Blue watched several videos and loves them! He even asked to watch one several times and then asked for the same materials they were using and did his own experiment.

New Medication

Well, it is that time again to try a new medication, but this time I will be injecting myself! I will be starting Enbrel next week and am keeping my fingers crossed it will help. I went to the Rheumatologist yesterday and had labs done, chest x-ray, TB test, Pneumonia vaccination, and a little class on how to inject myself. My immune system will be lowered so I am going to have to be careful not to catch any infections, easier said than done with three children under the age of 6. Please let this medication work!