10.21.08

And what the kids came up with…

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 5:39 pm by Meg

The indicator solution came out deeply purple, but we won’t know for a while if it works…one of these was exhaled into and at least so far it hasn’t changed color.

But the Lego pieces was an interesting exercise. It did take a lot longer than I expected to get through both steps.

This was the one I thought ended up the closest to the original (all the originals are on the right)

These aren’t too far off.

But these were interesting adaptations. (BTW, they were suppose to match the colors as well as the shape and the second time through, they had to find the correct colors from following what had been written.)

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Today’s bio lab involves Legos

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 9:09 am by Meg

The main purpose of today’s bio lab is to investigate if plants do cellular respiration, but part of the lab will require the kids to write their own procedures.In order to help them get the idea of what they are doing, we are going to start by writing procedures to building Lego structures.

I’ll start by giving each team the following instructions:

1.    Take your bag of Lego pieces, and without another team seeing it, build a structure using all of the pieces. They must all be connected. Anything but a straight tower is acceptable.

2.    Once you are happy with your structure, use this piece of paper to write up instructions on how to build it. You may not draw any diagrams. Make sure to include a materials list.

3.    Grab a piece of masking tape, write your team number on it, and stick it to your structure.

4.    Bring me your structure and this paper.

Then I’ll hand another team their sheet of paper and give them access to a bin of Lego pieces. The trick will be to see if someone else can build their structure from what has been written down.

After we all complete the exercise, they will get to write up their procedure for the lab. Hopefully, it will have helped.

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10.18.08

After 7 weeks (ish) the verdict is in

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 12:21 am by Meg

Boy and I had to drive to Indy today to see his doctor and deal with all that. Made for a long day.

In the car we talked a little about how college is going; and in particular, what he thought about his education looking back after seeing what college is like.

His assessment was short.

Academically - he feels fine.

Socially - he doesn’t feel like he’s having any problems.

pause…

Maybe if anything, he concerned that he’s not sure HOW to study.

So, there you have his verdict.

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10.16.08

My thoughts on..

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it, Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 9:00 am by Meg

this post.

Children lack the foresight to learn the things they need to know as adults.

That may be true, but kids that have had some control over educating themselves know how to find help (person, book, whatever..) and teach it to themselves.

Gaps may appear in a child’s education unless a professional controls the material that is covered.

Sorry, gaps appear in everyone’s education. Looking at what kids come out of the public school system with tells you that.

Schools tend to have a ready-made source of peers and children who do not go to conventional schools may not make friends and develop social skills as well as their peers.

oh, come on. This is so old and no one pulls it out anymore unless they are desperate. In our society you have to work waaaay to hard to isolate your kids. None of us live in a cave and the families that are off living in armed compounds (say FLDS) have so many other things going on they aren’t even worth considering. I touched on socialization here while I’m talking about another issue.

Schools offer a diverse group of adults and students making it easier to expose the children to different cultures, socio-economic groups and worldviews.

I’m sorry, this one doesn’t fly either. Most schools are built around communities, and most communities are fairly socio-economically similar. That’s not diverse. OTH, homeschool groups draw from a wide ranging area (My local group pulls in people from about a 5 county area.) and all walks of life. My kids regularly interact with other families from all different socio-economic groups and worldviews, but even more, since they have friends across those “lines” they have to learn to deal with their differences.

Children are not motivated to learn anything and will spend all of their time in un-educational endeavors if not coerced into doing otherwise.

Sandra Dodd still has the best response to this one. Especially this one by Mary Gold.

Not all parents are able to provide a stimulating environment or have the skills and patience required to encourage the student’s curiosity.

Skills are not the issue. All they need is dedication. This post (again) is where I talk about that.

The lack of accreditation and diploma’s may make it difficult for a child to get into college or get a job.

My child has a diploma. In Indiana it’s very straight forward, we are a private school and like any other private school, we can issue a diploma and transcript. I believe most states have something in place for homeschoolers to receive diploma. I do know that getting into college (except for a few exceptions) is very straightforward and even the military and trade unions accept homeschool diplomas.

Children who direct their own educations may not ever learn to take direction from others.

There’s more going on here, then a yes or no. What it boils down to (IMO) is that they take direction fine if they are interested in something, whether for itself or as a route to getting to where they want to go. OTH, they are often able to ask “WHY?” something is needed if it’s just being done “because”.

They don’t balk at taking direction. They balk at idiotic direction and are very willing to tell you so.

Anyone else want to add anything?

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10.13.08

More bio labs

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it, Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 4:16 pm by Meg

Before I talk about the labs, I have to explain about this picture. Yes, the cat is drinking out of the fountain.

The fountain used to sit in Hubby’s den. He liked the background noise of it and it was his baby to fill. Last year we rearranged his den (adding a much needed bookcase) and lost a spot for the fountain. It was moved out into the house and now sits behind where my computer is. It’s now my job to keep it filled.

This little orange cat is not allowed to go in Hubby’s den. He used to keep a water pistol by his desk to help her learn the rule. It’s very rare that she breaks it now. OTH, the black cat didn’t get the rule and he’s allowed to go wherever he likes. Lucky cat.

Well, when the fountain moved out, Ribbons discovered the running water. Now it’s her only source of drinking water. Meaning that instead of being filled every other day or so, the fountain needs to be filled daily.

So, Biology.

Last week’s lab was on osmosis and the kids explored it with decalcified eggs. (you soak raw eggs in vinegar for 3 days) With the hard shell gone, water can diffuse through the membrane.

Each team started with two eggs.

and determined their initial mass. (Yes, J is quite a colorful character.)

Then they placed one egg in distilled water and the other in corn syrup for 10 mins.

before finding their new mass. They continued immersing them for an hour.

At the end of the hour, one of the eggs had increased it’s mass, while the other had gone down.

It’s a great way to make it clear that osmosis is trying to balance the concentration of water and it was fun watching their eyes light up when they made the connection to what was going on (and that they weren’t reading the balances wrong!)

And aside for one burst egg and some sticky balances, they lab worked well.

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And elsewhere…

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 3:29 pm by Meg

An education blog that I’ve been following asked me for a guest post or two.

The first one is up - The Fourth Reason

While some of the examples that I’m pulling from are friends IRL, I suspect a few of you will realize that some of my conclusions have been drawn from you as well.

I’d love for you to give Jerri Ann some personal feedback if you get a chance.

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10.02.08

FINALLY, a hard look at Brian Ray and his NHERI

Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 12:02 am by Meg

I saw my first Brian Ray study about 5 or 6 years ago. The person passing the report around talked about how wonderful the results were and how well homeschooled kids compared to their public school counterparts.

I don’t remember which study it was, though I do remember something about how politically aware homeschooled kids were.

I found it interesting…

until I started reading.

You don’t know, but I grew up with my father heavily involved in the logistics of public opinion surveys and polls - he wrote books on the subject for people involved in politics. I’ve taken classes in statistics and probability and I’ve been exposed to scientific studies and the requirements of what needs to be done to make them statistically valid.

What I saw - wasn’t. (In my humble opinion)

Ever since then, I have tried to explain to people why anything from NHERI should be looked at carefully and taken with a large grain of salt.

And finally, someone is laying it all out.

In the course of our email exchange he challenged me to substantiate my claims or else stop making them. I admitted to him then that my beliefs about NHERI were based upon general impressions I had picked up over the course of my research on homeschooling rather than on any systematic examination of NHERI and promised him that I would engage in a more rigorous study of NHERI and report what I found.

Go Dr. Gaither! I, for one, am very interested in your examination and results.

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