Smrt Lernins

Have you ever visited Poisson Rouge (Red Fish)? If you have a younger child who wants a chance to explore online, but you’re concerned about ads and content, point your family to this site and let ‘em loose!

The only ad on this site is on the intro page, where they are asking for donations to keep this FREE website up and running. Donating isn’t required to enter the site — just click any of the links (“I’ve already donated” or “I’m unfamiliar with the site”) to go to the main page. There are no third-party ads, no content inappropriate for any member of the family, and page after page of everything from games to songs to language lessons. Tank especially enjoys the songs sung in French and the activity were you make the Spanish guitar play different chord progressions.

When I need quiet time, I turn on Poisson Rouge for Tank to play for 20 or 30 minutes. The noise is unobtrusive — the singing is in a pleasant voice, the sound effects aren’t shrill or irritating, the music is often downright soothing. The images are bright and simple. It’s really the ideal website for kids. Even Captain Science will sit and help Tank play around…not that the site requires a lot of hand-holding to navigate; Captain S just enjoys it!

Go check out Poisson Rouge (and maybe donate a little?) and see if you enjoy it as much as we do!

Take a moment to watch this brilliant animation “Typography” by Ronnie Bruce of a poem by Taylor Mali.

Are you guilty of the “relentless interrogative?” Are your children?

I know that I am going to make a more concerted effort to have my declarative sentences actually declare and to speak with certainty and confidence in my opinions. I don’t want to be a part of a downward slide into inarticulation. Speak with authority so that your children can learn to speak with authority. Let’s model conviction for the next generation.

Teaching Tolerance, the educational publication from my beloved Souther Poverty Law Center, has published many excellent sets of lesson plans on educating students on religious differences and espousing religious tolerance. I’m very pleased to see that they have now published a great lesson plan on respecting non-religious people–atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, deists, and free thinkers–as well!. The three sets of lesson plans cover grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, and while it is geared towards the public school classroom, many of the lessons could easily be applied to homeschoolers.

Teaching Tolerance explains the need for such a curriculum:

Students often learn the importance of respecting people of different religions, and of respecting religious beliefs that are different from their own. But what about people who do not hold religious beliefs at all? Too often the right not to believe is excluded from lessons about tolerance.

Yet atheists and others who do not believe in God experience discrimination because of their nonbelief. In this lesson, students learn about episodes of anti-atheist discrimination; and they develop ways to educate others about respecting nonreligious, as well as religious, diversity.

I couldn’t agree more! I’ve seen a fairly high level of expectation of tolerance of their religious views from Christian homeschoolers, but don’t often see the same level of tolerance extended by them towards the beliefs non-religious homeschoolers among us. I think of that absurd “don’t call it ‘Christian mythology’” nonsense from a while back, as one example. The non-religious are expected to treat religious text as sacred and factual, out of “respect” for the Christian homeschoolers…who don’t seem to realize that they’re treating the non-religious homeschoolers with the same level of disrespect they believe they’re being shown.

An interesting read and could be helpful for understanding how to respectfully discourse w/ the homeschooling nonbeliever.

Attention North Metro Atlanta area homeschoolers! Patchfire and I are organizing a Pi Day celebration on March 14th (obviously), at 2pm at Swift-Cantrell Park in Kennesaw.

Bring your favorite Π-themed foods and activities to celebrate that magical irrational number! Pi-shaped cookies? Pumpkin Pi? Bring nibblies to share!

Because we are fair-weather friends, this is a fair-weather event and will be canceled in the event of rain, slushy GA snow, tornado, or any other bizarre meteorological events.

Those of you on Facebook can RSVP here.

If you aren’t in our area, you can organize your own Pi Day event for your local homeschoolers.

Captain Science is spending the night with Nana, which elicited much weeping and wailing from the Tank, who would only be pacified by the promise of making cupcakes after dinner. Since I didn’t feel like making frosting, we made Sugar Cookie Cupcakes (a Smrt Mama original!).

He had the Very Important Job of putting on the sprinkles just before baking. He also licked the spatula, which was helpful of him.

How did they turn out?

The Tank approves

The final product

You know you want a piece of these bad boys

Want to try them at home? They’re easy to make, taste just like sugar cookies, and (if you’re on Weight Watchers) 3 points a piece, since the following recipe makes 24 cupcakes. They’re thinner and more dense than the average cupcake, but fluffier than a sugar cookie — perfect way to satisfy the craving for both!

Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• Decorative colored sugar or sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 convection). Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add butter, milk, and vanilla. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape side of bowl with a spatula.

Add eggs to the mixture. Beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape bowl again. Beat on high speed for 1 minute 30 seconds until well mixed.

Spoon cupcake batter into paper liners until roughly 1/2 full.

Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles if you don’t plan to frost.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool 5 minutes in pans then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.

What does a homeschooler look like? You get to decide! Well, ok, I get to decide, but you get to provide me with a wide range of options from which to decide, which is almost as good and puts a lot less burden on your already overburdened shoulders.

Close your eyes and picture your interpretation of the quintessential homeschooler. What do s/he and her/his children look like? Is she wearing a denim jumper with an appliqued cardigan? Are they wearing mismatched clothing and badly in need of haircuts? Are perfectly coordinated poloshirts or yoked dresses involved somewhere? Does someone have a Aquanet-stiff beehive and a modest-necked sweater or a pair of worn out Birkenstocks and the lingering smell of patchouli?

Now ask yourself: “Do I look like that homeschooler?”

Our contest is simple, yet ludicrous, and the prize is absurd, yet priceless (simply by virtue of being awarded by Smrt Lernins). Here’s how to enter:

1. Find the best picture of you and/or your children looking like what YOU think of when you think of “homeschooler.” You decide what “homeschooler” looks like.
2. Comment to this blog with a link to that picture.

The winner will be chosen by an expert panel of judges (ie. my family) and announced here. One photograph entry per commenter, though if you can rope your spouse, partner, significant other, children, mom, or neighbor into entering a picture of your family, you can always get an additional shot at the grand prize.

Want more chances to win? A second winner will be chosen at random to win a second, even more absurd prize. Entering could only be simpler if you sent us the message psychically. Gain one entry in our random draw for:

1. Each link to this post AND/OR
2. Tweeting “@smrtlernins and I look like homeschoolers, and so can you! http://bit.ly/digDMv”
3. Commenting here with a link to the blog where you posted about our contest or your Twitter name.

While you’re limited to one Twitter-related entry, you can post this link to as many blogs or websites as you can without being called a wanton spammer, gaining one entry in our random draw per link! Don’t forget to leave a comment with the link, though, because despite that comment about entering psychically, no one at Smrt Lernins has developed psychic powers yet…that I know of.

Show me what a homeschooler looks like to you, tell other people about it, and win ridiculous prizes. So simple, even a public schooler could do it*.

Contest is open until February 28th. That’s almost a whole month, you guys! Plenty of time to make entries all over the blogosphere.

*And I’d know, as I went to public school.

I was pleased to see this great article in Access Atlanta about the growing number of local homeschoolers and the various programs springing up to accommodate us. These programs are “part of a trend of home schoolers becoming involved in activities that would have once seemed the antithesis of learning in a private, family-based environment. What began with home educated students making their presence felt in scholastic sports leagues and youth orchestras has spread to cultural institutions.”

Along with listing information on various programs available to homeschoolers, the article also gives information on homeschooling numbers both nationally and state-wide:

In part, this development can be attributed to critical mass: In its most recent study in 2007, the U.S. Department of Education estimated some 1.5 million students nationwide were home schoolers, up from 850,000 in 1998; the private National Home Education Research Institute says the number may be as high as 2.5 million now. An earlier analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2003 found that 40.6 percent of all home schooled students lived in the South, nearly twice as many as in any other region of the country.

Officially, Georgia now boasts almost 40,000 homeschooled students! I have some questions about the bolded portion of the following paragraph, however:

In Georgia, 39,207 students were home schooled in 2009, according to numbers compiled by the state Department of Education. The highest concentration was in metro Atlanta, including 3,276 in Gwinnett and 2,942 in Cobb. Fulton’s total was listed as zero, suggesting the overall figure statewide is probably higher.

How is it that Fulton county lists no homeschoolers at all? Every county in Georgia should have the same reporting requirements. What is going on at the Fulton county superintendent’s officer that no homeschoolers are being reported? If any of my readers living and schooling in Fulton, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences about this.

It feels nice to be a part of something. Two years ago, this article would have meant nothing to me. A year ago, it might have piqued my curiosity, as we were just starting to explore alternatives to public school. Now, however, I’m part of a group that is “making [our] presence felt.” I love my new community of families and I’m so glad we have all these wonderful local resources available to us.

I’m sure you’ve all missed me terribly, and pined for me like a not-dead-merely-stunned parrot pines for the fjords. I’ll be picking right back with my regular weekly posts, like “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” Tuesday and Secular Thursday, this week.

We’re starting some new curricula this semester: Lively Latin and Michael Clay Thompson’s Grammar Town (also getting the teacher manual). After Captain Science wraps up his Vocabulary from Classical Roots book, we’ll switch to Caesar’s English I, for compatibility with his grammar. Still up in the air about Practice Town.

To keep us on task a little better, I’ve made a color-coded schedule for Captain Science for Monday through Friday. I won’t go as far as Patchfire and make schedules for the whole family, adults included, but I think a detailed schedule for my somewhat scatterbrained son will help, not hurt.

Here, marvel at my schedule:
Captain Science’s Weekly Schedule

Wasn’t that marvelous? Are you, as some might say, dazzled? I thought so.

2010, y’all. Another 90 days to go. Onward and upward.

I’m taking a slightly different tactic with the study of Ancient Rome than I did with Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. While I’ve been happy with the summaries Captain Science has produced, I’d like to guide him towards exploring slightly more difficult concepts within his chapters, encouraging him to really delve into logic-stage learning. Towards that end, instead of a list of vocabulary words and a summary of Captain Science’s choosing, I will now give him a list of essential questions (probably between 1-3, depending on the length of the chapter) for each chapter. As he reads through the chapter, he should look for information pertaining to those questions, and write a paragraph to answer them. Questions may be along the lines of “Who was [such and such] and what important changes did he make in [place]?” or “If you were a slave in [ancient empire], describe what your day might be like.”

Here is my tentative lesson plan for Ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome Spreadsheet

This is one of our activities to review Ancient Greece.

Greek Unscramble Quiz