Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Carnival of Homeschooling: Yes, Summer is Really Ending Already

Carnival of Homeschooling

Welcome to the Carnival of Homeschooling for August!

It's been summer. Supposedly a period of lazy, hot days of doing nothing much, right? Um, yeah.

Besides welcoming an exchange student from Germany into our home, finishing up math curriculum from last year, and tutoring a teenager in math, we've also been learning about other countries all summer. Right now, we're learning about Taiwan (the grass jelly drink is not going over well, but rice is an eternal favorite in this house). You can read a bit about our less-than-successful trip to observe competitive table tennis at my last post, "Taiwan, Table Tennis, and Toddlers."

What are you doing this summer? Better do it fast, because summer is about over. The teenager I tutor starts school tomorrow. My children are starting the new school year on Monday. The exchange student starts public school next Wednesday.

Did you know that exchange students must attend a regular brick-and-mortar, full-time school? That's one thing the Cates of Why Homeschool found out upon agreeing to host a Japanese exchange student this year, and now they are diving into the experience of being public school parents. Read about it at their Carnival submission, "We are finally going to experience public school."

Mama Laws, who is introducing her new blog, did summer schooling in math and reading with her children. She posts about it in "Mama Laws."

I am intrigued by the Star Wars math and language arts workbooks that Mama Laws mentions. I'll be looking those up on Amazon once I finish posting the Carnival. Coincidentally, last night I finished a project that seems similar to those workbooks. The boy I tutor in math is obsessed with Spider-Man and genetic engineering, so I wrote him a short story in which Spidey goes up against genetically-altered dinosaurs. My daughters helped me illustrate the story, and in each chapter I utilized an algebra concept that the boy has struggled with. It turned out rather well. I think it qualifies as fan fiction, so I'm going to make it available at this Google Docs link for anyone who'd like to download and enjoy it!

Carol at Journey & Destination submitted a beautiful and inspiring post entitled "Culture of Character." Using many quotes from Charlotte Mason, it meditates on the formation of character and helping our children develop the ability to serve others.

That's it for this month's carnival! Thanks to those who submitted, and I hope to see many more submissions in future carnivals because I look at them all and learn much from them.


1 comment: