I've been involved in a couple of NASA competitions before, and they are very well run, educate your child in a very integrated way (sort of an unschooling way), and overall I recommend this (the Fall 2008 Cassini Scientist for a Day Contest) as a worth your time mini science project.....
Want some more FREE educators stuff from NASA? Feast your eyes here.
Fall 2008 Cassini Scientist for a Day Contest
The Cassini Scientist for a Day contest challenges students to become NASA scientists studying Saturn. Participants are challenged to examine three target images taken by Cassini and choose the one that they think will yield the best scientific results. This choice must then be explained in a 500-word essay.
The contest is open to all students in the United States from grades 5-12, working alone or in groups of up to four students. The essays will be divided into three groups: grades 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12. All submissions must be students' original work. Each student can submit only one entry.
Deadline for submission is Oct. 30, 2008. For more information, visit here. If you have questions about this contest, please e-mail your inquiries to [email protected].
We love reading…………….
All you homeschoolers know there is a plethora (I love that word) of curriculum and non curriculum choices out there. The best you can do is keep looking until you find something that fits your goals and your children's learning styles. Louisiana Sue and I both have a love of reading, this appears to be the case for our children now, and this is one of the reasons both of us have ended up with curriculums that are a Charlotte Mason - Classical education style for our geography/history/English.
So what is this style? In a nutshell, it rolls reading (great literature), history and geography into one experience. You read stories to your kids, and they read stories themselves, about a specific time in history. From this reading, you ask them reflective questions. This improves their listening skills, their comprehension, their vocabulary, their geography and their understanding of history. Indirectly it also gives a good grounding in grammar and composition.
They mark these specific historical times on a time line. This puts the historical period in perspective and gives them an idea of the flow of events through time which saves them having to memorize dates. You mark the location of specific events on a world map to give them a geographical knowledge that underpins the history. The older you get the more original literature from those time periods that you study. What better way to convey the urgent need for relief troops during the Civil War, than reading a letter from a General to his Commander in Chief?
The curriculum guide I used for teaching kindergarten and grade 1 (learning to read and beginning math) was mainly the Montessori Method. Along with this from grades 1 to 5, I used The Sonlight Curriculum. I have thoroughly enjoyed using it. I am now switching to The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, which is what Susan has used up to grade 9 so far.
The difference? Not much! Except that with Sonlight you get a box that contains ALL the books you and your kids will read, and you get a day by day guide for a 4 day week or 5 day week school schedule for the whole year.
With the Well Trained Mind method, you need to be at one with your public library or with ebay to source the books needed. Also, with the Well Trained Mind method, you specifically study logic and Latin - and if you can, (lucky us!) Greek. And there is a slightly different reading list. Sonlight Curriculum actually uses The Story of the World (by the Well Trained Mind authors) for its history text for grades 6 and 7.
The Charlotte Mason method has been interpreted by many. She promoted a literature rich tapestry with reflective questioning as the best way of learning.
Want more information on some of these curriculums? Here are some useful website links on these methods, and a couple of other related sites:
The Well Trained Mind - they sell "The Story of the World" (child friendly recap of history) in 4 time periods (Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern), with matching student pages (maps, questions on readings). Their website has a summary of the curriculum for each grade level grouping, and the reading lists.
The Sonlight Curriculum - they have a great catalog, with a brief synopsis of each book they use for each year. They are the ideal option if you do NOT want to plan anything. The literature includes original writings and all the related Newberry and Caldecott etc winners related to each time period. It is a well rounded curriculum, which is particularly good for anyone just starting homeschooling. They have a great option of a 4 day a week school year, a little less reading, but they go over the same material.
The Robinson Curriculum - this curriculum recommends 5 hours a day, 6 days a week all year (about 10 months/year). Every day is the same: 30 minutes of math problems, 1 1/2 hours of (Saxon) math, the child then writes a one page essay, and the remainder of time (about 2 hours) is spent reading Science and History texts. The emphasis here is on independent learning. Dr Robinson runs a household with no television (or handheld electronics) and no sugar. The schooling is done first thing in the morning (after chores). He sells a computer CD which contains a great majority of the literature and some reference books and his curriculum for $195. You can see his book list here. He's just a little bit too rigid for me, but you can't beat the simplicity of the system!
The Charlotte Mason Method has been interpreted by many, a book by Karen Andreola is a quite good explanation of this method. She promotes extensive reading and reflective questioning as the road to a good education. The Bluedorns have created The Trivium also based on the Charlotte Mason approach. They have some interesting articles on their site. Here are some more book links for this method: Charlotte Mason
If you know of any other curriculums along this line feel free to add them in the comments section with your views on if it works for you or not.
If you are looking for some links about Earth on Earth Day, try the NASA site - it's got some cool stuff. AND it's safe enough to let your kids look through their pages.
Want to go into space to see Earth completely for yourself? All you need is a spare $30 million. Check this field trip out here.
Want to see photos taken to date of Earth by astronauts? See them at this link.
Ever heard of a crescent Earth?
Special Earth Day features on NASA.gov include:
--NASA EARTH DAY Web site articles.
--"Top Ten" Earth photos from the space station (selected by the Crew Earth Observations team).
--Blog with NASA scientist Sue Runco, who specializes in astronaut photography from space.
--Astronaut Don Pettit's "Cities at Night" video -- a personal perspective from his mission in 2003.
--Earth Without Earth? A feature story on the famed Apollo 17 photo of Earth.
--A video featuring some of the best Earth video, with narration by a scientist.
For these special features and more related to Earth Day, visit their website.
My best recommendation to show your kids - a 7 minute tour of Earth's Frozen Assets (the Cryosphere) - an amazing video made by NASA, which deals nicely with the whole melting poles issues. What better discussion related to Earth Day?
Happy Earth Day!
Aussie Kim
Last fall we lost our yard to a back hoe and a broken pipe. Thanks to mulch, grass seed, a little sunshine and a lot of rain we now have grass again!
How do we celebrate this auspicious occasion? By studying plants, of course! One of my favorite resources is the Internet Public Library. They offer a wide range of suitable websites to study all manner of things. Their Kidspace is an excellent place to let kids surf the web. (I have never had a problem with this site, but as always when dealing with the internet, proceed with caution!)
Back to the plants - here are some links I found on IPL.
If you want to learn about cell structure, you can at Biology4Kids.
Looking for a fun and easy (and cheap) artsy activity? Wildflower Coloring Books is the place to find it.
Do you want to teach the kiddos about how to recycle nature? Composting for Kids is where to begin.
Composting sure helped our yard! Look at that grass coming up!
I never thought I'd be so happy to see grass! I think I'll go get a cup of tea and read a little Walt Whitman to soothe my soul.
LA Sue
With temperatures around the 75F mark (22C) for the middle of winter, we were not going to sit inside all day doing school. OK, we were not going to sit inside very much at all - at least until the Severe Thunderstorm Warning (hail and 45mph winds) and the Tornado Warning went off. At that stage, school inside looked like a good idea. But until then, Mud Pies were the obvious activity of choice for outside. Plenty of water from previous rains, large mud patch which the dogs had dug around a tree, and temperatures warm enough for light clothing and barefeet.
Mud Pies are a wonderful activity on many levels. Those new to homeschooling with young kids should take note. Mud Pie "work" strengthens the muscles in the fingers they write with and improves their dexterity. It allows for uninterupted (stay away from them!) play - this improves their ability to focus. 
Ever seen a child in "The Flow"? Watch one (from a distance) playing with mud or sand. "The Flow" is when you go into a time warp, your mind is on your activity and is not cluttered up with running through the "to do" lists. (Remember how that used to be?)
If Mud Pies are made with friends, then this often helps them role play social situations ("Would you like some tea with that mud?").
What better introduction to pottery or other three dimensional media? The science of Mud Pies, you learn that if you add dry dirt to wet mud, your creation becomes firmer (Chemistry). 
What happens if you throw a mud pie that is sloppy? Is it easy to catch (Physics)? 
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. There's more benefit in letting your kid play outside in the mud than just a quiet house. But the main reason I think Mud Pies are a must as part of a childhood is simply because it is fun.
Almost forgot! Mud is another VERY cheap art material....
Note: The boy version of Mud Pies is Mud Bombs.
Aussie Kim
There is a chinese restaurant I ate at about 5 months ago (we ordered Flaming Pu - kids loved it!) which had the typical paintings of fishermen with triangular hats in small boats on a tropical waterway. However, I noticed the water in the painting had an unusual appearance. On closer inspection, I realized the painting was over the top of broken up egg shells. Ah ha! Another cheap art material, very beautifully used.
And so, think of this as a recycling option: cook your eggs, but keep the shells and the egg cartons. Less landfill, more art materials. The egg shells should be washed and put out to dry. When dry the egg shells can be used for a whole range of projects, either crushed up, or with just a small hole at the top.
The least mess way to crush up egg shells is to place the dried egg shells into a ziplock bag (or paper bag!) and crush. Of course, don't even think of depriving your child of this fun activity! Your options for the crushed egg shells are to put glue on whatever paper/board/canvas you are using and then place (or for kids, sprinkle) the egg shells ontop. You could draw the picture out before hand (saving the egg shells for one particular area (eg the water etc) or you could paint the entire picture onto the crushed egg shells. It could be a mosaic of sorts, or even just a sensory event with no particular finished product in mind.
If you have kids that are older, you can poke a small hole in the top of the egg and drain the contents out for breakfast, allow the egg to dry, and then paint directly onto the whole dried egg shell. For stability, get some plasticine or clay and make a ring the egg can sit on. Any acrylic/craft paints should be fairly permanent. Another option is to decopage the egg with tissue paper and clear glue or varnish over the top. Make your own Faberge eggs!
This website has a really neat picture of regular eggs changing into painted eggs (exquisite artwork)! Click on through to the website after you have watched this and there is a plethora of differently painted dried egg shells. Click on egg gallery then scroll down to chicken egg gallery 1 to see the Ukrainian artwork by British Columbia artist Gloria Olynyk. This photo is courtesy of her website ukrainianegg.com.
Want to see some more examples of egg art? Try eggsamples from International Egg Art. Once again this is an example of beautiful paintings on unusual canvases! Some of the ideas here are: beaded, decoupage, diarama, engraved, hinged, jewelled, lamps, painted, sculpted and pysanky (dyed with wax drawings). Enchanted Hen Productions (neat website name!) has a huge selection of Pysanky egg art you can view.
If the egg cartons are the cardboard sort they can be saved up, and then when needed, soaked overnight and used the next day for paper mache. The beauty of using these egg cartons as paper mache is that they do not need glue - they use it to make the boxes stay in the right shape in the first place! Once your paper mache creation has dried it can be painted.
What are some other options for those egg cartons? Here's one I liked: a gift box - wrap the carton in pretty paper and put straw or coconut inside and place home baked chocolates, or other edible inside. This would work for both the cardboard or the foam types.
So, who's ready for some scrambled eggs?
Aussie Kim
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