English Discussion

Yesterday my daughter and I were having a discussion about the English language. I don't remember how it started (Don't the best conversations happen that way?) but we talked about various dialects in American and around the world, then we talked about different words having different meanings in different places. Like how 'boot' means trunk in the UK, and cookies are biscuits.

During our little discussions, I like to use the internet to highlight my point or underscore the issue. As we talked, I went in search of things to illustrate how English differs. The first place I found had a quiz you can take to find out what kind of accent you have. (It says my accent is 'Inland North', and my daughter's accent is 'The Midland'. Go figger.) The next was a site that had sound files of people with different accents saying the same words, but I can't find the link this morning. :grumble: stupid internet :grumble: Then we found this Wikipedia article on different dialects of the English language. Interesting stuff.

After that, the conversation morphed to a discussion of the various words people use in different places, and how they use them. For instance in the Upper Peninsula, the people speak something called 'Yooper', which is more or less English (but different). For instance, they use 'da' for 'the' and 'ya' for 'yes'. An example would be a saying they had up there when I was living in the area: "Say ya to da U.P., eh?"

Or when I lived in the south (Tallahassee isn't really Florida, it's more like Georgie-lite). A frequently used term over there was 'all y'all'. Y'all can mean a single person or a a non-specific group, but 'all y'all' generally means 'all of you'.

"Y'all can stay, but all y'all have to get the heck out of here." Or something like that.

Anyway, we were still talking and we moved from the regional dialects to the actual use of slang in different parts of the world. An example of this would be the word 'fag' which means cigarette in the UK, but is a derogatory term for homosexuals in the US. Of course, this part of the discussion lead me to search for a way to illustrate what I was talking about and I found a dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms. (Be warned: Many of the words and phrases found there are for adult eyes only - and not very sensitive eyes at that.)

As a homeschooler, do you get into discussions like this? What do you think of the differences in the English language?

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Biology Resources

I don't know about anyone else, but I had a devil of a time finding a good Biology text to use. Every time I thought I found something, it ended up being a 'short attention-span theatre' book (where all around the necessary information on Biology, you're inundated with pictures and puzzles and blurbs and colors - until your brain can't focus on what's important) or it was filled with environmentalist tracts on global warming and the evils of mankind.

You wouldn't think it would be that hard.

Anyway, with the dearth of good texts out there, and me on a shoe-string budget, I decided to utilize the free information available on the net. For one thing, it's easier to skip over the splotches of enviro propanganda when you're on a website, and for another it's free. (I'm big on free.) What I ended up with was mix-and-match coursework, but as long as the student is getting the necessary information without getting their brains scrambled in the process, it works.

To that end, these are some of the links we used (and will continue to use until they're no longer useful):

An On-Line Biology Book - this was our main resource for 9th grade biology

The National Biological Information Infrastructure - has some enviromentally stuff, but it's easily ignored

Biology 4 Kids

The USDA Plants Database

KidInfo - The Human Body

Exploratorium - All branches of science.

Nature's Best: The Human Body

And for a little higher education (that your kids may or may not be ready for - depending on their skill level):

Marietta University: Invertebrate Zoology

The Franklin Institute: Living Things

(Unfortunately, I lost a lot of my biology links when my computer crashed in 2006, and we were past those enough that I never went looking for them again. When in doubt, use Google to find the particular topic you're interested in, and find something that works for you and your children.)

In addition to information on the web, we also have a few books to back things up. Now most of the books we have are old college Biology texts. I recognize some of them are way over my daughter's head, but she reads them anyway, and I explain in layman's terms what she can't figure out on her own. We also use non-textbooks on certain subjects - like Anatomy - to give her a better idea of how things are put together.

One last thing. If you can afford it, I would highly recommend buying a microscope for home use. We got ours from Home Science Tools and it was less than $200. Not a cheap investment, but well worth the price. Plus that company also has kits for growing plants, hatching critters, dissecting things. You can set up your own Biology lab without breaking the bank. (We set up a Chemistry Lab last year.)

If you have any Biology resources you'd like to share, please leave them in the comments. (And as always, I reserve the right to post them or not.)

Scholarships, Contests, Etc.

The other day, Janime asked about advice on how to find legitimate scholarships, and I said I'd do a post about it. Well, here it is. (And this is written for the laymen, so if some of the stuff I say seems a little obvious, ignore me.)

I tend to approach scholarship contests the same way I've learned to approach writing contests. There's a lot of possibility for scammers and other dishonest people to schist you out of your money, but there are actual legitimate places to enter. The quickest way to tell the schisters from the honest folks is whether they ask for money up front, or they try to sell you something in order for you to enter. Most (but not all) poetry contests are like that. Anyone can enter, and most everyone wins because the only way you can see your winning entry in a book is to buy the book. (I know. I still have the one I bought when I was 15, and looking at the 'winning' entries now is like a trip through the land of bad writing - even my own.)

Now, I can't say that I've run across any scholarship contests like that. I think for the most part, people running scholarship contests are actually trying to do something good. Even so, some of them can be little more than a pain in the behind. For instance, we investigated something called the Common Knowledge scholarship contests. I didn't get it. Neither did my daughter. So we went in search of something a little more rational.

Another way of telling if a contest is legit is whether it's backed by a name you know. The VFW is immediately recognizable as a real organization, as is Target - who backs a lot of scholarship contests, btw. Of course, the scholarship contest put on by the AFSA isn't any less legit because you've never heard of the American Fire Sprinkler Association, but it's always good to be careful until you've researched the organization. Another one is the American Backflow Prevention Association, but they seem like a real organization who just wants to promote safe drinking water by asking kids to write essays. Works for me.

Anyway, scholarship contests are easy enough to find - especially if you belong to a homeschooling organization. But even if you don't, they're usually posted online somewhere. The best place to start is: Contests and Scholarships. It's a list posted by a homeschool organization. In most cases, they give links to the scholarships themselves and I assume they've already vetted the organizations to make sure they aren't scammers.

Otherwise, here is a short list of the links we've saved in our Favorites (even though some of them are for students above my daughter's current age):

Academic Services - Signet Essay Contest - Penguin Publishers - this is only for high school seniors and juniors, but the essay topics are good practice (and good assignments for English class)

The VFW 'Voice of Democracy' Contest - grades 9-12

The VFW 'Patriot's Pen' Contest - grade 6-8

The Letters About Literature Contest - all grade levels - put on by the Library of Congress in conjunction with the State Centers for the Book. (She took third at the state level last year in this one.) The prizes aren't much, but the practice value is well worth the time. And if you place, it looks good on a college application.

Circle of Neihardt Juried Contest - I don't know much about this one, but it looked interesting and it's through Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund Youth Essay Contest - K through 12.

The Ayn Rand Institute: Anthem Essay Contest - for grade 8, 9 & 10. (She entered this last year but didn't place. She'll try again this year.) There were 13000 entries last year, so the competition is fierce, but it's definitely worth the effort. I just noticed they added 8th grade to their list! Wow. Wish they'd done that two years ago.

The Ayn Rand Institute: The Fountainhead Essay Contest

US Institute of Peace - grade 9-12

The JFK Profile in Courage Essay Contest - grade 9-12

The Holocaust Remembrance Project Essay Contest - this year's contest guidelines will be announced after October 1st

Voice of the Future Scholarship - EL Publishers - grades 11-12

Society for Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest - grades 9-12

Optimist International Scholarship Opportunities

'A Day in Black History' Scholarship Contest - any ethnicity and any grade level

ABPA Annual Scholarship - high school age (13-20 years old)

AFSA Scholarship Contest - high school seniors only. Entrants are required to read an essay and answer questions. Each correct answer equals one entry into the contest.

Create-A-Greeting-Card $10,000 Scholarship Contest - all high school, college and university students may enter (no younger than 14)

The DaVinci Scholarship - age 16-25

'Freedom in Academia' Scholarship Contest - high school seniors

Oxy 'Cash for College' Sweepstakes - child must be between 13 and 19

The Elie Wiesel Foundation Prize in Ethics Essay Contest - This year's contest opens on Sept. 1st.

The FFRF Student Essay Competitions - closed for 2008. Check back next year.

I'm sure there are more out there. I just haven't found them yet. If you know of any, please leave them in the comments, and I'll add them in here.

Remember folks, this is just my short list. Please research every contest thoroughly before entering (or allowing your child to enter).

Good luck. =o)

(Please understand that some of these contests may not adhere to your beliefs or even mine. When thinking about the expense of sending a child to college - especially when they're talking about MIT, Stanford, Princeton, etc. - remember, everyone's money spends the same.)

Sophomore Year - Day One

Today began our sophomore year, and I must say it went very well. This year I decided to go with a more structured school day to help maintain focus (both on her part and on mine). She was raring to go, and while it took a bit for me to get back into the swing of things, by midday I was fine.

Now, we do things a little different than a traditional school - other than the usual homeschool experience. Even though her alarm is set for 7:30, we don't start classes until 10:00. This leaves us plenty of time for breakfast, exercise and errands. (You'd be surprised how much quicker we get through the library and store while no one else is there.) Then we have classes until noon, an hour for lunch, then classes until 5:00. Today the schedule went well, but that's one of the beauties of homeschool. If the schedule doesn't work, we can adapt. As long as we're getting in the required number of hours in the required classes, we can be flexible within our structure.

Since we just got back the results from last spring's standardized tests, I tailored this semester to addressing those issues she didn't do as well on. So, with that in mind, one of the things I'll be focusing on is what Colorado likes to call Extended Writing. To that end, today I took a prompt from last year's SAT test (which is available online if anyone is interested) and gave her an hour to write a short essay on her choice of the three prompts. Another thing that she got lower scores on was Algebra. I'm not too worried about this since last year we devoted our attention to Geometry, and didn't do much Algebra until the end of the year (after the tests were administered). This year, to avoid that problem, I'll probably do switch off from one discipline to the other each term. That will give her two terms of Algebra and one of Geometry before the tests in March. =o)

One slight change from the stated course list I gave in my last post. After some discussion we decided to double up on the Geology this term, and switch to double Physics next term. Two hours straight of one science, I think, will be easier to retain than switching from one to the other. As long as we get them both in during this semester, we'll be fine for the spring science tests. (And the SATs she'll be taking in a couple years.)

So far, so good. I'll try and update this more often as things arise. How is your school experience going this year? If you haven't started yet, what do you have planned for this year?

Gearing Up

Seems like summer break started only last week, but a look at the calendar shows it's time to start gearing up for the coming school year. This year my own daughter will begin 10th grade, so in addition to gearing up for the subjects she'll be taking this year, we also need to gear up for the looming college years.

All the supplies have been purchased. All the textbooks are decided and ready to start filling her brain with knowledge. I know we should've started last year, but since we didn't, this year will begin the seriousness of high school life. We've got six subjects ready to go, as well as time for P.E. and the library (which, if your child is like mine, the latter is an absolute necessity).

This semester we* will be taking:

-Geology
-Physics
-English (with an emphasis on essay writing)
-Algebra
-Spanish
-Social Studies (I haven't determined which branch of this supposed discipline to hit this year, but I have a couple weeks to decide.)

Everything we're doing now is with college and the future in mind. We've already looked at dozens of schools (she's thinking about MIT, but time will tell on that one), and she's already decided what her major is going to be - Chemistry. Each course she'll take in high school will be taken with a thought to what skills she'll need for her college career, and also with a thought for the standardized tests she has to take each spring, as well as the SATs. (Which explains why we're doing Geology and Physics this fall instead of focusing on Chemistry again. She needs to have it all to score well on the Science CSAP test she'll be taking this coming Spring, and she'll also need to have a well-rounded education to score well on the SATs.)

One of the main things we've been doing to gear up for college (other than prepping her educationally) is looking for ways to pay for it all. Right now a year at MIT costs upwards of $50K, and that's a bit pricey. Hence, the search for college scholarships. Now we're already hunted down many of the scholarships available, and since she already entered two last year, this year's essays should go much smoother. Heck, she placed third in a minor contest already (and even though she didn't place in the bigger contest, I think her essay probably just missed the mark - they didn't say, but out of 13000 kids, she had to be in the top 500).

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that it's never too early to start thinking about life after homeschooling. Some places even have scholarships contest starting in 1st grade. And since we homeschoolers don't have the same resources as the public schools, we need to do our homework early.

So, what are you gearing up for, and how are you accomplishing it this year? Anything exciting on the horizon?

* I say 'we' because I'm going to have to learn as much as she does, so I can teach it to her. Sometimes homeschooling is as much a learning experience for the parent as it is for the student. ;o)

Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is one of those issues where the speaker either loves it or hates it, depending on their view of education and their child's abilities. Some say testing of this nature doesn't accurately portray a child's knowledge or potential. *shrug*

The reason I'm bringing this up now (I meant to post about it weeks ago, but got distracted) is that my daughter recently had to go through the yearly CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) rigmarole to meet Colorado's homeschooling laws. She has to get tested every odd year so we can keep our homeschool status and keep her out of public school. No testy, no schooly. So, she did her tests and now we're done until next year. I know... I said every odd year, not every year. You see, we make her take them every year to chart her progress. We don't have to do it, but it gives us something to compare.

Which brings me to my point, and to the purpose of standardized tests. (Or rather the original purpose. I don't know what the education establishment thinks they're for any more.) Any standardized test is meant to chart student progress, as well as teacher and curriculum effectiveness. They were meant to give a heads-up if a child wasn't grasping the material, and if an entire group of kids wasn't hitting the mark, then the test showed the teacher/curriculum needed work.

When I was working for a private school corporation, they made the kids take the SATs. Every year. My job with regards to those tests was to take the data, boil it into something coherent, and present it to the president of the company. I worked with the data for entire classes and entire schools, and made some really great graphs that made the information clear. He would look it over and decide which of the teachers wasn't doing their jobs, and then the teacher would have to be accountable for fixing the problem. If the entire school showed a problem, he went to the principle. If the entire system showed a problem, he looked at the test. (Never happened, but that's the progression of responsibility.) If only individual children here and there were doing poorly on the tests, then the kids themselves were looked at.

That's the way standardized tests ought to be used. They're a gauge of more than just the kids, and believe it or not, they really do work when they're used properly.

I admit that if I didn't have to make her take the CSAPs, I wouldn't. If I had my druthers, I'd have her take the SAT (Stanford Achievement Test - not to be confused with Scholastic Aptitude Test, or the more PC version, the Scholastic Assessment Test) or the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) both of which are nationally recognized tests that assess a wider range of skills and do it much better, IMO. Unfortunately, I can't give those tests myself, and no school around here offers them. So we're stuck with the CSAP.

And the CSAP has problems. For instance, one of the essays students were asked to write for the 'Writing' portion of the exam this year was something like: If your school required you to volunteer for school credit/graduation, where would you volunteer and why? (Forced volunteerism is a whole other topic for another day, but let's just say I don't like it, and leave it there for now.) Out of a million possible essay topics, many of which could have charted a student's writing progress much better, that they used this one speaks volumes about the test builders.

Another problem I encountered was when I was looking for pre-tests for my daughter to take. I found them, but after she took them and we looked at the answer key, two of the answers on the key were wrong. For example, one of the questions had the student put a bunch of numbers in order from least to greatest (and the numbers were things like ten to the power of negative three, and the like, so it wasn't as easy as it sounds). In the answer key, they had actually put the answer of negative eight after the answer of .25. Last I looked a negative number was always smaller than a positive number.

So needless to say, I'm a little skeptical of the results of this particular test. If their sample tests aren't right, how am I supposed to believe their actual test is right? (Thinking about it now, the idea that the adults creating tests for our children don't know math scare the crap out of me.)

Still, I think overall standardized tests are necessary. I just think the idea of them needs to be re-evaluated. They need to be checked, rechecked and double-checked for accuracy; they need to be scrutinized for possible agendas (which should never be part of education, unless you're planning on inculcating children rather than teaching them); they need to be used to evaluate both the students and the teacher/school.

And as parents, we need to use these tests to gauge our own progress in creating a successful adult.

If you're a homeschooling parent, do your children take any kind of standardized test? How satisfied are you with the one you're taking? If your children attend a public/private/parochial school, how are the standardized tests working out for you?

100 Books Kids Should Read?

A blog I've begun visiting regularly posted about this list of the 100 Books Kids Should Read compiled by the London Telegraph. On it are many books I agree with, and many books I don't - including a few I won't let my daughter read (i.e. 'Holes' or 'Lord of the Flies').

Last Spring I did my Top Thirty Book Recommendations and while there are a few in common, my choices matching theirs are rare.

I guess the question this morning is: What books would you recommend? Are there any books on either list you wouldn't want your child to read?

Note: I've made an adjustment to the blog that should make it easier for me to post on it. (What can I say, when I started this blog I was an idiot, and now that I know better, it's too late to change.) With this change implemented, I hope to post more often. We'll see how time and gumption work out.