Today we took a day trip to Sedona, Arizona; Bearizona; and the Grand Canyon. It was a very long day, but enjoyable and memorable. We had so much fun!
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November 25, 2011
November 23, 2011
Exploring Scottsdale’s Landscape
A favorite place to explore cacti and other natural desert features in Scottsdale is the Mayo Clinic Nature Trail . The trail is kid-friendly, and all the vegetation are labeled and explained. It is almost as good as the Botanical Gardens, but unlike the Gardens, it is free! Lost Dog Trailhead is also another great place to explore. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at Lost Dog Trailhead today, the girls were too tired and hungry to hike. I hope to go back again this week!
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November 22, 2011
World Wildlife Zoo
I’ve visited many zoos, but my favorite zoo is the World Wildlife Zoo on the west side of Phoenix. Patrons can come closer to the animals at this zoo than at any other zoo. Today, we fed the lorikeets, the turacos, the stingrays, and the giraffes. We came within a few inches of almost every animal in the zoo. Even the lions and leopards are close enough that visitors can slide their hands inside the cages if they are so foolish. The World Wildlife Zoo is unlike any other zoo in the country, and it is a “must-see” when visiting Phoenix.
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October 25, 2011
Structured homeschooling gets an A+
by: Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins
STUDY COMPARES HOME VERSUS PUBLIC EDUCATION.
“There’s no place like home,” the iconic line uttered by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, might apply to learning the ABC’s, math and other core subjects.
A new study from Concordia University and Mount Allison University in New Brunswick has found that homeschooling — as long as it’s structured or follows a curriculum — can provide kids with an academic edge.
Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia Department of Education, led a study comparing home versus public education. “Structured homeschooling may offer opportunities for academic performance beyond those typically experienced in public schools,” says first author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia Department of Education and a member of the Centre for Research in Human Development, noting this is among the first non-partisan studies to investigate home education versus public schooling.
Published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, the investigation compared 74 children living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: 37 who were homeschooled versus 37 who attended public schools.
Participants were between five and 10 years old and each child was asked to complete standardized tests, under supervision of the research team, to assess their reading, writing, arithmetic skills, etc.
“Although public school children we assessed were performing at or above expected levels for their ages, children who received structured homeschooling had superior test results compared to their peers: from a half-grade advantage in math to 2.2 grade levels in reading,” says Martin-Chang.
“This advantage may be explained by several factors including smaller class sizes, more individualized instruction, or more academic time spent on core subjects such as reading and writing,” she continues.
The research team also questioned mothers in both samples about their marital status, number of children, employment, education and household income.
The findings suggest that the benefits associated with structured homeschooling could not be explained by differences in yearly family income or maternal education.
Unschooled versus traditional school
The study included a subgroup of 12 homeschooled children taught in an unstructured manner. Otherwise known as unschooling, such education is free of teachers, textbooks and formal assessment.
“Compared with the structured homeschooled group, children in the unstructured group had lower scores on all seven academic measures,” says Martin-Chang. “Differences between the two groups were pronounced, ranging from one to four grade levels in certain tests.”
Children taught in a structured home environment scored significantly higher than children receiving unstructured homeschooling, “while children in public school also had a higher average grade level in all seven tests compared with unstructured homeschoolers,” says Martin-Chang.
Public schools play an important role in the socialization of children, says Martin-Chang, “Yet compared to public education, homeschooling can present advantages such as accelerating a child’s learning process.”
In Canada, it is estimated that about one per cent of children are homeschooled. According to 2008 estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1.5 million children in the United States are homeschooled.
http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-we-do/research/20110908/structured-homeschooling-gets-an-a.php
September 28, 2011
September 1, 2011
My Own Boss
One of the advantages of homeschooling is planning your own schedule the way you like it. Do you like to pray the rosary, or go to daily Mass every day? It is easy to do when homeschooling. Not getting enough exercise? That can be planned into your day as well.
Over the past nine days, I’ve taken my kids on 4 bike rides, biking a total of 33 miles. This doesn’t even include all the exercise I’ve done on my own in the evenings after the youngest is asleep. I’ve had lots of health problems in the past, so taking care of myself is a top priority for me. Homeschooling gives me plenty of time for exercise, unlike when I worked a real job.
Of course, my mom likes to point out that homeschoolers don’t receive a paycheck. However, my current salary isn’t much worse than when I was a researcher at the University of Chicago!
August 31, 2011
Happy Homeschooling Moments
Of these three photos, my favorite is definitely the bottom one: The Naturalist helping The Dancer with her schoolwork. Homeschooling keeps families together, and teaches them how to work together, and to help each other. 
August 30, 2011
First Flight in a 4-Seater
My children are so lucky! A pilot offered them a ride in his four-seat airplane on Saturday while they were at the county airport for a Cub Scout event. So, hubby gave my precious children away to two strangers for an amazing 20 minute flight around the county. The kids loved it! Here is the video. Hubby edited out the part where he said, “My wife is going to kill me if the kids don’t come back!”
August 21, 2011
The strange things people google
I love blogging. I began blogging when I realized my scrapbooks were ugly, unartistic and expensive. Blogging is also better than scrapbooking because I can share my photos and insights with the entire world, and not just the people in my living room.
I’ve had more than 16,000 visitors to my blog since I began blogging four years ago. I cannot tell who visits my blog, but I can tell what posts are viewed. Also, if someone found my blog by typing something into Google, I can see that too. Most people find my blog by searching, “Help! My 3 year old stopped napping.”
This week, someone found my blog, my faith-filled, Catholic homeschooling blog, by typing into Google: ”how to juggle marriage and extra marital relationship”. Really? Is that the advice I give here?
So, I tried it, and, sure enough, I also found my blog by googling “how to juggle marriage and extra marital relationship”. However, I’m sure this person was really disappointed by what I wrote.
When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I took classes with Bob Michael, the researcher who discovered the reason the U.S. divorce rate doubled from 1965 to 1975: the invention of the birth control pill. At the time, I was shocked: I was a cradle-Catholic, but was learning about the drawbacks of contraception from an atheist!
I researched this topic extensively, and posted it on my blog: The Link Between Contraception and Divorce.
The Catholic Church, in its wisdom, has argued against the use of contraception since since its beginning. Arguments against contraception start in the New Testament, and continue to the present day. All Protestant churches also argued against contraception until the 1930′s and 1940′s. By the 1960′s, the Catholic Church was the only church that still taught the Biblical argument against contraception, however unpopular that position might be. Two great books that discuss this are: The Bible and Birth Control, by Charles Provan, and Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception.
Read my blog post, The Link Between Contraception and Divorce. It gives no advice about how to have an affair, but it is still worth reading!
