Special Connection Homeschool

Last night as I was sitting watching television my husband looks up from his computer and asks me, "did you purchase something on Ebay?" I think for a moment and answer, "not that I am a aware of." He checks again and asks, "you didn't purchase a Jumpstart Advanced Preschool game" and we both get nervous at that point realizing what probably happened. "No, I would not have purchased the preschool game, Gess played with that years ago, and she is way too advanced for that now." We both start trying to figure out exactly how this all went down when he tells me, "Well we are currently the high bidder and the maximum we are willing to pay is $68.00!!" The current bid was only $5.51 with 17 minutes left to go and we were really hoping that no one took the bid any higher. So here is the deal, my daughter has been using the computer for several years and she is really good at it. She used to have her own user, well she still does, bu...

We had the most awesome weekend at the MPE Homeschool Convention in Kansas City. I had been to the TPA Convention in Wichita the last two years and really enjoyed those but this year my daughter has her ballet recital that same weekend, so we came to this one. We were very pleased with it. I actually enjoy both and if I could I would go to both each year. Then again, I absolutely love conventions and conferences. If you have an opportunity to attend one in your area I highly recommend that you go! Homeschool Workshops The Key Note Speaker was Michael Farris and as most of you probably know he is the chairman of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) of which we are members and the chancellor of Patrick Henry College. He is also the president of ParentalRights.org of which I am very passionate about. His original Keynote address was on the issue of protecting parental rights and encouraged me to work even harder on getting the Parental Rights Amendment passed....

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. This is a special holiday for me and though I try to keep it about the true meaning of Easter, I do allow my daughter to have a basket, color eggs and hunt for them. We simply do not tell her that a bunny had anything to do with it. We explain, like the Veggie Tales do, that while those things are fun they are not why we celebrate Easter. In light of that fact our favorite Easter video is Veggie Tales - An Easter Carol . In fact in Sunday School we also read the story An Easter Carol from the Veggie Tales Bible Storybook . Those are nice because they are followed by the actual Bible story from the NIrV and it went went right along with our sermon. At home we also read the story from our Read with Me Bible which also uses the NIrV and she would read some of them herself from The Beginner's Bible . I am amazed at how well she can read those! We did a few crafts. On Palm Sunday we made palm branches using the Palm Fan Craft from Sundays...

I am a Christian who wants our faith to play a role in all aspects of my daughter's education, for I believe that true faith does affect every part of our life. Well, one of the areas that I was actually surprised to find our faith helping her education was in speech. However, when you actually think more about it, you will see how easily it fits in. We have always read her bible stories, even before she was verbal. In fact she used to sign before she could speak and one of the earliest signs she learned was "Jesus." She could also sign church, God, Lord and many other words from the Bible. Once she started to speak more often, she started to learning how to say these words. If you read the Bible very often you know that there are some very hard to pronounce names, even for adults. I believe that seeing these names in print and learning to pronounce them is a really good exercise. By pointing out certain names and places in the story and having them repeat it also ...

Today is a national campaign targeted at ending the derogatory use of the word "retarded." If you know me you know that I am 1) for the right of free speech and 2) do not buy into political correctness. Still, you would also know that I am one who always tries to show respect. When I challenge a person, I challenge their ideas, their teachings, and their comments, not their physical appearance, skin color, or any other personal trait. Even then, I still respect their right to disagree. Respect is something that people with disabilities and special challenges never seem to get, and they are the one group of people who deserve it more than anyone else. People with special needs like my daughter who has Down Syndrome work extra hard to accomplish the most simple tasks of life. Instead of cheering and applauding their accomplishments we use words that are supposed to simply describe their delays, such as retarded, and use it to insult others. This group of people would d...

In our Science curriculum we began studying nutrition so I started on my journey to find out how to emphasize nutrition in a hands on and interactive way. The Food Guide Pyramid popped into my head. Of course in searching I came across the new and supposedly improved Food Guide Pyramids. Personally I do not like them. For one, that is not how you make a pyramid! Pyramids are made with blocks built one upon the other. The Egyptians did not make a pyramid with color coded lines. To me all they did was keep the shape and threw out the visual aspect of the teaching. Since my daughter is a very visual learner I started looking for the old Food Guide Pyramid and that is what we used. Now she can not only see the foods directly on the pyramid, she can more readily see the size of each section since that corresponds to how many servings of those foods you should have. This has really been a lot of fun since we have already been exploring our senses through food. This has allowed u...

I try not to spend too much time on politics because I do respect everyone's right to disagree. I just want to make this one post to share one issue that I do believe strongly in and does affect homeschoolers, and that is parental rights. I feel that parents are losing their rights in this country and I believe that an amendment to the Constitution is the only way to protect it. I do believe that the Consititution is something that we should not mess with very often, but to me this is one area I believe it is worth it. Well, Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, plans to introduce the Parental Rights Amendment in the House on March 31. There are currently 56 Cosponsors of the amendment. To see the list of sponsors click here. If you agree with this amendment please see if your representative is a sponsor and if so send them a note of thanks. If not, send your representative and ask them to do so. If you are unsure about how you feel or if you simply want more information visit...