Alice's Virtual Restaurant - A Little Food for Thought - Family-friendly, Safe For Kids Site Of The Week brimming with substantive and sometimes unusual links to a broad range of resources; from Literature, History and Archaeology to Ireland Info, All About Maine, Reference Tools and lots more...plus, a special Kids' Menu!
Arborwood.com - an index to many categories of interest to families
Bob Vila's Home Site - home repair and remodeling from the expert
Children after divorce, Christian helps - No one believes in marriage enrichment and divorce law reform more than us...NO ONE. But we believe our first duty is to the victims...directly and immediately. All free great resources.
Christian Answers.net - have a question - find an answer
Christian Spotlight on the Movies - reviews of movies from a Christian perspective
The Dove Foundation - a ratings guide for families interested in movies and music.
Education & Computer Connection - An award-winning on-line newsletter for parents, educators, and children who use the internet and technology to enhance learning.
FamilyFirst - FamilyFirst is a family oriented guide to resources, information and ideas.
FamilyLife - - providing practical, biblical tools to strengthen marriage and family relationships, including the FamilyLife Marriage Conference, FamilyLife Parenting Conference, and nationally-syndicated, daily radio program, FamilyLife Today.
Family.Com - a web site suited for the whole family
Fortifying The Family - Encouraging and informative articles for Christian parents and homeschoolers who desire to educate and operate according to a Christian worldview.
Free Lord's Prayer Coloring Pages for Parents - Lord's Prayer Coloring Pages. Featured twice by the Salvation Army Magazine War Cry. Great Illustrations. Excellent Parent's guides.
Jelley Jar Country Home - Country living, recipes, crafts, pets, freebies, graphics, genealogy helps, homeschooling and more!
The MovieGuide at Crosswalk - movie reviews
NetSmartz - NetSmartz® is an interactive, educational safety resource from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children® and Boys and Girls Clubs of America for children (ages 5-17), parents, guardians, educators, and law enforcement that uses age-appropriate, 3-D activities to teach children how to stay safer on the Internet. The NetSmartz Workshop can be accessed at www.NetSmartz.org and www.NetSmartzKids.org.
Number and Word Puzzles - 52 monthly puzzles give education and entertainment to all ages
iVillage - Parenting web site
Parent to Parent - Nationally syndicated parenting columnist, Jodie Lynn, offers parents throughout America a platform to share tips on everyday parenting challenges where they are the real "experts!"
Scholastic.Com - many resources for families, teachers, and fun
School Express - School Express in an educational mall offering resources for schools, parents, and students. Links are given to hundreds of educational web sites, the Free Worksheets are very popular for school and home use
Teresa Kindred - Teresa Kindred is a wife, mother, author, freelance writer, columnist, and public speaker. She conducts retreats and conferences for women. Past topics include: Pearls of Wisdom, The Treasure Within Our Jars of Clay and Handling Stress God's way.
WorldVillage - a lot of great areas for the family
Yourfamily.Com - search for your family name, family pages, genealogy
Friday, August 17, 2007
FREE 2007 BIBLE READING YEAR PLAN FOR HOMESCHOOLERS
NEW! Free 2007 Bible Reading Plan from Practical Homeschooling!
Read through the Bible in a year with this handy planner in printable .pdf format! Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Read through the Bible in a year with this handy planner in printable .pdf format! Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
NATIONWIDE ART CONTEST FOR HOMESCHOOLERS TO BE HELD IN NORTH CAROLINA
Art Contest
Age / Grade Range: ages 4-18
Entry Deadline: September 21, 2007
Judging: September 22, 2007
Raleigh Conservatory of Music
3636 Capital Blvd.Raleigh, NC 27604
Phone: 919-790-1533
Email: raleighconservatory@earthlink.net
Website: http://www.raleighconservatory.com
Location: Raleigh Conservatory of Music, NC, US
Other Info: All homeschoolers are invited to submit a drawing, painting, or sketch for our art contest! All paints, pencils, and mixed media allowed. All entries must be at RCM no later than 5pm Friday, Sept. 21. Gallery showing and awards presentation Sept. 23 an
Age / Grade Range: ages 4-18
Entry Deadline: September 21, 2007
Judging: September 22, 2007
Raleigh Conservatory of Music
3636 Capital Blvd.Raleigh, NC 27604
Phone: 919-790-1533
Email: raleighconservatory@earthlink.net
Website: http://www.raleighconservatory.com
Location: Raleigh Conservatory of Music, NC, US
Other Info: All homeschoolers are invited to submit a drawing, painting, or sketch for our art contest! All paints, pencils, and mixed media allowed. All entries must be at RCM no later than 5pm Friday, Sept. 21. Gallery showing and awards presentation Sept. 23 an
HOMESCHOOL EVENTS IN: VIRGINIA, MISSOURI, COLORADO, TEXAS, CALIFORNIA, WEST VIRGINIA, NEW MEXICO & CANADA
VIRGINIA
TOOL Back-To-School
August 24, 2007
TOOL Homeschool
P.O. Box 42233
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
Phone: 540-661-6615
Email: toolhomeschool@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/toolhomeschool/
Event Location: Spotsylvania YMCASpeakers: Group ForumOther Info: Friday, 24 AUG, 1-3pm. TOOL (Teaching Our Own Legacy, non-profit Christian group) will host Back-to-School at the Spotsylvania YMCA, 5700 Smith Station Rd, Fredericksburg, VA. Come learn about TOOL and sign-up for Nature Days & Fieldtrips. Doorprizes!
MISSOURI
The Original FREE 2007 Mid-America Homeschooler Camp Out
August 31 - September 5, 2007
Hallelujah Way
19591 Kelsay Road
Barnett, mo 65011
Phone: 573-378-1917Fax: 573-378-5401
Email: dale@basicisp.net
Website: http://www.homeschoolercampout.com/
Event Location: Barnett, Missouri
Speakers: Dale and Coleen Sabin and guests
Other Info: FREE camping area. Home schoolers, graduates too / singles / large families encouraged ... FREE Workshops and hands on doing. FREE Discussion groups, games, camping, fellowship, singing, volley ball, walks, bring your ministry/wares/NO CHARGE FREE
Silver Dollar City Homeschool Day
October 6-7, 2007
MO Association of Teaching Christian Homes (MATCH)
2203 Rhonda Dr
West Plains, MO 65775
Phone: 417-257-0030
Email: match@match-inc.org
Website: http://www.match-inc.org/
Event Location: Silver Dollar City (Branson)Other Info: To see the special discount for this event make sure to check out our website and click on the SDC link. When you get to the city, check in at the horse shoe in front of the Welcome Center for special things going on for homeschoolers.
TEXAS & CALIFORNIA
College Without Classrooms Seminar
September 21-22, 2007
Global Learning Strategies
20475 Hwy 46 W. Ste. 180 #162
Spring Branch, TX 78070
Phone: 830-885-5432
Email: info@globallearningstrategies.org
Website: http://www.globallearningstrategies.org/losangeles
Event Location: Garden Grove, CA
Speakers: Norm Wakefield (Spirit of Elijah Ministries),
Ryan Yamane (Global Learning Strategies)
Other Info: Come learn how you can complete college in half the time for a fraction of the cost without the financial drain and philosophy of the tradition university system. See our website for information on seminar topics, session hours, and registration details.
CANADA
MACHS Homeschool Conference 2008
March 28-29, 2008
Manitoba Association of Christian Home Schools
Box 283, St. Vital Postal Stn.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R2N 3X9
Canada
Phone: 204-256-5675
Email: info@machs.mb.ca
Website: http://www.machs.mb.ca/
Event Location: Calvary Temple Church
Speakers: Dr. Jay Wile, Bill Jack
NEW MEXICO
New Mexico Christian Home School Convention and Curriculum Fair
April 17-19, 2008
Christian Association of Parent Educators - NMPO
Box 3203
Moriarty, NM 87035
Phone: 505-898-8548
Email: info@cape-nm.org
Website: http://www.cape-nm.org/
Event Location: Calvary Chapel,
AlbuquerqueSpeakers:
Chris Klicka, HSLDA; Diana Waring, Diana Waring Presents; Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries
Other Info: Highlights of the convention include inspirational keynote sessions, outstanding workshops, curriculum exhibitors, a used curriculum sale, Leaders Luncheon, a state-wide Graduation Recognition Ceremony, and a parallel Children's Conference.
COLORADO
Annual New & Used Curriculum Book Sale
May 30, 2008
High Country Home Educators
P.O. Box 62284
Colorado Springs, CO 80962
Phone: (719) 495-5155
Email: Newbergcpa@aol.com
Website: http://www.hche.org/
Event Location: New Life Church; 11025 Voyager Parkway, Colo. Spri
Other Info: Come and buy used curriculum from many homeschool families, plus new products and services from homeschool publishers and businesses. Hours: 10:00-3:00 Admission: $2 for HCSG Members; $3 for non-members. Under 18 are free.
WEST VIRGINIA
2008 CHEWV Conference
May 30-31, 2008
Christian Home Educators of WV
403 Beaver Run Road
Buckhannon, WV 26201
Phone: 877-802-1773
Email: conference@chewv.org
Website: http://chewv.org/
Event Location: MorgantownSignup Deadline: May 16, 2008
Speakers: Kevin Swanson
Other Info: Variety of Workshops available and vendor hall on site. Children and Teen program available at additional cost. High School Graduation and reception for members.
TOOL Back-To-School
August 24, 2007
TOOL Homeschool
P.O. Box 42233
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
Phone: 540-661-6615
Email: toolhomeschool@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/toolhomeschool/
Event Location: Spotsylvania YMCASpeakers: Group ForumOther Info: Friday, 24 AUG, 1-3pm. TOOL (Teaching Our Own Legacy, non-profit Christian group) will host Back-to-School at the Spotsylvania YMCA, 5700 Smith Station Rd, Fredericksburg, VA. Come learn about TOOL and sign-up for Nature Days & Fieldtrips. Doorprizes!
MISSOURI
The Original FREE 2007 Mid-America Homeschooler Camp Out
August 31 - September 5, 2007
Hallelujah Way
19591 Kelsay Road
Barnett, mo 65011
Phone: 573-378-1917Fax: 573-378-5401
Email: dale@basicisp.net
Website: http://www.homeschoolercampout.com/
Event Location: Barnett, Missouri
Speakers: Dale and Coleen Sabin and guests
Other Info: FREE camping area. Home schoolers, graduates too / singles / large families encouraged ... FREE Workshops and hands on doing. FREE Discussion groups, games, camping, fellowship, singing, volley ball, walks, bring your ministry/wares/NO CHARGE FREE
Silver Dollar City Homeschool Day
October 6-7, 2007
MO Association of Teaching Christian Homes (MATCH)
2203 Rhonda Dr
West Plains, MO 65775
Phone: 417-257-0030
Email: match@match-inc.org
Website: http://www.match-inc.org/
Event Location: Silver Dollar City (Branson)Other Info: To see the special discount for this event make sure to check out our website and click on the SDC link. When you get to the city, check in at the horse shoe in front of the Welcome Center for special things going on for homeschoolers.
TEXAS & CALIFORNIA
College Without Classrooms Seminar
September 21-22, 2007
Global Learning Strategies
20475 Hwy 46 W. Ste. 180 #162
Spring Branch, TX 78070
Phone: 830-885-5432
Email: info@globallearningstrategies.org
Website: http://www.globallearningstrategies.org/losangeles
Event Location: Garden Grove, CA
Speakers: Norm Wakefield (Spirit of Elijah Ministries),
Ryan Yamane (Global Learning Strategies)
Other Info: Come learn how you can complete college in half the time for a fraction of the cost without the financial drain and philosophy of the tradition university system. See our website for information on seminar topics, session hours, and registration details.
CANADA
MACHS Homeschool Conference 2008
March 28-29, 2008
Manitoba Association of Christian Home Schools
Box 283, St. Vital Postal Stn.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R2N 3X9
Canada
Phone: 204-256-5675
Email: info@machs.mb.ca
Website: http://www.machs.mb.ca/
Event Location: Calvary Temple Church
Speakers: Dr. Jay Wile, Bill Jack
NEW MEXICO
New Mexico Christian Home School Convention and Curriculum Fair
April 17-19, 2008
Christian Association of Parent Educators - NMPO
Box 3203
Moriarty, NM 87035
Phone: 505-898-8548
Email: info@cape-nm.org
Website: http://www.cape-nm.org/
Event Location: Calvary Chapel,
AlbuquerqueSpeakers:
Chris Klicka, HSLDA; Diana Waring, Diana Waring Presents; Todd Wilson, Familyman Ministries
Other Info: Highlights of the convention include inspirational keynote sessions, outstanding workshops, curriculum exhibitors, a used curriculum sale, Leaders Luncheon, a state-wide Graduation Recognition Ceremony, and a parallel Children's Conference.
COLORADO
Annual New & Used Curriculum Book Sale
May 30, 2008
High Country Home Educators
P.O. Box 62284
Colorado Springs, CO 80962
Phone: (719) 495-5155
Email: Newbergcpa@aol.com
Website: http://www.hche.org/
Event Location: New Life Church; 11025 Voyager Parkway, Colo. Spri
Other Info: Come and buy used curriculum from many homeschool families, plus new products and services from homeschool publishers and businesses. Hours: 10:00-3:00 Admission: $2 for HCSG Members; $3 for non-members. Under 18 are free.
WEST VIRGINIA
2008 CHEWV Conference
May 30-31, 2008
Christian Home Educators of WV
403 Beaver Run Road
Buckhannon, WV 26201
Phone: 877-802-1773
Email: conference@chewv.org
Website: http://chewv.org/
Event Location: MorgantownSignup Deadline: May 16, 2008
Speakers: Kevin Swanson
Other Info: Variety of Workshops available and vendor hall on site. Children and Teen program available at additional cost. High School Graduation and reception for members.
How to Win the Geography Bee
How to Win the Geography Bee
Ever wonder which US state capital, founded as a gold-rush town, is not linked to the rest of its state by roads? Or can you tell which African country borders both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea? How are you at naming the large island country off the east coast of Africa that is one of the world's leading producers of natural vanilla?
If you're curious about such things, you're made for the National Geographic Society's Geography Bee. Our family is a Geo Bee family, and I hope you soon will be too.
At our old farmhouse, we decorate with maps. And I don't just mean I post a nice world map in my dining room on a bulletin board. No, we wallpaper with maps in this house. We have the whole ceiling of our living room papered with old National Geographic maps, two bathrooms covered in maps, and quite a few maps as "wainscoting" in the dining room and all hallways. Basically, any wall without a bookshelf covering it gets the map treatment around here.
My kids weren't surprised when I was eager to find out how homeschoolers could take part in the new Geography Bee. National Geographic, the sponsors of this new competition,were surprised at how many homeschoolers all over the country there were asking about taking part. They'd never even suspected homeschoolers existed as they planned the Bee!
Ever since then homeschoolers have been getting together in groups to have local bees, using this as a great opportunity to expand their geography learning at home.
Homeschool students have been doing really well, too. In 1999, the national winner was 14-year-old homeschooler David Biehl of South Carolina, and 10-year-old homeschooler Mallika Thampy of Missouri also made it to the top-ten finalists nationally. She was the very youngest student to ever make it to the finals. Her brother made it to nationals twice also. In 1998, the second-place national winner was homeschooler John Kizer of Ohio. Last summer John Kizer and David Biehl were part of the US Geography Team of three students that competed internationally in Canada, helping bring in top gold awards for our country against 10 other teams.
Homeschoolers have also been qualifying for state level bees for years - often at a much higher rate than their school counterparts. Last year in Pennsylvania there were eight homeschoolers present at the State Geo Bee out of 100 students, and we certainly don't have 8 percent of the school-age population homeschooling (yet!) in PA.
I just can't imagine homeschooling without the Bee. You might find it enriches your home learning also. And this will happen whether your kids win or just take part for motivation and fun. They'll become more aware of the world, more knowledgeable about why things take place where they do, and more ready to notice and understand the news. The competition aspect helps kids feel more enthusiasm, but winning shouldn't to be the focus of the event. Learning more about the world is what it's all about.
So what do you need to learn about to be ready to take part in the Bee? How can you study and prepare at home? Well, you're going to need to help your kids learn lots more than just states and capitals, which is sadly the extent of some homeschoolers' geography study. Kids need to become active thinkers about the world and the people in it.
Your kids need to be familiar with what geography educators call the five themes of geography: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and regions. That is, first they need to understand where places are located and have good "mental maps" so that they can relate locations to one another. They need to begin to understand how places are unique, what makes a specific country or city or desert or mountain range different from other places, both physically and culturally. They need to think about how people interact with their environment - how they use the materials at hand to create unique buildings, raise crops and animals for food, or develop mineral resources and advanced technology. In short, how people change the place they live in to meet their needs. Then kids need to think about the theme of movement - why and how people move from one place to another, and how ideas and inventions and foods and other products move with them. Finally there's the idea that places can be thought of as being part of different regions, based on whatever criteria are chosen - regions where certain religions flourish, regions where certain crops are grown, regions with deserts, regions with specific industries or mines or types of transportation.
Next kids need to start connecting their geographic knowledge, gradually building up a larger understanding about this complex world of ours. It's not just a matter of memorizing lots of disconnected facts and trivia - it's about relating what you read about in Heidi to a general understanding about the Alps and Europe and where these places are on a map and then to the winter avalanches you just heard about on the news. It's about being an active learner.
The good news is, there are now so many wonderful materials and resources to help your kids get ready for the Bee, and enthused about geography. Here are some favorites of our family and of other homeschoolers who love the Bee:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ Check out this site, and order the GeoBee CD-ROM. This fun CD gives kids actual Geo Bee questions, all in a fast paced lively format. Every now and then special features pop up: map questions, photos from around the world, and a fast-paced lightening round. $39.95. Also ask for the full National Geographic educational catalog. They publish zillions of CD-ROMs, videos, and books, and all are fine quality and engaging. Their website also has interactive Geo Bee questions that change daily, plus a section of lesson plans and ideas for teachers and families.
Social Studies School Service, http://www.socialstudies.com/. Go online to request their full geography catalog, and check out all their sample online lessons and links to related websites. A treasure trove of materials, and most homeschoolers don't know about it. Books, videos, maps, and much more.
Geography Matters, Inc., http://www.geomatters.com/. A real find! Homeschool parents Maggie Hogan and Cindy Wiggers started this company to encourage real geography learning for homeschoolers. Besides great outline maps, they also publish the very useful book The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide. Although the book never mentions the Bee, it does share just the types of on-going family activities and focused lessons that make geography learning fun and meaningful, helping kids retain information and do well on the Bee. The website includes terrific links to other geo sites also, including many that lead to online geography quizzes with questions similar to the Bee.
http://www.dorlingkindersley.com/ This site introduces you to all of the marvelous books in the DK Family Learning library. We've found their world geography CD-ROM programs, atlases, and books to be some of the most helpful resources around for Bee prep. Often when a really obscure geo bee question comes up in our practice times, we head to our DK Geography of the World reference, and there it is - from a photo of the reed homes of the Marsh Arabs, to the causeway linking Bahrain to the Saudi Arabian mainland, to the new Friendship Bridge opening up Laos to the outside world. We often say that we are sure the Geo Bee question makers have this reference book on hand when devising the new questions for each year! Many homeschool families are involved as DK reps. Check out this resource!
library.thinkquest.org/10157 This terrific quiz website was developed by several high school students for the annual ThinkQuest website competition, and I'm positive these kids must have been Bee participants! Has a full range of interactive geography games right on line, really useful for special Bee preparation. Includes links to many other geography sites on the web.
http://www.dis.dpi.state.nd.us/ This is the site for the North Dakota Dept of Public Instruction Division of Independent Study. It's one of the few places to offer a web-based distance course in world geography to middle-school students. My daughter Hannah has been taking this course. Although it is largely text-based, still with lots of supplementation it's a real help and structure for our studies. The program will also soon be offering AP Geography, helping high school students prepare for the new advanced placement exam in this area - so if your Geo Bee kids want more geography learning through high school, you'll be able to find it.
Many people also find that materials from their church on missions abroad are very helpful, as you can gain more understanding of other cultures and their needs. You might especially want to order the terrific catalog from the Mennonite Central Committee, which shares their many free-loan videos on different cultures around the world. Call (717) 859-1151 or email mccresources@mcc.org for your catalog.
Don't ignore one of your best resources around - other homeschool families. Many groups like to get together regularly to prepare for the Bee, often forming geography clubs for playing geo games, sharing research, doing group activities, watching geo videos, making salt-dough maps together, and more. These kids will be really well prepared to enjoy the Bee, as they'll have developed the background and connections to help them understand what the questions are all about. The Bee gives the group a focus and a reason for meeting, helping kids set goals for their own learning.
How to take part in the National Geographic Bee: Guidelines are simple. You must have a minimum of six homeschool students from grades 4 through 8 participating. You can't do a Geo Bee with only one or two students, and getting together with other homeschoolers for the event is part of the fun anyway. Wondering how they came up with that guideline? The very first winner, Jack Staddon, came from a very small Seventh Day Adventist school with only six students total, and the Society felt they couldn't ask homeschoolers to have more students taking part than this school.
The deadline for registering for the Bee is always in mid-October, so start planning now. There is a registration fee of $30 per group. Call (202) 828-6659 or write to the National Geographic Bee, National Geographic Society, 1145 17th ST NW, Washington, DC 20036 for registration forms. Schools and homeschool groups can schedule their local Bee anytime from early December to mid-January. The packet you receive from National Geographic will give you all the guidelines and rules, plus a full booklet of the questions to ask (save that question booklet - makes a great study tool for the following year!).
After seven rounds of oral individual questions, the local finals are held. Now the questions get harder and harder, and for some rounds all students get the same question and write down their answers. Eventually you get to the school-level winner. An Olympic-style medal and special certificate provided by National Geographic are awarded as prizes. In our local group I also like to have simple fun geo prizes for other students too: donated AAA United States maps, dollar store inflatable globes and map puzzles, miniature globes, etc.
The winning student in this group then takes a 70-question written multiple-choice geography test. This is sent off to the National Geographic Society for scoring. The top 100 students in each state and US territory are then invited to take part in their state Bees, which all take place on the same day in early April. If you make it to the state level, you can contact the state coordinator to ask what other homeschoolers will be taking part; that way you can plan to meet at your state Bee, giving each other support and encouragement. One tip here: it's really useful to put "homeschool" somewhere in your group name, instead of just acronyms that don't communicate who your group really is. This will make it easier for other homeschoolers to find you at states, and help the media realize how many homeschoolers are taking part.
At the states there are oral Bee preliminary rounds. Eventually the top ten students are chosen for a final round before the whole audience. For the finals some questions involve maps or photographs, and for some questions all students write answers to the same question to make it more fair. All students making it to the state level receive nice Geographic Bee t-shirts plus nice certificates.
The top state winner heads off to Washington, DC, all expenses paid, for the national Bee, which is held each year at the National Geographic headquarters building. You can buy videos of the finals - they've been favorites around our house for the last several weeks, as Hannah prepares for the PA State Geographic Bee. Call Maryland Public Television (800) 858-8678 for your own videos; they're worth the price. There are major prizes for the finalists. All of the top ten students win a $500 scholarship, and the top three divide $50,000 in college scholarships, and also often win trips to different parts of the world.
Next year I hope your homeschool group opts to take part in the Bee. They'll be part of the more than 5 million kids nationwide who take part, and you'll be encouraging your students to take geography seriously, while having some real fun. Hopefully soon you'll be able to say, along with the National Geographic Society, that your "students seem to be getting the message that they are part of a larger world."
Ever wonder which US state capital, founded as a gold-rush town, is not linked to the rest of its state by roads? Or can you tell which African country borders both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea? How are you at naming the large island country off the east coast of Africa that is one of the world's leading producers of natural vanilla?
If you're curious about such things, you're made for the National Geographic Society's Geography Bee. Our family is a Geo Bee family, and I hope you soon will be too.
At our old farmhouse, we decorate with maps. And I don't just mean I post a nice world map in my dining room on a bulletin board. No, we wallpaper with maps in this house. We have the whole ceiling of our living room papered with old National Geographic maps, two bathrooms covered in maps, and quite a few maps as "wainscoting" in the dining room and all hallways. Basically, any wall without a bookshelf covering it gets the map treatment around here.
My kids weren't surprised when I was eager to find out how homeschoolers could take part in the new Geography Bee. National Geographic, the sponsors of this new competition,were surprised at how many homeschoolers all over the country there were asking about taking part. They'd never even suspected homeschoolers existed as they planned the Bee!
Ever since then homeschoolers have been getting together in groups to have local bees, using this as a great opportunity to expand their geography learning at home.
Homeschool students have been doing really well, too. In 1999, the national winner was 14-year-old homeschooler David Biehl of South Carolina, and 10-year-old homeschooler Mallika Thampy of Missouri also made it to the top-ten finalists nationally. She was the very youngest student to ever make it to the finals. Her brother made it to nationals twice also. In 1998, the second-place national winner was homeschooler John Kizer of Ohio. Last summer John Kizer and David Biehl were part of the US Geography Team of three students that competed internationally in Canada, helping bring in top gold awards for our country against 10 other teams.
Homeschoolers have also been qualifying for state level bees for years - often at a much higher rate than their school counterparts. Last year in Pennsylvania there were eight homeschoolers present at the State Geo Bee out of 100 students, and we certainly don't have 8 percent of the school-age population homeschooling (yet!) in PA.
I just can't imagine homeschooling without the Bee. You might find it enriches your home learning also. And this will happen whether your kids win or just take part for motivation and fun. They'll become more aware of the world, more knowledgeable about why things take place where they do, and more ready to notice and understand the news. The competition aspect helps kids feel more enthusiasm, but winning shouldn't to be the focus of the event. Learning more about the world is what it's all about.
So what do you need to learn about to be ready to take part in the Bee? How can you study and prepare at home? Well, you're going to need to help your kids learn lots more than just states and capitals, which is sadly the extent of some homeschoolers' geography study. Kids need to become active thinkers about the world and the people in it.
Your kids need to be familiar with what geography educators call the five themes of geography: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and regions. That is, first they need to understand where places are located and have good "mental maps" so that they can relate locations to one another. They need to begin to understand how places are unique, what makes a specific country or city or desert or mountain range different from other places, both physically and culturally. They need to think about how people interact with their environment - how they use the materials at hand to create unique buildings, raise crops and animals for food, or develop mineral resources and advanced technology. In short, how people change the place they live in to meet their needs. Then kids need to think about the theme of movement - why and how people move from one place to another, and how ideas and inventions and foods and other products move with them. Finally there's the idea that places can be thought of as being part of different regions, based on whatever criteria are chosen - regions where certain religions flourish, regions where certain crops are grown, regions with deserts, regions with specific industries or mines or types of transportation.
Next kids need to start connecting their geographic knowledge, gradually building up a larger understanding about this complex world of ours. It's not just a matter of memorizing lots of disconnected facts and trivia - it's about relating what you read about in Heidi to a general understanding about the Alps and Europe and where these places are on a map and then to the winter avalanches you just heard about on the news. It's about being an active learner.
The good news is, there are now so many wonderful materials and resources to help your kids get ready for the Bee, and enthused about geography. Here are some favorites of our family and of other homeschoolers who love the Bee:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ Check out this site, and order the GeoBee CD-ROM. This fun CD gives kids actual Geo Bee questions, all in a fast paced lively format. Every now and then special features pop up: map questions, photos from around the world, and a fast-paced lightening round. $39.95. Also ask for the full National Geographic educational catalog. They publish zillions of CD-ROMs, videos, and books, and all are fine quality and engaging. Their website also has interactive Geo Bee questions that change daily, plus a section of lesson plans and ideas for teachers and families.
Social Studies School Service, http://www.socialstudies.com/. Go online to request their full geography catalog, and check out all their sample online lessons and links to related websites. A treasure trove of materials, and most homeschoolers don't know about it. Books, videos, maps, and much more.
Geography Matters, Inc., http://www.geomatters.com/. A real find! Homeschool parents Maggie Hogan and Cindy Wiggers started this company to encourage real geography learning for homeschoolers. Besides great outline maps, they also publish the very useful book The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide. Although the book never mentions the Bee, it does share just the types of on-going family activities and focused lessons that make geography learning fun and meaningful, helping kids retain information and do well on the Bee. The website includes terrific links to other geo sites also, including many that lead to online geography quizzes with questions similar to the Bee.
http://www.dorlingkindersley.com/ This site introduces you to all of the marvelous books in the DK Family Learning library. We've found their world geography CD-ROM programs, atlases, and books to be some of the most helpful resources around for Bee prep. Often when a really obscure geo bee question comes up in our practice times, we head to our DK Geography of the World reference, and there it is - from a photo of the reed homes of the Marsh Arabs, to the causeway linking Bahrain to the Saudi Arabian mainland, to the new Friendship Bridge opening up Laos to the outside world. We often say that we are sure the Geo Bee question makers have this reference book on hand when devising the new questions for each year! Many homeschool families are involved as DK reps. Check out this resource!
library.thinkquest.org/10157 This terrific quiz website was developed by several high school students for the annual ThinkQuest website competition, and I'm positive these kids must have been Bee participants! Has a full range of interactive geography games right on line, really useful for special Bee preparation. Includes links to many other geography sites on the web.
http://www.dis.dpi.state.nd.us/ This is the site for the North Dakota Dept of Public Instruction Division of Independent Study. It's one of the few places to offer a web-based distance course in world geography to middle-school students. My daughter Hannah has been taking this course. Although it is largely text-based, still with lots of supplementation it's a real help and structure for our studies. The program will also soon be offering AP Geography, helping high school students prepare for the new advanced placement exam in this area - so if your Geo Bee kids want more geography learning through high school, you'll be able to find it.
Many people also find that materials from their church on missions abroad are very helpful, as you can gain more understanding of other cultures and their needs. You might especially want to order the terrific catalog from the Mennonite Central Committee, which shares their many free-loan videos on different cultures around the world. Call (717) 859-1151 or email mccresources@mcc.org for your catalog.
Don't ignore one of your best resources around - other homeschool families. Many groups like to get together regularly to prepare for the Bee, often forming geography clubs for playing geo games, sharing research, doing group activities, watching geo videos, making salt-dough maps together, and more. These kids will be really well prepared to enjoy the Bee, as they'll have developed the background and connections to help them understand what the questions are all about. The Bee gives the group a focus and a reason for meeting, helping kids set goals for their own learning.
How to take part in the National Geographic Bee: Guidelines are simple. You must have a minimum of six homeschool students from grades 4 through 8 participating. You can't do a Geo Bee with only one or two students, and getting together with other homeschoolers for the event is part of the fun anyway. Wondering how they came up with that guideline? The very first winner, Jack Staddon, came from a very small Seventh Day Adventist school with only six students total, and the Society felt they couldn't ask homeschoolers to have more students taking part than this school.
The deadline for registering for the Bee is always in mid-October, so start planning now. There is a registration fee of $30 per group. Call (202) 828-6659 or write to the National Geographic Bee, National Geographic Society, 1145 17th ST NW, Washington, DC 20036 for registration forms. Schools and homeschool groups can schedule their local Bee anytime from early December to mid-January. The packet you receive from National Geographic will give you all the guidelines and rules, plus a full booklet of the questions to ask (save that question booklet - makes a great study tool for the following year!).
After seven rounds of oral individual questions, the local finals are held. Now the questions get harder and harder, and for some rounds all students get the same question and write down their answers. Eventually you get to the school-level winner. An Olympic-style medal and special certificate provided by National Geographic are awarded as prizes. In our local group I also like to have simple fun geo prizes for other students too: donated AAA United States maps, dollar store inflatable globes and map puzzles, miniature globes, etc.
The winning student in this group then takes a 70-question written multiple-choice geography test. This is sent off to the National Geographic Society for scoring. The top 100 students in each state and US territory are then invited to take part in their state Bees, which all take place on the same day in early April. If you make it to the state level, you can contact the state coordinator to ask what other homeschoolers will be taking part; that way you can plan to meet at your state Bee, giving each other support and encouragement. One tip here: it's really useful to put "homeschool" somewhere in your group name, instead of just acronyms that don't communicate who your group really is. This will make it easier for other homeschoolers to find you at states, and help the media realize how many homeschoolers are taking part.
At the states there are oral Bee preliminary rounds. Eventually the top ten students are chosen for a final round before the whole audience. For the finals some questions involve maps or photographs, and for some questions all students write answers to the same question to make it more fair. All students making it to the state level receive nice Geographic Bee t-shirts plus nice certificates.
The top state winner heads off to Washington, DC, all expenses paid, for the national Bee, which is held each year at the National Geographic headquarters building. You can buy videos of the finals - they've been favorites around our house for the last several weeks, as Hannah prepares for the PA State Geographic Bee. Call Maryland Public Television (800) 858-8678 for your own videos; they're worth the price. There are major prizes for the finalists. All of the top ten students win a $500 scholarship, and the top three divide $50,000 in college scholarships, and also often win trips to different parts of the world.
Next year I hope your homeschool group opts to take part in the Bee. They'll be part of the more than 5 million kids nationwide who take part, and you'll be encouraging your students to take geography seriously, while having some real fun. Hopefully soon you'll be able to say, along with the National Geographic Society, that your "students seem to be getting the message that they are part of a larger world."
How to Be A Spelling Success
It's never too early to start your son or daughter in the direction of spelling success! And, the ultimate in spelling success is probably participation in the National Spelling Bee sponsored by Scripps Howard.
In the early 90's there were only one or two homeschool students at most in the National Spelling Bee each year. By the 1996 competition, there were fourteen. In 2003, the number of homeschoolers at the National level jumped to thirty-one! These bright and determined students were not only winning their local bees to make it to the Nationals; homeschool students were and are winning the National title. We are proud to salute the following homeschooled National Spelling Champions: Sean Conley , Georgie Thampy, and the first homeschool National Champion, Rebecca Sealfon (1997).
If you have a homeschool student interested in competitive spelling, there are a few things you should know about spelling bee participation, the rules, and how to study.
How Do I Participate?
To become involved, contact the local sponsor who organizes the spelling bee in your area and sends the winner to The National Spelling Bee. Each sponsor signs a contract agreeing to sponsor a spelling bee for all schools in a given area, including, public, parochial, private, and home. Your sponsoring newspaper will direct you to a homeschool association in your area offering their own "School Bee" or to a local school that will invite you to participate in their bee. Participation is open to students up to the 8th grade who are not older than 15.
If you don't know who your sponsor is, a list of participants and the newspapers that they represent is typically posted at http://www.spellingbee.com/, or you can contact Scripps Howard from the same website.
The next thing to do, if you're planning ahead, is to attend a spelling bee. Take your student or her to a bee to observe the mechanics and the level of expertise of the spellers. This is an invaluable learning experience and will often inspire your student to want to compete at the higher rungs of the competition ladder.
Another tool for inspiration is the documentary, Spellbound, which follows the lives of several spellers who worked to hone their skills and participate in the National Bee. This incredible documentary from director Jeff Blitz and producer Sean Welch is a must-see for all "wannabe" spellers.
Getting prepared for your own bee includes purchasing a study booklet, Paideia, from your sponsoring newspaper. The booklet lists 3800+ words, categorized as Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. The list is broken down by topics, such as "War and Peace," "Chemistry," "Famous Words," etc. Each category contains words from each difficulty level. Start your child with only the Beginning words before you advance to the Intermediate level. Many of the Intermediate words are very difficult for young students. The last step is to learn the Advanced words, many of which are esoteric words which your speller has not encountered in his or her reading, and may not ever encounter again. This list includes so many words that your speller may not master the entire list. Do not let this concern you just yet. Your child's first bee most likely will declare a winner without ever going to very difficult words.
If your speller wins, he or she will advance to the next level of bee competition: a school district bee, a homeschool district bee, a county bee, or the area bee that designates a student for the National Spelling Bee in Washington. Your sponsoring newspaper will know the regimen for advancing.
During a bee, the pronouncer initially only says the word to be spelled. Coach your speller to ask questions. A serious speller will ask for parts of speech, definitions, and alternate pronunciations to be certain that he or she is thinking of the right word. If the word is unfamiliar to the speller, the next items to request are other definitions and parts of speech and the word's use in a sentence. The last possibility to trigger a memory of the word is to ask for its origin. For the speller that has studied etymology, this can be extremely helpful. For instance, if the word is derived from, let's say Japanese, the spelling will be pretty predictable as the sound translation follows clear-cut rules and rarely if ever uses the letters l, q, v, x, or y, or the letter c unless followed by h, and words almost always end in either a vowel or the consonant n. Many such simple etymology rules can pull your child through those difficult or unfamiliar words.
Rules
There are two different sets of rules, and each sponsor selects one of the Options, either A or B. These are found at www.spellingbee.com/rules.shtml. Basically, in Option A every student in a bee is given a different word, and the winner must spell two more correct words than the runner-up. This option also includes a ruling that all students in a round are reinstated in the bee if every student in the round misses his or her word. The National Spelling Bee uses this option for conducting its bee. Option B is the original spelling bee scheme. Under this option, every student in the bee is given a unique word until only two students are standing. At this point the rules change, and when one of the two students misses a word, it is given to the other student to correct. To win, a speller must correct his or her opponent's word and spell one additional word. This option is not used at the National Bee level.
No matter which set of rules your bee follows, it is important to understand how each option affects your child's advancement in the bee and the proper ways to contest erroneous judgments.
Where Do They Get the Words?
Winning a spelling bee requires hard work, determination, memorization, and a bit of luck. Approximately 20 percent of the Paideia study list (approximately 700 words) changes annually as a few categories are removed and replaced with new categories. The new study booklet is available in mid-September each year, so summer should be spent learning all the words on the previous year's list. This way, a student has only 700 new words to learn in the fall. After a speller has conquered the booklet, new words become much easier to learn because the speller is working from a broader foundation. Spelling success usually begins after students work with the list for two or three years.
Advanced spelling bees often use the words from the Paideia only for the first rounds, switching to "off-list" or "surprise" words to determine a winner. The later rounds are where your greater knowledge from outside the published list and your luck come into play.
The basis for the National Bee is Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which is available at local libraries, bookstores, or on CD-ROM. Studying the dictionary is a daunting and not recommended task, since it contains over 2,600 pages and 476,000 entries. There are other options available for studying for the words given in the advanced spelling bees. See the resource list.
The Pinnacle: The National Spelling Bee
The highest achievement in spelling bee competition is the National Spelling Bee held in Washington each year in late May or early June. This is a week-long, all-expense paid trip that includes tours, events, and spelling. Here, the winners of their regional or state bees compete for the title of Spelling Bee Champion. Even ESPN gets in on the action and follows the last day of spelling. Most of the National level spellers work for years to achieve this goal. There is only one National Spelling Bee Champion, but every speller that attends is a champion and treated as such at this phenomenal event.
In this forum, skill and knowledge serve spellers well. But, in the final analysis, the last ingredient is luck, as luck governs which speller gets which word. Over 60 percent of the words given at the National Bee have been used before at bees and are on study lists. The other words are often ferreted out from the 476,000+ words in the unabridged dictionary source, and these are not only recondite words, but often from some obscure origin. Not getting one of these "deal-killers" allows a competent speller to advance from one round to the next, up to the top rung.
Preparing for and participating in spelling bees offers a lifetime of rewards. The obvious benefits for studying spelling include dictionary skills, vocabulary enlargement, and a lifetime of respectable spelling. The hidden value of spelling competitions is the boost in confidence, a honed ability in thinking on your feet and speaking before a crowd, lessons in achieving long term goals, and the camaraderie a child feels with the other spellers.
Resources
Resources for learning the Paideia are available from the Scripps website and from Hexco Academic.
Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement. A great companion for the Scripps' Paideia that includes phonetic pronunciations, definitions, and parts of speech for each word. (Hexco)
Spelling Mentor software. This program operates interactively like a skilled coach. It includes phonetic pronunciations, definitions, parts of speech, alternate pronunciations, sentences, and etymology for the words. The software pronounces each word audibly. (Hexco)
Nat's Notes. A collection of 10,000+ words with phonetic part(s) of speech pronunciation(s) and definition(s) for 60 percent. This tome annually has 60+ percent of all the "off-list" words given at National Bees and bees conducted by sponsors sending student to the National Bee. (Hexco)
Downloadable list of words from prior bees. This contains 23,000+ words from prior bees giving: a pronunciation using diacritics, a part of speech, a definition, and a sentence for 43 percent. You'll find a few misspellings. (Scripps)
Spelling Rules Book. A collection of all the spelling rules including conventions and exceptions for applying the rules, an encyclopedic list of Latin and Greek elements with words derived from each, explanations of how to spell words from other languages that have been assimilated into English, and interesting lists of words, such as words with silent first letters, words with peculiar double letters, and words from Roman and Greek mythology. (Hexco)
Etyma Mentor and Etyma Notes. A three-volume set of Basic Latin, Intermediate Latin, and Basic Greek elements with about 175 elements to learn in each. Each element is defined with relationships made to other elements and words are shown using each. The software is interactive to keep a student on task and learning. (Hexco)
Downloadable Dictionary of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Combining Forms. This contains entries from Webster's Third New International Dictionary for elements from various languages with their dictionary entries. (Scripps)
In the early 90's there were only one or two homeschool students at most in the National Spelling Bee each year. By the 1996 competition, there were fourteen. In 2003, the number of homeschoolers at the National level jumped to thirty-one! These bright and determined students were not only winning their local bees to make it to the Nationals; homeschool students were and are winning the National title. We are proud to salute the following homeschooled National Spelling Champions: Sean Conley , Georgie Thampy, and the first homeschool National Champion, Rebecca Sealfon (1997).
If you have a homeschool student interested in competitive spelling, there are a few things you should know about spelling bee participation, the rules, and how to study.
How Do I Participate?
To become involved, contact the local sponsor who organizes the spelling bee in your area and sends the winner to The National Spelling Bee. Each sponsor signs a contract agreeing to sponsor a spelling bee for all schools in a given area, including, public, parochial, private, and home. Your sponsoring newspaper will direct you to a homeschool association in your area offering their own "School Bee" or to a local school that will invite you to participate in their bee. Participation is open to students up to the 8th grade who are not older than 15.
If you don't know who your sponsor is, a list of participants and the newspapers that they represent is typically posted at http://www.spellingbee.com/, or you can contact Scripps Howard from the same website.
The next thing to do, if you're planning ahead, is to attend a spelling bee. Take your student or her to a bee to observe the mechanics and the level of expertise of the spellers. This is an invaluable learning experience and will often inspire your student to want to compete at the higher rungs of the competition ladder.
Another tool for inspiration is the documentary, Spellbound, which follows the lives of several spellers who worked to hone their skills and participate in the National Bee. This incredible documentary from director Jeff Blitz and producer Sean Welch is a must-see for all "wannabe" spellers.
Getting prepared for your own bee includes purchasing a study booklet, Paideia, from your sponsoring newspaper. The booklet lists 3800+ words, categorized as Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced. The list is broken down by topics, such as "War and Peace," "Chemistry," "Famous Words," etc. Each category contains words from each difficulty level. Start your child with only the Beginning words before you advance to the Intermediate level. Many of the Intermediate words are very difficult for young students. The last step is to learn the Advanced words, many of which are esoteric words which your speller has not encountered in his or her reading, and may not ever encounter again. This list includes so many words that your speller may not master the entire list. Do not let this concern you just yet. Your child's first bee most likely will declare a winner without ever going to very difficult words.
If your speller wins, he or she will advance to the next level of bee competition: a school district bee, a homeschool district bee, a county bee, or the area bee that designates a student for the National Spelling Bee in Washington. Your sponsoring newspaper will know the regimen for advancing.
During a bee, the pronouncer initially only says the word to be spelled. Coach your speller to ask questions. A serious speller will ask for parts of speech, definitions, and alternate pronunciations to be certain that he or she is thinking of the right word. If the word is unfamiliar to the speller, the next items to request are other definitions and parts of speech and the word's use in a sentence. The last possibility to trigger a memory of the word is to ask for its origin. For the speller that has studied etymology, this can be extremely helpful. For instance, if the word is derived from, let's say Japanese, the spelling will be pretty predictable as the sound translation follows clear-cut rules and rarely if ever uses the letters l, q, v, x, or y, or the letter c unless followed by h, and words almost always end in either a vowel or the consonant n. Many such simple etymology rules can pull your child through those difficult or unfamiliar words.
Rules
There are two different sets of rules, and each sponsor selects one of the Options, either A or B. These are found at www.spellingbee.com/rules.shtml. Basically, in Option A every student in a bee is given a different word, and the winner must spell two more correct words than the runner-up. This option also includes a ruling that all students in a round are reinstated in the bee if every student in the round misses his or her word. The National Spelling Bee uses this option for conducting its bee. Option B is the original spelling bee scheme. Under this option, every student in the bee is given a unique word until only two students are standing. At this point the rules change, and when one of the two students misses a word, it is given to the other student to correct. To win, a speller must correct his or her opponent's word and spell one additional word. This option is not used at the National Bee level.
No matter which set of rules your bee follows, it is important to understand how each option affects your child's advancement in the bee and the proper ways to contest erroneous judgments.
Where Do They Get the Words?
Winning a spelling bee requires hard work, determination, memorization, and a bit of luck. Approximately 20 percent of the Paideia study list (approximately 700 words) changes annually as a few categories are removed and replaced with new categories. The new study booklet is available in mid-September each year, so summer should be spent learning all the words on the previous year's list. This way, a student has only 700 new words to learn in the fall. After a speller has conquered the booklet, new words become much easier to learn because the speller is working from a broader foundation. Spelling success usually begins after students work with the list for two or three years.
Advanced spelling bees often use the words from the Paideia only for the first rounds, switching to "off-list" or "surprise" words to determine a winner. The later rounds are where your greater knowledge from outside the published list and your luck come into play.
The basis for the National Bee is Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which is available at local libraries, bookstores, or on CD-ROM. Studying the dictionary is a daunting and not recommended task, since it contains over 2,600 pages and 476,000 entries. There are other options available for studying for the words given in the advanced spelling bees. See the resource list.
The Pinnacle: The National Spelling Bee
The highest achievement in spelling bee competition is the National Spelling Bee held in Washington each year in late May or early June. This is a week-long, all-expense paid trip that includes tours, events, and spelling. Here, the winners of their regional or state bees compete for the title of Spelling Bee Champion. Even ESPN gets in on the action and follows the last day of spelling. Most of the National level spellers work for years to achieve this goal. There is only one National Spelling Bee Champion, but every speller that attends is a champion and treated as such at this phenomenal event.
In this forum, skill and knowledge serve spellers well. But, in the final analysis, the last ingredient is luck, as luck governs which speller gets which word. Over 60 percent of the words given at the National Bee have been used before at bees and are on study lists. The other words are often ferreted out from the 476,000+ words in the unabridged dictionary source, and these are not only recondite words, but often from some obscure origin. Not getting one of these "deal-killers" allows a competent speller to advance from one round to the next, up to the top rung.
Preparing for and participating in spelling bees offers a lifetime of rewards. The obvious benefits for studying spelling include dictionary skills, vocabulary enlargement, and a lifetime of respectable spelling. The hidden value of spelling competitions is the boost in confidence, a honed ability in thinking on your feet and speaking before a crowd, lessons in achieving long term goals, and the camaraderie a child feels with the other spellers.
Resources
Resources for learning the Paideia are available from the Scripps website and from Hexco Academic.
Valerie's Spelling Bee Supplement. A great companion for the Scripps' Paideia that includes phonetic pronunciations, definitions, and parts of speech for each word. (Hexco)
Spelling Mentor software. This program operates interactively like a skilled coach. It includes phonetic pronunciations, definitions, parts of speech, alternate pronunciations, sentences, and etymology for the words. The software pronounces each word audibly. (Hexco)
Nat's Notes. A collection of 10,000+ words with phonetic part(s) of speech pronunciation(s) and definition(s) for 60 percent. This tome annually has 60+ percent of all the "off-list" words given at National Bees and bees conducted by sponsors sending student to the National Bee. (Hexco)
Downloadable list of words from prior bees. This contains 23,000+ words from prior bees giving: a pronunciation using diacritics, a part of speech, a definition, and a sentence for 43 percent. You'll find a few misspellings. (Scripps)
Spelling Rules Book. A collection of all the spelling rules including conventions and exceptions for applying the rules, an encyclopedic list of Latin and Greek elements with words derived from each, explanations of how to spell words from other languages that have been assimilated into English, and interesting lists of words, such as words with silent first letters, words with peculiar double letters, and words from Roman and Greek mythology. (Hexco)
Etyma Mentor and Etyma Notes. A three-volume set of Basic Latin, Intermediate Latin, and Basic Greek elements with about 175 elements to learn in each. Each element is defined with relationships made to other elements and words are shown using each. The software is interactive to keep a student on task and learning. (Hexco)
Downloadable Dictionary of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Combining Forms. This contains entries from Webster's Third New International Dictionary for elements from various languages with their dictionary entries. (Scripps)
Bee All that You Can Bee
Bee All You Can Bee
This certainly is turning out to be a great year for homeschoolers in academic competitions!
Vocabulary Whiz
First, on March 5, part-time homeschoooler Robert Marsland swept the field to win the first-ever GSN National Vocabulary Championship. This garnered him $40,000 towards his college education. (A one-hour special featuring highlights of the competition was aired later in the year, on April 15.)
Although the competition site lists Robert's school as "St. Ambrose Academy," this is only part of the story. Robert was homeschooling through the eighth grade, and continued taking Scholars Online courses in Greek, Latin, and Literature after that.
For more about Robert and the competition, check this out: http://www.winwithwords.com/
Super Scientist
On May 18, 16-year-old homeschooler Philip Streich won a $50,000 scholarship as one of the "best of the best" in this year's Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (the Intel ISEF), garnering one of the three Intel Foundation Young Scientist awards.
Philip did this with his amazing word demonistrating that carbon nanotubes are thermodynamically stable. To prove his point, he invented and built his own lab equipment, which measures scattered photons better than the equipment sold to labs!
You can see the story, plus a video interview, here:http://www.cogito.org/Articles/ArticleDetail.aspx?ContentID=16675
Female Geo Bee Star
On May 23, 14-year-old homeschooler Caitlin Snaring became the first girl in 17 years to win the National Geographic Bee. Amazingly, it was her first shot at the competition. Read more about it (and see a photo of Caitlin) here:http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3204969&page=1
Spelling Bee Champion
Finally, on May 31, 13-year-old homeschooler Evan O'Dorney was the fourth homeschooler (since 1997) to take home the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy. It comes with $35,000 cash, a $5,000 college scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond, and assorted goodies. Evan is pretty good at another school subject, too. Check out this story:http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/S/SPELLING_BEE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
How to Win
Wonder why homeschooled kids keep doing so well in these and similar competitions, year after year? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments!
Why can't the general public understand what all homeschool parents already know?
This certainly is turning out to be a great year for homeschoolers in academic competitions!
Vocabulary Whiz
First, on March 5, part-time homeschoooler Robert Marsland swept the field to win the first-ever GSN National Vocabulary Championship. This garnered him $40,000 towards his college education. (A one-hour special featuring highlights of the competition was aired later in the year, on April 15.)
Although the competition site lists Robert's school as "St. Ambrose Academy," this is only part of the story. Robert was homeschooling through the eighth grade, and continued taking Scholars Online courses in Greek, Latin, and Literature after that.
For more about Robert and the competition, check this out: http://www.winwithwords.com/
Super Scientist
On May 18, 16-year-old homeschooler Philip Streich won a $50,000 scholarship as one of the "best of the best" in this year's Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (the Intel ISEF), garnering one of the three Intel Foundation Young Scientist awards.
Philip did this with his amazing word demonistrating that carbon nanotubes are thermodynamically stable. To prove his point, he invented and built his own lab equipment, which measures scattered photons better than the equipment sold to labs!
You can see the story, plus a video interview, here:http://www.cogito.org/Articles/ArticleDetail.aspx?ContentID=16675
Female Geo Bee Star
On May 23, 14-year-old homeschooler Caitlin Snaring became the first girl in 17 years to win the National Geographic Bee. Amazingly, it was her first shot at the competition. Read more about it (and see a photo of Caitlin) here:http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3204969&page=1
Spelling Bee Champion
Finally, on May 31, 13-year-old homeschooler Evan O'Dorney was the fourth homeschooler (since 1997) to take home the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee trophy. It comes with $35,000 cash, a $5,000 college scholarship, a $2,500 savings bond, and assorted goodies. Evan is pretty good at another school subject, too. Check out this story:http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/S/SPELLING_BEE?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
How to Win
Wonder why homeschooled kids keep doing so well in these and similar competitions, year after year? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments!
Why can't the general public understand what all homeschool parents already know?
Just One of the Reasons to Homeschool
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that a hate music company with links to neo-Nazi and skinhead groups plans to distribute 100,000 "sampler CDs" at schools across the United States in the coming weeks, in an effort to attract young people to the music and ideology of neo-Nazi bands.
The ADL, which tracks the activities of extremists and reports its findings to law enforcement and the public, has been alerting school districts across the country to the planned CD distribution effort, dubbed "Operation Schoolyard USA" by its organizers.
Spearheaded by Panzerfaust Records, a neo-Nazi music label based in Newport, Minnesota, the distribution campaign will target schools with sampler CDs of songs by various white power bands whose music is filled with racist and anti-Semitic themes.
The record company plans to draw on a network of "volunteers" from various white supremacist groups to help distribute the CDs at schools across the country. The target audience, according to Panzerfaust, is middle and high school children ages 13 to 19.
"Once again, the hate groups are finding ways to repackage their old-fashioned hatred and anti-Semitism into new, more deceptively attractive forms that can appeal to a younger audience," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director in a press release. "Instead of handing out leaflets on street corners, they are creating video games and CDs and Web sites whose aim is to attract children by at first concealing their real agenda and message."
Since first learning of the campaign several weeks ago, ADL has been working to notify school officials of the Panzerfaust campaign. In addition, ADL has published on its Web site visuals and information on hate music and an "Educator Alert" to help school officials, parents and caregivers better identify the symbols and warning signs commonly associated with hate music.
"Panzerfaust has intentionally designed its CDs to lure unsuspecting teens with a free giveaway that has the appearance of being just another free compilation of cutting edge music," said Mr. Foxman. "In reality it is a thinly veiled attempt to attract kids to hateful, racist music and white power bands."
In a bulletin to national school officials, ADL explained the campaign's goals: "Panzerfaust hopes to use the hard-driving music to recruit youth to its racist and anti-Semitic ideology, and plans to make the CD readily available on its Web site for just 15 cents, so that white supremacist groups can easily purchase large quantities to hand out to kids. In hopes of disguising the content of the CD, Panzerfaust points out that it has been designed "to be …inconspicuous and not overtly racial… so that it will be able to fly below the radar screen of teachers and other people…."
And school districts have the nerve to tell us that we are "not socializing our homeschoolers enough", my response to that is Thank You Lord! I do not want my children socialized with this type of information.
Let's face it, school systems can no longer protect our children from gunman, so why in the world would they think they could protect them from this type of hate. I home school my children because of my religion, I believe God expects us to teach our children. I pray for the salvation of the millions and millions of public educated children who are subjected to this form of "free speech" and politics. It is time that the world take a look at the public educated child and see that sometimes they grow up to be scary people. They are taught this in school. It comes from material just like this being crammed down their throats, while the school systems and their parents stand idly by and protect "freedom of speech". I don't think our forefathers ever thought our children would ever be subjected to this hate. What's worse, teachers who are Christians, can't tell their students that this is not what "God wants for us", but the Nazi hatemongers can tell them to hate and kill and that's OK.
Something doesn't smell right here people, Satan has hold of this world, and I don't think he plans on letting go anytime soon. But for the mass population, that seems to be OK, because no one is fighting back.
Your thoughts Christians?
The ADL, which tracks the activities of extremists and reports its findings to law enforcement and the public, has been alerting school districts across the country to the planned CD distribution effort, dubbed "Operation Schoolyard USA" by its organizers.
Spearheaded by Panzerfaust Records, a neo-Nazi music label based in Newport, Minnesota, the distribution campaign will target schools with sampler CDs of songs by various white power bands whose music is filled with racist and anti-Semitic themes.
The record company plans to draw on a network of "volunteers" from various white supremacist groups to help distribute the CDs at schools across the country. The target audience, according to Panzerfaust, is middle and high school children ages 13 to 19.
"Once again, the hate groups are finding ways to repackage their old-fashioned hatred and anti-Semitism into new, more deceptively attractive forms that can appeal to a younger audience," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director in a press release. "Instead of handing out leaflets on street corners, they are creating video games and CDs and Web sites whose aim is to attract children by at first concealing their real agenda and message."
Since first learning of the campaign several weeks ago, ADL has been working to notify school officials of the Panzerfaust campaign. In addition, ADL has published on its Web site visuals and information on hate music and an "Educator Alert" to help school officials, parents and caregivers better identify the symbols and warning signs commonly associated with hate music.
"Panzerfaust has intentionally designed its CDs to lure unsuspecting teens with a free giveaway that has the appearance of being just another free compilation of cutting edge music," said Mr. Foxman. "In reality it is a thinly veiled attempt to attract kids to hateful, racist music and white power bands."
In a bulletin to national school officials, ADL explained the campaign's goals: "Panzerfaust hopes to use the hard-driving music to recruit youth to its racist and anti-Semitic ideology, and plans to make the CD readily available on its Web site for just 15 cents, so that white supremacist groups can easily purchase large quantities to hand out to kids. In hopes of disguising the content of the CD, Panzerfaust points out that it has been designed "to be …inconspicuous and not overtly racial… so that it will be able to fly below the radar screen of teachers and other people…."
And school districts have the nerve to tell us that we are "not socializing our homeschoolers enough", my response to that is Thank You Lord! I do not want my children socialized with this type of information.
Let's face it, school systems can no longer protect our children from gunman, so why in the world would they think they could protect them from this type of hate. I home school my children because of my religion, I believe God expects us to teach our children. I pray for the salvation of the millions and millions of public educated children who are subjected to this form of "free speech" and politics. It is time that the world take a look at the public educated child and see that sometimes they grow up to be scary people. They are taught this in school. It comes from material just like this being crammed down their throats, while the school systems and their parents stand idly by and protect "freedom of speech". I don't think our forefathers ever thought our children would ever be subjected to this hate. What's worse, teachers who are Christians, can't tell their students that this is not what "God wants for us", but the Nazi hatemongers can tell them to hate and kill and that's OK.
Something doesn't smell right here people, Satan has hold of this world, and I don't think he plans on letting go anytime soon. But for the mass population, that seems to be OK, because no one is fighting back.
Your thoughts Christians?
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