Leaping From The Box

I was tagged by Sandra to list seven interesting things about me. Since I was tagged here at my LeapingFromTheBox blog, I will try to keep the seven items related in some way to learning/education. And maybe I will go the more personal route on my Musings, Mischief and Mayhem blog later.

1. I started out at college studying to be a history teacher, but quickly decided that teaching was not for me. Isn’t it ironic that I become a homeschooling parent?

2. I don’t really enjoy website building, html coding. I find the whole technical aspect of it extremely stressful. Yet I enjoy writing about our experiences, reviewing resources and sharing that information on the web. And I love tinkering with the layouts, finding what is visually pleasing, as you can tell from the fact that the theme of this blog just changed again!

3. I love the hunt of finding new resources, which has been both a blessing and a curse in our homeschooling journey. A blessing because I often stumble onto things that either my own family can use or that turns out to be useful for a fellow homeschooler. A curse because I can easily go overboard, overwhelming everyone with the options I find and stressing the budget with the choices I purchase.

4. I began the LeapingFromTheBox.com website because I was continually answering emails about homeschooling. I thought if I put my knowledge and information online, then people wouldn’t send me emails. Of course, they still send me emails, but at least now I can usually just redirect them to the appropriate pages on my site for answers.

5. Homeschooling math has always been a challenge for me. It is a subject that I always feel is just slightly out of my grasp, like grabbing a fistful of Jello. Just when you feel you have a handle on it, it goes squishing away again. I would like to know more about it, it fascinates me, yet I am not sure I really have the brain for it. It may be one of those subjects that I will always regret not understanding more.

6. I never even tried homeschooling science. Over the years I provided a lot of resources, we gardened, grew plants indoors, had pets, watched NOVA and read a lot of science books, but I never tried to teach science. I let my middle child make any scientific explanations that were needed, as his level of science comprehension exceeded mine at about age three. I know science information by rote, from what I learned in school, but I will never understand it at any level.

7. I will consider myself an unschooler even when I no longer have children being homeschooled. Once an unschooler, always an unschooler.

I am supposed to tag seven people, but I guess I will just let you tag yourself. If you blog this meme after reading it here, please leave me a comment with a link!

This is a great year to be studying American Civics! The Republican Presidential race is wide open. The Democratic Presidential contenders are making history. However you look at it, this is one of the most interesting presidential races we have ever seen. And if your teen is like my teen, he/she is interested in the campaign and full of questions. We are seeing a ratcheting up of campaigning here in Florida as our primary is coming up next week, Tuesday, January 29.

One Homeschool Chat parent last Friday asked for some websites that she could incorporated in their studies this year. Already she and her daughter have joined one of the local presidential campaigns, which is a great way to get a first-hand look at politics in action.

Here are some sites that would be useful for a Civics Unit Study.

NationsStates was a favorite of ours several years ago and I was glad to see that it was still up and running. NationStates is a simulation game where you build a nation and run that nation according to your own political beliefs. Do you want to be a benevolent dictator? Or maybe create a totally democatratic nation. The choice is yours! The novel Jennifer Government by Max Barry inspired this game. I wanted to read this book when we played the game previously and now I have added it to my wish list on PaperbackSwap. Check out NationStates. I will bet you have as much fun as we did creating your own nation!

Congress for Kids
Interactive experience designed to help you learn about the foundation of our federal government and how its actions affect you.

Post from Jurisdynamics blog. Constitutional curiosities: a 21-question scavenger hunt. This is definitely for older students. If you or your teen likes scavenger hunts and/or research, this looks fun.

Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
If maps are your thing, or your child is very visually-oriented, this is a cool site!

The BBHQ Great American Civics Quiz
Even though the site is “Baby Boomers Headquarters” the quiz is great for anyone.

PBS The Democracy Project
Be President for a Day, Step inside the Voting Booth.

HistoryCentral.com’s United States Presidential Elections. Learn about every Presidential Election. They are currently the 2008 election and the site is updated daily. So a great way to keep track of whom is winning where.

Project Vote Smart
Find your local representative, learn his voting record. Be an informed voter.

If you would like links to the official parties and other government websites, visit my article Using Computers as You Homeschool. While this was written a few years ago, detailing how my children used computers and the Internet in their homeschooling (unschooling), the links are all still great links and you might even like the article!

Happy Voting!

We made the trek to Evansville and back home today to bring David home for Spring Break, a 600-mile round trip. We are getting the trip down pretty good, this time only taking 11.5 hours and that included two gas stops, one meal, picking up David at the college, and four potty stops at rest areas! Boy, am I sore, though. I cannot ride nearly as well for long periods of time as I could in my younger days. I remember a time, not all that long ago, when going non-stop from NY to AL was fun, only 18 hours! Not anymore!

I do like traveling, though. I always have. There is something about hitting the road with a long trip planned that is just very exciting and also relaxing at the same time. One of the things I enjoy most about traveling is seeing all the different place names and trying to figure out why they were given that particular name. Some are named for people, some are Indian names, some are named to remind immigrants of places in their homeland, and some seem to be descriptive names, but it is not always clear which is which. For instance the Elk River in Tennessee. Now I am pretty sure there are no elk in southern Tennessee and that there were no elk there two hundred years ago when the river was named. So did someone think they saw an elk? Or was that someone’s last name? Or did Elk just sound similar to what the Indians called that river and so the settlers called it Elk?

Then there is the Cumberland River that runs through Nashville. Why is it called Cumberland and just what is the origin of the word cumberland? I am going to have to look that one up because it has intrigued me all day long.

Clarksville (Tennessee) is an easy one. It was named for General George Rogers Clark, a frontier fighter and Revolutionary War hero. He was also the older brother of William Clark, of Lewis & Clark fame.

Now Paducah (Kentucky) is another one that I will have to look up. I imagine it is an Indian derivation, but I would love to know for sure.

Just a few of the thoughts that absorbed my mind today as we drove the many miles. And best of all, David is now home and we all get to enjoy his company for a week! And then next Sunday make the same trek all over again!