New Zealand Home Schooling

Dodging the Homeschool Stereotype

admin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:51:22 +0000

http://www.beliefnet.com/Love-Family/2000/09/Dodging-The-Homeschool-Stereotype.aspx

Shining a light — literally — on diabetes

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:54:32 +0000

Interesting news, for me at least, since my daughter has type 1 diabetes.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/glucose-monitor-0809.html

These guys are using raman spectroscopy to non-invasively measure blood-sugar levels e.g. injecting not necessary.

Unfortunately the technique does not measure the blood sugar directly, but instead measures sugar levels within the institial fluid just below the skin. This is less than ideal since sugar levels in interstitial fluid time-lag the levels in the blood. To get around this problem, they measure the rate at which glucose diffuses into the interstitial fluid. Sounds like differential equations, so learn your maths kids!!!!

Thought 4 the day

admin — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:00:26 +0000

Educating your children is not something that can be done in a day. Rather, it takes many years of constant input and training to obtain the smarts.

The best way to gradually accumulate knowledge is to do something every day (and or course have a [sun]-day of rest each week) and the most efficient way of gradually accumulating knowledge is to have a strong routine. Yes, hard as that can often be, routines work well and discipline pays off. No pain, no gain, as the saying goes.

We start at 8am each morning. Bible/theology reading comes first, followed by music practice, followed by 50 minutes of maths, and so on.

SchoolExpress have some nice PDF worksheets

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:32:08 +0000

If you go to this page and scroll down to Science Thematic Units, you should find five free modules. These are short; they would probably provide Jonny or Jane with an hour or two of learning fun!

– animal migration
– bats
– birds of the sea
– butterflies and moths
– electricity

I should note that they have many other modules available for about $2 USD each.

Enjoy!

iPad in New Zealand 23rd July 2010

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:10:29 +0000

According to MacRumors.com, the iPad is going to be released in New Zealand on July 23rd 2010.

Yippee!!!

All I need now is some ca$h.

Mathsbuddy — looks really good, but too expensive for us :-(

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:44:41 +0000

http://www.mathsbuddy.co.nz/

Research Exercise — Why do cats purr?

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:02:11 +0000

Our kitten-cat doesn’t generally purr. But if he has been outside in the cold, then he comes inside, the purring seems to start immediately. This seems to be a repeatable event.

So, why do cats purr? What is the mechanism that generates the motor-like purring sound? What is vibrating inside the cat to cause the sound? Is it synchronized to the cat breathing, or is it unrelated to breathing?

Well, hop to it then … and remember: Cats purrfur Chef !

Meeooouuuwww……

Excellent article for fathers to read

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:31:49 +0000

Training Your Children to Manage Money

“In the days of the Klondike gold rush, two miners struck a huge deposit. Feverishly excited, they unearthed more and more gold each day. Meanwhile they neglected to store up provisions for the winter. Then came the first blizzard. Nearly frozen, one scrawled a shaky note explaining their predicament. Months later a prospecting party discovered the note, along with two frozen bodies lying on top of a huge pile of gold.”

Curriculum Samples

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:43:29 +0000

These are not really aimed at home use, but rather for churches of a reasonable size.

From the preacher extraordinaire Dr. John Piper.

http://childrendesiringgod.org/curriculum/samples.php

Enjoy!

Materials — it keeps getting easier

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:49:50 +0000

The times, they are a changin’ (thanks for that line Bob!). Yes, resources that home educators can use are getting easier and easier to access every day.

They state: “Curriculum Concepts (http://www.curriculumconcepts.co.nz) is a provider of educational resources across all New Zealand curriculum areas for preschool to Year 9 (Age 13) students plus special needs, adult students in literacy and numeracy and English speakers of other languages.”

Curriculum Concepts offer a couple of free catalogues on this page, as well as a huge number of books that you can buy online. Looks like they also offer eBooks (electronic books that is). And if you get on their mailing list, you get offered specials and free stuff!!!

Educational teaching resources – teachers, parents – primary secondary adult – Curriculum Concepts, RIC Publications, Ready-Ed Publications

Enjoy.