Here's some top carnival attractions:
- I'm most intrigued by The 2009 Mathematics Game at Let's Play Math. This would be a great challenge for your top students, or for yourself. It reminds me of a challenge a student gave me last year: use eight 8's to make 1000. I was stumped on that one for a while (if you figure it out, leave a comment!).
- Dawn at Day by Day Discoveries wonders if textbooks have any place in homeschooling. I hope she reads this: many of us on the other side believe most textbooks have no place in public schools! Throughout my teaching career, textbooks have done little more than take up space in the classroom. The last math text I used (Holt Algebra I) had great supplemental materials (student workbooks, graphic organizers and more) that I still include when I build custom materials. I just wish the books themselves were more useful!
- I guess I'm so fascinated by the idea of homeschooling because it speaks to so many of the issues that bug me about public schools. So much of what we teach and how we teach it is disconnected from the real world (by design). In addition, I often feel like my school is trying to fit some sort of stereotype of what charter schools are supposed to be, instead of really building things around the needs of our unique population. That's why Non-Traditional Learning: In Other Words, Homeschooling really got my attention--everything this family has built keeps their kids engaged and learning at all times.
2 comments:
We unschooled our two daughters until last year(4th Grade). Really changed the way I taught after experiencing "education" through a different lense.
I did read this! :)
Believe me, I know most of the textbooks out there are junk. Most are burdens and bores and that schools get saddled with them is a sin. But some I love. Sometimes because they have neat pictures that the kids love to browse and sometimes because they're a joyful guide through an unfamiliar subject. Textbooks are a genre and to me, like most genres there's a heaping pile of stinkers but a few gems.
But then I don't use texts like a school would. With the exception of Singapore math they go on the puzzle book shelf or in the reference section on our bookshelves. And I can pick and choose so that the classic 60 year algebra text (that I haven't bought yet) will be chosen over the newest edition of some publisher's committee-assembled crap.
Regardless, for all my love of the good ones math is the only subject we really use one regularily for. I have great history and science texts but we generally rely on living books and such.
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