Yes, I know that “destressifying” isn’t a word.  I just made it up. (Hmm…maybe I should trademark it!) And by the way, does the guy in this picture not look like the most destressified person you’ve ever seen?  :)

In any case, today I am featuring a guest post by Aaron Schulman, who gave us advice a few months ago on how to find low-cost (and free) music resources online.  Today he is offering advice on how to make your travel plans less stressful – which in turn should make them more enjoyable!  I encourage you to not only read this post, but consider bookmarking it or printing it out so you have it handy for your next vacation!

One of the great advantages of homeschooling is that you may experience more diversity in your choices for educational and family travel. One of the possible disadvantages is that you may not always be able to benefit from the savings and added safety of group travel, unless you can join a homeschool travel group or condominium travel club.

As the old saying goes, it’s always better to be safe than to be sorry, and when traveling or going on a vacation alone, or with your family, or even with a homeschool travel group this rule certainly applies. Many people don’t realize how important it is to plan ahead before traveling until they get stuck in a difficult “unexpected ” situation with no idea how to get out of it. To avoid something like this happening to you, here is a starter-list of what you could be doing before going on a journey.

1. Have a friend or a relative check up on your home regularly. An empty apartment or house is the perfect target for thieves and if they realize you are away they won’t think twice before trying to break in and get their hands on some free stuff.

2. Never use social media sites to advertise the fact that you are going away for a longer period of time because that’s like sending burglars an open invitation. The truth is that potentially one of the people that you have listed as friends on these sites are not necessarily “friends.” If you are in a small social network online and trust everyone associated as a “friend,” don’t put too much confidence in your privacy settings for your posts because technology can experience glitches, and some settings may be overlooked, allowing unwanted readers to be informed of your vacant home.

3. A nice and simple way to keep your home “apparently” secure while you are gone is to use a timer for your lights and set it to turn them on at preset intervals to make it look like the house is not empty. Some outside lights with motion sensors can also help you with added protection.

4. Before you go, ask a friend to pick up and keep your mail for you on a daily basis. You can also go directly to the postal office and ask them to hold anything that you receive.

5. If you are going on vacation, start making a list of everything that you need several weeks before leaving. Include all the essential stuff that you need on the road and everything that you need when you get to your destination. Keep the list close and every time you remember something, write it down.

6. Before you leave, make sure you remove everything that might spoil from your freezer to avoid the hassle of cleaning it when you get back. However, it’s not a bad idea to freeze some food for when you return because you might be tired and cooking will be the last thing you’ll want to do. Additionally, you can save a little money and use up some items in your fridge by having leftovers the last few nights before you leave for vacation.

7. Leave a list with all the places that you will be visiting and all the hotels that you will be staying at so that your relatives can reach you in case of an emergency. Make sure you also leave the respective phone numbers and any other necessary information. You may even want to purchase an inexpensive pre-paid cellular phone as a backup. Many of these sell for $20 or $20 and come with minutes already packaged.

8. Check the weather forecast and prepare ahead. If sudden weather changes are to be expected you should pack some extra clothes and appropriate footwear. Also get additional provisions to be used in the eventuality of delays.

9. Have copies of all your important documents on you so that you are able to use them in case of an emergency. It is best to take care of all the travel arrangements several weeks before the departure date so that you are able to modify aspects with which you are not satisfied.

10. If you are taking any necessary medications, make sure you have enough of them before leaving. You certainly want to avoid running out of them while you are still on vacation. You can even pack a little extra just in case of delays on your return date.

11. Make sure you have the medical background or health information of the entire group (if necessary). If anyone coming with you suffers from a medical condition or has a medication allergy, you must be able to provide this information to the emergency care provider if and when needed.

12. Last but definitely not least, pack a simple first aid kit because it can save lives. You never know what can happen and you might even use it to help others that are not in your group.

If you follow these simple instructions and plan ahead accordingly, you should be able to successfully handle most situations that you might encounter on your journey. You can also avoid a lot of nuisances that are usually caused by poor, last minute decisions. Although this is not an exhaustive list for preparation, you can easily use this to get started and add any additional custom items through personal research or experience.

P.S. Anne here…you know I couldn’t go without adding my two cents! I highly recommend #5 above, i.e. I heartily agree that you should make a list of all the various items you will need while traveling. I always do this. Items that are easy to forget are things like clothing accessories (such as belts or jewelry) or nightwear (such as pj’s, bathrobes, slippers, etc.)  I know that these days there’s all kinds of advice about how to travel “light.”  Frankly, traveling with a family, I’d rather travel heavy…what I mean is I’d rather everyone have an extra outfit or two rather than to find out that we’ve been offered an unexpected opportunity to attend a special event but no one has a decent thing to wear.  And it’s especially important if you’re traveling with infants or toddlers to bring along extra outfits! (You know what I mean!)

One last tip: if you are going to be driving your own vehicle for your trip, get it into your mechanic ahead of time.  Have them change the oil (if needed) and do a “trip check.”  This should include checking all the belts and hoses, fluids, brakes and tires, etc.  Not only will it save you a breakdown on the road (been there, done that, not fun) but they might even find something that could save you a more expensive repair.

So now, hit the road and make some memories!

About the author: Aaron Schulman is a web developer and homeschool parent who enjoys cooking, learning, traveling with his family and writing reviews on various topics, like the Baby Taylor travel guitar. One recent editorial he wrote covers how economic changes in the travel industry have led to great travel savings through concepts such as timeshare alternatives. You can read more about him at his site, Aimadvantage.com.

The following is a guest post by Aaron Schulman.   Aaron and his wife Jen are homeschooling parents. Aaron has been an avid guitar player, teacher, writer and enthusiast since 1990, writing and maintaining several acoustic guitar reviews on his site, Strumviews.com to help people find the right guitar for their purposes. He has recently written a thorough review on finding the best guitars for kids, in order to educate parents on the difference between toys, junk budget guitars, and a true instrument upon which a child can learn and grow musically with confidence.

Many home school parents choose to homeschool their children for significant reasons:

• Having more influence on their child’s early years of development
• Instilling their foundational beliefs and family values
• Helping their children develop under their loving care
• Believing they can offer a better, safer education through critical development years
• Being a better “gate-keeper” on their early social influences and more.

For these two homeschooling parents, we chose to home school our child after 5th grade because we believed it was the best direction for her to develop in a safe environment (among many other personal reasons not listed above). We simply knew it was the right time and the best thing to do for our daughter.

Among the many challenges of finding the right curricula and programs to fulfill a child’s home school and state education requirements is the often daunting task of helping them to develop an appreciation for “extra-curricular” activities, including sports, the arts, and music appreciation. In addition to the task of playing principal, teacher, curricula developer, provider and parent, home school parents often operate on limited resources when looking to round out their child’s education. Often times, parents make a decision to sacrifice a second income in order to make the more important investment in their children’s development.

With this simple little guide, we have developed some common sense steps to help you in the online search for your free or low-cost music education for your child. While we don’t give away resources for particular lessons, we are sharing some methodologies to help you find great resources (from a home school parent, guitar and music performer and teacher, and former licensed public school educator). Whether you are looking to help your child explore general music, excellent choral and voice development, or you desire to help your child become the best beginner acoustic guitar player he or she can be, there are some simple guidelines to consider when searching for resources.

Tip #1: Do you have an exit strategy?

Being aware of future possible music scenarios with your child:

While looking online for great resources to train and teach your children music theory or a specific instrument, be first aware of the possibility that your child may develop quickly and beyond your ability to teach him or her. While online sites run the gamut of quality, professional, free music training resources to shoddy, questionable authority in the music training realm, it is very possible that your child may, at some point, require the investment of personal, private lessons and/or local homeschool music groups and organizations. Having this on your radar will simply help you to be prepared in the event your child outgrows the free online resources. When it comes to coaching and training in any endeavor, especially music, there are certain levels of achievement that can only be attained through private lessons, coaching or “team play”. If you begin teaching your child music and he or she has a gift or bent that begins to flourish, will you be ready to support that child’s gift at a higher investment or commitment level that may require more from your entire family?

Tip # 2: Evaluating the instructor’s credentials

Great teachers do not always make the best musicians. Likewise, the best musicians do not always make the best instructors. It’s one thing to be able to play a piano, drums or guitar to recognizable level of mastery, but to be able to convey the process to other learners in a way that most can digest and apply the information is a different “animal” altogether.

Additionally, just because an individual has an advanced degree in music theory from an elite university does not make him or her a great or effective teacher – especially for your child. One of the best ways to check out the instructor’s materials and whether he or she would be effective with your child is to start by cross-referencing the legitimate testimonials of students that are similar to your child’s profile. Though this is not always possible, connecting with honest reviews is a great measure of social proof. Looking for some simple guarantees and a clean, easy navigation process through the lessons (instead of a hodge-podge of lessons with no specific direction) can be a clue as to the instructor or instructional material’s ability to walk a beginner learner through the process with ease of understanding and application. Additionally, some music lesson sites and communities offer various selections from various teachers. Having a bit of variety in instructors can help to prevent your child from reaching a “bottleneck” in his or her learning process due to personality conflicts, teaching style problems, or other teacher-student limitations.

Tip # 3: Evaluating the instructor’s “community”

Beyond the instructor’s credentials is the oft-missed social influence of the instructors beliefs, community and philosophies.

1- Does his or her philosophy clash with your values?

2- Does his or her community open your child up to influences of which you might not approve?

3 – Does his or her community create easy access to other channels of values that clash with your own?

One of the reasons you may have decided to homeschool your child is to be a gateway for philosophies and ideas that you do may not believe are beneficial for your child. One of the ways to resolve this is to do “long tail search” research on the Internet to discover more about the person and his or her other connections, social groups, philosophies, and other entanglements that can influence your child by exposure and association. For example – if you were to research more about a guitar player named “John Smith”, you could find out more about John Smith at his website, including his location (if he has a mailing address posted on the site). Then you could use some long tail searches to find out a little more about his associations simply by typing in different combinations of his full name, location, and perhaps his instrument or area of expertise – for example:

“John Q. Smith Anytown California guitar teacher (or player)”

Long tail keywords do not always mean “long combinations of words” but actually refer to a more highly targeted, less general and less frequently searched phrases. In most cases, long-tail key word phrases do include more words than words in the same category that are more popularly searched. This little strategy can also be used when searching for answers to tip #4.

Along with finding the right instruction, you may be interested in finding the right equipment. Whether you are searching for instruction, doing a background search on the instructor, or looking for solid reviews on training or a specific instrument, the same search strategies apply. A more specific example of learning how to search for the right guitar for a specific budget would be comparable as well. If you searched “best acoustic guitar”, you might get a much more general return and less direction than if you searched “best acoustic guitar priced under $1000”. By adding more specific context to your search, you will be able to dial in more specifically on the needed information you review.

Tip # 4: Finding the best online instruction (or instructor)

Now that you have a few solid strategies for finding and evaluating your instructor, or the material produced by the music instructor, you can use similar strategies to find, evaluate and compare. If you have no musical experience whatsoever, it will be difficult to navigate through the plethora of information that is available on the Internet when it comes to music instruction, especially through all of the free content that is available. A few key pointers to keep in mind in order to give your child the best chance at growing his or her musical aptitude:

• Make sure your child has some chemistry with the instructor or material. In the event your child becomes discouraged early, try a different instructor or instructional material.
• Be sure that your child is age-appropriate for the instrument of choice. For example, a child can product quality sound at an earlier age with instruments such as a piano or drum versus a guitar due to the coordination of producing a quality sound.
• Be aware and sensitive to your child’s desired pace of learning. If the child is highly encouraged and can handle more instruction, try to provide more if possible and within reason to other forms of child development (social, academic, practical and physical health). On the other hand, if the child seems to weary easily, try not to push him or her too much to avoid any discouragement or burnout.

Keeping these ideas in mind, you can use the Google Keyword Tool to find other relevant search phrases for your online research endeavors. Just because a page ranks in the top 10 for Google Search Results, does not mean that it will be the best instruction for your child. However, it would be difficult to reach the top 10 in Google if the content were not quality content. Going to the Google Keyword Tool and typing in search phrases relevant to your research will return plenty of other related keyword phrases you can use to find alternative resources online.

In all, using these simple tools and guidelines can help you, a caring and loving parent, to gain a better quality return for your child’s music development, as well as his or her overall development. After all, you chose to home school in order to give your child a better education in a more suitable and caring environment, encompassed by the family values that are most important to your and your family. Choosing the right external music instructional influence is essential in maintaining your goals for homeschooling education.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to do another “link post” to share with my readers some of the sites that I look to and/or recommend for homeschooling information.

You’ll find a variety of sites here ranging from blogs written by homeschoolers themselves to family-owned curriculum suppliers I’ve been buying from for more than a decade.  I hope that you’ll consider giving them a look and if you comment or make a purchase at any of these sites let them know you found them at Homeschooling911.com!

The Homeschool Apologist is a blog written by Linda Difino and Richard Barrette (“Arby”).  Linda’s résumé sounds eerily similar to mine: she’s a homeschooling mom of four and has been homeschooling for over 20 years.  In addition, her children’s ages are nearly as spread out as mine.  We have a very similar homeschooling philosophy and I enjoy reading her posts and communicating with her from time to time.  “Arby” is a full-time homeschooling dad to three kids.  I particularly like the stated purpose for their blog so I’m going to share it:  “The purpose of The Homeschool Apologist is to speak in defense of homeschooling. Our goal is to preserve and defend educational freedom in this country, while offering support to and a forum for homeschoolers quietly instructing their children in households across America.”

CaptiousNut is also a full-time homeschooling dad who writes over at “Marginalizing Morons.”  He has a page on his site devoted to “Homeschooling Books” and has written numerous posts on the subject of homeschooling on his main blog page.  One caveat: while I do subscribe to his main blog page it may not be your cup of tea.  But his posts on homeschooling and his recs on homeschooling books are well worth a look.

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The following two resources are both companies that are owned by homeschooling families and sell a plethora of curriculum resources:

Timberdoodle:  I have been buying from Timberdoodle for as long as I can remember.  While they do offer some mainstream curriculum their real genius is in the unusual products they offer that you probably won’t find at any other homeschool supplier.  For instance, I recently bought a “Movie Making” product from them for my 9-year old son who has a fascination with Pixar and game shows (go figure!)

Rock Solid: I have been buying from Rock Solid for over a decade and one of the reasons is their great prices.  They offer thousands of items online and they also have a store in Jacksonville, FL if you happen to live there or are planning a trip through. 

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As you may know I have been lately addressing the subject of homeschooling through high school and preparing your homeschooler for college.  One link related to this subject is:

“New Study Shows Homeschoolers Succeeding in College“

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This next link is a departure from the uplifting links I have presented above.  I’m including here a web article (via ParentalRights.org) which I have kept in a file labeled “Public School Horrors.”  It deals with a court case that involved children who were required to attend a school assembly which exposed them to disgusting, vile, and explicit sexual material and actions without their parents knowledge, much less consent.   I guarantee you every parent who sends their child to public school will say their child’s school would never do such a thing.  According to Wikipedia ostriches don’t actually bury their head in the sand, but apparently many parents still do:

Brown vs. Hot, Sexy and Safer Productions

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Have you already graduated a child from homeschooling?  Consider sharing with them this last link for the organization “Homeschool Alumni.”  My daughter has been active on the site for years and your child may find it to be worthwhile as well.

I have been super-busy this past week

One of the many reasons why I insist my children get a college degree NOW is because it is much easier to do when you are 16 to 21 years old than when you are…well, as old as I am.  And yes, in our house college attendance is mandatory.  I will go into my rationalization for that decision in a later post, but suffice it to say that  I made the mistake of “taking a break” from college after I got married and, of course, I didn’t go back.  I could have finished my degree easily 30 years ago (I already had approximately 70 credits when I got married).  At this stage in my life it’s not so easy, but it is what I want to do and in many ways I enjoy it.  I also think it may be a good hedge against senility.  At least that’s what the research seems to say! 

In any case, I am enrolled in a history class this semester (I am an English major/History minor) and I am required to read four books and write “analytical book reviews” for them - the second one is due on Tuesday.  I stayed up all night last night (Wednesday night) to finally finish reading the book because I want to have the paper written by Friday night. 

Next week I plan on jumping back on my “How To Teach” series with a post on teaching science.  I am also probably going to begin a new series on “The Advantages of Home-Schooling.”  In the meantime, I wanted to publish my second “link-love” post specifically focusing on resources that can benefit you as a home-schooler.  So here we go:

• You may be surprised to learn that I get e-mails from people all over the world asking me for help with home-schooling.  I feel so honored when people communicate their troubles and concerns with me and I try my best to help.  Almost inevitably, the first place I go to get information for these people is The Home School Legal Defense Association.  I cannot say enough good things about this organization.  Not only was the HSLDA in the forefront of the struggle to make home-schooling legal in every state in the country, they have also been instrumental in educating social workers and police as to the rights of parents to be safe from unlawful search and seizure, and they have also been working for some time with home-schoolers in other countries to help bring freedom to those home-schoolers.  Did you know that there are countries, and not communist countries either (!), where parents are jailed if they choose to home-school?  Did you know that there are people in THIS COUNTRY who want home-schoolers to be jailed simply because they choose to home-school?  It is a sad truth that the home-schooling community will have to be forever vigilant against those who want to tell us where, how, and when our children should be educated.  I encourage every home-schooling family, if possible, to find the money in their budget to become a member of the HSLDA.  Even if you never individually need their services, they are protecting our rights and our freedoms every day.  If you belong to a home-school group (state or local) you are probably eligible for a discount on membership.  If you belong to a group that does not have an affiliation with the HSLDA yet, make it a priority to get enough parents on board to get that discount.  Finally, I want to encourage you to peruse the HSLDA website and, particularly if you need to know about home-school laws or resources in your state, go to their state page.  You will see on this page an example of the depth and breadth of the HSLDA’s work here and around the globe.
• Another organization I strongly recommend you look into (and get involved in) is ParentalRights.org.  There are powerful (well-funded) people in this world who would love nothing better than to interfere in your right to raise your children according to your values, faith, and beliefs.  I realize some will say that is alarmist.  Fine, don’t bother then.  I have been involved in these issues long enough to know better.  We are on the verge of passing an amendment to the Constitution that will ensure parents in this country have the right to make decisions about, for instance, who their kids’ friends are, or whether they are introduced to graphic sexual education in kindergarten (regardless of where they are educated).  You think I’m exagerrating?  Check out how the so-called Convention on the Rights of the Child is being implemented in other countries. 
• On a different note, I’d like to mention that there are several home-school magazines available to home-schoolers that can give you innumerable ideas for curriculum or even just encouragement and support.  For several years I subscribed to The Teaching Home.  A couple of other magazines that I am familiar with and can recommend are The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and Homeschooling Today.  In most cases (if not all) you can peruse their resources before subscribing and I encourage you to do so, to figure out which one suits you the best.  I would ask, if you decide to subscribe to “The Old Schoolhouse Magazine,” that you use the link in the banner ad to the right.  I have invested a tidy little sum into developing and maintaining this website so if I could recoup say, four or five dollars here and there through affiliate sales, it would surely be nice! 
• Finally, if you have not checked out my Resources page, I encourage you to do so.  You will find there curriculum suppliers that I have been buying from for years, that I have trusted in and relied on to provide me with the curriculum I need at prices that help my home-schooling budget!
• Also, my recent series on “How To Teach” is filled with resource ideas for teaching: reading, math, vocabulary, grammar, and more.  Check it out!

As I said, I’ll be back next week with another “How To Teach” post.  Until then I will be sequestered writing a paper on the Dust Bowl.  I just know you’re jealous!

Fans of the movie “Ghostbusters” will recognize the reference in my post title…I actually have never watched “Ghostbusters” because the little I did see of it creeped me out but…

If your website ever crashes (like mine did) or you have other technological issues, I can tell you who to call.  Tim Gary at www.mindcue.com.  I found Tim through Dave Fowler of the Mona Lisa Million.  The first project I hired Tim for was to help my daughter (who is my “webmaster”) figure out how to keep my ads from jumping all over the place, as they were wont to do. 

The second time I contacted Tim I had a much bigger problem.  I was checking out some things on my website one Wednesday night a couple of months ago when I found my website had, how do you say it…disappeared?  Instead of loading, my site kept giving error messages.  I panicked.  I started sending e-mail messages to my daughter.  I started Googling possible reasons for the problem as well as any solutions that might be offered. 

What I was able to determine was that I had a hosting problem.  And there was no way I was going to figure out a solution on my own.  Moreover, the customer service of my particular hosting service (at the time) was notoriously awful, so I didn’t see any help coming from there.  Then I had an “aha!” moment.  Contact Tim!

I immediately went to Tim’s site, e-mailed him a message, and literally within moments he got back to me offering to look everything over and see what he could come up with.  At this point I wasn’t even paying him!

As I had surmised, Tim determined I had a problem with my site hosting and he suggested switching hosting sites.  Since I was no particular fan of the hosting site I had, I was more than agreeable to this suggestion.  At this point I did start paying him.  But Tim’s $95 Tech Hotline deal is totally worth it.

So what did Tim do?  Pretty much everything.  He switched my hosting for me.  He switched my e-mail account that was affiliated with my original hosting.  He called me one night and remotely accessed my computer so he could show me what he was doing and how everything was working.  He answered every e-mail I sent him, often within minutes.  Finally, he worked with my daughter to get my e-mail account working smoothly.  The only thing I had to do, besides paying him and paying for the new hosting (and I was able to get a prorated refund from my original hosting company) was to respond to any questions he had and eventually to cancel my original hosting and e-mail.  I did also have to go through my old e-mail account so that I could forward whatever I might want to save to the new e-mail account.

Bottom line, within a few days of my website virtually disappearing from the internet, I had a new hosting company with a better deal (as far as I was concerned) and my site was humming along nicely.  Tim also set me up with a suite of security plug-ins (all free) that are protecting my site much better than previously.

Tim can also design websites as well as answer any number of computer, website, or other technological questions.  So if you need help, I’ll tell you who to call.  Call Tim.

What do the Miami Dolphins have to do with home-schooling?  Did you know that Jason Taylor, who played for the Dolphins for eleven years – and then played for the Redskins, and then played for the Dolphins, and then played for the Jets and then played for the Dolphins again before officially announcing his retirement in December 2011 – was the first player in the NFL to have been home-educated?  As a matter of fact, Jason was a pioneer in opening doors for home-schoolers to play sports at the high school and college level.

Jason Taylor is one of the greatest defensive ends to ever play the game, holding the record as the NFL’s all-time leader in fumble return touchdowns (6).  He was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2006, a Pro Bowl selection six times, and was awarded the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2007.  He recorded 130.5 sacks, trailing the NFL record by only 1.5 sacks.  There is no doubt that a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is awaiting this this talented former homeschooler.

But I use this all as a segue into my real purpose for this post which is to let you know that I had two guest posts published this week that I hope you will be interested in reading.  The first is at This Inspires Me and it relates my memories of watching the 1972-73 Dolphins win back-to-back Super Bowls and record a perfect season.  Yes, I was young, but I grew up watching Miami Dolphins football every Sunday and to this day I am a huge football fan.  As a matter of fact at our house we spend the fall on a roller-coaster of emotions as my family watches our beloved Florida State Seminoles play on Saturdays.  The last two weeks saw some dark days in our house as the Seminoles managed to snatch defeat from victory in the last seconds of our games against both NC State and UNC.  Ah, well.

The second guest post I had published is: “How Could Your Child Benefit from Home-Schooling?” and discusses what I have found to be some of the long-range benefits of home-schooling.  My friend from the SITS Girls forum, Missy, specifically asked me to write a post on this subject, even though she is not a home-schooler herself.  Given the fact that I am now in my third decade of home-schooling I have been able to see many benefits of home-schooling my children from the very beginning of their schooling all the way through high school.  I am so glad that I stuck with home-schooling in spite of challenges and adversity (life doesn’t cut you any slack just because you home-school!)  I hope that you will take the time to read these posts, comment on them, and share them.

Allow me finally to say how much I appreciate everyone who reads my blog and shares their thoughts, insight, and encouragement in the comments.  I also appreciate when you share this information with others.  The goal is to encourage one another as we endeavor to give our children an excellent education and I hope you find that this website does just that!

I hope you have been enjoying

I am sending out this “interim” post because I came across a couple of articles that I thought were interesting and didn’t want to wait to fit them into my posting schedule sometime later on.  The first is an article I came across on Twitter (you can follow me there if you are a “tweeter” at @homeschool911) – the article is a post at www.planningwithkids.com that gives 10 ideas for keeping your toddlers occupied without toys.  I have four kids, none of whom are toddlers anymore, but I remember how hard it was to get anything done (much less home-schooling) when you have toddlers in the house.  These are really great ideas that will occupy your child for quite some time and one of the things that I particularly liked was that they are activities your child can do right by your side while you are getting your own chores done.  To see the article titled: “10 Simple Play Ideas for Your Toddlers that Don’t Involve Toys” go here.

The second article I wanted to highlight can be found at the Home School Legal Defense Association here.  It describes a recent decision which granted political asylum to a German family on the basis that the German government is hostile to home-schooling and is, in fact, trying to “stamp it out.”  In recent years there has been serious persecution of home-schoolers in Germany, and other supposedly “free” countries, that really defies understanding.  We really need to see as home-schoolers that the right to direct our child’s education is a foundational freedom.  History teaches us that oppressive regimes will always seek to hijack the children, their education, and anything that influences them (e.g. religion).  It is therefore very suspect when a nation that claims to be free expresses such hostile attitudes towards parents who simply want to direct their child’s education.  We need to stay vigilant in the U.S., and support the home-schooling communities in other countries.

One sad aspect of the story is that our immigration department (ICE) is actually challenging the judge’s ruling!  I am sure I don’t have to tell you about all the stories re: immigration and a recent asylum decision that have been in the news – given these developments it is mind-blowing to me that our immigration department would seek to overturn a judge’s decision to grant asylum to parents who face losing their property, and perhaps even their children, simply because they want to home-school.  Again, you can read the article about this decision (and other related articles) here.

Please keep in touch and let me know if you have any questions concerning home-schooling.  If you fill out the form on the contact page I will get back to you!