September 2013- True Spring

(First published at Sandbox to Socrates http://sandboxtosocrates.wordpress.com)

"The moth was on Mamma's arm! It had 2 eyes, wings, antennae and 6 legs. It wouldn't go away" I don't know why there are so many moths in my bedroom, but they've been there for months.

"We saw the waterfall. We saw some flowers."

This picture combined our trip to St Clair and to Steavenson's Falls.

This was drawing of me looking at the sun from our verandah. I wish I could remember why I was doing that.

Does anyone know what makes sand poo? Well, what looks like sand poo? Um. Never mind… If I ever find out, I'll be sure to come here and share.

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Rose-Marie was one of those enthusiastic planners who began researching when she was pregnant with her first. She wanted to homeschool because it sounded like an affordable adventure, then she met her kids personally...

Her young daughter has Echolalia and some processing issues so isn't speaking fluently yet; but she is making good progress as they work and play in Central Victoria, Australia.

Religious Calendar Curriculum -June

1st

-Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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3-5th

-Shavu'ot (Jewish)

*This commemorates the occasion of God giving the Torah to the nation of Israel, and is a day (or two depending which branch of Judaism you belong to and where you live) of feasting and fun. Many people also read certain passages of religious texts and may even stay up all night to do so.
*Colour a page from the Jewish Traditions colouring book

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7th

-Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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8th

-Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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14th

-Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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15th

-Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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21st

-Litha (Northern Hemisphere) and Yule (Southern Hemisphere)

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-Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

~~~~~~~~~~

22nd

-Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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28th

-Jewish Shabbat (begins at sunset the night before)

*Observed by all observant Jews, this is a day of rest to commemorate all the work God put into making the universe. How much resting and avoidance of work depends on the family culture. Yesterday, of course, lots of work went into preparation because no one can take a full day off running a house unless they have already done the needed work. Otherwise, what would everyone eat?

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29th

-Ramadan begins (Islam)

*This is a month of fasting and spirituality in Islam.

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-Sunday Church services- Holy Days of Obligation for Catholics, encouraged for nearly all other Christians

*Read a picture book, colour a colouring page from The Mass Colouring Book http://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Book-about-Catholic-Publishing/dp/0899426832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386972341&sr=8-1&keywords=about+the+mass+colouring+book or something printed out from one of the Catholic sites online.

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Rose-Marie was one of those enthusiastic planners who began researching when she was pregnant with her first. She wanted to homeschool because it sounded like an affordable adventure, then she met her kids personally...

Her young daughter has Echolalia and some processing issues so isn't speaking fluently yet; but she is making good progress as they work and play in Central Victoria, Australia.

Entire Public Domain Curriculum

The entire Public Domain Curriculum is now available at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7FV4B6vlfT3bVhybHRHRkN2dWM/edit

All the contributors to this blog are in awe of all the work our colleague here has put in!

We will eventually break this document up and publish subject areas and grade levels separately for ease of navigation. For now, though, take it, work with it, tweak it, tell us what worked and what didn't, and share it with anyone who might make use of it!

Public Domain Curriculum - Physical Education (Alpha Edition)

We are happy to present the alpha edition of the Physical Education component, handily hosted at Google Docs!

Do let us know how you found it and any alterations you made, because we're curious!



Series Introduction
English component
____________________
-By a Lady

August 2013- Early Spring

(First published at Sandbox to Socrates http://sandboxtosocrates.wordpress.com)

This pic was drawn after our nature study tour visit to St Clair. I believe the white chunks in the bottom left corner are snow and she is playing in it. We were disappointed there wasn't enough to toboggan on, but some is more interesting than none. :) Not really sure why the ground is red, but these things happen.

Driving to Anglesea (on our nature study tour to the heathlands there) "We saw different colours of wattle." I suggested she draw the different coloured wattles, but it seems, from her pic, that the seeing was less important than the going. She has drawn yellow wattle, so perhaps the issue was she doesn't have a cream coloured pencil to draw cream coloured wattle with?

This pic was drawn at home. We woke up and went outside a bit earlier than usual, and seemingly over night, lots of little spiders had made lots of little webs all over the wattle and gum trees. They might have been there for ages but not caught our eye because the dew had dried. Again we have the problem of being unable to draw white spider webs without a white pencil. I shall have to do something about that.

Previous post in the series
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Rose-Marie was one of those enthusiastic planners who began researching when she was pregnant with her first. She wanted to homeschool because it sounded like an affordable adventure, then she met her kids personally...

Her young daughter has Echolalia and some processing issues so isn't speaking fluently yet; but she is making good progress as they work and play in Central Victoria, Australia.

Public Domain Curriculum- English (Alpha Edition)

We are happy to present the alpha edition of the English component, handily hosted at Google Docs!

Do let us know how you found it and any alterations you made, because we're curious!



Series Introduction
Physical Education component
____________________
-By a Lady

Introducing the *Public Domain Curriculum*

How do low-income families make homeschooling work? Can they? Is homeschooling only possible or acceptable for comfortably middle-class, two-parent families? Should poor families have no choice but to rely on public education, no matter the quality and the needs of their individual child?

The bloggers at Investigate The Landscape believe that education — a solid, quality education that enables people to learn to think for themselves — should be available to everyone, no matter who they are. That "no matter who" includes people of all different ages, locations, socio-economic classes, and life paths.


The Public Domain Curriculum

• English starts with learning to recognize and write the letters of the alphabet and ends with reading at a college level and writing a research paper.

• Math starts with learning to recognize the numbers 1-5 and writing those numbers with tally marks and ends with algebra and geometry.

• The content subjects will focus on providing the information that students need to understand and enjoy books and their world, and to participate as a valuable member in their society. This may be somewhat US-centric, but as we've said, this is a curriculum without copyright so you are free to tweak however you like.

Racism In Old Books and Why So Much Fiction?

"Aren’t old books racist?", some people will ask, personally offended that anyone is still reading these books instead of boycotting them. Some of the authors of these books were provincial and elitist, but we consider it even more provincial and elitist to entirely boycott several centuries worth of literature from multiple countries for any reason. 

This author hopes that parents will teach their children that racism is ONE of MANY human rights violations and that ALL human rights violations are wrong, including those present in our modern literature.

Racism is disgusting. This author does not condone and encourage it. This author also believes that the disempowered moms who will be most attracted to this free curriculum are not required to shoulder all the burdens of all disempowered groups throughout all of time and throughout all of the world. These moms have enough on their plates just meeting the basic needs of their families, and not everyone is called to be a boycotting activist for every cause at every stage of their life.

A literature-heavy curriculum results in students with different sets of skills than those that were explicitly taught with more non-fiction, but I’m not so sure that the skills gained from reading lots of fiction are inferior for ALL students in ALL parts of the USA and in ALL parts the world. Reading fiction gives insight into other people, and it is other people we have to deal with (or avoid) all our life long. For more on the benefits of fiction, see The School of Life's youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RCFLobfqcw

What about the textbooks that are used? The dated content in most public domain textbooks is a paltry percentage of the whole. The minutiae that never needed to be taught in the first place often represent most of the dated content in textbooks. The most obvious dated material can be easily explained by mom, and the less important and questionable details can often just be skipped. Severely dated material will seldom be scheduled without adequate explanations and support.

I hope my attempt here inspires others with their own unique life experiences to adapt this curriculum to suit their own needs, giving the world multiple options to choose from in educating with only free materials.

Entire Curriculum (Rough Draft)

By subject:

English (Alpha edition)
Physical Education (Alpha edition)

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- By a Lady