SLHE Geography Bee!

Come participate in the Geography Bee on Friday, December 14th at the Draper Library at 1 pm!  Homeschooled students in grades four through eight are eligible to participate.  They must also be a resident of Salt Lake County and not already participating in the Geography Bee through another school or group.  If you have a student who is interested in participating, it is important that they get registered to be in the Bee.  Contact stwhitney (at) csolutions.net for details.  You can also just watch the Geography Bee, but it's not the right environment for small children and babies, so please find other arrangements for them.

Summer Schooling

First - UHEA is hosting a Graduate Recognition Night for students who have completed their high school journey.  A $30 registration fee covers admission for the graduate, parents, and a few close family members and/or friends.  The fee also includes one Graduate Recognition Book (with bios and pictures of the graduates), a certificate, flower, and light refreshments.  There will be table space for grads to display talents and accomplishments.  You can find details here, and don't delay - the deadline for registration is May 25th!

For this month's meeting we talked about how our schooling does or doesn't change during the summer.  Some families don't change much at all, instead choosing to take longer breaks during other periods of the year.  Others take advantage of the weather and move some of their studies outside or begin nature journals. 

For those families who do "take a break" from their regular schedule, there are lots of opportunities to avoid summer "brain drain."  Continuing with your favorite "extracurricular" activities can be fun!  Book clubs and park days don't stop just because "school is out for summer."  There are tons of activities in the community all summer long - the libraries plan lots of great events and have summer reading programs.  Volunteer opportunities that are more kid-friendly often pop up when school is out.  Star gazing and astronomy projects can be wonderful on warm summer nights.  Planting gardens is fun, educational, and you might get to eat the results! 

Finally, there is a lot going on in Utah right now!  The Leonardo is a fabulous new science center (or so I've heard!  It's time to go!), and homeschoolers can get an educational discount on a family membership (call for details - I believe you get $45 off of your membership, you may need to bring your homeschooling affidavit letter).  The new Utah Natural History Museum is another wonderful place to spend the day.  And the Hogle Zoo is opening Rocky Shores, a new exhibit featuring polar bears, otters, seals, and sea lions.  There's so much to do in the summer - who has time for "school" anyway?

FIRST LEGO League and JR. FLL

It was a great meeting tonight discussing the FIRST LEGO programs!  Below is a summary of info and some websites that you can check out to learn more...

Jr. FLL is for kids 6-8. They work in teams to research an open ended  problem (so they get to focus  on something they choose) and build a model related to the research topic. I've coached Jr. FLL teams for the past two years, and I'll be demonstrating the LEGO WeDo robot that you can get for  your team (designed for K-1st graders) It's very easy to use and program; my 5 year old had no problem changing the program to change the behavior of the robotic model. I'll talk about what it's like to coach a team, how much time and money are required, and what  your kids can learn by participating in the program. I'll also have some pictures with me of the projects that teams showed at the JrFLL Expo held in conjunction with the FLL State Championships this year, so you'll have an idea of what the kids actually end up producing.

FLL is the program for kids from 9-14. FLL teams do a much more involved research project and design and program an autonomous LEGO Mindstorm robot to perform tasks and interact with LEGO models on a 4'x8' playing surface.  The University of Utah runs a coaches training session in August for this program - I believe you can sign up even if you don't have a team registered yet, so check it out and ask all of your questions!
 
For more information, go here:

http://www.techventures.utah.edu/utfll/
http://firstlegoleague.org/
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/jr.fll
https://sites.google.com/site/utahjrfll/

Also, if you search for FIRST LEGO League on YouTube, you'll find videos of
the robot game in action and get a better idea of what that part of the
program is about.

Pi Day is Coming!

At our February meeting, we talked about Pi Day - March 14th. It's a great day to play around with math and learn a little bit about Pi. Here are some of our favorite suggestions for what to do on Pi Day!

The Exploratorium's website has lots of great math and science suggestions, and Pi day is no exception! Here are a couple of easy activities and lots of great links:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/pi_activities/index.html

Vihart has so many great math videos - here's a fun one called "Pi is (still) wrong:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

And another Vihart video about Pi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtLSLCJKHE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Maybe you should just subscribe to her channel while you're there. :)

Or maybe you want to plan a Pi Day Party with suggestions from Education World:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson335.shtml

However you decide to mark Pi Day, be sure to have some fun! Make a pie. It's a classic pun that your kids will definitely enjoy.

Mid-year burnout!

Well, the general consensus at the meeting was that avoiding burnout is far easier than dealing with it once it has set in. Here are some ideas that were discussed:

*It's important to keep expectations reasonable, and to remember that kids can learn things very quickly when they're both ready and interested.

*Keeping a housework routine with the kids helping with age-appropriate tasks can help keep you sane. Breakthrough Parenting was mentioned as a book with lists of age-appropriate tasks for children to help you get started. I bet Google has some good ideas on that, too. Consider approaching chores as a learning activity - "Here's what you get to learn to do this year, because you're old enough now!" Your children may enjoy checking things off as they learn them, and gain some confidence on the way.

*If you have pre-school aged children, perhaps giving them their own coloring books or other "workbooks" will help keep them occupied when you're working with an older child. Special toys that are only for playing with while Mom is working with a sibling can be helpful, too.

If things haven't been working as you'd like and you're actually getting burned out, a nice quote to consider was shared: "How long would you walk with a pebble in your shoe?" One of the greatest strengths of homeschooling is that you don't have to just continue on with a process that isn't working. There are more resources than you could possibly evaluate and try, so if what you're doing isn't working, try something else! Take a "library vacation" and spend days in the library looking for inspiration. Get outside and clear your minds. Reevaluate why you want your child to acquire a particular skill at this particular time. Talk to other moms (shameless plug - come to a SLHE meeting!). It's always reassuring to find that you're not alone (and you never are!).