The 17th Carnival of Homeschooling

 
The 17th Carnival of Homeschooling is up, hosted by The Common Room. I went over and took a brief look around, and chose three entries at random (OK, I admit it: I went to Math and History first because those are my favorites).

The Homeschool Math Blog contributes an essay called “Reform math - we need a BALANCE”. We old-timers consider “Reform Math” to be the bane of math education, but Ms. Miller doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater:

The key is a BALANCE. Truth is somewhere in the middle. Kids absolutely need to learn their addition facts and memorize their multiplication facts. Otherwise, they're going to go about learning math without a FOUNDATION.

But, I feel it is very important to teach them also WHY the rules and procedures work.

Principled Discovery features a post called Teaching Perspectives, a summary of educational philosophy:

So, I made up my own paradigm. Because I like where the TPI [Teaching Perspectives Inventory] begins, I too started with reflecting on basic beliefs. I started with a basic philosophy of government, or who is sovereign, and looked at how that naturally would affect the role of the learner and the teacher. I then looked at the goals of education which would naturally be held by that belief system. Finally, I looked at the actions, or methodology, which would most naturally lead to the stated goals. Here is my summary…

You’ll have to go over to Principled Discovery to see the summary, because it’s a large graphic and can’t be shown here.

For teaching history, Trinity Prep School unveils (with illustrations) the Book of Centuries,

We've found a fun way to incorporate history, reading comprehension, narration/composition skills, handwriting/keyboarding and art. Making a Book of Centuries is not an original idea. But I thought if I detailed how simple this project can be, other homeschool families may enjoy starting their own Book of Centuries.

Each week my kids make a story page about a person, place or event studied in history. Filed chronologically in a very large 3-ring binder, they can literally turn the pages of time!

There’s a lot more available at the 17th Carnival of Homeschooling. Homeschoolers (and wannabe homeschoolers) are advised to go over and look at all the entries.