The latest Carnival of Homeschooling is up, and while I didn’t submit a post this week (we’ve been sick around here so I haven’t done much blogging), I’m still looking forward to reading a ton of great posts from other blogs!

I’m particularly looking forward to Home is Where You Start From’s look at Homer’s Odyssey.  As I’ve mentioned, we’ve recently shifted to a Charlotte Mason style with my 10yo son, Flipper.  Into week 5 now and still liking it!  For history, we’ve been doing “introduction to history” things this session (each of our sessions is 6 weeks), looking at archaeology and what history means, as well as a wee bit on the earliest civilizations   Our next session will be Ancient Egypt, and I’m all planned up for that.  Following that, we’ll be taking a session on Ancient Greece, which I haven’t done too much planning for as yet.  I’ve heard about only a couple adaptations of the Odyssey for kids, so I’m very keen to check out all the great ideas in this post.

The Recession Depression Therapy blog has a post on Cookbooks for Kids, and I think I’ll have to search out the Little House inspired cookbook!   I’ve recently been exposed to Montessori’s teachings on little kids in the kitchen, and so my 2yo daughter Pomme helps me a great deal with food preparation.  But I was none so enlightened when Flipper was a wee boy, and boy oh boy it’s a struggle to get him interested in helping.  Or doing anything for himself.  “MOM!  I need you to butter my toast!” is a refrain heard far too often.  One trick that sometimes works is dangling the carrot that girls like boys who can cook… he’s only 10, but he’s already looking forward to finding a wife!  What works the very best, however, is one cookbook we have, a Company’s Coming cookbook for kids.  He’ll do absolutely everything by himself when he finds a dish in there he wants to try.  He even made breakfast for himself and his sister this morning, a toasted “cheesy apple melt.”  I’ll pass, thanks.

The Thinking Mother ponders about Self-Directed Learning Moments, and how not every “teachable moment” has to involve parental interference.  Once again, I find Montessori parallels… Dr. Montessori observed, very wisely I think, that parents and teachers should not automatically jump in and help, cheer on, encourage, enrich, advise, or otherwise interfere when a child is absorbed in something.  We want to help, it’s a natural impulse, but in fact we’re breaking their concentration.  Since learning this, I’ve found myself having to restrain my impulse to ‘jump in’ with Pomme fairly often (although like any habit, this has gotten much easier with practice), wanting to show her how to do something, or — even worse — just do it for her.  I’ve been gratified, amazed, and enlightened to see that when I just sit back and let her do her own thing, she’ll figure it out on her own.  Not only does this foster confidence and independence, but it’s practicing her own problem-solving skills.  Of course, if she gets frustrated and ASKS me for help, I will.  The idea is not to never help your kids.  It’s just to realize when they really do need help, and when they just need some time to work it out for themselves.

And finally, Dad’s Homeschool Blog sings the praises of StumbleUpon as a search tool for homeschooling resources. I’ve been using StumbleUpon myself for awhile, to help promote my articles at Eco Child’s Play as well as my little blog here.  I’ve also randomly stumbled through their listed sites, and have found some really amazing things.   I’m a bit annoyed right now, in fact, that my latest Firefox upgrade seems to have deleted my StumbleUpon toolbar, so now I have to go find it and install it again.  Such is life, I guess.

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