Old Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon Homeschoolers

December 3, 2003 Newsletter #39 Editor: Suzanne
Student editor: Oleg


This is the busiest month for us. Several children, mine and others, have asked to make inexpensive Christmas gift. And, we all love to craft something special for our beloved grandmothers, aunts, uncles and brothers and sisters. My two girls are quilting and making crochet scarfs. If anyone would like to join us, send an e-mail or call the girls to see what we can craft. My youngest son thinks that crochet calms him down. He learned quickly to weld that crochet hook. Refrigerator art is always welcome, too. We think homemade cards are a sign of special love. And, we like to keep them forever. You've seen my house. You know it's true.

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays

Parktakes

Parktakes is out and there are lots of classes. In homeschooling, we should consider the basketball camp during the school break, a special incentive. The children could go away for a week. If they want to take a break, mine are so glad to get cable television back. History channel is back. Adventure with crocodiles and mountain climbing. Hiking, camping, let's us see how this is done.

December 2 registration opens and December 12 is the date that the $10 dollar special goes off. Sign up for a class to enrich your student. The girls have chosen swing dancing for ten weeks. OK, didn't tell the boys about fencing because it would have been too much travel time. Even found a doll making class for me, but decided to wait. Prices are pretty steep for some programs when you consider the family is big. Website


Child supervision Guidelines

We talked about this issue of when a child can be left alone, what age and the pediatrician's office had a page on Fairfax Guidelines. Picked it up to share the information with the group. Most homeschoolers are used to just piling those kids in the car and going everywhere together. We wouldn't dare let them have their way and stay home in bed or hire a sister to watch them. Those teens get prickly about babysitter duties except for other people who tip well. Still owe two movies for babysitting here. Getting the DVD from Netflix and those teens remember every promise.Plus, they like to go shopping everytime that vehicle starts. They usually are behind the wheel waiting for Mom to take the first dog child back inside and lock him down. To paraphrase from this Fairfax County sheet: These guidelines have been developed by social work professionals in collaboration with the community. They are guidelines only. There may be situations, even within these guidelines, when it is not safe to leave a child unsupervised. Parents are ultimately responsible for making decisions about their child's safety. Whenever any child is unsupervised\unattended the following should apply . . .
  • There must be no emotional, medical, or behavioral problems which affect judgment or decision-making skills
  • Child must be comfortable alone
  • Youth must have a safety plan worked out with the parent\caretaker, which includes:
    • How to access parent of other responsible adult at all times (including knowing the parent\caretakers whereabouts and having a telephone number where parent can be reached).
    • What to do in the case of an emergency.
    • Guidelines for acceptable behavior.
    • Knowledge of emergency telephone numbers
  • Youth must demonstrate the ability to follow the safety plan and to make decisions that reflect concern for personal safety.


Supervision Guidelines...

Fairfax County child Protective Services
7 years & under Should not be left alone for any period of time. This may include leaving children unattended in cars, playgrounds and backyards. the determining consideration would be the dangers in the environment and the ability of the caretaker to intervene.
8 to 10 years Should not be left alone for more than 1 l\2 hours and only during daylight and early evening hours.
11 to 12 years May be left alone for up to 3 hours but not late at night or in circumstances requiring inappropriate responsibility.
13 to 15 years May be left unsupervised, but not overnight
16 to 17 years Maybe left unsupervised, in some cases, for up to two consecutive overnight periods.

Flu shot


Flu Shot time. Come and join me December 6 at Martha Washington Library 1-4. The teens are talking about taking the shot this year. We checked and they need to go to their doctor for it. The rest of us can sign in to be stuck. We are lucky to not have exposure, except for being out in public and sneezed on. My mother complains that my nephew is ill all the time with stuff he brings home from school. If you haven't had your shot, the Washington Times has the flu hotline on Tuesday. There is a visiting nurse waiting to serve you a flu shot.

Christmas Gift Making Group activities or individual ideas:

  • Lisa N. has an idea for painting on clear glass plates, hurricane lamps and vases. We have seen posies.Snowmen and other painted pieces. The paint is available at Michaels and Walmart. Starting Friday or Monday, let's get together. Bring something, even a glass jar.
  • Pencil cups, glue and cover with cloth or paper collage for a desk set with a calendar printed from websites. Pad with cotton, decorate with art. Gift for Dad. We have one K made when she was ten years younger.
  • Embroidery or decorative tape on jeans, vest, hat. Tea towel set. If you haven't sat down next to Mom with thread and needle, come for an afternoon of fun with the needle. Have white blocks and we could us four and some drawings to make a design. My grandmother, Ida Cusher, used tracing paper and old coloring books to trace a design on fabric and showed me the basic stitches. Willing to pass this on to other parties.
  • Potholders. Weave them. Crochet the edges.
  • Fleece Mitts Draw around your hand, increase it by an inch and come over to the sewing machine or hand stitch a pair of gloves.
  • Fleece bomber hats. Got the pattern, one size fits all. Two seams, some elastic ties and hat. Made rapidly.
  • Fleece boa, quilt, rug, vest. Love this stuff. It is so wide and fun to sew. Walmart or fabric store has it on special now.
  • Crochet fingerless mitts, hats or scarfs. Add beads. Make the silliest hat and exchange with a sister or brother. Who has the banana hat, blueberry hat and floppy, sloppy. It is a seasonal mania.
  • Potato print paper for gift wrap. Cut a design, get the tempera and stamp everything. Dry and tie those presents up.
  • Famous Refrigerator Art
  • Candle making
  • Soap carving for that special someone.

The lists go on and on. We make presents because we want to give something special made with our hands and hearts. We make our own cards. And, last and probably best idea is Dolan, who wants to make one day for candy making. We have a candy thing, Nan takes a cup of cold mashed potatoes, a box of white sugar and mixes it slowly. When it is finished mixing, she rolls it in a wet towel and makes a pie crust round looking piece of dough and spreads peanut butter on it and rolls it together and wraps it in something. Days later the flavor has set and she cuts off a tiny piece of candy and hands it out. Thanks to Dolan for this idea. Share your family recipes and give a call for a time to get together if your family has some spare time.


Our brand of 4-H

December 9 Tuesday at Lisa's house Junkyard War Teams will bring flat meat tray, straws, duct tape (or taped duck), foam and try to make a boat. The challenge is one hour to create a boat that floats. One boiled egg can't sink it. We will have a tub and attempt the sailing. Bring refreshment for your family, we will share after we have struggled for success. Winner doesn't sink.The reward is in the try. Don't tape the duck. He floats and bites. Somebody think paddlewheel.
December 23 Tuesday at Suzanne's house Christmas Party Music, sing a long carols, musical chairs, party clothes and rumpus. Cookie baking by the teens. We will provide the sugar cookie with reindeer, Santa or whatever and they can cook them. We should have a wonderful time, since we all know how to party hardy. In fact, we have perfected party over the last few years. Hot tea, and bring some to share and the cookies that crumble can be gobbled by the cooks.

Congratulations on the birth of the V's Parakeet egg Their parakeet has hatched eight eggs and the V's have a new baby parakeet at their house. Our family is going over tomorrow after math class to see the baby bird. Just 2 1\2 inches big. Wow! Amazing!

Wednesday Class Sharing Day

Class schedule resumes December 3. We took some time off and concentrated on arithmetic review with this program called Math-it. The skills for adding with Double-It, Half-it and the speed sparked some haywires in my mind. The children had some success with math facts in under a minute and the teens re-wired their brains, too. We are under a minute in most cases, did math sheets and invented some math games with cards.And, learned the multiplication tables. Paul gets nominated for best math teacher, because the teens like him.

Little bit of the Mom's goes a long way with the teen crowd. We like homework by the pound.

Writing assignment for English will be a short-story. We bought a book written by a home schooled teen and are passing it around.

is making the rounds.We should buy extra copies for presents.

Future Plans

Is anyone else interested in joining us to make a clay studio with twenty five pounds of clay and instruction in coil, slab and pinch pots? We would like to construct a brick kiln in the back yard and fire the pots. Let Suzanne or Lisa know if you would be interested and look forward to January with us getting messy. Nominal cost.

Children Reading 25 Books a month for Ice Cream Parties..

We are having ice cream parties to celebrate Two parties.One to go.
  • Dolan
  • Rowan
  • Alex
Ice cream rewards have gone out to two children twice. You have to keep a list of the books written in your handwriting. Remember, we come to your house with your choice of ice cream, whipped cream, cherries, goop like syrup and marshmallow cream and all you have to do is read twenty-five books. You can skip lunch and eat all you want.

Read

You'll be glad you did. Adventure, history, science, fantasy. Dragons, animals talking to us, memories of your favorite book and sharing that book with someone special. Reading Circle with each person reading the same book, checked out of the library and taking turns has worked for our winners of the Ice Cream Award for Twenty-five Booksread.Thank you all for reading and letting us eat your ice cream with you.
  1. Scholastic Books has sent our group some books to share with one another. Free books at the next 4-H meeting. Our family loves to get a box of age appropriate books. The incentive program with points for free books is quite nice this year. February through June free book a month, order three times and free book. They sent 100 point coupons for other teachers and I will bring those. You can order more with those in the teacher section.
  2. Dover Books lots of inexpensive dollar deals. Some abridged for beginning readers. We are planning to make French Jumping Jacks on snow days and puppet show with Marionette paper figures, and maybe build some small paper villages and dioramas when it gets cold. Offers free shipping for the holidays,also.Different catalogs for Fine Arts, math, science, history. Maze books, stencils and some awful tattoos that are washable that my children like.
  3. Starfall.com sent some free materials ordered from their website in under ten days. Free shipping. We ordered Fifteen Mini Books, you make yourself, Writing Journal Level l and Level ll. Graphics are good. The boys like to make the books and read them.
  4. Learning Pages Sign in for some great unit studies and work sheets
  5. Enchanted Learning Margaret has found these sites and they have good material. This site had twenty-two pages on the measurement unit we did last month at 4H. Extra resource for the harried Mom. We were hooked on the Space units.And, worked on maps of oceans and continents.
From Vhea information Three more links....
  1. Newtons's window Math Newletter
  2. Reading Competency
  3. American Journeys Project Diaries of explorers for the study of other earlier homeschool field trips that were grittier than ours.


Remember

We will be doing a unit of study using global positioning. We will get together on an extra day to make a stamp each and bury some boxes near our houses or put them in an easily recognized place. Then, we will attempt to add our stamp and keep a small journal telling what treasure was in the box and who had stamped it before us. Margaret sent me a great site where making the stamp was highlighted and the whole idea was talked about.

We will probably start with an e-mail, directions and one week to find the spot. Later, we could add a hand held GPS and play the game to find real spots and add our personal stamp. We put everything back the way we found it and the game is on.


Note:

Pam called about the Amazon Adventure at the National Zoo. The Lake Ridge has a great group going. Brownies and great field trips. Epler for information. Wish we could join you there tomorrow, but we have violin.

Speech, Language, hearing Issues

In the office for ENT specialist today. For those who shared the worry when K failed her check-up for hearing, she is fine. The lady at the desk had folders, asked her for information already hard won by one homeschooling mother. We talked about speech in support group before, and the doctor had another sheet with information about speech and language evaluations. Some of us have self evaluated our children for concerns on speech. Here's some of the information pertaining to our group. Fairfax County Public programs for speech and language screenings for children

The following information is for speech and language screening for parents who wish to have speech or language evaluations:
0 to 18 months of age: Joseph Willard Health Center 703 246-7120
18mos. to kindergarten:
Child Find Program:
Devonshire center, Areas II & III 703 876-5266
Lorton center, areas I & IV 703 446-2100
School-age children: Contact the principal of your local elementary school

(Editor considers this a zinger. Since we make the decision to homeschool, we could open the discussion to an aside. Can we expect help from the principal of the school we personally rejected? We can talk about this another day. Tax dollars still pay for these schools and our pockets are inside out.) Some reports are that some people are pleased to talk to us and some homeschoolers feel entitled to ask for use of school facilities. Can we pick special services like Band and say no to our child being in the school between 7-3:00? Panel discussion to follow. Line to take advantage forms on the right. Or, is that the left.Well, homeschooled kids never get the line deal in its entirety. They are already a long way in front of the pack. K could have used speech therapy along with her vision impairment but, we gave her tapes and had her record everything until she heard her phonic failure and outgrew the whole thing. The mind has stages of development and sometimes it is right to act and sometimes correct to be patient.

Information on the sheet includes Arlington County, Alexandria City and Prince William county if anyone requests the information it can be shared. Spending so much time on well child check-ups, we may as well answer questions asked of one another.


Well, Merry Christmas, good friends are a special blessing and my life is merrier for all of you. Join me to lift the toast, diet and caffeine free, good chai to you all and to all a good night.

Ho, ho, ho!


December / 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
  1 2 3
Math, 10:00		 4
National Zoo, Field Trip, Pam		 5
gift-making day		 6
7 8
3:00 Laser Tag, Patrick		 9
11:00 4-H (Lisa's)		 10
Math, 10:00		 11 12
gift-making day		 13
14 15 16 17
Math, 10:00		 18 19
gift-making day		 20
21 22 23
11:00 4-H (Suzanne's Christmas party)		 24 25
Christmas		 26 27
28 29 30 31
Math, 10:00