Showing posts with label Series: homeschool high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Series: homeschool high school. Show all posts

Monday, November 18, 2019

Athiest Homeschooling Parents: DON'T MISS THIS!


A friend on Facebook just posted a link to this film Your Inner Fish, available HHMI: BioInteractive, a website for science teachers to share tons of media materials. SHARE THIS LINK!
It's absolutely wonderful. I've only been checking it out for awhile tonight, but I've already seen dozens of titles that are awesome and absolutely FREE!


So far with my quick look tonight, I think it's generally high school level and higher, but who's to say that your children aren't completely capable of understanding these concepts already? ALWAYS expose them to materials that you think might be "above their heads". It's one of the amazing perks of being homeschoolers.

Here are a few titles and links to whet your whistle:


Check it out with your kids and follow your interests...
then let me know of your experience!

What do YOU think?


Thursday, June 20, 2019

Khan Academy Math: Not Shaming + INCLUSION = PROMOTION?


If you are a homeschooling parent, chances are you are quite familiar with Khan Academy website. If you're not familiar with it, make sure you check it out; it is an invaluable resource!

Khan Academy is a website started in 2008 by Salman Khan, a former hedge fund analyst, who began tutoring his cousin online. After awhile, other of Khan's relative's children began using his tutoring videos with their own children. Before long, his videos took off! And I mean through the roof! Through a combination of relatable lectures and SmoothDraw, Khan brought clarity to complex math ideas.


Before long, maybe a year!, Salman Khan quit his full time job to focus on creating and building Khan Academy School, a website with thousands of videos of discrete concepts and ideas for teachers, classes, and students. All of his work is completely free to users of the website. 

We used Khan Academy during our homeschooling years for higher math concepts that I was completely unable to understand, much less convey with any clarity to the kids. My kids became self-learners, in part, because of Khan Academy. I send my sincerest and heart-felt appreciation to Salman Khan.

 

KHAN DO!
Anyway, the reason for bringing up The Khan Academy is this. My friend Janeen brought a Christian website to my attention, specifically an article criticizing Khan Academy for promoting the LGBT agenda. The purpose of the article was to discourage Christian parents from using the Khan Academy because of its Leftist agenda, based on those who fund KA. The so-called evidence of this claim is coming through in the material presented as exercise problems. Take this example given in the OP:
The lesson is on "Irregular Plural Nouns: from 'f' to 'ves.'" The unsuspecting student is told to "Choose the correct plural noun to use in this sentence":
'Brittany and Sofia went to lunch with their _____ every Saturday.'"
Khan Academy's "correct" answer reveals the gay agenda behind the English "problem":
The only choices are "wifes" or "wives."

GASP, the gay agenda (as Janeen texted to me)!
Because INCLUDING is PROMOTING.  😠

And my educated and intellectual opinion is this: 
Those bitching about this can fuck right off.


https://www.khanacademy.org/

On the other hand, I strenuously endorse Khan Academy as a source of inclusive, well-executed personal learning opportunities that are absolutely FREE and much of the material is available on YouTube. Subject matter on KA ranges from beginner to extremely advanced math to science to computing to arts and humanities to history or econ to test taking to career exploration to support resources for parents and teachers.

Khan Academy is truly an AMAZING resource that, sometimes, I think we don't deserve!  LOL
Salman Khan, many thanks to your dedication to the spread of accessible resources for all! Khan has also given us some wonderful TEDtalks and other resources on YouTube, please check it out!


No, REALLY, What Do You Think?

.........................................
Other Posts You Might Also Enjoy:
Strategies for Your Homeschool
Natural Learning
Teaching Things I Don't Know

Monday, June 13, 2016

Free Online Literature Discussions

atheist homeschool
Have you heard of Pinkmonkey?

The self-description of the website:
Pink Monkey is a "G" rated study resource for junior high, high school, college students, teachers and home schoolers. What does PinkMonkey offer you? The World's largest library of free online Literature Summaries, with over 460 Study Guides / Book Notes / Chapter Summaries online currently, and so much more. No more trips to the book store; no more fruitless searching for a booknote that no one ever has in stock!
You'll find it all here, online 24/7!
My sister, a high school literature teacher in a public school just turned me on to it and WOW was I pleasantly surprised. I'm already a big fan of lit summaries available at sparknotes.com, litcharts.com, schmoop.com, cliffnotes.com, softschools.com, bookrags.com, novelguide.com, thebestnotes.com, homework-online.com, etc., so it's no surprise that a new resource appeals to me.

Let me know if you check it out and find it useful.  :)



Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Homeschool High School: Dual Enrollment

homeschooling high school

My daughter has been dually-enrolled for the last year and a half in the local community college. In our state homeschoolers over the age of sixteen can enroll in college courses while still homeschooling and those courses can count towards their high school diploma. The term Dual Enrollment simply means that most courses from the community college count toward the homeschool diploma and also count toward college credit. 

One of my favorite things about Elizabeth being dually-enrolled (and John soon-to-be) is that those upper-level math courses that I am unable to teach can still be available to my kids. I'm so relieved for them to have competent, capable algebraic instruction, something I am entirely unable to provide.
Because I don't get it and don't care because I will never get it. I don't have to feel bad about that anymore.
Anyway, I have no idea how these dual-enrollment classes might affect a student's ability to get financial aid or admittance to an ivy league college. I only know that for a very reasonable price, my daughter has attained her high school equivalency diploma without being disadvantaged by my mathematical limitations.


During Elizabeth's dual enrollment period she took classes of Algebra, Theater, composition and English, Phys Ed, Music Theory, Psychology, various Literatures, and a few other courses, all of which assisted in her completion of her high school matriculation requirements.

And that means that the time eventually came when I had to create a high school transcript for her in order to make her a full-time student at the college. Enter, math. Drat, that stuff is always around...

High School Electives

Stay tuned, also, for suggestions for electives and life skill lesson ideas.

Creating a Transcript

Stay tuned for a future post explaining how to create a nice high school transcript for your child.