There is a Moms Meeting planned for November. But you’ll have to email me by using the “Contact” hyper link on the side bar to find out the details. They are always great fun! I hope to see you there.

There is going to be an Eastern Oregon Fall Mini-Conference in Baker City on November 15, 2008. It is sponsored by the Baker Area Christian Homeschoolers and OCEANetwork. This is what is planned:

Homeschoolers in Eastern Oregon will be encouraged and equipped by conference speakers Kevin and Christine Bullock. Topics for moms are “Listen for Your Child’s Learning Style” and “Help for the Harried Home Educator.” Dads’ sessions are “Charges of the Father” and “Practical Family Discipleship.” Sessions for the whole family include” Homeschool Success Stories” and “Portrait of a Healthy Homeschool Marriage.”

Admission to the event is free. For more information view the conference brochure at http://www.oceanetwork.org/currents/Baker_City_Conference.pdf

It starts at 10 AM and goes until 3 PM at Harvest Church, 3720 Birch Street.

It’s great to have an event in our own backyard!

Also, OCEANetwork is looking for people to participate in the 2008 Homeschool Academic Achievement Research project. Here is their write up:

The 2009 Oregon Legislature will be in session soon. In order to prepare for the session, the Oregon Christian Home Education Association Network has commissioned Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute to compile statistics on the academic achievement of Oregon homeschool children. It has been 10 years since the Oregon Department of Education collected test scores thanks to the change in the homeschool law in 1999. But it’s time we had updated research to show “Home educators are doing well enough to be left alone.”

If you had your child(ren) tested with a standardized achievement test last year (September 1, 2007 – August 31, 2008), please participate in the 2008 Oregon Homeschool Academic Achievement Research Project.

All information will be kept strictly confidential. You will generate a student research ID for each student (following a specific formula) which you will use when answering questions in an online survey and when mailing your student’s test scores to OCEANetwork. Neither OCEANetwork nor NHERI will have any personally identifiable information on your students or your family.

This survey of Oregon students is part of a nation-wide survey being conducted by NHERI and the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Deadline for participation is November 14, 2008. You can find more information on the project by going to OCEANetwork’s web site http://www.oceanetwork.org/alerts/research.cfm

There is also a PHSA Board meeting in November, again contact me for details, and then come tell us what you would like to see happen.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Why Homeschool.

I found two articles about The Big Question- Socialization, interesting. The first one is at Principled Discovery titled “What is it about socialization?” Then The Rebellious Pastor’s Wife continues the subject with this post- “The Plus Side of Homeschool Socialization.”

Is there a novel floating around in your head? Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? To learn how it works and some tricks check out National Novel Writing Month at Little Blue School.

Check out the Carnival and find some gems of your own.

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Homeschoolbuzz.com. There are many interesting articles to read but one that caught my eye was “16 Reasons to Read Aloud” at Works in Progress. I read aloud to my children often and this confirms why it’s a good idea. We tend to want to buy the newest and greatest new programs and forget what a great thing just reading out loud can be for our children’s education.

The Charlotte Mason Carnival is up at Homeschoolers. Oregon Style. The list is fairly short this time. Go see if anything catches your eye.

“A Review of the Homeschooling Literature” at Help! My Kids are Smarter than Me! is an interesting, although a tad intellectual, read. One of the things that caught my attention was this:

In the United States, at every grade level, home schooled students’ average score placed between the 82nd and the 92nd percentile in reading and reached the 85th percentile in math. Overall, test scores for home schoolers placed between the 75th and 85th percentiles. In contrast, public school students scored at the 50th percentile, while private school students’ scores ranged from the 65th to the 75th percentile.

And this one can help us all breath a sigh of relief and a possible talking point when those people look at you all horrified as they drop the big question- “what about socialization???!?”

Research also suggests that home schooled students are more sociable than their school peers, as well as more independent of peer values as they grow older.

I’ll leave you with this last article about a study in the United Kingdom about how father’s spending time with their children can effect, for the good, their children’s I.Q.

A big hat tip goes to Why Homeschool for highlighting the last two articles. I glean most of my articles of interest from them.

The kids had fun learning how to play soccer the other day. One of the Mom’s is teaching them.

After a loosening up jog, they learned a few of the rules. The kids are age 8 (nine by April 1) and up. There is a wide age and skill range but everyone was respectful of the others.

Then a game was started. In case you think that it’s the older ones that are more skilled, it’s a few of the young ones that have had more experience.

The kids learned some about the game and had a fun time too!

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at A Pondering Heart. I haven’t read any of the articles yet but if you do come back and tell us your favorite!

Also, the Charlotte Mason Carnival is all about narrating- so your assignment will be to go read an article ONCE then come back here and narrate it. It’s hosted at Simply Charlotte Mason.

I found mention of a site for homeschoolers called Homeschoolers Like Us. It’s a “social network web site”- has anyone used this site? What do you think of it?

After the tour of the seed cleaning plant we went to a nearby park to eat our lunches. And to feed the ducks and geese.

Click on thumbnails to see a larger copy.

The kids had great fun feeding and watching them.

It was great weather and a wonderful time!

The group went on to tour a food processing plant but no cameras were allowed inside so there are no photos of it. Maybe there is a young (or youngish) person out there who would be willing to write in and tell us all about that tour.

A continuation of our field trip to a grass seed cleaning plant.

After walking through the seed cleaning area- and up and down three flights of stairs- we wandered over to where the seed is put into smaller bags for shipping.

After the seed is cleaned it is put into large bags. These bags hold about a ton of seed. There it waits until the test results come back. If there is too much weed seed or dirt in a batch then it is re-cleaned. It is much easier to empty out the large bags of seed than open a lot of small ones. If the batch tests clean then it is brought over to a machine that puts it into smaller bags.

The man is putting the bags on to be filled and oversees the machine sewing the 50 lb. bags shut. The bags then go up the blue elevator and onto a conveyor belt.

The bag is slid into this arm (blue and white thing) which stacks the bags, in an alternating pattern, onto a pallet. Once the pallet is full, it drops down to where it is wrapped in shrink wrap in preparation to be shipped.

At the end, all the children were allowed to fill bags with seed to take home.

We had a great time learning about cleaning seed. But the day was not over yet! We went to a park to enjoy our lunch. I’ll be posting photos of that later!

We went on a field trip to see how grass seed is cleaned.

This very nice, funny and informative man took us on a tour.

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge. The thumbnail tends to cut off some of the photo.)

The dirty, right out of the field, seed is put into large storage rooms. Here the kids are feeling it.

These are screens that the seed goes over in one of the processes to clean it. The seed must meet certain standards- I believe it has to be 98% clean – before it can be sold. Every batch is tested before it’s bagged.

On the second of three floors we saw some seed going over a screen.

On the top (third) floor we got to feel the insides and outsides of drums used to filter out the dirt.

Here he is explaining how this machine works.

We walked back down the three flights of stairs and went over to see how the seed is bagged. I’ll show those pictures another day. Stay tuned!

I am totally stealing that blog title but I am going to direct you to where I found it. It’s at a blog titled “Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers”- I just love that name! There is a picture of kids wearing tee shirts with that on them- you can find out how to get your own at that site too. But, while you are there, check out this post- titled “How Do You Know?” How does one know what level your child is reading on? Curious? At the end of the post there are two links to simple tests you can give your child at home.

If there is someone in your life who is a little, shall we say, concerned about your child’s education then you can breezily say “Oh, Junior is in 2nd grade but his tested reading level is the 11th grade.” Or you can use the tests to see progress- sometimes we lose sight of the little gains that are being made. It’s not about reading on a certain grade level but learning to read so that it is a love and a pleasure to the child in years to come.

It’s the time of year again when the question comes up- “Do we have to notify the Education Service District (ESD) that we are homeschooling this year and how do we do that?”

In order to answer that question, I’ll provide a few links. In the “Link” section of this page you will see one for the Umatilla Morrow ESD. That link will take you directly to their homeschool page. They have what information is needed for a letter and also a handy form you can fill out and mail in. Their address is there also.

Confused about when you have to inform them? The Oregon Department of Education provides that information on their home school page. The pdf is titled “Oregon Guidelines for Home Schooling- Questions and Answers“.

Another site that also explains Oregon requirements is this one at OCEANetwork.org.