Eclectic Homeschool Online Newsletter
May 1, 2008
http://eclectichomeschool.org
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The Eclectic Homeschool Online home office has moved. We are now located at 27 Dawson Dr. Fredericksburg, VA 22405. Our new phone number is (540) 479-1380. We’re happy to be in Fredericksburg and would welcome getting to know homeschoolers in the Fredericksburg area. A special email box has been set up for that purpose: local@eho.org.
The move also means that things are a bit disorganized. You know how it goes…you pack that important thing in a particular place so you’ll know right where it is when you need it…and you forget where the particular place is. Not to mention the need to unpack everything else…computer paper, index cards, my box of reward chocolates…yes, three things keep me going: grace, chai, and chocolates. Bear with us.
Now would also be a good time to mention, we are always in need of volunteers to do the busy work of EHO and in need of product reviewers. We currently need someone to manage the support area and a link checker to check links throughout the EHO website. We also always need more reviewers. We have a special area in the EHO castle for potential reviewers: http://eclectichomeschool.org/reviews/reviewing/default.asp. Don’t let all the information overwhelm you. We’ve designed our reviewer helps as a way to make things easier for reviewers and to make sure that reviewers really know what they are getting into. It takes time and good writing skills to be a good reviewer. We want to avoid the scenario of sending review products and then having to beg you to send them back after they’ve sat on your shelf for 6 months or longer. Publishers get cranky and rightly so. But if you’re one of those people that are forever describing different resources to your friends, writing reviews for EHO might just be for you.
We also need someone willing to keep HSBlog up to date with homeschool news items. We have a system in place that makes this fairly simple to do. It just takes time to accomplish, which is something in short supply for me, the person who has been doing it.
If you’d like to volunteer for any of these positions, please email volunteer@eho.org.
Architecture Unit Study
The study of architecture can be and often is sprinkled into any good history or humanities course. For those who find a love for it, architecture makes a perfect topic for a unit study that can be focused in the direction most pleasing to the student. Whether you want to pursue the technical aspects of architecture such as drafting or construction, to study architecture from an art perspective, or to study how architecture played a role in history we have online resources, projects, lesson plans, books, videos, and hands-on resources to tailor your unit study to your interests.
Louis Sullivan: The Art of Architecture
Louis Sullivan left his imprint on American architecture in the skyscrapers he designed and in the influence he had on other great architects like Frank Lloyd Wright. Learn more about this innovative architect and about two-point perspective drawing.
Mother’s Day Resources
Good Stories for Great Holidays: Mother’s Day
* Cornelia’s Jewels
* The Lark and Its Young Ones
* The Revenge of Coriolanus
Springtime Gift Giving
It is spring, and the annual gift giving panic sets in. As the wedding season approaches, you realize that you will also need to consider graduation and teacher gifts. And let’s not forget Mother’s Day! These occasions combined with the usual birthdays, anniversaries, and baby showers, can be overwhelming financially. By gathering supplies and planning, you will be able to make beautiful gifts for all these occasions.
Mother’s Day Crafts in A Year in Crafts: May Crafts
Several ideas perfect making gifts for mom or grandma.
Focus: Architecture
The following resources are available at EHO in addition to all the new resources listed in our Architecture Unit Study.
Homeschool Art History: Gothic Cathedrals
During the Renaissance, the term gothic was coined as a term of derision for what the cultural elite of the time thought of as barbaric. The term was applied to the architecture of northern Europe, which was considered barbaric compared to the architecture of Greece and Rome. Gothic cathedral architecture is known for its great height with the eye drawn heavenward by the pointed spires and arches. Gothic cathedrals built from the tenth century can be found in greatest number in northern Europe, France and England especially. But there are examples in other countries.
Home Floor Plans
Summertime in the O’Leary family is often moving time. Being part of a military family means living in many different houses. One of the biggest challenges, once we’ve selected our new home, is to figure out where all the furniture will go. I like to make a scale drawing of our new place as well as scale drawings of our furniture. Perhaps you’re not moving in the near future, but you’d like to rearrange some of your furniture to make the most of the space you have available in your house. This can be a great homeschool family project.
Reviews
Buildings in Disguise: Architecture That Looks Like Animals, Food, and Other Things
Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction
Architecture in the Homeschool Resource Center
Building Big: Domes
David Macaulay
$17.99 – 10% Off
Where gods meet and players play–discover the domed wonders of the world. What holds up the Astrodome? Why did the Romans leave a hole in the roof of the Pantheon? Tour the world and trace the 2000-year history of domes with award-winning author-illustrator—and captivating storyteller—David Macaulay (The Way Things Work). From Houston’s Astrodome to Rome’s St. Peter’s Cathedral, to the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller, Domes introduces ingenious designers, recounts rarely told heroic stories, and reveals amazing triumphs through spectacular film footage, fascinating facts, and dramatic recreations.
A Visual Dictionary of Architecture
by Francis D. K. Ching
$29.70 – 34% Off
A Visual Dictionary of Architecture is a remarkable, on-of-a-kind compendium which uses a combination of textual definitions and hundreds of superb line drawings to illuminate a comprehensive body of essential terms in architecture, including important interrelationships between building components. Grouped by themes, such as history, systems, structures, forms, construction, environmental issues, and behavior, all terms have their visual complement and can be readily accessed in a number of different ways. A Visual Dictionary of Architecture is an authoritative source of information for anyone tracking down an elusive word, and a delight for simple armchair browsing!
Haba Pyramid Set – block set
by Haba
$24.56 – 39% Off
Recreate one of the famous pyramids of Egypt – complete with meandering passageways and mysterious chambers. 49 wooden blocks in 20 shapes includes sphinx and palm tree pieces.
A Year in Crafts: May
NEW: Bath Bombs, Flower Pen & Holder, A Sweet Bouquet for Mother’s Day MORE: Key Chain For Mom, Activ-Clay Coil Pot, Learn to Knit, Easy Knit Headbands, Easy Stitch Knit Baby Blanket, Knit Purse, Stained Glass Book Marks, Vase with Cascading Flowers, Safari Animal Projects
Science Spot
Undercover Detectives
T-rays are digitally uncovering everything including potential terrorists, buried images on church walls, and subsurface flaws in the foam used to protect space shuttles.
New listings in our eclectic educational weblinks index include:
Online Spelling Program
* Be a Writer: Your Guide to the Writing Life: Proven Tips and Powerful Techniques Help Young Writers Get Started
* Does Your Bag Have Holes?: 24 Truths That Lead to Financial and Spiritual Freedom (Book + Abridged Audiobook)
* The Elementary Common Sense of Thomas Paine
* Inherit the Land: Adventures on the Agrarian Journey (DVD)
* Introducing Early Christianity: A Topical Study of Its Life, Beliefs and Practices
* A Journey Home (DVD)
* Some of the Parts
* The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling
* Winesburg Ohio (Audiobook)
* Writer’s Market Companion 2nd Edition: The essential guide to starting your project, getting it published, and getting paid
Featured Resource May
The Homeschooling Book of Lists
by Michael Leppert, Mary Leppert
$16.47 – 34% Off
The Homeschooling Book of Lists is a comprehensive, authoritative, and user-friendly resource for homeschoolers or anyone considering teaching their child at home. Written by Michael and Mary Leppert, two experts in the field of homeschooling, this easy-to-use book is filled with information, tips, and resources that will help you give your child an outstanding education. The book covers a wide variety of topics—including what to consider before homeschooling, state-by-state guidelines for homeschoolers, curriculum resources by subject area, and getting your homeschooled student into college.
Available May 9. Pre-orders receive an additional 5% discount.
Painless Grammar
by Rebecca Elliott Ph.D.
$8.99 -
This very approachable text combines instruction in parts of speech and sentence structure with down-to-earth examples, funny illustrations, and examination of some of the more amusing and peculiar words in the English language. A chapter on clear e-mail communication and etiquette is brand new in this edition, as are many of the author’s challenging "Brain Ticklers." Her helpful chapter on how to edit a school paper has also been heavily revised and updated.
Gallop!: A Scanimation Picture Book
by Rufus Seder
$10.15 – 22% Off
There’s never before been a book like Gallop! Employing a patented new technology called Scanimation, each page is a marvel that brings animals, along with one shining star, to life with art that literally moves. It’s impossible not to flip the page, and flip it again, and again, and again.
A first book of motion for kids, it shows a horse in full gallop and a turtle swimming up the page. A dog runs, a cat springs, an eagle soars, and a butterfly flutters. Created by Rufus Butler Seder, an inventor, artist, and filmmaker fascinated by antique optical toys, Scanimation is a state-of-the-art six-phase animation process that combines the "persistence of vision" principle with a striped acetate overlay to give the illusion of movement. It harkens back to the old magical days of the kinetoscope, and the effect is astonishing, like a Muybridge photo series springing into action—or, in terms kids can relate to, like a video without a screen. Complementing the art is a delightful rhyming text full of simple questions and fun, nonsense replies: Can you gallop like a horse? giddyup-a-loo! Can you strut like a rooster? cock-a-doodle-doo! Every child who opens the book will be amazed—and so will every parent.
Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told By a Cat
by Jeanne Perego, Donata Dal Molin Casagrande- Illustrator
$12.21 – 32% Off
In this beautifully illustrated book for children, Chico the cat describes the life of his "best friend," Pope Benedict, in this authorized biography of the Pope for young people approved by the Vatican. "Dear Children, here you will find a biography that is different than others because it is told by a cat and it is not every day a cat can consider the Holy Father his friend and sit down to write his life story," the Pope’s personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, says in the foreword.
The Pope is known for his fondness of animals, especially cats, and Joseph and Chico is narrated by Chico, a real cat who took up with the Pope in his native Germany long before he became the Pope. Chico tells the story of the life of "my best friend" from his birth in Germany in 1927, through his days as a young man, priest, bishop and cardinal. With a colorful and sometimes amusing language, the author makes this funny cat tell us about the life of the young Joseph all the way up to his election as Pontiff on April 19, 2005. It recounts the Nazi era in Germany when the Pope was a teenager, calling the war years "one of the most dramatic and shameful times in the history of man". Later when he became Cardinal Ratzinger, Chico recounts how each time when the Cardinal returned to Germany from Rome for a vacation, the cat would run into his house and sit on his lap as he played the piano.
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
by Trenton Lee Stewart, Diana Sudyka-Illustrator
$11.55 – 32% Off
The fabulous foursome readers embraced as The Mysterious Benedict Society is back with a new mission, significantly closer to home. After reuniting for a celebratory scavenger hunt, Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance are forced to go on an unexpected search–a search to find Mr. Benedict. It seems that while he was preparing the kids’ adventure, he stepped right into a trap orchestrated by his evil twin Mr. Curtain.
With only one week to find a captured Mr. Benedict, the gifted foursome faces their greatest challenge of all–a challenge that will reinforce the reasons they were brought together in the first place and will require them to fight for the very namesake that united them.
Painless Writing
by Jeffrey Strausser
$8.95
Titles in Barron’s Painless Series are textbook supplements designed especially for classroom use by middle school and high school students. The approach of each title is an appeal to students who think that the subject is boring, or too difficult, or both. The authors, all experienced educators, take a light approach, showing kids what is most interesting about each subject, and how seemingly difficult problems can be transformed into fun quizzes, brain-ticklers, and challenging puzzles with rational solutions. Here is practical advice that transforms essay writing into a satisfying experience for middle school and senior high school students. The author offers tips on enlivening writing with vivid images, smoothing out sentences, silencing the dull passive voice, and adding rhythm to writing. He also shows how to create a template that students can use when writing research papers for all subjects. In addition, students will find web site reference s cited throughout the text, which they can access. Brain ticklers (short quizzes) appear throughout the book with an answer key at the back.
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy
by Jeanne Birdsall
$6.50
This summer the Penderwick sisters have a wonderful surprise: a holiday on the grounds of a beautiful estate called Arundel. Soon they are busy discovering the summertime magic of Arundel’s sprawling gardens, treasure-filled attic, tame rabbits, and the cook who makes the best gingerbread in Massachusetts. But the best discovery of all is Jeffrey Tifton, son of Arundel’s owner, who quickly proves to be the perfect companion for their adventures.
The icy-hearted Mrs. Tifton is not as pleased with the Penderwicks as Jeffrey is, though, and warns the new friends to stay out of trouble. Which, of course, they will—won’t they? One thing’s for sure: it will be a summer the Penderwicks will never forget. Deliciously nostalgic and quaintly witty, this is a story as breezy and carefree as a summer day.
Buy Resources in the EHO Resource Center and Help Support EHO
If you receive benefit from the articles and resources at the Eclectic Homeschool Online, we heartily request that you let us know by using our Eclectic Homeschool Resource Center to purchase books, videos, toys, games, crafts and more. We get a small percentage of the total sale price of the items you purchase, whether you clicked on them from an EHO Resource Center page or not. Just the decision to enter Amazon via EHO will allow us to receive earnings from your purchases. So, if you’ve ever wished you could donate money to EHO but never have the extra funds to do so (we understand tight budgets!), you can do so just by shopping and getting great deals on homeschool and other purchases through the Eclectic Homeschool Resource Center. We thank all those that have chosen to do so. During April, your purchases have garnered $132.31 for EHO. Thank you!
Look for our Shop Amazon - Fund EHO Link posted throughout the EHO website or visit the EHO Resource Center main page at http://eclectichomeschool.org/store/
Eclectic Homeschool Resource Directory
We’ve added 3 new listings to the EHO Resource Directory. The Directory is a great place to find small companies that focus on the many aspects of homeschooling. If you’re looking for something new or a little different, try browsing our Directory. We currently have 591 listings in 88 categories.
New Listings
If you’re interested in listing your business in the directory, please visit the following page to submit a commercial or non-commercial website. http://eclectichomeschool.org/info/submit_listing.asp
Our latest advertisers
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Fun girls clothing, 12M-6X,100% cotton, comfortable.
Educational Toys, Games and Puzzles Busy Bee Toys specializes in educational toys, games and puzzles. All homeschoolers receive a 10% discount with coupon code HOMESCHOOL.
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OnlineHome-School.net This informational site includes listings of online and correspondence schools as well as a custom search engine designed to find online homeschool programs.
Stop by CJPress.net for the latest offerings from CJ Press. CJ Press specializes in books on homeschooling and Christian living. They also offer reprints of antique and vintage books, lovingly reproduced from the originals. Currently, CJ Press is featuring the eBook See, I Told Me So!: Homeschool Veterans Declare You Can Stop Worrying and the eWorkshop Cherry Pie: Recipe for a Successful Christian Homeschool.
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The Lord bless and keep you,
Beverly Krueger
Eclectic Homeschool Online
http://eclectichomeschool.org