First Year Homeschool Memories: Snow in Texas

One of the things I loved about homeschooling was the rare fleeting moments we would get when everyone else was in school.   Like enjoying a brief Texas snow flurry.

Snow is rare in Texas, so even the smallest dusting is a treat.   That morning we headed out as soon as the snowflakes began to fall.   There was a little koi pond at a gardening store at the end of our block...and we walked out to it.  My son wanted to know if fishes get cold.  I'm sure they do...they were all huddled up on the bottom in one corner of the pond...and didn't come up to the top to greet us like they usually do.

My other two were in school when the snow hit.  After we finished our walk out in the white stuff, I hemmed and hawed about whether to go get them out of school.  I finally looked at the weather and it said it would get warmer later so I got my youngest re-bundled and got in the car.

It was still snowing when we left, but half way to their school it started to rain. Alas, no point in them missing a day to play in slush, so we turned around.

My older two later told me they did get a few minutes out in the snow.  At the intermediate school the whole school got to go outside for 10 minutes (not much, but at least it was something).  The elementary school stayed inside for recess (Ptttth!  Come on!  Let them play in it!  But, maybe it was turning to rain by then.).  However,  during library time the kids were taking pictures through the window, and the librarian had pity on them and let them go outside for a few minutes to take pictures of the snow with their ipads.   Yeah for librarians!   But honestly, with how infrequently we got snow back in Texas, I'm surprised the teachers didn't jump on the change to let the kids experience it.    I was sorry my older kids didn't get to do more than that.   But it made me so thankful that at least my youngest home for it. 


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A Change of Paths...and What's Ahead for Imaginative Homeschool

I have a big announcement to make.    After four years of homeschooling my youngest (my only homeschooler), we made the the difficult decision to try public school again. We have LOVED homeschooling, but for various reasons this was the right decision for us . 

I didn't announce it right away because we weren't sure how it was going to go, and I had so much emotional  baggage to sort through.  I wasn't even sure if he would stay or be back homeschooling in a few months, but he's happy and doing well so it looks like we're sticking with this. 

This is NOT the end of homeschool content on this blog!    To start with, I have the rest of our Story of the World chapters to blog about (I've only blogged to chapter 13 but we are FINISHED with Volume 1 and half way through Volume 2.)   That's about 50 posts right there alone.  And I have notes on A BUNCH of other things we did while homeschooling that I plan to finally get around to blogging about.   I have resources for All About Spelling and Math U See I never posted, lots of arts and crafts I'll be sharing, and more tricks and tips on a variety of subjects.   I will keep the name "Imaginative Homeschool" for now, as it still describes a lot of what I'll be blogging about.   You'll notice though that I've adding "+ afterschooling and summer-school" to the blog header because that describes the part of our journey we're on now, which I plan to blog about too!

Our summer-schooling will be a lot like our homeschooling was during the year (only maybe just 3 days a week).   My kiddo needs it to prevent summer slide, plus there's so much interest based stuff that we wanted to do and haven't done yet.  

I also think its important to blog about our experience going back to "traditional school" after homeschooling, because in some ways that's as difficult a leap as starting homeschooling can be, and a very different experience from sending kids to school who have never homeschooled.  And while there's lots of guidance out there for new homeschoolers, there's a lot less for homeschoolers returning to traditional school, and I want to help others going through the same thing...or at least share my experience so they can feel like they're not alone. 

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope you'll stick with us for the rest of ours.

With Love,
Gale

Easy Science Experiement: Milk + Dyes + Soap

This is a science experiment I did with my kids AGES ago...when my kids were so much smaller.   I loved how ARTSY this science experiment was.

It's fun and fairly simple. You will need:

• A shallow pan or bowl
• Milk
• Food coloring
• Dish soap

Fill the pan with milk. Drop several drops of different colored food coloring in different places in the milk. Then, squirt a small drop of dish soap in the middle of the dish soap. The colors will start to swirl as the dish soap reacts to the protein in the milk.  Like this...

Isn't that cool!  Of course, if you want to keep this "artwork" to hang on your wall then you'll have to take some pictures like we did.  I love how this also caught the reflection of the lights above our table.  Pretty cool!

LESSON IN COLORS
Use red, yellow, and blue food coloring to help teach younger children what colors are created when those colors mix.

EXPLORING DIFFERENT TYPE OF MILK
The blogger from Tots and Me commented that she tried this experiment with milk with different fat contents (1%, 2%, Whole, etc.) and that it does change the reaction.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT
I found this description of what causes the colors to swirl on About.com:

"The detergent lowers the surface tension of the liquid so that the food coloring is free to flow throughout the milk. The detergent reacts with the protein in the milk, altering the shape of those molecules and setting them in motion."

So, what is "surface tension?"   You can learn more about it and do an easy experiment to find out here.

You can read an even more detailed description at the bottom of About.com's Magic Colored Milk Science Project Page.


FOLLOW UP

You can follow up/review this info while cleaning. When cleaning a greasy pan have children observe what happens to the grease when you fill a pan with water and then add a drop of dish soap (the grease will go to the edge of the pan). Talk about how that's the same thing that happened when we did the milk experiment.   Talk about how soap works to help get rid of grease.  

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Modern Slavery: Free Resources

SLAVERY STILL EXISTS

Did you know that there are MILLIONS of people still in slavery...TODAY?   Many people think that slavery ended with the civil war, but the Emancipation Proclamation only ended LEGAL slavery in the United States.   Slavery continued in many places legally for long after that, and continues as a criminal activity even today.

"I want to be very clear:  I'm talking about real slavery.  This is not about lousy marriages, this is not about jobs that suck, this is about people who can not walk away, people who are forced to work without pay, people who are operating 24/7 under a threat of violence, and have no pay.  It's real slavery in exactly the same way that slavery would be recognized throughout all of human history."
           - Kevin Bales (from his TED Talk in 2010.)

Slavery today looks a lot like slavery a few hundred years ago (though there are some differences).  Read on...

WARNING:   The chart below contains some information that may not be appropriate for younger children, and may contain triggers for abuse victims.   The printable of this chart contains versions with and without more mature content, so that some of the information about modern slavery can be more easily shared with elementary age children.   You have permission to copy and edit this material even further to make it more appropriate and accessible for you own children or classroom, if necessary.

Past and Present Slavery
A Side by Side Comparison 

Then	Now
For most of history, in most places, slavery was legal. (1b, 1c)	Today, slavery is officially illegal around the world, though laws against slavery are not always enforced, and some countries lack laws covering some forms of slavery.  Still, slavery as a criminal activity exists worldwide. (1c, 2)
The average cost to buy an enslaved person was around $12,000 to $40,000 (adjusted to today's currency), and because of this they tended to be treated as a long term investment (1d, 2)	The average cost for traffickers to obtain an enslaved person, worldwide, today is somewhere between $90 - $400.  In North America, the cost is around $3,000 to $8,000--still a fraction of what it cost when slavery was legal here.  The result of this is that today's slaves are often treated like disposable resources. (2)
Slaves were subject to beatings and other forms of violence and abuse. (1d)	Beatings and other forms of  violence are still tools traffickers use to keep people enslaved today. (2)
Enslaved women were often raped by their masters and subjected to other sexual exploitation. (1d)	Women in slavery today are still subject to rape, even when they are trafficked primarily for labor, not sex. (2)
Tattoos were used to mark people as slaves in ancient China, Greece and Rome, and branding was common during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In both ancient Rome and in the U.S. south, metal collars were sometimes put on slaves who tried to run away. (1d, 1e, 1f, 1g, 4)	Today, sex traffickers sometimes tattoo their victims so that they can mark prostitutes as "theirs" and track them down if they try to leave. These tattoos may be names or designs like logos, and often  incorporate bar codes that can be scanned by smart phones.  In Niger, Wahaya slaves are sometimes made to wear heavy brass ankle bracelets to signify their slave status.  (5,6, 7a, 7b)
In the past, slavery was an important part of world economies, and a large percentage of many nations were slaves.  Here is a sampling of nations who's approximate historical slave prevalence we know (numbers are rounded). Percentage of  Population Enslaved (by Year Recorded) 150 BC - Rome - 30-40% 1086 - England - 10% 1860 - U.S.A - 13% 1910 - Korea - 30% to 50% 1930 - Ethiopia - 12% to 25% (1b,1g)	The percentage of the world population enslaved today is lower than at any time in modern history, and the money generated by slavery today is the "tiniest proportion of the global economy to ever be represented by slave labor." (2)   The exact percentage of slaves in the world today is impossible to  determine as slavery today is  mostly a criminal, underground activity, and no longer publicly recorded as it often was under legal slavery.  But the largest  slave population in the world today is most likely Mauritania, where an estimated 4% of the population is still enslaved.   We are closer to ending slavery than ever before. (2, 8, 9)

Sources listed at the bottom of this page.

"The past, the present, and the future are really one:  They are today"

~Harriet Beecher Stowe, 18th Century Abolitionist

Free Modern Slavery 
Educational Resources 

I believe it is just as important to teach our kids about modern slavery as it is to teach them about historic slavery.   Here are some free resources you can use to teach your children or students about slavery.

Printable Then and Now Comparison Chart
I have two versions of this chart, one simplified for elementary age children (without the information about sex trafficking and rape), and a version for older students similar to the one above.  The version for older students also contains sources, so that they can look up more information on any item if they choose.

Teacher Resource by Free the Slaves
 Several pages of concise info about modern slavery.   There are no graphic details, but sex trafficking and prostitution are mentioned.

Global Slavery Index Infographic
This contains a lot of information about modern slavery in a helpful graphic.

Click here to learn how you 
can help end slavery!

SOURCES:
1.  Wikipedia: 
1b. Slavery
1c. Abolition of Slavery Timeline
1d. Treatment_of_slaves_in_the_United_States
1e. Human Branding
1f. History of Tattooing
1g. Slavery in Ancient Rome
1e. 1860 US Census
2.  How to Combat Modern Slavery, 2010 TED Talk by Kevin Bales (Transcript)
3. Sexual Violence in Labor Trafficking
4.  Object Record:  Slave Collar
5.  Tattood Trafficking Survivors Reclaiming Their Past - The Guardian
6. The Ink 180 Story
7.  Anti Slavery.org
7a. Descent Based Slavery
7b. Wahaya:  Young Girls Sold Into Slavery
8.  Global Slavery Index - 2014 Report
9.  "The Global Markets in Modern Day Slavery" by Gary Craig Criminal Justice Matters, Volume 97, Issue 1, 2014
10 "Twenty First Century Slaves:  Combating Global Sex Trafficking" by Siddharth Kara




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Magnet Letter Phonics

A fun an easy way to practice phonics is to let your child make up words with magnet letters.    Whatever order they put the letters in, you sound out the "word" they made.   If they make a word with no vowels, point out that you can't say a word without vowels, point out what the vowels are, and have them add some until the word is more readable.  If you have color coded magnet tiles where the vowels are a different color (like those that come with several phonics programs, such as All About Reading and Barton) it's even easier to reinforce this idea using those. 

My kids loved playing this game, and it really helped them associate the sounds with the letters and learn about how to sound out words.

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