A "real" look at the school table

Homeschooling gifted children, especially if they're twice-exceptional, is always an interesting adventure - and one that rarely, if ever, looks like anything anyone else is doing in their homes. Even more striking is the contrast between our school table and a public school classroom. Come on in, pull up a chair in the living room, and I'll show you what I mean by the 'differences' and what it means for Mad Natter.

Gifted Advocacy

I don't often think of what I do as "advocacy." I mean, I'm a homeschooling mother, who am I advocating to? But, if you stop and think, every time I try to enroll Mad Natter in anything, or take him out during a regular school day and school hours, every time I have to deal with unsolicited advice from others about how to parent my child - each of those times I'm advocating for him.

Introducing Featured Fridays!

Over the last few weeks, I've developed a bit of a series-thing. I've been doing book reviews on Fridays, which was a great launching point. Together with the team from Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, an idea that kept me in post ideas for a good long while to come has become something more.  Allow me to present, GHF Resource Reviews!  Participating bloggers from Gifted Homeschoolers Forum will be using the Resource Review flag to promote and review resources across multiple formats, from the perspective of the parent homeschooling their gifted child.

Homeschooling on a Non-Traditional Scheudule

Each year, about this time, I do a post on our homeschooling schedule. I laugh, because really, this is the second year, but still. Our household runs on an unusual schedule, and it is prone to changing at any time. It's not my favorite thing, but it's worlds better than Skeeve not having a job at all, so we'll take it, and work with it.

Math Facts With a Kid Who Hates Review

One of the things that is so very challenging about Mad Natter is that he is an extremely quick learner - who abjectly hates all things to do with "review."  Add in the fact that math is one of those subjects you have to master before you move along, and it gets extremely tricky very quickly.

Book Review! How to Work and Homeschool by Pamela Price

At this point, it's like tradition!  Book/Resource Review Friday!

Today, I want to talk about How to Work and Homeschool by Pamela Price. I wasn't sure how much this really applied to me, and my life, due to the simple fact of the matter that I don't work outside the home. But, if I'm going to try to get my life set up so I "work from home" doing the housekeeping things (thus helping ensure they actually get done), maybe it would be really helpful after all...

The Value of a Well-Timed Freakout.

I'm learning rather quickly that people who know me in person see a vastly different person than those who know me solely by the words I choose to use in any kind of public, permanent space. In general, I find that I tend to come off in text as authoritative, competent, certain, and blunt.  Blunt seems to be the only thing that carries over regardless of the format you know me from.

Giftedness: Why Does it Matter?

It matters.  It matters so very much.  If you'll recall, I wrote not long ago about what childhood was like for me - the broad, sweeping strokes that I remember from my past, not the little details about my mother sitting with us to eat oatmeal on winter mornings (my favorite was peaches and cream, Uncle F liked maple and brown sugar!), or my father's business trips to what was then termed "the Orient," but the Big Things.

Book Review! If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back? Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional by Jen Merrill

Deciding to keep with last week's review, I've got another review this week! Honestly, I'm not sure how well I can review If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back, but I'm going to give it a go anyway.

The hardest part for me is truly the fact that I have no clue what the best part of it is. I picked up the book not long after its release, in ebook format. I was so excited to read it that I wasn't about to wait for it to be delivered. I got the book and devoured it, again in one sitting. It's a hazard of reading quickly as well as reading good books

Outdoor Ed, and an Important Message

That's right: Preventing Cable Company Fuckery is up again.  Once again, we're stuck with those who have more money than sense deciding they need even more. Using that money to turn legislation in their direction. The government "by the people, for the people" has long been straying from being either. But deliberately choosing to throw those of us who access services like Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Blogger, Google, under the bus in an effort to make more money for corporations - you're crazy if you think this cost for "hyperspeed" service won't be passed onto the consumers - is deplorable. The people in our governments, OUR REPRESENTATIVES, are choosing - actively choosing - to put corporations ahead of the best interests of their constituents.  And we need to do something. The 120 days John Oliver mentions are up, so we can't comment directly to the FCC.  But visit https://www.battleforthenet.com/.  Sign the petition. Make your voice heard.

And now, onto Outdoor Education!

The Library!

Today, Mad Natter and I went to the library.  This isn't exactly unusual for us, but hey. It was a trip to the library all the same.  They've been a little scarce with all the traveling we've done this year.  However, this was a Very Special Trip to the library - Mad Natter got his very own library card!

Book Review! Making the Choice: When Typical School Doesn't Fit Your Atypical Child by Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson

I am crazy excited.  I got the opportunity to review a book I've long meant to read, but for whatever reason just never got around to.  Making the Choice: When Typical School Doesn't Fit Your Atypical Child has been on my TBR for... probably years. I first perked an ear May 22, 2012, when I heard Corin and Mika speak via a web conference. Mad Natter was just three and a half then, and we I had only realized he was truly gifted two months before that. I put it off then, because honestly, he's only three, and I have a Bachelor's Degree in elementary education, so it wasn't like I was truly too worried about how his schooling was going to go anyhow.  But now, I've had the opportunity to read the book, and so... I'm passing my thoughts on to you, should you be either sitting on the fence about reading it, or looking for something to read yourself.

Infographics Gone Amok.

So, there's an infographic running around right now, starting in Pinterest, and then on to a blog entry.  The titles? "How to Raise a Genius" and "Tips for Raising Smart Kids," respectively. In and of itself, I'm inclined to just ignore it and go. But putting the blog entry with the graphic just threw it over the top for me.

Not Going Back To School!

Yesterday was Not Going Back To School Day here in Mooselandia, and as such, Mad Natter and I had a whole lot of things going on.  Some was planned, some was misadventure, but all in all, fun was had.

What is "Educational?"

There's a lot of hubbub going on about screen time, educational television, and how much time kids are spending in front of devices "doing nothing." In the last week or so, I've seen several posts about limiting screen time, a solid dozen asking for advice on good educational programming for children, and even more than that bemoaning how children don't go out and play anymore, all they do is sit in front of televisions vegging out.