Friday, October 9, 2009

Lessons in Granddad's Memorbilia

It's always good when you can gain two or more positive things from action. A member of my family recently lost her mother and in going through her mother's papers and boxes of momentos, she came across a collection of memorabilia from the childhood, school and college career of her brother. There were football letters that had never been sewn on the atheletic jacket, National Honor Society Certificates, newspaper clippings, party invitations, even his birth announcement; as well as newspaper articles on world events.

Not one to throw anything out, but always ready to pass the caretaking responsibility of items she can't throw away on to someone else, she came up with a "good use" for the items. In other words, she recycled them while unloading them. More important, however, she turned them into a free educational resource.

Her tactic was very simple. She first invited her brother's grandchildren to her home, spread the memorbilia out on the a along with craft tools and art supplies. In one afternoon they had turned the stuff she couldn't throw away into a scrapbook for their grandfather, just in time for his birthday.

While this was an efficient solution to relocating the stuff and a good art project for the kids, it was even more valuable as a lesson in U. S. and world history, geography and the progress of technology in our society. For example, the newspaper article's, one for November 23, 1963 declaring the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, gave rise to discussions about the location of Texas, Washington D. C. and Russia, the history of the our relationship with Russia and the Cold War, and how the world communicated before computers, Internet, and cell phones.

Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams


Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com


Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Monday, October 5, 2009

Recess Anxieties Addressed by Peaceful Playgrounds

You would think that recess would be the least of a parent's worries when it comes to their children's school career. There's a great deal of free information on the blog Peaceful Playground that would indicate that parents, children and educators need to be concerned about recess and their playground. In a more personal way, I was reminded by my niece recently about parental concern over recess.


At a recent family gathering, she told the story of how, on her daughter's first day of kindergarten, she called her husband from her office and ask him to drive by the school at recess to make sure their only child was okay. When he questioned the neccessity and wisdom of spying on the local elementary playground, she voiced her fear, "What if she is all alone and has no friends?"


A brawny Wyoming oil field worker, he called back from the cab of his large red diesel knocking pick-up and whispered, "She is swinging with two little girls. She's laughing."


"Well, do they look nice?"


"Okay, I'm going back to work," was the only response she got. We all laughed, but recess fear, dangers and discomforts are very real for children and their parents.


Andrea and Melinda Bossenmeyer are the authors of the blog Peaceful Playgrounds and twitter at RecessDoctor. This is not a blog spawned from the anxiety of a parent of an only child, as my niece was experiencing. Andrea, an educator and marketer, blogs on nutrition, health, and childhood obesity. Dr. Melinda Bossenmeyer blogs on education, physical education, recess, physical activity, and playgrounds. She is the President and developer of the Peaceful Playgrounds Program and past elementary school principal. She spent 27 years as an educator and is the author of six published books on playgrounds and numerous articles on recess, playgrounds and play. She has presented over 100 conference sessions.


Andrea and Melinda have been blogging for over two years and their site is wonderful free resource loaded with information for parents and educators in their areas of expertise, IE., health and nutrition, and physical education, recess and playgrounds. In addition, to the free, well-written and supportive content on the site they publish a monthly on-line newsletter.


Check out their blog. It's great free information. You can follow them on Twitter. Just for fun they tweeted today a link to a group of photos of playground equipment from the 70s. Take a look. It could lighten up your day with some memories of the playgrounds of your childhood; http://su.pr/2DeR78

Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com
Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Personalized Books & CDs as Reading Incentives for Children

It is not free, but it sure is fun. More4Kids a Tennessee based manufacturer and distributor of books and music for children, specializes in personalized books and CDs.

These kind of products are not new and have been around as a recognized incentive for children learning to read for several decades. Dr. Brenda Rollins, Ed.D, writes in the article Why Personalized Books? An Educator's Perspective about the building of self-esteem and the fostering of feelings of well being that are accomplished with the repetition of the child's name and "I" statements in personalized books. You can read Dr. Rollins article on this website, as well as other free informative articles for parents. Just click the tab Parenting in the navigation bar at the top of any page on the site.

This time of year we are starting to think about unique yet valuable gift ideas for the children in our lives. More4Kids places your child or grandchild's name in the text of the story or in the lyric of songs and stories on CDs. And this company sponsors weekly specials, often discounting their products 30-40%. This weeks special is a personalized Elmo music CD.The price is cut by $10 or 40%. Click here to see the product and discount.

More4Kids is a friendly company, run by Kevin and Julie. She designs personalized handmade baby gifts, also available on their site. They are one of our sponsors, so if you happen to buy one of their products through clicking on the links in this email or on their banner in the side bar, you also help the educational programs we sponsor.

As always if you have feed back on this company, we would love to hear it. Just email us at the address highlighted below.


Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com

Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

TeacherWrite Grammar & Writing Resource by Nancy Ramsey

Back before the 4th of July, I blogged on a new site that would be available this Fall, one I thought would be a good free resource for students, teachers and homeschooling parents. TeacherWrite, the creation of Nancy Ramsey, an award winning middle school English teacher, promised to eventually offer an entire school year of writing assignments on the site. Last summer Ms. Ramsey started her site with the idea of sharing lesson plans and enrichment activities she designed for her real world classroom with on-line teachers and learners.

I remember Nancy's disclaimer on the site warning that building this resource would be a slow process, because she would be using real lessons created and taught in real time. So I thought I would check back in with Nancy at www.teacherwrite.com this week and see how her site is developing. Only a few weeks into the school year, I was impressed to find a significant amount of useful material available at TeacherWrite. The site is easy to navigate and the menu bar takes parents or teachers to the areas of Bell Work, Reading Activities, Writing Activities, Writing Process, Enrichment Activities and several other choices.

Nancy has posted six goals under Mission Statement, the first of which is "help parents teach their children grammar and writing skills." The grade levels of the lessons are middle school; 5th through 7th grades. I can see however the possibility of the materials being used with some younger children and also having a value to adult learners who need to learn basic writing skills.

This is a valuable free resource that will continue to develop. Congratulations Nancy.

Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com

Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Monday, September 28, 2009

Home School Websites for Ideas & Inspiration

We have a twitter account on which we follow and are followed by several hundred homeschooling families. As a result I get alot of tweets that lead me to the personal homeschool website of some of these families. I don't have to tell any educator that there is every species of homeschooling family out there that one can imagine, with almost as many philosophies of education. And, of course, you parents know that, too.

What I find wonderful about the websites that I visit as a result of the tweets I receive, is the variety of point of view and ways of handling the children's education. And it is all free. The diversity in families and motivation and thought leads to an abundance of differing activities and directions. I love to read about their lesson plans or lack of and the activities they pursue, the imagination they show and the sincere desire that all of the parents have to do the best they can for their children. They are sharing their experiences, successes and failures, free on their websites.

On two sites I saw just today, which I particularly liked for different reasons, the primary teaching parent was the mother. The first family indicate that they are Christian, the second is non theist and they intend to educate and raise their children without religion. The first mother has been using public information films from the mid-fifties to teach her children valuable lessons and tweeted today about a film from the 50s on how radar works. She and her husband have made these old films into pod casts, which they make available on their home school website for less than a dollar. This family says they are an eclectic homeschooling family with an eclectic homeschooling website, http://hmhomeschoolers.com/. The site name is "Homemade Homeschoolers." Check out their podcast on how radar works and others on their site.

I had to go on the website of the second family just because of the title, "Raising Three Thinkers." Yes, they have three children. I love that play on words. Go to http://www.raising3thinkers.com/ and at the top of the September 24, 2009 post you will see this quote from Albert Einstein, "I never attempt to teach my students; I only attempt to provide the condition in which they can learn." That is an educational philosophy, I can embrace. There is plenty to appreciate on this site as well, with some very interesting links.

On both as on many homeschooling family sites you find inspiration and creativity and a desire to share the educational experience. In my experience this is the time of year homeschooling families really get serious and parents begin to look around for support and resource. I recommend checking out homeschooling family websites whenever you run in to them, for the free ideas and inspiration, whether you are a homeschooling parent or a professional educator.



Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com

Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Learning from Family & Death

My last post was July 29th and I apologize to those who have been waiting for the 8 weeks for another. In a way, I have been on sabbatical doing research on our subject; free educational resources. I think there are lessons in my experience over the last 8 weeks that parents and educators can. I know there is the lesson of faith, hope and love and the resilience of the human spirit.

Over the last two months I have experienced one of the most effective free learning experiences of my life, that of giving time, energy and support to a family member. On July 27th a member of my family had a long feared seizure that marked the beginning of her body's systems succumbing to a malignant brain tumor. She had bravely fought this tumor for an unbelievable 3-1/2 years, but finally ran out of treatment options in April.

From that point, for some of us life became a waiting game. For her, there were several months free of doctor's appointments and the nausea from chemo therapy, several months of having the opportunity to evaluate her life, say good-byes and to feel almost normal again. After the seizure, each day brought the loss of function, until on her 62nd birthday, she was bed bound, partially paralyzed, unable to swallow or speak, but able to communicate love with her eyes and the squeeze of a hand, just hours before she passed.

I moved into her home and for eight weeks with her husband and the help of their local hospice organization, became her caregiver. It is not the first time I have helped someone through the final months or weeks of life to their death. I have been a hospice volunteer for 20 years helping people I did not really know and their families through this experience. I was also the primary caregiver for my mother for several years.

Through each of these experiences, my admiration for the human spirit has been renewed. I've always found the individual who is facing death to be generous in spirit, more concerned for those around them than for themselves, courageous. With this death, my loved one passing so young, there was an opportunity for questioning and bitterness, impatience with those around her, lack of care for others; but none of that was ever presented. In the last days, when she could no longer communicate at all verbally, when she could only communicate through her eyes and a squeeze of weakened fingers, she still showed love and concern and incredible courage.

There were many moments of enlightenment for me at her bedside. Throughout the eight weeks, I saw many examples of her courage, faith and generosity. It will take me awhile to process them all. What I do know is that though I was afraid, I felt compelled to be her caregiver. My heart told me, I should volunteer. As a result I learned many things from her in the journey to her death. I know these are lessons I will understand as time passes and that I will use the rest of my life. However, the one lesson that I recognize now, an old lesson, free to all of us, is "follow your heart."


Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com

Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Teachable Moments and Free Resources in Family Photos

I recently spent an interesting afternoon with a 9 year old and a seven year old boy, members of our family. We were having a scorcher of a day and it just made sense to spend the hottest hours indoors out of the sun and heat. It turned out to be the perfect opportunity for those young guys to teach me what free educational resources are and where to find them.

The problem at the beginning was that the inside of my house is not even tolerably interesting to a couple of rough and tumble boys on a summer day. Their main ambition at my house is to spend as much time in the creek as they can, even in the winter, and get so filthy that their parents would like to force them to walk home rather than let them in the car.

I apologized for not having video games and refused the suggestion that they use my computer to game on line (I work on my computer! "Oh yeah," the seven year old said in a tone that suggested I had an affliction that the family has to tolerate, "She writes stuff.") The older boy said no problem we'll look at pictures and he grabbed several dusty photo albums from the bottom shelf of a bookcase and sat down on the sofa.

When the younger child joined him, I ran for my computer to finish some work in progress, absolutely sure that the photo albums would provide about ten minutes of distraction. And it was about ten minutes later when they showed up beside my desk with a small album of photos their great grandmother had taken in England years before and a dozen questions.

Before I knew it hours had passed. My work was left undone, but something much more important had occurred. The three of us had wandered together from Stonehenge and medieval Europe, to the Tower of London and the American Revolution with that one album. Then we got into the "really old pictures" and talked about the settling of Texas, the South in the Civil War and the North in the Civil War via photos we saw of soldiers in both uniforms. We went along on the westward migration and discoveries of gold and silver, and ended up with brief stops at WWI and WWII and the Great Depression. By that time we had my big dining room table covered with albums and, yes, shoe boxes of photos, along with maps, encyclopedias and dictionaries, and a couple of magnifying glasses.

The boys had just pulled out another "old album" when their grandfather showed up to pick them up. "What the heck is going on here?" he asked. Just then his eyes landed on the first page of the album the boys had just opened.

"We're looking at old stuff and dead people," the seven year old said.
"Like that guy," the older boy laid a dirty finger on the image of his grandfather at 19 years old, leaning proudly on the front fender of a yellow 1965 GTO. "Will you look at that weird car?"
"What do you mean weird?" Granddad is not too old to get down on the level of a nine year old.
"Well, it is ridiculous. It's like a triceratops."
"Geez, we got a picture of an antique car. Maybe I could take that to school the first day for sharing time."

World History, American History, Family History; we'd covered them all with the free resources lying dusty on a book shelf. And an added bonus for me was seeing their Granddad at a loss for words.

Copyright 2009 Creekside Education & Susie Williams

Contact me: creeksideeducation@gmail.com

Contents of this Blog are copyrighted by Creekside Education and Susie Williams and may only be used or reproduced for non commercial purposes and must include the following credit; "This information is copyrighted by and used with the permission of Creekside Education Blog by Susie Williams."