Sonoran Desert Homeschoolers
Tucson, Arizona
March 2001 Newsletter
MISSION STATEMENT
Sonoran Desert Homeschoolers is an open, not-for-profit home education network, providing social and creative outlets for homeschooling families. We are not devoted to any one homeschooling approach, political platform, religious outlook, or philosophical ideal. Our homeschooling community supports all families, regardless of their personal lifestyle or educational choices in the area of home education. Our motto is "hozho," a Navajo word meaning "harmony" or "walking in beauty or friendship."
**PLEASE NOTE** Park meetings begin at 12:00 noon **
CALENDAR (check below for related articles)
Tuesday, Mar. 6
Project Report Club
Project Report ClubThursday, Mar. 8 Parents' Coffee Night
Parents' Coffee NightTuesday, Mar. 13 Early And Middle Readers Groups;
Deadline For All April Newsletter ArticlesThursday, Mar. 15 4-H Bug Club
Tuesday, Mar. 20 Informal Spelling Bee
Informal Spelling BeeTuesday, Mar. 27 Early And Middle Readers Groups
Early And Middle Readers GroupsWednesday, Mar. 28 Crafty Ladies
Crafty LadiesThursday, Mar. 29 Bug Party
Bug PartyARTICLES
BUG "LEARNING" PARTY for SDH 5- to 8-year old kids who are really interested in bugs!!! This will be a 3-hour bug extravaganza! We will have a U of A guest lecturer talking about edible bugs. We will also have a bug treasure hunt, bug dancing, bug snacks, bug identifications and bug games.
When: March 29th - 1PM to 4PM
Where: Mikey's house, west side of town
How much: Just bring a snack to share
Why: To get kids excited about bugs
Why 3 hours: We have so much to do!
Who: Parents can stay and help with buggy activities or they can drop off kids. Just let us know ahead of time! There is a limit of 25 kids.
Who's crazy enough to plan this? Lisa, Alissa, Susan and Victoria! Any other helpers welcome.
More information will be given out at park day!
PROJECT REPORT CLUB
Project Report Club will meet under the ramada the first Tuesday of every month immediately following announcements. Any child may present a topic they have been studying, and presentations may include pictures, experiments, or demonstrations. This is a great chance for your child to practice speaking in front of a group. Questions? Call Alice G.
CRAFTY LADIES
Meet to sip, talk about the travails of homeschooling and parenting, and catch up on projects. If you have a project you just can't get to, or you just need time to get away and recoup, please join us the last Wednesday of the month at 7 PM at COFFEE ETC. on Oracle. Please contact Sybelle V. for more information.
EASTSIDE PARENTS COFFEE NITE
Who: Everyone welcome!
What: A leisurely chat over coffee or tea. Discussion is very informal.
When: Thursday, March 8, at 7:30 PM.
Where: Borders Cafe, Park Mall on Broadway
Why: Why not?
EARLY READERS GROUP
The early readers or nonreaders will continue to meet the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. We meet at 11:15am, just before the park meeting. If you are interested in sharing a story with our group, please contact Mary Mc.
SPELLING BEE
Jaron enjoyed participating in December's citywide spelling bee so much that he is organizing informal spelling bees for SDH. They will be held on the 3rd Tuesday of each month under the ramada at 11:30 AM. All ages are welcome! It will probably not be very big at first, but hopefully it will grow. We will do our best to make it fun for everybody!
Questions? Please talk with Jaron or Debbie at the park, or email them at xxxxx@xxx.
4-H BUG CLUB
The Creepy Crawly 4-H Bug Club is up and crawling! This month's meeting is Thursday, March 15. Children under 8 will be meeting with Alissa, and children 8 and older will be meeting with Debbie and Alayna. Call Alayna V. for details.
FYI...
PHONE TREE by Alice G.
I am setting up a phone tree for SDH members who do not have email or who would prefer not to depend on email. I need to know who is willing to COMMIT to make 2 or 3 phone calls on short notice to pass along important information (like: It's raining --- meet at Lighthouse Y!). Please contact me at the park or call if you'd like to participate.
MARINE DISCOVERY PROGRAM by Michelle Y.
Don't panic, it's not until April 4, but I'm including info in this month's newsletter for those of you who like to plan ahead. The workshop will be held in the UA Chemistry & Biological Sciences building, on the south side of the UA Mall near Highland Avenue. The fun begins at 9:00, so plan to arrive at the southeast corner of the building no later than 8:45 AM. You can pick your child(ren) up at noon.
Since UA parking is notoriously scarce and expensive, and also in the interest of "sparing the air," please consider car pooling with another family or taking SunTran. Route #1 will take you right to the mall entrance at Park and University, and the bus riding experience will teach your kids some more life skills. However you choose to get there, I will hand/send out maps, parking information, and the list of SDH participants a couple of weeks before the workshop.
LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE by Sybelle V.
For those who signed up, remember that the performance will be Monday, April 2, at TCC Music Hall (260 S. Church). There is a parking garage across the street. The performance starts at 10:00; however seating is on a first-come-first-served basis and starts at 9:30. So PLEASE be there before 9:30 so we can have good seats. I will have copies of info and a "study guide" to help your child become more familiar with the story before you go. Please see me at the park for a copy.
FROM YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC TELEVISION STATION
Reading Rainbow is having a story writing contest for children in K-3. They said they would have "great prizes." KUAT also sends great stuff to help parents use KUAT programming to help with teaching. Call 621-KUAT for more details, or check the Reading Rainbow web site at.http://gpn.unl.edu/rainbow/.
LOST HORSE by Sybelle V.
After park day January 23rd, Bibi left her (homemade) stick horse at the park. It has a blue sock head. She also left her little doggie on red wheels. She misses them a lot! Does anyone know where they are? Ingo left his book, "Galaxyrangers," and would like to get it back if anyone knows where it is.
SOUTHERN ARIZONA HOME SCHOOL GRADUATION
When: May 25th, 2001
Where: Victory Assembly of God
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Attention all senior and 8th grade graduates! Graduation is quickly approaching! If you are a senior in high school or an eighth grader and would like to participate in this year's Southern Arizona AHFE graduation, please call Nicole Lambros at 744-0446 to register. The deadline for registration is April 6th for Seniors, and May 4th for 8th graders. There is a fee for graduation this year. The cost is $20 for seniors and $10 for eighth graders. Your check should be made out to and mailed to Nicole Lambros at: 9152 N. Alabaster Pl. Tucson, AZ 85742.
The money should be mailed after you have called and registered with Nicole. If you have any other questions, please feel free to call Nicole and talk with her.
MORE FROM THE JANUARY 2001 AFHE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
"The Arizona Home Education Scholarship program provides eligible high school graduating students home educated in Arizona with initial assistance in their post High School studies. The Program was established to recognize and honor academic achievement in Arizona home high school studies and to provide a means to encourage different areas of continuing education for these students who have been prepared by their families for further life studies." (from material provided by AFHE )
Joe Cavanaugh was the second speaker at January's conference. A member of the Arizona Home School Scholarship Committee, he was enthusiastic about Arizona Families for Home Education's new scholarship program. Developed in the fall of 2000, it is intended to support both academic and vocational work during the student's initial year of post-high school study. Candidates will be judged on the basis of eight main criteria: academic performance; character; potential home education representation; creativity; strength of commitment to Arizona; leadership qualities; communication skills; and parental commitment to the process.
Some particulars of the scholarships:
---Funds will generally be given directly to the parents, to be administered at their discretion for educational purposes. Spending will not be monitored by AFHE.
---Awards are intended for the first year/term, and will generally not be renewable.
---Scholarships will be awarded for both college and non-college work a certain percentage of the money will be assigned for each type.
---Determinations will be made that go beyond academic records tests are not required, but if tests have been taken, the results are expected to be made available to the scholarship committee.
---The strength of the applicant's focus on homeschooling will be taken into consideration because winners of the scholarships will be "living advertisements" for homeschooling.
Because the application process is more accelerated than many other scholarship programs, there are a series of tightly managed deadlines that must be met to be eligible for an award. The deadlines for this year are:
---March 1 - initial applications must be received by AHFE
---April 17, 2001 - all additional information requested by the scholarship committee (semifinalist packet) must be postmarked by April 17.
Families of AFHE board members are prohibited from participating in the scholarship program. Membership in AFHE is not a requirement for participation in the scholarship program and will play no part in the decision-making process. The scholarships are also not faith-based. A web site for the scholarship program is currently being developed; there is some information about the program on the AFHE web site http://www.afhe.org .
The scholarship program is actively soliciting donations for the 2001-2002 award cycle. The donations are tax deductible. Donations are accepted with discretion, however.
If you are interested in finding out more about the scholarship program, check the blue resource notebook at park meetings - inside you will find both a detailed description of the program and a sample application. The notebook also contains information about the Arizona Tri-University Admission Standards. Although none of our SDH teenagers will be graduating this spring (at least as far as I know), it is a good time to plan for next year.
Questions or comments? Talk with me at the park, or email me at debbiegubernick@yahoo.com .
INTERNET INFO
UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARK
Sonoran Desert Homeschoolers has a new web address (obsolete url). This change was necessary because our previous host, Crosswinds, has been experiencing numerous problems, one of them being that our site was completely lost. Sam G. is designing this new site, and there will be new features available soon, including a password-protected calendar for SDH members only.
The e-mail address for the site is hozho@homestead.com. Both Sam and I will be answering e-mail and maintaining the site, so if you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know.
Thanks,
debbie g.
Free Math Software:
It has a lot of printable and interactive math for ages 6-12 and costs
$3.85 for shipping and handling. Go to http://www.ugernet.net/sbasics/hscfree.html
Used Homeschool Stuff is available at http://www.vegsource.com/homeschool You can sell and buy at this site. It has other homeschool information too.
Here's the new link to the Southern Arizona Homeschoolers List:
This awesome website shows a picture of Earth's lights. It is fun to look for the major cities and countries so it would be a good assignment for kids to see how many places they can recognize. Can you find Tucson?
EDITOR'S FOOTNOTE
In the middle of this month's editing process, I almost turned my mouse over to check it for debris again but stopped myself just in time...which just proves that negative reinforcement CAN BE an ineffective way to alter behavior! That's today's lesson in science. (If you don't get the joke, check last month's newsletter.)
Don't forget to send me your articles for the April newsletter by Tuesday, March 13. I aspire to have the newsletter to you by the 1st of each month, barring any major pestilence, fire, flood or unpleasant act of God in my life or Eileen's.
See you soon!
Michelle
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TO JOIN SDH, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR $10 DUES ($5 after January 1) TO CAROL T., COMPLETE THIS FORM FOR THE SDH ROSTER AND RETURN TO EILEEN D.
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