SONORAN DESERT HOMESCHOOLERS
Tucson, Arizona
May 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 in May begin at 9:30 AM**
CALENDAR (check below for related articles)
Tuesday, May 1
Project Report Club
Project Report ClubTuesday, May 8Last Meeting of the Year
Last Meeting of the YearTuesday, May 8 3rd Seasonal SDH Clothing Exchange
Wednesday, May 9 Music Recital
Music RecitalThursday, May 10 Parents' Coffee Night
Parents' Coffee NightSaturday, May 12 End of the Year Star Party and Potluck
End of the Year Star Party and PotluckWednesday, May 30 Crafty Ladies
ARTICLES
STAR PARTY AND POTLUCK
To finish out the homeschooling year with our two favorite things, learning and food, there will be a star party/potluck for the entire group on Saturday, May 12, at the Metcalfs' home on the southwest side of Tucson. Directions will only be available at the park meetings, so check the bulletin board.
The party starts at 5:30 PM, and we'll eat at 6:00. If you're coming late, you can bring dessert. Aside from a dish to contribute to the potluck, this is a Bring Your Own Everything Else party, i.e., if you want to sit, bring a chair. Want to eat? Bring a plate and utensils Thirsty? Bring that, too. The astronomers will set up for viewing from 7:30 to about 10:00 PM. For star info, contact Josh L., Becky's son.
There are animals and cacti at the Metcalfs' so choose footwear carefully. You'll also need a flashlight, preferably covered with red cellophane to make it easier for your eyes to adjust to looking at the sky. As if all this weren't enough fun for one evening, there is also a small pool for those who like to swim. Bring Your Own Floaties, of course.
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
Crafty Ladies (and those who are neither) will continue to meet through the summer. 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 Borders on Oracle. (Coffee Etc. has closed.) 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, May 10, at 7:30 PM.
Where: Borders Cafe, Park Mall on Broadway
Why: Why not?
CLOTHING EXCHANGE
SDH will hold its 3rd Clothing Exchange on May 8, at the final park meeting of the 2000 - 2001 year. If you have clothing or household items that you would like to give away, please bring them to the ramada when you arrive at the park. All items are free, and there are no requirements for participation. If you see something you like, grab it! If you have things to donate, that's great, but not necessary. There will be plenty of bags and boxes for hauling your finds home.
What might you find at the Clothing Exchange? Infants and children's clothing; a wide variety of women's clothes; men's shirts; jeans; swimwear; shoes; towels; tablecloths; sheet sets; an iron; books. Have anything else that you want get rid of? Bring it on over - maybe it's just what a fellow homeschooler is looking for!
All items remaining at the end of the meeting will be donated to Tucson Shalom House, a shelter for women and children, so this is a terrific way to help both fellow homeschoolers and the larger Tucson community.
If you have any questions, please talk with debbie g. or email the SDH website at sonorandeserthomeschoolers@yahoo.com
FYI...
AIKIDO FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Starting June 4th, the Center for Traditional Martial Arts will be offering aikido classes for young people, ages 9-13 and 12-16, and possibly for kids 6-8 if we get enough interest. Class fees will be $50 per month per student, with a discount for additional students. At this point, we have scheduled the classes for Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:00 to 5:00pm, although this is not written in stone, and we could possibly add an earlier class if we have enough interest. Classes will be held at the dojo at 3518 E Grant Road, between Country Club and Alvernon. Please contact Carolyn M. at the weekly meetings or by email for more information about this program or to sign up.
Aikido is a nonviolent, noncompetitive martial art that teaches the student to resolve conflict, physical and otherwise, as safely and peacefully as possible. The powerful techniques teach grace, confidence and personal discipline in a friendly, noncompetitive, cooperative environment. In addition to traditional aikido techniques, the young peoples' classes will emphasize safe falling, reflex development and graceful movement. The chief instructor for the dojo has graciously offered to give a demonstration if people are interested in learning more. Let Carolyn know if this sounds interesting to you.
Please check out the dojo's website at http://www.aikido.pair.com for more information about aikido in general or to find out more about the dojo.
BALLET ARIZONA NUTCRACKER OUTREACH
I (Candi T.) spoke with Andrew Needhammer, the Outreach Coordinator, and he is willing to do something special for our group. Apparently the norm is to have the school provide a location for the performance and the dancers answer questions after the ballet. He is willing to allow us to observe a warm-up class, if not a rehearsal, and follow up with a question and answer session. If we have enough interest, I am to contact him in August to finalize all of the details. I will start a preliminary list for those who are interested.
(Editor's note: Candi has recently moved and has been unable to attend meetings because of car trouble. Since I am reluctant to publish her home phone number and email address here, what with our newsletter being posted on the Web, keep an eye out for her at the next few meetings or maybe at the Star Party.)
SCIENCE FAIR IN REVIEW by Susan E.
Sorry to be so AWOL this spring, but it has been a busier than usual time. Please realize if I'm not at the weekly meetings, and you have some questions or ideas on how to improve our science fair participation, you may always call or email me.
I have commented to some of you on how I thought this science fair was a perfect experience for Colin; and I would like to tell all of you in detail just what I mean and you can then start to think of your personal goals for the next fair.
I had an ulterior motive in wanting Colin to understand the minerals in H2O and how it could affect his body and he had no SMALL, DEFINABLE project in mind and so accepted the project. He was not thrilled but not lukewarm about it either - and we talked through the details of the process, presentation and delivery. When it came time to prepare to fully understand pH, acid base, alkalinity - he would not do the work and I would not push it on him.
My personal goals were to have him start and finish a project experiment, create a board, dictate the language explaining his board to me for input, stand up and talk to a judge alone about his project and WANT to do another one next year. That was it for me. I am not saying these are the only or even admirable goals - they were just mine. Colin was 5 when this was going on, and he just wanted to check out the scene and find out why Mom thought it was so cool.
Yvette Jordan, CHET, did an excellent job of pulling off the biggest Science Fair ever, although I am sounding the alarms now - if you know of someone with a science-based background who likes kids, please get their names and numbers for judging for next year - judges are scarce as hens' teeth. I hope by now you all know of Emaly C.'s remarkable accomplishment in winning the 1st grade prize at SARSEF (Southern AZ Science and Engineering Fair) held annually at the UA. She won over all the winners selected as representatives from all the competing public and private schools in Southern AZ.
Although Emaly only won a small trophy and other participants won money or prizes sponsored by special interest groups, Emaly won the prize all other 1st graders were after in this competition. If children are open to tailoring a project around certain items or subjects, we can try to target award-sponsors for next year. Everyone needs to understand that the sponsors and budgets do change annually, so at best, it's a guessing game; but if that appeals to someone, we can try to do the research.
I am suggesting we meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month for 10-15 minutes at the ramada after announcements and discuss science fair "stuff." This month is a brainstorming session, with the rules and process of group brainstorming discussed and utilized. I would like to make the science fair a year-round process, not yet another demand on everyone's time right before Christmas. Please tell me what you think and let's make science fun for everyone!
LOST
Colin E. left a cherished "Action Man, Sled & Wolf" at the Park last month. It was a Christmas gift from his Grandparents and he would dearly love to get it back. Thank you.
AN "IGNORANT" MAN by John Holt
Growing Without Schooling Issue #7
(excerpted from the mid-April unschooling.com newsletter)
Let's take a look at one of those "ignorant" men that Conan Doyle was worried about. In his book Travels Through America, first published in Esquire Magazine, Feb 76, Harrison Salisbury described his efforts to trace the Westward path of some of his ancestors. He describes one of them thus:
"He (Hiram Salisbury) was a man of his time (1815). I scan the journal for clues and reconstruct the post-Revolutionary American. I list his skills, one sheet of scratch paper after another. He knew every farm chore. He milked cows and attended the calves in birth. He physicked his horse. He plowed, he planted, he cultivated, hayed, picked apples, grafted fruit trees, cut wheat with a scythe, cradled oats, threshed grain with a flail on a clay floor. He chopped the corn and put down his vegetables for winter.
He made cider and built cider mills. He made cheese and fashioned cheese tongs. He butchered the hogs and sheared the sheep. He hurned butter and salted it. He made soap and candles, thatched barns and built smokehouses. He butchered oxen and constructed ox sledges. He fought forest fires and marked out the land. He repaired the crane at Smith's mill and forged a crane for his own fireplace to hang the kettle on. He collected iron in the countryside and smelted it. He tapped (mended) his children's shoes and his own. He built trundle beds, oxcarts, sleighs, and wagons, wagon wheels and wheel spokes. He turned logs into boards and cut locust wood for picket fences. He made house frames, beams, mortised and pegged. With six men's help he raised the frames and built the houses. He made a neat cherry stand with a drawer for a cousin, fixed clocks and went fishing. He carved his own board measures (yardsticks) and sold them for a dollar apiece. He fitted window cases, mended locks, and fixed compasses. He hewed timber, surveyed the forest, wrote deeds and shave shingles. He inspected the town records and audited the books of the Friendship Lodge, the oldest freshwater Masonic lodge in the country (still running). He chipped plows, constructed carding machines, carved gunstocks and built looms. He et gravestones and fashioned wagon hubs. He ran a bookstore and could make a fine coffin in half a day. He was a member of the state's General Assembly, overseer of the poor, appraiser of property and fellow of the town council. He made hoops by the thousands and also pewter faucets. For many years he collected the town taxes.
I have not listed all of Hiram's skills but enough. I do not think he was an unusual man. Put me in Hiram's world and I would not last long. Put Hiram down in our world, he might have a little trouble with a computer, but he'd get the hang of it faster than I could cradle a bushel of oats.
******
John Holt - I tend to agree with Harrison Salisbury that Hiram, though perhaps not an unusual man in his time, would be a most unusual one in ours, for more knowing, skillful, intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, inventive, and competent than most people we could find today, in either city or country, and no matter how schooled.
But the real question that I want to raise, and answer, is how Hiram learned all those skills. To be sure, he did not learn them in school.
Nor did he learn them in workshops or any other school-like activity. Almost certainly, he learned how to do all those kinds of work, many of them highly skilled, by being around when other people were doing them. Nor were these other people doing the work in order to teach Hiram something. Nobody raised a barn just so that Hiram could see how barns were raised. They raised it because they need the barn. Nor did they say to him, "Hiram as long as I have to raise this barn, you may as well come around and learn how it is done. They said, "Hiram, I'm raising a barn and I need your help." He was there to help, not to learn --but as he helped, he learned.
Almost a century later John Dewey was to talk about "learning by doing." The way for students to learn (for example) how pottery is
made is not read about it in a book but to make pots. Well, OK, no doubt about its being better. But making pots just to learn to how it is done still doesn't seem to me anywhere near as good as making pots (and learning from it) because someone needs the pots. The incentive to learn how to do good work, and to do it, is surely much greater when you know that the work has to be done, that it is going to be of real use to someone.
INTERNET INFO
SET
While looking for a few math/logic websites I ran into an old favorite. Set, the card game, is great fun despite being good for the brain. The website turned out to be very cool. Each day they lay out 9 cards and you make the sets online. Once you find all the sets the computer records them and your time and then enters you into a drawing for a deck of Five Crowns (another wonderful card game) They lay out the cards so there are 6 different sets on the screen. It's HARD! Especially if you are used to yelling "set" and raking up the cards, thus shifting the,visual aspect. Here the 9 cards stay put. So, if you're looking for 10 minutes or so of logic every day, bookmark this page. Just don't tell the kids, they'll probably beat you!
You can also download a Shareware version of the game for the computer.
EDITOR'S FOOTNOTE
Well, it's the end of the road for this homeschooling year and the end of my commitment as editor of our newsletter. I really have enjoyed this project, even more than I had expected to; and because so many of you have had to see me about articles you wanted to include, I got the added benefit of getting to know a lot more folks than I might have on my own at park meetings. A definite win-win.
The happy news is that Kim B. (Hunter's mom) has stepped up to take over as Newsletter Editor for next year. However, editing the newsletter is one job, while maintaining the roster and distributing the newsletter via email is another. We're still looking for someone to commit to doing the latter, so see Eileen D. if you'd like to fill this important function for SDH.
EDITOR'S FOOTNOTE - continued
Please note that beginning May 1, we will meet in the park at 9:30 AM with announcements at 10:00 AM. Our regular meetings will be held on May 1st and 8th, with informal meetings (no activities or announcements) continuing for only the truly hardy among us until we start up formal meetings again in mid-August. (I got this information from Brian M. so if it is in error, please direct your complaints to him!)
Since I am NOT one of the truly hardy, I will see you all in August.
Have a great summer!
Michelle
