Linda's Homeschool WebLog
Saturday, February 21, 2004
In case you haven't read it yet: L.A. Daily News - Troy Anderson's article about California foster care reforms - I am very encouraged by this news!!
Friday, February 20, 2004
Today I took my daughter to another town for a dentist appointment. Since we live in the boonies and there's no dentist here, we drove over two hours to get there, stopping in the county seat for a few minutes to mail something and then subscribe to the county's main daily newspaper.
When we got to the small town that was our destination (with the dental office) I noticed the door to the weekly newspaper was open and I went in to say hi to the editor as I've done before. We chatted a few minutes and had some fun comparing notes about the recall petition regarding our local DA and other local matters. I subscribed to his newspaper too.
Later my daughter and I compared the differences in news coverage of the two newspapers. It was a great homeschool lesson, to see how the two publishers handled their responsibilities to inform the public. The big topic of the day was the speech the DA gave to the Libertarians in response to the recall petition. The daily paper (can't call it a 'big' daily) was slanted in his favor and seemed to try to discredit recall supporters who were at the meeting. The weekly paper supports the recall and offered a free audio recording of the speech to show how the DA behaved there. I look forward to getting my copy via email when he sends them out. ;)
At the beginning of the school year my daughter said she wanted to study 'current events' for social studies this year. Its really worked out well. I've subscribed to Time Magazine and found it a great resource for articles to share and discuss.
When we got to the small town that was our destination (with the dental office) I noticed the door to the weekly newspaper was open and I went in to say hi to the editor as I've done before. We chatted a few minutes and had some fun comparing notes about the recall petition regarding our local DA and other local matters. I subscribed to his newspaper too.
Later my daughter and I compared the differences in news coverage of the two newspapers. It was a great homeschool lesson, to see how the two publishers handled their responsibilities to inform the public. The big topic of the day was the speech the DA gave to the Libertarians in response to the recall petition. The daily paper (can't call it a 'big' daily) was slanted in his favor and seemed to try to discredit recall supporters who were at the meeting. The weekly paper supports the recall and offered a free audio recording of the speech to show how the DA behaved there. I look forward to getting my copy via email when he sends them out. ;)
At the beginning of the school year my daughter said she wanted to study 'current events' for social studies this year. Its really worked out well. I've subscribed to Time Magazine and found it a great resource for articles to share and discuss.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution, 20th Anniversary Edition
By David Rains Wallace
This is a classic of natural history about the area in which we live. I've been reading it out loud to my daughter in the morning. Sometimes my son listens too. Its very complex and we often find words we don't know and look them up. Today we found a mammal mentioned - one we'd never heard of before. Well here's what the book says:
"An Oligocene epoch (about thirty million years ago) floodplain deposit near Weaverville on the Trinity River has yielded a fossil flora more suitable to the Florida Everglades than to contemporary California: leaves and brances of bald cypress, fig, and magnolia. Judging from fossils found in other parts of California, the Oligocene Klamath swamps probably supported alligators, tapirs, rhinoceroses, and many other present-day exotics (as well as a few still-native creatures such as squirrels and aplodontias)."Neither of us heard of aplodontias before and we were curious what strange creature this was that still lives in our neighborhood, that also existed thirty million years ago!
Naturally I turned to the internet... it was either that or the dictionary, and I really wanted to see a picture. I was not disappointed - I found this one and we both think its adorable. An aplodontia is a mountain beaver and looks something like a guinea pig with a beaver's face.
