My!  It seems that the months are passing so quickly!  It is hard to believe that we are already almost through May.  Where does the time go?  I often tell others that it is better to be busy than to not have anything to do.  But, I must admit, there are times when just watching the world going by, sounds mighty appealing.  In years past, a college professor once told me that I needed to stop and get off the merry-go-round.  I was involved in so many things during that time.  His premise was that if you didn't slow down and just take time to reflect, you weren't allowing your mind to rejuvenate itself.  A quiet reflective time was needed to be creative and to do our best thinking.   So, I guess there has to be a middle ground.  It is often hard to find, for those of us who thrive on and are driven to constantly produce.  

How is the economy affecting you?  Although hard to see clearly, there are some soft signs in our community.  A neighbor handyman reports that although he continues to have jobs, the tasks are small and don't take all of his days.  This in comparison to the past when he was almost too busy.   This is the year to repaint my home and I have never had painters more solicitous in submitting bids for the work.  There just seems to be a gentle retreat from our confident spending of the past.  

Although the end of May, Spring is still finding it difficult to decide if it wants to stay.  With early warmth this year, we were hopeful for beautiful warm days leading into summer.  Instead the weather has been happily welcomed by ducks, but not those of us who are anxious to get out and groom our gardens.  As in some  past years, it looks like we will jump from winter to summer.  At this point I think we all would be pleased to put the cold days and nights behind us.  

Enjoy this time of year.   Reflect and enjoy on what we each have and what we can offer to one another.  Have a beautiful month!

e-Tutor Success

There are nine parts to each  e-Tutor lesson.  In talking with parents during the last few months, they have found our suggestions useful, and  so, we want to share some of them with you.  

Students who are being homeschooled should complete about four (4) lessons each day, one in each major curricular area.  Other students, should complete one or two lessons each day depending on their schedules.  Each lesson takes about one hour and an hour and one half to complete.  e-Tutor is a rigorous program.  It has been our goal to provide a learning program where both students and parents meet with success. 

Vocabulary Words - Every lesson has vocabulary words that are automatically linked to Merrian Webster Dictionary.  These words can be used as spelling words, for writing sentences, or they can be printed and then cut apart to be put back together again.  

Study Guide - Each part of the study guide can be printed.  This is especially helpful for our special needs students.  There is no time limit in completing the study guide.  Each student should work at his or her own pace.  

Activities and Extended Learning - Every lesson includes these two assignments in order to increase the concept or skill taught in the study guide.  Since these are most often in the form of a project, an experiment or a report, grading is subjective, so we ask that parents check these.  Parents should check each day to see what the student has completed for the two assignments.  

If you have not had an opportunity to enjoy this exceptional learning program, we hope you will do so today.  Students from all over the world can attest to their successes since using e-Tutor. 

 New e-Tutor lessons are added on a regular basis.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

Garrison Keeler

Our Gifted and Talented Children

Although we place high hopes for a worthwhile future on the gifted and talented youth of today, we often neglect this group.  Many gifted children are left to their own devices in school as well as at home. 

Contrary to the popular misconceptions that they will do better without interference and that they will succeed on their own, some gifted children experience academic, social, and personal problems when they do not receive support from society and parents.  Gifted children display their abilities in a variety of ways, each unique to the individual child.  In general, for most children, giftedness is demonstrated by performance of tasks and understanding of concepts usually associated with much older children.  Reading signs, magazines, and books, and performing mathematical computations at ages three to five; speaking complete sentences and using abstract vocabulary at age two and three....all indicate superior intellectual abilities. 

Often the gifted child feels isolated from the rest of the world because of the exceptional abilities he or she possesses.  Facing these feelings of difference alone can create emotional problems, disruptive behaviors, or withdrawal from the frustrating situation.  Parents play an important role in the development of exceptional abilities in children, especially in encouraging a favorable attitude toward these tendencies. 

Because of their heightened perceptions and sensitivities, many gifted children need an environment that is secure emotionally and stimulating intellectually to allow their abilities to flourish.  Too many adults overlook their needs, however, assuming that these children already have advantages other lack.  Consequently, much is left to parents to provide for the gifted.  Working with the child and with other parents, they can accomplish this awesome, often frustrating, task. 

Adapted from National Education Association

Home is not where you live but where they understand you.

Christian Morgenstern

Parents Count!

Being a parent is hard work!  Many times it is rewarding and delightful.  Other times it is confusing and agonizing.  There is no quick, simple answer.  But their are steps to take.  The first is to be involved in your child's education.

Recent studies have documented measurable differences in achievement for economically disadvantaged high school seniors who graduated years before from preschool programs with high parent participation.  Some of the major benefits they found were:

• Higher grades and test scores

• Long-term achievement

• Positive attitudes and behavior

A study by Anne Henderson of the National Committee for Citizens in Education provided the following information:

• The family provides the primary educational environment.

• Involving parents in their children's education improves student achievement.

• Parent involvement is most effective when it is comprehensive, long-lasting and well-planned. 

• The benefits are not confined to early childhood or the elementary level....there are strong effects from involving parents continuously throughout high school. 

National Committee for Citizens in Education, Columbia MD

Every child is born a genius.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Guidelines For Using the Internet:
Ten Tips For Parents 

We published this list four years ago....but it applies even more today with the explosion of the Internet.   With summer on its way, it is a good time to repeat it. 

• Keep the computer in a well-trafficked area of the house, not in your child's bedroom.  The computer should be set up where it is easy for parents to see the screen and monitor behavior.

• Spend time with your children while they explore the Internet.  Let your child know that you care and that you intend to participate. 

• Keep your children out of unmonitored chat rooms.  Use Internet filtering software . 

• Become familiar with the quality family-friendly and kid-friendly sites on the Web.  We provide safe and secure sites for you each month.

• Take advantage of the Web filtering software readily available in the marketplace.

• Know your child's e-mail password and tell your children to inform you immediately about troubling, unsolicited e-mail.  Make sure they understand it is not necessarily their fault if such e-mail arrives. 

• Inform your children of personal information that should never be given out over the Internet without your consent:  telephone numbers, address, credit card numbers, name of school, age, financial information, etc.

• Stay abreast of technology and regulatory changes regarding Internet safety.

• Let your child know that you are there to talk anytime, about anything they come across that may cause discomfort.  

• It is important to read these tips from time to time to ensure these guidelines are being implemented. 

More Than A Chore

Do you roll your eyes in despair at unmade beds and mounds of laundry?  Get your children involved in chores again.  Chores don't have to be a burden.  Experts advocate starting some form of chores with children as young as three years old. Chores are a vital part of family life.   It makes children feel important to help out with the family. 

Chores That Kids Should Know:

• by age 4
  dress themselves
  pick up toys
  carry dishes to kitchen

• by age 7
  make their bed
  take clothes to hamper
  feed pets

• by age 10
  clean-up and care for pets
  rinse dishes and put in dishwasher
  fix themselves something to eat

• by age 13
  sweep walkways, mow lawns, weed flower beds
  clean pots and pans
  clean bathroom, vacuum house
  cook simple meals

• by age 16
  do laundry, including ironing and folding
  cook regular meals
  mop floors

• by age 18
  do grocery shopping
  have car serviced
  balance checkbook

Home Improvement

In recent years, home-schoolers have been disproportionately represented in spelling and geography bees.  But their victory this month in the National High School Mock Trial Championship, held in St. Paul, Minn., is more intriguing still, because this contest...designed to foster appreciation for the U.S. system of law...cannot be written off as an exercise in mere memorization.  As the competition's Web page states, it is based on "critical thinking, reading, speaking, and advocacy."

"When you're involved with homeschooling, the first question you always hear is about 'socialization,'" says Jeff Atherton, the Chattanooga attorney who coached the team to victory.  "So for me the most encouraging thing was sitting at the awards banquet, when we still did not know the winner, and watching kids from all over the country come up to our team and say they were rooting for us.  I believe this was a tribute to the courtesy our kids displayed both in and out of the competition."

Mr. Atherton, who heads the local homeschool association, says that though homeschoolers still have their battles, "the walls are coming down."  Even by the Education Department's conservative reckoning there are at least 850,000 American children being homeschooled...larger than vouchers and charter schools combined.

This year an issue of the alumni magazine of the Ivy League's Brown University quotes a dean describing homeschoolers as the "epitome" of Brown students.  "They are self-directed, they take risks, and they don't back off."  Today we even have homeschooled Rhodes Scholars. 

The culture is beginning to catch on.  Just last August, Time ran a cover story highlighting homeschooling's achievements, such as SAT scores that are 80 points higher than the national average.  As Time puts it:  "The new home schoolers aren't hermits.  They are diverse parents who are getting results...and putting the heat on public schools."  

Wall Street Journal, 05/17/02

Page 4

It is not possible for civilization to flow backward while there is youth in the world.  Youth may be headstrong, but it will advance its allotted length.

Helen Keller

Teenagers Need Soap, 
and More

Research has revealed that the use of soap is essential in fighting bacteria in our continual pursuit toward good adolescent hygiene.  The youth of today need soap.  They look better, they feel better,  and they smell of lilac rather than the neighborhood restaurant.  Yet the youth have a greater need for S.O.A.P. (Significant Other Adult Persons).

It is important for parents to invest as much time and resources into their children as they are able.  Though the parents are the main source of empowerment, there are other people that must play a role in youths' lives.  These are the people who fill in where the parents cannot.  

Adolescence is an important time when students make significant decisions that affect them for their life time.  S.O.A.P.s are those people that walk along side the youth as they discover who they are in the midst of so many unknowns.  The S.O.A.P.s role is to care, support and love the teenagers as they discover life.  At times they offer direction and other times a healthy push. 

S.O.A.P.s can be found in a teacher, a neighbor, an uncle, a pastor or another parent.  All teenagers need a place to get their compasses realigned and get their oil changed.  There is a great privilege to being a S.O.A.P.  Would you consider being one?

Teenagers need soap to keep clean.  More important, they need a S.O.A.P. to be healthy as they step into adulthood. 

Remember the power of PRAISE! 

Page 5

If you have your sight, you are blessed.  If you have insight, you are a thousand times blessed. 

Marvelous May Links

PBS Kids Cyberchase - A fun math related game is available every day at Cyberchase.  Pump up the math skills and have a little fun at the same time. Take the poll (and have students apply their knowledge of graphs) or have a peek at the next day's show.
http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/

Pluto: Planet or Pretender? - Pluto has the largest moon relative to its size of any planet in the Solar System: Charon is half Pluto's diameter. Pluto, tiny and far away, was the last planet found, after a long and intense search. http://dosxx.colorado.edu/plutohome.html

The Galileo Project - Galileo did not really drop things from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove Archimedes right, nor did
he invent the telescope (he imported it from Holland). However, he did lead an interesting and well-documented life, including some intuitive thinking well ahead of his era. 
http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/

Chandra X-Ray Observatory at Work - The Chandra satellite has been returning some spectacular observations of distant X-ray sources. The pictures evoke a sense of wonder, not only that such things exist in the universe, but that we can detect them through our artificial eyes. 
http://chandra.harvard.edu/s  

How Not to Choke at the Dinner Table - Check out Miss Abigail's Time Warp Advice for guidance on all aspects of life, including love, housekeeping, and home repairs. After discovering a 1967 gem called "The Art of Dating" in a
Salvation Army store, Abigail Grotke began collecting advice books and now her collection has works that date from 1822 to 1978. 
http://www.missabigail.com/

The Century in Shoes - At the beginning of this century, the average citizen had a cobbler, as well as a barber and a
seamstress. Who do you know these days who bothers to resole her shoes?  This site is absolutely wonderful to look at, and it provides a thoughtful, entertaining way of chronicling the changes in everyday life in the 20th century. 
http://www.centuryinshoes.com/intro.html

Swashbuckling Legends - Robin Hood, King Arthur, the Musketeers (and others) - names and tales that have endured for hundreds of years, passed from one generation to the next with such familiarity that one might be forgiven for thinking they were still roaming about the forest today. The Legends site takes on the heroes and heroines of ages old and delves into their histories. 
http://www.legends.dm.net/

Have a Wonderful Month!

From the Staff at Strategic Studies Corporation

 
Copyright © 2002 Strategic Studies Corp.
http://www.strategicstudies.com