My top 5 international gems This article focuses on the 5 most memorable international places I’ve traveled. Since 2002, I have had the opportunity to go on 4 month-long international trips to Asia (Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Bali, Thailand, Turkey), Europe (Austria, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Brussels, Greece, Netherlands), and Africa (Morocco). Though I have […]
Webinar Coming Up! This fall, we launched Carrier Shell Community, a place for homeschool parents to get inspiration and support. As a part of this, we are offering a FREE California Field Trips webinar on Wednesday, January 20 at 4PM. This webinar will cover the Sacramento and Gold Rush area, Mendocino, Santa Barbara, and other […]
Leaf Observation Collections In my California Out of the Box online classes, another fun project we completed was putting together leaf collections. How does this relate to California? It applies in every way; important to the California Out of the Box Curriculum is the notion that history is related to the natural features of the […]
Earth Party! Biology Curriculum – “I am honoured to be asked for my input on this curriculum. These lessons provide invaluable educational tools for young girls and boys interested in learning about science and hopefully continuing to pursue science as they progress onto high school and beyond. I am impressed with the depth of the […]
(And, what are the “kingdoms of life?”) The five kingdoms of living things involve all of forms of life such as bacteria (single-celled organisms without a true nucleus), fungi (mushroom and yeast), protists (algae, paramecium), plants, and animals (both vertebrates and invertebrates). Let’s Not Bore Our Kids Do you find yourself spending a lot of […]
Collaboration One aspect that struck me as I wrote Earth Party! was how collaborative living things truly are. Flowering plants depend on wind, insects, and animals to propagate. If left to their own devices, they would not produce fertilized seeds. Plants need animals; herbivores (plant eaters) such as birds, deer, rabbits, and rodents need plants. […]
As the summer stretches on, instead of the state of California opening up more, I see it hitting pause or reverting closer to the “Safer at Home” mandate. One of the things that helps me get through it all — the thought of online-only classes in fall, more economic downturn and fallout, parents that were […]
One of the things we love about genuine learning is it can be found in real life. We recently published Earth Party! An Early Introduction to the System of classification of Living Things Curriculum. Do you remember learning about monera, fungi, protists, and the plant and animal kingdom in high school? All that information is […]
Today I had a strange experience. My boys and I biked to the post office in Pasadena to mail some books out. As we pulled up we noticed a trash can that was burning. A moment later I noticed an ambulance driving down the street, headed somewhere else. The fire had melted the trash bag […]
What were your moments, growing up where you experienced deep learning? Was it a speech you gave? Was it an away trip or camp you attended? Was it a super-fun class project? Was it a book you read that plunged you into a situation very different from your own? How many moments like these did […]
