According to statistics, homeschooling in the United States has increased 74% in the last eight years.
Why? We do not believe that it is because of a lack of faith in our public school systems as much as it is a growing desire to see MORE education and more focus on real issues that will eventually effect the home.
We have toured this country for many years teaching and presenting in thousands of schools and have addressed not only hundreds of thousands of school students but their very concerned parents. Disaster preparedness is always an issue that raises more questions than it provides answers. How do I teach it to my children without frightening them? How do I deal with the tough issues after a disaster? Do I allow my kids to see the news of current disasters? How do I involve them in our planning?
We have found that the world of disaster preparedness is a wide world of educational opportunity filled with science, history, social science, mathematics and literature. It is through this new blog that we intend to provide those tips, stories and insights that we have shared as we toured. Stay tuned here for programs, guides and curriculum additions as well.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Watch your mouth!


Touring the country I get to hear a lot of cool things out of kid's mouths. As a parent, I know that sometimes not everything that comes out of a child's mouth is funny, especially when they are repeating something they heard you say that you shouldn't have...

I have gotten several hundred letters from kids in the last several months, most of them are from school children I met on tour. I love the things they remembered and laugh at how they focused on the LEAST important thing out of a 90 minute assembly.

One letter I got recently from a girl that attended a 90 minute presentation for her 5th grade class was this:

"Thanks for coming. I liked your boots!"

Here's another:

I learned alot about bad weather like when you said you still get scared!"

It is what makes children fun isn't it? It reminds me that they ARE listening. ALL the time...just not to what we THINK they are listening to...be careful what you say!

I remember the show "Kids say the darndest things" and was a big fan so I was excited to find a list of things kids have said about science that they THOUGHT they had learned at school.

Enjoy!

  • "One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second."

  • "You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind."

  • "Talc is found on rocks and on babies."

  • "Isn't inertia when something is moving, then it stops moving and keeps moving?"

  • "The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down."

  • "When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions."

  • "When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting."

  • "Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand."

  • "While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating."

  • "Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction."

  • "South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage."

  • "Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south."

  • "A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go."

  • "There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever."

  • "There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days."

  • "Lime is a green-tasting rock."

  • "Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils, while others preferred to be oil."

  • "Genetics explain why you look like your father, and if you don't why you should."

  • "Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there."

  • "Some oxygen molecules help fires burn, while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother."

  • "Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers."

  • "We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on."

  • "To most people, solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists, solutions are things that are still all mixed up."

  • "In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's."

  • "Clouds are high flying fogs."

  • "I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing."

  • "Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do."

  • "Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does."

  • "Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water."

  • "We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we breathe."

  • "Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail."

  • "Rain is saved up in cloud banks."

  • "In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes."

  • "Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's tongue will kill the strongest man."

  • "The wind is like the air, only pushier."

  • "A blizzard is when it snows sideways."

  • "A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size."

  • "A monsoon is a French gentleman."

  • "Thunder is a rich source of loudness."

  • "Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound."

  • "It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places."

  • "Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime."
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