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.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Nick Walker

Creating curriculum for homeschool can be just as difficult as you want to make it. Extravagant curriculum that fits somewhere in the course of the day can take hours upon hours to create with very little return. On the other hand, the right website or resource can open up weeks of learning experiences for the homeschooler.
While a lot of homeschooling families that I know have set limits on television-watching, we cannot deny that television is still one of the most powerful influences on our children. It is this fact that we use every day as we tour... we KNOW that the kids watch television, so we use that connection to educate them. They watch storm stories and storm chasers, so we gear programs to that interest! That is just one example...

There is a an on-air personality with The Weather Channel by the name of Nick Walker. Watching his afternoon show, you would place him as a normal meteorologist with salt-n-pepper hair; not really standing out amongst the likes of Greg Forbes, Mike Bettes and surely not the adventurer Jim Cantore. While Mr. Walker seems like a mild-mannered weather guy, let your kids look a little further...

Nick Walker is an amazing educator with a great website. The links he has created has become a library of fodder for homeschool curriculum, and there is no better time of year than right now to start integrating these subjects into your lesson plans!

Check out the weather dude (wxdude actually) at http://www.wxdude.com/ and see what you and your kids come up with! Let them watch Walker on TWC in the afternoon as he reports on current weather conditions, and then go check the facts on his site!

Learn safely!
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