You Know You're A Homeschool Mom When...

When a child busts a lip, and after seeing she's okay, you round up
some Scotch tape to capture some blood and look at it under the microscope.
You find dead animals and actually consider saving them to dissect later.
Your children never, ever leave the "why?" stage.
You look at every room in your home to try and imagine how to squeeze
in another bookshelf.
You turn your china cabinet into book shelves.
When your teenager decides to take one community college course, and
comes home and asks you why the teacher wrote "At" on his paper. (A+)
You ask for, and get, a copier instead of a diamond tennis bracelet
for your wedding anniversary.
Your kids think reading history is best accomplished while lying on
the floor with their head resting on the side of their patient dog.
Your husband can walk in at the end of a long day and tell how the
science experiment went just by looking at the house.
You never have to drive your child's forgotten lunch to school.
Your child will never suffer the embarrassment of group showers after PE.
The only debate about the school lunch program is whose turn it is to cook.
You never have to face the dilemma of whether to take your child's
side or the teacher's side in a dispute at school.
If your child gets drugs at school, it's probably Tylenol.
Your neighbors think you are insane.
Your kids learn new vocabulary from their extensive collection of
"Calvin & Hobbes" books.
Your formal dining room now has a computer, copy machine, and many
book shelves and there are educational posters and maps all over the walls.
You have meal worms growing in a container... .on purpose.
If you get caught talking to yourself, you can claim you're having a
PTA meeting.
Talking out loud to yourself is a parent/teacher conference.
You take off for a teacher in-service day because the principal needs
clean underwear.
You can't make it through a movie without pointing out the historical
inaccuracies.
You step on math manipulatives on your pre-dawn stumble to the bathroom.
The teacher gets to kiss the principal in the faculty lounge and no
one gossips.
Your honor student can actually read the bumper sticker that you put
on your car.
If your child claims that the dog ate his homework, you can ask the dog.
Someday your children will consider you to be a miracle-working
expert and will turn to you for advice.
Your kids refer to the neighbor kids as "government school inmates."
You can't make it through the grocery produce department without
asking your preschooler the name and color of every vegetable.
You can't put your produce in your cart without asking your older
student to estimate its weight and verify its accuracy.
You live in a one-house schoolroom
~Author Unknown

Shadows Reply

Shadow shadow on the ground,
you seem to follow me around.
Hands go up you reply,
like a sunrise stretched up high.
Eclipses are shadows too,
be careful if you want to view.
Look around and you will see,
the cooling shadow of a tree.
(Speaking of cool,
cloud shadows are too.)
Once I had catch my eye,
the shadow of a bird circling high.
Ask a shadow question of the moon,
she'll say;
"Have you seen me at noon?
Sundials only work in the day."
Time for bed look on the wall,
quackless duck
having a ball.
Bunny ears,
tell you sleeptime nears.
Shadow shadow on the ground,
where do you go when the sun is not around?

by Patricia Glaha—a homeschooling mother

http://mysite.verizon.net/cetan/

Love Is

Flowers look proud in the spring. Trees, like warriors, guard the Earth with shields of green. Rocks mark communities of insects hiding their odd habits from man. Man in a semiconscious state tries to understand life. Looking back, looking forward, looking within, trying to understand. To harness, to tame, to blame. Something so simple. Something, the flowers, trees, and insects understand. That we are loved. The flower stands proud not dwelling on the winter. It understands that is a necessary sleep. The tree is not guarding the Earth, but dining on the sun. Insects don’t hide from man, but go about their business. Not trying to figure out what we are. What we do is what we become. If we hate, we hate. If we love, we love. It isn’t about the past, the present and the future. It is about love. It is said the window to the soul is through the eyes. I say the window to the soul is through the heart. Our eyes don’t have to see it. Mother Theresa said, “I want to be a clean drop of water in a sea of iniquity.” The Bible says, “All the darkness in the universe cannot put out the light of one candle.”

by Patricia Glaha— a homeschooling mother http://mysite.verizon.net/cetan/

 

Winner - Sophie Robinson
Age 14 - 16
Diary of a Rock Particle!!
(Find out what its really like to be a rock star!)
DAY ONE:
I am currently a member of a 'rock band', called magma, however we have not yet been discovered by the press & the general public but we are purposefully kept beneath the 'earths crust' as they say, so we make a big impact when we are ready to form a solid stable rock band.
DAY TWO:
We have been transported to the top of the press release & today we plan to `explode' into the public. Everyone in the group is feeling the tension & anticipation especially as we have changed our name & are now known as, 'igneous'.
We were a big hit & things are starting to cool down now, we feel our name has been set in stone.
DAY THREE:
Things are going down hill. The critics have eroded us; they are slowly wearing us down. Already three band members have left us &* I feel as though I am soon to follow.
DAY FOUR:
It's happened. What we all dreaded, we have separated & we have all settled, 'below the sea', along with other such bands as 'the monkeys', 'the Beatles' ect.
We have been individually labelled, sediments, it's supposed to mean a failed rock star.
DAY FIVE:
We have been compressed with the other sediments of the rock world & myself & four other sediments, have decided to form a new rock group as we find it hard to cope with the pressure the rock bands above us. Our new name is 'metamorphic'. Rather catchy I think!!
DAY SIX:
Our new group are starting again & trying to make it to the big time, wish us luck!!

The 6th Oxfordshire Science Writing Competition 2005

 

New York City students win science prizes

New York Newsday— 31 city students semifinalists in Intel science competition

BY BRYAN VIRASAMI
STAFF WRITER
January 12, 2006
With projects ranging from investigations into cell behavior, autism and estrogen to studies of cancer, the ocean and fish, 31 students from the city earned coveted spots Wednesday as semifinalists in a prestigious national science competition.
Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan had the most semifinalists of any city school chosen for the Intel Science Talent Search, with eight students selected.
Semifinalists also came from schools throughout the boroughs, including four students from Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, three from Midwood High School at Brooklyn College, and six from The Bronx High School of Science.
The 31 students from the city was a drop from the 50 chosen last year, according to Intel. This year's competition drew 1,558 entries from 486 high schools in 44 states.
"I was so surprised, I couldn't even tell you," said a beaming Nicole Lam, 17, of Sunnyside, a Bronx High School of Science student who examined the brains of fruit flies under a microscope.(01/14/06)

We at StarChild Science applaud these students who have shown a promising grasp of scientific investigation using patience, curiosity and dilligence in their quest to find out how things work,