Hello to all our first-time guests at Raising Real Men, our blog dedicated to training up sons who stand strong to fulfill God’s calling in their lives!  We had a lot of submissions for this week’s Carnival, and due to a family issue at the last moment, we are a few hours late getting the Carnival posted. Our apologies to all of you!

CARNIVAL OF HOMESCHOOLING
September 14, 2010 …

Renae at Life Nurturing Education is bravely climbing “Middle School Mountain” with the help of friends who share the load of lesson planning … and provide a little peer pressure:

Projects are so easy for me to drop when we get busy, but now I know other families are taking the time to create hieroglyphics. The pressure to give my children the same opportunity compels me to purchase clay and slip it in my children’s workboxes …

Marbel of Two Kid Schoolhouse describes how she is tweaking math for her son, while Lizzie writes about this year’s curriculum at A Dusty Frame and includes a lot of links for Civil War resources.

I’m still following Charlotte Mason and doing things the same way. We’re just stepping out of the rotation for a year. I really enjoyed choosing my own books. Now that I got a taste of picking everything myself, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to being told what to do! (My rebellious streak coming out!)

God Made, Home Grown: Tiana has young homeschoolers, a potty-training toddler, and another on the way. That spells “interruption” – as well as fatigue and nausea – but God shows her the solution.

Laura Grace Weldon takes her daughter to the symphony, enjoys beautiful music, and deals with a sublimely rude man.  Even better, she offers six ways to introduce fine arts, using the happy idiot method.

We probably all know how Charlotte Mason taught children, but Nancy at Sage Parnassus writes about how Charlotte Mason taught teachers — that’s us! “It’s why teachers made a commitment to her philosophy.  It’s also why, after 15 years, I’m still anticipating the upcoming school year,” she says. Jen at Living Charlotte Mason in California does a fantastic job of explaining this philosophy beyond the couple of things we think we all know. Get inspired.

Speaking of Charlotte Mason, do you keep notebooks?  Not just fill them, but keep them?  Susan Gaissert at The Expanding Life explains why she does in “Notebooks, Notebooks Everywhere.” So what do you do with all those notebooks – and textbooks, lined paper, art supplies, and on, and on, and on … Leave it to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to find creative ways to run a household and a school in the same space — Kris shows how she does it!

Micro Business for Teens: Carol Topp, CPA, shares advice from and for teenaged businesspeople.  One of her clients, an 18-year-old entrepreneur, was interviewed by USA Today!

Someone said there are two kinds of people in the world – those who divide people into two groups, and those who don’t.  Barbara Frank looks past the Christian/secular divide, or even the multi-faceted classifications-by-methodology, and sees two complementary camps — which need each other:

Instead of viewing other homeschoolers as those using a different method, we can look at them as being proactive or reactive homeschoolers. We all fall into one of those two groups, and each is the perfect helper to the other. We need to have a cooperative spirit with other homeschoolers instead of feeling different from them, because the assault on homeschooling freedoms continues. As Benjamin Franklin famously said upon signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Tea Time with Annie Kate shares natural ways to teach your children another language in “How We Study Dutch,” and Robin Phillips helps them remember it in “Homeschooling a Foreign Language: 7 Additions to Make It Stick” at Crack the Egg.

“Queen of Carrots” doesn’t use a math curriculum when Introducing the World to her young students (5 and 6) — she has lots of other ideas that sound like fun ways to combine basic math with literature, fine arts, traditional games and more. Lynn at Eclectic Education has gathered resources for file folder games that she’s hoping will help out her son, who’s facing some challenges in learning. She links to a nice directory she’s made.

At Online Education for Kids, J.T. Gaddy asks “Where are the Patriots?” and inspires us to get busy raising some! Janine, at the originating blog for the Carnival of Homeschooling – Why Homeschool, shares a fascinating and surprising story about technology in education.

Having one of those days and trying to remember why you are homeschooling? Linda Dobson at Parent at the Helm will help you out with some shocking truths about remedial classes in college. Karen at Homeschool Girls posts pictures and thoughts that help her remember why, too. If you’ve just figured out you need to homeschool, Carol Alexander at Everything Home…With Carol has a great resource list to help you get started.

As the parents of six boys, you can imagine that we like to discuss raising sons! At Four & Twenty, Kim’s boys are having a “Da Vinci Summer” and learning that ancient boy skill of using refuse to build dreams on. At Books for Boys, children’s book author Max Elliot Anderson answers the question, “How Can You Interest Your Boys in Reading?” Kim at Homeschooling Peeps is talking about that, too, in “Instilling a Love of Reading.”

We love adventure, too, especially the kind you find in the midst of ordinary life and Pamela Jorrick of Blah, Blah, Blog (Love the name!) decides there’s a better way to cross the Golden Gate Bridge than merely driving across it.

Katherine at No Fighting, No Biting, is struggling over the transition from summer freedom to school year discipline.  Her twelve-year-old son isn’t responding consistently to either incentives or punishment. Katherine, we’ve gone through that stage with several sons and it ain’t pretty! Our entry in the Carnival may give you some encouragement:  Arrrggghhh Hope For Teenage Boys & Schoolwork

We’ve had a great time reading all the encouraging and informative posts in this week’s Carnival. I hope you do, too!

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