St. Patrick's Day

Some ideias for St. Patrick's day.

Tot Trays at Playing house in Maryland.

Oopsey Daisy Blog Packet.

Mamas Monkey Pack.

The Classroom creative: Measuring Leprechaun.

I hope I can start to take my own photos and share them :)

Easter Ideas

Carrot Brigadeiro

Some ideas for easter activities.

Hands on:

- Carrot brigadeiro.

- Bunny basket. 

- Bunny banner.

- Egg terrariums.

- Carrot with coffee filters.

La France

France! I could not forget to include lesson about his country. Even if he was born in Canada, my son is French-Brazilian. :)

Links

1- Lapbook about France and Madeline (Free unit covers France, Compassion and My Body) at Homeschoolshare.com
2- Crayola Eiffel Tower Coloring Page.
3- Study maps of France using World Atlas. Print the simple map here.
4- Make French recipes: http://www.easy-french-food.com/
5- Read the Lyrics and listen to the French National Anthem here.
6- Little Passport, Living Montessori Now.

American School Damaging our Kids

Is the American school system really damaging our kids? According to this text, yes. I knew that regular school can damage our kids in thousand irreversible ways. This blog is an attempt to find the light. As a mother, that had her education in regular school, I am very worried about how my son can not turn into a person without enthusiasm for leaning like the people I see around. English is not my first language, so bear with me.

Some facts:

"Children are required to be in school, where their freedom is greatly restricted, far more than most adults would tolerate in their workplaces. In recent decades, we’ve been compelling them to spend ever more time in this kind of setting, and there’s strong evidence that this is causing psychological damage to many of them. And as scientists have investigated how children naturally learn, they’ve realized that kids do so most deeply and fully, and with greatest enthusiasm, in conditions that are almost opposite to those of school."

"The top-down, teach-and-test method, in which learning is motivated by a system of rewards and punishments rather than by curiosity or by any real desire to know, is well designed for indoctrination and obedience training but not much else."

"The lowest levels of happiness, by far, were reported when the children were in school, where they were often bored, anxious, or both. Other researchers have shown that, with each successive grade, students develop increasingly negative attitudes toward the subjects taught, especially math and science."


As you can see, nothing positive is coming through. I am wondering if exists people that are really fulfilled in life and had "success" in a regular school. It might have, but I will keep my long journey of finding what is best for my son.