Community Blog

The Nerd Girl Movement, as the founders are calling it, is all about encouraging girls in science, math and engineering.

Read all about it at NerdGirl.com.

See their appearance on the Today show here: msnbc.msn.com.

And read about them on the Cocktail Party Physics blog, here: twistedphysics.typepad.com.

from the Oak Park Public Library:

www.goodreads.com
Social networking for bibliophiles

www.aalbc.com
African American Literature Book Club — new titles, articles, reviews and writer’s resources.

www.allmovie.com
Information on thousands of movies

www.rottentomatoes.com
THE place for movie reviews

www.allmusic.com
A one-stop resource for any kind of music.

www.npr.org/music
Great source of articles, interviews and sound clips

Here’s another post for the new homeschoolers, who may not know what’s out there in terms of math books.

While many of us can come up with our own plan of study or exploration for lots of subjects, math seems to lend itself to using a textbook or curriculum.

Here is a list of the most commonly recommended ones for you to explore. Which one to choose will depend on the math skills of the parent and the learning style of the child.

Singapore Math
Saxon Math
Math U See
Miquon Math
Life of Fred

And more…

A list of free multiplication sites at Hoagies’ Gifted: here.

A long list of math sites at Hoagies’ Gifted: here.

Read about math, ways of teaching and learning and overviews of the various methods and programs over at Julie’s Homeschool Diner.

And one more… Times Tales is a story based way to learn the multiplication tables.

While this is not a comprehensive list, I hope that helps you get started in choosing the right math resources for your family.

Have I missed any important or useful math programs or websites? What’s your favorite? You’re welcome to join the conversation, post a comment! Thanks!

Looking for what’s got to be the biggest catalog of homeschooling stuff anywhere? This big-as-a phonebook catalog has everything, and it’s a free catalog. Sure, you can shop their site online, but I find that overwhelming, since the selection is so vast.

One stop shopping, and you can save on shipping since you can get everything in one place.

Search around online or request a catalog at: www.rainbowresource.com.

Did you know that in Illinois it’s now required to have an eye exam before entering school? A friend with three kids was saying to me how that’s really going to add up.

The Eyeglasses Shop, in Oak Park, is here to help. In the spirit of community service, they are offering children’s eye exams for only $25.00. Schedule soon before the back to school rush gets in full force! (Even though homeschoolers are not required to get eye exams, it seems like a good idea to me, to have the kids checked out. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when a child has a vision problem.)

The Eyeglass Shop
715 Lake Street, Oak Park
708-848-6640

Here’s what it says on their site:

Children’s Vision Exam only $25

The EYEGLASS SHOP, located in the Medical Arts Building, 715 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois invites all parents to bring their school age children, ages 3 to 12, in for a complete vision exam.

We’re offering a complete vision examination not a 20/20 vision screening, which is a brief check which test how well a child sees an eye chart from a distance of 25 feet.

Our complete exam includes:

Ocular Health
Visual Acuity (Myopia, Hyperopia, Astigmatism)
Color Vision
Focusing Ability
Eye Muscle Control
Strabismus / Amblyopia (lazy eye)
Glaucoma
Cataract
Written report for school & pediatrician
A 20/20 vision screening measures a child’s clearness of sight, or visual acuity — in other words, the sharpness of vision as measured by the eye chart. It only checks a child’s distance vision!

A 20/20 vision screening cannot test many other important visual skills that children need to succeed in today’s modern world, especially at school. For instance, the eye chart can’t check how well children team or coordinate their eyes at the close up distances required for reading, how well they can track a line of print without losing their place, how well they can adjust focus changes from near to far distances, or how well they can understand and make sense of what they see. Children can have good sharpness of vision (20/20) and still have serious problems in these other areas.

We make this offer simply to raise awareness in the community about children’s vision.

Vision has an immense impact on a child’s learning and development. It is important to detect and treat any problems with the visual system at an early age.

The Hoagie’s Gifted site just reminded me about the PaperBackSwap site, which I keep forgetting to check out. They have a list of more sites for book sharing/trading. The whole list is here: www.hoagiesgifted.org.

And did you know Half Price Books has finally come to Illinois? They have at least one location, in the Northwest Suburbs.

Update: There’s a store in Countryside on La Grange Road!

After our lovely picnic at the park last week, one of the children found a really cool bug. No one knew what it was! It looked kind of like a leaf, only you know, with legs.

Lisa was kind enough to look it up online and found out what it was — a katydid! Here’s the link she found: www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us.

And here are more sites you can go to when you just have to know, What’s that bug?

www.whatsthatbug.com
www.acad.carleton.edu
www.antweb.org

There are library book sales, and then there is the Oak Park Public Library annual book sale, every year the first weekend in August. That’s the one you plan your vacations around.

This year’s sale is the 38th Annual Book Fair and will feature 100,000 books in every conceivable category, from Cooking, History, Children’s, Travel, Parenting, Crafts, SciFi and many more…

The sale is held in the air conditioned cafeteria of the
Oak Park River Forest High School
201 N. Scoville Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois.

Friday, August 1, 2008
6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
$5.00 admission

Saturday, August 2, 2008
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Free admission

Tips to enjoying yourself at the book sale: bring plenty of tote bags, a bottle of water and wear your good walking shoes. Friday night is more crowded, but the selection is better.

At our house, we have a rule about new books coming in — that means some old ones have to go — due to limited shelf space. So now’s the time of year when we make some space.

How about you? Is the book sale an annual tradition at your house?

Our Artist Trading Cards event was a ton of fun!  Kids enjoyed painting, collaging, and generally covering themselves and the table with glitter, while moms and dads had a bit of a chance to get to know each other.