Hello world...

[Esther]

I'm a home-schooling mum to a 12 year old budding scientist/inventor/philosopher, and I'm going to need all the help I can get to keep ahead of him for as long as possible, and to answer all those unanswerable questions...

 

Hopefully this forum will be a good place to keep me up-to-date and on my toes!

 

I look forward to meeting you all.

[rockytriton]

why are you home schooling? just wondering.

[Queso]

welcome. some kids are so smart so young these days!

[Esther]

Why am I home-schooling?

 

'Cos he's a bright, intelligent lad who loves learning, and I'd like him to stay that way! :)

 

And the Portuguese schools are c**p...

[Michaelangelica]

Welcome Esther

No religious or philosophical reasons just the local schools are shite?

Are you Portuguese?

 

You will find a lot of brainy, knowledgeable, kind, generous and helpful people here so that you can stay one chapter ahead (of your son?)

(Give some -plenty- of warning of major assignments.

You can start WW3 here with some questions)

 

How old is he?

Is he doing the Baccalaureate?

What are his main passions?

Does he know where he wants to go?

[Esther]

Ah - now I undererstand why you all so interested. *NO* religious reasons whatsoever!!

 

I'm not Portuguese, I'm from the UK and we moved here two and a half years ago. We homeschooled in the UK too, with some evening classes thrown in for the arty subjects I'm no good at. My son is 12, very interested in science, technology, robots, the planet, nature, the mind, philosophy and history. At that age, his idea of where he's going keeps changing. He seems to have decided against his original idea to colonise Pluto (that was when he was five) but still wants to invent bionic eyes and save the planet.

 

Of course, he might decide to be a bin-man, but that's up to him!

 

We did briefly try out the local school when we arrived, but gave up after eight weeks, and it took nearly two years to get him back to enjoying learning again. He admitted to me afterwards that he used to just sit staring out the window dreaming of building a bomb to blow the place up, and seeing as my brother actually *did* that when he was 15 (he was stopped, mercifully), I figured that I wasn't going to risk another attempt...

 

But he's full of questions about what photons are made of, how does the mind work, can we build time machines, can we build robots that think, can we find a better energy source, how can we link cameras to the brain... It's a difficult balancing act making him do the basics without curbing his dreams and closing his mind. And to keep his feet firmly on the ground he spends his afternoons on our little farm doing 'practical' projects like building and making things, growing things, and playing with the donkey!

[rockytriton]

that's definitely the right reason to home school. You have the time and resources and your child is very eager to learn. Much better than the "I want to teach him that people rode on dinosaurs and all scientists are evil" reasoning.

[sanctus]

Invite him too to this forum if he has so many interesting questions :)

 

But then it might be risky for you if you always want to be a chapter ahead...

 

Anyway welcome.

[Esther]

I think staying ahead by holding him back isn't *exactly* what I had in mind :cheer:

 

But for now he prefers to spend his internet time somewhere as far as possible away from mum - he spends far too much time with me already and likes his private time doing his own stuff somewhere I can't watch him constantly...

[Michaelangelica]

And to keep his feet firmly on the ground he spends his afternoons on our little farm doing 'practical' projects like building and making things, growing things, and playing with the donkey!

See if you can get him interested in the Terra preta sub-forum.

It leads out into all sorts of fields.

 

There is a Teacher's experiment kit available from somewhere

Let me know if you can't find it.

 

twelve is young I used to sit quietly and look out the window at school.

I must have been very Zen like (Which I could get back there now)

I was an ideal student, polite well behaved, quietly spoken, large so i could fetch and carry and do the grardeing.

O what a lovely tranquil, irrelevant life school was

The teacher's loved me and I was vaguely aware of them.

Then my world fell apart.

The Health Department came tested my eyes (I was very short? sighted).:cheer:

I could certainly not see the board from the last row in a class of 60 kids.

They also did an IQ test. :)

They (brothers) moved me to the front of the class, started to pick on me and instead of being "Gentleman John" I was " Lazy and NOT trying (!!!)"

My whole world fell apart.

 

I did like seeing the individual leaves on trees though.

 

I loved to read "How and Why Books" and had a vast chemistry set.

 

Your son has the whole Internet, although I think access to it needs to be supervised a little, if not a lot.

 

One of my big interests is kid's/adolescent literature.

If you want some suggestions give me some clues and I'll make some suggestions.

 

For yourself have you read Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals" a funny read which you may relate to.

 

Good luck

[Esther]

We read "My Family and Other Animals" before we moved, and we relate *very* well to it! Our place isn't quite the menagerie that Laurie had, but I often think it's headed that way...

 

I'm always on the look out for good books. In fact, yesterday I put up one of those 'lists' on Amazon, called 'Books to help your kid love science" I'm not sure if I can post links yet, but it's here if you want to look -

amazon.co.uk/Books-to-help-your-kid-love-science/lm/R7XD5LS4B72VT/ref=cm_lm_pdp_title_full/203-2086580-6682329

 

I'm busy reading through Farsight's stuff about energy, matter and the universe. We 'met' on another forum (I followed him here as I was looking for other forums) and he's kindly sending me all the chapters of the book he's working on so we can 'kid-test' it. It's very difficult finding interesting science books at the right level for him. They are either too childish or too adult. He's in the middle of Dr Art's Guide to Science, which is absolutely brilliant, but I need good books which stretch him a bit and help keep his mind open.

 

Ok, I'm off to check the Terra preta thread...