Magnus at Children's Museum of Houston

Power Play and Kidtropolis

Never too early to start thinking about enrollment

he Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) at Stanford University is a continuing project dedicated to developing and offering multimedia computer-based distance-learning courses. Combining technical and instructional expertise, EPGY provides high-ability students of all ages with an individualized educational experience, optimized in both pace and content. Through EPGY, students have access to courses in a variety of subjects at levels ranging from kindergarten through advanced-undergraduate. Since its inception over 50,000 students from 35 countries have taken courses from EPGY.

EPGY offers online courses year round (apply now).

Learn about the EPGY Online High School at Stanford University.

NEW! Open Enrollment Program

http://ocw.mit.edu/

• For some students, summer programs (see some recommended examples in this entry; some programs we have frequently seen in homeschooled applicants include CTY, TIP, PROMYS, MathCamp, RSI, Tanglewood, andInterlochen, among many others) are a great opportunity to work with other students from diverse backgrounds in a collaborative manner. Summer program mentors and job supervisors can also be great choices to write college recommendations.


• Extra recommendations can be especially helpful for many homeschooled applicants. We welcome a recommendation from a parent, but require at least three recommendations in total (usually a counselor and two teachers). We encourage you to submit additional recommendations (but don't submit more than 5 total recommendations) from those who know you well, such as coaches, mentors, job supervisors, clergy, etc.

Bookshelf

Gingerbread cookies

With royal icing. Following directions helps with test taking.

mix:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardimom
• clean off beaters

add in 2.5 cups more flour and mix by hand until all wet and stiff dough

Building a Robot

what do you think I should do with my blogger posts?

The First Star

There was a dark night sky but I could see a laser beam or light in the distance.
I didn’t notice until I looked up and saw it. The light was so bright it was almost blinding.
It was like the world's most big star ex and imploding at the same time and it was very wide. The rest of the rest of the sparkling stars looked like energy was being pulled from them. The light in what looked like a oval shape. The Light cascading down, increasing in width until it gently blanketed of dark green grass the sparkling mountains,and shimmered off the hard rock in the dark cave. The light was almost as if some one made it. And it was only the only immortal ever of course.

Even the grass was shining in the light brightly. It look almost as if someone turn on the world's most giant LED flash light. If you looked into it to long than you would be blind for a wile. When I looked it at were it began my eyes felt like they were going burn right out of my head and skull. The light smelled really really stuffy almost like something was burning really bad no horrible really horrible. I could barley keep my eyes even a little open at all and it was very hard (and when i say hard I mean hard). At first the the light started dim but then it slow got brighter and then it was very bright it was so bight even the seep were shining with Light. It felt like a giant shot a giant plasma laser gun on to the ruff hard cold ground that was freezing. I did ... not think it smelled any better because it did not it smelled horrible. As the light got wider it also got brighter and brighter and brighter until it touched the ground very lightly. It looked almost solid like it frozen solid and I could not see through it and as if I wanted to and doing that would be very very hard. The light went into a cave like thing that leaned against a hill the cave had four open. The light almost looked like it was moving a little bit which could not even be possible. The top of the light was almost like a giant sun in the middle of the night which will never happen of course.

_______________________

408 word paper

Magnus Own Creation

Magnus designed his own Christmas greeting card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

still struggling

I took a day or two to reflect after reading the responses and now I am back. There was day or two in there that I had quit. I had given up. This is too hard. I can not do this. Then there was day of "failure is not an option", and then there was yesterday and today. I am willing to consider myself boarderline bipolar, I can not make up my mind. That must be sending a signal to the kids that I am not committed, but should be committed, to a mental hospital, until I get my act together.

Monday we started a new project, one that is not exactly in the books. A freewrite essay. I do not understand why writing for me is so easy and so difficult for them, but it is, and that has to change. They can not/ do not want to 'write' with paper and pencil. FINE, they both now have laptops to work on and the one assignment (with deadlines) is just to write to the topic that I assigned. NOTHING ELSE. Just write. I am not a happy muse. I feel like a slave driver, and this is exactly what I feared would be the situation if I were not in k12. We would struggle and cry and whine, and be in December and still no composition done.

I have applied to the husband to restrict all internet access until they have earned back my trust. he finally complied and we are finding that will less distraction and freedom, there is more likleyhood that we are getting our work done, that is helpful for me. But his nagging that I am not supervising them enough is starting to grate on what is left of my nerves. Yes they are 9 and 11 years old, yes, they need hand holding, but they also need to be able to take a task, spend 30 minutes and work on it INDEPENDENTLY. SERIOUSLY, if I say free write for 30 minutes, that means FREE WRITE not stare off into space for 29 minutes. I give them assignments, deadlines, they have to do it without me standing over them with a whip nudging them on like a stubborn donkey.

So I am still not achieving my goals. I am still not fostering the love of learning. I am still no closer to achieving what I set out to do, TO EDUCATE. They are still dragging and dwaddling. This week's experiment. Write an essay about the first christmas. simple enough. they have a word goal that they have to meet. They have a time line that they have to meet, a big reward for finishing early, and reward for finishing on time, and a consequence for being late. They have enlisted me for help, they have enlisted the big sister in california for help, and they are doing work with the speed of a snail on drugs. Now I am pleased with any form of work. I am not going to kill that by trying to point out to them that the prompt was one thing and they have gone off on a different tangent. I am going to celebrate that they even DID work.

It gives me a baseline for figuring out that they need to understand scope and outlines more clearly than they have from the k12 work book. So that is our next assignment. How to make that a teachable unit, because the workbook did not make it that hands on. I am thinking of cutting out some papers and stapling them together and demonstrate how an outline opens and expands to allow for detail to aid in hands on learners. sadly though...

We are not completing any other OLS assignments while focusing so intensely on this critical learning step. which means come January during end of semester we will be 'behind' and scrambling to 'catch up' or we will be marking off lessons that we never really got too and sacrificing THOSE goals in lieu of THESE. I hate that. there is just not enough... not enough hours in the day, not enough of me to go around, not enough time to cover even the fundamental basics to the level that they are needed to be able to integrate them effectively.