What Are The Best Homeschooling Programs?

Homeschooling is becoming a more popular choice each passing day, as many parents are discovering. Every year sees 7 – 15% more parents who decide to homeschool their children.

Presently, there are about 2 million children who are learning from homeschooling programs.

Even though homeschooling is a widely debated topic, the evidence proves that homeschooled children thrive. And more than often do better than their public educated counterparts. Homeschooled children excel on standardized tests and have no problem in college.

A passion for lifelong learning is passed on to children who are taught at home. Most families homeschool their children with college as a goal.

Homeschooling programs offer families flexibility. Children not only learn skills and knowledge, but they master it. With the pace set by the child, there is no time constraint to have a concept finished within a certain period of time.

Children who are homeschooled only compete with themselves. They don’t have to worry about keeping up with others. They also have the luxury of more one-on-one time with the teacher. Lessons can also be adjusted to fit the child’s needs.

Let’s say your child is a math wizard but struggles in English. You can address this with homeschooling programs that focus more on English and less on arithmetic.

This demonstrates one of the greatest advantages of homeschooling programs. You aren’t just teaching with your child’s pace in mind, you are also addressing certain strengths and weaknesses.

When you use homeschooling programs, you don’t have to stick to a rigid schedule. Since you’re teaching at home, you have full control over when and how the lessons are conducted.

Having this flexibility doesn’t mean it’s not important to have some kind of schedule. It just means you have more flexibility to begin and end lessons whenever you want to. You can end it whenever your child finishes their work.

Homeschooling programs offer another luxury: The ability to teach in a safe, secure environment. Parents can choose to create a learning environment that is comfortable for their children.

For example, if you are learning about certain animals or plants, wouldn’t it be great to have your lesson inside a zoo or museum?

Field trips can help a lot with learning, and with homeschooling programs, you have the flexibility to include them. Field trips are often more instructive and memorable than ponderous lectures you might hear in a traditional classroom.

Portable Crib Tips: How To Ensure Your Baby’s Safety

There are many kinds and types of cribs to choose from. One kind that is growing in popularity is the portable crib. What benefits are there in getting a portable crib and what are the things to watch out for in picking one?

Portable vs. Non Portable

The main advantage is that it can be folded and handily brought around during trips. These cribs usually come in different shapes and sizes and can be made of metal, wood or plastic. Most popular plastic models have fine meshes instead of rails on the sides. Portable cribs are usually smaller in size than typical cribs which is why they are handier. The size and features however of a portable crib are still subject to government safety standards.

Benefits of a Portable Crib

If you are a traveler or if your family likes to take trips, then this type of crib is ideal for you. This type of crib can be carried around easily and can provide the kind of comfort and security that your baby has been used to in his home crib. Portable cribs also double as play spaces. This makes it perfect for families who would like some freedom to enjoy a picnic with the baby around.

Feature and Safety Tips

Models can vary and differ. Before you pick just any model or before you decide on how to use it, you should remember a couple of good tips.

- Update yourself with recalled crib models. Although most cribs have been designed with safety in mind, some models may sport features that may not immediately seem dangerous. After some time though, these products may be recalled because manufacturers and users have noticed a design flaw that may make it dangerous. Recall information is always available online. Even if your model is brand new, make sure to check regularly if there is a recall order for it.

- Thoroughly check the parts of the crib before you buy it and even occasionally as you use it. This will help ensure that your crib has no chipped parts that could injure your baby. Pay special attention to the locks of the crib. Broken locks could cause a crib to collapse on your baby.

- Avoid cribs with mesh holes that are too large. A mesh that does not meet current safety standards could rip and injure your baby. He could also get his fingers caught in large holes. There are suggestions that the wire mesh should be on all sides and not just on two sides. Such a design can provide proper air flow.

- One thing to look into is the rail. Make sure that the rail collapsing mechanism should not immediately collapse on a downward V. The safe kind of portable crib model is the one that has rails that move up in a V before collapsing down. This is a safety feature that can protect your baby from an accidental collapse.

- As much as possible, avoid cribs that have controls that are accessible to your baby. Your baby could tamper with controls on the side and cause a crib to collapse.

Avoid Social Networking Dangers

Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo have experienced a huge surge in popularity recently. Sites like these allow users to communicate with their friends and meet new friends, but they can also expose them to malware, phishing and other online dangers. As the use of Web 2.0 applications, like social networking sites, wikis and blogs continues to rise, they are attracting increased attention from cyber criminals. Many of the users flocking to these sites are new to the Internet and lack experience in dealing with online threats.

All of the threats described in this article have now been eliminated by site owners, but new ones will inevitably arise as attackers develop their techniques in response to increased security measures. Social networking sites are attractive targets as their interactive nature allows them to spread threats very quickly. Many of these threats exploit the trust people have in their friends, emphasizing the fact that it is important to treat electronic communications with care, no matter who they appear to be from.

As with other aspects of Internet use, threats can be split into two categories: behavior-based and technology-based.

Threats Posed by Behavior

Behaviour-based threats arise largely because users are careless regarding the personal information they share online. This can leave them vulnerable to phishing attacks and identity theft. Users often publish details of their friends, their likes and dislikes, hobbies and jobs, without realizing that this information can be invaluable to identity thieves as it can help them appear more credible.

After carrying out research on a random sample of Facebook users carried out by Sophos, an IT security company, showed that 41% were prepared to give out personal information like as email address, date of birth and phone number to a complete stranger. The researchers created a fictitious Facebook profile for a green plastic frog named Freddi and sent out 200 friend requests to random users all over the planet. 87 of the users contacted replied and 82 of them supplied personal information, like email addresses, date of birth, details about their education or workplace, address and phone number, as well as photos of friends and family and information about partners, hobbies and likes and dislikes.

Research carried out in 2007 by Internet Safety website Get Safe Online, showed that one in four UK social networking users had posted confidential personal information, such as their phone number or address on their profiles. 13% of users had posted information or photos of other people online without their consent. This figure rose to an alarming 27% among 18-24 year-olds.

Threats other than phishing can found on social networking websites. Eleven Canadian high school were suspended after making comments about their principal on Facebook when the school imposed a ban on electronic devices and implemented a uniform policy. A school spokesman claimed that the comments constituted cyber-bullying and described them as vulgar and profane.

There have been several allegations that young girls have been raped by older men who encountered them via MySpace or Facebook, but none of these appear to have been conclusively proved. The real issue appears to be that social networking sites can provide an opportunity for men to meet young girls in an unsupervised environment, a situation that parents ought to be very wary of.

Threats Based on Technology

Social networking sites can also be a source of technology-based threats. They allow millions of people to post content, so it’s inevitable that some of these will be malicious individuals attempting to post malware.

Early in 2008, more than three million Facebook users were infected with spyware in less than four days. A Facebook widget named “Secret Crush” or “My Admirer”, reportedly downloaded by one and a half million users, claimed to tell users who had a secret crush on them, but actually tricked them into downloading the well-known Zango spyware. It spread by prompting users to forward the widget to five friends.

Anti-virus vendor Symantec has claimed that vulnerabilities which could be used by hackers to take control of Windows PCs have been found in ActiveX controls offered to users for uploading images to their pages by both Facebook and MySpace. The insecure controls are based on an ActiveX control named Image Uploader, produced by Aurigma Inc.

Towards the end of 2005, 19-year old Samy Kamkar wrote a worm that infected more than a million MYSpace users and caused the site to shut down. The Samy worm added a million friends to his profile within a few hours, adding the string “but most of all, Samy is my hero” to each of their profiles. Kamkar was later sentenced to three years probation and made to perform 90 days of community service.

The biggest privacy breach to date on a social networking site took place in January 2008 when a 17-gigabyte file containing more than half a million pictures obtained from private MySpace profiles appeared on BitTorrent, a well-known peer-to-peer file sharing service. A security flaw, first reported in Autumn 2007, allowed hackers to access the photo galleries of some MySpace users who had set their profiles to private, the default setting for users under 16 years old. This allowed pedophiles and voyeurs to target vulnerable 14- and 15-year-old users.

In December 2007 users of Google’s Orkut application based in Brazil were attacked by a worm that attempted to hijack their computers and steal their bank account details. The worm spread via booby-trapped links on the personal page of Orkut users and infected further users when they read messages from friends who had already been exposed.

Google quickly closed the loophole which allowed the attack to take place, but another worm, known as Scrapkut appeared early in 2008. Scrapkut was initially thought to be relatively harmless, but it was later discovered that it could intercept the login sessions of a number of Brazilian banking Web sites and replace certain sections with a fake authentication prompt which could capture the users’ logon credentials.

YouTube has also been used indirectly to infect sites with malware. Many Internet users have received spam messages asking them to click on an attached YouTube video clip. The link actually takes them to a fake YouTube sight where they are told that they must install Adobe Flash Player to play the video. Clicking the supplied download link causes a file called install_flash_player.exe. This is the same name as the real Flash installer, but it actually installs a Trojan known as Trojan-Dropper.W32/Agent.

Fighting Back

We’ve looked at some of the dangers you need to guard against on social networking sites, but what can you do to protect yourself against them? Technology-based attacks can often be repelled by the usual software defenses, ie: anti-virus software can prevent infection by viruses, trojans and worms, and anti-spyware programs can protect you against spyware and adware. A top-quality firewall (remember that the one supplied with Windows XP is fairly basic) can protect you against hackers and Internet safety suites can offer protection against a range of threats.

Behavior-based attacks rely on tricking users into behaving in an unsafe manner. These are more difficult to combat as they can only be countered by a changing user behavior. The Get Safe Online website offers some guidelines for networking safely, including the following:

Don’t let peer pressure push you into doing something you’re not comfortable with.

Avoid publishing information which can identify you, eg: phone numbers, pictures of your home, workplace or school, your address, birthday or full name.

Choose a user name that doesn’t include any personal information.

Set up a free email account (eg: Yahoo or GMail) that doesn’t resemble your real name and use that to register and receive mail from the site.

Use a strong password.

Avoid saying anything or publishing pictures that could embarrass you later.

Use the privacy features on the site to control access to your profile.

Watch out for phishing scams.

If you ensure that your software defenses are strong and up-to-date and follow the above guidelines you should be able to enjoy surfing on social networking sites without problems.

If you have young children you should ensure that they are not allowed access to the Internet in an unsupervised environment. It’s much better if the computer is in a family area, such as a lounge or dining room, rather than hidden away in a bedroom. Even with older children you should try to keep an eye on their Facebook or MySpace profiles and watch out for any changes in behavior which may suggest that they are encountering online problems.

What You Need to Know About Homeschooling Online

When you make the choice to homeschool your children, you probably won’t get much support from the local school district. Fortunately, you can find helpful resources just by homeschooling online.

Homeschooling online is another way to give your child a good education, and all you need is an internet connection. This method is especially relevant for education that covers world events and global skills.

There are various ways in which you can homeschool online. You can find traditional high school programs that offer courses over the Internet.

If you live in a state where your child needs to meet a specific curriculum criteria, homeschooling online can usually help you meet those standards.

Homeschooling online provides an efficient way of receiving support, curriculum, and a check and balance system that helps your child learn the needed subjects.

If your state’s laws demand that your child study and test for certain subjects, it’s a good idea to incorporate an online learning program. That doesn’t mean you have to ignore your child’s true interests. You can just supplement the online program with other forms of learning.

There’s no need for homeschooling online to be as strict as traditional high school. There resources that can help you whether or not you have to meet certain mandates of your state.

You can find resources, lesson plans, and support forums at plenty of different homeschooling websites. Aids like this can give you support and great ideas for curriculum.

Online resources can also be great for creative lesson ideas and researching. There are some websites that are just dedicated to providing lesson plans. Others, however, are more for support.

You can also find online encyclopedias, dictionaries, and periodical databases. Homeschooling online provides you the opportunity to teach your child no matter where you are living.

You can also virtually tour galleries and museums online, which makes learning even more fun. You don’t have to leave your own home to travel the world.

If you want to add a little variety to the week, you can incorporate some of the many learning games you can play online. You could also use them instead to reward your child for studying hard.

Many people are choosing to homeschool, and homeschooling online makes this learning option even more interesting and fun. The internet also gives you the added benefit of online support groups, should you need them.

Classical Education Curriculum Made Simple

What is the Trivium? This is the classical education curriculum, which is divided up into three distinct phases. The first phase, also known as the grammar stage, is the equivalent of grades 1 through 6.

Because children’s physical brain development and cognitive thinking skills are not yet mature, it is important to focus on concrete information. In other words, kids at this age should just learn facts.

Although some kids this young like to know the whys and hows of everything, their minds are really just equipped to absorb the whats. You can of course explains whys and hows to your child, but the focus is elsewhere in the grammar stage.

The whats are important for creating a foundation for the higher-leveled thinking and philosophical questions of the hows and whys later. Children in the grammar stage simply don’t have the ability to process reason.

They haven’t yet learned the skills for reasoning. They don’t have the contextual knowledge to help them process these concepts.

This is what makes the first stage in the classical education curriculum so convenient. Although the grammar stage is grounded only in the facts, it creates a foundation for all other forms of learning to take place in the following stages.

The next two phrases need this solid foundation in order to be successful.

The second phase in the classical education curriculum is called the dialectic stage. A child usually enters this phase anywhere between 5th and 7th grades.

A child’s mind at this stage develops noticeably, exhibiting cognitive skills that allow him or her to mature to analytical learning.

Although the child will move from one phase to the next, the first methods aren’t abandoned. The classical education curriculum has a cumulative effect. Concrete learning remains part of the process, but analytical learning is added to it.

The grammar stage focuses on delivering concrete information, the facts. The dialect stage switches focus to the whys and hows. In this second stage, these questions become very important.

In this stage, a child begins to test the facts that he/she has learned in the grammar stage to determine if they were in reality true. This self-examination of determining truth is a very important step in the development of thinking skills.

Children learn to understand the importance of asking questions, judging, examining, and analyzing with respect and honor. In classical education curriculum, disrespect is an attitude you don’t need when you’re asking questions.

When children in this phase start asking questions, teachers and parents can instill positive attitudes by not getting defensive. Setting a positive example helps children understand that you can indeed disagree and still be respectful about it.

The last phase in classical education curriculum is the rhetoric stage, which starts in grade 9 and ends in grade 12.

Some subjects that are commonly taught include History, Language, Literature, Math, Music, Oratory, Philosophy, Science, and Writing. This is where the all the phases come into the picture and put into practice.

The Benefits of the Classical Education Method

Parents who are interested in the classical education method often articulate the worry that the curriculum will be too rigorous for their children. Discipline and a challenging curriculum are definitely part of the classical education method.

None of this means that education has to be dull. If anything, the classical education method encourages the idea that children should gravitate to what they find naturally enjoyable in each phase of their lives.

Take, for example, children in the grammar stage: They’re excellent when it comes to memorizing things. They love reciting their ABCs and other songs. They love it so much that they often come up with their own songs. The classical education method capitalizes on this by teaching children concrete facts.

If you’ve ever had a child in junior high, you must certainly know that children in this stage are more quick to question things and argue. The classical education method plays to this stage with logic and reasoning.

In this phase, children need to learn how to argue based on the facts that they learned in the grammar phase.

After a child moves on to the final stage, normally the high school years, they start moving beyond internal concerns and focus on external issues.

It is at this stage that teenagers become self-conscious, more concerned about how people see them. The rhetoric stage encourages them to share thoughts and ideas in a way that can be readily understood.

Children can achieve a true sense of success with the classical education method. Since the classical education method applies an objective standard to children, they get a better grasp of what they can do and what they can’t do. This method of education gives children a practical and more accurate assessment of their abilities.

Learning, hard work, and fun can be intertwined. Learning in each of the stages should be enjoyable and challenging. When students learn according to the stage that they are in, it is easy to recognize that students love to learn.

The right method makes learning exciting for children. The classical education method instills in children a love of learning, and it inspires them to pursue even more knowledge.

Little Known George Washington Education Facts

George Washington was born in 1732 on February 22. He was born on his father’s Westmoreland County plantation in Virginia. His father, Augustine Washington, was a justice of the county court and also the area’s leading planter.

George’s mother was Mary Ball Washington. Augustine had been married before, but the mother of his first two sons and daughter died. Augustine would have six children with his second wife Mary, and George was the oldest.

Not much is known about George Washington’s childhood. And little is known about the George Washington education.

In the state of Virginia, most children were either taught in local private schools or at home by private tutors. When boys turned seven, they would usually begin formal education. They began by learning arithmetic, reading, and writing.

As they got older they were taught Greek and Latin. They also learned bookkeeping, surveying, and geometry. Wealthy planters would usually send their sons of to England to finish their education.

George might have gone to England to further his education like his two older half brothers did, but he wasn’t able to after his father died.

The George Washington education may have began with school near his home for a few years. He possibly went to another school later. We do know that he excelled in mathematics and learned surveying.

He didn’t learn Latin and Greek like many of the other gentlemen’s sons in the area. He never learned a foreign language or went to college. It is estimated that the George Washington education ended around the age of 15.

To the gentry class, social skills were one of the most important components in a young man’s or woman’s education. After George’s father passed away, he began spending more time in Mount Vernon with his older half brother Lawrence.

Lawrence helped George out by tutoring and mentoring him in his studies. He always taught him social graces and introduced him into society.

The George Washington education was seen as defective his whole life. He made every effort to make up for all the things he didn’t learn in school by reading books and learning from people he respected.

He built a vast personal library in his years of personal study. He also wrote quite a bit and subscribed to plenty of newspapers.

It is thought that his lack of formal education made him put a value on education. He left money in his will for establishing a school in Alexandria, Virginia, in addition to a national university.

The Demise of Classical Education – It is Worse Than We Thought

The minds of youth today have a serious problem, and it’s rooted in the demise of classical education. With the loss of classical education, we have also been robbed of the values, visions, and ideas of Rome and Greece. It was these values and ideas that shaped Western civilization and our nation.

It’s ironic that our own universities have begun scrutinizing these ideas, since very few people in America know about the West’s origination in ancient Greece.

Knowing these ethical theories and philosophies are vital to understanding and maintaining the freedoms we cherish. Sadly, Americans are moving further and further away from them.

It is important that we remember the Greek wisdom that has helped build our nation.

Many of the Greek philosophies became part of the way our government operates: The constitutional government, freedom of expression, individual rights, civilian control of the military, an open economy, separation of political and religious authority, free scientific inquiry, private property, and open dissent. We need these things now more than ever before in our changing world.

We should also bear in mind that the Greeks insisted on monitoring and tempering these freedoms with philanthropy, civic responsibility, and an absolute world view.

Other concepts that helped maintain a balance were self-criticism and the belief that life is not a walk in the park: It is tragic and brief.

With the demise of classical education, we lose a complete way of seeing the world. We instead see the world through new lenses that paints everything with moral relativism, therapeutics, blind allegiance, and worshiping a material culture.

The Greeks gave us the means to change the physical and spiritual universe, either for good or ill. They also provided the means for us to control our most animalistic instincts in order to give toward the common good.

We could stand by and hope that when the classics completely die, our children will get through the educational Dark Age and enter a new Greek era– or we can fight the demise of classical education now.

If we want our children to thrive and drive off this threatening darkness, we need to find ways to teach our children to be independent thinkers who are thankful to the Greeks for what they modeled for Western civilization.

Why Your Child Needs a Classical Education

Anyone who believes that an educational method that was developed thousands of years ago can be safely abandoned in a single generation has clearly tossed aside an important truth: Time is the best method for determining human behavior.

It has only taken 50 years for lawmakers and educators to disband an educational system that took over 2,000 years to purify and institute.

Ancient Greece and Rome first developed classical education, and by the 16th century it was the norm throughout the Western world.

This system of education gave the world some of the best leaders and thinkers between the 10th and 19th centuries. Most of America’s Founding Fathers were taught under this educational system.

Can you think of any other time period where there was more progress in science, philosophy, art, and literature?

If real meaning is going to occur in learning, then we need to teach more than just the facts. There is only true education when the students develop thinking and reasoning skills that allow them to clearly express their ideas through argument and persuasion.

Classical education provides the best tools for developing a child’s mind. Truly no wonder that so many classical education schools are turning up all over the country.

Many modern forms of education have rejected the models of classic education, such as discipline, order, rigorous academic standards, and the arts.

The greatest task in education is to teach students how to truly learn. The influence of “progressive” teaching and performance-based learning methods make it difficult for children to acquire the mental control that they would receive in traditional methods.

Classical education helps children develop independent learning skills on the foundation of language, logic, and concrete facts. It is clear what a classical education can do for a student when he/she is able to apply his/her knowledge through logic, reason, and clear expression.

Classical education isn’t just about teaching concrete facts. It’s about giving children the life skills they need for daily life and for attaining a higher education.

Some of the skills children for adulthood include critical thinking, independent learning, logical reasoning, and a love of learning. This skills will always be important in an ever-changing world.

Why Children Should Read Classic Books

You have probably wondered why it is important for everyone to read classic books. Not only specialists should read these texts, but all people. That is why they have become classics in the first place.

These books have proven themselves because they have remained popular despite the passing of time. Over the years, classic books are considered important pieces of general culture.

Classic books have been discovered to improve and increase the consciousness of all types and situations of those who study them. They help pull their readers out of close-mindedness into a world-view that is wider for humanity.

They also protect the truths of the human heart by developing the mind and imagination. Those who read classic books use better judgment and fully understand the intricacy of reality. Those who read classics see the world through new eyes and comprehension.

Many people have been led astray in this era of secularism and fast-paced changes. Reason is limited, and we are led away from those things that are truthful and good. Our hearts harden, imagination dies, and belief of the heart shrivels.

Classic books can guide us down the path to a frame of mind that lets our hearts believe again, frees our minds to imagine possibilities. The classics help us learn to become more compassionate and to think more critically. They can lead to better self-understanding, and to see our place in a world of chaos.

Classic books can also help lead us to Christ and to emulate Christ-like attributes. My appreciate for the Lord’s magnificence was increased by studying rich classics like the works of Shakespeare.

Nor will I ever forget how those wonderful parables helped me learn about Christ’s sacrifice for me. They are helpful companions with the scriptures, helping all people come to the Lord.

In a time when our recent culture is escalating to push its worldly endeavors, one of the most important resources that Christian people can turn to are the classic works.

Classic books have been integrated by readers and critics in the nearly two thousand year of Western civilization. They still hold true as books that can be read over and over and still make a difference.