Holocaust Survivor, Dr. Eva Olsson

I am planning to take advantage of the invitation sent out by YRAF - Dr. Eva Olsson will be speaking at St. Gregory at 12:30 on October 21.

I hope to see some other homeschool moms and children there, too!

This was one of my major reading points as a preteen, and it still shapes my worldview, for good and for evil.  It made me realize how bad humankind can get, and how brave and good, also.  It also made me an unreasonable, passionate friend of the Jewish people in general and Israel in particular.

I can't wait to hear what she has to say!

Gymnastics in Hinton?

There is a Facebook Group called "Gymnastics in Hinton" - if you are interested in gymnastics here in town, sign up!

Right now there is a new post advertising a Tot Tumble class - but looks like they are limited to only eight people...

Rebecca Herman TOT TUMBLE CLASS Gymnastics with Kennedy Holt.Tuesdays 10:30am at ATF studio. Room for 8.Call 817-2481

I'm excited to see this opportunity!

Registration Fair?

Hi Homeschoolers!

I'm wondering if anyone is interested in manning a table at the Hinton Registration Fair?  Might be nice to have information there for other people and possibly connect with other homeschoolers who aren't on our radar?  If you're interested, let me know!

Swimming Lessons?

Hi Everyone!

If you haven't emailed/phoned about swimming lessons, please call Stephanie at 817-5542 - we are trying to combine our lessons with another group to save money and make the cost roughly 3.67/child/lesson.

If you are interested, the deadline is today!  I'll try to call the ones i haven't heard back from, but if you haven't heard from anyone, and you are interested, please get hold of Stephanie!

End of the Year BBQ!

What a great party and fun time!  We didn't get everything we'd planned to do squeezed in, but it was so nice watching the littles in the water at the end of the day, no one felt the need to pull them out for anything more organized.

Isabella did a great job with the Bugology field trip, and then we had our picnic - (thank you to IGA, Safeway, Walmart and Dairy Queen for helping make it so nice!) - and crafts...

Beautiful day and so nice to have so many of the homeschoolers together.

I'm so glad Natalie made the effort to find a better day and reorganize everything at the last minute :)

Update! New plans for end of the year BBQ!

Hi Everyone:

SO...this is THE PLAN which after talking to a few of you seems to be to the mom and kids advantage.

We are planning to meet at Kelly's Bathtub on the 29th at 10am - 12 noon for the Bugology field trip, soooo... we are going to have our End of theYear/summer's here BBQ at Kelly's from 12- 3:00.

Unfortunately some father's will not be able to make it and that's most unfortunate :o( . We'll have to get together sometime and honor their vital part in home education. May God Bless them!!

 

I have asked for donations from IGA, Safeway and Walmart. I will confirm on Monday what to bring but

I think we can buy the following with donations:

drinks

cups

plates

cutlery

hotdogs/hamburgers

buns

 

We may have a scavenger hunt and prizes which will be from the donations. Please be prepared to bring salads and side dishes. I'm thinking of a big cake for the event.

Also, you may want to bring swimsuits, towels, sun lotion (pray for good weather) and whatever else you can. We'll see you there.

Those who have older kids/teenagers I would like to hear from you and what we could do for them to make this meaningful.

Also, any suggestions for prizes or goody bags. We are somewhat limited $100.00 to work with or should we have craft stuff. I know that Juanita and Stephanie are taking care of Certificates and games.

 

Please let us know if you are definately coming.We want to see as many of you as we can.

 

Natalie for all us Hinton Home Educators

 

Restocking the trout ponds

I put together a little movie with some of the pictures i took...
Thanks to Randy and Carla for putting this together!  What a fun day :)

Last minute fun at Kelly's Bathtub this afternoon!

If anyone didn't see Carla's email to our yahoogroup link - she wrote:

Hello everyone,
This is short notice but if anyone wants to come out to watch fish stocking happening at the Jarvis fish pond and Jarvis creek it is happening tomorrow. Meet at the Visitor's Center at Kelley's Bathtub at 12:30pm. I'll be there with the kids. Randy might need help carrying buckets of fish and dumping them into their new homes. Running shoes are probably fine for footwear. 
~Carla


I'm going out!  I've got some loose ends to get tied out and we're planning to be there at 12:30!  Hope to see some of you there, too!


 - stephanie

Options available - limited time opportunity to get your .02 in!

 Juanita and I met with Holly LaRochelle today at the rec centre - she had a lot of neat ideas re: programming for homeschool families who are available to take advantage of the relatively empty building during the day...

Two ideas stuck out to us as really good ones -
1. a "gym and swim" day - once a week - where kids 6-12 or so could meet, learn a sport (wallyball? floor hockey? lacrosse?) and then go swimming... Right now the pricing she's thinking of would be 70$ for 8 weeks (once a week) but we could look at other pricing structures or drop in type pricing with a minimum of people attending, which could possibly be much more reasonable.

 2. an arts/crafts day - again, we could do this once a week if we wanted - and they would have different teachers teach to their specialities...
These two sounded like the most interesting to the women who were at the meeting at my house a few weeks ago :)

But there were definitely many other ideas, including drama, geocaching, sports camps (ie. hockey skills etc) -
We also asked her about gymnastics here in Hinton, and she explained that there is a bare minimum funding of 5000$ that would need to be invested even for just basic beginner tumbling - and beyond that, it's looking like a lot of expense - i.e. to find a building for a standalone gym, or find a place like a school that has storage space (in which case there would be set up and take down constantly)..

In my opinion, we are better off joining the Hinton Gymnastics? group  on Facebook which already has 88 members -

Holly has worked with homeschooling families before and understands the different dynamics that come into play with sibling groups as opposed to same age groups, and is eager to help us find programming that fits our interests - you can contact her at the rec centre, or you can post here and i'll invite her to join us :)

 Any thoughts? I'll post more later after i go through my notes, if there are things i left out... Juanita, feel free to fill in the blanks! Oh - registration for any programs would be due the last week of August - so she is hoping to get this figured out sooner rather than later so we can start off our school year with a bang! Swimming lessons are also something that could be arranged right now, so if that's something most of you would like, let's let Holly know right away!

Field Trip!

Well, i've gone ahead and booked a field trip for us at Kelley's Bathtub.

When? Tuesday June 29th

Where? Kelley's Bathtub

Who? Any homeschoolers, moms, children

What? cost - 2$ per child

Why? BUGOLOGY!

We're going to learn about bugs - dress for the weather, with good shoes for walking, a jacket, a hat if you want - We'll stay for a picnic afterwards, so bring lunch along and bring water as the water there is not drinkable...

Please RSVP to Stephanie if you want to be included - i've given them a tentative number :) but if it's way off i will call to let them know so that they have enough materials for all the children.

Field Trips at Kelley's Bathtub!

Scott Sunderwald just returned my phone call re: field trips to Kelley's Bathtub

Cost - 2$/student - max size of the group is 30

They are fully booked - we could get in, though, June 28 - 29 possibly.

OR we can wait for next fall...

Programs available are
Lost in the Woods (survival) - Kindergarten level

Nature Detective (grade one)

Bugology (grades 2-3)

Wetland Wonderland (grades 3-5)

Art in the Park (grades 3+)

Forest Forensics (grade6)

Environmental Monitoring (grade 7)

there are more options that run in the fall, and a neat winter survival one too...

I'll send through the original document he sent me so you can all see the full descriptions etc...

Is anyone interested in doing this at the end of June (after our year end picnic) - or will you all be ready to relax on the back porch with a lemonade and a magazine?

I would book us in early if we were interested in September instead - the nice thing about the fall is that the weather is more likely to be nice, and we'd have the park all to ourselves - if we go at the end of June, we would be sharing the park with other school groups.

Let me know and i'll get back to Scott right away!

stephanie

Update and thoughts for next year...

So it's been awhile since i've posted, but i've got my notes from our homeschool moms meeting a couple of Saturdays ago, and thought I'd post what sounded good to people, and we can go from there in terms of planning...

First of all, the BBQ in Brule - Juanita is hoping we can change this to Saturday - it works for me - any of you? We still need to plan games/activities - anyone have any other special ideas? Juanita brought certificates last year - maybe a photo booth? (says the lady who brings her camera everywhere) - prizes?

Art Coop - possibly every other week? Possibly two groups? One for older children and one for youngers? Sheila has a program that she likes, and some of the other moms also have resources for arts/crafts . Is there enough interest in learning sketching that we could hire a local artist to do a six week session for us? Sheila also recommended a CD called Phonics of Drawing program that was very step by step...

Drama - this came up while discussing art - Sheila is willing to help the older children write and put on a play - i would be willing to plan something fun to do with the younger siblings if this were something we had enough interest in...

Library Day - We weren't sure about what form this would take - but i do have invitations from the library, if we as a group would like to come in and talk about their online services (which will honestly take your breath away), or just a library orientation time. We can also use their Teck Coal room for free as i'm a library board member :) -

Homeschool Choir - well, this is just me itching to do a little extra music - if only i had a few more voices :) - I am thinking we could do this over the fall and end with a trip to Pine Valley retirement home... We have quite a lot of musical families and moms willing to help out, or even who might like to be involved in something like this. As a family, we've provided music for the Pine Valley Christmas dinner the past two years, and it would be fun to include the whole homeschooling group...

Field Days - i am hoping to talk to the coordinator out at Switzer park today about field science days - i will make a separate post about that! But other ideas included

`museum in Edmonton/Zoo (travel as a group, get a group discount)

`Ft. Edmonton park - free admission on some days

`Kelly's Bathtub - biology field trips

`recycling round up - field trip to the recycling centre (Juanita is looking into this one, as she's the field trip queen!)

`the dump - some concerns about the safety of our vehicles and of our children...

`SPCA

`possibly have a field trip to visit some horses

Halloween - recognizing that we all have different ways to handle this holiday - we thought it might be fun to gang together and do something fun that night. Some families have a tradition of going out to eat instead of being home - other families celebrate REformation day with games and a German dinner by candlelight - if there is interest in getting together to avoid the costumes and themes, we could easily have a great night together instead!

year end banquet - this was a neat idea - the idea is to celebrate and show off what the students have learned not just in academics, but in music, drama, projects, in their hobbies or service work.

Christmas - we had a great banquet this year - Kim suggested maybe putting together a living Nativity - this could probably be an easy thing to put together, even for some of the older children to arrange

Fishing - the Alvarez and Parton families suggested fishing as a group activity - i know my littles would love that, too!

Horses - Kim's mom may have a lead on a field trip this way

Mechanics - Vinicio Alvarez may be able to teach some of the older children useful skills esp regarding car maintenance etc - sounds great!

helicopter tours - this is a possibility we could set this up through the forestry department?

mine tour - i think this one is coming up soon! Whoever sees it in the paper - please post here!

swimming lessons - Kristy and Natalie are wondering if there is enough interest for us to nab lesson times during public school hours - Natalie said the last time she checked, the times available were after 2:30- until 3;30 as there were still lifeguards available - the possibility would be to break into two groups for ability levels..

skating - public skating happens M/W/F - this would be an easy one to arrange :)

I know this is a lot to read! But i hope you found a few things that sound great to you - if anyone wants to organize one of these things, feel free!

Being Open

I read a beautiful blog tonight - Robin Sampson writes the Heart of Wisdom curriculum booklets - they're like nothing else in homeschooling, and i always wondered where that came from. She is also a co author of the big book of Jewish holidays that i've used with my littles.

Anyway, this blog post was about being transparent, being open about our mistakes and sins, and enjoying knowing and being known.

I thought it was beautifully done, and that i could share it with all of you, too...

Here is her post. Browse around and pray for her, and for us all, that we can be concerned not so much about what our appearances say, but what is in our hearts and who God sees when He looks at us...

Confirmation that the meeting is, indeed, at my home!

Okay, now it's for sure - so please come to my house!

Saturday morning 10 am. - bring treats to share if you feel so inclined :) and be prepared with ideas for the end of the year BBQ and any things you'd like to do as a homeschool group for next year - i know a few of us have some fun ideas for special days/field trips/lessons - so let's decide which are most attractive and plan for some fun togetherness next year!

Mom's meeting on May 8th

Hey homeschoolers!

I hope you are all planning to come for our parent get together this Saturday at 10 a.m..

We are considering changing the venue (to my house!) - let me know if you are planning to attend, and i'll send you my address if you don't have it already...

love

stephanie!

Welcome to Hinton Home Educators!

I just created this blog because the Facebook Groups app wanted a website and i thought that it would be a great idea, too! So within the last ten minutes i've created a homeschool yahoogroup (hintonhomeed@yahoogroups.com), a facebook group, and this blog... welcome to the world of homeschooling, if you're just curious, and if you're a local homeschooler, please come back and check out what's happening in Hinton for home educating families! If you have any news, please leave me a note here and i'll make sure i post it!

First post coming up soon...