Juneau Home Educator Association
Minutes for the 16 January, 2006 Meeting
Those in attendance were: Sharon Hatch (co-chair), Nels and Susan Tomlinson, Kathy Holt, Gary Helmer, and Sherry Walsh.
Announcements and upcoming events:
Diana Rossmiller will take Scholastic Book order forms to the IDEA office. You may pick one up there, or you may call her at 463-3761 to make other arrangements.
Thursday, Jan. 26 is the playground design day for Twin Lakes! If your children want to be involved in this, have them at Valley Baptist Academy (at Glacier Valley Baptist Church) in the AWANA gym at 10:40 AM. They will start promptly at 10:45. This will be only 15 minutes so don't be late! The unveiling of the design will be held that evening at 6:30 in the Harborview gym. There will be face painting, refreshments, a bouncing gym and information about how everyone can have a part in this wonderful community project.
Tuesday, Jan. 31 - The Shanghai Circus is coming to town! These are Chinese acrobats doing some amazing feats! This will be one night only at 7:00 at the High School auditorium. Get your tickets at Hearthside. General admission for adults is $22; students $18 when purchased in advance, $24/20 respectively at the door.
Saturday, Feb. 4 at 8:00 PM and Sunday, Feb. 5 at 3:00 PM at the High School - The Juneau Symphony will be performing Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland and Mahler's Symphony No.4. These are both chamber orchestra versions.
Monday, Feb. 13 at 7:00 is the next scheduled JHEA meeting. Mark your calendars! Topic TBA.
March 16 is Liberty Day! In the capitals of all 50 states, homeschooled kids will go to the capitol building, quiz the legislators on the U.S. constitution, and maybe give them a good impression about homeschoolers and homeschooling. E-mail Nels T. if you are interested in participating.
April 22 in the afternoon will be the IDEA Curriculum Fair. Mark your calendars!
Some home school families are getting together on Wednesdays for the open skate at the Treadwell Arena from 12:15 - 2:00. Others are welcome to join the fun!
There has been a Glacier Jr. Ranger program time change. The younger children's program is from 11:00 - 12:00. The older children's program is from 2:00 - 3:00. Both are on Saturdays. See the listing in the newspaper for more details.
Nels T. informed us that there have been a couple of bills introduced in our favor! These are designed to stop the Dept. of Education from doing further damage to our home school programs. One is a law stating that home schools can exist so they cannot say that our existence is not legal. Another is to allow credit for religious courses if they meet the state standards. You can look these up on the web at
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/sirs_form.asp?session=24. Go to the second box (which says
SIRS Alaska Statute:and enter 14 to see all the laws which affect education, or just click on this link:
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/sirs_disp.asp?type=stat&session=24&statute=14&Button=SIRS+Info+by+Statute Anything that mentions Section 14 concerns education, libraries or museums.
Topic of discussion: Motivation and Incentives that work for your family, and Teaching Health
Sharon: Likes to use Brite music books and C.D.s. Each book has a different character quality i.e. cleanliness, honesty, work, obedience, etc. There are 10 in the Standing Tall character set. There are also a set of three Safety Kids books and C.D.s that talk about personal safety, protecting your minds, and drug safety. Along with the set come two charts: The Obey Train and the Helping Hand. Whenever the kids obey the first time they are asked, they get to move their train along the tracks. If they do jobs to help around the house, they get to move their helping hand. There are stops along the charts where they get to draw a coupon for something special i.e. double allowance, an ice-cream cone, stay up
1/
2 hour later, etc. When they reach the top, they get to have a special prize that they picked out. It is a great motivator!
Gary: In order to get his kids to read, paid them 1cent for each page read. They get paid when they finish a book. They don't watch t.v. during the week, so if all their schoolwork is finished, they get to watch t.v. on the weekends. To keep the kids focused on schoolwork, they have regular scheduled times for each subject. If their work is not done within the scheduled time, they have to do it on their own time for homework (which takes away from fun time!). For health, they learned about the bird flu and went to get their flu shots together. They also learned why not to eat around the house and around computers. How food grows bacteria and the germs get spread around. (Gary has prepared a power point presentation on "How to Make Your Home a Safer Place". Maybe we can have him present it at a future meeting!)
Kathy: Liked the Dover History coloring books. The kids could color as they learned. When between subjects, she keeps the kids brains engaged with fun activities, i.e. puzzles, crosswords, etc.
Sherry: To keep kids focused on school work, tries to keep each subject to no more than 20 min. long. With younger kids, stickers for completed work are a great motivator.
Meeting adjourned after discussion.
Minutes submitted by Sharon Hatch, edited by Mona Bibb and Nels Tomlinson.
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