Carnival of Homeschooling: The Model Homes edition

Welcome to the Carnival of Homeschooling: The Model Homes edition!

 By "model," I mean "miniature reproductions." Last week, my family went to the Holiday Train Show at the NY Botanical Garden. It's become a tradition for us to visit and see what's new. Each year, designer Paul Busse and his team add to the collection of historical buildings and homes in this display.  There is always a surprise. Just like our journey as homeschoolers, following the model trains always leads to unexpected discoveries, giggles and wonder. Come along for the ride.

~Every journey needs to begin somewhere, why not start at the station, like Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan?  We all began our own journey as homeschoolers somewhere. Usually it starts with someone planting the seed of an idea in our mind.

Fearless Homeschooling offers advice to those who are considering homeschooling and shows that you can successfully face the challenges and homeschool in You MUST Homeschool, And This is Why.

 

~Aside from the traditional model trains, there were some designed by the artist. I can imagine homeschoolers piling into a contraption like this one, laughing and going on adventures together. That togetherness is important. We all need community, especially when we start something so completely against the mainstream as homeschooling.  

Web-Home-School.com reminds us to pay it forward by Helping the New Homeschooler.

 ~One of the more whimsical designs in the artist's collection is the possum house (note the baby possum homes hanging nearby). It's amazing how simply flipping something upside down can change our perspective about it. 

Laura Grace Weldon offers ways to flip our thinking about the parts of the educational model that aren't working with Five Ways to Transcend the School Mindset.

 

~Sunnyside, Washington Irving's home, is a house my youngest and I visited with a homeschooling group. It is as cozy inside as it looks outside, the perfect place to nurture a creative mind. A comfortable environment helps our children be themselves.

Project-Based Homeschooling explains how we give our children Permission to be yourself by being their first audience and showing them we care about what they think and make and do.
  

~Here are airplanes and a helicopter at the airport. Flying to new places can be a life changing experience, opening your eyes to different cultures. Homeschooling, or even changing methods of homeschooling is like that. As you adapt to new ideas, you open your mind to new ways of teaching and learning.

There's No Place Like Home shares excitement and fears as they take the plunge into unschooling in the post, Changes in the Air.

 

~These little book cottages were in the same section with the possum house. Books are so integral to what we do, aren't they. Not only do we use books, we keep books, as in watching over the finances and looking for ways to get the most out of every dollar.

Online Education for Kids knows how expensive it can be to find the right homeschooling curriculum, especially for high schoolers. Here are her 3 Tips for finding the right Homeschool HighSchool Curriculum.

 ~Along with book-keeping, we are record-keepers for our children's education. Whether you live in an area that is highly regulated or not, keeping track of what we are doing is important.

Art's Chili Pepper offers advice about Home School Record Keeping.

~Poe Cottage is a tiny little house in the Bronx where writer Edgar Allen Poe lived during his time in New York. I like Poe. I was familiar with his poetry before his stories. Poetry can be simple to read, and yet more complex than a novel.
Harvest Moon by Hand has her daughters reading and reacting to poetry by William Wordsworth - Poet/Poetry Study.

~The New York Public Library is a incredible place. We only see a small portion of it when we climb the steps past the lions and enter its marbled halls. Beneath the library are the Stacks, a vast labyrinth that houses the library's research collections.  

As We Walk Along the Road is studying Viking history. Find some interesting links about Vikings. Blogging Through the Alphabet: N is for Norway (Resources for studying the Vikings).

~For a DIY person like me, the library is one of the best places to start when pulling together curriculum. Of course, if you've been doing this for a while, you might know what to do already.

Why Homeschool's Janine lays out her son's schedule in My 1st Grade Curriculum.

~The Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful span of stone and cable. We used to spend a lot of time on this bridge, traveling between our apartment and my parents house. A lot of time. One thing you can't see in this model of the bridge is the traffic.

MathFour.com explains a strategy used for playing the Rush Hour Traffic Jam Game - Low & High Tech. This game has tons of math in it!

~I always enjoy the behind-the-scenes exhibits. This one shows how the artist builds one of his models from start to finish. The architecture of buildings past and present, nature, and natural materials are his inspiration. We get to enjoy the results of his creative imaginings.

You never know where inspiration can take you. A Net in Time Schooling's son learned the overcast stitch in Today he's a tailor, because he wanted to make cuddly buddies based on his mom's favorite game.

~How about you? Need some inspiration? 
Surviving a Teacher's Salary offers an idea for building an Igloo Made out of Gallon Jugs.

I hope you enjoyed this walk around the train show exhibit. I want to thank all of the bloggers who contributed posts this week. If you would like to join the next carnival, consider submitting an article to the next Carnival of Homeschooling.