And Another Old Favorite . . .

• Time to register for the challenge

The Student Blogging Challenge runs twice yearly, and the two terms are named for the month they start: March and September. The Challenge is made up of a series of 10 weekly tasks designed to improve your blogging and commenting skills and to connect blogging students with a global audience. You may complete as many of the tasks as you like — and you can do them in any order.

For more information about the Student Blogging Challenge, read these pages:

• Info For First Time Visitors
• Challenge FAQs

I did the challenge last fall, as a class blog, but then I drifted away into other projects when our blogging class was dropped in the spring semester. I’m thinking about doing it again this year — but once again, our blogging class isn’t in session (no wi-fi at our new location). So I don’t know whether I should register as an individual or as a “class”…

• Review/Giveaway and Fibonacci Puzzle

Click here to read the fine print.

[Hat tip: In Our Write Minds.]

Here is the best-quality recording I could find of her classic skit, VitaMeataVegamin:

More Lucy to Love

• 100 years of Lucille Ball
• Celebrating Lucille Ball at 100: Unpublished Photos
• 15 Things You Never Knew About TV’s Funniest Lady
• Lucille Ball was my landlady…
• We still love Lucy, who would be 100 on Saturday
• Quotations by Lucille Ball
• Lucille Ball at Wikipedia

Image by Jason.Hudson via Flickr

Would you like to share your blog with a friend? That is what Kitten and Gecko decided to do recently. They started a joint blog called Collaborative Randomness — and it is definitely random (and usually funny).

I saw how easy it was for them to set up a blog for two users, so I decided to do the same thing, only backwards. I needed to set up my two blogs for one user. See, originally I had my math blog, and then I started teaching a blogging class for our homeschool co-op. It had been so long since I started my math blog that I wasn’t sure I remembered all the steps, so I started a new blog (this one) totally from scratch, writing down each step.

But trying to juggle two blogging identities (each with their own separate log-ins) became a major nuisance. Solution: Add my math blogger identity as a user on this blog. Now I only have to log in once, and I can access both Dashboards and write posts on both blogs. Cool!

Warning: Be Careful!

Adding someone as a Contributor is always safe, and adding someone as an Author is usually fine. But before you add someone as an Editor or Administrator, you need to be totally sure that you absolutely trust them. Editors can go back and change any of your posts whenever they want, and Administrators have complete control over every aspect of your blog — they could even permanently delete the blog, if they were feeling malicious!

For more information on what the various users can do, read the support page about User Roles.

Here’s How To Do It

Image by Wilson (Army Gal) via Flickr

The 23rd Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival is now posted, with a nice variety of things to read. Fiction and non-fiction, places to visit and movie/book reviews, lego projects and horse quotations, and even some math, and more. Go visit all the homeschool bloggers, and be sure to leave some comments. Every blogger loves to hear from readers!

• Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival #22

The kids are writing about a wide variety of interesting things, so go check them out.

P.S.: While you’re in the mood to visit kid blogs, two of my students have teamed up to write a new (and so far, very silly) blog called Collaborative Randomness. We’ve been meeting at Panera Bread once a week for “Writer’s Day Out”, but Gecko is moving out of state, so today was our last day together. The collaborative blog will be a way for them to continue the fun from a distance…

Welcome once again to the homeschooled kids blog carnival. Now that spring is in the air, it’s time to dust off our blogs, get rid of the cobwebs and make some fresh posts…

Go read it!

It’s easy to make one of your static pages into your blog’s home page. Follow these instructions:

Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video via Flickr

Did you get hit by the storm that swept through much of the U.S. this week? We didn’t get as much snow as they were predicting, but we got enough ice to knock out the power substation. You can read about it at my math blog:

• Our Power Outage Adventure

And while you’re there, be sure to check out World Maths Day 2011!

Related Articles

• This Is the Apocalyptic Storm Hitting the US Right Now (gizmodo.com)
• Ameren Illinois Battles Outages Caused by Massive Winter Storm (prnewswire.com)
  Yep, we were among the “outaged.” Even though we use a rural power co-op, it was Ameren’s substation that knocked us off the grid.

“It’s time for another edition of the Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival! I wish you all a warm welcome –– and a Happy New Year. And the new year is the theme for our carnival this month. It seems like a time for new things to happen, doesn’t it? New adventures, new opportunities – and new things to learn…”

Read the whole carnival at Home Education Resources!

Image by amypalko via Flickr

The economy has hit us where it hurts — our homeschool co-op was canceled this semester, due to low enrollment. That means no blogging class, although I will continue to post tips and links from time to time.

For now, though, I have thrown myself into a new project: I’m writing a book. Actually, I’m re-writing a series of books that I self-published in the late last century. But the first one, which I hope to finish this year (or maybe even by summer? that’s probably too optimistic!) was never published before. It will be all about math games.

I’m also working to edit Kitten’s and Niner’s books, so we can publish them. I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as they’re available.

• Challenge 8 and 9
• Challenge 10

I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with the challenges, but I sure enjoyed the student blogs I read. But then, you really don’t have to do these challenges in any particular time period — most of them are good blogging ideas at any time. So if you never joined in the challenge, you can still go read the student blogs and get inspiration!

Image by Jan Tik via Flickr

If you’re a WordPress.com blogger, did you notice that you can get snow falling on your blog?

On your Dashboard, go to Appearance > Extras and click the “Show snow falling on my blog” box. Then remember to click the “Update Extras” button.

Unfortunately, the snow will expire on January 4th. I wish they’d let us keep it all winter long…

If your post was included in the carnival and you would like to put a blog carnival button in your sidebar, the instructions are here:

• Homeschool Kids Carnival — with Sidebar Buttons!

• Ambleweb Function Machine

Choose your type of rule, if you wish — or for the best challenge, click the Random button. Then type a number in the machine and click Activate. The machine will give you back an answer.

Try several numbers. Can you figure out what the machine is doing?

When you are pretty sure of the answer, click the arrow to reveal the machine’s program. Were you right?

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

• Urgum and Grizelda’s Head Hunt

Click on a group of matching heads to make them disappear. The more heads you can chop in one go, the bigger your score! What is your barbarian rating?

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Image by mastrobiggo via Flickr

These have always been my daughter Moonlight’s favorite puzzles:

• Logic-Grid Brain Teasers

Click on the column labels to sort the puzzles by popularity, difficulty, or date submitted. The website offers 40 pages of brain-stretching fun, from simple puzzles like Kitty Katastrophe to the extra-challenging Murder at Brainteaser Mansion #3.

While you are working a puzzle, click the Open Grid Solver button to get an interactive window which will help you keep track of the clues.

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Where to Get the Game

Download the latest version of Hex-a-hop (for Windows or Linux) from the official website. No installation needed: just extract (or “unzip”) the files and start playing.

Or if you’d rather, download and install the older, silent version from cnet.

Both feature the same puzzles, which get more difficult as you work through the game, and you can expect to get stuck doing and undoing some levels several times before you figure them out. All the puzzles are solvable, so don’t give up!

If you can’t stand the frustration, however, there are YouTube “cheat” videos like this to walk you through the tough spots:

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

• Daily KenKen puzzles
• Weekly KenKen for teachers
  (email newsletter with several pages of printable puzzles each week)

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

If you’ve ever tried to set up a computer network, you know how confusing it can be. In this game, however, it’s fun!

• Netwalk

Your job is to rotate all the pieces so that every computer is connected to the server and there are no lose ends in your network. Click on a tile to rotate it: right click = clockwise and left click = counter-clockwise. If you want to lock a tile in place, hold your mouse over it and press the space bar.

There is no time limit. Netwalk is scored by the number of clicks it takes you to rotate everything into place.

For more tips, check out the Netwalk Tutorial Page.

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

— H.U. Westermayer

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

— G.K. Chesterton

[Hat tip: Quotations about Gratitude from The Quote Garden.]

Image via Wikipedia

Do you know the logic game Mastermind? It’s one of my favorites!

Play it online here:

• Mastermind

In this version, you get only 8 attempts to solve the puzzle, but this challenge is balanced out by knowing that the colors are not allowed to repeat.

That means there are only 6,720 possible arrangements of the beads. Hey, how hard can that be?

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Image via Wikipedia

This logic puzzle is inspired by the puzzles of Raymond Smullyan, one of my all-time favorite authors. There are four treasure chests, but only one of them has a treasure. Can you figure out which one?

• Daily Treasure Logic Puzzle

Be sure to read the “fine print” clue above the treasure chests. It will tell you how many sentences are true or false. Then you read the sentences under each chest. Remember, you can’t trust them because at least one will probably be lying — and on some days, they may ALL lie to you!

Sometimes a sentence just says “…?” That means the person who wrote the puzzle is keeping that sentence a secret. The sentence might be telling the truth, or it might be lying, but either way you can’t tell what it says. (That’s okay, you can still solve the puzzle, if you think carefully.)

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Image via Wikipedia

While I’m on the topic of logic games, I love the card game Set. You can play it online, too:

• Set Daily Puzzle

Object: To find all 6 sets in the 12 cards displayed. For each puzzle, you may reuse any of the 12 cards displayed as many times as needed to complete all 6 different sets.

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn!

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Taxicab geometry is a special kind of geometry that works on city streets. In taxicab geometry, we measure the distance between two points by counting how many blocks a taxi has to travel along the streets.

• Taxicab Treasure Hunt

First, click the words “hide the treasure!” at the bottom of the page. Then choose your starting place by selecting the street and avenue. The computer will tell you how far away the treasure is hiding.

Choose a new street and avenue. How quickly can you find the treasure?

Kitten wrote about a similar game on her blog. Try it, too!

Find more logic games and puzzles on Blogging 2 Learn.

Image via Wikipedia

Update on the Gratitude Challenge:

• I’m thankful for the freedom we have as homeschoolers.
• I love the fact that my children have time to follow their passions (like Kitten and her writing),
• and I’m pleased when we find ways to make the less-loved topics more interesting.
• And especially, I am grateful that we can take lots of time to play!

Games Build Strong Minds

Every day for the rest of this month, I’m going to share a logic game or puzzle. These are things that I love to play with and that my children and math club students have enjoyed, so I think your family will like them, too.

Take some time this week to explore something new.

May you enjoy the adventure of learning!

Image by Wayan Vota via Flickr

This site has some excellent blogging tips for teachers, especially for those who are new to blogging. Check it out!

There are many reasons why children should blog. First and foremost, it helps children to develop their own voice as a writer. It allows children a reasonably low tech way of conveying messages that involve text, sound, photos and videos. … Blogging allows children the opportunity to reflect on their learning and to enter into a discussion with their readers through comments. And on top of all this it will allow children to improve their writing because audience and purpose are all.

— Joy Simpson
20 Days to Better Blogging with Children

[Hat tip: Mallerie Shirley at Engage Minnesota via Dustin via Justin Taylor.]

Follow These Instructions

1. Look through the pictures you’ve taken. Find your favorite one that would fit the theme Night, or take a new photo especially for this contest.
2. Post the picture on your blog. Add Katelyn’s button (copy it from her blog’s sidebar) to your blog post, too.
3. Go to King’s Daughter Photography and click the You’re next… Click here to enter (at the bottom of the article). Be sure to use your blog post URL, not your blog’s home page.

Sounds pretty easy, right? So get started!

The deadline is Thursday, November 25 at 3:30pm Central Time (UTC-06:00). I look forward to seeing all your pictures.

My Entry

I’m more of a snap-shooter than a photographer, but I looked through my files and found a nighttime picture. We do our birthday parties at night, after dinner has been cleared away. By family tradition, there is always a hidden present. The birthday child will blow out his candles and unwrap most of his presents, but the last one is buried somewhere in (or outside) the house. He gets a poem with clues and then goes on a treasure hunt.

Chickenfoot turns 13

Image by DeaPeaJay via Flickr

Dear Student Blogger,

I just noticed your new blog post. You pasted an entire song’s lyrics on your site. And in another post, you copied a whole page of text and pictures from Wikipedia.

When you copy and paste so much stuff from another place, it is a violation of copyright (that means you are stealing another person’s work). This is true even when you tell where you got it from — and since you didn’t make their names link back to their webpages, your “tell where you got it from” wasn’t quite complete.

I know you didn’t mean it as stealing. What you did is natural: you found something you enjoyed, and you wanted to share it. Even adults who should know better do such things, so it’s no surprise when a student does it. But an important part of learning to blog (or to write anything, since the same rules apply to school reports or other papers) is learning how to share things properly.

Sharing from Information Sites

Image via CrunchBase

If you want to share something another blogger has written, or something from an information website, you should do one of two things:

• Put the most interesting facts into your own words, and then write, “To find out more about this fascinating topic, read the article at Wikipedia.” [Make that last part into a link to the Wiki page.]

• Or pick out the most interesting (short!) paragraph and make it a block-quote, and then write, “Read the entire article at My Friend’s Blog.” [Make the whole sentence into a link.]

Or do something similar. The exact words of your link don’t matter — though they should be words, not http://gobbledy-gook — but you can only use a very little bit of other people’s work on your page. Then you have to link to their place, so your readers can go there and read the rest.

Sharing Poetry or Song Lyrics

Image by yugenro via Flickr

Poetry and song lyrics are more difficult, because they are usually so short. It can be hard to use a “very little bit” of something that is already small. It’s like taking a fraction of a fraction — all you get is crumbs!

One rule of thumb to avoid stealing someone’s copyright is never to quote more than 10% of the original (or more than 400 words, whichever is smaller). But in one court case, quoting less than 1% of a book was judged as illegal. With a short song, even one line of lyrics might be too much.

So what can a blogger do?

Image by biverson via Flickr

Check these four key principles about “fair use” under copyright law:

(1) The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
In other words, are you trying to earn money or enhance your own reputation by quoting this text? That’s a danger sign! Also, did you make it clear that you are NOT the original author?

(2) The nature of the copyrighted work.
Creative work is more strongly protected than just plain information. If you are quoting a song or poem, be extra careful!

(3) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
Use a tiny amount in comparison with the original, and don’t use the most important lines or most significant section. (This was the problem in that court case I mentioned.)

(4) The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
This is the most important principle. Your quotation must never steal market value from the original author. Be generous with links, and make sure your readers know where they can find or buy the original song or poem.

Sharing Photographs

Image by flickrolf via Flickr

All bloggers like to use photographs in their blog posts. Be sure you include a credit line for the photos, either as a caption with each photo or as a special sentence at the bottom of your post. Otherwise, it looks like you’re trying to claim the pictures as if you took them yourself.

I like to find photos at Flickr, and I’ve written a whole blog post about how to download and use Flickr photos and give proper credit.

With Wikipedia photos, it’s best to link to the photo page (like this one). Make sure to read the copyright information, and check that it says you are free to share the photo. Then be sure to follow the rules. For instance, most pages say you “must attribute the work,” and some add that “you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license,” which means you couldn’t sell the photo or try to make money from it.

If you use Zemanta to find images, it should take care of the credit caption and linking for you. But do use Preview to check that it’s correct. A couple of times, I’ve had to add the caption myself because Zemanta messed up.

Homework: Go Fix Your Mistakes

I’m sure you want to do the right thing. I look forward to seeing how you rework your blog posts.

Best wishes!

Sincerely,
Mrs. TeacherMom

[NaBloPoMo badge by San.]

Whew! I’ve made it a bit more than halfway through the month of November, and NaBloPoMo is still going strong. Kitten says she is making progress on her book, too.

I hope you are enjoying the videos, quotations, etc. Do you have any preferences on the type of things I post for the rest of the month? Questions about blogging or writing in general? Let me know!

“Can I make a blog photo album, like I can on Facebook?”

One way to make a photo album would be to create a My Photos page. But there is a problem with that idea. Pages are meant to be used for static content, so page updates are not included in your blog’s RSS feeds or email subscriptions. That means it is impossible for readers to know when you’ve added something to a page.

A better solution would be to create a My Photos category. Whenever you want to add new photos, create a slide show or gallery post, labeled with that category.

Now that you have a category devoted just to photos (or to videos, or whatever favorite things you want to highlight), you are ready to use the Custom Menu to share those posts with the world.

How to Use the Custom Menu

Follow these steps to create a menu featuring your favorite pages and categories:

1. On your Dashboard, go to Appearance > Menus.
2. Type in a name for your menu. Click the Create Menu button.
3. Check the box for each page you want to include in your menu. Don’t forget your About page! Click the Add to Menu button.
4. Also, check the box for any category you want to feature as if it were a page. Click the Add to Menu button. For example, I added the Quotations category to my menu.
5. You can create a custom item for your menu. Enter the URL of any website, and type in the title you want to use. That’s how I added a link to my math blog.
6. Be sure to click the Save Menu button!

Click and drag the page or category names to move them around until you have them in the order you want. If you drag a name to the right, that will put it in a sub-menu (which will drop down when a reader bumps it with his mouse). If you move it back to the left, it becomes a top-level menu item again. Whatever changes you make, remember to Save Menu again.

When your menu is just the way you want it, use the Theme Locations box to select that menu. The default is a blank space, but click the down arrow to show your menu’s name. Select it, and then click Save. Then open your blog’s home page and admire your new custom menu!

What a cool idea! Each of my kids went through a stage when any spy-themed book, toy, or project was sure to catch their attention.

You can see a full-size sample of the book here, showing how to make the secret agent wallet and chore cards. Click here to download the original file.

And if you’re not familiar with CurrClick, I recommend you take the time to explore their site. We have used several of their resources in our home school, such as the Math Mammoth workbooks and Art with Pilar Live classes.

[Okay, confession time: We didn't really take Pilar's art classes through CurrClick. She lives nearby, so we took her classes in person --- but she's a wonderful teacher, and we would have loved to take them through CurrClick if we lived farther away...]