Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival #22

Okay, this notice is late, as the carnival was published nearly a month ago — but it’s still well worth visiting: twenty-two homeschooled student bloggers in the twenty-second carnival. Wow!

• 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…

Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival #21 via Home Education Resources

The latest Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival is up and ready for browsing. Enjoy!

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!

Changing the Front Page of My Blog

Since the homeschool co-op was canceled for this semester, I’ve been busy doing many other things and haven’t found time to update this blog. Since new posts are so few and far between, I thought it would be more helpful for new readers if I made the Blogging Lessons page into the front page of my blog — that is, the page that readers see first.

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

Weathering the Big Storm

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.

Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival #20

“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!

Update: New Project

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.

Student Blogging Challenge Wrap-Up

The fall semester Student Blogging Challenge is wrapping up. Here are the last two challenge posts:

• 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!

Let it Snow!

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…

Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival # 17

Check out the latest Homeschooled Kids Blog Carnival over at Alice’s Bunny Blog. Be sure to leave comments to encourage the participating bloggers.

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!

Fiddle with a Function Machine

The Function Machine game builds mental math skills and has always been a favorite of my math club students. Now you can play it at home:

• 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!