Our world has come crashing down around us over the past few months, but remember that God has EVERYTHING under control! With all the changes we have gone through since March, we have seen more people interested in homeschooling. There has been a lot of confusion about the difference in homeschool and schooling at home. I saw an ad the other day that said they had been homeschooling and it listed a curriculum that isn’t homeschooling but through the public school. So let me help you understand 3 big differences.

Homeschoolers

 

1. Homeschoolers are under a different guidelines than the public school.

   When you home school your child(ren) we follow the laws for homeschooling NOT public school. Homeschoolers have a certain number of hours they have to put in each year. Homeschoolers have to have a certain amount of those hours in a primary location. Check out the homeschool laws for Missouri.

2. Homeschoolers don’t have a set time of day they have to be in school.

   Homeschoolers don’t have to go to school 8:00 am – 3:00 pm Monday through Friday. Some go to school in the morning, some in the afternoon, some all day, some 4 days a week or some 7 days a week. Some go year around to school and some go only certain months to school. You are the principal and teacher of your school, so it is up to you what hours and days your child(ren) are in school.

3. Homeschoolers don’t have a set curriculum they have to use.

   When we started homeschooling there wasn’t a lot of curriculum out there to choose from. Now, you can find all sorts of curriculum and different styles to meet yours and your child’s needs.

Schooling at Home

 

1. Schooling at home is still under the public school.

   Those that are schooling at home are still enrolled in the public school and have to abide by the schools requirements.

2. Schooling at home have to go to school on the public school schedule.

   Schooling at home students have to go to school during the time that the public school says they have to. They have a certain time of the day that they have to be in school and they go to school during certain days and months of the year.

3. Schooling at home curriculum is put together by the public school.

   Schooling at home curriculum such as K12 and Connections Academy are through the public school systems. Anything that says they are online public school is NOT homeschooling.

If you are interested in homeschooling check out our website for more help on how to get started. MATCH is here to help you along your journey. You find some awesome freebies on our site to make things fun even before the school year begins. We highly recommend doing the awesome 2 week course Start Strong Missouri Homeschool University to help you know more about homeschooling and what to do and expect. This awesome course will help ease the butterflies in your stomach. Everyone that signs up for the course is given a FREE year membership to MATCH ($25 savings).

May God bless you as you make the decisions for your family. Whether you homeschool or school at home, may you have a wonderful year!

Are you looking forward to have your child(ren) learn more about shooting and history at the same time? I can’t say enough good about this amazing program! The instructors are wonderful and patient and looking to help out everyone there!

“Appleseed” comes from Johnny Appleseed, the American folk hero who toured the country, planting appleseeds so that future generations would benefit. Project Appleseed is designed to ensure that future generations of Americans will learn and benefit from the lessons of our colonial past.

 

The hard part was learning to shoot on your stomach instead of sitting or standing. They shoot at 25 meters. They learned how to target detection and ranging; measuring and compensating for wind; scopes and reticles; MOAs and mils, boxing your sights, battle-sight zero and come-ups, and much more.

The programs are done on a Saturday and Sunday. Come prepared for 2 long days but they make it fun. Our daughter took the class and had only shot her gun 1 time with her grandfather before hand. They were very patient with her and helpful and encouraging!! This is great for children to do along with the parents. They give a list of items to make sure and have at the class. They do have some things available at the event if need be, but it is best to bring your own so you know what you have.

To kick things off, they explained about the program and then started telling the story of the early days of our nation. During each break they told more of the story of our nation and the events of April 19, 1775. So, who actually began the war in 1775? Did the war actually begin with the “shot heard around the world?” After hearing the story, I actually had to change my mind and I thought I had studied this war a lot.

 

 

They are big on safety! In all the years they have put this on, there hasn’t been any accidents with the guns. The group we were in had an 8 or 9 year old boy as the youngest and the oldest was around 60 years old. So the age range is big. There was lots of encouragement and the instructors were known to get down with each person as needed and help them.

Due to Abigail not having shot a gun except once before they worked with her over and over. NO one made fun of anyone else. Even when the aim was way off, they just encouraged and kept going.

We only attended 1 day of the event. The second day they keep building on the first day and then awards are given out and they receive a special shirt.

This is an awesome opportunity and for those that are wanting to get their children into hunting or just a better shot, this is an awesome way to do it. The history part is very well done and they keep the interest of the class!

To find out more about the events go here. This is an excellent class and you will walk away with more knowledge how our country became and how that even through conflict they pulled together.

Check out the 6 different dates available in MO this year. To help them prepare so that they have enough instructors on hand, it is helpful to pre-register.

This event is HIGHLY recommended by MATCH!

The SupraComputer is a great example of how modern technology can bring top educational tools to anyone at an affordable price. If you are not tech savvy at all, it comes with simple printed instructions for hooking it up (additional ingredients needed include a keyboard, mouse, and monitor or TV with HDMI input), and onscreen guides once you get it going. The emphasis of this machine is math, and it comes with an icon at the top for Wolfram Mathematica, which was well known as one of the best computer math tools when I was in college 20 years ago. Many other educational programs are included for all ages – games for teaching letters, spelling, typing, and math to young children, paint programs, a complete office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, diagram tool and math formula editor), and tools for learning computer programming.

The icing on the cake is hidden on a website behind login information provided in the printed quick start guide. Dr. Craig Hane, founder of Triad Math Inc. (one of the companies behind the SupraComputer) has recorded a number of instructional videos that cover the basic concepts of math from counting to differential equations and linear algebra. These are included with the purchase of the computer at no extra cost. They can be accessed from the computer if you hook it up to the internet (either wired or wireless connection). There is also a store with special discounted prices on extra SupraComputers, replacement parts, and additional math programs.

For the geek like me, you won’t find any information on the public website about the specs on this computer, which means they can change without notice. The model I received has a case like is currently shown on the website, with micro USB port for the power adapter, HDMI, 4 USB ports and an ethernet port. You might notice I didn’t mention a power button – it powers on when it is plugged in, and if you shut it down from the software you have to unplug it and plug it back in to make it come back on (this is explicitly pointed out in the user manual). Because of this, the lack of holes punched for mounting on the back of a monitor doesn’t bother me. The case is very small – 3.5″x2.375″ and 1″ tall. A peek behind the label shows that inside the case is a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B V 1.2. It comes with Raspbian 8 (Jessie) installed on a 32GB microSD card. This means that all the software coming on the Supra Computer is free, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. I have been running various forms of Linux nearly exclusively on my personal and work computers for over 15 years and feel it is far superior in many ways to any other operating system, including cost.

If you wanted to gather the parts and take the time you could build this yourself, but I feel like Triad Math has done a great service in making this available to everyone who won’t take the time for a very reasonable price. And even if you did, you would be missing out on the supplemental training videos on the website, which add considerable value to what you get. If you have anyone in your life looking at a future career that depends on advanced math, this is definitely a worthwhile purchase.

Want your own SupraComputer and help your child with their math? Go to https://supracomputer.org and get yours ordered.

Nanushka is a beautiful story of a little Russian girl that lives with her aunt and longs for friends. But since she has none she makes up imaginary ones that gets her into all sorts of problems. Does she every get any real friends?

I love listening to the narrator. She has a pleasant voice that keeps you listening until the very end. There is piano music weaved throughout the story that draws you into the story more and into that era of time in Russia.

Our son loved listening to this CD while we traveled and it kept his attention. The music isn’t played at the same time that the story is going so it doesn’t cause problems listening.

I highly recommend this awesome recording! It would even work as a nice downtime story and would be fun to have your children draw pictures of what they think Nanushka and her little imaginary friends looked like.

You can get your copy at https://www.amazon.com/Nanushka-Russian-Childrens-Ina-Allen/dp/B00AEHF0JK.