Lessons at the Last Minute!

I've known for a week, but didn't work on it till yesterday.  I need to teach at co-op class this afternoon!  Actually it's not quite as bad as all that - I knew what I was going to talk about and had some materials ready.  I just waited until the day before the class to look for the online resources I wanted - and that I thought would be easy to find.  Wasn't quite as easy as I expected, but I think I have everything now.  Whew!  My older two boys have been taking a co-op class in Civics, and the lady that usually teaches can't be there today.  So she asked me to fill in, and we decided that I would talk about immigration to the United States, having first-hand experience, and also satisfy the kids' curiosity about currency and coinage.  The currency and coinage part of our lesson will take the majority of the class time, but I will tell the kids something about work visas, alien registration, immigration and naturalization.  (We are currently in the process of applying for American citizenship for myself, my husband, and our oldest son - we are all Canadian-born.)

 

By the way, the Federal Reserve offers free publications - comic book style - for teaching about money and economics.  I ordered online at: http://www.newyorkfed.org/publications  (Thanks Linda, for sharing that link awhile back!)

 

Today is an auspicious one for education.  On this day in history, in 1858: Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patents his idea of attaching an eraser to the top of a lead pencil.  I think math students everywhere should be grateful to Mr Lipman.   

Oh, and I have to mention this - even though it's not directly related to homeschooling.  Mr. Clean Magic Erasers have saved my daughter's butt twice just this week.  On Monday she used permanent marker to draw happy faces on coffee filters and of course once she was at a single layer of coffee filter, the marker bled through onto my kitchen counter.  Magic Eraser took off the happy face, cute though it may have been.  Yesterday, my darling daughter got color ink refills for the printer and used the blue ink to paint one of my Coca-Cola diner chairs!!!!   Again, thanks to Mr Clean's amazing eraser, I could clean the chair and avoid strangling my daughter.  LOL  How did I manage as a parent before this thing was invented????