My little granddaughter will look adorable in this top I made for her. It’s from a McCall’s pattern, #6022, and was quite easy to make. I think the pom-pom trim cost more than the fabric did, but it was worth it. That said, she’s still pretty oral, and if she starts pulling off the pom-poms in hopes of eating them, I’ll have to cut them off. Hence this photo, for posterity 🙂
I think it’s tragic that well over half of eighth-graders are considered “not proficient” in reading and math these days.
I also think it’s tragic that 25% of kids under age six have their own smartphones. Think of all the things those little ones should be doing instead of playing on their phones.
I could write endlessly about all the reasons why I don’t think kids should have phones.
But I won’t. Instead, I’ll just say that these two trends must be related. Children who spend all their time on passive entertainment are not learning about the world around them and are slowly being anesthetized. Had they been given the time, space and opportunity to learn naturally, they would probably be proficient at reading and math by eighth grade even if they didn’t go to school at all.
The most chilling quote from the second article has to be this one:
Eight in 10 parents surveyed said they don’t limit the amount of time their kids can use their smartphones.
When will parents wake up?
My first book, the homeschool curriculum Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, still sells after 15 years and three editions, but it’s always been a print book. Now I’m excited to announce that the expanded third edition of Life Prep just became available in EBook form.
This new eBook version is a “print replica,” which means it looks exactly the same inside as the recently expanded print version does. So it includes every single feature that the print version has. Of course, you can still buy the print version if that’s what you prefer. (If I were still homeschooling, that’s what I would prefer.) But many people like the convenience (and lack of clutter) that you get when you buy eBooks instead of print books.
The print version costs $24.95, and the eBook version costs $9.99, so there’s some significant savings if you choose the eBook version.
In either case, preparing your homeschooled teen for life on their own is an essential task, and one that Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers will do, over the course of 1-4 semesters, depending on just how much preparation you want to offer to your teen. Learn more HERE. See the rest of our books and eBooks at CardamomPublishers.com.
In my book Thriving in the 21st Century, I argue that the pursuit of a college degree should no longer be the default position assigned to teens as soon as they graduate from high school. I’m happy to say that I’m hearing more people who share that opinion speaking out.
One of them is John Stossel, who recently interviewed college professor and economist Bryan Caplan about his recent book on the subject. I highly recommend both of these links to parents who are considering borrowing tens of thousands of dollars so their offspring can earn a college degree because they think it’s the only way they’ll ever get a job. I suspect this chorus will only grow louder as more time passes and tuition keeps rising.
Once the Internet took over my life (both for work and for entertainment), the number of books I read annually dropped, like a rock. I do read eBooks regularly, but slowly. So I decided this summer I would begin reading actual books more often.
The first book I read was one I heard about on Dennis Miller’s podcast. It’s an autobiography by the actress Illeana Douglas called I Blame Dennis Hopper. I’ve seen her in a few things, including an episode of “Frasier” (one of my all-time favorite television shows), but I was primarily interested in her because her grandfather, Melvyn Douglas, was an actor during the Golden Age of movies, which is when most of the movies we watch were made.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have too much to say about her grandfather, so while her commentary on the making of different movies she was in was interesting, and I read the whole book, it’s not one I would recommend unless you’re heavily into movies of the 80s and 90s, or you’re a fan of Illeana Douglas, who seems like a very nice person.
Next up was Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night. I’m a great fan of one of his earlier novels, Plainsong, so I thought I might like this book, too. And I did; it’s a sweet story about two older people that I wouldn’t have enjoyed when I was younger, but now that I’m closer in age to the two protagonists, I can appreciate it. Haruf’s style is sparer than most, and the novel ends rather abruptly, but he died not long after he wrote the book so maybe he just didn’t have the energy to flesh it out at the end. Nevertheless, it was a good story. I’ve heard that it was made into a movie with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. I probably won’t watch it, though; I prefer to remember them as they were in “Barefoot in the Park.”
The third book I read so far this summer was The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg. I’m old enough to remember Fannie on television game shows back in the day, but while I’ve known for years that she became a famous writer, I’ve never read any of her books. I greatly enjoyed this novel. Despite its overly descriptive beginning, it quickly evolved into a multi-generational saga that held my attention throughout and led me to fall behind on some chores in order to see what happened next. (My mother-in-law will be proud of me; despite the temptation, I didn’t read the ending in advance to make sure the book was worth the time investment, as I have been known to do in the past.)
As a bonus, Ms. Flagg’s research into the time period she wrote about included many references to life in mid-20th-century northeastern Wisconsin, including Sturgeon Bay, where I used to live, so I particularly appreciated learning about those days. I enjoyed this book enough that I’ve already chosen another of Ms. Flagg’s books to read next.