What curriculum do I choose? What if we can’t afford all the books? How do I schedule our time? Will my children become socially awkward recluses? What if I screw up my kids’ education?! Lorilee Lippincott, a seasoned homeschooling mom, shows just how simple homeschooling can be. She and her husband taught their two kids in a one-bedroom apartment before picking up and moving the whole family to China. They’ve discovered that they don’t need rooms full of books, educational toys, and other teaching tools, nor do they need schedules packed full of extracurricular activities, field trips, and social events. Perhaps even more importantly, they don’t need to panic about making sure their kids turn out okay. It’s actually all pretty simple, she tells readers.But homeschooling well does require some planning and dedication, and a book like The Homeschooling Handbook to be your guide. Here you’ll find all your questions answered in Lippincott’s straightforward, warm, and witty style. Topics covered include:How to instill curiosity and a love of learningTypes of homeschoolingYour socialization fears assuagedHow to create simple schedules and stick to themTips for keeping costs downTeaching kids with disabilitiesThe benefits of play timeLegal requirementsHow to avoid burnoutAnd much more!Full of anecdotes, interviews with other homeschooling families, and wisdom, this is a must-have for any family considering the homeschooling life.

    In his extensively revised fourth edition, Frank Smith brings teachers and teacher educators up to date on how reading should not be taught. It is a necessary reminder that reading and learning to read are natural activities.There is a massive assault on the independence of teachers of reading, mandated under the No Child Left Behind legislation, which regards reading as an unnatural act requiring contrived systematic instruction. Now more important than ever, Reading Without Nonsense, Fourth Edition provides the evidence and arguments that teachers need to resist this mechanistic view. As Frank Smith emphasizes, the act of reading has never changed despite all the changes in materials, procedures, and methodology proposed by people with an interest in how reading is taught.Reading Without Nonsense remains one of the most authoritative, influential, informative, and accessible texts on reading and learning to read. This bestseller is popular with classroom teachers and university professors as well as administrators, parents, and everyone concerned with literacy and education.

    

    What is a Thunk? A Thunk is a beguiling question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks but helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light. The Thunks in this book cover a broad range of topics including truth, justice, reality, beliefs, the natural world, the human condition, art, beauty, existence, difference between right and wrong, good and bad, life and death, war, religion, love, friendship and a whole lot more. The book contains a comprehensive introduction by the author who guides you through the origins and uses of Thunks and how best to use them. Not only are they a fun way to develop thinking skills but they also hit all the right buttons to encourage children .

    In the Teachers' Standards it states that all teachers must demonstrate an understanding of, and take responsibility for, promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy, and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher's specialist subject. In The Secret of Literacy, David Didau inspires teachers to embrace the challenge of improving students' life chances through improving their literacy. Topics include: Why is literacy important?, Oracy improving classroom talk, How should we teach reading? How to get students to value writing, How written feedback and marking can support literacy.

    The content is well sourced and there are plenty of references in the appendices.

    This book walks through every aspect of Community Building and the MonaVie opportunity. Includes the DVD "Textbook Talks".

    Too often speakers are shouted down, professors are threatened, and classes are disrupted. In Speak Freely, Keith Whittington argues that universities must protect and encourage free speech because vigorous free speech is the lifeblood of the university. Without free speech, a university cannot fulfill its most basic, fundamental, and essential purposes, including fostering freedom of thought, ideological diversity, and tolerance.Examining such hot-button issues as trigger warnings, safe spaces, hate speech, disruptive protests, speaker disinvitations, the use of social media by faculty, and academic politics, Speak Freely describes the dangers of empowering campus censors to limit speech and enforce orthodoxy. It explains why free speech and civil discourse are at the heart of the university's mission of creating and nurturing an open and diverse community dedicated to learning. It shows why universities must make space for voices from both the left and right. And it points out how better understanding why the university lives or dies by free speech can help guide everyone--including students, faculty, administrators, and alumni--when faced with difficult challenges such as unpopular, hateful, or dangerous speech.Timely and vitally important, Speak Freely demonstrates why universities can succeed only by fostering more free speech, more free thought--and a greater tolerance for both.

    

    Panda was designed to remove low quality content from the search engine results pages. The surprise to many were some of the big name casualties that were taken out by the update. On 24th April 2012, Google went in for the kill when they released the Penguin update. Few SEOs that had been in the business for any length of time could believe the carnage that this update caused. If Google's Panda was a 1 on the Richter scale of updates, Penguin was surely a 10. It completely changed the way we need to think about SEO. On September 28th 2012, Google released a new algorithm update targeting exact match domains (EMDs). I have updated this book to let you know the consequences of owning EMDs and added my own advice on choosing domain names. While I have never been a huge fan of exact match domains anyway, many other SEO books and courses teach you to use them. I'll tell you why I think those other courses and books are wrong.The EMD update was sandwiched in between another Panda update (on the 27th September) and another Penguin update (5th October).Whereas Panda seems to penalize low quality content, Penguin is more concerned about overly aggressive SEO tactics. Stuff that SEOs had been doing for years, not only didn't work any more, but now can actually cause your site to be penalized and drop out of the rankings. That’s right, just about everything you have been taught about Search Engine Optimization in the last 10 years can be thrown out the Window. Google have moved the goal posts. I have been working in SEO for around 10 years and have always tried to stay within the guidelines laid down by Google. This has not always been easy because to compete with other sites, it often meant using techniques that Google frowned upon. Now, if you use those techniques, Google is likely to catch up with you and demote your rankings. In this book, I want to share with you the new SEO. The SEO for 2013 and Beyond.

    In No More Teaching a Letter a Week, early literacy researcher Dr. William Teale helps us understand that alphabet knowledge is more than letter recognition, and identifies research-based principles of effective alphabet instruction, which constitutes the foundation for phonics teaching and learning. Literacy coach Rebecca McKay shows us how to bring those principles to life through purposeful practices that invite children to create an identity through print.Children can and should do more than glue beans into the shape of a B; they need to learn how letters create words that carry meaning, so that they can, and do, use print to expand their understanding of the world and themselves.

    To figure out why this is happening and how to put an end to it, child psychologist Dr. Charlotte Peterson has been spending six months every five years living in indigenous villages and observing their parenting practices. What she's found is that the people of peaceful cultures, particularly the Tibetan, Bhutanese, and Balinese people, know something we Westerners, despite our modernity, don't, and their children are happier, healthier, and more balanced because of it.What Dr. Peterson has found is that the children in these cultures are raised with a high degree of cherishing and empathy. Attachments are promoted by intensive nurturing of infants and gentle, clear limit-setting with toddlers that teaches self-control and builds self-esteem. The result, as Dr. Peterson has found after visiting these places again and again, is children who are trusting, enjoyable, and kind, —not “spoiled,” as we might imagine.The Mindful Parent brings together Dr. Peterson's village interviews, observations, research, and over thirty-five years of work as a psychologist to teach modern parents how to raise healthier, more well-balanced, and kinder children. It includes creative ideas from parents who are currently adopting these practices and balancing other aspects of their personal, career, and financial responsibilities to assure their children get the support they need to thrive.

    When author Nancy Lande started homeschooling more than 10 years ago, this is the book she wanted that didn't exist. What better way to create your homeschool than reading about others and picking and choosing the styles that appeal to you? Lande has corralled a variety of homeschoolers and, with some deft editing, allowed them to speak for themselves. Every chapter features a different household on any given day. Many of the writers are mothers, but a stay-at-home dad and several children tell their tales as well. Their detailed descriptions start in the waking hours of morning and get down to the nitty-gritty information of everyday life in a homeschool: how moms fit in showers, how chores are divvied up, how reading and research are gently initiated, how parents set aside time for themselves. These writers invite the reader into their homes and advise, "Don't mind the mess." Their passages are often funny and unflinchingly honest. They aren't embarrassed to tell you they whipped out SpaghettiOs for a hurried lunch or stole a peek at CNN while ignoring the chaos in the playroom. Some of the families have created highly structured school environments within their homes, with desks and sharpened pencils. Others promote freestyle learning, with their children sprawled across the house working on projects or reading in between walking the dog, playing games, and riding bikes. The majority of families here live in Pennsylvania, the author's home state, but one writes from as far away as Scotland, another lives on a mountain in Alaska, and yet another checks in from a college town in Texas. Their learning logs, reading lists, and journal entries, along with family photos, help illustrate the book. The quilt they piece together is a great service to those wondering how to approach homeschooling. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

    It is a collection of 150 brain teasing math riddles and puzzles. Their purpose is to make children think and stretch the mind. They are designed to test logic, lateral thinking as well as memory and to engage the brain in seeing patterns and connections between different things and circumstances. They are laid out in three chapters which get more difficult as you go through the book, in the author’s opinion at least. The answers are at the back of the book if all else fails. These are more difficult riddles and are designed to be attempted by children from 10 years onwards, as well as participation from the rest of the family. Tags: Riddles and brain teasers, riddles and trick questions, riddles book, riddles book for kids, riddles for kids, riddles for kids aged 9-12, riddles and puzzles, jokes and riddles, jokes book, jokes book for kids, jokes children, jokes for kids, jokes kids, puzzle book

    During the summer of his senior year at college, while earning a B.A. in Economics and Political Science, David P. Spears spent eighty hours undercover as a panhandler. Systematically recording every transaction at the exit ramp, Spears captured a rarely seen picture of how modern urban charity works.This book is the record of his adventures, part economic research, part investigative journalism. Both the numbers and the stories behind the numbers provide answers to the questions we’ve all been wondering: Who gives more to panhandlers—men or women? What percentage of drivers roll down their windows to donate? And most important of all, how much can a panhandler earn per hour?Get out your bi-weekly pay stub—by the end of this book you’ll know if you make more or less than the guy with the cardboard sign.