137 posts from 2007

Generally, I tend to ignore New Year's day, and do most of my "new year" type planning in September.  All those years of "back to school" haven't worn off yet, I guess.

But I have a new project in my life, and I'm excited about it.  A homeschooling friend of mine has been putting out an email newsletter for homeschoolers in our area for a while, but her son has gotten older, and she has begun working, ya know, for money, and doesn't have time to continue with it.  So she offered it to me. :)

There are about 120 families on the list right now.  I'm going to send out my first newsletter tomorrow.  The newsletter has been basically announcements about classes, field trips, book sales, etc... and a list of local support groups.   Recently, a court found that virtual public schools are illegal in our state (Wisconsin), and there is likely to be legislation introduced this month to address the situation, so I included an article about that, because homeschoolers and virtual school families tend to hang out together. 

My friend has always done a nice job with the newsletter, but I am looking forward to making it my own.  However, I did a little research, and found an interesting article about taking over a newsletter that had this advice:

Let your own personality take over gradually. But first, you need to find out what your readers already like about the newsletter. It is a huge mistake to assume you know what's best for your readers and then change everything. The only thing that can result from that is resentment and defection.

I am doing my best to follow this advice and I believe the newsletter I send out tomorrow will look and feel a lot like what my friend would have put together.  But I do have some plans for the future (we'll see how much of this I implement):

• Start publishing on a schedule (my friend would publish whenever she had enough info).
  
• Add a table of contents at the top of the email-- I think it would make the long page of text a little less daunting.
• Add a section for people who offer tutoring and private lessons to homeschoolers-- the idea is that there would be a lot of repeating content in this section, but the info would all be together every month so you wouldn't need to hunt through past issues.
• Ask around to see if there is a newsletter like this covering the neighborhoods to the West of me, and if not, expand the region I cover to include them.  The former editor lives closer to the center of the current region than I do, and frankly, there's not so much going on here that we don't have room to include a few more neighborhoods.
• Start publishing archives in a blog.  I'm not sure if anyone would rather get the newsletter through rss feed, but it's easy and may help market the newsletter by getting us listed in google.

Long term, I'm not sure where I'll go with the newsletter.  At some point I may have enough distribution to be able to sell ads and make it worth my time, but right now I think the most I could charge would be something around $100/year, and unless I sold so much that the ads took over the newsletter, it's not worth the hassle of becoming a real business.  My short term goal for the newsletter is to build the homeschooling community in my area and support activities geared to homeschoolers.

If you homeschool and you read this, what would you want in a local homeschooling e-newsletter?  What wouldn't you want?  Would having the content archived online make you more or less likely to contribute?  What if you could opt out of having your information included in the archive?

Thanks!

Whenever I have trouble with my macbook, my husband likes to tease me about my "intuitive" mac.  But now he has to admit it is pretty easy to use-- while I was showering and my husband was "watching the kids", my 21 month old took out my macbook, set it on the coffee table, opened up photobooth, and took some pictures of himself.

I was tagged by my friend {E} .  I haven't felt terribly inspired to blog lately, so I appreciate it!

Rules: Each tagged person must post 8 random facts or habits about themselves on their blog. At the end of the post, choose 8 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment telling them that they are tagged and to read your blog. Have fun!

1. I am a lousy housekeeper, and I don't care that much about changing.  It isn't that I want a yucky, dirty home (and I don't think our house is generally that bad, though we've slipped a bit beneath even my standards for parts of this month) it's more that I don't feel like having a perfect home is my top priority at the moment.
2. I love academic, challenging books about parenting and homeschooling.  Stuff with references, and footnotes.  I'm hoping to get this book from the library next:
   

   Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers' Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in C

   Liping Ma
   Looks like a real page-turner, doesn't it?
3. I really wish my {T} would talk more.  I know he's fine, but it weighs on me.  Besides I like talking with little people.  It's fun.
4. I think this video is hilarious.  No, I can't articulate why.
   
5. I will do just about anything to make my {A} laugh.  Even buy her Captain Underpants.  Though it hasn't quite come to that yet.
6. I love coffee.  I need coffee.  The people around me need me to have my coffee.
7. I love good cake donuts.  We used to have a truly great donut shop a half block from our house.  But we moved to an area where you can only get donuts at the supermarket.   Bleh.
8. I am cheap.  I hate paying more for things that are only slightly better.  I always look for a cheaper option.  My husband loves this about me.  One of my favorite things about homeschooling is getting to hang out with people who know where the good thrift shops are. 
   

If you could easily choose to live in another country without all the red tape and legal stuff, which one would you select and why? 
Submitted by Matthew 25.

I don't think I'd choose one.  Assuming that managing to support ourselves is part of the "red tape and legal stuff" I don't need to worry about, I'd want to try lots of places-- we could spend 3 or 4 months in Tokyo, and then move on to Hong Kong, and then New Zealand and Australia.  After that, we could tour Africa, then Europe, and finally spend some time in South America.  It should only take about 10 years, LOL!

I'm goofing around with the Amazon associates program.  My main goal is to get the referral fee for my own purchases (this seems to be allowed, hope I haven't missed any fine print), but if some random web-surfer clicks on a link, that would be nice too.  I'm not trying to make a buck off my friends and family (and FYI, the reports I can get don't tell me who orders what, but it does tell me what they order, so there are some privacy issues, though I had to choose between the amazon sale widget and sitemeter, and I like being able to check out Amazon's deals easily, so I don't know who visits my website anymore).

Time to get off the 'puter!

Have you ever known a really wonderful librarian?  Someone who loves books, and makes everyone around them love books too?  I did briefly, 2 houses ago.  Since then, we've been on our own.  I'm reading a book by someone who feels like one of those librarians right now, and I just can't recommend it more highly:

The book is intended for use with gifted kids, but I think most of the ideas would transfer well to any child.  She gives very helpful overviews of how to introduce bibliotherapy and literary analysis (and what the difference is), and offers lots of book suggestions for a wide age range.  The book has me interested in the Junior Great Books program-- I've ordered some free samples of their read-aloud and grade 3-5 program so I can see what might work best for us. 

The author does address homeschooling specifically and is supportive of it.   She often refers to another book I've enjoyed (and should reread):

I was fortunate to meet the author, Lisa Rivero, at the WPA conference last spring.  She, and her book, are very practical and specific.

Which are your favorite sites for shopping online?

  Mostly Amazon (my brother generously got us Amazon prime-- why go to the store when I can order whatever online and it'll be here in 2 days?). 

For homeschooling stuff, I like Rainbow Resource -- they have just about everything, the prices are good and often have useful reviews. 

For browsing, I like Fat brain toys -- somehow I never buy anything from them, but they have a very nice site, and their gift wizard actually works.

Occasionally I'll buy something from Tanga, Woot, or eBay, but it just seems like more work to shop that way, KWIM?

I can't leave out my favorite site for beautiful Amish quilts.