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The benefits of reading out loud

You know that I am always going on and on about the importance of reading to your children. I am 100% certain that this one thing alone builds a scaffolding for later learning that cannot be replicated in other ways. Still, I am always happy to come across articles and research supporting the benefits of reading out loud to children. In this particular article, the research suggests that it also supports social skills .  What I found interesting was the fact that there were benefits whether or not parents stopped to ask questions about the content. I'm not sure if these questions were to confirm comprehension or ask leading (or perhaps not leading) questions regarding the plot. It still confirmed my suspicion that children are capable of gaining a great amount of benefit just from listening. I think sometimes parents make things too complicated when really they just need to read the story.  Another study I would love to see done involved reading to older children... even high ...
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Fiber Monday - You just get a couple of pictures

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I've been doing things, really. I have all 900+ ends threaded on the loom. I have drafted and made a skirt and T-shirt, and am now working on drafting a pattern for a peasant blouse. There are over 600 hexagons sitting in a bag waiting for me to start playing around with them to see how they'll fit together in a quilt. I have a sweater cast on knitting needles. And for none of these things do I have pictures to of which to share with you.  Here is what I do have. The beginnings of my real hardanger project.  And Timmy the sheep who I sheared yesterday.  I was able to completely shear Timmy in less time than it took to only halfway shear Fred. My hunches were correct. Fred's wool is so thick, stretchy, and full of lanolin that he is really hard to shear. Plus, his wool is black and his skin is black. For anyone who has knitted with black yarn, you know exactly how difficult it is to see what you're doing. I also sheared Timmy in a different way so that I had better angle...
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Listening to impacted voices

As a parent to adopted children of color, I have learned that listening to the voices of adoptees and to the voices of Asians has helped me understand what my children may experience. Sometimes it is hard because what those voices tell us isn't always what we want to hear. We like to be the good guys in the story, but we also need to hear where we (or the majority culture) has fallen short. It is humbling, but necessary in order for me to be the best parent I can to my children.  This is also true for people with disabilities. I feel fortunate that I had a friend with another mom when I had two young children. This friend also happened to use a wheelchair due to childhood polio and was a disability advocate. I learned a lot from her and I am grateful for both her friendship and my education. I also know now that I should not have put the onus of education my clueless self on her, but should have also worked to educate myself. But you don't know what you don't know.  Which b...
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Steep learning curve

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Today the plan was to get the rest of the sheep sheared, or technically rooed because we didn't think any shears would be involved. Well, the best laid plans and all that. We decided to start with Fred because he is the biggest and I knew he has the thickest wool, so it seemed wise to start with him.  As of this afternoon, we now have one and a half sheep sheared. I think the wiser course of action would have been to practice some more with the smaller sheep and save Fred for last. I remember last year the shearer being really surprised at how difficult it was to shear Fred, so I knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park. But good gravy that sheep has incredible think, sproingy, and greasy wool! By the end of both mine and Fred's patience, I was able to trim the blanket (the wool on his back and sides that I will save to process), and had started on the britch which didn't need to be quite so careful with because it was going to go to the garden for mulch. But we were both...
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Funny, not funny

I spent some time talking with an adult child today who needed to vent about trying to use AI to do a task at work. I won't go into the why's because that's not my story, but I am fully up for listening to venting about AI, so was all in. I'm not even going to try to explain what this child was working on because I only vaguely understand it, but there were a couple of things that stood out from our conversation and I haven't been able to get them out of my head since.  The bottom line as I see it, is that AI is really nothing more than a sassy teen who is smarter than is good for them, but hates to work harder than necessary. Why do I say this? Well, if you give Frederick or Charles or Pierre or whatever name the not-human-but-plays-one-on-the-internet set of connections has been named, if you give it instructions that are too long, Pierre (as we'll call it for simplicity's sake) will do the instructions, but the output will be wrong. When you asked Pierre ...
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Public Service Announcement

It seems there is a new homeschooling group around that people need to be aware of.... even if you are not a homeschooler. And that would be you need to know about it and not in a good way. I'm not going to link to it. If you want to do your own research, Google can find it for you. And I'm all about doing your own research.  So this particular group is The Homeschool Freedom Directory. It wants to gather a list of businesses and professionals who are willing to sign their pledge to get on their list. Which you then pay a fee for them to do direct marketing to their audience. The website uses phrases such as "connecting homeschoolers with businesses who support their values" and "wanting to bring the homeschool community together and make it stronger."  There seemed to be a few code words in there, so I looked at the pledge. First, it is very faith based. Clue number one that these weren't my people. And if you haven't been around the blog for very l...
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A small dent

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I had dinner with a friend tonight which was lovely, but also means I have no energy to write anything of substance. So enjoy my small gardening accomplishment from today. Now just 60+ feet of garden to go. 
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