More fun with Erin McKean. This video is considerably longer (close to one hour) and may be of more interest to word nerds. Folks with an interest in linguistics should really enjoy it.

For the homeschoolers among my readers, if you are doing grammar or word study with your kids you will want to make time for this review. Ms McKean goes over origins of English words, compounding, affixes, back formation, acronyms and initialisms, onomatopoeia, catachresis, and more. (OK, some of these are a little more esoteric than most people are going to need….)

Again, mild profanity or mention of sensitive topics. And wordservatives among you may get upset by some of the lexicographical gymnastics.

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Maybe you’d like to try making up words at home with your kids. View the video together, and give it a try!

Parents and students all over North America are concerned about two main things when it comes to university: finding the right program at a good school, and paying for a college education. While many people feel that attending college is a matter of student choice, studies show that family finances play a significant role in the decision. The children of lower income families are under-represented in universities, while children from wealthy families are more likely to attend university.

If you are already stretched you may find this database of financial aid scholarships helpful. Scholarships.com is a free service that will help students and their parents learn about scholarships and grants for which they may be eligible.

In order to use the service the parent or student fills out a profile that includes grade, academic ranking and test scores, artistic and athletic ability, family income, etc. The school is also selected from a list, and any applicable financial aid programs will be displayed with details such as amount available and application deadline.

Homeschooled students will find a homeschool category in the “Year in School” drop down menu. Some personal information is gathered. The company is certified by TRUSTe and the Better Business Bureau; you can view their privacy policy and verify their certifications here.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

As of Monday Quebec dentists opted out of the provincial health plan and began charging fees to their patients on social assistance and children under ten. The dentists are asking the government for a 48.5% increase in the fees they collect from the provincial government, saying that at the moment the fees they collect don’t even cover their costs for providing the treatments.

Dentists in Quebec earn on average $125,000 per year. Some representatives asked about the action last week say it’s not just motivated by the fact that the health plan only allows them to recover 60% of what they would charge a private health or dental plan; it’s a matter of professional respect. With them asking for almost 50% more than they are earning now, I am led to wonder whether respect and remuneration are listed as synonyms in the dictionary of dental terminology.

Ontario dentists also participate in a similar subsidized health plan. While Quebec dentists find 60% fee recovery offensive, their Ontario counterparts receive only 56%. Still, the average annual salary of an Ontario dentist is $132,000. “[S]ome observers have wondered whether Quebec dentists are trying to use the public system to reach income parity with their Ontario colleagues,” says Gazette health reporter Aaron Derfel.

As of today a government decree is in place forcing dentists to accept the existing government compensation, but negotiations continue. Perhaps Health Minister Couillard should also be examining who sets the private fees for dentists. Conflict of interest may be the polite way to describe the fact that a hand picked committee of dentists sets the norms for dental fees. A mere 60% coverage may be more a problem of fees set too high for even private plans to make dental care affordable - a problem that could easily be remedied by making objective third parties responsible for setting standards, and lowering the rates themselves.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks to the Gazette and CTV for the data.

If you haven’t signed up for the Freebie Fridays newsletter from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine (TOS) you can catch up on any free stuff you’ve been missing. Actually, you can catch up on a whole lot more by checking out the TOS newsletters archive.

Four issues of the Freebie Friday newsletter are archived, and at the moment you can find links for a free King Arthur unit study (30+ days of lessons from Brandenburg Studies) plus an offer of two free ebooks if you will fill out a quick survey about homeschool curricula and suppliers. Watch for their freebie directory too!

Enjoy!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

This week’s Freebie Fridays newsletter from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine had a link to a 7-page directory of homeschooling-friendly universities. Most are in the United States, but there were a couple in Canada as well.

The majority of the schools seemed to be Christian colleges, though there may be some on the list that are more general. There was no discussion of how schools were selected for the list or how up to date the listings were. It would seem that schools may have either applied for inclusion or even paid for their space on the list. Most of the schools just had a listing with their name and URL, but some had a box including a description.

There very well could be dozens of schools that are homeschool-friendly that were left off the list for one reason or another. However, it is a place to start - and an especially good one if you are looking for a religious college in the United States. American colleges are listed by state, so you can quickly narrow down your options by location.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!