For those living in Quebec who would like to hold a mock election to coincide with our upcoming provincial election, Voters in Training (Electeurs en herbe) is offering free educational materials to schools, youth groups and others. They don’t specifically mention homeschools, but they are affiliated with the Student Vote program which is quite happy to have homeschoolers participating.

We participated in the Student Vote for the federal election this year, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the quality of the materials we received! We were sent real ballot boxes and privacy screens, printed ballots with the candidates for our riding on them (not official, but very close to the real thing) and a ton of great support materials. The girls really felt as though they were a part of the election, and took such an interest in the whole process from the campaigning right through the counting of the returns on election night. Holding a vote in our homeschool and knowing that their votes would be counted with those of students from across the country made a big difference to our daughters. They want to have a say, and Student Vote allowed them to do so. I look forward to similar results with our follow up activities for the provincial election.

We just registered for our provincial election materials. I’ll post when I’ve heard from Voters in Training and have a better idea of how their program works. With such a lousy voter turnout in the federal election here in Canada, I hope everyone will try to get more involved in the provincial election. The American voter turnout was tremendous this year. It would be great if we could follow their lead! If you’ve got kids - whether you be a parent, a classroom teacher or homeschooler, or a youth leader - please take some time to get them excited about voting. It’s a right and a civic duty, and if we can stir the kids up while they’re young maybe we’ll see a generation that turns up at the polls in great numbers.

To register for the Voters in Training Quebec election, visit this page on their web site. Materials are available in English or in French. Please include the word “homeschool” in your school name if you are a homeschool: let the world know how many of us there are!

To learn more about Student Vote, check out their web site 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.

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I’m not a big hockey fan, but an article about the Vancouver Canucks caught my eye this morning. The team is breaking with tradition and NHL rules to appoint their goalie captain. Here’s part of the story:

In a move that breaks with tradition, and the NHL rules, the Vancouver Canucks named Roberto Luongo the team’s captain Tuesday, even though the goaltender will not be able to have a C sewn on his uniform.

Coach Alain Vigneault said Luongo’s leadership abilities makes him the obvious choice to become the 12th captain in Canuck history.

“In our mind, for this organization, this is the right thing to do,” said Vigneault. “Roberto is the right individual to be captain.”

Mike Gillis, the rookie Canuck general manager who promised to bring new ideas to the job, said it would be unfair not to let Luongo be captain just because of the position he plays.

“Leaders lead by example,” said Gillis. “Roberto is the leader of this team right now. We felt really strongly about that. To not do something like this means you have a leader that is unrecognized.

“We wanted to make sure he is recognized for his contribution both on and off the ice.”

Luongo, 29, often was Vancouver’s best player last year when the team missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. He said he was stunned when Vigneault first approached him with the idea in September.

“I didn’t expect it when Alain came and asked,” he said. “I was definitely surprised but at the same time I was happy and flattered.”

Rule 6.1 in the NHL rule book says: “No playing coach or playing manager or goalkeeper shall be permitted to act as captain or alternate captain.”

For those who wonder why a goalie can’t be team captain, there is a practical reason:

There have been six goaltenders named as NHL team captains. The last was Bill Durnan of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1947-48 season.

The league passed a rule preventing goalies from being a captain prior to the 1948-49 season. One of the concerns was Durnan left his crease so often to speak with officials it gave his team unscheduled timeouts during a game.

So the team has come up with a creative solution that will allow for all the duties of captain to be fulfilled, while Luongo remains in the crease:

To remain within the rules, Luongo will not wear a C on his jersey. To compensate, the Canucks named defencemen Mattias Ohlund and Willie Mitchell, plus forward Ryan Kesler, as assistant captains. It will be their jobs to discuss calls with officials and take ceremonial faceoffs.

“He (Luongo) is not going to come out of his crease,” Vigneault said with a grin. “We’ve already come to the agreement that opening faceoffs will be Mattias’s because he’s the longest running Canuck.

“Since (Mitchell) likes to talk the most, we’ll have him talk to the referees.”

Gillis said he told the NHL about the Canucks plan and they offered no objections.

Luongo said he isn’t bothered he won’t have a letter on his sweater.

“It really doesn’t change anything for me,” he said. “It’s a matter of people knowing I’m captain. At the same time, I’m sure it involves a lot more stuff off the ice.”

Children are so often confronted with rules that prevent them from doing something that is very important to them, and most of the time it seems their only choices are to abide by the rules or to break them and risk the consequences. As a parent and an educator, I like to teach my kids that things are rarely so black & white.

There are usually shades of grey, and if a child can present an alternative to a parent or teacher he may just discover that things are negotiable. He may have to give up something else, but that might get him the thing he wants more. Just as Luongo can’t wear the “C” on his team sweater, but he does get to assume the role of the leader of his teammates.

Creative problem solving is basically that “thinking outside the box” phenomenon that we hear so much about these days. Employers value an employee who can find creative solutions to work around an impasse - whether it be a matter of regulations, finances or physics. And in community building a leader who has the imagination to work around difficulties instead of giving up or blaming others, is a person who will be rewarded with both loyalty and a healthier community. The team management of the Canucks is demonstrating this sort of thinking outside the box, and also doing a great job of assigning jobs that suit each player’s abilities. Recognizing what a person is good at, and knowing when to split one job up and assign parts of it to several different people, is good human resource management.

This story demonstrates a very abstract concept in a way that a child can understand it. I hope those who have hockey fans in the family will share the article, and discuss how the team used creative problem solving to do what they wanted to find a very workable compromise.

Source: “Canucks break tradition, NHL rules, in naming Luongo team captain” (Jim Morris, The Canadian Press)

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!

Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising has been released for free viewing. If you are in the US or Canada you can get a free copy here.

Here are the rules for usage:

“I’m giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only). I want you to use ‘Slacker Uprising’ in any way you see fit to help with the election or to do the work that you do in your community. You can show my film in your local theater, your high school classroom, your college auditorium, your church, union hall or community center. You can have your friends and neighbors over to the house for a viewing. You can broadcast it on TV, on cable access, on regular channels or on the web. It’s completely free — I don’t want to see a dime from this. And if you want, you can charge admission or ask for a donation if it’s to raise money for a candidate, a voter drive, or for any non-profit or educational purpose. In other words — it’s yours!” (emphasis mine)

- Michael Moore

As you can see, Mr. Moore is looking to see more folks getting out to the polls this year. Let’s see if we can’t help him make that wish come true!

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!

I have been hard at work creating some e-books for homeschoolers to use, and would very much love to have feedback from a few parents.

For the time being, they are mostly children’s classics from authors like Beatrix Potter, Thornton Burgess, Edith Nesbit & Charles Kingsley. I am trying to work on books that are difficult to find in a printer-ready format. I am also including some books that were the inspiration for movies released over the last year or so. Later there will be novel and unit studies, including a book of Canadian artists for parents who are following an art appreciation program and would like to be able to include some Canadian content. Informational books for parents are in the works too!

All the books are formatted for reading on-screen or in hard copy. Large print editions are already available for some of the books, so if anyone has a child with a visual impairment or who needs/prefers larger print for any other reason, please let me know so I can get these to you. The books come with little extras, such as a biography of the author, copywork, or information about the degree of readability (i.e. what grade level your child needs to read at, in order to read the book independently.)

The e-books I am producing will eventually be offered for sale, however I am looking for a handful of parents who would like to read the books and use them with their children at home. Once you’ve had a chance to use the book(s) I need your feedback on things like fonts, lay-outs and other formatting issues, and also on the content of the books. Any suggestions you make will be taken into consideration as I prepare the first edition for sale to the general public. Suggestions for other types of materials would be appreciated, as well!

Beta testers will be provided one or more books each, free of charge, for their review. Once any changes have been made and the final product is ready, testers will receive a free copy of each book they helped evaluate.

If you would like to help out & receive free e-books, please email me at freehold2@yahoo.ca and be sure to write “Beta Test” in the subject line. Please include the age(s) of your child(ren) in the message body (please mention any special needs or reading levels that are significantly higher/lower than average, so I can select the best product for you to test drive.) You may also request your first book be from a specific category: storybooks, novels, nature study/science.

Thank you in advance for your help,
Ruby
Freehold2 Editions

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!

Here are this week’s freebies from www.HomeschoolFreebieOfTheDay.com

Monday, Sept 15: Easy Homeschooling Curriculum
Wonderful guide to choosing the right curriculum materials for your kids, by Lorraine Curry & 16 homeschooling experts (This is aimed at Christian homeschoolers)

Tuesday, Sept 16: Stories To Tell To Childen (& How to Tell Them)
Classic book of read-aloud stories with instructions on how to be a better storyteller. Excellent!

Wednesday, Sept 17: The Absurd ABC by Walter Crane
Delightful ABC rhymes with wonderful Crane illustrations

Thursday, Sept 18: Required Poems for Memorization
A collection of classic poems which were originally required reading & meant for memorization in school grades 3 and 4 in the early 1900s.
Wonderful verses, great for reading aloud, recitation & remembering.

Friday, Sept 19: ???? Can you guess the mysterious Friday resource ????
Be sure to stop by the site to check out our weekend goodie!

Make a note of the ones you want, and be sure to stop
by that day and get your copy!

You can download all of these on their respective days
at our site: www.HomeschoolFreebieOfTheDay.com

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!