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Living Water

Home Educators

WEEKLY eNEWS
DDD

    10/04/08

Volume 2, Number 34    

Visit Us on the Web
www.lwhe.org

Email Submissions to:
LWHEnews@lwhe.org

Questions about eNews:
Contact Rosemary Laberee at labereeland@verizon.net.

Trouble viewing eNews?
Email a description of the problem, including your email provider (eg. Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) to  LWHEnews@lwhe.org.

Join the Living Water Yahoo! Discussion Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/
group/LWHE/

Events Calendar
See our Calendar of Events to learn what's going on at Living Water and the homeschool community!

General Leaders:
Chris & Bobbi Cascarella
cascafam6@gmail.com

Assistant Leaders:
Pete & Rosemary Laberee
labereeland@verizon.net

Assistant Leaders:
Darin & Brook Gall
rivergirl72@comcast.net

 LW Leadership Faith Statement
The Holy Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God and contains His completed and final revelation to man. We do not endorse or encourage the use of any teaching that conflicts with what is contained in God’s Word. The Bible, in its original form, is without error in its entirety. The Word of God has been and will remain the ultimate authority as we seek His wisdom in representing His group in a way that honors and magnifies the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

LW Mission Statement
Living Water Home Educators is composed of homeschool families in Burlington County, NJ and surrounding areas who come together to support one another.  Each family that homeschools is an independent, private school that has the freedom to install the beliefs and values that we, the parents, feel are most important to our children.  Since this group is not affiliated with any one particular church, we feel it is important for you to know where the leadership of this group stands so that you can feel comfortable participating in the activities and events we offer.
 

LW Activities Disclaimer
Please be advised that any activities that are advertised in the Living Water Weekly eNews or website may not necessarily be activities that conform to Living Water's Faith Statement (see above).  Members should not make any assumptions about the teachings or content that may be provided at these activities and should exercise due diligence before deciding to participate.  These include activities that are considered as "outside interest" as well as those activities (including field trips) that are organized exclusively for Living Water members.

 

 

 

Happy October, Members!

We bet you didn't know that Living Water Home Educators has gone GLOBAL, did you?  Well, sort of.  It's true that our member reach is limited to our immediate geographic area but our new website has been viewed by people from all over the world including China, Europe, South America, Africa and Australia!  Pretty amazing, isn't it?  To see a world map displaying the locations from where our viewers have visited click on http://www4.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://www.lwhe.org.

The first revision of the 2008-2009 Living Water Member Directory was distributed to all members this past August.  Since then there have been several changes and additions.  For your convenience, the most current revision of the member directory is attached to this email.

I found this on a State Leader’s articles library and thought that it spoke volumes about the role we play in our children’s lives.  New Jersey home educators prepare (once again) to defend their freedom to teach their own children as they see best fit and I wish weren’t so.   Discouraged,  I needed something to warm my heart and this (true) story sure did the job. I hope it helps you, too.

Enjoy this week's edition of the Weekly eNews with articles that have been posted on our website from this past week!

Blessings,
Rosemary Laberee
Assistant Leader

Just a Mother
John R. Erickson
 
I grew up in a little town in the northern Texas Panhandle. Nobody in Perryton had ever become a writer or, as far as I knew, had even thought much about it. 
I did very little writing until I went to college. At the University of Texas, I did well in courses that required essays, and I took some classes on writing. During my two years at Harvard Divinity School, I enrolled in a year-long class on fiction writing.
However, I have come to realize that the best instruction I received on writing did not occur in a college classroom or come from someone with a doctorate in English literature. It came from a woman who never went to college, had never written anything longer than a letter, and had no credentials that said she was qualified to teach.
 
She was “just” a mother: my mother, Anna Beth Curry Erickson. She was a rancher’s daughter from the country around Lubbock, descended from sturdy pioneers who had received little formal education but had acquired a reverence for the written word. They were People of the Book, and their book was the King James Bible. They knew it well, and their everyday conversations were shaped by its wisdom and cadences.
 
When I was five, Mother kept me at home instead of sending me to kindergarten. That year, we homeschooled, though neither of us had ever heard that term. 
 
During the day, I followed her around the house and yard as she did her chores: cooking, washing dishes, canning vegetables, hanging laundry on the clothes line, making beds, tending the garden.
 
While she worked, she told me stories about the cowboys, ranchers, and strong pioneer women in our family. She was a wonderful storyteller with a gentle, earthy sense of humor, and those stories and characters ignited my imagination.
 
In the afternoon, she read aloud to me, most often stories from the Bible. At the age of five, my heroes were David, Samuel, Joseph, Samson, and Moses. And more than once, she closed the book and said, “John, God has given you a talent. You must guard it and use it wisely.” 
 
She did not know that my talent would lead me into a career as a professional writer, yet through some miracle of motherly instinct, she gave me exactly the tools I needed 35 years later when I wrote the first Hank the Cowdog book:  
  1. Respect for the written word,
  2. Simple storytelling about admirable characters, 
  3. Gentle humor, without anger, malice, or ridicule, 
  4. Worthy role models: Moses and David instead of athletes or “stars,” 
  5. And most important, a sense that I should use my talent for something larger than myself.
As parents, we do not always know if our kids are listening to the things we tell them, but I was listening. Decades later, when I was grown and trying to figure out how to be an author and receiving hundreds of rejection slips from publishing houses, I still believed that God had given me a talent and that I should use it wisely.  If I had not believed in something bigger than myself, I probably would have given up. 
 
How do we measure the importance of a mother? For me, that measure is seven million Hank the Cowdog books and the innocent laughter of the families who read them. When I hear people say, “She’s just a mother,” I have to smile.  My “just-a-mother” was the most important teacher I ever had.
 
Copyright John R. Erickson 2007
 
Erickson and his wife Kris live on a cattle ranch northeast of Amarillo. He has written about his mother’s family in the book Prairie Gothic, available at www.hankthecowdog.com. Erickson and his sidekick, Hank the Cowdog, will be back again this year at the THSC State Convention & Family Conference in The Woodlands.

In This Issue


New Bill Threatens NJ Homeschoolers

This e-alert from HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) was sent to all NJ homeschool families that are members of HSLDA.  Living Water Home Educators will continue to post updated information about this bill as it becomes available.  A copy of the bill can be found at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2008/Bills/A3500/3123_I1.PDF.

SUBJ: New Jersey--Prepare To Oppose Restrictive Homeschool Bill
 
Dear HSLDA Members and Friends,
 
On September 22, New Jersey Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver and Assemblyman Harvey Smith filed a bill that would cause a catastrophic destruction of homeschool freedom in New Jersey.
 
For decades, homeschooling in New Jersey has thrived, producing astonishingly good results at no taxpayer expense even while public schools serve up one expensive disappointment after another.  There is no justification to cripple the most successful form of education in New Jersey with increased regulation.  Studies show that children do no better in states with heavy regulatory burdens.
 
The organizations of the homeschool task force are united in opposing this bill, A. 3123, and are developing a unified response.   No benefit, great or small, can possibly compensate for the loss of freedom.  The task force opposes this bill in every detail.  There is no compromise position.  The bill must be defeated.
 
ACTION REQUESTED
 
The time for action will be very soon, but not yet.  Please wait, but be prepared to take action when HSLDA recommends it. 
 
BACKGROUND
 
These organizations form the homeschool task force: HSLDA, Catholic Homeschoolers of New Jersey (Kevin Kiernan), Eagle Forum of New Jersey (Carolee Adams), Education Network Of Christian Homeschoolers of New Jersey (Mark August),  New Jersey Homeschool Association (Nan McVicker), and Unschoolers Network (Nancy Plent).  These same organizations unified to help stop the infamous A.B. 4033 in 2004.
 
A 3123 would do the following:
 
1. Require an annual notarized letter of intent to register every homeschooled child.
2. Require parents to list objectives in every mandatory subject.
3. Require evidence of immunization.
4. Require proof that the children have received all medical services the law requires.
5. Require a certification that adults in the home have not committed certain crimes.
6. Require 180 days of instruction.
7. Empower the Commissioner of Education to decide what subjects are mandatory.
8. Empower the Commissioner of Education to determine course content "guidelines" starting in kindergarten.
9. Require that parents keep the following records and submit them annually to the school district, and also as often as the superintendent requests, if he has "reason to believe" the student is not getting "an appropriate education":

  • list of reading materials
  • writing samples
  • worksheets
  • workbooks
  • creative materials
  • standardized testing in grades 3, 5 and 8 (with parents being
    prohibited from administering the test)
  • an annual evaluation by a person other than the parent, after an
    interview and review of materials. The evaluator must certify the student is receiving an "appropriate education."  The evaluator must be a: (a) licensed psychologist, or (b) certified school psychologist, or (c) New Jersey public or private school teacher, or (d) New Jersey public or private school administrator.

10. Empower the superintendent to ask the school board to terminate homeschooling if he believes the records (above) show the homeschool program is "unsatisfactory in providing an adequate education." 
11.  "Adequate education" is not defined, so the superintendent and school board have wide latitude to decide what they think it means.
 
A. 3123 would turn New Jersey into one of the worst homeschool states in the country.  The bill is very similar to Pennsylvania's homeschool law, which is generally recognized as the second worst in the nation, surpassed only by New York's.  A. 3123, however, includes features that make it even worse than Pennsylvania's. 
 
Some families have stayed in New Jersey and endured high tax burdens because the homeschool law is favorable.  If A. 3123 passes, some families will leave the state, reducing the tax base without any corresponding savings from reduced state or local education expense. 

At the same time, the mountain of paperwork it will create for superintendents will raise expenses that will ultimately be footed by the already put-upon taxpayer.
 
Sincerely Yours,

Scott A. Woodruff
HSLDA Staff Attorney

======================================================================
The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of:

Home School Legal Defense Association
P.O. Box 3000
Purcellville, Virginia 20134
Phone: (540) 338-5600
Fax: (540) 338-2733
Email: info@hslda.org
Web: http://www.hslda.org


Trenton Fire Department & Museum Field Trip - LW MEMBERS ONLY

Date: Friday, October 24, 2008
Time: 10:00am
Place: Trenton Fire Headquarters
Ages: All ages
Cost: FREE

Pamela Jones' husband is a captain in the Trenton Fire Department and has offered to give Living Water members a behind-the-scenes look at life in the firehouse that includes:

  • A tour of the Fire Museum which houses antique fire equipment and trucks.
  • A presentation to the children about fire prevention and fire safety.
  • Seeing a fireman dressed completely in "turnout gear" and a demonstration of the personal tools and equipment used by each firefighter.
  • Fun and educational handouts for every child.

This will be a very informative presentation intended to educate children of all ages about what they should do if they find themselves in a fire situation.  There is no charge for this trip but please be respectful to Captain Jones and show up if you sign up!

If interested, please email Pamela at nathansmommy@comcast.net prior to October 14, 2008 with the number of children (and ages) and adults that will be attending. This trip will be limited to 20 children.


Academy of Natural Science Field Trip

This event was originally advertised on the West Jersey Homeschooler's Yahoo Discussion Group, a local area group dedicated to sharing educational and social opportunities for all homeschoolers and is reprinted here with permission.  If you would like to join this discussion group, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/westjerseyhomeschoolers and click on the Join This Group button.

Take your students on an exciting exploration of the natural world. The Academy of Natural Science offers three floors of exhibits, ranging from dinosaurs and dioramas to hands-on interactive stations, and are sure to make your field trip to the Academy the highlight of the school year.

DATE: Tuesday, October 14th
TIME: 10:00am
PLACE: Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
COST: $6.30 Basic/$7.65 Basic w/Butterfly Walk-thru; you can choose either.
PARKING: Street or lots. ANS does not have it's own garage. They validate some lots. Carpooling can help with the costs and add lots of fun.

Contact Suzanne Brennan at brennanzoo@hotmail.com if you would like to participate.

Entrance:
Use the 19th Street Doors. A representative will meet with you at the scheduled time.

Lunchroom:
A lunchroom is located in the Commons Room on the Ground Floor. Lunchroom reservation is based on availability. There is a 30 minute time limit. Why bother with brown bags? Our Café staff will prepare tasty and healthy
box lunches and pizza packages that are ready to go when your students are ready to eat. Prices start at $4.50 per person. See Lunch Packages for more information on menus and prices.

PERMANENT EXHIBITS

Butterflies!
Stroll among beautiful live butterflies and moths from around the world in our year-round tropical garden. Watch colorful adults emerge from their pupae and discover other forms of metamorphosis. Learn about butterfly habitats and adaptations.

Basic + Butterflies! admission is required for entry into Butterflies! Reservations required, 20 minute per session.

Dinosaur Hall
Explore the exciting world of paleontology, stroll beneath towering fossil skeletons, and examine dinosaur anatomy up close. Stop by the Fossil Preparation Lab to talk with staff as they clean and prepare real fossils.

Diorama of Africa, Asia, and North America
Travel the globe without leaving the museum! Our ever-popular dioramas let students get nose-to-nose with gorillas from Africa, pandas from Asia, and bison from North America.

Science at the Academy
Find out what Academy scientists are up to these days in this multimedia exhibit. Watch video footage from research expeditions, see recently collected specimens, and find out about our latest scientific discoveries.

The Florence R. Foerderer Live Animal Center
Watch animal care staff tend to the more than 100 live animals that call the Academy home while learning about each species at interactive stations.

AUDITORIUM PROGRAMS

Naturalist Shows
Join our staff as they explore natural history in these informal presentations involving live animals and/or museum specimens. Naturalist Shows are presented daily at 2:30 pm run for 20 minutes.

Nature Videos
Take a break from the exhibit galleries. Sit back and enjoy a 20-minute nature video from the award-winning series "Secret Life of Gardens."


Fernbrook Farms Upper Level Homeschool Classes Open

Dear Homeschoolers,
 
The autumnal equinox has come and gone, the weather is changing and you all are most likely, in the thick of your schooling adventures. I'm sending this program syllabus to you to inform you of some space still available in our Upper Level Ecology Semester.  This upper level program's content is geared towards 12- 14 year olds.  As always, classes are hands-on and experiential.  Students will keep a journal over the course of the semester and will be expected to complete some outside assignments including reading some popular naturalist writings.

Classes are held on Thursdays at 1:00 P.M. All lessons last two hours excluding the field trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge.  Parents are allowed to join us for the classes but are not required.  Classes start October 2!
 
Thank you for your interest in the Fernbrook Farms Education Center Homeschool Programs.  Along with this you letter you should have received a list of programs for the 2008 fall season, a registration form and driving directions.  If any of the information is missing, or if you would like to register your child please feel free to contact us via telephone of email.
 
We hope to see you soon.
 
Sincerely,
Eric Tadlock
Education Director
eric@fernbrookfarms.com


Homeschool Civil War Day

Join the Tapestry of Grace co-op (associated with Sovereign Grace Church) for a memorable day of hands-on learning!  They will be holding a Civil War Day on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 from 9:00am until 4:00pm in Moorestown, NJ.

Kathy Matson from Historical Happenings (this is the group who directed their very successful Revolutionary War Day in 2007) will be leading this event. Please visit her website for details at http://www.historicalhappenings.com/civilwardayinfo.html

Specific details regarding cost, location, etc. are forthcoming.

Please email Kathi Baillie at bailliemk@yahoo.com if you think you might be interested in participating so that she can begin compiling a list of participants for future notification.  This is a family event and parents, children, youth/teens are invited to attend.  Feel free to share with other homeschoolers!


Liberty Science Center Camp-In

See Homeschool specials at the end of this article!

That's right! As a Liberty Science Center "Insider," you are invited to bring your family to an amazing "Camp-In" on Saturday, October 18, 2008 where you can watch the Center come alive at night!

You may find yourself sleeping among the world's tallest skyscrapers or under steel girders extending 18 feet in the air. Wherever you sleep, we know you will have an amazing overnight experience.

Just in time for Halloween, you can meet up with the native bats of NJ — right here at the Center! Create your own bat and design a habitat for it. Join in for a "batty" story time, and pick up plans to build a real bat house and hang it in your own yard!

The evening will be brimming with excitement, hundreds of hands on exhibitions, Live Science Demonstrations, and "batty" arts and crafts. You can watch Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs in the nation's largest IMAX® Dome Theater and put your 3D "glasses on" to watch and be a part of Bugs! 3D! You will enjoy an evening snack and breakfast the next morning.

Youth campers must be between 6 - 13 years old, with one adult chaperone for every five campers. The inclusive cost per person is $55. The Family Camp-In starts at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 18 and ends at 9:00 am on Sunday, October 19. You can find more information at www.lsc.org.

To register or for more information, please call us at 201-200-1310.

Special for Home School Families — Saturday, October 11
An exclusive opportunity to attend a Liberty Science Center Camp-In and visit the historic Statue of Liberty, all in the same trip! Call the Home School Specialists for more information at 201-200-1310. 

http://www.lsc.org/icExclusivesFamCampIn.html


Mom's Time Out Toy & Clothing Exchange

Date: Monday, October 20th, 2008
Drop Off Time: 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Shopping Time: 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Place: Fellowship Alliance Chapel - Sanctuary, 199 Church Road, Medford
Clothing sizes: Newborn - 14/16
Cost: All items are FREE!

Here's how it works:

  • Donations of children's clothing, equipment or toys may be dropped off at the designated Sanctuary door between 5:30pm and 7:30pm (it is very helpful if donations are sorted by size and gender.)
  • After donations are delivered, you may proceed to the Welcome Center to chat until the doors open for shopping at 7:30pm.
  • You may just drop, just shop, or do both - drop off unneeded things and shop for new!
  • All adults are welcome to the exchange: friends, grandparents, expectant mothers - but this is a kid-free shopping extravaganza!
  • You may want to bring your own shopping bag to carry home your bargains (or a truck if you are in need of large items, eg. a crib).
  • All remaining items are donated to charity.

Hope you can make it....you won't want to miss the Exchange!

For questions contact Robin Young at (609)953-3675 or cochisecr@aol.com.

 

 

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