I had to opportunity to go see a very unique play this evening. I got to see Steve, preformed at the Hart Theater in Hillsboro. Now you are probably wondering why I am taking the time late this evening to share this small fact. Well, the reason is pretty large. One of the young men that helped write and direct the play is a friend of our family, and he is a graduated homeschooler. It was great to see a dream that was in 5 years making come to life for three young adults. Now for the story of Steve. I am really not sure why it was called Steve, but the story line was interesting. It was a story about a alien that comes to earth to take us over, meets two young teens, goes back home to rescue one, and save her planet. At least I think that is the basic idea of the story line. It was a bit confusing but very funny. The young actors involved did a great job. Steve was a great play. It was a well written and thought out plot that took you for many twist and turns. The humor was a bit dry, but very funny. The acting was good, and impressive. This is definitely a play I would recommend. The information for the play. Steve is being preformed through the weekend at the Hart Theater in Hillsboro. Here is the link. http://www.hart-theatre.org/. If you are wanting a great play to take your kids to for family fun.... GO it is only playing this weekend to my knowledge. There have been times when my kids wanted to learn things that was beyond my capablity. One of those classes was and still is computer sciences. There are some things that I can teach my kids with computers, like working with Word, Adobe, social media; things that are basic computer knowledge. When my youngest wanted to go beyond that I was lost. Talking computer programming and building I was lost. My oldest son could help, but unfortunately he no longer lives with us. So I was left to finding some other way of learning. I first went to local possibilities. I searched local homeschool groups, and found a few answers but it was limited. Where I live I did found one group, not homeschool orientated, but a great organization to work with that offered a wide variety of opportunities, Saturday Academy. They offer a variety of classes all over the Portland, Oregon area. I also searched on the OMSI sight, which is a local science museum. At the time there were no classes, but I know I can go back and continue to look. Beyond my first finds, there was one last place to look and that was Village Home. Village Home used to be a group of homeschooling families that have expanded to a resource center that offer a wide choice of classes from pre-k to highschool. After searching locally and feeling a bit limited I turned to the internet. This is actually the last resort for me. I would prefer to do a hands on class when it comes to working with computers but I felt rather limited in what was offered locally. What I found was a bit wider. The list is a bit longer. The fist site is Khan Academy, which is a site that offers free educational videos that teaches young to old. There is EdX courses and Coursera which unfortunately or fortunately cater to upper highschool and college level education. All of these sites offer educational videos and lessons for free. Now there are two other sites that work with all ages from pre-k to highschool. The last two sites I looked into are Currclick and Schoolhouseteachers.com. Currclick is a site that offer classes and curriculum. My older son, who is now in college, took classes from this site. It was a good experience and there are teachers that ineract with the students via inernet, definate plus in my book. I have worked with quite a bit of the curriculum they have to offer, another plus. But for all of this there are costs. Depending on the class and or curriculum will depend on the cost. The last site is Schoolhouseteachers.com. I have been a member with this site for at least 6 years. They have quite a few classes and are always improving and adding to their site. The only disadvantage to this site compared to Currclick is that it is only curriculum based. Each class gives you everything you need for the classes, but there is no interaction with the teachers themselves unless you email them. Again there is a monthly cost for this site. You actually get alot of bang for your buck with this site. Here is the list of the sites and organizations I found. Local classes for the Portland area OMSI http://www.omsi.edu/ Saturday Academy http://www.saturdayacademy.org/ Village Home http://www.villagehome.org/ Inernet resources Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ EdX https://www.edx.org/course Coursera https://www.coursera.org/ Currclick http://www.currclick.com/index.php Schoolhouse teachers http://schoolhouseteachers.com/ |
AuthorI have been homeschooling my three kids since 2003. It has been an adventure of epic experiences through pre-school, elementary school, middle school, and now high school. There is NEVER a dull day in our house. With that said, I am glad you have joined me so you can read about our epic experiences. I promise you won't get bored. Archives
April 2016
Categories |