Home School Online

Summer Learning at Mesa Verde

What do you and your family do for summer study?

We generally start each summer with a two week family trip. My favorite was to Colorado where for me, the highlight was Mesa Verde. (I’ll try to find the family pics, stay tuned!)

But then, we go home and take it easy. I make sure that everyone reads a lot. Some summers, we also do projects or have online programs for enrichment.  For isntance, we’ve used the Time4Learning summer online program for different subjects. One year one kid did it to review some areas in math that were a problem. The following summer, they did the same thing but to get a jump start on the next year.

I’ve also used VocabularyCity for summer work since we all like word games.  I see that they now have a literacy word game summer online program.

For students who need to focus on their writing skills this summer, try Time4Writing.com

This is a collection of really great homeschooling resources, mostly free, which can be used in many cases for many different grades.  This Symbaloo homeschool webmix can be downloaded and updated automatically or you can update your own version of it.  But not both!

http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/homeschoolwebsites

This image was revived and used as an ad at some point about “Would you invest in this team?”

I went to a local business event last night and heard Bob Greenberg, employee number 7 at Microsoft speak. I really enjoyed it. He  talked about what this team was like to be part of as the company was founded. He spent two years there and then left so it was before the crazy financial stuff happened.

roughly paraphrasing him, the business was based in Albuquerque back then.  It was privately financed in part, by a loan by Bob Greenberg.

The idea guy was Paul Allen who drove the idea that in the near future, there would be a computer with its own microprocessor on each desk.  At the time, this was a wildly futuristic concept and the one that drove the whole Microsoft strategy right through (and passed)  its’ growth phase.

Bill Gates was a very ambitious and savvy business guy from early on as well as a very good coder. He was a bit of a ambition monster who, a bit like Jobs, turned on the charm and worked people effectively when he needed them.

He also told the story behind this picture. Bob was contacted by some salesmen saying that he had won a free studio session for his family. He asked if he could bring in his company. They said yes. He invited them all done.  A picture was taken and a few people bought copies.  The rest is history.