Throwing Marshmallows

My new Throwing Marshmallows blog is officially ready! I am still straightening up a bit, but it is time to get blogging again!

Please come join me!

I mentioned earlier that I had been good about not starting a new creative endeavor before finishing my photobook. So of course now while I am waiting for the book to be delivered (it has been shipped!) I have had time to start playing around.

So if I am a bit scarce around here for awhile, it is for a good reason. I have decided to make a leap and have registered the ThrowingMarshmallows.com domain. I am currently working at getting the new blog up and running (and getting my old posts moved over).

I will most definitely miss homeschooljournal (you can’t get any better than Andrea and Ron!) but I will still be around, obviously.

As soon as things are more finalized, I will let you know!

Stay tuned…

I just wanted to take a minute to thank those folks who nominated me for an E for Excellent award. You all are too sweet!

Thanks goes out to Not June over at These Go to Eleven, Joanne at Unschooling Voices and Christa at Sandy Feet (which was a delightful surprise as I now have a new blog to follow…what’s not to like…a homeschool mom of 3 boys…who loves the ocean (I get relaxed just seeing the header picture on her blog!)…and has great pics of life in New England…what fun!)

So thanks once again everyone and since I am so late to this game, I am not going to nominate anyone (not to mention I have no idea who has already gotten one and who has not). And I do apologize for not having my act together enough to say thanks in a timely manner! The thought and kudos were very much appreciated.

I first heard the Throwing Marshmallows quote after which this blog is named when I was reading the Unschooling.com bulletin boards years ago. I loved it and asked the author if I could use it as my signature line. She agreed. I don’t remember how long I used it as a sig line. When I started thinking about a name for my blog, that quote came back to me and seemed like a perfect name. But somehow I had lost the name of the person who had said it! I tried going back to unschooling.com, but could not find any reference to it. I also tried googling it, but no luck. So I decided to attribute it to “anonymous”.

This morning I got an email from a woman who said that she was the originator of that quote! Yea! Finally. A name to go with the quote!

So thank you Barbara Lamping for your wonderfully visual and accurate quote:

“Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” - Barbara Lamping

My friend Rebecca’s husband has developed a neat new blog widget called NearCircle. It is a way to create a community of related blogs. Kind of like a webring but looks much more interesting and interactive…you can see posts in the sidebars and also go to the Circle home page and check out posts for all the blogs in the circle…kind of like an interactive focused blog reader. I usually am not into the social networking kind of sites, but this seems a bit different and I like that it is blog based. And it seems a bit more fun than just a static webring listing of blogs.

It is brand new, so there are not too many members yet, but check it out. I set up a Virginia Homeschooling circle so if you are a Virginia homeschool blogger, please join! There is also a Waldorf circle and an Unschooling circle so far. I am racking my brain to see what other circles I should set up…

Come join the fun!

Andrea just loaded a bunch of new themes, so I thought that I would check some out. In general, I liked the last theme, but there were a few quirks that I did not like. Like how all the pictures were right justified and had the text wrap around them (which meant that putting in multiple pics was tricky). And how all images had a green border around them which meant that my signature was put in a box. The old theme also did not include the Throwing Marshmallows quote in the header.

Not sure if I am 100% happy with the fonts on this theme, but I will play around with some of the options and see how it works. I also really like how I can edit each post directly if I am reading it. Makes clean-up work much easier.

Hope that you like it! And thanks Andrea!

Can anyone tell me how/where I can get book cover images to upload onto my blog? Is it as a simple as right clicking on the image on Amazon and then uploading it here? Or is that not allowed? Is there another way to find the images I need?

You would think that I would have figured it out by now…

Thanks!

Not June played around with my header image and reformatted it a bit so that it crops better. It looks so much better…thanks so much. My friends take such good care of me…

And check out Not June’s reflections about folks who say they could “never homeschool”. I agree with her about not writing them off as lost causes. I wrote a post awhile back on Life Without School called “I Don’t Know How You Do It” that talks a little bit about how I deal with this question (that does come up frequently).

My take is that it is not that these folks are incapable of grasping homeschooling. It is just that they do not understand what homeschooling is because they really have no experience with it. They think “school at home”. They think that if they struggle to get their kids just to do their homework then to actually have to teach them would be even worse.

But that is not what homeschooling is about. And there are folks who can and do eventually see that. Not June was one. I usually just say that it is not as hard as you think. That I don’t sit and “teach” the kids for six hours a day. I don’t do “school at home”. That what I do at home is much more relaxed and natural then what they do at school. That there are so many things I can do at home that make learning so much easier. Things like:

• Being able to follow my kids interests.
• Being able to go at my child’s pace.
• Being able to stop and change if something is not working.
• Understanding and teaching to my child’s learning style.
• Being able to teach on their schedule (for us that means 10-15 mins here and there).
• Not separating learning from living.

I could go on and on. I also point out how some things are easier…I don’t have to make them do homework or tests because we do the work together and I know what they know and don’t know. I also do not have to keep him up (or hold him back) because of some arbitrary standard. If he gets it, we move on. If he needs more time we take it. I don’t have to worry about where the class is or if he is going to be left behind or bored. Or that the teacher is not teaching in a way that works for him.

I remember talking to a neighbor a couple of summers ago. Her son (who was just a bit older then Kyle) was actually a grade ahead of him in school (he had a late birthday and they did not hold him back). The small private school felt that he needed some extra help over the summer with reading and math…since he was a bit “behind” the other kids and the next year was going to be even more challenging. So they gave her work for her to do with him over the summer. Needless to say, he was not overly motivated and did not want to do a lot of the work. Battles between them ensued. While we were talking she swore she had no idea how I did this year round. The thing is, that what she was doing and what I do are two totally different things. She was trying to make her son be at a certain level that the school needed him to be at regardless of whether he was ready to be there (and over the summer no less!) My personal feeling is that he just needed more time and would get there eventually…but she did not have that luxury. Because he would be “behind”. And they needed him to be able to “keep up”.

Because I teach my boys at home, I can give them that time. Because we can change the focus as needed. If they need time in one area, we can focus on another. Learning does not stop because they get stuck. We can keep moving and come back as needed. Our learning is based on what the boys need as individuals. Not on what the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) or Fairfax County say. This makes all the difference in the world.

Often when I bring up these points, people start to nod their head. Sometimes, they look disbelievingly at me. But it usually makes them think. And I have to think that some of them might, like Not June, get it. (and I have actually known some folks who do)

Yes, there are many people who, for various reasons, could never homeschool. But I really think that we need to give people more credit rather then just writing them off as incapable. I know that the first time I heard about homeschooling, I did not think it was the path for me. That changed as I learned and read more about it. Knowledge and information are wonderful things.

~Stephanie

Well, those of you who are not reading this blog via email or a blog reader have probably already noticed that I have changed my blog theme. I was feeling the need for a change and decided to check this one out when Andrea posted about a new 3 column theme.

The picture in the header is one of my own…a picture off the back dock of our place in Ocean City (where we are headed in only 3 days!) I am not really thrilled about the way it was cropped (I would have liked to keep a little bit more of the chairs) but I think that it works. Here is the entire uncropped picture (yes, I am very lucky and can’t wait to get down there).

I took this picture back in January right after I had gotten my new camera. We were just getting ready to go home after spending New Years at the beach when I noticed the awesome light. It was cool, but not cold. Very crisp and clear. I took several pictures, experimenting with how to compose the picture. I like how this one turned out. I feel more relaxed just by looking at it.

I think that I am going to like this theme…It makes it easy to change the picture if I get bored…I can also play around with the colors as well. I do wish that it had a place for a tagline so I could have the Throwing Marshmallows quote a bit more prominent. But this seems to have a clean look to it (although the font seems a bit small). Let me know what you think.

I have been playing around with the sidebars a bit and realized that I really need to find time to update my blogroll. I did find a nice VT Ribbon that I like and Silvia had a link to a great countdown widget. So I now have a countdown going until the VaHomeschoolers Conference! (Which is also the same day as the release of the new Harry Potter book…) Ack! I can’t believe that it is this close.

I am also noticing that this theme does some weird things with the placement of my photos…all photos are right justified and the captions don’t line up with the pictures any more. I will have to look into that…

I hope to have time to post some pictures from the homeschool camp we just got back from…we had a blast but Jason and I seem to have picked up a cold which has been kicking my butt. So I have been trying to be good about getting enough sleep (obviously not tonight though!)

Better run and get some rest. Busy day tomorrow (today?) and only 3 more days until we head for the beach!

~Stephanie

PS If there are any spelling typos in this, I will blame it on Andrea since the spell check is still not working…(sorry Andrea…couldn’t resist giving you a hard time…like you don’t have tons of other stuff on your plate right now!)

Did you miss me?

All of homeschooljournal.net was down because the webhost decided to change the terms of service on Andrea and Ron and turned it off with no notice! Oh, and if that was not bad enough, it got turned off on the day that Andrea and Ron were moving! You can read more about it here.

Anyways…kudos to Andrea and Ron for getting us up and running again! Considering they maintain this wonderful community in their spare time (and don’t even charge us for it!) I have to say that I really appreciate their dedication and hard work (in the midst of moving no less!)

Thanks guys!

~Stephanie

I just had a chance to check in and see who was linking to Throwing Marshmallows lately and wound up finding a couple of really wonderful surprises. First to Kimmy over at shimmer.glimpse (how cool is that for a blog name!) who nominated me for a Thinking Bloggers Award. She wrote:

Connected to Life Without School is Stephanie Elms from whom I first heard the phrase ,”Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If she is not interested it is like throwing marshmallows at her head and calling it eating.” This was her signature at the end of every message she posted on a very active Homeschool list that I used to read but can no longer eek out the time to read. Her blog, Throwing Marshmallows also deserves a Thinking Blogger Award . I’ve recently been reading her blog and enjoy her quick wit and homeschooling “style.” She’s another HS’er I’d like to meet.

I have to say that I like the Thinking Bloggers Award much better then normal blog awards which wind up being more like a popularity contest, with folks getting all their friends to “vote for them” rather then really being about the blog content. Rather then being about “votes” it is about identifying which blogs bring something into your life and make you think. So thanks Kimmy for thinking of me!

And then I found out that Helen Hegner (publisher of Home Education Magazine) in her HEM Takes a Closer Look post on Homeschool Blogging listed Throwing Marshmallows as a General Interest blog to check out:

Throwing Marshmallows Homeschooling mom Stephanie Elms’ keen observations and insights.

And of course as fate would have it, at the same time I am getting these great links, I am also having trouble keeping up with my blogging! I do hope to eventually get back to almost daily posting…things are just really hectic right now…mostly having to do with my volunteer work with The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers…between the Conference and Resource Fair (this July 20-21st at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond) and ongoing website updates (I am the webmaster) and everything else that it takes to keep the organization running, time is a bit short around here. Not to mention that spring has finally sprung and we have been taking advantage of being out of doors more.

Hopefully things will calm down a bit soon (come on, stop laughing! I can hope, right?) and I will have more time to post…in the meantime, please bookmark me, sign up for my email updates through Feedburner (see link on my right sidebar) or add me to your feed reader (I just switched to Google Reader and have really liked it! Check it out.)

And thanks for coming!

~Stephanie

I knew that I was going to forget it! My blog anniversary was actually back on October 30th, but better late then never.

And who knew when I posted this a year ago, that I would still be enjoying writing and recording my thoughts and what the Elms family has been up to. And who knew that after starting out over on blogger I would make the leap over here to homeschooljournal.net. And I am so glad that I did! Thank you once again to Andrea and Ron…

I absolutely love the homeschooling community we have developed over here…I have met so many new homeschool friends and love having so many of you on my blog reader so that I do not miss a single post.

Blogging is such an interesting thing…allowing us a glimpse into others lives. I love to read about what everyone else is doing and it always gives me new ideas to try in our homeschooling. And I have been surprised at how much I have enjoyed writing my own ideas down. I love going back over the old posts to see what we have done and how the boys have grown. And I love having a place to record my thoughts…I find that writing helps me sort out my thoughts and I thank you all for bearing with me.

So here’s to a wonderful year past and hopefully many more to come!

~Stephanie

I thought that I would pass on some of my favorite online homeschool resources…they are now linked under Homeschool Resources (original, huh?).

Fun Books - An online independent bookstore run by a wonderful homeschool family in Maryland. Has a wonderful assortment of books and interesting items. Also hosts the John Holt Bookstore. (Coming to the VaHomeschoolers Conference in 1 week!)

PhysLink - Not specifically homeschool related, but you can find so many neat things including science supplies, kits, toys and gifts. I do a lot of my birthday and Christmas shopping here…and not just for the kids. I have found great stuff for Jeff too!Discover This - A great place to do birthday and Christmas shopping as well. Lots of fun educational toys…including Capsela building sets which my boys love.

Educational Innovations - Don’t let the website address of teachersource scare you away. This site is chock full of fun interesting items. Divided into different categories such as “Electicity! Magnatism! Engines!”, “Color, Light & Sound, and “Forensic Science”, you can find some really unique stuff there.

Rainbow Resource - Absolutely huge homeschool catalog with great prices. You can request their free print catalog as well…this is one time I actually prefer browsing through the print catalog rather then the online. Each item has a small write-up or review. Great place to see what is out there…and to get overwhelmed with!

if I find anything else fun, I will let you know!

~Stephanie

Well, ok, so that is just a little bit of an exaggeration! But when I saw that HomeschoolJournal.net had been hacked, I immediately realized that I had not backed up any of my posts and that I did not even know how to back them up! I also realized that I was sure that Andrea and Ron probably did this on a regular basis, but still it is scary when something that you have spent a lot of time on and invested a lot of energy in (and enjoy a lot) gets threatened. I have a lot of posts here that I often refer to on my homeschool email lists and some posts that I hope to turn into articles for my state homeschool newsletter. The thought of having to recreate those was not a pleasant one.

What is really interesting is how much I missed my blog and this little HomeschoolJournal.net community! And it really was not even “gone” very long. But the feeling of relief when the boys and I came back from dinner and I saw that ThrowingMarshmallows was intact and had not lost a thing was wonderful.

So thank you Andrea and Ron! You guys are awesome (but you know that, right?)

~Stephanie

In the comments for my prior post about Quick Note to Website and Blog Designers Lesa asked “would you mind giving some examples of what you’re looking for”

Sure! I’ll use LibraryThing as an example. If you go to their homepage, it is pretty clear that they are some sort of Library cataloging system. At the top of the page there is a very easy to find About tab. If you click on that you get the About page and the first heading is:

What is LibraryThing?

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone—. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

Here is something that I can cut and paste easily into my blog or handout or website. I don’t have to write a description of it myself. Of course, if I really love the site, I will probably rave about it and tell why I enjoy it (at least on my blog!). But it seems to me that most sites that are selling things or providing information should want to make it as easy to get the word about their site. And maintain some control over the message.

Here is an example of what drives me crazy. I recently found out about FilmLoop, a new photo utility. I knew a little bit about what it could do, but not much. The homepage gave me some information, but not a concise description and I was still a little confused as to what they really were and how they differed from Flickr. Plus I wanted something to cut and paste onto my blog. So I looked at the menu across the top. No About page. I kept looking around and found it really tiny across the bottom. So I clicked on it. This is what I got:

FilmLoop was hatched over a breakfast of hashbrowns and pancakes in 2004 by Kyle Mashima and Prescott Lee. Since then, the two friends have been working hard with their team to ready FilmLoop for the world.

Interesting information, but still does not really tell me what FilmLoop is or does. The only other information on that page is a list of press releases which I could probably click on and maybe find a description but that is a pain. So I keep looking. To the right of the page, (below the “fold”) I see a link to a Using FilmLoopFAQ. Finally I get to a page where I can click on “What is FilmLoop”:

What is FilmLoop?

FilmLoop is a free photo broadcasting (”photocasting”) network. It lets you tell your story in live photo Loops and broadcast it to all your friends.

Instead of showing photos on a Web page, or including them as email attachments, FilmLoop presents photos in a “Loop” on your desktop. Share your Loop with your friends, and they can add their photos too. It also allows you to set up a Loop as your screensaver (PC only; screensaver for the Mac coming soon).

Now that is more of what I was looking for. It also explains how they are different then the multitude of other photo sites such as Flickr. Now, I did go back and look and found that the FAQ is available if you click on Help but again it is easy to overlook (listed second or third in a list of links on the Help page). Either way you still have to drill around quite a bit to find what you are looking for. And on some websites you can’t even find any kind of concise statement of what they do.

Maybe I am just lazy or tired after having spent quite a bit of time adding links to vendors over at VaHomeschoolers.org and updating resource handouts. But I am finding that I am getting more and more picky about what I look for in a website.

I do a lot of shopping online and a well designed and easy to use website will make the sale for me. I recently bought a hammock online and specifically choose one vendor over another solely because I thought the website was easier to use and had better information which helped me make my decision. The products were the same, the price was a couple of dollars difference (I went with the higher priced site). The website made the sale.

I guess the thing for designers to think about is how can they make it as easy as possible for for their visitors to pass on information about their site. Especially in this day and age with blogs so abundant. I may see a cool site that I want to pass on, but if I have to spend a lot of time writing “copy” then I might choose to put it off. Now of course if the site is just way cool, then I will probably take the time.

A good mission/purpose statement seems like it should be a basic. So just make it easy to find!

~Stephanie

Did you notice?

Andrea and Ron came up with this great theme…and the best thing is it has 3 columns! Yippee! So now I have to play around with things and figure out where I want what. So thanks for bearing with me.

I do sort of miss the fresh spring colors but this is a pretty neat look too.

Oh, and if you are wondering…part 2 of my politics and education rant is on the way, but may be slightly delayed. Jeff is down for the weekend so I won’t be online as much. Need to find a spare moment or two to get my thoughts in order. But soon!

Oh and if you tried to comment earlier, there were problems…so please try again! It should be working now.

~Steph

Things are starting to get a bit busy…we are flying out to Chicago on Friday for the weekend for an Elms Family Reunion. It should be a lot of fun…the boys are really looking forward to the airplane ride. They have not been on a plane since Jason was 3 and Kyle was 6 months, so neither one really remembers it…

And then we are into the final month before the VaHomeschoolers Conference and Resource Fair! I just realized that I have not even mentioned it here on my blog before now…and I am the PR Chair! How could I have forgotten!!

Anyways, if you are going to be anywhere near Richmond, Va on August 25 and 26, you really need to come. Richmond is a great place to spend the weekend! It is going to be so much fun! We are a smaller conference, but one thing that we really do well is provide a varied and interesting line-up of sessions. Truly something for everyone!

Our featured speakers this year are Jeanne Faulconer (an incredible home-grown speaker who is absolutely fabulous), Cindy Gaddis, my good friend over at Apple Stars (who I finally get to meet in person!) and Judith Waite Allee, author of Homeschooling on a Shoestring. I will be giving 2 sessions on Beginning Homeschooling (but don’t worry…the sessions are not all geared towards Va homeschoolers…there is tons there for all homeschoolers). Check out the website for all the details…but hurry! Sessions are filling up fast!

I am going to try to keep up with blogging on a regular basis, but if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you will know why!

~Steph

I had a great post almost finished (complete with really cute short (and goofy) stories written by the boys and I lost it! Arghh! I am not sure what happened. I tried to use the new spell check from HSJ and it said I needed to go to a download page which I did not feel like doing. So I clicked on my google tool bar to use that spell check and it totally blanked out my post! I have used this before with no problem…

Why oh why did it have to pick the post with the boys’ stories in it? I will have to see if they can re-remember them tomorrow.

Ah well. I guess this is the world’s way of telling me to go to sleep. I have to get up early for the guy who is replacing our water heater anyways…

~Steph

The spammers I mean. Sigh. Not sure why they all of a sudden found me but they have. I have installed spam karma II which hopefully will help. I guess that we will see. Andrea or Don…if you see this, I will definitely take you up on getting a copy of your blacklist.

I also have re-set my comments so that only people who have an approved comment will be able to post without having to have their comments approved. So I apologize to my family and friends but as soon as you post your first comment, you will be able to comment without going through this extra step.

Does anyone actually go to these sites posted by spammers? I can not imagine that this is an effective marketing technique….

~Steph

Yippee! homeschooljournal.net just added this awesome Tropical Breeze theme and I love it! I have been playing around with themes for the past week or so and had not found one that was “just right”.

I really liked the dark maple one, but it was, well a little bit too dark. More fall colors which are beautiful and I like in the fall, but are not really “me”. I am much more the spring color type.

I also liked the blue one that I tried for a little while, but the tagline (the throwingmarshmallows quote) was not as prominent (and since that really is the basis for this blog, I want it to be obvious). The blue theme also is actually a very narrow column blog. I tend to write long blog posts (what, who me?) so the wider the better or else people are scrolling forever!

So here we are today with this lovely apple green and purple blog. I love it! It actually did not have the tagline on it at first, but I emailed Andrea and asked if it could be added and in less then an hour it was! Talk about great service.

Of course, me being the picky person that I am, I have a few tweaks that I would like to see. I would love to see the blog title and tagline a bit more prominent (like in the Dark Maple theme). And I would like to have the sidebar titles be a bit smaller and maybe a different font.

But overall I love it so I think that I will stay with it and be happy! At least until they start adding some more new themes….

~Steph