Let's talk Homeschooling Opportunities

Stick with me here, okay?  I know I'm long winded but there's the opportunity to win a very cool gift for you and your children.  And the cool gift isn't even the exciting part!  So, keep reading.  Please.

OMG! OMG! OMG!  I am SO excited.  I should probably apologize for all the capitalization, the OMG's and the fact that I'm starting to talk like a Valley Girl, but I won't.  I'm too excited!

As you may or may not know, in addition to knitting, I am a homeschooling momma.  Also, as you may or may not know, history bores me to tears.  Mainly, it bores me because I never learned to appreciate it.  Why, you ask?  Because my teachers were boring.  Even though I grew up in the heart of Virginia, dead center of a HUGE amount of American history, with a father who was at one time the president of the state archeology society and a Civil War general for a relative, all I ever learned was to recite names, dates & places.  And those names, dates & places were all promptly forgotten by the time I'd laid my pencil down after taking the test.  About all I ever remembered from my history classes was that Washington was our first president and the American Revolution came before the Civil War.  All those other names & dates went in one ear and straight out the other.

And then came Kate.  Kate is a wonderful friend and pretend twin sister.  We have so much in common it's eerie, and yet, just like sisters, we have our differences.  Kate loves history.  Loves it!  So much so that she majored in it in college.  She does Civil War re-enacting with her husband.  (They are yankees.  Another difference between us!)  She reads historical books.  For fun!  Kate is also a wonderfully incredible storyteller.

Kate is so into history that she runs a genealogy business and in the course of that business, she produces a radio talk show.  Being the #1 BFF that I am, I listen in.  And amazingly, I always enjoy the talks.  I always start out listening as an excuse to sit and knit for 30 minutes, but a few minutes into the show, I find myself sitting, hands still, knitting forgotten in my lap while I listen to Kate tell the story of the day.   She turns something as mundane as how to perform a genealogy search into a fascinating story.  In Kate's last radio talk show, she told the story of her Great times 3 or 4 Grandfather who'd fought at the Fredericksburg & Cold Harbor battles during the Civil War.  They were a couple of the bloodiest battles fought.  I've taken the tours but my lack of interest didn't help me retain much.  But Kate's telling of the story had me in tears.  Literally!  But in a good way, or at least in as good of a way as there can be when you are crying over the massive number of people killed in a day.  Her story had me thinking of not only her relative, but of my own who were there.  It made me think of my father who survived day 2 at Normandy and also The Bulge.  The sights they must have seen.  Ugh.  Makes me twitch to think about it.  And then it got me to thinking about my fear of 7-11's.  I was in one once when it was robbed.  The sales clerk was shot & killed.  That was close to 30 years ago and yet, to this day, I break out into a cold sweat if I'm forced to go into a 7-11.  I hate all small convenience stores like that.  Because of that one act of violence, all convenience stores terrify me.  If I had that kind of emotional scaring from one solitary act of violence, what must it have been like for the soldiers of every war ever fought?

Anyway....  And I really am getting to my point of why I'm so excited.

After hearing Kate's story that day, I proceeded to discuss it with my kids and my husband.  At length.  The story had made such an impression on me.  It made me think of things no other teacher had ever discussed.  It made me realize what the tour guide had meant when she said the "blood ran down the hill like rain water."  It made me curious about my family members' reactions and it made me curious to know if I had other family members that I'm not aware of in those, or any other for that matter, battles.  And an idea popped into my head.

Kate should teach me history!  She should do a radio talk show just for me so that I could learn and appreciate history.

Yeah!  That's an awesome idea!  Kate should do this!  I mean, she has nothing else to spend her time doing, right?  Yeah!  Kate could teach me history.  Heck, she could teach everyone!  Even my kids would enjoy her history lessons.  Yeah!  Kate can teach us all.  She can be our homeschool history program.  Yeah!

I shot Kate an email and a few short days later, I received the following back from her.  I am So excited!!  SO, SO EXCITED!  Like, OMG!  Kate's really going to teach us all history!!  OMG!!  Ok, make sure you read to the end - Kate is offering a chance to win some very cool giveaways simply for completing her survey.

Here's what Kate has to say:

Homeschool History Curriculum Survey for Parents of High 

School Students (and the Students) 

Are you a homeschooling parent of high school aged students?  Are you looking for a high 

quality history curriculum that is interesting?  It’s almost here! 

Heritage and Family, a family history company that focuses on the story of your family’s history,  

is nearing completion of its fantastic high school appropriate history curriculum History for 

Schools:   The Story of History.  The Story of History focuses on the story aspect inherent in all 

good history, making each lesson engaging to your teenager (and you!) while maintaining the 

highest standards of accuracy. 

But Heritage and Family needs your help before they launch their new history curriculum.  To 

make certain that the curriculum offered meets the needs of both parents and students, Heritage 

and Family has created two surveys polling you for your thoughts on what an ideal history 

curriculum should contain, and what it should NOT contain! 

Parents, click on http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=c2318345-bea1-45b8-a1fb-378fae1f79bf to take your survey.    

Then ask your teens to take the student survey http://www.esurveyspro.com/Survey.aspx?id=5235be3e-8b7c-425d-8064-e807eeb84b50  

As an added incentive, Heritage and Family is offering every survey participant the opportunity 

to enter a free drawing.  Parents, you might win a “Narrative History” (think “the complete story 

of one ancestor of your choosing”) – a $150 value.  And students who complete the student 

survey are eligible to win their choice of $25 iTunes Gift Card, or a $25 Starbucks Gift Card. 

But hurry!  This survey will not be open forever.  Heritage and Family would like to get their 

new high school history curriculum to you in time for the start of the second half of the school 

year. 

For more information, contact Kate Eakman at keakman@heritageandfamily.com 

And when Kate finishes teaching us history, maybe she'll teach me some English so I can stop sounding like a Valley Girl.

OMG! OMG! OMG!  I'm so excited.  I'm actually excited to learn history!!  I can't even explain how excited I am to be excited about history!  I SO wish my dad was still around to see me like this.  It always killed him that just the mention of the word "history" made my eyes roll up into my head.  

But the thing is, if Kate's 30 minute genealogy talk gets me this excited about learning a subject I've always dreaded, I can only imagine how excited and motivated to learn I will be after hearing her tell an actual history story.  And that's what she's going to do.  She's going to tell stories.  She's not going to provide some boring text book or worse yet, a fill in the blank workbook.  She's going to tell stories.  True and accurate stories, but stories none the less.  And I can not wait!  

And once again, if I'm this excited about this opportunity, imagine what it can do for your kids and their education.  

And no, Kate is not paying me for this endorsement.  I'm just so excited to be excited about learning history that I willingly typed all this!  Woo-hoo!!  I'm SO excited!

And now that darned Pointer Sisters song is running through my head...

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it
I'm about to lose control and I think I like it...

Ok, stop singing that song and go take the survey.  Have each of your kids take the survey.  Ask all your homeschooling friends and family to take the survey.  The larger the response, the better the final program will be.