Ms M looks but isn’t the girly sort. She likes pretty scarves and pins, princessy dresses, flowers and lace. She also loves learning about spies and the World Wars. She was heavily into snakes at one point and never got queasy watching Venom ER and Austin Stevens at my mum’s.

She went craaaazy over pirates - no, not the Johnny Depp kind, thank you very much… the real ones! We read all about pirates, baked pirate cookies, attended a pirate party, put together a Jolly Roger and also made a pirate ship out of Hama beads. We also got a lovely surprise from the family behind Islamic Unit Studies - a pirate colouring book with stickers! You gotta love the blogging community :)

Some books we read:

Here are some links that you might find useful… I am still trying to download the book from WOWIO - if anyone in the US can help me, I’d appreciate it!

• All About Pirates - a comprehensive educational directory and homework helper that provides a wide variety of resources on Pirates.
• Bartholomew Roberts - one of the most successful pirates in history.
• Calico Jack - Academic Kids
• Cyberink: Pirates!
• Education World ® : Lesson Planning: Ahoy, Mates! Here Lie a Dozen Pirate Treasures!
• Best of Legends - some info on Blackbeard, Captain Sir Francis Drake, Gráinne O’Malley, Captain William Kidd
• Lesson Plans - A Pirate’s Life - from National Geographic
• Lesson Plan 1 on pirates from Suite 101
• Lesson Plan 2 from Suite 101
• Lesson Plan 3 from Suite 101
• Lesson Plan 4 from Suite 101
• Pirate Diary - unit study resources from Homeschool Share
• Pirate Image Archive
• Pirates in the Park - unit study resources from Homeschool Share
• Pirates : Life at sea : Maritime, sea & ships : Fact files : Learning : National Maritime Museum
• Pirates Homepage
• Pirates of Colonial Times - A to Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling History
• Pirates! Fact & Legend
• Pyrates Providence
• The New England Pirate Museum - Who’s Who
• The Pirate’s Realm - Calico Jack, Jack Rackham, Calico Jack Rackham - The life of pirate Jack Rackham: Charles Vane and Woodes Rogers, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, from New Providence to Deadman’s Cay, the whole ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham story.
• Thomas Tew
• Kids Craft Weekly - Issue 33 - Pirates!
• Pirate’s Treasure Map Free Coloring Printable Sheet - free printable pirate coloring page features a pirate ship, treasure island & pirate flag drawing for coloring or children’s party decorations & craft work.
• Pirate’s Face Printable Free Coloring Page Sheet
• Quest for a Pirate
• Pirates & Privateers: The History of Maritime Piracy - Links
• Pirates of the Caribbean, in Fact and Fiction - an historical look at Piracy; not to be confused with Disney’s theme park attractions or movie. What you will find is information on piracy based on historical accounts and popular myths.
• Pirate Theme Page at EnchantedLearning.com
• Treasure Chest Craft - Enchanted Learning Software - a simple-to-make pirate’s treasure chest made from a shoebox
• WOWIO: Pirates: An Illustrated History

“What is the Story of Stuff?
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.”

Click on the image above to watch the movie - it will be well worth your time in shaa Allah.

Ms M and Bear talking to their very tiny ladybird friend

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”

~ Rachel Carson, “A Sense of Wonder”

These points are extracted from The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List (Secular Homeschooling Magazine, Issue #1).

• Please stop asking us if it’s legal. If it is — and it is — it’s insulting to imply that we’re criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
• Learn what the words “socialize” and “socialization” mean and use the one you really mean, instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you’re talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet… and you can safely assume that we’ve got a decent grasp of both concepts.
• Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if, as a homeschooler, she ever gets to socialize.
• Don’t assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
• If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a “reality” show, the above goes double.
• Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You’re probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you’ve ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
• We don’t look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they’re in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we’re doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
• We didn’t go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.
• Please stop questioning my competence and demanding to see my credentials. I didn’t have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don’t need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can’t teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there’s a reason I’m so reluctant to send my child to school.
• If my kid’s only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he’d learn in school, please understand that you’re calling me an idiot. Don’t act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
• Stop assuming that because the word “home” is right there in “homeschool,” we never leave the house. We’re the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it’s crowded and icky.
• Stop assuming that because the word “school” is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we’re into the “school” side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don’t have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
• Don’t ask my kid if she wouldn’t rather go to school unless you don’t mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn’t rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
• Stop saying, “Oh, I could never homeschool!” Even if you think it’s some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you’re horrified. One of these days, I won’t bother disagreeing with you any more.
• If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you’re allowed to ask how we’ll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can’t, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn’t possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
• Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child’s teacher as well as her parent. I don’t see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
• Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he’s homeschooled. It’s not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
• Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she’s homeschooled.
• Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
• Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
• Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won’t get because they don’t go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
• Here’s a thought: If you can’t say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!