Come see what resources are available to you!

Thursday, August 19th

6:30 – 8:30 P.M.

Highland Baptist Church

in the Fellowship Hall

Childcare will not be provided due to the AC being replaced in the child care rooms.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Come see what resources are available to you!

Thursday, August 19th

6:30 – 8:30 P.M.

Highland Baptist Church

in the Fellowship Hall

Childcare will not be provided due to the AC being replaced in the child care rooms.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Also, pictures for Student IDs will be taken for a cost of $5.00 each.

If you would like them mailed to you, please bring a self-addressed stamped envelope.

VENDOR LIST:

McLennan County Home Educators 4-H •TSTC 

 Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum  

 Hometown News • Lorena 462 Cub Scouts • Brazos Valley Co-op

 Vicki Smith -Girls Volleyball & Co-ed Tennis

A+ Cards • Campbell’s Labels for Education

We will keep this list updated as we get affirmative replies from our vendors.

Thank You!

For parents of 8th-12th graders: College Prep for Home Schoolers 101

While there will be engaging activities, I want our time together to be more than just a fun night of entertainment. To accomplish this, we must communicate. How can I help if I don’t know what your [...]]]> Hi,
I hope you are as excited about our April meeting as I am. Come prepared to play and have fun with science.

While there will be engaging activities, I want our time together to be more than just a fun night of entertainment. To accomplish this, we must communicate. How can I help if I don’t know what your problems are?

Before our April meeting:

1. Send me an email. Let’s get to know each other now. Tell me the problems you have teaching science. What do you like the most. What do you like the least.

2. Perform one of the  experiments that I have posted on this GWCHE website. Email your comments about the activity directly to me at: ASKVANCLEAVE@AOL.COM.

Tell me about the problems you had. Tell me if you don’t understand what the activity is all about.  One thing that I’ve learned in life is that I don’t find the answers unless I am honest enough to tell someone I don’t have a clue what they are talking about. I do soften it a bit more than that.

FYI: Shay has helped me to better understand problems that she and her children had with some of my investigations. Instructions that seems perfectly clear to me are not to others.

I need to periodically remind myself of a personal incident–I told my 8 year old son to clean the hamsters. I passed the cage several times and it was still dirty. When I fussed at my son for not doing this chore he assured me that he had. Of course I suggested that we both inspect the cage. As I expected, the cage was  still dirty. But he pointed out that the hamsters were wet because he had cleaned them. OOPS! I didn’t mean for him to give the hamsters a bath, but I did say, “Clean the hamsters.”

I need you to point out to me when my instructions are not clear–

Answer:  The Science Fair!

Here are some reasons why you and your children don’t want to miss the Science Fair this Thursday at Highland Baptist Church: 1.  Come listen to Dr. Matt Porter (home schooling dad and physician) share about “Vision:  [...]]]> What is colorful, full of imagination and bubbling with excitement?

Answer:  The Science Fair!

Here are some reasons why you and your children don’t want to miss the Science Fair this Thursday at Highland Baptist Church:
1.  Come listen to Dr. Matt Porter (home schooling dad and physician) share about “Vision:  From the Sun to Your Brain”!

2.  To learn all kinds of interesting things from the students!

3.  To support the fellow home school students who prepared the projects!

4.  To see how to prepare a project for next year!

5.  To visit with friends and gain encouragement on the home school journey!

6.  To inspire your student to ask questions and find answers!

Projects can be viewed starting at 6:30 p.m. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m.

Please contact Corina Kaul with any questions.
sciencefair@gwche.org

YEARBOOK PHOTOS will be taken before the Science Fair. Debbie from Photos By Debbie will be taking the pictures from 5:00-6:30. Thank you!

The answer:  All of these famous scientists were home schooled or self taught!  The were inventors and scientists who contributed to various scientific disciplines such as engineering, anatomy, geology, botany, physics, mathematics, and more.

A great way to encourage the [...]]]> What do Leonardo DaVinci, Albert Einstein, Pierre Curie, Thomas Alfa Edison and Blaise Pascal have in common?

The answer:  All of these famous scientists were home schooled or self taught!  The were inventors and scientists who contributed to various scientific disciplines such as engineering, anatomy, geology, botany, physics, mathematics, and more.

A great way to encourage the budding scientists in your home is to be involved in our GWCHE Science Fair!   Digging deeper on topics such as Astronomy, Botany, Chemistry, Computers, Engineering, Geology, Oceanography, Physics, Zoology or others can be a fun, educational and a rewarding experience!

The 10^th annual Science Fair will be held during the general meeting on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at Highland Baptist Church.

Any student K-12 is welcome to participate.  This is a noncompetitive science fair where each participant is recognized.

Begin now by brainstorming with your child about areas of interest.  Any science project or model is welcome!

One way to do a Science Fair Project is to:

1. Select a topic and ask a “big question”. Use this question to make a hypothesis.  Books in the city libraries, GWCHE library and websites can give great ideas for projects.  The GWCHE website has additional information and links.
2. Test your hypothesis by performing experiments and record the data.
3. Create a display that includes your hypothesis, experiment procedure description, data collection (can include pictures, drawings, charts) and the conclusion.  A research paper is optional.

Get started today!  If you have any questions or to sign up, please contact Corina Kaul at sciencefair@gwche.org. Deadline for entry is Friday, February 12^th.

Some additional resources or support for your science fair project that may be helpful are:

1. Janice VanCleave’s Science Experiment Sourcebook
2. A Science Project by Abeka
3. Bill Nye’s Teacher Guide

The Waco-McLennan County Library has numerous books in the Juvenile Section- 501.8-507.8 and 535-579

Do a Google search on Science Fair Projects and hundreds of ideas can be found.

You can even ask Janice Van Cleave a question. She can point you in the right direction. Janice is a regular contributor to our GWCHE website. Click the Ask Janice link on the left side of any page on the website. There you will see all the questions she has already answered. Click here for complete information about asking questions.

After that wonderful Christmas break, my brain is dead from planning and organizing.   And now I have to get back in the swing of teaching.

Don’t despair.  GWCHE has a wonderful way to add life to your cooking rut.  We are one week away from our GWCHE QUICK COOKING MEETING [...]]]> I know what you must be saying.

After that wonderful Christmas break, my brain is dead from planning and organizing.   And now I have to get back in the swing of teaching.

Don’t despair.  GWCHE has a wonderful way to add life to your cooking rut.  We are one week away from our GWCHE QUICK COOKING MEETING on Thursday, January 14.  You are invited to bring your favorite quick dish to share with our membership next Thursday.

Can you through together a fruit bowl that pleases the crowd?

Do you know how to make a killer bread?

Last minute meat cooking your signature?

Your breakfast burrito ”the bomb”?

We WANT you!

Come and set up your recipe and then you can then walk around the room and taste the yummy foods of other moms who need something quick on the table after working on Algebra all afternoon.  We need you to bring ONE copy of the recipe for everyone to see on your table.  This is just for those with food allergies to check to make sure there is nothing that will cause them to have a reaction.

At the end of the night, we will take the recipes and add them to the list that we are compiling on the website.  You don’t need to buy a thing to get all the recipes …just sit in your pjs with a cup of tea looking at the GWCHE website (www.gwche.org) for ideas for the next day.  How cool is that?!!!  At the end of each post there is a link to “print this page”.  This will print only the information in the center column of the page.  You won’t waste ink by printing all the extra information we have on our website.

It will help us out if you put your recipe on the website either before or after the meeting.  Please go to Here are the directions to add your recipes to the website. We have a step-by-step tutorial to show you how easy it is to share your recipe with everyone.  But if you don’t want to do that, we’ll do it for you.

Not only will we have great recipes to taste at our meeting, but our guest speaker, Jessica Kaczyk, absolutely has a passion for talking about nutrition.  She is going to share some great ideas on how to feed our families with health in mind.  Got any nutrition questions? She’s your girl to answer them.  Come and be prepared to come away with lots of fantastic ideas to rev-up your meals.

To see the recipes that have been added so far, click Recipes for Quick Cooking.

If you would like to put your 1-5 year olds in the nursery for the evening, please contact Lisa Sterner at childcare@gwche.org to reserve their spot.  We only want to hire child care workers that are needed so your reservation is requested by WEDNESDAY, January 13th by 4:00pm.  After that date, we may not guarantee that there will be space for last minute drop offs.

All other children are welcome to stay with you to taste the recipes and listen to our speaker.  Please make sure that children don’t wander the church.  We are guests at Highland and want to honor their wishes.  The playroom is only for the 1-5 year olds.

See you on Thursday, January 14th at 6:30 PM.

YEARBOOK PHOTOS

We will have Debbie from PHOTOS BY DEBBIE taking pictures again for this year’s yearbook.  She will be setting up and taking photos from 5:30-6:30pm.  This is before the regular meeting/check in so if you would like to have your kids in the yearbook, come a little early.  This is at no cost to you.  If you would like to take advantage of her family sitting or CD deal, please ask her for a flyer.  She offers home schoolers a free sitting fee and you can buy your CD for $45.  This may be a great idea for Easter pictures (she usually has live bunnies) or family picture updates.  If you can’t make this meeting, Debbie will be available before the February and March meetings to take photos.  If you bought a yearbook, you definitely want to have your kids in it.

You can submit your recipes directly to the website.

The first thing you need to do is register to the site.  Directions for registering.

After you are registered, go to the log in page.  The address is www.gwche.org/wp-admin If you don’t remember this address, you can scroll down [...]]]> For this month’s meeting we are featuring easy, family-tested recipes.

You can submit your recipes directly to the website.

The first thing you need to do is register to the site.  Directions for registering.

After you are registered, go to the log in page.  The address is www.gwche.org/wp-admin If you don’t remember this address, you can scroll down any page at www.gwche.org on the right side to the “For Those Who Post” section.  Click the Log In link.

Use the log in information you just entered.  You’ll then come to the Dashboard.  On the left side click the link for Posts.  Then click Add New

You’ll then get a page that looks like this.  

At the very top there is a place for the title.  Put the name of your recipe then a dash and your name there.

If your screen only has one row of tools in the toolbar like this:

Then you’ll need to click the one that says “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink” when you hover over it.  Then you will get two rows of tools.

Click into the main text area under the toolbars.  This is where you type your recipe.  Make sure the Visual tab on the right is active.

Unless you know HTML then you can click the other tab.  If your recipe is already typed in Word, then it is important to not copy and paste directly into this box.  Word will add all kinds of nasty code that will make everything look funny.  So you’ll need to copy your text first then click on the button in the toolbar with the “W” Word symbol.  This is the Paste from Word button.  You’ll get a popup box and this is where you paste your recipe.

After you have pasted it in then click insert.  You can use some of the formatting options (bold, italics, bullets, etc) on the toolbar now.

If you would like to add any photos of the cooking process or your finished product that is very easy to do.

First click into your post where you want the photo to  be.  The photo will appear where ever the cursor is.

Just above the toolbars there is an Upload/Insert section.  Click the first icon (Upload images) and then you can browse to the image location on your computer and upload the photo.

On the upload screen, make sure you click the From Computer tab and then click Select Files to browse for the photos on your computer.

Once the photo is uploaded there are several options.

Change the name of the title to something we can understand.  Use lower case and no spaces in the name.

tuna-casserole-mary-brown is a good example of how to name your photo.

Click the File URL button.  Then decide if you want your photo to be left, center or right.  Center is usually the best option.  Medium is usually the best option for the image size.

Then click Insert into Post.

After the recipe is the way you want it, look to the right side of the screen for Categories.

Scroll down and check the “Recipes for Quick Cooking” category.

Then click Submit for Review.

At this point, your recipe will be saved.  If you need to save it while you are working on it, you can click “Save Draft” and come back to it later.  You can also click the “Preview” button to see what it will look like when it is posted.

Now send an email to webmaster@gwche.org with Quick Cooking in the subject line.  We’ll proofread your recipe and then publish it to the website.  This step is important because we don’t want to publish your recipe until you are ready.  We can see when you have a post in progress but since you might still want to work on it, we won’t proofread and publish it till you ask us to.

You can still make changes to your recipes after they have been published.  Just log back in to your account, make the changes, and then email webmaster@gwche.org to get the changes published.

If you have any questions or technical problems, please email webmaster@gwche.org.

]]> http://gwche.org/2010/01/02/how-to-add-a-recipe/feed/ 0 http://gwche.org/2009/10/13/gwche-history-fair-information/ http://gwche.org/2009/10/13/gwche-history-fair-information/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:33:35 +0000 webmaster http://gwche.org/?p=1245 Guest Speakers:

Every Participant will Receive:

There is a list on the website of [...]]]>

Guest Speakers:

• Jerry Jones – History Professor
• Stephen Sloan – History Professor
• Corina Kaul – Information on National Finalist History Fair

Every Participant will Receive:

There is a list on the website of everyone who has signed up so far.

http://gwche.org/2009/10/13/history-fair-participants/

Look over the list and make sure you are on the list for the History Fair. This list will be kept updated.  So check back to make sure your information is correct.

Send me a quick email to let me know your subjects by November 1, 2009.

All Junior and High School Students (5th – 12th graders) who would like their entries to be judged will be in a drawing for a 20.00 Casa Ole gift card. This is for the judged entries only.

In addition to the receiving the GWCHE Certificate and Ribbon and the gift certificates that each participant receives, those whose entries are judged also receive:

More information with ideas for history fair projects is in this article.

Sarah Lucas
History Fair Coordinator
historyfair@gwche.org