As a frequent peruser of the interweb, I often come across sites or articles that really excite me as a future homeschooling dad. Because I'm a big nerd, these mostly have something to do with science or technology. I've thought about posting these to this website, but I hesitate to spam this place with too many non-Montreal-related items (and I'm not sure how much interest there is in these topics among the group).

Rather than just let these things clog up my bookmarks menu, I've decided to share them through a new blog: HomeSchool 2.0. It's still a work in progress, but a quick visit to the site should give you an idea about the ground it hopes to cover. In addition to online learning resources (courses, podcasts, etc), the main focus will be on software and hands-on projects that have the potential to get kids excited about science and technology. Anyways, I hope you'll check it out. If you have any comments or feedback, please let me know (keeping in mind that it is still a work in progress).

Cheers!
Doug.

There's a great post up on Wired's GeekDad blog about teaching evolution at an age when kids actually begin to develop their own ideas about the origins of life --- around age 5.

"We homeschoolers often get a bum rap for trying to insulate our kids from evolutionary theory. But it's just as likely that your public school student has never heard of the subject. ...Even if evolution is part of the curriculum, it may be assigned as reading but not discussed in class. Swarthmore College prof Colin Purrington believes evolution should not only be taught throughout the biology curriculum, but should be started early. Like in kindergarten."

The short article links to the author's own collection of resources about evolution for kids. She also links to a great page of collected links on another homeschooling website Farm School, which was put together for last month's Darwin Day, February 12.