It arrived! The Celestron PowerSeeker telescope that was to be our Christmas gift to our son is finally here!
It took a long time, but my son has been blessed with patience, so no worries there. We’re celebrating Christmas in March.
I bought it from Amazon in September and was shipped to my sister-in-law’s place in New York. It was to be brought home by my mom-in-law last November, but it was a “pain-in-the-neck to pack”, so it was taken out of its Amazon packaging and put in a Balikbayan box and sent via cargo.
The long wait is so worth it. We unboxed it yesterday, and in my excitement shared the first photo on Instagram.
Because I was working, I didn’t get to participate in setting it up. But father and son had an awesome time bonding over it.
The package came with an instruction manual and the Starry Night Basic Edition astronomy software from Simulation Curriculum. According to their website, the Celestron PowerSeeker telescope series is designed to give the first-time telescope user the perfect combination of quality, value, features, and power. Sounds perfect for a 12-year old!
Other downloadables are: Astronomy Basics, Celestial Observing, Telescope Basics and Telescope Maintenance.
The astronomy software is so cool, I think I want to download it to my computer as well. I’m just not sure if the download code can be used on more than one computer. I have not tried it yet but will do soon, when my workload is light.
I took some screenshots of the software from my son’s laptop.
This is the screen that pops when you click on the icon. You’ll see that our location has been set up, along with the date and time. The What’s New dialogue box shows some trivia relative to the present date.
I clicked on one of the icons on the left sidebar and went to find out about the moon. The date changed to the actual date the image being shown was taken.
When you hover your mouse to any of the dots on the screen, it will tell you what that dot really is. Below, you’ll see that my mouse was on Jupiter. The image on the screen is actually moving and it will give you a feeling of being out there.
I wanted to see Venus, and an information popped out, saying that Venus is not visible at that time where I am. So I clicked on the button that tells the best time to see Venus from where I am, and as you can see, I will have to wait until tomorrow to try and find it. 🙂
There’s a lot to discover on that software still. All I know at this time is that it is a great tool to plan and execute observing sessions. It will tell us to which part of the sky we should look when we want to observe a particular heavenly body.
Meanwhile, I just let my son discover what other features the software has, and I’ll just wait for his show-and-tell. I’m thinking that the Starry Night will be a perfect complement to his Kerbal Space Program software. He can build the spacecraft that will take him to all the other planets.
Celestron also has a YouTube Channel, if you want to check first their line of telescopes and get an idea of what will best fit your needs.
And I just found out that there is a local Celestron distributor here in the Philippines! I have to find out how to buy from them as they don’t have a shopping cart. Will update this post once I have the correct link to the distributor.
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It’s been a while since I’ve last written anything about our homeschool, and I’m going to tell you why.
I’m insecure. That we’re doing it wrong. That we’re not doing enough.
I’m afraid. That we’re doing it wrong. That we’re not doing enough.
I’m unsure. That what we’re doing are wrong. And that what we’re doing are not enough
You get the picture.
Family, friends and acquaintances would ask me, “What school do they go to?” And I reply, “Oh, the eldest is in college, a Chevron. And the younger ones are still homeschooled.”
If we’re lucky, there wouldn’t be a raised eyebrow, but the follow-up question would be, “What grades are they in now?”
And because we are no longer accredited with any homeschool program provider, I really don’t know. And the fear creeps in.
Are we doing it wrong? Are we doing enough?
Our 12-year old homeschooler just draws most of the time. I would ask her to prepare a grocery list, and she would give me an illustrated list, like I don’t know what a juice pack or a tissue paper roll look like. I could be having a bad day, and she would come up with something like this.
By age, she should be in Grade 7. And because I downloaded the Department of Education’s curriculum to serve as my guide in knowing what they should be learning for the grade she’s supposed to be in, I know that she should be learning Ang Ibong Adarna for Filipino this year. Next year should be Florante at Laura; the year after next should be El Filibusterismo, and the next, Noli Me Tangere. Knowing we’d be needing all these books anyway, I went ahead and bought all four last year at the Manila International Book Fair, taking advantage of the discounts. And alas, she has read them all.
Today, I overheard her discussing Gas Laws with her dad. And then there’s Basic Accounting with me.
Our 10-year old, by age in Grade 5, is studying Physics, reading Larkin Kerwin’s Introduction to Atomic Physics, and The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, edited by Timothy Ferris. I’m not saying he understands what he’s reading at this point, but those are the books he’d rather read. Physics, astronomy, geography and history are the subjects he’d rather study. We have the whole suite of textbooks based on what private schools require, and they have remained unopened, unused. And he’s not writing cursive yet. 🙁
No, I’m not sure if they are learning what they should be learning if they are in a regular school. Yes, my biggest fear is that they’ll fail the PEPT and not be accepted to college.
But what I’m sure of is that they understand life and living within our means, they understand the value of family and of hard work. They respect rules. They understand the importance of education. They have goals. They know how to care for the environment and each other. And they know that they were created fearfully and wonderfully by God.
I may not be sure if what we’re doing is right, or if they’re enough, but I know that our children are once-in-a-lifetime individuals who deserve a unique once-in-a-lifetime education.
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Have I ever mentioned here that I sit on the board of a Science High School in our town?
Well, I do. And about two weeks ago, I was asked by the Chairman of the Board to review a proposal by a contractor for the maintenance and upgrade of the units in our Computer Laboratory. The proposal was for the upgrade of the RAM, replacement of the CMOS battery and installation of Windows OS, among others. Apparently, more than half of the units have been corrupted and the solution they were looking at was to reformat the corrupted units. That means having to re-install the OS.
But the process will be costly. And when I asked the technician if the OS he was going to install was licensed, he could not give me a straight answer. So suffice it to say that he was going to give us a cracked OS, which did not sit right with me since we are an educational institution.
Budget being tight for an enterprise license of Windows, we decided to look at open source alternatives. Husband found Ubuntu, and decided to try it out first with our kids’ PC at home. They do have their own PC for their homeschool because it has been a sacred rule in our home that Mommy’s home office is hers alone, and that no other person can use Mommy’s PC. It’s exclusive for Mommy’s work. 🙂
So husband downloaded Ubuntu and installed it in the other PC, and we have been all agog about it since.
The Office Productivity Suite
My first concern was, how will the kids create documents? My PC will continue to run on Windows, of course, so how are we going to exchange documents? Is it compatible with MS Office?
Well, it is. It has a complete suite of office counterpart, called the LibreOffice. Microsoft Word is called the LibreOffice Writer, Excel is LibreOffice Calc and PowerPoint is LibreOffice Impress. You can create a document and save it with .odt extension, and your Windows-based PC will open it in WordPad, then you can save it as .docx. Or you can simply save it as .docx with LibreOffice. Why make life complicated? 🙂
Then there’s LibreOffice Draw, which I assumed is the counterpart of Paint, but I’m finding it a lot better. It can produce technical drawings, posters, etc. Making a flow chart using Draw is easy-peasy! It also allows you to manipulate pictures and images in many ways and save them in a range of image and document formats.
MS Access is LibreOffice Base, but I have not explored it yet, as I have somehow developed an allergy for the words query, MySQL and Dbase.
LibreOffice Math is equations and formula editor. Really neat, as it allows you to perfectly format mathematical and scientific formulas, from fractions, exponents, integrals and mathematical functions, to inequalities and systems of equations. And what’s neater is you can use it as standalone, or you can use it with Writer, Calc or Impress.
I have not tried it yet, but I believe that the counterpart of Outlook is Thunderbird.
The Software Center
This is the part where I really fell totally in love. It’s overflowing with apps for office and homeschool use! It’s great that they have categorized the apps, since there are literally hundreds of them, into education, books and magazines, fonts, games, business, graphics, etc. Among the apps that we have so far installed are the Periodic Table, Stellarium, GeoGebra, KAlgebra and Scratch. There are also educational application bundles categorized into Pre-School, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary, so you get most of the apps you need according to the level you prefer in just one click. 🙂
I have barely scratched the surface of the features here, and I’m sure you are going to find something for your personal needs. The RedNotebook for journaling, KMyMoney or sKrooge as your personal finance manager, FreeMind for mindmapping… the list is long!
I believe Ubuntu is a great alternative for homeschooling families and work-at-home professionals who simply cannot afford the expensive license for Windows and Mac OS. We buy laptops and desktop PCs at such a high price because vendors make the installed OS part of the selling point. But you can actually build you own desktop PC at a fraction of a branded PC’s cost and simply install this open source OS. And get a lot of free apps to go with it, too!
I’m now so envious of my kids for having all these cool features in their PC, I’m seriously considering installing Ubuntu in my tablet.
[Photos from ubuntu.com and ubuntuhandbook.org]
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Jude is now officially a first grader at the Aberásturi Home Academy! He was supposed to start last December, but with my crazy schedule, it simply was not fair to get him on board without me 100% ready for his needs. Plus, I needed to run an errand in Mindoro, so I had an out-of-town trip that ate up my time for lesson planning.
As with all the best laid plans, the AOP Science curriculum that Bea (now in third grade) used will just be a supplement. Recognizing Jude’s special interest in astronomy, we will focus on Exploring Creation with Astronomy for the whole year.
For the rest of the subjects, we’ll have the following:
Social Studies – Mystery of History Volume I – Bright Ideas Press. To be supplemented with Makabayang Lahi from Ephesians Publishing, because we have to comply with DepEd’s directive that Social Studies be taught in Filipino.
Music – We are still fluid on this. He’s still deciding between the ukelele, the guitar and the piano.
Arts – Online materials, and Sing, Sketch, Stretch 1 from Abiva Publishing House.
Me, oh my! It’s the end of the month and I only had one post for October. Not due to lack of interest, I assure you. Just the lack of time to sit down and write. So many things happened this month. My eldest daughter turned 12. Just one more year and I’ll have a teener! And then our school, not the Aberásturi Home Academy, but rather the St. Jude Science and Technological School, celebrated it’s 2nd Founding Anniversary. I danced, oh yes, I did! One folk number and a ballroom number. So I had to put in rehearsal hours on top of my already full daily calendar. My 12-year old, who attends SJSTS had a dance number, too, and Bea made a guest appearance, performed a piano duet with Ate Xia. And then I was given the opportunity to attend the 11th Educators’ Conference, where among the topics discussed were the Department of Education’s Program and Policies on the K-12 Curriculum, Dealing with Difficult Parents, Preparation of Instructional Materials and the 21st Century Learning Environment.
My favorite, of course, was the topic covered by Ms. Shirley Equipado, Preparation of Instructional Materials. Well, I only attended the second day, so I missed the K-12 Curriculum. It would have been fun to learn how to deal with difficult parents. I know I was, when my eldest child was still attending a traditional school. But hey, I’ll have you know that my being difficult was justified. Those years spent with that school were the most stressful for me as a parent involved in her child’s education. Solution: homeschool.
Soon, Jude will be starting first grade, and he’s going to be my biggest challenge in my homeschooling journey. Coming across Ms. Equipado’s presentation was heaven-sent. Just last week, Bea and I decided that we’re going to make bag puppets to show different feelings. Seeing Ms. Shirley’s puppets added some great ideas to my not-so-creative mind. Really learned a lot from her! And she is quite the storyteller! Take note of the punctuations… I really was very impressed, and inspired, and envious, of her talent in storytelling. I had a little chit-chat with her after her presentation. And proud homeschooling mommy that I am, it naturally came out that yeah, I’m homeschooling my little ones, although what got me in to the conference was my connection with SJSTS. And naturally, too, she does not approve of homeschooling. Oh, well… Just like being a WAHM is not for everyone, I guess homeschooling is only for those who were called to do it.
And guess what? Although Ms. Equipado does not really approve of homeschooling, her presentation actually reinforced my conviction in homeschooling my kids. She referenced Friedrich Froebel, the father of Kindergarten, when she said that children should not be in classrooms, and that children should be able to learn by experiencing. What better way to let the children experience life than to be able to apply theories right at the same moment that they are learning them? Froebel encourages us to “live with our children”, putting a coherent system in play activities. So let’s do maths at the supermarket, and learn science in the kitchen. Let’s observe changes in the clouds, bird formations when they fly and the differences in the way plants grow, doing away with the undying monggo seed that we used to sprout in school. Let’s make the world our children’s classroom.
Bea’s interest now is in drawings. And Jude’s play activities are centered in Hummer cars, the solar system and different flags of the world. If I send Bea to a traditional school, will she be allowed to draw the whole day while ensuring that she learns the day’s lessons? And Jude, will the school give him the opportunity to learn lessons using his interest in cars, planets and flags?
I don’t think so. Not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t. It will not be possible, nor fair, for them to take into consideration one child’s talent and interest and impose them on the next child.
But at home, Bea can learn directions by drawing and mounting her very own town map, and Jude practices reading using the globe as his reference. He’s not interested in reading Nat Has A Hat. He’d rather practice his phonics reading Ja-p-an, Ma-lay-sia and Ca-na-da.
Yeah, I know I sound like I’m advocating homeschooling, and maybe I am, but again, I know it’s not for everyone. After all, I sit on the Board of St. Jude Science and Technological School, so I also believe in the traditional school system.
