Monday, October 29, 2007

Accessing Ocean County Library's website

If you need to contact the Ocean County Library, please use their old web address:

www.oceancounty.lib.nj.us .

It is fully operational, you can access all information, databases, as well as register for events through that URL.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Warning about decorative spider webs

This post came just to me through one of my homeschooling emails from out of state. It is worth passing on at this time of year. I am leaving out personal names:


...we had pretend spider web draped along our banister upstairs. (It is the web that you can buy at Wal-Mart or Target with the little spider inside. It has the perception of being cotton-like however when pulled together, itbecomes like a very strong nylon rope). _____, being a typical kid, started at one end of the web and wrapped it around himself. He rolled his body as the web came off the banister. The web wrapped around his neck. With God's good grace, I happened to have looked up from downstairs. ____ could not speak. His face was already changing colors from lack of oxygen. I ran upstairs to try to pull it off. The web would not budge. I screamed for my husband to come up. He could not get the web to break loose either. He finally did pull the web with great force just barely enough so ____ could get a breath. I ran to get the scissors to cut it off. It was so tight that I could not get the scissors between the web and his neck. Finally, we did cut the web loose. His neck obviously suffered trauma but he is okay physically. He was frightened horribly. I cannot shake the gutwrenching feeling of almost losing a child. We cannot even imagine what would have happened if we didn't see it the very second after he wrapped it around his neck. Believe me when we say that we have preached since our kids were old enough to understand the dangers of anything around their necks. It just happens that fast. And who would have any idea that the pretend spider web would be impossible to pull apart. I know that this time of year, people have it all around their homes. Please just know the dangers of it. Especially if you have younger children. I encourage you to pass this along so no one else will experience what we did.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The Novins Planetarium at OCC

As stated on their website, the Novins Planetarium is unable to offer a full schedule of shows at the moment, but, as part of their "Reach for the Stars" fundraising effort, they do schedule special events for a variety of audiences. The proceeds from these events go toward their current fundraising campaign.
For more information call: 732-255-0342
Recorded information 732.255.0400 x 2111
Planetarium office weekdays 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Silverton Farms

I went to Silverton Farms today and boy, was it hopping! Farmer Tom was giving rides on his tractor and there were lots of children picking pumpkins and parents buying delicious fresh organic produce. Homeschoolers are welcome to visit his farm for a tour, pick pumpkins, ride on the tractor ... if your group is interested, the phone number to Silverton Farms is 732-244-2621. They are located on Silverton Road in Toms River, 1 block parellel of Church Road off New Hamshire Avenue.

OCL website is temporarily down...

If any homeschoolers have been trying to reach the library's website or register for a program, you already know that we are having problems with our server. Please try to call the library instead at 732-349-6200. We are hoping this is fixed soon!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Attention High School Homeschoolers - a Humane Alternative to Dissection

Our son is taking biology this year and we knew we needed a humane alternative to dissecting anything. The Physician's Committe for Resposible Medicine provides such an alternative:

"Digital Frog 2 is an interactive CD-ROM that uses animation, video, narration, and still images to create a realistic dissection experience for the student. Students can perform an entire frog dissection with a “digital scalpel.”
This humane method has many educational benefits over traditional dissection. Unlike in a real dissection, aspects of virtual dissection can be repeated and reviewed on subsequent days. An anatomy module provides information and photos as students work through each part of the dissection. Other features include animations showing how a frog’s body works and comparisons to human anatomy." (from the Physician's Committe for Responsible Medicine web site,
http://support.pcrm.org/site/PageServer?pagename=dissalt_digital_frog2)

There are links on this page to order a free copy of Digital Frog 2. I just ordered mine!