MAKE magazine

When you pick up an issues of MAKE magazine, you never quite know what you will find. Unlike many do it yourself (DIY) magazines that focus on crafts or home repairs, MAKE seems to go out of its way to pack an eclectic mix if projects in each quarterly issue. For instance, one issue has everything from making a robot, to a mini fume extractor, to a simple child's memory game made from only paper, to plywood furniture.

And that's just a sample of the dozen or so projects in a 175 page issue. There are also many inspirational articles highlighting artists, machinists, programmers, and scientists who are all making interesting things. Each issue has a theme, but there are many projects outside the theme as well as regular columns. One of my favorite regular columns is called "Make Money" for which the tag line is "Sometimes it costs more to buy it than to make it from the money itself."

The magazine is best suited for teen to adult readers, however, we've completed several projects with our much younger children. Our daughter made her own lip balm, my son worked with his dad to make a vibro-bot, and both kids made a homemade cotton candy machine. Many projects require some experience with the tools and processes involved, others are suitable for beginning makers.

If you visit the website, be sure to stop by the Maker SHED for dream collection of books and kits for makers of all ages.

Homeschooling Gift Idea: Magazine Subscriptions

Homeschoolers value ready access to information. Reading is vital to the homeschool experience, opening up worlds and probing depths that otherwise would remain unknown.

Magazines provide perfect portals into current events, new ideas, breakthroughs, and our ever-expanding universe. The beauty of magazines lies in their timeliness and their diversity.

Consequently, magazine subscriptions make a perfect gift for the homeschooling families in your life. Whether the children are very young or are heading off to university, you can find a magazine that fits their reading level, interests, and style. And although the subscription may only last one year, the thoughts and paths it opens up will last a lifetime.

While too many magazines exist to list, here are some titles and categories to get you started. Age-ranges are suggestions only, as many higher-level magazines will have parts that capture the attention of younger readers, and all magazines benefit from being shared by a family. Remember: check with the parents for hints on what they are looking for and what might appeal to their children.

Magazine Ideas
National Geographic: For kids, teens, and families.

Cricket Magazines: Fiction, history, archeology, and more. Babies through teens.

Highlights: Magazines and clubs (countries, U.S. states, math, puzzles, and more). Elementary through middle school.

MAKE magazine: Amazing do-it-yourself projects of varying ability. Upper elementary (with adult help) through adult.

Astronomy magazines: Discussions of everything beyond Earth. Upper elementary (especially the monthly star charts in Astronomy) through adult.

Interweave Press: Fiber arts, beading, art, weaving, knitting, and more. Upper elementary through adult.

Architecture magazines: Architecture, design, landscape design, business design, and more. Teen through adult.

Fiction magazines: New writing, in all genres. Teens through adult.

Boys' Life: Official publication of the Boy Scouts of America. Elementary through teen.

Girls' magazines: Advice, crafts, fiction, contests, sports, and more. Elementary-aged through preteen girls.

Another option is to find a bookseller or newsstand with an extensive selection of publications, and spend sometime looking through various subjects and titles.

If you want to give a present to open along with your gift subscription, wrap a current issue or two of the magazine, along with a note telling them about their new subscription. Since most publishing companies take four to six weeks to mail the first issue, this will give the recipient something to read now and look forward to later.

Article by Sarah J. Wilson

Science Weekly

I went to the National Science Teachers Conference in March and came home with a bag full of freebees and samples that I now have to go through to see what is really worthwhile and what was shiny on the outside and dull on the inside.  This is the first in a series of reviews of curriculum and resources I found at the conference that would be worthwhile for homeschoolers to explore.

Science Weekly is similar to the Weekly Reader news magazines that you may have had as a kid in elementary school, except with a science focus.  It is published 15 times during the school year (which really makes it Science Bi-Weekly).  What makes it interesting is that the exact same topic is published for each of six different levels from Pre-A (approximately Kindergarten) to Level E (grades 5-6) with each level increasingly complex.  For instance, in one sample issue on Climate Change, the Pre-A level simply teaches children to distinguish between "weather" and "climate", the A level adds "atmosphere" as a topic, the B level adds the concept of energy balance, the C level adds the "greenhouse effect" while giving a more complex description of atmosphere, the D level begins to explore the human impact on climate, and the E level gives a fairly complicated description of climate change.

Each issue also contains an experiment, which ranges from comparing the temperature indoors and out at the Pre-A level to comparing temperatures inside and outside a jar at the B level, to measuring temperatures in jars with and without carbon sinks in the E level.  Every level also includes related math and language arts activities and "challenge" activities.

A teacher's guide includes discussion questions, answers, and additional resources for all levels in the same guide.

I was intrigued by Science Weekly because I have three children in the age range of the magazine and I can imagine subscribing to the appropriate level for each of them so we could all study the same topic but each child could perform different experiments and complete grade appropriate activities.  In the two issues I have samples of, the experiments actually test different things, so we would learn from each other's results.  We've previously had a subscription to the Young Scientists Club kits, which worked well for us in a similar way.

The cost for a single 15 issue subscription is $19.95, but a co-op might be able to gather 20 children who wanted subscriptions for the price of $5.95 per child per 15 issues.

A sample issue at all the levels is available on the Science Weekly website, as well as some free interactive issues.  I haven't used this with my family yet, but I think it has the potential to be a worthwhile resource for homeschooling families.