May 16: Morristown Museums

PUBLIC INVITED TO "BE OUR GUEST" AT MORRIS AREA MUSEUMS MAY 16

Eight historic sites and museums throughout Morris County are inviting the public to "Be Our Guest" on Sunday, May 16, from noon to 4 p.m. in celebration of National Tourism Week. Participating institutions will open their doors and waive their usual admission fees during those hours, although guests are encouraged to contribute a non-perishable food item for the Interfaith Food Pantry in lieu of the normal admission fee. The event is sponsored by the Morris County Alliance for Tourism. For more information call 973-631-5151.

Sites participating in the event:

• Acorn Hall, 68 Morris Avenue, Morristown, www.acornhall.org. Headquarters of the Morris County Historical Society and a Victorian Italianate mansion decorated largely with furnishings from the two families who lived there between 1853 and 1971; it also has changing exhibits and a garden with period features.
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• Community Children's Museum, 77 East Blackwell Street, Dover, www.communitychildrensmuseum.org. A hands-on children's museum for children 10 and younger focusing on art, science, and world cultures.
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• Fosterfields Living Historical Farm, 73 Kahdena Road, Morristown, www.morrisparks.net. A restored working dairy cattle farm portraying life in the early 20th century through costumed living history, farming, and domestic skills demonstrations, and tours of the Foster family's circa 1852 Gothic Revival house.
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• Historic Speedwell, 333 Speedwell Avenue, Morristown, www.morrisparks.net. The "Birthplace of the Telegraph," telling the story of the Vail family and their role in the early days of the Industrial Revolution and in the development of the telegraph, through hands-on exhibits, guided tours and special event weekends.
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• Macculloch Hall Historical Museum and Gardens, 45 Macculloch Avenue, Morristown, www.maccullochhall.org. An elegant historic house and decorative arts museum comprising ten period rooms and four exhibit galleries, two of which are devoted to the largest collection of cartoonist Thomas Nast's works in the country.
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• Morristown National Historical Park/Washington's Headquarters, 30 Washington Place, Morristown, www.nps.gov/morr. A national park preserving sites of the Continental Army's encampment and the headquarters of General George Washington during the winters of 1777 and 1779–80.
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• Museum of Early Trades & Crafts, 9 Main Street, Madison, www.metc.org. A museum exploring 18th- and 19th-century American history, with a focus on New Jersey, drawing on its collection of over 8,000 hand tools and their products to interpret the lives and technologies of men and women who lived and worked before the rise of large-scale industrialization in this country.
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• The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, 2352 Route 10-West, Morris Plains, www.stickleymuseum.org. A National Historic Landmark, this 1911 log house is the former home of noted turn-of-the-century designer Gustav Stickley, a major proponent of the American Arts and Crafts movement in home building and furnishing.
  

Three free shuttle buses will be provided by the Morris County Park Commission throughout the afternoon. Two of the shuttles will run from Fosterfields to the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts and to Craftsman Farms. The third will run a "Morristown" loop between participating in-town attractions.

The Morris County Alliance for Tourism supports the Morris County Tourism Bureau in positioning the region as a premier tourism destination through a collaboration of interested stakeholders.

The Interfaith Food Pantry, located in Morristown, serves Morris County by distributing supplemental and/or emergency food to eligible Morris County residents in need, providing hands-on opportunities for neighbors to help neighbors, and educating the public about the issues of hunger in our area. More information is available at www.mcifp.org.

Summer 2010

"Research shows that children lose one to three months of learning every summer. Reading just four or five books during the summer months, though, can prevent this loss." (otoh, according to Dee Mascle at buzzle.com: "While reading is the least effected, the most impacted subjects are spelling and math.")

Summer Reading Programs for 2010:

• NJ Public libraries Summer Reading Club 2010 - Make a Splash - Read!, Make Waves at your Library, Water your Mind - Read! Registration is usually starts at your local library in June.
  
  
• RIF Reading Planet
  
  
• Feed Your Brain: For kids 14 & under, June 1st - July 30th, half price books (halfpricebooks.com) have a program to earn coupons. More information off-site.
  
  
• Barnes & Noble has their summer reading program out (for 5/25 - 9/7/2010). Earn a FREE BOOK when you read 8 books. Based on past years, those who finish earlier have a better choice of books. For children x - 12 y.o
  
  
• Scholastic Summer Reading Program starts 4/30/2010 with a webinar. Theme: "read for the world record" : This year's summer challenge unites students to read in an attempt to set a new world record for summer reading! The overall record set for 2009 among all schools was 35,846,094 minutes logged and the top school logged 683,057 minutes! (children 8 & up can register on line - with parental permission...) not sure if a school name is needed.
  
  
• For reading 10 books & listing them on their form, TD Bank will deposit $10 into a new or existing Young Saver account once per customer May 3, 2010 through September 30, 2010. Must be 18 years of age or younger to participate. Bring form of ID for child for new account opening.
  
  
• Sylvan has a "book adventure" where kids read for points. Not quite sure how enrollment works.Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they've read, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes. Book Adventure was created by and is maintained by Sylvan Learning. Click here to find a book or to download the whole book list.
  
  
• Pizza Hut Book It! program also aims to encourage summer reading. (enter March - May 2nd, random draw of entries on May 3rd)
  

Possible programs - run in past years:

• Don't know if About.com will run a 12th annual summer reading program for homeschoolers - but I hope so.
• I also don't know about "showcase cinemas" bookworm Wednesdays - no 2010 schedule is up yet. The nearest theatre to me may be in Edgewater?
  

HS Terrapin Watch

Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center Friday to Sunday, June 11-­13, 2010

This 3­ day program is for homeschoolers interested in New Jersey's breeding terrapin population. In addition to collecting real­-world data on arriving terrapin, participants will learn about wetland ecology, wildlife biology (both game and non­-game species), coastal geomorphology, human impact on fragile salt marshes, and the history of New Jersey's barrier islands. There will also be great opportunities for kayaking, seining, and learning about breeding oyster­ catchers & the Re­claim the Bay programs.

During the three­ day/two­ night workshop you will stay in the Sedge House, a renovated duck-hunting lodge, which is equipped with a common room, 7 bunk-rooms (you will have to share a room), a full kitchen and dining room. As part of the experience, you will live a conservation ethic. Fresh water is limited (we transport bottled water from the mainland) as is electricity­ a solar generator provides power. Grey water from sinks and showers is treated in a special grey­water system and sewage is composted in a Clivus Multrum composting toilet.

This program is open to home school students ages 10­-16 years old. Parents may attend, but must participate in the program. The cost of this three­-day program is $70 per adult, $55 per student. SPACE IS LIMITED, with a maximum of 14 participants. A non­refundable deposit of $50 is required to secure your space. The cost includes transportation to and from the island, instruction, equipment and facility use. Participants must provide their own meals and bedding.

REGISTRATION IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE.

Each family will be responsible for the food and preparation of one meal for the group during your the stay. On site, there is a gas range stove, refrigerator, a gas grill and a quick steamer for preparing the day's harvest, as well as all the cooking utensils you may need.

Registration deadline and $50 deposit is June 1, 2010. For more information or to register, contact Liz Jackson at (908) 637­4125 or send an email to ejackson@dep.state.nj.us. You can also visit www.njfishandwildlife.com/sedge.htm

Liz Jackson, Senior Public Information Assistant NJDEP Division of Fish & Wildlife Pequest Trout Hatchery 605 Pequest Road Oxford, NJ 07863 Phone: (908) 637­4125 Fax: (908) 637­-6735

The Cartel: Movie Viewing in NJ

The Cartel http://www.thecartelmovie.com/cgi-local/content.cgi?g=22

"NJ Swing" of the tour April 20 - 29. This is NOT a homeschooling issue, this is an education issue.

The Crisis | Only 35 percent of American high school seniors are proficient readers. Only 23 percent are proficient in math. Nationwide, only 74 percent of ninth graders graduate within four years—and that number drops to about 50 percent for black and Hispanic students.
Twelve percent of American high schools are "dropout factories"—schools where less than 60 percent of freshmen even make it to their senior year. It comes as no surprise, then, that America lags far behind other developed countries when it comes to schooling: Among large industrialized countries, America ranks last in educational effectiveness—despite spending the most.

The conventional wisdom says that our schools could be dramatically improved with better funding. If we would only "invest in education", the argument goes, our children would have a better future—particularly in urban areas, where leaky roofs, under-qualified teachers, and outdated textbooks are all too common

And so the last few decades have brought an explosion of education spending, enthusiastically approved by local school boards and state legislatures and generally supported by taxpayers. That's the moral cover under which our public school system wastes and steals billions of
dollars every year.

New Jersey offers a dramatic instance of this corruption and improvidence. After New York, no other state spends as much per pupil—but the Garden State has very little to show for its investment. Spending can exceed $400,000 per classroom, and yet only 39 percent of the state's eighth-graders are proficient or advanced readers, and only 40 percent of its eighth-graders are proficient or advanced in math. Of new high school graduates attending the state's community colleges, nearly 80 percent require remediation. More than three quarters of New Jersey's high schools have been warned that they may be placed on the state's list of failing schools. And the problem is not one of inadequate funding: Some of the worst schools receive—and squander—the most money.

This costly, unconscionable failure forms the subject of The Cartel."