Until recently we believed that there wasn't much we could do to help the brain develop. Most people believed that a child's genes determined a basic level of intelligence, and little could be done to change it after birth. Now we know that the brain does a lot of developing after birth.

New research in brain development shows that we learn certain skills most easily during particular "windows of opportunity." These are times -- a few weeks or months -- when a part of the brain absorbs new information more easily than at any other time in life.

My feeling is that if I can provide fun, educational field trips and adventures for my kids on a regular basis, they will have great memories of our time together, as well as experiential learning to back up our bookwork.

A list called, "Reasons to Homeschool" is on my wall. It grows every day. I am going to share some of my list with you as the week's progress, and describe what each item means to me. I hope they can be of some inspiration to you, if you are homeschooling or still trying to make your choice.

Fossils offer us clues about life in the past -- even years and years ago! Normally when a plant or animal dies, its remains either decay or perhaps are consumed by another animal. Sometimes though before that happens the conditions can be just right and the remains become buried and preserved.

Have you always wanted to take a trip to a foreign land? Perhaps you want to visit Egypt, Ireland, India, China, or Italy! While you wait for that dream vacation you can experience the next best thing. Go international -- at home!

Several people wanted to know why this earthquake produced a tsunami when most earthquakes do not. To understand that, we need to know about faults. Before you start listing all my faults, such as forgetting to include parts of the experiment, I am talking about geologic faults.