Two little girls who come to my neighborhood to visit their grandma frequently come visit me so they can play with my cats and rabbits, and to draw and color. I have lots of art supplies left from when my own children were still at home.
The other day, the girls were coloring pictures of birds. The older was telling the younger that there were all sorts of Jays. Blue jays, red jays, purple jays, green jays. Rather than chiming in with corrections or further information on jays, I pulled Birds of North America off my shelf and showed them the pages about various Jays.
Then I left them alone to continue coloring.
They were so excited to see the real colors of various species of jays and proceeded to use the color plates in the book as models for coloring their own birds.
They’ve never been exposed to nature study, so it was fun to sneak a little in on them. 😉
~Debi
As a traditionally published book author, I am concerned about many home educators’ tendency toward copyright infringement. I think it’s done innocently without realizing they’re infringing upon someone’s legally protected intellectual property. They’re usually just trying to help out a friend. But, for example, when sending someone a complete pdf copy of an ebook you’ve paid for, unless it says to feel free to share with others, you are committing copyright infringement. By emailing or sharing the entire text of a currently copyrighted work, you’re stealing from the person who put in the hard work to do the writing and research. (This doesn’t apply if you’re passing along printed copies of books you’re finished with.)
