Two Days of Hands On Homeschooling - For Daddy

We are at the end of the second of two "snow days" that I received off from work. These days have been quite productive. On day 1, I got to work with Paton and Justin on their math. Today, I got to help Brittney dissect a crayfish (or crawdad, as I've taught her to say!). I also managed to pick up a generator at Sam's yesterday morning. I was on my way to the office when my friend and colleague called to tell me that the state offices were closed and I should go home. Well, Sam's wasn't too far out of the way, so after Sheri called to find out they had them, I swung by there and picked one up. It fit completely in the trunk of the Mercury! We recently bought that car from my dad, as it had belonged to my grandfather. Later that afternoon before the really bad sleet began to fall, I made a quick trip to Lowe's to pick up a power transfer switch for the home. So, I spent a couple of hours getting that hooked up today. This was in anticipation of losing power, which we never did. It's a great backup anyway, even if we don't need it during this snow storm. As I write this, the snow is still falling. Looks like we'll be shut in throughout the weekend as well.

Michael is in Texas with Sheri's mom. They rode the train down there. The plan is for them to attend the Ft. Worth Stock Show rodeo tomorrow night. Glad they're having fun. They've got a lot of rain, but at least they're not stranded at home.

Gotta run...homemade pizza's ready... It's great to have a grain mill, a dough mixer, and a wife and daughters that know how to use them.

Vision Forum Year End Liquidation

Modern Reformer of Education

A hero of the homeschool movement has gone home to be with the Lord today, October 12, 2009. Chris Klicka was truly a reformer in education. He fought for the rights of parents across the country and around the world to homeschool their own children. I have his book entitled Homeschooling: The Right Choice. It has been a very good reference when defending my and my wife's choice to homeschool our own children against naysayers.

Chris battled multiple sclerosis for 15 years. Yet he was a champion through it all. He never failed to give glory to God. He never complained about his condition, and neither did he allow it to slow him down. He was a senior attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

Please join me in praying for his family. He leaves behind a wife and seven children ages 11 - 21.

Here is a link to the announcement on the HSLDA site:

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200910050.asp

Earn Prizes While Searching the Web

My sister-in-law told me about this website. She uses it to earn points toward Amazon gift cards. As a homeschooling family, I love to find out how to get free books. Click on the banner below to check it out.

Homeschooling Group Buys

I have found a good resource for getting group discounts on homeschooling curriculum. I have recently purchased driversed.com at a 40% discount. If you are a homeschooling family you should check it out. It costs nothing to join, and there are many discounts on many different types of curriculum.

Click on the graphic to link to their site:

"Public" Schools

The following is an excerpt from a thought out response to a lady who challenged me, "by name" on an internet e-mail list I participate in. While slightly "off-topic" from the purpose of the list, the lady had challenged my disapproval of government schools. As she named me by name, I assumed the moderator would have let me offer the rebuttal. Unfortunately, the post was axed. But so as not to go to the trouble writing something that will never be seen, I offer the following exerpt, with all the identifying information removed, for your perusal. To set the scene, she opined that public schools are not all bad, because she's seen real live Christian kids who are doing well there, including her own. Here is my response.


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Experience is a fickle standard by which we make our decisions. For every child who exemplifies a Christian walk in the government schools, you can count five who are just the way I described. Now, the standard line I've heard is that parents want to send their children to these places so they can be a "light" or a good witness. I must make all my decisions, where possible, based on the standard of the Word of God. I Cor. 15:33 reads:


Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.(1Co 15:33)


Other translations render this as "bad company corrupts good morals."


No, not every child that attends government schools is going to conform to the baggy pants, gothic style, head banger image that seems to be growing more prevalent. More and more may be coming out as clean cut, smooth talking, athletic, and charismatic types (such as our current U.S. President) who have bought the establishment line, hook, line, and sinker.


The fact remains that even a solid, Christian adult would have a hard time keeping a renewed mind if he were fed the new age, earth worship, diversity, "all religions equal" dogma that is crammed down the throats of innocent children 8 hours every single day.


Our own American Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, once said, "The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next." How right he was, as we now see our state governments one by one passing sodomite "marriage" bills. How could this be avoided when millions of school children are taught that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality? And to bring this subject back to the focus of this list in particular, the whole anti-child mindset is implanted in the minds of our children in a pro-feminism, anti-life agenda that has been prominent every since the 1920's and the establishment of the eugenic organization known as Planned Parenthood (which is now welcomed in many high schools).


>>>>
Please allow the same respect to children that attend public school. Some families do very well at homeshcool (sic) and some do not, the same can be said of public school families.
>>>>


It is not a matter of whether I respect them or not. Actually the children rarely have a say in whether they are homeschooled or not. The fact of the matter remains that in our homeschool, I love the "socialization" that it offers. I know for sure that every child in our school is under the same love and care as everyone else...for they are all brothers and sisters. I know for a fact that my children do not need to live in fear of one of their classmates pulling a"Columbine" stunt.

>>>>
My husband and I have prayed about homeschool many times and God has never once led us there.
>>>>
My question to you is this: How would you know if God were leading you there? In fact, how do you know that God has led you to government schooling? Is He neutral on the subject? God speaks to us through His Word (Hebrews, chapter 1). The Word of God declares:

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.(Deu 6:6-7)

I would be interested in reading a similar passage that instructs parents to delegate the instruction of their children to someone else. I can't seem to find that one.

Certainly as a godly wife, you must follow your husband's lead on this. I would urge him to know that Deut. 6 is directed at *fathers*and he will give account to Father God regarding to whom he delegated the authority to teach the nine precious souls that God entrusted to his care. As for me and my house, I teach whatever I can myself and delegate much to my loving helpmeet, who is the only one I trust with such an important task.

The Delight of a Father When His Children Learn to Read

Today, Paton and I finished his reading book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Paton is the fifth child I have taught to read using this resource. It is phonics based. Every day Paton would hold me accountable to teaching him when I got home from work. Usually before he even said, "Hello," he'd be asking, "Daddy, can we do reading now?"

I love seeing the progress of the children as they make their way through this book. This is really the only formal reading curriculum that we give our children. After that, the assignment is to read, read, read. Brittney, my oldest daughter, has heartily embraced this assignment. She is a voracious reader. Her younger brothers Michael and Justin, and her younger sister Brianna have also made great strides in their reading since finishing this book. I remember, in 1998, a friend of mine from work asking if he could buy this book from me when I got done with it. His, then four year old, son would be needing to learn to read. I told him I didn't think I'd be done with it any time soon. Eleven years later I'm still using this book, with two more children "in the queue" before I'm done (and that's if God does not bless us with any more children). I sure hope that father bought his own copy and gave up waiting for me to get done with mine.

By teaching your child to read, you give him a wonderful gift. In reading, a child can travel to far away places where he may never actually be able to go. By reading, he can even travel back in time to relive world or American history. By picking up an old book my children can learn theology from great men of God who died hundreds of years ago. But most of all, in learning to read, a child can read the very Word of God that He has preserved for us in the Holy pages of scripture.

Each evening we read the Bible together as a family during our family worship time. Paton took his turn reading two scriptures tonight. As he improves, he'll read more and more until eventually he'll take his "normal" turn reading two scriptures at a time until our entire two chapters for the night are fulfilled. To be reminded of this blessing I need look no further than Justin, who at age seven easily reads from the Geneva Bible each night.

Paton, my son, read the Word of God. Devour it. Memorize it. Teach your own children to read it someday.

Witherspoon Introduction Message

This is my review of the Introduction message from the 2008 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. The speaker is Doug Phillips of Vision Forum.

Very appropriately, Doug begins by describing just who John Witherspoon was. He is described as a “son of the cross.” Witherspoon was an educator, a clergyman, and a mentor. He personally trained one sixth of all our founding fathers. Yet, it’s surprising that you rarely, if ever, hear his name mentioned in history text books. You’ve never witnessed a motion picture made about John Witherspoon. There is a clear reason for this. John Witherspoon is considered very politically incorrect by today’s standards. He unapologetically declared the Christian God to be the one, true, God, and the source of all our law. Witherspoon was a Scot. He came to the shores of this country with two foundational books; “Lex Rex” by Samuel Rutherford and “Aaron’s Rod Blossoming” by George Gillespie. Doug expounds on Witherspoon much more eloquently than I have given here in this brief review. I came away from this lecture with a much better appreciation for our largely forgotten “founding father,” John Witherspoon.

In this introductory message, Doug proceeds to introduce the many excellent speakers that will appear in this conference, along with a short preview of their topics. Some of the speakers that he mentioned are as follows: Jordan Lawrence, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, Hon. Howard Phillips, Bill Einwecter, Col. John Eidsmoe, Don Hart, Bob Renault, Jerome Corsi, and Larry Pratt. I have listened ahead to a few of these speakers, and I can say without a doubt that it has been outstanding information. I’ll save my comments for the reviews I will offer on each of the speakers, but I can tell that this is an excellent resource to add to my library.
Though I’ve heard Doug present the story of Josiah uncovering the lost book of the law, he did a great job declaring it again in this lecture. He also exposes some of the errors that we face as a country, including a quote by evolutionist Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who stated:
“The sacredness of human life is a purely municipal ideal of no validity outside the jurisdiction.”

Doug spends some time exposing the threat of feminism on our country. Written before the November elections, he theorizes how former President Bill Clinton would fulfill his congressionally defined duties as “first spouse” should his wife win the presidency. Though humorous, but not funny, Bill would have been in charge of flower arrangements in the White House. He would have selected the china pattern for the White House dishes. All the while his wife met with heads of state discussing foreign policy.

Doug identified a vulnerability that we have in the Church. There is a tendency for us to be divided against each other. Yet, when we look at the actions of the namesake of this conference, we will learn that John Witherspoon was able to have much greater influence by unifying Christians under a common cause.

There were three separate questions that Doug posed. I’ll leave it to you to get the CDs to find the answers. These question take us to the root of our epistemology, or our process of thought. The first question is, “What is law?” Next, “Can man legislate morality?” Finally, he asked the following: “Which of these men is the most religious, Charles Darwin, Billy the Kid, Billy Graham, or Billy Clinton?” He polled the audience, and Billy the Kid is the only one that got no votes. If you haven’t heard Doug ask this question before, the answer may surprise you.
All in all, I can tell that I’m really going to enjoy listening to these messages. I look forward to offering reviews on each message.

I do have one suggestion for Vision Forum, if they are reading this review. I absolute love my Jamestown Quadricentennial CDs. In addition to the excellent information there, I also appreciate the fact that the very last CD in the set is a compilation CD of all the messages given in MP3 format. This makes it very convenient for me to load all the messages onto my MP3 player. I’m one of those guys who doesn’t have a CD player in my car. But I do have an MP3 player. So, in order to listen to these Witherspoon messages I ripped them all to MP3s. The problem is that each CD is made up of several tracks. So I have a whole lot of individual files that I haven’t taken the time to name. I’ve got “Disc 1 – Track 1,” “Disc 1 – Track 2,” etc. all loaded on my MP3 player. I may take the time at some point in the future to look for software that could combine all the files from a particular CD into one MP3. However, I haven’t had the time to do that so far.

So, my one “constructive criticism” of these CDs so far is simply a technical one. This little issue is minor, and I certainly wouldn’t let it stand in the way of acquiring this set. I think you’ll agree with me that it is an excellent addition to any library. Order your copy by clicking here.

2008 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy

I received my copy of the 2008 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy last Thursday night. There is a wealth of information packed into these CDs! The Introduction CD was very good, giving a brief history of John Witherspoon and introducing who the speakers are on the rest of the CDs. I've had the time to listen to a few of them so far. I can say that there's is so much good information that I will need to devote a blog entry for each message. To cram it all into a single review would be an injustice. Click on the hyperlink in this message to order your own copy of this fantastic resource. Over the next few weeks as I post reviews of the individual messages, I invite you to listen to the recordings yourself and leave your own comments in the comment section. The topics covered are things that mature, Christian men need to know in order to have an "understanding of the times." Order your copy today and join me in reviewing these time sensitive messages.

And the Winner Is...

Robert Leever of Lebanon, OR. Thanks to all who entered. Robert answered my question:

"Why do Christians need to have a firm understanding of our United States Constitution?"

He won a copy of The 2008 Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy.

Here is his well thought out reply:

Here's a bit of the passage (NIV) I used for my conclusions: Romans 13:1-71

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Of course, the dilemma in our country today is what to do when the authority is not acting according to the AUTHORITY of the land (not to mention the LAWS of nature and of nature's God). We actually live in a day where people turn their backs on the LAW thinking it is for our own good...like the law is an inconvenience to GOOD governing...

If we are honest with ourselves we see it is just the same old sin problem--us wanting to be God and have others submit to our whims instead of the other way around. So, I believe, the only way for a believing Christian (strange I have to phrase it that way) to be truly adhering to the passage from Paul, is to submit to the Constitution since it is the SUPREME law of the land. How can one do that, if he knows not what the law is? Indeed, how can one understand his freedoms without studying from whence they come? If we do not know our freedoms, we are DOOMED to loose them.

Indeed, our elections reflect this problem in a larger and more personal sense. Our government was devised by the most intellectual and God fearing men of their day. Today, our government is being "run" by the least intellectual and least God fearing people of our day. Is it any wonder when you ask the question, "What does it mean to be an American?" No grade school student can give an answer...and college students begin to quote our Nation's misdeeds...even to the point of tears and anger.

Why should we learn the Constitution? God clearly demands obedience and how can we obey Godly authority when we cannot obey earthly authority? How can we obey earthly authority if we don't learn how and what it is? Our American authority is NO single governing body or individual. It is a unique Document. Devised by the most brilliant of minds to ensure that no governing body (oligarchy) or individual (dictator/dictating king-earthly, that is) could easily take over and control this nation...indeed, it has take over 200 years for this to begin to happen...The more intriguing question is, Can we again regain what our Constitution meant? I'm hopeful, but doubtful.

2 1/2 Days Left Until Witherspoon Deadline

Thus far I've received only a few small number of entries for the Witherspoon contest. I hope that's because you all are working hard to write an excellent essay. About 2 1/2 days left to submit one. You have a great chance of winning this wonderful resource.

Win Free Witherspoon!

How would you like to add an excellent resource to your homeschool library with no cost to your family?

The 2008 Witherspoon School of Law & Public Policy is packed full of vital information that you need. Our Christian forefathers left us a godly, Constitutional government. Yet each and every day, we see our freedoms slipping away. Whether we are talking about our First Amendment right to free speech being attacked through the "Fairness Doctrine" or "hate crimes" legislation, the constant attack on our Second Amendment right to bear arms, or simply our rights as parents to lead our children according to God's principles; our adversary, the devil, and his cohorts on the political left are pulling out all the stops in trying to squash our Constitutional Republic.

It is imperative that Christian fathers and mothers be equipped to meet these attacks and have a firm understanding of the foundation on which our Constitution was built.

I am pleased to offer a free copy of this valuable resource to the man, woman, or child who best, in my own opinion, answers the following question:

"Why do Christians need to have a firm understanding of our United States Constitution?"

Please limit your response to 1500 words or less. Please email me (at mike@mikesoutherland.com) your submission no later than 11:59 PM on February 26. I will review them and post the winner by midnight on February 27. I will also post the text of the winning entry on my blog. You can either type your essay in an email, or send it as a Microsoft Word attachment. I will contact the winner directly on Februrary 27 to find out shipping information. This contest is open to U.S. residents only. If you are under 18, please get your parents' permission to enter.

Even if your entry is not selected as the winner, please consider ordering this excellent resource. You can order it here.

Reason #5742 *NOT* to Send Your Children to Government Schools

Click here to see yet another reason (out of how many now?) to keep your children out of government schools.

End of the Year Sale!

From now until December 31, save on over 250 items from Vision Forum!

R.O.C.K. Solid

Today I want to tell you about an online store that I have been using since 1998. R.O.C.K. Solid is a Christian home based business run by a homeschool family (they have now opened a brick and morter store also!). Their acronym stands for: Resources Of the Christian Kind. I consistently find lower prices here than at other places. They have free shipping for orders over $75, and they are very quick in fulfilling orders and getting them out to me. In addition to their great service, I take satisfaction in knowing that I am helping support a family enterprise. This is the same vision, though maybe not the same business idea, that I have for my own family someday. I was excited yesterday to find out that they now have an affiliate program! So, use this link: http://shop.rocksolidinc.com/shared/affiliates/?Affiliate=18&Target=Home and stop by and check them out. I think you'll be impressed with their selection, their prices, and their shipping policy. As an added bonus, when you buy after using this link you'll help the Southerland family in our efforts to stay ahead of expenses while raising seven children!

Thanks! Enjoy!

Interesting Links

I’ve run across a few interesting web links this week that I’d like to share with you.

I’m a book lover. I’ve gotten some emails concerning this site from a yahoo group of which I’m a member. If you like old documents that unashamedly proclaim truths and convictions that were held by many of our founding fathers, check out: http://www.dayspringgatherings.org/dayspring_library.html I may not agree with all the works you will find here, and the host’s “kum by ya” type of “tolerance” attitude leaves a bit to be desired for those with the backbone to proclaim that Jesus is the “Way the Truth and the Life and no man comes unto the Father but by [Him].” John 14:6 In spite of their notice reading,
“We make such non commercial speech and electronic communication available in our private efforts to exchange and advance understanding and promote well being, good, peace and harmony for all that includes but is not limited to spiritual principals, human liberties, learning, religious, economic, scientific and social ideas.”
I think it’s a great resource, with many/most of the works declaring the exclusiveness of Christianity as the only true faith, though the folks at Dayspring Gatherings may want to think otherwise.

I’m sure you’ve most likely heard me lament the fact that I have ever so much more reading material than I can probably get through, even in my lifetime, and I keep collecting more all the time. I found a great place to index my library. It’s called http://www.librarything.com. Once you start entering books that you own, they make recommendations for...of course…more books that you may be interested in. You can reference this site from your blackberry…so you can avoid impulse purchases of books that you already own…but have forgotten about. :-)

Finally, because I have so little time to read, but such a desire to, the site http://www.librivox.org provides free downloadable MP3s of public domain books. They are read by “real humans!” (I made this comment because I recently listed to all 13 books of Augustine’s Confessions read by…a computer!)

Enjoy.

Daddy, Will You Teach Me to Read?

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
(Deu 6:6-7)

My second son, and fourth child, Justin frequently looks up at me and asks me the question, “Daddy, will you teach me to read?” When he asks me this, what he wants to know is if I will sit down and work through a lesson in his book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with him. This is the same text that I have used to teach each of my older three children to read.

It is somewhat of a “rite of passage” in our household to be taught, by Daddy, how to read. When Brittney, my oldest, was approaching age 5 I began to research our schooling options. I had heard of homeschooling, but had not actually considered it prior to this time. By the grace of God, Brittney turned 5 on September 2, 1998. This was one day too late to start government school kindergarten in the state of Texas. So, as I had been researching the possibility of homeschooling, my wife and I agreed that I would teach her at home that first year just to “see how it goes.” If it didn’t work well, we’d just enroll her in school in 1999. Thus began our journey into homeschooling. Homeschooling didn’t only “work well,” it worked extremely well. Brittney developed a love for reading. I loved spending the time with her teaching her how to read, write, and do math. That first year, we did it in the evening after work. My wife grew tired of our evenings being consumed with Brittney and I working on her schooling while she cared for our oldest son, Michael, who was two years younger than Brittney. So, the next year, I continued teaching Brittney math in the mornings. Eventually Brittney gained the experience needed to do most of the work on her own. I also changed jobs, which made it difficult to continue the morning routine. Yet, what remained was that I would teach each child to read, in the evening. Doing reading in the evening only takes about 20 minutes a day. My wife now handles anything else that needs to be done during the day, including teaching them writing and math. We’ve never regretted homeschooling and would not consider any other alternative now.

When Sheri and I were first married, she worked in a day care center close to the IBM building where I was working as a co-op student. Everyday Sheri would go to work she’d witness other people’s children take their first steps, say their first words, sit up for the first time, roll over, and on and on. She felt terrible telling a young professional mother that her child had accomplished a particular milestone. Sometimes she didn’t even mention it, hoping that the child would do the same stunt for their parents during the few hours they had with them after work and before bedtime. I see homeschooling in much the same light. There’s nothing like seeing the light in the eyes of your child as he “gets it” when learning to read or do math. There’s nothing like watching him form his letters as he writes, “I luv you.”

This fall, Justin is “officially” beginning school, though we’ve been working through the “Teach Your Child to Read” book somewhat inconsistently since the spring. He is so excited! His face really lit up when his Saxon math worksheets arrived in the mail about a week ago. Every evening when I come home Justin runs to me and asks, “Daddy, will you teach me to read?” It’s time for me to finish up this text book with him so he can move on to more complicated things. After all, he already takes his turn each evening reading from his own Geneva Bible during family worship. ;-)

Which Type are You?

There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

There’s a beauty in homeschooling in that you can teach what you think is appropriate in all subject areas. Now, with something as objective as math, I generally follow the curriculum pretty closely. However, there is something lacking in our otherwise very good Saxon math books. My oldest daughter is doing eighth grade work now, and she has yet to learn number systems other than base 10.

When I was in seventh grade, I taught myself binary using an old Commodore Vic 20 instruction manual. Remember those? I believe it had 3K of memory. For comparison, the Atari 2600 game console had 5K, I believe. Anyway, one of the games that came with the used system I bought would sometimes fail right in the middle and give me a “Syntax Error.” What I discovered when this happened intrigued me. I found that as I typed keys after this program had failed that some of the keys displayed parts of the pictures from the games, rather than the expected characters (A, B, C, etc.) I wanted to learn how to do this, so I pulled out the manual and discovered that you could alter the character set for each letter by assigning several 8 bit codes to each letter. Where the bit was “turned on” the pixel was lit up. Where it was off, the pixel was off. This translated into the 1’s and 0’s that made up the number. In the first position was 2 to the 0 power, or “1.” In the second position was 2 to the 1st power, or “2.” In the third position was 2 to the 2nd power, or “4,” and so on continuing to 2 to the 7th power (which was 128). If I wanted any of these pixels lit up I just added that number to the grand total. This gave a number anywhere between 0-255. In no time at all, I was modifying my character fonts. In the process, I was learning a valuable lesson that I would later use in my college days, as well as on the job from time to time. What I didn’t have explained to me was the ease at which binary converts to hexadecimal. I didn’t manage to grasp that concept until after my college IBM 370 Assembler class.

Anyway, from time to time, I’ll go over a few lessons on binary with the children. To count to ten in binary, you count this way (starting at zero):

0, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 1010

It’s easy when you think about it. When you count in decimal, you run out of numbers after you use up 9. So, you count: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. What comes next? There’s no single digit to represent the next number in binary, so you have to use a combination of digits to represent numbers greater than 9. So, we use 1 followed by 0, or “10.” Binary is the same way, it’s just you run out of numbers much faster. In the above example where I count to ten in binary, you start: 0, 1, then oops…we don’t have another digit, so we have to start combining, though the value is only two. So, two in binary has to be represented as a combination of 1 followed by 0, or “10.” The next number, 11, is three, then oops, we have to add another column, because we’ve used up the digits again. That’s when we get 100, which is 4. And so on…I think you get the picture.

Whereas binary uses only 1’s and 0’s, hexadecimal uses 0-9, and A-F. It is base 16. Therefore, after 9, the next digit is A (having a value of ten), followed by B, and so on to F (having a value of 15). Computers only recognize binary. But hexadecimal is a great help to programmers. The quick little conversion thing is this. Four bits (binary digits) are needed to make a single hexadecimal digit. 0000 (binary) equates to 0 in hex. 1111 (binary) equates to F in hex. Two of these hexadecimal digits make up a “byte” or 8 binary digits. Therefore, programmers have an easier type representing computer commands and values using hex rather than decimal. Knowing that each hex digit converts straightforward to a binary value, it’s easy to see why hex is the preferred notation.

For some reason, Saxon Math doesn’t think this is an important concept to pass on to my children, at least not from Kindergarten through eighth grade. Well, that’s OK. I bring the topic up from time to time. When my children want to learn programming, they’ll have a head start over all those modern “wimp” programmers who’s GUI environment fills everything in automatically. In the old days, we actually had to allocate our own memory…programmers today have it easy… I’ll teach my children programming “heritage,” not just the path of ease… (this last paragraph written somewhat tongue in cheek!)

So, of the 10 types of people, which type are you? I’ll give you a hint, there’s only two!