HOMESCHOOLING HELP in the TIME of CORONAVIRUS!!!

I know a lot of parents are freaking out about having to school their children at home and think they aren’t capable of doing so because they are not teachers and they don’t know what curriculum or materials to buy.

I homeschooled my three children all the way through and I am now homeschooling my granddaughter since public schools in Maryland are going to be an online wreck. I thought I would give you some assurance and information on materials and I will add photos so you can see exactly what the materials look like. I will be speaking here mostly of grade school. Older children can still use the math program I recommend (and I recommend it for all levels of math through Trig and Calculus) and then for older children you can use a bought curriculum or just do lots of reading. No matter what make you do, just make sure they read quality stuff.... no junk books. Now to the grade school kids.

Firstly, anyone can teach young children. You do not need to be a teacher to teach them things you learned when you were eight years old! If you can read, you can teach. You are not managing a class, just your own kids (not that this is always easy!). And you do not need to teach all day, just a couple of hours is enough because you are tutoring.



READING and WRITING

THIS is the most important thing you can teach a child. They can learn anything else later. There really is no absolute time they need to learn math, history, geography, etc. But READING they really must learn to do and learn to do extremely well. Once they can read well, they pretty much can learn everything else in the world.

PHONICS!!! I cannot recommend this enough. Schools don’t teach phonics well enough these days and it shows. ALWAYS start your child with phonics and, if your child is already reading in some form, teach them phonics anyway. Once they learn how to decipher letters and sound groups (phonemes), they will become really great readers and have a lot of confidence.

Alpha-Phonics is a must. It isn’t all pretty with cutesy photos. It has pages of practicing sounds and words and IT WORKS! Do a page a day. Along with that book, they have a little set of reading books which are nice.

In the photo, you will see a set of cards to the left of the book. This is a set of 70 cards which have all the phonemes.  Above you will see an explanation about the 70 basic phoneme approach. To the right is just a fun Montessori toy which you spin the blocks to make different words out of the basic 5 short letters. To the right of that is The Writing Road to Reading which also uses the phonics approach but adds in writing. It is the one book which also has proper print letters (some workbooks have the weirdest print letters and I refuse to teach those methods of printing). With these phonics materials, your child will become an excellent reader and writer.


You will notice I have two boxes of BASIC SIGHT WORDS. One I got off Amazon from Carson Dellosa and the other are Fry’s First Hundred Words which I got off of Ebay. Although I feel phonics is the most important part of learning to read, it doesn’t hurt to have kids memorize words they will see the most in all their reading, especially those silly English words which do not follow phonics rules.

READING WORDS and READING BOOKS

For early reading practice, I like McGuffey’s readers. They combine phonics with some sight words and have short little silly stories which are kind of nonsensical and have children and life from another century (I explained to my granddaughter these children have no phones, TV’s or cars to ride in!). But, they really do help in reading and she likes them! Dick and Jane have always been great first books and the First little Readers have cute easy stories.

You will also see a couple of books: Charlotte’s Web and Little House in the Big Woods. I read a chapter or more every day with my granddaughter. Why? Because these are quality books, with good morals, good stories, and bigger words, so she can improve her vocabulary. Also, she just learns a lot from them! We learned to make butter from cream (there is a little jar for eight bucks on Amazon that you shake for four minutes and you have delicious butter!) and a corn cob doll from Little House in the Woods. But, most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, children do not become good readers with an excellent vocabulary and they do not learn wonderful things about the world from stupid, junk books. Too many parents and teachers believe that in order to entice a child to read, one should let them read all manner of badly written crap. I totally disagree. I think that is the road to failure. Instead, as they get older, have them read Heidi, Black Beauty, The Little Princess and the Secret Garden….the classics are classics for a reason. Then, when they get much older they will enjoy David Copperfield, To Kill a Mockingbird, Things Fall Apart, and Moby Dick. Fine writing makes for fine readers, fine writers and fine minds.

To that end, I have added a photo of the book, The Core by Leigh A. Norton’s about teaching your child a classical education.

MATH

SAXON! SAXON! Did I say SAXON? THIS is the best book ever created to learn math. It is incremental and that means, instead of doing a chapter on addition and then going on to subtraction and letting the student forget what they learned about addition, this book does constant review and keeps adding the next bit of material into the lessons. A very integrated, clear program. You child WILL learn math! And it is very easy for the parent to just do one lesson after another and not need to be a mathematician. No fancy pictures; just solid math.

Next to Saxon, I gave GO Math which is a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt School New Math practice book. I think it sucks (worst explanations ever and some stuff is idiotic) but I added this to my granddaughter’s curriculum to be sure she at least understand the new math methodology in case she returns to a regular school program. I don’t want her to have no clue what is happening. Above that book is a silly book, Do Not Open This Math Book, about new math which is written like a crazed teen with drawings and such but it does explain how it works. For parents who know nothing about new math, it can be a good tool for you to help you figure stuff out. People swear by it and I haven’t used it that much yet but I can see it has some purpose for new math understanding.

In the upper left of the photo you will see some Geometric Solids. These are just so cool! Love them and so does my granddaughter. Buy on Amazon. You will also see flash cards. These are the basic ones and then there are more at the higher numbers. I believe in flash cards so that your child can simply get these into their heads and know them answer in a second. Under those you will see Cuisinaire Rods. I love these as they are great for making equations and show how things work. They go up to ten and are good visuals.

THE OTHER STUFF!

Use anything! I bought a cute puzzle of the planets and we found a cute planet song on YouTube. We have a world puzzle and maps and books on geography, history, science, art. We have Highlights magazines (you can get a subscription or just buy a bunch off of eBay for way cheaper…doesn’t matter that they are twenty years old). Buy science experiments books or kits, take field trips to historical sites. Watch well-made movies on specific topics; volcanoes, the Revolutionary War, etc. Get books out of the libraries (when they open) or buy them at Amazon or eBay (I buy most for cheap there). AVI is one of my favorite authors who has great historical stories for children. For history, if you have teens, have them read the actual books of important people of history. Watch Hamilton (fabulous!) or 1776 (also fabulous and I think I like it even better than Hamilton!). There are so many ways to have your child learn about the world of today and yesterday. But, if you worry they are missing something, you can always follow any textbook for their age. All they need to do is learn about stuff; the order really doesn’t matter. Just be sure they LEARN things that they should like Africa is not a country! Just get them to be interested in everything! I took my granddaughter to an Indian restaurant for lunch the other week and she learned about food and art and culture. We also support four girls in India, helping them through Upliftachild.com to go to school. So, we have a connection that helps her be interested in learning about that country. Really, anything, do anything! And enjoy! And stop worrying.

So, to recap. READING is a must. MATH is the second necessity. Everything else you can just wing. Want them to learn a foreign language? Use any program! Want them to learn to play piano? They have cool piano lessons on the Internet. Have fun!

Oh, and kill the video games and television. I have always found those ruin kids for being interested in anything else.

PS. If I forgot to address anything here, I will try to add it in later.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I will try to get back to you.

Pat

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
July 24, 2020

“The is NO Forensic Evidence that She is Dead”

I am sure there isn’t. I am sure there is no body and no DNA and nothing else of any physical sort. I am sure there are no photos of her dead body or articles of her clothing in Christian Brückner secret hiding place. Because when the police say there is not forensic evidence that she is dead but they have other evidence, not evidence that is good enough to go to court with, but which only “indicates” she is dead, this means they haven’t got shit.

And if they haven’t got a case, they have no business making known their theories to the parents and public with a vague “We are the investigators and therefore we are to be believed if we say this is what we think.” 

As a profiler, I have cited all the evidence I have to support my conclusions. So far, all the German police have come up with is a creepy guy named Christian Brückner that was in Praia da Luz at the time and chatted on the phone that evening. 

One of two things is going on: either the German police haven’t got anything on this guy outside of gossip and are just making up stuff to say they solved the case or they haven’t got anything on this guy and they are trying to pressure him into a confession with a plea deal.

Either way, this is shaping up to be the patsy many of us have suspected would finally be found to close the case.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
June 15, 2020

The New Madeleine McCann Suspect

So, what about Christian Brückner? Is there any validity in him being linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? Or is it just another fake suspect or a media splash? Well, let’s look at the various possibilities.

One, another media story because they need another media story about Madeleine McCann. Or the McCanns are pushing for more publicity. Or Operation Grange needs justification for more money. We have seen all of this before, so it would not surprise me to see it done yet again.

Two, the guy is really a pedophile or robber who snatched Maddie of his own volition. I sincerely doubt this. Why? Because robbers do not snatch children. Also, there was no evidence of an abduction that would be necessary if he were a child sex predator. And, if he were just some random creep and it was a true abduction, the McCanns sure have acted strangely all these years.

Three, Christian Brückner WAS involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann but his only role was in carting the child off. 

Let’s look at his ex-girlfriend’s statement.

On May 2, 2007, he is supposed to have said to her, “I have a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow. It’s a horrible job but it’s something I have to do and it will change my life. You won’t be seeing me for a while.” 

Okay, first of all, we don’t know that he really said this. Ex-girlfriends may make stuff up or disremember something or exaggerate something. What he said or didn’t actually say may have nothing to do with this case at all.

But, let’s suppose it did. What would it mean? Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like something a child predator says to his girlfriend. He wouldn’t tell her of a child he is planning to abduct. He also doesn’t think that abducting that child (which would end with her death a few hours later at most) will change his life because he would expect to do it and be done with it. Then,  he would go back to his normal life.

Secondly, he wouldn’t call abduction a “job.” And it wouldn’t be a “horrible job.” It would be fun.

So, if he really WAS going to do a “horrible job,” what would this mean. “Job” means someone has hired you and “horrible” means it isn’t pleasant. And if it would change his life, it would mean he was going to make a lot of money for doing it. That he wouldn’t be seen for a while would mean he was going to lie low.

So, if he did take Maddie, the only explanation would be at the request of the McCanns. This would be a job, an unpleasant one of removing a body of a small child, and one that would pay well. If the man were hired to do such a thing, it would explain why there was no sign of an abduction because the door would have been left unlocked for him. It would explain why nothing was disturbed. It could explain why drugging two children might be necessary and why the parents would have to be out that evening and why Gerry would be lurking around at a certain time. It could explain Smithman with a little girl in his arms and it could explain why the McCanns did not want Smithman to be identified. It could explain why the dogs had no trouble identifying cadaver odor behind the sofa.

I know many of you might say this means that Maddie was dead for many days. I still would think that is an unlikely scenario. It is far more likely that something would have only happened the day before and there was less than 24 hours to figure out what to do. The evening was still a mess and reeks of panic. Why the dogs would hit on the McCann car might be explained by a later moving of the body to a final burial place. That the dogs hit behind the sofa could be that this was the spot they chose to hide the body that evening for the remover to find. Possible? Well, possible. However, fake children at the crèche and phony last photos and fake children being carried about is not likely. It is also possible that an accident occurred where Maddie fell behind the sofa on the previous evening and her body was placed in the closet. 

So, where does that leave us? With two possible theories. Maddie died on May 3, 2007 and panic ensued and Gerry was Smithman. Or, Maddie died the day before, panic ensued, and Gerry hired Smithman.

IF the latter is true, there has to be some connection between Christian Brückner and Gerry McCann and that should be traceable. I find it odd that if there was a connection that this was not discovered earlier and only now Brückner Is being looked at. Very strange. 

But, whether he is linked or not to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, I still find that the evidence leads back to the McCanns. If this is not proven and Christian Brückner goes down as a pedophile working alone, I will still think something crooked is happening with Scotland Yard. And if, finally, the McCanns become suspects, one wonders what would have taken Scotland Yard so incredibly long to come to this point in the investigation.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. It may be nothing but hot air, but if there is really any evidence of Brückner’s involvement, then, maybe, we will finally learn the truth.

Update: There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding as to why I am creating this theory about this new suspect. I am not saying it is accurate. We have VERY little information as to make any link with this man to the crime. What I am attempting to do is put together the only scenario that WOULD make sense should there be proof the man has anything to do with the disappearance of Maddie. That he “abducted” Maddie is not supported in ANY way by the evidence. The ONLY way he could be linked to the crime would be if he were taking away a dead child on request.

1) Because there is no evidence of a break-in or an abduction
2) Because there is evidence of death in the flat
3) An abductor wouldn’t have killed Maddie and then left her long enough for cadaver traces to develop for the dogs to find
4) The McCanns have guilty behaviors that make no sense for an abduction

Which means he would have had to know the child was dead, he would only have taken a dead child for pay, the doors would have to have been left unlocked, and he would have had to had the assurance that the coast was clear. Also, the McCanns would have to be very lucky to know such a useful, disreputable person in their hour of need. Also, Gerry has the personality of a person who likes to control things and bringing in a questionable fellow that could rat him out would be not in keeping with his style of thinking.

That this happened, there is no proof. There is only evidence that there was a dead person in the flat and that there is no evidence of an abduction, the McCanns acted oddly, and the McCanns didn’t want Smithman to be identified. This could mean that Smithman was Gerry or that Smithman was this character. But, we do not have any evidence as of now that Smithman WAS this man.

Is this scenario at all likely? No, it would be very improbable. But, I want to clear up any scenario that this man would be a serial predator who abducted Maddie or a burglar whose crime went wrong. 

PS. I stand by my original profile as the evidence supporting an accident on the evening of May 3, 2007 with a subsequent cover-up with Smithman being the key to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. It still is the most likely scenario based on the evidence that we have to date. 

Pat Brown

Investigative Criminal Profiler

June 10, 2020