I was browsing Pinterest the other day, looking for some printable activities to use alongside explore birds with my preschooler. I wanted a fun, bird-themed opportunity to review basic math and counting skills that fit the season. Our yard is freshly filled with birds in the early spring, and there’s really no better time of year to pull our feathered friends into our homeschool time.
Read MoreWho doesn't love copywork... especially math copywork, right? Well, besides your kids! While we get a fair amount of pushback from our students, the struggle is worth the outcome. In what other way can you practice slow memorization while also absorbing the fundamentals of English grammar and punctuation AND practice handwriting all at once? In my mind, math should be no different. While memorization of math terms is only one small portion in math instruction, it is an important portion nonetheless.
I personally usually take to the internet, mainly Pinterest, searching high and low for copywork pages that fit what we are studying each year in each subject. Truly, the hardest to come by have been copywork pages for math. AND if I did find them, it was rare to find them for the particular term I was looking for. I wanted a workbook of the vast majority of the terms my students would run across in elementary school without having to go look high and low or create my own every single time we found a new term.
Read MoreI have a daughter with dyslexia. For my sweet girl, one of the most confounding aspects of her learning disability is a poor working memory and the amount of effort (and incredible repetition) needed in order to move information from "temporary storage" into her permanent, long-term memory. During the elementary years, it can take a dyslexic students YEARS of practicing parts of speech, place value, multiplication tables, writing dates and months before they TRULY master it and put it into their long-term memory.
Read MoreIs it time to get in gear for next year (or maybe just survive the end of this one)? Regardless of where you are right now, a well-constructed planner is always much-needed. So you can snag it now and save it for when the next school year is on your mind, or put it to use ASAP! Just like I mentioned in the FREE Planner Bundle for Mom, I had something in mind that I wanted dearly, but just could not find it.
I created this planner out of a desire to have ONE place to track all of the following in 5 pages (and I went all out! You get two versions... normal printable AND editable PDF all in one zip file!):
Read MoreI'm a highly eclectic homeschooler, with some very clear Charlotte Mason and Classical tendencies... but I'm also so eclectic that I don't even tend to homeschool the same "way" each year, all year long. I ran across this notion of "tidal homeschool" a while ago via Pam Barnhill's podcast and her interview with Melissa Wiley. Once I heard Melissa describe their "ebb and flow" of learning throughout their year, I knew that what had been a natural tendency for us was not a mere lack of "diligence" on my part.
I'm an INFJ (sometimes ENFJ), and as such, I am highly intuitive. Certain seasons of life, seasons of the year, and life events change how and why (and where) we homeschool. I have always made those adjustments to fit the circumstances naturally- but also fought guilt over not always (well, ever) finishing the "whole curriculum."
Read MoreDo you have a student who needs consistent review over the same skills in order to truly master them? How about a student who is just learning to read and you need a good source of sight words to pull from for instruction and game play? I did, too!
My daughter, who was diagnosed with "profound dyslexia" and "probable dyscalculia," needs to continuously cycle through the same information, even as we add additional skills. Why? Because with dyslexia and many other learning disabilities, if you don't use it, you lose it! I was tired of reteaching EVERY skill we had ever learned before I could get to the actual new content- and obviously, so was she!
Read MoreHave you ever noticed that it seems that many homeschoolers don't necessarily choose home education for themselves? It seems to choose them? So sometimes we come into it a bit overwhelmed, making decisions as we go, sometimes making one mistake after another.... (raising hand!)
Sometimes it ends up being more than we signed up for. We may even consider quitting. Or maybe we aren't that far into questioning our choices, but we also know there has to be a better way.
Wow! Have you looked lately for books for your little ones and been completely overwhelmed? There are SO many- and how can we know they are good books that are of high literary quality and don't counter with our beliefs and family culture until we've bought them? My sweet friend Hayley and I wanted to combine forces and share a powerful list of 107 books that we feel like every child should have read to them (or read) before age 7.
Many lists like this include a majority of chapter books or books for children with longer attention span. We have many of those, but rest assured that this collection also includes shorter picture books with gorgeous, engaging illustrations and fewer words per page.
Read MoreI love Classical Education. From the first moment I lay my hands upon the book The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, I was hooked. I learned as much as I could and fully believe in the proven power of our natural learning in the sequential order of the Grammar, Dialectic (aka Logic), and Rhetoric stages. Even as adults, in our daily lives, as we are introduced to new things, we logically follow these steps. {Click here to read a great metaphor to understand this process a little better.}
This 3 step process applies to all aspects of life and branches of knowledge. Having a teen and tween whom we've used this process with throughout their education, I can see the profound fruits.
Read MoreIt's January... which means we are all on a downhill slide. The busyness and craziness and fun of Christmas has all been quieted, and we are left to our own devices (often trapped inside from the frigid temps). If you're like me, this anticlimactic time following the depths of winter as we roll past the New Year can usher in boredom, exhaustion, and cabin fever. We oftentimes enter what's now commonly referred to as a "slump" in our homeschool year.
But why? Is it fully triggered by gloomy weather and post-holiday blues? I suspect there's something else lurking beneath this battle almost every homeschool Mama faces each year...
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