As I look back over David’s homeschool career, history has often been a struggle. We started off well, with lots of hands-on projects and notebook pages. He began to use the computer for making notebook pages at a young age (about 2nd grade). We had one year in a co-op for Tapestry of Grace and…
I can’t believe it, but next year 2 of my students will be in high school! I must say that overall high school has not been as scary and hard as I thought it would be, but it has been a big change in our day to day schedule with the addition of outside classes.…
Despite the fact that I get a lot done, I do not consider myself a high energy person. So I wasn’t really concerned with how tired I have been. At least not at first. I homeschool 5 children, work part-time from home, do the housekeeping, cooking, laundry, etc. It’s a lot of work. Being tired…
I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of memorizing large passages of scripture. But I’ve never been able to do it. Honestly, I haven’t tried very hard. We have memorized a few chapters of the Bible as a family – Isaiah 53, Luke 2, Psalms 1 and 23 for example, but I haven’t been consistent…
Homeschooling my creative oldest child has been challenging. I think it has been especially hard because I am a rule-following, box checker. I never sought to make our home like a school, but I still had expectations for how things should be done. And my son didn’t follow my plan or fit into my mold.…
I can’t believe that January is already gone! I set some goals for myself for this year and I think it would be a good idea to share how I’m doing with them. Hopefully it will encourage me to keep trying. I broke my goals up into categories. Here are my ongoing goals. God/Spiritual 1.…
You might be a homeschooler if… Your family quizzes one another on what state their cracker or tortilla chip looks like. Actually that probably makes us weird among homeschoolers. We are a family who really likes maps. Before we were married, my husband and I pored over a map together while waiting to pick up…
In November I happened to see a post in my Facebook feed about signing up for a chance to be on the launch team for Crystal Paine’s (Money Saving Mom) upcoming book, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode. Based on the title alone, I decided to sign up. At the time, I really felt like I…
It’s time for the next topic in the Virtual Curriculum Fair. This week’s topic is Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and Science. Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Mathematical Understanding or Memorization? I think I have pretty thoroughly shared my thoughts on teaching math. Here’s How I choose Math Curriculum. Basically, I value mathematical understanding over memorization. Except sometimes. I’ve found…
One of my goals for the year is to Block out specific, focused times of day to complete work tasks for SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I tend to have my laptop open all day long. I have e-mail, Facebook, SchoolhouseTeachers.com, and whatever else I might be working on all open. At the same time, Lizzie (2nd grade) and…