Volcano Experiments, Inquiry-based Learning, Building on Strengths, Children’s Books, Art, and More – I’m very excited to let you know that I am working on a long overdue overhaul of our website! I’ll be working over the next several weeks with Joy Miller, a very talented and knowledgeable designer, preparing everything for the new website. In the meantime, here are some great resources for your summer. The featured article this month has some summer volcano science; it seemed appropriate since volcanos are one of only two science experiments that I can do without failing miserably. If you enjoy the volcano experiments, be sure to check out the free Science Video and Activity Guide from Supercharged Science. Read more »
It’s here – one of my favorite events of the entire year! And, yes, I know that makes me a total homeschool nerd… Homeschool convention time! Can I get a “Woot woot?!” OK, so maybe you’re not as excited as I am about homeschool conventions, but if you’re not, it’s probably because you haven’t been to one. Workshops on every imaginable homeschooling issue, more curricula than you could possibly think up, experts with fixes for your homeschooling headaches, creative ideas to catapult you out of your homeschooling doldrums, supplies and resources beyond your imagination, camaraderie with thousands of people who do things similarly to the way you do them… Did I mention the unfathomable amount of resources? Read more »
Every once in a while in this homeschooling journey, by some miracle — you are able to see that you did something right. That happened to me, recently, in an unexpected way. It was testing time. Standardized testing time. * Insert ominous theatrical music here.* Yes, in years past, I have seen testing as the time that informs me of all the ways I am failing as a homeschool mom. Of course it’s not that, but that’s still how it felt. If my kids scored well, I scored well as a homeschool mom. If they didn’t, well… Read more »
There are so many things I appreciate about homeschooling, but one of the biggest has to be the chance to nurture individuality in my children. Our school system tends to homogenize – one curriculum, standardized tests, teaching strategies that appeal most to logical, left-brain-oriented thinkers. Even “individualized” tracks of learning necessarily pattern students into “gifted”, “average” “behaviorally or learning disabled” and “special needs”. And I get it – there has to be some reasonable manner of organizing large numbers of students into manageable categories, so that energy and resources can best go toward meeting their needs. But homeschoolers don’t have to do that. Read more »
More than any materials we introduce, the connections my kids find most pivotal are those they make on their own, person-to-person across any distance. For example, one of my musician sons got interested in acoustics. He joined special interest forums to talk with fellow aficionados around the world about technical details of repairing historic microphones, the artistic nuances of found sound recordings, and other topics. Friendships developed. Now they converse about everything from politics to movies. Some day, when he travels overseas, he plans to take them up on their offers to stay in New Zealand, Finland, Brazil and elsewhere. Already he’s visited friends made online in the U.S., finding the rapport they developed holds fast in person as well. Read more »
I recently wrote about how homeschooling parents can use a dialogue-based approach to education, which I see as a big potential benefit to home education. While many public schools have been forced into test-prep mania that defines success very narrowly, homeschoolers can use this educational approach to develop critical thinking and evaluate learning. Scientific American has a recent story that reflects my thoughts on the unfortunate increased emphasis on standardized testing in public education. Read more »
My family is blessed to live just 50 miles away from the Smithsonian’s Washington, D.C., museums (although the traffic isn’t such a blessing!). For those of you who are not so close, the History Explorer can bring the treasures of the Smithsonian to you by way of the Internet. “Smithsonian’s History Explorer was developed by the National Museum of American History in partnership with the Verizon Foundation to offer hundreds of free, innovative online resources for teaching and learning American history … Learning activities feature artifacts selected from over 3 million items in the Museum’s collections, and draw on the expertise of the Museum’s renowned curatorial staff.” Read more »
Thinking of Homeschooling? As homeschooling has grown in popularity, I have had more and more people ask me for advice on how to do this thing. And let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot of guidelines. One of the great benefits of homeschooling is that you can make it be whatever you need it to be for your individual family. However, in this benefit is also a challenge – there are so many options, so many different ways of homeschooling, it can be overwhelming to those who are starting for the first time. Many a friend considering homeschooling has moaned, “I just don’t know if I can do it!”. Read more »
I’ve had more friends this year decide to homeschool than any other year since we began homeschooling. The reasons have varied — concern over values taught in the public school system, distress about peer relationships, a desire to inculcate principles of faith, worries about increased “teaching to the test” procedures in government schools, an interest in providing more individualized instruction… but whatever the reason, each parent has had a significant “deer in the headlights” look as they have shared their newly chosen educational path. They have one question in common, whether spoken or unspoken: “How do I homeschool my child?” Read more »
“Hello learned and astonishingly attractive pupils!” I knew from the first line of the first World History video that I was going to like John Green. At that point I still didn’t realize that he is the same John Green who wrote Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, two wildly popular young adult novels. When he started talking about The Test — as in, “Will this be on The Test?” — I was hooked. His answer to that question alone is worth heading over to watch The Agricultural Revolution, the first video in the World History playlist. Seriously. Go watch it. I’ll wait. Read more »
