Mary Ann Kelley
Mary Ann Kelley lives in Virginia with her husband, two teenage daughters, and two spoiled dogs. She loves photography, has a love-hate relationship with fitness, and loves to read.
Do you want to encourage your children (or yourself) to journal but it’s hard to stay on track? This Is Me Challenge is a website with writing challenges published on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month. You can learn about how it works here, or jump right in with any of the challenges. I really like the ideas for recording a personal history found in the 12 Ways To Record Your Life post — they are ideas that if done over a period of time kids will really love because there are so many options. Journaling can range from photos to collages/scrapbooks to index cards to traditional written journals, and there are ideas for every personality type. Read more »
Evernote is your new best friend. Really. With apps/software for almost all platforms, Evernote is free and works with nearly every computer, phone, and mobile device out there. Jeanne Faulconer blogs about how she uses One Note for homeschooling, and her One Note uses can translate almost universally to Evernote. It’s not just for homeschooling, though. Anything that would work in a physical notebook will work in Evernote, but with instant access from your phone. Homeschooling assignments, support group meeting agendas and notes, coupons, shopping lists, recipes, birthday party plans, receipts, travel information, family history records – there is almost nothing that doesn’t fit into Evernote. Because you can put multiple file types (images, music, spreadsheets, documents, checkboxes, and more) into a note, Evernote is perfect for organizing just about anything from homeschool support group meetings to birthday parties. Read more »
February, 2013 – With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I was browsing Pinterest for neat Valentine’s ideas and boy are there a lot of them! I can’t decide if I’m inspired or completely overwhelmed by them (I’m leaning toward completely overwhelmed). I don’t have much time for crafty gifts these days and I tend to look back with longing at the days when I had more time for handwork. Presidents’ Day is also coming up, and we’ve put together a fantastic free notebooking unit about presidents — 2 units, actually. One is a unit about the office of the president (more info below) and the other is a president report that can be used to research fun facts about the president of your child’s choice. I hope you find the units useful. Read more »
January, 2013 – I hope your new year is starting out organized and upbeat. If you have a minute, head over to our Facebook page and join the Roll Call, telling us where are you from, how long have you been homeschooling, how many kids at home, what your homeschool style is, etc. I love hearing from you all! Be sure to Like the page while you’re there if you don’t already follow us – we post links to inspirational and encouraging blog posts and useful resources, and it’s a great place to ask questions of other homeschoolers. Read more »
As college tuition and costs continue to rise, many students are finding it difficult to foot the bill. Fortunately, some are investigating ways to save students money by creating low cost and cost-free alternatives to traditional college textbooks. Read more »
Election day is tomorrow and it got me thinking about how many people don’t bother to vote either because they don’t like the choices, they don’t think they can make a difference, or they simply don’t care. As a woman, I ponder the impact that Alice Paul and the women’s suffrage movement had on women’s rights. Women were jailed and beaten just up the road from me at what used to be the Occoquan Workhouse (later to be Lorton Federal Prison) in their fight for women to have the vote. Read more »
I have always said that excellent writing is the key to success in almost any subject. With a 9th grader in the house this year, we are focusing on writing, writing, and more writing. Initially, we are working on putting together all of the things we’ve studied up to this point: grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, organization, and concision. Putting it all together into a written assignment can be overwhelming, so I came up with a self-editing writing checklist for my daughter to use. I was looking for a little more practice in writing mechanics when Time4Writing offered us a chance to try out their High School Writing Mechanics course. Read more »
For high school English, we have been working on refining the proper use of grammar, punctuation, and the elements of composition. In order to make sure that my daughter is thoroughly proof-reading her work before she turns it in, I came up with this Self-Editing Checklist. Read more »
I see a lot of homeschool resources available online, so it’s not often that I get as excited about a download as I am about Discover Africa! Jessica at Balancing Everything has put together this mega download to cover everything about Africa since she couldn’t find a unit available online that included all 54 (as of this writing) countries on the continent. What’s more, Jessica is allowing us to give away one of these units to a lucky visitor! Read more »
You may not have heard of Adam Steltzner at all, or if you watched the Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars you may know of him as “Elvis guy” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has a PhD in Engineer Physics, and the story of his rise to “rock star” status among millions of NASA fans is inspiring. He wasn’t a typical science nerd. Read more »
