Homeschooling help and encouragement from experienced homeschoolers - find out how homeschooling works and how to start, get tips & ideas for when things need adjusting, read curriculum reviews before buying, learn how online schools work, gain confidence about homeschooling high school, and more.
Homeschooling is boring, your child is resistant, the curriculum seems “complete” but moves on quickly and without depth. You can improve this kind of homeschool experience by opening yourself to following the rabbit trails. What are rabbit trails? They are the paths you make as you help your child follow an interest or a question from one resource to the next. Continue reading »
Are you using audiobooks in your homeschool? If not, you are missing out on the awesome benefits that come from listening to books. Homeschooling parents embrace the benefits of audiobooks because audiobooks create a shared listening experience, with adults and kids on "the same page," like watching a movie together... Continue reading »
Early on in our homeschooling journey, we tried many methods and styles of homeschooling. As my kids got older, I had to step back and evaluate what type of learning environment I wanted to create in our home. I had one vision, and it included all of us still sitting around doing as much together as possible because it was easier for me and because I thought that I had to do that in order to be ticking off the boxes for homeschooling the right way. However, my kids had other ideas. And, because it's their education, I really needed to listen. This felt good and scary. Continue reading »
If you’re looking for a unique way to inspire your children’s curiosity and interest in history, consider introducing them to genealogy. You can use your own family tree to make history more relevant and meaningful to children, strengthen their sense of identity, and help them to see where they fit in time and place in this world. Using your family tree to learn about the life and times of grandparents is a great example of “social history,” which studies the experiences of ordinary people. Notice the word experiences — if you portray history in terms of experiences rather than facts, it can help personalize the study of history. This helps children to make sense of the world around them. Continue reading »
Whether you’re home because school has been cancelled (Hi! Welcome!) or you’re an experienced homeschooler who is actually staying home now, you probably suddenly have hours upon hours on your hands. For those extra hours, check out these free educational resources to use online while you are practicing social distancing. Continue reading »
Do you use educational podcasts for homeschooling? If not, you should! Podcasts are a great way for homeschoolers to explore a variety of topics and current events. Podcasts can be easily integrated into nearly all subject areas. Depending on the podcast platform you're using, you can search for topics, people, events, etc. We've recently had some great conversations about the Loch Ness Monster, Amelia Earhart, and King Arthur. Continue reading »
Gift-giving doesn’t have to be stressful! With our list of over 100 educational gift ideas for kids, you can cross off your gift list with educational gifts that are fun and promote learning and creativity. It might seem challenging to find fun and educational gifts that are not all technology-related. Now, I don’t have anything against technology, we use it every single day in our lives and homeschool. That said, I do try to find items and gifts that get them moving, creating or building and exploring. Continue reading »
Games have been a staple in our home(school) ever since my oldest received Candy Land at age three. While our stash of games has changed over the years, our love of playing games continues to flourish. I've compiled a list of classic, educational, and online games/apps that we're enjoying with a house full of teens and tweens. Continue reading »
One thing that has remained consistent into the teen years for my kids is their need for hands-on learning. We've just updated and tweaked what that looks like these days compared with when they were younger. With some creativity, planning, partnership, and imagination, hands-on learning can be explored in a variety of ways. I've got nine ways you can cultivate hands-on learning for your older homeschooled kids. Grab your pen and planner, and let's chat! Continue reading »
Those of us who have been homeschooling a while know that sometimes the best resources aren't the newest or flashiest. That's the case with Boomerang Audio Magazine for kids. A big benefit of these audio resources is that kids can be busy doing other things with their hands or bodies while listening. For some kids, this actually enhances learning, because they're not focused on having to keep still, which can take a lot of energy. Continue reading »
Don't depend on boring government textbooks; use an activities approach to learning how government works. If teens do these activities, talk about their experiences with you and others, and follow rabbit trails online, they will likely retain more knowledge about how government works than if they just read from a government textbook. Continue reading »
It’s tough to think about learning when there’s so much fun to be had, and we understand! That’s why you’ll find five learning loss statistics below along with five suggestions on how to help your kids avoid the notorious “summer brain drain.” Continue reading »
Bernie DeKoven may be a guru of fun but he's got a serious message for all of us. We need more playfulness! This game designer and fun theorist was a pioneer in computer game design and instrumental in the New Games movement. His new book, A Playful Path, is jam-packed with awesomeness. It's made up of tools and ideas to inspire the possibility-building, wide-open glory of playfulness. Continue reading »
I’m a member of several homeschooling groups and email loops, and the most common questions are all related to, “It’s a battle to get my child to do her work. I thought homeschooling would be better for my child, but it’s all tears and yelling. For both of us. I may have to put her back in school.”
The specifics vary, but many parents new to homeschooling are trying to recreate a public school environment in their home and finding that it doesn’t work. It’s not their fault. Most of us went to public school; it’s what we know. We’re taught that this is the only way to get an education. That children won’t learn if we don’t tell them what to learn and force them do so. We shouldn't be surprised when we find homeschooling not working under these circumstances. Continue reading »
This year as I was making my rounds as a homeschool evaluator in Virginia, I ran across a number of homeschooled kids who were using an affordable mini-computer called a Raspberry Pi in order to do computer projects and learn programming. According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation: The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python. It's capable of doing everything you'd expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games. Continue reading »
This week I visited with a homeschooling family whose son was anxiously awaiting his shipments from New Egg and Tiger Direct -- full of the components he would assemble into his own PC.
This brought back fond memories, since two of my three sons undertook this same project during their teen years, and my oldest actually did the same after he graduated. Continue reading »
Put Homeschooling in the Bag - Your homeschool group or co-op might enjoy working together to create homeschooling activity bags for a swap. This was a fun idea our family did with a homeschool group, and it sort of works like a cookie swap at holiday time. You gather inexpensive supplies for a single hands-on pre-school activity, homeschool craft, or simple science experiment or demonstration (up through elementary age), and you put them in a zipper plastic bag with instructions. The beauty part is -- you make up ten or twenty identical activity bags (according to the number of families participating), and you take them to the swap. Continue reading »
We just started homeschooling about a month ago. Our son is in first grade. We purchased the curriculum (here she named a specific well-known Christian curriculum), but it's not going as well as I had hoped. My son really doesn't like the structure of the program. He's a six-year-old boy who loves to be outside. Any encouragement, advice, resources, wisdom, or thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks so much! Continue reading »
Nutrition is an ideal homeschooling topic for the 10 - 14 year olds in your family or homeschool co-op. These middle years are an excellent time to go into more depth about what we eat and how it affects our health and growth. Tweens and early teens are especially interested in the changes brought by adolescence, and nutrition is a "safe" topic where kids can think about how their current choices affect their future. Continue reading »
Tangrams are simple seven-piece puzzles that build visual-spatial skills. Kids and adults alike enjoy manipulating the standardized pieces in the set, which includes a parallelogram, a square, and three sizes of right triangles. The pieces can be fit together to form a square, and in fact, when the puzzle pieces are made of wood, they are often stored in a square wooden frame. The real fun and thinking occur while moving the shapes around to form "pictures" or shapes. There is a real challenge in matching shapes that are already drawn out as puzzles to solve. Continue reading »
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