Ohio Facts for Kids Ohio was the 17th state to join the union. It became a state on March 1, 1803. Capital - Columbus Abbreviation - OH Nickname - Buckeye State Motto - "With God, All Things Are Possible" Song - Beautiful Ohio Bird - Cardinal Flower - Scarlet Carnation Insect - Ladybug Area - approximately 44,828 square miles Learn more about Ohio First Continue reading »
Search Results for: interest led learning
All About Oklahoma
Oklahoma Facts for Kids Oklahoma was the 46th state to join the union. It became a state on November 16, 1907. Capital - Oklahoma City Abbreviation - OK Nickname - Sooner State Motto - "Labor omnia vincit" - Labor Conquers All Things Song - "Oklahoma!" by Rodgers and Hammerstein Bird - Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher Flower - Oklahoma Rose Insect - Honey Bee Area - approximately Continue reading »
All About Montana
Montana Facts for Kids Montana was the 41st state to join the union. It became a state on November 8,1889. Capital - Helena Abbreviation - MT Nickname - Big Sky Country, Treasure State Motto - "Oro y plata" - Gold and Silver Song - Montana Bird - Western Meadowlark Flower - Bitterroot Insect - Mourning Cloak Butterfly Area - approximately 147,046 square miles Continue reading »
All About Iowa
Iowa Facts for Kids Iowa was the 29th state to join the union. It became a state on December 28, 1846. Capital - Des Moines Abbreviation - IA Nickname - Hawkeye State Motto - "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain" Song - The Song of Iowa Bird - Eastern Goldfinch Flower - Wild Rose Insect - None adopted Continue reading »
All About Alaska
Alaska Facts for Kids Alaska was the 49th state to join the union. It became a state on January 3, 1959. Capital - Juneau Abbreviation - AK Nickname - The Last Frontier Motto - North To The Future Song - Alaska's Flag Bird - Willow Ptarmigan Flower - Forget Me Not Insect - Four Spot Skimmer Dragonfly Area - approximately 656,425 square miles Learn Continue reading »
Building on Strengths
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. Continue reading »
Raising Global Citizens
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. Continue reading »
Best Homeschool Planners To Keep Your Homeschool Organized
Homeschoolers are always on a mission to find the best homeschool planner. The right planner eases the way for parents to create lesson plans, make assignments for their kids, decide how to divvy up curriculum, and track ideas for enrichment activities and resources. A good homeschool planner can give you a sense of ordering (or Continue reading »
Homeschooling: A Guide for Parents
As a growing number of families choose to homeschool their children, curiosity about the homeschooling movement has grown. Learn about homeschooling, including how homeschooling works, what the requirements to homeschool are, how to start homeschooling, what curriculum to use for homeschooling, how to make a homeschool schedule, and more. Get started right now with our Quickstart Continue reading »
Going from Homeschool to College: What You Need to Know
Homeschool graduates can and do go to college—all the time. Homeschooled teens who are prepared for college-level work and who can submit strong applications are often admitted to multiple colleges, just like their public school friends and peers. That said, homeschooling parents and their teens benefit from learning more about the college admissions process and Continue reading »
How to Homeschool High School
Even parents who have homeschooled for many years sometimes question homeschooling high school. Many are surprised to find that homeschooling high school is often even easier than the younger grades. Students are more mature, often have better study habits, and take more responsibility for their own learning. Continue reading »
How to Homeschool
Although the idea of homeschooling can be overwhelming, know that you can do it. Learning takes place all the time, and just as your child learned to walk and talk with you as their teacher, they can continue to learn at home in a relaxed, loving environment. Homeschooling is not public school at home. As Rebecca Capuano says in her post about the differences between public school and home education, "It is a completely different way of thinking about education, and a completely different way of approaching education. It is teaching tailored specifically to individual children rather than according to a standardized set of guidelines or curriculum for the masses. And because of this individualization, home education is effective by virtue of the fact that it does not have to look like the public school classroom." Continue reading »
The Joys of Authentic Engagement
For many families, homeschooling provides amazing opportunities to reflect on, reconsider, and restructure daily routines and rhythms around what matters the most. They find themselves opting out of the rush 'n go in favor of a slower-paced, more balanced, fully flavored schedule. Having more TIME is just one awesome by-product: time to slow down and do things your own way, with intention and purpose; time to establish routines that will nourish and nurture you, your children, and your family, your community, restore balance, and provide important flexibility; time to explore and follow your passions, get involved in community projects, try something new; to time to catch your breath, open yourself up to the possibilities and truly relish your time with your children. Continue reading »
Right-Brained Vocabulary
It takes some creativity to teach right-brain oriented children effectively. These holistic, creative thinkers can keep us on our toes to find the best means to help them learn and remember. Intuitive, contextual, and visual, right-brain oriented learners often have difficulty learning concepts that are word-oriented, logical, and detailed. Therefore, like Reading and Math, vocabulary words can pose a challenge for right-brain oriented kids - especially when the traditional method of looking them up in the dictionary is used. Continue reading »
Homeschool Conferences: Why Attend?
Why should you attend a homeschooling conference or convention this year? Conferences help you adjust your course and recharge your batteries. If you need to refine your homeschooling style, find new curriculum or resources, or re-consider your children's needs, a homeschooling conference can provide the stimulation you need to help you figure out how to tweak and improve your homeschooling life. You'll also have a chance to re-charge your own batteries; hearing informative speakers and being surrounded by other homeschooling families can inspire and refresh you. Continue reading »
Talking About Books By Talking About Movies
Elementary age homeschooled kids are often eager book group participants. However, parents sometimes struggle to move their kids to more literary discussion about books as they grow into middle school and early high school years. One useful idea to smooth this transition is to pair a book with its movie adaptation. I've found that kids frequently find films to be more accessible, and creating a scenario where kids will naturally compare the book and the movie is an easy way to create deeper discussion points. Here is what that might look like. Continue reading »
Get Ready for Spring with Field Guides
A library of field guides is an important resource for homeschooling families, and with spring just around the corner, it's a great time to make sure you have what you need on hand to help with identification of birds, trees, insects, spiders, snakes, turtles, frogs, toads, and wildflowers. Here are some tips for making sure your field guides are frequently-used. Continue reading »
Hardwired for Writing: The Intelligence of the Hand
It's not hard to imagine a future where keyboarding replaces handwriting altogether. Keyboarding, with its helpful cut-and-paste, deleting, and spellcheck, allows thoughts to be revised and refined easily, a technological marvel that many writers--particularly those of us who remember manual typewriters--hail right up there with sliced bread. But does that mean that handwriting, and cursive in particular, is antiquated and superfluous? With the media buzzing over recent news that Common Core Standards, which guide curriculum choices for school districts nationwide, no longer require the teaching of cursive writing, a lot of attention in educational circles has focused on how the physical act of writing affects cognitive development. Continue reading »
Creating a Calendar with Kids
A great project for the New Year is making a calendar with your little ones. I'm talking about making a calendar the old fashioned way, using fresh heavy art paper and your favorite combination of markers, colored pencils, oil pastels, or other media. You can integrate all kinds of learning opportunities in this simple, fun activity. Continue reading »
Instead of Curriculum: Living Math
Why do some homeschoolers choose not to use one of the many complete math curricula available today? And what do they do instead? To many homeschooling parents, math feels like the one thing that must be taught and learned in a systematic way even for very young children. Even many people who are otherwise attracted to or influenced by a version of interest-based learning or unschooling often say-- "except for math."
My New Homeschool Rules
I tend to be a hyper-responsible, perfectionistic, stressed-most-of-the-time-about-something, uber disciplined homeschool mom. Yes, one of those. The ones for whom field trip days aren't looked forward to as exciting opportunities for real world learning and fun bonding, but are dreaded as deviations from the schedule that must be accommodated so that in a few years our kids don't feel like they've graduated from military school. OK, maybe I'm not quite that bad. But...close. Continue reading »
What about Homeschool PE?
Homeschoolers have lots of options when it comes to physical education. First, we can remind ourselves that what we do for P.E. doesn't have to look like what schools do for P.E. We can get our kids moving, learning about fitness, improving their coordination, building strength, and enjoying their physical selves in a variety of ways. Let's take a look at some possibilities. Continue reading »
Guide to Unschooling for Beginners
There's nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents. Continue reading »
What To Do When Your Child Doesn't Get a Concept
It's happened with every homeschooler: you get to a concept, and no matter how much you go over it, your child just doesn't "get" it. You've tried hands-on approaches. You've been extra interesting and dramatic in your presentation. You've attempted to teach it according to your child's learning style. You've tried to sweeten the deal with motivators. You've even, um, raised your voice just a teeny little bit in frustration. All to no avail: your child has hit a wall. Continue reading »
The Homeschool Calendar
The Homeschool Calendar: New homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers frequently wonder about whether the "homeschool year" follows or needs to follow the traditional calendar used by most public and private schools in the United States. Long-term homeschoolers frequently find their answer to that question changes as their children get older. Casual observers of homeschooling might think "of course" homeschooling has to follow a school calendar in order to be legitimate and sufficient.
Continue reading »
Surviving Project Day
I realize that many of you reading this are free-spirited, artsy, Pinterest-devoted die-hard project people, and that the best part of your homeschooling lives involve doing hands-on activities with your kids. Good for you - I applaud you. And I hate you. Just a little bit. Continue reading »
Homeschool Groups: To Join or Not to Join
There are many different types of homeschool groups, including intimate family groups with shared teaching, nationally-based tutor-led groups such as Classical Conversations, local extra-curricular-based homeschool groups, state-based associations, and local co-ops with parent-rotated teaching. The goals, purposes, cost, and time commitment varies with each different group, so it's almost impossible to speak in generality about the myriad options homeschoolers have for joining with other home educators. Continue reading »
Homeschooling is Not Public School at Home
She got me thinking. My friend, who, for the first time, was questioning some of the values, methods, and efficacy of public school and began investigating the idea of home education for her family. By asking me questions about this whole "homeschooling thing" that we do, she brought to my attention something with which we homeschoolers ourselves struggle. My friend didn't even realize it, but with her questions about what we did and why we did it, she displayed what is a very common misperception about homeschooling: that homeschooling is some kind of a microcosm of the public school classroom, transported to the home environment. As I thought about it, I realized that many of us homeschoolers struggle against the very same misconception. Continue reading »
Ask Your Kids To Predict The Future
Back in 1964, sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke introduced a program on future predictions by stating: The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So, if what I say to you now seems to be very reasonable then I’ll have failed completely. Only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable have we any chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen. Among other developments, Clarke predicted the emergence of the Internet, telecommuting, and remote surgery. Fantastic. Just like the predictions kids gave when I asked them about the future at a multi-age homeschool program. The youngest ones jumped in eagerly... Continue reading »
10 Ideas for Curing the Winter Blahs
It's the point in the winter most homeschoolers have the winter blahs. You know, that "sick of being inside" "tired of the daily homeschool grind" sentiment that leads you and the kids to wish you could be doing anything other than school. Often by this point in the season, the art supplies have been well used, the indoor games have been played, and everyone is in need of a little excitement. Sometimes a dose of creativity and fun can help bridge the gap until Spring breathes a breath of fresh air into homeschooling life. Never fear, there are plenty of great ways to make the waning days of winter worthwhile and educational. Continue reading »
The Miracle Cure for Bad Homeschooling Attitudes
When children balk at their academics, it can twist homeschooling from a lively adventure into a grinding battle. And, unfortunately, in this war, there are no winners. Kids turn sour, parents turn angry, work doesn't get completed, and learning is stalled. If the battle continues long enough, it can significantly alter family life and damage relationships. For some, bad attitudes can lead to giving up on homeschooling all together. So what's a parent to do? Continue reading »
4 Strategies for Homeschooling with Babies and Toddlers
There’s no doubt, homeschooling would be much easier if everyone were old enough to maintain attention, read independently, and stay on task. The reality? Many homeschooling families have multiple children under the age of 5, and have to figure out how to educate the older ones with a little extra, uh….help from the younger crew. Being able to actually accomplish academic instruction with the multiple needs, interruptions, problems and distractions of younger siblings can sometimes seem like an insurmountable task. Continue reading »
How I Keep Long-Term Homeschool Goals in Focus
Many public and private schools are starting the new year, and it’s not surprising that many homeschoolers use the fall to "get back into the groove" of things. Whether moving up to the next level in curriculum, adding a new subject, or simply trying something new, “back-to-school” can be an exciting time of rejuvenation and starting anew for home educators. It's easy, though, to get caught up in the whirlwind of curriculum, practices, scheduled events, and educational endeavors that before you know it, the year is halfway over and you wonder where the time has gone. As those with grown children know all too well, when raising a family, the days often seem to pass slowly, but the years pass way too quickly. Continue reading »
5 Easy Ways to Add a Splash of Geography to Your Homeschool
Here are 5 very easy and even enjoyable ways to learn more about our globe without compromising your other studies or losing your kids to utter boredom. Continue reading »
Teaching Money Management: Using Envelope Budgeting (Part 5)
Although the last article examined the fact that borrowing money leads to overspending and poor financial health, it is natural to ask the question, "Just how, then, does one purchase items for which he/she does not have the money?" The answer to that question ties in closely with principles addressed in Part 4: 1) Children must learn to delay gratification and 2) Children must be taught to live within their means. When borrowing to purchase an item is not an option, parents can teach children another method to getting what they want, an approach often called "the envelope system". Continue reading »
Teaching Money Management: Overview (Part 1)
Math, English, History, Writing, Spelling, Science... few would disagree that these should be included in the homeschool curriculum. But one of the unique opportunities homeschooling affords is the ability to train children in areas that go far beyond simply the academic. The ability to manage money can impact a child's future as much as or more than his or her academic knowledge, yet this subject is rarely (if ever) found in a typical public school academic plan. Continue reading »
Tips for Keeping Children Engaged, Part 1
While Kindergarten in public schools generally starts at age 5 or 6, many homeschoolers choose to begin some type of academics much earlier with their children. While every schoolteacher knows that the early elementary years are synonymous with short attention spans for many kids, homeschoolers also have the added excitement of trying to involve children as young as two. Fortunately, homeschooling offers the flexibility to accommodate the wide range of focusing ability that children bring to the table, whether the result of age, maturity, or special needs. Continue reading »
No Curriculum Needed Vocabulary Lessons
Words, words, words! A variety of research, such as that by the University of Kansas, has demonstrated that the number of words children know dramatically impacts their success in other academic areas. While reading to children is one of the best ways to help them gain a strong vocabulary, at some point it is helpful to study vocabulary words in an intentional way. For older children this is often incorporated as part of English or Reading curricula, but for young children, such as those who have just learned to read, what options are there for learning vocabulary? Continue reading »
Homeschool Plan: Debt-Free 4 Year College Degree
How to charting a path through college that will meet student needs and financial goals. Continue reading »
The "Show Me" Letter
A new administrator, unfamiliar with the finer points of the homeschool law, asked for more than the legal requirement. She called to tell me she wanted a list of the books I would be using. Being an unschooler, I couldn't guess what books would grab my kids' interest. Even if I could guess, this was beyond the law. However, I felt this phone conversation was not the time to say so. Continue reading »
Christian Unschooling: Growing Your Children in the Freedom of Christ
For too many years, the segment of homeschoolers that consider themselves "Christians" and "unschoolers" have been ignored. Many thought one couldn't be both a Christian and an unschooler. But Teri Brown with Elissa Wahl expose that not only to Christian Unschoolers exist, they are growing in numbers. Through Christian Unschooling: growing your children in the Continue reading »
A.C.E.
Accelerated Christian Education® has taken the conventionally styled textbook and divided it into bite-sized, achievable, worktexts called PACEs. Each PACE is similar to a unit in a textbook. Each level consists of 12 PACEs in each subject. PACEs integrate Godly character-building lessons into the academic content, and self-instructional activities are carefully designed to develop thinking Continue reading »