I’m approaching my 24th year of homeschooling, and I recently posted some thoughts on my personal facebook page. My friends said they were encouraged by my post, so I thought I’d share it here as well. I am not a perfect home educating parent. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, and I’m sure I’ll make plenty more. In… Read More »Homeschooling Thoughts
Our day began in a flurry. We were generally not looking forward to the task at hand – having a complete stranger evaluate our homeschooling progress for the year is daunting no matter how well prepared you are. We needed to drive over an hour away and bring along enough samples of each student’s work to show aptitude and sufficient… Read More »Unfolding the Day
Teaching children at home has become the new normal for many families this year as schools struggle with new guidelines and restrictions for classroom learning. For families like ours who’ve been homeschooling for years, it’s just another year. But for those who are wading through all the information and advice for the first time, it may be overwhelming. I… Read More »Homeschooling Helps: Use Living Books
I thought I’d post a little bit about our homeschooling schedule. Every year looks different depending on the ages of our children and what outside events need to be covered (like driving an older child to and from work/school). This year I’m only homeschooling three – Emma, Sophie, and Silas – so our schedule is a lot easier… Read More »Homeschooling, Year 20, Our Schedule
It’s been a long while, hasn’t it? I thought about making this post a “What I did this summer” essay. Remember those from school? I might still do that, but I wanted to check in and say that we’re all alive and well and, well, so very, very busy. I really don’t like the “busy” part, but that’s the season… Read More »Well, Hello There
As a homeschooling mom, I’m often on the lookout for great resources for our children to learn, preferably low or no cost, preferably easily accessible. One of those resources we use a lot is Art for Kids Hub, a channel on YouTube. I don’t remember when we started using them, but they’re a great resource. They give the kids drawing… Read More »Homeschooling Resources – Art
A rambling post for Friday. In our homeschooling, the Littles just finished learning all about the moon. They learned about eclispes, and walking on the moon, phases of the moon and how the moon causes our tides. And then today, in a perfectly serendipitous happening, we read Rudyard Kipling’s story of The Crab that Played with the Sea, which is… Read More »The Moon, The Crab, Symbols and Art
We’ve been working more on the kitchen. The pictures aren’t pretty, but they’ll show you the current state of things. Our new stove is in and working. It’s a 36″, 6-burner stove. I love the extra room I have and can actually fit my two largest pots and pans on the stove at the same time. Dinner prep has (almost)… Read More »The First Week of September
There are days when we do every scheduled subject, read every scheduled book, work on every scheduled project. Those days are really good days. They don’t happen as often as I’d like, but they do happen. Most days aren’t like that. Some days, especially days after a very busy time, whether it’s extra appointments, extra errands, recovering from an illness… Read More »Sweet Schooling
The girls have been watching me while I work on embroidering doll faces and they asked if they could do some hand stitching as well. It’s been a while since I first taught them how to embroider. Like so many things children learn, they’re interested for a while, then set it aside for a time. There’s something magical that happens… Read More »Teaching Them Embroidery