I hate winter. Hate it. I’m from Florida and, whenever the temperature dips below about 60, I’m done for the year. But when you’re homeschooling, you can’t just opt out of teaching during the cold. I know. I’ve tried it. So that’s why I wanted to find some ways to make winter homeschooling fun! TheseKeep Reading…
There are lots of studies that support the value of extra-curricular activities for kids. According to some, playing sports (in particular) improves a child’s overall academic performance. But does that apply to homeschoolers? After all, homeschooling is a very different type of education than public schooling. Homeschoolers usually have more time to spend pursuing theirKeep Reading…
When was the last time you recited the order of the planets of the solar system? It’s been a while, right? So when we started working on learning the solar system with Pooh recently, I had to do a little…ahem…refreshing myself on the topic. In the last few years, scientists have decided that Pluto noKeep Reading…
The very thought of homeschool homework might seem like a contradiction. One of the biggest pros to homeschooling (at least for my kids) is that they thought they were getting out of having homework every day. And it’s easy to see why. One of the biggest cons to public school is the sheer amount of homeworkKeep Reading…
How many of you out there are either homeschooling or thinking of homeschooling? How many of you are homeschooling happily? Making the decision to homeschool is a tough one, but one that usually brings a lot of excitement. As your homeschooling journey continues, though, you’ll start to face some challenges that can make learning at homeKeep Reading…
It’s the middle of September and we’re nearing my favorite time of the year: fall! Which gave me a perfect excuse to share some of my favorite free fall printables for kids! We’ll be using several fall themes for unit studies with our kids in the upcoming weeks, including leaves, farms, harvest, and apples. IfKeep Reading…
It’s the start of a new homeschooling year and, for many of us, that brings a ton of excitement about our new books, our new curriculum, and the kids’ new grade levels. But we’ve been at this homeschooling thing for nearly ten years now and I’m here to tell you that the excitement… is goingKeep Reading…
We’ve always been rather creative in the ways we homeschool. While the idea of schooling at home might conjure up images of hitting the books from 8 to 2 Monday through Friday, we’ve never done it that way. Frankly, that doesn’t work for most homeschoolers. Instead, we structure our lessons to get done in aKeep Reading…
If you’ve been around the homeschooling world for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard of families who homeschool year round. In fact, we’re one of those families, so if you haven’t met someone before, you have now! Choosing whether to homeschool year round can be a tough decision to make. Which is whyKeep Reading…
Back-to-school is an exciting time of year, especially when you homeschool! With new ideas and a fresh start, there is a lot to celebrate. Homeschool parents usually ooze excitement and you want your kids to get excited about the beginning of the homeschool year also. Here are 25 fun first day of homeschool ideas toKeep Reading…
I just love homeschool planning season. Many homeschoolers start planning for the new school year during late spring and early summer. In our family, though, homeschool planning season is practically a year-round event. Even after almost ten years of homeschooling, I’m always looking for new homeschool planning tips that will help us along our journey. AfterKeep Reading…
We all know that reading is (probably) the most important skill a child should learn. Without reading, you can’t really do, well, anything. But we don’t just want our kids to read because they have to. We want them to read because they want to. And that means making free reading an important part of everyKeep Reading…
I just love summer. It’s basically what makes life worth living. To me, anyway. The sun is out, you can walk around in flip-flops all day, no one cares if you eat ice cream for breakfast – it’s a good time of year. The kids and I tend to take a more relaxed approach toKeep Reading…
When I started to write this post about how to prevent the summer slide, I realized that this may not be an issue that affects homeschoolers as much as public schoolers. If you’ve ever had a child in public school, you might have heard of the “summer slide”. Basically, it’s the brain drain that occursKeep Reading…
The question of what to do when you have too much homeschool curriculum might seem like a strange one to ask. The more curriculum, the better, right? Well… Remember when you first started homeschooling? Did you look at your bookshelves and imagine them filled one day with gorgeous picture books, beautifully-illustrated encyclopedias, and resources yourKeep Reading…
Learning about how to talk about the weather is a great way to build a foreign language vocabulary. Just think about it: How many times a week do you mention the weather in English? A lot, right? I think I must tell my kids “It’s windy!” a dozen times a day. Especially when I needKeep Reading…
We have been homeschooling for nine years now and, over the years, I’ve heard many parents express reasons why they feel they can’t homeschool (even though they’d like to). The reasons I’ve heard range from “I’m too broke to homeschool” to “I’m not a teacher” to “I’m too busy to homeschool my kids”. But myKeep Reading…
Brrrrr!!! Winter is definitely here! It got down to the teens here today, which is exceptionally rare here in Georgia. So I thought it would be fun to feature some great winter activities for kids! Winter is not my favorite season, not by far. There’s something about cold weather that just makes me want toKeep Reading…
When you take on the responsibility of teaching toddlers and preschoolers at home, it can be a challenge to come up with new activities that will hold their attention. We’ve gotten to homeschool four little ones in our homeschooling journey and each one of them has been different. They’ve had different interests, different learning styles,Keep Reading…
Fall is a great time of year to learn about nocturnal animals and owls are no exception. We don’t see a lot of owls down here in the South, but we sure hear them after dark. When I was a kid, owls were kind of scary to me. But now that I’ve learned more aboutKeep Reading…
Our preschooler is raring to go for kindergarten this year, so when I was considering what we’d use as our primary curriculum, I looked around and tried a few things. We love using apps to reinforce what she’s learning, but I also wanted her to have some hands-on kinesthetic activities to help her really “see”Keep Reading…
