When I go out in public with my four young children, people make a lot of comments ranging from “Are they all yours?” to “Wow! You have your hands full.” But last week, while making a quick stop at a local grocery store, I heard a comment that I hadn’t heard before. An elderly gentleman […]
3 Steps for Making Progress in Your Summer Homeschool (Printable)
Several families I know homeschool year-round. They do it for a lot of reasons, but two stand out as being particularly compelling. First, they benefit from a more flexible schedule. Second, they avoid losing ground academically because of a long summer break. My family circumstances doesn’t allow me to homeschool year-round, but I too want to […]
Lessons from Our First Year of Homeschooling
Nineteen. As I write this, there are only nineteen more days left in our homeschool year. Only nineteen more days until our first year of homeschooling is nothing but a memory. So what have I learned so far on this journey? Here’s my list of the good and the needs-to-be-better lessons from this year. The […]
The Gift of Dependence
I will never forget the day that I became a mom. I will always remember holding my tiny (5 lb., 2 oz.) daughter for the first time, seeing her slate-blue eyes gazing up at me, and watching her tiny mouth open wide for a big yawn. And I will never forget that first night. She screamed […]
Homeschool Outside with These Ideas (Printable)
Lately, my homeschool has been plagued by spring fever. Warm air, bright sunshine, blooming trees and flowers, playful squirrels, and visiting birds have all conspired together to distract my children. And I can hardly blame them for being distracted. There are days when I, too, would much rather be outside soaking up the sun than […]
How to Homeschool with an Infant Without Losing Your Mind
When my husband and I started homeschooling our oldest daughter last fall, we knew it was not going to be easy. I wondered if we were crazy—here I was, mother of three children under the age of seven trying to educate my oldest daughter, keep my five-year-old and toddler out of too much trouble, keep […]
The Benefits of Studying Poetry
Tomorrow I get to teach a poetry lesson from Reading 2. My second-grade daughter and I are going to read Lillian Moore’s beautiful poem “Until I Saw the Sea.” I’m pretty excited because I get to introduce my daughter to an important literary device: imagery. My second grader, however, isn’t quite as excited as I am. She would […]