Making homeschool decisions easy
Once Thanksgiving has come and gone, we enter the rush toward Christmas. With family, church, and homeschooling obligations it can seem like we are always a little bit behind during the month of December. Why not consciously plan ahead and choose to create a little margin? Homeschooling offers us that kind of flexibility. In our homeschool, we will be setting aside the bulk of our
Morning Time goes by many names: circle time, morning basket, even symposium. In our home this time is anchored by our history study. We read aloud from our spine book, look at maps, and have rollicking discussions. From this firm foundation, we move into individual skill work in language arts and math. But our time learning together anchors and defines our homeschool. My oldest was
The pool is open. The lemonade has been made. The grill is getting hot. Summer is in the air. And homeschooling mothers everywhere breathe a sigh of relief. Another year finished! But as soon as we turn in the final portfolio or take end of the year tests, our thoughts start to turn to plans for next year. Where do we even begin? Excellent published
On any ordinary day, after we have put in a good share of work, you can find us gathered at the table sharing a pot of tea. After everyone is settled with tea and cinnamon toast, I open a book of poems and read one. We might return to the poem again in the coming days. But that’s the heart of our simple practice–tea and
There’s an idea popular in some homeschooling circles that the classical model and Charlotte Mason homeschooling are very different things. The first is for serious scholars, the second is a less rigorous course of study. In her book Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, Karen Glass clarifies both the historic tradition that Charlotte Mason writes out of and the sometimes limited understanding of
At our house handwriting practice was causing friction. My verbal, creative 2nd grader just didn’t like any kind of writing. I was on the look out for something that might change her mind. She liked how fancy my own cursive handwriting looked! Maybe cursive was the solution to our handwriting troubles? We started a program at the beginning of the school year, but she found
People have strong opinions about interjecting morals onto stories. Are Aesop’s Fables improved by tacking a pithy moral on the end? Should we read stories to our kids that aim to improve them? On first glance Laying Down the Rails for Children might seem to fall into such a category–stories intended to help kids form good habits. But what I’ve found, is that really the
For the first three years of formal math instruction, we happily used Miquon Math. We loved the short lessons, the colorful yet not distracting workbooks, and the use of Cuisenaire rods. But the curriculum only goes through 3rd grade. Come 4th grade, we were going to need a new math curriculum. We have many friends who happily use Math-U-See, and we thought about it ourselves.
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