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A Year in Cloth
WARNING: POST CONTAINS MAMA TALK AND GIRLIE TMI You’re grouchy and weepy. Your back is aching. Your stomach is swollen and you’re exhausted. You don’t have to check an app or a calendar to know what time of the month it is. Dashing through the store, you toss the familiar plastic package or cardboard box into your cart. You hate their embarrassing crinkle and ignore the health warnings on the side of the box. What choice do you have? Aunt Flo is on the way and you need to stock up. Worse, you’ve been too busy to notice your usual monthly aches and pains. You chuck up your insomnia to…
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Questions about Dyslexia
AKA THINGS I’M ASKED ALL THE TIME After publishing Diary of a Dyslexic Homeschooler, more and more of my acquaintances and friends are asking me about dyslexia. And not just the surface skipping question. Oh, No. They’re asking deep, nitty-gritty, open the underwear drawer, getting personal questions. Though I’m not shy to share my family drama, this story is not all mine to share. Yes, my book was inspired by family experiences but I’m not trekking the journey on my own. Though I do have permission to share, I will not divulge anything I believe may come back to haunt my loved ones. That and I am no expert. I am…
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Keys to Free your Struggling Learner
My struggling learner was different from birth. She has, this mystifying and mysterious form of eye contact. It is nearly its own language. She’d spend hours talking to me without words. She studied everything from the comfort of my lap, snuggled and sedate. She smiled and twinkled, as her brother performed for her infant eyes. When she did begin to speak, she talked in an accent and often flipped syllables in her words. Turing words like magazine into mazageen. She’d work for long minutes, explaining and describing simple objects, like broccoli, instead of using their names because you could not remember what to call them. Friends at church or at…
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Classically Charlotte Mason
Our family homeschools. For the last few years, we’ve also belonged to a community of homeschoolers who educate using a classical approach. We love our community. We love the conversations. We love our curriculum. What we don’t love, so much, is the unrelenting workload. Teachers, aka Parents, are encouraged to scale back the lesson plans to meet the needs of their individual children. We’ve done that with great success. Even though some of our community’s celebration seems solely focused on perfection, our family makes a deliberate choice to hone in on progress. This is no easy task when everyone (at least it feels like everyone) but your family goes home with a…
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Dyslexia and
Your student learns differently. You’ve studied and trained and adapted your homeschool to help your little one shine. There’s only so long you can protect them. But there comes a time when things like reading and writing take over the educational spotlight. This happened to our family last year. We belong to a community of classical learners and at nine our students are asked to migrate from clapping and chanting into discussing and asking questions. While a totally optional part of the program, my student watched her peers merge into this writing and grammar intensive course. She counted up their birthdays and noticed she was a year older than…
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Blue’s Clues,Together Time, and the Challenge Years
Keep Together Time Alive Long before I considered teaching my children from home our family had adopted the habit of morning time. We’d come together, open God’s word, pray, read, play and discover the world before separating into our individual routines. How did this begin? I didn’t have an epiphany as I read the scriptures. There was no correlation between how Jesus bonded with and taught the 12 that brought about our quaint routine. At the time, I had never heard of Pam Barnhill, Sarah Mackenzie, Charlotte Mason, or any other homeschool savant. I hadn’t even read a single book on child education. No, Bean, my then 3-year-old, came…
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Family Read-A-Thon
What’s a Read-a-Thon? Sick and tired of television and Kindle addiction? I was! My family seemed sewn to their magic boxes of flashing lights. I, also, succumbed to the siren call of the screen. The comfort of the couch, the ease of switching off and tuning in to a storyline or game that always ends with a pleasant theme song and usually a burst of laughter. I get drained. Vampire style. But shutting down to turn on the TV was leaving me and my family hollow and a bit harried. We snapped and snarled at minor interruptions. Glares of angst and bitterness were hurled at a hug needing child or parent. …
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Rockin’ Summer
Summer offers freedom for students. Homeschooled students are no exception. But what is a mom to do when days of fun in the sun turn your kiddos into grumps in the dumps? Especially when mom needs a brain break, the boredom bug has bitten and the whines have commenced? I want this… I think that… I need this… aye! Here’s one activity my family discovered that took the focus off of self and onto others while having a blast. Rocks of Kindness Here’s how it works: Find Rocks: Gather an assortment of rocks. Smooth is best but the kind really doesn’t matter. You can purchase them from the dollars story…
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First Cozy Mystery
Get the first chapter of my up and coming novel for free!
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Minecraft Mom
Bonding with your growing manchild
