Homeschool
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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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Our Classically Mason Day
Let me say first off if you haven’t yet read the post Classically Charlotte Mason you may be a bit lost. Second, I’ll add, we don’t have a true schedule. What follows is our routine. Subjects shift in order from day to day and their instruction times flex as needed. The schedule below is using our Jr. High curriculum. This is just our basic every ordinary homeschool day. I hope it encourages you to make your family homeschool your own. Bible and Reasoning We try to do this in the evenings as a family and so it doesn’t’ feel like actual “school work” even though it is. It takes about 15 minutes…
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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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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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Summer Break From CC
Whether the core of my home school year was 24 weeks or 30 weeks long, by the time end of year celebrations roll around I’m exhausted. My brain has absorbed as much new data as it can store and the time has come to reflect, relax, and reboot. My kiddos feel little different. They too are drained and strained to their limits. They may be sad to say goodbye to the weekly promise of friends but inwardly they’re done with the push. One tiny problem… in most states 24 to 30 weeks does not a school year make. Add to that the tension and worry of summer time’s sieve…
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Minecraft Mom
Bonding with your growing manchild
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My Old New Project
Why be content with a blog, when you can write a book? This is exactly what I'm in the process of doing.
