I. Ah, summer. The most magical time of year when homeschool moms pretend to be sympathetic to the frequent complaints from school moms who can’t find enough wine to make being home with the kids tolerable. You have five more weeks with your kids? You don’t know what to do? You can do it, […]
Playful Creativity with Book Spine Poetry
Have you heard of book spine poetry? A friend recently introduced us to this idea as a fun way to collaboratively create a poem. The Adventurer and I decided to give it a try. We gathered books from all over the house – because our favorites are rarely sitting on the shelves – and played […]
Doctor Aviation {Homeschool Curriculum Review}
Aviation isn’t exactly a passion for my kids at this stage, but I thought it would be a fun and interesting topic for them to explore. Sometimes, simply exposing them to new things sparks an interest that I never anticipated. Over the past six weeks, my high school aged daughter has been studying Aviation History […]
Readers in Residence {Apologia Homeschool Review}
Over the past 6 weeks, my youngest daughter (now 10) has been working her way through a brand new homeschool reading curriculum from Apologia Educational Ministries called Readers in Residence Volume 1 (Sleuth). This series is designed for students in grade 4 and up, and focuses on literature, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. Using award winning children’s […]
Exploring The Iliad and The Odyssey {Memoria Press Review}
I was in the 6th grade when I first fell in love with the stories of Ancient Greece. My interest in Greek Mythology led to my exploration of myths from other cultures. I want my kids to love it as much as I do, and The Iliad & Odyssey Complete Set from Memoria Press is providing them […]
Bessie’s Pillow {Book Review}
Over the past weeks, we’ve been reading Bessie’s Pillow A Young Immigrant’s Journey published by Strong Learning, Inc during. The book was written by Linda Bress Silbert, and is based on the true story of her grandmother, Bessie Driezen. The story follows the journey of Bessie, who left Lithuania for the U.S. in 1906, by herself, at the age […]
Creating A Masterpiece {Homeschool Art Review}
Sharing my love of art with my little women is one of my favorite part of homeschooling. Spending a relaxing afternoon creating something new and beautiful never stops being a joy for us. We’ve recently had the pleasure of trying out the Monthly Plan from Creating a Masterpiece, which provides my girls with excellent video based art […]
Creative Freewriting Adventure {Review}
As a writer, the desire to encourage a love of creative writing in my kids is strong. I’m picky about what resources we use in our homeschool writing projects. I want my daughters to be inspired, and approach writing with a positive attitude. My goal is for them to experience the joy of bringing a story from the depths of their […]
Week in Review {Photo Friday}
Have you ever felt like you’ve fallen into a place where time moves more quickly? As if some outside force hit the fast-forward button on your life? I’ve been there lately. So rather than go in deep, and tell you all about the changes (it’s all good), I’ve decided to share snaps of things going on […]
A Quick Intro to 3D Printing
We’ve been watching videos about 3D printing lately, and my girls couldn’t wait to try it out. The Butterfly (13) designed and printed a nameplate for her bedroom door. The Princess (10) created a unique artistic design using shapes. Following a quick lesson on how to set-up and use the 3D Printers, they used TinkerCad to create their designs. So what […]
Rocks, Gems and Minerals (Wordless Wednesday)
The Butterfly is participating in the rocks and minerals event at Science Olympiad next month. This is her first year competing, so we aren’t sure what to expect, but we do know that the preparation has been fun! She and her teammate spent an entire afternoon testing every rock and gem they could find in […]
Make Math Facts Stick with Times Alive! {Review}
Do you have clear memories of being drilled on the times tables when you were a kid? Do you recall the boredom of the experience? Luckily, there is a much easier – and fun – way to get your kids through the process of memorizing multiplication facts. Over the past weeks, my daughter has been using Times […]
Playing with Poetry: 3 Ways to Make Poetry Engaging
Teaching poetry can be daunting. Many young students find reading poetry daunting, or worse, boring. I’ve been asking around and many (if not most) people seem to think poetry is a nice and all, but they aren’t enthusiastic about exploring it with their kids. It doesn’t have to be this way. Poetry is just […]
Raising a Little Entrepreneur
If challenged to create a product to sell, what would your child create? They may surprise you… My youngest daughter (now 10) took a class at our homeschool co-op last semester called Little Entrepreneurs. Over the course of a couple of months, students developed their ideas for a product, created it at home, learned how to design a logo, […]
The Twelve Dancing Princesses {Wordless Wednesday}
The Adventurer played The Old Woman in a recent production of The Twelve Dancing Princesses at Edmond Town Hall in Newtown, CT. The Butterfly played Jill, the quiet, sweet princess who often had her nose in a book. I love watching them year after year, changing and growing as performers. The performing arts has […]
7 Favorite Homeschooling Resources for 2016
I want to start by saying that I don’t believe success in homeschooling is dependent on expensive resources. At our house, curricula and resources are here to help, but they don’t dictate our learning adventures. We often use these materials to guide us, or as a starting point, or we use it as intended for […]
Show Prep, Holiday Prep
Our December routine has been the same for the past four years, and I love it. It also makes me a little crazy, because it’s non-stop activity until I drop, sometime around mid-month. When I recover (around the 15th) I rush to get all of the Christmas planning, shopping and decorating completed. I promised myself […]
Language Smarts {The Critical Thinking Co.™ Review}
For the past six weeks, we’ve been trying something new at our house. My 9 year-old is learning quickly (and painlessly) about grammar, reading comprehension, writing, punctuation usage and spelling using a single resource. I love the thoroughness of Language Smarts™ Level E from The Critical Thinking Co.™. It’s a full language arts program that covers everything a […]
Cooking Up History Micro-Study {Homeschool Legacy Review}
Sometimes it’s fun to take a break from our typical homeschool routine and do something a little different. For a change of pace, we’ve been using a unit study from Homeschool Legacy. It’s the Once-a-Week Micro-Study called Cooking Up History with the Founding Presidents. I intended to use this primarily with the Princess (9), but the […]
MyFreezEasy Personalized Meal Plans {Review}
My least favorite part of the day is dinner time. There was a time when I loved to cook, but lately it has become a chore that I would gladly hand off to anyone willing to do it for me. I’ve tried many times to set and stick to a schedule and plan in advance, […]
