-
How Poker Chips Saved My Sanity
A few years ago, I realized that I was outnumbered by children in my house. I know that is a logical conclusion when you have three kids and two parents, but the reality can sometimes catch you off guard. When the kids graduated out of toddlerville, I needed to come up with a way to manage and handle all of the expectations, chores and rewards in our house. I tried chore charts, stickers, and posters. I attempted morning motivational meetings where we set up the expectations for the day. I wrote out a daily schedule of events. I set up consequences and rules. None of it stuck. But then came poker…
-
Homeschooling facts in the U.S.
We’re constantly being asked really odd questions about homeschooling our kids. (Do they leave the house? Do they visit with other kids?) I find it fascinating the perceptions that people have of us. This infographic was amazing for the facts and revelations about homeschooling so I thought I would share it. I had no idea about many of these things! Source: TopMastersInEducation.com
-
Homeschool project: Twitter
I’ve been a homeschooling mom for going on three years now. When you walk into our house, you can tell we homeschool. We don’t have a decorating scheme or layout in our living area as much as we have a classroom. There are massive maps stuck to the walls and print outs of memory verses all around the house. We have globes and binders and notebooks….oh my! One of the things we have in our living room that always intrigues people is our twitter board. I adapted it from something I found on Pinterest. It’s really easy to do and the kids enjoy posting their thoughts. (And no, I…
-
Back to School! Um…wait. I Homeschool.
Summer’s over! Time to get back to school! For those in public or private school, uniforms are being purchased and supplies are sitting in nice orderly stacks just waiting to be used. Right now they’re neat and tidy – not a mark out of place. No torn covers or bent pages. Those crayons and pens and notebooks have worlds of untapped possibilities. It’s exciting! But I homeschool, so things are different now. Instead of rainbows of crayons and colors, my get back to school involves plotting schedules and choosing curriculum. The organized and savvy homeschooling parents have already chosen their curriculum and many of them are already into their school…
-
Iron Man is Swimming in My Lemonade Part 3: Homeschooling Lessons – Curriculum!
If you’ve been following my recent posts, you’ll know that I’m sharing some lessons that I’ve learned while I’ve been homeschooling. (Iron Man is Swimming Part 1 and Iron Man is Swimming Part 2) Today’s topic has been one of the biggest learning curves for me and our whole family as we’ve gone through this process. Curriculum. We’ve used several different styles of curriculum during the course of our homeschooling years and with each one, we’ve learned something that we take with us to the next one. The first year we did an ‘online’ curriculum that promised us virtual classrooms with very little need for parental involvement. For this newbie…
-
Iron Man Is Swimming in My Lemonade Part 2: More Homeschooling Lessons
Yesterday I started a short series about homeschooling with “Iron Man is Swimming in My Lemonade.” Today I’m talking about a few more lessons learned in my homeschool journey. Calendar: Public schools are required to complete all of their curriculum standards within a 180 day window. That’s about six months give or take holidays and snow days and such. This seems like a lot of time, but really – it’s not. In our lessons, we chose to take some extra time on some subjects and topics. We found that a lot of things were glossed over or missed in fundamentals, so we spent more time there. But the biggest thing we…
