Search Results for: blog can you really fail at homeschooling

Dealing With Interruptions In Your Work Day

Sometimes, it is easy to manage your time when you run a home-based business. You set your work hours, choose a planning and organizing system either on your computer or smartphone or on paper and use it religiously, and there you go. Often, things are not that simple though. Your work time becomes riddled with interruptions and your non-work time also gets invaded by work-related interruptions. What is a home-based professional to do about all of these interruptions – the emails, phone calls, and even mail and package deliveries that seem like small things but can really eat into your … Continue reading →

Homeschooling makes them more successful

A big difference between public schools and homeschooling is that homeschoolers work to make sure all kids are successful, where public schools work to make sure a select few are successful. This might sound harsh, but shools tend to set a single standard that all kids must acheive or fail, while homeschoolers move the standard, or allow alterations of approach so that all kids can be successful. Some might argue that you can’t expect all kids to do well in school as you would get more of the “everyone wins” touchy-feely stuff that handicaps children. After all, what does an … Continue reading →

African American Homeschooling, Increasing the Odds

According to the Manhattan Institute, The national graduation rate for the public school class of 2000 was 69%. The rate for white students was 76%; for Asian students it was 79%; for African-American students it was 55%; for Hispanic students it was 53%; and for Native Americans it was 57%. In addition, Florida had the lowest graduation rate among white public school students with 60%, followed by Tennessee, Georgia, and Alaska. (Black graudation rates are even lower) As a parent of black children living in Georgia, you could say that the odds really are against my kids. Now this is … Continue reading →

Perceptions of Homeschooling from the Media

I just read a 10 page article on homeschooling that showed up in my Google Alerts today. It actually turned out to be dated Oct 5, 1998, but it came to my email box as new news. Still, there were several statements in this article about homeschooling that caught my eye. I will address them below. “Americans are becoming fussy consumers rather than trusting captives of a state monopoly,” says Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “”They’ve declared their independence and are taking matters into their own hands.” I don’t think that … Continue reading →

Don’t Give Your Baby Water to Drink

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I have posted before in the forums that giving a baby water to drink is dangerous. (And just to be clear, we’re talking about babies under 6 months.) It can cause malnutrition because instead of filling baby’s tummy with breastmilk or formula, you’re filling baby’s tummy with water. Simply put, water doesn’t meet the nutritional needs of a baby. Most parents know not to give water to a healthy infant, but failure to thrive syndrome and water intake are sometimes associated. However, I was unaware that giving a young baby too much water to drink can also cause water toxicity. … Continue reading →

Scrapbooking Your Way Through History: Step by Step Directions

Recently I shared that we were scrapbooking our way through history in lieu of doing lapbooks. I tried lapbooks but honestly, it just didn’t work for me. (That’s not to say I wouldn’t give it another try as I feel like my kids learned a ton!) I have already posted about materials you need and I promised to give step by step directions. . .so here they are! Step 1 Gather Your Learning Materials Decide what you’re studying and what you think is important. This is a “response” project meaning that you do it at the end of the unit … Continue reading →

Spoil Your Sweet Tooth with My Ghirardelli White Chocolate Chunk Blondies

Martha Stewart says that when you make things with chocolate in them, if you want really fantastic results, you have to use the best ingredients that you have available. Ghirardelli, in my opinion, is the best chocolate that is readily available. Domingo Ghirardelli (pronounced: GEAR-ar-deli), was an immigrant from Italy who thought he’d strike it rich in the gold rush. Thankfully for us, he didn’t and instead began a company to sell supplies and treats to miners. He was destroyed by one of San Francisco’s great fires in 1851, rebuilt in 1852 and had a series of failed businesses. But … Continue reading →

Why I Lied to My Neighbor about Homeschooling

Yes, I lied to my neighbor about homeschooling. I got tired of every single conversation with her being about my kids’ socialization and education. I did it hoping that she would leave it alone, but I do not think she will. She did not seem like she believed me. The conversation started when I went outside to talk to my husband in the driveway as he cleaned the lawn. She was in the midst of telling him how to do our yard and was giving my husband gardening ideas for the spring. (Do you notice a trend here?). Anyway, she … Continue reading →

Publicly Educated and Can’t Research

This is not a tirade against the public school system so if you’re looking for something to bash public schools you’ve come to the wrong place. However, this is about one sadly researched article ironically entitled “Homeschooling Researched” by Katie Criss. In it, Miss Criss explains why she is against homeschooling with her research. On a side note, I contemplated not responding to this. After all, I’m not obligated to read, comment on, or even think about poor arguments or badly written essays. Then I thought about parents who were on the fence about homeschooling, I thought about the poor … Continue reading →

Our Failed Lapbook

I wrote quite some time ago about how I would include you all in our process of creating lapbooks for our co-op science class. Then our co-op changed gears a little due to a variety of reasons, and I stopped lapbooking with them. Then I started to study the Arctic circle with my children. We decided to lapbook it. I had visions of beautifully scrapbooked blue, and silvery lined pages teeming with information. Ahem. . .we are finished with studying the Arctic circle. . .and there is no lapbook. Yep, our lapbook project failed. At first, I didn’t really see … Continue reading →