Search Results for: blog homeschooling days the family journal amp writing

Phonics, Whole Language, and Teaching Literacy

Warning: if you’re looking for the definitive step by step instructions on how to teach a child to read, you won’t find it here. However, if you’re at the beginning of your schooling journey, and you’re at a loss as to what to teach for reading, this might be the place for you to start. Decades ago, phonics used to be all the rage. Phonics is the systematic instruction of the sounds of the alphabet. Kids who study phonics memorize blends and learn things like “Two vowels get together and they play a game, the first vowel speaks, it says … Continue reading →

Charlotte Mason: What’s the Point of Copywork?

In this series of posts on CM methods, I’ve covered several of Charlotte Mason’s ideas about education. Today, I’d like to touch on one that doesn’t always get quite as much coverage as “living books” and narrations. Copywork was advocated by Charlotte Mason as a way to teach handwriting, but also as the best way to teach spelling and punctuation rules, sentence structure and basic grammar. It was her theory that reading and copying excellent literature would lead to excellence in composition skills. I’ve used some of Miss Mason’s ideas about copywork and have been really pleased with the results. … Continue reading →

2006 in Review: Homeschooling Blog at a Glance

As a new homeschooling blogger at Families.com, I wanted to know everything that has been discussed to date. In response to my own curiosity, and in an effort to make perusing our articles easier for you, our readers, I have compiled all of the blogs for the year 2006. Deciding to Homeschool Why homeschool Am I qualified for this? Reasons that Homeschooling Works! My Most Important Advice for Homeschoolers. The Cost of Homeschooling Instead of standing up for their own kids, why not stand up for all kids? Disclaimer: I am hardly an expert in education. Did You Know? ‘Empirical … Continue reading →

The 31 Most Talked About Blogs of 2006

Although there are lots of great articles here at the home schooling blog, not everyone has time to leave a comment. However, we bloggers love comments on our blogs–or at least this one does. I also like to look for other blogs with comments as a tell tale sign of a great article! How does a blog qualify to be on the most talked about list? I have included blogs that had to have at least 3 comments on them. Here is a look at which blogs gave occasion to comments in 2006! People comment when they can relate to … Continue reading →

What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Language Arts

* Reading silently for purpose I want to note here that while this is a second grade suggestion, your child should begin reading silently as soon as he is capable. * Dramatizations and interpretative or oral reading This is simple to practice while your child reads out loud to you. Start by asking your child to note punctuation such as question marks or exclamation points. Then encourage him to use inflection with his voice as is appropriate. At first, it may seemed forced but in time, your child will learn to read with feeling. A note on why this is … Continue reading →

A Homeschooler’s Advent Calendar: ‘Tis the Season for Writing

I awoke this morning (way too early) to the joyful sounds of five children climbing into my bed. They were enthusiastic, they were gleeful and they were ready to begin their day. I suspected that they were ready to conquer the world but I was wrong. What they were actually ready to do is give me (for at least the tenth time) their Christmas wish lists. Even the 18 month old twins got in on the act. Somehow they managed to circle a remote control robot car (I suspect with the significant help of let’s say. . .and older brother!). … Continue reading →

The Sunday Evening Review: November 18th

I’ve decided to rename our ‘Week in Review’ in the homeschooling blog. I always review the weeks on Sunday evenings and well, I just like the name better. So although it’s the same blog where you can look up the week’s worth of homeschooling blogs, it has a new name! We are steadily working on our list of things that your child should know. I want to make mention again that these lists are compiled from a few “expert lists”, including (but not limited to) the World Book Typical Course of Study. This week we covered What Your First Grader … Continue reading →

The Week in Review: Oct. 8 – Oct. 14

While I’ve taken a few days off this week, exciting things are happening here at the homeschool blog! If you’ve missed any this week, here is our week in review! We began our week discussing the reading part of our homeschooling days. This is a new series where we’ll discuss teaching tips and tricks that are especially effective. We’re also discussing these in our homeschooling forum. If you’re from North Carolina, you’re in luck! We focused our review of state laws this week on the State of North Carolina in Homeschooling in North Carolina. If you’re not from North Carolina, … Continue reading →

Homeschooling Days: The Family Journal & Writing

Welcome to the second blog in our series Homeschooling Days. We’re talking about different activities in our days that we add to make home schooling more exciting, or rewarding for our kids. This is the place for our brilliant teaching strategies and I just want to remind everyone to feel free to add their insight to our forum. Today, we’ll talk about ways to inspire our creative writers. Ways to Kill the Desire to Write I find it hard to talk about ways to encourage budding writers without talking about what discourages them. One sure fire way to squash the … Continue reading →