Search Results for: blog some more thoughts on homeschooling more than one

Family Game Night: Say Anything Family

Say Anything Family is a great addition to your family game night. If you do not have a family game night then this is the perfect time to start and the perfect game to start with. Basics of the Game: * Each player is given a dry erase marker, answer board and 2 player tokens. * Choose a score keeper to write down all the scores after each round. * The youngest player goes first and is given the SELECT-O-MATIC 6000. This player is the judge for the first round. The player will select a card and read one of … Continue reading →

Homeschooling and the Work-at-Home Mom, Part Two

The other day, I spoke about working from home and homeschooling, and shared my thoughts on the concept of balance. Today I’d like to talk about involving our children in our home businesses. Our goal as parents is to give our children a solid foundation of principles and skills so they can go into the world as caring, responsible people and be able to create a good life for themselves. You can take your home business and use it as a teaching tool for your children, a way to help prepare them in these areas. 1. As you work your … Continue reading →

I’m The Mom, That’s Why.

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Some days are not my favorite. I absolutely hate punishing my daughter. The house feels like a war zone when it is just the two of us and she is not speaking to me because I’m not being fair. Sometimes I have no choice but to punish her, take away privileges, ground her from something fun. That is when I become the meanest mother in the world. I am constantly second guessing myself.  Was I too hard on her? Did I overreact? Is this just a normal stage and not something I need to head off at the pass? It … Continue reading →

Exposing Children to Catastrophes

This past weekend has been very difficult, to witness the devastation and loss in Japan. It has been heart-wrenching but a good reminder of how precious life is and how much we need to make the most of the time we have. I was listening to a caller on a radio station who was expressing his thoughts on how much exposure our children should receive with catastrophes such as this. Some parents feel children should be sheltered from these horrors but other parents such as the caller, believe that children need to face reality. I tend to lean more toward … Continue reading →

Interviews with Homeschoolers – Vickie Smith, Part Three

We’ve been talking with Vickie Smith, author of The Quiet Doll Queen and president of Ark Essentials Publishing, about her decision first to homeschool, and then to send her children back to public school. You can read part one here and part two here. Vickie, you mentioned that most of your children did very well acclimatizing back into a public school routine, but two of them did have some difficulty. Can you tell us about that? My fourth daughter started in public school- my first daughter to attend public kindergarten. She did well in kindergarten but struggled severely socially in … Continue reading →

Interviews with Homeschoolers – Ali Cross

Today I’m joined by homeschooler Ali Cross, who has graciously agreed to share some of her journey with us. Ali, thanks for being here. Can you tell us how you arrived at your decision to homeschool? I’d always been interested in homeschooling, but when my twin boys were almost five, they hated spending time together, and where one was super smart and loved to learn, the other found his place by being the exact opposite of his brother. So I decided they couldn’t probably learn at home and that they needed some time away from each other. However, when they … Continue reading →

Ditching the Note Cards

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There is, I think, an important distinction that needs to be made between certain types of knowledge and certain types of evaluative procedures. If you read last weeks post you’re probably up to date about my big test and my note card usage. What you might not be up to date about are my thoughts about said evaluation. Currently, I’m studying for a somewhat lengthy multiple choice test evaluating what I think of as memorized knowledge: “Match this to that,” or “Which of the following don’t belong?” or “What year did this event take place in. The problems with this … Continue reading →

Summer of Woes

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Summertime is supposed to be filled with laughter and joy for those in the academic world. The summer is for resting, relaxing, and sipping on iced drinks from a folding chair in the sunshine. Summertime means you’ve completed that final test, graded that final paper, added those final grades to your transcript and have fewer worries until the fall semester begins those concerns anew. This is not true for me this summer and I only recently realized how bad it is going to be. Over 5,700. Go ahead… read that number again. Feel it labor your mouth into forming the … Continue reading →

School’s Involvement in Homeschooling: Question Answered

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In a previous article I addressed the involvement of school systems in the private life of teachers. In the comment section of that article a reader purposed a question to me. In that question I was asked how much involvement I feel schools should have in homeschooling. While I am sure that if my fellow homeschooling writers were asked the same question they would likely reply with the answer “none”, I cannot say the same. I think that it is important for homeschooling families and schools to work together. I feel that they should have a common understanding of what … Continue reading →

Teaching over Their Heads

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It seems to be a common complaint among some students that the teachers do not teach on the level that is needed. It is often said that the teacher may teach “over the students’ heads”. This phrase is particularly common when discussing high school and college level courses. So what does it mean for a teacher to teach over the heads of the students? When one uses this phrase, it means that the teacher is not giving good explanations of the material that is being taught. It does not mean that the teacher is not knowledgeable or qualified in the … Continue reading →