Fun with English Idioms
There’s a website sponsoring an art contest this fall, and it’s all about English idioms! An idiom is a commonly-used phrase with a certain meaning that can’t be determined if you considered only the words themselves. For example, the idiom “It’s raining cats and dogs” means that it’s a downpour, not that cats and dogs are actually falling from the sky. Another example is
The Struggling Reader
For quite a while now, I’ve told our co-op teachers that my youngest son is a “late-reader”. “He just isn’t reading quite yet,” I would explain to them, and they would reassure me, telling me they understood completely, and they wouldn’t call on him in class to read. Many people would reiterate what I’ve heard a number of times: sometimes it takes boys a
The Perfect Pet
There’s a new picture book out this fall – and I wrote and illustrated it! It’s published by Sylvan Dell Publishing, a company that combines math or science with a great story. In The Perfect Pet, a child uses animal classification to choose just the right pet. The story begins when Mom says “yes!” to a pet. To help him decide, the child starts
The Story About Ping Craft
When I was teaching the Kindergarten class at our homeschooling co-op, we coupled reading picture books with related crafts. One of the books we read was the classic The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack. This book tells about a little duck on the Yangtze River in China who is always the last one to return to the boat every evening. Because of this,
The Story of the World
The Story of the World series is a great resource for homeschoolers looking for a history curriculum.
Homeschooling Your Third Grader
If your child is 8-9 years old, he’s probably entering the third grade. By now, he’s used to your homeschooling routine and knows what’s expected of him. In this grade, you might choose to continue with unit studies or lapbooking, or you might move more into workbooks and practice sheets. You might begin using a formal spelling or grammar book, or you might have
