See the Sign! Sign Language for Students
The house is suddenly a noisy, messy place with a rambunctious one year old crawling all over the place and a nine year old running around with spy gadgets and a plastic weapon cache. In the midst of all this, our baby girl had begun to communicate by making frustrated little whining sounds. I was feeling irritation creeping in recently when I heard my
Independent Cooking
Yesterday was my daughter’s first birthday. My son asked what he could get her and I replied he could make her something. He thought for a long time, and finally announced he wanted to make the cake…wait for it…FROM SCRATCH! By himself. Be still my heart. I am obsessed with cleanliness. If I’m honest, and I am, I have to admit I didn’t want
Kyoto Box
Science experiments are almost always a fun way to spend an afternoon, mostly because they don’t seem like ‘school’. The residing young scientist flourishes after such activity because it’s an instant way to connect the dots. A few weeks ago, we were cutting out pictures from old magazines and we came across an article about a Climate Change Challenge won by a Kenyan man
Letterboxing
As I have mentioned in the past, my adventurous boy loves treasure hunting. We have been avid geocachers for about a year. Recently, a friend turned us onto something similar and just as fun called Letterboxing. It is, like in geocaching, a treasure hunting game/ sport which uses clues written online by other Letterbox enthusiasts to find a hidden box or treasure! This is
Independence
I remember the days when my hand always held my little boy’s hand. Everywhere and for everything. Walking from the bedroom to the kitchen meant holding hands. So it has been with homeschooling. Reading together, working through math worksheets side by side, molding sea creatures out of clay, drawing and painting together, our hands knocking as they create on the paper. I think we
Get Organized with Engrade.com!
Just like a teacher in a traditional school, a homeschooling parent often has a lot paperwork to keep up with, including lesson plans, evaluations, and record-keeping. I’m not always the most organized person, so for me this has sometimes been quite a challenge. As with any job, however, it helps if you have the right tools, and for me, Engrade.com is one of them.
LIVE stream
There are wonderful places to explore right where we live. Museums, zoos, state parks, wild beaches, galleries, lakes, trails, mangroves, marshes, sports events among others. It’s an amazing feeling to see and experience these things in person. Part of our homeschooling routine includes almost daily trips because the first hand experiences seem to garnish the best sort of learning. For example, when we visited
Critical Thinking
Once upon a time, when I was employed as a trainer, critical thinking was the hot buzz at that time as the skill to have to move up the corporate ladder. However, it had always been my impression that the most successful and or interesting people were those that could think on their feet and solve complex problems both at work and in their
Slaying Monsters
Our lush backyard, at sunset, makes for the perfect setting in my son’s make believe game, which takes place in the Amazon (the subject of today’s lessons). He stalks a monster, a horrific creature who will break any living thing in half. The bow and arrow he worked on tirelessly to create are held high, in the ready, to kill this monster. My son’s
Science with Nancy Larson
Saxon Math author Nancy Larson is still at work developing new products for teachers and homeschoolers, only this time in the area of science! Nancy Larson Publishers now offers a science curriculum for ages 6-11 that includes botany, zoology, anatomy, astronomy, and more! The curriculum is divided into three levels: Science 1 for ages 6-8; Science 2 for ages 7-9, and Science 3 for
