Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
As homeschoolers we wrestle with a lot of questions, issues, and challenges: planning, preparing, organizing, scheduling, juggling, managing (moods/squabbles) AND getting things done. Plus, we have the added challenge of having our kids watching us and learning from us every moment of the day! “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” ~John Cotton Dana As we look at a new year (or even when we look at the...
I am excited to share with you some bran-new spring planning pages. They’ve been add to our free 150+page Homeschool Planner! Over spring break, I’ve been doing a bit of homeschool organization. Not only have I gone through out books and pulled out things to donate, but also I printed out new pages for my homeschool planner and have been spending time planning out the last 6 or 7 weeks...
Free Homeschool Planner! (Newly Updated!) I have updated our (free) yearly homeschool planner to include a step-by-step guide on the homeschool planning process. This 50+ page packet is not as much a traditional Homeschool Planner as a tool for planning out the coming year. It includes some of the questions to ask yourself (and your kids!) as you start planning out the coming year. It has you consider how the school...
Hands-On Homeschool Activities Your Ultimate Hands-On Homeschooling Guide Make Learning Memorable, Exciting, and Engaging! I wanted to let you know that I added a New Page: Hands On Homeschool Activities. This is a page (rather than a blog post), so I wanted to link to it here – for those of you who come to the blog from time to time to check out our latest posts! (As a new page,...
Free Mid-Year Homeschool Assessment Packet About this time of year, I get itchy. I know that the holidays are coming up and we will take a well-deserved break! Right around the holidays, I also take the time to think about how things are going. Today, I wanted to share this Free Homeschool Assessment Packet with you (I updated and expanded it a bit this year.). This packet has several pages...
History Portfolio Projects have student focus on one theme, topic or time period and can include an array of writing, art, and geography assignments that are compiled together in a final product. While we did a couple of portfolio projects when the kids were in elementary (age 8 -10 or so), Portfolio Project really become a powerful tool during the middle and high school years! History portfolio projects require students...
This post is both for first-time homeschoolers who are wondering where to start and for veterans who are looking for some inspiring teaching strategies to get the kids completely engaged day-to-day! Since I’ve gotten a number emails/messages asking where to begin I thought I would write a post to say You CAN Do This!! This post may also have some useful resources/activity ideas for those of you who have been...
This is a checklist of things you can do now, to get ready for the new school year! Is part of your end-of-summer vision to feel prepared for back-to-school? This checklist will help you slowly and steadily get ready for the new school year! It is mid-summer, but lingering in the back of our minds is that school will be here before we know it. We want to take advantage...
This is always one of my favorite posts to write. It’s my chance to reflect back on the year and all the things we managed to accomplish! Sometimes in the short-run it can feel like we’re not getting much homeschooling done. You know how our homeschooling can go… we’re interrupted for activities, illness, errands, appointments, or the occasional blahs. But then when we step back to look at the bigger...
I really love pulling together these Year in Review posts because it is my chance to reflect on the year! Looking back, I realize just how much we managed to fit in. Let me jump right in! Here are some highlights from our school year. History in Our Homeschool (Grades 9, 7, 4) Oregon Trail When we started back to school, I worked with my oldest quite a bit on...
Have you ever been rendered immobile by the thought of everything that needs to be done? Overwhelmed with a list of things that you need to do for the day, let alone thinking about the week or month ahead? I think we all are from time to time… the trick is to keep chipping away at things little by little, one step at a time! Have you ever stayed with...
How do I get started homeschooling my middle schooler? How do I know what to teach my 6th, 7th or 8th grader? This free 30+ page Homeschool Curriculum Resource Guide provides some insight into how our family is navigating the middle school years. There are some basic checklists in each of the subjects from language arts and math to science, history and foreign languages. This guide includes some of the...
We had a really long, really lovely spring break. One of the really fun things was visiting a zoo where we could all feed the kangaroo, camel and other animals. That brought us fond memories of living in the Outback. Down below I will share some old photos of the kids from our days in Australia (we lived their for 12 years and the kids were all born there)… but...
I have a new (free!) Mid-Year Homeschool Assessment Packet to share with you today! You might be doing this kind of evaluation and planning over the winter break, but I wanted to share this packet with you sooner than later. This Thanksgiving break, I took the opportunity to really reflect on our homeschool year so far and assess how things are going. This was a natural time for me to...
Browse through 50+ hands-on activity ideas in science, engineering, history and more!
