Category: Homeschool Encouragement

1

Thoughts on Teaching: Meaningful Teaching Activities

Have you noticed that the longer  you talk, the more the kids’ attention wanders? People’s brains stay sharply focused only for short periods… I think I’ve read figures of between 10 and 20 minutes for average kids. But of course, the more interested  you are in a subjects, the better able you are to sustain attention. The key to education then is transforming students from passive receivers of information to...

0

Homeschooling is Like Coaching an Olympic Sport

To become an expert, I’ve heard it takes 10,000 hours of hard work and practice.  But, it also takes a special teacher, coach or mentor to get to that elite level. Just as top Olympic coaches help motivate and train their athletes by keeping track of every work out and by designing plans and drills that work, we homeschoolers/educators keep track of our kids’ learning, observe their strengths and weaknesses...

1

Thoughts on Teaching: Life Happens

This post is completely different post than the one I intended to write this week. Why? Because life happens! I don’t have the time to dive into that topic in the way that I want.  I was going to write a post on fostering creativity and being engaging as a teacher/homeschooler… How ironic because today was the antithesis of that! In fact, we had to settle for a bare-minimum type...

0

Thoughts on Teaching: A Story of the Wise Teacher and the Student

Not long ago, I heard a story that has really been bouncing around in my head.  It left me thinking a lot about my role as a homeschooling Mom/teacher… and about my kids’ roles as students.  I am going to do my very best to re-tell that story in this post today. I’m not sure of its origin.  In my version of this story, the wise teacher is a female,...

0

Thoughts on Teaching: Getting Organized

So in my last post, I talked about how I really wanted to start off my mornings strong.  I realized I needed a Power Morning Routine to make sure that *I* was energized, refreshed, focused, and prepared.  You can read more about all that in this post: Thoughts on Teaching: Creating a Power Morning. But, along with that I really needed to make sure I was completely organized. I think...

0

Thoughts on Teaching: The Power Morning!

I really want to do a series called “Thoughts on Teaching.” Why? Well, I’ve been reading a lot lately and have been excited about some of the ideas I’ve come across. As I process all that, I always want to write about it.  May as well bounce my ideas with my online reader friends, right?!! Do you ever need a private cheerleader… someone to pat you on the back and...

0

Was your homeschool year a success? 20 Questions to Consider

In my mind, a successful year goes far beyond tests results, awards won, or pages covered. Homeschool success comes in unconventional ways… The days we spent hours snuggled together reading and crying together over a book.  The days we tried an experiment… and failed!  The times we laughed hysterically while doing our work.  Or when we stopped our “work” and focused on being kinder to one another.  When we learned in non-traditional ways — on...

0

High Standards and a Nurturing Atmosphere

I am drawn to books and stories about amazing teachers and inspiring mentors who help their students achieve greatness. What are great teachers teaching students along the way?  To love learning. To learn and think for themselves. And to work hard on the fundamentals.   The common thread among many of the inspiring books I’ve read is that great teachers set high standards for all of their students. They believe in...

0

Homeschooling Detour

Sometimes homeschooling is a delicate balance of Mom’s energy, the kids’ energy, and all the other things we have going on. It’s not unusual for us to take an abrupt, unscheduled detour along this educational journey of ours! As many of you know, we are studying the Middle Ages this semester. But, with everything else we had going on we stepped away from history for a couple of weeks. (We had...

0

Can I Tell You a Secret?

Don’t tell my kids… but I’m pretty tired…. not with school itself, but with being the mediator.  It’s mid-semester for us and I’m not as patient with the kids as I should be… well, or a better way to put that is that the kids are really grating on each other’s nerves and I can’t always nip it in the bud. We’ve had to have talk after talk about treating...

0

Homeschool Motivation – 10 Ways to Keep Going!

It’s mid-winter. It’s cold and there’s still plenty of school left in the semester.  How do we keep ourselves motivated to homeschool? I’ve been thinking about that a LOT lately. When working with the kids, it’s not just having the activities ready, the books out, worksheets printed out. It’s the smile and positive energy that really inspires our homeschool. In that regard, there are times when I’m not doing my job.  Call it...

Homeschooling After the Holidays 2

How to Start Homeschooling After the Holidays

The holidays are almost over… Two or three (or more!) weeks have gone by since you last “cracked the books”…  The “normal” homeschool routine is a thing of the past…  Are you feeling ready to start back into homeschooling? Here are some of the things I try to do before we jump back into our homeschool routine. 1) Make Sure You’ve Really Had a Break! If you have spent the...

Making Learning Active, Engaging, Relevant & Memorable! 4

Making Learning Active, Engaging, Relevant & Memorable!

After spending time talking about all the homeschool curriculum choices, I really wanted to talk about what excites me most about teaching and homeschooling… the possibilities!! It really doesn’t matter what curriculum you use… anything can be used as your spine… but (for me) education is going beyond the books. It’s all about the passion, the excitement, the hard work and intensity that comes with learning. When you have those...

2

What are Some of the Benefits and Challenges of Homeschooling?

The past week or two, I’ve been doing a series of posts about homeschooling… trying to address the incredibly challenging question, “How do I start homeschooling?”  Now that I’ve (more or less) finished talking about the nitty gritty issues of curriculum, I wanted to spend a few days talking about some of the more nebulous aspects of homeschooling.  Today I want to talk about some of the benefits and challenges...