Category: Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)

Last Week was Hard!! Homeschool Realities… 1

Last Week was Hard!! Homeschool Realities…

Sometimes homeschooling is wonderful packed with endless projects and terrific successes. I like blogging about all that. But sometimes life just isn’t like that. This past week was really challenging. We were just coming back from a trip. Who doesn’t struggle to get caught up with life after being on the road? Plus more or less as soon as we got back, Hubby left for a business trip. So while...

Journal Writing, Community Service and More 6

Journal Writing, Community Service and More

We just returned from an amazing vacation. It was exciting, educational and left me inspired and oh so excited about life in general! We packed in so much! That said, I know I’m behind on lots of things — for one thing I usually have blog posts ready a week or two out… but having been on the road for so long, I’m plum out of posts (except the Wednesday...

Last Year’s Homeschool Plans (Grades 1 and 3) 0

Last Year’s Homeschool Plans (Grades 1 and 3)

Yesterday I laid out some of the plans we have for this year. For those who are new to my blog I thought you might be interested in looking at some of the plans I had for last year (Fall 2011). Our focus in geography/history last year was on the USA and (some) American history. There was a lot of material that we covered that weren’t in my initial plans/post...

Our Homeschool Curriculum (Grades 2 and 4) 6

Our Homeschool Curriculum (Grades 2 and 4)

Lots of people have shared their school plans for this next year in the not-back-to-school blog hop: curriculum week.  In fact, I shared our preschool curriculum plans several weeks ago. Now finally, here are our basic plans for DD and LD this next year.  While they work on their own levels for math and language arts, we do most of our other units together. As you’ll see, much of our day...

Organizing Our Homeschool Room 6

Organizing Our Homeschool Room

I’ve spent a lot of time reorganizing our homeschool room this year.  I know lots of other homeschoolers are sharing pictures of their learning spaces in the not-back-to-school blog hop.  I thought I’d share some photos of our homeschool room as well. In the picture below you see our 3-ring notebooks, the craft table, LD’s writing desk, a bookshelf and DD’s desk (back by the window). A lot of our...

Clutter and Organization vs. the Sentimental Heart 1

Clutter and Organization vs. the Sentimental Heart

The past month I’ve been trying to organize and tackle various parts of the house. Professional organizers have all kinds of hints for getting your life in order. Things like only handle paper once don’t organize clutter if you haven’t worn it for a year, get rid of it if they haven’t played with it for six months, box it up, if they don’t ask for it for another month...

Fitness Game for Kids —  Bakari 0

Fitness Game for Kids — Bakari

A couple of months ago I featured a fitness board game called Flip2BFit.  My kids really loved it.  Today I’m going to review a similar product they put out called Bakari.  It is a fitness memory game. The kids have been itching to play that as well and we finally got a chance to play it. It was a huge hit too!  I thought it’d be perfect to feature today as we’ll...

Rethinking Chores 6

Rethinking Chores

I have a confession. We have never found a chore system that works right for our family.  It’s not that the kids don’t help out, but daily checklists, wall-mounted chore sheets, even our assigned chore system didn’t work.  This summer when I got together with one of my best friends, she asked what we do for chores.  I had to stutter and admit to her that we didn’t have a...

Gymnastics Awards 0

Gymnastics Awards

This is just a proud Mama moment. When we moved to the States from Australia, we noticed a gym fairly near where we live.  LD had enjoyed gymnastics overseas and it seemed like a good activity to have the kids in during the heat of summer and cold of winter. It helped fill the ‘phys ed’ part of our homeschool.  Now two years later, the kids all still love their...

Short-Term Goals and Planning: Our Upcoming Homeschool Units 6

Short-Term Goals and Planning: Our Upcoming Homeschool Units

This is the fifth post in a series about planning for the new school year. Here are the previous posts in this series: Here are the questions I consider. This post looks a back at our school year. I talk about what went well and what could use some improvement. I talked about how I  assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I talked a lot about...

6

Long Term Homeschooling Goals

This is the fourth post helping describe how I go about planning for the new school year. Here are the previous posts in this series: Here are the questions I consider. This post looks a back at our school year. I talk about what went well and what could use some improvement. Yesterday’s post talked about how I  assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I...

Homeschool Workboxes 8

Assess Your Homeschool Philosophy: Are you happy with *how* you are homeschooling?

There are so many different styles of homeschooling and each family will pick and choose the elements that suits their homeschool style. If your homeschooling is anything like ours it evolves continually as you find what suits each child. Some of the homeschool styles you may have heard about include: Classical education Charlotte Mason Montessori Unschooling Unit Studies Virtual Homeschooling Waldorf Eclectic Living Books — Well, I’ve never heard anything...

American West Activities 2

Looking Back at our Homeschool Year

I started a series of posts to help explain how we plan for the next year.  In yesterday’s post,  I listed out the questions I ask myself as I plunge into the planning process. The next few posts I’ll tell you my answers to these questions. I’ll also tell you some of the books, websites and other resources I use in the planning process. Today, I’m going to look over...

A Fun Fitness Board Game for Kids: Flip2BFit 0

A Fun Fitness Board Game for Kids: Flip2BFit

I have had the privilege of reviewing a new board game called Flip2BFit.  This is so much more than a board game — it’s a full fitness workout!  The kids and I had so much fun with this game. On the first day we tried it out, they liked it so much that they made Dad play it when he got home from work. The kids really enjoyed all the...