Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
I mentioned a few days ago that I’ve been seriously reassessing how our homeschool runs. I’m pretty excited about some of the changes I’d like to make– creating more structure yet giving them more independence, or another way of putting that… creating academic work time yet giving them freedom within that, working with them on goal-setting, creating the environment that gives them that autonomy.I read the book The Montessori Controversy...
I love these pictures of other people’s learning spaces. I learned about pinterest from Laura (of My Montessori Journey) who now homeschools her two boys over at Walnut Hill Homeschool.
Another reason to by thankful this month… About a week before we went down to visit my sister and her family, my niece found a stray kitten. They took her to the vet, gave her shots and generally looked after her. Although they just bought a farm, they couldn’t really keep the kitty. They asked if we’d like her. So on the return trip home we stopped in to pick...
I was chatting with a friend of mine whose daughter is in ED’s gymnastics class. She mentioned that her Mom was down-sizing and getting rid of lots of stuff. At one point they homeschooled and had some “kits and stuff” they wanted to get rid of. Since LD is so into science I went to have a look. I don’t know if you can tell, but this is PERFECT for...
I’ve been doing some reading and re-reading of Montessori philosophy this summer. I thought I’d share my thoughts about how our studies — specifically our USA unit study — fits in with my interpretations of Montessori teaching in the early elementary grades. As I have three kids spanning the two age groupings (both 3-6 and 6-9), I use elements from both. **We will be starting the year by creating paper...
I made some Montessori 3-part cards for the kids for our study of some of the well-known landmarks and symbols of the United States. These cards include landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the White House, Mount Rushmore and more. You can download the US Landmarks and Symbols Cards at this link. We used these cards by talking about where they were located and placing them on our giant...
When we start back into our school year LD and DD are going to learn some basic facts about the world in which we live — the largest continent-Asia the largest country-Russia the largest ocean-Pacific the largest desert-Sahara the tallest mountain-Mt. Everest the longest river-the Nile has been long thought to be the longest river, but an expedition in 2000 found the Amazon River to be 64 miles longer. world...
American Landmarks, Symbols, Basic Facts We are going to study some basic facts and symbols of the United States with this unit study. Things like US geography (rivers, mountains, time zones) famous landmarks American patriotic songs the US flag the Liberty Bell the Statue of Liberty, the Great Seal etc. etc. Here are the topics we’ll be covering over a two or three week period (or so) in this introduction...
I have been doing lots and lots of planning and preparation for this next year. One thing I fell short on this past year was utilizing the amazingly wonderful art resources at Art Projects for Kids and Deep Space Sparkle. I went through Kathy Barbro’s website, Art Projects for Kids and printed out a lot of her lessons on how to draw…a lighthouse a bunnya cator another cathens and chicksa...
Are you looking for German materials for kids? I found a goldmine!!!! I am SO excited about the German language flashcards and resources I came across. If anyone is teaching their young ones a foreign language, you might want to check them out. The drawings are cute cartoon style. They offer flashcards/word sheets in German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese (a few of these sheets are even in Portuguese and...
Her are a few of the printouts I’ve made for when we start back up with German after our summer holiday. The kids know very, very little — just the numbers 1 through 12, some animals and some of the colors. Basically, we need to start over. Our German-learning is pretty much all conversational. That said, it’s been useful having DD’s poems hung up in near the dining room table....
We set up two slip-and-slides on the “not so steep” section of our yard. The kids had a blast! LD went so fast he’d shoot past the the end of the second slide and continue onto the grass another 7-10 feet! And by the way, LD is blurry because of speed!
DD has been devoted to harvesting the garden. She goes down almost daily to gather lettuce, carrots and snap peas. She washes everything, cuts it up and makes us a salad. It’s so sweet — and wonderful to get them so excited about eating veggies! She makes ED wash her hands to come eat a salad. “It’s like I’m the Mom,” DD told me proudly. Look how tall the sunflowers...
Last year my sister’s three homeschooled kids each wrote a novel. I hope to get a chance to read their work when we visit them. Her kids are 8, 11 and 13. Amazing! It’s not yet our season for writing things like that, but someone in one of the groups I visit shared this link for kids who plan to write their first novel. Here is the elementary “Young Novelist”...
