End of Year Report Cards

We wrapped up our 2020-2021 school year with my oldest kid graduating from eight grade last Friday. Even though we are not required by Texas to keep records, I do keep numerical grades for math and English language arts, as well as attendance records. My kids get a kick out of getting report cards at…

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I finally made my binding machine dreams come true

(The included Amazon links are affiliate links. If you use the links to make a purchase, you help to support this blog. Thank you!) Once we started homeschooling, we began taking stacks of printed pages to local print shops or office supply stores to have them bound into spiral books. Through the years, I have…

Things to Consider When Shopping for Curriculum

No matter whether you are new to homeschooling or a seasoned pro, there is a period of every year when the homeschooling parent must look forward to the next school year. Deciding on curriculum can be a daunting task. There are so many options: textbooks, living books, workbooks, video lessons, teacher-led, co-op led, etc. First,…

Creating Additions to the Kingdoms and Classification Science Unit from The Good and the Beautiful

Prior to homeschooling, I was a middle and high school science teacher. Creating my own "stuff" to go along with science lessons is just what I do. I came up with a few additions to go along with the science unit we just started, Kingdoms and Classification by The Good and the Beautiful. The unit…

Planning for a year of Magic School Bus

I have been wanting to do this since last year: design a complete year's hands-on science curriculum based on Magic School Bus books and videos. My oldest kid is going into fifth grade. It's now or never. The science lessons for each topic are based on the 5-E method: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate. Engage…

Sewing a sampler

My kiddos are sewing their first sampler. While reading a biography about young Betsy Ross with our Beyond Five in a Row unit curriculum, we started on this sewing project this week. So far, it is a hit. Pinterest provided the idea of using a gingham material for a grid to make stiching easy. I…

Online art lesson resources (free!)

I discovered a gem earlier this year, but did not get around to actually trying it out until last month: online art lessons at ourhomeschoolforum.com. The series is called "Art Through the Year", and now in its second year, there are more than a dozen video lessons to choose from. Each lesson focuses on specific…

Mensa for Kids and next year’s Pi Day Plan (because we did nothing this year)

I sometimes wonder if I could have handled homeschooling pre-Internet. There are some seriously cool resources online. Free resources. So, so many, cool, free resources that it boggles the mind. So many things that are amazing, and yet I will never get around to using them, but I like having those resources in my pocket.…

Why and how we use Life of Fred books

When we first started homeschooling three years ago, I was not sure about anything. I was a high school science teacher teaching first and second grade to my own kids, with no experience with elementary teaching, just a deisre to offer my kids...more. I decided I could do it all on my own, come up…

Homeschooling Austism: Social-emotional learning

My ten-year old is a petite, loving, social, creative, extremely intelligent child (I am not biased, of course, ha!) who happens to have high functioning autism. Homeschooling allows her to have a caring instructor (me) who is deeply committed to a rich education while trying to help her to grow her ability to handle strong emotions, sensory overloads…