Homeschooling Help

Service projects are not only a terrific educational opportunity, but also a perfect venue for teaching your kids compassion and love for others.

Planting a garden to beautify your community, making meals for new Moms or individuals who are unable to move around easily, creating a bulletin board for your home church, helping with the campaign for a local politician . . . all of these are terrific opportunities for your children to gain valuable learning experiences while also learning the importance of service.

I have found that the various service projects our family has engaged in have been invaluable to my children’s education as well as their character development. Not only are they developing basic skills such as gardening, following directions to create delicious meals, artistic ability, organization skills . . . but also compassion, love, kindness, generosity, honesty, humility, and more.

Technorati Tags: The Value of Service - Homeschool Community Service Pro

read comments (0)

In the state of Pennsylvania homeschoolers must maintain an education portfolio, which must be reviewed and approved each year by a certified teacher. Although this law can be a burden, I am grateful for two reasons.

One, I can look back on my school year and see how far my children have come; how much they have learned; and how much fun we have had.

Second, as an evaluator, I have gained valuable insight into what works and what does not as well as ideas for learning that I would never have come up with myself.

Technorati Tags: Real Life Homeschooling - Using Unschooling to Compleme

read comments (0)

Having trouble motivating your child(ren)? When it’s time to do school work are your child(ren) less than enthusiastic? You are not alone. Here are a few good tips and suggestions that will make your homeschooling experience more fun and hassle-free.

Technorati Tags: Motivating your Homeschooler - Top Ten Ways to Motivate

read comments (0)

Have you ever read, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” or “If You Give a Moose a Muffin?” That mouse and that moose characterize my oldest child to a T.

Technorati Tags: If You Give a Homeschooler a Project - "If You Give a M

read comments (0)

I am a teacher.  And as a teacher, I love introducing my children to new things.  Then, I like to let them be creative with whatever it is I’ve just introduced to them.    But just this weekend, I watched as a five year old discovered a magnet set for the first time.  The set included six round magnets and a bunch of paperclips, nails, and other metal objects.

Technorati Tags: Let Your Homeschooler Explore - The Value of Independen

read comments (0)

Someone asked me today what the difference was between Saxon Math and Singapore Math.

The difference is fairly simple.  Saxon’s instruction is cyclical.  It provides instruction, gives clear examples, then gives plenty of practice.  It will then cycle back to review the concepts again later in the course (often with practice).  Saxon does include some critical thinking skills, but its primary goal is to help students learn the skills involved in math. Therefore, you will find a lot of repetition in Saxon Math.

I usually recommend Singapore for students who have strong math skills. Singapore approaches math with the goal of developing mental math skills.  It begins by teaching a concept, providing some practice, then taking the concept further with mental math activities.  With Singapore, you will see a lot of  word problems as well as graphs for analysis, etc.  

Technorati Tags: Homeschool Math Courses - Saxon vs. Singapore Math

read comments (0)