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.

Most importantly, I am challenged each year to be flexible. To allow my children the freedom to explore their own interests and take their passions further. Some of the most successful programs I have evaluated are those where the family takes advantage of field trips, specialized classes, and their own creative minds to branch out beyond the curriculum.

This year, I have made it a point to use many of those ideas in my own homeschool program.Because we use Bridgeway Academy’s self-instructional curriculum, I am able to concentrate my efforts on creating hands-on, real-life learning experiences for my kids that definitely give them an understanding for their topics that they would otherwise never have gained.

When we studied matter, we had fun collecting examples of matter from all over the house and yard, classifying it and designing our collection to present to Dad when he came home. The girls not only found interesting solids, but also a huge variety of liquids and even a helium balloon to represent gas.

Later, when their curriculum took them through the Middle Ages, we created our own coat of arms, designed a knight’s armor, built a medieval castle, and wrote our own ballads. We visited a local horse farm where we were able to actually sit on a war-horse and see the incredible difference between the shoes for that horse and the horseshoes we are used to seeing.

My second grade daughter studied salmon migration in her Animal Science course and we spent part of a day wading in a local river to feel the swift current and try to grasp the incredible journey that the salmon take up river to lay their eggs.

Later we took our study of rodents to the woods where we scattered some pecans and stepped back to watch the action. Yes, we do see squirrels and chipmunks quite often in our area, but we don’t often stop to really see them. On this day, we watched carefully to see how they approached the nut cautiously, sniffing for danger, how they used their tails to support them as they raised themselves up to scan the area or to eat their treat. My daughter filled us in on all of the facts she had learned, “teaching” us all about the squirrel and rodents in general. What a terrific experience for a middle child!

Field trips to local museums, the zoo, Science centers, living history museums, factories. . . these are so valuable and teach them so much! Do not be afraid to take a day or even a whole week to explore the educational opportunities that surround you!

It is far too easy to get wrapped up in sticking to the curriculum rather than branching out and allowing our children to develop a passion for learning. Bridgeway’s curriculum makes it easy to branch out—take the time you would spend writing lesson plans to create real life educational opportunities for your children. I guarantee they will remember them!

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