Designing a home-centered life: learning, exploring, and creating with our five littles
[UPDATE: This article is originally from Aug 2013. I'm republishing it for this year. Last year arriving early was a total flop! Being very sick from pregnancy put the kibosh on that plan. I was just very grateful for getting out the door at all and a Dunkin Donuts on our route to CC. :) I have high hopes for this year, but also an infant. … [Read more...]
And this picture pretty much perfectly describes homeschooling with a preschooler in the house. This was us last year. My daughter would climb onto the schoolroom table and try to gather up as many pencils, erasers, etc as she could. I snapped this picture, because in this moment it was so, so funny to me. Despite the ridiculous distraction … [Read more...]
Growing up, I just loved shopping for back-to-school supplies…perfectly sharpened yellow pencils, clean lined paper, cute three-ring binders, a fun new lunchbox and sturdy backpack. Does it get any better? Okay, perhaps it does. ;) But, this is fun for me. Want to see our back-to-homeschool supply list favorites? Here they … [Read more...]
When scheduling our year of homeschooling, I consider two parts: 1. a daily order and 2. a yearly plan. Because I think of our daily schedule as more or less an order for our day rather than a strict time schedule, I like to keep it simple. Well, generally speaking I like to keep things simple. :) I do write with times though, because it … [Read more...]
Friends, please welcome my friend and fellow CC mom, Becki Hogan, back to the blog today. Becki is an avid reader and enthusiastic learner. In their home, Becki and her husband Seth have created a lifestyle of learning that I find infectious! Want to know more? Start here with how they use books in promotion of that lifestyle. We love … [Read more...]
Admittedly presentation prep is the oft forgotten task of our homeschool week. This past year it too frequently came down to Sunday afternoon, which worked okay, but I was often left thinking we could've done more or they would've been more prepared if we started earlier in the week prior. (Our campus meets on Monday.) There … [Read more...]
Guys, I'm a firm believer in the the classical model of education and believe it will only work for us, if we work the model. As a result, at home we approach our memory work in three basic ways: review games, classical notebooks, and reading. So, as I'm planning for this next year, I'm1. Selecting a rotation of review games. … [Read more...]
My husband laughed at how excited I was when I first thought of this simple trick for packing my littles' clothing for our most recent trip. But, despite his good-natured ribbing, I knew from experience that even though I carefully selected outfits for each of my littles (play clothes, church clothes, visiting great-grandma clothes, etc) … [Read more...]
I learned a valuable lesson recently. What I do during our school day, in addition to teaching, matters. If I get derailed while teaching my children, they get derailed in learning. Perhaps this should have been obvious to me, but it took me a little bit to realize this. And the worst part? I get a bad attitude. I get … [Read more...]
Before this year began, I made one quick, inexpensive change to my schoolroom organization, which has really paid off. I added this desktop file organizer (here's one like it) to a shelf in my schoolroom cabinet to hold my teacher's guides. Last year I tried them stacked on each other or leaning vertically like books in a library. … [Read more...]