People all learn in different ways, right? I was the kid in school who pretty much always learned new concepts quickly. I am the person the public school system is designed for. My kids are not. They’re not slow learners they just don’t learn that way. Earlier this year I found Times Tales, which is…
I’ve never been very good at Scrabble even though my mom is a whiz. I’m happy to get a 3 letter word down and she isn’t happy if she doesn’t get at least one BINGO in a game. We’re just on different Scrabble levels. So activities like making a word out of a bigger word…
How do you get your kids interested and invested in reading? I’ve mentioned it a million times now, but again, Logi-Bear is so close to reading. He wants to read and happily works with me, but I feel like he still needs a bit more work with letter sounds before he’s truly ready. But I…
When kids are little they work on sorting all the time but it’s one of those subjects that just gets left behind. However, sorting can become so very complex. Venn diagrams are great for people who learn visually. Venn diagrams themselves are not that complex but it helps to introduce them using familiar ideas. Being…
Sometimes you discover an activity that is perfect for your child in every way. It can be a very rare occasion, but when you find it, you have to just do it. Logi-Bear loves dinosaurs, wants to learn to read, has been enjoying sorting into syllable “teams”, and really likes having little cards and booklets…
Handwriting isn’t really a big focus for us in homeschooling but I do want my kids to be able to write legibly. I have horrible handwriting and always have. In fact, my first bad grade was handwriting in 3rd grade. I cried…a lot. Some people have good handwriting and some people don’t. So my goal…
One reason we wanted to homeschool the boys was to encourage them to think, not just recite. Sometimes reciting is appropriate, but the ability to think through a problem or issue is a talent that is learned. And it’s not learned quickly but through practice. So many books, TV shows, and people just want to…
Teaching math can be one of the most fun and most frustrating experiences. I love math. As Lindsay Lohan said in Mean Girls, it’s the same in every country. Math is a constant. But teaching math can be it’s own beast. Especially at the beginning, which is where we are with Logi-Bear. The funny thing…
The boys are super into dinosaurs so I really wanted to impress on them how long ago dinosaurs lived, how long they lived for, and for how short a time humans have actually been on this earth. I really like the idea of timelines and had planned to make one for all the history of…
We’ve been practicing a LOT of addition facts. I’m of the belief that having memorized basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts simply makes life easier. But we don’t drill because that’s boring and not the most effective method. Nope, we don’t drill. We play games. Lots of games. Board games are popular with the…