Homeschooling with Toddlers

The key to successful homeschooling with toddlers is preparedness. Knowing this now, as I do, all the year round I keep an eye out at garage sales, thrift stores, and craft blogs for activities, inexpensive ones, that will keep a toddler’s attention. I don’t spend much money on busy activities for my toddlers, and...

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Getting to Know Hannah

Your family is… full of joyful mayhem! Name 5 homeschool products you cannot live without: Flip Over Math, the great outdoors, our microscope, books that reaffirm our faith such as those by Liberty Press and Rod and Staff, and great classic books for family read-alouds. What was your favorite toy as a child? baby doll, of...

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Seeing Creation Through the Eyes of a Child

Among the many and varied reasons for choosing to teach our children at home, right at the top was our desire to give them a Biblical world view.  Down the line somewhere under that was the desire to not bore them with learning.  When we brought those two desires together with the subject of science, I was a bit apprehensive...

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Biga Bread

Wintering here in upstate New York, the snowdrifts pile up to the stop signs and the temperatures lately have been too cold to let the kids play outside.  We hibernate indoors, slippers, sweaters and lessons.  By the wood stove, a bowl of delicious dough soaks up warmth.  Fresh warm bread from the oven, sliced thick with...

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Walking through the Valley

“..though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…” (Psalm 23:4) These age old words we’ve all heard, I remember memorizing off a scripture card when I was six. But somehow, at thirty-one, which I am now, I’ve been traveling a spiritual road ever...

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Review: Free Range Learning by Laura Grace Weldon

“A natural education is complex and purposeful.  When each person is empowered to learn as it suits him or her, the process of discovery is invigorating.” Quoted from  Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything: This book is a meaty one, textbook size and three hundred and four pages long and I steadily...

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Book Review: Easy Homeschooling Companion

Someone who thinks the way I do, who loves her children and home and life in similar ways, recommended this book, which I ordered and picked up from the library. I’m so glad I did. It came along with me on trips to the beach, rides in the van, and visits to grandparents. It, 3×5 cards, and a pen were my companion for...

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How to Take Awesome Photos of Your Kids

photo credit: Christine – From Storms to Sunshine We’ve all been there.  Perfect photo op time, perhaps on a sunny summer vacation, with visiting grandparents, or the first milestones of life but then (oh then!) when we are handed our photos from the kiosk at Walmart or upload them onto our computer, we see that...

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Helping Your Slow Reader

I’ve taken surveys of all my homeschooling friends, shrugged off the comments from ones whose children taught themselves to read at age three, and have persevered these last three years that we’ve been teaching our second child how to read. If I hadn’t successfully taught one child how to read, I probably...

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Evaluating the Year

New Year’s isn’t the only time for evaluation, homeschooling mamas (and papas) know.  There comes this certain time every year when our hearts and minds turn towards what is coming next.  Examining and critiquing the past year of lessons, I’ve found, is a great resource for planning and preparing for...

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