Homeschooling has not only made the transition to this new life relatively smooth; I believe it has been instrumental in making it possible in the first place. Using a relaxed homeschooling style somewhere between unschooling, classical, and Charlotte Mason, our “school” is filled with lots of classics and the arts. Had they gone to a regular school, we would have been tied to all day in a classroom with nights filled with homework, leaving little time for extracurriculars. Instead, we finish our core subjects by noon most days, which leaves our afternoons and evenings open for things like musical theater, dance, learning instruments, vocal practice, amateur film-making, photoshop, and sports like swim team, gymnastics, boxing, and a host of others. Having the free time to explore all sorts of different interests and pursue them to whatever degree of excellence desired is in my mind one of the best gifts I can give my children.

My background is musical, with a Master’s degree in Music, so it was natural that the children would learn music at an early age, although I had no particular aspirations for them. My only hope was that they would become proficient enough to take a wonderfully expressive hobby into their adult lives. The fact that the girls fell in love with it enough to be able to take it to this level is mind-boggling to me!

In 2007, they decided to form a vocal group. In 2009 they combined their musical and video-making efforts and put up a YouTube video that got 23,000 views overnight. A manager from London saw the video and picked them up within the week; and 8 months later a record deal was signed and we moved. Fortunately, I was able to graduate my three oldest girls at a young age, so they all had about two or more years of college finished when they had to take a break for all the writing and recording (another plus to homeschooling!). One of the most encouraging things, however, is how the girls have embraced the idea of being good role models and bringing some good clean fun back to the world of pop music, which has unfortunately moved farther and farther away from anything resembling family values in the last few decades. Character has always been at the center of our homeschooling.

The five boys are also musical; the oldest one is pursuing his own musical dreams (including writing for commercials), and the others are younger, so they haven’t decided yet what they want to do, musical or otherwise. Right now they’re enjoying the beach and the other wonderful things the southern California life has to offer while scholastically focusing on their core subjects. And that is one of the other beautiful things about homeschooling — transitions can be taken at our own pace, and we have the luxury of time to experiment with whatever strikes our fancy.

If you would like to check out our music, please go to: Cimorellitheband

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Lynne Cimorelli and her husband Mike have been married 25 years and live in sunny southern California, where they raise their 11 children. When not schooling or in the recording studio, they are likely to be found on the beach or exploring new areas of this vast metropolis they now call home.

Growing up I did not like school and especially science, my favorite subjects were history and English. Homeschooling my children has broadened my interest in various subjects, one being science. I have realized that one of the reasons I did not like school was because it was something I was required to do. As I grew older and schooled my children I found my interest in knowledge growing.

Not only did I grow to like science through educating my children on the topic, but actually started understanding math I never understood before. In the past I found myself indulging in one of our favorite places, the library. As the children searched for either the next book in the current series they were emerged in or something new to read, I too searched. I have always had an interest in business and for two years read everything I could on the topic.

I’m going to back for a minute to when I was in my late teens early twenties and decided I wanted to learn how to type. I had dropped out of high school so I decided to take non-credit courses at the community colleges. I took typing and learned to type and then I found other classes I was interested in; journalism, psychology and more. While I did not get actual credit for those classes it was fine with me I could just take whatever interested me instead of having to stick to a schedule full of classes I had no interest in, now back to the present.

My husband had to work on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day so we celebrated on the 26th. We had a wonderful lunch with the family played a Monopoly type game on the WII and my oldest son and I watched Midnight in Paris. My husband soon realized the only reason my son and I had an interest in the movie verses him and my younger son is because we both write, the movie is about a writer. At the end I thanked my son for sharing that with me, he had already seen it, and asked if he was interested in learning more about any of the famous people in the movie. He hesitated and then said Ernest Hemingway. That was so perfect, he was my pick also, we decided right there we would read his biography together along with one of his works.

I love the fact that both my oldest son and I share a love of writing and I look forward to starting our study of Hemingway. I will use this as high school credit for literature and glean more knowledge. You may be thinking what is the point of this? Never stop learning, help develop a love of learning in your children through mutual interests. Sit down with your children as you and them create a bucket list of learning. What things have you always wanted to learn or do and never had the time to or just blew off? What things would your children like to learn more about or even learn how to do? Now compare your lists and see what you have in common and make an attempt to learn about it or how to do it.

My learning bucket list includes some of the following, learn how to create with stain glass, make pottery, read music, kick boxing, stick fighting and more. My youngest is interested in stick fighting also so maybe one day we will do that together.

Share with us what have you always wanted to do and let us know it this has encouraged you to pursue it?

Joyce Wheeler is the mother of three and has been homeschooling since 1997. She has one daughter, already graduated, a son she is homeschooling through high school, and the other is a junior high student. Currently she is re-organizing her nonprofit organization, Education Jump-Off. Her mission is to aid in the education of the world’s greatest natural resource, the children, and “never stop learning” is her personal motto. A blogger and free lance writer you can find her at Homeschooling High School and Baton Rouge Homeschool Examiner.

My boys were destined to study martial arts. Their father is a black belt in one karate style, went so far as brown belt in Aikido, and is currently a brown belt in a second karate style. Watching their father practice and test has always been a part of my son’s childhood.

I, however, grew up in a certain church tradition that was very leary of martial arts because it was assumed that they integrated ‘dangerous elements of eastern religions.’ I naturally assumed that line of thinking was absolutely correct.

But then I met my husband. He had already been practicing karate for 8 years and he was a solid, thoughtful man who served the Lord. In addition to good-humored, loyal and playful, I found him to be disciplined, attentive, straightforward and sincere. It turns out that that the martial arts weren’t a dangerous arena and in fact this practice had helped him develop those fantastic characteristics.

My older two boys are now a red belt in taekwon do and a blue belt in American freestyle karate. Both of them love their sport for different reasons. They love that they get to wrestle, punch and kick. They love the connection they have with their dad. And I think that they love acting on that manly desire to defend and protect. But there are other things that they equally love even if they can’t quite articulate them:

• Practicing leadership. My oldest son’s favorite days are when he leads the warm-up time. My middle son’s sensei continually comments that he is a natural leader. Both of them are patient teachers to the lower belts. They’re not in it just for themselves, but to help others. When everyone can practice the art with skill it makes the art worth doing.

• Practicing perseverance. Before you can learn the art of anything you have to learn the science behind it. Practicing forms for an hour may not be their favorite activity, but they slowly see improvement, continue to move up in belt color, and they feel physically and mentally stronger. Persevering through the long practices continues to drive home Persius’ quote, “He conquers who endures.”

• Practicing respect. Sparring too roughly earns the offender push-ups, as does being late and forgetting one’s belt. With every direction that is given in class the students respond with “Yes, Sir!” or “Yes, Sensei!” They are working with an obvious authority and are giving them due esteem. Not only are they respecting authority, but they are learning to respect their own bodies, their place in space, and their peers. It’s a fantastic practice for life.

In addition to building great character qualities, practicing martial arts has helped my boys with their differing special needs. At one time I would have argued that my oldest was ADHD. I’m not so sure any more. More and more I’ve seen him take instructions with grace, transition better, display good manners and focus. Granted, these things don’t happen all the time, but because he’s regularly in a taekwon do class that specifically requires these things of them I can’t help but think that it’s made some of the difference in how he relates to the world.

My middle son is dyslexic. There are plenty of studies and articles that support the practice of crossing one’s midline in order to increase reading and writing skills. My dyslexic husband remembers having to learn to crawl as part of his beginning therapy and practicing karate gives my son the same benefits. His reading has taken off and his writing is slightly more legible. Again, as a part of a balanced therapeutic and academic regime, karate helps in building those pathways in his brain.

We have one more son who is still a bit too young to tie a belt on the right way. But in time he may find is own place in a dojo. Martial arts has been just one of the building blocks of our family life. What began as a great way for my little guys to get some energy out has grown into a lifestyle and discipline that has helped prepare them to be the young men they are designed to be.

Debra Anderson has three sons ages 11 and younger. Her passions are education, mentoring, her husband, writing, church ministry and missional living — not in that order. She has her seminary Masters degree in Christian Education, is married to her pastor-husband of 16 years, and resides in their newish home in Denver, CO. In spite of moves between four different states, she has always home educated her boys — even on the hard days. She maintains a blog at www.emergent-homeschool.blogspot.com.

When children begin learning a second language at birth, they have the capacity to learn them without getting confused — because, as the brain develops, so does the ability to separate one language from another.

Why learning a second language? There are many reasons but I think that in such a global environment now, you never know what you might need. Will a second language interfere your children’s English ability? Studies have shown ,and experience has supported, that learning another language enhances a child’s English ability. Children can learn much about English by learning the structure of other languages. Everyday vocabulary also helps children learn the meaning of new words in English.

This time we will learn 3 new colors: gray, black and white in Spanish

My goals for this lesson:

• To introduce new colors gray, black and white in Spanish
• To sort colors in a mat
• To relate colors in their oral and written form

I introduce Tacky, the penguin puppet and told my kids lot of funny things about him. It seems to be a very funny penguin. He is very friendly, too. He loves playing with snow and swimming in the cold sea.. And guess what? He is also learning Spanish!

Tacky told us he learned 3 new colors in Spanish:

• Gris / Gray*
• Negro / Black
• Blanco / White

We played “Tacky says”- our version of Simon says- and we had to look for gray, black and white things around us. If we found something of that color, we named it in Spanish. We gathered some of the objects and then sorted them by color. We also brainstormed more things white, black and gray.

*Note the British spelling of Grey

To practice and consolidate the new colors I made this filefolder for you. Teachable moments are there waiting for you! Happy teaching!  You can download the printables here.

Analia Capurro is the designer and owner of Ingles360.net® and the author of all the educational resources sold in her website. After 20 years of teaching children she found that the only way children love learning is if teachers love learning and teaching, too. Promoting a learning environment where laugh, fun and friendship and companionship are as important as any language structure, are the things she had in mind while designed her bilingual resources.

Glass jars can easily be turned into an inexpensive Christmas gift. I like to use the 8 oz pickle jars, as long as you wash it well, the smell will go away. I usually just rinse it and turn it over in the drain board to dry and have never had a problem. If you are using it to put food items in I suggest putting through the dish washer or soaking well with water and dish soap.

The great thing about gift jars is that there is so much you can do with them. One Christmas, finances were really bad and I made a variety of gift jars for my family. For my niece and nephews I took their interests and decorated the jars with images I retrieved from Google. I cut them out and used Modge Podge to put them on the jar. I did paint some of the jars with acrylic paints and others I left, depending on the theme. I found a recipe on line for homemade hot chocolate mix that cost very little to make and was easy. I put that in the jar with some festive plastic wrap on the top, tied it with holiday ribbon, and stuck a candy cane in the ribbon. I figured once the contents were gone they could use them to hold pencils and pens on their desks at home.

I also made my pastor’s wife a jar. She loves snowman and I happen to have some glitter Modge Podge, so all I needed were some snowman images. I purchased those at Hobby Lobby. For the snowman I used white acrylic paint, placed the stickers around the jar and then with a paint brush applied the glitter Modge Podge. To tell you the truth I do not remember what I put inside of hers, but you can put potpourri or even candy.

Here are the items I like to keep on hand for this craft: stickers and scrapbooking paper for images, gloss Modge Podge, various colors of acrylics, different size paint brushes, tissue paper, ribbon and embellishments. For embellishments I have used beads, scrapbooking items and little Christmas ornaments. I use a hot glue gun to put on the ribbon around the rim, which you can leave plain if you want. You may also want to use the glue gun to attach beads or other embellishments. While I love tacky glue I have not been able to successfully use it with this craft. I have also used clear bead ‘n stretch for adding embellishments like the one shown with the utensils in it. I also want to add that I have tried to use the self adhesive ribbon with this project but was not successful. With this is the type of craft you can really be creative and let your imagination fly as far as what you are using to decorate.

Be sure to plan out your theme before you start and be sure you have all materials on hand. If you have never used acrylic paints before beware that while they are water soluble and very forgiving to work with, they will stain materials. One of the nice things about acrylics is that they dry fast, so when you need to add a second coat, which you most likely will, you do not have to wait long. The Modge Podge is also water soluble and for this reason you should inform your recipients that they are strictly for decorations and cannot be washed. I recommend just dusting them off with a dry cloth.

I have saved the best gift jar for last, after receiving a Bali jar with potpourri and Christmas lights in it my daughter came up with this wonderful idea. When you plug in the lights it heats the potpourri and fills your room with a wonderful scent and no flames. You will need the following items for this project: pastel tissue paper, potpourri, Modge Podge, a paint brush and a strand of mini lights, I have used various counts such as 50 and 70 which work fine. You should also have a 24 oz jar, the ones from applesauce work best. Remove the label and any access paper and glue from the jar and wash.

Once the jar is completely dry you are ready to begin.  First, choose which colors of tissue paper you will use. Tear off a piece of the tissue paper and using the Modge Podge adhere it to the jar. The more jagged and random the shapes the better.  Place some Modge Podge on the jar where you want to place the paper and than put a coat of Modge Podge over that continuing to add paper. Overlapping the pieces will give it a stain glass effect after you plug in the lights. This is why it is important to use only pastels for this project. Do this to the whole jar.  You can choose to do the rim or decorate it with ribbon or something else such as raffia. If you have any creases you have some options: try to straighten them out gently by using the paint brush or tooth pick, remove that area, or cover over it. In the past we have never had to remove an area. Once the jar is covered look over the jar carefully for any empty areas.

Now it is time to insert the string of lights and potpourris, and this is where things get kind of tricky. Make sure you have the lights on so you can see how it will look when you are done. Starting at the bottom of the jar put some potpourri into the jar and then put in some of the string of lights. You will need to continue with this process adjusting the lights and potpourri as you go along. Do not worry if you add to much just continue adding the lights and arranging them until you achieve the look you want. This is why the applesauce jar works best, it has a big enough opening to get your hand in. If you are unable to get your hand in, use the end of the paint brush or another item to aid in the arranging process.

I hope the images have helped you to understand this project, if you have any ideas for gift jars we would love for you to share them with our other readers.

Joyce Wheeler is the mother of three and has been homeschooling since 1997. She has one daughter, already graduated, a son she is homeschooling through high school, and the other is a junior high student. Currently she is re-organizing her nonprofit organization, Education Jump-Off. Her mission is to aid in the education of the world’s greatest natural resource, the children, and “never stop learning” is her personal motto. A blogger and free lance writer you can find her at Homeschooling High School and Baton Rouge Homeschool Examiner.

I designed it to be rather generic so that you can add your own creative touches and use it in unique ways as you celebrate the birth of Christ, our Savior. The concept is one children can relate to — a birthday cake for Jesus.

I plan on using the printable advent calendar for a short, daily devotional on the names of Christ. In the PDF you will find a calendar with names and scripture references. (More names are here.) But you could use Jesse tree symbols, list Christmas activities, or even name a special treat to give to the children. The poster would make a nice backdrop or group activity for a Happy Birthday Jesus party, too.

No matter how you use it, keep Christ the focus of Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Jimmie is a former public school teacher turned homeschooling stay-at-home-mom. Her only child, Sprite, is a creative middle school student who loves the arts and living books. Jimmie uses a loosely Charlotte Mason approach with lots of notebooking and field trips. Visit her blogs Jimmie’s Collage and The Notebooking Fairy.

photo courtesy Milk and Cookies

Though our family truly focuses Christmas around the True Meaning (Christ’s birth) and seeks to promote giving rather than receiving among our family, that doesn’t mean that we can’t indulge in a little bit of playful (and imaginative) fun during the holiday season!

There are several ways we do this….but one in particular has stood out in recent years.

Enter Cocoa and Blizzard.

They’re two stuffed elf pals who visit our house every year from the North Pole. They “arrive” sometime near the end of November and stay until Christmas Day is done. They’re child-like, festive, and excitable — and don’t always channel their holiday spunk in the right direction. In other words, they tend to be a little rambunctious!

The kids immediately fell in love with these felt-stitched pals with yarn hair and faux fur trimmed caps. They look forward to these elves visiting for another reason, as well: Every morning the kids look forward to waking up and finding out what the elves have been up to!

We’ve found Cocoa and Blizzard hanging from the attic door string, playing in a bowl of popped popcorn, cutting out and decorating with paper snowflakes, even sitting in the seat of our lawnmower. It gives my husband and I something fun and creative to do every day for the kids — it’s a race each night to come up with the next “elf pose” and set the stage for the kids to find the following morning! Oftentimes their antics are jolly an innocent in nature — they don’t mean to be destructive — they usually make their messes trying to help out! (This is one of the reasons why the kids laugh so loudly when they discover their newest hiding spots!)

Cocoa and Blizzard help me to recollect the seemingly magical parts of the holiday season that I experienced during my own childhood, sharing them with my own children. They encourage healthy creativity and playfulness between my husband and I — keeping the fun in the stressful holiday season, making us laugh and get giddy with expectation over how the kid will react to our ideas! They help us to enjoy the lead-up until Christmas, relishing the joys of each new day (instead of wishing the days away). They’ve become quite the welcome holiday guests within our family!

We ordered our elves from Elfing Around , but there are other similar concepts and products everywhere — both online and in stores.

(Check out our founder, Amy Stults’ elf antics as well as some fun Flickr photo groups and Pinterest ideas on ways to help make your family’s elf’s antics a little more well-rounded!)

Meg Wilson is a devoted wife to her husband, Ken, of 11 years, and mom and homeschooling teacher to her 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. When she’s not writing or creating something, Meg loves to cook for, host and entertain friends and family. She also enjoys reading, the outdoors, eclectic music, yoga, and studying history. You can read all about her adventures (and misadventures) at her blog, Electric City Academy.

via www.jimmiescollage.com

Thirteen Ways to Reuse a Page A Day Art Calendar by Jimmie’s Collage – I keep intending to order one of those Metropolitan page-a-day art calendars that Jimmie has recommended so highly. Now, I have 13 more reasons to quite procrastinating.

Cinnamon Roll Bread by Money Saving Mom – I have a friend who makes the most incredible cinnamon rolls. I’ve tried her recipe and mine never turn out as good as hers, plus, they’re a lot of trouble. I’m thinking I might be able to handle this cinnamon roll bread, though. I bet I’ve got some willing taste-testers.

12 Ways of Christmas: Greeting Cards! by See Jamie Blog – Need some ideas for unique Christmas cards to send out this year? Jamie’s got ‘em! From fun, simple cards the whole family can help with to elegant cards that will bring out the artist in you, these greeting card ideas will get your creative juices flowing.

Get Ready! What “What to Expect” Doesn’t Tell You about Preparing for Birth by The Mommy Memos – I wish I’d read these 7 practical tips before my three births. Numbers 2 and 5 would top my list these days.

Making Books in Your Homeschool by The Homeschool Classroom – Simple tips for five different types of books you and your kids can enjoy making together.

Life’s Not Fair by Blogging ‘Bout Boys – A mom’s reflection on her role in helping her boys navigate a world that isn’t always perfectly proportioned slices of pie for everyone.

Raising Strong Kids by We Are That Family – Reading this touching account of Kristen’s son grappling with his “weirdness”, I couldn’t help but think of Isaiah 11:6, “…and a little child will lead them.”

5 Things Homeschooling Has Taught Me by The Homeschool Classroom – Homeschooling is about more than academics and oftentimes it’s Mom who learns as much as the kids.

Do This Today and Change Everything by Steady Mom – Do you have problems with peace in your home or is it just me? Jamie shares a simple, but profound truth about peace vs. productivity.

Strawberry Baked Oatmeal by Smockity Frocks – We love baked oatmeal! I don’t make it very often anymore since it’s not the most calorie-friendly breakfast choice and my kids don’t like it when I mess with the basic recipe, but I’m going to have to make this strawberry version soon. Yum!

Kris Bales has been married to her incredible husband for 20 years. Together, they’re raising their three Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, who range in age from 10 to 16. Kris is Christian, Southern, and sweet-tea-addicted. She enjoys reading, writing and photography. In addition to blogging about life as a homeschool mom, you can find her at Eclipsed where she chronicles her transformation from a morbidly obese couch potato to a runner in training for her first half-marathon.

This year for art, we are going to study 8 different world famous artists. We have chosen to do art twice a week, and we’ll cover one artist each month. We’re using my World’s Greatest Artists Vol. 1 curriculum, which you can download FREE, just click on the image below!

Once we took some time to go over The Starry Night, we decided to take our turn at trying to emulate Van Gogh’s style ourselves. Since this was a fairly detailed painting I downloaded the Van Gogh Starry Night Outline from the Practical Pages blog, it was quite helpful for the kids to be able to focus on technique instead of trying to also figure out how to replicate the image as well.

We used crayon (for resist purposes) and water color pencils. (If you haven’t tried these, do! They’re so fun, you can color your picture then go over it with a water wash and the pencils blend together like water color paints…very cool!)

Here was our finished painting. The moon, stars and trees were done using crayon, then the rest was the water-color pencils. The water wash blends the pencils, but is resisted by the crayon providing a fairly cool effect. They definitely got to see how tedious all those little strokes that you can see in Van Gogh’s art can be! It must have taken great patience to paint using this technique.

After reviewing all of Van Gogh’s pieces in the World’s Greatest Artist series, we did our own free-form painting. I told the kids they could paint whatever they wanted as long as they used a technique they learned over the course of the month. They all wanted to try to copy the Sunflowers painting, so we went for it. I was particularly amazed at their ability to blend the paints I provided them with into colors similar to the ones in Van Gogh’s work. They were given the colors below to work with…

We also brought our book in so they could see the Sunflowers painting as they were working. First they sketched their idea on the paper, then they were allowed to paint it.

Tinker Bell was very careful in her work, being she’s only 5 I was impressed with her patience and attention to detail in this activity.

Here are our finished pieces. I think they did a great job overall!

And that wraps up our study of Van Gogh! Up next we’re getting into the works of Jackson Pollock! I’m sure paint will be a flyin’!

If you’d like to join us in our World’s Greatest Artists Vol. 1 study, just click on the image below to download it for free!

Erica is a Christian wife, a mom, and a homeschooler. She authors Confessions Of A Homeschooler that offers tons of printables, resources, ideas and homeschool curriculum. She likes to digi-scrap and dabbles in graphic design in her *free* time. Feel free to drop by for a visit anytime! www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Christmas: a special time of rejoicing as we celebrate the birth of the Son of God, the Messiah. Learn what the world was like at the time of Christ’s birth. Use this study to help your children understand the significance that the coming Savior had for so many people. Read about the prophecies that were fulfilled by His birth, and begin to clearly see God’s hand in history since the very beginning of time.

When so many material desires threaten to obscure the true meaning of Christmas, this study will help bring back into focus how the birth of a tiny baby changed the whole world!

Take a peek at some of what you’ll experience in Christmas.

The Christmas unit is in electronic format, meaning your children can work through the study interactively, clicking on the links in each lesson to further their own investigation. Each day’s lesson plan has been written in two levels: Lower Level (elementary grades) and Upper Level (junior/senior high grades), enabling the whole family to learn together! Includes Christmas Notebooking Pages. Christmas uses the Bible as its primary resource.

Take a peek inside this unit.

“The tradition of working on a jigsaw puzzle over special holidays has emerged as a favorite pastime for my family, allowing for plenty of sharing, learning, and memory making.”  —Amanda B.