Summer is officially here in New England and we couldn’t be happier! Although we technically are year round homeschoolers, we do take a longer stretch off in the summer, and really look forward to it. We enjoy spending most of our days outside during the summer months and beyond. Because we live on the East Coast, there are so many things do do during the summer months that we otherwise can’t. We can visit our local splash pads and Dinosaur Place,…
Review of Analytical Grammar Analytical Grammar is our favorite program for high school English. I met the late author of the program, Robin Finley at a homeschool conference. She spent time with my oldest son and I in showing us the program and how it worked. My son was hooked on her statement of “all you need is this program and finish it in one year and then you do not need grammar for the rest of the high school…
The environment is a hot topic these days. On one side there are the groups warning that the sky is falling, and the seas are rising, and the polar bears are dying. On the other side there are the groups that argue that the environment is fine, that the climate is cyclical, and that there’s nothing to worry about. As an adult it’s difficult to sift through the rhetoric of both sides to come to a balanced understanding and find…
I stumbled upon Mystery of History after I started my online homeschool curriculum rental business, Yellow House Book Rental. Wanting to know more about it before I started renting and selling it at Yellow House Book Rental, I incorporated it into our Sonlight curriculum, and we loved it. My two oldest had graduated and I used it with my younger two, ages 11 and 13. Linda Hobar, the author of this world history series, states, “World history is far more…
Bring me to an art gallery and I am in my bliss. Visiting Paris’ Louvre was a dream, and the Met was divine. Unlike my husband, who brought our two youngest kids to lay eyes on the Mona Lisa, and dragged them back out as quickly as he could get in, I could spend days leisurely walking the halls- maybe even hiding in the bathroom to stay all night! I spent the day there, then the next day too, while…
Why we love CTC Math. CTC Math is one of our favorite homeschool curriculums. We have tried many homeschool math programs. CTC Math is the one that helped my daughter understand math and dried her tears. I wish we found this program earlier in our homeschool adventure. CTC Math is the best homeschool math program because it made my daughter love math again. I am sharing my honest review of CTC Math. I paid for the program so this is…
On a recent homeschool birding hike, we loaded ID guides, nature journals, and binoculars into our packs to eagerly trek through forest and field. Maybe we were noisy or it was too late in the morning, but we had yet to find a single bird! As younger children searched for muddy tracks by the creek, an older child moved to a quieter place for birdwatching. Her patience paid off. She spotted a large owl perched in the trees. Everyone took…
You’re in the middle of a history curriculum and you’re thinking to yourself, “Something is missing.” Oh, the read alouds were really good. And those suggestions for food and costumes were great. But the art activities ended up being a bit confusing, you didn’t have all the right materials, and the art history was totally missing. Sound familiar? Art! It’s that activity that we all want our children to experience, and yet it seems to keep getting pushed to the…
Curriculum is a big deal in the homeschool world and there are so many different options, it can become very overwhelming. However, I am so thankful to have found an amazing curriculum that gives me the extra confidence I need to teach my children and give them a well rounded education. So today I am going to share a review of our math curriculum we have been using for Kindergarten. We are using The Good and The Beautiful Level K Math. We use The Good…
One of the most daunting challenges of teaching high school at home is writing. Maybe it’s because so much seems to ride on the all-important “College essay!” We certainly don’t want our kids to mess that up. Or maybe it’s because we remember the dreaded red ink pen markings all over the essays we submitted as teenagers, slashing and striking through our carefully crafted thoughts and ideas. Even now the thought of a teacher tearing through a piece of writing…
