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A Wrinkle In Time
A Wrinkle In Time has had a special place in my heart for nearly two decades. I first read it in 6th grade and absolutely fell in love with Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace. It was the first semi-grown up book I read. Before that I had mainly stuck to chapter books that didn’t have deep and meaningful themes. The American Girl books, Boxcar Children, and all things Judy Blume were my favorites when visiting the library. A Wrinkle In Time introduced me to the Sci-Fi genre and forced me to critically think about the characters and various themes of the book. A Wrinkle In Time begins with Meg Murry,…
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The Giver by Lois Lowery: Book Review and Comprehension Questions
As a homeschool parent, I have the freedom to pick and choose programs for various subjects when teaching my children. While a majority of their schooling is online, I have been adamant that they have daily routine reading and comprehension questions for books that expand their reading horizons. I have a child who doesn’t like to read at all, and is rather self conscience about his ability to read. While he is currently at grade level, that hasn’t always been the case. At one time, reading time with him was worse than enduring dentist appointments with all four children at once. Another one of my boys reads anything he can…
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Homeschool 101: Sight Words
I have now had the chore privilege of helping three of my children master sight words, and I still have one more. Each of my children had very different experiences and struggles, and every trick I had tried previously didn’t work with the next child. From one child with a significant speech delay, which then caused a reading delay, to another child who’s IQ is borderline genius…and he knows it, every child has some sort of struggle when it comes to sight words. Fortunately, there are a plethora of materials available online. My initial go-to was flashcards. Drilling the words into the amigos’ minds in constant repetition, worked well at…
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Homeschool 101: Exploration of Germs
Contains affiliate links Somehow I have been accepted into a homeschool science group with three other moms…who I might add, are all amazing ladies. We have children that are all similar in ages and we’ve been wanting to add more to our curriculum as well as give our children more interaction with their friends. One of the moms and I had already been doing various science experiments with our kiddos together. It helps because she has her degree in secondary education emphasis in science. I’ve come up with quite a few primitive science experiments for our children, but this mom has created a whole science homeschool curriculum for our kiddos…
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2nd Grade Checklist
School has begun for most families, and every state/county is doing something different with their education. The county I currently reside in is full speed completely online. Parents are struggling at times, teachers are struggling, students are already sick of screen time. If you are one of those parents, you may be asking yourself why you aren’t just homeschooling your children yourself instead. Either way, being sure your child is meeting/passing their milestones for their age and grade can be daunting on any normal day. While I already compiled a list for kindergarten and 1st grade, I wanted to continue the lists for the rest of the elementary grades. So…
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First Grade Check List
You did it! You made it! You successful, maybe sort of successfully helped your kindergartner through their first official year of school. (Especially if your child’s kindergarten year was during the COVID-19 pandemic). Now you are facing first grade. Some of you may be thinking that you ‘totally got this’, while others of you may be feeling anxiety over first grade. Maybe your child went to half-day kindergarten and you are worried about your child attempting full-day first grade. Maybe you’ve heard about sight words and are already feeling overwhelmed. Whatever it may be, transitioning from kindergarten to first grade can cause anxiety and unrest. If you are anything like…
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Homeschool 101: Lemon Volcano Experiment
Since becoming a homeschool parent last fall, I decided I needed to make sure my boys still participated in STEM activities. Upping my science experiment game (which was non-existent before), was something I wanted to push myself with. It helps that I have a sister who has gone to school for Nuclear Medical Physics and always has suggestions for experiments. This last week, I wanted to talk to the amigos about acids and bases. They have done the Mentos in Coke before and they have built multiple volcanoes with my mom; but we’ve never talked in-depth about the chemical reactions between acids and bases, the pH scale, and why not…
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Homeschool 101: Kindergarten Checklist
When I became a mom with children in school, my biggest concern was making sure they never fell too far behind for their age and development. Honestly, with my oldest (my twins), that was something I worried about pretty much from 12 months on when they both qualified for speech therapy. In the early years, both my twins went through years of various types of therapy…speech to rid the twin talk. Occupational for twin A because he was diagnosed with a minor sensory processing disorder and for twin B because he had GERD as a baby with then resulted in a VERY picky palate and throwing up when trying anything…
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DIY: Bouncy Balls
It is truly amazing the types of activities you can do that completely blow kids’ minds. Homemade bouncy balls is exactly one of those activities. With social distancing currently being the norm, I challenged myself to be a little bit more hands on with our homeschooling routine. So we’ve been doing some sort of craft or science experiment every week. This week was bouncy balls. It was super fun and took no more than an hour. In that time we were able to set up, make several bouncy balls, and then clean up. This activity is definitely a fun one, and the perfect thing to do with your kiddos on…
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Homeschool 101: Educational Subscription Boxes
Just like with everything else when it comes to education, and as professional educators can attest to, coming up with creative ways to teach and engage your students/children is one of the most effective ways for them to learn. With all of us social distancing at the moment, and most school districts distance learning in the country; coming up with any way possible to teach and/or reinforce learning and education is a HUGE must. Since I am a homeschool mom, I thought I’d continue this Homeschool 101: tricks and tips. To see my other posts about education at home, see below This week, I want to highlight my top favorite…
