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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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Amazon: Homeschool Must-Haves
Contains affiliate links We’ve been a homeschool family for over 18 months now. While I am by no means an expert, I have found some amazing products that I seriously couldn’t live without while on this homeschooling journey. I love these finds so much I decided I absolutely must share with y’all. Our school desk is a table I found in the clearance section at our local furniture store. It is perfect because it fits up to 8 people, has 3 pull-out drawers on each of the long sides of the table, and it has been super durable. Still, I didn’t want the boys to scratch the tabletop with pens…
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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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Homeschool 101: History…What do I teach?
I asked you answered…several friends have been hounding me for how I teach social studies and what I use. In their defense, they’ve had to hound me because I’ve been super lax in getting back to them. I am SO the type of person who will write an email or type out a text and then save it as a draft instead of sending it. There are so many topics under the umbrella of social studies/history. You can be extremely focused and learn about one part of history, such as deciding to only learn about the Civil War for an entire year. You could only learn about early civilizations such…
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Homeschool 101: Teacher Pay Teacher
This school 20-21 school year is definitely one for the books. Quite a lot of us are teaching our children in ways we’ve never had to before. Some are stuck at home most of the day monitoring children while they are online distance learning, others are sending their children to school possibly worrying about their health, and yet some have found the strength and decided to go at it all at home by homeschooling. There is no right or wrong way to educate your children, as long as you are doing your best. Some children thrive attending public/charter/private schooling. They need the time away from home and the social interaction.…
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Homeschool 101: The Water Cycle Experiment
It’s been hot here in Vegas; not triple-digits hot, thankfully. Still hot, hot enough to feel like I’m doing laundry constantly from swim attire and towels. If the amigos aren’t out in the backyard swimming, they are complaining about the heat and attempting to veg in front of an electronic. Deciding to create our own rain was definitely a time consumer for an hour. A lot of times kiddos learn about the basics of the water cycle beginning in kindergarten, and continue to learn the details as they grow. This particular experiment is super easy and only requires 3 things. The water is the air, the shaving cream is the…
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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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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…
