Reading

As a former elementary teacher and homeschool mom of five, I’ve seen many beginner chapter books – and honestly, there are a lot of awful ones. A lot of early chapter books are kind of boring, have terrible…

The secret weapon to interest-led homeschooling isn’t the curriculum you buy, the co-op you join, or having all the expensive learning materials. The best thing you can do for your homeschool is to build a home library for…

Not every child is born with an innate love for reading. Even kids who are born into families with parents who love reading may be slow to embrace the book-loving life. When your kids hate reading (or claim…

One of my favorite things that we’ve added to our homeschool over the years is our morning work binders. These have been a wonderful way for my kids to gain independence in their learning, bring different subjects into…

When it’s time to start teaching your child how to read, the first thing that most parents do is rush to find a workbook or curriculum. While well-intentioned, worksheets and flashcards are not developmentally appropriate for kids at…

When it comes time to teach reading, you probably have questions. Where do you begin? What curriculum do you use? When do you start? There are a lot of voices out there, and often the ones that are…

If your kids are into something, incorporating it into their learning is a great way to get them interested in whatever they’re learning! We use this kind of interest-led learning in many ways in our homeschool. I love…

Can you teach spelling and vocabulary in a fun way, without the lists and rote memorization? Yes! There are so many fun spelling and vocabulary activities you can add into your homeschool (or do after school with your…

One of the lies that a lot of homeschool parents believe is that they need to purchase a curriculum to teach a subject. While curriculum can be a helpful tool, it definitely isn’t always a necessary one! I’m…

Books are an incredibly important part of our homeschool – in fact, they are central to just about every part of our homeschool! But how do you choose books for your homeschool? What should you look for and…

My kids and I have been studying the U.S. Presidents in our homeschool (which is a pretty common thing around Presidents’ Day ;) and I thought it would be helpful to round up the resources that we’ve been…

Once your kids learn how to read, you want to make sure that they aren’t just reading the words, but that they actually understand what’s happening in the story. This is called reading comprehension. If your kids can…

One of the best things about homeschooling is that you can use your real life experiences to teach your kids – no special curriculum required! Most of our learning is centered around books in our home, and we…

In our house, we celebrate Easter as the Resurrection of Jesus, but we also like to celebrate the fun of Easter baskets! We keep baskets pretty simple, as we don’t want the focus to be on the gifts….

As we come into the Advent season, our family uses this time to turn our hearts to Jesus and celebrating the anticipation of His arrival. And we also like to have fun with Christmas traditions and holiday fun!…

Fall is my favorite season! I like to tuck seasonal books away for most of the year and then pull them out in the appropriate season. I just pulled out our fall books and thought I’d share the…

If you’re a thinking about homeschooling or you’re already a homeschooling mom, you’ve probably been doing some research. You’re looking into curriculum, you’re checking out different homeschooling styles and methods, and maybe you’re taking a homeschooling course. One…

Teaching kids to care for the earth is an important part of our responsibility as parents and educators. Caring for the living things on our planet is about more than just recycling, but about stewarding the gifts we’ve…

If you’re thinking about starting a garden or expanding the growing space you currently have, there are SO many great resources for gardening and homesteading out there! And while I know I can find a blog post or…

Happy Unicorn Day! Did you know this was a thing? Apparently it is! As a kid, I looooved unicorns (any other My Little Pony unicorn lovers??) In a house full of boys, we admittedly don’t have a lot…