Have you ever read a book and thought, “Why haven’t I ever heard of this book? Why isn’t everyone talking about this book? Did I miss something? People must know about this book!” (If you have, please, please share it in the comments below!) I just finished reading this kind of book to my 5-year-old…
Continue ReadingI’m trying something new this year. I’ll have a 4th grader that I’m starting more formal work with, a 1st grader who will be doing very light school, a preschooler who is just along for the ride, and halfway through the year I’ll have a newborn. And possibly a nervous breakdown. I’ll keep you posted….
Continue Reading“If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet.” Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford Graduate School of Education In the first few posts of this series, we talked about taking a relaxed approach to homeschooling and…
Continue Reading“Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci In the first two posts in this series we looked at taking a relaxed approach to homeschooling in the early grades and examined the…
Continue ReadingIn my last post I suggested a new set of “R’s” to guide our homeschool philosophy, particularly in the early grades. I proposed A relaxed approach based on relationships and real experiences. I then encouraged us all to take a deep breath and relax. Today, I want to think about the role of relationships in our homeschools….
Continue ReadingI recently had the honor of speaking at the Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators Conference where I gave a talk entitled Homeschooling the Early Grades: Rethinking the Three R’s. It was well received, and I thought I would share my thoughts here as well. So here are my 3 R’s: A relaxed approach based…
Continue Reading“Hey, mom! Want to color in Cutielicious?” Yes, I do. I love Cutielicious. It’s a super fun doodle book with just enough structure for the creatively challenged (me) and more than enough freedom for the artistically inclined (Helen). One of the best purchases I’ve ever made, it makes me happy to color in this ultra…
Continue ReadingHenry has been deeply immersed in two different “unit studies” of his own design and choosing. One is a study of ancient Egypt, which I’ll blog about in another post. The other is a unit on crypto zoology, specifically the search for Big Foot. I’m not sure what sparked his interest in this topic, but…
Continue ReadingIn my last post I explained a bit about what the ZPD and scaffolding are and what scaffolding looks like when “teaching” babies how to roll over. In this post, I’ll provide a couple of examples of scaffolding the writing process. I’d like to start by pointing out that writing is not a single skill,…
Continue ReadingRecently in my homeschool circles, there has been much discussion of when it might be appropriate to push/encourage/nudge our children. How can we discern whether a little encouragement or guidance from us will help them jump to the next level of competence, or push them over the edge of frustration? Lev Vygotsky, the great educational…
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