When it comes to Autumn inspiration, the scenic mountains of Colorado and Aspen groves turning into blankets of pure gold never fail to take my breath away. One of my family’s most treasured Autumn traditions is taking fall foliage hikes in the high country. This year, the trees are just […]
Category: Hands-On Homeschool
Practical homeschooling tips & resources
2 min read
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Fall Brings Crisp Adventures, Fun Traditions
I love fall! After the summer heat and humidity in Oklahoma, the crisp cool air is a welcome change. This makes fall an ideal time for field trips. We go to the zoo quite a bit during the cool autumn days. Our little homeschool also has several traditional field trips during […]
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Real Life Homeschooling in Your Own Backyard
At this point in our back-to-school schedule, we still have a few free afternoons each week. Our weekly homeschool enrichment programs, such as worship dance, PE Plus, AWANA, and our girls book club co-op are just getting started for the fall, so we’ve been using the remaining free afternoons for […]
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Flashback Friday: Guardian Academy’s Unit Study Presentation Day
In our homeschool this year… This year we at Guardian Academy (the little homeschool co-op I’m doing with my sister Elizabeth and her girls) are studying the Middle Ages using Diana Waring Presents: Romans, Reformers, and Revolutionaries. The plan is to study each unit for four weeks as suggested. At […]
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What’s Working: Preschool Busy Boxes
I was inspired last week by a vlog on Rachael Carman’s blog, HisSunflower.com, where she showed how she kept her younger children busy when she needed to spend time teaching her older students. She kept preschool busy boxes with special items in them centered around a general theme that the […]
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How to Plan for Homeschool Travel
Anytime we have the opportunity to travel as a family, we are looking for fun and adventure. However, one of my favorite benefits of homeschooling is the chance to take a homeschool travel approach to the trip and seize the opportunity to learn on the road. For example, we took […]
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Tuesday’s Tip: Create a Unit Study on the Fly
It took me a couple of years of adjusting to the homeschooling life to realize that homeschooling is about so much more than cracking open curriculum at the dining room table everyday. It’s an opportunity to develop a lifestyle of learning for your family. To me, a lifestyle of learning […]
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Hands-on Homeschool: Living History Days
Today my family attended Living History Days hosted by Vision Heirs in Colorado. They are offered twice a year in our state, and I know that similar opportunities take place all over the country. If you have the chance to attend one, I highly recommend it! I can’t think of […]
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Hands-on Homeschool: How important is it to memorize basic math facts?
I remember that when I was in third grade in public school (way back in 1980), I memorized math facts. My family had moved to Iowa from Oklahoma halfway through the fall semester, and the new school had a room at the end of the hall with a dinosaur of […]
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Hands-On Homeschool: Making corn husk dolls
I recently wrote about how the girls book club co-op I host has chosen to read The Little House Collection by Laura Ingalls Wilder this semester. Another change we made was to incorporate a project/craft/cooking day into our rotation of meetings throughout the semester. With a series like The Little House […]
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What’s Working: Group presentation days
Back when my mom began homeschooling, I was the eldest child and a junior in high school with lots of prior experience in public speaking. I was in the drama club in middle school, in the student government in high school, and even a part of the cheerleading squad for […]
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What’s Working: A daily routine vs. schedule
I am one of those list-making/calendar-posting/digital-app-loading recovering perfectionist moms who has tried to keep it all together seven ways ’til Sunday since we started homeschooling. I wouldn’t have expected otherwise from a former editorial manager who once kept an assignments timeline whiteboard up on the office wall and project management […]