“When I was a kid, I had to walk five miles to school… uphill… in the snow!” We’ve all heard that one before — Grandpa’s way of saying, “Stop complaining! You’ve got it pretty good, kid!” And even though he didn’t actually walk five miles uphill, in the snow, to…
By Rosanna Ward Most of the time when you go to homeschool activities or see homeschoolers out and about during the day, children are with their mothers. Typically, dad is at work — which is a wonderful blessing. I know I am particularly blessed to have a hard-working husband who…
I am very blessed to live in “the best homeschooling state in the nation” (quote from OCHEC): Oklahoma is the only state with a constitutional provision guaranteeing the right to homeschool, via the “unless other means of education are provided” clause of the compulsory education law, Section 4, Article 13.…
By Rosanna Ward “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons,” the title beckoned me. Wait, what? Only 100 easy lessons? I can do that, or at least, I think I can. Would I take the bait? I started preparing myself to teach Joel to read more than two…
After completing a fairly successful “warm-up to school” agenda the week of Sept. 12, my girls and I were ready to dive into our new curriculum from Heart of Wisdom the very next week. But before I go on, let me back up for a minute and explain what Heart…
Tonight I am sitting here remembering the very first Homeschooling Convention I went to with my parents. It was in 1986 (or 85?) at the Mabee Center in Tulsa. I was made to join in with the few other homeschool children attending with their parents and sing a song on…
By Rosanna Ward Elizabeth’s post about toys got me thinking about the things we use in our home to help teach our children. I realized that our children probably learn more through play than they do from filling in blanks in a workbook. I look back at our homeschool experience…
The Sunday before our first “scheduled” day of the new school year, our family spent about eight hours driving back home from Telluride, Colorado — pulling into our driveway as the sun was setting at about 7:30 p.m. After being gone for almost 10 days on a family road trip,…
By Elizabeth Thomas During my first year of homeschooling, I realized that play has an important role in our children’s education. I also discovered that the kind of toys we had in our home could make a huge difference. If you are like me and have girls, you may find…
I’m not what I would call a typical homeschool mom — someone who got fed up with the public school system and made the choice to homeschool. Noooo, not me: I never wanted to homeschool my children! My parents made the choice to homeschool me, along with my two older…
Our summer vacation culminated in a family road trip across scenic Colorado. We wanted to enjoy the end of summer in the snow-free mountains, see some friends along the way, and get some much-needed “unplugged” time before getting back to a full-time school schedule. The second stop on this journey…
By Rosanna Ward Last Thursday evening was our first official school field trip for this year. The Tulsa Zoo was having its Member Appreciation Evening, so after Homeschool P.E., we picked up some dinner food and drove out to the zoo’s park early. We had a picnic and played at…