Welcome to “Ask a NextGen Homeschooler…” It’s your turn to ask the authors of NextGen Homeschool — four formerly homeschooled moms who are now homeschooling our children — to weigh in on your homeschooling questions. From the practical to the personal, all questions are welcome — whether you’re a current…
I have to admit I am pretty late to the Pinterest bandwagon, but I have finally figured out how to make it work for me instead of becoming just another social media time vacuum. I love spontaneous projects. They are an easy way to inject some energy into a routine…
Long gone are the days when having one computer in the house was a boon for a homeschooling family like the one I grew up in. Back in the late 80s, our family computer was a top-of-the-line HP with a green screen running DOS, but at least it had a…
Like most homeschooling mamas at this time of year, I have been busy preparing for the new year: From lesson planning and making necessary tweaks and changes to our school schedule and curriculum to plotting our family’s goals and activities. As I look ahead to the second half of our…
This week, it hardly seemed appropriate to begin sharing our stories of NextGen Homeschool family Christmas traditions and how we homeschool during the Christmas season. Our hearts are heavy and grieved, and like most other moms, we’re grappling with the unthinkable news that we all started our days with this…
By Rosanna Ward I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. This year for Thanksgiving, the Gotcher family gathered in force at my home in Oklahoma. Mom and Dad Gotcher finished their eastern speaking tour here, and Kenny, Renée, and their girls drove in from Colorado. We had a…
By Renée Gotcher This week NextGen Homeschool is joining forces with Creation Conversations and Kathy Balman @Kathy’s Cluttered Mind to bring you Wildlife Wednesday — posts about nature with a giveaway and a link up for your nature posts. My family is an outdoor-loving family, and one of the reasons we feel truly…
Another national election has come and gone: The results are in, and today, we move forward. For me, this election was significant not just because I had strong personal convictions about the issues our country faces, but because I was able to share that passion with my daughters and see…
This weekend I came to a better appreciation of living in a swing state: It can be pretty exciting and fun the week before a national election if you stop answering your phone and watching live TV, and take advantage of all the live appearances instead. Swing states get lots…
My experiences changing curriculum have been pretty well documented on this blog. If you haven’t followed my journey, here are the highlights of our curriculum exploration over the past two years… First Year: My Father’s World and why it didn’t work for us Second Year: Why I chose to try…
Last month I wrote a post about starting my own homeschool co-op for the first time — a tween-age Girls Book Club — after my sisters and I addressed the question of co-op schooling in our “Ask a NextGen Homeschooler” column. Since that time, our book club co-op has had…
Today was a great homeschooling day. Not because it was “ideal” in terms of schedule, flow, and checking off a lot of boxes on the “to do” list. But God was in charge, and I believe a lot was accomplished today for His greater glory! We didn’t get off to…