Category: home school

Exciting Announcement– My Israel Book is Free for Two Days!

books, home school, homeschool, stay-at-home mom
tour Israel in pictures and stories

I am up to my neck in home school work at the moment. Two are reading contentedly. One just finished Dog Man and is choosing to whine rather than pick his next book to read. The other one is begrudgingly beginning Hunger Games. His teacher has outlawed many of the books that he would rather read. Since school here is only cancelled through April, we still have to follow the guidelines they gave us. Fun, fun, fun. But I wanted […]

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Life in the Underground Day 2: The Great Return to Home School

4 kids, home school, homeschool, stay-at-home mom
The Great Return to Home school Day 2

And just like that, the whole country became home school families! Does anyone else feel like a month has passed since last Wednesday? Our “cancelling school” announcement came on a Thursday night, and that was the day the world felt like it began to unravel. Then we all sort of went underground. Now you know this all feels extremely ironic to me. I said I would never home school again. It was not for me. Honestly, I was a bit […]

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7 Unexpected Ways Life Changed When We Quit Homeschooling

4 kids, Classical Conversations, funny stories, home school, homeschool

For the past two years, I home-schooled my four boys. Now that sentence alone should clue you in to the great difficulties I was up against: 4 BOYS, home-schooled! Add that to the fact that I don’t enjoy teaching, and it was a sort of a pressure-cooker for my heart. The stress was too much for me personally. I gave it up, and enrolled my children in a Christian school this year. It was a change I had to make […]

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How to Make Fire with a Magnifying Glass

home school, homeschool, parenting, science

Last weekend we were enjoying a leisurely weekend of letting the kids play in the backyard while we visited with family. Caleb, who loves all things science-related, asked Alan if he could show him how to use the sun’s light and a magnifying glass to make fire. Deep down, I guess we are all like cave-men because every one of us was full of joy to watch this happen. I had never actually seen this done before. The sun was […]

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Newly Revised Pros and Cons List for Home Vs. Public Vs. Private School

blogging, home school

There are just a few blog posts that I’ve written that have front page authority on Google. If you want to know how to make a school supply cake, they will send you to me, page 1, top slot. If you want a long list of pros and cons for school choices, you will find this old post in your Google search results. Some days it gets more hits than the new things that I post. I am not anti-public, anti-private, or […]

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A Happy Season for Me: Wrapping Up Homeschool Year 2

4 kids, accomplishment, Classical Conversations, home school, homeschool, Joshua

Well, if you’re new here you might not realize that I’m sort of a reluctant teacher. It’s not that I don’t possess the joy of teaching. Sometimes it is fun. The thing is that I cannot enjoy having so many things to do. There’s a fourth grader to teach, a third grader to teach, and a toddler running around. I finally threw in the hat and sent Daniel to pre-school, but it’s only three days per week, so sometimes he’s […]

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Field Trip Week: Rose Gardens and Santa Lucia Preserve

4 kids, Classical Conversations, home school, homeschool, vacation

We declared last week “Field Trip Week”, and had ourselves a grand ol’ time. We visited the aquarium, a beautiful rose garden, a robotics show, and Santa Lucia Nature Preserve. The big boys practiced their lines for their upcoming end-of-year parent night, we squeezed in a few math lessons, read a few books, and welcomed Nonna and Aunt Janet to town. *************** Now for stop two on our Week of Adventures: Santa Lucia Preserve This place, located in Carmel Valley, […]

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Beauty is no less of a gift than any other.

blessings, Classical Conversations, home school, John David, photography, pictures, preschool, toddlers

Spring is one of those things you can’t help but notice. That’s the way it is with beauty. It is inspirational. When beauty surrounds you, you can’t help but feel better. It’s funny how on my sick days I often feel too miserable to want to do chores, but I’m rarely feeling bad enough to not want to go out for a walk in the sunshine. It’s positively healing, isn’t it? I think that when you are surrounded by small, […]

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Home school Week 65: Beaver Holes, Effort Tests, and Ill-Fitting Shoes

home school, kid quotes, parenting

It was an unusual week of home schooling, mostly because Alan insisted I spend a large part of it teaching standardized test-taking skills. I made a go of it, but you can’t teach someone how to have a type-A go-getter personality. Either you have it or you don’t. My second child does not. “Caleb, you missed every single question about this story. You did not read the story. You absolutely did not.” Caleb replied, “Well, it had a picture, so […]

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Homeschool Week 64: Peace, Testing, and Toddlers in the Waiting Room

chiropractic, funny stories, home school, homeschool, parenting, photography, pictures

This week our family is preparing for standardized tests. I can safely tell you one thing that will never ever work at home school. Standardized tests. Oh.my.goodness. Alan downloaded practice tests and Scantron sheets for the boys to practice with. Here’s an example of why this sort of super official testing would never work at home school, at least not at ours: “Mom, I’m done! I’m done! I’m done!” Joshua shouted as he finished his math section. “Yay!! That’s great! […]

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