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Visit us on Facebook July 28, 2012
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Summertime Fun With a Touch of Learning
 by Amanda Bennett
Ah, the sights and sounds of summer crickets chirping and slamming screen doors, the sound of bare feet running through the house, the squeals and laughter as the children play in the sprinklers remind us of this season of fun and outdoor play as we homeschool. For many families, the summertime is used for a rest for mom, and a time to let the kids unwind and interact with the neighborhood kids, attend Vacation Bible School, and perhaps go on vacation. Over the years, I have found that by keeping the learning process going, casually, through the summer has some valuable benefits. Summertime learning can help keep their thinking skills honed, reading interests and ability don t go through the throttle up and down that is typical in a structured school calendar, and it helps direct their activities in more beneficial areas of fun AND learning.
Read more ...
Make Your Read Aloud Time Enjoyable
by Carren Joye
To make your read aloud times enjoyable, find quiet activities for your children to do while you read. Don’t be too picky about your children being still and quiet during reading. Some children just don’t want to snuggle or can’t be still to listen to a story, and others just zone out or fall asleep! However, if they have a quiet activity to keep their hands busy, and a few simple rules to follow, you may be surprised how much better they all pay attention. Even for your teens, this list offers good ideas for mindless, mellow fun. Read more...
I Am In High School Now! by Shirley M.R. Minster
I am in high school now! You have to treat me differently! I don’t have to follow the rules I had when I was a child! A teenager’s words are usually accompanied by stamping feet and a raised voice. Sometimes a slamming door is also heard. There are parents reading these words and being transported back to those upsetting times, experiencing the same helpless, angry, and sad feelings as when they went through those turbulent times before. The frustration and confusion they felt rises to the surface once more. Read more...
The Perfect Vision for Our Children
by Barbara Frank
When we look at our babies, we like to imagine what they’ll grow up to be someday. As they grow older and display distinct talents and abilities, we can’t help but point each of them in the direction we think they should go as we develop a vision for each child we know so well.
On the surface, this sounds good, and like something God would have us do as one of our parental responsibilities. It’s also a natural and common reaction for parents to have. But is it biblical? Read more...
The Adventure of Raising Boys
by Paula Moldenhauer
Boys are a different breed. Ask any mother of the male gender, especially if she has a couple of boys with no sister in between to tame them. There’s a wildness in boys that just doesn’t appear in girls. And sometimes we moms are left standing with our mouths agape, wondering what
planet our bundle of energy came from.
My youngest two boys are only 18 months apart. Several years ago I took them to a Mommy and Me Music course. One day while we were waiting for class to begin my little guys started wrestling on the floor. I honestly don’t know where my head was. Read more...
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J.M.Cremps (Advertiser)
provides adventurous products for boys, opportunities for fathers and sons, and parenting resources. Boys are unique! They play differently, they think differently, and they learn and develop differently. Boys’ adventures are an important part of their development and JM Cremp’s provides opportunities to create some of those great adventures. http://www.jmcremps.com
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Let's Write!
Writing Prose With Flow (free lesson)
The following exercise is designed to teach in about five days, students who are in grades six through ninth, that: 1) ideas in sentences can be connected; 2) ideas can flow from one sentence to the next; and 3) they can make ideas in their writing flow from one bit of information to the next one.
This exercise speaks directly to the student and you shouldn’t have to read it or interpret it to your children. Give it to them and tell them that everything that they might need to do it is contained within it. Don’t help them with it until they get stuck. Read more ...
End 'writing-phobia' with Writing Strands (Advertiser)
Writing Strands is one of the first and best composition
progr ams developed for the homeschooling student. I have recommended it to hundreds of families with great success and have used it in my family to teach confident composition skills. Many children/teens become overwhelmed with the combination of grammar rules, spelling rules and composition built into traditional writing programs. WS focuses on WRITING! The lessons, which can be worked through with little guidance from the parent, are broken into daily steps making it happily manageable for every student. Excellent models of good writing are provided. Children learn to write by writing, writing, writing. As the child learns grammar (separately), they can easily begin to edit their own work. If you want to end 'writing-phobia' for you and your children, I high recommend Writing Strands. For more informaion, please visit http://www.writingstrands.com
Helping Your Teen Find Their First Job
by Nigel Lane
If you're the parent of a teenager, helping them get their first job is one of the first steps toward maturity and personal responsibility. Here are seven ways you can ensure that their job hunt is a rewarding one.
1. First, work with your teen to come up with a list of personal strengths and things they enjoy doing. If they enjoy working with children and animals or love the outdoors, make a note of those items. Any seemingly small and insignificant item can lead to ideas for potential jobs. Read more ...
College Plus (Advertiser)
CollegePlus is a Christian company that creates customized dual credit and bachelor's degree programs for students, based on their personality, learning style, and life purpose, then integrates personal coaching and mentoring to empower students to reach their educational and life goals, without the time constraints and debt burden of traditional college. http://www.collegeplus.org
Unschooling
Dumb-Truck Days
By Jennifer Fink
For three days, my nine-year old son has been dragging himself around the house in a toy dump truck. He kneels in the dumper, hunches forward and uses his knuckles to propel himself. For three days. Around and around. Over and over. Three days, and it’s driving me crazy!
The Tonka ® trucks came up from the basement last weekend, old toys rediscovered. My boys immediately gravitated to the trucks. I thought they’d haul blocks; the blocks recently reappeared also. Then they started running laps, pushing the trucks, and the sound of rubber on linoleum ground into my head. Read more ...
From the Blogosphere
Setting Our Own Agenda, Learning to Say No
by Mary Hood
Recently I've been spending a lot more time with younger homeschooling families and observing the way the moms conduct their business, and interact with their kids. It has been a joy to get to spend time with the children and the younger homeschooling moms, but one thing has stood out for me while watching them go about their daily lives.
Homeschooling moms have a really hard time saying, "No".
The world tends to look at these mothers and see someone who has a lot of time to kill, since they are "just" staying at home all day with the kids.
Read more ...
From the Current Issue:
A Great Way to Spend a Summer Afternoon
by Barbara Frank
When I was a child, I spent many summer days at my grandmother’s house. One of her unbreakable rules was that everyone had to take a nap after lunch. I remember saying, “Someday my kids won’t have to take naps!” I imagine I usually muttered that shortly before drifting off.
But once I had children, I found that I loved naps more than I could ever have imagined. After a morning of playing out in the summer sun and heat, the kids were tired, I was tired, and everybody enjoyed a siesta in the cool house during the heat of the early afternoon. After naptime, all of us felt good!
It was Dorothy Moore who helped me get my kids into the nap habit from the time they were tiny. Here’s what she had to say in the book that introduced me to homeschooling, Home-Grown Kids:
“There is both research and clinical evidence that children who do not either nap or have at least an hour of very quiet rest time during the day are not able to get to sleep as well at night. Because they are overtired, they do not sleep as well when they do get to sleep. They are restless and more susceptible to bad dreams. This poor quality of nighttime sleep makes them vulnerable to fatigue again the next day. A vicious cycle is established, and then parents wonder why the children are excitable, irritable, hyperactive, and difficult to handle.”
Continue Reading ...
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