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Homeschool Tips

Conference Lessons: Relax About Schoolwork

“If I had to do it over, I’d relax more about schoolwork.”  I heard this several times at our homeschool conference, but it’s a hard thing for me to accept and actually live with.  I prefer rigorous academics like classical education, especially for my teens.  My kids are bright, and I want to give them […]

Review: Daily Grams

It hurt to let it go, our old silver Daily Grams book.  It had been a faithful companion through many years of homeschooling and had helped our children so much. Every morning, I would sit on the couch with my latest middle school child and we would spend a few minutes together learning basic grammar […]

After the Homeschooling Conference

Our homeschool conference last week was very inspiring.  There were so many great ideas, so much encouragement, such a depth of wisdom, and so many wonderful people!   My teens and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then, afterwards, I came home, tired, to all the household things I had not done that day:  laundry, dust piles, and […]

Competition and the Homeschooled Teen

One disadvantage of homeschooling is that there is no competition.  Our teens often have no idea where they stand in comparison to other teens, so they have no idea what they are really good at.  And it turns out that Mom’s opinion about these things does not always carry that much weight. When Miss 16 […]

Not Finishing the School Year

So, we are not going to be able to finish this school year properly. In fact, we are significantly behind, and that really bothers me. Some of it was unavoidable:  we had a bumper garden harvest and illness.  However, the girls could have been farther along if I had been a bit more organized.  Or […]