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Homeschool Tips

While Our Things Have Fairly Well-Defined Places, the Children are Free to Roam

Ever since I spent several sunny spring afternoons on my parent’s barn roof studying geography, I’ve understood that learning can happen anywhere.  In fact, sometimes the unusual places get the best results. I got 100% on that course, an unheard-of mark in our high school. With that in mind, how do we organize our space […]

High School Marks

I love homeschooling and its incredible academic benefits.  On the other hand, I do not love marking, and the niggling doubts that it brings to my mind.  Fortunately, where we live grades are not required, and therefore my younger children never receive them.  (They do get happy faces for perfect pages, though.)  On the other […]

Why We’ve Never Joined a Co-op

 Homeschool co-ops are great.  Many people tell me so, and so do many books.  Even so, in all our years of homeschooling, we’ve never attended one. Most of the time, the logistics just have not been right.  Either I was pregnant and tired, or I had a fussy little one, or it was too far […]

Homeschooling a Handful

  This week’s Blog Cruise question is, “How do you handle multiple ages?”   Although I’m still looking for the perfect answer to that question, here’s what I’ve learned so far with our five children.   Choose your curriculum carefully.  There are wonderful programs, such as Ambleside Online, that take a lot of a mother’s […]

Keeping up With the Jones’s Kids

  April at the Blog Cruise wonders, "How do you know if your kids are keeping up with their peers?"       For little ones, I say, "Who cares?"  There’s a lot of peer pressure on us moms to make sure our children read when all their little buddies do, but often it’s best for a […]