Tea Time with Annie Kate Rotating Header Image

homeschooling tips

Delight-Directed Learning, Part 1: Pitfalls

Years ago I heard about Greg Harris’s idea of ‘delight directed learning’.  You may know that Greg Harris is the father of Josh Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and Brett and Alex Harris (Do Hard Things and The Rebelution youth movement).  Obviously something worked for his kids, and it just may be related to how they […]

Three Steps to a Successful Book Sale Visit

Last Friday we attended the annual Rockcliffe Park Book Fair, one of the best book sales in Ottawa.  It’s an adventure each time we go and we make many bookish memories—both while we’re there and afterwards when we’re reading our new books. For a big book sale like this, we need to prepare.  What books […]

The Official SAT Question of the Day

If your teen is planning to take the SAT, it’s a good idea to practice.  You can spend huge amounts of money on SAT prep classes, or you can buy a practice book as we did.  However, the valuable first step we take is free:   in grade 11 we start doing The Official SAT Question of […]

Review: The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill

Every once in a while, a wonderful children’s book presents an educational philosophy and becomes a treat for both children and their parents.  Louisa May Alcott wrote several books like this (Jack and Jill, Jo’s Boys, Little Men), Dorothy Canfield Fisher gave us Understood Betsy, and now Kirkpatrick Hill presents her ideas in the delightful […]

Because of Creation, Nature Study Makes Sense

Nature study is an essential part of our life and homeschool.  Even when we lived surrounded by pavement, we found spots of green beauty within walking distance—although sometimes it was a long walk.  Nowadays we live in a small paradise, with woods, wetlands, farmland, birds, mammals, insects, our garden, and more. As I stood among […]