The Truth about Teaching our Children to Read {and 5 Simple Steps for Nurturing a Love of Books…}
A couple of days ago, I shared a special moment on The Unplugged Family Facebook page. My nine-year-old daughter had just finished reading through The Boxcar Children for the first time and was starting into the second book in the series. It was mid-morning and our home was peacefully quiet with children all engaged in their own activities. Audrey unfolded her legs and rose from the couch with a satisfied sigh. “Oh, Mama… I just couldn’t LIVE without reading,” her voice was whimsical and sing-song. I smiled and she continued, “Reading is just delicious.” Oh, my heart. Those four words will stay emblazoned in my soul forever. Reading Is…
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Schedule A. a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times. B. to arrange or plan events to take place at a particular time. Rhythm A. a strong, regular pattern of movement or sound. B. a repeated pattern of events marked by natural flow and regular reoccurrence of certain activities. When I first started my Homeschooling journey, I tried desperately to create (and re-create) very specific Homeschool Schedules I wanted us to follow. These comprised of many boxes and many little increments of time, all filled in with exactly what we would do every second…
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So, last week I posted about our Morning Time and Family Loop plans for this year, Term 1. If you haven’t read that post and are genuinely interested in how our year ( or a creatively put-together, Charlotte Mason-inspired year ) looks like, I’d definitely start there. A huge part of our learning is covered in our Morning Time and Family Loop . Once we finish up Morning Time, the kids move into their Morning Rotations (Individual Work). This is where they are covering their Language Arts, Math, Notebooking, and Reading. This year Simon is our 6th grader (oh, my goodness!), Audrey is in 4th grade, and Alex…
Morning Time and Family Learning Plans
I’m super excited to share our plans for Morning Time and our Family Learning (which we are calling our Family Loop this year). It has been about 2 months now that I’ve been really in the reflecting, thinking, and planning process for the upcoming year. It is a lot of fun, but, as many of you know – a lot of hard work! I think I’m on information and decision making overload… but I’ll recover. *wink* I’m thankful to God for His guidance and the undeserved grace He continues to pour on me as I plan. I feel I have a good vision for the upcoming year and I’m…
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty – here is a FREE Download for you… to make printing this classic a little easier!
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Choosing Great Books for your Living Literature List – Help for creating an awesome read-aloud list and a FREE download.
Hello, dear friends!!! So, I have the privilege of talking to countless homeschool Moms. Especially Mamas who are all nervous and stressed out and just beginning their homeschool journey. Yep, just like I was 6 years ago… They talk about when to teach reading, how soon kids should write, how to do math, and if they are covering enough at age 4 (snicker). And I listen, smile, and try my hardest to be an encourager. I’m afraid though that I sound pretty much a broken record. Every single time I encourage a new homeschool Mama (or one who is overwhelmed!), I say, “take a deep breath and just READ…
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Read the World – a few Living Books for North America
Hi friends, and happy weekend. It has been absolutely scorching here this week and will continue that way for the next several days. We have been SO blessed to swim in lots of friends’ pools! (Hooray for mooching everyone else’s backyard pools instead of having our own… ha!) So, we haven’t had tons of time for reading aloud, but we did fit in a few books this week for the North America week. I have to chuckle though because if I were to take photos of ALL the living books we’ve read set in North America – the post would be endless. We have read hundreds over the past couple…
Spiral Bound Notebooks VS. the Binder System
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How we incorporated Notebooking into our Homeschool Year
I’m plugging away (just like so many of you, I’m sure) at planning for this coming year of homeschooling. *smile* And a BIG part of my planning has been contemplating how we will approach Notebooking this year. Notebooking has always been a part of our homeschool but in the past few years we have been much more intentional about it. Especially this past school year when we starting using Notebooking for a lot more of our ‘work’. To see what got us started last year, check out these – Here are some of my past Notebooking Posts: Simplifying and Enriching our Homeschool with Notebooking -Part 1 Simplifying…
