Homeschooling Plans for 2017-2018
Hello, friends! So, it’s an exciting time of year for many homeschoolers as the Spring planning season is upon us. Catalogs and Vendor Halls and Conferences, OH MY! This year, I spent most of January and February praying, researching, and planning. This was mostly done while feeding a precious baby in the middle of the night. *wink* We had a beautiful baby boy join our family in December through adoption and it has been a wonderful whirlwind! I haven’t done babies for 8 years… but we are back in the swing. And loving it! I realized quite quickly, however, that I couldn’t possibly put together all my own plans…
Our Favorite Read-Aloud Books from this School Year.
As a Charlotte Mason-inspired, book-based homeschool, we try our hardest to read lots of high quality, living books in our home. I thought I’d share what we’ve read and enjoyed this year… Novels we all loved… Alright, I can’t possibly comment on every single book photographed (well, I could but it would take way too long…). I always try to pick a good selection of classics, award winners, historical fiction, comical, mystery, etc.Many of these we listened to on audio. Audio books are a life saver for me! Books we found on audio included: Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, Frindle, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Elijah of…
Hello from the Homefront! {Updates, Homeschool planning}
Hi! So, I thought I’d just write a very down-to-earth post sharing what’s been going on in our family for the past few months and what is whirling around in my mind as I ponder our year. I know, it’s been too long! This year, in so many ways has been quite different. To be honest, as I always warn, we have completed some but definitely not all of our ‘plan’. We started our walk through Modern History (using Simply Charlotte Mason’s family guide) and are still only at Lesson 36 of a 176 lesson program. *sigh* But, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been learning. I don’t know if any…
A Review of Simply Charlotte Mason’s Stories of the Nations and Stories of America
Our family uses many of the resources found over at Simply Charlotte Mason. I honestly love the friendly, easy to use materials and their affordability. Last year we worked through the Family Guide for Early Modern History and Epistles . This took us on a living books learning journey from 1550-1850 that centred around family learning and reading. I’m always adding to and changing the formal plan laid out in the guides but they are so affordable, it’s completely fine in my opinion even if you only use them as a springboard for era study. You can, mind you, use them as a well laid-out curriculum. This year…
Keeping Homeschool Simple when Life is Busy and Time is precious…
Oh, hi there! It’s been well over a month since I’ve been able to post anything on this little blog but I promise, I have VERY good reasons! Our family is actually walking through the journey of fostering to adopt a beautiful baby boy. There is so much more I would love to share about how amazing God is and how He weaves all things together but that will have to wait until the adoption is final… *smile* Then, watch out… because I won’t be able to stop talking about how Jesus works and posting about a million photos of this little one’s precious face! What I can say…
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…
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty – here is a FREE Download for you… to make printing this classic a little easier!
I love that so many classic (and old school!) books are available online for free. These are Public Domain books that are no longer copyrighted and are accessible to anyone and everyone by download. The problem is, so often the download versions only really work on Kindle or some screen-based reader. Or, they just don’t print well at all when you try to print them out and have them bound. This is a problem for me because I don’t love reading books on the iPad and when I print, I’m picky about how it looks. *sigh* This has motivated me to take the time to make certain downloads more…
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…
Homeschool Planning – What’s in my Planning and Records Binder? (And a whole bunch of FREE downloads for planning!)
Only awesomely geeky homeschool Moms will ever read this post with interest, so let’s just all geek-out together and I’ll get all excited to share my organizational binder with you and you can at least pretend to be all excited along with me. *chuckle* No, honestly though, there are actually quite a few of you lovely Mamas who ask me about organizing our year and how I do it. Well, some of my organization changes over time but one thing remains – I ALWAYS have a Planning and Records Binder. In fact, I’ve saved mine from every year of our homeschool journey and they are such cool reminders of all…
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…
