Never let your schooling interrupt your education.
I know this is a homeschooling website, and I’m a homeschooling mom, but that free education option down the street looks awfully tempting sometimes.
I homeschooled my first two children all the way though high school graduation, but that last little bugger–she just HAD to go to public school.
Can homeschooling and public school education happily co-exist?
Here are some things to consider before you sign up: [Read more...]
Written by Simple Homeschool contributor Jessica Fisher of Life as Mom
Spending time with your children in the great outdoors can be a wonderful learning experience. Not only are fresh air and sunshine essential to good health, but exploring God’s creation firsthand can be a fantastic way to solidify what our kids have read and studied about nature in books and videos.
If you didn’t grow up as an outdoors person, however, then creating hands-on experiences for your children may go against the grain. That’s okay. Just take baby steps and learn together.
Here are some ideas to get you started: [Read more...]
Written by Jamie Martin, editor of Simple Homeschool and founder of Steady Mom
The idea of homeschooling feels overwhelming enough when you’re first considering it, but tackling the legal side of the process can almost make you want to throw in the towel.
I remember attending a lecture on the legalities of homeschooling many years ago. I found myself feeling quite nervous as a lawyer explained the forms we needed to complete. He went on to describe pending legislation against homeschoolers in other states and countries. I found myself wondering just what I had gotten myself into.
But rest assured, understanding the legal side of homeschooling isn’t as complicated as it may at first seem. Just follow these four steps and you’ll be on the right side of the law. [Read more...]
I read an article recently that made me want to jump up and down and shout and smile! It was written by the fabulous writer Anne Lamott about the decisions we face in life.
“..At 80,” Anne says about the students she is teaching, “will they be proud that they spent their lives keeping their houses cleaner than anyone else in the family did, except for mad Aunt Beth, who had the vapors? Or that they kept their car polished to a high sheen that made the neighbors quiver with jealousy? Or worked their fingers to the bone providing a high quality of life, but maybe accidentally forgot to be deeply and truly present for their kids, and now their grandchildren? …What fills us is real, sweet, dopey, funny life.”
I come from a background of a lot of busyness – and all for very good reasons. When I got married and had my first baby I carried over that sense of needing to say yes to worthy requests and being available for beautiful opportunities – especially for people. I really love people. What I neglected to calculate into that was who I am. Or even more so: who my children are and their capacity.
My husband introduced the radical concept to me of choice. He lives in the realm of freedom and possibility. Don’t laugh – although I know I deserve it – it had never dawned on me that it was okay for me to choose things based on how I wanted my life to be. Or on how much I could realistically do without it costing our family a bit too much.
Okay, maybe freedom of choice was something I was aware of in the broad sense. But I still lived with a constant sense of letting people down, feeling guilty, trying to do it all or withdrawing because I felt I couldn’t handle most of it.
That didn’t work out very well for me.
Photo by Michael Thompson
A couple years ago I started thinking about living by priorities versus pressure. I started thinking about the difference between being busy and being full. My life is still very full, but now I am on a daily journey of rejecting the pull of being busy.
These are the differences I have noticed in choosing to be full over being busy: [Read more...]
Written by Simple Homeschool contributor Renee Tougas of FIMBY.
Summer is the perfect time for outdoor science and backyard learning.
Bubbles, insect study, gardening, star gazing and acorn catapults – all of this is science. And all of it is fun.
When your children are young – pre-school and elementary years, it is so simple to turn your backyard into an outdoor laboratory for studying the natural world.
Here’s one fun approach you can take to create an outdoor environment for learning inspired by the four classical elements of air, fire, earth and water.
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