Elementary & Middle School Archives

Nurture your child’s head, hands and heart

October 29, 2018 by Susan

Young children learn best in gentle ways. Making crafts, telling stories, cooking together. Even more than the fun of the experience, they build memories with your child. How wonderful would it be if someone did all the legwork, laid it all out, and you could just choose what would work with your family?s

I am being compensated for my time in reviewing Rooted Childhood. As always, all opinions are my own.

Teenage boys don’t particularly like doing crafts. Nor do they like to read poetry or snuggle, for that matter. Thankfully, although my boys are getting older, I have some delightful littles in my life that I can do all this fun stuff with.

I thought of them immediately when I discovered Rooted Childhood. Well, first I thought how much fun it would be to have had this collection when my boys were young…then I thought of my little friends. I invited them over right away.

No prep. No busy work. No Kidding. Homeschoolers, this is the high school literature curriculum you’ve been looking for.

June 25, 2018 by Susan

I was compensated for my time in writing this review. As always, all opinions are genuinely my own.

One of the best parts of homeschooling is that you can do what works for your family. But what about when what works for you as a teacher doesn’t necessarily work for your kids as students?

As hard as it is, moms, this is when we need to defer to their learning style above our own.

I looooved English classes in high school. Exploring different kinds of literature, short stories, poetry, writing…swoon. My two boys gag at the sight of a poem. One enjoys reading, one endures it, but neither would pick many of the novels that they are assigned.

When it comes to literature studies, finding something that works for both them and me was challenging. But I did it!

Help for Your Struggling Reader: A Review of Nessy Learning Online

August 7, 2017 by Susan

Have you tried to find new ways to motivate your struggling reader? If so, the phrase, “wit’s end” has probably come to mind.

I tutor students each week who need a little extra help. Right now my clients include kids from kindergarten through 7th grade, and I am always looking for new tools to benefit them. I find that anytime I pull out my tablet or laptop, the kids are more engaged.

The problem is, although I’ve found some useful games to work on sight words, spelling, and math, none of them are targeted to my individual students. Nor have I found anything that seems to be designed specifically with struggling students in mind.

Until now.

This summer I’ve been using Nessy Learning with 5 of my students, and I am head over heels!

Finally, Online Math that Works: A Review of Mr. D. Math

April 10, 2017 by Susan

Do you have a favorite teacher? What about a least favorite? A good teacher can make a difficult subject make sense and a bad teacher can make you hate even your favorite subject. Am I right??

My College Algebra teacher was t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. He used to talk about how math was like a banana hanging from the ceiling, and we were all gorillas trying to reach it. He said he was going to push a chair under the banana for us. What?! Yeah, that was my reaction too. That story is the only thing I remember from his class.

We’ve been using a new math curriculum that I love, and my math-gifted-but-non-math-loving son “likes better than anything else” we’ve used. (It is still math, after all). And his reason why?

The teacher.

We Returned Our Homeschool History Curriculum After One Week (And Replaced it With This)

January 11, 2017 by Susan

I love shopping curriculum. When we started homeschooling years ago, I had so much fun perusing and selecting. I was especially excited about history curriculum. My boys had both told me that they ‘hated social studies’. The reason why was that they had studied essentially the same material from kindergarten through 5th grade. Communities, maps, Native Americans, the colonies, and settlers. Every year.

Because of that, I chose to start our homeschool adventure with a chronological study of history, starting with the ancient world. I was so excited about the curriculum I had chosen. It had positive reviews, lots of activities, and audio discs to accompany each lesson that were said to engage and delight students.

And it ended up being a perfect example of what has become my favorite thing about homeschooling: If something doesn’t work you get to try something else. (We learned this with our math curriculum, too!)

Fact or Fraud: 4 Common Science Textbook Errors

September 19, 2016 by Susan

Did you know that science textbooks from elementary school through college continue to print “facts” that were patently proven false decades ago?

If your child’s textbook taught that bloodletting, heroin, and mercury were effective medical treatments, I imagine you’d take issue with that. After all, those practices were proven false long ago. Well, did you know that science textbooks from elementary school through college continue to print “facts” that were patently proven false (by mainstream science) decades ago.

Several years ago, my husband began studying evolution and the age of the earth with a critical eye. Since then he’s travelled to a number of states to present at camps, churches, and a Bible College. For Christians, he presents solid Biblical evidence. He also provides ample scientific evidence that is easy to understand that proves that evolution, besides being mathematically impossible, is wrought with lies and deception.

So let’s dig in to determine fact or fraud. I know some of these examples will look familiar to you…get ready for (as Paul Harvey used to say), “The rest of the story.”