Homeschool Archives - Page 7 of 8

Smashbooks

June 1, 2016 by Susan 22 Comments

A few years ago, Minnesota hosted the “Winter That Never Ends”. By the beginning of March, we began dreaming of a sunny vacation. Greg pointed out that with us homeschooling and him working from home, we had the freedom to be anywhere. We talked about how nice a condo in Florida would be, if only we could afford it. And then I remembered.

“Honey, your mom lives in Texas. Texas is warm.”

And so we went.

We made our home in Waco for two and a half weeks, one of which I designated as Spring Break. I wanted to take full advantage of our new environment for our schoolwork the rest of the time. And I wanted to do something creative. We had done lapbooks several times, including one before a trip to Disneyworld, but I felt the boys may have outgrown them.

Have you heard of Smashbooks?

They are essentially a type of scrapbook, but less structured and made on the go. Unlike a scrapbook that you make after an event, a smashbook you put together while you’re doing it.

Smashbooks can be in a regular notebook, plain scrapbook, or binder.

And having the word “smash” in the name made it more appealing to my two boys. 🙂

Free Videos for Your Homeschool

May 19, 2016 by Susan 2 Comments

One of the best things about homeschooling is that you can use a wide variety of resources. It’s also the ideal in that you’re able to cater curriculum to the learning style of your student.

I am a self-declared curriculum junkie and find myself often talking about things we’ve used. I wrote recently about a resource we used for spelling/vocabulary that we really loved, as well as a human development course that I would recommend, and a number of resources that we’ve used to prepare for credit by exam (CLEP/DSST tests).

I really like telling people about what has worked for us. Because not everything has. And I especially like talking about free resources!

We’ve used these free videos in a variety of subjects.

Spelling Wisdom

May 11, 2016 by Susan 3 Comments

While we never really subscribed to any one philosophy of homeschooling, the closest we got would have to be the Charlotte Mason method. I was always drawn to her belief in educating the whole child through discipline and exposure to art, music, nature and great writing.

My boys had a heavy phonics background in their time at the local charter school they attended. My eldest finished fifth grade and my younger third when we decided to homeschool. They were both strong spellers.

So when we began homeschooling, I was looking for a spelling program that built on the foundation they had.

What we landed on was Spelling Wisdom by Simply Charlotte Mason. We used the downloadable version, and only printed what we needed.

As described on their website:

Learn today’s 6,000 most frequently used words presented in the writings of great men and women of history.

Homeschooling High School: Curriculum That Works

May 3, 2016 by Susan 16 Comments

This series is getting down to the real nitty-gritty of how we homeschool high school. I promised that for this third post, I’d tell you about curriculum we’ve used specifically in some of our courses to prepare for credit by exam.

I’m going to cover these courses: World Religions, Psychology, Environmental Science, Economics, Government, Human Development, Analyzing Literature, and U.S. History I & II.

If you haven’t read the first two posts in the series, I encourage you to go back and do that.

The first post tells about how we are homeschooling high school by working towards college credits for free or cheap, and gives some detail about the huge financial savings of this method.

The next post laid out step by step how we prepare for CLEP/DSST tests. There are loads of links there, be sure to Pin it or bookmark it for future reference. If you’re looking for links to practice tests or how to register for the exams, it’s all there…and a lot more!

One of the resources I cover in detail is the Instantcert website. With every subject, we use the flashcards at Instantcert heavily, as well as the discussion boards (to see what topics others have noticed on their tests). If you register through my link, you can save 25% off your first month by using the discount code 100109.

Curriculum We’ve Used

*Note to Parents*

As with any curriculum that is secular in nature, we encountered information presented at times that was contrary to our worldview. Be sure to use those opportunities to have some discussion with your student. It’s always a good reminder to us that we’re glad our kids are learning these topics with us instead of on a college campus.

A Class for Pre-School and High School?!

April 29, 2016 by Susan 2 Comments

Whether you have preschoolers in your life or you are planning a Child Development class for older students, this is for you.

Every Tuesday morning, my 15 year old son and I lead a small Nursery School at our church for 2-4 year olds. I structured it as part of a Human Development course he’s taking. It’s just a couple of hours, but it gives him lots of hands on experience, and we hope to be a blessing to the families as well. You can read more about his curriculum below.

But first I want to share some activities and songs we’ve done this year that have been an especially big hit with the Littles we work with at Pre-School. If you have Littles in your life, give these a try!

Homeschooling High School: Planning a Course for Both High School & College Credit

April 25, 2016 by Susan 4 Comments

Welcome to the second chapter in my series on how we are Homeschooling High School. My first post in this series introduced you to the method that we are following. I encourage you to go back and read it if you haven’t. In a nutshell, we are utilizing all available resources to accrue college credit inexpensively or free. This means that we will take advantage of our state’s dual enrollment program during Junior and Senior years. It also means that as we study various subjects, we pursue college credit through CLEP and DSST testing. If you’d like to read more about fully utilizing credit by exam check out this website. It’s a gem, and my best source!

This method has not changed what we study so much as it has changed how we study.

I’m going to walk you through a subject so you can see what it looks like as we look toward testing.

Let’s look at Economics.

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