8 Things Every Homeschooler Hears at Least Once

Ah, homeschool myths. Are there any home educating families who are immune to their consequences? I’m going to say no.

As we start our 11th year of homeschooling tomorrow (yikes!), I thought I would commemorate this occasion by dedicating a post to some questions I think every single homeschooled child has heard at some point in their lives.

While the topics of these questions run the gamut from academics to extracurricular activities, they all have one thing in common: they’ve been perpetuated by some insanely false notions about what education and real life actually look like.

Here is my attempt to  briefly explain why these inquiries are completely off the mark, and why people need to stop asking them.

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Our Beginning-of-the-Year Homeschool Plan for Elementary and Middle School

I can’t believe it. Our new homeschool year begins next week already. Wow, this past six weeks went quickly!

As I was gathering books at the library for our first unit study the other day, I realized that some of you might like to see how I’m planning for our homeschool days to unfold, especially in regard to our unit study. I’m fairly certain that, even though I address unit studies quite often, they can be a bit of a mystery to those who are unfamiliar with them.

As you might be aware, for years I’ve been breaking my children into groups for their learning, simply because I have so many of them. 😉 (This year I’m homeschooling 8 again.)

However, now that my second youngest is ready to move up to the middles group, I’ve got a bit of a dilemma – that leaves my youngest alone in the littles group. She’s not too happy about that.

Gardening Books for Kids!

Can you believe that it’s July already? Yowzers, that went fast! Here in Pennsylvania, it’s been hot, hot, hot, and today was no exception.

If you’re a homeschooling family who takes a summer break, don’t miss out on the opportunity for a fantastic summertime nature study idea – gardening! Today I decided to share with you some books that will both inspire you and give you tons of ideas to get started.

10 Things I Don’t Miss About Public School

If you live in the northern hemisphere, chances are that summer break is here! As always, I’m seeing so many different reactions from parents about this time of year. Some are relieved and happy to have their kids home for a couple months. Some are feeling overwhelmed and are scrambling to figure out how to keep their kids occupied for the next 12 weeks. And still others are, unfortunately, trying to overcome the obstacles that have been thrown before them (NY and CA, I’m looking at you) and are trying to figure out what will become of their children’s education once summer is over.

You CAN Help Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities

I remember the day I realized my oldest son was “different.” He came home from school feeling completely dejected and humiliated. The cause? His teacher had arranged for the little girl who sat next to him to pack his backpack for him every day before they were dismissed. Apparently, the disorganization I had grown used to with him was becoming an obstacle to his learning.

As time went on, his troubles at school began to pile up. Before I knew it, I was called in for a meeting to discuss the possibility of retention because his reading level was not where it was expected to be. I refused to allow him to be held back.

How could the articulate and intelligent child I knew possibly be struggling in school? At 3, he was able to give the correct name for every single snake he came across in books, even to the point of differentiating between a puff adder and a European adder. At 4 and 5 years of age, people used to be shocked to learn how young he was because of his extensive vocabulary and excellent conversational skills.

Yet here we were, at a table discussing retention, Title 20, and a possible IEP.

Why I Will Never Force College on My Kids

Over the past few years of me being a homeschool blogger, I’ve learned one very obvious thing:

My views on homeschooling, education, and the world, in general, are very different from most other homeschool moms.

My opinion on the necessity of college definitely falls into this category. Here’s why.

Christian Kids Need a Christian Education

(Today’s post was inspired by Voddie Baucham’s “Children of Caesar.” For more information on this topic, visit exodusmandate.org)

Today I’m going to be upfront about something a lot of my fellow believers don’t want to hear:

Another Attack on Homeschooling

I’ll tell you what, guys. The past several months have been quite disturbing, to say the least. People have been coming out of the woodwork to attack homeschooling…and they’ve been coming from every angle:

Bring Ancient History to Life with Beautiful Feet Books

When I was growing up, I hated history. I hated everything about it: the boring textbooks, the required memorization of dates and other (what I thought was) useless trivia, the multiple choice tests that were easy to ace but served no purpose when it came to retention, and the boring documentaries accompanied by worksheets designed to make sure we were paying attention.

Yup. It was awful.

The Homeschool Community Has Been Infiltrated

Today’s post is going to be brief.

A few days ago, Fox News published an article which pretty much insinuated that all homeschool parents are abusive and need to be monitored. (This was spurred on by the Turpin sentencing.)

As inflammatory as that accusation was, I was even more disturbed by the fact that this news organization interviewed the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a leftist, anti-homeschooling organization that misleads people into believing they’re a legitimate homeschool non-profit, to back up their claims.

But wait. There’s more.