Blog

The first day of school feels more like New Year’s Day than January 1st. Your homeschooling starts fresh, the kids are looking through the new books and plans, you snap a few photos to mark the beginning of a new year. A new calendar year can be also be a time to...

Perhaps you have a deep closet heavily laden with books and school tools you used during the early years when your older ones were still struggling with pencil grips, the order of the months of the year, and the difference between b and d. The oversized counting...

by Nathan Manley I just pulled my kids from our brick and mortar school. Now what? Stop Excuse me? Seriously. You all need a vacation from school. You don’t have to book a cruise, but you need to stop, take a deep breath and just de-school for a couple weeks. Perhaps...

Remember March and April? Those unprecedented months? No need to remind you of how everything imaginable was canceled; how the whole world came to a grinding halt. But one event continued on as planned – a middle school STEM Fair. How did this event miss the culling?...

OVERVIEW  The two big questions on the minds of most K to 12 students and parents in the U.S. is – “Will schools reopen in September” and, if so, what will “school” look like? Journalist Hilary Brueck writing for the June 10, 2020 issue of Business Insider summarized...

When it comes to summer break for homeschoolers, there are enough suggestions and ideas to fill your backyard pool. Some of us school year round, while others stick close to the public school calendar. And, since homeschoolers live globally, there are all sorts of...

There isn’t a person which the Pandemic hasn’t touched, some more so than others, and each with our own way of responding. The quickly adaptable forerunners are adjusting to the sights and sounds of masks, curbside pickup, online video conferencing, and adequate...

The beginning (or ending) of a school year is a great time to evaluate the effectiveness of the textbooks you are using. When we are in the trenches of teaching or planning on a daily basis, it is hard to come up for an assessing breath. When I first began...

In today’s meeting of the Imaginary Homeschooler Anonymous Group, I share my next deep, dark secret. The last time I attended a meeting, it was my turn to expose my previous non-stereotypical homeschool mom dilemma. You can read about my confession about reluctant...

I enjoy impromptu interviews with my kids. A few quick questions allow me to discover what they are feeling or confirm what I already suspect. After making a dynamic shift in our homeschool strategy this fall and joining a co-op, I wanted to see where my middle grader...

I like to joke that, in homeschool land, I don’t call the lovely months of March through May Spring. Rather, I call them “Buy All Used Homeschool Materials” season. Perhaps I am not the only one? I find it so tempting to see the numerous posts about curriculum marked...

Summer is the perfect time for vacations, family reunions, beach days . . . and learning! Online learning with Global Student Network (GSN) allows your student to explore interests, brush up in weaker subjects, or get a jump start on next school year. GSN’s Summer...

Since early March of this year when the World Health Organization first recognized the Coronavirus as a worldwide pandemic, U.S. schools have been closing. Most of them have closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year.  Students were instantly re-assigned...

“9-1-1 How may I help you?” “I’m a homeschooling parent!” “Don’t worry, help is on the way!” If only we could get help within minutes of our first problem with homeschooling. I personally could use a janitor and a lunch lady. Please sign me up for a school voucher for...

Classrooms hum with the chatter of excitable teens; books and papers spill from overstuffed lockers; days are routine, conducted by the regular, shrill blast of the school bell. Sound familiar? Most of us have experienced the 'institutional' school system in some form...