Blog
4 Ways Online Learning Benefits Homeschool Students
It’s happening everywhere. Kids are opening their laptops and firing up their tablets. Not only are they watching, gaming, communicating, but also many are using technology for online learning. Now, as someone trained in education, I love real books and real-people...
National School Choice Week – January 21-27, 2018
National School Choice Week (NSCW) was first celebrated in the U.S. in January 2011 and is now recognized as the premier celebration of educational opportunity in the world. This year's festivities will take place the week of January 21-27 and will include more than...
Options for Homeschool Students with Special Needs
Creating a calm homeschool environment focused on your special needs child is very different from the effort required to establish a basic homeschool classroom. Teaching students with learning, behavioral, mental health, medical, or intellectual disabilities requires...
Preparing your Homeschooled Child for College
As a parent of a college-bound homeschool student, it's important to remember that preparing your homeschooler for college will take a significant amount of your personal time and effort. Because your child is homeschooled, you are their de facto guidance counselor....
5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Homeschooling
Despite talking with several homeschool families in the area while my kids were still young and despite having an undergraduate degree related to education and despite being a natural trailblazer, I have still stumbled on a few bumps along the way. I am currently in...
Liberals and Conservatives Are Working Together to Promote School Choice
Homeschooling has become a compelling conversational topic in the U.S. with those holding "pro" and "con" positions battling one another over the topic as though educating kids at home is a new idea. In fact, homeschooling was a common practice in the U.S. through...
Online Student to Star in Fox’s “A Christmas Story” – How Online Learning Makes Dreams Come True
When Kristin first heard her son express his desire to become an actor, she wasn’t quite sure where to start or what would be the result. Yet she believed in encouraging her son to achieve his dreams so she helped him get started on his acting career . . . and what an...
Creating Healthy Margins in Homeschool
This year’s encouraging theme: Less is more I was speaking to a homeschooling friend recently. She and I were talking about how our days seem really full, how we feel pressured to keep adding new things to our school curriculum and that homeschooling can quickly get...
Homeschooling and Military Families
Members of military families deal on a daily basis with problems associated with frequent and rigorous deployments, changing locations based on required training programs and sometimes random leave schedules. Not all military families move around a lot, but many do,...
Can a Homeschooler Become an Ivy Leaguer?
If you’re a parent of a homeschooled child who dreams of attending an Ivy League College, don't worry – getting your student into one of the eight private schools included in the Ivy League is possible. If you run an Internet search on the question of whether...
Homeschool Hacks Part 2
Assuming you’re like most of the other homeschool moms I know, you are probably wishing for more storage space, money for the school budget, and hands with which to get all your tasks completed. Do those things actually exist for anyone, anyway? Since we are all in...
The Day I Wanted to Quit Homeschooling
I am supposed to write an encouraging blog post about how wonderful it is to homeschool, then give a big pep-talk about our upcoming year. But I have to be honest with you. I am not certain I am up for it. You see, my little homeschooling system isn’t working. And by...
Homeschool Application Process at 2017 Top Ten Public Universities
Note to homeschool parents: YES! Colleges are taking note of, and accepting applications from, homeschooled students. Your child CAN enter a university with a homeschool high school education! In fact, colleges and universities are becoming accustomed to seeing...
Are Homeschool Field Trips Worth It?
Spoiler Alert: yes and no. According to Wikipedia, “a field trip or excursion is a journey by a group of people to a place away from their normal environment. The purpose is to observe and educate with experiences outside of their everyday activities.” The goal is to...
How to Be an Effective Homeschool Advocate
When we think of someone who is an "advocate," we tend to think of a person whose job is to provide advice regarding legal rights or someone who is ready to assist a client in filing a lawsuit for some cause or another. But the definition of "advocate" also includes...