Tag: homeschooling

3 Homeschool Blogs You Should Be Following

esther7dancingLeave a comment

Some of the most amazing ideas that I have received as a homeschooler is from other homeschoolers who are walking through the journey or have already graduated and are imparting wisdom to those of us still in the middle of the adventure.  I love reading homeschool books and listening to different teachings on homeschooling.  If I’m not sure how to do it, I research it and find out.  I also learn and get a ton of ideas from different homeschool blogs that people are writing.  Here are a few of my favorites…

Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers-

I love the author’s sense of humor in her posts.  There is all kinds of ideas on homeschooling and its separated by the different age group of kids you are teaching. The author has an emphasis on Hands-on Learning.  Its an excellent resource to find hands-on projects to fit your different lessons.  She has even written a book called “Hands on Learning”.  Worth checking out, especially if you have a child that loves or needs the hands on learning.

The Unlikely Homeschooler-

This blog is excellent resource for new and seasoned homeschoolers.  The author has an eclectic selection of creative homeschool ideas for preschool, elementary and middle school.  My favorite section that she has is “Homeschooling 101” where she has a section called “100 resources for Newbies”.  She also explains how she organizes her schooling and plans out her year.

1+1+1+1-

Last but certainly not least is the “1+1+1+1” blog.  If you have little ones and are starting to homeschool at the beginning with your preschooler or early elementary then this blog is for you.  The author does an amazing job of giving ideas for early elementary that are very creative.  I am definitely using some of her ideas on my 3 year old this school year.  She also gives links to connect you to the sites where she gets her different projects.  

I enjoy learning from other people’s journeys through homeschooling.  I am sure there are even more wonderful homeschool blogs that I have not discovered as my favorites yet, but these are my top three for now.  Who would be in your top three blogs for homeschooling?

9th Grade Curriculum for 2015/2016

esther7dancing1 Comment

Here is my choices for my oldest going into 9th grade this year.

  • History-Sonlight Core 100
  • Science-Apologia Biology
  • English-IEW US History Writing Lessons, Vocabulary-Word Up!, IEW Fix It! Grammar, Sonlight Core 100 U.S. History Lit. Books
  • Latin I-Latin Road to Grammar
  • Math-BJU Press-Pre-Alegbra, Life with Fred-Pre-Algebra
  • Spanish 2- Taken at a co-op…Homeschool Connections.
  • Geography-BJU Northstar Geography
  • Fine Arts- Piano

I will be blogging some reviews on the different curriculum choices as I use them.  I think its going to be a fun start to our high school year.  Unknown

Declaration of Intent

esther7dancingLeave a comment

In Washington State you must file a Declaration of Intent within the first 2 weeks of each school year, starting the year your child turns 8.  You can find this at the Washington Homeschool Organization (WHO) website or at the HSLDA website.  Another easy place that I found it was on the local public school district’s website.  Fill out the Declaration of Intent and then send it to your local public school district.  The Declaration of Intent is a one page paper that states you are homeschooling your children for that school year.  I always send it with a self addressed and stamped envelope with a request for a copy of the declaration of intent to be sent back to me.  You can use your declaration of intent for discounts at many teacher friendly stores.  Barnes and Noble, Apple, and any teacher supply store are a few examples that give discounts to homeschoolers.  The sooner you send it in, the sooner you get your copy back.  If you wait until the first couple of weeks in September, it may take awhile for them to process it.  HSLDA website is a great resource for what specifically should be put on the Declaration of Intent.  The different things that can be on the DOI are not always necessary to fulfill the law.

Highschool Social Studies/Study Skills

esther7dancingLeave a comment

I have been researching more about homeschooling high school.  I recently took a webinar class about homeschooling high school that had some new information for me. Interesting information that I didn’t know with regards to Social Studies.  Colleges are looking for 4 different types of Social Studies on your students transcripts.  These are U.S. History, World History, Economics and Government.  If you student loves Social Studies, then they can definitely do more than this but these are the classes that colleges look for on a transcript when looking for your Social Studies credits.

Another interesting tidbit of information was on teaching your child Study Skills.  Institute of Excellence of Writing gives a class called, “Advanced Communications Series” which teaches you note taking and other communication skills.  The homeschool mom then had the creative idea of using the teaching company courses which are college level lectures to allow her children to practice their note taking skills.  Awesome idea!  This would help them not be freaked out when they get into a real college situation.

The webinar class I took was “Keys to Highschool Success” by Lee Binz.  Worth your time and money to check it out.  It had some interesting insights and facts that I did not know for homeschooling high school.  The webinar class is found at thehomescholar.com.

Fun Fact Cards

esther7dancingLeave a comment

I love little tools to help make a subject I am teaching my kids a little more fun.  “Fun Fact Cards” by Sally Borrink is a  great tool to use with your elementary kids for any subject.  Fun Fact cards are a set of cards that have a fun fact on each one.  We are working on the Space set.  My 7 yr old son loves space and looks forward to picking out the next card that he wants to read.  For example, one of the facts was telling us that there is no wind on the moon, so the astronauts footprints can still be seen today on the moon.  When we visited the Museum of Flight recently, my 7 yr. old son remembered this fact.  Sally Borrink has fact cards for many different subjects, holidays and seasons. You buy them as a download and print them.  Even my older kids want to be part of learning the fun fact cards.  The older kids enjoyed the U.S. Presidents set.  Each card also has an illustration  to go along with the fact for the day.  You can find “Fun Fact Cards” at Sallieborrink.com .  Its a great way to enhance some of your history and science subjects or in helping to remember the significance of a holiday like President’s Day.

IEW-Institute for Excellence in Writing

esther7dancingLeave a comment

Writing is not my favorite subject to teach but I wanted my kids to do well in communicating verbally and with the written word.  I found IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) to be a great resource and curriculum for writing.  It gives a formula to teach kids how to write and then uses that knowledge to expand the kids writing ability.  I love how they first give the kids a foundation on how to structure a well written paragraph or paper and then the kids use their own creativity with the solid foundation of writing that they have built.

This really helped my reluctant writers who couldn’t come up with any ideas if you gave them a writing prompt or their writing didn’t grow beyond what they were writing in the elementary grades.  IEW gave them tools to use in their writing that were clear and easy to add into their writing across all the subjects.  Once my kids learned the process of IEW and how to structure a well written paragraph, we used it in other subjects such as Bible, History or Science.

IEW has programs from Kindergarten all the way through high school.  They also have curriculum for Spelling, Poetry and different types of Unit Studies for writing.   We are doing the “Fun and Fascinating Facts” writing curriculum which the kids enjoy because they are learning about bugs, inventors, and other interesting facts as they write.  I also love how IEW has curriculum of high school that teach kids how to write short essays or research papers.  This is helpful especially to the parent that is unsure of how to make sure their child is becoming an effective writer.

IEW Student Intensive A or B, depending on your child’s age and readiness is what I would recommend.  Its a DVD set that walks you through the entire lessons step by step.  This helped me understand how to be more effective in my adventure of teaching writing.  Institute for Excellence in Writing is  a great resource that I am still enjoying in teaching my kids how to write.

Akebu to Zapotec

esther7dancingLeave a comment

My oldest son is on his first mission trip without us to Guatemala.  He went with an organization called RIM which stands for Real Impact Missions.  They take 20-25 teenagers from around the United States and go to different countries around the world.  The first 2 weeks of the mission trip is outreach and serving the people.  There is an option of staying for another 2 weeks for a medical mission trip in the same place.  RIM is a great organization and opportunity for young people to go on mission trips.  They have a website that you should check out if your kids are wanting to go on mission trips.

I have always wanted my children to have a heart for missions and the world.  If God asked our family to move to Africa, I would be there in a heartbeat.  My challenge as a teacher and parent has always been on how to cultivate this in my children while still  living in the United States.  One of the resources that our children have enjoyed doing is going through the children’s book called “Akebu to Zapotec”.  This book goes through 26 countries that do not have the Bible in their own language using the first letter of the alphabet for each of the different countries.  This is the 2nd book that the author has written because kids prayed for the countries in the first book and all those countries received the Bible written in their own language.  We take a different country every week and pray that they will receive Christ and get a Bible in their own language.  This has been a great introduction to kids on how they can reach the nations and change the world with their prayers.

Homeschoolers Buyers Co-op

esther7dancingLeave a comment

Homeschool Buyers Co-op is a resource that can be very useful to homeschoolers.  They created a website for homeschoolers to buy a product together to get a big discount.  There are hundreds of different products or curriculum that you might buy anyway for your school year.  The way the website works is you sign up to become a member for free.  Then you can pick and choose curriculum that you would like to buy.  If you find a curriculum that you want to purchase, you sign up for it.  The organization will then purchase that curriculum on a certain date that they set.  This allows many people to sign up for that purchase and then buy it as a group for a significant discount.

I bought Discovery Education Plus which is an internet resource that allows you to put any subject and grade of your child and it has learning videos that can go along with any of your lessons.  This product is usually a year membership for $375 for a year membership but because homeschoolers buyer co-op is arranging homeschoolers to buy it as a group, we can get it for $99.  This is a brilliant idea and amazing resource for homeschoolers to take advantage of.  The website to sign up is homeschoolbuyersco-op.org

Will a College accept a Homeschooler?

esther7dancingLeave a comment

The answer is Yes!  85% of colleges nation wide are now accepting homeschoolers.  The percentage maybe even higher now. You can go on the different websites of colleges and many of them will have a list of requirements for homeschoolers.  This is helpful when you are planning out your high school years.  I went on the website of our local University to get an idea of what to plan for the next 4 years of my son’s high school years.  Even if he ended up going to a different university or in a different direction, we have a plan that could fit in a number of colleges or universities just by changing it a bit.

The transcript that you create for your child is just as valid as any public or private school.  If you need help creating a transcript, I want to recommend Lee Binz again.  She has webinars that walk you through how to do a transcript that a very helpful.  Your child will also need to take the SAT or ACT to go along with their transcript. There may be other requirements from a university that are unique to that university.  That is why its helpful to go on their different websites and look to see what they require.

I recently found out through my quest in researching homeschooling high school that it is more ideal to homeschool high school all the way.  If you start homeschooling high school and decide to put them back in school, the public or private schools do not have to accept your transcript.  They can count some credits and not count others.  Colleges accept homeschoolers transcripts but public or private high schools sometimes have a harder time just taking them at face value.

Some Colleges are actively looking for homeschoolers because they have seen how well homeschoolers can do in college.  The nature of homeschooling helps our students become great independent learners which is essential in college.  Homeschoolers also have more opportunity to show their unique talents or interests to different universities because of the freedom of their schedule.  For example, my oldest son it passionate about the piano.  He want to practice quite a bit and compete in competitions with piano.  Homeschooling allows me to give him time for his piano so he can pursue what he loves.  This part of his life will be a unique part of his high school journey that I can add to his transcript.

Enjoying the moments!

esther7dancing1 Comment

I tend to hear many different grandparents or parents of older children remind me to enjoy the moments with my kids because before I know it time is gone and they are grown up.  I am a check list person and when it comes to homeschooling, one of my favorite things is to make sure I have taught and done everything on my check list.  If I do something that is not on my check list, I like to write it down so I can check it off.   It is good to be organized but I am learning to enjoy the moments that God gives me with my kids.

We try to daily have “Bible” time as part of our school day.  We read the Word of God and I usually have some kind of character training book that we are going through.  Right now the books we are reading through are Lee Strobel’s “Case for Christ” and a novel called “Sir Malcom and the Missing Prince”.  We also like to read about different countries and pray for those countries as part of “Bible” time.  All that to say, there are those whirlwind days when we get nothing done in homeschooling except Bible.  I would get upset because we didn’t get to Math or Reading done that day.  I didn’t get to check off everything off my list.  But then I started to think about what I wanted my kids to have when they are done with this journey of homeschooling.  I want them to love God with all their hearts and I want them to have a love for people.  The different conversations that we have ended up having during Bible times have been priceless.

God is continually working on me and gently reminds me to enjoy the moments that I have in this journey with my kids.  All the subjects in our homeschooling are important  in helping our children in their journey through life and what God wants them to be.  I love education, teaching and I will probably always love my checklists but I also don’t want to forget to delight in the moments that God gives me in this adventure I am on.