I just began my 15th year of homeschooling. I only have a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 10-year-old left at home, and every one of them is digging into good books I want to read with them. Sure, almost all those books are repeats for me, but as C.S. Lewis points out in Experiment in…
When live wires connect, electricity flows. When roots connect to moist soil, nutrients are sent up so the plant can grow. When magnets connect, they can hold up an astonishing amount of weight. What happens when ideas connect in the mind? Learning. Making connections is learning Education is about understanding relations, the connectedness of things. Seeing…
I always go into summer thinking that I’ll use the time to clean and organize the whole house, make a perfect plan for the next school year – which will solve all our logistics issues and make it so much better – and probably lose ten pounds while I’m at it. But it turns out…
All classical educators, since before Plato and extending all the way through the centuries until the progressive movement began dismantling education, have been obsessed with teaching virtue. If their educational program didn’t produce virtuous men and women, it was effort spent in vain. This is why Plato railed against the Sophists – their goal was…
Instagram is not good for our homeschools. It’s not good for our homemaking, either, or our mental and emotional health as women. Instagram works as a comparison machine. An image from someone else’s life pops in front of our eyes and our minds are instant evaluators, analyzers. That’s what our mind does. When presented with…
Sometimes when you homeschool tweens – the turbulent early puberty years – you need to know you’re not the only one wondering what happened to your sweet child. Trust me, you’re not the only one. I remember one totally typical homeschool day when the 9-year-old came up the stairs to find me. As she entered…
“Make your bed.” “Did you brush your teeth?” “You washed your hands? Did you use soap?” “Stop. No whining.” Do you find yourself repeating yourself daily? Do your admonitions seem never to sink in or make a difference? Have you become the frustrated, nagging mom that you never wanted to be? I don’t have any…
At the time, I had a baby and a preschooler and someone who ought to be taught to read. But there were also 9-year-old and 7-year-old boys. I’d tell them to go get dressed, planning on starting school after they came back downstairs. I’d load the dishwasher, wipe the counter, start a load of laundry,…
Once a child hits 11 or so, the average homeschool mom starts to wonder where all his common sense, self-control, and good habits went. Just when she thought she was getting somewhere and things were going alright, he hits 11 and all momentum seems to be going backward, not forward. Although I’m no fan of…
This year I am homeschooling only my youngest 3. My oldest graduated high school with his two-year degree from the community college last year and my second son is currently taking full time dual enrollment classes at the same community college. Ilse is 14, in 8th grade, and in Math-U-See Geometry, Antiquity from Compass Classroom…