Modern Homeschool Today

My 7 year old is a reluctant writer. When I say reluctant, I mean that he is more than happy to spend time writing stories but resists any of the rules of writing e.g correct punctuation. It is often messy, rushed and unreadable to anyone but him. When he was 5 I was happy with this as I wanted him to simply enjoy the experience of expressing his thoughts. I felt that perhaps as time went on that he would seek to be understood in his writing and learn to write so that others could enjoy his beautifully creative stories. This didn't happen. He continued to resist any guidance in even just the simple idea of capital letters and fullstops. Why? I think he just honestly didn't see any point! Hence why I named him a 'reluctant writer'. In my search for writing program that would work for him I turned to Writing with Ease.  It is written by Susan Wise Bauer who is well known for her classical approach to homeschooling and curriculum. I consider my homeschooling s...

I can hardly believe it's December - the year has flown! Here we are thinking about Christmas crafts and trips to the city to see Christmas displays when I feel like the year has just begun. Where did the time go? Despite the fact this year has had the usual ebb and flow of beautiful homeschooling moments combined with tear your hair out and "That's it..you're going back to school" moments, I want to make sure we finish the year strong. Last year, we fizzled out as lessons got less and less frequent with the busyness of Christmas concerts and family events so that everyone, including me, lost their motivation and getting back into it at the beginning of the new year was a struggle. How can we finish the year strong? Looking back at what we've achieved This is great for the kids to look back and see what they've achieved. This year we finished 2A and (almost) 2B of Singapore maths with both boys. DS5 completed his 100 book reading challenge...

    Lego is a huge part of my boy's lives and their love for it continues to change and grow in complexity as they get older. My kids loves the free play of the normal Lego blocks but are also developing an interest in the assemble kits. "Mum, Can I please get the Lego star wars deathstar? It's only $400...."   I've always known that Lego is 'good' for kids, for their developing creativity, problem solving and more. These reasons are more than enough motivation to encourage the use of Lego in our homeschool.   Why Use Lego In Home Education?     1. Kids love Lego, it's fun and motivating!   As delight-directed homeschoolers, I love using my children's interests and passions to impart different skills and knowledge. Lego is something I have used many a time to teach mathematical concepts, physics, engineering and even literacy. When a child is interested in a topic they have a motivation, a desire to learn a...

We are struggling with writing at the moment. 7yo loves to write but is very resistant to the 'rules' of writing such as punctuation, capital letters etc. He enjoys most aspects of homeschooling but when I say we are going to do some writing I can see his body tense, his eyes roll and then the complaining starts.... We are currently trying out a few different curriculum to discover what is going to work for 7yo and Brave Writer is one of them. A fellow homeschooler suggested the brave writer 'jot it down' resource  as I love curriculum I can use for both 7yo and 6yo and this resource is designed for kids aged 5-8. The book introduces the idea of a 'brave writer lifestyle' and suggests this is the daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal rhythm in your homeschool that explores music, the arts, film, nature, literature, poetry and various writing practices in a natural, predictable flow. It provides a guide, not a "to do" list of activities designed to...

My 7yo has always been fascinated with rocks. So when he spied the national geographic rocks and minerals collection at our local newsagent his eyes lit up! I saw it as a great opportunity to foster his keen interest in geology and for me to learn something new along the way too. There is something exciting about waiting for the next rock in the collection to arrive, going to pick it up and learning about something new.  And move over Justin Bieber (or whatever the female equivalent is these days) there's a rocks and minerals poster next to my son's bed!   I must admit that rocks and minerals don't intrigue me the way they do my son so I've had to be proactive in finding motivating and exciting ideas for exploring this topic. To get some ideas on how I could expand on this interest I visited some of my favourite homeschooling blogs and sites. I discovered this idea on teaching the layers of the earth. I followed the links and printed and laminated our o...

We visited the South Australian Maritime Museum yesterday for a special school holiday event. We went with a homeschool group to enjoy the play "Shipwrecked". Despite the fact I grew up in Adelaide, I don't know the area of Port Adelaide very well at all. It was a beautiful sunny, winter day (yep, only in Adelaide) so we decided to explore the port. We walked along the water and admired the heritage buildings and stopped at a cute little cafe' for a coffee and orange juice. The maritime museum has a ship that the kids can explore on and play in. The boys spent most of their time playing pirates and exploring the ship before we explored the rest of the museum. After the play we went to climb the old lighthouse which is free with your museum entry. We also stopped to consider going on a dolphin cruise. But there was no need as the dolphins were 'playing' right beside the boat so we sat and watched them for FREE! So, our day out at Po...

We LOVE this resource! All About Homophones is a resource created by the team at All About Learning Press. We have been using All About Spelling since the beginning of the year and really enjoy the multi-sensory lessons and were fortunate to receive a copy of this new homophone resource for homeschoolers. This homophone resource includes engaging worksheets, games and activities and even a graphic organiser to assist with visual learning. It also starts at the beginning and is suitable for kids as young as 6  (year 1) and continues to progress in complexity until about year 8. It's a complete resource - for homophones! My kids love homophones. They swell with pride when they discover a new homophone from real life and I love to see their brains ticking away as they work through the complexities of the English language. In fact, I was quite surprised at how fascinated they were with homophones. They seem to have a genuine fascination and interest in this topic. The wor...