• nostalgic plaid lunch box with vintage books
    Homeschooling

    How to Buy School Supplies for Your Homeschool

    It seems like summer is hardly half over before the Back-to-School sales start. When I was growing up we would get a shopping list of school supplies from our school. The list for each grade level was slightly different. In the early years we needed a tablet or two of lined manuscript paper… a few Number Two pencils (I’m not…

  • How to create a travel notebook
    Homeschooling

    How to Create a Travel Notebook

    Our plans this Memorial Day weekend include a much-too-short road-trip. Sort of a mini-vacation but with not enough time to do all the things we’d like to do. On trips like these, where we’ll be spending many hours in the car, I like to plan travel notebooks for the kids specific to the route we have planned. When my girls…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: String Art Kit

    One of Lyle’s hobbies when he was a teen was string art. This was, of course, back in the late ’70s/early ’80s. It’s not a craft that I ever did, but I can see that it would be interesting. Lyle made a number of pieces and brought several with him when we got married. More recently his mother gave me…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: Haba Palette of Pegs

    Apparently I’m old enough to be a grandma. Even though many friends my age have grandchildren that really hadn’t occurred to me until our little friend, Ella, age 2-and-a-half, started referring to me as Nonna this past weekend. (That’s what she calls her mommy’s mother.) We thought that was hilarious… and adorable. Does that make me an honorary grandma? Lyle…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: Waboba Outdoor Play Kit

    With all the camping we’ve got going on this summer I was excited for the opportunity review the Waboba Get Out and Play 3-in-1 Outdoor Active Play Kit. Timberdoodle sent it to me in exchange for my honest review. Actually, it has nothing to do with camping. Except. It’s just the very kind of thing I like to take along…

  • Homeschooling

    Summer Unschooling

    Probably my favorite aspect of homeschooling is the flexibility we have to schedule school when it’s convenient for us. Some homeschoolers follow a year-round school schedule, taking off a few weeks here and there throughout the year. I consider myself a fairly laid-back homeschooler but I never could get away from the traditional American school year schedule. Typically, we start…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: Economics for Everybody

    When Laura was a senior in high school I wanted her to take an economics course. Math is not her strong suit, so she didn’t do the math portion of a typical economics course. However, we did read several books on the subject together, so she would have a basic understanding of how economics works. During Rebecca’s senior year we…

  • How to Help Your Child Listen When You Read Aloud
    Homeschooling

    How to Help Your Child Listen When You Read Aloud

    In our homeschool I have spent many, many hours reading aloud to my children. There are so many benefits to reading to your children, and it’s always something I’ve enjoyed, so it was a high priority for us. As it turns out, an oral literature-based approach is perfect for our situation as both of my children have learning challenges: one…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: Bloxels

    Today I’ll be talking about another product Timberdoodle sent me to review as part of Rebecca’s continuing education. This one is a build-your-own video game kit called Bloxels. The kit is made up of two main components: 1) the 13×13 plastic design board with little cubes of various colors, and 2) the downloadable Bloxels game app. Bloxels is a complete game…

  • Homeschooling

    Review: Extraordinaires Design Studio Pro

    For the past few months I’ve had some time to work on developing my graphic design skills. This is something I’ve always enjoyed and I’m finding that it comes in very handy at the print shop. I’m actually being able to do some simple projects for customers now, which I find very rewarding. One of my first projects was quite a challenge,…