The kids are home–and must stay home–but the sun is shining and spring has arrived. It’s the perfect time to send them outside to play! If your kids aren’t used to free play in the backyard you may wonder how to engage them and keep them occupied and interested in staying out there. It’s easier than you might think! Your…

Often I speak with parents who find themselves second-guessing decisions they have made regarding their children's education. Obviously, most of us homeschool our children for a reason. Perhaps we feel called to homeschool, or maybe we just feel it is in the best interest of our children.

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…

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…

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…

One of the little things I enjoyed most about homeschooling was having an excuse to add to my home library. Every year when the new Sonlight catalog came out (usually April 1) and the school year was winding down, I took inventory of my Sonlight library. I checked to see which books were still on the shelf where they belonged and which had “walked…

As many families are starting the school year and starting to get into a routine, the questions from homeschoolers change from “choosing” to “using.” Many of them are quick and easy, such as “Where can I find the maps?” or “When do we use this item?” Others are more complex, based on the individual family’s situation. One mom I talked to…

When Rebecca was studying American history in middle school, we created an extensive American history scrapbook. We filled a large binder with blank 3-hole-drilled paper and then labeled each page with a year in the upper right corner. We inserted dividers between the centuries. I used a variety of resources for filling in our scrapbook including: Sonlight’s timeline figures (purchased) A Journey…