Homeschool Chat: the Reggio Emilia Approach

In the past year, I’ve discussed quite a few methods and styles of education (Charlotte Mason, Classical, Montessori, Unit Study, Waldorf, Unschooling, and more) through Instagram. Though we utilize a blend of styles; we certainly don’t incorporate all of them. Explaining them is not an endorsement of them or necessarily a lesson in how we [...]

Homeschool Chat: Balance, Consistency, Scheduling, and Burn Out.

For a few years, I would periodically hold Q+A sessions to discuss homeschooling on Instagram. It’s always been a topic that gets a lot of questions, but I quickly learned that when given the invitation many more people than I would have otherwise heard from came forward with curiosity. Last year, as questions increased without [...]

Easter Guide

Easter Guide

Gathering our Easter resources proved to be quite an undertaking. It took hours of reading, watching, consolidating, typing, linking, prepping supplies, purchasing materials, remembering past resources and researching new ones. Yet even with an extensive array of curriculum, meaningful Easter basket ideas, educational videos, baking projects, hands-on activities, books for all ages, music, and more… [...]

St. Patrick’s Day Guide

St. Patrick’s Day Guide

St. Patrick’s Day has certainly been hijacked by leprechauns, luck, and lager. It takes some digging to find appropriate resources telling the true history of the missionary once named Maewyn Succat and the reason he is remembered. We are not worshipful of saints. We certainly don’t pray to them. But it is, I believe, important [...]

Spring Rhythm

I try to start every season with a new list of music, oil blends, recipes, and daily rhythm. We don't legalistically follow a schedule. So you won't find it broken down by hour. Every day is a little different, but they all follow the same general flow: Refresh, Reset, Recharge, Refocus, Recharge, Reset, Refresh, Rest. [...]

Second Grade Curriculum + Rhythm

Our weekly rhythm is organized to focus our time and energy on one area of study a day. This allows us to dive in, supplement curriculum, answer any questions that arise, etc. without rushing or feeling pressure to move to another task. We do not get buried under a heavy workload of busy work. We [...]

Homeschool Curriculum

People have many questions when they hear that we homeschool. But one of the most common, by far, is: What curriculum do you use? The short answer is that I don't buy one bulk curriculum. Rather, I piece together a custom plan. Last year, when he was a kindergartner, we used Montessori by Mom. And [...]

January

Week 1 The first week of the year. The first week of a few household changes. And our rhythm has shifted. So I feel the need to summarize it as best as I can. We went through the week with less technology and more books. We worked through spelling words and math equations. We told [...]