I would love to speak at your local homeschool convention! I try to provide helpful, concrete information in an upbeat way.  My job is to remove the fear of homeschooling middle school and high school, and I love encouraging parents at conv...

Can you feel the spring in the air? I can!  And, if you've been around homeschooling long enough, you know that can only mean one thing.... It's almost convention time!   Conventions are great for allowing you a chance to do continuing...

 OCEAN Conference Top Notch Encouragement

The OCEAN Conference in Oregon was SUCH an encouragement to me! I loved getting together with like-minded parents, trying their best to homeschool through high school with confidence.  A homeschool conference is an important part of your homeschool year too. Even if you can’t attend one, do something to refresh and encourage yourself during the off-season, so you can start fresh next year.

The first day our winner was Allison, a 9th grader who was talking to me about high school. She is thinking about becoming a nurse, and I’m an RN, so we had a lot to talk about.  She was so thrilled because the beach towel she won looked EXACTLY like her cell phone cover! Same colors, same stripes… it was totally meant to be!

The second day our winner was Jennifer. She stopped by my booth to say she was so thankful for all the free help she received over the years. She said her 12th grader was successful with college admission and scholarships thanks to using all the free resources on my website, and taking my free online classes!

During that weekend, I gave 6 presentations. Would you like to treat yourself to this convention experience?

Washington State Convention Super Fun!

The Washington Homeschool Convention was SUPER fun!  Did you go to a homeschool convention this year?

Homeschool conferences are a great investment in your continuing education as a homeschool parent, and I really do encourage you to go to a conference each year.

At the Washington Homeschool Organization Convention, I had the opportunity to meet one of my Gold Care Club members in person! It was awesome to meet Rene!

Our first winner was Carissa, and she was thrilled to win! She is 12-years-old, and has just completed her very first year of homeschooling!  Are you nervous about your first year? This article may help: A New Beginning: Homeschooling High School for Freaked Parents.

With any curriculum, it's the FIT with the child that is the most important consideration. No matter how wonderful a curriculum might be, it has to be interesting and engaging, so the child can learn.  I have to say, this new curriculum was a great fit for me and my husband, and we learned a lot from it.

I was thrilled to be able to look over Diana Waring's new addition to history, called "History Revealed, Volume 3: World Empires, World Missions, World Wars (AD 1800–1900)" by Diana Waring and Answers in Genesis. It looked beautiful, of course, as all new curriculum will look. Anybody who’s familiar with Diana Waring’s history books knows that they are unique in the world of homeschool history curriculum.  Written from a biblical worldview, extraordinarily comprehensive, and adaptable to any student’s individual learning style, the only thing I have to complain about is that this curriculum wasn’t around when my own children were homeschooling!

Like her previous volumes, Volume 3 of Diana’s world history series, World Empires, World Missions, World Wars overflows with exciting, well-written resources that will engage your students. My husband actually unpacked the box when it arrived, and was blown away by everything that’s included: a student text, a teacher’s guide, 3 different CD sets, an elementary activity book, and test resources. In fact, once he started listening to the CDs, he took them in the car everywhere he went, and wouldn’t let me have them back until he was done!

After I’d read and listened too, I knew why he was so impressed.  Too often it seems as though our study of history, even when we come at it from a biblical perspective, tends to artificially separate out events into either secular or sacred.  We read about wars, then we read about missionaries, then we read about cultures, and then we read about spiritual movements—all separate from each other. If you want your children to study history in a way that includes God’s activity and involvement in the lives of individuals and nations, this is the curriculum you should use.  Diana weaves the events of history together in a way that helps your students understand that historical events don’t happen in isolation, and that God has been intimately involved for millennia in the affairs of men.

While the biblical emphasis is enough to set this curriculum apart, the capstone to History Revealed is how it meets the needs of students with different learning styles, providing activities for every mode: “thinkers (just the facts, ma’am),” “feelers (let’s do it together!),” “intuitors (I have an idea!),” and “sensors (let me get my hands on that).”  My children learned primarily through reading—they were mostly “thinkers—but I know that if we’d used the CDs that accompany this curriculum, all that time we spent in the car driving to lessons would have been turned into some great learning time. We loved using ‘living books’ in our homeschool too, and History Revealed utilizes many of them in its study of the geography, music, art, science, etc. of each time period.

Diana’s enthusiasm and love for God’s unfolding plan sparkles forth from both her written and spoken word, and you can’t help but become enthusiastic along with her when you read and listen! You can tell I’m a fan—and I think you will be too.

You can find Volume 3 of History Revealed at many curriculum providers including Christianbook.com and Amazon.



Grab a copy of my quick and easy to read kindle book: Homeschool Curriculum That's Effective and Fun.

 

People have been asking me for an update on my kids.  My boys are all grown up - they are men now and not boys anymore.  I could give you an update, but really, I want to give you more of a warning.

Children grow up. They leave home. They stop leaving messes.

The other day my kids came over.  I needed an excuse to make cookies, but I also made them dinner and we all watched a movie together.  It was lots of fun!  A few days after they left, I realized something was different about my living room.

There was music on the piano...chess pieces littered the table...

Wow!  All those years homeschooling my children and feeling frustrated at messes, and now here I am HAPPY to have a little bit of proof that they came over to visit and had fun! What once seemed so annoying now brings me such warm feelings!  Who knew?

Here is a brief update, because some have asked for it:

Kevin is still playing chess, but not very often.  He works full time as an electrical engineer and software engineer and loves it.  He is also a part time student getting his masters in engineering, and he is constantly studying "just for fun."  He is married to his beautiful, sweet wife Liz (who also works as my Office Manager) and they have a lovely home nearby.  Alex is still playing piano, but not very often. He graduated with a double major in Political Economy and Rhetoric. He lives nearby and tutors students in all subjects.  We talk a lot about the state of education and curriculum options, and he loves encouraging others to love learning.

Homeschooling is a season of life, not a life sentence.

Enjoy what you are doing, and the stage of life you are in right now. It won't last forever - that's a promise. It's also a warning, because one day you'll face the empty nest and wonder why you were ever so annoyed with scattered chess pieces and random sheet music on the piano.



 

 

This is me when I need to write more blog posts.

Haha! OK, not really, I don't actually cry like a baby.  But yup, I sometimes complain and whine when faced with work. Now it's your turn.  Have you even thought unhappy thoughts when you had to cook dinner? Again. Every. Night. Over. And. Over. Or have you ever felt inconsolable when faced with paying bills? That never ending, constant, and recurring torment.

So is it surprising then, when our children complain about school?  Probably not.  But we can hope they handle hard work as maturely as we do.  We can hope they don't wail and whine, right? We can teach them how to handle struggles and work and disappointment the way adults do.  We may not always like it, but we usually get it done. Sometimes nobody even knows we are complaining inside.

Look at what you are expecting of your children.  Are you expecting too much?  Sometimes when they whine and complain, it's actually for a good reason.  If you were expected to work 18 hour days, that wouldn't be reasonable, and nobody would fault you for verbalizing your displeasure.  In the same way, when your teenager expresses unhappiness about their work load, look first to see if you are actually expecting too much.

Sometimes, just sometimes, our teenagers are right, and their work load really is too much to bear without crying like a baby.  Other times they cry like a baby over reasonable expectations and simple assignments.  Our job is too check once in a while, to make sure we aren't asking too much. One quick way to see if they are doing too much is to estimate how many hours you expect them to work on school each day.  If it's more than 8 hours, it's too much.  If it's less than 4 hours in high school, then it's probably too little.

Don't expect your teenagers to be perfect.  We aren't perfect either.  Just expect them to do a reasonable amount of work, with a reasonably pleasant attitude most of the time.  And assess their work load once in a while to make sure your expectations are really reasonable for teenagers.



Do you enjoy our monthly newsletter, “The HomeScholar Record?”  If so, would you write a brief review here, so others can benefit from it too?  Thanks!!

 

Join me for fun and games, laughter and friendship, giveaways and prizes!