Aveline has spent the last several weeks creating a pixel art reproduction of Katsushika Hokusai’s famous woodblock print The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. (Do you think Hokusai realized we’d still be obsessed with his views of Mount Fuji all these centuries later?) With 13 different shades of blues, greys, and browns, she’s brought Hokusai’s masterpiece to life — I love it so much.
Continue reading “Create Pixel Art with Pix Brix: Great Wave Off Kanagawa Review”
Disclosure: Sonlight provided me with a Hands-on History box, and compensated me financially for this post. I have used many Sonlight products in our homeschool prior to reviewing this product. All opinions — and photographs! ;) — are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.]
Sonlight is synonymous with literature-based learning. Think Sonlight, and you immediately think excellent books. (The phrase “no more boring textbooks” leads Sonlight’s educational philosophy.) But over the past several years, Sonlight has added more and more hands-on homeschool options to complement the treasure trove of literature.
Continue reading “Using Sonlight Hands-On History as Homeschool Enrichment”
When I was a homeschool kid, there were really only handful of ways to handle algebra: Saxon, Abeka, the Christian university publisher which shall not be named, or the local community college. If you got stuck, you consulted Key to Math workbooks. Now, there are so many options for teaching homeschool algebra, it’s hard to narrow them all down! Yet if there’s one question I get asked more often than any other, it’s this —
That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Let’s tackle it.
Continue reading “What I Did After Singapore Math (& Other Math Fails)”
It’s been so fascinating watching as Lochlan (age 3.5) begins to be enamored with the alphabet. Aveline was obsessed with letters from an early age, but since I knew her journey wasn’t typical, I didn’t expect Lochlan to be the same. I assumed he wouldn’t show much interest on his own, and imagined I’d teach him his letters at five or six, especially since — as everyone keeps reminding me — “He’s a boy!“
But I also believe in honoring the marvelously individual child God created, truly seeing their unique individuality, and following their cues.
Continue reading “A-Z Magnatab: A Hands-on Activity for Teaching Preschoolers Letters”
It’s March, but the vast majority of our usually-vibrant shrubs and bushes bear no hint of green. They’re merely a shell of twigs, flanked by a halo of decaying leaves.
In late December, we were hit with a sudden blast of cold weather. While Tennessee is no stranger to seasonal snowfall, this icy blast was different. The cold blew in far more rapidly than usual, very quickly pushing temperatures below zero, where they remained for days. Plants and trees plunged from comfortable weather to Arctic chill so rapidly the liquid inside instantly froze, causing stems, branches, and sapling trunks to split open and die. The plant cells spontaneously combusted — in ice, not in fire [1].
There is grief in this.
Continue reading “When Resurrection Doesn’t Come”
You know I’m going to start off this recap with literature, especially literature which doubles as history. Buckle up, hide your wallets, and get out your library card. I’ll talk about a lot of books today. (Our Eastern Redbud tree is in full — yet leafless — bloom this week. Magical!)
Continue reading “In Our Homeschool This Week (6th Grade & Preschool | 3 March 23)”
Mandarin Chinese has been a foundational part of Aveline’s educational experience for years. In fact, six out of seven days of the week involve some sort of Chinese learning, and she’s spent spent every Saturday at Chinese school for the past 9 years. (Josiah, her faithful chauffeur, is a saint. And Aveline is incredibly devoted and focused, because she’s the only one in our family who speaks Chinese.)
Continue reading “Teaching Chinese Brush Painting in your Homeschool”
It’s been a rough school year. It really has. February is always a strange month in homeschool — and private school — subculture, anyway. We’re really only a few weeks into the second semester, but people begin to talk as though the school year is over. (Maybe they subconsciously want it to be.) It’s only just past Valentine’s Day, but people are already rolling out the class schedules for 2023/2024. I’ve been there, too. I’ve spent over-caffeinated Februaries gleefully pre-reading stacks of books for co-op classes, mapping out assignments for next year’s sweater weather while still wearing this year’s sweaters.
Continue reading “Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 Pencils (A Timberdoodle Review)”
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