Author: Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Gina Munsey is a Mexico-born, Eastern Europe-raised missionary kid who ended up being a Californian by way of Florida outside of Nashville, Tennessee. She lives her days full of coffee and adventures while her 12-year-old learns Mandarin Chinese and Greek, her 3-year-old uses all the markers, and her artist-husband creates worlds from pixels and light. A blogger since the turn of the century (ouch!) she's an editor, co-op teacher, and writer who has only completed four chapters of her languishing manuscript. You can find Gina right here at oaxacaborn.com, or in the middle of [home]school surrounded by stacks and stacks of books.
Book Reviews, Homeschooling

Take the Diverse Summer Reading Challenge (FREE printable)!

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Expand your horizons with this FREE diverse summer reading challenge (includes a printable tracker)

Are you looking for global and culturally diverse summer reading ideas for your kids? Do you want your kids to…

  • …stretch their reading legs outside of their usual North American comfort zone,
  • …tackle topics they haven’t before,
  • …open their eyes to the marvelous diversity found everywhere around us,
  • …turn their attention to countries and cultures with which they aren’t super familiar,
  • …celebrate this great big global world God created,
  • …learn about non-European food, music, art, inventions, and holidays,
  • …enrich their perspectives with culturally diverse reads

…and ultimately, grow closer to Jesus and better learn to love their neighbor?

You need to download our FREE global reading challenge!

Continue reading “Take the Diverse Summer Reading Challenge (FREE printable)!” →
Homeschooling, Theology

The Problem with Cultivating Good Taste in our Students

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

The Problem with Cultivating Good Taste in our Students - Classical Education, Classical Christian Homeschooling, What is Beauty?Among certain thinkers in classical education, there exists the idea that one must strive to cultivate good taste in children, to the betterment of their eternal soul. Here’s the problem: good taste is often confused with parental preference. Poor taste is elevated to a place reserved for actual sin.

Lest you think I have imagined this — lest you think I have imagined the pedestal Christian classicists have given to taste — consider this from a prominent writer in classical education:

“One of the most important things we can offer students is good taste, by which I mean learning to love beautiful things that have lasted. Bad taste is not a personality quirk, but a significant moral problem. If our students don’t love beautiful things, we have failed them. If we are graduating students who love shallow things, they might as well go to public school.”

Bad taste is a significant moral problem? Sin is a significant moral problem. Taste is not. We cannot, and must not, equate taste with worth.

Continue reading “The Problem with Cultivating Good Taste in our Students” →

Book Reviews, Curriculum Reviews, Homeschooling

Non Fiction Matters: “100 Things to Know About the Human Body” Book Review

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Non-Fiction Matters: 101 Things to Know About the Human Body Usborne Timberdoodle Book Review

“Do you want to hear a song?” my now-ten-year-old  asked a random stranger the summer before kindergarten. “I know a song. ‘Immune system, with your lymph system / will your enemies attack / With the white blood cells, the leukocyte cells / that will destroy and turn them back.'”

Oblivious to the expression on the startled shopper’s face, she continued much-too-loudly, “…a germ is like a cucaracha! That would love to live inside ya!” The stranger vanished into the clearance racks at Target, and my singing scientist, perched inside the red shopping cart, kept belting out a symphony of lymphatic facts.

[Disclosure of Material Connections: I received a complimentary copy of 100 Things to Know About the Human Body from Timberdoodle in exchange for writing and publishing this review. All opinions — and photographs! ;) — are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.] Continue reading “Non Fiction Matters: “100 Things to Know About the Human Body” Book Review” →

Book Reviews, Curriculum Reviews, Homeschooling

Teaching Vocabulary Through Art: 101 Doodle Definitions

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

What’s the best vocabulary curriculum?

What’s the best vocabulary curriculum — one with Greek and Latin, right? Although I’m a big proponent of teaching word roots, I’d argue that for elementary-aged kids, the most effective vocabulary curriculum might actually be the one that’s the most fun. (Fun is often profoundly effective.)

Words are thrilling. They’re flexible yet bold, evocative yet concise, and powerful yet ephemeral. They can be translated and transcribed, sung and spoken, spun into cantatas, carved and chanted, whispered and written. Twenty-six letters can be woven into sonnets and mysteries, songs and orders, death and life.

In spite of the absolute magic of words, we somehow often manage to turn vocabulary study into a chore, transforming words into tasks. When vocabulary study becomes drudgery, when words are wrenched from their context and vocabulary becomes copywork — and nothing more — even the most voracious of bookworms begin to resent vocabulary. This is a travesty! A vocabulary study in which kids don’t retain the material isn’t much of vocabulary study at all.

But what if vocabulary study was creative?

What if we let kids draw?

What if we even allowed doodling?

[Disclosure of Material Connections: I received a complimentary copy of 101 Doodle Definitions from Timberdoodle in exchange for writing and publishing this review. All opinions — and photographs! ;) — are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review.]

Continue reading “Teaching Vocabulary Through Art: 101 Doodle Definitions” →

Homeschooling, Poetry & Words, Theology

Taking Back February

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

2021 sweeps in, steadily. Time marches and flies, ebbs and flows, for better and for worse. November, December, January float away, torn calendar pages of the past.

Inside our homes, the steam sinks ceiling-bound from the mugs of steaming coffee, and tired spoons clink on bowls of stirred porridge. Babies cry, faucets run, doors creak on hinges, cars roll by. The news scrolls. Numbers upward, spirits downward, hopelessness slung around. Talking heads spout carelessly. Some seethe, some hide, few stand up and whisper truth.

We do not listen.

The damage digs in to all of us.

Inside our homes, laundry tumbles, wet. Tired arms mop up footprints and wipe away crumbs. Babies cry, faucets run, doors creak on hinges, cars roll by. The pages open. Stories deepening, spirits upward, hope burst up and waters us, like a snow melting down the mountain in the spring. Listening ears tuck treasures thoughtfully. Some ponder, some wonder, many stand up and shout the truth.

We listen.

His redemption springs forth anew in all of us.

March pads softly in, rapping quietly at the door. Something stirs beneath the frozen soil. We stand up, square our shoulders back, and walk squarely into the sun.

Curriculum Reviews, Homeschooling

Review of Veritas Press Self-Paced History Courses

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Veritas Press Self-Paced History Review

Now through JUNE 28, 2022, get $100 off any self-paced course (omnibus, Bible, or history) when you use code INDEPENDENT.

If some part of homeschooling isn’t working for you, change it!

Depending on when you started school, Thanksgiving break marks about twelve or fifteen weeks into the academic year. By now, you’ve been at this long enough to grasp a sense of what curriculum is working well for you — and what isn’t. Enough time has passed for you to take a healthy assessment of your real homeschool situation, as opposed to your ideal homeschool situation. If things aren’t running as smoothly as you had hoped, don’t despair! It’s early enough in the school year to make changes.

Homeschooling, like parenting, is a strange beast. It requires humility and flexibility — but it also requires confidence and assertiveness. Like Kenny Rogers sang, “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em / Know when to fold ’em / Know when to walk away…” (Probably not a song that shows up in many homeschool morning times, I’m guessing.)

Continue reading “Review of Veritas Press Self-Paced History Courses” →

Book Reviews, Curriculum Reviews, Homeschooling

Best Usborne Baby Books from Timberdoodle’s Tiny Tots Package

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Best Usborne Board Books from Timberdoodle Tiny Tots

In addition to spending a small fortune on coffee beans and regularly bathing in coffee, I also maintain an exceptionally large collection of board books, distributed throughout the house.

I keep a few in each bedroom, set some aside to distract wee Lochlan while I host the livestream discussion for our virtual co-op, place a few of the more tattered books in the playpen, and store the rest in the living room.

Board books — like other books — enjoy a central place of prominence in our home. They’re kind of a big deal around here.

Continue reading “Best Usborne Baby Books from Timberdoodle’s Tiny Tots Package” →

Curriculum Reviews, Homeschooling

Games for Kids to Play Alone: Walls & Warriors Review

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Games Kids Can Play Alone - Walls & Warriors Timberdoodle Review

It’s hard to know which one-player games are worth playing, isn’t it? Games kids can play alone are a great way to foster independence and critical thinking in your homeschool, but how do you sort through all the games designed for solo play and pick out the best ones?

I tend to navigate towards single-player logic puzzle games, as they’re a great exercise in thinking skills. Puzzle games require careful thought, planning, and thinking outside the box. And if you have a particularly rigid-thinking child like I do, logic puzzles are a good way to practice the flexibility and creativity needed to solve problems.

Continue reading “Games for Kids to Play Alone: Walls & Warriors Review” →