My kids are 12 and 3, so on any given day, my brain swings from helping with algebra to helping with play dough — and back again.
It’s a wild ride.
Continue reading “Fanta Color Baby: An Independent Game for Toddlers and Preschoolers”
Phew, a new year! Are you ready? Flipping the calendar page this year has been crazy. Our January has been an absolute blur, and not in a good way. (Go away, germs. You’re no longer welcome here.) With everyone at my house being in various states of illness and quite frankly disrepair, independent activities for each person have been a lifesaver.
Continue reading “8 Reasons You Need IQ Six Pro, A Popular Logic Game”
When cold weather rolls in, we get the jigsaw puzzles out. Is this true in your home, too? There’s just something about the chilly weather and cloudy skies which makes puzzles especially appealing.
There are a few hands-on educational helps which stand out strongly as huge favorites among twice-exceptional kids — putty is definitely one of those resources! My wiggly kinesthetic learner really needs things like this to keep her hands extra busy, so her brain can calm down from overdrive and actually focus.
STEM education has been firmly in the spotlight for a long time now, with no signs of wavering. Learning materials promising to infuse science, technology, engineering and math into your homeschool are everywhere. But without actually opening the box and trying the products, it can be hard to know if pre-packaged STEM projects are truly worthwhile, or if they’re just really expensive toys masquerading as educational. Let’s take a look at one popular STEM toy and see if it’s worth the hype.
Continue reading “Fischertechnik E-Tronic Review: Easy STEM Elective for Middle/High School”
Homeschoolers are opinionated when it comes to early childhood education. All you have to do is mention preschool or pre-kindergarten in a room full of homeschool moms, and you’ll instantly find yourself the recipient of a ton of free advice — whether or not you want it.
One of the most common bits of advice is to let kids play.
Continue reading “Sonlight Pre-Kindergarten Review: NEW Pre-K at Home with Montessori Updates”But have you ever stopped to ask, what is play?
[Disclosure: Sonlight provided me with a History / Bible / Literature D: Intro to American History, Year 1 of 2 package, 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.]If there’s one thing I’ve excelled at in our homeschool, it’s procrastinating over choosing a US History curriculum.
As a third-culture missionary kid born abroad, teaching US history has never come naturally to me. When I was young, American history seemed worlds away, and even as an adult, I often still feel like an outsider.
I have zero patience for dry legalist curriculum which holds the Founding Fathers on faultless pedestals, doesn’t consider both sides of a story, and ignores the sorrowful brokenness of our nation’s foundations. (Second-generation homeschoolers, you know what I’m talking about!)
But I knew my own kids couldn’t just skip learning the complicated history of our nation. Eventually, we had to dive in. Having spent my early childhood years in a socialist republic without the freedom of speech, religion, or assembly, I’ve learned that no matter how complex US history is to navigate, we must never take such invaluable freedoms for granted. So I needed to find a complete American history curriculum, especially after my own previous unsuccessful attempts to piece together a literature-based US history course always fizzled out.
Continue reading “Sonlight’s US History Curriculum: Review & NEW HBL D Updates”
If you’re science-or math-averse, don’t let your own limitations keep your kids from delving into STEM projects. Code Rocket lets you teach kids to code, even if you have no idea how. The video lessons — and the interactive circuit board — walk kids through fun C++ programming projects. Because the code kids are compiling operates the physical rocket-shaped circuit board, they’ll get immediately satisfying results, like blinking LEDs and beeping sounds!
Continue reading “Easily Teach Kids to Code with STEM Toys for Homeschool”
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