When you transition from public school to homeschool, there are unique challenges for new homeschoolers. Here are ten do's and don'ts for your transition.
Want to start homeschooling but not sure how? Get all your questions answered in this simple guide to homeschooling for beginners. We break it down step by step!
What are soft skills and how do we begin to teach them to our children? Today we are answering these questions and more.
At the beginning of each year, I like to review the year that's just ended and then look to the new one. How to make a vision board for your homeschool.
How do you transition from school to homeschool? Is it an easy process or hard? Find out how to start deschooling & deinstitutionalizing your kids now?
Do you plan to homeschool children in elementary grades? Wondering if Sonlight homeschool is a good fit for you, and worth the cost? Here is my unbiased, 100% honest review of the program. What is Sonlight? Sonlight is a Christian, literature-based (lots of read-alouds) homeschool "box" curriculum for all grades that includes all subjects (though you
Beginning to understand division as sharing equally.
My daughter and I spent quite a bit of time this summer choosing the best 9th grade homeschool curriculum plan for her. I can't believe she is already in 9th grade! I knew that time
Creative writing can seem difficult to some students, but if they will just buckle down and begin the assignment, the words will flow. Make it easy on your student by picking a topic that interests him...like Minecraft! The map worksheet is two pages and will help your student organize their ideas by giving thoughtful instructions.
Medieval Japan Lapbook and Unit Study here at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus is fun. You'll love my other homeschool lapbooks.
Do you want your kids to learn to code? One way to get started is with unplugged coding activities. They can learn coding just by playing games and they can do it offline. Fun, right?
These free resources have been created to help those reluctant writers build their confidence and begin to have fun writing.
Unplugged Coding activities for beginning coding skills. No tech needed for this fun, hands-on activity to practice how to code with kindergarten students.
Why homeschool? 10 reasons why we decided to homeschool our kids. Check out this post to learn our motives for starting a secular homeschool.
Learn everything to make teaching the C vs K rule easy, and get a free anchor chart and multisensory worksheet to support your instruction.
Once my beginning English language learners have built some vocabulary and are able to decode their emergent level books, it is time to tackle the skill of retelling. It truly is the basis of reading comprehension. Plus, it's an excellent way to build their oral language skills! My upper elementary newcomers have been in school here for seven months. They've been busy building their knowledge of basic (and content) vocabulary, focusing on spelling patterns in Word Study and learning many sight words in context. It is now officially spring (YAY!), and the school year is on a fast downward-slope. To get my beginning ELLs ready for their end of the year reading assessment, the one that measures their reading progress for the year, they must learn how to retell a fictional story. Over the past few months I've been introducing and reinforcing the various parts of a story. My students have learned about "characters" and "setting," and we've talked about story "problems" and "solutions." The next step is to retell a story from beginning, middle and end. Depending on my students, I may need to scaffold the activity by using picture cards. They use these cards to sequence events and recall details. Although I am giving them the important events in pictures, they will use their oral language skills to recount the events. Once I feel that they have a solid grasp on retelling a story, I have a couple more questions that I need to teach how to respond. Students have to be able think beyond the text, so I want them to be able to 1- describe their favorite part in the story and explain why it's their favorite, AND 2- make a meaningful connection to the story. This usually doesn't take much more than me modeling for them. Usually;) During this past quarter, each time we finished a guided reading book, I'd ask them to orally share their favorite part and explain why, AND make a connection to the story. Sometimes they share whole group, and other times they turn and tell a partner. My "newcomer group" practices the skill of retelling frequently, but we do it in different ways in order to keep it fun, engaging and challenging. An additional activity I like to use is this "Read and Roll" activity. They love it, I think, because they get to roll big dice! Once big dice enter the picture, somehow it turns into a game! I love it too because it gets them talking about the various parts of their book. I'm always looking for ways to get my students TALKING about their reading. I know that this solidifies their understanding AND builds their oral proficiency skills, plus they get a lot out of hearing their group members talk about the story too. My students also love these retelling cards. I pass one or two cards to each student and they take turns asking each other questions about their story. A super easy way to get students talking about their books is by creating a "Discussion Starters" anchor chart. Sentence starters are a great support for your beginning ELLs. When I first introduced the chart, I asked the questions, but once they had some practice with it, I turned it over to them to ask each other the questions. They always start with the person's name they are directing their question to. The person responding always starts their response with the person's name who asked the question. For example... Angie - Student 1: "Michael, tell me about your favorite part." Michael - Student 2: "Angie, my favorite part is..." Since Michael was the one who just answered a question, he is the one to ask the next student a question. I'm telling you, they love this! I'm going to be honest here... I had zero time to prep a detailed lesson on this day, so I grabbed a bag of books and off I went. Luckily, I always have big and small post-it notes in my caddie, so I grabbed these BIG neon colored post-it notes and wrote a B-M-E on them. Viola! My students slapped these into their reading notebooks and we were all set! Sometimes, lessons off the cuff turn out to be really good lessons, right?! I also like to use a Story Map graphic organizer to help students organize the parts of their story. They use this to "share out" at the end of our lesson. Usually I'll have each student pick one part to share out. They might share out to the group, while other times they might share out with a partner, depending on the time. FREEBIE There are lots of ways to develop retelling skills, and I recommend using different strategies and methods to get students comfortable with the various components of this skill. For beginning ELLs, of course they are just learning this new language while simultaneously learning the skills needed to orally retell a story, so lots of scaffolds and supports along the way are a must. We know that the achievement gap can be great for beginning ELLs, and that their reading comprehension skills moving forward will depend on their ability to recall and retell stories, and other types of texts. Focusing on this skill from the get-go is essential in getting our newcomers to where they need to be in a few short years. As soon as they have enough vocabulary to talk about their emergent level books, start explicitly teaching and reinforcing "how to retell." Here are some of the resources I use to teach retelling skills. (My intermediate ELLs love the Retelling Practice for Fiction cards and the Read and Roll activity as well.) Retelling Practice Cards Story Elements Retelling and Sequencing Cards Read and Roll Fiction and Nonfiction Credit: the "dot dudes" graphic in the title is by Sarah Pecorino.
Help your students begin to explore historical fiction with this collection of resources that are just right for intermediate classrooms!
Financial literacy is an important skill that children begin to learn at a young age. They quickly pick up on things they see their parents...
Challenge A is such a WONDERFUL year in the life of a Classical Conversations student. We have walked the Challenge A road once before with my oldest child. It was a GOOD year, but it was also year of great growth, struggle, change, and revelation. After a couple of years in
Written by contributor Jena Borah of Yarns of the Heart I’m a big picture kind of person. I like to look at the map and stay focused on the destination. But homeschooling is full of little details that threaten to pull us off the path and down rabbit trails. That’s why, here at the beginning …
To study composting up close, we decided to create our own mini compost bins in cups, so we could see decomposition in action.
Hey, Mom, are your beginning readers frustrated when it comes to writing and punctuating simple sentences? I know mine have been. For years I searched high and low for a grammar program that would help my children write well from the very beginning of literacy. Then I discovered ... Read More...
Have you heard about The Good and The Beautiful controversy? It is a hot topic in homeschool circles and I'm sharing my thoughts here.
My fuss free ideas for homeschool record keeping. Making it simple is my goal. It includes: timetables, reports and combining grades.
Homeschool elective classes made easy with these fun online art classes, music resources, and more!
We love Julia Rothman’s book series. Her anatomy books make a fantastic addition to your homeschool library as resources your children will love not only for their amazing illustrations, but also the detailed descriptions. If you’re not sure quite how to make these books work in your lessons, you’re going to be really excited about...
Looking for free homeschool resources? These ideas will help you teach regardless of any budget limits, curriculum issues, or rabbit trails that come along.
From planning a fun party to free printable school signs!
Why you don't have to have all the answers to be able to educate your kids! Plus, 10 questions to encourage self-directed learning.
First day of homeschool tips to set the tone for success for the entire rest of the year. What to do on the first day of homeschooling.
As a homeschooling mama, I found that my children were becoming bored with just reading basic lessons from textbooks. To avoid the monotony of just reading all the time, I realized I needed to create unit studies to draw on several different subjects in order to teach a main topic. This helped cement the topic in my kid's minds, and also made learning fun again since there are SO MANY fun activities and resources that can be included to teach one main theme. This Unit Study Workbook Digital Printable includes: -A guide on the steps to take in order to create your own unit study -Work sheets in order to keep track of the resources you want to include -Pages to jot down any notes and ideas you have This printable workbook can be used for kids of all ages, and will help you make sure you include the necessary subjects that your child needs to learn, all in a fun way! It will also help you stay on track for what lessons should be taught next. The Unit Study Workbook is a digital printable that is available for you to instantly print upon confirmation of payment. You may print the pages you need from the workbook as often as needed, but they are for personal use only. Do not resell or redistribute in any way. Due to the nature of digital printables, I am unable to offer refunds. However, feel free to contact me with any questions! For more information on how to download the pages, check out, https://www.etsy.com/help/article/3949.
Deschooling definition: planned period of adjustment a child needs when transitioning from public school to homeschool. Understanding how long it takes and why the deschool process has major, necessary benefits in helping a child decompress and successfully prepare for switching to home school and formal school work. Get tips for de-schooling, learn how to start homeschooling with deschooling, the difference between deschooling vs. unschooling and more!
Your homeschool calendar should complement your life instead of adding stress. Learn how to create your homeschool calendar so it works for your family.
Take a tour through all the most popular homeschooling styles! Each method is explained in-depth, to get you started on your ideal homeschooling lifestyle.
Just a bunch of useful links! There are so many more sites than I listed but these are my favorites. Everything listed has something for free and most of the sites are completely free resources!
How to homeschool for free without jeopardizing your kid's education. Learn how with these 8 tried and tested means - all of which will cost you NOTHING
Teaching parents how to Homeschool high school
Unschooling ideas for the 2023-2024 school year: resources and collaborative plans for grades 8, 6, 4, 1 and Pre-K.
If you're new to homeschooling, you may be wondering what a morning menu even is. I remember not having a clue what it was when I first jumped in to the
We all get a bit lost sometimes, even us homeschool moms! So I have created a list of amazing homeschool activities you can do together.
We have many homeschool families who have gone before us to guide us and give us confidence that we can create a useful, purposeful, and impressive homeschool transcript. So, let's dive into what colleges like to see on a homeschool transcript.
Are you looking for a typing program for homeschoolers? This one gives kids excellent touch typing instruction. And they play fun games to cement skills!
Want to start homeschooling but not sure how? Get all your questions answered in this simple guide to homeschooling for beginners. We break it down step by step!
Freedom Homeschooling lists free homeschool life skills electives for all grades. Home economics, personal finance, auto repair, and more!
Yes! FREE homeschool math curriculum for K-8th grade does exist and it's wonderfully Charlotte Mason. Click, print, and done! Watch the video
