Merry Christmas to you all! I’m sure with the busy holiday schedule, you missed some blogs this week–I certainly did. So now we have our week in review and you can catch up on what you’ve missed.
Are You Taking a Holiday Break? Except for of course Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we aren’t and neither is Andrea’s family. Something that I see as a real benefit of homeschooling is that we are offered unlimited flexibility. On that same note, Andrea shares with us Homeschooling and the Freedom to Live.
Did you know that there are Schools for Your Homeschoolers? In this blog, Andrea gave us a good look at the many options homeschoolers have for teaching their kids. If you want to homeschool, but are afraid to teach, you still can! If that didn’t make sense, go check out Andrea’s blog!
A couple of week’s ago, Andrea approached me about writing blogs that compare our days. As it turns out we are both pretty relaxed in our approach to homeschooling. The differences in our days lie mainly in that I am required to state at the beginning of the school year everything we’re going to study (necessitating that I plan my year rather carefully) and that my children are still very young–and there are a lot of them (necessitating a more strict schedule)! You can read about my day in The Day in the Life of a Highly Regulated Relaxed Homeschooler Part 1 and Part 2.
Andrea did a great blog reviewing a book called Vocabulary Cartoons. It’s a unique book that illustrates a variety of vocabulary words so that your child (or you) won’t forget them.
In Building a Homeschooling Library: The Classics Andrea answers all of your questions about building a home schooling library. In Part 2, she gives an annotated list of some “classics”. Bookshelves abound in our house and it is true that the more quality literature you can provide from home, the easier it is for your kids to read quality literature.
In The Dangers of Homeschooling Short Term Part 1 and Part 2, Andrea discusses the problem with “just taking a break from school” and homeschooling for a year or two. She aptly points out that homeschooling for just a year–doesn’t really work in the long run.
Andrea also continues to share with us reasons why she is glad she homeschools. In Zero Tolerance, she writes about two stories: one student who was found guilty by association and one teacher who was given a slap on the wrist for misbehaving.
In Workbooks and Homeschooling, Andrea talks about why she uses workbooks, recommends a couple good ones, and she also touches on ways to incorporate them into your homeschooling work load.
Have you read the book Eragon? It was written by a homeschooler who had graduated high school early and said he had nothing else to do with all the free time. Eragon has now been made into a major motion picture. It is definitely on my must see list, after I read the book of course!
Andrea also identifies some of the roots of the unschooling movement in a very informative blog entitled Where Did the Notion of Unschooling Come From?
And finally, as a Christmas present to all, Andrea shares with us her favorite free resources.
I have also been working on some creative ways to incorporate Christmas into your holiday learning. This week we talked about different ideas for working in some Community Service into your schedule. We also learned ways to incorporate Christmas celebrations around the world in Kung His Hsin Nien Bing Chu Shen Tan. (In case you’re confused. . .this is Merry Christmas in Mandarin!)
On a very pragmatic note, I am trying to finish up all of the state laws blogs before the new year in order to work on a different project. This week, you can find summaries of the following states: