During a long-term sub, I did (eons ago now), I had my sophomores create a classroom newspaper. This project has always been in the back of my mind to re-create. I started to create a version of it for Christmas school this year (which I am still planning to do), but my planning exploded, and well, here we are.
When have you ever been asked to show your high school diploma? Do you carry it around in your back pocket with your driver’s license? Probably not. I am not trying to provoke anyone in that statement, but it is what it is. If you are the parent, then that qualifies you to homeschool your children. Under your state’s laws, you are also qualified to issue a homeschooling diploma on your student’s behalf.
For part of 2025, I have decided to do blog posts centering around frequently asked homeschool questions. I have been asked these questions or seen them in various online spaces. I have been asked when people find out we homeschool, "Well, who do you report to, or how are you held accountable to make sure they are learning what they are supposed to be lea
For part of 2025, I have decided to do blog posts centering around frequently asked homeschool questions. I have been asked these questions or seen them in various online spaces. In this post, we will discuss what exactly homeschooling is.
A quick Google search tells us that homeschooling is defined as educating (one's child) at home instead of sending them to school. A simple enough definition, right? Ask any homeschooling parent, though, and it is much more than that. To most, homeschooling is more than an academic education.
Book reports make some students, even my oldest girls, cringe in fear.
A few years ago, I created book lists and alternative book reports to encourage reading books outside our curriculum and introduce some literary analysis-type things they hadn't had before. Reading definitely took off for both of them, and the girls seemed to enjoy the alternative book reports.
We didn't do book reports this year and switched to summary pages instead. These took less time and went over a bit better. I have been using the summary pages to check in on their reading comprehension of their readers this year.
So, within the Simply Language Arts umbrella of things, you will begin seeing these alternative book reports and summaries available for purchase.
With this year's Christmas School up and ready for purchase, I have shifted my focus back to creating things for language arts lessons. Formally known here as Beyond Literature, I am rebranding it Simply Language Arts so as not to be confused with another curriculum by that name and also to be able to expand into things besides literature.
Nutcracker Themed Christmas School 2024
"It's the most wonderful time of the year." Especially for this homeschooled momma, even if it's only in October. If you're a homeschooling Momma like me, we usually plan months for the holidays. Read my blog post "Christmas School: What it is and How We Utilize it in our Homeschool" to discover what Christmas school is for us. I've spent the last several months making and creating our Christmas School Unit for 2024. I've always been intrigued by The Nutcracker. When I found a Young Adult Novel (Nutcracked), I was excited to start creating for it.
Let's take a look at what is going to be available this year in our Nutcracker Themed Christmas School:
Earlier this year, in the blog post "Homeschooling in My Own Hard Season," I expressed my struggles working with our preschooler. Our tot school plans didn't work well because she wasn't genuinely interested, and I was also dealing with pregnancy issues. So, I tabled "formal' work with her until now. So here we are with Bird at 3 ½ years old, and I think we are both ready for something a bit more. I didn't find an all-in-one program that fit what we needed. I wasn't ready to piece things together and buy more useless supplies. So Momma Bear Preschool was born.
I am still in the planning stages and planning as we go now. But, I have recently shared a few Facebook/Instagram posts highlighting some games/activities I have been doing with our 3- 3-year-old for preschool. We are a few weeks in, and I am ready to share my outlined plan. I also hope to do a monthly highlight post (on IG or Facebook) or blog post about what we have been doing for the month. Once we are in an even better groove, I plan on writing up our games and activities, making those available as a download on the printables section of my webpage.
It has been a bit since I've had a new blog post. I'm sorry. It is not often that I admit when I’m struggling, but currently, that is where I find myself. I am in a mix of confusion and lack of organization with a side of brain fog. It’s already May, and we still haven’t found that perfect groove of the homeschool routine we have had the last few years. I know it’s just a season, and we will find our new routine eventually, but I feel like a brand new homeschooling momma, even though I’m entering year ten in our journey.
This is the last blog post in the blog post series Our Favorite Curriculum (Find the other four post HERE). Apologia is a curriculum I wish we would have used sooner in our homeschooling journey. Not that I didn’t like our science choice before, but this one has been even easier to use and has allowed me to make science an independent subject for our older girls to work on, leaving me free to take care of a baby and now toddler as well.
Here are the top five reasons we will continue to use Apologia in our homeschool journey.
