Simple Living, Homeschooling, Faith, Homemaking, & Books
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One of my blogging friends, Jimmie, wrote What My (Messy) Artist Daughter Has Taught Me. I totally got that post as I had been thinking about the struggles of being a neat person who likes everything in its place when your child isn’t anything like that. It sounds like my Caroline and Jimmie’s Emma are …
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David knew when he was still quite young that he would be an artist or architect of some kind. I knew from an early age that I was good with words and wanted to be a writer (but ended up a teacher for reasons of economic practicality). So two creative people met and married and …
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Creativity is an often admired but frequently misunderstood trait. Most of the time it doesn’t matter if creative people are misunderstood. They simply go about their business and accept that not everyone is going to understand them. It might sting a bit, but they learn to live with it. But if you are parenting a …
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Because I’ve been blessed with a creative and artistically gifted daughter, I’ve learned a great deal about art supplies over the past several years. As a highly creative family, we’ve cycled through many different phases and interests. I thought I would share what Caroline, in particular, has enjoyed using. If you have a girl in …
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The explosion of the Charlotte Mason phenomenon in homeschooling brought about the widespread use of the word “twaddle” when referring to less-than-desirable literature for children. There was (and continues to be) much discussion about what Charlotte Mason meant when she wrote about twaddle and how that translates into reading and homeschooling today. The campaign against …
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I mention frequently that Caroline is creative and spends a lot of her time doing artistic things whether it is building on the computer (Minecraft, Roblox, Animal Jam, etc.) or with real life media. I’ve asked her a few times if she’d like to share photos of some of her creations with you, but she …
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Minecraft is a powerful learning tool. Although I was highly skeptical of it when my daughter first expressed an interest, our family’s experience with Minecraft completely changed my mind. So can Minecraft be educational? Absolutely. But not in our home. I have, in fact, purposely resisted the temptation to turn Minecraft into an educational activity. …
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We have a highly creative daughter and that has greatly impacted where I invest my homeschooling money. As a relaxed homeschooler, I don’t think it’s necessary to spend a lot of money on homeschooling materials, especially in the elementary grades. The things we do use, I am willing to spend a bit more because I …
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Caroline’s favorite learning topic is art. Her second favorite topic is art. And so on. She’s my creative, imaginative girl. When I had the opportunity to check out Sparketh which offers online art classes for beginners, I thought this would be a good opportunity for her to explore! I am always looking for ways to …
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One of my homeschool parenting aha moments came when I realized we had the freedom (and responsibility) to fully embrace that we are a creative family. Prior to that moment I had always felt that I needed to structure life and homeschooling responsibilities in such a way as to allow time to be creative as …
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This year my curriculum post is going to be a bit different. (You can see my past ones here, here, here and here.) I’m writing about homeschooling a gifted/2e visual-spatial learner. Kind of specific, don’t you think? And yet that is the world that we live in at our home. 🙂 We’ve undergone a significant …
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I freely admit that I was skeptical about the value of Minecraft. Part of that was my own inherent bias since I’ve never been inclined to play video games. But after reading more about it, we decided to load the Minecraft – Pocket Edition onto our Kindle to see if Caroline would enjoy it. (She was …
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Would it be wrong to start off a post about relaxed homeschooling curriculum choices for the upcoming year and admit that a lot of the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing? Would it make you feel better to know that I have a degree in education, am an experienced teacher, …
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There are some worries that seem to be common to almost every homeschool mom. We worry to varying degrees, but I think there are concerns that cross our minds whether it is once a semester or once a week. (Or, during those days, once an hour!) And then we have our own individual worries based …
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One of the things I’m passionate about as an educator and curriculum developer is that learning materials for young children should be visually engaging, colorful, well-designed and simple. Reaching this balance is a challenge, but it can be done. I’m really picky about the aesthetics of any materials I use with Caroline whether it is …
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I realized we were relaxed homeschoolers somewhere along the beginning of Caroline’s second grade year (this year). I had kind of wandered in the wilderness of trying to figure out how to answer the question when people would ask what kind of a homeschooler I was. This was mostly due to trying to figure out …
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Caroline (who is seven) has been fascinated by stop animation movies, especially since she found the Basilmentos channel on YouTube. So today she used the camera she received from Grandpa and Grandma S. for Christmas to make her first stop animation movie (with some help from Daddy!). She spent several hours working on this and …
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I purchased Sticker Dolly Dressing Around the World probably almost a year ago. It sat on the shelf until it seemed like the “right” time to get it out and use it with Caroline. This fall was the right time and so we’ve been enjoying it! Using Sticker Books for Learning One of the things …
