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How Visual-Spatial Children Learn to Read (Hint: They hate phonics!)

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When I went through my teacher education program, whole language was all the rage. If you aren't familiar with the term, whole language basically means that children learn words as whole pieces of language. This is in contrast to phonics in which children are taught to decode words with the rules they learn about letters, sounds, and how they go together.I was exposed to both teaching phonics and using whole language in college, but whole language was definitely the thing. When I started my Masters program a few years later, I took a … [Read more...] about How Visual-Spatial Children Learn to Read (Hint: They hate phonics!)

Creating a Mom-Friendly Homeschool

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One of the things I am passionate about is helping parents understand their child's learning and personality needs. I have dozens of posts on this website about tailoring our parenting and homeschooling to our child's unique bent whether she is right-brained, gifted, twice-exceptional, spirited, highly-sensitive, or wired differently in some other way.But I also believe we have to balance this informed focus on our child with a mom-friendly approach to homeschooling. What Do I Mean By Mom-Friendly? Every homeschooling family needs … [Read more...] about Creating a Mom-Friendly Homeschool

Making Peace with Your Creative Child’s Clutter

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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 a lot alike. Creative, empathetic, and funny describe Caroline for sure.Jimmie wrote: But Emma is not bothered by messes. In fact, she says she likes to have all of her possessions visible (on the desk or on the floor) so she can know where … [Read more...] about Making Peace with Your Creative Child’s Clutter

Realistic Expectations for Work-at-Home Homeschooling Moms

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As if homeschooling our children isn't enough, many of us also decide to add working at home to the mix. I still haven't decided if we're blessed to be able to work at home or totally crazy. Probably a bit of both.I began working at home as a writer when I decided to leave teaching. David began working at home when he was downsized out of his corporate job. He's an excellent web designer and graphic designer. We often work together on projects and he has his own clients as well. He also does all the design for my products in my learning … [Read more...] about Realistic Expectations for Work-at-Home Homeschooling Moms

AQSL 003: Don’t Raise Snowplowed Sauce Girls

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What are snowplowed sauce girls? Take a listen to Episode 3 of A Quiet Simple Life with Sallie Borrink. We're breaking down what this means, where it comes from, and how to avoid it in our homes.As always, please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Listen to the Podcast My podcast is available to play right here. https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sallieborrink-podcasts/aqsl-003-dont-raise-snowplowed-sauce-girls.mp3If you prefer, you can download my podcast at Apple and Stitcher. Podcast Show … [Read more...] about AQSL 003: Don’t Raise Snowplowed Sauce Girls

Plan Ahead for Challenging Homeschool Days

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Have you thought about your need to plan ahead for challenging homeschool days by preparing your own version of substitute teacher plans?At the beginning of the school year, every classroom teacher prepares substitute teacher plans. Since she may not know in advance when she'll need a sub, the teacher has a substitute teacher folder ready to go from the first day. It usually includes a wide variety of easy-to-implement and ready-to-go activities.Of course as homeschooling parents we don't have an actual sub come in and work with our … [Read more...] about Plan Ahead for Challenging Homeschool Days

My Homeschooling and Parenting Guest Posts for Bright Ideas Press

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A few years ago, I was a guest blogger for Bright Ideas Press. If you aren't familiar with Bright Ideas Press, they offer a wide variety of homeschool support such as:extensive and excellent homeschool curriculum live and self-paced online classes through The Academy a card game (I just think this looks neat! LOL!) a helpful blogIf you are looking for some parenting and homeschooling encouragement, please check out my ten posts below. I've included the opening paragraphs to each one so you can get a sense of what it's … [Read more...] about My Homeschooling and Parenting Guest Posts for Bright Ideas Press

Live Online High School Classes for Homeschoolers

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Live online high school classes is something the early homeschoolers could have only dreamed of. It's amazing the opportunities we can bring to our homeschooled children right from the comfort of our own home. It's equally amazing how these kinds of classes can free up homeschool moms from the weight of preparing, teaching, and grading high school classes.Big River Academy offers live online learning for Christian homeschoolers. These high school (and middle school) classes include a wide variety of courses that provide homeschooled … [Read more...] about Live Online High School Classes for Homeschoolers

Kendall Hunt Pathways 2.0 Reading and Language Arts

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Like many kids, Caroline finds natural disasters fascinating. So when we had the opportunity to review the Grade 6 Environment Unit featuring Mount St. Helens that is part of Kendall Hunt Pathways 2.0 Reading and Language Arts curriculum, I thought this would be a fun opportunity. The unit is part of an extensive offering of curriculum for grades one through eight by Kendall Hunt Religious Publishing Division (Kendall Hunt RPD).I received this product for free. I am being compensated for my time to write this review. All opinions are my own … [Read more...] about Kendall Hunt Pathways 2.0 Reading and Language Arts

Standardized Testing with a Homeschooled Gifted/2e Child

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We recently completed our first standardized testing. This is not required in our state, but I did want to get a snapshot of where Caroline is at this point in our relaxed homeschooling journey with a gifted/2e child. I had the opportunity to do a Stanford Achievement Test with her as part of doing a review of Homeschool Testing Services so I decided it was a good time to do this. I highly recommend you click over and read Stanford Achievement Test for Homeschoolers first so you have the background and then read this post about our experience … [Read more...] about Standardized Testing with a Homeschooled Gifted/2e Child

Stanford Achievement Test for Homeschoolers

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Up to this point in our homeschooling journey, we had not taken any standardized tests. Caroline did complete tests as part of her gifted/2e testing, but that has been it. When I had the opportunity to review the Stanford Achievement Test for homeschoolers with Homeschooling Testing Services, I jumped at the chance for a number of reasons.In this post, I'm writing a review of my experience using this service for standardized testing. In a separate post, I have written about our personal experience with standardized testing and what we … [Read more...] about Stanford Achievement Test for Homeschoolers

Homeschooling a Creative Child for the Future

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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 - surprise! - we have a child who is also very creative. We are a highly creative family and even earn a living through our creativity. Over the years we've learned to structure our daily life around our creativity.Observing Caroline's creativity and being married … [Read more...] about Homeschooling a Creative Child for the Future

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