Adventures of a Catholic homeschooling family in Alaska.
It’s here! Time for the final day of the 5 Day Preparing for the Holiday Themed Blog Hop with the Schoolhouse Review Crew… Today’s focus is on homeschooling. What’s that you say? Homeschooling and the holidays can’t possibly go together?? My response is that they CAN go together. You just [Read On]
Anyone that knows our family is fully aware that Mr. O is a huge nature lover and the boys typically follow suit. I enjoy my occasional explorations as well, although the rustic backpack camping expeditions that the boys do with their dad and the Scout Troop are not my cup of tea. For this week’s [Read On]
I can hardly believe that my eldest son is now in 10th grade. This past year had us both learning the ropes of how homeschooling for high school is different from the elementary and middle school years. Last Fall, I wrote about Navigating New Waters (Homeschooling High School!) He made it through the school [Read On]
We’re at the last day of this fun Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. Today’s topic is all about homeschool co-ops. We have been blessed to experience a variety of co-operative learning situations since we first began homeschooling. Each had its own benefits and negatives, but overall the experiences have been positive. Our first [Read On]
Welcome back to Day 4 of the Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. Are you ready for Homeschool Classrooms? I know that I am eager to peek inside other homeschool spaces and see how people create an environment for learning in their homes. Since we began our homeschooling journey, our family has been blessed [Read On]
This week, we are joining other crewmates in this fun, back to homeschool blog hop. Today’s topic is Homeschool Planning. You know the old adage, “A failure to plan is a plan to fail”? Well, I am a firm believer that being too loose in your homeschooling endeavors can set you up for [Read On]
This week, we are joining other crewmates in this fun, back to homeschool blog hop. Today’s topic is curriculum, something that seems to come up in almost every gathering of homeschool parents! Just as talking about curriculum is common place at a homeschool gathering, I’ve written about our choices in the past, too. [Read On]
This week, we are joining other crewmates in this fun, back to homeschool blog hop. Today everyone is talking about different homeschool methods. I look at it as different approaches to how you educate your brood. And, there are several ways that people approach how to present material. Some people like [Read On]
For many of us that homeschool, the idea of completely closing the books and shutting down for the summer just doesn’t happen. We’ve been doing some schoolwork each summer for the past few years, especially in some areas that needed wrapping up or just continuity to keep from the brain drain so many school systems [Read On]
I can hardly believe that the week is ending. In some ways, I feel like I’ve only covered the tip of the ice burg when it comes to Scouting. I shared over a year ago about how easily you can work the earning of merit badges into a homeschool day. There are so many [Read On]
The last 2 years of Cub Scouting have the boys working more on specific areas that will help ‘prepare’ them for the world of Boy Scouting. If you are lucky, the den might even go on some more rustic camping trips or even join a Boy Scout group on a campout as they begin to [Read On]
While Pinewood Derby might be a much anticipated event during the school year, Summer Camp tends to be the pinnacle for many a Scout. We’ve lived in locations where Cub Scouts only had a day camp option, areas where the younger Cub Scouts did day camp and the Webelos could camp overnight with a [Read On]
For many, the mention of Cub Scouts brings to mind images of Pinewood Derby cars. There’s even a cute movie (Down and Derby) that is completely focused on the Pinewood Derby for its storyline. Every boy starts with the same basic kit, molding it into the car they envision. Our boys have not been motivated [Read On]
Welcome to Day 1 of this awesome blog ‘hop’. With 3 boys who are at different levels of Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, I have way more than 5 topics I could blog about here. A year ago, I shared briefly about using Cub Scouting in our homeschool endeavors. We still do incorporate as [Read On]
I’ve written about how to avoid homeschool burnout (check out an older post titled Recharging Those Batteries When They Burnout.) Or, maybe I should say alleviate that feeling. Anyone who’s homeschooled knows all about that point in late winter or early spring when you are exhausted and ready to hang up the proverbial towel [Read On]
I’m sure many of us have heard the old adage, ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.’ Well, I think it can definitely apply to the need to strengthen a marriage when the family is homeschooling. And, this is the theme of this week’s TOS Blog Cruise where crewmates will be answering [Read On]
The next question up on deck for the TOS Blog Cruise is “Why did you decide to homeschool?” While homeschooling might have been laid in my heart when P was still a preschooler, we went down the path of sending him off to our parish school. The first few years were fine with the [Read On]
The next Blog Cruise poised the question “What does lesson planning look like in your homeschool? “ Well, like many other aspects of homeschooling, lesson planning is fluid. However, I do still map out things to a degree while still allowing for flexibility. First off, I utilize Homeschool Tracker Plus to both create [Read On]
Talk to ten different homeschoolers and you’ll get ten different responses for how much it costs to homeschool. In our house, it has changed over the years, too. I’ve rarely had a fixed budget, but instead tried to minimize my expenditures. The first year I homeschooled the boys, I set up a spreadsheet [Read On]
It’s time to set sail again on the TOS Crew Blog Cruise! I am so excited as I love to not only have topics for posts already suggested, but also to read what other homeschoolers have to say on those topics! Ready to join me on the cruise this year? This inaugural week had [Read On]
Here is is mid-May and our official school year is over. The TOS Crew is about to dock with just a few more products that will be reviewed this month. And, today is the last column for the TOS Blog Cruise this Crew year. Knowing that it is the last opportunity for many current Crewmates [Read On]
I firmly believe that God grants each of us distinct abilities. Some of us are artistic while others are great at complicated math or science problems. Some of us have a mind ready to store lots of tidbits of facts while others might be better at conceptual work. Even if we are capable in many [Read On]
I am quite convinced that having a nicely decorated, neat house is something I will not have so long as we are homeschooling the boys. Assuming we homeschool the lot through high school, I’m looking at another 18 years of semi-maintained chaos. It isn’t that I don’t want a neat and orderly home. It just [Read On]
Over the past year, several different TOS Crewmates have contributed topic suggestions for the TOS Blog Cruise. This time, I can say that this one is something I suggested after running into a bump with one particular child. I don’t feel like I have the ‘answers’, but felt I should participate on the cruise with [Read On]
I think it is human nature to occasionally dream about how different choices could lead to a different life. What if I’d pursued the path of attending the U.S. Coast Guard Academy instead of the closer University of Southern Mississippi? What if I’d chosen to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland instead of [Read On]
This week’s TOS Blog Cruise poses the question: How to homeschool in a small area (small space, small house, etc.)? While we currently have a HUGE room where we can do our learning, it hasn’t always been that way. Both when we first moved from Ohio to Maryland and then for the first few months [Read On]
Being homeschoolers, we occasionally have people suggested our house should be ‘just so’ since we are home so much. Well, the house is ‘just so’ if you consider we live in it and messes are a by product of living in the house. That leads me to this week’s question… How do you divide household [Read On]
When many of us begin on the journey of homeschooling, we may have concerns over teaching ALL the subjects we want to cover with our kids. Beyond just how to fit them all into the day, there is the concern over whether we can ‘handle’ teaching particular subjects. After all, we each have our strengths [Read On]
For many homeschool parents, the spring is full of convention opportunities with each convention/conference having a different flavor. With that in mind, the TOS Blog Cruise has a homeschool conference focus with the question: “Homeschool Conventions – Do you attend, what are the benefits, pitfalls, etc. Share your experience!” This will be my fifth year [Read On]
Monday is here and so is a new post for the TOS Blog Cruise. Can you guess the theme from my title???? In case you can’t, this week’s question is "How do you teach the hyper/distractible child?" Well, there are times when I’d say all of my boys are hyper or distractible. I think it [Read On]
