During the summer, the last thing your kids probably want to hear about is intensive work. They want to have fun, you want to have fun, the whole family wants to have fun! It would be easy to not do any kind of school work, but you know that when kids take a total break from learning, they tend to forget what they learned over the previous academic year.

Some families, like mine, homeschool year round, but do less intense work during the summer months. Online summer school education is a great way to do some academic work without putting on a lot of pressure. It will also give your child time on the computer which most kids love. With a summer computer program, you can review basic skills or learn new ones.

Going to the beach, going to the park, going to summer camp, and enjoying the family should be a priority during the hot summer months. But while families are doing all this, the kids can engage in some “cool” learning on the computer.

There is help and support available for those who are on a homeschooling journey. Most of us homeschoolers find it helpful to join a homeschool support group. There is so much help available there, including likeminded parents who are homeschooling their children (for the same or different reasons), children for our kids to play with, organized field trips and outings, and lots of advice and wisdom from veteran homeschoolers.

When I began homeschooling, I couldn’t find a support group in Chicago, Illinois that met my needs. Most of the ones that would have been a good fit were far away in the suburbs and here sat I in the city with no transportation to get to the ‘burbs.

I wanted to join a Christian homeschool support group, because I felt as thought it would be a good fit and that it would meet my needs. However, I couldn’t find one no matter how hard or long I searched, so I joined a secular support group. The people were nice and helpful, and there were many veteran homeschoolers in the group; yet, it still wasn’t a good fit, because most of the children who attended the group regularly were older, and my son was only 7 years old then.

Since I couldn’t find a physical group that met my needs; I started one of the many online homeschool groups. It now has more than 80 members and is more of a resource list than a support group. Finding a good online homeschool groups is as simple as doing a search on the web; here’s a link to a site where you’ll find a group for your state:  http://time4learning.net/groups/

I later joined several other online groups that have proved to be a great support resource. Eventually, I joined a physical secular support group too. Online homeschool groups in Illinois really helped me to understand Illinois homeschooling laws and to network with other Illinois homeschoolers.

Even if you are a member of a support group that has meetings, you’ll probably find belonging to one or more online homeschool groups very helpful; you may have a question or concern, and if your online group is an active one–when you post, you’ll get an answer quickly. More than likely, it will be just what you need, exactly when you need it.

Do you remember when you learned to type?  I think I started in 9th grade; I’m dating myself by telling you this, but when I began typing it was on a manual typewriter. For some reason, I could never get the knack of the long reaches, i.e., the “a” key to the “1″ key with the right pinky finger or the “;” key to the “-” key with the left pinky finger. I wasn’t a good typist on that dinosaur manual typewriter.

However, a few years after high school, I went to secretarial school. They had electric typewriters, and I practiced each day. By the time I graduated (in one year), I could type 60 words per minute–not bad for a student who couldn’t type 30 minutes in high school. From years of experience, I eventually reached close to 80 words per minute.

School students nowadays start learning to keyboard long before 9th grade; some start learning before they reach their teens. My 10-year-old son, David, started using the BBC’s Dance Mat typing; I thought it might help him with his homeschool work, because he likes writing stories and journaling. I thought learning to keyboard, as they call it nowadays, would help him to get some of his work done faster. He likes fun keyboard games a lot, because it makes learning to type exciting.

I’ve been searching for other sites that will help my son to become a better keyboardist. (I think typist sounds better). There are a lot of keyboarding games that will help your child learn to type. Typing games are a great way to get your child used to the feel of the keyboard and on her way to becoming an adequate typist–and maybe even a speed typist.

I’d love to know if your kids have any favorite, typing games. Leave a comment and let me know.

When I tell other moms that I homeschool my son, they sometimes give me a strange look. I’m an African American single (divorced) mother, and I just don’t fit their idea of who a homeschooler should be. I only have one child, and they think that’s another odd thing about me homeschooling. The first question I  often get is, “Why don’t you want him to be at school with other children?” Then I’ll patiently explain that he goes to a group meeting with other children on Mondays, classes on Wednesdays, and a homeschool co-op on Fridays. When I assure the mom that I don’t have my boy on lock down in the house, she looks relieved.

Then, she’ll ask me about the co-op, and I’ll tell her that the kids who go to homeschool co-op, including my son, take classes there once a week. Sometimes the mom (or dad) will ask what kind of classes, and I tell them, “Oh, different kinds of classes, like Spanish, Science, Art, Photography, English, History, and other stuff.” I add that this semester, my son is taking “Exploratory Art” and “Digital Photography.” This leads to more discussion about his academic classes and where I get my teaching materials. I tell her about the Great Literature and books we read, about the “What Your __ Grader Needs to Know” books, workbooks, field trips, and about the online curriculum we use, Time4Learning.

Usually, the mom asks a question about standardized tests and how I’ll know if my child is at grade level if he has to take the ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test). I’ll then mention that although I don’t have to get my child tested, I may start doing this. But I also mention that the online program we use let’s me know if he’s at “grade level,” although for me, it’s more important that he master the material than be at a particular grade level  by a certain date.

These impromptu talks usually go well, and when I’m done I’ll often feel like I’ve given someone, who may have never met a homeschooler, especially one who doesn’t fit the prototype, a positive impression about homeschooling.

Other homeschooling moms probably get a lot of questions too. Do you?

I have to admit that I struggled a bit with T4L at first.  Getting started was very easy.  Signing up….a breeze.  Teaching each child to log-on gave them a true feeling of independence.

Choosing the levels for each child was easy, yet a tad weird since I have a child in need of access to both the lower and upper levels.

My boys automatically wanted to follow the guiding arrow.  Such a great idea!  I was disappointed that I could not move the arrow when skipping or rearranging the activities to fit our other studies.  It would be great to have more control of this handy tool.  The boys could be truly self-starting if they could just follow that arrow.

Setting up a schedule was a struggle.  I really needed more guidance with the lesson plans.  Wondering if my daily plan was lacking or too much, I searched the parent forum for advice.  That left me just as confused.  No one seemed to know what equaled one lesson: a bubble, an icon,  __ number of activities??  

The new, improved lesson plans are very nice!  However, I still believe a sample lesson plan each for full homeschooling, supplementing, and after-schooling would be really helpful for the beginning user.

After a very short time with the program, we have totally embraced T4L, making all of these issues seem pretty trivial in light of what we’ve gained.