My daughter has avoided word games like the plague in the past. She really didn’t like doing plain word lists, or vocabulary lists. Last year I even asked a fellow home schooling mom to “teach” my daughter spelling because it was just a serious point of friction with us. This year, I tried a different method. One of the things we tried was word ladders. Suddenly, the spelling, and having to come up with the word from a clue seemed to click into place. She loves this. By now you probably know that I am an advocate of learning through games. Here is another game we are going to try soon. It’s a rhyming word game called hig pig or higgy piggy. The clue is a riddle and the two words of the answer must rhyme. Here is an example. The riddle would be “a smelly chimp” and the answer would be a “funky monkey”. Now, if you are more traditional and just need a spelling list, or want to create your own lists for special projects or unit studies, the good news is that there are many online spelling lists where you can either find a subject matter list or create your own. I worried for a long time that we were just not getting the amount of spelling and vocabulary that we needed, but thanks to a few games, and a few lists, things are looking brighter. Why not give some of these tools a chance to work in your child’s education?

So here we are; it’s back to school time again.  I wonder if this year I’ll find enough fascinating & fun things to keep my son interested in school.  Better yet, he needs to feel challenged by school, and that’s one of the things public school wasn’t giving him.  But can we really do any better as homeschoolers?

My son has dyslexia, and despite the popular myth to the contrary, he’s really quite bright.  Educating a dyslexic child is a daunting task, and I’ve found it helps to keep my son on track by encouraging things he enjoys, like letting him choose books about topics he likes.  Like many dyslexics, he enjoys hands-on activities more than books though, so we do everything from science experiments to online learning for gifted kids.

As homeschoolers, I can teach him with methods I know will work for him.  When he’s feeling challenged while doing the things he enjoys doing anyway, he’s a happy kid, and even better, he’s learning!

This week a home-school group I belong to was having their annual kick-off for school.  Children were encouraged this year to do a report on amphibians or insects/bugs of South America.  I was very surprised what my girls picked considering they have a phobia with insects and such.  Over the last couple of years they have overcome the biggest part of that fear.  Do any of you keep their reports like I do?  I am not sure where I am going to keep all this anymore.  Any suggestions? 

 Our next big get-to-together will be ” Halloween Gone Wild”…sure to be a big hit with that name, huh?  Halloween in my household is HUGE!  We all like to dress up.  They seriously start planning this out in summer.  My oldest and her friend like to dress up to scare trick or treader’s then take time out from that and collect their candy.  I think fall is around the corner cuz we are getting excited!

I think my daughter’s artwork is beautiful. She loves to draw and paint. Her drawing is pretty decent actually, but even if it were horrible it’s my job to love it, because I am her mother. It is also my job, as a parent and her home school teacher, to provide her with opportunities to improve. One of the ways we do this is with group art lessons here locally. Another way we provide her with opportunities to improve her technique is to participate in an online art program . Time4Art is available through Time4Learning for upper level elementary/middle school aged children. I will tell you that we have just renewed the program for an additional year. She has gone through it twice now yet every time she goes through she gets another layer, another level out of it. For a child who hates repeating anything, her request to repeat the art program is recommendation enough in my book! Part of the reason we home school is to allow my daughter to advance at her own rate, accelerate where necessary, and enhance her education when we can. Even if she were in traditional school we would still use the online art program as part of her after school enrichment.

It’s that time of year again…Time to get creative and plan curriculum & activities to keep the kids learning through another year.  Often, literature and writing easily keep a child’s interest because reading and writing about imaginative stories and adventures can be fun.  But what if your kids aren’t so easily hooked?

Scouring the net will yield plenty of results to get you started.  I especially liked the stories about homeschoolers I found because my kids can really relate to these.   Literature about homeschoolers, or perhaps even written by homeschoolers is sure to appeal.  I also plan to incorporate literature based word lists into our studies this year.  No matter what you’ve got the kids reading, there’s a way to work a spelling or writing lesson into it, and sometimes killing two birds with one stone is such a timesaver!