Homeschool vs. School at Home

If there's one bit of advice I've heard more than any other from homeschoolers, it's the fact that home school is NOT school at home!  Your own reasoning prompted you to keep your children out of public schools, so why would you want to bring that very school system into your home?  Such is done in the method of virtual schooling, to the detriment of students, parents, and the home schooling community. But my focus here is with homeschooling families who begin bringing the classroom methodology, scheduling and general mentality into their home schooling approach.  This may be a natural first tendency, especially if you were public/private schooled, or you've been a school teacher.  It is what you know... what you're familiar with.  But... it is not the ideal for helping your children reach their learning potential, nor for inspiring a life-long love of learning.     

Well Hello There Stranger!

My dear readers, if you are still there, you might have noticed that I've been MIA for a while. I've been too busy living life to write about it, and while that's not likely to dramatically change soon, I thought I'd better check in!

I've continued using my blog as a handy reference when I'm trying to help out other homeschool moms, since I've saved most of my favorite resources here. Of course, some things have changed since I wrote them so I'm in the process of updating those. A few will be published in the coming weeks. Probably. 😉

A couple recently updated posts include:

Learning Styles and Teaching Styles

Virtual Schooling 

I also moved my essential oils recipes to the Dr. Mom page.

I know this was short and sweet, but I thought I should pop in to say hi before randomly posting something for the first time in a year and a half. 🤷🏻‍♀️

An Easy DIY Winter Wreath

Want to make a fun winter wreath to adorn your door? 

This one was made the exact same way as My Easy Burlap Wreath Tutorial, but using a couple fancy ribbons instead of burlap. My mom and I stocked up on silver sparkly ribbons after Christmas at Hobby Lobby last year, and found the fancy blue flowers then too. Afterwards I added the sparkly R. 

New DIY Bible Covers!

Check out these super cute bible covers, made my my readers!

Here's one from Linda who made a bible cover for her daughter...

Paint Bucket Storage Idea

We've painted almost every wall and ceiling throughout our house, which means we have a LOT of paint cans. They're best stored at room temperature, but I don't like looking at them, so this is what I came up with...

I store them on top of a high cabinet in the laundry room. At first they were kind of obvious up there so to make them less noticeable (ugly), I pulled the paint can labels off. Now they're just a bunch of matching black cans. When I stand on the washer/dryer to get them, then I can see the labels...

Mommy Memory Book

I found a way to organize my sweet notes, drawings and cards from the kids. I bound them into a Mommy Memory Book....

If you're wondering where I got that fabulous cover art, a friend of mine drew it for me!! :D

Inside the book I made card stock dividers for each year and taped on a pocket to each one to hold loose little notes and cards... 

Behind the year dividers I have the drawings or notes that were more bindable (most of which I laminated)...

I also have some yearly kid surveys and all the funny "kids quotes" I wrote down. Since the pro-click binder spines zip and unzip, it's no big deal to add to the book each year. 

I love it! What do you do with your keepsake notes and pictures? 

Here's Help Finding Some Good Books!!

Living books are the way to go, whether you're reading for pleasure, for school, or both.  

Here's my list of favorite book lists... :)

• CM Book finder- I love this one! It's an easy way to search for living books on a certain topic within a defined age/grade level. Or, I search by book title to see if a book I found elsewhere happens to be recommended. If it is, I know it's considered a living book, and not inappropriate, which saves me the time of proofing it. 
• Beautiful Feet Books History Through Literature, books by reading level 
• Sonlight Readaloud booklist- This is one of quite a few book lists on this site. Realize that it's a curriculum company, so they'd like to sell you an entire year's curriculum at once. But many people simply use them for their book lists, checking the books out from the library. To do this... 
• Find books by grade level - search by grade, click complete package, then click learn more, and you'll see them all listed. 
• Find books by subject - go to one of the various book packages they offer and click to see what's included, and it lists all the books. We check these out from the library. 
• They also have summer reading lists for boys and girls each year too!
• Jim Trelease's Brochure Booklists- Download the brochure for each age to see his top picks. These are also found in his book, The Read Aloud Handbook, which I highly recommend owning! 
• See my family's personal favorite books by age (at the bottom of the page)
• The Ultimate Booklist- This is a list of living historical books arranged chronologically, by grade.  

For more great reading resources, check out this page! You'll find resources for raising your children to be great readers, teaching your children how to read, and assessing their reading comprehension and level.

Happy Reading! :)