Homeschool families are notoriously family-friendly, but I’ve recently been hearing questions and concerns about caregiving while homeschooling, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts here. Most of the people who have asked questions have been thinking about their parents...
The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out. Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new...
In the How to Homeschool a Boy series (the three previous posts), I talked about some of the things I learned through the homeschooling years. One of the first things I learned about was learning styles, or preferred ways of...
Remember to let your sons be who they are so that they will become the people they were meant to be. This takes time, space, and the freedom to explore varied interests. As a bonus, it’s fun!
Your sons will teach themselves amazing things if you give the time and space to learn what they can do. It takes a boy with a boy’s interests to find the thread of an idea and follow it through to the creation of a project he really enjoys. The key ingredient is free time and the liberty to explore, try new things, and yes– get hurt occasionally. It takes trusting that if you provide time, tools, and skills, they will use them. It also takes understanding that education is about a whole lot more than doing school.
It was a beautiful spring day, and we spent most of it with doors open, happily going in and out with various tasks and projects. It was mid-afternoon when my youngest son came in. “Momma, do you want to see...
Do you remember what it’s like to be a child? Do you remember struggling with something and being told, “Come on, it’s easy! You’re just not trying.” Or worse, “You could do better if you weren’t so lazy/careless.” Do you...
The Monday question for the Words Matter Week blog challenge is: What is the most important word or words in your life? Why? When I create writing assignments for students, I try to craft questions that narrow the topic to...
Melville’s Early Life Herman Melville (1819–1891), American author, was born in New York City on the 1st of August 1819, the son of a commission merchant and importer of French dry goods who lived more extravagantly than his pocketbook permitted … Continue reading
Early life Henry James (1843–1916), American author, was born in New York on the 15th of April 1843. His father was Henry James (1811–1882), a theological writer of great originality, from whom both he and his brother, Professor William James, … Continue reading
Daniel Defoe (c. 1659–1731) was an English author and political pamphleteer born in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, London, in the latter part of 1659 or early in 1660, of a nonconformist family. Other spellings of his name include D. … Continue reading
What is an argument? An argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something. It is prompted usually by a disagreement, confusion, or ignorance about something which the arguers wish to resolve or illuminate in a convincing way. In the … Continue reading
The daguerreotype, an early photographic process, was invented by French artist and photographer Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Introduced in 1830, it was the first publicly available photographic process but was superseded by less complicated processes in less than fifty years. To make … Continue reading
