Homeschooling A Houseful

I have been an Oil'er for years, actually I believe it's been a good 8-10 years! I love oils, I use them for medicinal purposes, aroma purposes, and emotional purposes. I won't go into purposes, or things I love, necessarily because, well there's so many recipes, advice, and blends out there. I use many different oils for many different reasons, and well whenever we have an aliment, I simple search for an oil, if I don't already know one. What I will get into is Essential Oil Companies. I've investigated oil companies, and read may blogs about what oil companies are out there, and their business etiquette, origin of their oils, and of course cost vs quality. I won't get into all the info here, but this is a wonderful blog series about many popular companies, essential oil showdown series While the companies I prefer, are not on her list, or even really compared on this blog series, I did take many of her questions and concerns and applied them to th...

Recently there was a discussion about independent learning on a Facebook group I follow. One mom was upset and tired of feeling like her children couldn't follow through with a given assignment or directions unless she was right there, they would get distracted and/or start playing. She also spoke of her children not listening while reading aloud too, and too often she felt like she was talking, and NO ONE was listening! One of the comments on this post, suggested that homeschool mom's shouldn't expect their children to learn independently. Public school children are not working independently, nor do children typically like to do things they don't want to. So if you are asking them to work on something they dislike, then of course they'd rather not do it. Since Independent learning, is so important to me, and how I honestly have homeschooled my 11 children, over the past (technically) 15 years, somewhat sane. I thought maybe I should just write a blog post about...

Anyone out there wondering how I keep our calendar(s) organized? Trying to keep up with all my little (and big) A's is a wonder at times! I don't know what happens, but all the sudden when your kids get older, like teens and preteens, they have calendars all their own! They have activities and clubs and all the sudden they think they need playdates again!! LOL!! So here's how I handle my life of organized chaos. I love that saying :) It really is how I feel our life is! First I have a paper planner. There's just something about writing that I love. I jot notes, and thoughts and such on there. I also write all our plans, and calendar events there. I love, love, love paper planners. I've tried to delete it from my life, but I always miss it! However what I don't like about paper planners, is carrying it around everywhere. My paper planner is HUGE! I have everything in it. I currently love the Mormon Mom Planners, Mothers who Know . (they do offer one that...

An amazing giveaway! from mystery of history!

I'm BACK!!! Been Busy, and well haven't been scheduling in my time to do this, so here we go- let's try again!!! I was just getting ready to prep my family artist study, started a google search for ideas, and.......... BAM!!!!! Look what I found! FREE PICTURE STUDY GUIDES!!!! love it!!! So how do I use these in our school? In our Morning Times. We study one artist a month, and look at up to 4 pictures throughout the month. One week we try to draw, paint, or sculpt like them. One week we learn about the artist's background. The other two weeks we look at and "investigate" the artwork.Very LOW KEY, and SIMPLE!!! I use a lot of the Charlotte Mason approach to Picture Study's. My idea is to a- inspire and b-expose .... from there those who love art will do it naturally, those who don't, won't! Oh and just to keep it all real.... we are just starting these up again, after over a year of not doing it!!! SEASONS LADIES!!! SEASONS!!!!

Recently I made a comment to another homeschool mom, a new homeschool mom, and well I like it!! She is a new homeschooler, and was asking what specific curriculums everyone uses. My comment went something like this: "It's not the curriculum that's the question. The question is, how you and your children learn, what goals you have for your homeschool, why you homeschool, those are the questions. After you find the answers to those questions, then the question of curriculum is easy!" I would recommend you write out a list of "why we homeschool" and refer to this list, often. I also would recommend that this list stay handy always, it's always open for editing and adding to. Things change, as you work along the journey of homeschool, motherhood, and well life in general- things change. Keep your mind open to those changes and allow them to better your life, as you move through it. I would also recommend you read more about philosophies and personalit...

How we manage to get our crew out the door! With school starting and extra curricular activities, and Co-ops, along with regular life, we need to be able to move our crew out the door and to the van, oftentimes through a parking lot. Parking lots are dangerous, let alone one where everyone's trying to leave at the same time, such as a Co-op. This years school crew, the kids who go places with me and are involved in these activities are ages, 15, 13, 12, 9, 7, 5, 4, 2, and new little princess in November. or very close to that age :)   Let me also just point out that the ones 7, 5, 4, and 2 are all boys! Yes that matters! Even though some girls can be like boys, boys are still boys!     So here's what we do, let's look at our co-op, as that's one that everyone goes to, and everyone brings supplies and bags, plus Mom brings supplies for classes too.     In our Co-op we designate an area, or corner to be our dropping place. As you en...