How Do I Teach in My Homeschool?

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New and seasoned homeschoolers are always interested in how others homeschool. Whether they want to know because they are starting on the homeschool journey themselves or they want to see if there is a better way to homeschool, the goings on in other homeschool households are always fun to read about! And as we modify and adapt our homeschool lessons and days as our children grow, we might need some new tips and tools, too. 

How I Teach a High Schooler 

I was a high school history teacher for several years, so homeschooling a high schooler should be easy, right? Well, the skills and methods needed to teach a classroom of teenagers are a bit different from those required to teach one high schooler who happens to be your stepson. The differences between teaching in a public school setting and a homeschool setting make almost all of the skills I acquired as a high school teacher unnecessary.

When you are homeschooling your high schooler, you have a relationship with that child already. Whether or not you homeschooled them from their first days of school or started at some point along the way, your bond with your child is stronger than any bond you will form with a student. Parents will also find that a lot of the problems of the high school classroom are not there in the same way. There will be distractions but not necessarily from other high schoolers. It is easier to discuss the common things that pop up when teaching high schoolers. From body odor to relationships, you have more authority as a parent, so you can more easily address these delicate topics. 

So how did I teach our high schooler? We used SchoolhouseTeachers.com as our primary curriculum for 10th-12th grades. Our oldest joined his younger siblings in the homeschooling journey after he had attended public school from preschool to ninth grade. Since SchoolhouseTeachers.com is an online curriculum, our son and I utilized email and shared documents as a way of sharing lesson plans, materials, assignments, and more. 

Takeaways from homeschooling a high schooler: 

• High schoolers are pretty self-sufficient. 
• Even though they can do things on their own, you still should check in with them. Whether that is through reminders sent or daily chats, you can easily find their struggles and missing assignments through communication. 
• Communication is key. 
• Allow them to participate in course selection when possible. 
• Don't be afraid to change things if you need to during the homeschool year. 

If you want to read more about how we picked courses, set up a schedule, and more, I have shared several posts over the years: 

Day in the Life of a Homeschooled 11th Grader

Day in the Life of a Homeschooled 12th Grader

Homeschooling During the High School Years

How I Teach an Elementary-Aged Child 

Currently, on our homeschool journey, I have taught preschool through fourth grade and tenth through twelfth grade. Each grade brings different joys, challenges, and requirements. When homeschooling younger elementary-aged children, a variety of resources and curriculum has been important for our son, but a box curriculum has been the key to homeschooling our daughter. 

For our daughter, we were fortunate enough to review the kindergarten level of My Father's World, God's Creation from A to Z in 2020. This curriculum was a great fit, so we have been using it ever since for her. This year we are including her older brother (who is in fourth grade) in some of the lessons, too. Having everything laid out in a teacher's manual makes homeschooling our daughter so easy. 

Our younger son seems to thrive on variety. We use a mix of curriculum resources for him, including the history and Bible components of his sister's box curriculum. We are currently using materials from Memoria Press for Latin, penmanship, science, and some additional history, as well as mathematics from both CTCMath and Math Mammoth. And we have two books from The Critical Thinking Co.™ that have helped build his language arts and critical thinking skills. And finally, we are finishing up a study guide from Progeny Press for The Cricket in Times Square (please note we did not read the edited version). 

I write out the tasks for each day in our children's agenda books. All the materials that they can complete independently, I put in a pile with their agenda. They can get started working right after breakfast by themselves or wait until I start working with them. I try to save the assignments they both do together to serve as breaks in between difficult work. That way we can have our read-aloud time or work on our memory verse as a break. 

Takeaways from homeschooling an elementary-aged child: 

• Be prepared to change things if they are not working. 
• Allow for time for siblings to work together and work independently. (Or if you belong to a co-op, make sure you have some courses that you do alone at home.) 
•  School when your children are ready. You do not have to start at 7 am or be finished by 3 pm. You can school after dinner if you want or need to. 

How I Teach a Preschooler 

Preschoolers do not need a lot of formal education. Play is the most important thing for homeschooling a preschooler. But what do you do when they want to school because they have older siblings who are homeschooling? Well, that all depends on the child. 

Both our younger son and daughter enjoyed coloring, painting, and playing with Play Doh and educational toys to different degrees. They went through phases where they wanted worksheets to complete because their older brother was homeschooling with worksheets. Or they wanted to use scissors to cut but not practice cutting using the fancy book we bought for them. 

Takeaways from homeschooling a preschooler: 

• Preschoolers are never predictable. 
• Keep things simple with games, toys, etc., that you already own. 
• If you want to use a curriculum, you can! 

Typical Day 

What is a typical day? There really isn't one. We homeschool year-round so that we can take off days or weeks when we need to. And even though we start the new year in September, we keep moving along with our curriculum from the previous 'year' if it is not completed and I see value in finishing it. We do not have to follow the tradition of the public school and try to cover the curriculum by a certain time. We can finish books, lessons, and more because we have the time and freedom to do so. 

How do you teach in your homeschool? Do you have a typical day? 

Gifts for the Homeschooling Mom

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What Items Would Be Perfect for the Homeschooling Mom?

Am I the only mom who uses gift cards to purchase items to use in the homeschool or items for her children or family? While I may purchase one item that I want, I often end up using most of the gift card – especially if it is a gift card for Amazon – to purchase items I want to use with our children or something I think my husband might like off his own wishlist. So how can you ensure you get a gift for the homeschooling mom herself? Well, you could buy her her preferred brand of tea, coffee, or wine. There might be a new book published by her favorite author, or perhaps you heard her gushing over a sweater or scarf while shopping with her, but she didn't pick it up. But what if you wish to help her school her children? Then there are so many options that I can share with you! 

Subscriptions to Curriculum Sites 

SchoolhouseTeachers.com – This is one of our favorite sites as it offers access to over 400 courses for Preschool to Twelfth Grade for your entire family for one price. As a member of SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you will also receive access to a variety of videos, holiday-themed activities and lessons, monthly menu ideas, and more! 

My Teaching Library – This is a wonderful resource for the homeschool mom. There is a Facebook group and a newsletter available for subscribers and non-subscribers. One year's subscription is $60 for a year as of 2023. This will give you access to hundreds of resources, from language arts unit studies to algebra. You can also see a sample of products when you visit the website. 

Super Teacher Worksheets – This is another resource perfect for the homeschool mom looking for ready-made worksheets on various subjects for her elementary-aged homeschool children. Thousands of worksheets are available for math, reading comprehension, spelling, social studies, history, science, and more! Plus, you can make your own worksheets for your homeschool lessons. If you want to learn more about Super Teacher Worksheets, please visit my review here: Printables for your Homeschool Classroom. 

Reading Material 

Many homeschooling moms are always looking for reading material. They love reading alongside their children to model a love of reading. Depending upon their particular homeschooling style (DO I HAVE A WEBSITE ON THIS), you may find one of these books might suit them better than another. Or you could also subscribe your children to a favorite magazine.

   

Helping to Bring Learning to Life 

Homeschool families love going on field trips. While many libraries offer museum and zoo passes, there may still be locations that homeschool moms would like to visit that the library cannot provide. When gifting a membership to a local museum, historic site, or zoo, it would be best to ask which would the homeschool mom would prefer. 

Another way that you can help a homeschool mom bring learning to life is by gifting her family science kits, history kits, and (OTHER IDEA/IDEAS). While many curriculum packages offer hands-on learning opportunities, there may be something extra that might be fun to include. Perhaps she wants to raise butterflies with her children or have their family try their hand at a new handy-craft like glass blowing or soap carving. So, kits or classes would make for a wonderful gift for homeschool moms.

   

My Favorites 

There are so many great resources that I would love to add to our homeschool lessons. There probably isn't enough time in the day! Over the years, I've added art history lessons from ARTistic Pursuits, stargazing with a free astronomy app, and history-themed projects from Sonlight.  

I've been looking at the Greek language resources from Memoria Press for our daughter (although she wants to learn French), as well as their literature and poetry sets. And I have my eyes on several history curriculums from Notgrass History, including America the Beautiful and From Adam to Us. 

And, of course, as a homeschool mom, I love gel pens, notebooks, sticky notes, and notecards! These are all tools that help me homeschool and are also fun to use.

Changing Our Homeschool Path

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Our homeschooling journey took a weird turn when my mom moved in with us in May of 2019. In the beginning, I requested her assistance in homeschooling our younger children as she loved spending time with her grandchildren. Unfortunately, these plans – of having her help one of our children while I worked with the other – never came to fruition. Shortly after she moved in with us, we began noticing there were changes in her memory and personality.

My mom did a really good job of hiding all the problems that she was having with her memory and physical health. It wasn’t until I began writing things down – her getting lost on the way back to our house, arguing with us about items that she thought were hers but were in fact our property, etc. – that we were able to convince her to visit the general care practitioner. In October 2020, the doctor saw her and recommended she have additional tests and see a neurologist. With the events of the world, it was difficult to get the necessary appointments. So, the next step wouldn’t take place until January 2021. When we returned to the neurologist after additional tests, the doctor confirmed our fears – my mom was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

My mom 

During the entire time she was living with us, our daily lives changed progressively. During late 2019, things remained mostly the same with the exception of a few details. I had extra housework as we had added an additional person to our home. We worried about another person as my mom would often be out past the time we expected her home, and she would not call us or message us. And we lost space as we tried to accommodate her and the items she was slowly moving from her home – my childhood home – to our house.

Little by little, things changed even more for us after the diagnosis. My mom got angry and suspicious. She would often accuse us of taking things, which did not happen. I hardly went into her bedroom, even though it provided access to our attic space and housed our children’s clothing dressers. I wanted to give her privacy.

I found, sadly, that giving her privacy meant that we didn’t see all the problems she was having until it was too late in a lot of ways. She destroyed many family photographs, pictures she colored (as well as those she colored with our daughter), and books. She took to cutting them up, writing all over them, and doing other things that caused them to be damaged or destroyed. I didn’t discover this until the last year of her life.

How did this impact our homeschooling? 

My husband and I needed to step in to directly take care of my mom in more and more ways. She stopped remembering to eat, so we needed to feed her. I had to help her with her daily hygiene needs and eventually, I needed my husband to help me do these tasks, too. With these additional tasks, our time was consumed with taking care of my mom. So in between these tasks, I set out what our children could do on their own or with the help of their older brother. And we homeschooled after dinner on many evenings. We had to be flexible in how and when we homeschooled.

My mom died on April 14, 2022. While we are struggling with our grief, we are slowly moving back into a normal homeschool routine. During the past difficult year of taking care of my mom, we continued to study math, language arts, science, and history. Some weeks, we were able to fit in foreign languages (such as our son’s studying of Latin and spelling. Now, I can see us moving back into an even more regular routine. I look forward to finishing some of our curriculum – we are almost done studying Mammals with Memoria Press – and adding back into some of the materials our son and daughter have been missing.

What Did I Learn from Our Journey?

It is very important to offer yourself grace. There were many days when I thought we weren’t getting any homeschooling done, but my children were still learning. They were learning how to cooperate and help each other. They were learning how to take care of those we love, even when it is difficult. They were getting more time to read and re-read books that they loved. They invented many games together – working out rules, scoring, and more. They learned the importance of love.

Wonderful Blessings of God

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How has the Lord blessed you? I often find that God has blessed me in so many ways when I start counting blessings. I recently discovered an old 2017 calendar upon which I kept track of one thing for which I was grateful each day during the year. As the end of 2020 is approaching, I thought it would be nice to do something similar for 2021. The only change is I want to try to focus upon ways in which God has blessed me each day. It might go without saying that I will be grateful for those blessings, but I like taking a different approach this coming year. 

What were some of the things I was grateful for in 2017? 

In 2017, we had two little toddlers and a teen. It would be the year we received a new washer and dryer (after more than two years without a working washer in the house) and my Aunt (who turned 90 that year) and Uncle helped us by giving us food several times a year. While we were struggling, we still had days when we made crafts, played in the snow, enjoyed homemade cookies, and celebrated birthdays. 

What were some of the things that I wrote down? 

• Breakfast food for dinner 
• Hot chocolate
• My daughter's laughter 
• My husband helping me clean the television/gaming system wires 
• Walking with my son to the library 
• A teen who can mow the lawn 
• Naps 
• Old hockey equipment fitting our older son 
• Children who eat their dinner 
• Time to read
• A good night's sleep 
• A warm house  

How did God bless me in 2020? 

We have had a lot of struggles this year – from needing to replace our refrigerator (we are still waiting for this because there are some key measurements that make getting a new one difficult and there is low stock due to the closure of factories earlier in 2020) to having to replace our furnace. These are both huge financial hurdles to running a smooth household but when I think about it I am blessed that we have a somewhat working fridge and were able to purchase a smaller fridge for the basement.

We have also been struggling with family stress and issues. My mom has been living with us for a while now and things are not easy. She has had declining health problems which impact the rest of the family. We are trying to show her the love that we have for her by taking care of her. We want to demonstrate and share with her the love that God has for her. Even with all the problems that are creeping up because of her failing health, she is a daughter of God. God loves her. I love her. 

I reviewed a wonderful book of prayers – Warfare Prayers for Women – in which there are several prayers that I have been trying to read on a regular basis. As in prayer, "For a Parent with Dementia," there are days when I feel like I don't know my mom anymore. She does things that seem odd to me and she can't explain why she is doing what she is doing. I regularly ask God to: 

"Show us how to deal with her situation and keep her safe. Lord, we need a solution. Please guide us to a doctor or social worker who can convince her of what is best for her remaining years. I love her dearly and am saddened by her regression." (144) 

I am blessed because even though my husband lost his job (more financial strains), he has been home to help alleviate family stress. He has been a tremendous support to me while we are homeschooling our three children. I can almost always count on him to help with a science experiment from our son's astronomy course. 

A science experiment where our children would spin the bottle with the
water in it and then flip it to see an example of a hurricane-like storm.

Homeschooling our three children has been a wonderful blessing. I have seen our younger two children grow and our oldest expand his knowledge. The other night at dinner, our oldest was explaining that his younger brother is learning things he never learned in public school. This was after he remarked that he was dumb and I said jokingly, "I am glad that I am only responsible for three years of your education." I am glad that we are able to homeschool all three our children now so that they can receive the best education for them. While it is not possible to close all the gaps that our oldest feels he has in terms of his public schooling, I can share with him the tools and places where he can find the information he needs. That he recognizes the gaps says a lot about him and his self-awareness.

God's Love 

I am so blessed that even through all of our adversity I can still remember that God's love is always there for me. I could compare it to the waters of Earth. The oceans cover the entire globe and they are so vast. God's love covers everyone and He is more vast than those beautiful oceans.

November Goals

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This week's Social Media/Blog Challenge link-up for the Homeschool Review Crew is November Goals. While I shared our goals on the Crew's anchor post and shared my secret that I don't write out goals, I thought I would like to share some goals on my personal blog – A Mom's Quest to Teach. 

We have had a lot of changes in our home and for our family this past year. I was blessed with additional responsibilities with the Homeschool Review Crew and The Old Schoolhouse®, which means that I am working more hours. In addition to the Crew, I also work behind the scenes with the Schoolhouse Ambassadors program. I love being able to help homeschooling families! 

My husband was home from mid-March, as his job was deemed not essential, and then he was not recalled in July. So while he is trying to find a job, he has been tremendously helpful at home. Personally, I do not know what I would have done without his assistance for the past several months, as my mom's health has declined. 

My mom is officially living with us, as she can no longer live alone. This is a significant change for our family. While adding one more person usually wouldn't be a huge deal, it has been difficult due to my mom's health. There are many days when our homeschooling is completed at odd hours due to situations I must attend to during the middle of our normal homeschooling time. I am very thankful that we homeschool, so we can work together as a family to ensure everyone receives care. 

My November Blogging Goals 

In terms of this blog – A Mom's Quest to Teach – I wish to continue to post regular content, including homeschool curriculum and product reviews, book reviews, crafts, lesson ideas for young children, history-related posts, and the occasional Bible Journaling post. At some point, I would love to start Blogging Through the Alphabet again because that was a world of fun.

I would also like to grow my social media accounts for A Mom's Quest to Teach. My Pinterest account hovers around 900 followers. I have worked hard to reach that number, and I hope to increase my monthly views and all the other statistics that allow people to find my blog. In terms of Facebook, I would like to increase engagement, but that is not an easy task. 

I would also like to spend time hosting guest posts and also guest-posting on other homeschool bloggers' blogs. Hosting guests' posts might be an easier goal as I will only need to seek others to write for me. Guest-posting on others' homeschool blogs will require me to seek bloggers to write for and to then write those posts. Both could be time-consuming but well worth it.

My Reading Goals 

I am not going to reach my goal of reading 100 books this year at all. With the library being closed for so long, it has not been easy to find books or to make time for reading. I hope to finish my A to Z Reading for this year, but only time will tell. I only have seven books left to read, so it may happen! 

One thing I always make time to read is The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine! You can give a gift subscription to your homeschooling friends this Christmas season. Click through the image to find out all the details (affiliate link). 

Homeschooling Traditions for the New School Year

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Every new year, there are expectations as to what will happen on that very first day of school. Many kids (and teachers) can't sleep the night before the first day of school. What about for homeschooling families? Perhaps the first day of a new homeschool year is not as stressful as the first day of a child attending a public or private school but it can still bring joy and fun.

The new school year always brought on the nerves for me. As a child, I was very shy. I still tend to be shy around new people or in new situations. Meeting new people or seeing classmates after an entire summer apart was often very scary for me. When I became a public school teacher, I still was nervous regarding the first day of school. I taught many freshman classes so these students were new to our school and the whole high school experience. How would they react to new systems and new teachers? Would I be able to reach them and help them learn to enjoy studying history?

Our New School Year Homeschooling Traditions

While our children do not have the same worries as I did as a child and we technically homeschool year-round, I do like to start each new year off with special recognition. We started a new tradition of taking a "first day of school" photograph with our three children. I create an individualized poster for each child to hold with their grade, school year, and image to color with the name of our homeschool to hold in the photo. These 8.5-by-11-inch posters are then used as the front cover of their current school year binder.

New Traditions for 2020-2021

This year we are instituting a new tradition for our first not-back-to-school dinner. We will be having dessert for dinner! What a fun way to make the day special ending with a special meal! We have only done dessert for dinner once so far and our kids loved it. We served ice cream, candy, cake, and cookies. I wonder what else we will serve this time.

We also picked up brand new binders for our two youngest so that I can better organize their papers from the various online resources we have access to in our homeschool. I am thinking of using new binders each year for our children will be a great way to create portfolios of their school work.

Reflecting Upon Another Year with the Homeschool Review Crew: 2019

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I am finishing up my second year as a member of The Old Schoolhouse® Homeschool Review Crew. While researching homeschooling, I found my way to SchoolhouseTeachers.com and contacted them about writing a course for them. Eventually, I filled out an application to join the Crew and the rest has been history.

Our family has been blessed with many opportunities through my time reviewing for the Homeschool Review Crew as well as my time working in other capacities for SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I am truly thankful for the friendships I have built, the products we have received to review which have been integral in our homeschool, and the new work avenues that have opened for me. Last year, I looked back upon our favorite products from 2018 and in this post, I would like to share what we enjoyed the most in 2019.

Online Resources and Products 

IXL 

One of my favorite online resources that we reviewed from 2019 has been IXL from IXL Learning. All three of our kids were able to have access to the program which has been very helpful during our homeschool days. I was able to assign review questions for geometry for our teen. For our two younger children, I often just let them work on areas of their own choosing. As we also had access to the program via their app on our tablet, our younger kids often thought of IXL as more of a game than an educational tool.

Our kids love the awards and prizes that are given out as they answer questions correctly, practice for a certain number of days, master skills, or complete categories. Our first grader loves working through the different subject areas for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade as he picks out new topics to test his knowledge.

CTCMath 

As a mom, one of the resources I was very thankful to review and receive a family membership for was CTCMath, as all three of our kids can use it for their mathematics. Our homeschooling teen is using it for his Algebra II and our younger children are working through kindergarten and first grade. CTCMath makes it so much easier for me knowing that math is taken care of and I don't have to worry about what resources we will be using or need.

Print Resources 

Memoria Press 

One of my favorite companies that I have been privileged to review several products from is Memoria Press. Through learning more about their company, I have discovered that I really like Classical Education. I love the idea of ensuring that our children are familiar with great books and the great thinkers of Western tradition.

We were able to review three different products from Memoria Press:

• Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program 
• Simply Classical Writing Books One and Two
• StoryTime Treasures 

We used each with our six-year-old as he moved from kindergarten to first grade. The First Start Reading Program with the Classical Phonics book really was a great start to his working on reading and writing. As to the lessons he did not finish, we will be able to use those with his sister as she has been working steadily on reading and writing.

I have enjoyed using both the Simply Classical Writing books and the StoryTime Treasures student and teacher book in our homeschool language arts lessons. We also get to incorporate Bible Study with our edition of Simply Classical Writing as we are using the Bible Story Edition. StoryTime Treasures allows both our younger children to enjoy classic books together as we read the story and then our first grader works on key language arts skills as he completes exercises in his student workbook.

I can easily see our homeschooling family using products from Memoria Press for years to come!

Crafty Classroom 

One of the fun homeschooling resources we reviewed as the Pattern Block Activity Bundle from Crafty Classroom. With such a huge selection of patterns to use with pattern/geometric blocks, I have had a great time picking and choosing different ones as we move through the seasons. With over 700 pages, there are always new ones to print and share with our kids.

Books And Media 

We had the chance to review so many great books this homeschool year! From Heroes of History – Ronald Reagan from YWAM Publishing to the first two books in the Goldtown Beginnings Series from Kregel Publications, everyone in our family has been able to enjoy new books. With these additions to our homeschool library, I have been able to add more titles to our children's wishlists and incorporate new authors into our library.

We also started our collection of DVDs from Drive Thru History® with a review of Acts to Revelation. Our family enjoyed sitting down together after dinner to watch each new episode as Dave Stotts took us on a journey through the New Testament after the Gospels. We have since made several purchases to add to the collection with Discovering America's Founders and others. 

These, of course, are only a few of the excellent products we have reviewed this year. Other members of the Crew have also shared many reviews through 2019 and shared their favorite products on their own blogs. On November 15, 2019, please take a moment and check out what the rest of the Crew has to say about 2019. I look forward to what 2020 will bring for all of us. Happy Homeschooling!

Wordless Wednesday: Our Homeschool

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We are officially back to school! Here are some of the photos I took around our schooling rooms (which is mostly the living room and dining room) for a mostly Wordless Wednesday post.

We use our calendar to keep track of everything from trips to the library as well as when I will be sharing different reviews and blog posts. 

I love having this quote visible to me at all times when I am blogging and homeschooling.

I love having the map of the United States at the level of the kids so they can find states, cities, and bodies of water. 

I keep extra worksheets for our younger children to work on and complete when they are bored while one is working on the laptop in a file holder on the wall.

I am using this large canvas crate to hold our books and workbooks when we are not homeschooling. Each day I pull out the ones we need and place them on the dining room table for our schooling day. 

How do you organize your homeschool? 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Teacher Turned Homeschooler

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If you have been reading A Mom's Quest to Teach for any amount of time you will know that I am certificated secondary education social studies teacher. I taught in one public school as a history teacher for 9-12 grades for a little over five years before leaving my position. Prior to teaching in a high school, I taught for many years at a metropolitan zoo and volunteered for the National Park Service. I have been involved in the education field (formal education and informal education) since I was in my early teens – first as a camp counselor and then as a classroom educator. I have wanted to become a teacher since I was in the fourth grade thanks to my fourth grade teacher. This idea was cemented in high school when I had an excellent 10th and 11th grade English teacher. Why did I pick social studies as my field? My family, from a very early age, has instilled a love of history in me so it only seemed natural to major in history.

So how did this teacher turn into a homeschooler? 

Once I finally got a job teaching in a public school, I saw how much things had changed since not only I was in school but since I wanted to become a teacher. Things were not they way they were and I guess you could say my rose-tinted glasses were removed. After several years in which there was more pain and heartbreak than wonderful moments of teaching, I decided to resign my teaching position. Not too long after that decision I became pregnant with our youngest son and a while later I had our daughter. As I read more and more about homeschooling and public education, our family made the decision to homeschool our two younger children. We allowed our teen each year to make the decision as to whether or not he wanted to stay in public school or be homeschooled.

Homeschooling Three 

At the end of the summer of 2018, we asked our teen son again what his plans were for his education. He would be going into 10th grade. There was one minor scare involving a lockdown at his school which made us really encourage him to thoroughly pray about whether he wished to remain in public school or stay home with his younger siblings and be homeschooled.

My husband and I were quite happy he decided to be homeschooled. This has led to some very positive changes for our entire family but also a huge learning curve as we went from two small children (who did not really need a lot in the way of formal education) to a teen who is still planning his future. Luckily, we have a subscription to SchoolhouseTeachers.com and I was able to plan most of his year through this wonderful online homeschooling curriculum. Over the course of the year I was able to supplement our teen's homeschooling with other items from being on the Homeschool Review Crew such as a Shakespeare resource from Hewitt Homeschooling Resources, science lessons from CrossWired Science, and more. I have also expanded our resources for his 11th grade year to include materials purchased from Timberdoodle (Exploring Government from Notgrass History).

Our younger two children are just starting official homeschooling journey. I hope that this sets them on the path of life-long learning. My husband and I love to read and learn new things and we hope that through homeschooling we are able to instill that in our three children.

Want to Learn More about Me? 

Do you and I like the same movies or books? Perhaps you love history as much as I do but would love to learn more about some famous leaders or places? Or do you have a passion for throwing kids birthday parties? On my blog, A Mom's Quest to Teach, I share a lot about myself and my family. Be sure to check out my welcome page for links and more information. Thank you for visiting!

Back to School for the Homeschool Year: 2019-2020

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Our family is very excited about the upcoming homeschool year of 2019-2020! There are so many excellent resources available for families of all sizes and I am very excited to share this overview of what we will be using with our own family. And we are so thankful that we have the opportunity to homeschool our children.

What are the Main Subjects We Will Be Studying? 

We will be focusing upon mathematics, language arts, the sciences, and social studies as our four main core subjects in our homeschool. Each of our three children in our household will focus upon the age-appropriate level of materials and skills focus. Our teen will also focus on photography as an elective as he hopes to make that his future career.

What are Some of the Courses We Were Thinking About? 

With so many different resources available for homeschooling families, what were some of the courses and topics we were interested in studying?

When using SchoolhouseTeachers.com, I use their bookmark feature to save courses that our teen and younger children might be interested in studying. I can also save courses that I might like to take a look at for myself!

In other cases, I highlight, use post-its, and fold pages in the catalogs of companies like Memoria Press and Timberdoodle when I see something exciting that I might like to incorporate into our homeschool.  And of course, I also use online wishlists and bookmark websites when I can.

Sample of Course Topics and Titles

• Botany
• A Study of Extraordinary Women in the Bible 
• World History
• Digital Art and Product Design for Small Businesses 
• Christian Values in J.R.R. Tolkien 
• Chemistry 
• Algebra II 
• Writing: Advertising Copy 
• Appreciating the Gift of Music 
• American History: First Grade 
• Manners and Health Habits for Preschoolers 

Take a Closer Look at the Courses and Materials We Will Be Using 

You can click on the images to visit my individual blog posts about each subject area. 

From books about events and biographies to using materials I prepared when I was teaching high school history, we have so many great materials at our fingertips for history!

From our daughter who is learning to read using Learning Dynamics and the Fluency Builder of Dyslexia Gold to our middle child who loves to read and is learning about grammar using Simply Classical Writing from Memoria Press, we have so many great resources for language arts. And we are incorporating the genre of books that our teen enjoys reading to work on essay writing and research paper skills.

Science is a subject that can be studied together with a few simple changes depending on the age of the homeschooled child. While our younger son may actually be completing all the required work associated with the Astronomy course we are using, our daughter is joining in for the read-alouds and experiments. And as our teen studied botany this year, our younger children will also learn about flowers, plants, and trees. 

All three of our children will be using CTCMath for their mathematics course this year. I love that everything is together. It makes it so much easier to keep track of for this homeschooling mom.

We will be able to focus upon photography this homeschool year with our teen who wishes to pursue that as his career. And we can also incorporate courses that will help all three of our children become members of our family that can help with cooking and cleaning. These are valuable skills they will need when they eventually move into their own home.

Ready to Start 

We follow a modified year-round homeschooling schedule with our teen getting more free time during the summer. Our younger children continue to complete assignments during the summer but with a lot more freedom to learn through exploration.

Personally, I can't wait to pick out their first day of school outfit and line them up for those cute photographs! Last year we made signs for them to hold and then these were used as their portfolio covers for the year. 

What are Our Favorite Essential Items? 

There are so many resources and materials for schooling and homeschooling that it can be overwhelming. I think the most important items are those that work best for your family. Some enjoy using online learning while others prefer pencil and paper. I find the basics in our home include the same times used for any student: pencil, paper, notebooks, paper, and binders along with subscriptions to important programs to accompany the books, textbooks, and workbooks we are using.

How do you get ready to go back to school?