Homeschooling with a Dinosaur Puzzle

I received a COMPLIMENTARY copy of this puzzle in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review and was not compensated in any other way. This post contains affiliate links. Please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page for more information. Thank you!

During December, it is fun to incorporate learning activities that are educational and fun. There are many ways in which you can do this, including games, baking, music, and puzzles! We had the opportunity to review the Tyrannosaurus Rex Floor Puzzle courtesy of Genius Games. Working on this puzzle allowed us to focus on cooperation, critical thinking skills, and a quick introduction to a future homeschool science course. 

Homeschool Fun 

Working on puzzles such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex Floor Puzzle is great fun for our children. Our third grader and fifth grader enjoy challenging floor puzzles. This Turn N Learn Puzzle is quite challenging, as it is a 2-in-1 reversible floor puzzle. One side depicts the skeleton of the T-Rex, while the other features the T-Rex with his brown and green scales. This brings an added challenge as children must figure out which side they need to complete the puzzle. 

About the Dinosaur Puzzle 

This 100-piece puzzle is over four feet long when fully assembled. And the skeleton side glows in the dark! The pieces are rather thick and sturdy. 

The box contains a velcro closure for easy storage. And inside, you will also find a fun fact sheet about the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Please keep in mind that the information may not align with your worldview if you are a Creationist or believe in a young Earth. 

Future Homeschool Science Course 

In the New Year, our fifth grader will be taking Dinosaurs and the Bible Homeschool Course with SchoolhouseTeachers.com. This course looks at the exciting world of dinosaurs and paleontology from a Biblical perspective. Our son will be taking the new interactive course which will allow him to learn about dinosaurs and how they fit in with a young-earth creationist worldview. 

Completing this dinosaur puzzle in advance of his coursework has allowed him to ask questions about what different people believe in regard to dinosaurs, their place in science and history, and their extinction. We have even talked about how opinions regarding dinosaurs have changed from when I was a child to the publication of the novel Jurassic Park to the remakes of the books and movies. 

Our Thoughts 

This dinosaur puzzle was a hit with our children. It allowed us to work together and take a slower approach to homeschooling during December. I would recommend the Tyrannosaurus Rex Floor Puzzle to any family or school that wants to learn more about this famous terrible lizard. 

Love Puzzles 

If you love puzzles, don't forget to check out my other reviews featuring puzzles from Genius Games, including a Turn N Learn Owl puzzle and a Human Heart Floor Puzzle.

Homeschooling Plans for Our Third Grader

I received many of the products mentioned in this post courtesy of my association with the Homeschool Review Crew. Affiliate links are included in this post. 

As our son will be an official third grader this coming school year, I thought I would share our plans for his homeschooling studies. We will be finishing up some of our materials from his second grade year, introducing some new materials, and starting new levels from some of our favorite homeschool curriculum and companies. 

Mathematics

We will be using several resources to help us in our mathematical journey, including CTCMath, worksheets from My Teaching Library, and materials from Page A Day. When possible, I like our youngest son to complete at least one lesson a day on CTCMath. I will sometimes supplement his homeschool math lessons with worksheets or online lessons from Mathseeds. 

Language Arts

While we are reading the books that accompany Our Star-Spangled Story Notgrass History curriculum, I have also been including grammar worksheets from Homeschool Easy and My Teaching Library. Our son also enjoys working online with Reading Eggs and Reading Eggspress. He enjoys collecting eggs so he can decorate his house on Reading Eggs or purchase virtual trading cards on Eggspress. 

We will also be using New American Cursive Penmanship Workbook 1 from Memoria Press. I would like to improve our son's handwriting, so I looked into several cursive penmanship programs and workbooks. I really like how straight-forward and simple this workbook looks to implement, and I am looking forward to using it this upcoming homeschool year with our son. 

Science 

We have spent time using Exploring Creation with Astronomy and I wanted to make a change to something different. We do have Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day from Apologia on hand but when asking our son which he preferred, he wanted to study Mammals using the materials from Memoria Press. Perhaps we will save the other curriculum for a future year or his sister. 

I ordered the set, which includes:

• Mammals Teacher Guide 
• Mammals Student Workbook 
• The World of Mammals Reader 
• What is the Animal Kingdom? book 
• What is a Mammal? book 

There are 30 lessons in Mammals that cover monotremes, marsupials, carnivores, primates, and more for the homeschool student. In addition to the lessons, there are also quizzes and tests to track the progress of our children. 

History 

We will be finishing up the Our Star-Spangled Story from Notgrass History this year and then diving into Our 50 States. As I am a history major and former history teacher, we have been taking our time studying history and adding in additional resources to spend more time on areas that our son finds interesting. So while our Star-Spangled Story sets up a very easy schedule to follow, we have moved more slowly through the lessons. 

Some of the other resources we included are: 

• Home School in the Woods Time Traveler Civil War 
• Liberty's Kids DVD  
• Carole P. Roman books 
• Library and Educational Services LLC

Latin 

We will be continuing with the lessons from Memoria Press for our son's Latin this year. We have had to take a step back from the material over the past year but we are slowly reviewing the first lessons and then moving forward. I love the fact that the curriculum – Prima Latina – has notecards, a CD, and a DVD to accompany the student worktext and teacher's manual. It makes my job as a homeschool mom so much easier. 

In addition to the above specific resources, we also have a variety of books that our third grader will be reading, along with other materials made available through my relationship with the Homeschool Review Crew. I anticipate this being a very fun year! 

How to Plan a Homeschool Day

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Have you decided to homeschool? There are so many wonderful options for homeschooling, from online curriculum for specific subjects like CTCMath to print materials you can order to teach history. If you are looking for curriculum-in-a-box, perhaps you want to check out Timberdoodle (we have reviewed many of their products including Zig Zag Puzzler, which is part of their 2020 9th grade Curriculum Kit, and Gobblet Gobblers, which is part of their 2020 Kindergarten Curriculum Kit) or SchoolhouseTeachers.com. In order to plan out your days, there are some important questions to ask to help you get started. 

Top Five Questions to Ask When Planning 

Your Homeschool Day 

What time of day would you like to start homeschooling? 

When is your family the busiest already? Do you go to work or work from home? Do your children participate in outside activities? You can easily divide up your day into different sections such as 

• Early Morning 
• Mid-Morning 
• Lunchtime 
• Afternoon 
• Evening 

All are equally good times to start your homeschool day based upon what is best for your homeschooling family. There are times we start early in our day, and then some days we start homeschooling in the late afternoon and evening because of other obligations. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can plan our day for our family. And so can you! 

How many subjects would you like to cover each day? 

Will you study each subject - Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, etc. - each day with your homeschooling children? Will you pick one or two to be completed each day while you rotate through the other subjects every other day or weekly? All this might depend upon the age of your children and what they are studying at the time. 

For our teen, we allow him to decide what subjects he will complete on which day. I prepare a weekly plan of lessons he needs to complete, starting on Monday of the week, and then I allow him to arrange his daily lessons. There are times when we need to review his tasks, and we assist him with his time management. 

My Father's World kindergarten curriculum forms the core for our daughter. Each day she completes some math and language arts activities based upon the lesson plans in the Teacher's Guide. I will then supplement with materials from My Teaching Library, SchoolhouseTeachers.com, and Focus on Fives curriculum. 

Will you study any subjects together as a family? 

Many homeschooling families enjoy learning multiple subjects together as a family. While mom or dad reads from a work of fiction or non-fiction, younger children may color while older children take notes or complete activities. Many subjects are easy to combine, depending upon the age of your children. Science experiments can be conducted together, and you can watch history documentaries and movies together and then discuss what you have learned.

How will you fit in field trips, documentaries, co-op opportunities, outside classes? 

You don't have to teach it all! There are so many wonderful opportunities to allow your children to learn from others. Many zoos, museums, and historic sites not only offer tours but often host workshops or homeschool specific classes or days. If you don't feel like an expert on a topic, you can easily look online to find out who is an expert and view interviews or documentaries or share books and articles with your children.

What learning style or homeschool methods do you want to use? 

There are a variety of popular homeschooling methods or approaches that you can research and apply. Many individuals often end up taking an eclectic approach because they borrow from multiple methods tailored to fit their own children's needs, learning styles, and interests.

The names of some of the methods are (the links below will share some information on these methods): 

• Classical 
• Charlotte Mason 
• Montessori 
• Unschooling 
• School-at-Home 
• Unit Studies 
• Eclectic 

A fellow homeschooling blogger at Homeschool on the Range shared a video that discusses many of the homeschool styles: Exploring Homeschool Styles.

Which method or style do you think you would like to use in your homeschool? Personally, our family takes a Classical approach in some ways, enjoys using unit studies, and combines curriculum and materials that help our children learn based upon their individual learning styles.

Roadschooling as a Lifestyle

Please welcome Yvie, a veteran homeschooling mom, to A Mom's Quest to Teach for a special Guest Post. I had the privilege to meet Yvie when I joined the Homeschool Review Crew. In this post, she shares about the beauty of roadschooling. While we haven't had the chance to venture too far away from our home, we have enjoyed visiting several historic sites with our family, including Washington Crossing State Park. 

As a Lifestyle 

For six years, our family roadschooled, which means that we traveled throughout the year, focusing on studies on the opportunities we meet each week.  As a contractor, hubby’s job took him all across the USA, and we got to jump on the train (well, RV) with him and take the journey as a family!

Why travel?

The beauty of roadschooling is having the chance to immerse yourself in different places and cultures…and all the amazing field trips!  That doesn’t mean that we neglected basic studies….math, language arts, science, social studies, copy work, physical education. What it means is that we took advantage of our location to emphasize certain studies at certain times – when they would make the most lasting impression.

When students have the opportunity to visit different places – rural, suburban, and urban – it helps them to better understand the nuances of the world around them. How better for urban students to explore geographic features, landmarks, and ecosystems than by actually visiting them?  Rural students can get a better feel for the frenetic pace of an urban area by visiting and living within city limits for a while.  This cross-cultural knowledge will help them to become better citizens and leaders in the future, as they apply their experiences to decision making.

Make it a Unit Study

There are five basic steps to creating a unit study:

1. Pick a topic - For us, the ‘topic of choice’ was always either a specific location (geography & culture – such as Seattle or Louisiana) or historic event that occurred at our current location (such as the Boston Tea Party).
2. Decide when to start and how long the unit will last – Start the day that you arrive on location!  Or, even better, start researching and reading a few days prior.  Your unit will last as long as you are on location, but can go a few days past your departure if you want to wrap it up.
3. Choose resources and activities to flesh it out – Mom, this is where you’ll need to be a little bit of a planner!  Make sure you have books and reading material on hand to complement your field trip studies.
4. Make a plan of activities scheduled by day / week / month – Depending on how long you are on location, you may want to field trip two days a week and do ‘regular school’ three days a week.  If you’re only a short-timer, take a learning field trip every day! 
5. Decide how you’ll record your unit – We like to blog about it.  ☺  Seriously though, our blog actually began as a way for family and friends to join our journey, but blossomed into a learning record for the kids.

Pick up the Unit Study Planner to help you get started.

Getting Started

Not everyone has the opportunity to travel full-time, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t turn a one week family vacation into a bit of fun-school!  COVID is going to end someday, and life will return to a new normal.  

I would encourage you to sit down with your family….start daydreaming about places that you’ve always wanted to visit…make a list of realistic and dream places.  Choose one location from each list and start researching it – actually plan your trip!  Two things will happen here.  First, you’ll have your ducks in a row for when you’re able to actually make the trip.  Second, you’ll be surprised at just how much you learn during the research!  

A few tips to help you begin your journey…

Think outside the box. When asked, most children aren’t going to list architecture at the top of their ‘coolest things’ list. But after seeing such unique architectural styles, visiting places like the Biltmore House, Overholser Mansion, and Cornwall Iron Furnace might change that!

Plan ahead. Scout websites, including the city’s municipal site, to learn about the area you’re visiting – check for museums, events, festivals, factory tours, and anything relevant to that specific location. Site-specific websites will often have free educational resources to help guide your field trip.

Relax.  We school through the summer, on the weekends, at midnight…pretty much whenever we want.  We get more than the required days in, and that’s fine.  We have a lot of field trip days, too.  Want to know which style helps the kids learn and retain the most? Life experiences, of course!

Yvie is a veteran homeschooling mom and the high school counselor for The Homeschool House, a non-profit organization.  She helps to create unit studies and enjoys helping other families on their homeschool journey.  When not teaching or counseling, she enjoys reading, spending time in her garden, and traveling the country with her boys.  You can find her at Homeschool On the Range, on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.

Favorite Homeschool Curriculum and Resources of 2020

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

We had the privilege of reviewing many different homeschool curriculum and resources during this past year while being members of the Homeschool Review Crew. One of the traditions of the Homeschool Review Crew is to select their favorites and award them a Blue Ribbon for such topics as favorite math curriculum, favorite science resource, or favorite elective. While our family has not reviewed every product and vendor that was reviewed by Crew members this year, we did review quite a few and selected our favorites. 

Language Arts-Related Favorites 

There were many awesome language arts resources reviewed by Crew members this year that we also count as our favorites, including: 

Reading Eggs – Both our younger children love working through the various parts of Reading Eggs such as Math Seeds and Reading Eggspress. They have enjoyed the addition of Fast Phonics, as well. Even though we did not write a review of Reading Eggs this year, it is no surprise that it was chosen for more than one Blue Ribbon by Crew members. 

The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set – With reviewing this early reader set perfect for younger children – we were introduced to the Boxcar Children series. We have since purchased one set of the books and checked out several more from our library to read. I love that the stories are simple and easy to read aloud. 

Mathematics-Related Favorites 

It was very easy for our two younger children to pick their favorite math curriculum/resource. They both agree that they love CTCMath. In fact, our daughter asks to work on her CTCMath on a daily basis (although she does add in an extra TC to the name). In addition to the complete online math curriculum of CTCMath, our youngest also said that she loved working on the materials from Page A Day Math,    which made me very happy as practicing math facts to work on math fluency is important. 

One of the projects from Let's Go Geography

History-Related Favorites 

As a history major and former history teacher, I love it when the Crew reviews history-related curriculum and resources. We started the year off reviewing SchoolhouseTeachers.com and then reviewing Let's Go Geography, which was a wonderful addition to our homeschool year. Then, we spent time reading about C.S. Lewis and his place in history, learning about elections, then the American Civil War with Home School in the Woods, and finally spending time with a family favorite – Drive Thru History®. 

Let's Go Geography – While our second grader has spent the majority of the time completing the lessons of Let's Go Geography, his sister was able to join in all of the different fun crafts. I really like the fact that both our children can work together on this geography homeschool curriculum. 

Home School in the Woods – We have used a number of resources from this great company over the years. I love how they truly bring history to life for those using these homeschooling resources. For example, they provide period crafts and recipes in addition to readings and projects to complete. 

General Homeschool Resources 

There were also a number of wonderful resources that were reviewed by Crew members that I found to be valuable additions to our own homeschool this year. About the time that I joined the Crew Admin team, we received a subscription to Super Teacher Worksheets and then My Teaching Library. I have been incorporating materials from both these sites into our younger children's homeschool day on a regular basis ever since. 

Super Teachers Worksheets – From seasonal worksheets to grammar and mathematics, there are so many useful resources for our homeschool at Super Teachers Worksheets. We have incorporated mostly grammar into our second grader's homeschool day along with some fun coloring sheets for our kindergartner. I love the ability to search for items easily with their menus. 

My Teaching Library – I have been able to find so many great resources to use with all three of our children, from a study on Beowulf, which our senior read at the beginning of this year, to monthly skills workbooks that I am using with our two younger children. I love that I can find seasonal worksheets to include in their homeschool day. It makes our weeks fun and exciting. 

A few of the worksheets from My Teaching Library

Complete Curriculum 

There were several products that really stood out for our family in terms of complete curriculum. We were chosen to review My Father's World: God's Creation from A to Z  as well as Focus on Fives from BJU Press Homeschool with our kindergartner. Both these curriculum have really helped our daughter blossom and develop a love of learning. And for our younger son, I have been using materials from Homeschool Easy for grammar and mathematics, but they have a complete curriculum for grades 1 to 5 with reading, social studies, science, and writing. 

God's Creation from A to Z – We were blessed with being able to review the complete kindergarten curriculum from My Father's World. This meant we added a great number of children's books to our homeschool library, as well as were able to incorporate important religious instruction into our homeschool day. I am eagerly awaiting starting the Christmas unit after Thanksgiving – it looks like so much fun! 

Focus on Fives – This has been such a fun curriculum to use in our homeschool. I love how we have been able to incorporate the holiday-themed lessons from the last Teachers' Guide – such as the one on Easter and now Thanksgiving – into our homeschool day. And our daughter loves her 'bunny homeschooling.' 

Other Favorites 

There were several other family favorites that I must simply mention. From fun games to learning a new language, we have added a lot of cool resources into our homeschool day. 

Geography and mathematics have been studied in our homeschool, courtesy of two fun games from Byron's Games. Our entire family has enjoyed playing both Continent Race and Math Sprint this year. I love that we have two more board games that we can play – and they are educational, too!

Memoria Press – I have been circling the Prima Latina in the Memoria Press catalog ever since we started homeschooling. I really wanted to learn Latin alongside our younger children (our oldest took French in high school, like I did). So, I was very excited when we were given the chance to review the complete set! I love the organization of Prima Latina. It has been an excellent addition to our homeschool journey. 

A Fun Homeschool Year 

With all the bumps of 2020, we have been blessed with many great homeschool products to review in our home. The companies have been very gracious to share their wonderful resources with the Homeschool Review Crew, so we could review them and share our thoughts and opinions with you. I know that over the course of the past two years of being a Crew member, I have found several companies that I will be patronizing in the years to come. 

If you are curious about who was awarded Blue Ribbons by the Homeschool Review Crew, I urge you to visit their post. While you are there, don't forget to check out the other Crew's posts as they share their personal favorites from this homeschool year.

A Day in the Life of a Homeschool Review Crew Member

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I have been blessed with being part of the Homeschool Review Crew since 2018. It has not actually been a very long time, but I feel like the Crew Members and the staff of its parent company – The Old Schoolhouse®  – have been part of my life for so much longer. Being on the Crew has had such a positive impact on our homeschooling quest, I wanted to share with you what it is like to be a Crew member. While I may share information about several different reviews that we completed, I will be focusing upon BJU Press Focus on Fives from BJU Press Homeschool in a few parts to better illustrate my points. 

Read on to explore my days as a Crew Member – daily tasks, time commitment, using, reviewing, and writing 

Seeing a New Product is Available to Review 

Over the course of the year, Crew members will have the opportunity to review quite a number of different products and curricula. In 2018, I reviewed over 20 products. In 2019, I reviewed over 30 products. In 2020, before I joined the Crew Leadership Team this summer, I reviewed over 25 products. These are conservative numbers because I may have missed a few when I was looking through my blog planner (as a Crew member you get an awesome planner to help you track your reviews). 

This worksheet from the planner allows Crew members to write down every vendor, the product to review, check off that they complete the interest form, and more. I find this helpful to use even for my reviews that are not for the Homeschool Review Crew.
(I would share a photo of mine, but it is very messy.)

When a new product is available, Crew members are provided with the name of the company, the product, and links to each so we can research more about them. It is very important to take time and read over the available information on the company and product. Will this be a good fit for our family? Do my kids do learn best with online programs or hands-on curricula? How will we be able to incorporate this new material or curriculum into our homeschool day? 

When deciding whether or not I would like to review Focus on Fives from BJU Press Homeschool, I looked over their website and spoke with our daughter because it is a kindergarten curriculum. There were eight components included in the review product, so I clicked through the different links to read about each part - the teacher's editions, worktexts, books, visual chart, and more. There were also videos available to watch to learn more about Focus on Fives. 

Over the course of the year, when learning about other vendors and their products, I have even sought out reviews done by previous homeschoolers. Sometimes this means reading blogs or watching YouTube videos to see the product in action. All this research takes time but ensures that the materials will be the right fit for our family. 

Making the Review Product a Part of Our Homeschool Day 

I find it easier to incorporate new homeschool products and curricula into the schedules of our younger children than into our high school student's schedule. Of course, when a curriculum comes along that will greatly help our high school homeschooling student, it is easy to make a switch. For example, CTCMath was a great fit for our older son because he does better with video lessons for mathematics. 

When reviewing Focus on Fives, we used the materials almost every day. It was requested that we use the curriculum three to five days a week, as it is a complete curriculum with reading, mathematics, science, social studies, and more. Since we are a homeschooling family, we adapted the curriculum to meet the needs of our family. So sometimes we skipped parts (e.g., lessons that were teaching skills our daughter already mastered) to include more of the optional activities.

How long does it take to use the product? Every review product will take a different amount of time to incorporate into ones' homeschool. For example, a game like Math Sprint from Byron's Games was rather easy to incorporate. We played the game several times after dinner. With Focus on Fives, our daughter and I sat down together during the day to complete the lessons. Sometimes, the lessons took 15 to 30 minutes. Other times, they took longer because we were completing art projects or reading story books. 

Behind the Scenes of a Homeschooling Blogger 

In addition to actually using the review product, as a homeschooling blogger, I need to take photographs of the product (or screenshots for online programs). I share some of those photographs on my social media platforms before publishing my review. This helps advertise that I have a review coming up on my blog and helps the vendor because their product will be seen by those who follow me. For me, it is a bit trickier to take photographs because I have chosen not to share the faces of our children. So, I have to position the product in such a way as to show off the work being completed as well as protect our children's identities. 

Sometimes, I write my actual review post while we are using the product. I compose the general information about the company or the product in the beginning weeks (we usually have about four weeks or so to use the product before our review is due). I also like to prepare the information on my blog that shares links to the vendor and their social media accounts, the legal disclaimer, and the links back to the Crew's anchor post. 

In the final days before the review is due, I write about how we used the product in our homeschool. I might also interview our children to share their opinion of the product. Sometimes, I even ask my husband to include his thoughts when he is editing my posts (I ask him to edit all my blog posts). It is during this final phase that I will make my graphics, too. 

How long does it take to prepare the review post? If I am not interrupted, I can write my entire blog post in about an hour or so. I edit all my photographs on my phone, download them, and then put them into my blog or create graphics with them. This can take anywhere from one to two hours, depending upon technology cooperating. Putting in the links and ensuring they work takes a shorter amount of time – maybe 15 minutes or so. I will also check my links after I publish my blog post to ensure they are all correct. 

Now that I Have Published My Post 

Once my review is posted, I still have responsibilities as a Crew member. I must link up my review on the Crew's anchor post. There are specific instructions to follow to make it easier for the team to check that I included all the necessary information – links, photographs, how we used the product, etc. After linking up, I need to share my blog post at least two times on social media. I usually share more than that on multiple social media platforms. After I share my post on social media, I fill out a Google form to share those links. My links will be shared with the rest of the Crew members with the vendor! There is a possibility for great exposure for my review. 

If you are already blogging, you probably have an idea of how long it takes to share your blog posts on social media. Personally, the only scheduler I use is that on Facebook, so I manually pin, tweet, and post all my shares. I use the blog planner provided by the Crew to track how many times I have shared my blog post on the various social media platforms. I try to share each review once to Facebook, twice to Twitter, at least once to Instagram, and three times to Pinterest. I space these shares out of the course of a week, so each day, I may spend 15 to 30 minutes sharing my most recent review. 

I LOVE this calendar spreadsheet. I sometimes use the schedule column for whether or not I have linked my blog post or for other notations. I prefer to handwrite most information, so I like that I can print one of these out for each month rather than relying upon an online spreadsheet.

The Commitment 

Being a member of the Homeschool Review Crew is a blessing and a responsibility. It is important to use each product provided by the vendors in our homeschool, write a Christ-honoring but truthful review of the product, and fulfill the obligations in sharing the review. When I have needed help – a product did not arrive in a timely fashion or something was not a good fit for our family – I have been able to seek the advice and wisdom of my fellow Crew members and Crew Leadership Team. By joining the Crew, you will add additional time commitments to your day, but you will be joining a family that participates in card exchanges, swaps recipes, prays for each other, and promotes each others' blogs and social media accounts. 

The only other part that I haven't discussed was that – to be an active Crew member – you must post at least one other non-review post a week. There are many opportunities to share non-review posts while being on the Crew. There are weekly blog challenges that allow you to link up and write a non-review post hosted by the Crew as well as other link-ups and challenges shared by Crew members. In the past, several Crew members (including me) have written weekly posts Blogging through the Alphabet. 

Do You Want to Join? 

Now that I have shared a glimpse into my life as a Crew member, would you like to join? You will grow your blog, YouTube, and/or social media platforms and – at the same time – review new and interesting homeschooling products. I invite you to apply to join the Homeschool Review Crew! As a team, we work together, using current on-the-market home education products and then share those experiences with our readers and viewers. If you are a homeschooling parent that is willing to review products, then this might be a great opportunity for you! Apply here: www.homeschoolcrew.com.

Homeschooling the Middle School Years

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For some, maybe homeschooling during the preschool and elementary years was very easy. It might have been very exciting because every day your children were learning something new. Now, as your children enter their middle school years (think fifth-eighth grades), they might need to work on higher levels of math than you feel comfortable teaching. Or maybe you want to introduce a second language and you can only remember how to ask where the library is in French. However, as it was with homeschooling younger grades, you can homeschool the middle school years in very much the same way. Use the materials and resources you have at hand and outsource the lessons and courses you struggle with yourself.

Flexibility

As children get older, they are better able to articulate ideas and share information about their favorite subjects, their preferred learning styles, and their interests in particular extracurricular activities. This makes homeschooling a great way to help them continue their journey as lifelong learners. You can easily switch from one curriculum to another if you have the means to do so. Perhaps an online math course like CTCMath (read our review from this year here) is not working for your family so you might need to change to one that is pen and paper with a more traditional textbook approach. Or maybe your child does not like to read but enjoys listening to audiobooks. Homeschooling will allow you to pick the right way to teach your child.

You can also start to pick and choose the courses that your child is interested in (as long as it aligns with any state requirements). So, if your child wants to learn about computers, coding, and creating games, you don't have to worry if the elective course is filled (like you may if your child attended public school). They can take any course they want as long as you can find one. Yes, there may be some online courses that have a limited number of openings but you can keep looking till you find one that will work for your child and budget. Homeschooling is really all about flexibility!

Outside Resources

If you are unsure of how to teach a certain subject there are many wonderful resources available to you. For example, many companies offer full curriculum kits while also offering you the opportunity to purchase individual products from their sites. Timberdoodle, Memoria Press, BJU Press Homeschool (see our review of Focus on Fives here), and My Father's World (read our review here) are several company examples. So if you need a science book, you might look at the Apologia books sold on Timberdoodle (read our post about Exploring Creation with Astronomy here) or perhaps the Mammals Set sold through Memoria Press.

Another great option that our family loves is SchoolhouseTeachers.com. The site offers over 475 courses which means that every subject and every grade is covered. They even have new Curriculum Boxes that weave together their current courses so you can open and go following the guide. For example, in the 7th Grade Curriculum Box, you can use either a traditional or classical approach to history. If you choose to take a traditional approach to history, your child will complete the Renaissance to World War II history course. If you choose to add in the art from the Curriculum Box, your child will complete assignments from five different art courses offered on SchoolhouseTeachers.com. It is designed for you to follow but you can also be flexible – picking and choosing what works for you.

Take It One Day at at Time

The middle school years can also be a time of great change for your child. So, remember to take it one day at a time. If you are planning to homeschool your child through graduation from high school, you have lots of time to ensure they learn the things that they need to as well as helping them become lifelong learners. You do not have to master every skill in every course nor complete every page. They wouldn't necessarily finish their textbook or workbooks if they attended public school. And if you need extra time, finish up your language arts curriculum at the start of the next school year. Remember to be flexible. Have a great homeschool year!

Homeschooling the Elementary Years

What do you think is the easiest grade or years to homeschool? I think there may be a lot of disagreement as to which age or grade people consider to be the easiest. After all, when your children are young – preschool-aged – you are spending a lot of time building the foundation with them. Teaching them colors, the alphabet, numbers, how to button a coat, manners, and more which can be quite time consuming as they have short attention spans but want to learn everything.

When children have completed their kindergarten years, they may be reading independently and able to complete assignments with little to no supervision. You can start providing them with more difficult work which will help their minds grow. But just how long should you dedicate to homeschooling every day? How much information should you introduce to them at one time? Everyone will have different ideas and suggestions. I firmly believe that your child should lead the way (i.e., your child's progress will help you determine the answers).

How We Homeschool the Elementary Years 

To many outside observers, we probably have a very relaxed homeschool day. Our youngest children spend a lot of time exploring their own interests – drawing, playing with toys, reading, playing games, and more. But those periods of time when they are working or playing together are punctuated with time where we focus upon our homeschooling tasks.

I often work with our daughter while our younger son works independently on the computer completing a reading assignment with Reading Eggs, Reading Kingdom, or Spelling Shed. If he is not working on a language arts assignment online, he might be completing a math lesson with CTCMath or Teaching Textbooks. This gives him screen time and lets me help our daughter. When one completes their work, they often go over to see what their sibling is doing.

After completing one or two short lessons, we might need to take another break for me to complete my own tasks. While there are times when I let them go to what they wish, I might also ask our children to read or complete a written assignment. The work is short, age-appropriate, and can be done interdependently. I love that they are slowly growing to need me less and less for their work but we can still come together to learn as a team.

Depending on how the day goes, we may complete some additional lessons in the evening. We are that family who takes advantage of homeschooling by including our lessons throughout the entire week and the entire day. So while we are not sitting at a desk from 8 am to 3 pm, we are learning throughout the entire day. Whenever our kids have a question, I take that a chance to teach them and learn with them.

Homeschooling the elementary years will look different for many families. It may even look different for homeschooling families day to day or year to year depending upon their needs. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the flexibility it affords each family to do the best for their own family and children.

Record Keeping in Our Homeschool

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Every homeschool is different. And depending on where you live, you may find the need to keep more records of homeschool work and grades than we do. I highly recommend you check out the laws and regulations of your home state or country to find out just exactly what you need to keep track of for your homeschool. A great place to start is with the Home School Legal Defense Association. They can give you the proper advice as to what you need to maintain the documentation you need.

Keeping Records for Our Younger Children 

We have three children and we keep records differently for them. For our younger children, every day they are learning. If I kept every piece of paper they used on a daily basis to homeschool and learn, we would have a flood of paper. Now that our younger son is entering second grade, he has decided he wants me to grade his work - at least his math work - and supply him with a number and letter grade. So for the past several weeks, I have been grading his math worksheets, checking them for accuracy, and then writing down a grade. I even pulled out my stamps from when I was a teacher to add a 'good job' to his homeschool work.

Most of the work that our younger children complete is done with me sitting with them or near them so I know right away whether or not they are getting questions wrong. And when they are working online with programs like CTCMath, they are given immediate feedback as to whether or not they get the problems correct. I can even download reports from some online homeschooling programs so I can keep copies of their records from that program after the subscription ends.

Keeping Records for Our High School Student 

Our high schooler has the intention to start his own business after graduation. So, our methods of record-keeping are a bit different than if he had the intention to go onto a two-year or four-year college. He attended one year of public high school, so I have his transcript from his freshman year. I can take those grades and incorporate those into our record-keeping program so that I can calculate out his entire high school career's grades. We are using Applecore through our SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership to keep track of our high schooler's course grades as well as to calculate his transcript.

The first step I take in keeping records for our high schooler is to input his grades into an excel spreadsheet. I use one sheet for each course and I have been putting classwork/daily tasks in one column, quizzes in a second column, and tests and projects in a third column. When I calculate his grades, I have been counting his tests and projects as worth more than the daily work he completes. After I calculate the final grade for each course, I use a chart to find the letter grade and then record this information into Applecore. From there, the program will create a report card or transcript for me.

Final Thoughts

Many new-to-homeschooling families may be very concerned about grades and record keeping. I think it is important, as I mentioned earlier, that you follow any state requirements. But beyond those requirements, I think it is more important that our children actually understand the information than they have all As or Bs. Yes, if they understand the information, they are more likely to have 'good grades,' but I do not think they should be penalized too harshly for their mistakes. For example, we are keeping more grades for our teen as I will create a transcript for him in case he wishes to go onto higher education. However, I make sure that his regular work – what might be considered classwork and homework if he attended public school – is not weighted as much as work he completes as quizzes or tests. Those are the opportunities he has to demonstrate his knowledge—through these written documents as well as the conversations we have about the different topics he is studying.

Keeping records first depends upon your state requirements and then depends on what you feel is important for documentation. In the younger years, that may mean a lot of photographs of projects (that get too big to store forever) or boxes full of artwork. As your children get older, you might find that more and more of their work is saved digitally. I love that there are so many options for keeping records while we homeschool.

Top Five Homeschooling Curriculum Choices

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There are so many awesome curriculum choices available! It is very easy to get overwhelmed with all the options available to homeschooling families. There are some companies where you can purchase an entire curriculum for the whole school year for one price. Others provide you with options to purchase individual products for specific subject areas. As we have been members of the Homeschool Review Crew for the past two years, we have used a variety of materials and have discovered quite a few favorites.

Top Five Homeschooling Curriculum Choices in Our Homeschool 

SchoolhouseTeachers.com – Every Subject. Every Grade. Every Student.

I first came across SchoolhouseTeachers.com several years ago when I saw that they had positions for lesson designers. I was so very excited to write courses for them because I LOVE writing curriculum. That was one of my favorite parts of being a teacher. A short while later, I joined the Homeschool Review Crew and then our high school student decided to join us on the homeschooling journey. We use SchoolhouseTeachers.com almost exclusively for our high schooler. There are 475 courses for PK-12 grade. If you need math for first, second, or third grade, there are options for your homeschool. If you are looking for courses in British Literature or American Literature, there are courses you can use in your homeschool. So many great options!

This year, SchoolhouseTeachers.com introduced School Boxes. No matter if you are a brand new homeschooler or a veteran homeschool mom, you can use the virtual Homeschool Curriculum Boxes to help plan your homeschool year. The new Curriculum Box provides all the content you need to provide an entire school year's worth of curriculum. You can just open and go! And if you already have a great social studies curriculum (for example), you do not need to use that curriculum guide. It is all up to you as a homeschool parent.

History Homeschool Curriculum Resources 

There are many homeschooling history resources that I found over the past several years. Because I love history, I constantly seek out historical material. WriteBonnieRose shares a great number of history-related resources that allow students of various ages to learn about history as well as to practice their copywork. I also love using materials from Notgrass History and Home School in the Woods in our homeschool.

Notgrass History 

Last year, our teen used Exploring Government for his junior year. During his studies using the textbook and accompanying materials, he explored the government of the United States from the beginning to the present day. Everything was laid out in a clear, easy-to-understand manner that made Exploring Government not only a class that was simple to include in his homeschool day but also very valuable. He learned about how government operates at the federal, state, and local levels as well as the various issues that are important to the United States today. (I also really enjoyed reading the textbook and learned a lot myself!)

This year, we will be using Our Star-Spangled Story for our second grader. When I was looking at history options for our younger son, I fell in love with the samples that Notgrass History provides for Our Star-Spangled Story (well, for all their materials to be honest). The textbooks are beautiful with full-color photographs and illustrations. I bought the bundle that combines the curriculum and literature packages so that we have all the books to read along with Our Star-Spangled Story. I love that we will be including songs, dances, and hands-on activities with reading to learn history this year.

Home School in the Woods

Another fantastic company that I love for history resources is Home School in the Woods. We have been fortunate enough to review several of their products over the years with both of our sons – including resources to learn about the election, a Lap-Pak to learn about knights, and unit studies on the Renaissance and Reformation and the American Civil War. I love that their materials are digital. So, with a family license, I can use the material for all three of our children very easily.

Schooling with Games, Foreign Languages, and More! 

Timberdoodle 

Timberdoodle is a great company that offers complete curriculum packages for purchase. They offer different levels such as elite, complete, and basic as well as religious and nonreligious kits. These options make them a good choice for families who are secular homeschoolers and for those who are religious homeschoolers, too. And if you do not need an entire curriculum package, they offer many of the items for individual sale. In the past, we have purchased science materials from them such as Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy, the Curious Chef 3-Piece Nylon Knife Set, and Channie's My First Letters tracing pad.

We have also been fortunate enough to review several games from Timberdoodle including:

• Gobblet Gobblers - A fun twist on Tic-Tac-Toe 
• Tenzi Game and Tenzi Card Deck 
• Bugzzle 

I love that we can incorporate games into our homeschool day to help work on critical thinking skills, problem-solving, cooperation, and teamwork. Games provide a great brain break for the day, too. 

Memoria Press – Studying Latin 

If you are looking for a curriculum that takes a classical approach to education, then I recommend Memoria Press. And just what is classical education? According to Memoria Press, "classical education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue through the study of the liberal arts and the Great Books."

Memoria Press also offers full curriculum packages or allows homeschoolers to purchase just the materials they need for their homeschool. We have used a number of their products, including the First Start Reading Program, their Simply Classical Writing, and Prima Latina.  I love their approach to teaching and the quality of the materials. We started reviewing Prima Latina with our younger son at the start of the summer and we will pick up the curriculum again this school year. I love that Prima Latina can be purchased with a DVD so that I don't have to worry about my own pronunciation of the Latin. Our son can learn along with the instructor in the videos. That makes it so much easier to teach a foreign language!

What are your Top Five Homeschooling Curriculum Choices? Where do you turn for great curriculum for your homeschool?

Yesterday we shared our must have resources...please see what everyone shared on their blogs!


Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses shares My Must Have Homeschool Resources.
Kristen @ A Mom's Quest to Teach shares Homeschooling Must Have Resources and Supplies in Our Home.
Annette @ A Net in Time shares Nature Study Bring Alongs.
Jessica @ My Homeschool with a View shares My Top 5 Homeschool Supplies.
Dawn @ Schoolin' Swag shares Must Have Supplies ... For Mom.
Vicki B @ Tumbleweed News shares Homeschool Must Have Resources / Supplies.
Yvonne @ The Life We Build shares her Top 5 Favorite Homeschool Supplies and Resources.
Lori @ At Home: Where Life Happens shares Homeschool Supplies... Squirrel.