Making time for the important things in life
On Saturday morning, our daughters beg for the news with Dawna Friesen the way some kids might beg for cartoons. (This is probably because, lacking a TV in our house, they don’t even know about Saturday morning cartoons.) They tumble downstairs in their pjs and hunker down in front of the computer, asking to watch [...]
A few years ago, my husband and I picked up the Take-Along Guide Caterpillars, Bugs & Butterflies. (As an aside, this is a wonderful book for children and adults who want to learn about common insects.) One of the included projects, titled “Capture a ‘Bear’ for the Winter,” directs young naturalists in capturing a wooly [...]
I thought I’d share some of our lessons learned with Miquon here, hoping that they might help someone else who is launching it with their students. Because Miquon is so difficult to define (is it a program? an approach? a methodology?), I’ll begin by sharing how we’ve come to understand Miquon in our home. What [...]
Today was Hubby’s birthday, and we celebrated in Fine Style. He had a (mostly) quiet breakfast in bed. (That is a huge feat in this household, as Tasha and Charlotte are itching to play with him as soon as he wakes up!) For lunch, we made one of his favourite meals: Ball Park Franks. Lemon [...]
Draw Write Now has been one of the best resources that we’ve added to our homeschooling shelves. The full set of eight books took some work to find in Canada; however, they have been well worth the cost and effort. Draw Write Now was designed by a teacher who empathized with the frustration that her [...]
Homeschooling in Canada brings some special challenges. I’ve spent hours looking for a Canadian supplier of Henle’s Latin, for example. (Blue Mantle carries it, in case that’s been really bothering you, too.) I’ve shipped resources to my brother and sister-in-law in New Jersey, who have then had to lug them to me on their next [...]
For months now I’ve had The Story of the World: Ancients on our shelves, just waiting for this school year to start. I’ve been so excited about the program that I wondered if I had unrealistic expectations of it. Nope. Not unrealistic. Story of the World is great. We’re using the Activity Guide that accompanies the [...]
Back in April of this year, I decided to make some changes to our math program. Tasha (Gr. 1) is now using Singapore 1A as her main program with Miquon math labs once a week. One of the reasons I had made the switch was my fear that she was starting to dread math. Grade [...]
We’ve marked tomorrow as the First Day of School for our homeschool. (We’ve been doing the basics for the past couple of weeks to warm us all up for this.) Tasha and Charlotte decided that they would like to see the plans for the day, which I thought was fair. I made cards for each [...]
Tonight our girls saw their first porcupine. They also, for the first time, saw their Grandpa use his gun to end the porcupine’s gambols on his lawn. Tasha was shaking and had tears in her eyes as she witnessed this. (Later she told us that she imagined the porcupine was “frolicking around, daydreaming about candies” [...]
