Using Spelling City to the best of your child's abilities!

If you child is a game person AND they need help with their Spelling! Be sure to check out Spelling City's Match It game! It is one of our personal favs! We love it! We love Spelling City for the spelling assistance in itself but more than that we love the fact that they have GAMES to play with your spelling words! My high schoolers STILL use Spelling City! Their spelling has improved 100% over the past 4 years of use! What is Match It game you ask! MatchIt Sentences is VocabularySpellingCity's fun word match game that guides students to match sentences with the word that best completes them. The object of MatchIt Sentences is to match the word that accurately fills in the blank of a corresponding sentence. MatchIt Sentences is excellent for building vocabulary skills. It also builds logic and reasoning skills by requiring students to find the best overall solution by using a process of elimination. MatchIt Sentences is available as an online activity or as a printable worksheet. Be sure to check it out!

Homeschooling secularly!

How do I homeschool? Well, I homeschool secular! We are non-religious homeschoolers, secular homeschoolers, or homeschool secular. We have met many types of homeschoolers over the past 4 years and we are cool with however they want to homeschool. I believe that as my children grow, they have the choice to decide on their own religion, their own beliefs and I prefer to keep that out of our schooling! We believe in evolution, we believe in science, we believe in teaching how we need to teach! But there is no wrong way for homeschooling! If you are religious, good for you! If you are scientific, good for you! If you are secular, good for you! If you are unschoolers, good for you! If you are road schoolers, good for you! If you are online schoolers, good for you! I love to hear about different ways to homeschool, I love to hear if they work for you, don't work for you....etc. Post away! Tell me what kind of homeschooler are you! And WHY!!

How I am spending my Summer vacation-hunting up new Math programs-what FUN? NOT!

And yet another blog from ME about Math! Are you tired of my whining yet? Honestly, it is our bone of contention in this house.....I would love to toss it out the window! And I am apparently on the hunt for a new Math program for my older son for Fall 2012, because the one he is using...he has issues with. Of course he waits until May to tell me this....been using it since last August...but apparently NOW is the time to complain. He says that learning the math facts is an issue because they are talking in VERY mathematical terms instead of in terms he can understand and he is not getting it. So guess what my Summer will be spent doing? Finding a Math program that is reasonably priced or free that will work for a high schooler who has Math issues. Not to mention is seemed like his 9th grade year was a little light on subjects and since my younger son is moving into 9th grade and older son will be 10th grade....I need to make sure they have more to do vs. playing online games! Mom has been a little lax in that department! So....my Summer is planned checking out Math and finding out if the Math facts are good and easy to learn! What are YOUR Summer plans?!LOL

What is unschooling?

When we first started homeschooling we were bombarded with advice! LOTS of advice! The one that sticks in my mind was someone said unschooling! I was like WHAT? Her version was that for every year my child had been in public school, we were to take a month off. You are to remove the issues that public school instilled by doing this! I was never for this...I knew my son. I knew that the longer we goofed off away from lessons, the harder it would be to reel him back into it later! So, instead we took 2 weeks off! He had a hard blow, he felt defeated and so did I. Plus I needed to get my act together and figure out how I was going to homeschool a middle schooler! There are many versions of unschooling, I have since found out! It is like anything else, you can google it and read 100 different opinions and versions! You take what you like and toss the rest! We are hardcore schoolers during the school year but our Summer break, for what it is....we are unschoolers! School is NOT thought about....it doesn't exist! So.....if you want to be a homeschooler, be sure to check out unschooling and see if it is for you! Happy Homeschooling!