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Homeschool Books – Frindle
I love books. Not just a little. A lot. Other than chocolate, it is my biggest addiction. I’ve always considered that two of my main jobs as a homeschooling mom is to teach my children to love to...
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The Best Part of Homeschooling
The best part of homeschooling (to me) is that my children have time to explore their imaginations and be creative: I personally feel this is so much more important in their early years than sitting at...
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Homeschool Creativity – Camouflage
We’re at the Pennylvania Christmas Show selling soap. I say “we” but I’m not selling much soap today because I lost my voice. I don’t think I’ve ever lost my voice before. It’s not right. A mother...
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Homeschool Creativity – Snow
While we were in New Hampshire, there was a LOT of snow. There were also lots of trees. So when Emery got bored, he decided to use both! He built it right by the sledding path so that everyone could...
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Homeschooled
For Jim’s 40th birthday, I took everyone on a surprise vacation to the Red River Gorge area in Kentucky. We rented a house and spent our days hiking, studying nature, playing, and enjoying the family....
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Homeschool Creativity – See-Saw
Part of our homeschool is the time and tools to be creative. The children always rise to the occassion to impress me. Recently, the boys built their own see-saw. Pretty impressive, don’t you think?
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Homeschooled
The children wanted to do something special a while ago. I told them the only way we’d be able to go was if we got all the soap unmolded and cut before we had to leave. They were so motivated, they...
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Homeschool Creativity – Photography
I think that one of the biggest strengths to homeschooling is that my children get to learn the things that interest them. Because it is self-directed, they often learn faster and retain the...
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Homeschooling Part I
The Jonas children have been homeschooled their entire lives. We start homeschooling them when they are babies because we consider all of life to be a part of their homeschool. Jim and I sat down...
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Homeschooling Part II
Homeschooling at the Jonas house takes place all the time. Somebody is always learning something and the older children often help the younger children. This is part two in our homeschooling series....
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Homeschooling Part III
Our homeschooling series continues as we answer more homeschooling questions such as “How do I homeschool boys?” and “What about curriculum?” There are many different ways to homeschool. This series...
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Homeschooling Part IV
This is the final episode in the homeschooling series. Whether or not you are a homeschooling parent, I hope that it provides you with some encouragement. You can engage your children and help them...
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Homeschool Creativity – Packing Princess
We regularly receive supplies deliveries that contain a lot of packing materials such as bubble wrap, peanuts, foam, and paper. Most of those packing supplies we reuse to ship out our soap orders. But...
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Teaching Logic
I have a logic curriculum for the children. I believe it is called Building Thinking Skills*, or something like that. Problem is, it is a workbook. And a fairly expensive one. Workbooks don’t work very...
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Surely I Can Count This As School Hours
Come on, working on the cube has to get some sort of schooling credits, doesn’t it? Oh well, good thing she’s only two and doesn’t need any credits yet.
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Teamwork
I love it when the children get along and cooperate. But I have to admit that I love it even MORE when their sharing leads to less housework. So, in this instance, there was only one bowl to wash...
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Now THAT is Talent
As homeschooling parents, we try very hard to teach our children things that will be useful for their future. Things that show how talented they are. Things that when other people see them, they say,...
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Prayer Time
During the air show, one of my nephews got upset about something (I think it was a quarrel over the soccer ball). He decided to walk off. I sent Greyden after him to go check on him. A little while...
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The Air Show Planes
I’m not very good at identifying airplanes, so I asked Jim to help. Also be prepared for something of a homeschool lesson with this post. The first plane is the F-4 Phantom*. It is a twin engine, all...
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Sewing
I got Brett a sewing machine* for Christmas. We kept trying to sit down together and go over some sewing basics. But things kept interfering. So Brett took matters into her own hands. For her first...
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Jonas PE Class
As a family, we try to do squats at breakfast, pushups at lunch, and jumping jacks at dinner. Hewitt, Indigo, and Jade have trouble doing jumping jacks. They mostly just jump up and down and wave their...
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Grissom Air Museum
When we travel places, we always try to visit something in the area where we can learn something new. It’s the homeschoolers in us. On our trip to Pennsylvania, we had intended to take the children to...
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House Rules
Whether spoken or unspoken, everyone lives by a set of rules. I’ve found that when running a large family, it helps to have those rules spelled out and posted for everyone to see. We have a cork board...
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National Museum of the Air Force
My brother recently got stationed at Wright Patterson Airforce base near Dayton, Ohio. While we were there visiting him last Fall, we made a trip to the museum located at the base. We had so many of...
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Domain Names
As part of our homeschooling curriculum, my children each need to start and maintain their own website before they graduate. In order to have a website, the first thing you need is a domain name. Do...
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Domain Hosting for Beginners
I previously mentioned that my children all need to have a successful website or blog before I allow them to graduate our homeschool. The first step was to purchase their domain names. Then we...
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Creativity and Wasted Time
Jim recently shared with me a quote from Albert Einstein who once said, “Creativity is the residue of wasted time.” What a brilliant way to put it! I have always felt that lots and lots of free time...
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Homeschool Creativity – Bandana Dresses
One of my main goals when it comes to our homeschool is to give the children lots of opportunities to be creative. I believe that strengthening their creativity skills will pay dividends when they are...
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Homeschool Curriculum
One of the most common homeschool questions that I’m asked is, “What curriculum do you use?” To be perfectly honest, I hate this question. I think too many homeschooling parents think that there is a...
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How To Be a Story Maker
I have a lot of goals when it comes to my children and their homeschool education. One of my goals is that they learn how to be great communicators. In most conventional public school educations,...
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Do Your Children Use Their Brains to Think?
Now that the construction is finished at our new farm, Jim and I have a lot of our time freed up. We’ve been talking about where to spend some of that time when it comes to Goat Milk Stuff and in what...
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How to Make an Ethernet Cable
Jim spends a lot of his time supplying Goat Milk Stuff with what it needs to keep growing. I love it when he is able to use the business as a way to teach the children new skills. We don’t use wi-fi...
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Knitting Time Saver
All of the children know how to knit (including the boys). They mostly knit washcloths that they sell with our soap. It’s great because they can take their knitting with them in the car or to a meeting...
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Hardy Lake Raptors
Some of my favorite parts of homeschooling are the fun, yet educational things we get to experience. A couple of weeks ago, a fellow homeschooling mom organized a field trip to see the raptors at our...
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