autism · Curriculum · Daily schedule · Uncategorized

Homeschooling Austism: Social-emotional learning

My ten-year old is a petite, loving, social, creative, extremely intelligent child (I am not biased, of course, ha!) who happens to have high functioning autism. Homeschooling allows her to have a caring instructor (me) who is deeply committed to a rich education while trying to help her to grow her ability to handle strong emotions, sensory overloads… Continue reading Homeschooling Austism: Social-emotional learning

Field Trips · Social Studies · Uncategorized

Field Trip: Homeschool Day at Bullock Museum

On this gorgeous February day, we packed our picnic basket and braved Austin traffic to attend the Homeschool Day event at Bullock Museum. The event offered free admission to the museum. Parking was $8 for the attached garage, so still not a bad price to pay for our family of five to spend a day… Continue reading Field Trip: Homeschool Day at Bullock Museum

Daily schedule · Uncategorized

Taking a week off

We all need regular breaks, both homeschooling kids and homeschooling moms. The first two years of homeschooling, we started in July and went through the end of May, taking a one week break each month, with a longer break for Christmas and all of June off. Those breaks were essential to planning and preparation of… Continue reading Taking a week off

Curriculum · Daily schedule · English Language Arts · Math · Social Studies · Uncategorized

Friday Game Day

On Fridays, we take a break from our regular curriculum in spelling and math. In spelling, we play Spelling City games at http://www.spellingcity.com. The website has free and paid-premium options, however we have always just used the free games. It is easy to add lists. In fact, at the beginning of the year, I just… Continue reading Friday Game Day

Holidays · Science

Valentine’s Day & Electricity? Watch “The Magic School Bus Gets Charged” on YouTube

What we are watching this afternoon: a Valentine's Day lesson on electricity with Ms. Frizzle and her class. Shared here on YouTube, https://youtu.be/8k-ON5ChBaw

Holidays · Math

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Nothing celebrates a love for measurement and math like measuring the area and perimeter of hearts in units of little candy Sweethearts. Unless, of course, we would have used Hershey kisses...I will have to remember that for next year...

Curriculum · English Language Arts

Dollar Tree Find

I have desired an alphabet strip for our classroom a couple of years now, and look what I finally found at Dollar Tree for $1! Now if I could only find one in cursive for my third grader.

Daily schedule · Physical Education

I found a new PE idea!

My first grader loves GoNoodle.com. She and her sisters are set up as separate "classes", according to their grade levels. I have not been not crazy about it, feel it is more of a time waster than an academically important use of technology, but I think that is about to change. I discovered they have short… Continue reading I found a new PE idea!

Curriculum · Daily schedule · English Language Arts · Holidays · Math · Science

School Day #137

Today is school day 137 of our first homeschool year. My pre-K daughter still has a little fever from the cold going through our house. My first grader is still coughing, but mainly over it. My poor second grader is coming down with it. And yet, we had school today. We had calendar time and… Continue reading School Day #137