Whether you have a gifted child, a struggling learner or a mixture of the two, I have encouragement for you. You CAN successfully homeschool! These articles should give you some background on the varied special needs in our homeschool and offer you lots of practical ideas.
One of my goals in homeschooling creatively has always been to help kids love writing. Whether students believe it or not, writing is an essential skill that finds its way into real life quite often. Teaching writing with real-life methods is a great way to convince kids of its importance. Not to mention, anytime an…
We’ve talked a lot about brain training for cognitive skills here at Our Journey Westward. Closely related to cognitive skills are social skills. This article focuses on some easy ways to improve social skills in the homeschool. Don’t get “social skills” confused with “socialization”. One of the biggest thorns in the side of any homeschooler…
Science and creativity seem mutually exclusive, don’t they? It makes sense that the two fields are so opposite of one another that they can’t possibly compliment one another, right? I mean, the idea of a creative and scientific study for children does sound almost comical when you consider the limitless range of creativity and the…
This post was originally published a few years ago, but I’ve seen a surge of questions and interest in how to plan student-led courses in high school. As you take a peek into the planning process of our high school equine course, I hope to help you cast a vision for developing your own course…
Games are wonderful additions to any homeschool. In fact, we typically play at least one game a day – sometimes even gameschooling for an entire day! Not only do games bring joy and lightheartedness to the school day, they can help teach new concepts and practice old ones. One of the most important reasons I…
At the IAHE Conference (Indiana Association of Home Educators), I taught four workshops. While they were all well-attended and well-received, one of the sessions sparked an emotional reaction like none other. My brain training session was the last on my schedule and one of the last of the weekend. I fully expected a low turnout…
Ah, fall. Beautiful weather, fun festivals, football…and the beginning of “sick season.” It’s the perfect time of year to teach middle and high school students about germs through some cool bacteria science experiments! I’ve harped to my son for years about the importance of hand-washing to prevent illness. Now that he has actually seen bacteria…
Typing instruction has always been an important part of our homeschool. Not just for the sake of learning to type, but as an integral part of our language arts program. In today’s technology age, of course it makes perfect sense to introduce our children early and often to correct typing format before bad habits are…
We veered off the “typical homeschool path” this year to teach out-of-the-box homeschool high school chemistry instead. This isn’t the first time we’ve chosen a different path for our son, who is a smart kid but doesn’t thrive in the textbook world of science. Do you remember how we chose an out-of-the-box biology course last year? Because…
Homeschooling works. It just doesn’t always look the same from one child to the next. Sometimes even the best intended plans fail and adjustments need to be made. Our latest major adjustments were made in the subject of science and I’ve shared our success story here in hopes that you will be encouraged not to give…
Does your child seem to have, um, selective hearing? You tell him (or her) to do this or that and you’re very lucky if one little smidgen of it gets done? Yeah, that can be infuriating to a momma. Ask me how I know. It turns out that there can be an honest-to-goodness reason and maybe,…
You know how near and dear brain training is to my heart, right? It’s been such a game-changer in our homeschool that I take it very seriously. We do some sort of brain training every. single. school. day. One day might find us playing a quick card game to building working memory. Another day might…
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