While school supply shopping at Walmart the other day, I ran across some clipboard storage boxes in several fun colors. I remembered Maureen from Spell Out Loud mentioning using these nature walk clipboards with her family, so I put three in my cart. Wow – they have been a wonderful addition to our nature walks!…
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! In honor of his birthday, some of my blogging friends and I would like to share some fun ideas for teaching from Dr. Seuss in middle school. The content of so many Dr. Seuss books is far more rich than you might imagine! Dr. Seuss in Middle School: The Sneetches Our…
One of the best ways to perk up the school year during the winter is to get outside. Yes, you heard right – get outside! I know it’s cold, but I also know what “going stir crazy” feels like and how {even cold weather} nature walks can rejuvenate the spirit. Not to mention, there’s a world…
Check out what Jimmie of Jimmie’s Collage and Notebooking Fairy has written! What a gem it is! This post contains affiliate links. Read my entire disclosure policy here. Clear. Concise. Full of practical ideas. Easy to implement. Very motivating! Those are phrases that perfectly describe Notebooking Success by my blogging friend, Jimmie. I’m not new…
Welcome to Day 2 of my 10 Days of… series on Teaching Values in your homeschool! One of the easiest things you can do in your homeschool is teach values with books and that’s exactly what I’ll show you how to do! This post contains affiliate links. Teaching Values with Books Today I’m writing about…
Welcome back to day eight of my 10 Days of teaching values in your homeschool series! Today’s topic is about one of my favorite allegories. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a beautiful book to help your children see good character traits and how to be watchful for pitfalls that can keep us from doing what we know…
Whew. Day 10. Thank you for hanging in there with me these past two weeks! Today I’m going to wrap up the series a comprehensive list of the character building resources that you can find here at Our Journey Westward! I truly hope you’ve enjoyed this series about teaching values and pray that at least…
Children of the 21st century simply must be knowledgeable about and capable with computers. Besides typing programs and internet research, I like to assign occasional projects that are computer-based. I thought you might like to see the most recent projects… Writing is something that Caleb does NOT like. But, when the writing is (at least…
There are so many great Christmas books to read with your children! I’ve posted about some of my top favorites from years past. But, since I write nature studies, I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite Christmas picture books that relate well with nature study. Really good ones are few and far between, with…
Eli wrote his very first story a few weeks ago called The Lonely P. I thought I’d post it for my new friends Kim Kautzer and Debbie Oldar, authors of WriteShop. They were our wonderful, WONDERFUL booth neighbors at the Midwest Homeschool Convention last week. They are such sweet mentors! Be sure to check out…
(This post contains affiliate links.) Published Books: Why They’re Important This week was our second round of book publishing this year. Back in February, after the kids had written original stories from picture prompts, we took the stories through the entire writing process. Prewriting (brainstorming, story mapping, free writing, lists making, orally telling a story,…
What a wonderful grammar resource Mahayla now has! At the beginning of the school year, I decided Operation: English Grammar from In the Hands of a Child would be a weekly addition to Mahayla’s grammar studies. She completed one-two lapbook activities per week, and now that it’s finished, has a super resource full of grammar…