Living literature isn’t just for reading but also for teaching writing styles! Serious writing lessons don’t start in our homeschool until middle and high school, but believe it or not, I often use picture books to help me teach. Since picture books can be read in one sitting, they are perfect examples of good writing from…
Does your family have a favorite children’s book author? If you find yourself reading book after book from the same author, it’s pretty safe to say that your family may have a favorite! Why don’t you consider a favorite author study to celebrate that author (or illustrator) and learn a lot about the fundamentals of…
Is your family in the car more often than you care to admit? Would you like ideas to creatively homeschool in the car to redeem some time spent riding to co-op, ballet, music lessons, ball practice, chess club, or doctor’s appointments? If so, you’ll love this blog post! Hours spent in the car can make…
If you’ve been around here long, you know I love living math! One part of living math that makes so much sense for kids is connecting math concepts with literature. If you’ve never tried it, you’ll be amazed at the understanding gleaned from a simple book that teaches the topic in a new and fresh way. This…
Why would anyone use picture books to teach expository writing? Because picture books are written by master authors who can teach us clearly through their examples. Not to mention, it doesn’t take long to read through most picture books, so you can share examples and get right to the work of writing. What is expository…
I love using living books in our homeschool. If you’ve been around here any time at all, you know that living literature is a key tool that I use across all ages and all subjects. Using literature to teach high school history works especially well. So many nuances of an event or era can be…
Do you remember when Eli and I took a short detour from our regular Story of the World studies to learn more about Vikings? We detoured again – this time with a mini pirate unit study. Should I have been shocked? What boy (and many girls) wouldn’t love extra time to hang out with pirates? This…
Look at this list of fairy tales boys love! And why wouldn’t they? These stories are filled with adventure and mystery! Have you noticed that many fairy tales have wonderfully strong female characters? There’s not a thing in the world wrong with that! However, when I set out to write Character Building Chapter Books for Boys,…
Wait. Isn’t personification a language arts topic? What does it have to do with science or nature study? Great question! Mrs. Cindy will explain herself in this creative episode about figurative language. As strange as it sounds, I think you’ll enjoy animal personification nature study! Animal Personification Nature Study Listen to the podcast episode to…
Spring and summer are the best times to read books about flowers and gardens with kids. Each season begins and ends with new and exciting plants to see, smell, and sometimes even eat! To help you have plenty of books on hand to last through both growing seasons, I’ve compiled a list of some of…
We follow a four-year cycle for teaching science. In the elementary years, science picture books have helped me introduce and explain scientific topics so well that I consider them as much curriculum as anything else we use to teach science. How We Learn Science While we do use the occasional science textbook during the elementary…
These data picture books will help your preschool, elementary, and even middle schoolers understand sorting and graphing. Sorting is a skill that is also called categorizing, ordering, classifying, or organizing. It’s simple enough in many cases for preschoolers to do and complex enough that scientists sometimes form teams to figure it out. Either way, it’s…