homeschooling

Reasons to Homeschool
Five Reasons to be Glad That You Didn’t Drop off the Kids at School
It's that time of year when your social media feed fills up with pictures of cute children wearing shiny new backpacks and carrying shiny new lunch boxes and looking oh so happy. First-day-of-school pictures can make you question your plans to homeschool, particularly if you're new to it or you had a hard year last…
Mythbuster: It’s Too Hard to Homeschool Tween and Teen Boys
"Could you talk about homeschooling boys? My son is driving me crazy! And you have six..." Back when we were on the board of our state homeschool organization, we heard that a lot from support group leaders. It's how we got started speaking and writing about boys and it's still something we hear all the time. "Once boys hit puberty,…
Boys Bummed by Math
Our initiation into homeschooling middle school - and the pangs of early adolescence - happened in math. Our oldest son was an early reader and just rocketed along with elementary math. We were delighted! And we encouraged him to keep working ahead ... soon he was two years ahead of his age group in math.…
Five Ways to Get Dad Involved in Homeschooling
One of the questions we hear is, "How can I get my husband more involved in our homeschooling?" If you look around conventions (we travel to lots of them), admittedly, you do see a lot more moms than dads. It's not just anecdote; a study published by the National Home Education Research Institute in 1997…
The Scary Question, “What Grade Are You In?”
It’s funny the things that throw you for a loop when you’re homeschooling. Teach four grade levels? No problem. Volunteer at the local food pantry with kids in tow? Got it. Lead a field trip with a dozen parents and a hundred children of all ages? No problem. “What grades are your kids in?”  <runs…
Disaster Planning (Homeschool Edition)
When disaster strikes, groups like the American Red Cross, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, and Mennonite Disaster Service do a tremendous job getting people shelter, clothing, and safe food and water. But when the yellow buses start to roll, homeschoolers have a different problem--one we need to solve ourselves! When Hurricane Floyd destroyed or damaged nearly 80,000 homes in eastern…
Homeschooling High School? Sure, Why Not?
Can I Homeschool High School? Do you ever ask yourself that? And maybe doubt how you'll answer? Many years ago, we started homeschooling our first child, thinking we’d do it till he hit high school. Once we started, though, we found so many benefits to homeschooling we didn’t want to give it up! Now we’ve…
Planning Your New Homeschool Year
Planning ... it doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? When we look back at our more than two decades of homeschooling, though, we see that the years we planned well were much more productive than the years we flew by the seat of our pants. It’s not that hard, really. The most important thing is…
Why You Ought To Persevere
  Are you homeschooling? If so, you've discovered that things are seldom as easy as you supposed. All of us at one time or another have looked at the yellow buses going by and thought, “Well, there’s always that …” But here are some things which help us keep on course when the headwinds pick…
Helping A Struggling Reader
After our first few children learned to read so early and easily, we thought we were some ol’ wonderful homeschoolers. Then came our next child – and humility! It was really tough, but we got through it and he’s now a very successful college student. Here are some things that helped: Don’t despair – and don’t let…