Do you want to improve your vocabulary, learn a language or memorize poems? Do you stink at math formulas? You aren’t alone because I’ve been trying to improve my memorization skills, too. In fact, I recently got this neat little iPhone app that purports to improve my vocabulary with flash cards. The idea is to use [...]
In the last month I’ve been a guest on NPR and KGNU Boulder. My boys thought it was super cool to hear my voice coming through the radio, and I saw little light bulbs turn on over their heads as they excitedly demanded to be on the radio themselves. Lucky for them I had arranged [...]
Sometimes, less is more. One area where that’s particularly true is with homeschooling. I’m talking about the real time our kids spend learning and the educational return on that time investment, not the money we spend on books, materials and activities. It can be convincingly argued that we homeschoolers actually spend more money on our kids’ [...]
I won’t pretend to understand how the various Zen schools philosophize their existence, think about their surroundings or, well, whatever sorts of stuff Zen monks spend their days thinking about. Actually, I’m pretty sure Zen involves not-thinking (which seems pretty ideal). I can’t even be sure of that. All I know is that a [...]
Homeschooling families get defensive when they hear veiled assumptions from people who believe our homeschooling kids are going to end up as misfit social outcasts. They say we overprotect them and that we lead reclusive lives. If you’re a homeschooler, you’ve heard it, the presumptive question about socialization. The question is “Well, what are [...]
Words are words, right? They’re effective regardless of medium, right? So, what do you do if your kid is resistant to reading because he thinks it’s boring? Your choices are to force him to read or to find him something he’ll read voluntarily and without your nagging. Neil, my boy, has become bored of his [...]
If you use, or are interested in using Hooked on Phonics then I’ve written about its effectiveness on several occasions. You can check them out here (How I Homeschool, Anybody Can do it With Hooked on Phonics!, Hooked on Phonics Products (video), Reading Progress: 5 year old Alan, Hooked on Phonics: Master Reader (with [...]
I started learning how to be a homeschooling parent the day I gave the boys their first school lessons. But, even after that first lesson it took months to create a working curriculum. I was clueless about how much time I should spend per day teaching, on which subjects to concentrate first and, most [...]
The boys, and I, have begun learning calligraphy, and a few weeks ago I went on an expedition for teaching materials. I thought they would be easy to find – but I was wrong. I did find a handwriting workbook at Barnes & Noble which, for lack of a better solution, we immediately started [...]
Some of you may have read what I said last week about administering reading comprehension quizzes to my oldest boy after he reads certain books. So far that’s worked out pretty well. However, while he’s able to give me correct answers, I wonder what goes through his head when he reads about, for example, [...]
Quality on-line resources are slowly making libraries obsolete. Don’t worry though. It won’t happen anytime soon; libraries are still a far superior option. The internet, or course, hasn’t always been so useful. Sure, it’s been good for buying things and connecting with friends; but finding reliable scholarly information has always been a stumbling block for [...]
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