It happens to all of us. We’re looking at curricula or talking to friends, and suddenly, we feel like our kids are behind. Behind what, you might ask. Just behind. Even when my kids read my old college astronomy books, I’m over here questioning myself occasionally. We skipped a curriculum level to match interests or are taking more time to master grammar. When I say I’m behind, I usually mean I’m behind in what I’d planned for the year. I try to plan some gaps where we have time to “catch up” on my plans. But often, people feel they’re behind because their kiddo isn’t reading at a certain level…

In February 2007, I walked out of my oldest son’s school, and I wasn’t about to look back. I was a single parent, and a Ph.D. student, and since moving to Michigan, there was one hurdle after another with the school my then 8-year-old went to. The latest problem was that he was despondent each day when he’d get home because he was dealing with a pretty brutal bullying situation. When I pointed out that the school had a “no-bullying policy,” and was told that my son “makes himself a target.” They made the decision quite easy for me. It was a decision I didn’t really want to make. I’d…

Before my site went down, I’d completed a 31-day blog challenge in August. I’m, honestly, really bummed that I lost so much great content that was up here over the last year (and I’ll be putting back up what I can as I can), but I wanted to do the daily challenge again. So, over the course of the next thirty days, tune in as I cover a variety of topics – from homeschooling multiple kids to letting you get to know me a little better. What do you want me to talk about in the coming days?

Bluehost failed to renew my site, and I’ve lost a year of posts. I’m trying to get all of this straightened out and I’m majorly bummed that this happened. There was a lot of good stuff I’d posted in the last year. I liked my site design. I’ve lost all of it, and as you can imagine, it’s not just an easy fix. I’m doing my best to get everything back and update the site again.

As you know from my talking about the curriculum we’ll be using for first grade, we’re planning to homeschool for the 2020-2021 school year. We’re now all set up on paper for that. I’ve filed with Kansas, and in doing that, I needed to (well, we needed to) come up with a name for our homeschool. We came to the name Justitia STEAM & Classical Academy. Naming Our Homeschool We chose “Justitia” because our family believes strongly in social justice and equity for all. We chose “STEAM” because we love science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. We chose “classical” because while we’re eclectic we also adhere to the structure of…

If you’ve been homeschooling – or even considering homeschooling – then you know that the first question “concerned” people ask is, “What about socialization?” Because of this, one of the most common questions asked in homeschooling groups is, “so what can my kids do as a social activity?” Rest assured, there are many activities for homeschoolers to participate in (in fact, I feel like there are more activities available for homeschooled kids than there are for their public and private school counterparts). Secular homeschoolers often run up against the wall because many activities appear to center around church groups, and many homeschooling groups are religious in nature (particularly Christian). Some…