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Are You Giving Your Child Enough Responsibility?
As parents, we all want our children to someday become responsible adults. On the other end of the spectrum, we don’t want to force our children to grow up too quickly. There is a balance, but how do we find it? There are many indicators we can use to let us know whether we are giving our children enough responsibility. Reactions How does your child react to responsibility? Does he (or she) cringe or accept it with enthusiasm? A child who resists responsibility may be overwhelmed with what you are already giving them, or simply not wanting more. This is an area where knowing your child comes into play. A…
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Cultivate Curiosity – Follow That Firetruck!
My husband tells me that he got into trouble a lot when he was a young boy. He supposes that nowadays he would likely be diagnosed and put on some kind of drugs. But back in those bad old days, they used to give children the strap. If kids didn’t get with the program and behave themselves, they would be smacked across their palms with a big ol’ piece of leather. I am not going to debate corporal punishment here, but I want to tell a story from his past that illustrates one of the great merits of homeschooling. Once there was a little boy who had trouble sitting still…
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Easy Record Keeping for Your Homeschool
As a homeschooling mom for 18 years, I was never much at record keeping. Each year I vowed I would dutifully keep track of every remotely educational thing my sweeties did every day. Each year I failed miserably at this! Thankfully, I always made sure that my kids were working from a well laid-out curriculum. This ensured that however badly I had kept track of the daily activities, at the end of the year I could say we had completed such-and-such program and so covered all the necessary scholastic bases. I always advise that homeschoolers, especially those who are new, work from established curricula to ensure that their children don’t…
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Good Manners Go Beyond the Surface
Before my grandson William was one year old, his mother was already training him to say please. When William wanted something, she reminded him, “Say please,” and he responded by making a circular motion on his chest in the manner of American Sign Language. What can be the advantage in teaching a child who is still working on “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Nana” how to say please when he can’t even really “say” it? All around the world parents devote much time and literally thousands of repetitions to teaching their children good manners. Politeness is the social grace and the slippery grease that lubricates our personal interactions. Without politeness the painful…
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Planning French Lessons With Your Dictionary
New Post from French4Homeschool: “When you have access to a good quality, comprehensive, French-English dictionary, you open up a world of possibilities to your French as a Second Language students. Vocabulary building is an important part of language learning, and having a good dictionary makes planning French lessons easy and fun. What dictionary should you buy?” Read more at French4Homeschool.
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Considering Homeschooling – Managing Time for Cooking
If you are a stay-at-home parent considering homeschooling, you might be wondering how on earth you will find time to get everything done when you have to spend so much of your day teaching. Providing nutritious meals needs to remain a priority, but that can take time. Don’t let this discourage you. There are alternatives to ordering pizza five nights a week! Managing time for cooking healthy meals is possible, even within the busy schedule of a homeschooling family. It takes planning and organizing and one huge day of effort, but many hard-working moms and dads solve the problem of making dinner with Once-a-Month Cooking. When I was in the middle…
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Consumer or Creator?
One of the tremendous benefits of home education is the opportunity that it affords to develop a child’s creativity. Typically, the core subjects of even the most formal homeschooling curriculum can be completed in a fraction of the time that the same activities would take in the classroom, leaving ample time for exploring, drawing, digging, and building. Nurturing the creative process is essential for many reasons. Any time a child can make something with his or her own hands, something wonderful happens. There is a thrill of accomplishment in producing a thing of value, whether it is a painting to decorate the refrigerator or the colourful magnet that holds it…
