IEW – The Sensible Homeschool

A Tour of Our Homeschool: Language Arts Shelves

May 8, 2020May 19, 2020

Early in my homeschool mom career, language arts caused a lot of confusion for me. There are so many subcategories within the subject – I just didn’t know where to begin.

Handwriting, reading (including phonics and sight words), spelling, grammar, composition, poetry, literature, public speaking…. What do I teach when? And how? Ahhh! 🤯

Over the years, I’ve been able to make better sense of it all. My curriculum shelves, however, still reveal the winding journey of trial and error I’ve gone through in the search for language arts resources for my kids.

Our Curriculum Choices Year 6

August 16, 2019January 17, 2020

I can’t believe it’s August again!

That means it’s time to share our homeschool plans for the year ahead. (If you’re curious about what we’ve used in the past, check out this post which has links to all the previous years.)

Year 6 Snapshot

We’re really in the thick of it now. I’ll be homeschooling my fifth and second grade boys and their three year old sister (whose unreliable, dwindling naps should make for ~~a crazy-making~~ an interesting year).

Year 5 Homeschool Progress Report: The Good, The Bad & The Unexpected – Part One

February 1, 2019January 17, 2020

Year 5 Homeschool Progress Report The Good The Bad & The Unexpected Part 1 on striped colored background

A lot of homeschool bloggers like to post their yearly curriculum choices (like I’ve been doing in this series) for their readers. Over the years, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to see what other families are using.

But sometimes these “what we’re using this year” lists give the impression that choosing curriculum for the year is a once-and-done kind of thing.

Totally not the case!

Our Curriculum Choices – Year 5

October 26, 2018January 17, 2020

sensible homeschool our curriculum choices year five on chalkboard background

(There may be affiliate links on this page. For more information click here.)

If you haven’t done so yet, read the first post in this series here and check out Our Curriculum Choices – Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4.

Year 5 Snapshot

If you’ve been following this series of posts, we’ve now caught up to real time. I wrote about the first four years retroactively because I started this blog just before we began our fifth year of homeschooling.

Since I can’t summarize a year that hasn’t happened yet, this snapshot will be a look at how our year has started so far. Later this school year I hope to post about lessons learned during Year 5… but I have to learn them first, so stay tuned.

Continue reading “Our Curriculum Choices – Year 5”

20 Fantastic Ways to Help Your Homeschool Kids Stay Focused

September 7, 2018January 17, 2020

Home sweet home…

The place we feel warm and cozy and free to be ourselves.

The place we live and laugh and love and create beautiful family memories.

The place where naked toddlers run through the middle of the lesson on the Byzantine Empire singing “I’m a Little Teapot” and throwing Cheerios in the air like confetti.

*sigh*

While there’s a lot to love about the freedoms a home-based learning setting provides, there are definitely some unique challenges that homeschool parents need to navigate. Many of these challenges stem from two fundamental characteristics of a homeschool.

Homeschools are often multi-AGE and multi-USE settings.

These two aspects can equate to high levels of distraction unless some thought is given to managing them well.

Continue reading “20 Fantastic Ways to Help Your Homeschool Kids Stay Focused”