Language arts is arguably the most important subject to teach. Thankfully, there are so many wonderful free resources out there to teach it! I’m sharing 100 links that include hundreds of worksheet, game, notebooking and reference pages for you to print. I’ve organized them so you can use them to teach grammar, handwriting/copywork, literature, phonics/reading, spelling/vocabulary, and writing.
You’ll want to pin this post for later because it contains links for students of all ages. Please visit my Pinterest board for graphics of all these printables and the iHomeschool Network bloggers other 100 list posts.
For those who keep a traditional school schedule, half the school year is nearly over. It’s time to see how far we’ve come and to determine if any changes to our curriculum would move us forward. Simple Homeschool and The Mommy Mess both have great questions for us to answer as we do this mid-year review. Upside Down Homeschooling shares a free mid-year review printable just for this purpose.
#2 Discuss changes for what doesn’t work
If you’ve determined that a particular curriculum doesn’t work for you or your child, you don’t necessarily have to quit using it and buy something else. Would you like it better if:
You did half of the exercises / activities?
Your child began using the curriculum independently, with others, or with you?
You used it as a supplement, pulling out the most valuable material?
I’ve used all three of these approaches to a curriculum that at first didn’t seem like it was working and have had great success. I encourage you not to wait until after Christmas to make the change. It may make a world of difference in how you see the curriculum.
#3 Research options
Sometimes, no matter what you do, a curriculum or teaching approach just isn’t the right fit. Then it’s time to do some more research. If you did the curriculum challenge, you may want to return to the information you gathered then.
#4 Purchase / List items
Fortunately, many curriculum providers have materials on sale and many homeschoolers like you choose now to sell their used curriculum. You may pick up a bargain.
How have your curriculum choices been working for your family so far?
Are you in need of a break from your regular homeschool schedule? Me too! But when it comes to deciding how to inject a little Christmas fun into our days, I can become overwhelmed. Yes, there are TOO MANY ideas to sift through!
But sift through them I did and I created a plan for five days of Christmas fun for elementary school kids that doesn’t require lots of prep time or expense. You can do a whole school week of fun or have a fun day once a week. You may not want to do everything I’ve chosen, but at least you have a good starting point for your own plans. Here we go!
The Plan
Download the PDF and you’ll have all the links you need when you need them AND a supply list for each activity. Don’t want to purchase the books? Check your church library or substitute books you already own. I got all four of the Hallmark videos listed for under $8. But you may be able to find them on Netflix. You could easily substitute movies you own, get movies from the library, or check your TV listings and record movies you’d like to see.
I don’t know about you, but with all the holiday happenings, my hot spots have been blazing out of control. What’s a hot spot you say? FLYLady would tell you it’s a place in your home where you tend to drop things and run. Unless you regularly clear these places or devise a plan for keeping them clear, you can have a hot mess. In just a few simple steps this week, we’ll take care of our hot spots.
#1 List all hot spots; identify the worst
With your family, make a list of all the places where stuff tends to accumulate. In our home, that’s our entry way, dining room table, upstairs landing, and entrance to the storage area. Right now the worst is the entrance to the storage area.
#2 Clear a hot spot & prevent it from heating up again
Work on your worst hot spot today. Declutter it and clean it. Teach the kids where to put items. Our dining room often becomes a hot spot because the kids don’t know where to put the mail that is often left there. I have been teaching them to put it in my mail slot in my kitchen. Problem solved. Need ideas for managing paper clutter? Be sure to read my advice on Davonne Parks’s blog.
How can you prevent it from becoming a mess again? I have two suggestions. First, come up with a practical way to collect the clutter. For example, I repurposed a toy chest into a place for winter coats in my entryway. The kids don’t want to take the time to hang them, so I accepted that and allow them to stuff them out of sight. Do you need a basket to collect items that can be sorted later? Ask the kids and your spouse what would work and give it a try. You can also find great hot spot prevention ideas on my Organized Homeschool board on Pinterest.
You can always evaluate the success of your first effort at controlling the hot spot later and try something else if need be.
The second suggestion I have is to make clearing the hot spot a chore that is done once or twice a day. Our entryway is assigned as a chore twice a day, for example, and these two suggestions have kept the area from becoming a disaster.
#3 Clear another hot spot & prevent it from heating up again
You guessed it. Now that you’ve addressed your biggest hot spot, move on to the second biggest.
#4 Clear another hot spot & prevent it from heating up again
Now you’re a pro. Clean a third hot spot and determine a way to keep it clean.
Do you have any hot spot dilemmas? Areas that you just can’t seem to keep free of clutter?
It’s Thanksgiving week in the U.S. If you did the Thanksgiving challenge, you’re all set to use the time to teach kids how to cook. Yes, you can count it as home ec! I remember cooking for Thanksgiving with my mom and I know my kids will remember it, too. It’s a time for making memories and delicious food, too! Here are the easy steps to take this week.
#1 Find books or videos that teach cooking
I’ll be sharing some great kid cooking pins on the Organized Homeschool board. Be sure to check them out!
There are many kids’ cookbooks out there, but this is the one I’m buying for my daughter for Christmas. It gets good reviews from most, so we’ll see!
There are plenty of kid cooking videos on YouTube, but you might enjoy teaching the kids how to bake a turkey. Although I don’t use this exact approach, it’s a pretty good basic video.
#2 Involve kids in table setting and cooking
I like to keep Thanksgiving as low stress as possible, so I do much of my cooking and table setting the day before. Teach the kids how to help and they will be even more excited about the meal. If you aren’t eating at home, you can still have your child help prepare a dish or two to take with you.
My favorite thing to have my children help with (the same thing I did as a child) is tear the bread for my mom’s stuffing recipe. But now that my kids are older, they like to help with just about everything. If your children are quite young, I promise you there will soon be a day when they can be a big help.
#3 Thanksgiving
Enjoy the holiday! I am so thankful for my readers. There are few bigger blessings for bloggers than to have people read what they write. Thank you so much for reading, commenting, and sharing.
#4 Put Thanksgiving items away
Put all the special dishes and decorations away (unless you’re celebrating late) and you’ll be ready to decorate for Christmas whenever you choose. The day after Thanksgiving is our decorating day. It’s such a blessing to have the children help decorate. If you’re decorating this week, ask the children where things should go. You’ll be testing their memories, their decorating skills, or both!
How do you get your children involved in Thanksgiving preparations?
I could absolutely be the perfect homeschooler that some moms already think I am if not for these six things:
#1 I have imperfect kids
Besides the usual signs of childhood imperfection like refusing to leave diapers on, disobedience (I told him not to play with slime), and mess-making, my children have maligned my good reputation by:
Peeing all over the pool deck at swimming lessons, necessitating special clean-up
Shooting the little neighbor girl in the back with an Airsoft pellet on two different occasions (after I assured her mother I would protect her)
Arguing against the faith in front of my homeschool friends (They asked, “Which apologetics curriculum are you using again?”)
And those are just the things I feel comfortable telling you. I could be a perfect homeschooler if it weren’t for my kids.
#2 I have an imperfect husband
My husband is our school principal and he works out of our home. Although his self-employment has been a blessing to us in many ways, it has allowed a rather annoying habit to get in the way of my homeschooling: He likes to call off school for good weather. I will be in the middle of teaching when he will come into the school room declaring, “It’s a beautiful day! We’re going for a hike. Everybody outside!” The kids gladly disappear, leaving me holding the books. I could be a perfect homeschooler if it weren’t for my husband.
#3 I have an imperfect house
Having an attractive work environment really does aid learning. Unfortunately, there’s something wrong with my house. For example, I must have really weak drywall, so that when the kids bounced out of their inflatable trampoline, landing on the wall, the drywall just imploded. The wallpaper must not have been adhered well to the wall, because it peeled off so quickly. My furniture must be poor quality, too, because the leather desk chair’s “leather” has peeled off by itself. I could be a perfect homeschooler if it weren’t for my house.
#4 I have imperfect curriculum
My kids would all already have their Ph.D.s if only better curriculum were on the market. The material is too hard or too easy. There is too much to do or too little. It takes too much time or not enough, allowing the kids to become idle. It’s too interesting, making all other subjects unappealing, or it’s too boring. And to top it off, I’ve spent tons of time and money looking for something that doesn’t seem to exist. I could be a perfect homeschooler if it weren’t for our curriculum.
#5 I have imperfect friends
On days when my husband is working out of the house and I can finally teach, we get a phone call from our homeschooling friends asking if we’d like to do something fun. It doesn’t matter if I don’t take the call, because the kids have already gotten a text message from my friend’s kids and they’ll announce that we need to start getting ready for our field trip immediately. I usually agree because the kids’ behavior, my husband’s impending return, my messed-up house, and our imperfect curriculum will surely make the day a loss anyway. I could be a perfect homeschooler if it weren’t for our homeschool friends.
#6 I have some imperfections
This is definitely last on the list, but I have a few very tiny problems of my own, that I have mostly taken care of. Sort of. Like when the kids were little, I would very rarely (no more than once or twice a day) get so caught up in what I was doing on the computer that I wasn’t supervising them and then they would give themselves haircuts. Nothing big.
Then every once-in-a-while I don’t tell my husband that we’re going on field trips (only never) and so he doesn’t really know our schedule. That could explain why he doesn’t know that we’ve been gone every day this week and today isn’t a good day for a hike.
It’s also happened that on those very rare occasions when I wasn’t supervising the kids (for only a few hours at a time), that they’ve used that time to destroy the house. But I still think the house and furniture should be high enough quality to withstand some abuse.
When it comes to curriculum, I have to admit that in a few instances (every six months or so), I will change curriculum, just in case there is something better available. But you know what they say, “If you love a curriculum, set it free…” Wait, that might not be the right saying. But you know what I mean.
Finally, it’s possible that I might have told my friends that we’re fairly flexible (like I might have said, “Any time you want to go, give me a call!”). It’s also remotely possible that I may have been the one to call or text my friends to say, “Hey! It’s a beautiful day! Let’s go for a hike!”
I don’t seem to be the only homeschooler who will never be perfect! Be sure to check out iHomeschool Network’s other articles. Don’t worry about what the kids are doing. I’m sure they’re FINE.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
