I have seen the future of schooling, and it is us.

Let me explain. My oldest daughter, who's 14, is supposed to be going into grade 9. Our province allows students who wish to take their courses online, through one of the school boards. So we decided to have her do Math and Science online, while I continue to teach her English, History, Social Studies, etc.

Last year she took French and Science, and she quite enjoyed it. This year she's doing grade 10 Science and grade 11 Math. She could have done grade 11 Math last year, but there was no room in the class. My younger daughter, who is 12, is ready for grade 11 Math next year, but I'm going to let her wait a year before she takes it online. But teaching them at home just let them whiz through most of Saxon Math's program, and we've loved it. They're so far ahead.

So even though I love homeschooling, I'm letting my daughter do some public school courses (although they still are online). Why? It's simple, really. If she has six grade 12 credits from an acredited school, then getting into university is no problem. We don't have to jump through hoops. And I've decided that this just sounds easier, and I want to make it easy for her.

Besides, I'm still teaching her the important stuff!

We calculated it out, and she'll be finished her grade 12 credits when she's 16. And then she has a year and a half to work full time, or write a novel, or travel, or do missions trips before university.

But as we've been watching this whole process unfold, it has occurred to me that this must be the future of schooling. Think about it: it's much easier to teach online. Sure, you still need a teacher to mark the papers, but there's no physical building. You don't need gym equipment. You don't need a library. You don't need to hire a janitor, or a secretary. It's a lot cheaper.

And then the kids aren't exposed to all the crap they get in high school. Why wouldn't more parents have their kids do it this way? And as governments face more budget cuts, you can bet they'll start to look at more online alternatives.

Of course there are Christian online options for high school, but here in Canada most of them aren't acredited, so we went with something that absolutely was. But it just makes so much more sense. Rebecca has two Science classes a week, of about an hour and a bit each. She submits one assignment a week. And they cover the entire course curriculum. In a regular classroom you'd do 400 minutes a week, instead of their 180. You just get rid of all the wasted time. So the kids have more time for their real life.

Why wouldn't this catch on? Personally, I'm still having fun teaching History and English. We're using Veritas Press' Omnibus curriculum with both she and her sister this year, although I've added some books for her to read. Over the course of the year both girls will read approximately 27 books. Next year she's doing Sonlight's Survey of British Literature, which also has 27 books. That's serious learning and serious reading. In public school English (including online), they read 4. How is that education?

I'm thrilled that I can find the best education that works for my girls, and for our family. We're taking a month long missions trip to Kenya this year, and we don't have to worry about missing school in the middle of it.

I really think more and more people are going to clue in to how much time is wasted in school, how poor an education it is, and how much better your life can be with real educational alternatives. So let's not shirk when people ask why we homeschool. Let's be proud! We, after all, are the future.

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It's getting near the end of the year, and likely your kids are getting tired of working. I know mine are! And now is the time that we start to question ourselves. Did we really do a good job this year? Did our children learn as much as they would have in "real" school? Am I burning out?

Guilt Free Homeschooling has a great post on the likely causes of burnout in homeschooling, and I encourage you to read it! Some of her reasons: trying to match the curriculum at school; getting overly involved in outside activities; thinking you have to replicate school. I think she's totally right! I visited one homeschooling family once that sang the national anthem, did the Pledge of Allegiance, and made announcements at 9:00 just like in regular school. And then they did their subjects for twenty minutes each. It was so regimented they lost all the benefits of homeschooling!

So if you're feeling tired, read this post, and then browse her site!

And another tip: if your kids just aren't learning anymore, switch curriculum and end with a bang! We got rid of our geology and geography and history recently, and we're finishing the year with a novel study, using my new "Any Novel" Novel Study Guide! You can use it for all grades, 6-12, and study any novel you want! No more need for individual study guides! And you can download it immediately. You don't have to wait for shipping. Find out more here.

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Rosetta Stone is the fastest way to learn a language and has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while — and you can WIN the *all new* version 3 Rosetta Stone Homeschool LATIN program… FOR FREE! This is the first year you can get Latin in the brand new Version III update.

This is a $259 program (and believe me it’s worth every penny!)
This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever! Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress- I love that!), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students.

To win this most excellent Latin program copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR link to the contest from your facebook page and/OR email the information to your homeschool support group – Then go to the original page http://Jeneralities.com and leave a comment saying that you’ve posted about, or have linked to, the contest. Please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post. And good luck!

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You know those days. We all have them. You struggle to get phonics done. You struggle through math. You're moving about the speed of a slug stuck on something sticky, and the kids aren't moving at all. They keep falling out of their chairs. They keep whining. And at some point, you decide to chuck it. This just isn't working for you today.

I had one of those days yesterday. I peered out the window, and I said, "You know what guys? Let's go to a sugar bush!". And we did.

For those of you not blessed enough to live in the Great White North, where we sit under mounds of snow for months on end, you do not know the joy of maple syrup. For in March, the sap begins to run. And many of our friends operate small maple syrup "factories". So we headed out to the woods, and emptied about 35 10 gallon drums of sap into even larger drums for them, all ready to boil down. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too! And we came home with a whole lot of syrup.

The funny part is that once we arrived home, we did actually finish geography. They didn't get that behind. But sometimes you have to know when to give up, and that's the beauty of homeschooling. When you're in school, you only take field trips on the assigned days, and who knows if those assigned days would have actually been productive ones to work? We can take off anytime when we really need a break.

Our family has several places that we take off to. One is a nature conservatory/wetlands boardwalk where we look at toads and frogs and tadpoles and snakes and turtles and geese, all at different times of year, to see the changes.

Another is the waterfront, where we take bike rides and watch turtles and fish. This time of year we start planning picnics occasionally, when we'll bike somewhere nice to eat, and then come home for the afternoon. I've tried doing school on these picnics, but I always find the paper blows away or someone loses a pencil. So it often sounds more idyllic than it really is!

Field trips are great, but sometimes you need somewhere to disappear to, if only for an hour. That's why I love these little outdoor places we can run to. What about you? Where do you run? I'd love to know!

Cross-posted at The Homeschool Post.

Sheila is the author of four books, including To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother. She blogs at To Love, Honor and Vacuum!

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Yesterday we had a sewing party!

For the last several years our family has been traveling back and forth to the Mulli Children's Home in Africa, an orphanage and home to over 850 abandoned or orphaned children.

We just love it there, and the girls are making friends.

But one of the great needs that they have is for sanitary supplies. Disposals, like we use, are just too expensive, and they don't have anything else. The orphanage stretches their dollars to make them go further, but they need something better.

So we made a bunch of cloth sanitary pads for my mother to take over when she leaves in two weeks! She's also taking a bunch of fabric so they can make them themselves (and maybe turn it into a business!).

Take a look at this video; it's really cute (and short!):

Don't you wish you were there?

I have a new FREE essay planner download! It will help your children, from grades 7-12, write essays concisely and in an organized manner! Just go here.

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Thanks to all of you who entered my contest last week for some free audio downloads!

We have two winners: Mickeigh and Bonnie! Congratulations!

In the meantime, you can still listen to these inexpensive downloads that are SURE to help you homeschool more effectively and creatively. I have downloads on:

Teaching Childrent to Write Well

Drilling for the Basics (using games and other fun things to ensure your kids know the basics)

Setting Goals for Your Homeschool (figuring out what you want to do, how you're going to get there, and whether or not you've arrived!)

See all of them here.

Thanks for dropping by! More on homeschooling soon, including why my 25 minute lunch breaks always grow to an hour and a half!

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On a forum, someone recently asked me how to help a wiggly three-year-old learn their letters. Here's what I said:

1. Buy foam letters that stick to the bathtub. They're not that expensive, and you can usually find them at toy stores or educational supply stores. This is how my kids learned to read! I'd ask them to find me the P,or the D. Eventually they were spelling DAD and POP and things like that.

2. Take them to the library and get out books every week. Make it into a routine, so they know that books are a regular part of their lives. Let them choose some, and you choose some. Read to them before bedtime each and every night. No exceptions. When you have to go out, bring books with you: to the doctor's office, to the dentist, even to the grocery store while they're sitting in the cart. Help them to entertain themselves with books. If they're wiggly when you read to them, let them act out the story and jump around.

3. The I Spy letter books can be really useful in teaching letters. And children often like them because they're puzzles.

4. Speaking of puzzles, buy any puzzles you can find with letters. Ask them what the letters are.

Now, here's a little pointer. Instead of teaching the kids the name of the letters, teach them the sounds. This helps them read. Think about the name for this letter: W. It sounds nothing like its sound. But if you teach the kids the sound of it, it's a lot easier! So when they're three, teach the sounds. It won't be long before they're figuring things out!

And don't forget about my giveaways this week! Go here to learn more.

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The Heart of the Matter is hosting giveaway week to celebrate their birthday and launch their new magazine! So I want to join in the fun!

I'll be giving away two things: my audio download "Setting Goals for Your Homeschool", which is a 45 minute talk that helps you refocus at the beginning of a new year, and my audio download "Teaching Your Children to Write Well", about how to teach kids to excel in the art of communication. Here's more info on each:

Setting Goals for Your Homeschool

• How you can find a vision for your family
• How you can find a vision for each particular child
• What it means to "pull" your child towards what God is calling them
• How to bless your children biblically
• How to "push" your children towards academic and spiritual growth
• How to figure out what life skills you want your children to have
• Methods to break up those goals into manageable chunks for each school year

Teaching Your Children to Write Well

• Using descriptive phrases
• Appealing to the senses
• What to do with a thesaurus
• What to do when a child hates handwriting
• How to separate creative writing from the mechanics of writing
• How to use literature
• How to teach debating
• How to use speeches
• And how to mark writing!

You can find more information about both products here!

To win, all you have to do is leave a comment. I'll be pulling two winners next Sunday night! Good luck!

But if you want to get something FREE, right now, I also offer a downloadable book report outline, for grades 6 and up, to help your children write a proper book report that doesn't just restate the plot.

Thanks for entering!

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At this New Year junction we're all busy making goals and plans, and those are good things (I have planning sheets you can use here, for FREE!).

But sometimes I think we focus on the wrong things. What really brings success in life? I don't think it's intelligence. I think it's self-control and motivation.

I know many family members and friends who are extremely intelligent but not successful. They did well in school, have a lot of education, but they aren't succeeding super well at work or in their family life because they are consumed with self. It's all about me. And they can't seem to learn to delay gratification.

We're raising a whole generation of boys who are addicted to video games rather than real life. Many of them are highly intelligent. But what are they going to do with their lives that is productive?

It's funny how our New Year's Resolutions are often dominated by things that probably aren't at the top of the priority list overall. They relate to our weight, don't they? We'll lose weight. We'll exercise. We'll quit chocolate.

But in the end, the most important thing we can do is to stress character, and grow closer to Jesus. That's what's key. And maybe your resolutions reflect that, too: I will do my devotions everyday. I will pray more. Good for you!

But rather than just focusing on these simple, obvious goals, I think we need a plan to make sure that our families are moving in the right direction.

For instance, why is it that with our kids we focus so much on academics, and make them spend so much time in homework, but we don't teach them to cook a meal? Don't you think the latter is important, too? Why do we berate them about grades, but we don't make them do chores, which ultimately will do more to help them hold and keep a job than getting good grades will?

We focus on the easy to measure things. We often fail to focus on character issues.

So this year, as you're making your New Year's Resolutions, try to think in bigger terms. What do you want to stress this year? Talk about it with your husband and kids, too! Who do you want to be as a family? Who do you want to be ten years from now? And how are you going to get there?

For most of us, losing weight is probably a healthy idea. Doing devotions certainly is, too! But what about other things that ultimately will impact your family just as much, if not more?

What about teaching responsibility and character? What about starting a real chore system and sticking to it this year? (I have kids' chore charts and a handy system to categorize all household chores here). What about restricting video games and requiring your kids to volunteer somewhere each month? What about starting a savings account for your kids, and teaching them how to use it?

These are key skills which our society has passed by in favour of leisure, fun, and entertainment. Even in the church. And it's not going to serve our kids well in the long run. So as you're making those New Year's Resolutions, don't just worry about the chocolate. Think about character, too. In the end, that's more important.

Cross-posted at my To Love, Honor and Vacuum blog. Come on over and have a look!

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Are you busy with New Year's Resolutions? I know I am.

Sometimes we vow things that there's no way we're ever going to live out. This year, I will not yell at my children (Probable time until breakage: 2.3 days). I will not get behind on the laundry (4.2 days). I will exercise (1 day). I will organize creative crafts for my children everyday (2 days). I will not eat my children’s candy (1.5 days if said candy is chocolate, 17.8 days if not).

You know what I mean!

But sometimes planning and goal setting are really useful. Without vision a people perish, after all.

We need to know where we're going, and I don't think it's right to let the curriculum decide that for us, because curriculum writers don't know our individual children. Only we do, and we can see both God's unique calling on them and areas where they need to improve.

I make goals in three areas: academic, spiritual, and life skills. My husband and I sit down and pray and think about what we want to teach the kids, and then we break it down into manageable chunks.

One of the most important things, though, is to identify your children's gifts and help them grow in these areas.

I have a new download called "Setting Goals for Your Homeschool" and for the month of January it's only $3! That's 70% off what it normally costs.

And you also get a FREE publication, How to Bless Your Children, talking about how the biblical principle of blessing can transform our families!

You can listen to the download while you surf the web, do housework, or just think about the homeschooling year ahead.

Learn more here! I really believe it will help all of us ensure that we raise independent, well-rounded and godly children!

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I felt like a slug of a mother this morning because I made all the kids rewrite their book reports.

They tend to restate the plot rather than reporting on the book, no matter how much I explain.

So  sat down and created a detailed book report outline that will help them get it! Now it's more of a paint by numbers approach, and it's like the light went on in the kids' heads!

Do you want it? You can download it free right here! And I hope it helps you, too!

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Hi everybody! I'm sorry I don't update very often anymore, but that's because I'm usually over at my main blog, To Love, Honor and Vacuum. I update there several times a day, and just try to post homeschooling type stuff here.

Anyway, I don't have anything homeschooling today, but I do have my column for this week, which was on the public school system. I thought you may enjoy it!

Problem Kids, Problem Schools

I have a young friend who is big but gentle. Unfortunately, he shares his 45 minute school bus ride with a particular boy who isn’t as gentle, though luckily he also isn’t as big. He was discussing with his father one day what to do when this boy picked on him. Finally his dad sighed and said, “Son, I think your only choice is to take a swing at him.”

The son appeared shocked. “But at school we’re told never to hit!” The father replied, “Sometimes you have to. And the school will likely suspend you. But then he’ll stop bothering you.”

Was the dad right? I don’t know, but I do know two other dads—and even one teacher—who have recommended the same thing recently! In the schoolyard, desperate measures are increasingly called for.

In this case, the troublemaker had already been suspended multiple times for fighting, to no avail. But no student had ever fought back, and this dad figured that decking him might just teach them a lesson. The philosophy seems straight out of the last century, because today we’re not allowed to think that way.

Then we wonder why our schools are out of control.

With the school’s hands tied, real discipline just doesn’t exist. When we were children, if we were suspended, parents supported the schools. It didn’t matter what you did, it was assumed the school was right.

Today teachers have to document everything they’ve done leading up to a suspension because parents are sure to challenge it. Parents don’t want the responsibility of having to look after their child during that suspension. So they don’t support the teachers.

And all the tools that a school once had to deal with problem kids—corporal punishment, expulsion, cooperation with parents, extra work, singling out the child in the classroom, failing them—have also been eroded as children’s rights have been expanded. The self-esteem philosophy dominating education states that the reason students fail is because they don’t feel good about themselves. So instead of being harsh we’re going to help them feel good! Judges and legislators have removed the ability of schools to punish students or even to hold them accountable for their grades. It’s gone overboard.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that many classrooms, especially in rough neighbourhoods, are comprised primarily with these problem kids. They’re pretty much unteachable, as the steady stream of teachers and substitutes demonstrates.

But what options does the school have?

I once volunteered in a kindergarten classroom where my job was to have the children, six at a time, complete a reading worksheet. When I summoned little Charley (not his real name), he didn’t even acknowledge me. I called him again. No response. So I headed towards him to pick him up. Charley was small for his age, and he would have fit very nicely under one arm. But the teaching assistant stopped me. “We can’t physically force him, so we just let him play. That way he doesn’t disrupt everybody else.” The child was learning at the age of four that if he just put up a fuss, they couldn’t make him do anything.

I asked a young neighbour a few years later whatever happened to Charley. Apparently he only grew worse. In grade 3 he still couldn’t read, but he threw tantrums if you tried to convince him to work. I felt sorry for his fellow classmates who actually wanted to learn.

No wonder children lose hope in school. If you’re surrounded by misbehaving kids that teachers can’t control, how would you feel?

Personally, I think we need a better alternate school system for those children who make life intolerable for others. Of course, in some areas these alternate schools may end up with a higher enrollment than the regular school! But what we’re doing right now isn’t working.

The school system today has no effective way of dealing with problem kids, because discipline has been eroded, authority has been erased, and children’s rights to disrupt everybody else trumps children’s rights to a good education. Something isn’t right. Maybe it’s time for the government to learn something.

Remember to come by To Love, Honor and Vacuum sometime! I have a giveaway going on this week, too!

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As a writing exercise today, I had the kids actually do something.

They had to build models and then explain, step by step, how to build them. So we handed out the same Cuisenaire rods to two kids, put them in two different but adjacent rooms, and the first kid had to build the model and then dictate directions to the second.

They did pretty well. Only one flub up!

You can see all the pictures at my Facebook album here.

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My kids are really into Bible quizzing. We do it through our denomination (Alliance) and is it ever fun!

It's one of those things that sounds really geeky, and is, but it's still wonderful!

This year we're learning Luke, and they learn it inside and out. Typical question would sound like this: Question 3 is a Multiple Answer question: Take nothing for your journey, what? Answer: No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Like I said, it's obscure.

Kids can start in grade 6 and go to grade 12, and we have four regional meets each year. Our region has about 160 kids in it this year from seven different churches. The top 10 quizzers from each district go to the Internationals in Pennsylvania in July.

Anyway, Rebecca started last year at age 12/13. She won second highest rookie for the year, and won a big award for Best Overall New Quizzer. Yesterday we had our first meet for this year. My daughter Katie just did amazingly well (she's 11) and she won Top Rookie. My nephew Alex, whom we homeschool, won 2nd best rookie. And he hasn't even really gone to church until we started homeschooling him last April! But he's having a great time. And Rebecca placed within reach of making the international team.

To get a feel for it, here's a little video from last year (I didn't tape yesterday; I was too busy coaching). Last year was the epistles. Rebecca's the one in the forefront in the tiara. (Just for information, in the background people are saying, "Come on, Quinte!". That's not her name. It's the name of our church (Quinte Alliance).

Watch a one minute video to get a feel for it here.

What I love about it is that they'll never lose it. When they spend this much time getting to know a Bible book inside and out when they're young, when they're older they'll always remember things about that book, and remember a lot of their Bible verses. So it's great!

If you ever have a chance to do quizzing, consider it! We're having a great time with it.

Come read some of my posts about marriage and motherhood! I've even got a new podcast up! Just click over to To Love, Honor and Vacuum!

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You know that moment you've been dreading for almost a decade? When you kids come to you and ask, "Mommy, how are babies made?".

Well, I've been through it twice. And survived. In fact, I think my daughters are better people for it!

Every Tuesday I upload a new "To Love, Honor and Vacuum" podcast, and today's is a hilarious clip about telling kids about babies. And where they come from. And other fun stuff!

It's not long. Just go here and you can listen while you continue to browse the net! Or you can subscribe through iTunes and then you can download all the episodes onto your iPod! Just to go iTunes and search for To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

I know you'll love it!

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We started off the year with the best of intentions. We were going to give school our 150%, my husband and I! We didn't need fancy curriculum with everything done for you. We knew what we wanted the kids to learn, so we bought the basic books, tons of resources, and we were going to custom-make a curriculum for science, history and geography.

Now I love history. That's working out wonderfully! But after my mini-nervous breakdown because I had so much other work to do and I wasn't able to homeschool effectively, we decided we needed something else.

I've been "on strike" for the last two weeks, taking a hiatus from teaching just so I can caught up on everything else. Sometimes you really need that break, and I've been extremely productive! Just look at some of the YouTube videos of myself speaking I've managed to upload! And I've got tons more in the queue ready to upload soon.

But when it comes to school, I know I have to do things differently when we get back to it. And I think this time of year is a good one to admit when you bit off more than you can chew.

So I just picked up the phone and ordered Alpha Omega's LifePac science. I'll keep teaching history, but we have to do Science well. And with Alpha Omega, the kids can work basically on their own. That works for me!

I'll let you know how it works out. I hope I find the stuff rigorous enough (we're kind of picky that way). But in the meantime, I'm glad I'm throwing in the towel before we lose even more precious time!

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We’ve been having a bit of a crisis in our homeschool lately. I just have so much work to get caught up in with my speaking ministry–work that I’ve been putting off for years. But I can’t seem to do it at the same time as I’m homeschooling. Even if my husband takes the kids one day a week, I just can’t get everything done.

So then when I am homeschooling, I’m not really paying attention to the kids. My mind is elsewhere, focusing on what I should be doing on the computer.

We’ve decided, then, after an especially rough week last week, to take three weeks off to get me caught up, and then to work six weeks of homeschooling, one week off, so that I can get my work done periodically and won’t get behind. And we’re going to be schooling half days through part of the summer, too! I find they get bored and bicker in the summer anyway, so it’s just as well.

This plan means, though, that three kids, ages 11, 13 and 13, need to work on their own without me for three weeks. And that is not an easy thing, because two of them gang up against the oldest girl and tell her she’s being bossy, and they try to just play chess all day. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do want them to get other things done, too.

So today, on our tour, I am going to leave you with some sites kids can go on to actually DO SOME STUFF while you need them to get out of your hair. Because, if we homeschoolers are honest, we do have those moments, don’t we?

Here’s a neat one: Freely Educate. It has a mish mash of curriculum that’s available free on the internet. Some of it your kids can do themselves, like this amazing computer curriculum site. Kids can learn how to program in a graphics environment. Today, my 13-year-old nephew is starting on that one!

Another one with links to “Gutenberg texts”, or books which have been published on the internet, in the project that hopes to have all books eventually online, is Old Fashioned Education. It organizes all the resources by subject matter, but if you’re going to use them to homeschool you’ll have to do a lot of work yourself organizing it!

A site where they can work on their own again, which I really favour, is Interactives. All sorts of neat math and science quizzes are up online, but they’re all multimedia, and really fun.

For younger kids, the Kids’ part of the National Geographic site is animated, and has a number of activities you can do. You can assign them to explore the site for twenty minutes, or something, and you’re guaranteed they’ll learn something! They also have premade activities, like this one for The Underground Railroad, which your children can take.

As a Canadian teaching Canadian geography this year, I love this online activity at the Canada Atlas site that the government has.

But if you want your child to just fill in an outline map in an interactive activity of several different countries, you can find those here at Your Child Learns. And the United States is included in that one! I also like their World Monuments Map Puzzle. The same site also has free online software where you can build your own medieval village, your own castle, and more! That can keep your child busy for at least twenty minutes. And that can be a godsend!

Education World has an online tour of the human body, with links to great websites. I especially like The Virtual Body, and you could easily assign a child, say aged 9 and up, to look at it for 15 minutes at a time. Lots of activities there, too.

The American History site also has a “Price of Freedom” learning activity, where you learn more about different historical figures. Again, the child can do this on his or her own.

If you’re into Canadian history, here are some online interactive quizzes kids can take. My kids are each doing three of these today!

And then, last suggestion of the tour today, the National Gallery of Art has different tours you can take, with audio, of different art time periods and mediums (media?). They look really interesting, and my kids are doing the French Impressionists from the 19th century today!

I hope that gives you some ideas to keep your kids occupied if you just need some time to yourself periodically or time to get something done. I know I’m making use of these today!

Have a good day!

I’m the author of four books, including To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother, with an appendix especially for homeschoolers! Read my daily thoughts at my To Love, Honor and Vacuum blog!

(Cross-posted at The HSBA Post)

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This year my husband and I fanatically planned our curriculum before the year even began. We had stuff planned out for every subject, and had it divided up by week as to how much we had to cover to be done in this school year.

And then we jumped in. And hit a curveball.

It's not a bad curve ball, but it seems that if the kids work steadily, they're done everything by 11:30 or 12:00. And that's not acceptable to me. I want them working harder than that! (I have a child in grade 9 now).

Perhaps that makes me a bad homeschooling parent, but I feel as if they're no writing enough this year. So we have come up with another idea. We're going to supplement our history course with novels.

We normally do that anyway, but that's one aspect of this curriculum we didn't plan, because we wrote the history curriculum ourselves. We're doing only Canadian history this year, because we've never done it before. Frankly, I just don't think it's that important in understanding world events. We did a ton on the American Revolution and Plymouth Plantation and the Civil War and the English Civil War and all of that last year, but that is more important. That's the history of democracy, and it matters. You can't understand anything in world events if you don't get the importance of the American Revolution, and why the French Revolution was so different (and so violent).

We used Veritas Press' Omnibus curriculum for all of that, and it was great.

We couldn't find something comparable for Canada, so used a hodge podge of books that we think are pretty good. But we're short on novels.

So I found this website that lists novels for each historical period, and we're going to start having them read a novel every two weeks and write a book report. It sounds like torture, but I love torture. Why else would I be doing this?

If any fellow Canadians are interested, here's the site:

http://www.freewebs.com/canadianhomeschool/nicolas%20%20list%20draft%20sept%2023%202006.htm

Hope you enjoy it!

Don't forget to visit my main blog at To Love, Honor and Vacuum!

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