If you’re looking for a fun way to carry learning momentum into the summer, Time4Learning can help! Their online learning program combines technology and education to make learning fun! And July is a great time to try it, because they’re offering new members over 75% off!  Kids love the “outside-the-box” approach and the novelty of [...]

The process of teaching my two sons to read was probably the most exciting part of our entire homeschooling career!  Even though the process was VASTLY different for each one, I reveled in every moment of discovery and every leap in understanding.  I would imagine that whether you are homeschooling or not, though, that learning [...]

If you are an elementary teacher or homeschool teacher, then I hope you have heard of Laura Candler.  If you haven’t, then you are in luck today, because I’m going to share with you the amazing web-based resources that Laura has collected.  I’d especially like to focus on her vocabulary resources! Teaching Resources is Laura’s [...]

If you ever had even one classroom lesson on diagramming sentences, then you probably feel the sudden urge to run – – far, far away – – when you hear the phrase “parts of speech”.  But the truth is that understanding the parts of speech and how they fit together makes writing and reading make [...]

My youngest son struggled with phonics.  Even in kindergarten, his teachers sent home notes that he was having a difficult time understanding the connections between certain letters and the sounds they made.  The following year, we began homeschooling him and working one on one with him daily to help him grasp letters, phenomes, and words.  [...]

One of the most interesting phenomena of homeschooling a child with dyslexia has been watching his approach to spelling.  It is quite a myth that people with dyslexia can’t learn phonics…they can!  However, the rules of phonics can become a crutch for many who see its do’s and don’ts as unwavering guides for how to [...]

Teachers and homeschoolers across the country are studying our national parks this week thanks to the current PBS airing of Ken Burns’ documentary series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”  If you are one of these teachers, you might be interested in some great vocabulary and spelling tie-ins to this subject. SpellingCity: National Parks Play [...]

Yesterday, my boys and I attended a homeschool program about nature journaling.  Nature journaling, we came to find out, involves taking paper, pencils/crayons/markers, and possibly a camera, binoculars, magnifying glass, and even a field guide outside to get up close and personal with the natural world. Doing this means paying attention to the details you [...]

If you already use SpellingCity as a tool with your students or children, then I’m preaching to the choir, but if you don’t…you should definitely check it out! SpellingCity is a free spelling practice program online that lets you input your own lists, or use ones already on the site.  Then students can practice their [...]

The elementary school years are the cornerstone of vocabulary development. Children are learning that words make the world go round, and they are building their word bank by leaps and bounds. Almost every moment of a child’s school day is an opportunity for building vocabulary. The social exchanges between kids in elementary school are more [...]