“I’m wondering at what age I should begin teaching speech skills to my children. I have an 10-year old who loves to give presentations to anyone who will listen. Please let me know what you think I should do to help her grow in this area.”

“…I’m a homeschool mom not quite ready to teach speech to my nine-year old. When should I begin?“

The two comments above raise a frequently asked question in regard to teaching speech skills to children. These parents have different ideas of when that should take place…and that’s okay, but…

My reply to those posing this query typically is, “You already are teaching your child speech skills whether you realize it or not.” Let me explain.

The moment your child is born, they begin learning by watching your eyes and expression, and hearing the sounds and inflections made with your voice. You are doing them a favor by speaking clearly and slowly so that they mimic you correctly.

As the cooing and babbling change to real words, you can continue to help your child become a better speaker (formally or informally) in...

Just like your banking records, there are certain papers that are useful for you to stash away for the future, whether for a school official, or for your children, or for you to reminisce!

It is helpful to put together a portfolio each year, even if you use a testing option to verify your progress to the school officials. Because I use a homeschool lesson planning/recordkeeping book that is fairly comprehensive, all I need to add to my lesson plan book are some photos and samples of my girls’ work. Your portfolio for the year might include:

• Your school calendar, with field trips, outings, sports events, etc. marked (as well as any attendance records).
• Your typical daily schedule. You might even include your teacher lesson plan book or journal.
• Lists of the materials you used this year. I like to include how much I spent and where I purchased my materials, for future reference.
• Report cards/grades, if issued, and any standardized test scores or evaluation reports.
• List of...

Lesson Planning and Recordkeeping

1. Set goals for each child (intellectual, physical, spiritual, social—see Luke 2:52).

2. Determine what will be covered this year.

3. Order appropriate materials to accomplish goals.

4. Decide on “school” schedule.

5. Peruse materials and determine what you will cover and what you will not. Your curriculum is a tool, not a master.

6. Divide materials by number of weeks or number of days.

7. Build in some “down time.”

8. Lay out a framework (1 math lesson per day Monday-Thursday with math game Friday; 1 LLATL lesson per week, 1 A Beka literature unit per month, etc.).

9. Write out a plan to accomplish your goals. Use pencil!

10. Measure yourself...

Homeschooling one child can be challenging enough, but adding more children can make a homeschool mom feel like the juggler doing the zany plate-spinning act, rushing from pole to pole to give each a quick twirl to keep those plates in the air. Here are a few ideas for keeping the homeschooling “plates” from crashing to the floor.

1. Set goals and prioritize. Map out your year but be flexible (use pencil!). “Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge…” (2 Peter 1:5). You’ll want to include character training and Biblical discipleship as well as academics. (It’s much easier to teach an obedient, diligent, cheerful child!)

And speaking of academics: Don’t make it complicated. In the younger years, your goal is to build relationships within your family while nurturing their relationships with God, and facilitating experiential learning—“hooks” on which they can hang his learning about God’s world. Many...

Organization at a Glance

• Pray about what God wants you to work on for your particular family.

• Ask your spouse for guidance as to which areas are important to him.

• Find a balance: “Our house is clean enough to be healthy and messy enough to be happy.”

• Be careful not to be such a perfectionist that people are uncomfortable living in your house.

• Our goal is to glorify God with our lives and, as homemakers, with our homes. We can do that better in an orderly home because we can be more gracious to our children when we aren’t rushed or hunting for the car keys or always behind, and can be hospitable. Our home is more peaceful and calm.

• This is a spiritual work because the end result is to bring peace to our homes and to glorify our Creator.

• Look for ways to bring order to your home, but don't allow...

Make the most of the “togetherness” inherent in homeschooling—with some fun and games designed to build family relationships while reinforcing skills. Games promote family bonding while building math, language, and thinking skills. Game play reinforces both character and curriculum by encouraging children to take turns, follow directions, think strategically, and recall information learned or skills developed.

“There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.” —Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography, 1913

...

In May I permanently handed Math and Science over to my husband, Tim. I have wanted him involved from the beginning, and now that he is it’s really hard to let go.

I had reviewed basic arithmetic with the girls for quite sometime. They had just finished turning fractions into decimals the week before. My 11 year old was really into it. She asked me if there was a way to predict how many places over the decimal would repeat just by looking at the numerator and or denominator. I didn’t know and said causally, “Ask Daddy.”

The next day she systematically came up with fractions and charted the results of turning them into decimals. My husband saw the pages and pages of it next to her piano music.

He asked where we left off and I told him. It was his big debut as the math and science guy and I was overwhelmed with a desire to tell him how to do things. I knew I should keep my mouth shut but the inner conflict was killing me. I wanted to go on about which kid is more verbal, which one is better at abstractions, their learning styles, their personalities, their quirks, which math materials were manipulatives, etc. Instead, I listened to...

A funny thing happened to me the other day. I was having a chat with one of our neighbors as we watched our kids play. Of course, the topic of school came up. After hearing the news that we homeschool, my neighbor suddenly appeared starstruck and exclaimed, “Wow! You must be Supermom!” I mumbled something about being pretty normal and we left it at that. But the whole conversation stayed with me for the rest of the day.

This sort of thing is said to me often. As soon as the word “homeschool” is dropped, people look at me like they can actually see my cape flying in the breeze behind me. As if somehow I have this amazing superpower that enables me to stay home with my three sons 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and somehow keep my sanity.

Later that night, I relayed the whole story to my husband. His wise reply to me? “So? You are Supermom.” (He’s so nice to me.) Why, then, did it bother me so much?

WHY AM I BOTHERED?

After some time, it hit me. The reason it bothered me so much that everyone, including my husband, thought I was Supermom was this: I’m just not. It seems so simple and...

Snow days. Even if our children went to school we don’t get those here in the Arizona desert, so we decided to create our own—using shaving cream!

Aside from the 3R’s, I usually teach to the oldest and let the younger ones pick up what they pick up (which is usually a surprising amount).  But sometimes I like to take the day off from our normal routine and just have some good ol’ open-ended play specifically geared towards my youngest! 

Open-ended play is where there are no expectations, no specific problems to solve, no rules to follow, and no pressure to produce a finished product. This kind of play helps children build knowledge, skills, and creativity at their own pace! It fosters critical thinking instead of merely imitating. 

So, after piling on the couch and reading the classic children’s book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, we made our way to the dining room table to play with shaving cream.  I let the kids pick out toys that they wanted to bring to our “snow play” and I turned them loose. 

What your child brings to the play will spur the creative process. Will they...

We were home schooling when nobody was homeschooling. We started with our firstborn son in his kindergarten year, 1980--81. It started out as a matter of convenience (we didn't like public school but lived a half-hour commute from our church's Christian school) but soon grew into a conviction.

Over three decades later, we have never experienced a moment of doubt as to our choice. That little boy in kindergarten is now a college graduate, a lawyer and a married man with three children, all of whom he and his wife plan on teaching at home. He is also the eldest of our fourteen sons and daughters. His younger siblings, some of whom are also the parents of our 11 grandchildren, are homeschooling as well. Obviously, our children are as pleased as their parents are with the method of education we chose.

Over the years, of course curious people have asked us why we made the decision to begin and continue homeschooling our children. There are many reasons we love it, but for the sake of brevity I'll share a few here.

First, we love having so much time with our children. It hurts us to hear parents talk about how glad they will be when the kids go back...