Homeschool Reading List: 7th and 8th Grade Literature

We’re about to start rolling with literature in our homeschool this year. This is my area, along with algebra/pre-algebra, to work with the boys on. This year I wanted to pick our literature selections based on a theme. I took some requests from them as to what they’d like to see, so we’re doing the [...]

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Why Music? A Multitude of Reasons

At the Kelley household we have a standing rule with regards to our homeschool: you must pick an instrument and take lessons in it. Any reasonable instrument is acceptable. So far my oldest chose the traditional guitar. His younger brother has gone complete non-traditional and went with ocarina. Ocarina can be a serious instrument, especially [...]

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Review: Moon Over Manifest

Moon Over Manifest is the 2011 Newberry Medal winner and it is definitely worthy of the prize. A work of historical fiction, it is set in two periods: 1936 and 1917/18. The story follows a young lady, Abilene, who is sent back to a small mid-Western town by her dad. The town, Manifest, Kansas, was [...]

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Saying Goodbye to the Couch

Back in 1999, when we were still in the US Air Force and I was a first lieutenant and money was tight, our neighbors across the street gifted us their couches as they were in the process of replacing them. We were the third family to welcome these couches into our home and even with [...]

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Riverbanks Zoo: Pony Enrichment Class

My five year-old daughter is atypical in that we call her Kunoichi Princess because she does karate and swordfights with her older brothers. They have the Nerf N-Force Marauder long swords and she goes toe-to-toe with them with her Nerf N-Force ninja-to sword and puts them back on their heels. This is especially true when [...]

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Re-learning how to think

Re-learning how to think is always a difficult process. My oldest son is starting the the 7th grade and he’s having to go through it. We homeschool, so we pick the curriculum. Since he’s consistently been above the 95% range with respect to math going back to ever since he started school (my wife has [...]

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DRM and Homeschool Curriculum

I’m all for putting curriculum in an electronic format. It saves trees, it means I don’t have to lug around 40 pounds of paper, and it means I have searchable content at my fingertips. But I really do not like Digital Rights Management (DRM). One only has to do a Google search for “DRM issues” [...]

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