Ever since we did the review on Home School in the Woods Passport Project Middle Ages (which I did mostly with Breeze, since we’re going through World History), Raine has been begging me to get her something for her own American History studies. We were thrilled when we got the opportunity to review Time Traveler […]
Review: Home School in the Woods Time Travelers American Early 19th Century
July 17, 2017 by Leave a Comment
The HPs’ Weekly Math Thing #2
June 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment
I call Breeze my little tourbillon–she’s always a whirlwind of energy zipping all around at full volume. One thing she does every single day, several times a day, is run from their room to our room, leaping over any obstacles, be it a couch, her sister’s wooden train setup, or the cat. Her finale is a […]
Review: The Typing Coach
May 26, 2017 by Leave a Comment
I have considered myself a relatively decent typist—meaning I don’t use the two-fingered-hunt-and-peck method, and I can type without really looking at the keyboard most of the time. But I also know that I can work much more efficiently if I learned how to type the proper way. I also wanted the kids to learn […]
Stop Stressing Over Math!
April 17, 2017 by 6 Comments
Seeing the basic relationship between numbers, and the ability to manipulate them are skills that can be acquired. So how can we parents ensure that our kids don’t get Math anxiety, and that they develop numeracy skills? Here are a few tips:
Beep, Beep the Lab Jeep!
March 13, 2017 by Leave a Comment
We were supposed to design a light-up card using the supplied LED lights, batteries, and copper tape. Raine and I, naturally, thought of the card design first. Raine drew her UFO with the copy “You are out of this world!”, and then we stuck in the LED lights through the card to light up the alien ship. “So where’s your circuit?” asked The Hubby. Apparently, all the other teams started with the circuit design. That had us flummoxed. Our aesthetically pleasing card did not have a circuit-friendly design.
Mathematize Your Home: What’s Algebra But a Lost Number?
February 10, 2017 by 5 Comments
I remember my high school Math days as bleak days of terror. Geometry was bearable, but Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus were the stuff my nightmares were made of. I remember in one Calculus class, our teacher asked me to stand and recite and I couldn’t answer the question. I was totally humiliated (The Hubby […]
Building Blocks of Homeschooling: What I Learned
December 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Getting up at 5AM and feeding, bathing, dressing up all the HPs, and getting us out of the house before 7AM and right smack into the my-lola-walks-faster-than-this traffic just to be somewhere merely 5km away before 8:30AM—this exercise in fortitude and patience reminds me again of one of the reasons we decided to homeschool. I […]
Mathematize Your Home: Board Games
December 5, 2016 by Leave a Comment
One of the sneaky ways we use to work in some Math skills into our regular, non-formal-studying lives is play board games. The girls love board games. We started with the beginner ones like Snakes and Ladders and Candyland, to Richard Scarry games to the girls’ current favorite, Monopoly. Aside from the […]
Mathematize Your Home: Jellybeans—[Math] Tricks for Treats
November 21, 2016 by Leave a Comment
In the HP household (that’s ours), we usually ration out desserts, treats, and other sweets. We once received a huge jar of jellybeans as a gift—and it lasted for months! After a proper meal, the kids would get, at most, only 10 jellybeans. Since our jar had 49 flavors and then some, each bean had […]
Mathemize Your Home: Teaching Shapes and Colors (Part 1 of a Series)
November 7, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Parents worry about their kids’ reading skills, but I rarely hear them worry about number skills (I admit to that). But our children’s success is as dependent on numeracy as it is on literacy. Numeracy, which involves our ability to make sense of numbers, time, and patterns, to think logically, and to create […]
