Listen to them and let them speak

 I had a rough childhood for a lot of reasons. The short of it is that being in a combined family Brady-Bunch situation seldom is the thing that children remember fondly. By biggest beef with my childhood is that people just. didn't. listen.  To anything. You were a child. You were to be seen when it was convenient. You were not to be heard. You were not to feel. You were not to complain.

Now I dare say that my upbringing was better than that of our parents, who were allowed even less freedom of thought and action. I.e. we were fed and clothed well. We had all the educational opportunities they could provide. So as far as they were concerned, they were doing a bang-up job.  But it did not feel good. At all.

My brother, after staying with my family a couple of months proceeded to analyze my parenting style. He said, "I've noticed that you set out to NOT raise your kids the way we were raised... You accomplished that".  His comments were mostly complimentary.  I know he thinks the girl child is too mouthy and needs to be sternly reprimanded, but there was a lot of admiration in his comment.

He was right. I did set out to not do what I did not like about my upbringing. I was not heard as a child, and barely heard as a young adult... well into my twenties. So even if it meant hearing my kids say things to me that were uncomfortable to hear, I let them speak their minds, always.  I gave

Bye-Bye favorite homeschooling website

One of my favorite all-time free homeschooling websites is changing.  

Hippocampus.org has been my go-to site for homeschooling high school students for more than 5 years, and as of June 24, 2014 NROC, who supplies the best courses to the site will discontinue their service.  So click on a video today, and this is what you will see for about 30 seconds until the video appears.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!
As of June 24, 2014 this content from the University of Californiawill no longer be available through this link.
Click here for more information.
Please visit HippoCampus.org to find additional resourcesthat are freely available for your use.

 In addition University of California will be charging consumers to use this service.  Instead they will be charging for each course, for example Algebra II is $19.00 and is is moderated by a teacher, (read-no longer able to be moderated by individual homeschool parents).

Don't worry too much.  There are still a lot of free online sites you can use for homeschooling.  Stay tuned, I will be creating my list of favorite homeschool resources for fall 2014 soon.

Ever get stuck on a math equation?

This website http://www.wolframalpha.com will help you.

Type the equation into the site's search engine and it will work out the problem for you!

very useful.

They're still homeschoolers at heart

I'm really happy to have my college age kids home!  As much as I want them near me, I was dreading the tornado that was sure to accompany their return.

But believe it or not, I came in this morning from the gym to find a clean kitchen.. and now they are organizing their college bins and belongings in the basement until August when they leave again...  #proud.

I need to get my job done now and get them materials for the CLEP & DSST exams they plan to take this summer, so they can get to studying.   I wish they had taken more of them during their high school years, but they just weren't ready.   Well, they're ready now! After comparing learning from a professor vs learning on their own...  wherever possible, they would much rather learn on their own.

Good for them... they're still homeschoolers at heart.