Black Women’s Biographies for Black History Month
In honor of Women’s History Month and Black History Month, we’ve rounded up some history-making Black women who should be better known than they are. Add them to your secular homeschool curriculum in Black History Month and every month.
Get these women in a history book! In honor of Women’s History Month and Black History Month, we’ve rounded up some history-making Black women who should be better known than they are.
Photo: Johnny Silvercloud via Wikimedia Commons
If women get short shrift in history textbooks, black women get doubly short-changed — and that’s a shame, because cool women like these deserve wider recognition. Fortunately, your homeschool can correct the omission, and now’s the perfect time to get to know some of these women a little better.
Ella Baker
“My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders,” said civil rights activist Baker, who worked mostly behind the scenes from the 1930s to the 1980s to develop the NAACP, eliminate Jim Crow laws, organize the Freedom Summer, and found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
READ THIS: Lift As You Climb
Elizabeth Keckley
Keckley — who bought her freedom from enslavement in the mid-1800s and started a successful dressmaking business — was Mary Todd Lincoln’s confidante and generated much controversy with her behind-the-scenes book about the Lincolns.
READ THIS: Behind the Scenes
Mary Fields
Six-foot-tall, cigar-smoking, shotgun-toting Mary Fields was born enslaved and became the first Black woman mail carrier in 1895 at age 60 by being the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. She never missed a delivery — when snow was too deep for her horses, she strapped on snowshoes to deliver mail. “Stagecoach Mary” was so beloved that schools closed to celebrate her birthday and the mayor exempted her from Montana’s law against women entering saloons.
READ THIS: Fearless Mary
Ora Washington
Imagine if Serena Williams wrapped up her tennis career by becoming a pro basketball player — then she might considered a modern-day Ora Washington. Despite the racism of the early 20th century sports world — the top white woman player refused to meet Washington in a match — Washington won the American Tennis Association’s singles title eight times in nine years and went on to head up a women’s basketball team that dominated the sport for more than a decade.
READ THIS: Overlooked No More: Ora Washington, Star of Tennis and Basketball
Violette Anderson
Violette Anderson worked as a court reporter for 15 years before becoming the first woman to graduate from law school in Illinois. Her private practice was so successful that she was appointed assistant prosecutor for the city of Chicago. In 1926, she became the first black woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.
READ THIS: Her Story: A Timeline of Women Who Changed America
Biddy Mason
Bridget Mason, called “Biddy,” moved to California with the Mississippi Mormon family who had enslaved her. Technically, in 1851 California, this made Biddy — and all Smiths’ enslaved workers — free. Biddy took her owners to court to sue for her freedom, succeeding in freeing herself and all the other family slaves. Biddy went on to amass a fortune in Los Angeles real estate, which she used to fund charities, found schools, build churches, start parks, and more.
READ THIS: Biddy Mason Speaks Up
Nina Mae McKinney
It wasn’t easy being one of the first black actresses in a racist United States, but Nina Mae McKinney earned her reputation as “the black Garbo” with stellar performances in films like Hallelujah!
READ THIS: Nina Mae McKinney: The Black Garbo
Mary Bowser
Not many enslaved young women got sent to boarding school to be educated, but smart, resourceful Mary Bowser was lucky enough to be born on a Richmond plantation owned by a staunch abolitionist who not only appreciated Mary’s talents but wanted to help her develop them. When the Civil War started, Mary’s former owner risked her life to start a spy system to pass information to the Union Army. Mary was one of her recruits. The fact that she was both Black and a woman made it easy for Mary to fly under the radar when she was hired as a servant for Jefferson Davis. Assuming Mary was ignorant and illiterate, Davis had confidential conversations in front of her and left official papers where she could see them. Though Davis suspected a leak, it wasn’t until late in the war that any suspicion fell on Mary.
READ THIS: Mary Bowser and the Civil War Spy Ring
Celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day in Your Homeschool
Want to raise kind kids? Celebrate kindness in your homeschool!
Even your youngest homeschool students can celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day by making the world a kinder, happier place. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Write a thank-you note. A sincere thank-you — to your neighbor who always shares her extra zucchini or the ballet teacher who inspired your dancer son — is pretty much guaranteed to make its recipient’s day.
Make a donation. Collect outgrown clothing or canned goods, and make a donation to an organization that helps other people.
Put together care packs for unhoused people. Include essentials like toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and shampoo. Add bottled water and shelf-stable snacks, like granola bars, and a lightweight blanket, hat, and gloves, and distribute the packs to people who need them.
Clean up your neighborhood. You can volunteer to pick up litter at your favorite park or just collect the rubbish on your street, but caring for your environment is a great way to show kindness.
Compliment a kid to his parents. If you can genuinely praise a kid’s work or behavior, he and his parents will bask in your appreciation.
Hold the door for someone. Kids may need help with heavy doors, but most people appreciate the friendly gesture.
Leave a happy note. Jot down a message — such as “Have a beautiful day” or “You look fabulous today” — on a sticky note and leave it on a public bathroom mirror for the next person to find.
New Books on Our Homeschool Reading List in February 2023
These are the books we’re excited to add to our homeschool reading list in February 2023.
So many books, so little time! But these are the titles on our library holds list.
The Pearl Hunter by Miya T. Beck
Honestly, this one had me at middle grades novel about pre-shogunate Japan. Pearl diver Kai makes a deal with the gods to bring back her twin sister’s soul: She’ll steal a legendary pearl from the Fox Queen, and the gods will give her sister back to her. The buzz on this one is a little iffy, but I’m always going to check out historical middle grades fiction from the Asian world, so this one’s still on my list.
It’s Boba Time for Pearl Li by Nicole Chen
How charming is this? To save her beloved neighborhood boba shop, Pearl Li decides to start selling her handmade amigurumi dolls — but of course it’s a much more complicated project than Pearl Li anticipated! I love boba, yarn crafting, and family stories so this one is right up my alley. I really love books about people who make things with their hands, and I happen to have a school full of crafty homeschoolers looking for book recommendations, so I have high hopes for this one.
The House Swap by Yvette Clark
If a middle grades book is being billed as a mash-up of The Parent Trap and The Holiday, I think we can all feel confident it will find a spot on my reading list. I did have a chance to read an advance copy of this one, and I am happy to report it is as warm and cozy and delightful as that description implies — with an emotional depth that feels all its own. Los Angeles native Sage and English village-dwelling Ally swap stories while their families swap houses for summer vacation.
The Universe in You by Jason Chin
Chin’s dazzling picture book illuminates the microscopic building blocks of life. Definitely read this as a picture book, with your middle grade science classes, and even with your high school biology curriculum. Just read it!
The Bright Side by Chad Otis
Something I am always trying to do with my kids is to normalize life experiences that don’t look like ours. I wish this picture book had been around when they were younger because Otis does a brilliant job showing what life is like for a kid who lives in an old school bus instead of a house. We don’t know why his family lives on the bus — it might be a lifestyle choice or an unhoused situation — but that’s a great reminder that we don’t, in fact, know other people’s backstories and shouldn’t make assumptions about them.
Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee
I read an advance copy of this, and I definitely recommend it for middle grades readers. Like all the books in Rick Riordan’s imprint, Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies plays with traditional mythology showing up in the modern world. This time, it’s Chinese folklore — and a magical shop where mysterious things happen. When this imprint is at its best, the modern world stories are as important and complex as the mythologies they spotlight, and that is definitely the case here: Winston’s family is still recovering from his military father’s death in action, and he is a little envious of his wealthy friend who has all the cool stuff and never has to worry about money. There is a lot happening in this book, including a big cast of characters, so it feels a little chaotic at times, but the payoff was definitely worth it for me.
The Davenports by Krystal Marquis
In 1910 Chicago, the four Davenport daughters are among the wealthiest Black families in the United States. If you know me at all, you know that my passion for history comes from Sunfire’s YA historical romance novels, so I was pretty much first in line for this one! It’s definitely lighter on the history than the romance (even though it’s based on the real-life Patterson family, who are totally rabbit trail-worthy, if you are so inclined), but it’s still really cool what it was like to be part of the Black one-percent during the early 20th century. And yay for historical fiction about Black joy and Black success, which I always personally love to see.
No Accident by Laura Bates
Don’t tell my students, but I’m apparently very into stories about teenagers in peril these days. Here’s a dark and twisty YA take on the genre: A chartered plane goes down with a high school basketball team and its cheerleaders on board. Seven teens survive and make it to an island, where they have to figure out how to find water, rig a shelter, and generally survive in the wild. But that’s not all: Something happened at a party the night before the plane went down, and someone wants revenge. I think this is a book that raises a lot of compelling questions. It doesn’t answer them all, but maybe that’s part of the point?
The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln
In this rambunctiously funny middle grades mystery, Shenanigan Swift puts her detective skills to work solving the murder of her Aunt Schadenfreude at a family reunion. I’m always on the search for a mystery that captures the spirit of my beloved The Westing Game, and while this one didn’t quite get there for me, it was still a madcap mystery adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed. Sometimes reviews comparing new books to much-loved books do the new books no favors, so I will resist the urge to compare this to other middle grades books I have known and love and recommend you go into it with no preconceptions.
The Human Kaboom by Adam Rubin
This middle grades book is just straight-up fun: Six stories with the same title (and all illustrated by different artists) take readers on a riotous romp. There’s a school field trip prank (in space!), a swanky hotel mystery, an ancient curse in a sleepy fishing village, and more. I love this idea of spitballing an entire collection of stories from a single title and definitely recommend stealing it for your next homeschool creative writing session.
The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges
I’ve always loved dollhouse stories, so I’m excited for this one: Myra Malone’s dollhouse blog has thousands of followers, but it also has mysteries that its 30-something owner can’t begin to understand: Rooms appear and disappear, and sometimes, she can swear she hears haunting music. Then one day a stranger contacts Myra to tell her that her mansion is his childhood home, where his grandmother disappeared when he was just a little boy. From here, their stories intersect with the mystery of the dollhouse, and it sounds like the kind of quietly lovely book I would have loved as a teen.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
My friend Stephanie turned me on to Grady Hendrix — he is great if you love the idea of horror but need it served up with enough humor and hope to keep you from plunging into the abyss. I hope this one delivers more of the same: After their parents’ unexpected deaths, two siblings from a dysfunctional family have to get their Charleston childhood home ready to sell, but there’s something off about the house. Spooky puppets kind of off. If you’ve got a teen horror fan, Hendrix is a solid pick.
What are you excited to read in your February homeschool?
Homeschool Field Trip: Birdwatching in New Mexico
Winter is prime birdwatching season at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, when geese, cranes, and other winged wonders fill the sky at the beginning and end of each day.
Winter is prime birdwatching season at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, when geese, cranes, and other winged wonders fill the sky at the beginning and end of each day.
Photo by Alex Briseño via Creative Commons
There’s not really a bad time for birdwatching at the Bosque del Apache, but you will find the greatest concentration of avian inhabitants at the refuge between November and mid- February. The sandhill cranes— exotic birds with gangly legs and dramatic six-foot wingspans—are home for the winter, and watching them take off together in flight as the sun rises and settle back down to the water in an angular ballet at sunset, gleefully squawking their staccato songs, makes for some of the most mag- ical birdwatching you’ll ever do.
The Bosque del Apache in Socorro, New Mexico (about an hour and a half drive south of Albuquerque and just eight miles from San Antonio) is an ecology story with a happy ending. When the refuge was established seventy years ago, only seventeen long-limbed sandhill cranes wintered here. Today, thanks to carefully established habitats and water management, more than 15,000 cranes — not to mention snow geese, Canada geese, hawks, eagles, blackbirds, crows, roadrunners, herons, spar- rows, grebes, and coots — call the preserve home, along with occasional reptiles, amphibians and mammals, such as mule deer, coyotes, and jackrabbits. (Check at the visitor center for a list of what wildlife rangers and visitors have recently spotted in the park.)
Arrive before sunrise for the best view of cranes taking flight. (Bundle up — those early mornings get chilly.) You’ll see lots of people at the Flight Deck, but if you keep driving 30-ish yards down the road, you’ll get a private show. Don’t race off after the first dramatic flight; if you stick around, you’ll see the late risers splashing in the water before spreading their wings to launch into the sky.
Afternoon is the perfect time to explore the refuge on foot. The three-mile Canyon National Recreation Trail has great habitat views, and you can settle in for some serious birdwatching at the Phil Norton Blind on the Farm Loop, where birds hunt in the surrounding fields. If you don’t feel like hiking, drive the 12-mile Wildlife Drive loop that circles the refuge; pull over to check out sights that strike you.
Life Skills Every Homeschooler Needs
Add these essential life skills to your secular homeschool curriculum.
Add these essential life skills to your homeschool curriculum.
Homeschoolers get a bad rap sometimes for shielding our kids from the real world, but we’re actually in a prime position to rear kids who are well-prepared for their adult lives. The key is to step back and let kids take the reins well before their eighteenth birthday, says Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshmen at Stanford University and author of How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. Here’s what kids should know how to do before they start on the college applications:
FEED THEMSELVES
When: By high school
You don’t get to turn in your oven mitts just yet, but by high school, your kids should be preparing meals for themselves on a regular basis — making oatmeal for breakfast, slapping together a sandwich for lunch, and yes, whipping up a quick stir-fry or pot of soup for dinner.
How to help: Put cooking on the curriculum with a cookbook like Alton Brown’s (which is great for teaching kitchen science, too) or Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything (which includes straightforward, doable recipes for anything you might want to cook).
ADVOCATE FOR THEMSELVES
When: By high school
You don’t want to be one of those parents who calls her kid’s college professor to complain about her grade, right? The best way to avoid this is to gradually move the job of advocating for your kid into your child’s hands. (Obviously, when a situation calls for a parent advocate, you should jump in.)
How to help: When your child is upset about a grade or confused about an outside class assignment, help her figure out how to solve the problem herself. Practice with her, but assure her that you’re confident she can get her point across. It’s also important to prepare her for the possibility that she won’t get what she wants — “Many times they won't get the outcome they desire, and it's ‘Well, I tried.’ And they come home and they learn to cope with it, because not everything in life will go your way,” Lythcott-Haims says.
GET UP ON TIME
When: By late middle school
“By the time your kid is entering high school, you ought to have confidence they can wake themselves up and get themselves washed and dressed in clothing that's clean," Lythcott-Haims says. That may mean you miss the occasional co-op class or park day — which is preferable to missing a final exam with no make-up date or being late to work when you have an important meeting.
How to help: Homeschoolers don’t have to be clock- watchers, but you can let kids know your timetable: “We’re going to leave for the library in an hour, so it’s time to start rounding up your books.” Buy your child an alarm clock, teach him how to set it, and let him be responsible for getting up and ready on a few low-pressure occasions before easing into bigger responsibility.
WORK INDEPENDENTLY
When: By middle school
Twentysomethings in the workplace can sometimes struggle because they’re used to being told what to do, step-by-step, and patted on the back for every accomplishment, says Lythcott-Haims. They don’t know how to identify work that needs doing or to recognize when someone else could use a hand. Successful adults know how to make their own projects — something homeschoolers should be able to get very comfortable doing by high school.
How to help: By 7th or 8th grade, start giving your child looser and looser assignments and letting them set their own goals and deadlines to complete the project. At first, you can make suggestions — “Don’t forget to leave yourself enough time to edit your final draft” — but your goal should be to let your child be in charge.
PLAN AN OUTING
When: By high school
It can be scary to turn your kids loose to hang out with their friends, but that’s exactly what they’re going to be doing when they hit adulthood — and they’re likely to make smarter and safer decisions on their adventures if they’ve had a safe space to practice them. By late middle school, kids are ready to spend an hour at the mall in a pack or to see a movie at the theater where you’re watching a different film.
How to help: When your child’s peer group is old enough and interested in planning an outing — whether it’s to get pizza at a restaurant or see a movie — help walk them through a plan and enlist adult support for pick-up and drop-off, but let them handle the logistics of figuring out tickets, snacks, tips, etc. “This is how kids spread their wings,”saysLythcott-Haims.
Great Movie Adaptations of Books for Your Homeschool Comparative Lit Classes
Great movie adaptations of books make an instant comparative literature literature class for your secular homeschool. Here are some of our favorite homeschool movies.
You don’t have to choose between the book and the movie in these terrific adaptations — enjoy them both. We’ve rounded up some book-and-a-movie combos perfect for cold weather marathon sessions.
Tales of the Night (2001) + Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books
Though not a literal adaptation of the classic fairy tales, this inventive film about the enchantments of imagination, set in an abandoned theater, channels the same storytelling spirit — and may inspire some living room reenactments.
The Iron Giant (2005) + The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
Really, this animated film — about a boy who teaches a warmongering robot how to love — should get more respect than it does — and Hughes’ lyrical storytelling in the source story is as memorable as his poetry.
The Great Mouse Detective (1986) + Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus
Sherlock Homes sometimes used the alias Basil, so it’s no surprise that’s the name of the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world, who — accompanied by his biographer/assistant Dawson — solves baffling crimes.
A Little Princess (1995) + A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The action moves to New York and there are a few other changes in this lavish adaptation, but it slow-paced, dreamy film-making and a terrific Sara Carew make this movie a must-view.
My Fair Lady (1964) + Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Shaw’s play may feel like heavy going to readers new to his style, so take advantage of the delightful musical adaptation to appreciate its nuances — and to kick off the never-ending argument of what a happy ending to this story would actually be.
The Secret of Moonacre (2010) + The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Maria’s quest to save her family from an unfortunate curse is the crux of this fantasy book and movie combo. (The book was J.K. Rowling’s favorite as a child.)
National Velvet (1944) + National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
The film version gets the full Hollywood treatment (star Elizabeth Taylor definitely doesn’t have book-Velvet’s cottony hair and buck teeth), but it manages to hang onto the story of one stubborn girl’s determination to win a horse race.
The Secret World of Arietty (2012) + The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Though it wanders from the book’s storyline, Studio Ghibli’s adaptation captures the sheer visual magic of the Borrowers’ tiny world with gorgeous animation.
Easy Homeschool Dinner Ideas
When everyone’s getting hangry and you seriously need a supermarket run, these speedy from-the-pantry dinners will get you through the dinner hour with your sanity intact.
When everyone’s getting hangry and you seriously need a supermarket run, these speedy mostly-from-the-pantry dinners will get you through the dinner hour with your sanity intact.
SHAKSHUKA
Chop a small onion and sauté ’til soft in a little olive oil. Add a couple of teaspoons of chopped garlic (about four cloves), salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir in a can of chopped tomatoes (28 oz.), turn up the heat, and crack four eggs into the mixture when it starts boiling, spooning the sauce over the eggs so they cook completely. Sprinkle generously with feta and parsley, if you have them, and serve with pita bread.
TOMATO-CHICKPEA SOUP
Heat a couple of cans of tomato-basil soup (20 oz.) in a pan over medium heat. Stir in a can of drained chickpeas (15 oz.) and a package of frozen spinach (10 oz.), and cook over medium heat until spinach is thoroughly cooked, about 10 minutes. Serve with a swirl of sour cream and a scant handful of croutons.
PASTA WITH BREADCRUMBS
Cook pasta. (Bucatini or fettuccine are good options, but any pasta will do.) Meanwhile, sauté a generous handful of breadcrumbs in butter; add Parmesan cheese and garlic to the pan. Stir in cooked pasta with a little cooking water, add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, and cook for a few more minutes.
CHICKPEA SALAD SANDWICH
Mix a can of drained chickpeas (15 oz.) with 3 Tbsp. tahini, 1/2 tsp. Dijon mus- tard, 1 Tbsp. maple syrup, a pinch of dried dill, a little chopped red onion, and a scoop of toasted, unsalted sunflower seeds, if you have them on hand. Serve on toasted whole-grain bread with avocado slices and onion.
RAVIOLI LASAGNA
Spoon one-third of a jar of tomato sauce (26 oz.) into a baking dish, top with a layer (about 12) of thawed cheese ravioli and thawed, drained frozen spinach. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella and Parmesan; repeat layers until ravioli is gone, ending with a layer of cheese-sprinkled sauce. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes.
MIX-AND- MATCH DINNER POTATOES
Bake foil-wrapped potatoes in 400° oven until tender (about an hour). When potatoes are done, split in half and heat a package of frozen broccoli in cheese sauce (10 oz.) and/stir a cup of chopped ham or bacon into a jar of alfredo sauce (10 oz.). Let your crew top their own baked potatoes.
What homeschool subjects are good when you have kids across a wide age range?
The best homeschool subjects for families with an age gap are the ones where kids can get hands-on and dive as deep as they want to.
My kids cover a wide age range. Are there any homeschool subjects that are good for tots through teens to do together?
When you’re teaching across an age gap, the biggest challenge is finding something that’s engaging enough for older students while still being accessible to your younger ones. Fine arts classes, like art, music, and poetry, often fit the bill. A program like Meet the Masters or a book like Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters gives kids an opportunity to study art history by making their own artistic creations, which can be as appealing to an artistic teen as to a scissors-happy kindergartner. (If you want to skip the history and go straight to the art-making, Mona Brookes’ Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too, is a fantastic resource for this.)
For music appreciation, it’s hard to beat the Classical Kids series (including Beethoven Lives Upstairs, Mr. Bach Comes to Call, and Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage), which introduces composers through music and words. These programs are just as likely to pop up on college radio stations as in preschool classrooms, so they really do have multi-age appeal.
With its dramatic costumes and exciting storylines, opera has surprising kid appeal, and the free Opera for Everyone podcast introduces the genre well.
And don’t underestimate the power of poetry as a multi-age study! A stack of poetry books from the library can be a springboard for great learning conversations.
Bottom line: When it comes to teaching multiple ages, hands-on topics that can go deep or stay light are your best bet. You can’t really go far wrong with fine arts.
Do you have any advice for homeschoolers writing their college essays?
Your college essays are your chance to show who you are beyond numbers and letters — and the best essays tell a story about who you are in simple, everyday experiences.
My daughter is just starting to think about applying to college (yikes!), and I am feeling nervous about the application essay. Do you have any advice for homeschoolers writing their college essays?
People often ask me for advice on writing application essays, but there’s really no secret to a great college application essay. The only trick is getting away from the notion that your essay has to be A Very Special Piece of Writing and giving yourself permission to just tell a story about who you are.
Think of it this way: Admission offices go through thousands of application packets, many of which contain earnest essays about mission trips to Haiti, learning about leadership on the sports field, or similarly repetitive topics. Don’t waste your big chance to break out of the dry application box by writing about what every other hopeful applicant does. And don’t repeat the same information over and over either: If you’re sending a recommendation letter from your creative writing teacher and your application includes a long list of writing awards and publications, don’t also use your essay to focus on your love of writing — share something else. Skip the stories about life-changing trips abroad, too — you’ve had plenty of epiphanies in your own backyard, and those are often the most compelling ones to focus on. Seize the opportunity to talk about something more personal instead, like how you made the decision to become a vegetarian, why you decided not to get your driver’s license, or how you spent an entire year studying Minecraft as an academic subject.
Bottom line: Aim for an essay that makes your daughter’s friends say “That’s totally you,” and she’s on the right track.
Do homeschoolers need an accredited diploma to get into college?
Homeschoolers worry about accreditation, but we should really be focused on our teen’s classes, test scores, and other academic and extracurricular achievements — that’s what colleges will really be looking at.
I keep hearing about accredited diplomas and programs now that my son is in middle school. Do homeschoolers need an accredited diploma to get into college?
There’s a lot of confusion around accreditation when it comes to homeschooling. First of all, curriculum can’t be accredited; only institutions can be accredited. So unless you’re enrolled in an accredited institution — which makes you a student at that institution rather than a homeschooler — you won’t receive an accredited diploma.
And that’s fine! No U.S. state requires any homeschool curriculum or diploma to be accredited. Some homeschoolers look into accreditation because they plan to return to traditional school at some point and want the work they did as homeschoolers to “count.” In most states, it will count whether it’s accredited or not until your student starts 9th grade; from 9th grade on, homeschool credits probably won’t count as required credits toward graduation whether they are accredited or not. U.S. public high schools also don’t always accept credits from private schools or public schools in other states, so if you know your plans include a return to public high school after 9th grade, accreditation may not be the solution you need. (In that case, it’s smart to talk to a counselor at the actual school you want to attend; they can give you the best advice about transferring as a homeschooler.)
As far as life after high school, it’s worth asking yourself whether anyone has ever checked that your high school diploma is accredited. (Don’t assume it is if you graduated from a public high school! Not all public schools in the United States are actually accredited.) My hybrid high school is not accredited, and our graduates go on to great colleges every year. Colleges are waking up to the fact that homeschoolers make great additions to the university scene, and in recent years — especially since COVID threw learning off the rails — they’ve become much more flexible about requirements for homeschooled applicants. You may have a few hoops to jump through with some colleges or after-high school programs if you bypass accreditation (here in Georgia, for example, you’ve got to hit a certain SAT score to qualify for the state’s merit-based HOPE scholarship if you graduate as a homeschooler), but if you’ve made it through SAT tests, dual enrollment, AP classes, and all the rest of it with your homeschooler, you’re probably pretty good at jumping though a few hoops. You don’t need an accredited diploma, and most homeschoolers won’t have one.
So why consider accreditation? If your son has his heart set on one of the very few universities or programs that actually requires an accredited diploma, it’s obviously worth setting the wheels in motion to obtain one. If you’re hoping to get certain state-funded college financial aid, check the requirements — an accredited diploma might be a smart choice for students who struggle with tests if it overrides a minimum-score requirement. I’ve had students get their diplomas at our hybrid homeschool accredited through Bridgeway Academy and Clonlara School. (It feels a little like paying to get your diploma rubber-stamped, but sometimes a rubber stamp gives you extra peace of mind.)
Bottom line: The transcript is what counts. Your child’s classes, test scores, and other academic and extracurricular achievements are what colleges will really be looking at.
What’s the easiest way to homeschool a subject my child hates?
There are three surprisingly simple ways to tackle a subject that’s causing stress in your secular homeschool.
Option A: Skip It
Sometimes, your child’s brain just isn’t ready to process certain kinds of information — and no amount of solving for x is going to make algebra click for her until she’s ready. Instead of powering through, consider pulling back and taking a three-month break from your problem subject.
Option B: Outsource it
A bad subject can make homeschooling feel like a chore for you and your child. If you’re both struggling, let someone else do the heavy lifting. You can find a teacher to tackle almost every subject — check with local classes and co-ops or on Outschool to find people excited to tackle the class that’s sucking the joy out of your homeschool. Homeschooling doesn’t mean you have to take the reins for every single subject.
Option C: Streamline it
Some curricula script every lesson and schedule everything from practice problems to review sessions. If you’re really struggling, de-personalize the subject by using a boxed curriculum. (For math, try Saxon or Teaching Textbooks.) Sure, you’ll sacrifice some flexibility and spontaneity, but it’s a small price to pay for your sanity.
Homeschool Unit Study: The Harlem Renaissance
Black History Month is the perfect excuse to celebrate the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing of African-American culture that lit up the creative landscape of the 1920s with its epicenter firmly located in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.
Black History Month is the perfect excuse to celebrate the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing of African-American culture that lit up the creative landscape of the 1920s with its epicenter firmly located in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.
Jacob Lawrence, 1917-2000, To Preserve Their Freedom, from Toussain L'Ouverture series, serigraph, 1988-1997. Museum of Arts & Sciences, Daytona Beach.
The Harlem Renaissance is one of my favorite periods of U.S. history to explore in our high school homeschool. My students get excited by the sheer abundance of possibilities: You’ve got art, you’ve got literature, you’ve got music, you’ve got social criticism, you’ve even got food. On apparently every front, Black Americans were bringing their culture and creativity into play, and the result is almost an embarrassment of riches. There are several directions you could go with this unit: Treat it as a literature unit, and dive into some of the period’s most important works, or use it as a jumping-off point for a big, interdisciplinary study of early 20th century African American history. We usually do the latter, since the Harlem Renaissance also provides an impetus and meaningful background for the civil rights movements of the mid-20th century.
READ
Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois
The sociologist and activist W.E.B DuBois was in many ways the father of the Harlem Renaissance, and in this, his most important work, DuBois makes a claim for re-thinking of African-American identity that was to resonate with a generation of African-Americans. DuBois was himself a remarkable figure — the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University, he wrote many books, founded the Niagara movement, which opposed Booker T. Washington’s policies of conciliation, and fought for the rights of African-Americans to vote and enjoy the same privileges as other Americans. Souls of Black Folk memorably and movingly describes DuBois’ dawning awareness of his “double consciousness” as an African-American, “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
“The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” by Langston Hughes
One of the central debates of the Harlem Renaissance was the question of what art, specifically African-American art, was meant to do. Should the concern of black artists be to counter white stereotypes or simply to portray black life as realistically and authentically as possible? While DuBois thought the former, a younger, more militant generation of black artists, most prominent among them the poet and novelist Langston Hughes, aimed to show all of Black life in their art. In this essay, published in the Nation magazine in 1921, Hughes criticizes those middle-class Blacks who are ashamed of their race and calls on African-Americans to embrace their own heritage and “indigenous” art forms, such as jazz.
Cane by Jean Toomer
Blending poetry with sketches of black life in the South and North, Toomer’s Cane is one of the literary masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance. Toomer was a racially mixed man who could pass as white and, according to Henry Louis Gates and Rudolph P. Byrd, often chose to.
Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales From the Gulf States by Zora Neale Hurston
Though best-known for the classic (and staple of high school English curricula) Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston began her career carrying out anthropological field work in the South. This collection of her sketches from her travels in Florida, Alabama, and New Orleans show how central the African-American experience in all parts of the United States, not just in Harlem, were to members of the Harlem Renaissance
LOOK
Carl Van Vechten
Van Vechten was one of the most unusual figures of the Harlem Renaissance. A prototype of what Norman Mailer would later call the “White Negro,” Van Vechten saw himself as a champion of African-American culture, and though his involvement in the movement was controversial, he was instrumental in bringing the work of African-American writers and artists to a wider public. A novelist, dance critic, and Gertrude Stein’s literary executor, he also photographed many of the Harlem Renaissance’s prominent figures, including DuBois and Zora Neale Hurston.
Aaron Douglas
The visual arts were central to the Harlem Renaissance, and Douglas’s African-influenced modernist murals caught the attention of the leading intellectuals of the movement like Alain Locke and W.E.B DuBois. Douglas’s best-known work were the illustrations he created for James Weldon Johnson’s books of poetic sermons, God’s Trombones.
LISTEN
“Prove It On Me Blues” Ma Rainey
Big, bold, and fearless, Ma Rainey was one of the first female blues singers to achieve fame. Though she didn’t have a great voice, Rainey delivered the double entendre-laden lyrics of her songs with a power and intensity that paved the way for later female singers like Bessie Smith. Here, Rainey sings in remarkably bold terms about her romantic pursuit of a woman, and of her preference for lesbian relationships. The theme of homosexual love was central to the Harlem Renaissance, the historian Henry Louis Gates even arguing that the movement “was as much gay as it was black.”
“T’aint Nobody’s Business if I Do” Bessie Smith
More than any other singer, Bessie Smith embodied the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance — its emphasis on race pride, its uncompromising view of the value of African-American lives.
“Black and Blue” Louis Armstrong
Originally written by Fats Waller for the musical Hot Chocolates, “Black and Blue” became, in Louis Armstrong’s hands, a defiant statement on what it was like to be black in America (Ralph Ellison riffs poetically on the song in his great novel Invisible Man.)
WATCH
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
Henry Louis Gates’ sweeping survey of African-American history provides a good general background to the movement and his section on Black popular arts and film of the 1920s is particularly helpful.
Against the Odds: Artists of the Harlem Renaissance
Focusing mainly on the visual arts, this documentary shows how art and politics were inextricably linked for members of the Harlem Renaissance.
Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues”
Jazz cadences and rhythms can be found throughout the poetry of Langston Hughes and in this spoken reading, Hughes reads his own poetry to jazz accompaniment, from a broadcast of The 7 O’Clock Show, 1958.
The Ultimate Homeschool Problem Solver Guide
All of our very best advice for dealing with everything from burnout and library fines to high school record-keeping and making your own curriculum.
Your Homeschool Problems: Solved.
All of our very best advice for dealing with everything from burnout and library fines to high school record-keeping and making your own curriculum.
conference shopping tip
It’s as important to know what you DON’T need as what you do.
How to Shop the Homeschool Conference
1. Do your reconnaissance.
Scan the vendor list in advance to pick out the curriculum companies you don’t want to miss — there’s a lot of stuff happening at homeschool conferences, and advance planning will ensure you get peek at everything you wanted to see. At the same time, make a list of any “black hole” subjects where you don’t have a clear plan in place — you might discover the inspiration you need. Finally, list subjects you’ve got covered and curriculum vendors you know you want to avoid. (Especially at inclusive conferences, you may find vendors selling non-secular science or history that looks cool until you get it home and realize it isn’t actually secular.) In the excitement of the sales floor, it can be easy to buy materials you don’t really need.
2. Set your limits.
Establish your total budget, as well as the maximum amount you want to spend in any area. (You may want to limit literature spending to $50 but be willing to spend up to $500 if you happen upon the perfect science curriculum.) At the same time, make a note of methods, projects, and learning styles that just don’t work for your homeschool. This reduces your risk of buying stuff that isn’t the right fit.
3. Don’t feel pressured to buy.
It’s true you can score big deals at conferences, but the big draw is the chance to check out materials in person. (Just be prepared for long lines and crowded tables.) If you decide a deal is too good to pass up, great — but don’t feel like you have to come out with a bagful of homeschool materials to count your experience a success.
How to Make Math More Homeschool-Friendly
Struggling with math? The problem may be with the way that the subject is usually taught and not with your child’s ability to understand it. Wellesley College mathematics professor Oscar Fernandez suggests that non-mathematicians often master math most effectively when they start with real world examples and gradually build up to theory, but most math classes do the opposite — echoing the way that naturally math-minded folks think but often confusing as many as 80 percent of students, says Fernandez. Using math to figure out real world problems (like the best seat at the movie theater or the fastest route to karate class) gives kids math experience that helps them make sense of more abstract theories.
curriculum tip
If you find a homeschool curriculum you love, you can use it as a jumping-off point for creating other curriculum.
How to Break Up with Your Curriculum
You put a lot of effort — and sometimes, a lot of money — into choosing the right curriculum, so it’s not always easy to let one go.
Consider your timing.
Maybe the curriculum is great — just not right now. Your child might not be academically or emotionally ready for a particular curriculum, in which case, putting it back on the shelf for a few months or years may be all you need to get the perfect fit.
Tweak the assignments.
If a curriculum has too much writing or too few hands-on activities, you can easily change some of the writing assignments to oral presentations or add a few experiments. An okay curriculum can become a great one with a few strategic tweaks. But if your tweaks end up rebuilding the curriculum from scratch, you might be better off letting that curriculum go and forging your own path.
Use it as a guide.
If you like the content a particular curriculum covers but not its methods, you can always use the syllabus as a starting point to create your own curriculum. Similarly, if you love a curriculum’s method but wish it covered different topics, you can use its methods to inspire your own curricular creations.
Recoup your loss.
If a curriculum doesn’t work, don’t let it glare at you from your schoolroom shelves. Resell it, and use the money to invest in a program that you DO love. Chances are, that not-right-for-you curriculum is perfect for another family, so you’ll be helping someone out and getting rid of a problem in one swoop.
How to Maximize Your Homeschool Budget
If you’ve got money to spend, you’ll always benefit from investing in these homeschool essentials:
1. Travel
You will never regret the money you spend on adventures with your kids. (In fact, more than 90 percent of homeschooling parents said they wished they’d made travel dollars a priority in a survey conducted by Atlanta Homeschool magazine.) And don’t be afraid to think bigger: Set aside that $2,000 you’d spend on a trip to Disney and use it as a starter fund for a trip to Europe.
2. Technology
“Our computers are by far the things we use the most in our house,” says unschooling mom Tama McGee. “We use them for research, games, email, Skype with friends and family, typing stories, doing puz- zles—the list never ends.”
3. Art supplies
The better your supplies, the more fun it is to make art. With sales, coupons, and smart shopping, you can afford to invest in your child’s creativity.
How to Beat a Bad Homeschool Day Before It Even Starts
On a good day, when you’re feeling energized and excited about homeschool life, write a message to yourself to read next time you’re having a bad day. Think about the words you need to hear when a math lesson ends in tears or you snap at your toddler for making a mess of the science center. Pull it out when you need to as a reminder that you’re doing the right thing even when things don’t go just right.
homeschooling high school tip
If you prep for the most rigorous college on your “possible college plans” list, you’ll know your transcript contains everything it needs.
How to Survive Homeschooling High School
To survive high school as a homeschooler, you’ll cut your stress significantly if you start by thinking about the end game. Figure out what the academic requirements at three of the colleges your student might be interested in are (obviously your child’s interests may change between 8th grade and application time, and that’s fine), and zero in on the most stringent list. How many history credits do applicants need? How much foreign language? Then use the information you’ve culled to piece together a four-year outline for high school that includes all the essentials. You’ll have a few blank places and a few options for some classes (like English or history), but don’t worry about completely filling the schedule. You don’t need to know what you’re going to use for each of these subjects, but planning this way helps ensure that you cover the bases while still leaving room for your child to pursue her passions.
Next, you’ll want to come up with a system to track your child’s high school career. (We like the envelope system we recommend below, but there are online databases, old-fashioned checklists, and even companies that do all of the tracking for you, so choose the method that best suits your organization style.)
You will have to be organized about keeping track of classes, credits, and book lists if you don’t want a last-minute graduation panic, so enlist your student’s assistance. After all, this is her future, right? Plan quarterly or annual meetings to compare notes and go over your records together and to make adjustments to your plan. (Maybe she’s decided to study computer programming instead of history and needs to add more math classes, or she’s aiming to go into classics and wants to add Greek to her foreign language studies.) If you track on a computer, back up your files or print them out regularly so that if you have a technology meltdown, you don’t lose four years of records and your last remaining shreds of sanity.
It may seem smart to ease into high school, but it’s best to carry a full load in 9th and 10th grade, says homeschooling mom Elizabeth Ackley, who has sent two homeschoolers to college and has a junior in high school still at home.
“By the time you get to junior and senior year, you’ll have internships, college classes, and other activities that take up a lot of time, so you don’t want to have to catch up with geography or first year French then,” she says.
Also, let go of the notion that you will ever teach your child everything you want him to learn him to in high school. You’ll make yourself crazy thinking that you have to teach your child everything he needs to go to college or out into the world. Trust your good work, and give your student the space to learn some things on his own.
When application season rolls around, Ackley recommends putting your student in charge. “Let her figure out the deadlines and what she needs,” she says. “If she’s not responsible enough to handle applying to college, she may not be responsible enough to go to college yet. Taking a year off never hurt anybody,” she adds.
curriculum writing tip
Make plenty of room for the fun stuff up front — that’s the learning your kids will be most likely to remember.
How to Write Your Own Curriculum
It’s easier and less stressful than you might think. Really.
Once you’ve been homeschooling a while, you realize something. However excitingly irresistible a curriculum seems when you’re researching it, by the second week of using it, you’re itching to tweak it. Maybe it’s little tweaks, like subbing one science experiment for another one or adding books to the recommended reading. Often, though, it’s big changes you’re making: Slowing down and adding more information to focus more closely on one topic, skipping a subject that you’ve already covered in depth, cutting this and adding that until your curriculum feels like the right fit.
One of the biggest complaints about public school education standards is the notion that any packaged curriculum can be one-size-fits-all, but it’s easy to feel intimidated by the notion of eschewing professionally produced curriculum for a DIY version. Don’t you have to be an expert or a great writer or a professional educator to write a curriculum? Of course you don’t.
It’s time that we stop thinking of the perfect curriculum as some Holy Grail that we’ll eternally seek and never find. Shift gears: Stop being Indiana Jones, and channel your inner Frank Lloyd Wright instead. Think of making your own curriculum as making a master plan. You’re not an expert in your subject? That’s a perfect starting point to learn more about it. You’re not a great writer? Well, fine — you’re not writing a script. You’re making a tool, one that will combine different resources and ideas into a personalized study program.
THE BIG PICTURE
Your first job is to hone in on what you really want your homeschool — not your curriculum — to accomplish.
If you’ve never made a homeschool mission statement, here’s your chance. (If you have a homeschool mission statement, revisit it to make sure it still reflects your homeschool’s spirit and goals.) Get creative: You can jot down words and ideas, but you can also make a Pinterest board, a collage, or even a series of drawings. Don’t worry about being super-realistic: Dreaming is allowed. (If you’re stuck, think about that future day when your homeschooler is graduated. What do you want him to look back and think about his homeschooling experience? What will he have accomplished through his years of home education?) You need a clear vision of where you want to go before you start drawing a map to get you there.
At the same time, work on a one- or two-sentence description of your student’s learning style. What work does your student enjoy? Is she a reader or a doer? An experiencer or an analyzer?
You’ll use these two things — a vision for your homeschool and an understanding of your student’s learning style — to craft your curriculum. Constantly ask yourself: Does this mesh with our homeschool goals? Will my student be inspired by this? When the answer is yes, you know you’ve got a keeper.
While you’re at it, start a list of “Absolutely Nots.” Here’s where you can make note of the things that just plain don’t work in your homeschool, whether that means workbooks or narrations. As you dive into planning, it’s easy to get excited about ideas or resources that just don’t work with your real life homeschooling style. This list will help you avoid those things.
NAME YOUR TOPIC
Now you’ll direct your focus at the topic you want your curriculum to tackle. Maybe you’re determined to cook up an animal studies curriculum or you’re yearning for a good U.S. history program. Take a little while to consider what you want your curriculum to achieve. Are you interested in a broad introduction? Is mastery your goal? Do you want to work with big themes or specific chronologies? Use your homeschool goals and student learning style to guide you as you narrow your focus: Your student who loves knowing about the people behind historic events may be inspired by an art history curriculum that focuses on the lives and works of great artists, while a hands-on, creative kid may respond better to a curriculum that focuses on techniques and allows them to experiment with the styles of great artists. Both approaches will teach art history, but the The People Who Shaped Art History and Art History Lab are very different classes. Naming your class will help you zoom in on its focus, which will make weeding through all the available information a lot more efficient.
BIG PICTURE SCHEDULE
Along the same lines, breaking down how much time you want to devote to your curriculum on a weekly basis will help you get organized. If you want to spend five hours a week on the History of the American West, you can dig a lot deeper and include more rabbit trails than you can if you want to limit your study to an hour a week. Be honest as you consider how much time you want to spend on a given topic: If you’re dedicating an hour of poetry time a week, you can’t feasibly choose twenty different poetic styles and fifty different poets to talk about. You’re going to have to tighten up your focus and aim to simplify your list to include the very best examples. Be as pragmatic as possible: If you know you have a busy schedule of activities, don’t just tell yourself you’ll make time somehow. Work with the time that you really have, and you’ll be a lot more successful.
Think about the kind of work you want your student to do: Weekly readings and narrations? Book reports? Journaling? A weekly art project? Labs? There’s no right or wrong answer, as long as you’re meshing your goals with your child’s learning style, but you may want to scan one of the “What Your X- Grader Needs to Know” lists to see if there’s any kind of academic milestone — like writing a research paper or doing a science project — that might be a good fit for your curriculum.
BREAK IT DOWN
Here’s where the work most people think of as curriculum planning begins. Look at as many existing curricula in your topic area as you can: Check online for freebies, search your bookshelves, borrow copies from friends, scour textbook tables of contents. Keep a notebook, a Pinterest board, or a master document on your computer where you can make lists of things like topics covered, reading lists, organization, projects and activities, special tools or equipment, and anything else that feels relevant to your project.
Your task here is to break the course you described in Step Two down into its component parts. Say you’re putting together a curriculum about Big Issues in Philosophy. You may decide that truth, beauty, love, and goodness are the big issues you want to tackle. If you’re working on a grammar curriculum for your elementary student, you may break it down into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, sentences, and punctuation. If your smaller subjects are still pretty big, you’ll want to break them down into smaller sections, too. So, for instance, you might break your punctuation section down into periods, exclamation points, question marks, and commas. As you work, you may go back to the drawing board to start over a few times, but eventually, you’ll start to see an outline for your subject emerge.
THE FUN STUFF
Before you jump into scheduling reading and projects, take a few minutes to consider the fun in your curriculum. Look around for field trip opportunities. Consider putting together a soundtrack to go with your class — songs inspired by poetry for a poetry curriculum, or a chronological journey through American musical history for American history. Rustle up movies and documentaries to support your studies. These extras are often the things that make the biggest impression on your students, so make room for them from the beginning instead of trying to squeeze them in as you go along.
COMPILE YOUR RESOURCES
Now, you’ll make a list of all the materials you want to include in your class — the books, websites, and other things your student will use to explore this subject. Go ahead and make a ridiculously big list — you know you want to! Include any book, workbook, or activity that you think you might possibly want to use. Though it seems counter-intuitive, knowing that you’ve really done a thorough job of listing all your resource options will make it easier to narrow it down to the dozen or so resources you can actually use.
Once you’ve made your list, start trimming. You don’t need ten books on cells for a life science class, so you’ll want to weigh titles against each other to choose the one that’s really the best. As you do this, something kind of cool will start to happen: You’ll become an expert — you’ll feel good about the choices you’re making, the resources you’re choosing and the ones you’re leaving out, because you’ll have a real sense of your subject and the available materials. You may make copies of chapters from different books, taking a section from this title and a timeline from that one, and clip them together into a book for your class. Or you may just want to make notes to yourself about what you’re reading and why.
PUT IT TOGETHER
Here’s where the outline you made back in Step Four achieves its destiny. Fill in your topic breakdown outline with your resources. Jot the fun activities and resources you’ll be using to cover each topic beside the topic name. (Include relevant page numbers, or you’ll end up doing a lot of frustrating page-flipping.) You may find you’ve left a topic without a good resource. If that happens, head back to your resource list to fill in the blank. Or you may find that despite your best resource trim- ming, your plan is heavy in a particular topic and you have to winnow down your materials a little more. When you’ve finished, check your plan against your resource list and your fun stuff list — did you leave out any- thing really fabulous that you really wanted to include? Are you excited about each topic? Go back and fiddle with each section until it feels just right.
ASSESS AND ADAPT
Remember: Your curriculum isn’t set in stone. If it feels like you need to change something, add something, or drop something, do it. You’re the expert.
How to Tell How You’re Doing Without Grades
Without tests and report cards, how can you tell if your child is making educational progress? Happily, evaluating outside the test bubble actually gives you a better measure of how much your child is learning since you can weigh his success using a variety of methods.
Trust yourself.
If your child clearly seems to be zipping ahead in science, he’s probably zipping ahead in science. If you feel like your child is struggling with reading, he’s probably having trouble with reading. Your experiences teaching your child are some of the best indicators of his learning that you have.
Keep a portfolio.
Stash a few of your child’s pieces of work in a folder every week, and pull the folder out every six months or so. You’ll be able to see his progress right in front of you, making it clear where your child is excelling and where he might need extra help.
Ask your student.
Kids often know what subjects they feel intimidated by, even if their work on paper sug- gests otherwise. Talk to your student about how he’s doing, and let his input guide your thinking.
Keep a checklist.
Books like the What Your X-Grader Should Know series break down skills and knowledge by grade, so it’s easy to pinpoint what your child should be mastering each year.
Take a standardized test.
If your child doesn’t get stressed out by testing and you use the test as only one factor in your overall evaluation, a standardized test can be a helpful measurement tool.
How to Deal with Homeschool Conflicts with Your Kids
Homeschooling can test your parenting skills like nothing else, and there will be days when you hit serious relationship turbulence with your kid. The most important thing to remember during these admittedly trying times is that they pass — next week, this math-fueled shouting match will be a distant memory, and you’ll both be back to your regularly scheduled homeschool groove. In the meantime, these functional strategies can help pave the way for fewer future conflicts:
Don’t be a fake.
If your daughter’s study habits drive you crazy or you can’t stand the way your son walks into walls because he has his nose in a book, speak up. Your goal here isn’t to try to change your child, simply to express how you feel. Keeping annoyances bottled up robs you and your child of the opportunity to learn how to disagree productively, explains Carolyn Cowan, a family researcher at the University of California at Berkeley.
Do be narrative-aware.
The way we talk about our homeschool lives can have a significant impact on how we feel about them. Complain about grumpy kids, impossible assignments, and sloppy work? Aer a while, those things might be all you see. Focusing your conversation on the positive can help you see the good stuff more clearly.
Be the change you want to see in your homeschool.
If you’re unhappy with your homeschool life, do something about it. Sure, you can try to change your child, but it’s a whole lot easier — and ultimately more beneficial — to change yourself. Unless your child’s behavior is clearly harmful, turn your correcting eye inward: Why do you respond to him this way? What could you do differently?
How to Hire a Homeschool Tutor
Start with recommendations from other homeschoolers.
Teaching a homeschooler can be radically different from teaching a student in traditional school.
Interview a few.
Not only will you increase your pool of options, you’ll also get a mini-education in your child’s chosen subject as you chat about resources and methods.
Define your goals.
Knowing what you want your child’s tutor to provide — a basic intro to chemistry, mastery of Spanish grammar, or the skills to knit a sweater, for instance — will help you pinpoint the right tutor for your teen.
Focus on your subject.
If your teen wants to do a novel study of Jane Austen, you want a tutor who’s spent time studying Austen. Help your teen hone in on some of the specifics on his learning wish list so you can address those topics with potential tutors.
Get references.
Talking to other people a tutor has worked with will give you an idea of her teaching strong points. If you can, let your teen talk with other students a tutor has worked with so she can ask her own questions.
Take a trial run.
One tutoring session is often all you need to tell whether a particular tutor is a good fit.
How to Socialize Your Homeschooled Child
Really, this is going to be the easiest thing you do as a homeschooler. (The hardest thing may be not sighing loudly when non-homeschoolers ask you about socialization.) Go to homeschool events, play at park days, talk to families at co-op, plan a few playdates, go grocery shopping, do volunteer work, take a class — trust us, your child will be socialized.
homeschool tip
Check in with yourself and your kids frequently to make sure homeschooling is still the right path for your family.
How to Tell When It’s Time to Stop Homeschooling
Homeschool burnout can be hard to talk about, but it happens to almost every homeschooling parent at one time or another. It often strikes in midwinter, when post-holiday blahs and cabin fever collide with the January blues to make homeschooling a chore rather than a pleasure. These are the days when you feel like homeschooling was a massive mistake, you are a terrible teacher, and your children are going to grow up to be unhappy, uneducated adults because you have failed them utterly — which would bother you more if they weren’t grating on your last nerve.
Homeschooling is hard work — and smart homeschoolers pause occasion- ally to make sure that home-based education is still a good fit for their families. If you’re questioning whether your homeschool funk is a temporary setback or a sign that it’s time to make a change, ask yourself these questions:
What would make homeschooling happy again?
If the answer is something straightforward — like trimming your schedule so you do less running around, making more time for field trips, or saying goodbye to a not-a-great-fit curriculum — just making the change might be enough to put things back on the right track. More complicated answers may also have easy solutions: If chaotic mornings make you feel like a nag, consider pushing back your daily start time, or if you’re butting heads with your child over a difficult subject, outsourcing that class to a tutor or co-op could put the fun back in your homeschool. Still not sure? Pretend you have an infinite budget and infinite time for homeschooling. What would you do with those resources? If time and money aren’t the problem, you may have deeper issues.
How is your homeschooling making a difference for your child?
Homeschooling without a strong sense of purpose is like cleaning the bathroom: You know you have to do it every day, but it’s never going to be something you get excited about. Working hard without feeling like you’re making an impact is demoralizing, but a little perspective can help you give yourself the credit you deserve. Not convinced? Think about the other benefits of homeschool life — stronger family ties, a more relaxed schedule, lifetime learning — and try to see your homeschooling as a means of achieving those goals. If you genuinely feel that your homeschool efforts aren’t making the least bit of difference, it may be time to make a change.
What are you learning?
Of all the problems you can run into as a homeschooling parent, feeling like you’re mentally stagnating can be one of the most insidious. Lots of homeschooling parents appreciate the heady thrill of learning new stuff right along with their kids, but what happens when you’re not learning anything new? Being bored is, well, boring. It could be that all you need is a perspective shift — if you view learning as a mutual endeavor rather than as a project that you have to facilitate, you may be surprised by how much you can learn. But if you’re genuinely at a mental impasse, you definitely need a homeschooling break.
How would life be different if you stopped homeschooling?
Think about the prospect of letting go of your homeschool days for a while. Does the prospect inspire you with possibility — maybe there’s a project of your own you’ve been yearning to pursue or you can see your daughter blooming in an environment where she gets to spend time with her friends every day. If the thought of letting go of homeschool for a while lights you up inside, you may want to seriously consider taking a break. If, on the other hand, the idea of not homeschooling feels like a mistake or a great loss, it’s worth seriously considering ways to improve your everyday homeschool experience.
If these questions don’t point you in a clear direction, take two weeks off. Your feeling when those two weeks are up — quiet dread or recharged enthusiasm — will reveal your attitude toward homeschooling. The truth is, there is no absolute right answer to the question of whether you should stop homeschooling your child. Only you can find the answer, and it may be an answer that changes from year to year. If you do decide quitting homeschooling is the right step for your family right now, don’t let that decision make you feel like a failure. Homeschool works so well because you can tailor it to your child’s specific needs — and sometimes those specific needs may warrant being educated outside the home.
homeschool organization tip
If you didn’t start out keeping records, don’t stress! Start now, and go back and fill in the gaps as you can.
How to Keep Homeschool Records, a.k.a. The Easiest Homeschool Organization System Ever
The envelope solution is elegant, effective, and so simple you can’t screw it up. Start it in 9th grade — 8th if you’re feeling particularly ambitious — and when it’s time to start the college application process, you’ll be all set.
Label a large envelope for each class with the full name of the course and grade number (9-Honors English 1 or 11-AP U.S. History). Add an envelope for extracurricular activities — if your child is serious about an activity, like soccer or theater, you may want to create a separate envelope for that as well as one for general extracurricular activities. Label another envelope with your teen’s grade level and Honors — you’ll stash certificates of achievement, pictures of science fair experiments, and other awards and recognitions here. Add one last envelope for community service — again, be sure to label it with your student’s grade level.
Make a basic information sheet for each class. Include:
the textbook(s) used, with ISBN numbera copy of the textbook’s table of contents (Do this now. The last thing you want to do is end up rooting through boxes in the garage in a couple of years to figure out if your son’s freshman biology class included a section on genetics.)
the course description and syllabus the name of the teacher (yes, even if it’s you)
the number of credit hours the course entails
Tuck this information sheet securely in the envelope. Add items to envelope as the year progresses. Things you’ll want to include:
graded papers and tests
samples of presentations, lab re- ports, or other work done in the class
a running reading list (Add titles of books and essays to the list as you read them so you don’t have to try to remember everything at the end of the year. Even better, have your student keep an annotated reading list — with notes about each book.)
notes about associated activities — visits to museums, lectures, theaters, etc. — that relate to the class
At the end of the class, write the final grade and total credit hours on the front of the envelope. Add:
official grades — community college report cards, printouts from an online class, or your evaluations
Ask any outside teachers to write a recommendation letter for your student. Do it now while your student’s work is still fresh in their minds, and add the recommendation to your envelope. If you decide to ask this teacher for a recommendation when you’re working on college applications, you can give him his original recommendation to refresh his memory.
If your student ends up taking an AP or CLEP exam in a subject, add the exam results to your envelope. Similarly, if your student publishes or wins an award for work she started in the class, add those credits to your envelope.
Use a binder clip to group your envelopes — depending on how your brain works, you may want them grouped by grade level, by subject matter, or by some other criteria. However you group them, they’ll make writing that final transcript a lot easier since all your information will be organized in one place.
How to Deal with Homeschool Mom Anxiety
1. If you’re worried about something specific — your child’s math skills or standardized test scores — the best thing you can do is to enlist a little help. Look for a teaching workshop or conference in the area you’re struggling with, or consider hiring a tutor or signing your child up for classes in the subject so that you can take a break from teaching it. This isn’t giving up: It’s using your resources wisely.
2. Schedule your days to emphasize problem areas. If your child is really struggling with fractions, change your daily math class to a cooking class so she can do some hands-on fractions work. If you’re worried about your child learning the states in the United States or the capitals of countries around the world, pick up a geography puzzle or game and make it a part of your daily routine for a while.
3. If your anxiety is more general, look for ways to relax, such as meditation, a walk, yoga class, or a solo cup of tea. You may also want to start a journal of good homeschool moments to flip back through during crisis moments to see that (at least sometimes) you really do know what you are doing. Joining a homeschool group where you can chat with other moms — many of whom have the same worries you do — can also help.
How to Skip Tests and Still Encourage Deep Learning
Want your students to really grasp a subject? Skip the tests, and let them lead them teach you the material instead. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that students who expected to teach material to another student had better recall and more sophisticated understanding of their subject than those who just expected to take a test. Instead of just trying to memorize information, students who expect to teach seek out key points and organize information into a coherent structure.
How to Stop Losing Library Books
If you’re racking up library fines left and right, getting organized can save you big bucks in the future. Set up a library station inside your house, where you can store your library booty and post the list of checked out materials every week. When kids want to grab a book or CD, ask them to sign it out, the same way they do at the library, then sign it back in when they return it. Not only does this boost library responsibility — kids and parents are more likely to keep up with books when they have to sign them out — it also makes it easy to track down lost books since you have a record of who had them last.
3 Middle Grades Fantasy Books I Really Liked
Looking for a middle grades fantasy for your next homeschool readaloud? We review three of our newer faves: The Time of Green Magic, Amari and the Night Brothers, and The Language of Ghosts.
The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay
★ ★ ★ ★ ½
I stan Hilary McKay, y’all, and I was so glad to get my greedy little hands on the advance copy of her new book. What I love about Hilary McKay (I think) is the way her big, messy, complicated families are big, messy, and complicated — there's no attempt to simple them up. Some people change and some people don’t, some people get better, some get worse, but everyone is ultimately accepted for who they actually are. I love that.
So in The Time of Green Magic, a new family is forming: When Theo and Polly fall in love, they move their two families together into a rambling old house covered with ivy (and at the very top of their budget). Theo’s daughter Abi is used to being an only child and having her Granny around — but now Granny’s gone back to live with her sister in Jamaica, and Abi’s stuck with two annoying brothers instead: Polly’s sons, grumpy teen Max, who is in the middle of a stupid fight with his best friend (that he knows is stupid but that he can’t bring himself to end), and little Louis, who wants to spend every minute with Abi and Max and can’t understand why they don’t want him around. Voracious reader Abi is the first to discover that there’s something strange happening in their new house — when she drifts deep into a book set on the ocean, she returns to reality with a salt-water-wet book in her hands — but lonely Louis is the one who nurtures the magic, when a mysterious and dangerous creature creeps through his window at night.
In some ways, this reminds me of Edgar Eager and Eva Ibbotsen — there’s magic here, but it’s matter-of-fact, everyday magic that believably flies under the radar of busy parents. Underneath the everyday, though, there’s this wonderful sense of eerie mystery, a reminder that the world is more magical than we assume. But it’s also pure McKay in the way that Abi, Max, and Louis become a family — a big, messy, complicated family, which is a kind of magic all its own.
Oh, I loved it. If you are in the mood for something warm and whimsical, give this one a go.
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
★ ★ ★ ★ ½
I can’t wait for the follow-up to Amari and the Night Brothers, and that’s about the highest praise I can offer.
Amari’s big brother Quinton is a legend in the Rosewood low-income housing project where they grew up: Not only did Quinton get into the fanciest prep school in town, he was also accepted to two Ivy League colleges and ended up with a mysterious government job. Amari’s brother is her hero — and so when he suddenly goes missing, she’s devastated. In her search for clues, she finds a ticking suitcase in her brother’s closet (surely it wasn’t always there?) and a nomination for the summer tryouts at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.
Quinton’s weird nomination opens up a world Amari never imagined — suddenly, she’s roommates with a weredragon, full of dangerous magic, and learning that there’s a whole magical world to explore. She’s determined to seize this opportunity to find out what happened to Quinton — but to do that, she’s going to have to follow in her brother’s footsteps and ace the summer Junior Agent competition against kids who’ve been training for this their whole lives. But that’s OK: Amari’s never run from a challenge before, and she’s not going to start now.
I loved so many things about this book, but one of the things I loved most was how effortlessly B.B. Alston demonstrates that a book can be a fabulous fantasy and also have strong family relationships, address racism, classism, and feminism, and refuse to settle for easy binaries of good and evil. In a middle grades book, y’all! The story doesn’t miss a beat, but it’s full of good, challenging questions and important discussions. This really may be that middle grades fantasy series you’ve been looking for — it was for me.
The Language of Ghosts by Heather Fawcett
★ ★ ★ ★ ½
The Language of Ghosts is a middle grades charmer, and practical, competent Noa is one of my new favorite heroines. When the novel begins, she’s utterly unmagical, but she’s the one who solves problems through observation and critical thinking. Noa’s always assumed that the magic skipped her, and she’s content to keep life running behind the scenes — which is no small task when your parents have been murdered, your family has been forced into exile, and your big brother is working to retake the throne. This requires him to channel the dark side of his magical abilities, however, and Noa becomes more and more worried that the darkness is overtaking him. She’s also worried because it turns out the magic hasn’t skipped her after all, and she has abilities that have been forgotten from magical lore. Her ability may be exactly what Julian needs to win the war — but it may also be the power that pushes him over to the dark side.
I really loved this book — the family relationships feel real, and I definitely identify with Noa, who is managing everything behind the scenes and not getting much credit for her work! In fact, in a lot of ways, this a family story that just happens to take place in a world where magic is real. This gives the story an emotional heft that plenty of middle grades fantasy don’t have — because we’re invested in Noa and her siblings, we genuinely care how the adventure turns out. Cleverly, the author uses these emotions to push toward a finale that is — if not surprising — pretty satisfying. My only complaint: The pacing is a little weird. It takes a long time for the story to get going, and then the ending feels kind of rushed. I liked it, though, and definitely recommend it for middle grade readers who like their magic with an emotional anchor.
Homeschool Moms: Stop Feeling Guilty All the Time
You can't do everything, be everything, buy everything — nobody can. So why do homeschool moms feel so guilty about it?
You can't do everything, be everything, buy everything — nobody can. So why do homeschool moms feel so guilty about it?
Most of us aren’t thinking about guilt when we talk about having it all, but guilt plays a larger-than-we’d-like part in most of our lives. As if it’s not hard enough trying to balance homeschooling, parenting, housework, work responsibilities, and, you know, life, now we’ve got to do it all with Facebook and Pinterest showing us exactly how much better everyone else is at managing all those things than we are, says Gail Sullivan, M.D., a New York-based psychiatrist. A side of guilt seems like an inevitable part of homeschool life since we can never do everything all the time.
But guilt isn’t harmless. Too much guilt, and we have trouble thinking clearly, concentrating, and performing daily tasks. (Don’t even get me started on all the sleep problems caused by excessive guilt build-up.) And all those little twinges of guilt add up faster than you might think — most women are spending at least a couple of hours every week feeling guilty, says psychologist and author Kathrynn Horne.
Where does all this guilt come from? Well, there’s a good chance that some of it is educational guilt. However confident we are in our choice to homeschool, most of us occasionally face the nagging worry that our first-grader will never learn how to read or our high school sophomore will never get into college. Then there’s the classic mom guilt, that persistent feeling that we’re doing too much or not enough for our kids. Social guilt kicks in when we have to deal with letting down other people, whether it’s saying no to a volunteer project (it really would be great to have a co-op newsletter…) or a friend request on Facebook. And finally, there’s individual guilt — often the toughest guilt to shake because it occurs when we feel like we’re not living up to our own expectations for ourselves.
No matter what the source of your guilt, here’s how to send it packing:
Understand why.
Thinking about things that make us feel guilty can be hard, but it’s important to identify the real reason why something is making you feel guilty. For instance, lots of people feel guilty about skipping their kids’ favorite park day, but your friend might feel guilty because she thinks her kids don’t get enough active play time while your guilt may stem from worries about other people’s questions about your homeschoolers’ socialization. Knowing why something is triggering your guilt reaction is the first step toward getting over it.
Address the issue.
Whenever you feel a pang of guilt, ask yourself whether your guilt is a one-off or a continuing theme. If you skipped out on math for a week because you just needed a break but you’ve been vigilant about making forward progress in math over the past couple of years, there’s really no reason to feel guilty — everyone needs a break now and again. On the other hand, if you’re always feeling guilty about screen time or missing your workout, you need to adjust your habits or your priorities to better reflect what matters to you.
Be your own best friend.
What would you tell a close pal who was feeling guilty about the thing that’s stressing you out? You’d probably be a lot kinder to her than you are to yourself: “A couple of drive-thru dinners aren’t going to permanently destroy your kids’ eating habits,” you might say, or “They’ll find someone else to do the co-op newsletter this year—you can’t do everything.” Give yourself the same grace and emotional support you’d give a friend, and it will go a long way toward loosening your guilt trip’s hold on you.
7 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER FEEL GUILTY ABOUT
Secular homeschool moms, we give you permission to never feel guilty about the following:
Saying “no” to a field trip/volunteer project/new curriculum/book club/anything you just don’t want to do.
Hiding from your kids in the bathroom. Everybody needs a break sometimes, and there’s no shame in taking it where you can.
Not checking your email. Or your Facebook messages. Or your phone. You’re allowed to unplug for a day.
Having a movie marathon and calling it school. Maybe you wouldn’t want to do it every day, but even professional teachers break out the DVD player sometimes.
Your life choices. You made them. They work for your family. You don’t have to justify or excuse them to anyone.
Ignoring a friend request. You’re not socially obligated to respond to every possible Facebook connection.
Not knowing the answer. Come on, finding out is the fun part.
YA Book Reviews: The Inheritance Games, The Stolen Kingdom, The Ivies
Three action-packed YA novels that might just scratch your homeschool reading sweet spot.
We review three action-packed YA novels: The Inheritance Games, The Stolen Kingdom, and The Ivies.
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
★ ★ ★ ½ ☆
Several people recommended The Inheritance Games to me, and I totally see why: It’s a fun, fast-paced read full of puzzles and surprises. Is it the best book I ever read? No. Did it make the perfect poolside reading pleasure? Totally.
Avery has no idea why she’s named in the will of billionaire Tobias Hawthorne — or why her inheritance depends on her making his enormous Texas estate her home for one year. (This is complicated by the fact that Hawthorne’s family, who have been disinherited by the same will, will be living in the house with Avery.)
Still, after being broke since her mom died a few years ago, Avery is up for the challenge. This inheritance could be her ticket to college and a life where she doesn’t have to wait tables to keep the lights on. But it quickly becomes obvious that Tobias Hawthorne is up to something, and his will is just the beginning of a long game. With help and hinderance from Hawthorne’s four grandsons, the media stalking her every move, and an estate full of secrets, Avery is going to have do some quick thinking and careful strategizing to figure out why a wealthy stranger made her his heir and what secret the Hawthorne estate is hiding. Luckily, Hawthorne picked the right girl for the job. Avery was born for this challenge.
There’s a big mysterious house full of hidden passages and secret codes. There’s a complicated family that is full of people who are Up To Something. There are Mysteries From the Past coming to light in the present. And there’s a reasonably satisfying conclusion. I’ll forgive it the love triangle and occasional plot hole for the sheer fun it was to read. This is a perfect summer book.
The Stolen Kingdom by Jillian Boehme
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
The Stolen Kingdom has a lot going on, and that may have been its downfall. The action happens from two perspectives: Maralyth, a winemaker’s daughter, discovers that she has magical powers and a claim to the throne of the kingdom; and Alac, the kingdom’s spare heir, is beginning to suspect that his father’s rule may be based on some shady sorcery. When their paths cross in an attempted coup, political and romantic sparks fly.
I love a stand-alone fantasy — you all know how I feel about cliffhanger endings! — but this one may have tried to do too much. The seeds of this book are good: There’s a complicated political/magical system, and I learned a lot about winemaking, which was cool (if possibly off-topic?). I think this wanted to be a feminist fantasy, but it fell into so many misogynist fantasy tropes: Maralyth is different from all those other girls, you guys, the ones who are happy to just get married and have babies. (Because of course they have so many choices about their lives in this fantasy world.) She is Special. She is so Special that the moment Alac sees her, he falls in insta-love and sees everything in his world in a whole new way. (Their “romance” is the second-flattest part of the book; the flattest is Maralyth’s relationship with her brother.) This is a real peeve of mine in fantasy literature, the One Special Girl trope, and so I know that people without this peeve might see the book very differently. If there had been a strong sense of world building, if there had been interesting political relationships, if the magic system had been developed, if the characters had more depth — maybe if any of these things had been the case, I could have gotten over my bias, but they didn’t, and I couldn’t. I didn't love this one.
The Ivies by Alexa Donne
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
The Ivies has so many things I love: Boarding school hijinks! Academic rivalries! Murder and mayhem! So it’s fair to say that I was prepared to be obsessed with this book — and that I was a little bummed that it didn’t quite live up to its promise.
First, the good: At super-competitive Claflin Academy, the Ivies are the ultra-elite, the five girls who have their Ivy League futures mapped out for them. Scholarship student Olivia knows she’s lucky to be included in this hotshot group — and she knows she's risking her luck when she applies early admission to Harvard, which is queen bee Avery’s exclusive domain. Avery doesn’t get in, Olivia does — and so does fellow Ivy Emma, who also went behind Avery’s back to apply. When Emma turns up dead, everyone’s a suspect and all kinds of hidden secrets are revealed.
It’s a good set-up! But the bad part is that it doesn’t quite work. Olivia herself is a big problem: A lot happens around her, but she never becomes a fully realized character, and the more the plot hinges on her, the more obvious that flatness becomes. The plot is full of twists and turns, but they feel predictable — though once you’ve read a bunch of YA thrillers, this is maybe inevitable, so it could be a Me Problem not a Book Problem. And the end — well, I didn’t like how things resolved, and I’m not sure what the ending says about all the different narrative threads the book was tugging along. It definitely seemed to contradict itself.
Still, boarding school murders are summer reading classics for a reason! I don’t think you’ll regret picking this one up if that’s your jam, but don’t expect any profundities or surprises.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Unit Study: Investigating Isaac Newton
Celebrate the birthday of the renowned physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian on January 4 with an Isaac Newton homeschool unit study.
Celebrate the birthday of the renowned physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian on January 4 with an Isaac Newton homeschool unit study.
Newton was a radical whose insights transformed the scientific landscape and laid the ground for modern mathematics and physics. He was the first person to truly quantify the law of gravity, the discoverer (with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz) of calculus, and the first person to recognize the spectrum in white light. Perhaps even more significant was his method, which focused on the mechanics of nature rather than any attempt to discern a cause.
Start Here
These biographies make a solid introduction to Newton and his most important ideas.
Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities by Kerrie Logan Hollihan lets you get to know Newton by doing some of the same kinds of experiments he did.
Isaac Newton (Giants of Science) by Kathleen Krull is an intelligent, lucid look at a complex man, though it touches on is- sues that may be more appropriate for older readers.
Isaac Newton and His Apple (Dead Famous) by Kjartan Poskitt is as hilarious as it is informative (though you may have to help your kids translate the occasional British-ism to get the joke).
Get Hands On
After all, Newton helped codify the practice of science. He’d want you to get messy with it!
Newton Connection: This simple experiment gives you a hands-on look at how the forces of gravity work.
Newton Connection: If you punch a hole in a cup full of water, the water leaks out. But if you drop that cup with a hole in it, the water stays inside because of freefall weightlessness.
Keep Water in an Upside-Down Bucket
Newton Connection: If you’re spinning the bucket steadily, the forces of gravity will keep the water inside, even when the bucket’s upside-down.
Dig a Little Deeper
Sample Newton’s influence with these activities online.
So just how important was Isaac Newton’s work to modern science? Let Albert Einstein tell you.
Find out how Newton’s discoveries influenced the invention of the airplane.
PBS has a fun look at Newton’s laws in action at the Big Apple Circus — plus ideas for further activities and resources to learn more.
Newtonian Explainers
Newton’s theories seem obvious, but they can be surprisingly hard to explain. Taking a look at different explanations can help you make sense of what Newton’s laws really mean and not just what they say.
NEWTON’S THREE LAWS OF MOTION An entertaining and easy-to-follow look at Newton’s laws of motion.
NEWTON’S PHYSICS NOTEBOOK A great introduction to Newton and his ideas.
MR. TRASK’S PHYSICS With required reading, extra resources, and lab projects, this online supplement is an in-depth look at Newton’s laws.
Newton in Action
Newton on the Bumper Cars Newton’s third law of motion is what makes riding in bumper cars so much fun.
Newton’s Favorite Toy Learn about Newton’s Cradle, a model used to demonstrate principles of physics.
Marble Maze Newton’s laws of motion determine how your marble moves.
Moon Craters The moon’s gravity attracts objects and pulls them to its surface at super-fast speeds, creating craters.
Advanced Reading
A Portrait of Isaac Newton by Frank Manuel paints a psychological picture of Newton’s life, picking up the threads left by John Maynard Keynes 1947 character study. What kind of person dedicates his life to understanding the world in this particular way? That's the question Manuel wants to answer.
Isaac Newton and Natural Philosophy by Niccolo Guicciardini summarizes the most current view of Newton — weaving together the different threads of his scientific and philosophical interests to explore intersections and contradictions.
Great Homeschool Readalouds: 12 Great Book Series to Read Together
Need a new series for winter readaloud season? We have a few ideas.
Sometimes you don’t just want a book — you want a whole series to read aloud in your homeschool. Discover a whole world of series to obsess over together when you’ve finished Harry Potter and the other usual suspects.
The Time Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle
Start with: A Wrinkle in Time
When Meg Murry comes downstairs on a dark and stormy night, she sets off a chain of events that will take her from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to the microscopic universe inside a single human cell, from the birth a star to the wasteland of a nuclear winter. L’Engle’s fascination with science is well-matched to her philosophical musings about good and evil, and this series manages to be as readable as it is thought-provoking.
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
Start with: Shards of Honor
You may be tempted to dismiss this science-fiction series, especially if you get hold of one of the 1980s editions with laser beams and spaceships on the cover. But you’ll be missing out. Bujold’s politically and technologically complex space opera, set in a future world where humans have colonized space, is a delight — smart, funny, and utterly absorbing.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Start with: The Golden Compass
The original sin of curiosity becomes a triumph rather than a fall in Pullman’s fantasy-world retelling of Paradise Lost. Stubborn, wild Lyra Belacqua comes from an alternate Oxford, where humans’ spirits live beside them in animal form. Independent, untrusting Will Parry comes from our world. Together, they’ll travel through other worlds, meeting witches, cliff ghasts, armored bears, and long-missing parents, on a quest that will save or destroy every world in the cosmos.
The Pendragon Adventures by D.J. MacHale
Start with: The Merchant of Death
Time travel is just the beginning for Bobby Pendragon, who takes on the Quantum Leap-esque burden of influencing civilizations across time and space to make the right decisions at pivotal moments in their development. Lots of action keeps things interesting, and the worlds — distinct but connected in space-time — are delightfully imagined, from the watery ocean world Cloral to the virtual reality wastelands of Veelox.
Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries by Dorothy Sayers
Start with: Strong Poison
You have my permission to skip Five Red Herrings, which gets a bogged down with time tables and bus routes, but no Sherlock fan should miss Lord Peter. High-strung, over-educated, aristocratic Lord Peter assists in solving tricky mysteries with the help of his gentleman’s gentleman Bunter and (eventually) his Oxford-educated, detective novelist wife, whom he meets when she is on trial for murder (in Strong Poison).
Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
Start with: The Adventures of Captain Underpants
This series, about two boys who inadvertently turn their principal into a crime-fighting, underpants-flashing superhero, is unapologetically silly, but that’s part of what makes it so fun. George and Harold find themselves caught up in an increasingly ludicrous series of adventures, including battling lunchroom zombie nerds and bionic booger boys.
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
Start with: Emily of New Moon
If Anne of Green Gables is a domestic fairy tale, Montgomery’s Emily trilogy is its original-Grimm-version cousin. Like Anne, Emily Starr is an orphan in love with the beauty of the natural world and passionate about the power of words. But Emily lacks Anne’s charm, her easy friendships, her ability to make the best of things. Oh, there’s plenty of Montgomery’s gentle fireside humor, but Emily must fight much harder and sacrifice much more for her ambition.
Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Start with: Gregor the Overlander
Though her Hunger Games trilogy is more popular, Collins’ underworld epic is arguably a better work. Gregor falls through a grate in his New York City laundry room and finds himself in an underground civilization, where enormous spiders, cockroaches, bats, and rats, coexist with deep-dwelling humans. A series of Underland prophecies may point Gregor toward his destiny, if he can survive the perils of the underground kingdom.
The Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright
Start with: The Saturdays
When you find yourself wishing life were simpler, blame the Melendys. Enright’s family — including actress Mona, pianist Rush, dancer Randy, and little brother Oliver — inhabit a golden 1940s New York, where children can safely roam the streets of Manhattan solo and go swimming in dammed-up brooks. Nostalgic but never treacly, the Melendy stories are a pleasantly absorbing trip to the past.
The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan
Start with: The Ruins of Gorlan
Orphaned Will’s not so sure he wants to become an apprentice to the Rangers, the spy network for the country Araluen, but the alternative is working in the fields. So Will sets off with his new mentor Halt to protect the kingdom from traitors and invaders.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Start with: Leviathan
Set in an alternate World War I, this steampunk trilogy pits the Clankers and their mechanized war machines against the Entente Powers and their genetically fabricated living creatures. It’s up to the on-the-run heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a girl who’s disguised herself as a boy so she can join the British Air Service to bring the world back to peace.
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Start with: Swallows and Amazons
Homeschoolers have helped rediscover this old- fashioned British series about two groups of families who bond over a shared love of sailing in an idyllic countryside where kids are perfectly safe setting up camp on an island for the summer.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
3 Real-Life Ways to Organize Your Homeschool
Whether you live to color-code or need a system that flexes and changes with your family’s needs, keeping good homeschool records is essential. And you can do it — all you need is a system that you’ll actually use.
Whether you live to color-code or need a system that flexes and changes with your family’s needs, keeping good homeschool records is essential. And you can do it — all you need is a system that you’ll actually use.
Homeschooling ends up being as much a lifestyle choice as an educational one, and like any part of a busy life, homeschooling can feel like too much some days, too little other days, and a whole lot of stress in between. A schedule isn’t going to give you more hours in the week, but the right schedule can help you make peace with the hours that you have and feel good about how you’re spending them. These three secular homeschool organization methods are flexible, friendly, and — best of all — guaranteed guilt-free, even if you don’t follow them exactly.
THE WEEKLY MEETING
Works great for: Families whose schedules change from week to week
Lara and Ken Miller had the school routine down pat, but when they decided to homeschool their 12-year-old and 9-year-old sons, it felt like everything was constantly falling apart.
“Every time I’d feel like we were getting things under control, something would change — math would get more intensive, or we’d sign up for a nature center class, or one of my sons would get a part in a community theater show,” Lara says. “There was no normal, so however hard we tried to color code or share calendars or meal plan, stuff slipped through the cracks.”
After an extended soccer season made refrigerator scramble dinners and morning late-starts all-too-common, the Millers knew something had to give. So Lara and Ken decided to give up planning in favor of taking it one week at a time. Every Sunday night, they sit down together, and figure out the week ahead. Sometimes, everything falls into a neat rhythm, but usually, they’re coordinating drop-offs and pick-ups, grocery shopping and hands-on learning time.
“None of our weeks look the same, but they feel balanced because we take the time to sit down and figure them out,” Lara says. “Stuff pops up. Stuff always does. But this level of planning means that when something pops up, we can handle it without everything else falling into chaos.”
To make the weekly meeting work for your family:
Keep a running to-do list so that all your need-tos, ought-tos, and want-tos are in one place. The key to this system is being able to accurately plot your week’s to-do list.
Plug in downtime. “Early on, we crammed every minute full, but that’s no sustainable,” Lara says. “Now I build 30-minute windows on either side of all our activities — and Ken and I put a date night on the calendar every night, even if it’s just an hour to chill and watch The Good Place.”
Keep a dry erase board for command central. The Millers in- clude what’s for dinner, classes and les- sons for each day, and extracurricular fun on theirs so that everyone knows what’s happening each day.
Use common sense. You can’t always do everything, and instead of trying, a weekly meeting lets you set your priorities. It’s easier to say, “sorry, we’re going to miss park day this week,” if you can say, “but look, we’re going to see that awesome puppet show on Thursday, and we have a playdate with Ellie and Jen.”
THE PLAN-AS-YOU-GO SCHEDULE
Works great for: Families who have trouble sticking to a schedule
We’ve been homeschooling for more than a decade, and I think I’ve tried every organization method out there — for about three weeks. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how many pretty calendars I bought, no matter how good my intentions were, planning did not work for us.
I’d schedule a day for math and science and wake up with an itch to visit the beach. Or we’d schedule two hours for history and end up spending a week on a rabbit trail that we couldn’t resist. It took me a surprisingly long time to realize that I didn’t need a schedule to create balance and rhythm in our homeschool — I just needed a way to track what we did every day so that I could look back and see the overall balance and rhythm in our homeschool and so that I could make adjustments if I noticed a gap.
This system, which I brilliantly called plan-as-you-go homeschooling, has worked well for us because it acknowledges that we are not going to schedule our weeks or months in advance. We’re going to take each day as it comes, and having an organization system that embraces that has reduced my scheduling stress significantly.
To make the plan-as-you-go schedule work for your family:
Be consistent with keeping records. Writing down what you did each day is the essential part of this method, but you really have to do it every single day. If you skip days or wait until the end of the month, you’ll forget things and lose that sense of scrupulous record-keeping. I jot down my notes every night before I pick up my bedtime book.
Consider color-coding. I know it’s nerdy, but having a consistent color I use to make notes for each kid makes finding what I am looking for much easier.
Review often. A key to feeling good about this method is going back to check for gaps: You may notice that you’ve been missing science for a couple of weeks or that you have been doing way more history than you thought. Reviewing helps you feel more confident that you’re keeping the right balance.
Don’t get too fancy. The more complicated your system is, the harder it will be to maintain — and you already know you’re not a person who likes scheduling things! Cool fonts and fancy stickers can be fun, but don’t let them get between you and efficient record keeping.
LOOP SCHEDULING
Works great for: Families who have trouble getting to everything on their to-do list
When Emily Muller Rylands started homeschooling her 10-year-old daughter, she had great plans to cover everything from nature study and art to hands-on science and ancient history. But it turned out that real life kept getting in the way.
“I’d make schedules, and we’d get invited to a theater production or really get into a book we were reading or spend way more time on math than I’d planned,” says Emily.
Emily felt guilty, and her daughter Annabeth felt frustrated that they’d chosen all this exciting work that they never actually got around to doing.
Loop scheduling proved to be the answer. In loop scheduling, you don’t try to break out your to-do list into a daily plan. Instead, you make a master list of all the things you want to do, and you pay attention to where you leave off each day so that you can pick back up with the next thing on your list when you come back. Loop scheduling lets you move at your own pace, but it ensures that you don’t accidentally skip music appreciation for another year.
“We do a little math and reading together every day, so those don’t go in the schedule — and on super-busy weeks, that may be most of what we end up doing,” says Emily. “But when we start the day, I always know what we want to do next.”
Emily loops based on how much time she wants to spend on a subject, so art and science occur twice as often as handwriting and dictation. When they get to the end of the list, they start again back at the top.
“This doesn’t seem complicated, but it revolutionized our homeschooling,” says Emily. “Before, I always felt like we were behind and not getting enough done. Now, we have a plan.”
Tips for making loop scheduling work for your family:
Use the categories that make sense for your homeschool. For some people, that might be as simple as “math,” but other people might want to schedule time for “Beast Academy” and “Singapore.” Your schedule can be as specific or relaxed as you want.
Be creative. Emily uses loops to keep work from being routine — she and Annabeth include artist studies, painting, drawing, and mixed media on their loop so that they're experimenting with different art projects throughout the year.
Keep a master schedule. Emily laminates hers and uses a dry erase marker to check off each item as they get to them. When they’ve worked through the whole list, she erases and starts over.
Great Homeschool Readalouds: The Hundred and One Dalmatians
In this funny, old-fashioned story, two Dalmatian parents set off to rescue their kidnapped puppies. It's so much more fun than the movie!
THE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS by Dodie Smith
Don’t confuse the Disney adaptation with this delightfully old-fashioned story — the book is much funnier and more charming than its animated or live-action cinematic version. And the original book makes a really lovely holiday readaloud.
Pongo and Missis live a dog-gone (sorry — I couldn’t resist) perfect life in London with the Dearlys, who adore their pets and their fifteen Dalmatian puppies. But Mrs. Dearly’s old school mate, the fabulous, Bohemian, and kind of evil Cruella de Vil, has her own ideas about those distinctively spotted puppies’ future. When she kidnaps the Pongo puppies — and a slew of other Dalmatian pups—Pongo and Missis set off on adventure across London to Cruella’s estate to rescue their family, helped along the way by a host of plucky pets.
There’s enough action in this short novel to keep you on the edge of your seat, and Cruella de Vil is an iconic bad guy. (There’s not a sympathetic backstory in sight.) And the animal heroes are delightful — like Beatrix Potter characters raised in the city or the canine characters of some pre-Jeeves Wodehouse story. And the snowy backdrop of the English countryside has a cozy wintry feel that’s just right reading over the winter holidays.
Sure, there are some quibbles: You can definitely argue that there’s more than a little sexist stereotyping in the story, but for a product of its time, it could be a lot worse. (For instance, it’s Mr. Dearly who does the round-the-clock feedings for two days for the new puppies, which seems quite progressive). There’s a also a scene set in a Christmas Eve church that may feel too religious for some secular homeschoolers, but it really seems to be more about kindness and community than any particular kind of religion. I like old-fashioned books, though, so I may have a soft spot for some of their features that might spark more annoyance for other readers.
Ultimately, I think this is a funny, charming children’s story that makes a perfect multi-age readaloud.
Quotable: “Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.”
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