Zen Wahm

If you recently made the decision to bring your kiddo(s) home from public school it’s likely you are doing a little bit of freaking out. That’s totally normal. It’s to be expected. You have made a big decision that not many make. Welcome!! We first started homeschooling starting in my kiddo(s) 5th grade year. She is now a junior in high school and thriving. In the beginning we tried a lot of…

Tina’s Learning Adventures Review

Hanna and I recently had the opportunity to dig into a couple of the World Culture courses offered by Tina’s Learning Adventures. I honestly don’t do reviews just for the sake of reviews, I do them when it’s something we would have actually used, or are already interested in. These courses fit the bill… we’re always interested in learning more about Asia. The courses we had access to are Japan…

Horse Math: Real Life Math of an Unschooler

Math. Math. Math.

It seems to be the true sticking point for people. I frequently here, “We unschool… except for math.” Honestly, we used to unschool, except for math, too. It was the one thing I couldn’t easily see her “learning” without lessons, teachers, and “practice problems”. We tried and tried to find something that worked, and by work, I mean didn’t have herus in tears by the end of…

Homeschooling Middle School with TV and Movies

We use a lot of TV and movies in our homeschool. It seems to be a medium we can both enjoy, and it generally spurs conversation. I don’t set out and create a schedule or try to make a curriculum to follow, we just choose what looks interesting and dig in. I thought it would be fun to track the things we’re watching and share them with you. Since we’re already more than halfway through this year,…

This year we’ve been using the Universal Yums box as the “spine” for our social studies/geography studies. It’s been really fun. This month’s box is from The Netherlands. Here’s some resources to add to the box to learn a bit more about The Netherlands.

Universal Yums Box: (save $5 through this link!)

I’ve put together some  resources we’ll use to learn more about The Netherlands through the…

Tenzi Game Review: A favorite homeschool math game

Today Hanna and I decided to review one of our favorite homeschool math games, Tenzi. Tenzi is a fast paced dice game. The goal of the game (if you play the basic version) is to get all ten of your dice on the same number as fast as you can, before your opponent. Basic Tenzi is super fun… but after a while, you start to wish there was a little more to it. Well, luckily there is! 77 Ways to play…

Homeschool Planning for Relaxed Eclectic Research Junkies

It’s that time of year again, everyone is scrambling around trying to create a plan of action or a plan to follow for the upcoming homeschool year. It’s also that time of year where some people have already started and I’m already seeing the posts in my group about OMG my well thought out, amazing plan, is not working!! We are only 3 days in and we’re already BEHIND!!

It happens every year. It…

Playing With Language: Language Arts Games for Middle School

I’ll admit it right up front, language arts is my favorite part of homeschool. It’s the part I feel most comfortable and confident about, so it ends up being the one where we have the most freedom and fun.

When Hanna was younger we played Mad Libsall the time in the car. What an easy way to start introducing the parts of speech, in a fun and silly way. When she couldn’t remember what an adverb…

7th Grade Math Resources

I’ll say it right up front. Math is not our favorite subject. Math is the subject I find hardest to be relaxed eclectic with. Math is the subject I try to find someone else to teach so I can stay as far away from it as possible.

With that said… we’re getting better. I’ve pulled together a bunch of resources for us to use this year. They are relaxed, and eclectic, and I believe will help us not…

It’s that time of year again. The time when I start researching and finding resources for the upcoming year. It’s one of my favorite times of year, because I absolutely LOVE researching. Problem is, a month from now I won’t be able to find that extensive list I made in the purple sparkly notebook, or was the green one?

This year I decided to try something a little different. I decided to make a…

The Science of Questions

My kiddo loves science, and I love that she loves science. I want, more than anything, to foster this love, which means I’m willing to do just about anything in the name of science. This includes buying “curriculum”. Which is hilarious, because every single time I buy a curriculum, we start, and then veer off onto a tangent never to finish said course or curriculum. This has happened with Climate…

Poetry Tea Time: So Much More Than Just Poems

We do Poetry Tea Time on Tuesdays, because… alliteration. 🙂 We’ve been skipping our tea times a bit lately, which is sad, because they are a well loved part of our week. This month, my kiddo’s Raddish Kids kit came with a recipe for scones. I thought they’d be perfect for Tea Time, so I suggested we make time for tea this week. She agreed. By mid afternoon I was feeling a little frustrated,…

Quiddler: A Language Arts Game Review

If you’re in my Facebook group, you’ve probably heard me talk about, and seen the pictures of Quiddler. Quiddler is one of our favorite, and go to games. It’s a language arts game, and even I am surprised by how much we learn and reinforce each time we play. If you’re looking for a super fun game, and one that teaches spelling, literacy, dictionary skills, parts of speech, suffixes, prefixes,…

Discount! A Real Life Math Game Review

It was a seriously real life math game weekend over here! We had 3 of them show up in the mail, and we played them all this weekend!! There was Grocery Cart on Friday. Budget on Saturday and Sunday we sat down and played Discount! There is a LOT of math practice with Discount. It’s no secret we’ve struggled with finding the right math program. We’ve used many different programs, and with each one…

Budget: A Real World Math Game Review

Yesterday I reviewed Grocery Cart, another real life math game. Last night, after a long day working at the barn, Hanna and I sat down with dinner and Budget. I’ll be honest, I don’t love this game as much as Grocery Cart, but it’s a good game, and there’s TONS of learning going on. Here’s how you play.  To start this real world math game each person puts $2,500 in their bank account. You must…

Real Life Math Board Games

I picked up PayDay not long ago, thinking it would be a great way to learn some life skills and do a little math. Wow, was I wrong. I ended up hating PayDay, with gameplay like “pay your friend $100 because it’s their birthday,” even if you had to take out a bank loan. Not the lesson I was going for. I was pretty excited when I saw Grocery Cart pop up in a gameschool group I’m in. It looked right…

*We received a free copy of CompoundIt!, in exchange for an honest review. Opinions, as always, are all mine. 🙂 * I don’t know if you remember, but I used to hate games. Then I decided I didn’t want to hate games anymore, and started buying new, better games, and playing them a lot more. You might even call us gameschoolers now. *gasp* I was pretty excited when I had the opportunity to test out a…