Homeschool Maven

04/03/2023

So excited for the God-Centered History Summit this week! Check it out!

Helping Families Like Yours From America to Asia to wherever your family calls home, Homeschool Summits’ online events come right to you. Receive practical, biblical help and hope for God-centered home education and discipleship. We’ve helped thousands of families like yours since we launched in...

06/07/2022

We took a day to focus on sibling relationships yesterday after having quite a bit conflict among the brothers in the last few days. One of the things that eases tensions best for us is hitting the trail. We kicked off the first hike in our Decode Douglas County Outdoors program yesterday under the cool shade of the rain clouds that barely hit us with a sprinkle. It was just what the doctor ordered. 💓

My kids are very blessed with many great friends and more toys than ought to be allowed. And while I don’t mean to complain, sometimes that outward focus can wind up pulling them away from each other. We had to get away, just us and nothing but our hiking packs. The boys ended the day saying how much fun they had hiking and of course there will be much more to come!

05/24/2022

“More, more, more! I love this math!” Thrilled that this guy is loving subtraction with regrouping! We love Math-U-See from Demme Learning and have used it for our math curriculum for years. I won’t lie and say it’s always sunshine and rainbows for my crew. But this program makes it much more fun and manageable. As a math-lover mama, I highly recommend!

05/23/2022

Sneaky mom video! Nothing warms my heart quite like watching one of the big boys teach their younger brother, unprompted 💓

03/04/2022

I always love this verse we came upon again during our study on patience this morning. Praying you all finish your school weeks strong and enjoy the weekend! 🙏

03/02/2022

Around here, it’s hard to snag a tennis court once schools let out for summer. But on a warm winter day, we’ve got our pick of the courts to play! 🎾 It’s a little wet still, but it didn’t bother us a bit! My boys kept needing “snow breaks” to go lay in the last remaining mounds of snow because the 69 degree temperature was too hot 🥵Honestly, I wanted to join them! 🤣

02/06/2022

We love geography around here! 🌎 It was my dream for the first three years in our current house to add a wall to wall mural of the world map in our reading room. We got it done just in time for our seven continents unit study last summer (and I’m finally getting around to sharing it with you 🤪). Thanks Kanvas Wall Arts!

Go check out the newest post up on the blog to see all the fun resources we used to study the continents. Link in bio.

02/05/2022

Social studies are super fun when the Olympics roll around! I am an Olympic ju**ie. Before kids, I had grand (and totally unrealistic) goals of catching all the events 🤪 So I’m definitely geared up to share my love for the games with my boys!

We kicked off with the boys each crafting their own Olympic torches and we snagged some of the fun ideas and links from the Winter Games Unit Study from Homeschooling Today magazine.

Since the kids have been a under the weather, the video links were perfect. We learned more about time zones around the world and watched a fun Blippi video with real Olympic athletes! 🏂🥇

We finished the day watching the opening ceremonies (at least until after Team USA paraded through and it was time for bed!). We will be learning about different Olympic sports throughout the Winter Games alongside our normal studies. We are all so excited!

02/02/2022

Groundhog Day has always been a special day for me because it is my brother’s birthday. And around here we always enjoy special groundhog crafts, food, or activities. This time we are doing a fun groundhog lap book from Homeschool Share!

Instead of making a lap book and having each kid craft their own, I partially prepared all of the pieces and laid them out on our homeschool table last night. Then the kids take turns picking one to complete and we add them all together for our monthly bulletin board. We like to do something creative that revolves around a holiday each month or something special we are looking forward to, for the bulletin board. This is a fun way to use a lap book together and display it!

Turns out my big boys woke up not feeling great and we had a big blizzard last night. So little man is taking good care of big bros and spearheading the groundhog projects 😍

08/28/2021

With the mandates coming down the pipeline again, we have more new Colorado homeschool families. Whether that’s you or you’ve been at this a while, this event is for you!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/homeschool-support-session-tickets-167608514579?fbclid=IwAR1l9iurOBSZo0ZHyDdAt40yp-M6DxC-HU2fi3Dd9_OaZv7vGGx3-hszmug

Come listen to veteran homeschool moms and get your questions answered for a new school year! Join us in Koelbel Meeting Room A.

10/20/2020

Hands on game I put together to teach the kids about the Electoral College. We are studying our government and the election this semester alongside our other subjects. Marvel and DC Comics Superheroes to represent the candidates, Hot Wheels and Matchbox Cars for voters, and some Post-it notes for electoral votes. We started out reading about it in a section of one of our Learn Our History booklets and then followed up with this game...

First, we sorted the cars by color especially for my preschooler and talked about how each different color group represented citizens from a certain state for the game. Then we assigned each “state” electoral votes. We all took turns driving one car in line in front of the “candidate” they were voting for. And once the “states” votes were counted, we awarded the electoral votes to the correct “candidate”. Finally, we worked on our math skills by counting popular votes and electoral votes and comparing the two. Then we would play all over again and see how the result might change.

It’s a pretty advanced concept for their ages, but my big boys seemed to get it with the game. The kids just wanted to keep playing!