It’s almost the end of the school year and I realized I’ve hardly posted about our year in homeschool. It has been a busy year for us. We have traveled the world learning about each continent, studying a number of countries in detail, and learning about each ecosystem around the world, all with the travel guidance of our My Father’s World curriculum. Along the way, we read stories and biographies about missionaries who loved and served the lost around the world. We also studied different people groups and prayed for a people group each week. And we enjoyed food such as bratworst and sauerkraut, nutella crepes, fatoush and kabobs, chicken satay, an Indian mango drink, and Australian meat pie.

And that was just in geography and science!

We also joined our local co-op and did a science class using Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day (Young Explorer Series) (Young Explorer (Apologia Educational Ministries)). This was our first year doing Apologia and we loved it! I learned as much as my son. Doing the accompanying lapbook made the learning even more fun and helped my son retain what he had learned.

Another new curriculum for us this year was A Reason for Spelling: Student Workbook Level C (Reason for Spelling: Level C). The spelling curriculum we used last year was unremarkable and disappointing. I have been so pleased with A Reason for Spelling! There is a story at the beginning of each lesson about a class of students. The stories incorporate a Biblical lesson, often a godly character trait or lesson in faith. The spelling words learned that week come from the story. The curriculum provides opportunity for kinesthetic learners as well (my son spelled his words with pipe cleaners, play dough, and even Scrabble Cheez-Itz).

Because we traveled with my husband a number of places this year, we were able to go on many field trips. We visited Washington, D.C. and toured monuments and the Smithsonian. We also went to children’s museums, science museums, aquariums, zoos, and more. If you want to know how we travel and do homeschool at the same time, read my post here.

We had a full year and I look forward to teaching two next year as my youngest will be starting kindergarten. What about you? How was your school year?

There are numerous benefits to homeschooling. One of our favorites is the freedom it gives to travel. My husband is often out of town for work and since we homeschool, we like to join him on his travels. For the most part, we are able to keep up with our homeschooling while we are away. Today, I wanted to share a few ideas on how we homeschool while out of town.

To read the rest of this post, visit Hip Homeschool Moms, where I am contributing today.

Disclaimer: I received access to the resources on this site in exchange for this review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.

We have been a homeschooling family for one year now. I can audibly breathe a sigh of relief that we made it to a year. Better yet, we are going to keep going. Hurray!

As any homeschooling family knows, teaching your children at home is not an easy job. I’ve made many mistakes and continue to learn as I go. I am always on the lookout for additional resources I can use to supplement our core curriculum. My kids need fun ways to learn that they can do on their own. The HEV Project is a great resource for parents looking for an additional resource for learning. They have made short videos on a variety of topics that instruct children on that topic. After watching the video, there are activities they can do to further enhance what they have learned. The topics range from science to art to chess to geography and more. They continue to add videos to the site.

My oldest son spent a lot of time exploring the videos available. He enjoyed them all but the one he loved the most was chess. There are a number of brief videos on chess, taking the viewer step by step through the entire game. From learning the basic pieces to learning challenging strategies, it’s all there. I’d never seen my son so inspired to try out everything he had learned!

In addition, the site also offers book reviews, contests, and (soon) forums for speech and writing.

The HEV Project offers many payment options, allowing you to pay what you can afford to pay. They understand the financial burden homeschooling can be for families. If one of the financial plans does not fit your budget, they encourage you to contact them directly to arrange a plan.

If you’d like to learn more about the HEV Project, click here.

The owners of The HEV project would like to offer one of my readers a free year’s membership to their site. Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing. Random.org will select the winner on August 14 at 8:00pm EST. Update, 8/14, Marilyn, you are the winner of this drawing. I will contact you via email. Congratulations!

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“A mother’s heart is the child’s classroom.” Henry Ward Beecher

Families choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, and our family is no different. One of our reasons to homeschool was our desire to teach our children from a biblical worldview. Let’s face it, there are many things out there vying for our children’s hearts and minds. For our family, we wanted to give our children a solid biblical foundation from which to learn and grow.

I can lay blame on the world for its negative influences on my children–I have and I do. But what about my own influence? What if the greatest influences on my children’s minds and hearts comes not from outside our home, but from within me?

If my heart is the classroom for my children, what are they learning there?

To read the rest of this post, visit Hip Homeschool Moms, my writing home today.

We’ve been working on a big science project all semester. For my son’s weekly enrichment class that he attends, each student had to work on a science project. My son chose mealworms.

What are mealworms? I had never seen one until he chose this experiment. Honestly, I am not a bug or creature lover. I guess I’m a city girl at heart. But like any good momma would do, I allowed mealworms in our house.

Mealworms are the larvae of the Darkling Beetle. They go through a complete four stage cycle which is fascinating to watch: egg, larvae, pupae, beetle. For anyone who has done a butterfly kit with their child, this is similar, except you can watch the cycle go on forever if you’d like.

Mealworms can be purchased at a pet store. They need to be in an open container with oatmeal or wheat flour to eat and they drink the juice from carrots.

For this experiment, we tested how temperature effected the growth of the mealworms. We had one box in our garage and another outside. As it turns out, mealworms grow quickly through the four stage cycle when they are in warm, humid air.

A great site that has everything you’d ever want to know about mealworms is through the University of Arizona.

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Getting little sleep, I miss my alarm.  I jump up and race through my morning routine because I know that mornings before the kids get up are my best chance to get things done.  Both of my boys also seemed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  I find that my computer is slow to wake up as well.  And the chores seem to have doubled overnight.  I send my oldest to his room to change for the day, only to come in five minutes later and find him daydreaming, still in pj’s.  We finally sit down to start school and I get little cooperation.  There’s complaining about too much writing, “I don’t want to’s,” and “how long do we have to do this?” Not only that, my coffee’s gone cold.

To read the rest of this post, visit Hip Homeschool Moms where I am guest posting today.