What happened to May? It feels like I wrote my review of April, blinked, and all of the sudden it’s nearly June! For reference, I have three boys and we are using AmblesideOnline. At the end of the month I now have: Age 10 in Year 5, Term 2, Age 9 in Year 4, Term…
At the first lecture for my masters in education, my professor told the class that research was clear: assessment dictates how and what students learn. If you want your students to achieve certain educational goals, you have to get your assessment in line with those goals. For an MA in education designed to prepare students…
Rooting out weeds from a garden has two parts: pulling up the weeds that are growing on one hand and establishing the plants that you do want on the other. If we only ever pull at the weeds, we’ll be at it forever. Once that lettuce or those pumpkins or the dahlias get going, however,…
My children pooled their pocket money and bought a set of walkie talkies this week. They have mostly used them to talk to each other as they sit in the same room (go figure), but they are looking forward to getting them out and about. These walkie talkies represent freedom – the ability to go…
A few years ago I picked up J. P. Moreland’s Love Your God with All Your Mind (referral link). It was published in 1997, and is a little bit dated in its lack of references to social media and smartphones. Otherwise, it’s been a helpful look at the role of intellectual growth in the life…
I have been on a slow and evolving mission to manage the way I use technology and social media for the past two or three years. I’ve had a number of moments of clear conviction that I was frittering my time away, basking in the shallows of other people’s lives and failing to live my…
Over the past few weeks we’ve explored Charlotte Mason’s educational tool of discipline from various angles: the limits of this tool, how habits work on our hearts, and even how to approach building good habits. After this week I’ll depart from habits for a while, but not until we take a look at how habits…
This week I finished reading Rethinking Positive Thinking by Gabriele Oettingen (referral link). I relate to the premise so much. I love to imagine achieving big goals, whether it is related to homeschooling, my website, a health and fitness related challenge. In my mind, I can feel the sense of accomplishment and my sense of…
April was a turn-around month. We quickly wrapped up our winter term, took a fleeting week off from lessons, celebrated a birthday, and jumped right into our summer term. Here’s how the month went. For reference, I have three boys and we are using AmblesideOnline. At the end of the month I now have: Age…
Last week we considered the limitations of habits. When we talk about habits, I think it’s always good to begin with a few qualifications. Habits are not a form of lifehacking. They are not a quick fix to our problems. They can be hard work, and as we saw in the Parents’ Review article last…