Middle School Geography Block
Scaling up a Elementary Block to Fit a Middle School Geography Curriculum We recently did a block for geography that I used a lot of the books and activities that we did in elementary school. This was a short three-week block. For this post, I’m going to show you how I scaled the entire block…
Gerrymandering Exercise
An Activity from our US Constitution Block As part of our US history this year, we did a short block on the US Constitution. Listening to the book that I had chosen for the spine of the Block, Fault Lines in the Constitution, they had a chapter that talked about drawing district lines and gerrymandering.…
Making Hominy
Making a Common Food for our Native American Studies Corn. It’s the center of the indigenous world in north America. As I researched various nations of native peoples across the United States for the beginning of our native American block, several consistent, unifying concepts kept coming into place. Impressions like reciprocity, the moon, and its…
Pine Needle Baskets
A Hand Craft to Accompany our Study of Native America I often pair handcrafts with our history lessons. This keeps little hands busy while we are listening to our lessons and helps us to retain our lessons more easily. One of the many handcrafts that I chose for our Native American block last year was…
An Introduction to History Analysis and Essay Form
Using Comparison and Continuity and Change over Time for Homeschool Writing This is the second year of US History. If you don’t know, we start with world history with the Ancients and move chronologically through elementary school. In middle school we start with US History. Last year, we spent the year on the Indigenous peoples…
Spinning with a Drop Spindle
Early Colonial Crafts for our Homeschool Handcrafts for our US History We’ve just started our first history block of the year for US History. The block will cover early colonialization. To go along with this block, I’ve chosen a few early colonial skills needed to serve as our handcrafts. The first one is spinning fiber.…
Making Maple Candy
An Activity for our Native American History and Literature Study – The Anishinaabe Nation As part of our Anishinaabe study under our Native America History and Literature block we attempted making maple syrup candy. It was surprisingly simple and easy to make with only one ingredient – maple syrup. I wanted to use an Anishinaabe elder’s…
Some Favorite Books for Black History Month
I know I’m a little late to the ballgame, but I wanted to add to the wonderful collection of books that I am seeing for Black History Month. Not all of them are historical necessarily, but there are a couple that I just needed to add anyway. These are not affiliate links. I, Matthew Henson…
Industrial Revolution
We recently finished our block on the Industrial Revolution. This was such an interesting block in the time period, and innovations had a diversity of impacts on so many people – some good and some bad. I used The Industrial Revolution for Kids as a spine of sorts, reading from it on a regular basis.…
A Time-Sequence Graph
When my son was in eighth grade, I compiled several resources to make a “How We Learn/How to Study” course in preparation for High School. It went over thinks like memory recall, reflection, interleaving, and notetaking. One aspect that we spent some time on were graphs and using them for study, understanding, and notetaking. In…
African Holocaust Block
Because the African Holocaust is a heavy one, I knew that I wanted to sandwich it in-between some ‘good stuff.’ I decided to do this by first exploring the continent of Africa and ending on the accomplishments and achievements of a few African-decent people. This block is a fifth grade history block. Before I continue…
Fourth Grade Year in Review
This was such a fun video to make. I had just finished looking through the kids portfolios in preparation for their annual evaluation, and then looked through photographs of the year to add to the video. Looking back at the year allows for me to see how much we have accomplished in the last year.…
My Favorite Educational Apps
The homeschool world abounds with opinions on electronics. Some think that electronics should be limited, while others think that electronics should be embraced. My family falls somewhere in between. We do limit our screen time at my house to encourage and promote outdoor (and indoor) play, but I do use them for educational purposes occasionally, especially on…
Shakespeare Unit
This was a fabulous homeschool unit where everything just came together. There was a lot of interweaving of facts throughout the books and projects. Our Read Aloud books, The Shakespeare Stealer and Shakespeare’s Scribe, both describe events that we read about in our historical books – the coup attempt by the Earl of Essex, the…
Explorers of the World History Unit
This year in history we have come to the dreaded “Age of Discovery,” which is a misnomer, because all these European explorers really “discovered” nothing at all. These places were already inhabited and well-established, sometimes with populations even greater than any in Europe at the time. A better name for this time period might be…
How Homeschooling is Different than the Brick and Mortar School
My father-in-law, a retired high school science teacher, sat across from me in our living room at their last visit discussing all things education. If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ll know I love to talk homeschool. It was a fun and lively conversation, mostly about teaching science, when the topic of discussion turned…
Peg Dolls Skin Tones Using Natural Dyes
Recently I was gifted several wooden peg dolls from Woodpecker Crafts. I had seen Hana with Pepper and Pine’s project of using natural dyes to color wooden peg dolls and was excited to try it. I’m hoping to incorporate these dolls in our Explorer’s Unit and upcoming homeschooling year when we focus on some of…
Games – Late Elementary
THIS IS A 4-PART BLOG SERIES ON GAMES. IT INCLUDES GAMES FOR PRESCHOOLERS, EARLY ELEMENTARY, LATER ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL. THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS THAT WILL HELP YOU FIND THE GAME EASILY. These are my favorite games suitable for late elementary. I really like to have games that cover a range of…
Games-Early Elementary
THIS IS A 4-PART BLOG SERIES ON GAMES. IT INCLUDES GAMES FOR PRESCHOOLERS, EARLY ELEMENTARY, LATER ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL. THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS THAT WILL HELP YOU FIND THE GAME EASILY. We have shifted from our normal structured homeschool style to a more unschooled style of homeschooling for the summer. With…
Golden Age of Islam (Middle Ages) Resources and Activities
Ramadan Mubarak! Though we are not Muslim, we have several friends and followers that are. I am saddened that they have to celebrate their holy month in the middle of the Corona pandemic. In honor of the month of Ramadan I’ve compiled our resources and activities for the Golden Age of Islam Unit that we…
Tree Unit Resources, Games, and Activities
New Blog Post: I’ve just finished a blog post going over the resources, game, and activities for our Tree Unit. This has been such a delightful unit. There is the usual list of games and book with details of our favorites and what each book contains in the post. In addition though, I go into…
5 Ways to Liven up your Homeschool Journey
Homeschool feeling bogged down. Here are 5 ideas to help. These techniques will help to solidify the information your children are learning.
A Little Geography with your Valentine Exchange?
For the last few years we’ve participated, and this year hosting, a valentine exchange through social media. You can find exchange groups on Facebook. We’ve used this as a fun geography lesson. We take the valentine stamps and sometimes stickers, cut them out and tape them on our map. We color in the states that…
Native American Inspired Beading Tutorial
I had some requests on instructions for the beadwork that my children did for our Native American studies. This activity can lend itself to a variety of ages. Some things to consider when choosing what materials might be appropriate for your child: The size of the loom. The size of the string and…
My Switch to Living History Books
“Well, this one country, they were mad at this other country, because of this dictator, you know.” This was my son’s response to my question about what he had just read in history. We discuss what he reads after he is finished to help work it into his memory and so I can judge…
About Me
Hi, I’m Della. I’m passionate about homeschooling, and I want to share it with you.