Exponent Work for Homeschool Math

Playing with Doubles in Cellular Biology In our last block, cellular biology, we ran across something in our reading that talked about how some bacteria are able to double every 20 minutes. I thought to myself, “That would be some fun math for the day.” I scrapped my previous math plans, and wrote a few…

pH Rainbows, Probability and Tricky Hydrogen

A Homeschool Science Lesson about pH, Concentration of the Hydronium Ion, and Logarithmic Scales. A pH lesson may be my very favorite lessons. It has all the best things – math, science, and rainbows. This lesson was a two day process, but I’ve been subtly leading us here for a while, on the math side…

Ice Cream Flavor Permutations

Join us as we explore a fun math activity to introduce the factorial function for homeschooling. skip to video We are getting ready to study some probability and statistics for our seventh grade math, and I thought I’d start out with a review of permutations that we’ve done before. This was a fun little exercise…

Using Monopoly for Math

The Different Ways that You Can Use the Game Monopoly to Get in a Little Math Practice in your Home… Hello There! Welcome to The Beauty of Play. This post is for my subscription members. I currently have two subscriptions: One for all things homeschooling and another for all things math.You can learn more about…

Developing Number Sense for Fractions

Adding Fraction for Game Points in our Homeschooling We’ve been playing a RightStart matching game for percentages and fractional equivalencies. The way that we have been calculating our scores for this game has been by adding all the fractions from the pairs. There are many activities that I have in my math curricula Fractions Year…

Grade 5 Freehand Waldorf Geometry: Ellipse Exercise

We’ve been working on our freehand Waldorf Geometry block the last couple of weeks. Check my Geometry highlights on Instagram  for more.  We are using pushpins as string to first draw a circle from the center, and then moving the focus outward from the circle to see the changes in the circle.  It’s a cool exercise just by…

Sophomore Year in Review

Whew! High school has been a whirlwind for us, but homeschooling high school is definitely doable. I just have to mentally prepare myself by realizing that there will be lots of changes through the years. He shifted gears midway through the academic year, which I talk about in the video. We used a variety of…

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….

Planning our Fifth-grade Freehand Geometry Block

I’m planning my daughter’s fifth grade year for next year, and I’ve gotten distracted by her free-hand geometry unit. Why do I say distracted? Well, that is currently scheduled as the last block of the year with 10, yes I said 10, previous block in front of it. But really, who can blame me?! Waldorf…

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…

“Notice and Wonder” with Cuisenaire Rods for Homeschool Math

Today for math we did one of my favorite activities, though I will admit, it is not always my children’s favorite. My daughter, now 10, build a structure with the Cuisinaire Rods, and then we did a “notice and wonder” activity. The structure that she build for today was a pyramid. I could have guessed…

An Inside Look into our Homeschool Math Journal

Some homeschoolers keep a common place book. Some homeschoolers keep a language arts book. We keep a Math Journal. Because I’m not teaching math from a curriculum, keeping a math journal helps us to keep track of where we have been and thus where we are going. When we are stuck on a challenge, we…

Finding Perfect Numbers

Yesterday’s was all about Perfect number. It’s not how pretty the number is, or how well you like its form. It’s not even about if the number is your favorite. Perfect numbers have a distinct definition. A perfect number is a number whose factors (not including the number itself) add to give the number itself….

Comparing Rods for Fractional Relationships

In this activity we are comparing each rod to each of the others to see the fractional relationship. It looks overwhelming, but it’s not. The first couple of rows or columns are the most challenging and after a pattern emerges, and it becomes much easier.  Having said that, this comparison did take us three to four…

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…

Making Math Fun

You know I love math!  Today I’m sharing some of the best parts of math.  So if you and your child are struggling with math, add these in. Don’t dare say, “We are taking a break from math today to do this project.”  What I am showing you is real math.  What we teach our…

Using Songs and Music for Homeschooling

“Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning to you. Our day is beginning. There’s so much to do. Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning to you.” This song was the song that I sang every morning with each of my children when we started our our circle time when they were young. It was a great…

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…

Educational Games: Preschool

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’ve found ourselves needing a little more family interaction lately in place of all our separate screen time during this…

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 detail about how we incorporated math, geography, writing, poetry, art, and science into the unit with a list of activities. Enjoy and be sure to tell me what you think or what I left out. Go hug a tree today. They are amazing creatures.

Using Cuisenaire Rods for Fractions

This is a math series follows our unit for introduction to fractions in grade 3.  This is one of several. Look for the others by searching “fractions.”  This post contains affiliate links. Day 10 It’s was our first day from spring break, so we started out homeschooling slow with only two tasks: nature study and main…

Paper-folding Fraction Activity

This is a math series follows our unit for introduction to fractions in grade 3.  This is one of several. Look for the others by searching “fractions.” Though we are not completely finished with the number line work, it was Friday and the end of a busy week, so we were both looking for something…

Fractions on a Number Line

This is a math series follows our unit for introduction to fractions in grade 3.  This is one of several, and I’m combining several days into one post. This part of the unit all involves number line. Day 3 My intention for our fraction work was to continue with our circles, but it was so…