Homeschooling

We have always homeschooled our children. (Which means I'm currently in year 28.) We have many reasons for homeschooling, some of which include:  its efficiency (the entire day's work can be done in a matter of hours), the relationships it nurtures (I know my children and my children know each other far better than if they were separated at school each day), the freedom to learn in the way that works best (for instance, one of my daughters announced that she only likes to do school work standing up), the lack of age-segregation (my children are comfortable with socializing with a wide group of ages and do not feel as though playing with someone younger is beneath them), and positive socialization.

Currently, we have 6 children at home, with four children in high school and two who have significant intellectual disabilities. We are pretty eclectic in the methods we utilize and are probably best summed up by saying we use the Classical Un-unit Chardorfisorri Method. A more educationese version can be found by reading our School Philosophy.

One of the best things about homeschooling is getting to learn with my children about things we are interested in. And we've done a lot of different subjects and topics over the years. Here are links to some of what we've done. Obviously, we did more for each of these subjects than what is listed.

US Presidents
     Developing an Appreciation of Pencils
     Lesson Plans for both Bird Unit Study and Presidents Unit Study (through Lincoln)

The Civil War
     The Battle of Antietam
     Duct Tape and Ironclads
     Hard Tack for Lunch, Anyone?

The Enlightenment
     Preparing for the Enlightenment
     History at the Art Institute
     Tableaux

Earthquakes and Volcanoes
     Playing with Lava
     Lap Books

The Wheel on the School
     Land Form Pans

Butterflies
     Nearly Missed It!

Mississippi River (Using Minn of the Mississippi)
     Salt Dough Maps
     Mississippi Shanty Boat
     Bowdlerizing

Kon-Tiki
     Kon-Tiki Rafts
     Kon-Tiki Unit Study

Australia
     Art Lesson by Way of Australia
     How I Create an Unit Study

Lighthouses
     Grosse Point Lighthouse

Ancient Egypt
     Pyramids
     The Ancient Egyptian Game Senet
     Ancient Egypt History Feast
     Dinner in Ancient Egypt
     Ancient Egypt Lesson Plan

Ancient Briton
     Quarantine Art Project

Ancient Greece
     Ancient Greece Lesson Plan

The California Gold Rush
     The California Gold Rush

Deserts
     Society for the Promotion of Under-Appreciated Deserts
      Camel Crafts

Revolutionary War
     Hopscotching through the Colonies
     The Boston Tea Party

Ancient Rome
     Roman Mosaic Craft
     History Crafts
   
Sea Creatures
     Ocean Boxes
     Books... Some Little and Some to Give Away

Human Body
     Studying the Human Body
     Learning Through Dissection
     Bones

Middle Ages
     The Day of the Overly Ambitious Craft

Silk Road

Lewis and Clark

Klondike Gold Rush

Alaska and the Arctic

Birds

Electricity

Plants
     Miss Rumphius

Grammar
     A Grammar Lesson, or Crazy I am

Poetry
     A story in Cinquains

Trip Around the World
     Hitting our Stride
     Contour Maps
     Packed and Ready to Go...
          Mexico
                Dinner in Mexico
                Ojo de Dios
          Brazil
                Dinner in Brazil
                Deceptively Easy Crafts
          Peru
                In Which I do Misguided Crafts so You Don't Have To
                Dinner in Peru
          Rapa Nui/Easter Island
                Friday Bullets, Jan. 12, 2018
          New Zealand
                Dinner in New Zealand
          Japan
                My Pinterest-worthy Moment
                Dinner in Japan
          Vietnam
                Dinner in Vietnam
          Ethiopia
                Dinner in Ethiopia
          Kenya
                Visiting Kenya
          Nigeria
                Dinner in Nigeria
          Russia
                Dinner in Russia
          Hungary
                Dinner in Hungary

Chemistry

Here are posts to ideas about teaching preschoolers:
     AWOL

And posts about other methods and subjects:

Curricula

Five in a Row Style

Work boxes

Multi-age Teaching

Teaching reading
     Reading

Teaching with babies and toddlers

Middle and High School

Good Books and Reading Out Loud
     Tea Time

Art Projects
     Pi Day Craft

Hands-on Activities
     It All Started at IKEA... or a Venn Diagram Activity Box
     The Right Activity at the Right Time

Lap Books
     Homeschooling: How to Make a Lap Book

Educational Theory
     Inventive Spelling and Delayed Academics
     A Homeschooling Reading List... With Annotations 
     Delayed Academics
     Back to the Schedule... or so much for the summer slide

Special Needs Homeschooling
     Homeschooling and Intellectual Delays
     Once Upon a Time
     Once Upon a Time Revisited
     Creating a Special Needs Curriculum
     We Hit the ZPD
     Working Memory

General Homeschooling How-To Posts
     How to Homeschool: A Slightly Irreverent Guide
     Homeschool Burnout... a not so short treatise
     Schedules, Chores, and Homeschooling
     Dear Frustrated and Reluctant Homeschooler
     How to Begin Homeschooling
     Parenting and Homeschooling an Early Teen
     New to Homeschooling?
     Not my First Rodeo
     A World Turned Upside Down... or Suddenly Everyone is a Homeschooler
     Let's Talk Homeschooling Curriculum
     Homeschool Resources and Curricula
     Timelines - how to do it
     Homeschooling Anxiety
     A Kvetchy List Dealing with Homeschooling Misinformation
     January Homeschool Blues

Homeschooling, Adoption, and Trauma
     Grammar, Adoption, and Homeschooling
     Adoption and Education
     Adoption and Learning
     Brain Damage and Stress
     Adoption 101: Glitches
     Catching Up
     Homeschooling a Newly Adopted Older Child
     Mood-dependent Memories
     Trust and Success

The Importance of Play
     The Benefits of Boredom (Click where the photo should be to see it. No, I don't understand, either)
     Children and Play
     Why Do We Make Playing So Hard?
     Book to Remedy Boredom
     On Reading Vivian Gussin Paly
     Feeding the Imagination
     Children and Play: a reading list
     The Importance of Play
     I've Got to Say It Somewhere
     The Need to Play
     The Boston Tea Party
     It's Fun to Have Fun, But You Have to Know How
     Older Children and Play
     Using a New Book to Expound on a Favorite Topic
     Brains and Play
     Master Players Revisited
     Activities for Kids
     Brain Building and Play

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