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Homeschool

How to Help Kids Develop Better Reading Skills

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

It might seem obvious, but having great reading skills is one of the most important tools for success that you can help your children develop. Any person, child or adult, who cannot read or has difficulty reading is already at a serious disadvantage when it comes to college and any job in the workforce. Learn how to help kids develop better reading skills easily in your homeschool.

How to Help Kids Develop Better Reading Skills

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

How to Help Kids Develop Better Reading Skills

Reading is one of the keys to success in this life. As a parent, you have a responsibility to help your child learn how to read and help your child develop better reading skills.

You can give your child the one-on-one attention and support that he or she needs to learn how to read well. The National Center for Education Statistics says that over a third of 8th graders failed a basic reading skills test. Only a little over a third of 8th graders demonstrated or exceeded proficiency levels. 63% of 8th graders only had the most basic of reading skills.

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This is a pretty dire situation. However, there is good news. Research has demonstrated that if parents are actively involved in helping children learn how to read, most children can become excellent readers with just that parental support.

There are several things that you can do to help your kids develop better reading skills.

Read Out Loud

Read out loud to your child every single day. If you regularly read to your child, your child will learn to love to read. Reading is associated with pleasant experiences. Even after your child learns how to read on his or her own, it is important that you continue to read out loud to your child. This helps improve his or her reading skills and also helps your relationship.

Opportunities to Read

Provide lots of opportunities to read. What kid is going to be a good reader if he or she has nothing to read? Have lots of books around your house that are appropriate for your kids in terms of age level. Have lots of interesting books all over your house. Make sure that your child can access these books.

Creative Writing Journal – All Subjects

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Set An Example

Example, example, example. If your children see you reading daily, whether it’s the newspaper, a novel, or the Reader’s Digest, at least they will learn that reading is an important part of everyday life. It means a lot to you, and it should mean a lot to them. Don’t be like Matilda’s parents in Roald Dahl’s novel. Turn off the TV and read.

Support their Efforts

Support your children. Always support your child’s reading efforts and make sure that you give him or her lots of praise. Support their reading choices, also, as long as they are appropriate.

Provide a Selection of Books

Help your child develop his or her own library. Provide a place just for your child to put his or her books. It can be a bookcase in the bedroom or a shelf devoted entirely to him or to her in your family bookcase. Take your child on trips to the bookstore or to the library so that he or she can pick out books that they think are enjoyable that is age-appropriate, and that can belong just to them.

How to Help Kids Develop Better Reading Skills

Encourage Story-Telling Skills

Encourage your kids to write stories and to tell stories. If your child is comfortable writing, this helps develop reading skills and vice-versa. Give your child his or her very own notebook to write stories in. Encourage these stories, and always listen to them when your child wants to share them.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Keeping a Homeschool Reading Log

Secular Reading Curriculum

Curriculum Reading – Do Your Kids Love or Hate It?

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: Reading

Homeschool Gardening Curriculum

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Gardening can be so educational. There is a ton of knowledge to be learned no matter your age. I am still learning and as I learn my kids are learning alongside me. We use all knowledge sources to learn from, from people around us to books, documentaries, and courses. Knowledge is never wasted. A homeschool gardening curriculum that you and your children can use together is an amazing experience for you and your children.

Homeschool Gardening Curriculum - 4 people looking at plants and papers

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

Homeschool Gardening Curriculum

Garden Curriculum Books

The School Garden Curriculum – offers a unique and comprehensive framework, enabling students to grow their knowledge throughout the school year and build on it from kindergarten to eighth grade. From seasonal garden activities to inquiry projects and science-skill building, children will develop organic gardening solutions, a positive land ethic, systems thinking, and instincts for ecological stewardship.

The Garden Classroom – Packed with garden-based activities that promote science, math, reading, writing, imaginative play, and arts and crafts, The Garden Classroom offers a whole year of outdoor play and learning ideas—however big or small your garden. (We love this book so much!)

How to Grow a School Garden – Two school garden pioneers offer parents, teachers, and school administrators everything they need to know to build school gardens and to develop the programs that support them. Both schools and parents have a unique opportunity to cultivate an awareness of our finite resources, reinforce values of environmental stewardship, help students understand concepts of nutrition and health, and to connect children to the natural world.

Learning Gardens and Sustainability Education – Offering a fresh approach to bringing life to schools and schools to life, this book goes beyond touting the benefits of learning gardens to survey them as a whole-systems design solution with the potential to address myriad interrelated social, ecological, and educational issues.  The theoretical and conceptual framework presented creatively places soil at the center of the discourse on sustainability education and learning garden design and pedagogy.

Free Homeschool Gardening Curriculum

KidsGardening.org – Materials for grades 1-4 are available, but it does have a lot more for grades 1-3 than it does for grades 4. But as a homeschooler, you just might be able to make it work for whatever grades you need it for. The lessons are full lessons. Including an overview, the objective, materials, how to explore the subject and so much more.

Gardening Course for You – “Your garden should add to life and be a blessing, not a burden that steals from you! It should be something you and your whole family ENJOY!!! Giving you nourishment and pleasure while SAVING you tons of money!

We will start at the foundation.. with your soil and how to properly prepare a healthy soil then move into everything planting… who, what, when, where, why, and how… then we will move into dealing with all the common problems like irrigation, pest, disease, and fertilizer.. all the way up to basic seed saving…. all that while working smarter not harder with organic minded methods. You will be learning some unusual methods that go against the typical way of thinking and stepping out of the box!”

More Great Resources to Check-Out:

Gardening Unit Study for Kids – Julie Naturally

The Ultimate Gardening Bundle – Hess Un-Academy

STEM Made Easy Gardening Edition – Hess Un-Academy

Regrow Food From Kitchen Scraps | Gardening Projects for Kids – Hess Un-Academy

Free Garden Worksheets for Kids – Hess Un-Academy

Printable Garden Planner For Kids And Homeschool Families – Homeschool Mastery Academy

Master Gardeners Homeschool Co-op Class – Walking By the Way

Garden Emergent Reader – Tip-Top Printables

Garden Printable Activities – Julie Naturally

Gardening Science – Blog, She Wrote

Plant Journaling for Homeschoolers – Blog, She Wrote

5 Step to Create an Awesome Garden – Captivating Compass

Gardening with Kids is a Great At-Home Spring Break Adventure – Jump Into Genius

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Nature Book Club ~ A Garden Adventure – Hide the Chocolate

The Tale of Peter Rabbit Online Book Club ~ A Nature Book Club – Literary Adventures for Kids

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Gardening Tips for Kids this Spring

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Filed Under: Homeschool, Kids Activities, Natural Homeschooling, Nature Study Tagged With: gardening with kids

UnBoxing Boss Club Business Kits

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Homeschooling means that we get to encourage our kids in any path that they choose to take. When you have an animal-loving child with an entrepreneurial spirit you find something like Boss Club and their business kit for making homemade dog treats.

UnBoxing Boss Club Business Kits

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

I don’t know the first thing about making or starting up a dog treat business. The great thing is that I don’t need to know anything. Everything needed to get started is in this box.

UnBoxing Boss Club Business Kits

There are quite a few different kits now that you can choose from giving your child a choice over what kind of business they want to start. These kits are for kids aged 7-14. At this time there are seven different kits.

  • Homemade Dog Treats
  • Gourmet Cake Pops
  • Luxury Bath Bombs
  • Mouthwatering Fudge
  • Handcrafted Soap
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What’s in the Box?

The Start Up Guide – From creating the product to launching your business and growing your business. It’s all here in the start-up guide. It covers creating a name, and logo for your product and packaging it. The start-up guide covers everything your child could need, and maybe even more.

Ingredients – Flour, peanut butter, seasonings, and more are here in the kit for you to make your homemade dog treats, including the cookie-cutter!

Packaging and Selling – Treat bags, ingredient cards, a sign to promote your business, and more is also included.

Why You’ll Love Boss Club

  • Easy to Follow: Step-by-step instructions are included in every box that provides structure with plenty of room for creativity. 
  • Encourages Confidence: What’s more valuable for your child: a weekend being an entrepreneur or spent in front of the TV?
  • No Trips to the Store: Each box has everything you need. Get started on your fun weekend project right away.
  • Ignites Creativity: Entrepreneurship teaches creativity and initiative, and schools are lacking in this type of education today.
  • Homeschool Credit: Can count as extra-curricular credit!

Homeschool Binder Pages Organization

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Why are there no pictures of us using it right away here? My kids decided that it was a great time to get a cold this week when all the great mail was arriving. I do mean all the great mail. There will be a follow-up to this post of Austin, 12 years old, doing this.

UnBoxing Boss Club Business Kits

Does your child dream of their own business? Austin is always trying to think of ways to have her own little business, to make some money because she wants to save for college or her first car. She has a very entrepreneurial spirit and I want to encourage her and give her the tools she needs to succeed.

For Older Entrepreneurs

Boss Club doesn’t just offer these kits.

They also offer a semester-long course students aged 11-18 years old to design and launch a small business. It covers the basics of product design, pricing, marketing and sales, financial reporting, and community stewardship and actually implement these concepts on the business they have created.

You can learn more about it under their homeschool tabs at the top of their page.

We as homeschool parents get the unique opportunity to encourage and to help our kids follow their dreams, whatever their dreams may be. We aren’t forcing them to learn about and go do something that is unnecessary, or outdated.

Instead of telling them, they need to start thinking about where they want to work when they are finished with high school and college, we get to encourage them to follow their passions now.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

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10 Books for Young Entrepreneurs: Kidpreneurs

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5 Book Series for Girls Aged 11-13 Years Old

Filed Under: Curriculum, Homeschool, Kids Activities Tagged With: Kidpreneurs

How to Make Any Homeschool Curriculum Work

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Buying a curriculum is a big decision. And it can be a costly one to make. When that curriculum doesn’t turn out quite the way you planned it can be devasting and seemingly impossible to move on from, and you possibly can’t afford to replace that curriculum this year. So let’s talk about how to make any homeschool curriculum work for your homeschool.

How to Make Any Homeschool Curriculum Work

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

How to Make Any Homeschool Curriculum Work

I know that if I invest in a curriculum it needs to be gold and I need to be able to use it for all three of my kids, as they move on to those grades. The curriculum choice you make is a big commitment. And when you get it, and start using it, and it just isn’t working, what do you do?

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So, how do you make homeschool curriculum work for you?

Use What Works and Toss What Doesn’t

What elements of the curriculum you have, are working? What isn’t? Put aside, or skip over the parts that you don’t like. Then you can concentrate on the parts that you really like.

Use Curriculum as a Spine or Guide

You have gone through the curriculum but it’s not what you want. You have put aside what you don’t like but you aren’t left with a lot, not what you would expect to be a year worth of lessons. That’s ok, you now have a guide for what you want to cover.

I often find knowing where to start can be hard to figure out when planning our year. Using a curriculum as a guide then you have something to follow. Then you can fill in the blanks with materials that fit your teaching style, your child’s learning style, and your homeschool.

Don’t Do Every Bit of Every Assignment

You’re the teaching parent. You get to decide what constitutes an assignment. Nothing says that your child has to do every single problem or fill in every single blank on a page.

When using RightStart Math we often did this. We worked on what fit our needs and then moved on to the next lesson. Their lessons are for mastery, making sure that your child knows the material, which is what we loved about using RightStart.

Sometimes all the written work in RightStart Math was too much for the child that hated writing. This is why we turned to Teaching Textbooks, typing the answer in on the computer is much more her style of learning than writing by hand.

How to Make Any Homeschool Curriculum Work

Modify the Curriculum to Meet Your Child’s Learning Needs

Do you like everything about a particular curriculum except that it has so much written work it overwhelms your child? Remove those assignments or turn them into a different medium. A slide show, poster board presentation. Whatever speaks to your child.

It might also be that your child hates writing answers out by hand. I have one of these, but let her use the computer to type out of her lessons and it is a completely different story.

Make It More Interactive

I’m a big fan of hands-on projects and it’s easy to add activities to most homeschool curriculum. You can:

  • add in a baking project
  • make an edible model
  • complete a craft
  • create a presentation for Dad or grandparents or siblings
  • write the answers to the math worksheet on a sheet of paper. Cut the paper with the answers and the page with problems into squares and let your child match them up
  • turn the assignment into a bingo or board game

You are the teacher. You are their parent. You know your child better than the curriculum creator and what is going to work for them.

Turn that curriculum into something that really works for you. You can make any homeschool curriculum work for you using these tips. It might end up being your best homeschool year yet.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Thinking Tree Books in Our Homeschool

Secular Language Arts Curriculum

Boxed Curriculum Isn’t for You If…

Filed Under: Curriculum, Homeschool Tagged With: homeschool curriculum

Homeschool Room Decor Ideas & More

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We had a dedicated homeschool room for six months. I loved getting to create a special place for my kids. A place to have our maps up on the wall, any education poster they wanted to be got hung up. Homeschool room decor is fun to shop for, and it can really brighten up a schoolroom no matter how small or dark it might be.

Homeschool Room Decor Ideas

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

Homeschool Room Decor Ideas

What kind of things would you want to have hung up on your walls in your homeschool room?

  • maps
  • art prints
  • nature prints
  • weather
  • days of the week
  • months of the year
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Fun Educational Poster Options:

Kids Wall Art Room Decor Educational Prints Educational Posters

This set of educational prints educational posters calls to me and my love for bright colors. These six educational posters were designed for parents and home school parents looking to add educational art to their children’s playrooms, bedrooms, or homeschooling areas.

Included in your download are JPG files of these beautifully illustrated and coordinated set of six educational printable posters:

• The Solar System
• The Alphabet
• Shapes
• Weather
• Numbers
• Colors of the Rainbow

Homeschool printables, Educational Prints, Playroom, Home School, PreSchool Montessori, Neutral bohemian Earthy art print, continents shapes

Neutral Bohemian Earthy Art Prints

This set of Earth prints includes:

  • The Numbers
  • The Alphabet
  • The Weather
  • The Coninents
  • The Shapes
  • 7 Days of the Week
homeschool posters

Huge Set of Homeschool Printables – 25 pieces!

This set covers everything you might want hang on your homeschool walls. There are some fun posters like the “let’s READ” but there are also so many helpful cheatsheet style posters to help you and your kids during all your lessons.

  • counting to 100
  • sign language
  • penmanship
  • addition chart
  • fractions chart
  • solar system
  • days of the week
  • months of the year
  • and too many more to list here, go check it out!

Get Organized and Have Everything Your Need

Minimalist Homeschool Labels

Minimalist Homeschool Labels

Making sure everything has its own home, has helped me as a mama to stay sane, and find things quickly.
It has also helped our children recognize, learn, and be responsible in clean up/set up school times!

  • Paint
  • Markers
  • Crayons
  • Math Manipulatives
  • Flashcards
  • Art/Crafts
  • plus six custom labels
Monthly Labels

Monthly Labels

Perfect for Teachers, Homeschool Moms, and overall Home Organization!
1.5×4” Rectangle White Polyester Waterproof Labels

Telling Time Teaching Clock Kids Room

Your kids will easily learn the time with our clock. Designed to make learning easy and fun, each number has its own color. O’Clock, Quarter Past, Half Past, and Quarter to are all highlighted, with 4 quadrants marked to aid with the learning of these concepts.

Personalized Chalkboard Homeschool Schedule

Personalized Chalkboard Homeschool Schedule

This large dry-erase school schedule is perfect for your family this school year! The personalizations are included for free!

You can either have this dry-erase board dedicated to one child with their name up on top….or use it as your family calendar and each kiddo has their own color on the calendar to call their own!

You can find some of my favorite things on Etsy, including these great homeschool room decor items and more. I have a favorite list of crazy chicken lady stuff too.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Our Homeschool Room – Our Dining Room

Homeschooling When There’s No Homeschool Room

Google Classroom in Your Homeschool

Filed Under: Homeschool, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: homeschool room

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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