homeschool helps

How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

I have not pulled my kids out of public school mid-year to homeschool. Maybe you are thinking about pulling your kids go out of public school and turn to homeschooling mid-year, and you are panicking. I don’t want you to panic. I know you will, but I want to help you find your way.

How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

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I thought about pulling my oldest out of kindergarten her only time in public school, but I took that time to figure out what our next step was going to be. I want you to be prepared now, in case you decide to pull them out mid-year.

There are so many great books that you can read to give you the courage to do this. You can find some of my favorites here.

How to Pull Your Child Out

Please make sure you know the legal rules for pulling your child or children from the public school system. In Saskatchewan, you have to give 30 days written notice, I know their are exceptions, but I do not know exactly what they are.

Also, make sure you know what you need to do. Do you need to register and submit educational plans?

Deschool When You Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

Take the time to adjust to being home. Adjust to being free from a schedule that dictates when your child has to wake up, to the bathroom, when to eat meals. The deschool time frame is often recommended to be 1 month of deschooling for each year of public school.

The idea behind deschooling is to allow your child the time to discover their own interests and how to learn on their own. It is to give them time to process not going back to school and to accept homeschooling, and hopefully become excited about it.

Deschooling can give your child time to destress.

Throw Out School

Throw out the idea of what school looks like. Throw out the idea what a strict schedule.

Instead, relax. Buy a lap desk and do some school on the couch. Do school out in the yard. Do school on the road to the library or to visit family.

Homeschooling does not look like school. There is no set time for lessons to happen or to be finished by.

How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year - boy reading a book

Curriculum for Homeschooling Mid-Year

You don’t need to rush out and buy the shine new curriculum because your cousin uses it. Talk to other people you know who homeschool. Join some Facebook groups and ask questions and listen to what others have to say.

I have Homeschool Curriculum 101 Facebook group just for these conversations. No one is selling curriculum in this group, no one is promoting their products (not even me!). It is for curriculum talk only. I try to find information and recommendations for you, and share them there.

Secondhand curriculum and books from the library are the best learning materials for when you are just getting started. Facebook groups that are local to you, are great places to find some.

Have Lots of Snacks Available

I have seen the memes about second breakfasts. It is 100% true. These kids are always eating. I think it is part lack of strict “feeding” times, and partly because they are always so active here at home. They aren’t stuck sitting in one places all day.

Doing School at Home

by Ashley Mullen 1 Comment

There are a lot of “homeschoolers” right now what with school being closed across Canada and the United States. There is a lot of information out there about how to schedule the day, how to re-create school at home. School at home is going to look a lot different than actual public school.

Doing School at Home

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School at home is going to look differently than public school. To start, you have a very small amount of kids in your school, and in your classroom, especially if you have multiple grades.

Let’s Take A Breath

You are stressed about working from home or being off work, and now you are stressing about how to teach your kids. Relax, take a breath and let me tell you about deschooling.

Deschooling is a period of adjustment that child goes through when leaving school and begins homeschooling. The child has he chance to decompress and disconnect from “school” being the default and “school ways” being the standard expectation. But this only happens through a lack of strict scheduling, and maybe even a complete lack of “school”.

How to do School at Home

This is where most of you are. You are now home with your child you are trying to figure out when to get school work done, and then school work is finished super early in the day. What you are suppose to do with the rest of the day, because doesn’t school take 8 hours a day?

School at home doesn’t take all day because your child is working at their pace and not working on someone else (or a classroom of someone else’s), and are able to get their work done faster… assuming they work and aren’t getting distracted by the fact that they are home.

School at Home & Screen Time

You can use screen time. At this point, throw out the rules on limited screen time. Maybe your school has classes online, maybe you’re kids are super interested in learning more about graphic design or coding right now. You know where they are going to learn about those things: online, on the computer, screen time. Just go with it. We LOVE Teaching Textbooks which is online.

There are a lot of places that are doing live videos on Facebook showing and teaching new things as well as this goes on. Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden for example is one that we have been enjoying each day. We just love seeing and learning about animals from them.

Get Outside

Just because you are having to stay away from people does not mean that you can’t get outside and get some fresh air. In fact, I recommend it for helping everyone burn off energy, to keep people from climbing the walls in the house.

Going for a walk is a great way to get out of the house without, hopefully, coming into contact with many people, and if you do, remember the 6 foot rule. Walking is a great way to start a nature study, and you don’t need to be formal about it, just talk about what you see and hear.

Arts & Crafts Time

This is a favorite past time for my six year old. He loves to color and draw. One of our favorite YouTube channels is Art for Kids Hub. Step by step drawing of kids favorite characters, animals, and more. I really like this videos for my kids and I to do together.

You don’t need formal art time, just let your kids have free range to crayons, markers, paper, etc.

Reading

Any homeschooler will tell you, reading is the best thing ever! You kids can read to themselves, they can read to you, or you can read to them. The answer to many questions lay within a book.

With all the closures libraries are also closed for physical books which is completely horrible but many have access online with OverDrive. There are also online book subscription places that are offering their services for free for a certain amount of time. Scribd is one of these places, Epic offers reading FREE for 30 days , and Amazon is offering children’s books for free on Audible.

You don’t need to make this time stressful and hard on yourself or your kids. Just be together. Read a book out loud. Maybe take some time for yourself in your room away from everything.

Getting Hands on with History – Hieroglyphs

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

I’m not a history buff so teaching my kids history this year was a little challenging but we have all learned a lot. It is amazing what a great book can do for perking interesting, I should have known this of course, being a huge book lover! While history isn’t my thing, creativity is, and it also is engaging for kids and my kids are loving how hands on they are getting while learning and revisiting their book and these hieroglyphs are just one example of that.

Getting Hands on with History – Hieroglyphs

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

We have a really great book for our history lessons this year, The Usborne Book of World History, it came with our Reading with History Level 1 curriculum. This books is full of hands on learning activities and crafts to do with your kids as you’re learning about different periods and cultures in history. Creating stories using the early invention of writing, hieroglyphs, is one of the activities that we turned into our own and was one of our favorites. (It was not done exactly this way in the book.)

We used modeling clay from the dollar store, we just lucked out that they had it in stock when I was looking but Walmart and Amazon are usually my go to place to get it. We also used some playdough toys like the rolling pins and knives.

Each of my kids got a good sized chuck of clay rolled it flat and then proceed to “write” a story on their clay using hieroglyphs. They used a combination of those that were shown in the book and those they created on their own.

Hieroglyphs - Reading with History Level 1

I want to point out that my kids did theirs on placemats because it made clean up easier and I didn’t have to worry about it sticking to my dining room table, which is where we do school. I’m planning on doing this again this summer, outside where the clay will dry faster, and encourage new, nature inspired stories.

What kind of story do you think that your kids would write using hieroglyphs?

Mastering Multiplication with Times Tales

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Oh multiplication how I came to hate you, and then love you, all through the eyes of my child. I got to see how scary and frustrating you could be, after all doesn’t three and five together make eight, not 15? But then I got to watch it all click, and to be completely honest, that is one of the best perks of homeschooling, watching it all click into place. Times Tales was just what we need.

Mastering Multiplication with Times Tales

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information. This is not a sponsored post.*

A little multiplication background: We started multiplication towards the end of grade 2 and she was getting the lower numbers really well, but then came summer. We read a lot during the summer, preventing the summer slide in one area, we kind of forgot our multiplication. So while learning the lower numbers came easily again, you know, counting by two, and fives, Austin just didn’t want to work to learn the higher numbers, she ran out of fingers basically and was done. Her shutting down down and not wanting to try new things is something that we are working, I’ll share more about that another time.

I had read amazing things about Times Tales and thought I’d give it a try, if it didn’t work then I wasn’t out a lot of money but at least we tried. But boy has it worked! I mean it worked instantly. She was happy to sit there and work on the stories, and on the flashcards. She was even willing, and trying, to do the division, which blew my mind.

The graphics are a bit funky, very basic, but easy to remember. The stories that they tell are the stories that teach your child multiplication for them to be able to remember. We have found it works best on the computer because she could pause it at the correct times easier.

She is quite proud of the fact that she can answer multiplication questions now without thinking about the stories she learned them through. Times Tales is specifically for the upper times tables: 3×6, 3×7, 3×8, 3×9, 4×6, 4×7, 4×8, 4×9, 6×6, 6×7, 6×8, 6×9, 7×7, 7×8, 7×9, 8×8, 8×9, 9×9.

Not only was I able to find something that worked for Austin, our oldest, I found something we’ll be able to use it again with the next two when their time comes if need be. I ordered the DVD with a CD-ROM with the bonus printables, you can print them again and again. The printables include flashcards with the characters and flashcards with just numbers, crossword puzzles, and a set character dice. I printed out the flashcard and laminated them because I love using it, but also because I know how thing tend to get ruined her within minutes thanks to little brother and puppy.

Using Post It Notes in Your Homeschool

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

A year, maybe two years ago I bought a pack of Post It notes from Costco because I tend to leave myself notes every where. I have started using them in our homeschool now too. The best thing about Post It notes is just how much you can do with them.

Using Post It Notes in Your Homeschool

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Library Lists

I look up a lot of books online, and then look to see if I can get them from our library. If our library has them local I use my lovely post it notes to write down the books that I want to pick up. I then stick the note to my wallet so I don’t loose it before getting to the library.

Read Aloud

Going with our BookShark Reading with History we started Charlotte’s Web (which I was totally stoked about because I loved it as a child). BookShark gives daily reading schedule along with the vocabulary that gets picked up in each chapter and questions to ask your child(ren).

I use post it notes to write down the questions and put them at the end of each chapter. This way I am not breaking the flow of reading to get up find the questions.

Keeping Track

I love using post it notes for keeping track of how my kids are doing in different subjects. I can stick one in their math workbook to keep track of where they might need a little extra practice. Or in our history book to remember something really interesting, or something that they took particular interest in and want to learn more about.

I have been sticking them to the covers of their workbooks, or activities books to help us keep track of where we need to start or which activities we are going to do in what order.

Using Post It Notes for New Ideas

Just like I keep track of what they want to learn more about. I also love post it notes for writing down project plans, extra activities to do like making a snack or dessert, or making spider watercolor web (post to come later on this one!)

Post its are super handy in our homeschool for keeping track of things that I want to happen, to track things for their school year portfolios, and more.

homeschool helps

How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

How to Pull Your Child Out

Deschool When You Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

Throw Out School

Curriculum for Homeschooling Mid-Year

Have Lots of Snacks Available

Recommended Products for Homeschooling

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Doing School at Home