Why homeschool? 10 reasons why we decided to homeschool our kids. Check out this post to learn our motives for starting a secular homeschool.

Does your homeschool need P.E.? Yes! Find out the big reason homeschool P.E. is important and how you can add it to your own homeschool today!

With so many of my BIG KIDS struggling with fluency, I worked to make it a part of my daily work with students, a Tier 1 intervention that the majority of the class could benefit from. Reading fluency incorporates three main components: speed, accuracy, and prosody, which directly impact comprehension. While I have shared a great deal about incorporating 6-Minute Solutions, here are a few other ways I worked to make fluency fun for my 6th graders.

Animal Research Activities for big kids tied to life science/ecology units! Includes 70 pages of guided notes to help support student understanding of ecology concepts through an animal of interest! Meets NGSS standards and ELA CCSS! This document includes the following: - Comprehensive Animal Research Note Sheets - Circle Schema Builder - KWL Chart - Can/Have/Are/Eat/Live Graphic Organizer - Informational Fact Graphic Organizers (Flower, Web, List) - Basic Biome Vocabulary (Words/Definitions) - Empty Vocabulary Chart - Empty Vocabulary Chart (With illustration box) - Animal Analysis Note/Writing Sheets 1.Geographic Location (Proper Nouns) 2. Physical Characteristics (Adjectives) 3. Behavior (Verbs) 4. Habitat 5. Abiotic/Biotic Factors- Habitat 6. Abiotic Factors- Habitat 7. Biotic Factors- Habitat 8. Abiotic/Biotic Factors T-Chart (Habitat) 9. Biomes 10. Abiotic/Biotic Factors- Biomes 11. Abiotic Factors- Biomes 12. Biotic Factors- Biomes 13. Abiotic/Biotic Factors T-Chart (Biomes) 14. Structural Adaptations 15. Behavioral Adaptations 16. Adaptations Graphic Organizer 17. Offspring 18. Competition 19. Mutualism 20. Parasitism 21. Commensalism 22. Population -Compare/Contrast Venn Diagram (2 Animals) -Compare/Contrast Detailed (2 Animals) -3 Predator-Prey Relationship Writing -2 Ecology Energy Pyramid - Levels of Biological Organization -Animal Food Chain Project -Animal Food Web Project - Ecological Levels Circle Graphic Organizer -Animal Life Cycle Graphic Organizers (3, 4, 5 stages) -Animal Life Cycle Stages Writing activity (3, 4, 5 stages) - 9 Animal Writing Prompts (ELA Standards and NGSS Essential Questions) -Animal Opinion Research Writing Assignment 1. Brainstorm Sheet- Identify a problem (for animal/biome/habitat) 2. Making a claim draft prep sheet (sentence starters) 3. Providing evidence draft prep sheet (3 main ideas) 4. 5 pages of paragraph analysis draft prep (step by step graphic organizers for how to construct each paragraph) 5. 1 blank page for final writing IF YOU PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT PLEASE GIVE A RATING AND SUBSCRIBE! :)

Teaching the writing process? Try involving students kinesthetically. Play Doh can work for big kids, too! My high school students absolutely love this writing analogy that walks them through each stage of the writing process as if they were sculptors crafting a masterpiece. Differentiate your instr

Do you struggle to motivate your children and make them eager homeschoolers? Here are 6 little things that can make a BIG difference in your homeschool.

Could you use short and meaningful Bible studies that you could print out? Explore these free printable Bible lessons for children.

Affiliate DisclaimerWe sometimes use affiliate links in our content. This won’t cost you anything, but […]

Lapbooks are a fantastic way to gather information and piece it together for easy learning! Use these free printables to create a Little House in the Big Woods Lapbook.

Sometimes the Bible seems BIG and too complex for little kids, but this isn’t true. You’ll find ten verses for your kids to learn and understand in the Bible Copywork for Kindergarten printable pack. What’s Included in the Bible Verses for Kindergarten Copywork? This printable file includes ten pages of copywork for your student. Each …

A list of homeschool regrets and solutions to inspire homeschooling Moms and help you avoid the same frustrating mistakes.

Introduce bats as the fascinating nocturnal creatures they are to your homeschoolers through this fun and educational printable bat labeling worksheet for kids.

In our thirteen years of homeschooling, here are some things I have learned about how to homeschool with an infant.

Learn what is under your skin with a fun life-size human body project for kids. Download FREE skeletal system bones and organ printables!

Adding a Morning Menu to our homeschool routine to practice and sharpen daily skills. Check out this fun printable set!

For whatever reason, we have this notion that read aloud time should look like a Norman Rockwell painting, with all the little cherub-faced children gathered around the fire sipping cups of cocoa while "Ma" reads from some leather-bound classic. But, that's just a spotted unicorn fantasy, folks. You hear about that kind of read aloud time in legend, but it never actually exists. Simple handwork projects dial back the chaos so that the story can be heard and enjoyed by all.

Are you searching for homeschool co-op class ideas? Try this big, fat, gigantic list; it has co-op class ideas for preschool through high school.

These dinosaur Crafts for kids are so cool that you will join the gang for one big, loud ROAR! It is not a surprise that most toddlers really like everything about dinosaurs. I should admit

Need a fun idea to launch the homeschool year with smiles all around? Look no further! Here's a big fat list of first day traditions.

Unschooling ideas for the 2023-2024 school year: resources and collaborative plans for grades 8, 6, 4, 1 and Pre-K.

You won't want to miss out on these free printables to help your kids learn all about mammals from home.

As a teacher, I am always on the hunt for the perfect tools at the cheapest prices for my ELA classroom. Taking care of our students and keeping our learning

The zoo is a popular stop in our family! We maintain a yearly membership and go often. But this year, we've started doing 'focused trips,' meaning that the kids pick one animal to focus their trip on. We interact with the animals' zookeepers, and get up close with the animals, whenever possible. Today, we're studying BIG CATS! This is one of the units from Zoo Studies! Sixteen different units focus on fourteen different animals, plus classification / taxonomy and animal adaptations. Activities include : reading, writing, research, online learning, videos, crafts, and more! Pick up the Zoo Studies bundle at our Cottage Shoppe. Love watching the boys all getting along at the same time!! Books A Boy & a Jaguar Lions at Lunchtime Mr. Tiger Goes Wild I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! The Tiger Rising (older kids) How the Leopard Got His Claws National Geographic Kids : Big Cats In Search of Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, and Tigers DVDs PBS Nature : Big Cats The Lion King Between the Lions Wild Kratts episodes Lapbooks Cats Tigers Lions Cheetahs Crafts & Fun Cheetah Mask Lion Face Full Tiger Coloring Pages : Leopard & Jaguar Big Cats Safari Baby Jaguar Online Resources Wild About Animals : Big Cats National Geographic (several resources, broken down by grade) How to Identify Big Cats Big Cat Rescue youtube channel

Here are some amazing history movies and shows for kids you can easily work into your homeschool studies. You'll love what we've picked!

Have you made bubble foam yet? Turning it into bubble foam trucks is even better! This easy sensory bin from Busy Toddler is a must try.

Do you make these mistakes that bring more stress to your homeschool? Use these solutions to be a more relaxed homeschooler.

Want an effective way to teach grit and resilience? Help your kids dream big as they learn to set goals with this proven 4-step method.

If your children are reluctant about book reports, a free book report template is just what they need to help them get started.

Check out these printable homeschool forms for kids: chore charts, attendance sheets, spelling lists, reading logs, goals, and more!

It's another week of teaching bible class to these precious three year olds! They sure loved this lesson of Samuel and the fun activities that went with it. ARRIVAL Just like every week, the first 10-15 minutes of class the children come in and play with toys that are laid out on the table. It is

I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!

Download a Free Sermon Notes Printable for Kids

Finding curriculum written by and for homeschoolers in Canada can be a serious challenge. Here are some Canadian curriculum options for your homeschool.

The 4th grade homeschool curriculum is a big step up from third grade and children will notice the increase in expectations of any program from third to fourth grades.

Help your child practice writing in cursive with these free printable cursive worksheets. Upper and lowercase letters and practice words on each page.

These science experiments for kids at home are just what you need during school breaks, snow days, and closures. They’re part of a giant list of easy-to-prep activities for preschoolers at home, so be sure to check out the other ideas. The goal here is to provide you with some fun and easy science activitiesKeep Reading

A big collection of shadow puppet templates to print and make - setting up a shadow play at home will be easy and fun!

If your kid loves big work trucks, they will enjoy all these fun construction and building printables, construction crafts & activities.

OCEAN WAVE ART LESSON can be used for grade K-8. Large or small painting surface, acrylic or tempera paints. Perfect for in class or studio art lesson.