Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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Theme-Based Writing Lessons

Years ago, our family participated in a classical homeschool program that introduced us to history-based writing lessons from IEW. It was not until we headed in a new direction that we discovered the vast assortment of excellent resources available from IEW – all the way through high school – even within the narrow category of […]

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Learning the Grammar of Poetry

In front of us there is a wall That we must go around. But horror struck upon us all; Alas, the wall is round! It circles us, a loathsome foe; We’ve thought about where we should go, But now -Alas!- we do not know The way to leave this wall we’ve found. -“The Wall” by […]

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A Simple Solution for Teaching Writing

Rewind one decade. As we approached the time when our oldest son needed to learn to write paragraphs and essays, I realized I had no idea how to actually teach writing. Although I could write paragraphs and essays myself, I had virtually no recollection of how I learned that skill. At about that time, I […]

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Homeschooling High School: Clepping for College Credit

Every season of homeschooling has its special moments and we have enjoyed all of them. As we launched our oldest into college this past year after 12 years of homeschooling, we were blessed with the reward of him starting his freshman year with multiple college credits. Without dual enrollment or correspondence courses, he entered his […]

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Books we read and what we thought

As I looked back over our list of books for this year, I could hardly believe it. Our family shared over 35 books together as read-alouds this year! How on earth did we do that?!? Well, I attribute it mostly to the Libby app (which is also available to you if you have a library […]

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Wrappin’ up the year 2021

Another year down, another year past — We’ll wrap it all up, and we’ll wrap it up fast. The first three months were a bit like a dream. On Valentine’s Day, David aged to fifteen With a pinball museum after a week full of snow. Then in March to convention our family did go. After […]

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Gifts Ideas for Literature Lovers

  This year as we prepare for the gift-giving season, we’ve been on the search for unique gift ideas for literature lovers. If someone you know enjoys Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, or literature in general, here’s a list of items that have made it onto our gift idea list. You can also […]

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Fitting Words: Rhetoric for Christian Students

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Proverbs 25:11, NKJV Scripture has much to say about what we say. As Christians, we’re challenged to speak righteously, graciously, and appealingly. We are to encourage and edify one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), to share the Good News with the world (Mark […]

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Vocabulary with Latin & Greek Roots!

The sixth grader begins his weekly vocabulary lesson. Within moments, two high school students and a first grader drop everything to crowd around him. As I witness this 15-minute blip in our week, a favorite quote from Plato comes to mind: “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” This leaves […]