flynn011

In 2016, my family was featured in a national UK newspaper about our homeschooling journey (see this link here:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/hating-the-new-sats-meet-the-mums-who-chose-home-education-over/ ) Today, I appear on a national podcast in the US, focusing on the differences and changes when homeschooling in the UK and now US. Please share the link to it - Vicki Tillman and the gang at 7sistershomeschool.com offer a wonderful support group for homeschoolers at all stages, being veterans with many years of experience under their belts. You can even subscribe to their podcasts, and their recent series about reading and writing for high schoolers was very interesting. http://ultimateradioshow.com/hshsp-ep-65-homeschooling-in-uk-and-us/

This is a post that I’ve been meaning to write for a long time - probably for four years or more — and it’s about computer use, particular when homeschooling boys. We all recognize there’s a problem. It may not be your child, but you know that Facebook is full of moms (and it’s almost always moms) who write SOS messages about their child’s obsessive focus on some kind of screen, be it tv, computer, laptop, tablet, or gaming device. I know all about this. I’ve been there … in spades! When my eldest son, who is now 14, was about ten years old, we went through a period where he was exhausted all the time. We soon learned that it was because he was setting his alarm for 2 am so he could sneak down and play Minecraft all night. Little Boys and their Games Ever since then, I have been a loud voice on the internet for vigilance and caution when it comes to screens. I have read just about every book there is on the subject. Some titles that come to mind are Boys Adrift, Wired Child, several ti...

Thank you all for joining me and home educated families like us in the #100WaystoHomeEd challenge started by Jax Blunt at the Making It Up blog. Previous to this blog post here was Kelly Allen's about lifestyle education: pop on over to later to see what she has to say here:  https://kellyallenwriter.com/2017/03/02/100-ways-to-home-educate-learning-through-life/ I've been allowed to blog about my favorite topic - homeschooling teens  (forgive my American spelling and terminology: I moved from the UK to Texas last year and am trying to "go native"). A lot of people seem to hit those secondary years with their children and just lose the plot. It's all "exams, exams, exams," or, in the US, collect those dual-credit hours (for getting the jump on university), and SATs (to nab some scholarship money), but the atmosphere is the same -- time to knuckle down and work, work, work. All work and no play can give teens a very dull life! I think it's sad when I l...

Back in November 2014, I wrote a  blog post  about hosting my hero, Sally Clarkson, in my home in Oxford, England, for a lunch date. This is a follow-up post after I attended her Renew My Heart conference in Dallas, Texas, last weekend. Meeting Sally for the third time in my life First of all, if you don't know who Sally Clarkson is, I would suggest it's time to get acquainted. She and her husband wrote my all-time-favorite homeschooling book, Educating the Whole-Hearted Child. She also wrote my second-favorite homeschooling book, Seasons of a Mother's Heart. These were some of her earlier titles, first published around the millennium but now updated and re-issued. Basically, her books were (and are) a lovely blend of experience, wisdom, and well-told stories, all based on a Godly foundation. She has since moved into a more supportive role for Christian mothers everywhere, releasing titles like Mission of Motherhood, Ministry of Motherhood, and her latest, Different, which ...

I was cleaning out the hard drive on my computer today and came across this article I wrote but never published about getting jobs done around the house while homeschooling young kids. The memory of those days with four kids under 7 is a hazy one, but reading my advice from then feels surprisingly relevant still today, and I can see a lot of the fruit from some of those routines and diversions. Hope you'll be blessed by this if you feel unable to release those grasping hands from your "skirts" when all you want to do is clean a toilet or fill the dishwasher. Trust me: this season will pass! WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK: 5 SURE-FIRE WAYS TO KEEP THE KIDS BUSY (WITHOUT RESORTING TO THE TELLY)* *This should now read: without resorting to electronics As a home-schooling mum with young children, I’m often asked how I can get any jobs done with kids always around. I won’t lie and say it’s easy (I’m definitely no super-mum), but with my five sure-fire tips, you, too, can keep your ho...

Let me take you on a journey - the way that I apply the Charlotte Mason method to a subject like history. In this case, it’s Texas History, a requirement for public-school children in this state at both 4th grade and 7th grade, and again, at university. Of course, as homeschoolers, we didn't have to do this study -- ever. However, we decided that we would because my kids have grown up in England and only just moved to my home state in June 2016. It also would be a great way to invite along some other homeschoolers in a co-op, and widen our social circle. In Texas - time to study Texas history! The challenge was to map a well-documented study that's normally for ages 9/10 and 12/13, onto a more rigorous expectation for high schoolers. Further, to move away from the textbooks used at these years and even at college, and find some living books that would cover the sweeping timeline of the territory. Just a reminder of what I mean by a living book —  A book that engages the reade...

When it comes to homeschooling teens, I’ve come to think it’s the same as riding a bicycle. However, I don’t mean that in terms of never forgetting how to do it.  Instead, it’s like those pivotal moments in a child’s life at 6 or 7 or 8 when the training wheels come off but the rider is still unsteady.  Do you hold on? Do you let go? Sometimes, I just don’t know. What should I do??? I’ve been homeschooling four children for nearly thirteen years, but it’s just now that I realize that homeschooling teenagers is hard. I don’t mean hard because the level of work is hard. After all, I’m an experienced secondary teacher, so I’ve educated teenagers before. I’ve run more than four different youth groups in the past twenty years, so I’ve mentored teens before. I mean, for goodness’ sake, I even WAS a teenager, once upon a time! I know they can be hormonal and fickle, over-tired and grumpy. So why am I finding it so hard as my own daughter creeps toward 16 1/2 years old? Because...