Homeschool Mother’s Journal – June 2017

In my life last month…

May is always a bit of a crazy month with all things wrapping up, but there were some big moments in this particular month that made it especially full.

We celebrated our first graduation in the family. My niece graduated with her Challenge IV Classical Conversations class, and it was a wonderful ceremony. This young lady has really embodied the Challenge IV theme of "Leadership" as she has finished strong without her mother by her side. Not only has she stepped up among her siblings to help with getting groceries and driving places, but she still had time to complete a senior thesis as well as an art portfolio. I'm an extremely proud aunt.

Three days later, I experienced my first child with a broken arm. It was a silly fall that just landed wrong, and my daughter broke both bones in her left arm. Thankfully, we've found that life is much easier with a waterproof cast (yes, those exist)!

Well, this happened yesterday. My first child to break a bone! She fell off the ripstick, and she wasn't even trying anything super extreme. She fractured both bones in her left arm. Thankfully they now have waterproof casts, so she can still shower and swim while her arm heals! Crazy!

A post shared by Betsy Strauss (@family_style_schooling) on May 9, 2017 at 3:55pm PDT

The following Monday (the day after Mother's Day), I checked into the hospital with my mom for her to undergo her second knee replacement surgery. My sister from Boston flew down to be there with us for the surgery, and I was so thankful to have her there with me.

The good news is that both my mom and my daughter are healing beautifully and recovery hasn't been too difficult of a process. I'm so thankful to be around to take care of them!

In our homeschool this month…

With all of our craziness this month, I'm happy that we got any school done. I've leaned heavily on online resources to help us stay on track.

Most summers I hope to keep the ball rolling at least with math and reading, but often times our schedule fills up and we find ourselves occupied with people rather than school work. That's not a bad thing at all. Here are the resources we're using:

1. CTC Math - a full online math curriculum. I love that I can schedule their assignments and their graded results are returned to me. They watch a video over a concept and then answer questions to master the idea. My kids are loving it.
2. Prodigy Math - My kids are begging to play this game. Both of my girls (11 and 13) fell in love with this creative online math game that adapts to the students' levels in an engaging and exciting way. This is completely free with an optional parent upgrade that just adds more features to their character. So much fun.
3. Nessy Reading and Spelling - I shared this resource with you a few weeks ago, and my kids are still loving playing these reading games. It's great to see their confidence and fluency increase while they play.

I love school as we shift into our summertime routine. Straight out of the pool, my daughter gets in a little reading practice with MindPlay Literacy. She's struggled with dyslexia, and we've worked hard to continue making progress with her reading skills. The program works beautifully with Spell to Write and Read, which makes it even better. I love it when I find tools that can assist us in our fight to read! (And perfect for summertime learning!) #ihsnet #mindplay #homeschool #dyslexia #learningtoread #lifelonglearners

A post shared by Betsy Strauss (@family_style_schooling) on May 20, 2017 at 3:45pm PDT

4. MindPlay Literacy - I decided my youngest needed some extra attention this summer to really strengthen her reading skills. When I got the opportunity to try out MindPlay Literacy, I was curious to see if their claim of improving a grade level in 20 hours of play. We're about half way through that 20 hours, and I can say that I'm really seeing some exciting improvement in my daughter's reading. Stay posted, I'll be sharing more about this as we make it through the full 20 hours.

With these online resources, I'm hoping that we don't get too far off track over the summer, and we can still feel like we're on a break!

What We're Reading…

We haven't read aloud as much together this month because of all of my absentness. I did however read a book to my mother while we were in the hospital: The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. It is about a young boy and girl who are sent out of London to the country side to be safe from bombing during WWII. While it quickly captured our imaginations, there are some subtle undertones in the story that you might make you want to read it yourself before passing it on to your kids.

A good friend knows my love language...she gave me a copy of a book she loved so I could read it too! It was perfect timing too. I just finished Andrew Peterson's Wingfeather Saga, and I needed a new great read! Thanks @sarawatson99 #mybookishlife #booklovers #readallweekend #readingtime #homelibrary #homeschool #ihsnet #goodfriend

A post shared by Betsy Strauss (@family_style_schooling) on Apr 14, 2017 at 7:58am PDT

On my blog in case you missed it...

Some great tools for your home school:

American History Activity Books from Dover

A Classical Approach to Music Theory from Garage Band Theory

This month I completed a series on how Classical Conversations helped me overcome my fears of transitioning from public school to home school.

Fear #1: What if I forget to teach something?

Fear #2: What if I don't know enough?

Fear #3: What if I'm not cut out for it?

Fear #4: What about socialization?

Fear #5: What if I can't afford a private education?

Click below to get a peek behind the scenes of other homeschool moms:

Andy Strauss