Kids don’t just learn one way . . . and that matters a lot for homeschool parents.

One of the benefits of a home education is a curriculum designed to fit each student. But that means knowing how your child learns. Not every child receives knowledge the same way. It’s up to the teacher to figure out the best way to reach each one.

Based on the 8 Smarts identified by Kathy Koch—word, logic, picture, music, body, nature, people, and self—8 Great Smarts for Homeschooling Families tailors these ideas to the unique setting of the home classroom. Tina Hollenbeck, a leader in the home education community, applies the 8 Smarts to each division of a complete curriculum:

·         Math

·         Language Arts

·         Science

·         Social Studies

·         Religious Education

·         Fine Arts

·         Electives

Yet when it comes down to it, the real benefit of homeschooling is personal relationships. Hollenbeck concludes by showing that when parents know their kids’ multiple intelligences—and when kids understand their family members in turn—it leads to a healthy homeschool dynamic. So don’t try to teach in the dark. Know your kid’s smarts, then watch them start engaging with their world in fresh ways.

My Thoughts:

Throughout my years of homeschooling my kids, I have learned that my two kids are as different as day and night when it comes to learning. I have always been under the assumption that kids are auditory visual kinesthetic learners with some variance in those categories that can be broken down even more. You might have a child that overlaps in those areas. Then you take it into the approach of homeschool method from Charlotte Mason eclectic Classical tradition unschooling and a few other methods. I have taught my kids with this in mind throughout the years successfully.

After reading Tina's Hollenbeck's book I was intrigued with her 8 great smarts that use each child's unique strengths. This approach was familiar in many ways and yet different enough to fall in a different method or category from what I had been taught. Maybe this is an approach that has been out there for a while.

She comes at it from Word Smart, Logic Smart, Picture Smart, Music Smart, Body Smart, Nature Smart, People Smart, and Self Smart. Some people can overlap with the 8 Smarts.  She explains each area in general and then goes into different subjects from math, language arts, science, social studies, fine arts, electives, and religious and breaks down each of the 8 smarts in each of the subjects. It felt like it was a combination of the learning styles to the teaching methods but not in a full sense. I could easily see the Nature Smart and Unschooling method together and some of the other areas pieces of it. She gives many examples and stories throughout. There is a wealth of advice on homeschooling throughout the pages also.

I agree with several aspects of it but I am not completely on board yet. I had a hard time finding my children in some of the 8 Smarts. My daughter is special needs and I found that I kept going back to auditory, visual, kinesthetic learners with her. I just could not pick out one of the 8 Smarts with her even when trying to overlap them. While my son I could see him somewhat in Self Smart and Logic Smart. I felt like some areas would have gaps that I would feel like I was missing the mark with him.

Now all that being said does not mean I disagree with the approach. Maybe, I am just stuck in my ways and the thought of changing what works for me the last two and half years of my homeschool journey seems fruitless. Why reinvent the wheel if what is working for you works. My daughter just graduated and my son is almost there I cannot see the point.

If you are just starting to homeschool or finding your children struggling I would consider trying the 8 Smarts because I do see the potential for you to have a successful homeschool experience for your child and yourself. If you are like me and what is working in your homeschool do not reinvent the wheel.

 I Disclosure: I received this complimentary product in exchange for my honest thoughts. 

I’m excited to share with you another review from  Pathway to Liberty's History Curriculum . My daughter has enjoyed doing World History Year 4 Level 1 from Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum has been a success with her this last year.

It’s not too often that I get to write a review for a curriculum that we have completed and used for a complete year from the 1st lesson to the last lesson in the curriculum. I’m using this with my 17 year old daughter with special needs and she has some significant learning challenges. It is extremely important to me having a comprehensive and flexible curriculum that works for a child with special needs. You can read my last review when I used it with my son here. My son doesn't have any learning challenges. We used it successfully with him for the rest of his 7th grade.

I received a physical set that includes your Teacher Guide, and Student Guide. You can also purchase this in a digital format. The only other resources you will need are a good internet to access the videos. A 1 ½” 3-ring notebook binder which allows your child to have a place to keep all their assignments like vocabulary, and other things they have been learning. I used a 2” ring notebook binder that I already had on hand.

There are a few core books required to complete the program.  One item is the Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary can be found free online or you can order a physical book.

 

You can also add in literature books. Something else you can add to enhance your literature books are the Literature Guides. I could be wrong but I think these are newer as I didn’t use them nor did I see them until very recently.

A timeline can be downloaded from the website for a notebook version or a wall timeline. My daughter used a timeline that she has used since 1^st grade that we added too when we came across timeline activities.

The front of the book for both the Student and Teacher guides has information on getting started . For Level 1 I set up my daughter’s notebook with dividers. My son used his notebook regularly but with my daughter I found the Student Guide was sufficient for her.

You are covered for a complete cycle of history and for grades K-12^th grade is covered with all the different levels 1-4.

Pathway to Liberty’s Universal History

Pathway to Liberty’s The Middle Ages

Pathway to Liberty’s US History

Pathway to Liberty’s World History

Each history course has 4 different levels. You choose the level according to your child's grade or abilities. With your history course you have all your levels in the Teacher’s Guide. The only thing you will need to obtain as your kids advance yearly is the Student Guide which the physical book is consumable and intended for only one student. Or buy the digital book which can be used with more than one student.

Level 1: K5-3^rd grade

Level 2: 4^th -6^th grade

Level 3: 7^th – 9^th grade

Level 4: 10^th -12^th grade

Not only are you teaching history but this is a Biblical Worldview Curriculum that covers Bible, literature, geography, writing assignments, and vocabulary. All of this makes Pathway to Liberty Homeschool Curriculum a complete comprehensive history curriculum.

There is a suggested 4 days a week schedule. The curriculum is flexible enough to adjust if needed. Our time varied with my daughter from 30-60 minutes. With her learning challenges we would sometimes split up a lesson depending on the content and what kind of day she was having with focusing. This included the literature books that I read out loud to my daughter.

Teacher Guide and Student Guide

 Both guides have the same layout other than the Teacher Guide having your answers to the questions and a some helpful information.

Both books are also high quality spiral bound books! Not plastic combs that tend to crack after awhile and tend to come lose. The spiral bound makes it easy for the books to lay flat without having to hold down one side to keep the book open.

There are 26 weeks with lessons 4 days a week. I like the 4 day option as it helps me to play catch up if we get behind or some lessons require a bit more time for her to finish. With this not being a 36 week curriculum it helps me personally not to stress out to much with sickness, vacations, holidays, and appointments-I don’t feel like I’m behind! I hope I’m not the only one who feels like that. When my kids were in elementary we schooled year around but now that my kids are older they want more of a summer schedule school. Whether you school year around or more of a traditional schedule this is flexible to adjust to your unique homeschool!

This is more than history with other subjects weaved into every lesson. My daughter is learning geography, Bible scripture copywork and memorization, writing assignments, vocabulary, reading assignments, and more all wrapped up nicely in this step by step curriculum. The Bible verses used are from the NIV.

Some lessons include videos for most of the weekly lessons. The videos vary in length and can be anywhere from a few minutes to 45 minutes. The videos are offered on the Pathway to Liberty video channel and we haven’t had any that I was concerned about or her clicking off on to other videos. I just make sure the videos are full screened for her. I appreciate that the author gives you a heads up with videos and offers options. Even though we didn’t do level 2 or 3 one of the videos for them have war and death images that you may not want to show your kids. Another video mentions some profanity and gives you the time stamp so you can skip that section. That isn’t the normal for the videos as just a few of them are highlighted.

What history is covered: Foundations, Welcome 20^th Century, Around the World, and several Presidents are covered. Within each of those main topics you cover a plethora of topics from first colonies, slavery, Constitutions, expansion in America, Henry Ford from his childhood to inventions, World War I, World War II, Nazi Germany, Helen Keller, Civil Rights, Neil Armstrong, Presidents, and much more.

At the beginning of each week you have an overview. Each week you have a scripture verse, principal, and a leading idea at the top of the weekly overview. The rest of the week is a laid out schedule broken down by all 4 levels and into a 4 day lesson schedule. You will see what you are reading with the page number or chapter, writing assignments, vocabulary, video information, and History expanded.

Some assignments are labeled optionally too. Most of the optional assignments were writing assignments. For my situation with my daughter’s dysgraphia and arthritis we did a lot of oral assignments for writing.

Each week your lessons are broken into 4 lessons. Your first lesson always covers your Scripture, Principle, and Leading Idea. That is weaved into the other lessons throughout the week.

All of this is broken down by level. For kids that are independent or even semi-independent this makes it easy for them to complete the lessons. Your week is laid out in step by step instructions for both student and parents to follow. This is what I call an open and go curriculum. I know I can just open the book and it is all planned out for me.

In Level 1 my daughter had several activities that varied in her Student Guide. She filled in the blank to complete sentences, comprehensive questions that she had to write out a complete sentence to the questions, coloring pages, videos, and plot elements that you write down main events and draw them out. There are map activities, state activities, and vocabulary, cut out activity, character qualities, timelines, and more. Your questions are a mixture of facts, your own personal thoughts on the lesson, and some discussion questions.  I liked the variety for this age group. It keeps it different and interesting for the intended grades. With a child with special needs it was a good balance of activities. The lessons didn’t overwhelm her with long lessons and it was fun for her. Another thing I want to point out is the amount of writing space on the assignments. It was very sufficient for young writers with a lot of space to accommodate those who write larger like my daughter. For me that is a huge plus!

Below are several worksheets throughout the curriculum.

The lesson flow nicely once you get a few weeks into it. If you’re like me it always takes me a few weeks getting a feel of a curriculum and seeing what works and what I need to adjust for my daughter’s learning style.

My daughter enjoyed Pathway to Liberty World History Year 4 Level 1 for her 11^th grade. She has retained a lot of the information with history. Her favorite sections where on Neil Armstrong, Helen Keller, and Ronald Reagan. She loved the areas of study on inventions. That surprised me how much she really got into them. It led to a few rabbit trails. That is the joy and advantage of homeschooling your kids. The book selections went well with the curriculum and she didn’t complain about them.

I would like to touch on using this with a child with significant learning challenges. My daughter has Autism, dysgraphia, arthritis, genetic disorder, vision issues, and other issues. I pretty much have to adapt all curriculum in some aspect for her. Sometimes a curriculum isn't adaptable and I feel that I just washed down the curriculum or it required more work than I wanted to put into it.  Pathway to Liberty World History Year 4 Level 1 I needed to adapt the optional parts. We did it orally. Some videos were longer and I split them up in smaller sections. Sometimes I had to break up a lesson because it was just a bad day or week. The core assignments and the writing space in the workbook was perfect for her. Granted we are way below her grade level but it's perfect for her academic level. She didn't fill overwhelmed with the amount of work and writing. The books were for the most part at her level. I was able to do them as a read out loud. This made it very easy for me with her history this year. My daughter would tell you, "History was fun this year mommy!" That says a lot and it tells me it was successful! 

I like it when I can teach my kids history that isn’t washed down and that emphasizes a Christian worldview.  I appreciate that I only need one Teacher’s Guide for all 4 Levels. Check it out yourself. Ask questions in the comments below or ask the author Jayme McCullough about the curriculum if you don't find it on the website.

Social Media:

Website: https://pathwaytoliberty.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PathwaytoLiberty/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pathway2Liberty
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVQD1kM1KnthMBWFTQ_AbQ/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pathwaytoliberty/

I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this information accordance with the FTC Regulations. 

Want to take a stress-free and affordable family vacation? Let Jennifer Flanders, a seasoned globetrotter and mother of 12, show you how! Pack Up & Leave is jam-packed with tips to make traveling with children more fun, enjoyable, educational, and easy.

My thoughts:

I have always thought that traveling while homeschooling would be the best education in the world. What better way to explore the places where history happened and to just do something fun with my family. Honestly, it feels like a dream to be able to do that. I was completely intrigued when I seen “Pack Up & Leave Travel Tips for Fun Family Vacations by Jennifer Flanders.”

This was an easy to read book with lots of hopeful information. Jennifer Flanders has broken this book up in fifteen sections. I found all the information very practical and realistic information and tips.

Jennifer Flanders in a homeschool mamma herself and gets it that homeschooling is a lifestyle each and every day. I love that she focuses on family and creating moments.

The book covers everything from budgeting and starting out small. Being realistic with your children’s ages when traveling to certain places. I think backpacking in Europe sounds fun but, not with younger kids. Sometimes we have to consider what activities the kids want to do and include them in the planning. I have heard many parents complain how they went someplace exciting because of the history, education, and the kids complained and whined the majority of the trip. My kids really love museums but, a weeks’ worth of daily museums would be a disaster. Sometimes we need to step back and find out what they are interested in doing once you pull together resources to present to the family. It’s not that you don’t make it educational but, there are more things to do than museums and who’s not to say that something like paragliding can’t be educational! That thought is fresh on my mind as my 13 year old has been talking about paragliding a lot!

She talks about car traveling, cruises, missionary, and flying trips. She has several tips on boredom busters, packing, and even buying souvenirs realistically cheap. I have never considered taking a crock pot on the road. Consider eating places where kids eat free and she even lists several places that kids can eat free. There is so much more information throughout.

What I love the most is that she also focuses on staycations and long weekends. She reminds you that it isn’t about the places but making memories daily with your kids in everyday life. A quote, “No summer trip to Disney can compete with the magic of living at home with a family who loves one another and delights in spending time together, all year long.”  I have to agree 100% with those words.

Thank you so much Jennifer Flanders for sharing your tips on traveling. It looks more hopeful to get out more and see the world. Who knows maybe one day you will make it the TPA Wichita, KS Homeschool Convention as a speaker.

I received a free copy of this product from BookCrash.com in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this information accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Wow, I can't believe that it is almost October. I still haven't put up my 2018-2019 school curriculum or really put a lot of content into my blog lately.

I find the older my kids get the less time I have or maybe I'm not managing my time as well. Who knows maybe it's a bit of both.

I find homeschooling middle and high school doesn't inspire me as much with posting. I'm still learning the ropes with highschool and the whole transcripts and changing my record keeping style. I was pretty organized before my daughter hit highschool with records. I just didn't keep track of grading. I would grade the paper and file them away quickly. Now, I insert the grades to keep track of them and the GPA. I have been using Homeschool Manager and I love it for figuring out final grades and the GPA. I can adjust the grading to my grading scale. It even keeps attendance and I can print out each week's schedule. I also make a book reading list and volunteer hours through Homeschool Manager. It's the easiest homeschool tracker program I have used so far. It does take time inputting the information into it. That's a given with any homeschool tracking program.

I use the  HSLD transcript service that is offered on their site. Even through the Homeschool Manager does have the transcript printout  I prefer to go through the HSLD but, all the information is figured out for me and all I have to do is input the information at the end of the school year for Bug. I actually have already transitioned in keeping records for my middle school minus the transcript. That way it's easier for me next year.

Some days I miss the crafts and lapbooks. My kiddos are growing up so fast Little Man is not so little anymore and is almost 13 and Bug is almost 16. Both kids are now the same height as me. Pretty soon they will be taller than me! It seemed to happen overnight and I'll have to bend my neck to look up to them!

When my kids were younger they wanted me to take pictures to blog about even without me suggesting it. Now I get a, "really mom do you have to take a picture of me for the blog?" Sigh!

All the kids are still in 4-H and we just finished our 4-H year with the State Fair. Bug last year won at state for her entomology project. It was a big deal being a state winner for her Kansas Award Portfollio for her and she put a lot of work into it. I'll try to post a picture of it soon. 

Little Man is an excellent photographer but, I'm a bit bias. His photo made it into the Kansas 4-H calendar. He surprises me with his photos and what he comes up with. He's more of a wildlife and landscape photographer and has a keen eye for things when taking pictures. He helps his sister out a lot in photography and because of his help she has been doing well in the project.

Bug only has 2 appointments a week instead of 7. Thank goodness as I don't know how I did it before. 

We love living in our small town. It has been a great move for our family. We are only 30 minutes from Wichita and most of our appointments are on the east side which makes our commute 45 minutes. When I go into town weekly I plan for a whole day to get other errands done.

I plan on trying to blog more this year. Reviews keep me busy with what spare time I do have. I guess we will see how that pans out with blogging. 

God bless y'all.

I have really enjoyed homeschooling my kids and I find great joy in teaching my kids. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. At times it’s not so fun for me or even the kids.

There are days, weeks, and even seasons that I have lost my zeal. I feel irritable, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like my kids are behind, and thinking that others can do a better job teaching my kids. 

This is homeschool burnout. Whether you are a new homeschooler or a veteran homeschooler it’s going to happen at some point and usually several times throughout your homeschool journey. 

If you feel like: 

You’re failing your kids academically.

Depressed and feel like it’s a hopeless cause.

Are you ready to chase the yellow school bus down the road and enroll them in school?

Are you feeling overwhelmed with homeschooling.

Comparing yourself to how much better other homeschool moms do teaching their kids.

Then you are probably experiencing homeschool burnout. Even after 10 years I get burnt out. This last year and a half I have really struggled a lot with it.

What do I do when I feel this way?

The first thing I do is to pray for directions, peace, my kids, and myself in our homeschool. You may say that, “I do pray daily”. That’s great but, sometimes I really pray and lay my burdens down to my heavenly father and tell Him that I feel helpless and overwhelmed. He is faithful! 

Take another look at your schedule. Are you trying to get too much done in one day? Is it realistic for each child? Both of my kids are different. If I scheduled Bug as much work as I do Little Man it would be a nightmare. Her work loads changes often. Depending on her health issues it can effect whether I can increase or decrease her school work or even certain subjects. I have to pay attention to her more so I can adapt it regularly for her needs.

Remember homeschooling isn’t all academics. Remind yourself why you are homeschooling. What are your homeschooling goals? We often forget that we can be flexible in our homeschool. Stop comparing your homeschool to someone else. Every homeschool is unique. Trying to model someone else’s homeschool is a train wreck.

Some days you just need to relax and do something fun. Go on a field trip, set up a play date, a craft, read a book snuggled up on the couch, sleep in, and maybe just take the day off to get refreshed. Take care of yourself and let the kids play for a day or two.

Are you overloaded with outside activities? Reevaluate and see if it’s something that is really necessary. Outside activities can be time zappers that take away from academics. I am not saying to stop them all. I know a homeschool mom that does swimming (in the spring), gymnastics, co-op, music, scouts, PE, and sports camps (in season) every week. Is it really necessary to do that many outside activities? No wonder she looks so stressed out and is always complaining about being behind in school. Even doing half of that is a lot. I don’t know how she does what she does. I use to be amazed by all she does-like she is a super homeschool mom. Now, I worry about her as her kids are getting older. Maybe the swimming lessons can be scheduled in the summer. Maybe she could not do PE during the sports camps. I know that her kids hate being as busy. They have mentioned it several times to my kids. They don’t get to do field trips and play dates because they are so overloaded. They barely take any days off. Maybe, it works for her family as I don’t see the day to day of her homeschool. I know it wouldn’t work for me.

Sit down with your kids and find out what they enjoy. When I schedule outside activities that my kids aren’t thrilled about it rubs off on me. There are things that I don’t give them a choice. 

Cutting back on the academics can also help. I find that I over schedule every year. I take on more than we can accomplish. If the day is not going well and we feel like we are rushing to get it all done. This is when I know it’s too much.

Maybe a certain curriculum choice isn’t working out as you’d originally planned. It’s okay to stop it or do just parts of it. Maybe you can borrow something from a friend?

Every child learns different. It could be the learning styles of your kids. My kids are totally on the opposite side of each other with their learning styles.

It hard when it’s something as precious as our kids when we are burnt out on schooling our kids. Remember you are wearing several hats as a teacher, mom, cook, and so on.

I have recently had a burn out and slowly getting over it. Yes, I said slowly. With moving, remodeling, and an emotional rollercoaster in the last year I have been going on fumes. 

This year I tried something different thinking that maybe we needed a complete change of pace. I changed the way I schedule our academic schedule to put more responsibility for my kids. Well I’m finding that it has created a lot more issues then it’s worth at this point. Both the kids and I found out that having something typed up every week caused a lot of stress. If we had other activities pop up unexpectedly. Which life happens and it seems to happen a lot with a child with disabilities. My kids just felt overwhelmed if something had to be carried over. Much to my surprise with them seeing it on their weekly list it drove them crazy and caused a lot of emotions. Even though we carried over some schoolwork with my previous scheduling I guess it just stands out more in my kids minds that they missed lessons. 

We have gone back to our old basic scheduling of me just preparing it the night before. I would put it in our workboxes. They don’t have to check anything off. If we have something that comes up unexpectedly I would just adjust it to fit our needs. We haven't been using our workboxes so I thought it was a good time to change things up. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Wow, it was that easy of a fix. As much as I wanted the new schedule to work I just have to accept that it just didn’t work for us. It bugged me as I have several friends who do this and they love it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Then I reminded myself that every homeschool is unique and I don’t have to do it like XYZ. Maybe when my son gets older we can revisit it. Everyone is much happier now that I went back to my schedule that has worked for the last 10 years. My schedule was a basic yearly schedule that I planned out during our break. I had goals, subjects, projects, and books that I had planned out. I knew how many lessons needed to be done in a year and planned out how many needed to be done in the school year. I was well organized.

I did a lot of changes in our curriculum also this last year. For the most part everything has been a good fit. I needed to reduce my school budget. With a few exceptions on two subjects for Little Man. I have had to reevaluate what is truly not working or is it my son just trying to get out of it. Yes, he would rather be on some grand adventure playing. One subject was just not a good fit for him and he felt it was too easy for him and he didn’t like the stories he was reading. It brought many tears and he did a poor job with it. I found out that the curriculum bored him and it was too easy for him. 

The other subject he thought it was interesting and I noticed that it challenged him. I changed it to not letting it be an independent subject and I have been reading it with him and working with him on every question. That has been a big relief to him. The tears have vanished. Praise God it is getting better now that I have made adjustments.

I found that I was irritable because of the kids were stressed out on having a typed out schedule that they had to check off.  It made me and the kids feel overwhelmed. We just had to figure out what was causing it. It made me feel like I was failing to educate my kids properly. I just had to take a step back and pray. Then make adjustments. Even take a few days off and not just for appointments and remodeling. 

Not only does it happen to us as moms but, kids have homeschool burnout also. Sometimes we as moms feel great but, are kids are running on fumes. Give them a break to be a kid and take some time off to get refreshed.

Homeschool burn out happens to everyone. It’s normal and it’s even okay. Learn to recognize the symptoms before it gets really bad. I encourage you to type out why you homeschool and hang it up in your classroom so you can remember why homeschooling is important to you. 

I want my kids to have good memories of homeschooling and of me.