Homeschooling Boys
Are you homeschooling? If so, you've discovered that things are seldom as easy as you supposed. All of us at one time or another have looked at the yellow buses going by and thought, “Well, there’s always that …” But here are some things which help us keep on course when the headwinds pick…
"How do I get my son to read???" is a common question when we speak about homeschooling boys. Here's what we've done: Be patient when you are teaching them to read. Earlier is not better when it comes to boys. The average boy five years old has the same developmental reading readiness as a girl…
A mom approached us at a conference, "I just can't get my son to concentrate!" she said. We asked her to explain. "Well, he does pretty well until about half-way through the morning, then he just loses focus! I tell him, 'Look, we only have three more subjects! Buckle down and concentrate and we'll be…
Q. A mom came up to us at a conference where we'd been speaking about entrepreneurship, "My teenage son is constantly coming up with business ideas, but I'm afraid to let him try. What if he fails?" We are not doing our boys a service to protect them from ever failing. When we do that,…
To enter these giveaways, join us for our free LIVE webinar, Ballistic Parenting: Surviving and Appreciating Boys on Monday, January 27th at 3pm Eastern OR download the workshop and listen any time before February 3rd. Register free here! Spring will be here soon...hang on! The Early Spring NaturExplorers Bundle includes Animal Signs, A Fungus Among Us…
Usually, teaching the first stanza of familiar hymns means correcting misunderstandings about the language (like angels singing, "Hark!"). The second stanza is where you usually find the first totally new lyrics. It's where you often find new insights, too, since the words are are fresh and we haven't grown complacent from hearing them a hundred…
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="403"] Schnorr von Carolsfeld, From the Bibel in Bildern, 1860[/caption] This is one of those hymns that we think we all know, but usually only sing the first verse. This is like nibbling on the salad and walking out on the feast. Charles Wesley packed so much Biblical truth into this carol,…
We started homeschooling when dinosaurs walked the earth. Well, not really, but it was before social media, websites, even email! It’s amazing all the inspiration and help you can find these days. Melanie’s brother lives in China, so our children have cousins who speak Chinese. That motivated us to chose Mandarin as our homeschool’s foreign…
Can you imagine your reluctant writer winning a statewide essay contest? It happens! It happened to one of ours, much to our (and his) amazement. We all had to learn a few things about writing first, though. Handwriting and writing are not the same thing! Our son was convinced he couldn’t write because handwriting and…
We are thrilled to announce that we'll be hosting an hourlong weekly streaming radio show on the new Ultimate Radio Network! Our new show, Making Biblical Family Life Practical, will be the Hal & Melanie you guys know and love -- there will be lots of back and forth and humor, but also pointed, principled…