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How do you teach State History so it’s not boring? And do successful homeschoolers ever completely flop teaching something?

Hi Lee, I would like to know if you can give any information on teaching Washington State History without making it boring. I have a book and an old version of switched on school house that isn’t up to date, because it for 2000-01 school year. I want to make the study interesting not boring.

~Homeschool Mom

Hi there,

I completely failed at teaching State History. Really. I never made it into something that wasn’t boring.

Did you know that State history is NOT a requirement for homeschoolers in Washington State? You don’t have to cover that at all…. boy, I wish I would have known that!

If you want to cover Washington State history anyway, you can do as little as just a research report or a mapping project. As far as Switched on Schoolhouse goes, I don’t think it matters what year it was created, because you’re looking more at the history and geography of the state, rather than current events.

But all in all, I’m completely NO HELP here, except to say you don’t have to teach it I’m pretty sure my readers will have some ideas though.

EVERYONE: Can you please help us struggling homeschoolers with some interesting ways to teach State History?

Isn’t it wonderful that I’m willing to admit my failures, though? LOL!

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If you need help saving money on your food budget, I saw the most wonderful book while watching “The Doctors” on TV!  The book is called “Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression”

The doctors on the show recommended the book as a common sense way to eat healthy food inexpensively.  I just thought Clara was adorable!  She also had a video filled with more recipes and her stories from the depression. Check it out! Great Depression Cooking with Clara.

Read to what others are saying about The HomeScholar Gold Care Club!

People think that dealing with gifted children is easy.  Hah!  No way!  It’s amazingly stressful!

Hi Lee,
I just got a jolt when I read on your website that a rough conversion from PSAT to SAT is to add a zero to the end.  So what do I do with a 14 year old who has a PSAT selection index of 201, average percentile of 97, Critical Reading score of 70, Mathematics score of 61, and Writing Skills score of 70?
~ Amazed in Auburn

To be honest, that was EXACTLY the place I found myself when son was 14. He got an 800 in reading, 790 in writing and math, with a perfect score on the essay.  That was the moment I realized that I just *might* have to graduate him early.  He is a senior at Seattle Pacific University now, and he’s 20 and headed to law school.  Here’s a few things that will help.

• Do you have my “gifted education at home” CD?
• We can also talk on the phone for 20 minutes each week if you are a member of the Gold Care Club.
• Here is my gifted education article in Heart of the Matter Magazine.

My best advice:  hang on.  It’s going to be a wild ride.  God gave you this child for a reason.

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Sitting there getting my hair cut, I overheard a conversation between two mothers of high school teens.  They were talking about how they had moved their children from public schools and private schools, searching for a quality education and yet unable to find it.  “They just don’t teach the basics of reading, writing and math anymore!” one mother moaned.  The other mom said, “And my child is getting completely lost in the system!”

She went on to describe how her child completed Algebra 1 with difficulty.  The following year, the guidance counselor signed her child up for the wrong class.  This poor student was sitting in a calculus class for TWO WEEKS before anyone figured out that he wasn’t supposed to be in that class!

I realize that homeschoolers sometimes feel insecure about their ability to advise their children in high school.  You have to admit, however, that a homeschooler would NEVER stick their child in a Calculus class after having difficulty with Algebra 1!  We may not be perfect high school advisors, but we do truly KNOW our child, and that’s what makes us successful!

Let’s be friends on Facebook!

It is sometimes difficult to encourage men to help with household chores.  As the only woman in my home, I knew we needed to work together.  Of course they would need cleaning skills for adulthood.  More importantly, though, they were the ones making the mess! It was simply a matter of Justice.

That's me herding my three men!

Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise by Pam Young and Peggy Jones has some great ideas.  For years, instead of nagging, I would simply hand my men their list of tasks on cards.  Finish the cards, done for the day.  Now, you have to understand that this is how my kids functioned best.  It is the same personality characteristics that made them like an assignment sheet rather than having me tell them their assignments.  They liked to see all the work up front first, so they knew the list wouldn’t get longer and longer as the day went on.   Since it was a good fit for us, it was a great sanity-saver during our years of homeschooling.

I was cleaning the house the other day and something became very clear to me.  Yes, my children are no longer home to make a mess.  However, they are no longer home to help me clean, either!  It takes me FOREVER without their help!

Please rate my blog at Homeschool Top Sites!

Do you think there is a market for a book called “The Worst-Case Scenario Homeschool Survival Handbook”?  Maybe not, but I do have a short article that may help, called “Homeschooling without Fear.“  I hope it will help you feel like a survivor.

Six months before I first started homeschooling, I was stricken with severe dizziness, and the doctors did tests to see if I had a brain tumor, or multiple sclerosis.  As I lay on my swirling-yet-stationary couch, I wondered how I would be able to homeschool in my condition.  But watching the situation in the public school, I was aware that SICK OR NOT, I could still do a better job than they were doing, because my son’s teacher was on medical leave too!  I thought a lot about these issues before we even began, and became convinced I would stick it out.

I have never been faced with a truly horrendous situation while homeschooling, and I hope you haven’t either.  But just in case, I hope you will remember that there is a way to survive while homeschooling.

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Children learn all the time, even when we aren’t looking – and even over summer!  You might want to “pre-test” your children in some subject areas before you start school next year.  For example, Spelling Power offers a placement test for their program, and you can check their spelling level at the beginning of each year, to make sure they are learning something new.  In most math books, the first chapter or two is review.

You can see if your student really NEEDS the review.  You can give the chapter one test on the first day of school, and if your child scores well, just skip chapter one, and move on to the chapter two test.  Keep in mind that our goal isn’t to “teach” something.  Our goal is that our children learn something new – something they don’t already know.

Please rate my blog at Homeschool Top Sites!

My experience with LD and ADHD is not first hand, but through friends and college advisers.  In talking with them, I came to recognize that the core issue of the LD crowd is the same as it is for the gifted crowd:

Teaching every subject at their level all the time.

That’s how I provide guidance.  I can tell you that I have spoken to many colleges who are eager to have all children, and are well prepared to accommodate, and my Gold Care Club message is all about preparing for college.

Beyond “expertise” though, much of homeschooling high school is about having support.  I can be your buddy, your friend who is GLAD you’re homeschooling your child and thinks it’s a GOOD idea.  I can be your second pair of eyes on your curriculum and records, and another caring parent researching issues online.  In other words, sometimes it’s not about me knowing more than you, but about me going through it with you.

How about this idea.  You could get the Total Transcript Solution and try Gold Care Club for free for a month and see if it works for you.  Surely you’ll need a transcript anyway, and it comes with some great classes along with the Ebook.  And then you can try the Gold Care, see if it meets your needs, and only stay on for the monthly fee IF it meets your needs, you know?  No harm, no foul that way!  Here is the link to the Total Transcript Solution so you can read more about it.

Also, make sure to read my article on College for Struggling Learners.

The women quoted in the article are very close friends of mine, and I know their children very, very well.  Please be encouraged – these are real people.

I am now the Seattle Homeschool Examiner.  You can read my homeschool articles here.

One of the difficult parts of homeschooling is not the schooling itself.  It’s the “home” part.  The part where we cook, clean, maintain, organize, and sort our lives.  Balancing home and schooling is the hard part.  Relatively speaking, the school part isn’t that tough!

(Not our dinner table)

When I was homeschooling, one way that I coped was by cooking as little as possible.  Don’t get me wrong, I like cooking, and my family has always loved the meals I provide.  We ate every meal together as a family, at the dining table every night.  Still, my goal was to cook as little as possible.

Freezer cooking, cooking in large quantities less frequently, became a standard.  Although I didn’t cook as little as once a month, as many books suggest, I did do large-batch cooking every few weeks.  It really helped me feed my wonderful family while cooking less often.

If you are interested in freezer cooking, my favorite books are these:

• The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet
• Holiday Freezer Cooking from 30 Day Gourmet

There were simple and straight-forward, nothing fancy, and they provided great instruction on how to take my regular home-cooking and adapt it for freezer cooking.  If you get the books, you could almost plan your entire holiday meal ahead of time, and have a much more relaxed family celebration!

My other method for cooking less has become a standard household joke around here.  Costco.  I relied on Costco.  Costco lasagna, salad mixes…  See, I’m not too embarrassed to confess it!  I’m really being brutally honest here! My best meals have come from Costco!  Especially as the kids got older, and their activities took us away from home more often, I began to rely heavily on Costco meals.  Sadly, I can’t do that as much anymore.  You’re not going to believe this, but when you don’t have children at home, it’s possible for the Costco-sized chicken to get a freezer burn before you can use it up.  I’m not kidding.

My children are cooking for themselves in college now.  They regularly shop at Costco.  They put meals in the freezer at the beginning of the week.  They can cook for themselves AND make stellar grades, because they have learned to cook as little as possible too!

My apologies to all my friends who grind their own wheat and cook organic all the time.  I hope you’ll still love me!

Enter our Total Transcript Solution Giveaway by posting a comment on Monday’s blog post.