Archives for 2015

21 Hands On Homeschooling Ideas to Keep the Winter Chill Off {Activities for Tots to Teens}

December 4, 2015 | 13 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

My secret confession is that I just LOVE winter when it comes to homeschooling. I love the cold and gray skies because it is such a refreshing change.

However, I know that for some homeschoolers winter can also seem humdrum and boring. So today, I have rounded up 21 hands on homeschooling ideas to keep the winter chill off.

From a free unit study to making a sweet treat, you’ll find an activity or two for your teen or tot.

Alphabet-Worksheets2-FREE-A-to-Z-Activity-Pages-from-This-Reading-Mama

remember to pin from original sources
{pic attribution: This Reading Mama}

Alphabet Letter Mazes {With Different Letter Fonts} by This Reading Mama
Wonderful Winter Beginning Sound Cards by Natural Beach Living
Free Trace and Try Handwriting Pages by This Reading Mama
Winter Snowflake Sensory Bottle by The Jenny Revolution
Build a Square Snowman + Printable Pattern by Minutes of Motherhood

DIY Discovery Box for Baby by Growing Hands On Kids
Frozen Inspired Free Printable Activity Pack by A Little Pinch of Perfect

2015-12_Snowflake with Sticks_A Little Pinch of Perfect

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{pic attribution: A Little Pinch of Perfect}

Make Snowflake Sticks by Pinch of Perfect
Winter Bucket List for Kids by The Simple Parent
Easy Winter Scene & Snow Paint Recipe by a Little Pinch of Perfect

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{pic attribution: Crystal and Comp.}

Easiest Way to Make Snowman Cookies by Crystal & Co.

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{pic attribution: From ABCs to ACTs}

Printable Gingerbread Play Dough Mats by From ABCs to ACTs
How to Make a Corn Husk Doll by Gift of Curiosity

Montessori-inspired-caves-unit-Gift-of-Curiosity

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{pic attribution: Gift of Curiosity}

Caves Unit Study by Gift of Curiosity
How to Make Straw Rockets by The Pleasantest Thing

How to Make Perfect Fake Snow by Playtivities
27 Books For Kids About Winter by Crystal & Co.
Make an Easy Gingerbread Suncatcher by Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds
15 Snowman Books for Children by The Jenny Revolution

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{pic attribution: Totally the Bomb}

Snowman Oreos by Totally the Bomb
Gingerbread Cookie Recipes by Spaceships and Laser Beams

And a little bit of coloring fun never hurts either!

Check out my 20 Ancient Civilization coloring pages and my 10 Westward Expansion coloring pages.

Here is what the 10 page download contains. I put a few key words to explain each picture on the page. This way you can use the coloring pages as title pages too.

Page 3: Native American on horseback,
Page 4: Lewis and Clark Trek,
Page 5: Lewis and Clark and The Piegan,
Page 6: Lewis and Clark Exploring Rivers,
Page 7: The Plains Indians,
Page 8: Pioneer Life,
Page 9: Moving West,
Page 10: Westward Ho,
Page 11: Settlers, and
Page 12: Fur Trappers and Mountainmen

Here is what the 20 page download contains. I put a few key words to explain each picture on the page. This way you can use the coloring pages as title pages too.

Page 3: Ancient Egypt Court,
Page 4: Ancient Egypt Spinning,
Page 5: Ancient Egypt Life of the Royals,
Page 6: Ancient Egypt Battles,
Page 7: Ancient Egypt The Nile,
Page 8: Life Along the River – The Nile,
Page 9: Metal Workers & Crafts of Ancient Egypt,
Page 10: Egyptian Hieroglyphics,
Page 11: Egyptian Queen Cleopatra,
Page 12: Aztecs Floating Gardens,
Page 13: Aztecs,
Page 14: Aztec Life,
Page 15: Mayans,
Page 16: Ancient Greece Wedding,
Page 17: Ancient Greek Galley,
Page 18: Ancient Greece Crafts,
Page 19: Ancient Greece Bank,
Page 20: Athens,
Page 21: Spartan Warrior and
Page 22: The Vikings.

0. Westward Expansion History Fun 10 Coloring Pages
$1.75 Add to cart

0. Westward Expansion History Fun 10 Coloring Pages
$1.75 Add to cart

Hugs and love ya,

Also, you might want to grab some of these ideas:

Also, check out Free Winter Copywork for Middle School – Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Winter Homeschooling Activities and Free Downloads. 5 Days of Look Alive
50 Keep Me Homeschooling Activities During the Long Cold Winter Days

Follow Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s board Winter ♥ on Pinterest.

How to Expose Homeschooled Teens to a Variety of Fine Arts (and Get High School Credit)

December 2, 2015 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschooling teens is challenging, but it can be especially rewarding when you learn how to expose homeschooled teens to a variety of fine arts and manage to get much needed high school credits too.

Whether you have homeschooled from the beginning or just pulled your teen out of school, fine arts normally rate high on the priority list of subjects to cover by both mom and teen.

We don’t add them to our homeschool high school transcript just because a fine arts credit or two is normally required in most states for graduation, but we add them to our teen’s day because they enrich their lives.

How to Expose Homeschooled Teens to a Variety of Fine Arts (And Get High School Credit) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Making the Most of the Teen Years

To understand the vast amount of opportunities that can not only enrich a teen’s life, but that can be added to his transcript, check out this easy definition found on the TEA (Texas Education Agency.)

Fine arts at the high school level include art, dance, music, and theatre.

High school students must complete one credit of fine arts to graduate from high school under the any high school graduation program.

As you can see there can be a wide variety of classes that fall under each category.

So normally homeschool teens can easily get more than one credit. Look at my tips for How to Log Hours For High School.

Mr. Senior 2013 used Sister Wendy’s Story of Paintingfor art history. That course easily fell under arts.

Mr. Senior 2013 and Mr. Awesome 2015 both took ballroom dancing for a year.

Ballroom dancing as fine arts @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

A side note on this, but believe me when I tell you that NEITHER son had an interest in taking what they thought was a sissy sport and boring one too.

They told me and hubby that they were not taking dance classes under no circumstances.

We took into consideration their likes, but also wanted them rounded out when it came to fine arts.

So their father put his foot down (ha ha corny, pun intended) and told the boys they were going to try out ballroom dancing and it ended up being their favorite fine arts course of high school.

Their experience was far from boring as they had hip young instructors who added in a lot of modern dance moves along with group dancing.

Dancing Your Way To Graduation

The Arthur Murray studio, which my boys took ballroom dancing lessons at also offered contests and performances, which easily fell under dance too.

Within a short driving distance from our house was a university that hosted regular free performances and dances on Sunday. This counts as high school credit too.

With a little bit of out of the box thinking, it can be quite fun, not to mention affordable to add fine arts to your curriculum.

If your child loves theatre or drama, check with your local homeschool group because they may offer classes.

If they don’t, why not start up one of your own? With a few teens and a hardworking mom or two, you can easily add drama to your day and add memories to your journey.

In one of the smaller cities I lived in, one theatre group allowed the homeschoolers to use the stage during the day since it wasn’t being used.

Most homeschoolers play a musical instrument or at least dabble in music lessons like violin, a piano or guitar. This counts too as fine arts credit.

If you live not too far from a major city, most larger cities have a fine arts museum.

Teens love a field trip or two visiting a museum as part of their art course. Grab some other highschoolers and enjoy the field trip along with your teen.

Look at some of these other options:

How to Expose Homeschooled Teens to a Variety of Fine Arts (and Get High School Credit)

What has your high school teen accomplished for their fine arts credit?

Look at these other tips:

Also, check out The Must Cover Subjects for High School Part 1 and Part 2.

Follow Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s board Homeschool Middle & High School on Pinterest.

3 Things To Try When Your Hands-Off Homeschooling Approach is a Failure

December 1, 2015 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

My homeschool confessions have come later in my journey. I would love to tell you it’s because I am a slow learner, but the truth of it is I am a stubborn teacher.

Though I could fill up a book about things I have tried and that have flopped, I am hoping that by sharing things to try when your hands off homeschooling approach is a flop, I know that you will be a much quicker learner than me.

I have heard many ~~reasons~~ excuses throughout the years about why hands on learning does not work like it takes too much time, my child would prefer to just read or I don’t like the mess.

My Hits and Misses for Hands-On Homeschooling

Guess what? They may be all true, but because there is no denying the sticking power of hands on learning, I hope these ideas to ease into hands on learning will you have rethinking your present hands off approach.

Don’t Jump Ship Completely.

When I moved over to a more hands-on approach, I folded in a few activities a week, not each day.

As frustrated with my hands-off approach, which was not working, I knew that I needed time to make the transition. By not abandoning my present homeschool approach, I could slowly learn to add in hands-on activities.

I didn’t want to get overwhelmed with adding something new to my approach and besides I had to have time to mull over the fact that though a mess might be created in my home, it had a purpose.

Not only did my boys become engaged with learning that day, but they were ready to return the next day.

Meet with Just ONE Other Family.

Another thing I did when I wanted to transition to a hands-on approach was to meet with another homeschooling family each week.

If you’re a party animal homeschooler this may defeat your purpose because the more kids you have, the more you have to plan.

By meeting with just one other family, you can divide homeschool planning time between two homeschool moms.

This idea turned out much better than I even could have imagined. Not only did I have time to play by having activities every other week, but I could watch another mom that already used hands-on activities with her kids.

It was such valuable learning time for as a homeschool teacher.

A huge added bonus was that my boys had hands-on activities each week as the other homeschool mom and myself took turns planning.

Start off Easy.

Another hurdle that kept me from trying a hands-on activity was thinking that activities had to be long, drawn out and with lots of materials.

I had my light bulb moment when I saw my boys playing with puzzles.

From that moment, I learned that I set up my own boundaries to hands on learning because I thought activities had to be complicated.

Who is living and schooling in a perfect homeschool world? Good thing we can start over when we flop.

Don’t be intimidated by using a hands-on approach. It can be easier than you think.

What ideas do you have for easing into a hands-on approach?

Hugs and love ya,

Look at these posts that will help jump start you into a hands on approach without overwhelming you.

Easy Hands On Homeschooling Ideas When You’re Not the Bomb Mom
Blurring the Line Between Living and Learning When Homeschooling
When My Homeschool Curriculum Has Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Free Winter Copywork for Middle School – Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

November 30, 2015 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I’ll share soon all that I have been up to, but today I wanted to kick off the winter months by sharing some beautiful poetry or free winter copywork. Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips

I wouldn’t want you to think that copywork is only for the younger grades because middle and high school kids still benefit from copywork and especially when it’s poetry.

Beat Winter Homeschooling Burnout

So today, I have a free download for winter copywork which is Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

It’s such a beautiful poem that can be deciphered many ways if you want to, but there is no denying the lure of the cold, snow and long wintry days.

I just thought it would be a great way to kick off the change in the season. It is three pages and it is in cursive. It is not babyish, so it can be used for a variety of ages.

The benefits of copywork go beyond learning how to write, which is why it’s a great tool to use for older kids too. Copywork is a super way of rekindling the love for language arts for either a middle or high school kid.

I feel it’s an underused tool for the older kids because we think of using copywork to teach writing. However, for older kids copywork is a way for older kids to learn how to organize their ideas and thoughts.

Sometimes, even our older kids need a visual model for writing and copywork can be one solution.

Download the copywork below:

Download here Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening – Poem by Robert Frost

Also, I have a free winter lapbook and unit study that would go perfect with this copywork.

Free Winter Unit Study and Lapbook for homeschooled kids @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus-1

Hugs and love ya,

Did you see these other posts about copywork?

Free History Copywork
French Revolution Copywork

Also, if you’re looking for more winter hands-on ideas, check out the ideas below:

5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Follow Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s board Winter ♥ on Pinterest.

Beautiful Sunkissed Curriculum Planner Cover- Build Your Own Unique Homeschool Planner

November 12, 2015 | 3 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I am tickled to share my newest creation.

I have created a beautiful sunkissed curriculum planner cover.

I loved this newest curriculum planner cover not only for the soothing colors, but also because I made it undated. This means you can use it year after after year or skip a year, grab a different cover for one year and then come back to it.

Too, I added a place on the front so that you could put your name on it before you laminated it.

Simple, with sassy colors and I love it.

Curriculum Pages for Planner

This cover is part of the classical cover series, which means I used paid fonts so that it is unique.

Guess what? It cost only .99 and you can get it today.

Important: READ THIS FIRST.

Before you email me asking where your download link is or tell me that it is not working, read this to ensure that you get your pretties timely and that you don’t pay for something and not get it.

All my products are digital. You will not receive a physical product for anything in my store. A digital physical year calendar does not mean a physical product or calendar.
Downloads are INSTANT. When you pay, you will receive an email with a download link INSTANTLY. Depending on your internet connection, the email could be just 30 seconds or so, or a bit longer. The point is it will be soon, not a week later,etc.
The email with the download link will go to the email you used for paypal. If you used your husband’s paypal, your downloads will go to that email. Please check that email and your spam before emailing me telling me you can’t find it.
Links are TIME SENSITIVE, meaning you need to download right then AND save to your computer. Please do not email me a week, two weeks or a month later telling me the “link is not working” because it has expired or because you did not save it to your device. I will not respond to those emails.
If a link is not “clickable” when you get your product download email, then copy/paste the link in your browser and your digital product will open.
Please put my email tina @ tinasdynamichomeschoolplus dot com in your address/contact list so that your product does not go to spam.

MY GUARANTEE: To treat you like I want to be treated which means I know at times technical problems may cause glitches, so I will do everything possible to make your experience here pleasant. I value your business and value you as a follower.

I stand behind my products because they are actual products I use and benefit from too.

Though I cannot refund purchases after you have been given access to them, I will do what I can to be sure you are a pleased customer.

Sunkissed Curriculum Planner Cover
$1.75 Add to cart

Hugs and love ya,

If you have used my 7 Step Homeschool Planner before, then for your quick reference I have listed each page or step below!

{The only thing quick here are the steps because this free planner has grown to over 400 free downloads spread throughout the 7 easy steps. Grab your cup of ~~caffeine,~~ coffee!}