Tina Robertson

When You REALLY Have No Money for Homeschool Curriculum – Dynamic Reader Question

May 29, 2015 | 18 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

No matter how long it takes me to reply to my emails, every email I get is important to me.

I am not made of stone and so when an email touches me to my heart and brings tears, I have to share it with you too. (Of course I always get permission first and I never share any private information so I can preserve dignity, privacy and respect for my followers.)

I am hoping that by sharing this email from one of my readers that if you are feeling alone and defeated but are hesitant about reaching out, you will find some comfort.

Look at my follower’s words:

I am a struggling homeschool mom of two with a husband that can only work part time. This is my second year homeschooling and I feel stressed to the gills. I have an 11 yo son who has Asperger’s and ADHD and a 10 yo daughter with dyslexia/dysgraphia.
I made the mistake of unschooling last year and I regret it but I don’t have the funds to order a curriculum. My children are working in all the same grade levels.
I may have to go to work because of my husband’s health so I am trying to plan as much as possible. It’s overwhelming to put it lightly.
I have internet access and a mono color printer, oh yeah and Netflix. Is there anything you can suggest that can keep the tears from falling?
I am to the point of when telling my husband that we are out of toilet paper that makes me cry because he is trying so hard…. Thank you for reading :/

After I replied about wanting to help her, her response moved my heart even more.

Thank you Tina for your time. I am an emotional wreck right now and currently crying because this is the first time that I have reached out to anyone that doesn’t know me. I don’t want to send my children back to being bullied and put on meds.
I will not do that but everything seems so stressful right now and I am suffocating with everything that it takes to plan a school year. I have a goal to hopefully start on July 6th considering we have a lot of catch up to do with them being at a third grade level. If I start working I have to get on the ball and make a dent in this madness A.S.A.P! Thank you again Tina!

First, I want to say THANK YOU for reaching out to me. This is something you should never have to bear alone.

And though I can’t completely say that I understand everything that you are going through, I have compassion and sympathy for you.

To give you practical help, let’s break this down into two parts.

One, I want to help you find peace with your present circumstances and two, I will give you specific tips and a starting point for curriculum.

Control What You Can.

I do understand your feelings about your husband’s health.

When my husband had a massive heart attack a few years back and I thought I would be raising my three boys alone, I realized I was not the invincible person I had always thought I was.

After nursing him back to health, I realized that trials have a way of strengthening us though we feel very weak at the time.

Of course we would rather not learn it that way.

I learned to control what I could and that really nothing mattered more than being together as a family because life is precious. After I put things in perspective, I had a beginning point.

Letting go of the way things use to be before his health declined spurred me on to find new creative ways to homeschool and spend time together.

Homeschool Mistakes. It’s NOT About Forgetting

Another thing I learned along the way was that I didn’t want to exactly follow the popular saying to “forgive and forget” when it came to homeschool mistakes I made.

While I wholeheartedly endorse the thinking that homeschooling is about forgiving your past mistakes so that you can have the energy to move forward, it’s also a lesson in how I don’t want to homeschool.

Instead of carry feelings of guilt, turn those feelings of guilt into some get up and go.

It was just a lesson learned in how the unschooling approach did not work for your family.

You now have a clear direction of the way your family needs to go.

Lesson learned and now you will be a much better teacher because of it.

New Homeschool Beginnings

Next, though it may take you more time to put together your curriculum, if you are willing to work hard in poring over resources, you can just about homeschool for free and your kids receive an excellent education.

Spending a lot of money doesn’t always equate with having an excellent education.

Your upbeat attitude and eagerness toward learning even with the most minimal resources are way more important to success than an ample supply of curriculum with an unmotivated teacher.

One caution I will give you is to not get yourself so overwhelmed with poring over free resources constantly that you don’t have a beginning point.

It is important to pick a main or spine resource and stick with it though you can use other things to supplement it with.

Though I will give you numerous sites at the bottom to find more free resources that I think are worth spending your time at, I have also lined out specific curriculum suggestions that I have picked out uniquely for you.

My reasons for choosing these sites are because they are either laid out to help ease planning stress and some are interactive sites to help with the unique needs of your children.

LANGUAGE ARTS – 3rd Grade

Reading

Choose from Baldwin online living books to read together on line and fill in with other books you get from the library.

There are many grade levels to choose from at the Baldwin website and I have used it for many years.

Children with special needs are not evenly developed across the board (not any kid really is) so it allows you to choose grade level books based on their progress through the year.

Go through them and pick out the ones you want to read together.

Also, Jennifer over at Contently Humble has a wonderful list of free graded readers. You won’t run out but you will run out of time deciding which gem to do first.

One more wonderful resource for reading is by Jamerrill, which is the Ultimate Guide to Free Kindle Books (psssst, you don’t have to own a kindle to get the free kindle books).

Spelling

Free 3rd grade Spelling book. (200 pdf download.) Just look ahead at the lessons, plan, print and go slow. It’s laid out for you.

Vocabulary

Because children that have special needs do better sometimes with interactive content, use this site by Wordly Wise with interactive vocabulary.

The word is pronounced out loud, gives the part of speech and is used in a sentence.

If your children become overstimulated, then turn off the sound. It’s already laid out for your children. If they finish one grade level, just go to the next one.

Copywork

To help their handwriting to improve as best you can, use free copybooks from copy cat books.

Remember too that they can copy small passages from history and science books but this gives you copywork already laid out. And already laid out curriculum is easiest when overwhelmed.

Another backup for copywork is Amy over at Are We There Yet has the ultimate guide to free copywork if you run out of ideas or are short on energy.

Grammar

Free grammar pdf download for Grades 1 – 5. (141 pages.) This will help you to go back over the basics and to be sure you strengthen their grammar skills as best you can.

MATH – 3rd Grade

Free pdf math download for grades 1 – 5. (229 pages) Use this as a main math spine and use the parts you need to reinforce concepts and teach new ones.

In addition because ck12 elementary math is interactive, your kids can do some math on their own to give you a break as well.

Too, using part printed and part interactive helps to give you some planning help and still addresses the needs of your children.

SCIENCE – 3rd Grade

Though I have two free middle science books here on my site, they are middle school science books. I wanted to be sure you knew about them in case your kids love science and want to go ahead in grade levels.

However, for the time being use this free science book that is a 3rd grade level.

It is a free book online and it is interactive. When the sound button is clicked, the science book will be read to your children. This will aid them in comprehension.

Again, this gives you a break too if you need to care for your husband, think about part time work or just need to find your calm point again. The kids can read this together or with you or you can choose the interactive portion where they are read to.

If you want to focus on one area of science, then check out these free guides, which are ones I picked out that I think your children will find fascinating based on their ages.

The Ultimate Guide to Studying Plants and Flowers
The Ultimate Guide to Studying Space
The Ultimate Guide to Studying Insects

HISTORY – 3rd Grade

You didn’t mention a specific time period you wanted cover, but here are some free things to use as a spine.

Heritage History books on line. Pick your time period.

America’s Heritage – An Adventure in Liberty. Three free levels to download; Elementary, Middle School and High School.

LibriVox – Has about 25 G.A. Henty books for free.

You know I have LOTS of free lapbooks and unit studies here AND they are in chronological order if you need them.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Don’t forget to ask other homeschoolers if they are pitching out some unused or gently used curriculum. Too, we had a homeschool co-op where we exchanged or borrowed curriculum.

Though you may already know, it bears repeating to not forget garage sales, thrift shops and used curriculum sales. Don’t forget when family or friends ask about gifts for your kids, to steer it toward something educational that your children will like.

Near my last home in Texas we lived close to a big state park. So I checked into park programs that were FREE for the boys to join. They taught science and about nature and it was a fun time to get out of the house. We packed a picnic lunch and spent the day at the park.

Living overseas now, science materials and supplies are non-existent. I have to resort back to my thrifty ways by saving all kinds of material.

I keep and collect ALL empty bottles, jars, liter bottles, shoe boxes, empty toilet paper and papertowl rolls and other things I come across. We now have a nice stash of ready to go science supplies when we need them for hands-on science.

Though I haven’t listed free lessons for art, typing and music, I do have them too. I wanted to be sure you got to read this in one afternoon and to not also be too overwhelmed, so I stuck to the core subjects.

Once again, I am so grateful that you reached out for support. I care about you.

Though it won’t be easy, you certainly can homeschool successfully and I hope in some small way that I have eased your stress.

What about you? Do you have any other suggestions to help her?

Hugs and love ya,

Also, check out my other articles and check out other places to find free curriculum.

Digital Homeschool Curriculum – Big Ol’ List. Some are free, others not but still inexpensive.
Is Homeschooling Expensive?
Homeschooling History – Teaching Ancient Civilizations Using Netflix
Studying Science in your Homeschool with Netflix
Homeschooling with Netflix {Health Class}
Also grab freebies from Homeschool Giveaways and Free Homeschool Deals

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Part 2

May 28, 2015 | 3 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Continuing on with our learning American history, I have some hands-on history today. Also, look at Free American History Lapbook The Old West Through the Life of Wyatt Earp.

Hands-on history as we are learning American history through the life of Wyatt Earp, we did one more easy peazy activity for our unit study opening.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp Part 2

We made soap.

Now I would have loved to have made one of these cutesy, full of fragrance, pink heart shaped soaps, but I have never been able to get one of my boys to make soap like that.

American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp

So I have to settle for the science of making home made soap, which is to make suds.

Too, this recipe calls for baking soda but baking soda is not plentiful here in Ecuador because they won’t sell it. It’s almost like it’s banned here in this country.

I had to substitute with baking powder.

We did learn some chemistry with this because we learned we can substitute baking powder for baking soda but you can’t substitute baking soda when you need baking powder.

Easy ingredients for making soap.

1/4 cup salad oil. I just used what I had.
1/4 quarter cup baking soda. We had to substitute with 3x the amount of baking soda.
Glass jar.

Add oil and soda to a pan and warm it on low heat and stir.

When it thickens, remove from heat and let it cool. Then add 1 tablespoon of mixture with 2 cups of hot tap water in the jar.

Shake until you see suds.

Though it may seem like simple science, it was good for Tiny to understand how the things we take for granted today like bubbles and suds just did not exist then.

Of course this would be even more meaningful if we had ashes, but then again reading about making soap in the olden days was a good reading assignment to do on his own.

Next, we were ready to start our unit study so I decided to use a history magazine as our spine.

As a side note, one of my very favorite history magazines, which was Learning through History that we used a lot on our unit studies, stopped printing issues.

I have most of the issues but after they stopped printing, I started receiving another subscription from History Magazine, though it wasn’t for kids.

HANDS-ON HISTORY FOR KIDS

I do have to look it over when we get it, but because the boys were getting older, I wanted something that wasn’t just bare bones history.

So for this unit study we are using one of the articles out of our history magazine about Wyatt Earp.

Also because it is for adults, it helps to nurture a love of history for kids who are advanced in reading too.

After he read from the magazine, I had a website that I wanted us to look at together because it is the direction we needed to go in, which is to add some science and a bit of geography.

Though Wyatt Earp is known for his famous gun fight at the OK Corral, he lived most of his life traveling and living in the desert and Southwest area as a lawman.

Features of the SW US - Wyatt Earp Unit Study @ Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Check out this website Wyatt Earp Desert Lawman, which talks about Earp living most of his life in the deserts of the Southwest.

Then, even though we are finished with our science book for the year, I love to use free resources I already have to build my unit studies.

So I knew that I had a free science magazine that talked about animals and ecosystems of the Southwest.

I shared that link with you too before, which is Free Science Magazines and the science magazine is Animals and Ecosystems of the Southwestern United States.

Be sure you download it because your child will need it to fill in the minibooks about the desert.

Features of the SW US - Wyatt Earp Unit Study minibook @ Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Features of the SW US - Wyatt Earp Unit Study Triple Fold Book @ Tinas Dynamic Homeschool Plus

One book is a minibook about the states that make up the Southwestern U.S. and the second book is a triple fold book.

On the triple fold book, your child lists 8 features of the Southwestern U.S.

Learning American History through the Life of Wyatt Earp. Learn about American Deserts @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Though hot temperatures and cacti come to mind, Tiny found that a few other things are characteristic of this area of the United States.

Having kicked off our unit study with some fun and easy hands-on ideas, he is ready to start doing a few printables to start building our lapbook.

MORE ACTIVITIES FOR LEARNING ABOUT WYATT EARP AND THE COWBOYS

HOW TO GET THE FREE WYATT EARP LAPBOOK, NOTEBOOKING PAGES & BOARD GAME

Update: The lapbook is now complete. Download all the freebies below.

Art cards by Frederic Remington about Wyatt Earp
Cover pages for the outside of notebooking pages 1800s and 1900s. Look here how to fold ordinary worksheets to interactive minibooks.
8 Features of the SW United States
The 4 Southwestern states
American History during the Life of Wyatt Earp 1800s notebooking page
American History during the Life of Wyatt Earp 1900s notebooking pages
Who was Wyatt Earp
Who were the Cowboys
Who Was Doc Holliday
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Tombstone, Arizona – About Tombstone – Ed Schieffelin
Printable Game with Game Pieces – The Most Famous Shoot Out – Gunfight at O.K. Corral

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie now.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

Should You Switch to a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule?

May 27, 2015 | 17 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Switching to a 4-day homeschool schedule for a majority of my journey is not only one of the best homeschooling tips I can share, but it saved my sanity when many things about home and school collided. Addressing some of your concerns first and then sharing the numerous reasons why the advantages of homeschooling a 4-day week outweighed a 5 day schedule, I hope these tidbits will help you too.

One of the greatest factors for those hesitant to switch to a 4-day homeschool schedule has to do with the amount of weeks or hours needed to meet state requirements.

4-Day Homeschool Schedule

While it’s true that you need 45 weeks instead of 36 weeks, you can still homeschool a 4-day schedule if you stretched out your homeschool year.

It doesn’t even mean you have to school year round, though I am here to tell you flat out that the advantages of homeschooling year round blew away an abrupt stop and start each year.

Should You Switch to a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule?

Schooling year round doesn’t mean all work and no play, but that is another topic. You can check out How to Plan for & Homeschool Year Round here.

Also, be sure you look at my YouTube video How to Create a Homeschool Schedule You Can Stick to

The second concern I have seen is a mindset that unless we school 5 days we are not really schooling or that we could get behind. Maybe this idea stems from the fact that we are pressured to conform to the schedule the workforce is keeping.

Clearing my mind of how I thought school was suppose to happen, I set out to do what was best for my family.I do want to mention too that the ages of your children makes a difference in shaping your viewpoint on adopting a homeschool schedule. Having homeschooled from the beginning when all of my kids were little and having no help with the housework gave me the power to move against the norm.

Balancing the weeks we needed to school with the needs of my family took priority.

Advantage of 4-day Homeschool Schedule

Look at some of the advantages of a 4-day homeschool schedule.

When I switched, I maintained more consistency.

Nothing sets back a homeschool year more or builds resistance quickly in a child then to constantly start and stop because you get behind on housework or are just worn out from the constant grind.

When we started a 4-day homeschool schedule, the days were more full and my weeks more consistent because I didn’t start my week depleted of physical energy.

The quality of my teaching went up.

If you are the kind of person that can proceed forward with the house somewhat messed up (I promise I tried hard to do this year after year), I am still learning to follow your relaxed manner.

This is something that can’t be ignored when you are homeschooling.

Either you are more relaxed about your surroundings not as tidy or you are not as forgiving about a messy atmosphere. There is no right or wrong on this because as moms we are wired differently. It is just what is right for your personality.

I realized right away that I could not function when I felt chaos existed in my home. The measuring point is if it hampers and paralyzes you from giving your children 100 percent for the day then it needs to be addressed.

When my mind was heavy with thinking about things I have to still do in the house, it did not make me the kind of teacher I wanted to be.

Instead of thinking it wasn’t important to have my mind relatively free of stress, I embraced my need to have things organized before I started my day.

I used Mondays for cleaning, to have a slower start to my week, to get some of my cooking done, and to look over my lesson plans for the week.

Your week ends or begins on a positive note each month and that triggers a sticking power to homeschooling.

Homeschooling Tuesday through Friday like I did for many, many years or homeschooling Monday through Thursday gave me more control over my time.

It propelled me through each year because I took time on the front end of the week to prepare for school. It ended up being a power booster to keep on homeschooling.

There was a plan for the unexpected.

Another surprising advantage was that I planned for the unexpected.

I find this ironic because I love to plan, but I never gave myself an option for the unexpected in my life.

If I was running a public school classroom this would make no difference, but I am not.

Being at home where life happens, I was more organized because I didn’t have every moment of my life planned.

Feelings of being behind and stressed out that we were not covering what we needed to started to fade.

The bottom line was I had wiggle room in my schedule each week.

Dad’s schedule and support is important.

Though a majority of the teaching was always done by me, it was important to me that when my husband’s scheduled changed that we could spend more time together.

For a good part of our homeschooling journey, he had a set work schedule. But there were many times during the years that our business was slow and he took advantage of spending that time with us.

Having a 4-day week lesson plan always ready, it didn’t matter which day we took off. We always had a day to spend with dad because our week did not have every day planned.

Dos and Don’ts of a 4-Day Homeschool Schedule

Look at some of these dos and don’ts when switching to a 4-day homeschool schedule.

Don’t cram 5 days into 4 days.

Avoiding stress is my goal and so cramming 5 days of lessons into 4 days of school is not a doable plan to keep you homeschooling for years.

This may be good for one or two years if you need it, but it is a recipe for exhaustion if you implement it for many years.

Schooling year round made my 4-day homeschool schedule doable.

Just relax and plod along and remember that schooling year round doesn’t mean you can’t have off weeks or months. They are just spread out during the year so that the time off fits your family.

Do decide how to use the day off.

Deciding to switch to a 4-day homeschool schedule only works if you value the reason you are switching.

For me, because all the children were little and I had very little help with the housework and in running our business, I knew I needed a day at the beginning of the work week to unwind when the Mr. was back at work.

I wanted a slower start to the week and doing that gave me momentum for during the week.

Though I say it was a day off, it ended up turning into a day of relaxed housework and savoring my lesson planning time.

As the kids grew and got older, I had them cleaning the house after school. We still kept a 4-day schedule but started taking off Fridays.

We used that day for field trips, shopping, swimming or just enjoying the slow days of summer or beautiful weather in fall.

Again, I find it amusing how life and homeschool has turned out now as I look back.

Though I say I followed a 4-day homeschool schedule, my kids still did many educational activities, though unplanned by me on our day off.

They ended up watching educational movies, doing a project, or even if it was just playing outside and in the dirt, they were still investigating, exploring and learning.

A lot of weeks, I counted our day off as homeschooling because of some of the projects the kids would find to do.

Do write our your schedule and study it.

I am a huge advocate of writing it all out because seeing where your homeschool year starts and ends keeps your goals clear in mind.

Too, you are not bothered with the hype of homeschool schedules because you have set a pace that works for your family.

Don’t worry that your stress free schedule seems effortless. Do you really need complicated homeschooling?

Homeschooling is complicated enough. There is no need to constantly question ourselves because we don’t have all the struggles everybody else is having.

Finding your groove to homeschooling can be not only fulfilling, but painless.

Managing your time means to make your time more meaningful while maintaining spontaneity.

A 4-day homeschool schedule was key to not only maintaining my house suitable for us to live in, but advancing to more rigorous academics.

Sitting down to begin our week, we were armed with a full day of activities, rested, and ready to learn!

What about you? Are you still struggling with a schedule that works for your family?

You also love these other tips:

Hugs and love ya,

Should You Switch to a 4-day Homeschool Schedule @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Why Most Homeschool Curriculum Tips Are Useless

May 26, 2015 | 11 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Choosing homeschool curriculum can be one of the most thrilling things about homeschooling and at the same time be nerve-racking.

Getting ready to graduate my second homeschooler and using completely different curriculum with him than I did with Mr. Senior 2013, I have come to appreciate why most homeschool curriculum tips are useless.Don’t get me wrong. Having homeschooled from the beginning, I too have pored over volumes of books and blogs to discover that one piece of advice that will push me from reality to lightning striking revelation.

It might sound a bit over dramatic but what is really absurd is the overwhelming and staggering amount of tips on how to choose homeschool curriculum.

It’s not that we don’t like them, but we would like to read them in this life time.

With a limited amount of time to pick homeschool curriculum over the last few years, I have tried to simplify my method to choosing curriculum.

Instead of depending on flashes of brilliance from numerous blog posts about curriculum (I really do love them but I need simple), I have found that if I follow a method to choosing curriculum for my family that it works for both me and my sons.

From Homeschool Insanity to Homeschool Sense

Look at these 3 questions and tips that make choosing curriculum a cinch each year:

1. Your Teaching Style Is Not Just Important, It Is Paramount.

Homeschooling momma martyrs are common, unfortunately. As teachers we can shove aside things that help us to be an excellent teacher and solely focus on a child’s learning style.

While a child’s learning style is important, it should not have greater weight until a child is learning independently for a good portion of the day.

For example, you may be at a point in your journey where you thrive with a boxed curriculum but your child is a huge hands-on learner.

How do you marry the two styles? It is much easier for you to teach with a guideline and fill in with hands-on ideas each day than to come up with your own lesson plans for a hands-on learner.

This will eliminate your hunt for curriculum that is just a bare framework where you are suppose to fill in with hands-on ideas. It just won’t work for you if you need a more fleshed out curriculum.

Again, using a homeschool curriculum that supports your teaching style and which you have to tweak a bit to fit your child’s learning style gives you a much better head start for the year.

A homeschool curriculum may receive a rave review, but if it does not support your present teaching style, you may burn out mid-year, too.

Again, I cannot stress enough that you as the primary teacher needs to be over the top excited about a curriculum that encourages you and makes homeschooling lively.

Banish boring days by beginning it with a curriculum that fits your strengths and shores up your weaknesses.

2. Your Child’s Learning Style Matters Especially Around 6th Grade.

Switching on you here because I am giving you a method in how to evaluate homeschool curriculum, but the next significant factors to consider are the ages, maturity level and learning style of your child.

When children are young, a good rule of thumb is to use a curriculum that is suited to your teaching style and mix in the activities to tweak it to fit your child’s learning style.

As they grow older and become more independent in how they learn, which generally is around 6th grade, then it’s time to evaluate again.

Sixth grade is important because it generally is the time for another leap in a child’s maturity.

This doesn’t mean it happens automatically, but I wanted to give you a specific way to measure.

Only you can answer these questions:

During the 6th grade year, does your child need another year of momma teaching and are thriving with you tweaking your present curriculum? or
Was this past year one where there was more head butting than head way made? If so, is it because you were determined to use curriculum that you felt was rigorous and met your learning style instead of your child’s learning style?
Can you give your child more choices this year? It is time to give up control but not the authority, which is a fine balancing act.

Decision making by your child is a learned process.

Releasing decision making is easier and better done slowly or a little at a time.

Do not all of the sudden one year expect your child to choose all the curriculum.

Though at the 6th grade age, they may seem like they are ready for making all the decisions, they are immature and still inexperienced. Too, as the parent, you have the authority to make the final say on all the decisions.

The only way for your child to gain experience and maturity is to start with small things and build up when it comes to choosing curriculum.

Just like you have allowed them free choice in their reading material while they still read the books you choose, curriculum is the same.

How to Begin Homeschool Teaching With Minimal Tips

Does that wonderful and new curriculum that you are excited about allow your child to work independently for part of the day if he is ready?

Through the years, I have learned that it doesn’t really matter what curriculum you use.

I don’t want to seem flippant about how hard it is to choose homeschool curriculum, but what matters in the long run is if the curriculum fits your child’s learning style best.

3. What Do You Want the Curriculum to Teach? Concepts and View.

The answer to this question is not obvious because I am not talking about wanting a science curriculum to teach science or a history curriculum to teach history.

Look at another example.

If you have a science background and maybe even have a degree in science then you have a preferred way to teach science.

Science can be taught generally or in a spiral method each year or you can focus on one field like Chemistry, Physics or Biology.

As a science teacher, you may want to cover deeper concepts instead of broad strokes.

What difference does it matter if the newest science curriculum is hot on the homeschool market if it does not fit with the way you want to teach science?

All the homeschool curriculum tips can be useless and overwhelming if you are not looking to teach science the same way.

History is no exception. If you want the details of history, then why look at a history curriculum that will cover history in generalities?

The same question or mind-set should be examined when you think about the approach.

How important is a Bible based curriculum, or would you prefer something light on Bible content so that you can add your own resources?

As I scrutinized my method for how I chose homeschool curriculum easily over the past few years, these three questions have helped me to slice and dice the huge amount of information on the net.

Focus on tips that work for your family and leave the rest of the tips to other families that need them.

Hugs and love ya,

How Can I Achieve Simple Homeschooling?
Eliminating 3 Non-Essentials to Homeschooling
When My Homeschool Curriculum Has Lost that Loving Feeling

Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day

May 24, 2015 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to easily add art and music to your homeschool day is well – so not easy. Also, look at Fun Facts About the Phantom of the Opera & Styles of Music Unit Study.

They tend to be subjects that can be left out.

Although we have good intentions, it just doesn’t happen.

Besides art and music are really what stirs the imagination and are creative outlets.

Relax! How to Easily Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool Day

I’m sharing tips on how to easily add them to your day without a lot of planning.

One secret tip to easily add art and music to your day is to not schedule them.

As fixated as I am on schedules, I am equally fixated with homeschooling simply.

6 Ways to Add Art and Music to Your Homeschool

Look at these easy ways to fold in art and music to your day simply without adding one more subject to your day.

1. Add Art to Writing or Composition

With the growing list of homeschool subjects that comes with each grade, it is easy to run out of homeschool day before you do subjects.

I learned this double duty tip when Mr. Senior 2013 was first beginning to write.

Kindergarten Art @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I learned he was very much more interested in writing when he could express his words through pictures.

Instead of scheduling a formal time for art, he just folded it in when he was writing.

Because I was developing his imagination and love for creativity, having a story to go along with his picture gave him the spark he needed to create.

When I started, I used the whole series of Draw Write Now.

These books allowed a small part of writing and then drawing to strengthen fine motor skills.

And these books are absolute keepers in my homeschool world.

2. Music or Art can be added to your current study of history.

As Mr. Senior 2013 grew and had a similar love of history, I allowed drawing of history scenes or battles as a way for him to express himself.

Again without having to add in drawing, we just covered history along with drawing.

Then the love of simple drawing morphed into a full art study in high school.

We loved the series Draw and Write Through History in the early years.

Additionally, looking up what is the music during a history period is a perfect introduction to the history period.

For example, we’ve also used Music in our Homeschool Courses.

For example, look at the list of music courses below which you can teach in your homeschool.

Too, with science there is no need to make a choice between science and art.

3. Add Art to Science.

Find creative opportunities to add in art.

(Draw a cell and label it.)

If there is a way to illustrate a science concept, let your child do it.

He will remember projects and the content too for many years after he is older and especially when he can add in an artful element.

4. Add Music to every day learning.

Music was no different. We folded it into our day naturally too.

Music can be done while exercising and too some children learn better while listening to music.

Add music to every day learning.

Early Learning Music Resources @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I rounded up the DVDs I created way back (I’m not that old but in this day and age with technology you feel that way) when I had “opening” in Preschool and Kindergarten with all of my boys.

I rounded up learning songs and arranged them in the way I wanted to so that my learning day could last longer with music.

We sung these songs every day as a way to learn our ABCs, days of the weeks, continents and even math.

I used resources like Sing to Learn and Rock ‘N Learn:Addition & Subtraction Rap.

Too, though I had no musical background when I first began to homeschool, it was up to me teach them how to read music in between their music lessons.

5. Music can be added to phonics.

Do music instead of phonics one day.

Right away, I learned that music is like learning another language.

Many days we simply sat together in the living room and did music theory.

Not only did we learn about the musical notes but the rhythm helped my boys to learn about the “beats” or syllables when reading.

I never felt like I was skipping on their reading for the day but giving them another way to feel the beat or syllables within each sentence.

All of my boys not only managed to read above grade level, but learned music theory in the process.

6. Fold art & music together for the subject.

Focus on a musical composer.

We did lapbooks using Zeezok to study a composer, some language arts, geography and hands-on activities.

Instead of feeling like I was only covering music for the day, we added in writing about the composer, the history of the time period they lived in and geography when studying about the country the composer lived in.

Instead of scheduling separate assignments for art and music, let those areas embellish the every day things that your child needs to learn.

More Homeschool Music Curriculum Resources

Art and music have a way of presenting up learning in an alternative way and of finding a way into your child’s heart that makes learning fun.

Tina Robertson

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