Serious Fun: Homeschooling with Real Books


Book Description

Are you frustrated trying to teach school in a traditional way at home? Do your students have difficulty focusing and sitting still? Do you dread school time? Very early on I also became frustrated with homeschooling. I wanted homeschooling to be fun. I wanted to enjoy it. So with much enthusiasm and a startling dose of fear I asked myself two questions: What did my son enjoy? And what was easy and enjoyable for me? The answer was books. Real books, not the dry, unimaginative textbooks that come with sets of curriculum, but fun books from the library or bookstore that were written to engage, inspire and entertain children. Though he wouldn't sit for workbooks, coloring books or sometimes even meals, my son would sit and listen to me read 5 or 6 books in a row. So this is where I began. The following is a list of books that I used for Kindergarten through 8th grade and that I highly recommend. I have chosen only the best and have organized them in what, I hope, is an accessible way. They represent hundreds of hours of research on my part, and thousands of hours of writing and drawing on the part of the authors and illustrators whose works are represented here.




City Atlas


Book Description

Take a tour of Toronto, look around Lisbon or hot-foot it to Helsinki with this global adventure in a book! 30 best-loved cities from around the world are brought to life with illustrations by Martin Haake, which show in fabulous detail key landmarks, famous people, iconic buildings and cultural icons for all the family to enjoy. A search-and-find game on every page helps young readers to explore every city and spot the hundreds of details that makes each place unique.




12 Ways to Get to 11


Book Description

For use in schools and libraries only. Uses ordinary experiences to present twelve combinations of numbers that add up to eleven.




House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery


Book Description

An affecting biography of the author of Anne of Green Gables is the first for young readers to include revelations about her last days and to encompass the complexity of a brilliant and sometimes troubled life. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maud who adored stories. When she was fourteen years old, Maud wrote in her journal, “I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them.” Not only did Maud grow up to own lots of books, she wrote twenty-four of them herself as L. M. Montgomery, the world-renowned author of Anne of Green Gables. For many years, not a great deal was known about Maud’s personal life. Her childhood was spent with strict, undemonstrative grandparents, and her reflections on writing, her lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression, her “year of mad passion,” and her difficult married life remained locked away, buried deep within her unpublished personal journals. Through this revealing and deeply moving biography, kindred spirits of all ages who, like Maud, never gave up “the substance of things hoped for” will be captivated anew by the words of this remarkable woman.




The Year of Learning Dangerously


Book Description

A year of homeschooling. What could possibly go wrong? In this honest and wry memoir, popular blogger, author, and former child actor Quinn Cummings recounts her family’s decision to wade into the unfamiliar waters of homeschooling – the fastest-growing educational trend of our time -- despite a chronic lack of discipline, some major gaps in academic knowledge, and a serious case of math aversion. (And that’s just Quinn.) Quinn’s fearless quest includes some self-homeschooling – reading up on education reform, debating the need for “socialization,” and infiltrating conferences filled with Radical Unschoolers as well as Christian fundamentalists (and even chaperoning a homeschool prom). Part personal narrative, part social commentary, and part how-not-to guide, The Year of Learning Dangerously will make you laugh and make you think. And there may or may not be a quiz at the end. OK, there’s no quiz. Probably.




Minimalist Homeschooling


Book Description

Remove the clutter in your child¿s education by taking a deeper look at how you invest your time and energy. Homeschooling does not have to mean a crazy, busy life of too much to do, too much to buy, and too much to plan. Uniquely, Minimalist Homeschooling offers 15 thought-provoking worksheets so every reader can navigate their children¿s education with clarity, confidence, and excellence. The reader is guided through the minimalist homeschool mindset and approach that keeps schooling simple while squeezing every drop of goodness from each minute. Consider it your own personal workshop for intentional homeschool planning with any curriculum. There is a way for your children to learn more while doing less.




Teach Your Own


Book Description

The classic guide to teaching children at home for a new generation of homeschooling parents In 2019, there were more than two million children being homeschooled. That number doubled during the pandemic and is now likely to continue increasing as more parents worry that school might not be the best place for their children to learn and grow. Teach Your Own helped launch the homeschooling movement; now, its timeless and revolutionary message of recognizing the ways children come to understand the world has been updated for today’s environment. Parents and caregivers will discover how to navigate: Learning in a classroom versus learning in the world The difference between a learning difficulty (which we all experience every time we try to learn anything) and a learning disability. Schedules that achieve the homeschooling-work-life balance that you want as a family The relationship between learning and play Homeschooling and technology And much more. John Holt's warm understanding of children and his passionate belief in every child's ability to learn have made this book an essential resource for over forty years to homeschooling families.




Jotham's Journey


Book Description

In this widely popular, exciting story for the advent season, readers follow ten-year-old Jotham across Israel as he searches for his family. Though he faces thieves, robbers, and kidnappers, Jotham also encounters the wise men, shepherds, and innkeepers until at last he finds his way to the Savior born in Bethlehem.




How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and on to Learning


Book Description

This is the only resource out there for an audience that is desperately seeking it. Using techniques highly successful with any child who struggles with focus, parents learn how to teach their child tomorrow. Includes reproducible aids.




End of the Spear


Book Description

2005 ECPA Retailer's Choice Award winner for best biography/autobiography! Steve Saint was five years old when his father, missionary pilot Nate Saint, was speared to death by a primitive Ecuadorian tribe. In adulthood, Steve, having left Ecuador for a successful business career in the United States, never imagined making the jungle his home again. But when that same tribe asks him to help them, Steve, his wife, and their teenage children move back to the jungle. There, Steve learns long-buried secrets about his father's murder, confronts difficult choices, and finds himself caught between two worlds. Soon to be a major motion picture (January 2006), End of the Spear brilliantly chronicles the continuing story that first captured the world's attention in the bestselling book, Through Gates of Splendor.