Looking for the best kitchen utensils? Check out this list of the top 10 kitchen utensils you can find on Amazon. From versatile spatulas to handy measuring cups, these utensils will make your cooking experience a breeze. Introduction Cooking is an art, and the right utensils are the tools that help you create a … Read more
As part of my quest to learn about individual families’ homeschooling experiences, I read The Duggars: 20 and Counting! Raising One of America’s Largest Families–How They Do It, by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar. In case you’re trying to reconcile this blog post’s title with the book’s, the “20” refers to Michelle, Jim Bob, and the 18 J-name* children … Read more
This weekend, I perused a review copy of Suddenly Homeschooling: A Quick-Start Guide to Legally Homeschool in 2 Weeks, by Marie-Claire Moreau, Ed.D. This guide provides a 14-day plan for parents who need to prepare to homeschool very quickly–intended for a child who had to leave school unexpectedly, for example due to health, social, academic, or emotional reasons. … Read more
In How to Tutor Your Own Child, I emphasize the educational value of simplicity, silence, and boredom. Along those same lines, I was struck by this quote about the benefits of aloneness from “The Writer as Psychotic,” an article by author Philip Yancey: Brain scans reveal that aloneness is central to the creative impulse; sensory deprivation allows the synaptic loops … Read more
In How to Tutor Your Own Child, I discuss the role that the Internet plays in students’ intellectual development. Though search engines may be an effective tool, I’m concerned about how the Web makes us so quick to Google for answers. Think about the process of discovery that’s lost in Googling. Here’s a non-academic example: Can you … Read more
I posted the following question on the How to Tutor Your Own Child Facebook yesterday: If your child’s friends like poorly written but popular books (e.g., Twilight), is it better to (A) convince your child to avoid these books in favor of better literature, even if no one else he or she knows has read these books OR … Read more
Until recently, I only had a hazy understanding of the difference between homeschooling and unschooling. For clarification, I read Unschooling 101: Top 10 Questions About Learning Without School, by Sara McGrath. Here’s my current understanding: When we talk about homeschoolers, we’re talking about the broad category of students who learn outside of the full-time American school system. … Read more
After investigating the difference between homeschooling and unschooling, I was curious about the definition of radical unschooling. To get one educator’s take, I read Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun, by Dayna Martin. Here’s Martin’s definition: Radical unschooling, which expands unschooling philosophy to parenting, means you extend that same trust to other areas of your child’s life, like foods, media, … Read more
It’s rare for me to wholeheartedly endorse a book as being important enough that every parent should read it, but I’ve just finished one that’s as close to that designation as I’m ever going to find. It’s Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With Or Without School, by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver. … Read more
Last night I paid our cable company to reinstate our access to the Oprah Winfrey Network just long enough to watch Our America with Lisa Ling, which was doing an episode about “Extreme Parenting.” Ling interviewed four families: wealthy “tiger” parents who pay $40,000/year/child for a year-round high-pressure school, unschoolers who allow their four children to learn … Read more
