A Summer of Learning

For many kids, summer is filled with swimming, swinging, sunning and very little studying.  However, if you are homeschooling year-round this is not the case.  Of course, just because you decide to keep the lessons going throughout the summer, doesn’t mean your kids will suffer from academic burnout. Some families decide to homeschool year-round for the sake of consistency.  By keeping with a set school schedule without a break during the summer months you avoid the “learning gap.”  In other words, your kids are far less apt to forget the material they’ve learned during the first half of the year … Continue reading

Two Books Down

This may be a recurring theme this summer: reading. I’m currently in the middle of reading my third book (a bit behind schedule) and I’m looking forward to catching up. I actually am looking forward to it. If you’ve been reading this blog (or my fatherhood blog) for very long you’ve probably encountered a good deal of talk about technology. I use computers a lot, I value the internet, and I’m quite interested in any new technology because despite the problems (and there are often many) new technologies are the future way of doing things… and I want to be … Continue reading

Summer of Woes

Summertime is supposed to be filled with laughter and joy for those in the academic world. The summer is for resting, relaxing, and sipping on iced drinks from a folding chair in the sunshine. Summertime means you’ve completed that final test, graded that final paper, added those final grades to your transcript and have fewer worries until the fall semester begins those concerns anew. This is not true for me this summer and I only recently realized how bad it is going to be. Over 5,700. Go ahead… read that number again. Feel it labor your mouth into forming the … Continue reading

Summer School by Choice

When I was young, summer school was the kiss of death—it was something you had to go to if you flunked a class or did poorly in the year and it was not a reality that anyone wanted their friends to know about. With my children’s generation, however, summer school seems to be just another educational option and there are kids who take advantage of summer school to get ahead or to take electives that they do not have the time to take during the regular school year. This summer my son is going to summer school by choice—he wants … Continue reading