Julie Naturally
natural self-reliance for Christians
Some of my favorite stealth learning tools are educational games. I have shelves full of them for almost every subject, too. But, most of them are language arts resources and geography and living history resources. I tend to buy kits and manipulatives for science and math. Recently, I discovered a new game to add to …
Even though there are many Christian homeschooling companies offering great products, sometimes Christians might want a secular homeschool option with a neutral stance. There are several possible reasons for this. For an unschoolish mom like me, I like living books. Sometimes I appreciated the convenience of a living books curriculum rather than DIY it. However, …
Because we unschool, there really isn’t a school year, per se. However, opportunities open up in the summer–especially for teens–that aren’t available September through May. So, sometimes I have had to take that into account when planning our learning goals for the year. And while the older ones took advantage of these opportunities, I had …
As an unschoolish family, we like to use a variety of resources. Sometimes, we use online homeschool lessons and sometimes we use more analog type living history resources or language arts resources. But, even though I know better by now (I have been doing for 20 years…), I still sometimes worry about knowledge gaps. It …
Have you ever felt like your prayer life was a bit stale? Or, have you struggled to teach your kids creative ways to pray to develop their relationship with the Lord? I know I have. I have tried creative worship ideas to bring new life to praising the Lord. But other than prayer journals, guided …
Homeschooling offers the flexibility to take the summer off, homeschool year round, or switch it up and try some free homeschool products and camps in the summer. After all, summertime is a great time to experiment while keeping kids busy. We did a lot of that when my kids were younger. I liked to take …
I feel that historical timeline figures are an important part of a living history approach to homeschooling. Even in an unschooling home like ours, they really help kids understand the flow of events. I mean, if one day you’re learning about spacecraft and the next day, you’re looking up Roman columns, you need some context, …
I know, I know. There’s no one right way to homeschool. But, I will argue that there is a right way and a wrong way to homeschool pre-K and preschool. To me, preschool encompasses three and four-year-olds and pre-K is the year immediately before Kindergarten. As an unschooler, I feel that homeschooling preschool mostly means …
As an unschooling mom, a literature-based approach using the best living books I could find seemed like an awesome idea. I admit, though, that I did add in educational videos, crafts and other hands-on projects, field trips, and other teaching tools. But, the one thing I pretty much avoided was textbooks. Even for math. I …
As an unschoolish mom, I like to take advantage of online learning platforms that offer interest-based courses for kids and teens. In fact, some of these platforms offer alternatives to college education you may not have considered. And, for younger kids, you may have heard of Outschool. We tried that platform for a few classes, …
As a person who always got picked last for gym class, I grew up dreading sports. I had poor eye hand coordination and struggled to connect my hand with any moving object smaller than a beach ball. It took me for-ev-er to learn coordinated movements, such as sophisticated choreography. But, I loved to move and …
I’ve always felt that typing is an essential job skill, even though I wasn’t very enthusiastic when my mother made me take it in high school. The problem is that it’s just kind of there and that means that learning to type is often boring. All you do is sit there staring at the screen, …
When I was in high school, one of the electives I took was economics for high schoolers. I remember the law of supply and demand as a key part of macro-economics. Even though a lot of it was a bit dry, my favorite part was pretending to invest in the stock market. We selected and …
When my older children were teens, I spent a LOT of money on dissection specimens and chemistry lab equipment. I still have some of that equipment, but not the chemicals. I remember the time and mess involved in doing homeschool science labs myself. Sometimes, I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, even …
One of my favorite ways to teach math is with games, especially free math games for kindergartners. In the old days, we used file folder games or a book like Games for Math by Peggy Kaye to create homemade games for practicing math facts. Now, there’s Beast Academy Playground from Beast Academy. A friend of …
Have you ever felt like you were missing something when you tried planning your homeschool around learning styles and multiple intelligences? Have you ever chosen curriculum because it was visual and engaged your child’s visual-spatial and nature intelligences? And then, when he still struggled to do the work, you got frustrated? I have. This has …
I learned early on how to teach math for K-6th grade in one year. My oldest son refused to do math curriculum. I made up for this by using Math Facts to the Max, Times Alive:Times Tables the Fun Way, Family Math, and a few other tools you can find in this math resources post. …
Every year, my church has Missionary Christmas and they invite one of our missionaries to come and speak about Christian missions. It’s wonderful to see slide shows and hear about the impact they are having in Taiwan, Germany, India, and even in remote northern Canada. There is always an invitation to the congregation to be …
If you’ve some of my other posts, you probably know that I don’t advocate giving prizes for Bible memory. I had very bad experiences with teaching my kids about God’s Word whenever prizes were involved. What worked the best was talking about my own testimony and how God has worked in my life. The second …
Because Christian unschoolers do math differently, I compiled a list of my favorite homeschool math resources from over the years. Two of my children have graduated and the others are out of elementary school. So, now is the time! First, I’d just like to challenge you to think of math as a tool, not a …
I can’t believe that my last two kids are both now in high school! It’s bittersweet. I have been talking with my daughter who’s a junior this year about life after high school. Will she choose an alternative to college or will she need some college readiness skills? To help her figure this out, I …
Online writing for kids can be a lifesaver when you homeschool several children. It encourages independent work and allows you to focus on the kids that need one-on-one attention. But, how do you find a program that engages your elementary-aged kids and teaches them, too? After all, teens have access to imaginative learning projects that …
You might not think that unschoolers consider a homeschool supply list, but you should. There are certain things that just make unschooling easier and more fulfilling. We want to have enriching homes that encourage learning, so we need to stock them with particular supplies that promote curiosity, adventure, and a passion for learning. The things …
Imagine if an online chemistry course allowed you to visualize atomic orbits and bonds and connected the science to everyday things. Would that transform your view of chemistry? It has for me. You see, when I was in college, I really wanted to major in Biology, not Psychology. I settled for a minor in Biology …
