Project Based Learning

This one picture represents several lessons. I love to teach like this because my children learn so much without realizing it. The key is to identify the skills and subjects that need practice and work that into one or two lessons, which culminates into a project.

Here were the lessons:

1) Reading - We started by reading a sight word book.
2) Spelling & sight word study - These are all sight words that we study made into a sentence.
3) Grammar - We practiced sentence structure. Spacing of letters & words, and punctuation.
4) Fine motor skills - Peeling backing and pasting onto the paper was fine motor exercise.
5) Science - One question about how many sticky fingers a frog has led us to studying frog species and frog anatomy.

And that's how you fold many lessons into a project!

Geography For Kindergarten

Our family travels a lot, but our son who is just 6 years old doesn't remember all the trips. However, we've been studying the United States just to acclimate him to the places we mention that we've been or places where relatives live.


I bought a map from the Dollar Tree of the United States. We've been putting it together while discussing road trips and attributes of each state.

We discovered a youtube channel Called Socratia.

Here's an example of a states video we watched.

Last Eight Weeks of Kindergarten

This was our first week back home since my son has been in Kindergarten. My concentration has been on teaching him to learn through play again. He attended public school this year and their focus is testing, testing, writing, testing, "falling in Line" and more testing. It drove me crazy.


We've been playing word games, math games, and getting outside everyday.

Here I added sight words to Jenga pieces and we played several different games using the Jenga sight word pieces. We played regular Jenga, but we called out the out sight word from every block we chose. We also matched our pieces to make a house from a activity I found online. The activity below was cutting, coloring, & glueing out bubble letters to match our sight words. The cutting & coloring was a lesson in fine motor development. And of course putting the words together was spelling lesson.

 We've been making it out to the playground everyday. Luckily we have one walking distance from our house, however the one below was a 15 min. drive away. It's a special park with lots of fun for kids.

Atlanta Science Festival

Today I started homeschooling my son again. We couldn't make it through the entire year. I felt like the school was planting the seeds for test anxiety and there was also an specific incident that occurred last week that made feel that they were not very concerned about the safety of the children. My son is very interested in STEM activities. I will be teaching STEAM activities for the rest of the year. As a God send the Atlanta Science Festival was on Saturday. We enjoyed lots of science experiments. I needed ideas, and the festival gave me lots.

We worked with Legos. That's great because we have lots of legos at home. I've decided to implement a Lego's hour just to keep my son off of apps & the wii during play time.

We looked through several telescopes & discussed worms, bacteria, and microorganism. I love this idea. We can color worksheets and discuss these things for science.

We Measured wet dirt against dry dirt! That is an easy experiment for at home. Especially since we've begun a small herb garden. My son is fascinated by the scale  & measuring. Perfect for Kindergarten science & math.

Below were different activities with tubes and shapes. We can easily achieve this with dollar store swim noodles and other items. We also played with a baking soda and water mixture. The festival gave me lots of STEM ideas, and it came just in time.

Spring Break Road Trip Tips

We love road trips. I made this video series to give road trippers and aspiring road trippers ideas on how to make their trips more relaxing, more enjoyable, more affordable, and more fun. Road trips are a great way to bond families closer together. If you love Holistic Living, don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel for all around everyday holism.



This first one is about planning your trip.

This one is about food and eating:

Lastly, this one is all about relaxing, relating, and releasing.

Math Fun for a Math Whiz

My newly 6 year old loves math and he is pretty great at it. I am teaching him to read and write, but I want to make sure that he goes as far as possible in math because he enjoys it. One fun game we play for math is the cards game, War. War helps him to practice more & less, plus he gets to practice counting up to about 50 because we tally up the points by counting cards from two decks.

We also enjoy websites such as pbskids, starfall, and ABCMouse for math games. Recently we've discovered a math app from a company called One Billion. It is incredible with geometry, fractions, and other math. The free version is great, but we are going to purchase the paid version soon because my son loves this app.

We finally Made it to The MLK Monument

We took a quick trip to D.C to visit family &  friends for the holidays. Frontier had an awesome deal. 5 of us flew from Atlanta to D.C. for a total of $150.00 (Not per person. IN TOTAL).

This Tiger at the Washington Zoo was spectacular! I don't remember seeing one that close before & so playful.

Anyway, we stayed with family and enjoyed the Smithsonian and the MLK Monument. Years ago I had the children to donate money to having the museum built. This was the first time we saw what we contributed to live & in person.

Teen Expression? Teen Angst? or Teen Life

She cut it all off. I love it! She got tired of combing through the curls, so we went to the salon & she got it cut like, Lupita Nyong'o.

She Keeps Thanking Me...

As many of you may know from following, I started homeschooling my two daughters in 2008 before I even had my son. It was a family decision, and it's one that we are all happy with. Despite the challenges  , which I've been honest about along the way. It has worked.  We didn't homeschool every year, we took a year or two off, but mostly it was on. The most important thing for me was that my children knew that learning at home was an option for them.

My oldest daughter attended two years of high school at different performing arts schools. After feeling disappointed in the quality of education at her second school, she requested coming home to learn again. We signed her up for public high school at home, and got her a private vocal coach. She also sang in two choirs, and joined a theater ensemble thereby creating her own performing arts curriculum in the community as opposed to school. 

She thanks me all the time and points out exactly how homeschooling has helped her to be free, independent, understanding, and feeling as though she can take on the world. 

I am always shocked when I hear that thank you, but it melts away all the doubt and side-eyes I got from outsiders when we first made that decision in October 2008. 

Here she is doing what she loves best! Enjoy!

New School Year Approaching!

Welp, it's coming. So many new things. My oldest girl is going to college in two weeks. I am so proud of her and myself. She is proof that homeschooling works. Of course, she wasn't only homeschooled, but she was schooled in a passion-led and purpose-led way. We put her creativity and her interests first and now she's going on to college. She received a scholarship for her vocal performance and one for her academics. And a new life begins for her...

My baby girl is starting anew as well. She's an amazing visual artist, theater artist, and culinary artist. She is completing her unschooling/relaxed homeschooling this year, and moving on to High School. It will be computer-based high school, so no homework at night. She'll be acting in a theater ensemble and she'll continue her passions at night.

Finally...my little 4 year old is going to begin more formal homeschooling/unschooling. It's time to start reading writing. He already does math because he loves numbers. So it will just be me & him at home doing our thing!


I am excited for the this upcoming year! What about you?


Here a few snippets of how we spent our Summer.

Do You Stipple & Stencil?

My 13 year old wanted a new bedroom set, so instead we made her old one new. Together we antiqued, stippled, stenciled, and had loads of fun remaking her bedroom.  Of course my young son wanted in on the fun, so we made his painting time fun with stippling and stenciling on paper. I love creating with my kids. They come up with most amazing art. It just pour out of their little minds!

What's Up These Days!

1. Senior is studying with Connections Academy
2. 8th grader is unschooling 
• Elements
• Asia
• Italy
• Computer Programming
• Digital Art (Adobe Illustrator & keynote)
• Middle School math
• Social Science & Science - Smithsonian channel, netflix Documentaries, Cooking and food experiments, Gardening, hair products making, body
• Mixed Media Arts
• Journaling
• Library books on specific interests
3. 3 y/o is learning the basics with games, puzzles, video games, books, and YMCA classes. 

I haven't posted much because I've been busy with our life. I promise to try a little harder to record here. 

Excitement!

I don't see it very often anymore in my 11 y/o. She acts ho-hum about every assignment and every experience. Truly she has been outright resistant to learning these days. Until this morning. My husband had been talking to me about Asian children learning computer programming in the 1st grade, and I vowed to start my 7th grader. It took me a few weeks, but this morning I went over to Khan Academy to browse their free lessons, and there was computer programming. I know a few things about script, since I did a lot of statistical script writing in my other life. When I saw the examples, I was very excited, so when baby girl woke up I introduced her to computer programming. She stayed on Khan Academy's website doing computer programming for about 6 or 7 hours. She was excited about it, and I realized that it can assist with several subjects.

1. Math (Geometry & Algebra)
2. Science (Mechanical engineering)
3. Spelling (She reads like crazy, but doesn't pay the necessary attention to spelling to be great at it. Script writing require attention)
4. Art (color mixing, drawing, creativity)
5. Critical Thinking (so many decisions to make to draw with script and to animate with script).

It's so funny because when she started it, it was like she was made for it. I got a little misty watching her go at it.

Pagliacci

I'm going to admit something. I am ignorant. Not about everything, but I was certainly ignorant about Pagliacci.  When I was a child my mom used to say "Don't play Pagliacci with me." We heard it all the time, whenever we did anything she perceived as being slick or clownish. One day I found out he was a clown. Last night I went to Educational Opera Night at the Performing Arts Center, and I found out he was a sad clown. I kinda knew that too because of Smokey Robinson's song "Tears of a Clown."

Anyway, Me & the 11 y/o went to the Opera last night and I learned so much. I heard songs that I have always heard on a quick commercial for a Pavarotti performance.

I learned about Pagliacci's story and it was educational and moving. I am very thankful for free Educational Opera Night here .

Sprouts & Ph Balance

We've been sprouting in our windowsill! So far we've done radish sprouts and lentil sprouts. Sprouting led us to investigate acidic foods versus alkaline foods. Why? Because sprouts are these wonderful little super foods that have protein, vitamins, and nutrients without many calories.  We compared sprouts to other protein sources and discovered that animal based protein is highly acidic, which some say cause disease. Vegetables are highly alkaline, and many theories say to maintain health it is important to balance out all the acid we take into our bodies from sugar, fats, and processed foods. That was our lesson and I am seeing my kids apply it to their lives.

Field Trips

Field trips can start to add up when you have three children, so we take advantage of homeschool days at local museums and attractions. Last week Sea World in San Antonio had a field trip for $8.00 a person. We saw dolphins, sea lions, penguins, whales, sharks, sting rays, and a host of other fish. It was quite a bargain. However, I did slip and fall and hit my head on the concrete. That took a little bit of the excitement away toward the end of the day. 

Another free field trip I take with the kids is to the pet store!

We go in the pet store and see cats, dogs, iguana, snakes, rats, fish, hamsters, ferrets, and birds for FREE! We don't touch them, but we watch them and discuss them. 

What We Been Up To Lately...

 We've been making bread!

 Although, this looks like a success, it was a fail. This bread was horrible because I made it on a rainy day. My little son enjoyed kneading it though.

 Our pool is open year round, and our town still has temps in the 90's, so we get out to the pool for Phys. Ed. whenever we can.

 This is what a normal day looks like. Older one was correcting her little sister's work here. Notice the red pen.

 Son & I love to paint with household items. We used paper clips, a lid, and a hand beater to make the painting above.

 I am really into saving containers to use for homeschool stuff. Does anyone else do that?

We were practicing volleyball, and the ball got stuck in the tree. I get a work out and she gets to practice, when we go to the park with the volleyball.

Oh Geez We're Booked!

This is footage from a road trip up North.

Swimming lessons, volleyball practice, choir rehearsals, choir performances, random interviews and tapings, Theater Ensemble rehearsal, playground time, YMCA play time, whew it's getting kinda of heavy! I'm burning gas and trying not to burn out my candle. I haven't even mentioned school lessons and check ups. Anyway, we're rolling...

Check out :57

I am a guest speaker at The Free online Women's Emotional Wellness Conference. I made a video and my 11 y/o old made me an awesome graphic at 0:57.

Circulatory System Study via Youtube

The Plan: To study the body this school year.

The Question that led to circulatory study:  11 y/o to me: What do they mean when they say internal bleeding? Aren't we bleeding inside anyway?

 The Answer:  Several days of Circulatory System study.

Day One: I started with a verbal talk explaining arteries, veins, and capillaries.
Day Two:  Reinforce the learning with anything we see pertaining to the circulatory over the next day or so (surprisingly, a lot comes up).
Day Three:  Go to the Science book and read the circulatory chapter.
Day Four:  Youtube videos & a Writing assignment.

Here are the videos we watched: