Hands On Activities! So Much Fun!

About Us

I am a SAHM/WAHM of three boys ranging in age from 13 to 29. We are working on raising our youngest, helping our oldest two, and navigating starting our retirement all at the same time. I author a few blogs, including http://teched4kids.com. I have in the past taught computer information technology classes for the local university and taught workshops for kid’s in technology education besides being the Kentucky State FIRST LEGO League Championship Coordinator from 2005 to 2008. I now advocate for STEM education wherever I can.  Life here is always an adventure!

Advocacy (IEP)

Here in Illinois there are a few places you can turn to find advocates. When making an IEP for school generally the parents and teachers get together to discuss goals and set up supports and services for the year. Parents can also call meetings throughout the year if...

Newsela and the News

Last year when we took a break to go remote our local school decided that they didn't want to pressure the kids with learning anything new. The grade school, we were doing 5th grade, simply wanted to work on keeping up the students social emotional learning. My little...

CodaKid (More Coding) or you can learn and have fun too!

There are so many ways to make learning fun. One of the things we've tied in is CodaKid (besides Tynker). On a side note though, last night we were watching the new Netflix documentary on the Social Dilemma. A documentary-drama hybrid that explores the human impact of...

Tynker Coding (adding coding to homeschool)

Debating what to study for homeschooling, one of our thoughts was 'We need a language!'. We discussed every option of language we had some experience with and looked at what colleges are accepting. Interestingly enough some colleges now are taking programming...

Playing with Fractions using Cooking

We were needing a break a couple days ago during homeschooling and making cookies seemed to check all the boxes. I was reminded of the old skit by Bill Cosby where he discussed cake for breakfast.... eggs, milk.... yep it's breakfast! Making cookies is fractions! We...

Starting Home School

Yep, we decided to completely swap to homeschool, we got our curriculum (we got extra!) and we are ready. What we learned quickly was the same as the old adage about too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup or whatever that saying is... both my husband and I...
Starting Home School

Starting Home School

Yep, we decided to completely swap to homeschool, we got our curriculum (we got extra!) and we are ready. What we learned quickly was the same as the old adage about too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup or whatever that saying is... both my husband and I...

read more
Homeschooling: Choosing a Curriculum for our 2e

Homeschooling: Choosing a Curriculum for our 2e

We've enriched in the past, but this is our first year completely homeschooling. Choosing a curriculum resulted in us changing our mind several times. At first we bought a set of textbooks for each subject in the correct grade level. We could just make our own. I...

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Common Core?  It’s probably not what you think it is….

Common Core? It’s probably not what you think it is….

With the new rush to homeschool I see people planning to homeschool that are in a rush to take a break from public school only for the Covid virus with plans to return. The comment I keep seeing is that they are want to do everything like school but they are not going...

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Planning Curriculum

I just saw in an email that curriculum materials are the new toilet paper... Luckily we had started early. No matter what we do though I'll second guess my decisions. We know we definitely want something secular, and we were hoping to follow the common core standards...

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No Distance Learning Available?

Our school came out with a draft plan and it doesn't include distance learning. The school mentioned possibly including distance learning for students that are home bound for medical reasons, but that lets out a lot of families. Most families are torn on going back to...

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