Homeschooling in Michigan? Or wanting to homeschool in Michigan? Find out how you can get a FREE literature-based curriculum with support and online assessments! Join Janna Koch, BookShark’s Community Manager, as she is joined by Jen Myers and Gwyn Domke, from Michigan BookShark Virtual with Alpena schools in Michigan. Find out the benefits of using

This year in our homeschool we will be studying Central America. Although we have a great collection of books to read about the topic, I also wanted to find age appropriate videos that show us more about the different countries we’ll be visiting. As much as we adore a literature-based homeschool curriculum, we still love adding on the

I have always enjoyed doing arts and crafts projects with my boys as an add-on to our homeschool curriculum. But as they’ve gotten older, I have found it a bit harder to teach them art because they have less patience with the process of art. They want to have the satisfaction of a completed project at the conclusion of an

Homeschooling is an adventure. There are so many paths that it is difficult to choose which is right for your family. It’s different from sending your kids to school in many ways with the most obvious being that you make all the decisions, including your teaching methods. Maybe you are wondering if a literature-based curriculum can provide a

My boys and I enjoy watching travel videos to supplement our homeschool explorations of history, geography, and sociology. We use videos in conjunction with books to gain a deeper grasp of the area of the globe that we are studying. Typically we will watch a clip or two from YouTube to get a feel for the country or

Are you studying ancient civilizations for homeschool history, for example BookShark Level 1 or BookShark Level 6? If so, you will probably find that ancient Egypt is one of the most fascinating topics you’ll cover. In addition to your scheduled reading, your child will probably enjoy supplementing with interactive, hands-on activities. Are these extra activities necessary? Not at all! But some

One of the most worrisome parts of homeschooling is record keeping; especially for those homeschooling families who live in places with strict homeschooling laws. And just because you live in a homeschool friendly place right now doesn’t guarantee you will never move to a place that requires you to keep regular records of your kids’

A study conducted by the University of Nevada over a period of 20 years using data from 27 countries found that families with books in the home (even as few as 20), had children who attended school between 2.4 years and 6.6 years longer than children who lived in homes without books. The researchers indicated that a

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the academics of homeschooling. From planning history lessons to grading math tests, educational pursuits can quickly fill up every square inch of brain space. However, in order for our children’s education to be balanced, they need time outside of the home. If they can consider the needs of others in those activities, all the

It wasn’t all that long ago when I was desperately memorizing another spelling test and another set of words just to forget them over the weekend. When I was in school, we were given an assortment of 15 or 20 random words that we were expected to simply know. The problem with spelling lists and weekly spelling