Babel School in Taiwan

Science is probably the most difficult subject to teach for homeschooling moms. Some don't feel confident enough to teach it, others think it takes too much time and preparation to do it more often than once ... a month, there are also those that simply avoid it altogether. Where do I fall? I would say that the second group - getting all the things ready for the experiments at home and then actually taking time to do them is really time consuming, but ... kids love it. So what can I do? From time to time I do need to turn my kitchen into a lab and let them grow crystals, burn sugar, make lots of bubbles, sift sand, magnetize needles etc. As a child I've never had a chance to do any experiments at school, so now I am learning and enjoying the hands-on-science with them. It is a lot of fun, so just take your time and ... do it! Growing crystals   Checking how different substances react with soda, water and vinegar. Is the amount of water in each container the same or is it ...

Sunday afternoon, or more likely Sunday night, is the time that I prepare kids' lessons for the week. Since last fall I've been trying to follow a more strict class schedule. I did write up a weekly schedule showing which classes should be taught daily and which weekly or biweekly etc, and I do try to follow it (of course it does not always work ...). For long term planning I use Homeschool Tracker . All I need to do is every few months input the lesson or page numbers of the books we are using in the order I want to teach them. I do that for every subject and every child. Then I can either look up the schedule on the computer or print it out. It's also very useful if one has to keep track of the work already completed for the schooling authorities. Having everything written up in the order it needs to be taught helps me a lot, I don't need to worry anymore about forgetting to teach something. Of course this matters more when one is homeschooling an older child, lik...