Happy Hive Homeschooling

I know that your inbox is on fire with Black Friday Deals Reader, but, Black Friday looks a little different in the Hive. For the next three days, I don't have anything to sell you. Instead, I have 3 amazing gifts for you (and your homeschool) Today's gift is a workshop of your choice from the WORKSHOPS category in the Happy Hive Shop. As a classroom teacher, part of the requirements for renewing my credential every 5 years were hours of professional growth.Classes, workshops, special...

Hey Reader, All week we've been looking a little closer at the thinking happening inside everyday activities. Your child explains how to do something. They tell you a story. They reconsider an answer. They make a decision or contribute to a family experience. And you're beginning to recognize the thinking behind those actions. 🎉Wonderful! But now I want to address something that can happen once we get better at spotting learning. We start wondering what to DO with it. Should I write it down?...

Hey Reader, Imagine it's family movie night. You've finally managed to get everyone together and now there's just one tiny problem. Nobody can agree on what to watch. 😂 One child is carefully reading the movie descriptions. Another wants to know how long each movie is. Someone else is insisting that you watched the funniest one last time, so it's only fair to choose something different. And the youngest just wants popcorn. 🍿🍿Lots and lots of popcorn. 🍿🍿 Now, I don't know about your family,...

Hey Reader, "Mom! Mom! Guess what happened!" And then comes the story. It might be about something that happened at the park, a conversation with a friend, or something funny the dog did. If you're lucky, the story has a beginning, middle, and end. If you have one of those wonderfully enthusiastic storytellers, it might have seventeen beginnings, three unrelated side stories, and an ending that somehow involves a dinosaur. 😂 Either way, your child is doing something worth noticing. They're...

Hey Reader, Have you ever asked one of your kids to show you how to do something they seem to know instinctively? Maybe it's a game. Maybe it's an app on your phone. Maybe it's one of those complicated things they built that you're absolutely certain will fall apart if you touch the wrong piece. 😂 They know exactly how it works. You, on the other hand, need instructions. And suddenly, your child becomes the teacher! "First you do this. No, Mom, not THAT button. Wait. Let me show you." Sound...

Hey Reader, Friday has a sneaky way of making us look at everything we didn’t finish. The math lesson that moved to next week. The science activity you meant to do. The book nobody opened. The thing you planned on Monday when you had absolutely no idea what Wednesday was going to throw at you. 😂 Sometimes something really does need to be moved, finished, or revisited. But before you respond to an unfinished plan by adding a pile of catch-up work, check the evidence from the whole week. What...

Hey Reader, There are things your kids do around the house because they live there. They feed the dog. Help make lunch. Put groceries away. Watch a younger sibling while you finish something. Pack what they need before you leave. Carry laundry. Explain to someone else where something belongs. Help figure out how to make dinner work when an ingredient is missing. And because these things are ordinary, we often don’t think twice about them. They’re just helping. Exactly. Your children are...

Hey Reader, Sometimes homeschool moms get very good at spotting a child’s interest. And then we ruin the whole thing. I say that with love. 😂 A child starts building an elaborate LEGO city and suddenly we’re thinking: Architecture! Math! Writing! Maybe they could research city planning! Perhaps they should calculate the area! Meanwhile your child was perfectly happy building a LEGO city. This is one of the strange little traps that comes with knowing everything is learning. Once you start...

Hey Reader, There are errands that take an hour. And then there are errands with kids. 😂 Suddenly you’re finding shoes, answering questions from the back seat, making three stops you didn’t expect, comparing two things at the store, remembering why you came in, and trying to get everyone home before somebody gets hungry. It doesn’t exactly look like the homeschool pictures we save to Pinterest. But your kids don’t switch their brains off when you leave the house. They’re still noticing how...