Recent Posts

Ruly Ruth: How to Be an AWESOME Team Parent!

With kids’ sports events in full swing with the beginning of school, I wanted to share my method for performing Team Mom (or Team Dad) duties. I have performed this job in 2 different states for a large variety of sports teams, and wanted to 

Homeschooling Insights: Standardized Testing

Here in Virginia, homeschooled students must provide evidence of adequate progress to their local school district each year. Proof is accepted in one of two forms: an adequate score on a national standardized test (such as the California Achievement Test) or evaluation by a Master’s 

Homeschooling Insights: All You Need is Love

In case you haven’t seen it, the Frontline documentary, “Dropout Nation” is a very interesting profile on a high school in Houston, Texas going the extra mile to help troubled teens graduate high school. The amount of effort put forth by teachers and administrators is truly incredible and the lack of success very troubling.

The documentary highlighted how many children come from troubled, socially unstable backgrounds. It is humbling to know that one of the things as a society we can’t promise all children, even with all the money in the world, is that they will be raised in a family that loves them. It was also interesting to see in the documentary that of the 4 children profiled, the only one who graduated was the one whose family seemed the most loving, even though they were going through extraordinary economic and deportation pressures.

Recent research shows how much impact a loving home environment has on the brain development of children and how vital that is for every aspect of a child’s success.

With all the political issues we hear about lately, when is the last time we ever heard someone talk about what we might try to promote more love in the world? Is it really impossible? If you weren’t born into a great family that loves and supports you, what are your options?

Thinking now of my own wonderful family and how truly lucky I am!

Homeschooling Insights: Teaching the Attention-Challenged Child

My daughter is still very young and while I do not feel that she has any sort of diagnosable attention disorder and she has never taken any attention-related medication, she does struggle sometimes with the difficulties of focus and attention that many young children face. 

Homeschooling Insights: The “Last Mile” Advantage of Homeschooling

Each of the last three years I have homeschooled my daughter, I gain new insight the educational process. I am currently relearning through my daughter basics like handwriting, phonics, counting, addition and subtraction. I watch her brain turn over these ideas, see where she gets