Are You An Accidental Homeschooler?

(You may be privileged to get two posts from me today.  It’s one of those days when I have a lot to say.  No comments from the peanut gallery, please.)
My boss, John Edelson at Time4Learning coined the term “Accidental Homeschooler” a while back as a result of talking to thousands of subscribers to the curriculum, [...]

That All May Read…

First of all, an update:  The fleas have been banished from Topsy-Techieland, and all has returned to “normal.”  No, I still didn’t get to see ‘Quantum of Solace’, but we went shopping and I’m pretty sure hubby and the boys covertly got me some birthday stuff, so all is good.
Reading and writing is my life.  [...]

God Bless Assistive Technology

Ever since my boys started school I have been interested in assistive  technology.  Our oldest son, lovingly named on T-T as Uber-Techie, contracted rheumatic fever of the brain right before starting kindergarten, and he suddenly had trouble walking, talking, eating, etc.  It was a traumatic time to say the least, and he spent the better [...]

Friday’s Hardwired Homeschool Hints: Google Apps

Today I’m going to push the envelope, shake the sauce, change things up…you get the drift.  I’m not going to hit you with a bunch of cool sites today, but rather highlight one really gnarly web application (hey San Fernando Valley and Silicon Valley aren’t that far apart; there was bound to be a [...]

From My Linear Brain To Yours

Dustin, over at one of my fave new blogs: The Writer’s Technology Companion, posed a contest disguised as a question yesterday…
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? [for writing]
You see the prize for the contest is a free copy of iMindMap software (retailing at over $200).  And mind-mapping is an incredibly powerful tool for some [...]

Friday’s Hardwired Homeschool Hints: Spelling

In all my years as a homeschooling mom, I have never once woken up with the thought “Oh boy, I can’t wait until we get to do our spelling lesson today!” Go figure. Even though I was a pretty good speller in school myself, I still never got overly excited about spelling in general. [...]

Friday’s Hardwired Homeschool Hints: American History

H-T is studying American History this year in his Time4Learning Social Studies curriculum.  It is quite a thorough course, going all the way from the native peoples to inhabit the land all the way through the Clinton administration.  The best part is the Time4Learning trademark of fun, interactive lessons that make American History really [...]

WISH it worked for me Wednesday

I love the Works For Me posts over at RocksinmyDryer.typepad.com, but since not much ever works correctly around the Topsy-Techie household, I thought I would talk about what I WISHED worked…
Case in point: Using my son’s Wii Remote as an All-Purpose Remote Tool    
Thanks to a blogging buddy’s Teaching and Learning Spanish blog, I discovered [...]

Friday’s Hardwired Homeschool Hints: Learning Styles

I was four years into homeschooling before I knew ANYTHING about learning styles.  Can you imagine how much curriculum we went through in those four years??  Like a total nube, I made the mistaken assumption that I could pick a curriculum that fit with our values system and budget and it would magically work [...]

Friday’s Hardwired Homeschool Hints: Learning Disabilities

Yes, the above title is a lie… I had to work a lot on Friday (you know that thing we do to support our blogging addiction), and wasn’t able to spend quality time with my laptop.  So I missed my Friday “deadline.”  But you will forgive me this one time, right?  I promise that Saturday’s [...]