*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission. Friendship is a huge component of helping our children live a joyful life! Navigating friendships can be both beautiful and challenging. It is important that we, as parents, equip ourselves to guide our children and help foster healthy friendships. Benefits of Friendship Adults and children alike benefit from friendships. Knowing these benefits and their importance in childhood will help us to guide our children toward healthy friendships. 10 Reasons Childh ..read more

Why use a curriculum when you can just read books with dangerously misplaced commas and apostrophes?!? My kids love these books and learn a ton about punctuation from them. This series of funny punctuation books can be a hilarious way to teach your kids the dangers of an improperly placed comma. Check out these books as we share these books in our Faves podcast episode. Listen or watch here! You can also find us on your preferred podcast app. This series by Lynne Truss and illustrated by Bonnie Timmons is a huge favorite in our house, because the series’ books do just that - they put punctua ..read more

We love Operation Ouch! It is a YouTube Channel hosting by twins, Doctors Chris and Xand full of fun lessons on the human body. They answer common questions about the human body creatively through lab experiments, consulting experts, and polling people on the street. Operation Ouch uses real-life accidents and injuries that children experience to teach about hospital procedures, cures and treatments and even follow-ups to show how the body heals. Doctors Chris and Xand offer a mobile clinic where kids can come in and ask a question about something they might find unique about their bodies and ..read more

When is it okay to let your child quit an activity, and when should we push him through? Quitting can mean “giving up,” thus losing the opportunity to build resilience and perseverance for working toward goals. Which sometimes it does, but sometimes, quitting empowers your child and frees him up to explore new passions or find his calling in something you didn’t expect. So, it can be really hard to gauge when to let your child quit and when to make her push through it.  Research on Quitting Let’s first look at why sometimes it is good to quit, according to some recent research: Psychology ..read more

*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission. Playing board games as a family are some of my favorite memories from my own childhood and in so far into motherhood. Family game time doesn’t need much to make it memorable and fun, it just requires spending time together. Board games range in their offerings from cooperative games for preschoolers to intense multi-session strategy games. What are the Benefits of Board Games? Family social time is hugely beneficial to the cognitive, social, and emotional d ..read more

One of our absolute favorite parts about homeschooling is our amazing community. From the support and inspiration of homeschoolers around the country to the 18 families in the co-op we created, we have a beautiful community in which to raise our children. Continue reading for some helpful tools, or purchase our Co-Op Pack to give you a step-by-step process to starting your own co-op. Community can be hard to find, whether from a place of being hurt in the past or just trying to find “your people.” We want to help you find (or create) the perfect homeschool community for you. Co-op at the USS ..read more

*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission History is one of the most important subjects we can teach our children. Finding a single curriculum that tells a well-rounded version is tough. We took a unit study approach to compiling some of our favorite resources into a robust, year (or two) long U.S. History Unit Study Plan and Resource Guide suitable for 4th-8th grade. We are offering our hard work to you for free when you subscribe to our email newsletter! “History is not the past but a map of the p ..read more

*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission For her 11th birthday, my daughter wanted a party unlike all others and based on one of our family’s favorite books: The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery. So, what is any mom’s first step for executing a themed party? Search Pinterest for a template. To my horror, there wasn’t one, so I got creative and made my own! Now I want to share it here for any others who adore this book and may want to have their very own Eleventh Hour Party. What is The Eleventh Hou ..read more

This week’s podcast episode is all about our favorite episodes from our own podcast. We now have 100 episodes to get new homeschoolers started and seasoned homeschoolers inspired - and we picked our few favorites to discuss. With short synopses of Episode 80, Homeschool Success, and Episode 46, Co-ops, we provide the what and the why we love these episodes. Mandi gives a shot-out to Episode 81, Planning Our Year 2022, too. Check it out the podcast episode, The Best Ones, here ..read more

We asked our little ones what each of their favorite book is and why. This is what they said. *some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission A) Warriors (book 3) by Erin Hunter Chosen By: Ruby, almost age 11 What It Is: A fiction novel about cats in clans Reasons It Is A Fave: It’s about cats It’s cool that the cats are in clans It’s creative How She Uses It: It inspired me to write a book about my cat and the stray cat that comes to my house. It also helped my drawings of cats get better beca ..read more