The BookShark Homeschool Blog

Communicator: a person who is able to convey or exchange information, news, or ideas, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Thanks to the Internet, we live in a time where everyone can express their thoughts and feelings in an instant. Yet it seems people struggle to actually communicate.  Communication requires skills that go beyond simply

Purchasing a secular kindergarten program when I started teaching my first child, I thought I had a full grasp of the definition of secular homeschool curriculum. That was 19 years ago. I’ve since learned that the meanings of secular homeschooling and secular curriculum are not as straightforward as I may have thought. Here are some considerations to help you dissect

In all honesty, I never thought I would homeschool my kids. I started because my oldest missed the cut off date for kindergarten and would have to wait a full year before starting school. She was beyond ready, so I knew I needed to do something. After a lot of research and many discussions, our family plunged

With one foot in childhood and the other entering adulthood, eighth-grade is a pivotal time. Choosing homeschool curriculum can be nerve-racking when you realize that eighth grade can set your child up for success or hold him back. I found inspiration for my son’s curriculum choices in a very odd place—a 1912 eighth grade exam.   Learning the art

In our family, the struggle to read has not been the only challenge our literature-based homeschool has faced. A very close second is difficulty with writing. Dyslexia and dysgraphia have some overlapping challenges; both make language-based learning an uphill battle. But while dyslexia’s struggles are mostly reading-related, dysgraphia’s struggles are mostly writing-related: We’ve had our share of all of these over the

Are you ever curious about other BookShark families? We can assure you that, after interacting with so many customers at conventions and online, every family is unique! While there is another family like yours in some ways, there is no other family exactly like yours! BookShark families span the gamut of family size, makeup, and

Are you trying to figure out how to assess your child’s learning with Bookshark’s Reading with History? When using this wonderful curriculum, you may feel a little unsure when you reach the end of a topic or when you try to document your child’s learning. But don’t despair. There are many creative ways you can document

EPISODE 145 SEASON 4 | What makes a successful student or person? While there are a LOT of items on that checklist, there are a set of skills that can make it a great deal easier to be successful. This skill set is called executive functioning. It is a broad group of mental skills that enable

Many of us were taught language arts as a disjointed set of unrelated skills—a very ineffective way to learn it. Can you relate to any of these experiences? You did the work in school, but without context and without connection. As a result, you may believe you aren’t good at language arts. The truth is, you struggled

Roald Dahl said, “By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.” While I believe Dahl is