Disclosure Policy This blog is a site written and edited by me, Bekki Sayler. I am the homeschooling mama of 5 amazing boys and LOVE the homeschool life. A Better Way to Homeschool was born out of my passion for coming alongside and equipping and encouraging new and frustrated homeschoolers. I believe the Lord has blessed me with a vision to help many homeschooling families. I work daily to provide homeschooling tutorial videos, homeschooling guidance, coaching, inspiration, and much more. If I thought I could create a brick and mortar business to meet your needs I would do so in a heartbeat! My gifting is in my ability to boil down decades of homeschooling and practical family life advice to share it with you all on-line. This is my “other full-time job”. I honestly believe it is more than fair to be compensated for my many hours of hard work that are invested in bringing you the best resources I can create or find. As this site continues to grow, so do my expenses. This blog contains custom products created by me and affiliate links. That means you and I are partners keeping this blog alive. I make a small percentage in commission when you purchase my creations or follow the links I share. In return, I am committed to bringing you only high-quality products and services. The money I earn helps cover the costs of running this blog, like domain name and web hosting and allows me to stay at home with my children. I do make you this promise: I promote only those products and services that I would use personally. I always share my honest opinions and experiences, even for products and services whose ads appear on my web site. If I am compensated to write a blog post, I will make full disclosure. All content on A Better Way to Homeschool is copyrighted, and it may not be reprinted in full form without my written consent. This disclosure is provided in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR § 255.5: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Amazon Affiliate Advertising Policy A Better Way to Homeschool is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Affiliate Policy with other Bloggers and Advertisers A Better Way to Homeschool is partners with other bloggers and advertisers such as, but not limited to They Call Me Blessed, Teach Them Diligently, CJ Affiliates, Moolah, Early Bird Mom, and more. My husband and I pray about this site and its content. Our prayer is that you will find resources that truly bless and equip you and your families on your homeschooling journey. My Christian integrity is more important to me than making a profit. I will never intentionally share any content or endorse any product or service that will compromise my integrity. If you find any products that are of concern, please contact me and I will remove them immediately! Compensation received will not influence what I share with you or my ability to express my honest opinion. Again my integrity is not for sale! Please check the total on any purchase at checkout. Although I make every effort to post the current information, offers are subject to change without notice. It is your responsibility to make sure FREE items ARE STILL FREE at check out. Last revision: December 10, 2018
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About Me My name is Bekki Sayler, Professional Nerf Bullet Dodger, “Never-Gonna-Quit” homeschooling mom of five sons, creator of A Better Way to Homeschool, author of Homeschooling From the Inside Out, and homeschooling mom of five rambunctious sons. Yep. It’s as crazy as it sounds! I am most thankful for the love and support of my husband of almost 30 years, Craig, for being my rock and best friend in this wildlife we created together. When I’m not dodging nerf bullets or stepping over piles of Legos, I create classes, printables, books, and resources to encourage Christian homeschool moms to trust the Lord in their journey. My heart’s passion is to share the truth that it is possible to educate your kids using God’s word as a guide while focusing on the holy trinity of homeschooling: heart, attitude, and character. … Read More »
Teachers and Homeschoolers Sharing Wisdom Part 3: Guest Blogger Jennifer Garcia I am just loving the guest Bloggers who have graced us with wisdom these past few weeks! The links are at the end of this post! Today’s guest blogger is Jennifer Garcia with Pages of Grace. She is a Christian, teacher, wife, mom, runner, cake decorator, and craft enthusiast who tries to enjoy the little things in life. I love that! Get ready. Jennifer, like me, began by disagreeing with homeschooling! I love how the Lord changed her heart! Here’s Jennifer! To be honest, when I was teaching in the classroom, I did not understand why people chose to homeschool. Through my college education and the years I spent working in public schools, I was trained to believe that children should be in regular school; it was not good for them to be deprived of the socialization that comes from the schools. Now that I have children of my own, my whole thought process has changed! I decided to take a few years off when I had my first child, always planning on going back to the classroom when my children were in school. Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time looking at the different school options in our area, and I am feeling more and more that homeschool is a very good option for us and many other families. My older daughter attends a Christian preschool, and I do supplemental work at a home with her and my younger daughter. I completely understand and respect the reasons that parents choose to homeschool their children now. Parents know what is best for their own children. There are many reasons, but these are the three big ones that stick out to me and many people I know: *We want more time with our children. Family time seems to be less and less important these days, but in reality, I believe it is more necessary than ever. By spending that extra time with our children, we have the opportunity to pour love, wisdom, and morals into our children that we might not have if they were in school every day. *Exposing our children to things when we feel it is right. There is such a push to throw kids out in society and let them deal with it, because that’s what “everybody” does. However, we feel that there is a proper time and place for children to be exposed to certain ideas and situations, and it should be when we feel they are ready, not when society says they should. *Religious reasons. While everyone has their own beliefs, we believe that Jesus and the Bible should guide our lives. Our society has removed every ounce of truth from our schools, to the point where I felt I had to walk on eggshells as a teacher. It is very sad to see that the more we push God away, the worse our society has become. Students will eventually have to grow up and make their own choices, but I believe that children need to spend these influential years in an atmosphere of love and truth, so they are ready for what the world throws at them later. My children are young, so we are mostly focused on literacy right now. I create activities and lessons based on their interests. I know the topic that I want to focus on, and then I mix it with the things that my kids enjoy. For example, my girls are both really into art, so when we are working on letter recognition, I give them lots of different materials and have them make letters using the different materials–rhinestones and glitter are their favorites 🙂 They also love playing games, so when we started doing sight words, I made some games that we could play together to reinforce the sight word practice. I think the key to approaching new things is to know the topic that you need to teach, and then create learning activities around the interests of the children. When I was in the classroom, I worked with many struggling learners. Here is my approach to helping them succeed: First and foremost, you have to know the child. Look at all of the background information so you understand what is NOT working. Then, I take a different approach. If one method is not clicking, I try something else. I also think it is important to take things one step at a time. It can be overwhelming to look at a child who is struggling in every area. I take the approach of tackling one thing at a time, and also making it a point to praise every milestone and achievement. This builds confidence in the student and helps him feel that he is making progress and that the goals are in reach. My Teachers Pay Teachers store has a wide variety of resources, because I have things from the classroom (4th-6th grade) and things that I make for my own children (preschool-kindergarten). I will include some products from different levels, in the hopes that it will help parents with multiple children. This is my main freebie. It is a set of task cards for double digit multiplication. Task cards are a great resource that can be used in many different ways. This is one of my phonics packets. I have a series of phonics packets that I made to teach my children how to read. I think this is a great homeschool resource. It is easy to follow and progresses smoothly from one topic to the next. Each packet builds upon the last. The packets are designed to focus on one or two word families at a time, allowing children to focus on and master one thing and build confidence. This is the first packet (CVC words). I have 3 other packets in my store now, and I am working on adding more soon. I have some novel studies that are complete integrated units. These are a fun way to really dive into a book, while covering many different skills. This link is for the book, Holes. I also have novel studies for Charlotte’s Web and The Tale of Desperaux, and I am in the process of adding a few more in the next few months. I hope parents find this information helpful, and I look forward to learning more about homeschool ideas from the other people in this guest blog. Thank you for the opportunity to collaborate 🙂 Recent Guest Bloggers: Melissa Jenkins, My Broken BootStraps Lisa Smith, Tales of Teaching and Learning Disclosure: I receive no monetary perks for any of the teaching and learning packets shared in this post. I am simply trying to share my heart for becoming a better educator by connecting great teachers with great homeschoolers. We have so much to learn from each other!
Guest Blogger Melissa Jenkins: Teachers and Homeschoolers Sharing Wisdom Ready for some more teacher/educator/homeschooling sharing? I am pleased to introduce you to Melissa Jenkins of My Broken Bootstraps. Melissa is fellow homeschooling mom and educator with a passion for teaching and she has so much knowledge to share with us! Be sure to visit her blog and grab some of her resources! ~Bekki Without further to do… Here’s Melissa! I have always known I would be a teacher. I remember lining up my dolls and stuffed animals as a child and diligently teaching them their ABCs every Saturday. While others worried about their career paths, I had an inner calm already knowing my purpose. And I was right. Twenty years out of college I can look back and see the many students whose lives I touched. More importantly, so many of them touched me. I have worked with infants through college, Deaf Education, Special Education, and Regular Education. I have had students that are adults now find me on Facebook and tell me how much I helped them. Several have become teachers themselves and give me some credit for making that decision. And yet… Without a doubt the students I loved teaching the most are my own twin daughters, now age 19. They are one week from graduating high school and I couldn’t be more proud. They both have learning disabilities, so school was a long hard battle for them as well as me. Their first grade teacher said Megan and Katie needed to repeat that grade, so they did. With me. I homeschooled them to the dismay of several public school teacher friends. We did not follow the typical public or private school curriculum. I saw how they learned. I knew where the gaps were and decided to focus on that alone. We did reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic, with an emphasis on reading. By the end of the semester, Megan, who entered homeschool as a non-reader, was now reading on a second grade level. We had gained two and a half years in one semester. Talk about miracles! The next time we decided to homeschool was during the terrifying Middle School years. I took a break from teaching other students to focus on my own. We had the joy of homeschooling 6th – 8th grades. There were many reasons behind this, but the main one was we wanted to draw them closer to our family unit. This is such a risky time when so many choices have life-long consequences, either good or bad. My daughter Katie has since come to me and admitted that if we had not homeschooled her during middle school, we might very well had lost her. She has already declared that she will be doing the same when she has children of her own. While homeschooling my own children, I pulled so much information from my training and experience as a professional teacher. I have been on both sides of the tracks. I fully support any family that wants to homeschool their children. Just as I heard dismay from public school teachers when I let them know of my plans to teach at home, I saw the wringing hands of homeschool families when we decided to put them back in public school. I have never understood why there are opposite “camps” on this issue. I think that at times there can be a benefit to both sides. As a professional teacher I have had the opportunity to try new things with a variety of students and happily tuck away the successful ones for future use. Here are a few ideas I have used when my students are struggling. One of the most difficult skills a good teacher MUST learn to do is break down information into smaller bites. WE know the information already, but our children do not. Think from the child’s perspective. Break the information down into small steps. Do not go to step two until they understand step one. This takes a lot more time, but it is so worth it in the end. Don’t be afraid of silence. When you ask your child a question, wait. And wait. Aaaand wait. The fancy word for this is latency, but the purpose is the same. We already know the information, and the fact that we were going to ask it. Your child does not have that knowledge. Plus, if it is a child who is struggling, they may need longer time to process that information. Variety is the spice of life. It is also the spice to teaching. When you are teaching something new, talk about it, read about it, youtube about it, make something about it… Make sure your child has the opportunity to see it, hear it, visualize it, and experience it. The more opportunities they have to learn in different ways, the better they will internalize the information. Wash, rinse, repeat. Repetition is critical for a struggling learner. Research has shown that young readers need to hear a story read to them up to 20 times in order to internalize it. It’s the same with any new information. Go back to information you have already taught and review it from time to time. After you’ve taught the concept, let them take a turn to be the teacher and explain it to you or a younger sibling. Random Teacher/Mommy Handwriting Hack: When you are working with a child that has atrocious handwriting, try writing what you want them to practice with a yellow highlighter first. They can copy the highlighted letters and get a feel for how they move. This will give them more confidence when they write on their own. A Freebie from Melissa: Math Anchor Charts-Freebie Two more favorites: Literacy Activities Detective Family Kit Writing Center Kit-Posters and Activities Also, I try to have freebies every Monday on my blog. It has not been as regular as I wanted, but I think I am back on track. Thank you so much for this opportunity! Melissa Jenkins, aka My Broken Bootstraps Disclosure: I receive no monetary perks for any of the teaching and learning packets shared in this post. I am simply trying to share my heart for becoming a better educator by connecting great teachers with great homeschoolers. We have so much to learn from each other!
Teachers And Homeschoolers Sharing Wisdom: Guest Blogger Lisa Smith I am super excited to introduce you all to my first “Teacher Guest Blogger”, Lisa Smith! As a fellow wife, mom, Christian, principal, teacher and author you can be assured that she has a lot of valuable wisdom and insight for each one of us. Make her welcome, comment on her post, visit her blog, and grab one of her fabulous resources at the bottom of this post! ~Bekki I believe that it’s the parent’s choice how their children are raised and taught. Whether you are a public school teacher, private school teacher or a homeschool teacher, you work hard for the success of your students and that should be respected. In reality, homeschool teachers and public school teachers have a lot in common. We all create lessons, assessments, and follow standards (of some kind). Instead of noting the differences, we need to work together to share ideas and materials, because in the end, we all want our students to succeed. When creating a new lesson, I always begin with the end in mind. I ask myself, “What is it that they must know?” Then, I create the assessment before making the activities and lessons. This helps me stay focused on what’s important. I am not a fan of making every assessment a traditional “test.” Assessments do not have to be boring! For example, my Events in History Series have projects for assessments. In my science class, I assess students by using my Around the Room Science Task Cards. If students can finish the cards, I know they have mastered the skills. In my fifth grade math class, I used Math Bingo Cards and a Classifying Shapes Activity to assess student learning (You can visit Lisa’s store by following the link at the end of this post) In addition, reviewing content doesn’t have to be boring. One of my favorite review activities came from Tr. Harvey Silver. It called the Magic Box. Basically, you have the students draw a box and have them write everything they learned on that topic in the box. After you give them plenty of thinking time, you go over the items in their box and help them add to it. This makes a great study guide, or a quick assessment. In my state, Indiana, we will have four different standardized tests in a four year period. We would be fools to worry about “teaching to the test.” Instead, we focus on teaching our standards. In my opinion, standards do not limit teachers or take away their freedom to be creative. Standards are just the checklist of what my kids need to know before they leave me. What I do to meet that standard is up to me. I use a standards checklist to ensure I meet my standards. This standards checklist helps me to ensure that I am helping my students be successful. Standards are important because they are a teacher’s guidepost. Every successful program has standards. They may not be Common Core or state standards, but if you have created your own curriculum, you most definitely had to put thought into what you wanted your child to learn and those are standards by which you teach. I sincerely thank you for reading my post and a special thank you to A Better Way to Homeschool for the guest host opportunity. More about Lisa: My husband and I have three children ranging from 10 to 17 years old. I have a wide-range of teaching experience. Many years ago I owned a preschool and was a teacher for 4 and 5 year olds. After selling the preschool, I taught first grade at a rural school corporation and then taught fifth grade at a charter school. For the last five years, I have taught in the community in which I live. Within those five years, I taught fifth and sixth grade. This year, I was promoted to principal of the elementary school and I am the High Ability Coordinator and Curriculum Director for my school corporation. Please visit my Teacher Pay Teacher store for units that may be helpful to you and your children at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Rigorous-Resources-By-Lisa ********************************************************************************* Isn’t Lisa Great? I asked her to share three fabulous resources with us. Not only does she have a wealth of experience and wisdom, but she also creates learning materials that can be easily used in our homeschooling environments. Here we go: Freebie: Even though the cover says “Classroom Posters”, these would make wonderful notebook references for homeschoolers studying poetry! Poetry: (5-7th grade) This is a great way to do a poetry focus. Lisa has done all the planning for you! Plot Structure: (4th-8th) This complete unit helps us teach our kiddos how to analyze the plot of a story in an objective way. Disclosure: I receive no monetary perks for any of the teaching and learning packets shared in this post. I am simply trying to share my heart for becoming a better educator by connecting great teachers with great homeschoolers. We have so much to learn from each other!
Father’s Day Gift Ideas Father’s Day is just around the corner. Here are a few unique Father’s Day Gift Ideas: This post contains my referral link which helps support the work of this site. Here’s my full disclosure policy. USB Money Clip from Gifts.com Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer Nothing Brings children confidence more than knowing mom and dad love each other! Father’s Day Coupons **FREE**by Victoria Leon! Samsung Fitness Tracker Father’s Day Crafts from My Delicious Abiguity Penny Frame from Ziggity Zoom
How to Organize Notebooking Templates on Your Computer This post contains my referral link which helps support the work of this site. Here’s my full disclosure policy. You have embraced the idea of teaching your children to journal by using notebooking templates. You have downloaded hundreds if not thousands of cute, interesting, and important files for them to use during their study and personal learning time. But now what? Without proper organization, those amazing templates you have purchased and downloaded for your children to use for their schoolwork will be locked and unused on your computer. Even worse, without a plan for organization you will have spent good money only to use up space on your harddrive. You need a plan to organize your notebooking templates! Create a master file folder on your computer In order to locate your notebooking templates easily, it would be wise for you to create a master file to store all of your files. A good master file name would be “Notebooking Templates for School”. I personally keep this folder on my desktop screen. Why? If I neatly tuck this file in my directory list I tend to forget it it there. If it is right on my desktop screen then I am reminded often that there are cute and interesting templates for the kids to use. Create a sub folder for each category as you collect and create new templates. Under your master file folder, you will want to create category folders that make it easy for you to find any template you need. I highly suggest you create lists by subject: Copywork History Science Bible Character Study Famous People Nature Animals ABC Geography etc Depending on how organized your like your files, you can choose to go one step further and add files under each of these categories. For instance under the history folder you can create files for ancient history, medieval history, modern history, the civil war, etc. Create files as you go. If you are new to notebooking, you will quickly discover that there are thousands of templates available for you to introduce to your children. An easy approach to this kind of journaling is to consider what subject you are studying together in history (for example) and to acquire a handful of templates for your student to choose from as they are learning. Organize these files as you go. With a little bit of time and effort you can ensure that you will be able to take advantage of all the free templates and great deals that you stumble upon as you search for school supplies and curriculum. With a good system of organization, you will be able to find those resources when your student is ready to use them!
How to Organize a Notebooking Station This post contains my referral link which helps support the work of this site. Here’s my full disclosure policy. How to Organize a Notebooking Station Notebooking is the practice of journaling while you learn using pictures and words. It is fancy journalling. This is an easy and engaging way to teach any subject and works extremely well in the homeschool environment. Beautiful templates, coloring tools, and a learning environment provide learners with everything they need to notebook successfully. There are two reasons children thrive in a notebooking learning environment The have ownership of their work. They are designing and scripting their own learning. Quality templates add value into their work. The easy to manage spaces make journaling less intimidating. Organizing a Notebooking Station Find a wide assortment of notebooking templates. You can create them yourself, or download templates from thousands of available online notebooking templates. Organize your templates into files or notebooks. If you are using the traditional hanging file folder system, create folders for your templates to make them easy to locate. Some example categories would be: blank templates, countries, ancient history, floral, insects, character studies, and holidays. There are many many more categories. Simply add new templates into new folders as they are acquired. If you chose to organize your templates into notebooks, you may want to fill a three ring binder with plastic page holders. Print of masters of each template for your child and use file dividers to organize by topic. Organize your art supplies. Create and area, bin, or holder to give your child easy access to scissors, glue, crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Replenish them a few times year to keep the supplies fresh! Create a Journal for each child’s completed notebooking pages. Your children will be very proud of their notebooking pages when they are complete. Validate their hard work by providing them a place to store them safely. A three ring notebook with plastic page protectors works beautifully. At the end of the school year, or when they have collected quite a collection of pages on a particular topic, you can even have the pages bound at your local office supply. Notebooking journals are a beautiful keepsake and even make great gifts or grandparents! Taking the time to organize your child’s notebooking templates, journal, and supplies are essential. If you treat these supplies with respect, so will they. There is something intrinsically freeing about journalling about what you are learning. It is one of the best ways to document what you are learning. Your children will grow to love their journals. Even reluctant writers can grow by first using the pages as copywork, then word and phrase collectors, and finally documenting their learning. Notebooking is a fruitful resource and skill to add to any educational environment and works beautifully with homeschool learning.
Teaching the Pledge of Allegiance with Copywork I can feel Summer just around the corner. Sign up here to receive freebies, deals, and resources!! This post contains my referral link which helps support the work of this site. Here’s my full disclosure policy. This is my favorite homeschooling time of year! We loosen up and simply enjoy learning, how about you? Our oldest son turns 21 Memorial weekend. How the heck can I be old enough to have a 21 year old! In honor of the holiday’s coming up, we are doing a few Patriotic lessons. Today, we focused on the Pledge of Allegiance. There is a great set of Patriotic Templates here. I had the boys choose their favorite page for the day. I wrote the Pledge on our white board and we began copywork hour. I am always pleasantly surprised how much more care the boys take in doing any assignment when they get to choose a template that “tickles their fancy”. Munchkin here decided that today is the day that his copywork will be in cursive for the first time. Beautiful! We call this guy our gentle giant. He is huge for his age, and as a result his fine motor skills are still developing. Look at the concentration! Very Happy with his results! Our oldest musketeer loves to write in cursive… He is well pleased with the results We wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. Defined vocabulary: Pledge, allegiance, Republic, indivisible, Liberty and Justice. Researched flag etiquette. Did you know you can only fly an American flag at night if it is illuminated? Did you know you are never suppose to use our flag to advertise and product or service? We are going to be looking at Memorial Day and Independence Day next… Resources:Notebooking Template Pages