My story- From the time I was pretty small, I was an anxious kid. Fear led me around by the hand. Heart racing and frozen, I heard someone creeping up our stairs every night. I worried my father, a federal agent, wouldn’t come home from work, my mother, an ER nurse, would get sick, and […]
Category Archives: Challenges & Struggles
How to Find the Right Book
If you love reading, you know what it feels like when you don’t have a good book within reach. Book lovers might even be reading a couple of books at one time and always have a stack waiting nearby. Readers love to read because the right book takes us into the Reading Zone. We lose track […]
Letting Go of Mom Guilt | There is No Perfect Summer
This post was originally published in 2019. Summertime seems to be when Mom Guilt* gets the loudest. At least, it does for me. When I was a teacher, I’d start daydreaming in February about what summer was going to look like. We’d go to the pool, take swimming lessons, play at the park, do […]
How to Encourage Our Children to Write
How do we encourage our children to write? Here are ten tried and true ways I help my kids and students write and enjoy writing.
Reading Strategies | Help Kids Understand What They Read
Here’s a question I often ask students- Have you ever started to read, flipped page after page, tracked each word, maybe even spoken the words out loud, only to realize at the end of a passage or chapter you have no idea what you just read? You might be surprised how many students nod their […]
Games My Homeschoolers Love | Encourage Play & Watch Kids Learn
How do we help kids learn, love to learn, build connections, work as a team, and practice critical thinking? Play! Play! Play! Play fosters a love of learning. (Do you know this already? Looking for games my homeschoolers love? Just keep scrolling!) Full disclosure, before I had kids, I wasn’t someone who played or enjoyed […]
Am I Patient Enough to Homeschool
I haven’t counted, but it would be fair to say that 1 in 2 people who find out I homeschool tell me they could never homeschool and be with their kids all day long because they don’t have enough patience. I am a patient person, sometimes, and I’d guess you are too. Sometimes, I am […]
Tutoring on Outschool with Kelly Sage
Hi! I’m Kelly, teacher, and tutor on Outschool. I’m excited you’re here! One of my favorite things in the world is helping children and teens enjoy what they are learning, find success, explore their interests, and become life-long learners. I was a middle and high school English teacher for nine years. Many of the students […]
My Kids are Bored | Creating Space and Support for Unstructured Play
Hello, summer or a break from school. Hello, unstructured free time. Are your kids a friend or a foe regarding less structure? For some of us, schedule-free days are the best. For others, a feeling of unease quickly sets in when we don’t know what to do with ourselves, and we feel the B-word: BORED! […]
Creating a Writing Practice with Our Children
Every semester I lead writing workshops for adults and children, and we often begin by setting intentions for our writing practice. No matter how much we love to write, we have to check in with ourselves to make sure we’re actually writing. Life can get busy, and it’s easy to forget or neglect the things we […]
The Family Read Aloud- Book Lists and Encouragement for Families
When my kids were younger, reading with them was pretty easy. They’d often toddle over, a book in hand, and happily, sit on my lap throughout the day. The older they get, the more I’m finding distractions, separate interests, and outside commitments pull at our time together. As my kids get older, reading together has […]
For the Love of Reading- Why Reading with Our Children Matters
“For students of every ability and background, it is the simply miraculous act of reading a good book that turns them into readers. The job of adults who care about reading is to move heaven and earth to put that book into a child’s hands.” ― Nancy Atwell When we first started homeschooling and I was […]
Help Kids Spell the Words THEY Commonly Misspell
Do you remember learning how to spell? I have vague memories of spelling lists and spelling bees. We’d line up against the chalkboard, and one by one find our way back to our seats. I was usually the first in the class to sit down. Like math, spelling was something I believed you were either […]
How to Help Your Children Love Math When You Don’t
When I started homeschooling my children, I knew math was an area I’d struggle to help my kids enjoy, let alone learn, if I didn’t create a new experience for myself. I wanted my kids to be excited about math, love math even, which meant I had to be excited about it too. But, I […]
A Math Handbook | A Student Created Resource to Guide Their Learning
Math is one of the subjects I struggled with in school. Never hands on or student centered, I was often confused or just starting to understand a concept when we were moving on to something new. When we started to homeschool, I knew I wanted my kids to have a different story with math. I […]