Señora Gose's Homeschool Spanish Blog (aka "Seriously, Suzanne")

Homeschooling Hacks: SIMPLIFY! After about 6 years of homeschooling, and all five were in the mix, K-6th grade, I realized we pretty much answered the same questions about everything we read. So I typed it up! We have used this little worksheet for years, with just a few adjustments. I've shared with pretty much every new homeschooler who asked me for it.... and then I forgot about it for a while (though we still use it weekly!) It has helped give the children "jumping off points" for narration (Charlotte Mason Style), writing their own creative stories, book reports, and basic...

I'm always looking at the WHY behind people do ANYthing. I think that's one of the main reasons families actually learn Spanish from my products - I wanted to know WHY people learn and WHY they don't. Well. I'll get to that later. That's sort of its own blogpost, really. This blogpost is about WHY I care about Flip Flop Spanish winning Practical Homeschooling's Reader Awards. Again! (Last year, we received third, and I was STILL thrilled. But this year, the thrill is higher.) There are truly only three reasons I do anything. 1) To show love to another. 2)...

If you're wondering if you should go to your local (or not-so local) homeschool convention, YOU SHOULD. There. Now that's out of the way.... Oh, you wanted to know why? Well, there are a ton of reasons, but here's the main one: You need to see you out there. I mean, you need to see another version of you out in the homeschool world. It helps. In your "regular" group, if you're the one who DOESN'T (bake bread, cloth diaper, co-op, run, do a garden, have Facebook... have more than a dozen kids, only have littles, only have bigs, school...

It's that dreary time where Christmas fun and the excitement of a new semester has worn off, and yet it's not quite close enough to Spring Break to count down. The weather, in most cases, is cold and gray. So. How do we keep going? Honestly, when I was asked this question in my second (maybe it was third) interview for becoming a public school teacher after our move from Waco, Texas to Bryan, Texas, my heart jumped up into my throat, head, temple, on my tongue, inside my ear... wherever my heart was, it was NOT in my chest!  ...

Let me encourage you today! You're doing enough! Read on: My kiddos are often quizzed: "Say something in Spanish." This puts them on the spot, and though they aren't shy (like, at ALL), they worry and sometimes freeze.... concerned about disappointing me or the quiz-maker scrutinizing them. So I've taught them to respond with one word:   algo  (ahl-goh)   Algo means something, after all. I was laughing when I saw one of my sweethearts employ their training this past week.. "Algo? What's algo mean?" "Something." And it triggered another thought in me. Something IS something after all. In that...