Homeschooling

This started out to be specifically about homeschooling, but, as you will see if you peruse these articles, some of them impact education for people of all ages . . . and all apply to children in both "traditional" and "homeschool" settings.

Do you have a "fixed" mindset when it comes to learning new things, or a "growth" mindset?

Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the more it grows. They've found that neural connections form and deepen most when we make mistakes doing difficult tasks rather than repeatedly having success with easy ones.

"What this means is that our intelligence is not fixed, and the best way that we can grow our intelligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail." Read The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart to find out more.

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Want a great resource for getting kids excited about Math? 
Check out Khan Academy. It's free, and Mom or Dad can coach their child(ren) -- and keep up with exactly how much time the child spends on each aspect of math, as well as what he / she is actually learning. (The above article, Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart) was written by Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy.)

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How old should a child be when he / she starts school?
Check out this fascinating article (Students may be disadvantaged by starting school at 5 years old) from the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald. The answer might surprise you!

Here's another article (School Starting Age: The Evidence) on the same topic, this time from Cambridge University in England.

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Keyboard vs Handwriting -- and Manuscript vs. Cursive
Cursive handwriting, and even manuscript (printing) handwriting seems to be "on the way out," with keyboards (computers) becoming the "new norm." BUT -- is this transition really in our best interest? A March 14, 2013 article (Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter) in Psychology Today challenges that trend.