“I’m wondering at what age I should begin teaching speech skills to my children. I have an 10-year old who loves to give presentations to anyone who will listen. Please let me know what you think I should do to help her grow in this area.”

“…I’m a homeschool mom not quite ready to teach speech to my nine-year old. When should I begin?“

The two comments above raise a frequently asked question in regard to teaching speech skills to children. These parents have different ideas of when that should take place…and that’s okay, but…

My reply to those posing this query typically is, “You already are teaching your child speech skills whether you realize it or not.” Let me explain.

The moment your child is born, they begin learning by watching your eyes and expression, and hearing the sounds and inflections made with your voice. You are doing them a favor by speaking clearly and slowly so that they mimic you correctly.

As the cooing and babbling change to real words, you can continue to help your child become a better speaker (formally or informally) in...

Homeschooling one child can be challenging enough, but adding more children can make a homeschool mom feel like the juggler doing the zany plate-spinning act, rushing from pole to pole to give each a quick twirl to keep those plates in the air. Here are a few ideas for keeping the homeschooling “plates” from crashing to the floor.

1. Set goals and prioritize. Map out your year but be flexible (use pencil!). “Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge…” (2 Peter 1:5). You’ll want to include character training and Biblical discipleship as well as academics. (It’s much easier to teach an obedient, diligent, cheerful child!)

And speaking of academics: Don’t make it complicated. In the younger years, your goal is to build relationships within your family while nurturing their relationships with God, and facilitating experiential learning—“hooks” on which they can hang his learning about God’s world. Many...

Organization at a Glance

• Pray about what God wants you to work on for your particular family.

• Ask your spouse for guidance as to which areas are important to him.

• Find a balance: “Our house is clean enough to be healthy and messy enough to be happy.”

• Be careful not to be such a perfectionist that people are uncomfortable living in your house.

• Our goal is to glorify God with our lives and, as homemakers, with our homes. We can do that better in an orderly home because we can be more gracious to our children when we aren’t rushed or hunting for the car keys or always behind, and can be hospitable. Our home is more peaceful and calm.

• This is a spiritual work because the end result is to bring peace to our homes and to glorify our Creator.

• Look for ways to bring order to your home, but don't allow...

We are excited about our new store!  

Please take time to visit our new store and see what is there. Simply click on the store tab at the top of the page or on any of the sub-menu items under the tab.  We also provide links for you throughout this article. The store contains over 750 products, including over 2,800 audio files. In addition to some great search tools to help you find what you want, audio samples have been provided with each product. If you are curious about a particular recording, just listen to the sample. The playback controls will be clearly visible next to the product. Click on the play button and position the playback indicator anywhere in the sample.  

Past MÂCHÉ conferences: There are over 250 workshop presentations from past MÂCHÉ conferences that have been added to our store. Listen to material from particular speakers you enjoy or receive help for specific needs you might have: encouragement, curriculum guidance, teaching and learning styles, readiness skills, special needs, high school transcripts, organization, and much more. The various "filters" displayed in the left column of...

A young mom writes:

 “I’m new at homeschooling – I have 2-year-old twins. I want to teach them and get them ready for preschool. Please send me info to help me start off on the right foot. “

Another mom writes:

“I have a 3½- year-old boy, a 2½- year-old girl, and a 7-month old baby boy.  I've read the preschool article on the website, listened to the sessions on beginning homeschooling from the convention, read a few books and magazines, talked to homeschooling moms...but now that I'm really looking at schooling my children, I just get overwhelmed and don't know where to start.  I can see the goal or vision that my children will love to learn, to learn about God, to learn reading, math, problem solving history, art, music, and everything in between but how do you start?  They don't seem to even want to sit still and read a book. They just want to play with toys and...

Do your homework! Read several of the publications listed below to gain a solid perspective about homeschooling.

• The Basic Steps to Successful Homeschooling by Vicki A. Brady

• Christian Home Educators’ Curriculum Manual (Elementary Grades) by Cathy Duffy

• Christian Home Educators’ Curriculum Manual (Junior/Senior High) by Cathy Duffy

• The Christian Home School, Revised and Updated by Gregg Harris

• Home Grown Kids: A Practical Handbook for Teaching Your Children by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore

• The Home School Manual for Parents Who Teach Their Own Children by Theodore E. Wade, Jr.

• The How and Why of Home Schooling by Ray E. Ballmann

• How to Home School by Gayle Graham

• Home Schooling: The Right Choice! by Christopher J. Klicka

• When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling by R. C. Sproul, Jr.

• The Whole Hearted Child: A Handbook for Christian Home...

Life is very busy in our home. Rick and I are the parents of 14 children, ages 31-7 years old. We only have nine living at home now, as four are married and Josh was promoted to heaven a few years ago. All of our married children still live in town and now we have four (soon to be five) grandchildren. Life, as I said, is busy, but very rich . We are very blessed.

We’ve been home educating since 1980. We’ve just completed our twenty-sixth year. I’ve been frequently asked how is it possible to home school so many at the same time? Our school day is generally a three hour period in the morning, although sometimes the older children will have reading to finish up in the afternoon. Presently, our house has three rooms in close vicinity of each other, which we utilize during the morning schooling time. The dining room table is where those writing do their work. The living room is where those sit who are reading and the kitchen table has traditionally been the center for the preschoolers and toddlers who are working on their projects. By the way, I have special learning activities for preschoolers, which I save only for use during school time , so they look...