Flip 3 Pancakes with 1 Spatula by Cheryl Bastian is book filled with hands-on learning ideas for teaching math without a textbook. It's a handbook to teach to the heart of your child, who most likely LOVES your kitchen and is constantly asking if he can "help." Cooking is fun. Math can be learned by cooking with mom in the kitchen. Ergo, learning math can be fun. That sounds logical to me!

You will love this book! Set up like a cookbook, it is divided into the following categories: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks & Desserts, and Holidays & Celebrations. Each page contains a complete math lesson set up unit study style with a yummy recipe. You start out by reading one or two picture books. After gathering the needed materials listed on the page, the math lesson takes place while you are cooking. There are also Add Ons. The Ad Ons include additional math lessons, social studies activities, more books to read, science projects, writing or language assignments, and art projects. All are easy and fun!

Find out what your state requires to homeschool legally. You often have several options including umbrella schools and registering with the county. Here in Florida, I am registered with Seminole County. I turn in test scores or an evaluation for each child every year and keep a portfolio of my children's work. The people I deal with in this county are wonderful and supportive. We are blessed to homeschool where we do.

Here is a place to go to find out what your state requires: HSLDA State Laws. HSLDA, or Homeschool Legal Defense Association, is a wonderful resource for homeschool helps, especially in the legal department. We have been members since 1991.

Research Homeschool Philosophies

There are several homeschool philosophies out there. You need to discover what is right for you and your family. Here are some of the methods to investigate.

Classical Homeschooling (Trivium Pursuit or Classical Christian Homeschooling)

Delight Directed Studies (Gregg Harris' Interview)

Unit Studies (Steward Ship)

Charlotte Mason (Homeschool Highlights)

The Principle Approach (Home Hearts)

Mentoring (Heart of Wisdom, Whole Heart, and Joyful and Successful Homeschooling)

Eclectic (just a mix of all the above methods--choosing what works at the time for each of your children)

Unschooling (Christian Unschooling)

Choose your Philosophy of Education

There is not a right way or a wrong way to education your child, except what is laid out in Scripture. Think about how you were educated and how you would like to educate your own children. Talk to other homeschool moms and find out what their philosophy of educating is. Be clear in your own mind about how you want to homeschool. This will give you focus in your teaching and help you to choose your curriculum.

Begin at High School Graduation

Start with the end in view. Imagine what you want your children to look like when they graduate from high school. It won't just happen. It will be determined by the way you homeschool through the elementary, middle, and high school years. Make adaptable long range plans for your children.

Find Mentors & Support

Who doesn't long to be beautiful? As moms, very little times exists in our lives to dedicate to outward beauty. We are rushing, moving, working throughout the day, making the world a better, brighter place for our family. When we finally get some make-up on our face and a pretty outfit on our body, it is more than likely to be spit upon or spilled on by one of our little ones.  

If we have several children, our bodies are not as trim and firm as we would like them to be. There are also those pesky bags under our eyes from sleepless nights of nursing a sick child or comforting someone who's had a bad dream.

Beautiful Moms

Yet, I think that there is nothing more beautiful than a mother!

Motherhood is beautiful. The gaze of love that a mother gives her child is breathtaking to behold. The look of joy on a young woman's face when her little one learns to read, or pee-pee on the potty, or recite his multiplication tables is lovely.

There is a beauty about pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood that is impossible to duplicate. Moms lugging a load of laundry to the washer, washing dishes at a sink full of suds, or bandaging a boo-boo are pleasing to the eye. How delightful to watch a mother giggle with her toddler or gaze in wonder at a butterfly with her young child.

Kingdom Beauty Queens

Let's throw away Hollywood's definition of beauty and embrace the Lord's definition of what is truly lovely. Grandma used to say, "Pretty is as pretty does." She must have read the Bible!

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful," (I Peter 3:3-5).

Hollywood focuses on the outside. God is more concerned about the inside. A gentle and quiet spirit can make us beautiful and not just lovely for a season, but with a beauty that won't fade away.

If you have spent any time around God's church family, you have heard about a gentle and quiet spirit. You have probably prayed, like me, "Lord, please give me a gentle and quiet spirit...NOW!"

Cultivating a Gentle and Quiet Spirit

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just outside where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with Alders and Ladies' Eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow, it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherfores thereof," (Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, opening paragraph)

From the moment we read this paragraph, we are hooked! To the little town of Avonlea we go, across the Lake of Shining Waters, greeting beloved folk, especially the inhabitants of Green Gables. Literature takes us to delightful places such as Prince Edward Island.

All people in all places around the world love stories. It must be because our Creator is the Master Storyteller and we live in anticipation of His final climax: His Glorious Return and the final destruction of our enemy and all those in his bondage. As we gather together with extended family, there are always stories, "I remember when I met your mother..." "The first time he ever..." "When I was your age...." Once we hear the beginning of a good story, we are hooked, wanting to hear the rest of the tale.

We teach our children to read so that they can read the Bible, drawing closer to their Savior and Redeemer, Jesus. That is the most important reason. We also want them to read to learn. They will read all kinds of writing that brings knowledge and information. There is a third reason we teach our children to read: we give them a passport. This passport can take them on any adventure they would like to embark on, to places where they can meet people they've dreamed of meeting, or to any place in the entire world, real or imaginary.

When children are young, teach them to value reading as a treat and privilege--something they look forward to! If your child is always having to write a book report or read books he doesn't like, reading may not be a great joy in his life. If television is always on, he will most likely choose it because watching television is a passive activity that requires no mental exertion! Remove the computer and the television as competitors by limiting their use. You might have television-free and computer-free hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.