The Rainbow Resource Center Homeschool Blog

February may be the shortest month of the year, but it’s packed with presidential history! It’s the month of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12, 1809) and the season when many families and schools observe Presidents’ Day. That makes it the perfect time to step into the life of a man whose journey stretched from a dirt-floor cabin…all the way to the White House!

So, your child is reading now—that's cause for celebration! But how do you know they're truly understanding? Discover Charlotte Mason's simple narration technique: a gentle way to check comprehension, build vocabulary, sharpen thinking skills, and transition from oral retellings to written summaries. Perfect for any age, genre, or curriculum, this fun method turns reading into deep, joyful learning!

Discover the life of George Washington Carver, the renowned African American scientist, inventor, and educator known as the "Peanut Man." This unit study explores his journey from slavery to becoming an agricultural innovator who developed hundreds of uses for peanuts and sweet potatoes. 

Reading aloud to children is a wonderful family experience! The winter is the perfect season to incorporate family read aloud sessions. Whether you have a reluctant reader or a voracious one, everyone can join in to share a delightful story together. It’s a healthy, screen-free way to enjoy purposeful time as a family. Together, you’ll encounter characters, adventures, and resolutions right in your own home. These moments create special bonding time that your kids will always remember. Here are 6 practical read aloud tips to help your family get the most out of family read aloud sessions.

As homeschool curriculum consultants, we sometimes feel like Curriculum Detectives. We tap into our inner Sherlock Holmes to investigate further into the crisis at hand. More often than not, when we are talking with you, we are helping you dig into the situation—for example, possibly the situation of “my child hates math.” This is the presenting issue, but we cannot stop our investigation there. This is something the Curriculum Consultant Team at Rainbow Resource Center is doing every time we work with a family. We are equipped to evaluate each interaction through the lens of our FAMILY Way, our extensive homeschool curriculum library, and the hive-mind of the team to find the deeper cause. 

Although many homeschooling families start from the very beginning, just as many find themselves homeschooling when that was the last thing they ever saw themselves doing. Maybe you started out sure that your schooling choices would serve your child well, only to be sorely disappointed, again and again. Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back, and you made the call. You pulled your child out mid-year, thinking there had to be a better way. So what do you do now?

With the start of the New Year comes a new chapter in your homeschooling journey! It's a time where many parents stop to think about what their children have accomplished so far and plan for what's ahead. It's also a time where you might wonder if you're doing “enough” in your homeschool. For me, it was the type of question that would pop into my head in the middle of the night, even after a full day of learning and activities. As I tossed and turned in bed I would lie awake and ask myself: “Am I doing enough?”

Considered one of the most recorded Christmas songs of all time, the story of The Twelve Days of Christmas is quite an interesting one. Often regarded as a cumulative song, The Twelve Days of Christmas is written so that each verse builds on the previous verses. Cumulative songs are excellent teaching tools for children as they sharpen memory and sequencing skills, increase attention span, and lay a foundation for early language skills and vocabulary. Let's learn more about this song in today's unit study!

There are so many great board games that we did not have room in our 2025 Christmas catalog to show you, but I would love to recommend four that I personally own and enjoy for various reasons. I have chosen them from the age groups beginning from 8-12 years. Three of these are quick, pick up and go games that play in 35 minutes or less and there is another that has a warm place in my heart that takes 60-80 minutes to play and was one of the first games of a medium complexity level that I first learned when I came into the board game hobby. All of them are great for game nights, espeically during the holiday season when families spend time together.

If you ask a young child what the Christmas season is all about, you probably won’t hear them say spelling or history or extra homework. Most kids would be happy to skip schoolwork altogether once December rolls around. According to my kids, any and all “school” has a way of crushing the Christmas spirit. How can we have any fun if we have to do math?? But even if you do put your formal lessons aside, that doesn’t mean there still isn’t learning going on, even if it looks different from your usual routine.