learning tips

In home education and unschooling, children's interests and personal skills are at the centre of any learning curriculum or lesson plan. Each activity, topic or subject is declined to fit a child's uniqueness. In this blog, I share with you some fun English activities you can propose to your child according to his/her learning style. You'll see the article is aimed at parents who are struggling to help their child learning at home. But I think it can be very interesting for homeschooling familie…

You desperately want your children to learn English, but every time you suggest they do a course, the answer is NO, and it’s impossible to change their minds. That’s probably because your children have no idea of what you are talking about. When you tell them that they have to learn English, they start imagining long lessons and never-ending grammar exercises. Maybe they’re a little shy, perfectionists or scared by the potential difficulties. They might have visions of a strict teacher correctin…

(German and English Version below)

Ci è sempre stato detto: "Impara l'inglese in modo da poterlo usare per viaggiare!" E tra un esercizio di grammatica e l'altro, ci siamo immaginati a chiedere indicazioni in una grande città straniera, ordinare piatti esotici in un ristorante o lamentarci in perfetto inglese con una receptionist d'albergo scontrosa.

Ma, cosa succederebbe se ti dicessi: "Ti piacerebbe viaggiare attraverso l'inglese?"

Come ti fa sentire questa idea? Non sembra più magico essere in…

I don’t know about you, but to me, writing in English started at school with never-ending dications of a word after another. Luckily, there are tons of much funnier ways to get your children to practise writing.  The game Name it from my ebook "Three ESL Games for Homeschooling Families" is an example of how you can gamify writing in your homeschool lesson with a creative twist.

But let’s have a closer look at what writing means when we teach English to our children. Well, it depends on the lev…

If you learnt English as a second language at school in the early 2000s, it is highly possible you know that there is nothing more confidence-killing than a teacher shouting at you or, worse, laughing at you when you make mistakes while trying to speak a second language. And what about grades? Teachers constantly monitored what we were doing wrong and not on what we achieved, improved or did better.

We don’t want this to happen to our children. We don’t want them to spend several years, from hi…

As a homeschool mum, you know that education isn’t only about rote learning and memory work. Our generation has learnt the hardest way how important it is to be ready for the real world outside books, and this is something that schools most of the time fails to deliver. In most schools learning means sitting still, listening to the teacher and memorize what he/she says without putting into doubt whether what is said is true or false. 

In this way, school forgets to teach soft skills: critical t…

A friend asked me: "Do you think it's wise that your children are learning English with an Italian teacher instead of a native teacher - because of accent and such?"

And I had to take a moment to think about the question before answering.

When we signed up for Noemi's English courses, this question had not even entered my mind.

(By the way, you can find the course of the friend that I am talking about here: "The English Hive" by Noemi Bessone)

My criteria for signing up have been:

• the c…

Teach your children that wishes can come true and that they can achieve anything they want as long as they take steps towards their desires, work with joy, learn from failures and have faith. Let’s do this while playing Pictionary and making a Family Vision Board.

As the end of this 2020 is approaching, I find myself contemplating this year in an astonished state. For me, 2020 has been the year of dreams. Yes, the pandemic took one member in my family, swept away my classes and courses and turn…

If you are thinking about teaching English to your child, the first thing I suggest to do is to create an English Corner in your house.

An English corner is a magic place where English is spoken. I like imagining this place as the house of a special English speaking friend (a puppet) who will help your child learn the new language. Think about a corner in your house that you can use as “the house of the puppet”. For example, you can set up a box or a basket with a small blanket inside and prete…

Welcome to the first post of a new section of my blog: The Celt Mama. In this section, I would like to share what I am learning about Celt traditions and spirituality and how to apply them to your family's daily life to take a little magic and new energy to your parenting. I have always been fascinated by ancient traditions and cultures. I have read many books about this topic, especially investigating the connections between our Christian traditions with ancient pagan ones. My favourite book ab…