Antoinette LaGrossa

Veteran homeschool mom of five children (now ages 11 to 3 adults), Antoinette LaGrossa has been homeschooling since 2001. Having experienced her family’s frustration with multiple math programs, Antoinette understands the struggle that can come with teaching math. Everything changed in 2004 when she tried ShillerMath. She quickly joined the ShillerLearning team and has been supporting home educators for almost two decades - sharing hands-on learning tips, encouragement, and practical experience from homeschooling five very different children (no cookie-cutter molds here). Antoinette speaks at conventions across the country and is host of ShillerLearning’s Tuesdays@2.

Freebies are a great way to try a variety of homeschool curriculum resources. ShillerLearning has the best pack of free samples around! We have over a hundred pages of homeschool freebies for you in our ShillerLearning Freebie Bundle. You’ll find math activities for pre-k through pre-algebra, language arts lessons for preschoolers through 4th grade students, as well as free homeschool planners for both parents and students.

And it’s all free.

To try no-lesson prep, Montessori-based, multisensory lessons, download your ShillerLearning Freebie Bundle today. These activities will help your child reach his or her full potential and have fun while doing so.

You and your family will enjoy the samples activities from:

Free Listening Skills For Kids Activity Pack

Working on listening skills with kids can feel like playing a broken record. We want our children to be attentive and aware, yet we’re not quite sure how to *get* our children to listen and comprehend. These important skills can be difficult to teach. I can’t tell you how many frustrated parents I’ve talked to who say “My kids don’t listen to me!”

If we’re honest, we work on listening skills our whole lives. To this day I am still working on how to better hear and pay attention to the auditory input I have coming my way. Teaching our kids ways to listen, equipping them with comprehension skills, and helping them appreciate silence helps set them up for success.

Tips For Teaching Listening Skills to Children

Appreciate silence- Recent studies have shown immense benefits of silence for the human brain. In a society that is constantly receiving auditory stimulation, silence is more golden than ever before. By allowing times of silence in our homes, we can help build listening skills. Our brains benefit from a break from all the sensory input, especially children’s brains! Plus when we embrace silence, we open our ears up to hear things we might otherwise not notice.

Repeat back- This one might seem silly. However, it’s a key tenant of communication skills. It is a highly valued listening skill. Teaching our children to “tell back” what they’ve heard helps them listen more carefully. It also helps the speaker ensure everything has been heard appropriately. Asking children to tell back what they’ve heard during story time can be a great way to build this skill. For young children, you may need to have the child tell back every few sentences. As children get older- you can move up to every few paragraphs, every few pages, and every chapter. This skill can be added to conversations as well. It’s especially helpful in conversations with details you don’t want to be missed. Have your child tell back details in their own words so you’re sure they are interpreting information as well.

Give them your full attention- I get it, hearing about Minecraft for the bazillionth time today is not exactly what you are interested in hearing about. However, our kids are watching. When we display positive listening skills, our kids learn from our example. Taking our eyes off whatever else we might be doing to fully engage in conversation is the first step. This demonstrates we’re not distracted and can be fully present. How often have we asked our children a question while they were engrossed in a show only to realize later on they totally didn’t hear us at all? One of the top reasons kids don’t “hear” is because they’re distracted and not actually listening. We may respond while watching TV or browsing social media. The truth is our minds are not fully aware and we’re responded by rote habit, not true attentive listening. If we model attentiveness, eye contact, and active listening it helps our children become better listeners. It will also benefit communication in your home too.

Read-a-loud and audiobooks- Nothing can capture a child’s attention better than a story! Sometimes one simply needs to sit in the middle of the room with children playing around them and begin to read. Soon a quiet fills the room and the children are lost in the story. By incorporating the other tips above, stories can build listening skills immensely.

Practice at home- Home is the best place to practice and build skills. Work on engaging your child in conversations they’re interested in. Download our FREE Listening Activity Pack below for over a dozen activities to help build listening skills in the comfort of your own home! You’ll find the classic Montessori Sitting in Silence activity, crafts, games, and more. Children from preschool all the way through high school can build listening skills. You may find a benefit from some activities as well! A few activities can be incorporated on a regular basis in your homeschool.

Refer to the ShillerLearning Parent Guide from your ShillerLearning homeschool math kit or at the beginning of each ShillerLearning homeschool language arts books for more tips on engaging your child.

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Check out all our activity packs here. 

How This Grace & Courtesy Printable Pack Turns “Chores” into Games

In the ShillerLearning Grace & Courtesy Activity Pack, we have over a dozen activities designed to help your child gain an understanding of Grace and Courtesy, and to incorporate these principles into your home. We even made several “games.”

Who said manners have to be no-fun?

We included classic Montessori works such as “Walking the Line”, as well as a fun Grace and Courtesy board game. While some of these activities may seem like common sense, much of Grace and Courtesy consists of life skills that children do, in fact, need to be taught and practice. This pack may be used over an extended period of time and you will likely find yourself coming back to some of these activities time and time again.

It is our hope that little by little, these works will help your child see the world in a new way and look out for ways to care for others. These works can be used by all ages, although many of the activities are geared towards preschool and early elementary. You may find that some of these activities are easier to use spontaneously when a need arises to work through conflict, frustration, or care in a different manner.  

These are perfect when you want to try a “new” approach. If your child has issues with specific rude behaviors, there are a few games they can try in this pack like the "Quiet Game" or "Preparing and Serving Food". These are great to start the conversation around manners in a “fun” way. However, discipline does have its place to help children understand their actions have consequences.

Some of these activities may be incorporated into role-play activities as well.  

Parents and adults in a child’s life are always the best examples. Our children are always watching and imitate the ways we interact with others as well. Grace and Courtesy skills are skills we work on all our lives - skills we can model for the benefit of those we mentor.

More tips for parents to model Grace and Courtesy:

• Avoid talking on your cell phone when at the store, bank, or other locations where you will be interacting with employees

• Demonstrate speaking with a calm, quiet, and clear voice

• Look people in the eye when speaking to them

• Ask before hugging or touching others

• Call cashiers, servers, librarians, etc. by their name when thanking them; this small step makes a dramatic difference to them and to your child in learning how to politely interact

• Demonstrate pushing in your chair, hanging up your coat, and careful care of your environment

• Communicate when you need some time alone, and when you have strong feelings that may mean you need a little extra space

• Speak in the positive during challenging situations and suggest positive solutions

• Ask your child if you can join them in watching them work, playing with them, or joining in an activity

• Use open communication with a lot of “I feel,” “Please,” “Thank you,” “I appreciate you,” “Excuse me,” “May I” phrases

• Show how to take turns with another adult

• Write a letter to someone with your child

• Aid anyone you see in need while out and about, help the older woman carry her groceries, distract the crying baby, grab the item off the high shelf, etc; this can be a bit awkward to develop but sets a big example

Songs and games children enjoy that enforce these concepts include:

• Where is Thumbkin?

• Mother May I?

• Polite Patty Says (Simon Says)

• Getting To Know You

• Telephone

• Teddy Bear Picnic

We hope you enjoy this pack and please share with your friends on social media!

12+ FREE Montessori Activities for

Harvest and Thanksgiving

Autumn is upon us. The crisp cool air lingers throughout the day. Beautiful fall leaves line our streets. In our homeschool we have found the steady flow of our school year. We embrace relaxed mornings in our jammies and afternoon ShillerMath by the fire. Our printers whir out warm harvest and Thanksgiving printables that we work on over a slice of hot apple pie.  What’s not to love about this time of year?

Showing Gratitude in Our Homeschool

A spirit of thankfulness and gratitude is always a good spirit to have. It’s especially prevalent this time of year. As we approach Thanksgiving, here are some ideas to incorporate a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness into the rhythm of your schooling.  

• Stick a poster board or large piece of butcher paper on your wall. Encourage your children to record moments of gratitude throughout the day. For example, your youngest might write about how they were thankful their older sibling helped them with math.

• Research your family history. Find out where your ancestors immigrated from. Learn more about their journey to get here, what early life was like, and the lineage of people who brought you to this moment in history. Learning about our past can be a great way to bring gratitude for where we’re at today.

• Tell your family members thank you more often. So often we ignore the simple act of thanking one another for their kindness.

• Make “caught in the act” cards. Write the word “caught in the act of ___________” on a small paper, or make business card size cards. Everyone in the family gets a stack. Family members hand them out to one another to show appreciation for one another. Examples of times you may wish to use them, when you see someone else doing a kind deed, going above and beyond, or working hard at something they struggle with. Fill in the blank for the recipient.

• Write “Thank You” notes as part of your daily language arts or writing time.

• Visit your local library and do something nice for the librarians. As homeschoolers, librarians are some of our best helpers! Bring them a nice card, ask if there’s a way you can help, or tidy up the toys.

• Cook a meal for a local military or public service member’s family.

• Start a “Thankfulness Jar.” You’ll find all the information on starting this in the FREE Activity Pack download below.

FREE Montessori Activities and Thanksgiving Printables

In the spirit of gratitude and harvest season, we have put together this Homeschooling Harvest Pack. You’ll find activities for preschoolers through teens, including works for mixed ages. This FREE pack of Montessori activities is one you will want to include in your shelf works. It would also be fun to have these Thanksgiving printables available while you’re in Thanksgiving-prep-mode. A handful of the activities may be done any time of year - cultivating gratitude is never out of season.

You’ll find a couple projects designed to enhance your Thanksgiving meal. We included a fun and easy craft for your student to make place cards to put around the table. They’ll also learn how to roll napkins. It’s amazing what pride and joy our children find when they get to contribute something beautiful to the family table. We also have included a couple Thanksgiving research activities. Your children might enjoy sharing what they have learned over the Thanksgiving table.

Your students may also enjoy completing these activities on Thanksgiving Day if they start to get a little restless. The Apple Taste Test Comparison would be a fun activity for the whole family over Thanksgiving weekend.

We hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and are able to find a new season of joy and gratitude in your homeschool this year. Make sure to fill out the form below for your download of our Harvest Activity Pack.