How I helped my reluctant writer with Rory's Story Cubes

As a homeschooler, I am always searching for things that will help my kids get excited about learning. A few years ago, I stumbled upon an awesome tool to help my son become a better writer. My son is a reluctant writer. He has no trouble telling fantastic stories all day long, but when he has a pencil in hand his mind gets stuck. Using Rory’s Story Cubes, my son was able to break through his writer’s block and come up with a fictional tale that won him second prize at a regional writing contest.

What are Rory’s Story Cubes?

Rory’s Story Cubes are dice with pictures of odd things printed on the faces. There are nine cubes, each one with six unique faces. Some of the pictures include an alien head, flames, directional arrows, a foot, and an airplane.

You roll the dice, a few or all of them, and then make up a story based on what pictures pop up. You can play alone or with a group, and the possibilities are endless.

How does this game help reluctant writers?

Sometimes all a child needs is a good idea. Children have wild imaginations, and these dice are just vague enough that they can take a story in almost any direction. Once your kid picks one or two of the dice as a starting point, it is easy to follow the rest and make up an interesting tale.

Is this a game or a learning tool?

Rory’s Story Cubes are a game, but there is no winner or loser. There are no points to be tallied or prizes to be won. The whole point of the game is to just let imaginations run free and have fun. Players can take turn making up whole stories, or take turns telling parts of a story using a new die for each twist in the plot.

Best of all, you can now expand the learning and fun with additional packs that weren't available when we first found the game, such as the Actions pack, the Voyages pack and even an Enchanted pack for lovers of fairy tales.

Who can use this tool? 

The dice are a choking hazard, so small children should not use them unaccompanied by an adult. Other than that, anyone can use Rory’s Story Cubes to play or to learn. The cubes are all covered in pictures, so even a preschooler can look at them and make up a story. The whole game can fit in your pocket, so it can really go anywhere. Our whole family enjoys playing the game, and the kids like using it to write stories.  It’s a great game for all ages.


(This post contains affiliate links to the products described.)

When your husband is not on board with homeschooling

Lately I have been seeing so many posts online from distraught moms whose husbands either don't want them to start homeschooling or want them to put their kids back in public school. They are begging for encouragement and advice on how to move their husbands' hearts.

This has to be one of the hardest situations to find yourself in as a wife and mother. You're torn between wanting to stand united with your husband in one of the most important parenting decisions you can make, and needing to address your child's physical, emotional and academic needs. Frankly, there aren't any easy answers. But there are some important factors to consider.

Happy Pi Day!

What did you do today, Pi Day 2015? You're probably aware that this was the biggest Pi Day of our lifetime, and if you managed to do something significant to celebrate the occurrence of 3/14/15 with your friends and family, congratulations! You were wise enough not to let a very cool occasion pass you by.

Our local homeschool group celebrated the greatest Pi Day of the century with a sock hop and pie supper. The kids dressed in poodle skirts and rolled jeans with lots of great music from the 50s and 60s.

We had such a blast, rocking and rolling and twisting the night away, and best of all, we raised money to help benefit the local senior citizens center. It was an event the kids will always remember.

This was definitely the best Pi Day of my lifetime. I hope you enjoyed it, too!

Entertaining the kids when you're snowed in at home

The schools around here have been out quite a bit lately for snow days. Last week, we got so much slippery precipitation, we stood out in the front yard and watched a truck try to make it up our hill and slide back down three times before the driver gave up. And we live in the middle of town!

These snowy days are either dreaded or beloved by most families, depending on your point of view. Whether they are an unexpected day off to be celebrated or an unwanted challenge, snow days are definitely a change in the routine for those who live in typically warmer climates.

If your kids are stuck at home, indoors, because it is either too cold, too icy or too wet to be outside, you might be at a loss as to how to keep them entertained. As a homeschooler, I’m lucky. We tend to just do extra school work on bad weather days so we can take off when it’s nice outside.

But we do still get bored when it's too cold and wet to do much more than set foot outside, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve for entertaining the kids when we are confined indoors and tired of working on school.

When chaos hits too close to home

Last night, my 13-year-old son had a traumatic experience I hoped none of my kids would have to endure. He took our new puppy outside to potty before bedtime and after just a minute came running back in through the back door, his head down, eyes full of terror and clutching the puppy in his arms.

"Oh my God!" he cried out! "I heard gunshots and someone was screaming to call the police!"

I hadn't heard the shots or the screams, because I was running the

Goodbye, puppies

There were lots of tears this afternoon. Tears of sadness because we're going to miss the dogs that have consumed so much of our time and attention these last couple of months, and tears of happiness because we are so thankful that they are headed toward happy homes.

Today was the big day, the day the volunteers from the Humane Society came to pick up Blue and all but one of the puppies for their transport to a Chicago area rescue. We knew the day would come when we'd have to say goodbye, but we had no idea how much we'd fall in love with the dogs in such a short time.

From practically the moment Blue showed up in December, our lives were changed. Fostering a pregnant stray and her puppies was hard work and expensive, but they needed a safe home and the experience was memorable and amazing in so many ways.

An unexpected geography lesson

Last week, when my 7-year-old daughter came running up to me with a rock from my mom's garden, exclaiming, "It looks just like that state! The green one!" I knew exactly what she meant.

"Nevada!" I answered, with equal enthusiasm. "It looks like Nevada!" And it did.

We'd been playing Scrambled States of America (affiliate link), one of my kids' favorite games, a few nights before, and when my daughter spotted this particular rock, she remembered the shape of the state it resembled and the discovery excited us both.

Of course I have an atlas!

Remembering that I had an atlas in the van, I went and got it and gave it to her, asking if she'd like to look for more rocks that look like states.

"Yes!" she exclaimed and ran off, rock and atlas in hand to search for more.

By the end of the afternoon, she'd found at least half a dozen states, and wanted to keep looking, but it was getting too chilly and the sun was going down, so I promised to take her and her siblings down to the creek the next day to continue the search.

A whole week of geography

The next day, I printed a copy of the map from the Scrambled States game and then we went to the creek that borders my parent's pasture. There we spent a good part of the afternoon searching the banks for more rocks that resembled states, finding another dozen or so that were excellent approximations.

My daughter was so happy with her finds, she asked if she could paint the rocks to match the states on the map.

"Sure!" I said, really amazed that she'd managed to essentially come up with a whole unit study on geography all on her own.

We'd be working on learning about states for at least a week, maybe more, and she'd have some pretty cool souvenirs to keep for a long time to come.

"This is homeschooling," I thought. What had been a day off from planned studies turned into an amazing learning experience encompassing geography, reading and art that I would have never thought to introduce, but those unplanned homeschooling adventures are the very best part of this form of education.