Homeschooling Didn't Work For Us

     When I first started homeschooling my preschooler, I thought, "I've got this." I wrote out a daily schedule.  I put together weekly lesson plans.  I had craft supplies and art projects laid out for months at a time.  Everything went pretty smoothly.  My kids had fun doing unit studies and learning bits of information each week.  All seemed well in the homeschool venture.

     Marley was almost four years old when I started to emphasize reading curriculum.  After all, that's around the time when a child should start reading, right? I was a very young reader.  I was able to read Early Reader books at age 3.  So I figured my children would be on the same track.  She knew her letters, and she knew her sounds.  I thought, naturally the next step is to read.  That's what I thought.

She wasn't getting it.

     Sitting down and trying to figure out phonics together was awful.  She knew the letters.  She knew the sounds.  But for some reason, putting them together did not make sense to her.  I tried getting her to memorize sight words.  She knew a few words, but her interest level was so low, that it was difficult to get her to focus her eyes on the page.  Soon, reading time turned into a time we both dreaded.  She just wasn't getting it.  I was frustrated.  She was frustrated.  At some point I got fed up and said, "I know you know this! Why can't you remember?"  She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, "I don't know why I can't do it."  That was the moment my heart broke.

     My mom instinct raged - this wasn't right! I was pushing her to do something she wasn't ready to do.  I knew she would read eventually.  Why was I so determined to make it happen on schedule?  Because people might think my daughter isn't smart? Because they might think I'm not a good mom? Who cares! My baby was hurting and she was starting to think she isn't smart.    
No and no.  
I immediately put a stop to it and stopped pushing her to read.  I continued to read picture books to her and we had fun enjoying the stories together.  I didn't stress about her skill level and I didn't bring up phonics or reading to her again...

...until she brought it up to me!

     It was only about six months later that Marley started asking me how to write words and how to spell words.  I decided to write words and phrases on her chalkboard easel each day without telling her anything.  She would ask me what it said and many times she would copy what I wrote.  It was awesome! She was pursuing knowledge all on her own!  She learned so much more and at a quicker rate, when she was ready for it.  I realized that stepping back and being more of a facilitator or a mentor was more beneficial for the education of my children.  That's what I did.  I started asking Marley what she wanted to do or learn about and I would provide activities or information to encourage learning.   I abandoned the idea of schooling at home and I became what's known as an "unschooler."  I didn't know I was "unschooling" at the time, but it wasn't long before I met other home educators who took more of an interest-led learning approach.

Here is an article that gives great examples of how unschooling can be applied:

How To Learn All Subjects Through Unschooling

     The most difficult part of unschooling has been getting over the comparison.  I need to keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter what other kids their age are doing.  Even if they are behind in areas, I aim to make sure they are making progress and maximizing their full potential.

So that's where we are now.
     Even though I still consider myself a homeschooler, homeschooling technically didn't work for us, but unschooling or "freeschooling" (I've recently starting saying)  has been amazing!
As unschoolers/freeschoolers we are free to make up our own schedule and curriculum as we go.  We are constantly learning together at all times and in all settings.  My kids love learning and it is working wonderfully for us.  They are learning at their own pace and they are always excited to learn more, because I follow their interests.  And most importantly, they are happy, they feel loved, and they are becoming caring people who are confident in their abilities.  I couldn't ask for more. <3

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~ To The Mom Who Thinks She Can't Homeschool ~

     This is a message to the mom who thinks she can't homeschool...

No, not the mom that has a negative opinion about homeschooling.  Maybe this opinion includes "lack of socialization" or "homeschooled kids are weird."  She is entitled to her opinion. ;)

No, not the mom who has specific circumstances in her life that prevents her from homeschooling, such as work, child custody issues, or medical problems.  She is doing the best she can in her current situation. XOXO

No, not the mom who prefers not to homeschool. She has looked at the options and made a decision for her children that she is confident about.  That is awesome and wonderful!

I'm talking to the mom who says things like, "I could never do that..."

     - I'm not patient enough.

     - I'm not educated enough.

     - I'm not creative enough.

In my experience, these are the things I hear the most!  I have met so many moms who say "I would love to homeschool BUT..." and then one of those three reasons related to inadequacy.  Rubbish.  This breaks my heart! Because guess what?...YOU ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH.

     Here are some important things those self-doubting moms should remember:

     1) Mothers are educators by nature.

Somewhere along the line, moms started becoming convinced they were not qualified to educate their own children.  How did this happen?  We are mothers.  Mothers are incredible women who suddenly have amazing abilities to protect and provide for their family.  A mother's purpose is to raise her children.  What does it mean to raise a child?---To educate.  Think about that.

     2) Moms are just as qualified, if not more qualified than the best teachers out there.  

The biggest thing parents look for in a good teacher is for the teacher to care about their students.  As the mom, you've got that covered. ;) You love your children more than anyone ever could.  You know them better than anyone.  And you want the best for them.  The rest is just finding educational resources, which is easy thanks to the internet.  Trust me, teachers get the same information that you have access to.

     3) If you are patient enough to be their mom, you are patient enough to be their teacher.  

For some reason, some moms think that sending the kids off to school is absolutely necessary to keep their sanity.  Myth busted!  Nowhere does it say that having the kids in school will solve your frustration problems.  It doesn't.  As human beings on this earth we all experience hard days and we often find ourselves on the brink of insanity.  Especially moms!  It's a tough job, but you can do it.  I have found that the hardest things in life are the most rewarding.

     4) Creativity is a muscle.  You can exercise it and become a creative rockstar.

I am proof that this is true.  Before I had kids, I had never thought of homeschooling.  And I never considered myself a creative person.  But once I started researching homeschool and the options (which are mind-blowing), I started thinking more and more "outside the box."  I saw ideas and methods that other moms have utilized and I started borrowing them.  I probably have yet to come up with an original idea, haha.  But sharing ideas and piecing together different types of curriculum has become much easier for me.  It's been a lot of work, but I love it now and my kids are having a blast with the ideas I find for us.

     5) You are enough! As a mother, God has blessed you with abilities beyond your understanding.  Trust your instincts and trust in Him.

I'm sure it isn't a coincidence that almost every homeschooling mom I've met has a strong faith in God.  On social media, one of the biggest responses I see to homeschool dilemmas is "Pray."  Those of us who choose to homeschool know that homeschooling is hard and that the best thing we can do is seek guidance from God.  It helps. I promise.  And I promise you are enough.  Don't let anyone (including yourself) convince you that you are not adequate as a mother.  You are.

    I don't think public school is a bad choice.  And I definitely don't think that homeschool is the universal answer.  I aim to empower and inspire the moms who want to homeschool, but think they can't.  If you are one of these moms, contact me! I want you to know you are not alone. I would be happy to give you advice on the subject and make you aware of your options.  God bless! xoxo  

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Homeschooling Dads: When Our Sweethearts Homeschool...

     With Valentine's Day only a week away, I thought it appropriate to dedicate a post to our beloved sweethearts.

My husband with Marley and Dylan at Yosemite.
Hiking and learning about the Giant Sequoias.

     One of my most favorite things about homeschooling is seeing daddies take an active role in the process.  Luckily, my husband is 100% supportive of our decision to homeschool.  He finds it enjoyable to be involved in all the educational experiences, and he even comes up with some great ideas to include in our curriculum! I love it!!
     I saw a couple photos of dads teaching their children, and I was inspired to write a blog post about it.  Usually, dads are at work the majority of the day and cannot engage in most of the activities we plan.  However, there are some very dedicated dads who make sure to find some time to take an active role in educating their children.  These dads are, well, for lack of a better word...AWESOME!  I had some homeschoolers send me photos of their husbands leading some homeschool activities and enriching their children's education.  These photos are just darling!!

   
     Here is Randy and his son Edan learning how to take care of a garden, making tissue box shoes for lace-tying practice, and constructing a bird feeder.  Way to go Randy!

     Here is another dad constructing with legos with his daughter and helping his son build with wood.  Great job!

      This is 5 year old Joshua with his daddy at the zoo, taking a closer look at the elephant and rhinoceros. Adorable.

     Here is Taylor, Brent, and their dad building lego sets together.  Aww, legos are a timeless activity!

     The photos below were sent in by Cassi, who says, "What we have learned as a homeschool family is that it's not always about the quantity of time, but more about the quality of time. When your there BE THERE COMPLETELY!!!"  Dad helped his kids build a windmill to charge a AA battery.  Checking out the space station.  Enjoying a football game.  And just doing homework together.  Wow, looks like lots of fun!

     This daddy took some time to build with legos with his kids and also give them some pointers on firearm safety. Haha ;)

     

     Here is Don teaching about the brain and teaching his son Caleb about the surface of Mars.  Uh oh, looks like an alien attack! Heehee ;)

     Here is a dad AND a grandpa assisting with some archery practice with their little ones. Awww, love it.

   

   

















     This is dad Shane with his family: Christina, Jon, Sam, and Ben; as they volunteer their time at Feed My Starving Children.  Keep up the good work!

     These last two photos were taken by personal friends of mine.  They are not homeschoolers, but they were able to capture precious teaching moments between their husbands and little ones.

     Here is Nicole's husband and their two sons.  She shared the photo expressing that seeing her husband teach their sons how to use tools & build was a precious moment. <3

          This is Sara's son sitting with dad in front of their map.  Sara said her husband was giving his son a fun geography lesson by discussing where different cartoon characters live throughout the world.  Haha.  Love it!

     This Valentine's Day, take a moment to hug your sweetheart and thank him for his involvement with your children.  These efforts make all the difference in the world to our kids.  Our children are cherishing these moments in their hearts.  They are not only learning skills and concepts, but more importantly, they are learning that their dads love and respect them.  They will grow up knowing their dads believe in them and are always there to support and encourage them.  This is an invaluable lesson that is guaranteed to pave the way for happiness in their lives.  

     To all those devoted daddies..THANK YOU! <3   

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Why Homeschooling Is Awesome: Reason #6 - We Can Ditch School & Still Learn

     I woke up in a very good mood this morning. So I decided to chuck our curriculum for the day and just run errands with my daughters and make sure we had fun together.  We started out with cleaning up the house...What? Cleaning doesn't sound fun?  Well, trust me; we made it fun.

     I blasted some Disney songs and we all danced and rocked out while we went from room to room cleaning.  Picture the scene from Mary Poppins when they clean up, but with a little more hip hop. ;)  We laughed and sang and were productive as well!

     Then I let the girls play on the computer for a while using the Photo Booth app.  They had the time of their lives taking pictures and cracking up at the special effects.  I love watching them explore new things! It's always entertaining.

     Once they were finished, I told Marley we would take her Halloween candy to the dentist office for the Candy Buyback.  She remembered doing the buyback last year and she requested to draw another thank you card for the US Troops.  She completed her picture and off we went.  Both Marley and Dylan were very excited to get a few dollars for their candy.  Luckily, they don't have much of an attachment to sugar, so saying goodbye to their stash wasn't too hard.  I gave them the choice to take the money home and save it or to go straight to the store and pick out a toy.  They both shouted "Toy!"  Next stop, Target.

     They picked out a Little Mermaid Lego set to play with.  We do need to build up our lego collection so it was a good choice.  We headed home, where Marley and I worked together to put together the set.  There is definitely educational value to lego play.  I gave Marley the instruction manual and taught her how to follow it.  She picked out the pieces and counted out how many we would need.  I helped put them together, but our teamwork was awesome!

     We finished off our afternoon by eating popcorn and watching Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.  I love the Night At The Museum movies, and highly recommend them.  They are adorable, entertaining and educational.  I told Marley that my favorite part was the Einstein bobble heads, and she told me her favorite characters are Kahmunrah and the singing angels.

     It was a great day.  We did not follow our usual curriculum and we did not engage in formal academics, but we had so much fun enjoying each other's company and we still found learning opportunities all around us.

   
 

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30 Helpful Tips for New Homeschoolers from Experienced Homeschoolers

     First of all, a great big THANK YOU to the lovely homeschooling mothers who contributed their bits of wisdom to this list!  I am so fortunate to be part of some fabulous online support groups.  And these women are there to help each other and share their experiences.  The following is a list of advice or tips they gave for newbie homeschoolers.  We are hoping that others can learn from past mistakes or have some luck by borrowing another's wisdom.  If you have any more tips and/or suggestions that might help, please leave it as a comment.  THANK YOU!

• 1.  "Don't wait until just before a holiday to check out books from the library regarding that holiday.  The good books may be all checked out for the month."

  
  

  2.  "Do not buy a used curriculum without finding out all the details, like if it requires supplemental workbooks, or if it requires an online account that can only be used once."

  
  

  3.  "Don't spend money on curriculum before you check to see if anyone you know - friends, other homeschoolers, someone online, your library - has a copy you could look over and 'try before you buy."

  
  

  4.  "Find out your child's learning style and THEN buy curriculum. Just because it works for someone else's child doesn't mean it will work for your child. 

  
  

  5.  "If your library let's you reserve books online and pick them up at the drive through window take advantage of it, I do this and it works perfectly! We can go into the library and let the kids choose their choices and not be worried about locating the books we need for our lessons." 
• 6.  "Just because you like a curriculum one year doesn't mean you will like using it the next. You may change after summer break, the curriculum may change due to the advancing of grade levels, you may find something you like better, your extra curricular so may not allow you the same amount of time, you may have more kids that can share curriculum than you had the year before and they may need something they can share better, or the publishers may change things under your nose (k12 anybody?)." 

  
  

  7.  "Make sure you budget time before school starts to research things and have what you want well in advance of when you plan to start school because it will take more time than you think to get what you want and even then it may not be what you really want and you may need to change."

  
  
• 8.  "You don't have to have the same schedule as the public school kids."
• 
  9.  "Your home gets messier, because you live there more....just turn cleaning into a consistent routine so it doesn't pile up crazy...even if it seems like you don't get very much done in one day...keep going."

  
  
• 10.  "Consider donating something from your curriculum that you really like to your library, and maybe also something you don't want anymore, and encourage others to do the same, if your library will take them. That way if a few people donate a few things and keep it going, eventually there will be a good place to reference new materials so you can get a really good grip on what the stuff is like before you have to buy it. It gets expensive buying things only to find out you can't/won't use it, even if the stuff is cheap, it adds up and takes up space and gets frustrating."

  
  11.  "It's important to know what works for your family. Some of that is just trial and error. I'm thinking mostly about homeschooling philosophy and how your family works together. There are so many ways to do things that you have to find what works for you - just like parenting. It's not a 'one size fits all' deal. It'll be different for every family and even for every child."
• 12.  "Try to buy on ebay to get good prices. The math curriculum I got ended up having one of the books messed up. It had pages that were duplicated, and some pages were missing. So not always a good deal!"

  
  
• 13.  "101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum is the #1 book that helped me the first year of homeschooling."
• 
  14.  "Don't worry SO MUCH about a curriculum! Your kids will learn whether you want them to or not, and whether you have everything mapped out and organized or not   You will figure out a curriculum later on, or as you go."

  
  
• 15.  "Pray. Pray about your decision. Pray for your kids. Pray to know how to best met there needs. Pray about curriculum choices. Pray about styles (unschooling vs. Structure ect) to use when teaching your kids. Pray."

  
  
• 16.  "Talk and read.... talk to other homeschooling moms, read homeschool blogs and books and as you do those prayers will be answered. Listen for the still small voice that will guide."

  
  
• 17.  "Take time to detox, plan on taking MONTHS off "school" and then get started with whatever form of education you feel is best...when you are all ready and have a solid foundation. Get to really know your kids. Play with each other, clean together as a family, pray together!"

  
  

  18.  "It is normal to have bad days. There will be days when it seems like hardly anything got done, but they are still learning! There is down time in school & days when a substitute just shows a movie, so it is ok for you to do the same occasionally."
• 19.  "Don't stress about whether or not they are making progress. No matter how you homeschool, (or how badly you think you are failing) they ARE progressing."

  
  

  20.  "There are gaps in every education. Homeschooling lets you choose where they are."
• 21.  "Don't mess with early academics until they've learned to read and write. Bookwork is a lot easier when you don't have to read aloud every single lesson. Until then, explore the world and learn through play."

  
  
• 22.  "You'll likely not have to really teach a kid to read. Read to them, sound things out as you read, point to words. They'll be ecstatic when they break the code and will be full of self confidence that they "did it themselves," which they did...with love and only guidance from you. Let them score the big points. It will keep them curious and bold."

  
  
• 23.  "Try not to take credit for 'teaching them' things. Say things like, 'He learned...,' 'He found...,' or 'She researched...'  When you give them credit for their work, they'll have a vested interest in taking responsibility for working. It's like their pay."

  
  24.  "There's nothing wrong with taking a day off now and then to work together and get the house back in some semblance of order if you need to."
• 
  25.  "I would add that you don't have to use a curriculum. If you want to, that's cool, but another good way is to just use books, movies, and explore the real world through your children's interests."

  
  
• 26.  "Take other's advice lightly, do what works best for your own children."
  

  
  27.  "Try to refrain from scheduling the week full of extra curriculars and classes, leaving little to no room to explore."

  
  

  
  28.  "Make sure your Tuesdays are free. It seems that everything in the home school world happens on a Tuesday."

  
  

  29.  "If you are having discontent in the home (ex: disrespect, power struggles, fighting, disobedience, etc), stop trying to push academics or a curriculum.  Take time to assess what is happening in your home and repair the bond between you and your child or spouse.  Your relationship with your family is the most important thing.  There is no point in trying to teach your child when they do not respect you or if they are not happy.  They won't retain any information that way."
  

  
  

  30.  "You're not a school--don't try to be."

  
  

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