As a 30-year home schooling mom of 6 (only one 13-year-old to go), I can verify every hack you talk about here (many of them learned the hard way). It's easy to forget that home "educating" is not school; it's a lifestyle, and it pays huge dividends well beyond academics. Thank you for all your great tips. Enjoy the journey!
Thank you so much for this! We are pulling our kids out of public school next school year and I’m so nervous about this - but also really excited! I saved this video because I think I’ll need to reference it often 😅
There are certain subjects and products that don’t change and it’s perfectly ok to purchase in advance the things you will need. One example is Latin. I found, and use, a really great tried and true method of teaching Latin utilizing a particular set of books etc. We are in our 3rd consecutive year using that series. So when there was a big sale on that particular series (50-75% off) I purchased everything we would need to complete our Latin course. Some things just don’t change and Latin is one of them lol. Also, for those people who worry about locking themselves into a particular way of teaching a subject only to find something better after having already purchased everything, don’t worry so much. You don’t have to constantly have the latest greatest thing for teaching a particular subject. There’s nothing wrong with sticking with what you already have if it works for you. There are people that get a new car every 3-4 years because they just have to have the newest coolest thing constantly lol. I had the perfect vehicle for my family’s needs and drove it for 21 years lol So go ahead and stock up whenever you can. Cheers
Using the internet ... you are talking to the choir!!! No but seriously, my son loves geography and mapping and I always get lost even with GPS. So he literal sit in the car with my phone (or not) and gives me directions. That’s utilizing my kids! 😊❤️
Thank you so much for this video! 😭 I really needed to hear these tips and the reassurance that homeschool doesn’t have to be the same as traditional school. It is okay to learn in our on way. I really appreciate this so much and I’m sending you a virtual hug 🤗!
We will be unschooling/home schooling our kids. For now they are in the Catholic school system until grade 8 (age 14). I find the school system teaching too much non-relevant information. We want our kids to learn and do what they find interesting, not what the school system pushes on them. High school seems like a lot of stress that can be avoided. I don't want my kids chasing a degree from college or university just to get a high paying job. That being said, both my wife and I are early retired and plan on teaching our kids everything we know about capital markets and specifically the derivative market. I feel our kids will eventually do whatever job they enjoy, and make the majority of their income from the capital markets. It's a new world, and you don't have to leave home any longer to earn a living. I feel that even if you are winning in the "rat race" ...... you are still a rat.
Well said!! I agree 100%! I homeschooled my son and I’m now helping him homeschool his son (my grandson). There are different and better ways to live your life with out being in the “rat race”. We enjoy doing a good amount of traveling on a regular basis and incorporate learning opportunities into those trips. We are blessed to have family on 6 continents that love getting together. Sometimes we go to them and other times they come to us. When you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on hotel rooms and eating all your meals in restaurants, travel becomes very affordable.
@@prepperjonpnw6482 Absolutely, we love to travel also, but have to put that on hold due to the current situation. My daughter had one more year of grade school, (grade 8) but will all that is going on, she is definitely NOT going back to school in September and will begin un-schooling/homeschooling with us. The "rat race" is self inflicted torture that I want my kids to avoid. I did it full time for 20 years and I have been out of it now for 10 years. There is more to life than chasing dollars and material things, but most have a hard time thinking like that. But, that is ok for them, this club is only for some of us. All the best to you and your family, hopefully you get back to world travelling soon.
great tips,I was homeschooled and my sister and I did the same work even though we are two years apart, and I helped teach my little brother all the time!
New Homeschool mama here and I loved these hacks. We are part of a coop and blending is something they do there and it's so helpful. School in pajamas is a regular thing for us also. Thanks for sharing! ❤️
I 1000% needed this today. We were all getting into a homeschool burnout and I needed reminder why I am doing this and what our long term goals are. I love Gather Round it has really helped keep me focused. But I need to be more creative as well. I have such a public school mindset and it’s so hard to break away from. 😣💜✨
THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! Perfect timing for some extra motivation as we try to press on with wrapping up the school year AND planning for next! Then we will have an 8th grader, a 6th grader, a 3rd grader, a 1st grader, a preschooler and a 1 year old!!!! Whew!! Exciting times! I'll have to rewatch this video when I feel the overwhelm creeping in. :) Thanks again!
Great tips. A lot of moms are planning on homeschooling in September due to Coronavirus. Can you make a "Where do I start with homeschooling" video it would be really useful thanks
Love watching your tips! So helpful - thank you! As a new homeschooler and someone documenting my new homeschool journey on RU-vid, I really appreciate your content!
I love this. You don't have to be a complete unschooler in order for you to scrap the unnecessary systems. Don't feel like you're a slave to anything, be creative and make it fun please! Why have a hard time when you have so much opportunity to make it so much fun for you and your kids! On a side note, I don't agree with the rewarding part. Of course there are some natural incentives and consequences but rewarding with money or stickers or even grades isn't going to motivate your child to really learn with respect to content. (Look up Alfie Kohn) A child is intrinsically motivated to learn from the moment it's born. My tip would be to go with that from the beginning. When your child wants to learn how to read, help your child to do it! Sometimes only giving the resources or explaining how, will be enough. If your child asks about the biology of a frog at 4 years old, don't say: 'I don't know' and expect your child to be motivated a couple of years later when you want to learn from some biology book. Take every learning opportunity that takes place naturally. Isn't this how a child learns to walk, talk and so much more?
What about when one of the kids is pushing back... HARD ... and also literally every time I JUST start getting into a lesson, at least one or 2 of them say “I’m hungry.” Maybe I just need to set them up with a snack before we even start.
Thanks for this I'm about to start home schooling my daughter in the fall. I guess you could say I'm still in the planning stages, but I'm commuting to it this fall. I've been researching and learning what I can for the homeschool groups I joined on FB. Since I have a toddler who is going to be preschool age, I was trying to figure out what to do with him while I was busy with my daughter. Excellent idea of blending. She will be happy to teach him his ABC's.
We have a saying in Scouting (and when I was homeschooled lol) “Never do for a scout (kid) what they can do for themselves” it is truly a motto to live by. Always a good idea to look for your books (reading assignments) at reused bookshops. I buy almost all my college books at them and saved several hundred dollars.
You are awesome. Love all the hacks. Wrote them all down. Very helpful. Appreciate you so much. Thanks for sharing. Much love from my channel Kim Jamieson. 💜😉🌸
These are great! As a fellow homeschool mom of five, in Canada, who was also homeschooled, I love how well I can relate with you. 😊 These are all tips I know in my head, but this was a good reminder to utilize them. ❤️
Hello everyone! There are great tips in this video. If you would like some cool educational videos for kids, we provide fun educational content that homeschooling families really enjoy. 😊
My special needs kid was being drastically mistreated in public school. In Charter school we have been consistently losing freedom and yet they also don't give enough funding and structure to off-set the pitfalls. We need MORE flexibility in many areas, yet also better structure in basic areas. Also they are still so focused on pushing traditional school ideals. This year they have been reinforcing "What do we take to school?" with an image of a backpack FFS......(My kid did once go to public BUT she probably doesn't remember and doesn't do that now. Now backpacks are for vacations and hiking! LOL) They asked about school buses etc...In the context it made no sense. More aggravating to ASD folks...the semantics; asked "IS the moon out at night? Or during the day? " My kid looked at me a bit confused. I had to adapt it to "most of the time" As we do often see the moon out at dusk when there's still daylight!!! I LOVE how much there is even for free on the internet. Video learning (with follow up and hands on) has been extremely beneficial! Also as my child gets older I think we can be more aware of vetting ones sources. The public schools seem to have done away with this entirely LOL. All about "If you don't eat your meat you don't get any pudding!" LOL What they say goes, don't ask questions, don't think for yourself. That's definitely not what we want for our children-special needs or otherwise.
In our case kiddo needs the schedule. Some kids do tho. Edit: The online tools thing is a lifesaver. We use time4learning as a supplement for ours. Also Amazon is helpful for schoolbooks as needed and we do dollar store all the time for supplies. That said. Thankyou for the reminder. I think we need a field trip and maybe to glitter over handwriting practice etc.
Hello, great video. I love all the advice, but I’m actually very interested in your shelf that is holding nature items on it. Where did you get that from?
Thank you, new subby! Been doing this for 3 years but still trying to figure it out. Some of this I learned the hard way like blending the kids, utilizing them, and switching up the environment. I really appreciate these tips. With 4 kids it can get crazy.
We are also unschooling our kids. One right now and the other after grade 8. (No high school for our kids. The reason why and a bit of the process is in this video. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8Qd5hguo7yE.html
I have a friend who lives in Quebec. She tells me she’s never even heard of homeschooling. When I told her I knew of several Canadian homeschoolers she asked what area of Canada you live in. Do you care to share that general info. I’m curious too.
Helpful video thanks. Maybe make a separate video all about blending ages and activities etc, how to and further benefits. I don’t know where to start with blending with multiple attention spans and orientation ....and learning styles
I would recommend you start with either History or Science. It is easy to do if your kiddos are within 3 years of difference, but there are moms who have bigger gaps and still combine. I have a 7 and 5 year old "in school" right now. Keep the lesson short, 15-20 mins. Discuss it all together. The littles learn from the oral narrations their siblings give. When writing narrations, my 5 year old will write a sentence with a lot of help from me while my 7 year old will write a paragraph with minimal help from me. Then we will either draw/paint about what we wrote or call it a complete lesson and move on.
New update, we just took our daughter out of school to start unschooling due to covid. She was suppose to start grade 8 in September but will start her a year early. Now we can teach two kids at the same time, they are only a year and half apart. I will copy my previous post below.
We will be unschooling/home schooling our kids. For now they are in the Catholic school system until grade 8 (age 14). I find the school system teaching too much non-relevant information. We want our kids to learn and do what they find interesting, not what the school system pushes on them. High school seems like a lot of stress that can be avoided. I don't want my kids chasing a degree from college or university just to get a high paying job. That being said, both my wife and I are early retired and plan on teaching our kids everything we know about capital markets and specifically the derivative market. I feel our kids will eventually do whatever job they enjoy, and make the majority of their income from the capital markets. It's a new world, and you don't have to leave home any longer to earn a living. I feel that even if you are winning in the "rat race" ...... you are still a rat. (posted a year ago)
YOUR AMAZING!!!!!! thank you so much! you just gave me a sigh of relief. i have 5,6,7 grader and a 2nd grader. and due to the recent outbreak. looks like i am homeschooling the kids. thank you so much!
Your greatest hack #7 food my daughter gets hangry (yup spelled correctly) when that happens I get the goldfish crackers or carrot sticks and peanut butter. Good hacks all around though!
The last bit advice, your curriculum doesn't own you! Ah, so true, so hard to accept for a "finisher". We have finished curriculum cover to cover for 5 years no matter what... And really it's not as important as I make it.
Amazing out of the box hacks!!!! Loved it!! Love that you are a worshipper too, many "believer" moms, but not many worshippers ❤️❤️❤️ I would use your programs but I'm from south America 😊
This. video. is. GOLD. You are a fabulous speaker and give to the point, super practical, helpful, and encouraging tips. Seriously. I'm getting back into homeschooling after 6 years...and like you said- the internet is AWESOME, full of ideas, materials, resources...but also OVERWHELMING. You can spiral down in a sea of information- 1 more video, 1 more, channel, 1 more site, 1 more curriculum review- and it never ends! THANK YOU.
Thank you !!! I haven't started our journey yet, but this video just eased my mind a little more and I truly appreciate you for doing just that! Bless you and your family !
I am homeschooling 4 ranging from 7 to 13 and I have my days of worrying if I'm doing enough...if I'm doing my children justice...if I'm missing something that I should be doing. But watching this I realized I do all of the things in your list! Pat on the back! Sometimes it's hard and some days you need that little boost of confidence. Thank you!!! Time to take on a new day!!
Love it!!! Very true.. This video was a nice reminder to follow your heart, follow the interest and excitement- respect the love our children have for things, we as parents, may not feel "holds a lot of weight" for our planned day... I could go on . . 😄I would love to have conversations with you about Homeschool life- so much in common.😎 Thanks again, & God bless your family!
Hi from Birmingham in the UK.. absolutely luved watching. I've subscribed. I'm a homeschool momma to 2 pre teens but I also have a 9 yr old in primary school I'm 6 months in 4 homeschooling. And I always look for better ways to teach my kids so thankyou 4 sharing looking forward to watching 2 past and previous blogs. Take care X
Thanks. I'm from Ïndiea 🤖 and I'm quite inclined to use this to educate our young ones, instead of Prussian/British scam we currently are forced to suffer.
Okay, I have two 2 year olds and a 4 yr old. What subjects can i do with all of them together? They are 2 yrs and 2 mos apart. Very close in age. Can i kill 2 birds with one stone by teaching them together? Or do they need two different curriculums?
Great ideas! We will be starting our first year of homeschooling late this summer. I have a 3, almost 4 yo and an almost 8 yo. I am thankful for homeschooling mommas on RU-vid, like yourself, who are helping us launch on this journey!! 👍
I find it annoying when homeschool mamas refer to their kids as "students" or their husband "the principal.". How do you teach your kids that learning is a natural part of life and doesn't just happen at certain times of the day in certain places when you use schooly terms at home? I think it compartmentalizes learning. I also don't refer to everytime we go outside or visit a museum as a "field trip.". They are just fun and fascinating.
I have been homeschooling for a few years now and albeit this is a great video, but I don't agree with it all. 1st not everyone can blend their children due to many reasons. I also don't agree on trying to make it a classroom like PS. in my eyes whatever works for you and your family is what you do. There is no right or wrong on how you get to the finish line.
Amen! Learning should be fun and ongoing. It doesn't have to mirror a traditional school day. You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish in just 2 hours!
Heyyy. .... so good to see this video. Though my kid has a regular school, I teach her supplements. It is like home schooling for us. Thanks for your hacks... loads of love
