10 Things I Don’t Miss About Public School

If you live in the northern hemisphere, chances are that summer break is here! As always, I’m seeing so many different reactions from parents about this time of year. Some are relieved and happy to have their kids home for a couple months. Some are feeling overwhelmed and are scrambling to figure out how to keep their kids occupied for the next 12 weeks. And still others are, unfortunately, trying to overcome the obstacles that have been thrown before them (NY and CA, I’m looking at you) and are trying to figure out what will become of their children’s education once summer is over.

Another Attack on Homeschooling

I’ll tell you what, guys. The past several months have been quite disturbing, to say the least. People have been coming out of the woodwork to attack homeschooling…and they’ve been coming from every angle:

Bring Ancient History to Life with Beautiful Feet Books

When I was growing up, I hated history. I hated everything about it: the boring textbooks, the required memorization of dates and other (what I thought was) useless trivia, the multiple choice tests that were easy to ace but served no purpose when it came to retention, and the boring documentaries accompanied by worksheets designed to make sure we were paying attention.

Yup. It was awful.

Grandparents of Homeschoolers…Let’s Have a Chat

Today’s post is going to be a little different than the norm. While I’m usually addressing homeschool parents (or at least, parents, in general) here on my blog or on my YouTube channel, I’m searching for a different audience just this once, an audience you won’t find much content for:

Grandparents of Homeschoolers.

And it’s long overdue.

CTCMath Is a MUST for Your Relaxed Homeschool

Hi, my name is Shelly, and I homeschool eight kids.

Do I have your attention now? I’m going to admit, as a mom of eleven, eight isn’t really all that difficult to handle. I mean it! After graduating my three oldest, I finally feel like I’ve got the hang of this homeschooling thing. You see, if I had to choose one word to describe my home education philosophy it would be this:

Relaxed.

Believe me, it didn’t start out that way. We ended up here by sheer necessity, and praise God we did.

Lifeschooling: Using the World as Your Classroom

Have you ever thought about what the word “curriculum” means? For years, the first thing that came to mind for me were books – textbooks, to be precise.

While books can – and usually do – fill that role, that’s not what curriculum specifically means. Curriculum simply means having a plan in place for an approach to education.

That’s it.

2019/2020 Homeschool Curriculum for 8 Kids

It’s that time of year again…. curriculum time! Admit it, you feel just a little giddy planning for your next homeschool year, too. 😉

Like this year, next year I’ll be homeschooling eight kids – 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 12th. At one point I was homeschooling ten, so I’m getting there! One thing I’ve learned over these ten years of homeschooling is that our curriculum choices aren’t set in stone.

They just aren’t.

I refuse to allow myself and my children to get caught up in trying to make our homeschool fit our curriculum, rather than the other way around.

With that being said, I’m going to share with you the resources we’ve chosen for next year. Before I start, though, I’m going to make one thing clear:

Using Read-Alouds as the Spine of Your Homeschool

Imagine a homeschool day with no textbooks, no worksheets, and no busy work. Imagine a homeschool day quietly spent reading aloud to your children, all the while feeling perfectly confident that this was enough. Imagine a homeschool day devoid of disconnected subjects and seemingly impractical lessons but instead filled with quiet conversations and sometimes passionate debate.

Sound impossible?

This, my friends, is a homeschool that is centered on read-alouds.

Homeschooling, Censorship, and How They’re Connected

We’re living in a world today of mass censorship. Whether it’s blocking dissenting opinions on mainstream social media platforms, removing information that goes against the status quo from websites like Amazon and Etsy, or discriminating against “conspiracy theory” videos on YouTube, one thing is clear:

We, the people, are no longer trusted to do our own research or form our own opinions on anything of importance.

3 Practical Hacks for Homeschooling High School

Over these past ten years, I’ve realized something about homeschooling high school:

It is way too easy to overcomplicate things.

Honestly, though, it’s understandable. It’s a big deal! What if we mess up?? The fear is all too real.

So what do we do to ensure that won’t happen? We overcompensate. We overschedule. And worst of all – we start trying too hard to look like school.