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.

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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.

Our Must-Have Notebooking Supply List

I remember a time when I could never get my kids to write without dealing with complaints, insecurity, and tears. Since we began notebooking a couple years ago, I’ve found that not only are my children much more receptive to writing, but they often do it in their spare time, as well – voluntarily.

I’ll admit that if I had just approached notebooking as yet another way to incorporate writing, it would have backfired. The key to our notebooking success has been less about using it as a method and more about using it to provide my kids with choices.

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.

Using Curriculum As Your Tool Rather Than Your Master

Having the right curriculum can either make or break your homeschool. Am I right? Getting sucked into the belief that your homeschool resources of choice must be used as written is one of the most debilitating things that can happen to your homeschool routine.

Don’t do it.

While some homeschoolers feel perfectly at home using life as their curriculum, most of us prefer to at least have something we can fall back on. Unfortunately, it can be far too easy to get so hung up on staying on track, doing every single activity, and covering every single page that the freedom that homeschooling should bring will feel like an unattainable feat.

Introducing “This Week on There’s No Place Like Home”

What do relaxed homeschooling, ADHD, public school, and Konos all have in common?? They were all topics on my YouTube channel, “There’s No Place Like Home,” this week.

Several days ago – before I was hit hard by a serious case of the flu – I came up with the idea of sharing a weekly Friday night post with my readers showcasing the YouTube videos I had published throughout the week. (I sure am saying “week” a lot. Bear with me!)

You see, if there’s one thing I’m not good at, it’s social media. I hate it. The problem with that is that, consequently, I never really seem to follow through with letting my peeps know what I’ve been up to on my channel.

So here’s what I’m going to do: every Friday night, I’ll publish a short post with links to any videos I published that week (there it is again!) plus one link to an older video that you may have missed. If you find yourself looking for weekend homeschool encouragement, advice, or a productive way to veg out, my videos may be just what you’re looking for. 🙂

Konos and Beautiful Feet Books: The Perfect Combination

When it comes to homeschooling, it would be putting it mildly to say that I’m pretty transparent. Take curriculum, for example. When I find a resource that really works for our family, I can barely contain my excitement.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

Very often, that excitement is short-lived. Since our homeschool is constantly evolving, so is our curriculum. However, for us there have been two curriculums we’ve used for years that have been a constant source of inspiration:

Konos and Beautiful Feet Books.

Both of these resources are spectacular standing alone, but used together they create the perfect combination of learning approaches for my children.

Here’s how we do it.

My 10 Most Popular Homeschool and Education Videos from 2018

You know what I love about the New Year? Countdowns. How exciting is it to reflect back on some of the most “happening” things of the previous year?

Last week, I shared my 10 most popular blog posts from 2018. This week I’m going to do something I’ve never done before – share my most popular YouTube videos from 2018. I’m actually really excited because, as I write this, I still don’t know what they are!

That’s right. It’s all a surprise to me, too! So let’s get started!