Monday, 3/23 – 8:00 pm (EST), 5:00 pm (PST)
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Curious about how to homeschool? Are you Just starting out and in need of some direction and encouragement? Already homeschooling, but off to a shaky start? Join Yvette Hampton and Kristi Clover, author of Homeschool Basics: How to Get Started, Keep Motivated, and Bring Out the Best in Your Kids, as they give you practical advice and heart-felt encouragement as you begin. This is a perfect session for parents whose children attend school but are facing school closures due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Get more great homeschooling encouragement from Kristi Clover and Yvette Hampton on The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast.
Join Yvette Hampton and Aby Rinella as they speak with expert organizer and homeschool mother of five, Kristi Clover. You will enjoy their discussion about Kristi’s new book, M.O.M. – Master Organizer of Mayhem! Since clutter and messes seem to go hand-in-hand with being a parent, especially a homeschool parent, Kristi offers some mom hacks that can bring calm and sanity back to your home. In her book M.O.M.—Master Organizer of Mayhem, she offers foundational rules that will make homes run more efficiently no matter where you live or how many children you have.
Organizing the Mayhem, with Kristi Clover – Part 1
Organizing the Mayhem, with Kristi Clover – Part 2
Automated Transcript (Spelling and grammar errors are guaranteed!)
(00:00:18):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. I should say, “Welcome BACK to the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. It is so fun to get to be on here with my friend Kristi Clover today. Oh there we are. We’re a little bit bigger now. And so this is kind of crazy. We did a quick live today and I explained that we did not have any intentions of coming back anytime soon. We last month we did a whole week of this event, this live interactive event. And it was amazing and God just did amazing things in the hearts of people who were watching and listening. And it, the responses that we’ve gotten have been absolutely incredible. And not because if it’s not because we’re amazing or anything that we did was amazing. It was because the Lord God is just a good and faithful father. And so he moved big time in the hearts of people who were part of the Homegrown Generation live event.
(00:01:12):
So, so here we are, because now as everyone knows it seems like the whole world’s falling apart, which is absolutely not true. And I don’t know about you, Kristi. Welcome, by the way, welcome back expo. I was like, am I still muted? Nope, you’re not muted anymore. You may feel alive. You are on sisters. It’s so interesting because as in this weird just kind of series of events that we’ve had going on the last couple of weeks, everyone’s kind of, I think in this weird state of shock and it is same Louis. I’m like, here’s a set. Where’s the camera man? Seriously, my Brooklyn and I went to get coffee last week and it was grabbing go. And so we just went in and they wouldn’t even let us sit outside of the coffee shop to have our coffee. Like I’m okay. And yes, I felt like we were in a movie and it was super weird and creepy and weird, but it’s okay because we just are realizing over and over that God is in control.
(00:02:18):
And I don’t know about you, but we, I have really found a lot of joy in the last week because I know that God is in control and that everything that’s happening right now is all part of his perfect plan. Oh yeah. Well you gotta love it when I’m, I feel, I’m like, it’s not my fault. I really promise it’s not my fault, but I have been doing different studies and one was in first Peter one and another and that always reminds me of James one, which is all about how when you go through trials of many kinds you can still have joy. Right? And then the other morning I had to laugh because it’s like, Oh my, my Bible and I don’t always do this. People talking about zone number Bible and read where it falls. And I was like, hahaha, I don’t normally
(00:03:00):
Do that. And I opened it up and I had to giggle because it fell on cause I was kind of like, Lord, what do you have for me today? Cause I, I’ve been going through, you know, first Peter and some others, some other spots, but I ended up in JoVE and praise the Lord. I ended up in like job 42 or whatever the last chapter of job is. And that is like encouraging, right? So read the last chapter of Joe, but I’ve actually been praying that over our nation and praying it over our world is that God will restore the prosperity and God will restore, you know, just all that we had before with even more. And I think that when we put our sights on the Lord that happens. And I, it’s almost been ironic just to watch how we’ve had to retreat home.
(00:03:47):
Like families are forced to be together and the entire, the entire nation’s homeschooling right now, I’m like, what world did I live in? Then I wake up to, I’m like, this is so crazy. And yeah, at the same time, it’s, it’s amazing to see what God’s going to do. It’s scary. And yet it’s, it’s, it’s kinda, I’m just curious to see what’s going to go on. And I, I know it has not come close to us as far mean. It’s very close to us. You’re in calorie live, like it is everywhere. Like we have a lot in our, like we really, we go for walks. We like everyone in our neighborhood is you know, everyone’s really kind like everyone’s out with their families. But as families walk normally you just walk by, know everybody literally does this big loop around each other. Like, Hey, I’ll stay under the side.
(00:04:35):
You walk by, don’t touch my dog. You know, it’s just, it’s bizarre, but it’s not personal yet. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect us. So it’s personal in that we’re all making sacrifices to protect those that we love. And you know, there’s a lot of people said it, the people who are, you know, feeling that the most are the ones who fought a war for us. So those are the ones that we’re trying to protect or you know, our seniors, but it’s also affecting a lot of people. So I’m stop battling that, all that. But no, that’s okay. It’s what’s going on. And it’s, it’s a crazy, crazy time. I mean, this is uncharted territory. We’ve never been through anything like this before. You, you know, even our parents who were in their seventies are like, we’ve never seen anything like this before.
(00:05:16):
It’s kind of weird and crazy. But we know who we serve and we know who’s in control of all of it. And there’s so much hope and Jesus, I don’t know, I’ve said it so many times and I, I, I will just keep saying, I don’t know how people get through this life without him even when things are, you know, normal. Yeah. I don’t know how people get through life, but we are finding that over and over again, it gives people a chance to share the gospel because when people feel hopeless there, there’s no better time to share the love of Jesus and to just say, you know what? We know who can give you hope. We know where hope is found. And so we actually, yesterday
(00:05:58):
I had a chance to share the gospel with a neighbor and we were, you know, she asked me, you know, what do you think about this whole coronavirus thing? And I was like, well let me tell you what I think about this old coronavirus thing. And it was really a neat way to just be able to just share the hope that I have in Christ. And and so God has given us opportunities to do that. So, and I see people jumping on welcome back to the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. I’m here with Kristi Clover. Let us know where you are coming from. E we have no idea. People are watching from all over again. And I don’t know. It might be my mom and Kristi’s mom. Right! Okay, So I, I’m going to play interviewer here just for one second. I’m like, it’s in my nature do it, do it.
(00:06:41):
But the immediate question I had as you’re sharing about that is, so what is your segway? Cause that is always like, cause I always like I want to share the Gospel and in different situations, but I also don’t want to… There’s that beautiful like “how do you slip it in there?” So what was your segue from your neighbor saying what do you think about what, how things are happening to being able to share about your faith? Well my girls and I, over the last several weeks, we have become addicted to the Living Waters, Ray Comfort videos. Kirk Cameron does a lot of them with him. And and so we’ve, we’ve been watching those like crazy and, and I mean we’ve seen a ton of them and it was really crazy cause it just kinda came naturally from, from watching those. And so I just was able to just say, I don’t even know what my segway is.
(00:07:27):
Honestly. I don’t know how I, I brought it into the conversation. We somehow we started talking about Oh I know she was talking about religion and she said, well you know, I know that that you’re real legit, but I’m really not religious. Nice to actually, we are all religious. We all believe in something. And she said, I’m agnostic. I said, well, you still will leave in something, so let you know. And I said, do you believe in heaven or hell? And so she’s like, “well, I’m not sure.” And so we started talking about that and, and that just kind of segwayed into, well, I believe, you know, that what the Bible says is true about heaven. And I started to be able to just share with her what, what I believe about God and, and salvation. And then if you watch those Ray Comfort videos, he always goes through the moral law, which is the 10 commandments and, you know, have you ever broken any of these commandments?
(00:08:17):
And yeah. And so I just kind of like, brought that into the conversation. Yeah. I mean, we all have. And so it just, and, and I could tell she was very uncomfortable after a few minutes and, you know, but she was engaging with me, so we kept going. And and she, I’ve known her for a while now, and so I, I felt like I had built that relationship with her first. Not that I’d be afraid to do that with a stranger if the opportunity came up. But, but yeah, I mean with what’s going on right now, it is a good way to just say absolutely. I mean people are scared now. Do you believe in an afterlife? Do you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell? What are your beliefs about that? And ask questions. And so that’s how I have found it easiest to, to talk to people in general.
(00:09:04):
I mean I, you know, oftentimes have been able to share the gospel and it’s oftentimes just asking them questions and getting people to think and then just say, well I believe that God’s Word is true and I believe that there’s a heaven and a hell. And and so anyway, yeah, that’s how we segue into, I love it. I love it because there’s always that, that moment of like, I feel it, I think I could say this and it’s interesting cause I think it’s easy to tie it in, like you’re saying. And then even just to be like, you know, I have, I have my bad moments where I’m not trusting. And you can, like when you say I’m not trusting cause I’d be like, trust, trusting him. What, what, what are you trusting? You know what I mean? It’s like, and yet like I feel this, you know, this piece, like, you know, the scripture tells us that or the Bible tells us that we can experiences a peace that surpasses all understanding.
(00:09:54):
And right now I have those moments where I feel peace even though I know I’m a little scared somewhere, but it’s like it’s covered with his peace in they’re. Like, “Whoa.” Right. I spent summers when, when I allow his joy to shine through, it’s not mine. It’s his, I allow his joy to shine through. That’s another thing that perplexes people. So, yes. Well, and I feel like for me, I would say it’s more concern than fear. Like I’m concerned about what’s going to happen, but I’m not fearful about it. You know, I’m not laying in bed awake at night worried about whether or not, I mean going to be able to buy toilet paper tomorrow. All I know is that when all of this is said and done, I guarantee… This is Kristi’s prediction. We’re gonna have a lot more bidets in the houses of people around the world.
(00:10:42):
If we all had bidets, there’d be no rushing for toilet paper. That’s right. That’s right now. Well it’s, I have, again, I just have seen God work in amazing ways through the situations or circumstances that we’re in and that parents are home with their kids right now. And, and Kristi, you and I had been homeschooling for a long time. We can usually sit and talk about this and say, Oh, it’s so, so fun. And we won’t say it’s easy because it’s not easy. But we can say, you know, homeschooling, you, you can do this. And then we’ve got lots of homeschool families who, who are, you know, still figuring out this homeschool thing. And then we’ve got this nother whole new set of families who for the first time ever, they are home with their kids and they don’t really know what to do with them.
(00:11:27):
And my heart goes out to those people. And at the same time, I’m so excited for them. Like you said, families are home, they’re, they’re together now. And I think there’s going to be a lot of parents who look who maybe they’ve considered homeschooling. Maybe they never have considered homeschooling. But most of them would say, I never thought I could homeschool or I can never do such a thing. And now they’re being forced to do it. And whether they like it or not and so they have to figure it out. And so you and I are here to help them tonight to just offer some encouragement, some very practical resources on how, how they can manage their kids, how they can deal with school. Even if your school is giving you work already to do, which I think for some, I was talking to a friend of mine last week and she was saying that her she had a friend whose, whose kid’s school was giving them homework and they had to have it turned in by like 5:00 PM every evening and mom and kids were stressed out to the max.
(00:12:25):
I mean, like tears. It’s a private school. And somebody freaky. Yes. And I mean it was a total disaster. He’s realized that I didn’t close the window. Oh that’s okay. This is your life, real life. But I said, well why doesn’t, why doesn’t she just withdraw them from school and homeschooled them like officially homeschool them because then she can call the shots idea. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So as we’re going, we’re going to talk about some things tonight, give you some very practical information and thank you for those who are responding. Again, we would love to know where you are watching from. Yes. Hello Indiana. I see the person from Indiana. Yeah. [inaudible] You like my book. It’s so much fun. You know, when you just say those are you who are on commenting. I don’t know if you can go back and do this, but a stream yard, which is what we’re streaming this through, we’ll ask you for permission to put your name up because oftentimes I just see Facebook user. If you don’t give string yard permission to use your name, then we don’t see what your name is. We only send Michelle Weise POC. You use it. So someone said, two of my favorite people on one screen. I love you girls. Well, I’m sure we love you too, but I don’t know who you are because it just says Facebook user.
(00:13:41):
So anyhow let me introduce myself really quickly and then Kristi, I’ll let you introduce yourself. My name is Yvette Hampton. I am the wife of Garrett for 25 years and God has just by his grace you know, established us as a family and, and kept our marriage going and kept it strong. We have two amazing daughters. They are the love and joy of my life and they are really why we have this whole ministry of homeschooling. I love Jesus with all my heart. My greatest desire is to serve him and to lead others especially my children to a life of serving him. And so we, I’m the host of Schoolhouse Rocked: the Homeschool Revolution, which is a feature length documentary that our family is working on as still, but we’re getting there slowly but surely God is doing big things actually still.
(00:14:31):
With that. And so we’re in post production on that. I am also the host of The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. So we have a podcast and then we’ve got a blog and you know, social media stuff. And now we’ve got the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. So this expo that you’re watching, many of you have already registered for it. And what happened with that a month ago we did this week long live online interactive homeschool event and Kristi Clover was part of it. We had some just amazing speakers who are part of that event. And so you could come on and interact with them. And it was amazing. And God just did some big things through that event. And and to the purpose of that event was to help raise money for school. House rocked the movie to get us through post production. And, and that event by God’s grace was just great. And so we, we thought that was the end of it. And then this whole thing happened and now Pete and people asked us to come back and do some more. I asked come back, you asked me to come back.
(00:15:30):
Yes, we will need you. Yes, yes. Well, you know what was funny though, Kristi is before you even
(00:15:36):
Contacted me for that, you and I had talked about doing a bonus session on getting started because we sent out a survey and a lot of people said, we, we want some practical advice on homeschooling. I’ve just taken my kids out of school. I don’t know how to do this. Can you give some practical advice? And I was like, well, Kristi Clover, the author of homeschool basics, ah, she’s my girl. And so we had already decided that we were going to do this as a bonus session before we knew we would do it live like this. So if, if you are watching right now through the Facebook page or through the website, welcome. We are so glad to have you as part of this tonight as part of our conversation. But we’ve got 20 I don’t even know. I actually, I think it’s total like 35 hours and it’s, it’s not 35 hours straight, but a total of 20 type different sessions.
(00:16:27):
Homeschool encouragement. And we have amazing speakers. We had Kirk Cameron and Heidi St. John, Rachel Carmen, Aby Rinella. I mean the list goes on and on. We just had an incredible cast, not a cast cast is the movie, incredible lineup of speakers. And so if you are interested in seeing that in watching those sessions, you can register for the event. It’s only $20, and you get this amazing swag bag with it, with all kinds of great goodies and free audio books and stuff like that. So so you can do that. And actually Kristi, I think on your page you have a link your yes, Kristi Clover link that you could sign up for that event. So
(00:17:08):
Somewhere, yeah, like somewhere I got that links. Hi Cheryl. So that’s me. Kristi, introduce yourself. All right. My name’s Kristi Clover and I’m a homeschooling mom of five. My husband, Steve and I have been married for 22 years. Not quite as long as you, but we’re, we’re, we’re in it to win it. We’re in it to win it. Yes. And so my oldest is going to be graduating this year and as a junior he was very cute. I’m like, okay, so you want to just switch to being a senior? And he’s like, Oh, I want to graduate to junior. Is it okay, we can do that. So grant is a senior, sorry, I said it. So grant is a junior at graduating and then I have a kindergartner like I them all right. And we have a really interesting homeschool story in that we had our kids in a private Christian Montessori preschool to start off.
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And then we tried some public school and then we took our kids out of public school and started homeschooling. And so that happened when grant and Blake were just in kindergarten, first grade. And we grew our family and brought on more students and filled our school. So kind of outside of homeschool and family life, I’m also an author. I’m the author of Mom: Master Organizer of Mayhem, which is a book all about home organization and just helping moms to give themselves some grace in their home as we deal with the chaos. I’m also, the author as you mentioned, are actually coauthor of homeschool basics. I coauthored that book with Tricia Goyer. Thank you. It’s a great book. In fact, chapter one is all about just, you know, the basics like our top 10 tips for families who are just starting off with homeschooling.
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I’ve written other books as well. One is actually a free resource that I’ll, I’ll mention or we’ll link somewhere on Sanity Savers for Moms. You can get a digital download of that right now. We all need to live with sanity. So actually I’ll mention it now since I mentioned it and who knows if I remember, but if you go to KristiClover.com/sanity, you not only get the Sanity Saver book digitally downloaded, but you also get my school at home routine, which I’ve been trying to share everywhere. In fact, I’m hearing that churches are passing them out, which is awesome. So please make sure that you get that reference and get that resource and feel free that, that is one of my resources. I, I asked, go ahead. Share it. So the school at home routine, because what I keep seeing everywhere is people are trying to accomplish the school schedule at home and that doesn’t work.
(00:19:36):
That is like one of our number one tips in the Homeschool Basics book is please don’t try to make your homeschool look like public school. So yeah, so that’s, that’s me. I do a whole bunch of other stuff. I have a YouTube channel podcast and all that kind of great stuff that yup. Yup. You’re kind of all over the place. I’m all over the place. Not at the same time, but I am all over the place. Yes. And, and for those watching, just know that Kristi and I, you know, our, our primary ministry is to our families. It is our children and our husbands. And first the Lord of course. And then her husbands and then her children. And so it might sound like we do a million different things, but we don’t do it all at the same time.
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And I’ve had a team helping me for awhile. I will admit that right now during the coronavirus I’m, I’m a small business owner, so just like so many other people and one of the ways then I’m going to have to try to survive through all of this is definitely by cutting back hours on my team and you know, and that’s, it’s a hard thing, but that’s what a lot of us are having to do to, to just keep our businesses alive. And so yeah, I don’t do it all and, and when I do, it’s just, you know, it’s as good as it’s gonna get. So you do your best. So it’s very well again, welcome you guys. I want
(00:20:48):
To clarify first that I totally understand that not everybody who is home with your kids right now is a homeschooler because there is a difference between homeschooling and schooling at home. Many of you again or are you have no choice but to have your kids home with you. And some of you, I know many of you have to work and so your kids are now home and you’re trying to figure out what to do with them and how you can help guide their daily activities. Some of you are out for the rest of the school year and some of you may be out just for a few more weeks. Wait, no one knows. It’s the great mystery right now. Nobody really knows what
(00:21:20):
Great. I know our kids are like, so does this mean this? You know, can we go to Hawaii? Can we like what about we’ve got a family wedding in June. I’m all like, “who knows?”
(00:21:30):
So crazy. But let me just start out by saying God is a good God. He will give you everything that you need to accomplish what’s in front of you. And so whether you are a homeschool family officially or you’re just home with your kids right now, God is going to give you what you need in order to accomplish his will. And so this is his will for you right now is that your kids are home and, and praise God for that. So if you have questions throughout this session, right just in front of it, write the word question so that we know that you’re actually asking a question cause a lot of comments will pop up and sometimes we can’t. It’s hard to you know, decipher between questions and comments. But if you have questions, please pop those up and we would be glad to answer those. But let’s talk first. Kristi, you mentioned about the fact that it’s homeschooling is not bringing school home and that is the number one mistake that every single, just about every single homeschool mom makes is that she wants to come home and she thinks that her home is supposed to look like traditional school as we know it. So Kristi, can you talk about that a little bit and and how, what that kind of, what it looks like and how we can separate from that idea? Well, as I mentioned
(00:22:49):
You know, that is the number one thing that all of us do and we’re like, and I would say like if you are a homeschool family, just know you’re going to fight this urge for like three years. So every like it took me about three years and I’ve heard that’s pretty consistent with most people to think like, but no what, what if, what if I have to put them back in school? You know, what if, what if all these things and you’re like, I have to stay on the school schedule. And then you finally just relax and be like, okay, now things are different. But what I am seeing online is the advice that is being told to families who have their kids at home. Most of it’s coming from the teachers, which they have fabulous advice, but I will say their advice works in the classroom setting.
(00:23:27):
It’s very different managing your own kids who probably perform a little bit better. Hopefully, you know, like they’re, they’re on the better behavior in front of a stranger. But I’ll hold the say that it’s very difficult to try to bring a school schedule into your home. Number one, let your children sleep in. This is the best time to let your kids sleep in. Especially since you’re all home. Yeah. Want your kids to be well rested, so let them sleep in. It doesn’t mean you can’t have like a, you know, a time to get everybody at, but definitely let them get some extra sleep these days. And then the way I like to explain things is I like to encourage people to have a routine, so to have like time chunking. That’s the money. That’s my fancy term for time chunking. So you’re going to chunk things you want to get done, you know, before breakfast, after breakfast, before lunch, you know, after lunch, kind of however you want to break up your day.
(00:24:20):
But break it into these chunks. Because the key is that you want to free up some time in the afternoon for you. And so if you guys want to like, this is where I tell people you gotta like sit down for a minute because I’m going to give you the best advice you’ll ever receive in your entire life for this period. So whether you are schooling at home, because you’re forced to because there’s a virus out there that we’re all, you know, staying at home for, or you are a new to homeschooling, even if you are a homeschool veteran, you need to listen to this. So my advice is this, you need to do, not only divide your day at, but you need to divide the schoolwork. So if you have schoolwork that you’ve been given by your school or even your own homeschool work, you want to make sure you divide it into work with you.
(00:25:05):
So things that your kids have to do with you. So that’s going to be a lot of your pre e-reader information. And even with your readers, you might need to explain some things or teach a few new concepts, but divided up things that they can do with you and things that they can do and independently. And don’t just sit there like, this is a mistake I see, I’ve seen other people do is sometimes the I’m sorry, I’m laughing only because we’ll, we’ll do is be like, okay, I’m going to help you with this problem. And then you weight any weight and that while they’re doing the work and then you’re gonna help them with the next, and there’s, there are some things like math word problems, like they have four or five word problems. You’re going to have to kind of sit there and help them through it.
(00:25:44):
But there’s other things where you can explain it and then let them work on it a little bit and get up and go help another child. Or you can get up and, you know, make lunch or throw dinner in the crockpot, whatever it is. But I really, really, especially right now, encourage families to try to accomplish that work. That requires you in your morning chunk, so your chunk the time in the morning. So that way if they do have more work after lunch, which you’re going to be shocked at just how quickly you get through everything, that if you do have more work to get done then it’s not difficult for them to do it independently and for you to have a little break in the afternoon. This is how we save our sanity is to try to free up our afternoon. So we’re not homeschooling all day long.
(00:26:28):
That’s that. If you’re homeschooling all day long, something is is wrong somewhere I need fall, I need to reset, do a little bit of you know, research or something. But you w I mean maybe if you have 20 kids and you’re suddenly finding homeschooling, that’s, that is going to be your day, but yet normally you can get through material pretty quickly. Yeah. So be a little bit more specific about the chunking. So you’re talking about like, it sounds kind of talk a little bit more about that. Can you be more specific on that? Yeah. So I’m like, I can’t, and if I, I thought to myself, I’m like, I should go run downstairs and go grab the printables I go. So the printable that I mentioned earlier, I have all this on there. So again, if you go to KristiClover.com/sanity and if somebody wants to write that in little chat line, then people can see it. So it’s just Ford. Slash, sanity. That is where you will get not only the digital download of my book, but you’ll get the, the principle because when it comes to dividing so you want me to talk about the dividing of the day or dividing of the work? Yes.
(00:27:38):
Okay. We’ll discuss day first. I want to talk to the parent who literally like, doesn’t know anything about homeschooling and they’re like, what is this crazy woman talking about chunking? So what? So what the principal pretty much looks like… We’ll visualize. Okay. You’re letting your kids sleep in, you’re maybe eating breakfast together, reading a book, doing any activity that you want to do together in the morning time. Again, getting that work that requires you, so whether you’re reading a book together, maybe you’re doing a little family devotion now is a great time to start the habit of doing a family devotion in the morning because you have time. Even if it’s just a quick family prayer, like, Hey Lord, watch over our homeschool day and help us to just, you know, have some peace today and some joy today. So, you know, pray those things over your homeschool day.
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Then you’re going to get to work on their schoolwork. And so with their schoolwork. And this is where I’m like, I have a whole organization course that it, we won’t get into that, but looking at the material. So if you are literally our brand brand new, you’re going to take each child’s material and separate it. So we’re going to go real nitty gritty here. We’re going to separate all of our kids’ material into what they need to accomplish for the week. And then you’re going to take it and you’re going to ask your kids, so work with your kids. Do you want me to divide this up by subject? So you want to try to get all math done on one day or do you want to divide it up and maybe do like just 10 minutes of math, 10 minutes of writing and you know, kind of do it like that.
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But then also know that you, I mean try, you’re going to have to try different things and it might work differently with each child, but you have to kind of get a feel for this is the work we have to accomplish this week, which will actually usually make them feel a little bit better because the unknown is a little scary when they don’t know exactly what needs to get done. So if there’s a writing or start a reading or writing assignment that does not have a piece of paper associated with it, I would put it on an index card. So again, they see that this is what needs to get done and there are going to be those classes that you can’t do all in one day. You’re going to have to spread it out during the week, but you’re gonna want to look at that and figure out, you know, what of this work right here needs like again, your pre readers, you’re going to have to be reading most of the material with them.
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So you’ll be working pretty one-on-one with them the whole time and kind of trying to see what can you group together with your kids if you have multiple kids. But really trying to figure out you know, what do they, okay, I’m going to have to explain how to do this. I’m going to have to explain how to do that. And then allowing them to get that independent work done on their own time or while you work with the next person. So sometimes I’m literally doing just one assignment with one child and then jumping over to the next kid to explain their assignment while they’re getting started. And so we kind of do with back and forth, but if there’s any independent reading that gets saved until after lunch in our home, in our home. And so that’s, that’s kind of what I mean as far as chunking your time is what do you want to try to accomplish.
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And the other key thing is don’t forget evenings. Because you can also do some of the work in the evenings. So if there’s a book you need to be reading, maybe just save it for evening time where you just want some Mel a time in the evening or find the book on audio. Yes, the same. You’re welcome that I mean like that. I remember the first time somebody said that I’m like, wait a minute, what? I could get an audio book. I don’t have to actually read it to them. And then yeah, so cause there are some books that I’m just like this book, I hate to say that sometimes on the books I’m just not as interested in and just like I mostly because of my brain I’m thinking of the other things I need to get done. Right. So I am some books I’m like, no, no, no.
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Don’t you go read ahead at me. Like I want to be there. I’m going to read that with you. In fact, the kids are doing that to me today. They’re like, okay, we’ll have daddy read this part. I’m like, no, I want it gone or do it when I’m in the room. Something that, you know, make it fun. But that is, I’m hoping that makes sense. Like dividing your day into what you want to accomplish when. Right. Right. And it really helps to have things written down because like I said, if it’s not written down and you just expect them, just say go, go do your work. That can be very overwhelming for mom and their card. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so having things written down and it doesn’t have to be a pretty colorful spreadsheet. You can literally just take a notebook and just write down, you know, here’s, here’s what it is today.
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And for some, you know, I know you talked about planning out the week ahead of time. I know for my girls we just, because we have kind of a wonky schedule and our family we, we don’t and we travel a lot and so we don’t have, I don’t ever come up with our like scope and sequence for the whole year. Yeah. And that’s at homeschool-ese word too. So you might want to explain what that is. “Scope And sequence” Oh, well that’s that one when I’m, remember when people threw that away or threw that around when I was first homeschooled. I’m like, what? Right. So that’s, that’s the plan. Thank you for clarifying that. That’s your plan basically for the whole year that says, you know, ok week one you’re going to do this lesson on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, week two, you’re going to do these problems and you know, these lessons that does not work
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For our family. Actually, I don’t know any family that, that works perfectly for. Most families will at least mom can maybe plan a week ahead of time, but for us it works best for us to just say the next lesson. And so my girls just have a blank, a grid, basically a worksheet and it has math history literature and you know, all the different subjects that they have. And then as they complete it, they actually write in the blank what lesson they’ve completed for the day. And that works much better for us. And there are those teacher planners. Yeah, that’s another, that’s another like homeschool mom, like our first, first year homeschool mom thing. I’m going to write out everything we’re going to do all year by day. No, like, no, don’t do that. They can fill it out. It’s so funny. I remember the very first time I saw one of those, it was at target, this was nine and a half years ago and it was in the dollar section and it was this really cute little teacher planner.
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And I was like, Oh, this is my first year homeschooling at kindergarten. And it was like, Oh right. Actually plan out my whole year. And I mean I was so excited to be able to do that. And so anyway, I learned very quickly that that doesn’t work because here you can plan your whole year ahead of time, but not like that. And that’s scary. Right, right and right. Yes, that is scary. And here’s the thing is that as everyone’s finding out right now, life happens and it’s beyond our control oftentimes. And so you can plan everything out, but then you’ve got, you know, kids will end up sick or maybe, you know, dad loses his job. I mean, that’s been a thing that has happened with many friends, you know, of ours. His dad loses his job and you end up having to move in the middle of the school year for a new job.
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Or, I mean, there just are so many things, a new baby being born, there are so many things that can just throw kind of a virtual wrench into our homeschool plan. And so give yourself grace. I mean, they’re, yeah, I cannot stress that enough. Give yourself grace as a mom and give your kids grace because you’re in this together. You’re, you’re not in a race to win this race and say, we did it. We, we finished, you know, to the very end of the book, the goal is so that your kids will learn and so that they will love learning, not so that they can check a box and say, we have finished to the end of the book because that actually doesn’t usually ever happen anyway. Nope. Not even public schools. I had so many posts with teachers who gave me the kind words of we never finished books. And I was like, God bless you. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, that gave, made me feel a lot more grace. Yes. Yes. Let’s answer a couple of questions here. So I’m like, yeah. What is a good teaching frame for each subject? Example, I’ve worked in one hour of reading, one hour for math. I know that can be flexible. My concern is it too much? Do you want to run with that? Yeah. It’s really going to be child dependent. Here is what we all have to face is everything’s got to be child
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Dependent. If you’ve got a child that loves reading and you’re like, we’re going to do 10 minutes of reading right now, they’re going to be like, no, please, please keep going. So it depends on how old is your child is too. So if you’re talking about highschool or that’s totally appropriate an hour of math, an hour of reading that, that’s exactly high school level. So I would ask Lisa how old are, I don’t know if Lisa or Lisa Marie how old your child is if you’re talking kindergarten please. No, no, no, no, no, no. Like your whole day should be done in an hour with your, with your preschooler. I mean with your kindergartner and really, truly families out there listening in. If you have a kindergarten or in first grade or you can get away with reading to your kids in baking with them and maybe doing like basic math, ABC, you know, like just basics.
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Just keep it fun. And really reading is the most important thing you can do with your young children. Yep. But you know, for other families there’s different styles of homeschooling and one style, I’m not even gonna throw the name out there because that’s overwhelming, but one style says 10 minutes of each type of discipline each day. Other people will tell you to mix it up and be like, I’m going to do an hour of math today and that’s what you do. And then the next day I’m doing an hour of history today. And that’s what you do, you know, so it really depends on you. And it depends on the age. Okay. Fourth and sixth. Thank you. Okay, so fourth grade. No, that’s way too much. I would say for one day. Six grade, it’s still it just depends. It depends on how rigorous the math is.
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I’m reading, I would say go for 30 minutes. Personally, that’s me, unless you’re, unless you’re a teacher, if you are in a school is telling you they are required to get this much reading done. But 30 is usually a pretty good timeframe for, for having them do independent reading. And again, math hopefully isn’t going to take you a whole hour. Calculus might. But yeah, fourth and sixth grade math shouldn’t take that long. Yeah. And we all get to have fun teaching our kids how to carry the one. Right. Well, and you know, math, I find to be one of those subjects that it depends. We do online math. So we use teaching textbooks. Yeah. We’d have one kid who does it. We absolutely love it. And they have to do at least one lesson a day. Sometimes they’ll do two. And here’s how we do our math. If they are working on a you know, particular math problem and what is the word I’m thinking? Math idea, but that’s not the right word. Onset concept. That’s the word I’m looking for. What’s that word? You know, I did this in like Rolodex. If they’re, if they’re learning a brand new concept and it’s something that’s really difficult for them, they may not get through a whole lesson in a day, but if they’re reviewing something that they already know, maybe it’s just a little bit more advanced. Then I, I, I’ll tell them
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If they, if they’re doing a good job with it, do every other problem because there’s no sense if they’ve got it down. Yeah. They don’t need to do every single problem. So I’ll have them do every other problem. And then they can sometimes get through a math lesson in a matter of, you know, 10 minutes. And oftentimes they’ll do a second math lesson just because they can, they have time and they’ll oftentimes say, Oh, I did two math lessons today, but sometimes they only get through half a math lesson because it’s a new concept and they’re struggling with, with it clicking in their minds. And and so it just depends. It depends on where they are with that. History I do with my girls and I really enjoy that we read together and and so that is just something that we do.
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The three of us together, a science they do separately and it depends on, they, they watch science videos and they’ve got workbooks and things. And so, you know, it just, it just depends on the subject. It depends on the child. And it depends on their attention span. Because what you don’t want to do is it, this is a hard balance because you don’t want to force your children to sit down and you are going to do this and you are going to like it and you’re going to be happy about it and you’re going to learn it with tears running down their faces. That’s not fun for anyone that’s miserable for mom, for child, for everybody. And all they’re going to do is end up hating whatever it is that you’re making them do. On the other hand, they still have to do the work.
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And you know, that is required of them. And so you have to kind of find a good balance. Like you said, morning time for some is great if they’re awake and you know, revived in the morning after waking up and you’ve let them sleep in a little bit, oftentimes that’s the best time for some, you know what, after lunchtime is the best time to do the harder subjects, it, it just depends on your child. And that’s one of the great bands to do. I would say it depends on YouTube because if you, I think you have to make it work for everybody because your sanity is the key. So if your kids are afternoon learners, that means you’re going to take some of that, that Sandy mom time in the morning, right? So just go read a book on your own while your kids are kind of waking up and maybe getting some reading done or something basic.
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Right. You’ve got to figure that out as a family. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Every family is different. And that’s one of the beauties of homeschooling is that you know, your kids better than anyone else knows them. And so you have the flexibility now to be able to cater to them and, and really foster a love for learning in them. And you know, if your kids, I know a lot of people are on spring break right now but if your kids are used to a very rigorous schedule, if they’ve been in school, you might need to take a week to just breathe a little bit. If you don’t have work that’s required to turn in. But just take a week, be a family, go outside as much as you can, you know, don’t, don’t get within six feet of anybody but let your kids play outside. That’s another thing is take breaks and let your kids go outside and just blow off. You know,
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Some of their run off some of their energy and Oh yeah. And this is the great time to for families who maybe don’t have as, I really don’t know what your teachers are giving your kids right now. It does sound like there. See here’s the thing is that when I found out my homeschool year, I’m an idealist. Like I’m like making it, but then you have to be realists like you have. Like you can’t just think like, Whoa, this is all going to be awesome. You have to be realistic too. Cause a lot of times when you’re in the middle of it you’re like, eh, Nope. Not going to happen. And so I’m hoping that the teachers out there are understanding that we are just in different times. And so yes, they have assignments that are due and this is where I think parents need to have a voice and need to make sure to be like, you know, this is unrealistic.
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I had that and I’ve had friends tell me that, that they literally set a timer and they said, if my child cannot accomplish this and this amount of time, then you’ve assigned too much work. So I was like, Whoa. So I mean you can do all kinds of things. I’ve seen all these great comments too. I’m loving all the little like, yeah, I do that to you. Yeah. And everything. But there was something, somebody wrote something, Oh, you guys are talking about writing, you ha you write it down or they write it down as far as what you accomplished in the day. Yes. but let’s see, what was the other one that I saw? That I was like, Oh, I want to make sure we talked about that. Okay. I heard if my younger one is crying and throwing a fit, the level of the length of time you have is too hard.
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Yeah. So, okay, so here’s a thing. If the work that you are doing, your child is throwing a tantrum or crying or breaking down, think of it this way. When your child is attempting to do work, you’re going to sometimes see a fight or flight reflex. You’re in. The fight is when they start arguing with you and they get really mad and upset and they don’t want to do it. The flight is, I feel the bathroom. I need to drink water. I need, you know, it just looks different in homeschooling. I remember the first time I was like, Oh, this is fight or flight. You’re going to see that come up. You’re going to see a lot of fun opportunities to get to parent your child. But oftentimes you are going to also see underline moments where you, they need to have some foundations retaught.
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So if they’re struggling with math and getting frustrated and crying over it, maybe it’s because the concept is a little bit above their level or maybe they don’t have their math facts down because with math, Oh my goodness, if you get one little thing wrong in like, like in division or multiplication, if you miss, you know, one piece, then you know, you’ve got to rework the whole thing. So that is where you’ve got to know those facts. Same with reading, same with writing. Sometimes we just need to pull back a little and brush up on those core, you know, facts and then move forward from there. So if your child is definitely, you know, feeling that kind of pressure also know right now it’s crazy. Kids are confused. So we need to be really, really mindful of that. And I think now is not the time to push them and be like, nah, you got to get this done.
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This is a time to embrace effective y’all to be home together. So we’re going to take homeschool time. Fun. And this is, I actually just did a YouTube video about what we were doing in our in our day we were reading in ancient history about what were, Oh, cuneiform. So we’re learning about like early writing. And so I was like, Oh wait, we have clay. So we like grab some clay and we made our little cuneiforms and I had to make letters for their dad and they couldn’t use any words. They had to do pictures. So that’s an example. And then we happened to read a book where it was based in China and the little boy was eating dumplings. I was like, Oh yeah, but to have dumplings in the freezer. So you know, and Hey, if you really want to have fun than you read Amelia Bedelia that lemon meringue pie or farmer boy there, they eat everything in that one.
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Lots of donuts, lots of yummy stuff. But that’s that’s just an example of just being mindful. Like, listen to what’s happening with your kid. And I will say this too, is that if your child truly is frustrated and not getting concepts, there could also be learning disabilities that are hidden there that are starting to come out. And I will say that through homeschooling, I’ve discovered that I’m slightly dyslexic and I kind of always kind of knew that, but through homeschooling and learning more things, I’m like, Oh, that’s me. So it’s always really interesting as you learn things about yourself. But yeah, so I hope that’s encouraging. Just give yourself grace, but give your kids grace too. It’s really important to not push them too hard into really, I mean, when our kids are reacting, it’s usually because of something. So maybe they are fearful. Maybe they are just not wanting to do the work. Maybe they are lazy, you know, mad that is when you’re like [inaudible] like we’re going to push a little harder, but maybe they do have some fundamentals that they just need to brush up on. Is that, yeah, there’s my like 10 cents. That’s not even 2 cents. They give me 10 cents.
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That is a shiny new dime right there, Kristi. And, and yes, it’s, remember that the relationship that you’re building with your child is more important than just the academics. And so that, you know, you’ve, you’ve got to keep that in mind and you do not want to come to the end of the day with everyone in tears. And, you know, mom, just like, I can’t wait to get away from these kids and kids can’t wait to get away from mom and you know, they’re, they’re fighting with each other. I mean that nobody wants that. That is a miserable, miserable day. And so you know, just remember it’s the relationship comes first and, and then allow, just allow things to kind of fall into line and you have to guide them. You know, kids aren’t going to on their own, just say, mom, I’m going to do my math now for the next 30 minutes and then I’m going to do that.
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There are some, I’m just going to say that and it’s amazing. And if you have one, you kiss them extra big and you just, you’d like, you think you thank the Lord for giving me that child because that is not always the way things go. It is not though I would say most people who have a child like that, that might be one of several of their kids. So yeah. So if you have more than one kid then likely that they are not all that way. And hi Stephanie Mallory, I see you on there. You asked how long do you let them take a break between subjects? It depends. For us, I mean it depends on what’s going on, you know, if it’s a really nice day, then sometimes we’ll let them hang out outside a little bit longer. But that also means that sometimes it will take them longer to get there.
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I mean there’s, we have many days where they’re still doing school work at five o’clock in the evening and it’s not because they’ve been sitting at the table since eight in the morning. It’s because they haven’t started until maybe one o’clock in the afternoon because we’ve had stuff going on in the morning and then they’ve taken breaks in between and they’ve played with the neighbors. And so it just depends. But you’re not playing with neighbors right now. We’re not playing with neighbors right now. Our social distancing. I know we just wasted, but in a normal day, yeah, no, and it’s true. Like you between subjects, sometimes I go subject, I’ll be like, Ooh, we did this, we did this. You kind of have to judge how your child’s doing. And then one thing that I noticed when my kids were younger, I used to laugh because I thought, okay, well we’ll do, this is back when I did the schedule thing, right, we’re going to do this, this and this, and then it’s snack time.
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And then we did this, this, and this and this lunchtime and do this, this and the snack time. And then you’re like, I’d had our day all broken down and it was driving me insane. But don’t be afraid to just go onto the next subject. But snacks used to get in the way. So I’ve learned to have faster snacks so that way it’d be like, Hey, while you guys are working on this, I’m going to go cut up some apples and, and get some peanut butter and you know, bring that over here to you and make sure they’re drinking lots of water to water hydrates. And it’s important for learning. It’s important for the brain. And this is an amazing time to get to see what it looks like when your kids can get some protein, get some great nutrition and you know, water drinking lots of water.
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It sounds crazy, but that’s all part of getting the brain ready to learn. So proper sleep, proper nutrition, those are a really important things and exercise. So don’t be afraid to go run out and you know, let them, let them go, run and play a little bit. Right without touching other people right now. And exercise and being outdoors is just as important for them and their brain development as the academics. Abby Rinella and I did a whole podcast on the outdoors in the importance of kids being outdoors. And it really is very important for children to be outside, to get that vitamin D to be running around it. It is, it’s important for their brain development to do that. And so don’t think that when they’re taking a break and outside plane that nothing is getting done and nothing is happening. They’re actually still doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. And it’s, it’s why at schools, you know, they have recess and they have PE and those things because kids need that. And their brains need to take a break. Like they have to, you cannot do subjects back to back. You can’t go from math to science to history all in one shot and then say, okay, we’re done with school. Now we can play. I can’t do that. I mean that would make my brain explode. So and
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Yeah, and exercise is good. And you can you look up do like a some like probably a Google search on “brain games.” cause one thing that I’ve learned, cause we did, we have a program out here called brain highways and we did it with one kid and we kind of apply a lot of things with all the kids. But one of the things is when you when you cross over, left to right and right to left it actually helps your brain to connect. So sometimes I want to switch back. Second, do you visit that? Hit the mic doing like crazy eights with your thumb and just do have them do some crazy eights. So you know, and then switch off and see if they can do it. The other one. But just doing little things like that actually helps to like shake the brain into gear.
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And then you can do all kinds of things. Like you can toss the ball back and forth while you do math drills so you can do active things. And the more ways that you’re engaging their senses, the more they’re going to learn. And the more ways that you’re engaging the types of learning. So be that, you know, we’ve probably all heard of like visual learners, auditory learners. And then there’s kinesthetic learners and they also process like, I forget what the right word for that one, but there’s like an oral processing person. So I was writing and I’m like, Oh, maybe that’s why I talk so much. And I like answer my own questions. I’m like, I just need to tell my husband that. I’m like, I need to talk at you for a second so I can figure this out. And he’s like, okay.
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So if the more you can engage those senses and have them teach it back to you, yep. That is the best thing to do. So you get all kinds of good stuff right now, another thing is, well while you are reading to your kids, and, and Kristi, you mentioned this earlier, but I want to reiterate this. It is so important for you to read to your kids and read them good books. I mean there you can find so many great lists of just good and excellent books that you can read to your kids. Unfortunately, most libraries are closed now. Right now. I know ours is, but but I’m sure you know, most of us, Libby Libby has an app. It’s an, it’s an online library. Let me look at my phone. Oh, I don’t, well we use hoopla. That’s our library and they have audio books on there.
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And so you should be able to get to hoopla or there’s another one there. There are a few of my most public libraries have an app where you can actually charge out audio books. Is it called Libby? Okay. Yeah, ours is Libby. So yeah, you so you can check out audio books, you can check out real books you know, just digitally. But yes, yes. And yes, I think mobile, I think we, we do have a list from Lee Barton’s. I’m not exactly sure where to find that, but you know, Sarah McKinsey read a lot of revival. You can go to read a lot of revival.com and download her book list. There are many ways that you can find really good books that you can read to your kids. But read to them and while you’re reading to them, do not make your kids sit still without moving.
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That will, it will kill them and they’re gonna end up getting in trouble. And you’re gonna think that they’re not listening if they’re moving around and playing, but they are, they’re going to actually, most kids listen better. Very few kids can sit still and listen to somebody read to them. Most kids have to do something with their hands. My girls today, we were reading Johnny Tremaine right now and so my girls were sitting and have you read that book ages ago? Oh, I’ve never read it. We just started it. I know it’s on the reading list. I’m like, wait, did I read it with the boy? I think, yeah. It’s not to go luck. It’s a great fun that my boys did. It’s one of those books that, you know, I’ll get to the end of the chapter. Micros are like, don’t stop. And so yes, the mystery of history.
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They have a ton of Linda Hobar has a bunch of historical fiction read alouds. I mean there’s so many resources for you to find good literature. So let them play. Well, my, while I was reading to my girls today, they, their cousins gave them a big thing of Legos and you know, Lacey, my leg, she loves like, and her sister will play with her and so they, they were building stuff out of Legos and sorting them out and stuff. And that’s so good for them to do that. So let them do things with their hands, drawing Plato you know, they can be outside doing something to play with a ball, doing something where they can still hear. And so that’s really, really important for them. Gloria, you’re asking, let me see. Do you do reading, writing and math every day and then other subjects a few days each week?
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My girls are eight and a half and almost seven first and second grade. And not reading well yet. Should I just focus on reading and writing and math or not worried right now about other subjects as much that you want to answer that? Kristi, that’s a great question. So my advice when people, when we have moments like this, so when things are crazy, when I’m pushing my LA speakers in there a little better the, when things are crazy, I always tell parents stick to the basics, reading, writing and arithmetic. Those are the basics. So you know, whether they’re writing a letter to grandma, whether they’re reading a library book or you’re reading to them, you know, whether you, I mean, you can do everything from the Bible quite frankly. Yes, you can work all kinds of stuffs around there. Remember that history is reading, science is reading.
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You can write based off of that if you don’t want to miss out on that. You can actually do unit studies where a unit study for those of you who are unfamiliar with as you pick something, this is a great time for unit studies. Actually pick a subject or something your kids are really interested in. So we did Knights and castles because I had all boys for such a long time. We also did ancient history and with Knights and castles. And granted, we got a lot of books in the library, but boy, we were having fun. You take pool noodles and have like Justine sessions you’ll have a make a dinner and you had to eat it all with your hands, like chicken or something hands. But there’s so many fun ways for your kids to learn and to incorporate other subjects into what you’re learning about.
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But if you have an eight and a half and seven year olds, so yeah, first and second read Ray to them, have some fun with what you’re doing. It again, like I don’t want to overstep my bounds as far as what your school is telling you to do, but like I never even thought about offering that advice, but it’s not bad advice. Like take your kids out of school and just homeschooling for the rest of the year and then that will just do a little bit. Yeah, it just tells like your state organization or HSL da and do it legally. But yes, yes, yes. So that is important. So, yeah, I can’t do it legally. But you’re in California and the one that does the getting started talks, I can tell you how to do it legally in California, but you know, reading, writing, math, that’s great.
(00:56:54):
You can do those, but if you have a passion for history and your kids love learning about history, just make that work too. So make that be your reading. But I’m hoping that’s answering your question, but now is not the time for eight and a half and seven. I mean, work on some basics. You know, making sure you’re in improving on those reading skills and, you know, improving on those math skills. Teach some new concepts maybe here and there, but you can also accomplish those with things like baking. Okay. We’re going to double a recipe, make chocolate chip cookies and double the recipe. And you’re welcome. Yes. So she already home
(00:57:25):
Gloria as she knows Kay and Gloria. They’re young. They’re, I’m, I’m telling you they’re still young and don’t stress out over it. I mean, if, I would say at that age when they’re really interested in learning to read they will soar. But if you try to, if they’re not quite interested at that age and you push it on them, it’s going to just become a frustration. There’s something about reading. And I’ve really learned this with both of my girls that they, it just kinda clicks with them at some point. We, we actually, this is kind of a funny story, I don’t know if I’ve told this to you, Kristi, but we really try to read good literature and our, and our family, we read a lot of fun books too. It’s not like, you know, we always are reading Shakespeare, but as a matter of fact, we’ve never read Shakespeare.
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Okay. None of the zone by seconds. Like, do I have to read that? I’m like, no. Right.
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And, but we try to read good books with our kids, but some books we just read for fun, but there are some books that I’m just like, Nope. Absolutely not. We’re not gonna that’s just junk. And so when my oldest daughter was learning how to read and she was just kind of struggling, she really didn’t have much of an interest in reading. She somehow came across the diary of a wimpy kid books and I was like, no, these are total Junka. You can not read those. Well Garrett had actually worked on a couple of the movies. He worked on the diary, but when the kid movies and so then she really was like, but daddy worked on these movies and I really want to read, you know, this book. And so Garrett just said, you know what, if it will help her to love reading, then let her run with it and read it.
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And the great thing was is those books, I mean there’s like I think three sentences on each page. And so when she first started reading it, she was like, I just read the whole book in like three days. And she was so proud of herself and that was what she needed to get that confidence to read. And then from then on, she was so excited, you know, I mean, she still doesn’t love to read, but she’s a very good reader now. And and it was just funny that it took that book that I would have been like, Nope, never. I, we’re not gonna read that book. But because she had a personal connection with it, she was excited about it. And so sometimes we have to be willing to bend a little bit and say, okay, well maybe that will be helpful. And, and it worked. You know, daddy knew best.
(00:59:45):
Oh yeah. That’s so sweet. Yes. Yes. I’m like, you’ll have another one. Do you have another question? Okay. No, no, I’m looking at some of us saying my five year old was pushed too early, so had to eat my pride and go, I’m the very basics with him. Read a daily, he loves to learn. Yeah. And that’s the other thing is that a captain on a band. I know. And you know what, that’s the thing is like, I’m boy mama now I’m a girl mom too. And so I should say my five kids, I’ve got three boys and then two girls. I’d be surprised about some of the books that they have and cause their friends will tell them about books when their friends are excited about books and they talk about books. And so it’s, it’s really, I mean granted, like I draw the line at some books and my oldest is a, he, he’s an avid reader.
(01:00:30):
Like it cannot, I mean he just finished these ma, this massive English class. It was like this eight week condensed college English class and he cracked me up cause the first thing he did, he’s like, I just want to write and I just want to read. And I was like, Oh, okay. That’s just him. That’s how he’s wired. My other kids are not like that. But he’s the one that I can always go to and like, okay, you know, like is this a book that your brother can read? Cause that’s always my standard. I’m like, would you give this to your brother to read? I wouldn’t give it to my brother to read. So yeah, it is hard to keep up with that. And that’s why resources like Sarah McKinsey’s read aloud revival, so good. Such a great resource and honey for a child’s heart, great resource. And I’m plugged in online, which is a focus on the family. Resource. They do have some books on their beliefs. I say that and I’m like, I didn’t think so. Or maybe it’s common sense meaty media is that when, I don’t know one of those two. They have, they have some other things now I want to look it up, but, okay. Yeah. So those are a few resources that we’ve used through the years.
(01:01:31):
Yeah, that’s awesome. I know also for right now while people are home to go to homeschoolfreedom.com actually, if you go to the Schoolhouse Rocked website, SchoolhouseRocked.com, go to the website and you’ll see a button right on the front. It says “homeschooling in your state” and click on that and it will take you to a website called, I think it’s homeschool freedom.com. But you could go there and there’s a whole list of just like freebie things like videos and tours of museums and national parks and zoos and things like that that, that you can use right now that will be really fun for your kids to participate in as your home with them. We’re, we’re about out of time, but Kristi, I want you to answer one more quick question. One of the chapters that you have in the book is getting beyond your fears. And I know this is a fearful time for many because there it’s, it’s new. They don’t know, they’ve never done this before. And even for homeschool moms, oftentimes it’s just kinda scary because we feel like we are, we’re re, we’re holding our children’s education in our hands and it’s so much more than their education in the academics. But can you talk to the mom and encourage the mom and the dad who are feeling fearful right now? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
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I think it’s very natural. As parents in general forget about homeschooling or schooling at home or whatever it is, we are always like, I don’t want to ruin my kid. Like what are they going to tell a counselor when they go there? That’s the type of thing that I always think to myself. Like I don’t, I don’t want to hinder what they’re going through and that’s a big fear, but there’s a lot of fears rolling around right now and I just want to say this is the time to lean on the Lord. And one thing that I read, I just in fact there’s a, I just interviewed the author of fears, not the boss of you. I’m Jessica Allwood and one of the things she wrote in her book that was so good, she said that our brains are hardwired to protect us. And so when there’s something new, our brain automatically is like, you could die.
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Like that’s literally how our brain is programmed. If it’s new and there’s no input and no experience with it, our brain wants to protect us. So it just tells us you will die, which is good when you are faced with like a lion in front of you, you should run that, you could die. But when we have new things, sometimes it’s a matter of just knowing that you have to squash this feeling of fear. This like this could hurt, this could go wrong and you have to step forward with confidence. And as Christians we have confidence in the Lord and that he is going to carry us through all circumstances. And so you have to use wisdom. But I would say pray, pray like you’ve never prayed before. Pray with your kids, let your kids find you praying. That is really, really important fact.
(01:04:10):
That was one of the tips that Louie Giglio gave when I had the opportunity to talk to him. He, he was mentioning like that is one thing all parents should make sure they do is let your kids catch you praying. Yeah, your kids catch you in the word. And so that’s modeling right there that you’re trusting in the Lord. And one thing that my six year old is going through right now that I’ve noticed is that at night she’s, she’s fearful. It’s not Corona virus. I think it, it’s gotta be mixed in somewhere. But at night she wasn’t telling me, I’m afraid that people are going to come. And I was like, no, you’re safe. And so we’re setting the alarm more than we ever had before, but I pray with through every night. And so now it’s getting support. I’m like, is it a habit?
(01:04:46):
Cause she just likes sex to hugs and to pray. You know, like you never know quite how to read into that. But it’s just important to know that if we’re fearful we need to go to the Lord with it because he tells us do not fear, you know, take courage. And so that is what’s important is just whatever. I mean like I could talk to all kinds of different fears, but that’s the most important thing to know is that, you know, we, God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity. He’s given us a spirit of, you know, of power. This is where I’m testing my memory verse a power of love and of self. So like in my head I’m like a power of love. Self did this way or teaching our kids right now. But that’s so important to remind us of is that the spirit of God that lives in us is not a spirit of fear. And so we have a spirit of fear then we need to take that to the Lord.
(01:05:33):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I I think of Philippians four, six and seven, which is do not be anxious about anything but in everything with Thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Don’t be anxious about this time. He has you here for a reason. He is in this, he knows exactly what’s going on with you specifically in your family and moms. You have to here, you have to know that God hears you. He sees you. He, none of this is a surprise to him. He knows everything that’s going on and he knows your fears. And so take them to him, put them out his feet and trust him to strengthen you and to give you the wisdom. You know, James talks, the book of James talks about if we ask for wisdom, he will give it to us.
(01:06:20):
Pray and ask the Lord for wisdom and getting through this time and he is going to provide you with the wisdom that you need and the strength that you need and know that you cannot do this without him. We can’t do this life without him. It’s why we need a savior. But, but he knows you and he loves you. Mom and dad, as much as he loves your kids. You know, I, when I remember when, when my oldest was born, we had waited almost 11 years for her. It was very long wait. And so I remember just holding her and realizing like, Oh, I like, I loved her so much. It hurt. I mean, it was like a such a deep, deep love that I had never felt for anyone in my whole life. I mean, I love my husband dearly, but it was just a deep kind of love, which I know every parent feels.
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And to think that God loves us so much more. And so as much as you love your kids, God loves you even more, and he’s with you and he’s going to guide you and he’s going to protect you and your family. And so don’t do this in fear, but do this knowing that God is behind you, he is strengthening you and he will give you the wisdom that you need to be able to get through this. So I’m in Stephanie. It’s so fun having you on with us. I see your comment there. It says so fun seeing you live. So I missed you. Stephanie’s one of my good friends from California and so,
(01:07:35):
Oh, very much miss. Or our friends.com I was like copying them like, Oh, don’t cough. He wasn’t thinking of the coronavirus. Well, this is my water. Yeah, this is a virtual, I’m sorry, I’m not going to let me know. We won’t get it. I’m in Georgia. You’re in California. So I’m good here. And I wanted to mention one more thing as far as fear, cause I know one thing people are afraid of is like what if I don’t know how to explain this to my kids? Or what if their schoolwork is harder than I know how to handle reach out. There are YouTube videos. There are people in your life who are good at this face time them normally I’d say take them to lunch face time them. Yes, no figure out ways you know to call
(01:08:15):
A friend. We all probably know a teacher in our lives. We probably know an engineer. If you’re stuck on math, you know we probably know someone who’s good at science, you name it, someone who’s a writer. So there’s so many people out there. It’s a great way to build community. One of the older gentlemen in our church has been doing Skype calls with my girlfriend and teaching their her boys some art lessons. So she’s been doing these Skype calls. She just, she took a picture. She, you know, set the little, you know, iPad up. It’s a great way to interact with brand parents, you know, have the grandparents read aloud to your kids. You know, it’s really easy to find fabulous ways to connect as a community right now online and make them help you homeschool.
(01:09:03):
There is nothing wrong with, with, you know, online learning, so. Yep. That’s right. Well, I hope we have been able to encourage you guys today. Thank you so much for joining us. Again, if you want to get lots more information and lots more encouragement through this event, you can go to HomegrownGeneration.com and you I, I don’t even know if there’s a whole list yet of, of the sessions that are up. I don’t know if you have to be registered to see that or not. I think you can actually see it on there. But to have access to all of that you can register. It’s only $20 to register for the entire event. It’s 30 sessions of everything you need to know about homeschooling. And we have several more sessions coming up over the next few weeks. We’re going to be doing one or two live sessions like this a week.
(01:09:51):
We’ve got one coming up, I believe with Sam and Kevin Sorbo, they’re going to be doing a session on marriage. We’ve got Kirk Cameron coming back and he’s actually going to be talking about the, the state of our nation and just bringing hope through God’s word. And it’s going to be a really fun one. If you have seen the movie monumental, it’s going to be very much based on that. And if you have not seen monumental, and I’m like, we’ve got to watch that. I forgot that one. Have you seen older boys? I haven’t watched it in a long time. It’s so good. It’s my favorite movie of his. And so go watch monumental with your family. You can watch it with your whole family. You know your, your kids will enjoy it as well. It’s it’s all about the history and the founding of our nation and it’s a fantastic movie.
(01:10:30):
Very well done. So he’s going to be talking about that and he’s going to be live so you can ask questions to him. And then we’ve got several others coming up within the next few weeks. So stick with us. Keep, keep an eye out on the website and on the Facebook page and you can see when we’ve got new sessions coming out, they’re going to be kind of sporadic. We’ve got Rebecca Spooner coming. She’s she will be joining us I think April 2nd Meeke Addison will be with us April 1st. And so we’ve got some exciting things coming up, so join us for those as well. Thank you guys so much. Hi Lisa. It’s good to see you on here. Thank you guys for joining us. We love you and we are praying for you. If you have questions that we can help answer, feel free to post those either in these comments or on the Homegrown Generation Facebook page. And we will do our very best to answer your questions for you. So until then, have a fantastic evening and go love your kid as taxi later. Bye. Thank you, Kristi. Absolutely.
(01:11:26):
Yeah.