%20(1).png)
The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
Instagram LIVE Event with Two Former Teachers of 20 Years Who Now Homeschool
What happens when dedicated teachers with advanced degrees and decades in the classroom realize the system isn't working for their own children? Two extraordinary educators share their journeys into the unknown world of homeschooling after collectively spending over 40 years in public education.
Deanna and Leigh Ann take us behind the curtain of their transition from traditional schooling to home education, revealing the personal "enough is enough" moments that pushed them to make radical changes for their families. One witnessed her son three grade levels behind in math catch up within six months. The other found herself peeking into a classroom to see her young son sitting dejected and crying behind a mask. These deeply human experiences—not academic theories—drove their decisions to create something different.
Both women candidly admit the learning curve was steep. They initially tried replicating school at home with rigid schedules and desk work before discovering that true learning looks radically different: conjugating verbs while jumping on trampolines, incorporating cooking as applied mathematics, and allowing natural curiosity to drive deeper investigation. With refreshing honesty, they discuss working full-time while homeschooling (yes, it's possible), the importance of "deschooling" before implementing formal curricula, and why Finland achieves 100% literacy by starting formal education at age seven.
Whether you're a curious parent wondering about alternatives, a teacher questioning the system, or a homeschooler seeking validation, this conversation offers practical wisdom without judgment. The message is clear: you don't need specialized credentials to educate your children. As Leanne says, "You can learn with them. If you don't know how to do it, learn alongside them." Their stories prove that sometimes the most powerful educational choice is simply choosing to do things differently.
Want to explore these ideas further? Connect with Deanna at "Dr. Deanna's Learning for Littles" on YouTube and check out Leigh Ann's book "Making the Switch" about her transition experience.
Dr. Deanna's Learning for Littles YouTube Page
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
Hey everybody, my name is Cheryl, I am host of the Homeschool how To Podcast and I'm doing a live tonight with Deanna and Leanne. They are homeschooling moms and we are going to be talking about how to transition from the public school life to the homeschooling life. Okay, here, we go.
Speaker 2:We've got Leanne as well.
Speaker 1:Leanna, hi, deanna. So thank you guys for joining me tonight. I kind of want to just get into doing these lives because I think it just benefits people to hear like like a day in the life of a homeschooler honestly, and that's what my podcast is. But I wanted to zero in tonight on how to transition from like the public school life to the homeschool life, cause if all you know is you know get up at 6am, get the kids on the bus and you go to work and come home and cook the dinner and do it all over again, you kind of like you can't conceptualize what a day in the life of a homeschool schooler looks like For me. I was like, oh my God, are we going to like have to learn how to whittle and just whittle all day?
Speaker 2:Like what are we going?
Speaker 1:to be doing. We're going to be staring at each other, and now that I'm doing it it is not the case at all. But first I guess I'm going to throw it over to Deanna, just because you were the first one that signed in. But can you give us a little brief synopsis of your life, how many kids you have and kind of how you got into the homeschooling?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have two boys. They are now not littles, they are bigs. I'm actually graduating my oldest as a homeschool high schooler this May. I'm super excited. But you know, I actually was in the public school system as an educator for over 20 years. So it was a double whammy of transitioning from this public school idea of what learning looked like and also kind of transitioning my kids. They were in a private school setting. But, yes, that schedule you know. So, yeah, that's my background. I was a public school teacher.
Speaker 2:I received my doctorate in 2019, just several months before the pandemic hit. I had totally different plans and it became really apparent very quickly that I couldn't stay in a system that was not able to serve my own children. Since then, I do have one that has returned to a private school setting. That was his choice. My other son was given that option and he has many times repeatedly he's like I really love what I'm doing. So you know I'm not shy about sharing that. You know I want to be very transparent. You know I'm not shy about sharing that. You know I want to be very transparent. But you know, yes, it's.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a learning curve, For sure. That's interesting, and we'll get into that a little bit later too, Because I've had people on the podcast who said like, yeah, my kids did decide to go back into school, or some of them did, some of them didn't. So that's an interesting dynamic. Leanne, how did you get into the homeschooling world? You were, were you a teacher too.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was. I taught for right at 20 years. Also, I earned my second master's degree in 2019, right before the pandemic, yeah, so I taught middle school for a long time and I worked in a really small district public school district and a really small school. I was a middle school teacher, but the school system that I taught in was a K-8 system, so we didn't have middle schools. They went straight from the elementary to the high school. And I had. I had middle school students and my children went to school with me every day and we all went to the same building.
Speaker 3:And at the time that I started homeschooling it's not something that I really jumped into because of the pandemic. I had already considered it for probably a couple of years and I kind of did some research. I knew some homeschoolers, I did a lot of talking to people, started looking into the laws, started researching curriculums and then, when the pandemic happened, it just was such a good, it was just good timing and I actually wish that I had done it at least six months before I did, because the year that we were schooling through a pandemic, I let my kids remain with the public school system and they were at home with me, but I let them remain with the school system. And there's a lot of I have a lot of regret with that. I wish I had pulled them in, but I just kind of let it be, because we were in the middle of a year and I was like you know, it'll be over soon, and then I thought things would be different the next year and we kind of went back in like a hybrid situation. Um so, but it was it just it just didn't work. It for me it just didn't work and I let my kids stay in school that year because I didn't want to pull them out in the middle of the year. I guess I thought I would be harming them somehow. Again, a lot to regret there. But at the end of that year I finally pulled them out of school and I actually continued to teach in the public school system for three years while I homeschooled my kids and I just quit my job this past year. So I've been home with them.
Speaker 3:This is our fourth year of homeschooling. I've been home with them this year. I have one in high school. I have two boys and two girls. I have one in high school. She just she's ninth grade-ish. I don't even know what grade my kids are in anymore.
Speaker 3:I have one that's like middle school. He's a couple years younger than her. I have one that's probably about third grade, and then I have another one and I was really glad. I mean, the timing for me quitting my job and staying home with my kids was perfect, because my fourth one started her kindergarten year this year. So all four of them are homeschooled and again, I've given mine the option also to go back to school if they want to. We don't have a good private option here, but I there was a time when I wasn't sure I was going to get to quit my job and I told them you know, if you want to go back to school, you can. I didn't know that it would be the same school because I had changed jobs. But no, they didn't want to, they wanted to stay home. So that's where we are.
Speaker 1:We're all home together now. So now did you guys experience the? We're just going to replicate school at home because that's what we all know. You guys worked in the schools for 20 years. I went to school for 20 years and you know. So it's sit at a desk, here's math we're doing, you know, our math worksheets, our math lesson, and then we're doing English, and then we're doing reading, then we're doing spelling, and we're sitting at a desk the whole time. Like is that kind of how you guys went right into it? Or did you know? Like there's another way, and it probably even from when you guys got out of college initially, there was a better way to even teach kids then and the regulations got more tight and more tight as the years went on and the tests got more important or stricter. So did you guys have this sort of like? I'm replicating school at home and, man, this is not working period. I'll let you go, deanna.
Speaker 2:You know so interestingly, to kind of go back in history, our history, when the boys were super little, I actually did homeschool them and we even had other friends of the family bring their kids and they became part of the little homeschool setting and I share a lot about that on my page and everything. But I had come to that determination during that time Okay, like I'm trying to be a kindergarten teacher at home with my own kids and that's not working. So when we got to that point and part of our story as well is basically the way that things were in the classroom it just couldn't meet particularly my older son's needs and it was becoming a narrative for him. That was the narrative that he was being told was becoming his narrative about his belief in himself, and so a lot of that became like I'll give you an example and this isn't everybody's story and I'm not saying this is how it has to be but when we started he was about three grade levels behind in math and our goal was just to do what he needed. But within six months we had caught him up to grade level, to where he would be now. You know, we can talk about grade levels. I know that's kind of a very different topic, but you know his capabilities. It just wasn't being met within the classroom box and he started to realize he was capable.
Speaker 2:So for that purpose, when we talk about replicating the classroom, very quickly I realized we needed to implement different dynamics, such as we had a trampoline and they were taking a class with community college they're Spanish and we would conjugate verbs while they jumped on the trampoline. I mean, we were doing these things because, yes, sitting in the desk wasn't working for them, right, and you know, nobody was ever going to be able to teach him that dynamic of completing his assignment or, you know, following through on a task, until I scaffolded it for him and that just wasn't possible within a classroom setting. That's nothing on the teachers or anything, but we just needed a different dynamic. So, relatively quickly we had gotten to that point where I just knew it needed to be a different situation. So we sat in the hammock, they could sit in the beanbag, wherever they were learning, as long as if they had a task and their core work was done. Then that was really up to them to have that seating arrangement that worked for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, leanne. What about you? Did you replicate school at home at first, or did you kind of know from the get-go like we're doing this differently for a reason?
Speaker 3:I think it's a little bit of yes and no. I think you know it was pretty hardcore, ingrained into me. And even now, even after homeschooling, you know, as long as I have, I still have to remind myself sometimes. I don't have to do it that way anymore. It's just, it's been what I've done done, that's what I've done forever.
Speaker 3:I, you know, I was a public school kid, I taught public school for so long. Um, I just, you know, I, I've, I have to remind myself of that. So, yeah, in the beginning I think I probably did do a lot of school at home and I have a lot of homeschool moms now that will reach out to me and ask me questions like what do I do now? Like now that I've pulled my kid and I, I don I don't ever want to tell anybody else what they have to do, but I do encourage people, you know, take some time and unschool, watch movies together, read books together, hang out together, go on filter. You don't have to do school right away, especially if they're kind of detoxing. I don't know that I should call it that, but that's essentially what it is You're detoxing, yeah.
Speaker 2:And um, well, especially if it was a, there's been some. I hate to use this word because it's overused, but there's some trauma associated with the classroom setting.
Speaker 3:Quite honestly, and and that's that's. That's something that I did not do and I wish that I had. So I guess I guess I'm talking about a lot of regret today, but, um, you know, I I wish, looking back, I wish I had done a little bit of that, because I have a pretty similar experience. You know, my, one of my, my two boys are my middle, my middle kids and my oldest son had had a really hard year the year before and they had the option of either virtually schooling or being an in-person student. But even when they were in-person, they were only in-person student. But even when they were in person, they were only in person part-time, they were virtual the other part of the time. It was a very confusing, crazy thing which meant they were staring at screens all day, regardless of whether. I mean, there was no point in really even bringing them home virtually or sending them to school, because they were pretty much staring at a screen most of the time anyway. But he, I just remember one day walking down the hall because I had a different position at the time, I was not in the classroom all the time. So I just remember walking down the hall one day and I walked by his classroom and I just thought I'll peek in and he was sitting at his desk with a mask on. You know, he was very dejected and he was crying. And he was probably dejected and he was crying and he was probably about eight or nine years old and I was like, yeah, we're done, I'm done. He had been at school in person for three days and so I was like, okay, we're going to be virtual so he can lay in his bed and do his work or not do his work, because his work wasn't, his work wasn't even really that important at the time. And so, yeah, I really wanted to just kind of step back and he was my child that had had an ADHD diagnosis. He's since then been diagnosed with dyslexia and generally did not care much for school and he's still just like well learning whatever he loves to learn. But he wants to learn what he wants to learn, and math and science and social studies, Like those were not his things. So, um, the the funny thing is that at the time I knew that he was probably very far behind as far as like grade level went. I would say if I were to put him back in school right now, he probably still would be. But we're where he. I met him where he was. I figured out what absolutely that's where we are and he is where he is and I don't have to compare him to anyone else or where anyone else is anymore and I I just he's. He does really well in the the.
Speaker 3:I guess the craziest thing is we do a lot of the like hey, it's really pretty, let's go do school outside and we'll do it on the patio. Or, you know, I'll give them side, like my youngest son when he was doing spelling words. I'd give him sidewalk chalk and get and say go write your spelling words in the driveway. Or you know, we do gardening Sometimes. I'll let them come out there and do that. We go for walks, things like that. But yeah, we do.
Speaker 3:We do still sit down at the table and do school work, but when we need a change we have the opportunity to do that. You know, sometimes we we just don't do it at all If we're just having a rough time outside and clean the yard or we're going to do yard work or we're going to do housework or whatever. And when we get done, if we still have time for reading or math, we'll do it. But if not, because those are learning opportunities and those are hands-on things that they need to learn. You know, that's real world. I take them in the kitchen and let them cook um, my kids can all, even my eight-year-old, and he of course still needs some help but my kids can all cook something in the kitchen unassisted and just ask me for help when they need it.
Speaker 3:And before homeschooling that was not. I mean, I didn't even try to send them in there, you know, because for me it was go to work, come home, rush to get dinner on the table and we schooled while we were eating and they they would go to bed right after we were finished with school. It was an all day thing, and so now it's relaxed, and so I didn't. I didn't do that sort of in the beginning. Looking back, I kind of wish I hadn't. But we have transitioned a little bit so that sometimes we do school at home and sometimes we don't. But it look, even when we are doing it it looks different. And my, my oldest son, who was the most reluctant about school, when I, when I, offer to do something different, he's the one who's like let's just sit at the table and do our book work and he. I never thought he would say something like that, but he's okay with it now Cause it's, you know, it's his individually, and so his perspective is a little different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I I think the biggest realizations for me doing the podcast and talking to you guys and other homeschooling families was like that. There, for instance, family style learning is like a different way you can present information to multiple children at multiple different ages. You might be doing the same, you know World War II, but each grade or level is going to have a different level of what they have to complete to get you know their work accomplished, have to complete to get you know their work accomplished. You know, and it's so funny because like reading the kids books that I'll get from the library I use book lists, like you know, read aloud, revival, and so they're not books that I typically would have just gone to the library and picked out myself. But you know, because somebody else smarter than I am did I'm reading them and I'm like like wow, I never learned this in school and like I'm learning so much about, you know, the Hudson River, the way a butterfly and a cocoon, you know what happens in the springtime and um, it's like so eye-opening. So I love that and I also love the idea of like and I'm sure you can do this on all different unit studies, but like, specifically, a nature study where you are learning within that topic of learning about, say, springtime You're learning about, you're doing reading, writing.
Speaker 1:You can incorporate math in that. You know whether it be counting the eggs that the chicken had. You know cooking. There's math in everything. You just have to pull it out from. You know, find it. History, geography, economics, like art, poetry, music all of this stuff can be integrated into, like this one, like lesson that you're doing a day on this topic and when the hour or two hours is done and you've, you know done a nature walk and you know done a little bit of artwork or a craft or baked something, read a book, you know wrote a story about it. It's like, oh well, you've already done every single subject that you had to do based around this interesting topic that we might've all picked together and it's like, wow, what, what a beautiful way to learn.
Speaker 1:Like it's. It's just so different than where we think of in the school, like, okay, nine different subjects all in their 38 minute time block and when we hear that bell it's time to turn it off. And you know, turn on your reading cap. You know, turn off math. You know science can be incorporated in everything. So, yeah, that it was like really eyeopening for me and it took almost, you know, a year or two of talking to homeschooling families to be like wow, that's really a way we can do this learning at home. Deanna, I know you you have the cutest YouTube page is my son and I watch it. You are like Miss Rachel and Blippi mixed together with like phonics.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I love. I mean, honestly, it's like and I think I shared this recently in a reel it's like realizing that, even though I left that behind, I didn't have to stop sharing that. You know, and my boys are at a point where that's not their world, you know. They're at a different place in life, right, and that's to that point. You know one thing, and I think there's a lot of parents that if they're wondering if they can handle that task and tackle, you know, teaching, maybe even outside their range I mean, I was a K through three lady.
Speaker 2:I always thought and props to you because I always thought, like middle schoolers would like eat me for lunch and spit me out like you know, um. But you know, I had to really get outside my comfort zone. I had to be okay with not knowing, I had to be okay with looking for resources and I had to be okay with saying, all right, we're going to work deductively and we're going to say what are his goals and what does he need for his goals? And in order to do that, in order to have the opportunities that he wants, what does he need, not what do others think he needs? So you know, that was. That was very you know like.
Speaker 2:For instance, we we do core classes where he's meeting certain requirements so that he could. He's going into cinematography and at the time he wanted to do architecture. So we were looking at from that perspective and what do you need for that Um and stuff? But at the same time, we still took two days a week and we did unschooling, and unschooling for us was it was he drove the day, the projects. Now there were some parameters. Like you can't just be, you know, gaming all day. I mean, if there's a specific thing you're working on and or you, you know, do you want that to be part of your day? But there was, there had to be some parameters and he has built so many. He built my green screen in 24 hours.
Speaker 1:So I was going to ask if he's going into some cinematography. Does he edit your videos for YouTube? He does, I mean so. So so I just want to comment on this how beautiful is this that you ended your 20-year career in the school system to start teaching kids online, where you have been able to foster your son's love of cinematography, to where you guys can now work together to make these awesome videos like that's. That's homeschooling oh my god, I love it this testament to.
Speaker 2:And there's been hard moments, like in the beginning you really realize, oh wow, we need to. There's some seasoning here that needs to happen, you know. And some really difficult moments where he had to grow in in, skills out, because he's extremely talented. I mean, he has built. He built a computer one afternoon this weekend for a friend he installed. I mean, he's just incredible. But there were some skill sets we've developed throughout this where he's learned how to interact, how to communicate. Now he'll come to me and say, hey, mom, you know, I had this thing coming up this week and I was thinking can we, you know, schedule to work on this on such and such day? Yeah, because before he didn't have that skill set. That skill set is not something he was going to learn in the classroom, the skill sets that he needed to work on. And we have a very similar situation, no-transcript. And what I feel that we've been able to do here is we've been able to. Yes, we have to address that, we have to season the pot, we have to get him growing in those areas so that he can enter the world and be a successful human being to what his potential is right, but at the same time, nurture his strengths, honor his strengths.
Speaker 2:He's out there building a deck that he designed around a tree and he laid concrete. And I'm like, have you ever laid concrete? No, my dad brought the materials for mine. What's that I'm putting in concrete? And I'm like, okay, and he did, and it's beautiful. He just does these things, and so that's one thing, for if you're navigating homeschooling a child that is outside, you know what you think that you can tackle. Look for those resources, look for the community. That would be a huge thing. He has an eBay store. He packaged a whole guitar to mail and he created the whole packaging, took him three hours and I'm like that's geometry, that's packaging engineering. You know, that's an assessment of his real knowledge, and that was it to me. It's amazing because it's way outside my wheelhouse and that was one of my biggest fears was that I wasn't going to be able to meet that. But I just gave him the resources and found the resources, and you know let him.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's so awesome. And then, leanne, you wrote a book. Is it about your experience leaving the school system to homeschool and how to do that? Is it like a how to?
Speaker 3:Um, yes and no. It's sort of like part how to and part memoir. I guess, um, uh, I guess there was a little bit of um conflict of interest when you work in the, in the public school system. But you homeschool your kids and I was pretty vocal about it, I wasn't shy about it. You know, homeschool your kids and I was pretty vocal about it, I wasn't shy about it. You know, when I left um, I had three kids in public school with me. One of them had just done preschool. That was as far as he had gotten and he doesn't even really remember that. But, um, so two of my kids have really been, like you know, completely homeschooled and the other two, they remember being in school and, um know, a huge chunk of their school career so far was spent in public school. So it was a little bit of conflict of interest.
Speaker 3:I had students walking up to me in the middle of the day saying are you going to send them back next year? Are they coming back? When are they coming back? And it was hard because it didn't take long for me to realize that unless they weren't happy, I was never going to send them back. Um, you know that was never going to be in our immediate plans, um, and I can never say never, but I just knew that it wasn't something that we had, we were planning on, and so I would just say no, no, we're happy where we are. And, um, it was hard because a lot of people ask questions. A lot of people ask questions out of concern. I think they worried that we were doing something we shouldn't be doing or that we had secrets, or that. You know, people, just people are curious, people don't, and I think a lot of people were just genuinely like hey, I don't know anything about it, what's it about?
Speaker 3:So I just I was blogging a little bit at the time and I started kind of writing and it sort of morphed into a book, just kind of telling our experience in transition, because for three years I was working every day and then going home and homeschooling my kids and people just didn't get it. They just didn't understand and I didn't understand. You know, when I started doing it, I didn't know. I knew homeschoolers. People just didn't get it. They just didn't understand and I didn't understand. You know, when I started doing it, I didn't know. I knew homeschoolers, um, but I didn't really understand what it was about what it entailed, um, and so, yeah, it's pretty much just about kind of our story and um, you know about resources that you can use if you're transitioning like we did and what like, because there's a lot of people who are working and they're like well, I would homeschool, but I have to work.
Speaker 1:What did you do with the kids during the day while you were at work? I get that question a lot.
Speaker 3:Well, I can't homeschool. I would love to homeschool but I can't cause I work and I would be like, oh, so do I here I am at work, because that's when I would get it sometimes.
Speaker 3:But, um, yeah, it was just different. I had, um, I had a babysitter for my youngest when she was really little. Um, I would take her to a babysitter, which killed my soul every day. But I did it, um, until I and, and there was always the plan for me to be at home with them. But sometimes that's just not an overnight thing, you know, that's just something that you know. Know, when you're bringing in um, I didn't bring in a huge.
Speaker 3:You know, I was a teacher. I didn't make that much money, but I was bringing in probably a third of the income at the time and it was, you know, paying our mortgage and so we had to have a place to live, right, so I had, I didn't have to work even, and there was even a time when I thought maybe I would get to be home part time and work part time. But I did. I took my youngest one to a sitter when she got to be a little bit older and I finally got to where I had teenagers. I actually kind of lost my sitter, not unexpectedly. She gave us a little bit of a heads up, but I didn't have a lot of time between transition and so we ended up at a preschool four days a week and then I would have my husband, because my husband works a very odd shift so he would be able to be home with her like one day a week. And so we kind of we kind of transitioned into that like one day a week. And so we kind of we kind of transitioned into that.
Speaker 3:And then eventually it was um, once her school, her preschool, was over, or on that one day a week that she wasn't in preschool, my teenage daughter would keep her at home with her Um. And then my youngest son, you know he was um, he was at, he was school age, so he was really too old to be at the babysitter. He was school age, so he was really too old to be at the babysitter and honestly it wasn't in our budget for me to send two kids to the babysitter at the time. So he stayed home with my teenage daughter. But he's always been pretty self-sufficient and well-behaved so I didn't worry so much about him. But we just kind of got along the best we could and literally there were weeks that we literally like it was day to day.
Speaker 1:Like, okay, today we're doing this, what are we going to do tomorrow? Um, and we did that, we did that for years. Well, I can imagine that. That, yeah, that feels like am I doing the right thing? Because what are they doing all day? Are they on their games? Are they on the internet? Are they sitting in the couch all day? Are they doing anything productive? Are they just better off in the school system? Or at least I can pop in and look at them crying in their classroom? Yeah, but like, did that go through your mind?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had, thankfully, you know, it really worked out when I went the very first year that I homeschooled them, I changed jobs. So I continued to work in the same school district but I got a district job so that I was able to have a little more flexibility and a little more freedom. I could call home in the middle of the day what's everybody doing? My daughter had a phone and I could, and she's always been pretty trustworthy. So even if, like, the boys were up to no good, she would, she would ride on them. So I could ask her like, hey, what are the boys doing? And she would tell me, um, if I was going to, uh, be driving by my house, um, for, you know, going from one school cause I traveled to different schools in the district, I could stop in and check on them. There were days that I would go pick up a pizza because there was a pizza place between my office and my house and my house was maybe five minutes from my office. It was a really short drive. I would pick up a pizza and bring it home, because I could take 30 minutes to come home and eat lunch with them. So I would drop in on them or I would call them at first it's, you know it was really productive. I would give them things to do and say X, y, z has to be done when I get home, and it might be an assignment, you know, it might be a math worksheet, or they might have to read a chapter from their book, it would, it would just be, you know, whatever, um, nothing that they couldn't do without me, and it would. There would usually be a chore or two. Everybody has a chore, and all of it has to be done when I get home. And if it's not done when I get home, you know, there's going to be a consequence. So that was really how we started out, just so that I could make sure there was some, some productivity. And of course my husband was home some during the day so that he could kind of manage that too, could kind of manage that too.
Speaker 3:It sort of that sort of evolved into lots of sleeping late, which really didn't bother me because they were kids and they needed to sleep. So they would sleep late and I would come home and say what time did you guys get up? And it would be 10 or 11. So they would be sleeping half of my workday. You know, sometimes I would come home and things didn't get done. And I would, I would say, okay, you know, we're not, we're going to lose this consequence or whatever. But, um, you know, for the most part they just kind of hung out together and they might watch movies together or you know whatever. But you know we, and as soon as I would come in the door they would know it's time to go. Um, and so we would. You know, we would do whatever our routine was in the afternoon.
Speaker 3:But it wasn't ideal. I did not love the situation but and there were times that I thought I would be better off sending them to school, but I did not love the mad rush in the morning or school. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do it to myself, but I definitely didn't want to do it to my kids anymore.
Speaker 3:It had it had become really stressful to get four kids up ready to go to school. Um, you know, it was just a lot and kids that were very reluctant to go to school at that. And, um, you know, we had some. We had some issues at school that, especially with my oldest daughter and classmates, and I just, I just thought, thought you know, they're better off at home and there's three of them together, so and they, they get along for the most part. So ultimately it was just we kind of got by the best we could for as long as we could. I'm glad to be home with them now, and I'm they're better off with me home, but we did the best we could for for that time yeah, and I I think that's so important because the people, yes, they always ask how could I work and do this?
Speaker 1:And, yeah, whether it's asking the grandparents for help, hiring a babysitter, a local homeschooling family that has teenagers that could, maybe, you know, maybe they want to intern or whatever, and be the au pair or a teacher to your kids or earn some money. There's so many resources out there. Go ahead, deanna.
Speaker 3:I would always just tell people when they would ask me that you know you make time for the things that are really important to you, and homeschooling is important to us, so we make the time for it. And me working full time just meant that I had to be a little more vigilant. Was it hard? Yes, could I have used working as an excuse to not homeschool? Yes, but homeschooling was important and that's what we make. You know we make time for those things that are important to us, so that's what we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I left my government job of 16 years so I just hit my six-figure salary and I was like, oh, this is like all I wanted. I was like I don't ever have to take another test again, I'm where I want to be, just retire and make 60 of my salary to like die. And yeah, well, that changed. So but I just I had a post the other day that I was just looking through some of the comments on it because it was me holding my baby. She had, well, my two and a half year old, but she had a stomach ache when she woke up from her nap. So she just crawled back on me and fell asleep and I was just kind of like, wow, how many times did my son have a stomach ache at daycare? And I didn't know because I was in my cubicle and maybe he was uncomfortable to tell somebody, or maybe he didn't know if it was bad enough to tell somebody, or they didn't know if it was bad enough to call me, and you know. So they just kind of shuffle them to the next activity. Oh, do your coloring first or go sit and watch TV, but like he didn't have mom there and I just, you know like how many like you were mentioning with the sleep. I mean, she was done with her nap but she crawled back up on me and fell back to sleep because she was so tired, obviously fighting something. And it's like even just in the mornings when my kids they generally do sleep late so that they can spend more time in the evenings with my husband when he gets home from work. So we do go to bed between 10 and 11 and they get up between 8 and 930. But that works, like you know, I'll get up and do podcast stuff at you know, five, 36. So, um, yeah, like just to let their body sleep until they're ready to wake up. When you think of, like, the synapses that are growing and making connections in their head, or maybe they're fighting a bacteria or germ or virus or something, or they're having a growth spurt, um, all this stuff that when we're like jolting them awake at 5.30am to rush, rush, rush, rush, rush I was even thinking about that the other day I'm like my whole life my mother just rushed me everywhere we went and, like the lady is 77 years old Now she is still rushing places like you have nowhere to go, you have nowhere to be, you have no job, you don't have any like children living with you, you have two little dogs there's nowhere to rush to.
Speaker 1:And she's still like, come on, we gotta go. I'm like, wow, that's just so ingrained in her. I don't know how she has not had some sort of heart attack from this or me, but I still noticed that in myself because I like heard that from her for so many years and it's like I'm trying to break the cycle now to like, no, just let them like relax and wake up. And we went to a play group today. I said I'd be there between 12 and 12 30. I got there at 1 15.
Speaker 1:I'm like, how do people get to work in school? I don't know how I ever did it, because I can't even get two kids somewhere at noon. What was like the biggest? Like if you could tattle now about not, and then, like you mentioned before, it's not the teacher's fault and I get in trouble for saying stuff, but it's like, no, I know it's not the teacher's fault, they're stuck in a system. They're getting underpaid and under-resourced. More kids, more requirements. But like there's also this societal thing about school, like the kids, the social media, all this stuff happening younger and younger that we never had to deal with when I was going into school.
Speaker 1:I'm 41. We did not have social media when I was in school, or phones with internet. How, like, what are some of the awful things that you saw that you were like okay, I really don't want this for my kids. Like, was there anything that stuck?
Speaker 2:out Well, okay, so yes, um. So we initially, actually, after starting off with the homeschooling setup, we went into the public school setting for a very brief time and I had a colleague whose children went to the same school and her son was very similar to my son and I watched some things unfold with that child who's brilliant. And then I remember the situation that happened in kindergarten with my son and I went to work and I shared it with my colleague and she said you're kidding me. They did the same exact thing to my son and I was seeing the path that her child was taking and I saw what was going to transpire. And we have a thing it's called the school to prison pipeline and even if you want, like, let's say, you have a child that is struggling behaviorally and a parent wants to look for resources for them, they cannot offer those wraparound type resources until your child has an encounter with either the judicial system or the police. So you're talking about a very, very a system that is built in where we use suspension, taking away recess, very consequent. Now, I'm not against consequences Life has consequences, right but when you're dealing with a child whose maybe brain isn't even working in the same way and they're not making those connections.
Speaker 2:I mean, I myself I was a very quiet student. I went for three years without ever completing my work, but I was reading at a high school level when I was eight and they kept passing me along. But I remember sitting every recess wondering what I was doing wrong, why couldn't I get my work done like the other kids. But I remember sitting every recess wondering what I was doing wrong, why couldn't I get my work done like the other kids. But I also was making patterns out of the number system on the page, the word, you know, I was giving myself. What I know now is brain breaks. But nobody ever asked me hey, why is that hard for you? You know, you're reading at a high school level, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I saw this type of thing start to transpire with my son and, um, you know, we went to a private setting. Um, there were things that worked until it didn't. And I was watching a child come home absolutely destroyed, destroyed, with a narrative that I knew was pedagogically like incorrect, you know, but this is the narrative that he was receiving. And I've been criticized for leaving the education system because there's so much going on in education. But, honestly, these children have one mom and my biggest responsibility to society is to get these children and raise them to be the humans that they were created to be. And that's what I did, that's what I left to do.
Speaker 2:And so you know, I saw a lot of this. My son is dysgraphic and he had an ed psych report and he was not um permitted to be given the accommodations that the ed psych recommended. Uh, because they called it borderline cheating, that he was not copying the words, the vocabulary words, from the board, and this is the message my son was being given. So this is what I decided that we were going to flip the switch, flip the narrative. And you know what, pretty soon as I scaffolded it, he began to do those tasks on his own. When he took community college classes, they would say you get extra credit if you write out, hand, write out the notes. And I say, hey, you know what. You have accommodations, you have an ed psych report, you know? He goes no, I'm going to do this, it was his decision. Okay, as long as you know what's available to you, you know how we can request. No, I want to do this. That was his decision, but he chose that for himself right at that point because he had gotten to the point where he could manage that task. It took him extra effort, a lot of extra effort, but that was the decision he wanted to do for himself.
Speaker 2:But when he was in a situation in the classroom where the teacher then would just erase before he could even write it down, and my mom was let me talk about career education she was a principal when I was growing up. That's why I'm not a principal. She was an amazing principal, an award-winning principal. But let me tell you, it never ends. It's lonely at the top. I didn't want that. I won't even get my admin credential. I had people tell me please get your admin. Nope, I don't want anything to do with that. But anyway, she was working with my son and she told my son one day. She said sweetheart, nobody there's going to help you. We're going to have you know. So this is what I had to remove him from. I had to remove him from that and I have this confident. I have this confident child.
Speaker 2:He just took his first international trip on his own. He just flew overseas my father-in-law, my husband's from Norway. So it's a trip he's done before he now. Did he miss his flight in Germany? Yeah, he did, but you know what? We coached him through how to navigate that and it cost us a couple hundred dollars to fix it. But you know what? It was the most life learning he's ever done in his 18.
Speaker 2:He's now 18. And so you know that's another thing that homeschooling and having that flexibility in the schedule has allowed us to do, because we do have a family dynamic that has family overseas, so it's allowed for more of those connections. And then when he gets back and there's that jet lag, we can account for that. And I feel that the learning that he gets just from navigating the travel alone not even to take into consideration the cultural factors and his family heritage and all of that is enormous. And he's going to college. In the fall he went to admitted students day today at biola. Um, I dropped him off and everything. But you know it's going to be a transition, but I feel like these experiences, okay, there's going to be a learning curve, but it's okay. He has so much going for him and that's a message what?
Speaker 2:is the school to prison pipeline that you mentioned the prison pipeline is basically um, and you can get into all sorts of demographics, um and and stuff that it affects, but it's basically that we start, very young, suspending our children. Now there are some things that we absolutely cannot tolerate. There's just no question, um, and we definitely need to have parents more involved. That's a different topic. But instead of seeing what's at the root and the core, we're suspending students and we're in a very chaotic system right now. I I have to tell you, I saw colleagues that had their whole rooms torn apart by a kindergarten student. That was an extreme, not just once or twice, okay, this was a regular occurrence because the student was in distress, she was destroying the classroom. They would have to evacuate. These are five-year-olds, you know. And then after school, the teacher my colleague would then, you know, have. Then after school, the teacher my colleague would then, you know, have to reconstruct, put the books back on the shelves, try to staple up the bulletin.
Speaker 2:But we're we're dealing with a very but then the answer to that is suspension or other measures that are punitive but they're not really getting to the core of the.
Speaker 2:You know the issue at heart and there's just a lot that goes into that. But what I did see was there was a situation that happened in the first grade. My son now was in the public school system and they were going to suspend him and I thought first of all it wasn't even reasonable and I thought, you know, we're talking about a first grader, he didn't threaten anybody, he didn't do bodily harm, it wasn't anything to that. But the first thing was we're going to suspend him and I could see it and I told you I had witnessed the path before of other people that were traveling down that path and how, you know, if we don't channel students, especially students that are gifted or twice exceptional, that have those overlapping their ADHD and they have gifted characteristics, and we don't learn how to channel those characteristics, then we're focusing on their weaknesses and their deficits, not building up their strengths. And there's a lot of interesting research about who's in the prison system and their experiences in education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the reason I asked was because I had had somebody on my podcast a couple of weeks or I just released it, gabrielle and she had said she worked in the school system and there was, you know, when she found out that they were using third grade reading test scores to predict how many prison beds they would need, you know, that shocked her and she didn't want to be part of this anymore. And they weren't actually fixing the situation, they were just making more prisons, and you know. So you know, I had kind of looked into it a little and made a post about it on my Instagram page and then people were writing on it saying that is not true, do not post things that are not accurate. And I was like, well, okay, well, why are you saying it's not accurate? So I looked up and it is true that the statistic of your you know reading scores of the third grade will predict, it is true, whether it's.
Speaker 1:Are they making more beds, are they building more prisons, is kind of the controversial thing. So when you looked it up with the fact checkers, you know Politico is like this is not a true statement, they do not make more prison beds because of third grade test scores it was like okay, but the poor third grade test scores does predict how many future people are in the prison. So are we changing what we're doing at around that third grade and lower mark to make sure that these kids are able to read yes, so that they don't end up like that? That's what we're trying to like focus on. That was the point of the post, and people like it's not a true statement because they're not really building prison and they miss a whole point the statistic is still what it is.
Speaker 1:So we've got to get to these kids before third grade and there are places like Finland that don't even open up. They don't do any formal education before age seven. So what are we doing wrong if they're not doing anything other than play? They're doing play, they're outside, they're experiencing friendships and fresh air and nature and they're not even opening up a textbook and they don't have the same issues that we're having. What we're doing something wrong? Because we now we've got kids that go to all day school, at preschool and you know so. It's like that's where it's getting at. So, leah, and you're nodding, what well, what do you have to? It's?
Speaker 3:like I just, of course, and I'm I'm in my 40s, I'm 43 years old. I went to kindergarten half a day and and I just had this conversation with with some friends recently I was like you know, but when I was in kindergarten we had this really sweet teacher and we colored and we painted and we did crafts and we played with Play-Doh. We went outside and we ate a snack or lunch or something. I think we might have even had like a 15 minute nap, rest, something, I don't know. And then we went home. I remember sitting in a desk I might have sat at a table with friends, but I don't remember sitting in a desk and doing any kind of work. And I could read when I started kindergarten. But I could read because my mother had read books to me. She had not sat me down and taught me how to read, but she had read books to me bedtime stories and I had picked up on words and, yeah, I could read. I wasn't probably a fluent reader, but I could read a little bit when I started kindergarten.
Speaker 3:And now I look at my two oldest children, who went to school and I was told that my son was behind at the end of his kindergarten year and I felt horrible because the person that he had as his kindergarten teacher was lovely, she was beautiful, she was sweet, she was kind, she loved the kids. She and I were colleagues. I adored her. But I was told that my child was behind at the end of his kindergarten year and she really didn't seem that concerned about it because, she knows, like it's okay, he was only. You know, he had just turned six, a few couple months before he finished kindergarten. But she was like, you know, he is a little bit, he's a little bit behind. Well, why is he behind? Well, he's not reading. So he's six. Who cares?
Speaker 2:Yes, average age is six to seven.
Speaker 3:Yes, and the crazy thing is that we're forcing things like that on kids at such a young age and then they get to third grade and they still can't read. Well, how about we let them learn when it's when it's time for them to learn? And I have read research I've not done the research, but I've read research that a child can learn to read as late as like 10 years old. And as an adult, you can't tell the difference between a child who learned to read at five and a child who learned to read at 10. So why are we forcing this on our kids? Why not just let let them naturally come to it? And it's because of standardized testing, it's because it's just, it's ridiculous. We're we're forcing so much on them that it's having a negative effect and and we're labeling kids with, we're slapping IEPs and 504s and things on kids who may not even need it. Meanwhile we have some kids who do and they don't get it at all. It's, it's broken. I don't understand it at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, speaking to your point is actually been shown that kids who we have a developmental spectrum of reading, and it's anywhere from three to eight and we have those outliers Well, the average age is six to seven, right? And so somehow our answer to our literacy crisis is to teach them younger, even though we see that the places in the world that are the most successful Norway and I know this for a personal fact, my husband grew up there Hundred percent literacy, finland. Hundred percent literacy, ninety five or seven, something like that, graduation rates, ok, we're talking astronomical success and yet and it's so wild to me because anytime I dare to bring this up I lose followers I have people totally say you know what's wrong with it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a child learning to read if they're ready, but it's developmental, just like walking is developmental. So what if I said teach your child to walk at six months? You'd think I was nuts. I mean, maybe there are some six months old that are ready, but that's an outlier, right.
Speaker 2:And so what I'm finding out is it's so interesting to me because the research actually indicates that children that are taught those skills before they're developmentally ready they actually plateau or lose their advance and even maybe don't continue to progress by the time they're in third grade, and that's the time where we switch from learning to read to reading to learn. That's why they're in third grade, and that's the time where we switch from learning to read to reading to learn. That's why they use those test scores. And so what I'm trying to help people understand is you know, you're missing so many components. I'm not talking whole language. I'm not talking whole language. I'm talking about phonemic awareness, phonological awareness.
Speaker 1:They're taking rhyming out of curriculum in kindergarten because you don't give us and that's part of the phonics right being able to hear the beginning, the middle, the end and pull out the middle and the end and, yes, well, switch out the first sound that.
Speaker 2:That's the phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness it's a kind of an umbrella category and and and what like rhyming. Okay, so let's just say we don't have to rhyme to learn to read, but we know that kids that can rhyme outpace their peers all the way into third, fourth grade. So, yes, dyslexia and all of those things, oftentimes we see trouble with rhyming, but the reason they're using research that applies to dyslexia to make a decision for all students Instead of saying, all right, this is what's good for long-term reading. Maybe some children are going to have a harder time with that and we know why. But we still shouldn't take the opportunity away from them to learn or be exposed to that skill. Children that enter kindergarten knowing seven nursery rhymes, they outpace their peers because they have fluency. They have fluency vocabulary. Um, there's so much, and again, I'm not talking whole language. Phonics is important, but we're missing the forest from the tree and every time I say it I people get upset. Yes, phonics is king, but phonemic awareness is queen and the king needs her queen. So that's my feel.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I spent a lot of time trying to learn the difference of the two.
Speaker 2:It still kind of mushes together in my head and it even changed since I went through teacher school and that's been actually one of the fun things is that, you know, I dip my toes back in that research and I really read about what they've discovered, because science of reading. We talk about science of reading and we think, oh, it's the new thing. No, no, science of reading is a live document, it's a living thing, it's ongoing and it's, you know, something that has been going on for 50 years. So it's not anything. It's just that we're learning new things and as we learn to do better, then we do better, right, but the pendulum is just swinging and that's what I'm trying. My message to families is yes, phonics, but don't forget to do the like.
Speaker 2:You talked about the reading aspect, reading with kids. You're teaching your children so much. Maybe kids aren't going to learn to read from that per se not every child but they're learning concepts about print. They're learning having a positive dynamic with literature. You know there's so much there that I fear we're missing right now, because we're in a very technological age and parents, in this literacy crisis, are being given a message, and what I mean? Yes, it's, it's. It is unnerving as a parent to hear some of what's going on as far as the outcomes. But I'm finding that there's a lot of taking advantage of that panic on the part of parents. You know, and for me my commitment has always been to, even if the message is not popular, if it's what I know to be true and it's what's in the research or it's what I, you know, I'm going to stay true to what's true. I'm not going to just say what's popular and sometimes that makes me not popular.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, the truth hurts.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think definitely, if we spent more time just reading to our kids in those early years and not pressuring them to, you know, be on par with their peers, they're going to get a love for story, a love for language.
Speaker 1:It opens their mind up to being creative, like if you're reading to them and they have to imagine that picture in their head. Even if the illustration's there, they're imagining it moving and what could be on the next page. That's all developing this love of reading, so that if they do learn how to read at eight, nine, ten years old, they've already developed the love of it and the learning how to read is gonna come easier. So therefore, they're gonna just want to be readers, whereas if it's always book work, you know, learn your A's, learn your B's, a's then it's everything is just rules, rules, rules. Before you're cognitively ready because you've been jolted awake at 530, am those connections. Yet yeah, yeah, now you're just memorizing because you're not able to make sense of it. You're just memorizing. So I don't think that's it's a beautiful message to just go ahead. I don't think there's an age when that stops.
Speaker 3:I, you know, I taught middle school. I was a language arts teacher for 20 years. I read aloud to my classes, absolutely, probably on a at least three days a week. Kids, I read aloud that and they were in, you know, sixth, seventh, eighth grade. Kids love it. I have a high schooler now and we start our homeschool day every day by me reading aloud to them, and I have a six year old all the way through a 15 year old. You know, read aloud and I don't think I mean.
Speaker 3:There's so much that kids can learn from sitting on the lap of a parent when they're little. We're all homeschoolers. If you send your kid to public school, you're a homeschooler because you're your child's first teacher, and if they don't learn something from you, you can't expect them to go to school and learn from teachers that are strangers. So we're reading, but you know stories, fiction stories. We learn empathy, we learn sympathy, we learn how to handle grief, how to celebrate. You know we learn so much from stories. We can read nonfiction stories and learn about, you know, the lives of other people, the adventures of other people. We can get information from that. But it's about fluency too. So even when they are old enough to read on their own. If you're reading aloud, they're learning vocabulary, they're learning fluency.
Speaker 3:I know many students I have had who've come to parent teacher conferences and the parent will say my child really struggles with reading. What can I do? And I always say, hey, if you really want to learn how to play basketball, what do you do? You get in the gym and you practice. Right, that's what you do. You don't just sit around going. I wonder what I can do to get better at basketball. You go practice. So if you want to get better at reading, read a book, pick up a book. I always told parents you read a page. Let them read a page aloud to them while they, while they look at the words. I've seen kids who have developed so much better fluency just because we read aloud to them and they would be 12 or 13 years old. So it doesn't stop just because they've outgrown. You know that. Oh, I'm learning phonics, stage um.
Speaker 1:That continues as they get older, absolutely I was just talking to a homeschooler and I cannot remember her handle. I want to give her credit for this. But she said that with her son she would have him hold her thumb as he was reading a book to her and when he got stuck on a word he'd squeeze her thumb and she'd just say the word, so that they didn't have to take uh, uh, that whole time to say mom, what's this word? Or stumble on it. And now you're losing the story. And and she was like you know, if you can't, if you couldn't do something as an adult, we wouldn't force you to do it. You sound it out, you know, you would just help the person, just help them. So she said she, he would just squeeze her thumb and she'd say the word he couldn't say, and on they go with the story and next time they read it you know, there were less words.
Speaker 1:He had to squeeze her thumb for it. I'm like, oh my god, that is such an awesome, awesome way to.
Speaker 2:I love that you can't have that in the classroom setting right, because it just doesn't allow for that. I mean, I was my, my whole thing was differentiation in the classroom, but could I do it to the level that I did for myself, partially because I wasn't even allowed to right? And 30 plus, yeah, yeah, even 20, 20, it doesn't matter, it's, you just can't do it, and that's what another another thing that's different in the dynamics is we had to take some steps back and we had to scaffold and say, okay, you're going to, we're going to start at his, his lowest level of success rate and we're going to just and you talked about that too, you know, I mean, that's what you do. You meet them where they're at and if they're making progress, then you are being successful and you're doing your role. So you know, yeah, definitely just a different setting.
Speaker 1:So before we get kicked off here at the hour, deanna, where can people find your YouTube page if they want to check it out to help their kids learn how to read in a very fun way? I don't know how you put these scripts all together and you're touching the elbow and the nose and, oh my gosh, it's so fun. That's how I taught.
Speaker 2:I was the singing kindergarten teacher and I kind of love it. I love it. My colleagues made fun of me even for that, but yeah, that's okay, it's cool. Um, so on YouTube, dr Deanna is learning for littles, and you know I also have some episodes that are just for parents to give them information about the pedagogy and like just how to teach or little simple strategies. I'm all about keeping it simple, that we don't have to buy all the things that you can replicate at home. So yeah, dr Deanna's Learning for Littles on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Awesome and I will save this live and we can put that right in the comments so people can check it out. And, leanne, where can people if you have any closing message and where can people find your book and the title of it? And we'll put that in the comment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my book is called making the switch. You can find it at Barnes and Noble, you can online, you know. Typically you can find it at Barnes and Noble, amazon, um, and it's called making the switch. My name, lee, and Scott, um, as the author.
Speaker 3:So, um, and yeah, other than that, I'm just hanging out here on Instagram sometimes, but when I'm not, when I'm not homeschooling, um, but yeah, and I would say um, yeah, as far as like a transition, I, one of my things for parents was I used to say, oh, you have to know the laws in your state and you have to search and you have, but you don't. If you know what the laws in your state are, um, then you can pull your kids and you can start homeschooling tomorrow and, um, you know that, um, you don't have to wait and you can learn with them as you go. And I can't remember I didn't know how to do any algebra one, and now I'm a little better at it than I was. I took it, I just didn't remember it and I've learned here that I had completely forgotten Um, you know, I learned with my kids when, when I can't remember, we learned together. And so don't think that because you don't have, um, you know, a PhD or or even a bachelor's degree or maybe diploma. Just you know if, if you want to do it, if it's important to you, you can do it. Um, and you can learn with them, cause I learned. I did not think that I would.
Speaker 3:I had always taught middle school students. I always taught students who knew how to read for the most part, and they learned from what they could, what they, their abilities. I did not think I could teach kids how to read, but I taught my son how to read and now I'm teaching my daughter how to read. I, you can do it, you can do it and you can learn with them. If you don't know how to do it, you know. And people say, well, I don't have the money, well, go to the library and get a library card and that's free and you're good to go. So you can do it. You just have to be resourced, you have to really want to do it and love your children, and that's all you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much for that, and I think the de-schooling process is so important. Don't replicate the school at home. If you pull them tomorrow, do not think that you need a curriculum or anything. Take that time to learn how to be a family together. You can look up reading lists if you you know, but, like you said, the library card and what I do is I get books from a reading list and I can order them from an app and they go right to my library.
Speaker 1:So I pick up 30 books at a time and like we just have a couple weeks of books now that we can go through a few times and you know um it, and I think you know just going out in nature and talking with your kids, seeing what sparks their interest and maybe you can get a book on that, or go look at a youtube video or a documentary about that um, the three things in your area, like museums or nature centers and we have a bird sanctuary up here state parks, national parks, like these are the things that we should be going to first, versus curriculum, you know, and just even just playing board games, just like find some games that you guys enjoy together and have that quality time.
Speaker 1:So that's what I would also, um, you know, say for that de-schooling process, and then, if you continue with that, and that's your whole homeschool for the next 12 years beautiful. And if you want to add curriculum or an online school or anything like all that, stuff is available too. There's just so many options. So, leanna, thank you so much for joining me. Leanne, thank you for joining me, thank you for your 20 years in the school system and then for kind of shedding a light onto hey, it can be different, it can be done differently, absolutely. Thank you, cheryl.
Speaker 3:Thank.