Episode 24 Homeschool Year in Review

In this special edition of Homeschooling and Life Unfiltered with Court and Jess, we’re revisiting a 2023 Venture Upward training led by Court: Home School Year in Review. This class reflects on the homeschool journey with honesty, encouragement, and practical insight for families navigating the real-life highs and lows of learning at home.

Court shares lessons from the year, what worked well, what needed adjusting, and why reflection matters so much in building a homeschool life that fits your family. From celebrating growth to learning from challenges, this episode offers a grounded look at how to close out the school year with intention and step into the next one with clarity and confidence.

Whether you’re wrapping up your first year or you’ve been homeschooling for a while, this episode is a reminder that progress does not have to look perfect to be meaningful.

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Welcome to homeschooling and life unfiltered with Court and Jess, where real talk meets real life. Court and Jess are two friends, fellow moms, and business partners who live in different time zones and juggle homeschooling alongside motherhood and entrepreneurship. Jess is a mom of eight and Court is a mom of seven, and together they're raising 15 kids and navigating the wild, wonderful world of homeschooling, each in completely different ways. Every week we invite you to pull up a chair for honest conversations, practical tips, and uplifting encouragement. You'll hear from moms across the country who are homeschooling in a way that works best for their families. Whether you're a veteran homeschool mom just getting started or somewhere in between, this is your space to feel seen, supported, and inspired. Because no matter how different our past may look, we are all in this together. Hello and welcome to homeschooling and life unfiltered with Court and Jess. Today we have a special little treat. Um, we are gonna share. It's a year in review, a parent class that Courtney taught a few years ago. And so I think you are gonna really enjoy it. We've talked about it on the podcast the last two weeks, on just to kind of how to evaluate and take a good hard look at your year and all that you accomplished. And I hope you enjoy it. See everybody next week. All right, everybody, welcome to Venture Upwards Professional Development for quarter. I don't even know what quarter we're in. I think we're in quarter two of the school year. Does that sound right? January, March, April, May, June. Um we do these once a quarter and they kind of fall on the quarter of the calendar year. And we I personally love professional development. I love learning, I love just learning new things, and I also love sharing what I know. So um that's kind of the joy behind this, and the idea behind this is that we want families and moms who are homeschooling to have all the tools they can have. You guys, homeschooling is hard. I've been homeschooling for I think I was, it's either seven, I'm going on my 17th or 18th year forever. Um, it seems like a lifetime. And it is, it's not for the faint of heart, and it can be this lonely little island that you're on. And so having all of these tools in your bucket and having a community of people being surrounded by people that are doing the same things as you, I think is really important. And so that was kind of where these professional development classes have kind of um come from. Probably should explain who I am. Hi, I am Courtney Schloss. I am the program manager, I don't know what I am, manager at um Venture Upward. This is my tiny little family. I have seven kiddos, six girls and one boy. Um, my kids have homeschooled forever. I've always homeschooled, they've never been in a brick and mortar. Um I used to be a brick and mortar teacher back many moons ago. I um taught preschool for five years in Head Start, the federally funded um preschool program, early education. I was a kindergarten teacher for a couple years, and I was a second grade teacher. And then I had three little kiddos, three little girls at home, and I retired. My husband says I retired when I was, you know, 20 something years old. Um, and then I just I educated my kiddos. My when my oldest got to kindergarten age, she was, it was the year they state mandated kindergarten, all day kindergarten in um Arizona. And I was like, eh, I taught all day kindergarten. It's pretty much babysitting after one o'clock. I'm like, I think I could do better. And so it kind of just filed from there, and I really never looked back. Um I have been with venture, this is my second year. Um, when I I I always say I have a big set of big kids and a set of little kids. And as my big kids got older and I had a bunch of high schoolers, um, my little kids were kind of getting the shaft, I think. And so I kind of found out from venture from a friend, and I kind of watched her do it with her kids, and I was like, that's what I need for my littles. I needed the accountability. Yeah, I know what to do. I've been doing it forever, but I needed someone else to check in with. I'm I really do well with accountability, which I'm sure I'm not the only person. Um, so I that's why I joined Venture. But then once I joined, I was like, oh, I need this. Like everybody needs this. We need to. I've been teaching people how to homeschool for years and years and years. Like now I get paid to do it. It's great. So um it's kind of fun. And I was a teacher last year, and I've just kind of fully vested into this company because the vision and the mission is so good and the heart is so good. So that's why I'm here. I work because I love it, not because I really have to, but I just I love what we're doing here and what we're trying to create and the value we're bringing to families. So that's a very little bit about me. Um, I do love to love to read and I love to learn. So I take a lot of classes, like a lot, a lot of classes. Um, so this class, this year in review, is kind of a compilation of a bunch of different things. I always say, none of it's really mine. I've just gleaned it from you know, 17 years worth of homeschool conventions that I've been going to. And um, I'm a member of Read A Lotter Bible, and I've done all of her classes, and I am an avid book reader. So if you name the homeschool curriculum mom book out there, I've probably read it because I just like devour all those things. Um, so this is gonna be a little bit of a bunch of different things. And if I know for sure where I got it, I will share that. Um, but most of it, it's just like a little piece from here and a little piece from here and a little piece from here. So um I will fully own that none of these are my original ideas. I'm sure I've gotten them from other places over the course of a very long time. Um and I say I'm an eclectic homeschooler because I I've literally tried all the different, you know, we've tried the classical and the Charlotte Mason and the TGLA and all the different like little pieces, and I've kind of meshed it all together to what works for our family. And honestly, each kid's gonna be is a little bit different the way we homeschool because each kid's vision and path is gonna be different. So that's why I always say I'm eclectic because it just kind of explains it all. So um, this my daughter, my oldest just got married like last week or two weeks ago. So I've graduated two and I still have five kids at home, and my youngest is eight. So I'm still in the thick of homeschooling, even though I've been doing it so long. The the other picture is just a picture of back when life was really hard, you guys. If you have little babies at home and you have toddlers and you're trying to homeschool, like I get it. I've been there, it's not the easiest thing on the planet. So um I just put that in there because it just reminds me of when life was not quite as easy as it is now. Um, you guys utilize the chat. Feel free to put questions in as they come up. Um, you can there's a little raise your hand feature if you have questions, and I am gonna give a QA time at the end as things come up. But if you're like me, and if you don't ask a question right away or type it in the chat, you won't remember later. So feel free to do that and I'll try to go back. I'll try to watch the chat too. Okay, let's go ahead and get going. Okay, so it is super, super easy to look at to end the homeschool year and see all the things on social media that are like, oh, look, my kid got this award, and my kid got perfect attendance, and my kid got, you know, won the spelling B, and my kid got this award, and you're like, um, I didn't finish math, I don't even know what we did for history this year. Did we do science? What like we didn't do any, you know, it's really easy to kind of look at all of the things and and compare what you're doing to what everyone else is doing, especially because on social media, everyone puts forth their very best. No one's gonna show you their unfinished math book or anything like that. So um, the whole point of this is I want you to look at all the little things that you do and treat those as accomplishments. Those are amazing things that you're you've done and experiences that your kids have had. And it doesn't matter if you didn't happen to finish the math book this year, or if you bought this incredible, awesome history curriculum that you were like, I am gonna do it, and this is gonna be great. And you might have done two lessons and been like, eh, life happens. You know, you had a baby, you moved, you, you know, that's okay. Give yourself the grace because the grace is what God has given us. Sorry, but I'm that just is what it is. Like we have that grace for a reason. So I want you all to just take this as a pat on the back. You're doing amazing, and I want you to find all the little areas that you succeeded in, even though it's gonna be you're gonna have to think about it. And honestly, I use my picture role a lot because sometimes I'll snap pictures and not remember things, but then go back and look like, oh wow, look at all these things we did. Um, like having a book club where we read a fun book and somebody brought in animals for my kids to do an experience, and she got to have a parrot on her head or whatever it is. But these are things that you would overlook that I wouldn't have even remembered and counted as like an accomplishment or experience. But when I look back at my pamphlets, my picture will have is like, oh hey, look, hey, we got to play with really cool animals this year, and hey, there's science for one of our activities. So I just want you to think outside the box. It doesn't have to be sitting at your table doing work to count as accomplishments and things that you've succeeded in. All right. So I love memes, I think they're so fun. And the end of the school year, there's always about a million of them. And so I just had some fun ones to share with you guys because this kind of really is a nice collection of what most homeschool moms are. You have those homeschool moms that are like, we are gonna finish this, we're gonna do school all summer and we're gonna finish it because we have to. But do we really have to? No, not really. Um, the Mary Poppins one is my absolute favorite. I know it's talking about the beginning of the day and then the end of the day, which is 100% true in my house after eight o'clock. I am Corilla, but it totally is the beginning of the school year. We come out, we're Susie Miss Sunshine, we're so excited, and by the end of the year, we're just dragging, we're exhausted, and we're tired. Um and this one with the book on the front of the head, we have reached the magical moment we're planning for next homeschool year, it's loads more fun than finishing the current one. I am 1000% this person. I love to plan, I love getting a new idea, I love doing all the things, and it's way more fun than trying to finish up the end of the school year. So these were just some fun things that I liked that I thought would be enjoyable for everybody. Okay. All right. So you are looking at my brain on paper. Now, full disclosure, did I ever think anybody was ever gonna see these? No. But I'm gonna share them and you can see my messy handwriting just because this is a very real representation of what I have been doing for years with my homeschooling. So I was feeling very defeated many years ago, and I had tiny little children and kids in elementary school, and it's really easy to just look back and be like, ugh, we didn't do anything. We didn't finish our spelling that I'd planned out, we didn't finish, and so some class that I gleamed, I'm not even sure. I know a lot of this has come from Read Aloud Revival. Sarah McKenzie, she's one of my favorites, and another one um, this plan your year course by Pam Barnill, which I'll show you a slide at the end. You can screenshot it. I started this end-of-the-year review, and by asking a few simple questions, I was able to look and see what did I do this year that was good? What did I not do this year that was good? And it really helps us plan for the next year. That's really what this is. You're taking an inventory of what happened with your year so that you know for next year what you'd want to do, what you want to keep, what you don't want to keep, and what was successful. So some of the things, and these you'll I have a few different years we're gonna show you, and you'll be able to gleam like kind of how things have changed. And again, there's no one size fits all for everybody. You're gonna have to find the right questions for you, but I'm gonna give you a great starting off point. Well, I think it's great. So um, and the first thing I asked is what am I glad I took time for? What did we do that I loved? Um, and 2020, which 2020 was a rough year for everybody. So I was glad we took time for morning time. So morning time is when all of my kids, all seven at the time, I think I still had seven kids then, um, we all got together and we do some subjects together. So we would do um, you know, picture study, or we would do our scripture study, or we would do an artist study, or a composer study, or logic, or I mean, there's like a million things that you can do as family school. You can do history together, you can do science things together. Those are the things that we all do together. Um, and we start our day every day. I try to do an hour of family school. So, and I was really intentional about it in the 2020, because previously I'd had a bunch of little kids and it didn't always work out as well when you're chasing babies or whatever. Um, so I was really intentional about having warning time. So I was super glad about it. Something I want to make happen next year was I want I wanted to focus on family read alouds um during school and adding into the evenings. That was something that I want to do for next year. So here I am planning for next year. I'm taking note and taking inventory on what did I want to do so that when I plan next year, I make sure I build that in and have time. I wish we'd made more progress, and everybody's gonna have something different here. But everybody's gonna be able to look back and be like, I wish I'd done this. So this year I had wish I had done science with the kids. Um, we and then as I wrote it, I was like, well, we did do some science, but it wasn't necessarily like a curriculum. What I would in my brain was thinking that's what I needed to do for science. Um, we read a lot of books and we had a lot of experiences around different topics for the month. Um, so you'll notice, like, as you start to do this and you start to take notes, it jogs your memory and you're gonna be like, oh, hey, that counts. Like, I can do that. Um, something I want to change next year, I wanted to change our history because whatever we were doing, obviously I didn't like. Um, I'm a bit worried about essay writing with my big kids. So everybody has those worries. And so now once I put it to paper, I'm like, okay, so when I make my plan, hey, I'm gonna add essay writing or something along those lines. I'm gonna find a language art that has that. Um, my own favorite reading experience this year, I loved starting an evening family read aloud with Jeremy, my husband. So we did it with dad. I think this is the year we started reading Harry Potter together, all together as a family. Um, and then one of my favorite memories from this school year was watching Grady's excitement as he learned to read. He was like a kindergartner that year, and he was just excited. Um, so there's my questions that kind of took an inventory, a little bit of what I was doing, and then helped me plan for next year. And then after I did that, I was like, well, what did we actually accomplish? Because I was feeling a little burnt out about, or a little not burnt out, but a little discouraged, like not having done science and history didn't really work that year, you know, things like that. So accomplishments. One of the things that I feel really important about in my house is reading aloud. So I make a list of what were the books that we read aloud this year. Okay, we only read six books. I can say we only read six books, or I can say, hey, we read six whole books together with seven little kids. My youngest would have been four at the time, five at the time. So hey, I had seven kids from you guys, might it's too early to do math. I don't really know. So whatever, that would have been like 17 to 5. But we read five books together or six books together. That is an accomplishment, even though you can look at that number and be like, ugh, only six books. Jeez. Hey, I read six chapter books with my kids. Um, artist studies. We studied Monet, Van Gogh, and Renoir that year. And by doing an artist study, we studied their pictures. We made pictures like their pictures. We, you know, we really went in depth. That is an accomplishment. We studied Canada, India, and Greece. I could easily say I only did three countries in nine months. Or, hey, look, we did Canada, India, and Greece, and we made food from them, and we studied the culture, and we studied their, you know, all the different pieces. Those are accomplishments. Um, and you can see I put science topics on here because that was something I had said that I wish we'd made more progress in. And when I thought about it, I was like, well, actually, we did a whole month of insects and bugs, and we grew butterflies, we studied trees, and we studied the ocean, and we studied the stars. So it just kind of takes a moment to make your brain think like this. Think of these things like what did we do? What did we actually accomplish to think of them as accomplishments? Um, the next one is a year later, I think. Um so this is a whole year later. And I did the same thing, and I was like, okay, so what am I got we took time for? Oh, co-ops and book clubs. I we made time for co-op and book clubs. That was something that was important to me and important to my kids. Something I want to make happen, it's a very common thing in mind. It always says continue family reading, read allows, get dad involved because I know that I can always do better. And you can see I did better. We read 12 books this year instead of the six from last year. So you can by having it on here and bringing it up to my mind when I was planning, I was more intentional with my planning and making sure that was time. Um, I wish we'd made more progress in science and history. Pretty much every single year, science and history is my thing that I wish we made more progress in because it's always the thing that falls off my. It's just always a thing that I give. Like reading and math is non-negotiable, but history and science is like, eh, if we don't have time, we don't have time. Um, something we need to change next year. And you can see here, I'm gonna change curriculums, and this is the year the 2022 was the year I joined venture. I was like, yeah, I think that's or 2021 was the year I joined venture. I was like, I think I need that for my little kids. That was when I I noticed in my review that my little kids were getting the shaft a little bit, and I needed that accountability for them. Um, and I'm a bit worried about writing for all my kids. There you go. It's a common you'll notice that you kind of have a theme. I always have a theme. Um, my favorite reading experiences was having consistent family reading times in the morning with me actually reading. So previously years we had kind of been doing a lot of audiobooks because I had babies and little kids around all the time, and I wasn't able to just be present and actually read. And so that was really one of my focuses for that year. Um, and this is the year Sydney graduated high school, so that was my favorite memory. Okay, you're gonna notice, look at my accomplishments. Yes, we read 12 books that year, but I didn't have any science topics, I didn't have any artists studied, I didn't have any composer studies that it just didn't happen that year, and that's okay. But hey, we did one, two, three, four, five countries again, and I wrote Canada again because I think we did a little bit more. Um so you can see that there is kind of this give and take of the years, the accomplishments are gonna change, and you have to have that broad thinking that that's okay. Like it's okay that we didn't do all those other things, but we still did these things. And then I added at the end that I want to ask the kids. Um, this is the year that I started asking the kids because they were all big enough to have an input and have a say in what we did. And then this is my one from this year. And again, I was not expecting anyone to read this, but you can still oh well, sorry, I don't know about that. Um so I asked again, but I added some more questions. Um, and 2022 and 2023, I added some more questions because I realized there was just a few more things that I wanted to start taking inventory on, and then I asked the kids three questions. So um I'm glad we took time. I did an actual read aloud with just my high schoolers. I've never done that before, and so that was something I did that was unique. Um, we did school with friends and we did book club with friends. So those were things that I was glad we took time for. And they really were things that take out of your schedule. You want to make sure that those things that you're doing and you're putting are things that you're glad you're doing. You don't want them to become a burden or more stress to your homeschool. You want it to be a little bit easier and better. Um, something I want to make happen again next year is um family school regularly. And the 40, I did a 40 book challenge. I don't know if any of you guys have read the book Whisper. I think it was one of our parent book club books. Um, it's about a sixth grade teacher, and she challenges her kids to read 40 books across different genres. Um, so it exposes them to mysteries and sci-fi and informational and classic literature and poetry books. It kind of is this nice broad, um, kind of a broad range of books. Um, so I I've always said there's no, I'm a reader, so I always say there's no such thing as somebody who doesn't like to read. You just haven't found the right book yet. Um, and so I had a high schooler that says she didn't like to read, and I was like, well, that's not true. Like, let's let's explore. And so I actually did this with our high school road book club. Um, I encouraged all the kids to participate in the sporty book challenge, and then we're gonna go out to a big fancy dinner um in June or this month, I guess, um, for anybody who completed it. And we had six kids, six high schoolers take the challenge and complete it, and they were all surprised. They all found things that they didn't think they would like, and they did like them. So, anyways, I and my daughter that said she didn't like to read has now read way more than 40 books this year, and she just she found her love of reading, and it's totally possible. Um, oh, I'm gonna answer some questions. Uh, do I school year-round or what do you do during the summer? Um, I used to school year-round when my kids were little, but once I got high schoolers and we had to follow a little more of the high school schedule because they took classes, um, they take a religious education class at our at our local high school. So we kind of have to follow their schedule. Now they're a little more aware that not everybody else schools all summer. So I can't really trick them into it anymore. Um, so we do every single day they have to do some kind of math, and it can be a math worksheet, math fact practice, a math game, but they have to do some kind of math. They have to write something, whether it be in their journal, their handwriting book, their copywork, dictation, narration, something. Um, and then they have to read every day. And we do, I do my own summer library program where the kids pull. Up their own prizes. And so after every 10 little dots, they get to choose a prize. And normally it's something that, like, I add to my grocery list. They get to pick a candy bar or they get to pick their favorite box of cereal because I don't buy sugar cereal, but I do for things like that. Um, they get an ice cream cone or they get to go like the end result is always a date with mom and dad at the end of it. That's their reward. Um, I'm glad I'm not the only one, Debbie, that has science and history. It's just always the one that falls off. Oh, and then Sarah answered her question about how she schools year around. Um, I like schooling year around you guys because in Arizona it's really hot in the summer, and it's what else are you gonna do? You're gonna swim or you're gonna stay inside, so we might as well do something productive instead of watch TV all day long. So I like to do that schooling in the summer, and then when it's really nice, we like to go outside in Arizona and like go explore and go on field trips. So that was kind of how I did it when my kids were literally. Um, hey, and again, we're at number three. What did I wish I had done more progress in? History with the littles. Shocker. I wish I had no more history. Um, something I want to change next year is I changed up all of our language arts. I oh, I want to change up all of our language arts next year. I want to do something a little bit different. Um, I'm a bit worried about having time to be consistent with family school. So obviously from years past, I now work full-time, and that obviously wasn't something that was ever in my realm of what I was gonna do. So um having to be having that time to be consistent with family school is super important to me. And so I just need to like carve it out as out of office so that I can make sure I have that with them. The rest of it, when I can help them individually, I can maneuver around meetings and such, but getting everybody together to start the day is super important to me. Um, and then having that time to work on one-on-one with kids, just carving it out and embracing things like in the evening when we didn't normally used to do school, but hey, I have time in the evening, so we're gonna sit down and you're gonna read. We're gonna read at night together and things like that. Um, my phone, oh, my own favorite reading experience is I participated in that 40 book challenge with the high schoolers, and it was really fun. And because I always say I hate, I shouldn't say the word hate, but I really dislike science fiction. It's not my favorite. Um, but one of my high schoolers was like, Here, mom, you should read this, and it was actually really good. And it was totally it was like a Cinderella spin-off. Um, but it was definitely sci-fi. So, and it was an interesting read. And my kid, we had a great conversation about it because she read it and she really enjoyed it. Um one of my favorite memories was leaving time for the kids to pursue their individual passions and watching how excited they got. So everyone kind of picks something that they get to focus on for the year. I had one daughter that started a nail business and she does, you know, really cool, fancy designs. Um, Audrey, my she was my high schooler that decided she loved reading after that 40 book challenge. Um Rory, my 12-year-old, has started a crochet business and she sews these really cute little baby things for crochets, these little baby things that she sells. Um, Grady has fallen in love with science. He loves science experiments. We do um, I bought him a subscription to those, I can't think of what it's called, male science. And they are fantastic, you guys. You want some science and you want to make it easy, those male science kids are fantastic. Um, Macy learned to ride her bike. And everyone, you guys, for the first year ever in my homeschool in 17 years finished their math curriculum this year. First time ever. Um, so I don't even know how that happened, but we did it. That means we were really consistent with school and math this year. So woohoo for us. So those are accomplishments. We read 17 books as a family. I that's the most I think I've ever read to the kids. But it's because they're all bigger and they're all so much easier. And we went on quite a few trips this year, and every single time we go on a trip, we do an audiobook in the car together as a family. Um, it helps makes the time pass and it gives us something to talk about, and then we do experiences around it. We still, like my my big kids will all gather around the dinner table and still talk about the experiences we had. Um, like we went and saw some Shakespeare plays this year when we read Shakespeare and just things like that, that just you're just forming that family culture and building it in. And those are the memories that are gonna last. And so that's why those accomplishments are always so fun. Okay, it went to page two this year because I added some more questions. Um, what is something that's working well? In family school, we start every single day with World Watch News. It's like a 10-minute news clip made for kids. Um, it's actually geared towards high schoolers, but it's fantastic and it keeps everybody up and it's given us some great talking points this year. And it's not a scary news, like even my 12-year-old that's a little bit sensitive. She enjoys it and gets something out of it. So we start every day with World Watch news. We're doing a scripture study as family uh and family school, and then math for everyone worked really well this year, obviously, because we finished it. Um, what something that surprised me this year was my last two youngest kids. You know, I've taught a million kids to read, but the last two were a struggle, and they had a hard time, but they have um they're all reading now, like fully picking up books and reading, and that was a huge accomplishment and a huge surprise, to be honest. Um, when do you do family school? Do you have a set time in the morning? One, two, but I can. Um, I typically try to do my family school every morning at 8 a.m. So the kids have to have chores done, breakfast re breakfast eaten, which sometimes they're still eating breakfast during family school as it starts. Um, and they have to be pretty much ready for their day. My 10-year-old son always asks every day if he has to leave the house. And if he doesn't leave the house, then he wears his pajamas all day long. So he might be still in his pajamas. But the goal is to start every day at 8 a.m. Um, and that's when we do family school. That being said, every once in a while I have a meeting at 8 a.m. And so then it kind of derails it, and then it's hard to come back later after they've all scattered about the house doing their school independently. Um, so that's one of the things that I want to be more consistent about is having that exactly set time. But I have found that it's a great way to start the day. So we all just meet, we start our day, we do our read aloud, we do whatever it is that we're doing that day. I loop um morning time. So we always have the world watch, we always have scriptures, and then what we do for everything else loops through. So on one day we'll have logic, um, and one day we'll have we're reading Grammarland together. Um, yeah, grammarland together. Um, we might do a math game, we might just it depends. So it just flows through the days. Um and then I give the directions like, hey, today we're doing this in the afternoon, and everybody needs to make sure they do this, and then everybody disperses. They have a list of what they have to get done that day, and they just come in and check with me when they're done and ready to move on. I haven't heard of that podcast, but I will totally check it out. That's a great recommend, Emily. Um so, okay, so then this is what I asked my kids. I asked them three questions this year, and I did it while we were hanging out in the pool. So it doesn't have to be anything like formal, but I said I asked everybody thing, what is one thing that you don't want to do again next year that we did this year? What was your favorite thing, the best part of the school year? And then what is one thing you want to do again next year? Uh Delaney, I forgot to write down her answers. But um, they all had very different answers, and I was actually super surprised. I always think I'm gonna I know what they're gonna say, but I totally I didn't know what they were gonna say. Some of them liked, didn't like things that I thought they did like and they would want to continue. Um, but that is those are three very great questions to ask every single one of your kids, even when they're younger, it's always fun to listen to their answers. But planning your school next year, it's great to take into account. Your kids are not gonna be all in and what you're doing if they if they hate it or they like or you think they hate like it, but they don't actually like it. The buy-in is gonna be a whole lot better if your kids have a little bit of a say in it. Um, so I think that is super, it's a super great way to get your kids to feel some ownership over their school, and they tend to participate better when they feel like they have that ownership. So I asked my kids all those questions, and I did say a caveat to what's one thing we did this year that you don't want to do next year. It can't be math, language, arts, science, or social data is because Rory, my 12-year-old, was like, oh math, I don't want to do math ever again. Um, what was the science I mentioned? Oh, uh Mel's Science Kits, I think is what I mentioned. It's a subscription box, and it comes with this awesome kit, and it comes with three experiments per box. And there's like an app that it walks them through and it explains the science and talks them through, and it's fantastic. I love it. Um, okay, and then I did my accomplishments. We had my books are on the other page. We did four poetry tea times, which is a huge accomplishment in my book. Poetry tea times are great, but yes, smell science, that's it. Um, but they're a lot of work to put together. So we did it four times this year, so that's huge. Um, we went on some field trips. That was one of the things that my kids had mentioned back the year before that they wanted to do more of was field trips, which again, Grady said the same thing. I want more field trips for next year. Um, and then we did some art, we did some watercolor, some trock and acrylic paints. We got a bunch of supplies and a bunch of subscriptions to different things, and that was one of our focuses for the year. So all of those things, those changes came from the inventory at the end of the previous year. So now get out your phones and you can take a picture. Um, and actually, if you guys want, we can send this out as a um in a PDF when we send out the video link. But these are the questions I ask. Um, and I've kind of morphed it to eight. And you'll see, I think I even took one of them out. Like I took out the read what was the my favorite reading thing because it that was just a question for me. Um, but you'll you're gonna morph this into whatever you want. But here's a good starting place. Question one, I'm glad I took time for. Question two, I wish we had made more progress in. Question three, something I want to keep doing next year. Question four, something I want to change next year. There's always something to change. I change a lot every year. Question five, something I am worried about. Question six, something that is working well. Question seven, something that surprised me. And question eight, one of my favorite memories from this year. Um, and to be honest, I always have a really hard time with that memories this year. And this is the one that I go through and I will scroll through my photos. The same with um looking at our accomplishments. That's how I knew I had done poetry tea time four times because I had taken a picture every time. Otherwise, I would not have remembered. I'd been like, I know we did poetry tea time, but I wouldn't have even, I didn't actually think we did it four times. I thought I'd only done it a couple. Um, so just kind of it's a nice memory jog if you are good at taking pictures. Um, something I do want to point out. So the something I'm worried about, question five, it's a great one to, you know, make your list of something I'm worried about. So when you're planning for next year, looking at that list and being like, okay, what's the first action item? So if I'm worried that I can't even remember one of my worries from before that, you know, so and so is not reading where I think they should be reading. So my first action item is going to be um find a curriculum or make a plan or maybe just be consistent about reading with a kid, like having the practice and the time, or finding a tutor, or what do you have time for? So just taking those worries and putting an action item with them for your planning will be huge, and you're gonna see that those worries are probably gonna go away because you're actually if you put an action item to them, you're more apt to actually do something about it instead of just stew and worry about it. So that's off topic, but some something I found super helpful. And then here are the questions. Oh, nope. Make a list of accomplishments. Um, so these I just kind of made a list of things that are out of the box things that you might not think of as accomplishments. Um, the books we read, we've talked about that one. What countries did you study? What field trips did you go on? What experiences did you have with your kids? You might have um cooked your way through a cookbook or um studied states and made food for each state, or just taught your kid how to make salsa or thinking outside the box. All of those things are experiences. Hey, maybe every Friday morning during the school year when it was nice, we went to the park, or we went swimming, or we played games every Friday and had hot chocolate for breakfast, or those are all experiences that are accomplishments. Those are memories you made and things you did that need to be counted. Those all count. Um, what science experiments did we do? What science topics did we cover? Study, those are two different things, you guys. Science experiments is a whole other ball game than studying science because science experience require a lot more work for mom. So, you know, honor those accomplishments. Those are accomplishments. If you got all the supplies out to do something, that's huge right there. Um, did you have poetry tea time? Did you do art projects? Did you do family projects, service projects? Did you learn some new games? We learned some new games. I should have put that on our accomplishments. We got like five new games this year and added them in to our family school rotation. Educational games are a fantastic way to spend time together, to bond as a family, and get in some sneaky little learning. My littles, we I taught them how to play bananograms. Um, they haven't done a lot of spelling, they didn't love it. My son says he hates it, but he'll do bananograms for days. Like they think it's super fun and the challenge, and their spelling sometimes is a little more phonetic, and we let it, you know, like we'll correct it, but they're doing a great job. And so those that counts. Like those types of things count. Um, what artists did you study? What composers did you study? Did you do nature journaling? How many nature journaling pages did you do this year? Um, I'm pretty sure we only did two, but hey, hey, we did two nature journal pages. You have to spin it and think about it in a positive way. Um, what recipes did you cook? School fairs. We did a science fair and a biography fair this year. We participated in that. First time ever for my littles. That was huge. That's a huge accomplishment. That should have gone on my accomplishment page, to be fair. Um, it's actually a picture of my son doing Leonardo, what he did Leonardo da Vinci for his biography fair. So those projects and those things, those are huge accomplishments. Those are big projects and big things that need to be celebrated with your kids. It's not something to laugh at. Science for projects is a lot of work. And that's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work, especially for mom. Those need to be counted for um accomplishments. And then here is what to ask your kiddos. What was the best part of your school year? What's one thing you want to do again next year? What's one thing you don't want to do? And it can't be language, arts, math, science, social studies, and then what is something new you would like to add? Um, oh yeah, see, there's four questions. I only did three questions this year, but then afterwards I went back and asked them because something new that they want to add is a is just another one of those buy-ins for next year. So, like I had a kid that wanted to add um more like creative hands-on stuff. So I let they're they're picking it. Like, okay, what do we want to learn? We're gonna learn um how to do some embroidery. And so we're gonna do it all together, but I one kid is gonna own that because that's what they want to do, and they're we're gonna do it all together. So just having those things, like I have another kid that wants to do some more cooking. So they're gonna pick the recipes and we're gonna add it to the grocery list, and then we're all gonna do it together, but they're gonna own that and they're gonna make sure we do it if they want to do it. So have it's just an easier way to have the accountability, not necessarily always be mom pushing it, but having them be a little more accountable and into it. So that's one of my little tricks of the trade. All right, so this is something that will help in your planning, and it's this not necessarily has to do with the inventory, but it's something that I learned about many years ago from Sarah McKenzie. Um, and there's like that rule of five book, but it's called the rule of six. And you answer the question as much as I'm able, I will make sure my kids have time to, and you are gonna make this rule of six. And as you're planning and as you're taking inventory, you're gonna make sure that everything that you're doing and everything that you are including and adding, because it's really easy as a homeschool mom, just be like, sure, we can do this and we can do this, and we can do this, and we can do this, and then you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off all day long, yelling at kids to get in the car because you have to go to this and this and this because you've just added so many things to your plate. Um, so having this rule of six, this is actually old for me. Like I made this a long time ago. I probably should update it to be honest. But this is um the rule of six that I made a long time ago, and it helps me every time I change inventory of what the kids say they want to add, or what the kids say they don't like, or what the kids or what I think we should do, I come back to this. Does it allow us to have read aloud and read alone time? So if I add in these six new things, is are we gonna have time to do that? Maybe not. So that might be my answer. Um, are we having time to be creative doing arts and handicrafts? So this was something that was always on my list, is something that I think is important, but it's really kind of fallen off my radar, and we've added so many things in that that's kind of fallen off. So when I read this, I was like, oh, it's taking inventory. That's important to me. So I need to have that time and add it back in. Um, learning together, family school. Is something we're doing going to take away from that? A little bit, yes. So I need to put that back as my focus. Um, are we making time to talk about books? We participate in a book club that we meet monthly with friends, so we all read books together in the different ages, and we get together, we do an experience, and we talk about books. So that is super important to me because it is hitting more than one of my areas. It's hitting that read reading time and it's hitting the talk about books time. So I'm gonna make sure we make time for our book club. Pursue an interest, each kid pick a focus. You um you can see on my um accomplishment slasher the end of the year thing, I have that on there. Each kid did pick a focus and they did have an area where they um where they picked an area of focus and kind of excelled at it. And so that just reiterates to me, hey, look, I made time for that. I'm doing that. My priorities for me are in line. Um, and then have fun. That fun is like my favorite word. I love to have fun. I'm a little spontane. I like to have spontaneity and be like, hey, let's go bowling, you know, at one o'clock on a Tuesday just because I can. Um, it's fun. So anyway, so I just that's that you can see my field trip and experiences thing has a lot of things on it because I was trying to find be more intentional with that this year. So this rule of six is just a fun thing to have. Um, and it kind of goes like I have a mission, a family mission statement. I didn't bring it in, but it's all hanging on my wall. Um, and it kind of goes along these same things where you have the things that you value and it makes planning and doing new activities and adding new things a little easier and a little just kind of having the accountability to yourself. These are the books that I literally read every single summer. Actually, Teaching from Rest is a super short book. I mean, it's just a couple hours. Um, I normally listen to it every January, like in that break in between Christmas and the start of the school year, because you kind of you just need that little uplifting boost. And then I read it every summer, and then the plan your um your year. I've been doing for years, um, and it's how I map out all of my school. It just kind of breaks it all down, and it has the, you know, you know what you're gonna do for what subject and what supplies you need, and it's how I do all that I do with what I've been given with my time. Um so there you go. I think that's the last slide. Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna stop presenting and I would love to open it up for chat. I want to hear your experiences. I want to hear something that you thought of that was an accomplishment. Um, you're welcome, Ash. I really do hope it was helpful. I know that I found great value in this doing this year after year. So I'd love to know what um you guys have. What do you guys do? What do you use? You guys can turn your cameras on. Um and I just like this to be an open discussion now or questions.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Hi, Allie. I don't think you want me to turn my camera on, Courtney. I sure do. I love your rollers. That's hysterical. Um, I don't know. I feel like we just scraped through on the like we just scraped through, but I feel like we can do it next year too. So I'm I'm glad it's over, but I'm I'm kind of excited about next year and I'm terrified too.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

So this was Allie's very first year homeschooling, you guys. She is a newbie here for us. And Allie, tell me how old your kids are. I don't remember what grade your kids are.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Um, Dinah will be fifth grade and Gwen's gonna be third. Yay, Allie! Yeah, you did it. Yeah, and Gwen has needed some like reading help, like interventions and stuff, which is great. Um, they her teacher noticed that she wasn't doing well on some of the things and that she wasn't exactly where she needed to be on her benchmark benchmarks. So we got help pulled in for her, and it was great. So I I'm really happy about that.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

That's wonderful. I did the same thing, Ali. Um, Macy did reading intervention with Sequoia, and it was life-changing, you guys. Like I've never ever had a reading tutor come in and help before, but it was magical. And she now is fully just reading things. It's just this wonderful little thing. So take the help or you can get it.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Oh, yeah. I'm like, yeah, let's get her tested for whatever you think she is.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Right. Let's get the resources. Okay, Ash says my biggest thing is trying to navigate the older kids from high school, making sure they get what they need. Um, I will say, like, my high schoolers, by the time my goal by the time we get them to high school is to really make them self learners and self um motivated in learning, but giving them the tools to do that. Um so I I meet with each of my high schoolers over the summer and we kind of plan out. They get to choose. I mean, they know these are the subjects you have to do. They get to choose their electives, but these are math science social days and history. What do you want to learn about? What do you want to study? What is your area? And then I give them a few different choices for curriculum. So, like for math, they have these choices. What what do you like the best? And most of actually all of my high schoolers and um have done teaching textbooks. That's what they like the best. It works for them. And so we do, and so we'll decide, you know, they'll do algebra one. Okay, do you want to do algebra two or do you want to do geometry? Like there's no rule that says you have to do them in any certain order. Um, and most of mine have chosen to do algebra two right after algebra one, so it's fresh on their mind, and then do geometry later. Um, and I also have some that depending upon what their end result is, um, they didn't keep going after that. They didn't do calculus or they didn't need it for what they were doing. Um so but having them pick and choose and being able to have the buy-in on how they want to learn it and how they want to do the things has made my high schoolers um very successful in what they do because they're doing what they want to do.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

And are they like um oh sorry, someone talked about it? Oh that okay. Um okay, so that is really helpful. So you said teaching textbooks, so that's online or is that workbook?

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Oh no, it's it's online. Um, and it is, I love it. So they do it's a lesson, like a teacher teaches a lesson and they have practices they go through. Um, it spirals, it keeps going back and forth. They review concepts and it tells you in the corner like what chapter it was that first introduced what lesson. Um, and I taught my kids how to take notes. They take notes so they know like this is lesson one and they're gonna take the notes so that when they get to lesson 27, but the they're like, I don't remember how to do that, but it says in the corner lesson one, they're gonna go back to their notes from lesson one and they're gonna look so that it just makes them more successful in it and helping them learn. I think that's one of the things that I've learned with high schoolers or homeschoolers in general, is they don't necessarily know how to take the notes because they don't learn that skill, like unless you teach it to them. So just taking the few extra minutes to like show them. Um, and I do give my high schoolers a schedule, so they know that they have to do math four times a week, they have to do language arts four times a week, they have to read five days a week, they have to whatever it is. I give them this nice little checklist. And then I have some high schoolers, or even my elder schools, I do the same thing with all my kids. If they do four math lessons on Monday, then you know what? They actually are done and they don't have to do math all the rest of the week. Like, I don't, I mean, my son does that because my son loves math. Um, but they it gives them a little bit of freedom and they know that Friday afternoon is we call it friend Fridays, and we they can play and go and do things on Fridays, but if they don't have all their check marks, they don't have all their boxes done, then they get to stay home with mom and they're gonna do school. So it allows me not to have to be the bad guy, and they know this, they just know this is what's gonna happen, and mom's gonna check, and I don't get that free time on Friday if we don't get it done. And a couple times that they've learned, you know, I'm not joking and they don't get to go. Um, and that's the con they learn that there's a consequence, and that's okay.

unknown 47:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Ash, and something that uh works for our family with our homeschoolers or with our high schoolers, sorry, um we we do we utilize the um concurrent enrollment that you can do with the colleges, the uh community colleges and um other online colleges so that um they can be actually earning um college credit while they're uh take while they're doing high school classes and it can count for both. So we like to do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Okay, and okay, so that's helpful. And is it like um Courtney with your kids, do you do they do they did the math online? Are all their subjects online or is it a mixed match, like with language and stuff? So math's the only one I do online. Um okay. Um we don't do the workbook and stuff. Okay, and then my last question is um trying to figure out like if my daughter graduating from so she's ninth grade, so she's the oldest, and she's the first one, obviously, that I've had to do this with. So I'm trying to figure out how do I, when I have a husband who's like, oh, they need a cricket, you know, graduate from the high school, get their diploma to be able to succeed or to go to a college, all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, well, you can get a homeschool diploma, and I feel like you could get in most colleges by applying, depending upon. Um, so with your kids, did they go to college? Like, how does that work out?

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Yeah, Asher, are you in Arizona? Did you see one? Um, so you absolutely can get in anywhere with a high school diploma. You make a transcript, you which I will happily show you how I have a nice transcript generator. Um, and I had one kid, so this is way off topic, but I'm just gonna tell you. So um in junior high in seventh and eighth grade, we start in and Murdoff, I don't know your DL. I saw your hand raised, I'll get to you next. Sorry, I don't know what your first name is. Um, anyways, uh so in junior high we start to plan and we're like, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do? What are your passions? Because every single one of my kids' high schools um or high school four years goes towards what they want to do. Um, and if they say, well, I don't know, then we have them experience. So I'm like, pick three things that you're interested in, and we have them go shadow somebody that does it. Um, or like so when my kids were my mother-in-law, is um, she runs a law firm. Um, and so they were file clerks over the summer when they were in high school. And they all all my two oldest girls learned that they absolutely had zero desire to work in an office building. They did not want to work at it, sit at a desk and do it. So my oldest became, she was a c became a cosmetologist. So she did trade school in high school. Um, and so her whole high school feedered into that. So she took all of her extracurriculars, were those things that did that. My next one down wants to be nurse. And so her high school, she took a whole lot of science classes. Um, she she got her CNA in high school because she, in order to go to nurse school, you have to have your CNA. So why not do it now? So every single one of my kids has been completely different in high school. Um, but you absolutely can get into college without having an accredited diploma. Your high school diploma that you make in your high school transcript is totally sufficient for getting in. I mean, there are you do need to kind of have an idea, like if your kid wants to go to MIT or they want to go to Nightly League College, um, they're gonna need different things. They're gonna need to take different classes, they're gonna make need to make sure they have that two years of a foreign language, or you want to kind of do a little research ahead of time as to what the end result is. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, go ahead, what was your question? Your hand raised, um Mrs. Murdoch, RDL Murdoch. Oh, she doesn't want away her camera turned off. Can you unmute yourself? I cannot unmute you. Okay, well we'll she'll come back. Oh, there she goes. No, okay. Well, when you're ready, you go ahead and talk. Oh, we just lost her. Okay. Um uh Debbie, that is a great idea. Joining for accountability, that's 100% why I am here. That was why I came because it really does help just having that, having somebody else one, especially when your kids get to junior high, they sometimes balk at what mom says. But having somebody else, like Sarah happens to be one of our mentors, saying, Oh, sorry, you have to do it for Mrs. Flake. They're a whole lot more uh motivated to do it for her than they would for me sometimes when you have a little bit of a stubborn, stubborn power struggle with your kiddos.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

And Sarah, you're a good oh, sorry. No, you're good.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

I was reading the comment because Sarah's she also has seven kids and she's had five kids go to college, so it's totally possible. And they were homeschooled all the way through, too.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

I just had a question about co-ops and stuff. Do you have like a resource of different co-ops around the valley, or how did you how do you hear about different co-ops? Um, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

I started a co-op. Oh so we have, but but honestly, I don't are your do you have elementary kiddos too, Ashley?

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Yeah, my kids range from this year, the one will be in second, second through ninth. I have six kids.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

And are your kids in venture now? Um, well, we've been doing it the last two years, so yeah. Um, so venture school is uh co-op basically. It's but it's the teachers are paid, so the classes are even better. Um so my youngers, my younger three all go to venture school um on Wednesdays and they think it's like the best day ever. Um so that that's a great co-op, but most of the other co-ops are gonna be um what part of the valley do you live in, Ash? East Valley. Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert. Uh Mesa. Mesa, sorry. Okay, well, I live in Mesa. I have some suggestions for you. Okay. If you want to email me after I'll put my email in the chat. Uh so it does depend. Um a lot of co-ops are religious affiliated. Um, and so it kind of depends upon where you fall in that, which is what I would recommend to you. So that's why we'll chat later. Okay. Um, Sarah has a good high school one. There you go in Tucson. Yeah, our my particular co-op is um, well, now we're getting our kids are getting a little bit older, so the youngest is like in kindergarten, first grade, but we have a great big high school group. I will say homeschooling high school, um, is it's really important to have that community for your kids. Like having those friends, having them um have those experiences, they don't feel like they're missing out is a much easier, more successful way to homeschool high school.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

I'd have to ditto that. I don't even I I don't have as much experience as you, but I my oldest, like I said, is a freshman. And I started homeschooling right after the COVID happened, and she was like felt like missing out. So it's like next year she wants to go to high school full time because she, you know, it's just hard. Because she also does like the seminary, so she gets that experience and she'll do orchestra, and so it's like it's just tricky because I'm like, oh, I don't want her to go all day, but yeah, anyways. Ash, I totally have a homeschool co-op for you when you just said that.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

So I let's chat afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

So, anyways, having that for your high schoolers is really it is really important. Okay, any other questions, comments? I'd love to hear any other thoughts. But we have pretty much taken your hour, so you guys are welcome to pop off if you are done. You guys, thank you so much, and I super appreciate all of the participation. You guys, that's what makes these way more fun and enjoyable, even though you did listen to me talk a lot.