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Well This Wasn't The Plan!
We never expected to homeschool...but here we are! Life is funny that way, ya know?
After 4 years in public school, we've made the unexpected leap into homeschooling our 3 kids--while still working full-time! On this podcast, we're documenting the journey in real time: the good, the hard, the hilarious, and everything in between.
Whether you're a curious parent, a fellow homeschooler, or just here for the chaos, welcome!
Let's figure it out together--because sometimes the best things start with, "Well, that wasn't the plan..."
Well This Wasn't The Plan!
4. We Survived Our First Week Homeschooling + Working! Here's How it Went!
We survived our first week of homeschooling while working full-time jobs, and despite some bumps along the way, it feels right – like it was meant to be.
• Children seem happier and more energetic compared to when they attended public school
• Figuring out curriculum has been challenging – Mi Academy has pros and cons
• Customizing education to each child's needs is incredibly rewarding
• Oldest daughter's ADHD presents differently than teachers described, allowing us to adapt our approach
• Setting up a consistent schedule is crucial for success
• Finding balance between structured learning and flexibility
• Socialization concerns are completely unfounded – the kids have had more meaningful social interactions this week than before
• Taking breaks and getting personal time is essential for maintaining patience
• The evening guilt of not spending enough time with kids has disappeared
• Desks ordered to replace kitchen table schooling after a week of clutter
If homeschooling is something on your heart but seems impossible with your work schedule, we're here to tell you it might be more doable than you think. Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad, and the ugly.
It feels right, Like it feels like it was a really good fit for us. We don't have everything figured out. We've got a lot to learn. We're still newbies. One week is just laughable in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like it was meant to be. We are two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.
Speaker 3:After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people Welcome to well, this wasn't the plan.
Speaker 3:Podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Slate and school's in the kitchen. Now I'm Scotty. We just start when I say so. I'm Sailor and this whole podcast was my idea.
Speaker 3:This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool jobs, parenting and everything in between.
Speaker 1:Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad and the ugly, because we know some days are going to be ugly and we're not holding back.
Speaker 3:We're learning to expect the unexpected, so let's get into it. Let's go.
Speaker 1:We survived our very first week of homeschooling. We're alive. We did it so week of homeschooling. We're live, we did it, so let's talk about it. I made notes all week long. I have two pages right here, but we just talked about it. We're going to try to condense this down 30, 45 minutes. There's a lot to talk about the first week.
Speaker 3:I don't think we're going to have as much to talk about every single week, but this week there's quite a lot have as much to talk about every single week, but this week there's quite a lot and, in my personality style, I have a list of notes in my head that half of which have been forgotten already and the other half are there, and then there will be new ones that get added to the list. As I'm talking, that, we're not there at the start of the episode yes, so type a right here, type b there, type awesome right here.
Speaker 1:I know you there.
Speaker 3:Type awesome right here.
Speaker 1:I know you were thinking about it during the week because you were like, oh yeah, I was talking about that on the podcast and I had all these thoughts and so I was just writing them down, but I think you forgot.
Speaker 3:And I also said, I should write them down, but you didn't, but I didn't.
Speaker 1:All right. So first thing that we want to talk about was just like how we're feeling after this very first week of doing something completely different. I feel like we just started like a new life. I just keep waiting for it to sink in because it's so different.
Speaker 3:Yes, so, different.
Speaker 1:So different. But for this week, homeschooling has been something that has been weighing on my heart for a long time, even well before I thought that it would ever happen, because I just thought if we worked, we could never homeschool. So it's been something that's on my heart and my mind and it just feels surreal that we're actually here. And another thing that I thought about a lot this week was that it feels right, like it feels like it was a really good fit for us. We don't have everything figured out, we've got a lot to learn, we're still newbies.
Speaker 1:One week is just laughable in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like it was meant to be and I don't think that we would ever realize that without going to school, because we got to see both worlds and it wasn't like we just tried kindergarten, like we had kids in multiple grades, multiple years. We got to see what the school system was like and that helped us make a decision. I don't think that we could have ever jumped into home where we would never have jumped into homeschooling, because that's not, that wasn't our plan and that wasn't anything that we ever saw us doing but to have the school experience we needed.
Speaker 3:That or we would never be here and I think that you can actually learn a lot from your kids going through public school. I mean things that maybe that were good, but also things that you don't want to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I just think that what a blessing it is that we get to have both sides because we can feel confident in our decision. That's how I feel. I feel like if there's so many people telling me that homeschooling is bad for different reasons, and then obviously those people saying that school is bad, but I get to feel very confident because I know that we tried both and this feels right.
Speaker 3:And this is what works for us. But what I think is the most beautiful not to sound like a politician, but is that we have the choice. Yeah. Because we were on our vacation in Europe and they don't have that. It's illegal to homeschool.
Speaker 1:If you don't send your kids to school over there, they will take your kids away from you.
Speaker 3:Well, we're extremely lucky and I think we had a really great week. Yeah, me too. Me too it was tiring at times, but I think a big part of that was just that we had gone on vacation and then we got out of the habit of waking up early and getting back on the routine of waking up at six in the morning.
Speaker 1:For sure the biggest thing for me this week that was like kind of negative was the feeling that we have so many things now that we can do in a day. It was very overwhelming. So we have to decide what's the best thing that you can do for a day, what's the best schedule for kids and what do they need to learn in a day, and that's very overwhelming because there is so many options.
Speaker 3:It's funny because I already made the comparison to prison before and it is the same way. People get out of prison and they feel that way. They feel like someone's been telling them what time to get up, what time to eat, what to eat, for so long or the military is another example. But it's hard for people to make that transition to having that choice. I feel a very similar way, but not about all the different things that we could do besides curriculum, homeschooling things. I feel that way, just specifically about the curriculum.
Speaker 3:There's only so much time in the day, there's only so much learning space in a kid's brain on a day. It gets a little bit bigger as they get older, but you have a window and then that's it. You know they can't really focus longer than a certain amount of time. So I mean there's foreign languages, there's math, science, reading, history, all the things we know, but there's music lessons. There's so many things. There's so many extracurriculars that could be added in there and I mean you know how we are as parents. We want our kids to have everything, to know everything, to do everything, but that it's not healthy and it's not possible. So that is a little bit of a struggle for me.
Speaker 1:For sure. We have a whole list of things that we think this will be awesome if we do it when we homeschool, because we have all this time. But you have to make all of these choices, just like anything else. Time goes by very quickly in a day. So talking about that, let's jump into the schedule. So how the schedule went this week we were working from six to 10. That was the first thing in the schedule, and the first bump in the road for us this week was that I didn't update our work schedule early enough, so we had planned to do school from 10 to 12. And that didn't work out because we already had meetings booked during those times. So we had to adjust a lot this week, which was completely fine because we just moved school, but it was also frustrating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because we were trying to get into a routine and one of the benefits of homeschool is the flexibility and the schedule. But I do think it's good to try to have a schedule, at least for our children. Maybe that's not the case if you have, you know, two parents homeschooling one kid. I mean, I don't know if there's nearly as much importance on that.
Speaker 1:There's so much research showing it's way better for kids to have a schedule and a structure and a routine.
Speaker 3:I guess it's good for everyone. For us it's a necessity because there's just no way that if they don't all know that in this window we're going to be doing this, then just rounding everybody up can take a really long time.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's when people get themselves into a pickle and they actually don't homeschool their children. Well, they are like well, we're just going to be fluid and flexible, and then the schooling actually doesn't get done because, as we've seen, that the day passes by and things just don't get done. It can happen.
Speaker 3:You have to be real diligent. I mean, whenever we were researching, I saw online on Reddit actually, but a lady was like please help, oh my God, it was a homeschooling Reddit thread and please help, I made it through the whole year. You know, we had some things, we had a family member in the hospital, so we skipped a couple weeks, and then one thing led to another and we got through the whole school year and we haven't done anything. And I just I mean, first of all, I'm sorry that happened, but I'm also kind of annoyed, because that's what gives homeschoolers a bad rep. That's not what the majority is, but you know people, that's the kind of people that are making comments. They see people like that and then they're like, oh, that's for people that don't want their kids to learn anything. I don't think that could be further from the truth, but there are a few examples like that where it does happen.
Speaker 1:I heard the same thing. Someone's sister pulled her kids out to homeschool them. They didn't do anything all year except for watch TV and like hang out, so like summer, and then they put them right back into school and they were behind Of course. Okay, mark my words. That will not happen with us. I am too type A. I care too much about where my kids are and what they're learning.
Speaker 3:Like we're not going to let it go by the wayside. A little bit of an advantage, because I mean everyone thinks their kids hung the moon. But I mean really, objectively speaking, our kids are all three really smart and learn easily, so it is easier a little bit for us, probably, than some people.
Speaker 1:Okay, that sounds really braggy. It's not, it's just how it is yeah, they do pick up on things very quickly and we'll talk about that. But I think it's just more. The parent has to be the parent. You know that education is important and if you aren't putting that as a priority in your day, or you're not making sure that your kid understands what the priority is and you don't get it done, then no, homeschooling is not for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true, but it's really important to me. That's true, but it's really important to me and I don't know. There's been a lot of things in our lives that I don't keep up with as well as Taryn does. She's more type A, but I'm on top of it on this. I'm, you know, because it's important to me, I'm excited about it, and so you know we're and Taryn's on top of it because she's Taryn.
Speaker 1:So yeah, because I'm just too type A Probably not a good thing a lot of times.
Speaker 3:But for this it's great.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does work really well for this. I absolutely loved working early in the morning. This week was rough because we were not used to waking up at 6. We got all off schedule when we traveled to Europe and the time difference and even though we normally do wake up at 6, we were way off and so it was hard.
Speaker 3:Right, but we had done. We had started doing that a while back for our work schedule because I found that I'm way more productive during that window, especially from 6am to 8am, for just for some reason. And it helps that we work from home, but if I can just get up pour a cup of coffee and sit down and start working immediately, I am just. I get more done in those two hours than I can in any other six hour window, so that's been great.
Speaker 1:I found that definitely to be true and for me it was hard to get back to work after drop off and everything, and it was very stressful.
Speaker 1:And then go back to work after drop off and everything, and it was very stressful, and then go back to work. I love checking it off my list for the day, because I get in, I see if there's any alarming client emails or things that need to be taken care of, and everything gets taken care of for the day and I usually have like one major task, whether it's payroll or bookkeeping, and I get that done and then the rest of the day I don't worry about work. I know it'll be there when we get back, but I know that I've done what I need to do. It feels like freeing. It feels like I can actually check out of work and be a mom, a teacher, whatever, instead of I always felt like I wasn't doing enough because I was trying to bounce back from getting the kids up, getting to school, getting to work, taking someone to orthodontist, whatever. I was always bouncing around. I love getting it done first thing in the day because there's nothing that gets in the way of work, which is nice.
Speaker 3:That is nice, because we have to earn a living.
Speaker 1:Yeah, number one thing we need money. So other things I wrote down about the schedule was that Sailor's like really pumped to homeschool. She's like on a homeschooling high, she's so excited. We said yes. So she got the kids up. She had them up before I told them they had to be up. She had them dressed, she had the breakfast out, she made sure they did their morning chores and they were outside before they even need to. It's like she woke Slade up before time. So they did really well on that schedule.
Speaker 3:I mean, and I think part of it is you know, kids just hear what they want to hear. And she's asked if we're ever going to send them back to school and I said probably not if they don't want to go back. I mean, unless if it just turned out they didn't do anything, they didn't learn anything at home, or we were terrible teachers or something, which are all very unlikely, and I told her are all very, very unlikely things, but all she hears is that there's a chance that they could have to go back to school, and so she's like busting her butt to make sure that everything goes smoothly, which is kind of funny.
Speaker 1:She's not always, but in this sense she was the typical oldest daughter. She had everybody doing what they were supposed to do. She was like mom and dad are working until 10, then we got to be outside and so she was on a very regimented schedule. I say we have a routine, because it's not going to be exactly at 1030 we do this or whatever. But she took it very literally, so she wanted to make sure that everybody was doing what they needed to do on the exact time. So I thought that was very cute and you know, nice of her to make sure that they're going doing what they're supposed to do and taking their responsibilities. Well, chores went really well. I was really proud of them.
Speaker 3:So I think that they they did really well with it and I think that she also is trying to earn those fun fridays, because those are the days that you know we're just schooling muddy through. Thursday and fridays I take them to do something fun and I haven't told them everything that's on the list. But there's four tiers of things and it is based on how well they keep up with everything, because I don't want to have a punishment Like there's no fun Friday or we're just going to stare at the wall day Friday. But it could be just something free and cheap, like going to the park, and that's the fun Friday, which is not probably the most fun. But then there's super high levels which are like we're going to go to a theme park and you know, but that would involve everything is done perfectly all week.
Speaker 1:So well, we just told them that we have fun Friday. We don't do school on Friday. And if they show up every day for homeschool with a good attitude and do their chores in the morning without being reminded do their chores.
Speaker 1:Then on Fridays we do chores as a family. We clean up the entire house and then Carson takes them out of the house so that I can just finish up like mopping and stuff. But they did really great with all of that this week stuff. But they did really great with all of that this week. One other thing that I wrote down was that people kept telling me that how are you going to work, how are you guys going to keep working if you have to homeschool? And I always was like I think I'm going to have more time, which sounds kind of dumb. I get that, but we talked about that. We need to add up the amount of time that we're spending, like to get them to school, pick up lines, homework, packing lunches, cleaning out their bags every night and checking their folders from their teachers, communicating on parents, all of those things Right, and it does add up. That's a lot of time. We haven't added it up yet. We will, because we're accountants.
Speaker 3:And on the flip side, we'll add up how much time we're spending, you know, lesson prepping and getting everything ready for curriculum and actually teaching the children, and so that will. That will help us. You know, balance both sides and see how much time. I mean and I think Taryn's right I think we really won't be spending that much more time in this situation.
Speaker 1:Well, tbd on the exact time, but for me and it might just be a preference thing, because I preferred getting my work done and not having it stressing out during the day but I felt like I had way more time to work and do the things that I need to do versus way more time to work and do the things that I need to do versus, you know, dropping them off at school and then being back at school by three. So I wrote that down and it felt like I had more time in my day to do the work tasks that I have to do.
Speaker 3:And we'll have to adapt that calculation over time because I mean, you know, the first week I spent way more time getting curriculum ready and things than I will long term.
Speaker 1:This week doesn't count with that, because we're just figuring all of that out.
Speaker 3:I printed a whole textbook on accident.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a lot of Sorry, Mother.
Speaker 3:Earth Didn't mean to do that.
Speaker 1:I also wrote down that we probably need to get the kids alarms because they need to be up by nine, right, and we didn't this week. So get them their alarm going to let them know when it's time to get up if they're still sleeping, because we have a lot to fit into a day. I think I was assuming that we would have all these hours and it would feel like we can't fill them. No, no, no, we have. It feels like the day goes by so fast and then it's like late afternoon, like way past, whenever school would have ended, and there's so many things to do in a day between getting the kids outside us, working, trying to fit in a workout, getting reading time, their actual school, and then we haven't even started sports and activities quite yet. So we have a full day. We don't have the luxury of starting super late in our day.
Speaker 3:Right, and it's also. It's a slippery slope because I think Saylor's more like you, that her body naturally falls into a healthier sleep rhythm and that she'll go to bed at about the same time and wake up at about the same time every day, without forcing herself to go to bed at a scheduled time and forcing herself to wake up with an alarm. The slate's more like me. It is a slippery slope. I'll sleep till 630 and then I'll stay up a little bit later that night, so then the next day I'll sleep till seven, so then I'll stay up even later that night. And it keeps going. And before you know it, if I wasn't setting an alarm and going to bed very deliberately at a certain time, then I would be staying up till 1 am and sleeping until you know 10 am. I know that because that's exactly what happened to me on vacation.
Speaker 1:Yes, a person has a hard time staying on a sleep schedule, and the kids have always been on a really good one, but as they've gotten older, we have been letting them stay up. I'm talking they used to go to bed at seven every night, and even when Sailor was older she would go to bed at seven, but she would like read. So we had a lot of time, just you know, you and I. And then now we're letting them stay up later. So we still think sleep is super important for them. So we're putting them to bed between eight and 9, depending on the night, so we're not letting them stay up till like midnight or anything.
Speaker 3:But they're staying up too late still, even though we turn off the TV and tell them to go to bed. But I guess we'll have to, you know, I guess be a little bit stricter for a while until they get into a good sleep schedule, because I hear them coming in there to fill up their water and putting ice in it Sorry, that was lightning. I hear them coming in to put ice in their cup at 1130 at night. Sometimes I'm hearing somebody put water in their cup and ice and I'm like what are they even doing awake? I don't even know which kid it is. Because I don't engage, I'm not going in there, because then they'll be up even longer.
Speaker 1:Well, that was last night. They had a goal to stay up till midnight. We didn't know this and they read in Sailor's room.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that either. I knew that Slate slept in there. I didn't know why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they read for a really long time and their goal was midnight, even though Sailor wanted to stay up all night. They didn't tell us any of this. We didn't even know he was in our room. But I said that's completely fine for you guys to do that. Sometimes it can be on a school night.
Speaker 1:So right you know you cannot see at belly, so we're going to be stricter on those times so that we can get our day started and get into a really good rhythm. One thing that I didn't talk about and he said tv we turn off the tv. So one thing that I really loved about this week was that in the evening so we don't let the kids like do TV time or like any sort of tablets or whatever during the day, but at nighttime, if we're home and we're not at sports or something, they do get to watch a show or a movie or whatever. So we save TV till later in the day.
Speaker 1:Now, when they went to school, I had a lot of guilt with that, not because I think it's bad that they watched TV, but it's because we would get home and do all the necessary things like homework or study their words, sports, meals and showering, and then they watched TV. There was literally no time for us with them. So then I felt guilty that they were just sitting in there watching TV when I haven't spent a single minute the good connection minute with them in the whole day.
Speaker 3:Right, and we want that time and I think they want that time, but they don't want it at that time, just like we don't, because they're tired from the day. They're like I deserve to get to relax and read a book or watch a show. Please don't make me engage you in conversation right now and I think I'm sure that's how they feel and so kind of a little bit how we felt at that time.
Speaker 1:I absolutely did. And then I felt guilty for feeling that way. I felt like, oh my gosh, I'm done. I have done a million things today, like I'm so ready to just like either be alone or take a shower or watch my show or whatever. And then I just felt guilty because I needed to spend time with my kids. So it's just something that's bothered me for a really long time. And this week it was refreshing because we've spent all day together. We don't need any more one-on-one time. We have spent a lot of quality time together all day doing exactly what we think is the ideal day as a family. And then everybody can go you can go read in your room, you can go watch a show, I can take a shower, and there is no guilt. And it felt freeing.
Speaker 3:Right. I mean because the first two to three hours that we're working they're not even awake yet, and then they have breakfast while we finish up work, but then that's it. I mean, then we go to the park together and that's good quality time. We have lunch together, we do homeschool together, and then we usually do something together in the afternoon, or divide and conquer, and then maybe, you know, I have one of the kids or two of the kids and you have one for whatever activities they're going to end up doing, and so then we're together for a lot of that stuff and then we all have dinner together. So yes, at the end of the day, if Taryn and I want to read at 7 o'clock, then we've already spent a lot of quality time with the kids that day. Then we've already spent a lot of quality time with the kids that day. So we don't feel guilty to sit down and read a book and let them watch a show separately away from us.
Speaker 1:No guilt, no guilt, no guilt at all for the evening relaxation, which was amazing.
Speaker 3:We really never did until this, until this started, because we were going all day until we got the kids in bed. Then we would relax after got the kids in bed, then we would relax after the kids were in bed, and until then we never sat down or read a book, watched a TV show or anything.
Speaker 1:No, we would be getting home late. A lot of times I would be coming home with Taylor at night and you guys were already in bed. So there is no relaxing at six or seven in the evening. We were either out of the house or cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner, getting them showered, all of that, so our relaxing always started after they were in bed. So this is such a nice change. I feel like we get so much more time to do something we want to do. Whether I want to go for a walk or read a book, or we watch a show together, I feel like we have more time.
Speaker 3:Right, and even whenever they're learning, even if it's something hard, which hasn't been a lot of that yet but whenever they overcome something and learn it, it's very rewarding and it's nice to be a part of that, instead of just hearing about it or oftentimes not even hearing about it.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about that. Let's move into schooling and curriculum and how that went, because that was my number one thought from the week was wow, it was crazy to go from having nothing and knowing nothing about their education to be in full control of it, because I actually got to see a lot of things and with the way schools set up now, specifically like from when COVID changed, there is not a lot of contact with the teacher directly face-to-face because of the way you pick up and drop off and your kids don't tell you very much. They're like how's your day? Great, we got to see exactly into their day. So it's a really weird feeling for years not knowing what's going on with their education and then now literally being in the driver's seat.
Speaker 3:Right, it feels pretty good.
Speaker 1:It feels great. I think one of the things that first popped up for me when we were doing it was that I was working with Sailor on something and she was rock and rolling. She was doing great with it. We journaled, we moved to another subject, then we moved to like the kind of the last. We were getting towards the end of that and she just hit a wall Like she was done.
Speaker 1:She didn't want to do it, her motivation was gone. She was getting really jittery, like moving in her seat, like oh, I can see the ADHD. And I've never got to experience it with school work. She's always been like that a hundred percent of the time because we're teaching her at the end of the day. So if I had to go over spelling words with her, it was always awful because she's done, she's already done her school for the day. So I experienced that, but I never got to experience a good part of it. Like she has a really good window, it just doesn't last long. So never got to experience a good part of it Like she has a really good window.
Speaker 3:It just doesn't last long. So I got to see her ADHD like a teacher would experience it. You can't overcome the ADHD just by being smart. You can with other subjects, but with spelling words you're just memorizing. There's literally nothing you can do to learn it fast. You just have to do it. You just have to sit down and do it.
Speaker 1:I do remember that it's really hard for her and she has gotten better at it as she's gotten older and just worked that muscle I guess yes, and her focus is a little bit longer than it was when she was like five or six. But we have known she's had ADHD for a while and we've told her teachers because we see it at home that the end of the day it's the worst. We can't get her to focus on anything but that's the end of her focus. But when we asked them they've always said she's great, she's fine. I don't know what you're talking about Like, and it kind of made me feel crazy for a while that we're like labeling our kid when she doesn't need a label.
Speaker 1:But once I understood, like, a lot more about ADHD and did research a lot of times. Teachers don't catch girls that have ADHD. Because she was doing well, she just burned out. Like if they did three math papers the first two would be really great, the second one she would do part of the first of them and then she would just be done and she wouldn't even do the back half of the sheet. So her grades would be like 99, 95, 91, 60. And it wasn't because she wasn't understanding it, but when you would talk to the teacher. The teacher would be like oh well, it's fine. Like a lot of people struggle with that, well, there's not enough one-on-one for them to realize what's happening. What was happening wasn't that she wasn't understanding the material, was that she had met her limit of focus for the day. So the fact that we've been dealing with that for years and I was able to see it firsthand, it was nice.
Speaker 3:And sometimes you have to overcome your own thinking too, because I noticed it too. We were sitting at the kitchen table and I think we are going to talk about that some. But we were sitting there, slate and Taylor were sitting at the table together and I'm working with Slate and she's looking over at what he's working on. She's supposed to be working on her math worksheet and I'm like hey, look at your paper. You need to work on yours. You already know how to do addition, even double-digit addition. You get it down Work on your paper. And I had to tell her three times and finally I'm like, well, I'm stupid, like why am I? She can't, it's not, I mean no, it's not possible.
Speaker 3:It's like telling a turtle to fly he can watch the birds all day and he's never going to do it. You, I had to move slate to another spot to work with him and let sailor sit there and not be distracted. And it is distracting. I mean, I'm sitting there talking to him.
Speaker 1:You know, two feet away from her face, I would be distracted is distracting, but in a school setting there is a million things going on and there's limited space. Limited space. There's 18 plus kids in there and everyone's making noise, asking questions, getting up, going to the bathroom, like that's what she's used to. So I'm like, well, having two other kids in here, that's not. You know, that shouldn't be an issue. But we want her to do her best, and her best is to be able to focus to the best of her ability.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I do think that we need to get her started on her work and then give her a quiet spot and then check in on her. And that's another perk of the two-hour schedule, because, yeah, it would be really sad to sit a kid by by herself for six or seven hours at school and, okay, that's just, you're going to have to sit there by yourself all day with, not me, but it's she's not by herself. I'm going back and forth between sailor and slate. For the most part this week that's what I was doing, and so you know I'm there to supervise and to ask questions whenever she needs them. But for those two hours while we're working, yeah, it is great for her to be a little bit in a bubble so that she can focus, and it worked really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we can do that, so why not? I would say for the whole schooling part of our week and everything that my overall thing was that it went well. The kids were open to us teaching them. We didn't really have any bad attitudes like I don't want to learn from you. Our kids were really really good with all of that. The hard part that I wrote down and that was like the hardest part for me, was just going from child to child and bouncing around. You can't imagine how teachers do it with that many kids. But we were like guys, we're only two people, there's two of us, there's three of them and it seemed really hard to manage that setup.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree. I mean I think that we've said it several times we think that teachers have a really hard job and you know us homeschooling isn't a, you know, reflection of the job we think they're doing. I think that I would never be able to teach 25 children, or even 18, or however many they have. I think that even two people who aren't experienced teachers, teaching one and a half kids is our splits between the two of us is going to be way easier. But even then it was hard because I felt like we needed a third adult sometimes.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we were wanting to sit down with them one-on-one and work them through things. But when we were doing that, another kid was like mom, mom, dad, dad, and we're like guys, you have to just sit there just like you would at school. You've got to sit there and wait for us to come to you, because we can't bounce around.
Speaker 3:Part of that is because we're still testing and some of the curriculum is too easy, so we're pushing through it really quickly, and so I might put Slate on a reading comprehension test and then I'm going to work with Saylor and I think that I'm going to have, you know, a solid 15 to 20 minutes.
Speaker 3:I can sit down and work with her on something that's more complicated and two minutes later he's done with the test and he's calling me and yes, he got all the answers right. He needs to be moved on. But I can't skip the whole course. I want to skip just each chapter as he's completing these things, so that I know, okay, he's good on that, but I don't want to skip the whole course in case there's something important in there. So just figuring out some of that, some of the specifics, has been a little bit of a challenge. I do think, when they're all working on something that's actually a little bit difficult, that they're actually having to learn new things, that I'll be able to have one that needs me, one that's practicing what they just learned, and then swap back and forth much more easily.
Speaker 1:And because he's talking about the two kids, what happened? Just naturally and I don't know if we'll switch this up or not our youngest needed the most help because she's working on reading. She can't just sit down and do a math paper by herself, yet you have to have a lot of instruction, and so it was like one person needed to be with her, which ended up being me, and then the other two. They can read and write well enough now that they could sit down and do like a spelling worksheet or math worksheet or whatever. They actually have that capacity to do that, but our youngest does not. So it's like I need to be with her, guiding her through here's step one, two, three, four, so that we can get through the school part of our day.
Speaker 3:Right. Well, when you can't read, you can't do a worksheet. I mean you have to be told what to do, and then you do need that practice, so someone has to tell you what to do. But I mean, Slate and Taylor are able to read the instructions and do the worksheets and Scotty really can't do anything alone, which we already kind of knew that.
Speaker 1:But I am with her. And there was one day that we went to the park. The whole schedule got thrown off because we made new friends and we were like, that's fine, we'll adjust, we'll do it later in the day. And we did, and as we imagined, doing it later in the day was not good and we did and as we imagined, doing it later in the day was not good. The kids didn't act as good about it and didn't go as smoothly. It took way longer and Scotty was not so good about that day.
Speaker 3:And to top it off, that was the day that they decided to teach Slate ridiculous things he didn't want to learn.
Speaker 1:He was mad.
Speaker 3:It was the one with the vocabulary and the math commutative and all that and he's like can we do numbers? I don't know what is this. This is dumb. And he really was not happy to be doing that. I think it would have been fine if he hadn't have been tired, I mean, and he understood what they were talking about. He just didn't want to do the problems that way that he already knows how to do them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he wouldn't do math problems. He didn't want to do reading math problems. So our initial thought of we need to do it early in the day was absolutely correct.
Speaker 1:We need to do it early in the day, get school over with, don't wait until everybody's tired and grumpy and that will occasionally happen, but for the most part, we will be committing to doing it early so that that doesn't happen again, because we experienced it and we were right. Right. So let's talk about the curriculum, because when I shared about all of this, I feel like that was the number one question. What is the curriculum we're using? Do we like it? All those things. So let's jump into that. Carson is the curriculum man. So we chose Me Academy. But we're working through those kinks, if you want to tell them about that.
Speaker 3:Yes. So we had researched several different things and we landed on that one. We like the idea that it seemed like you would be able to do some things on the computer, but mostly you could do things on paper, which is what we wanted, and what we found so far is that it's not as seamless as I was hoping.
Speaker 1:That was the whole reason we picked it right. It was that there's a trial and it's $1.99 for the month for kids. You can try it out, and I heard from so many people homeschool people that they tried a curriculum and didn't like it. So I didn't want to spend $600 per kid on something without trying it. So I learned that we picked Me Academy based on the fact that we don't want our kids on like a tablet or screen and doing all their work like that, because we want them to work on their handwriting and do things on pen and paper. But Me Academy is supposed to have the option where you go and you can print the PDF for the day.
Speaker 3:But they do have that option.
Speaker 1:They have that option? Yes, but what is the problem with that option that we found this week?
Speaker 3:Well, there's several, so one of them is it doesn't always OK. Sometimes part of the lesson is that option that we found this week. Well, there's several, so one of them is it doesn't always okay. Sometimes part of the lesson is that they watch a video, and sometimes part of the lesson is that they take a test. Sometimes that test or quiz is in the PDF, sometimes it's not. The video is never in there. And then another time the quiz was in there, but it was.
Speaker 3:It was trying to get Slate to match a picture to a sentence which is still way below his reading level, but that's, that's what it was. So we're trying to get through that to see where he needs to be placed, and the pictures that are printed on the PDF were black and white and they were so tiny that none of us could see what was even supposed to be on there. So I had to put him back on the computer and say, okay, you need to look at the pictures on here so that we can. Actually, I mean, and he did it, but I like some of the things that they do on the computer though. I like the, for example, the apostrophe lesson that Saylor did. That's part of the language arts. I liked her doing that on the computer. I could have printed the PDF for that.
Speaker 3:I actually did print it and didn't use it because I know when to use apostrophes. I know about apostrophes, but it's different than math. With math I can explain it too in a very I don't know in a good way where people can understand it. I feel like with the apostrophe I'm like I don't. I know when to use it, but I don't know how to explain it. I don't know. Let someone else to teach. So how do you teach that? You know, and I'm sure I could have figured it out, but the video lesson explained it. Say they understood it. The video was five minutes. She, you know, she did the 10 practice questions and got them all right. So I'm like okay, moving on, I don't have to stress myself out about how do I teach this kid how to do an apostrophe.
Speaker 1:So they have video lessons which is me Academy. A lot of people, just their kid sits at the computer and works through the lessons and they have basically virtual teachers because they're going to watch a video about this and then they'll maybe take a test and then you know.
Speaker 3:And that's fine. But Taryn really wants the kids writing and so do I. I mean we need the kids writing and doing math by hand, some working on their handwriting.
Speaker 1:The reason I want the kids writing is because I've heard of so many people who didn't think of that and then their kid is really behind with that.
Speaker 3:Yes, and that is a problem because I mean okay, I've talked about it before slate's really good at math. He's his brain is getting away. If he's writing, he's solving these problems. He's like solving three problems before he's even written the answer to the first one and he really needs to like speed up his number writing and his letter writing and everything. And so, yes, you're right, they need to work on that.
Speaker 1:Yes, his handwriting is atrocious. Scotty hasn't even had enough practice writing. They need to sit down, write every day, work on their handwriting and get that down. Even just for thinking through a math problem. It's better. Handwriting and get that down, even just for like thinking through a math problem, it's it's better. So, yeah, I'm like anti doing it on the computer right now. I love that.
Speaker 1:If you had a workbook, like the good and the beautiful people love that, you order a whole box and you get a book for each subject, okay, then it's like day one, you do that, do that. It tells you what to tell your kid and then you do the worksheets. And then the next day where do you go? Oh, day two it makes it really easy for kids to know what they're expected of. So if kids were older they would be like mom, I worked through all of my subjects and then you could go back and like check it or if they had a question, but it's self like they could do it themselves really easily and they wouldn't need a computer. So I like that. I.
Speaker 3:But let's pause, because at the beginning, before okay, you said I was the curriculum guide, which is sort of true, because once we decided on the academy, I downloaded it and, and you know, kind of took the lead on that, learned how to use it, printed the stuff, did that part. But really I mean Taryn researched the different curriculums, yeah, and you knew of the Good and the Beautiful before it's like the most popular one.
Speaker 3:Right, it's one of the ones you had mentioned, but you leaned more towards Me Academy and even now I don't remember why that was. What was the reasoning?
Speaker 1:The pricing and I did like certain aspects of like. I didn't want to go all in Like. I think it was $600 per kid per semester.
Speaker 3:That's a lot. Do you have to get all of the subjects or can you choose? No, you don't.
Speaker 1:But I've assumed if we were going to use one curriculum, we're using that curriculum. I have since found this week that every single homeschool mom that I've asked, hey, what curriculum are you guys using? Then they say, oh, we piece together what we like. So they like, you know a specific like IXL. Math is really really good, but we don't like their reading. So then we do reading through readingcom and then like so I just that wasn't in my head at the time. I just thought we were going to like go all in on a curriculum and I thought the same. And.
Speaker 3:I thought, once we had picked Me Academy, we tried it and so I still like a lot of aspects of the math and the reading and the language arts portion of it. So reading, writing and arithmetic right your basics. The science and the history have already removed those from their course studies because we're going to do our own thing for geography, for history, for civics. We're going to do that our own way because what I'm seeing on there it doesn't seem like anything that children will retain. I actually love history.
Speaker 3:I'm a big history buff and I love civics and politics and all that. Everything I know about it I learned after I was already done with high school and college because I got interested in it. None of the things I learned about it I remember from school and that's the way it looked like it was set up to teach and I just thought it wasn't because it was like teaching things I didn't believe or anything weird like that. I just didn't think it was anything the kids would retain, and the science didn't seem like anything they would retain either. And now we found out one of these, you know, homeschool co-ops we're going to join it's like a nature, science, outdoor kind of thing and they learn a lot about science.
Speaker 1:It's not a co-op, it's a nature group.
Speaker 3:A nature group. Okay, but they learn a lot about science. I mean, there's actual, you know, learning going on in this hands-on learning and I feel like you know for science at this age they're going to retain that a lot better than you know just reading about how turtles reproduce or whatever.
Speaker 1:Most homeschool people do that for science, yes, and learn, you know, by doing things on the things that you can do that you know by doing things on the things that you can do. That so that is a good thing about Me Academy is that you could easily go in there and take it out Like you can build your curriculum in there, which sounds really good. But I just had a lot of problems with it week one Also. One of them was that we've always done workbooks from Amazon. I'll buy them in the summer and we'll go through a couple of things just to keep the kids like not backsliding in the summer. And I was like the Amazon workbook that I bought for $5.99, the worksheets were way better than the Me Academy worksheets.
Speaker 3:Now I will say for Me Academy they have the optional on Amazon workbooks for some of the courses not all of them. Some of them you can only print a PDF, but math is one of them. You can go on Amazon and buy the workbook and it goes along better than probably printing the PDF does. It probably functions better for that purpose. So there is an option there. So there is an option there.
Speaker 3:But one of the other problems I think I'm going to have with me Academy going forward is when the price goes up to full, because we only had the one month at $1.99. I don't even remember what the price is, but it's a really good value if you're getting four or five core subjects per kid for that. Even when it goes up to whatever $40 a month, whatever it is, it's a great value. Even when it goes up to whatever $40 a month, whatever it is, it's a great value. But when you start stripping away, you know, oh, we're going to do science with this nature group, which there's a fee for that. It's not. It's not a bad fee, but I mean there is a fee for that. So now I'm paying for that separately. I'm making up my own history lessons for them or geography lessons, and so I'm now I'm only using it for math and social study or, sorry, for math and language arts reading, and I mean so the value starts to decrease because it's the same price, no matter how much of the program you use.
Speaker 1:You could have 17 subjects going at a time if you wanted, yeah they have a lot to choose from on there as far as subjects, a lot of, even outside of the core subjects. But I am like, after this first week I don't like Me. Academy Now I will give it more time. I'm not going to just you know go ahead and write it off right now.
Speaker 1:But my initial thought is I don't like it and we've already made the decision not to have Scottie do that for now because it was not going well with her the things that we needed to do for first grade so I liked it better. The reading program we were already doing, which is an app that takes about 15-20 minutes a day. We've been doing that for like 18 months and then the math worksheets that I have from Amazon were way better. So I doing that, and then we're also writing and doing journal and then I've got an additional like geography, like you know, learning about coins and things like that that I know that they learn in first grade. Now it's easier because I know what is covered in first grade.
Speaker 1:I can easily put together what I think she can do in a day and do it with her, and that went way better than trying to do the Meet Academy. But I think the biggest problem is that the video lessons are great right, they really are. They teach them things, but it's the bouncing back and forth you can't be. You can either be all in I'm going to do everything on computer, or you are in this like middle ground and just doesn't work to try to bounce back and forth.
Speaker 3:And you could do none of it on the computer. But then it defeats the purpose of having me academy.
Speaker 1:No, it's not helpful if you do all PDF.
Speaker 3:Another problem with the bouncing back and forth is so Saylor does a whole, you know, couple of days worth of worksheets in a day, because I accidentally assigned her two days worth of work in a day but she did them all. And then now, okay, it's not in me academy that she did that work, she had to do it on the computer. Okay, I can go in there and there's a way. Maybe I can give her credit. I think the easiest thing I found was just to unassign it, because she'd already done it and so I don't know it it. If she was doing everything on the computer, I think the way it would track would be really good, but then she wouldn't be writing the math the way that we want her to.
Speaker 1:Slate writes his numbers backwards a lot now Sailor does. Sometimes She'll write a number backwards. So I think, writing them and not thinking about it, they need to be there before they're on the computer a lot which if you're not doing it on the computer, then you have to hand grade everything and you have to see where they're at and it's not saying, hey, Taylor did really well in this math thing and she's just struggling on this one thing, so review that and you'll be good. That would be great, that's. You know, one of the things about the academy was that that kind of tracks their progress and lets you know if there's any areas that they're struggling with. But if you do it all on paper, you just basically have to review everything and see where they're at and then, just like school I guess at some point give like an exam and then grade that a little bit more in depth, making sure that they retained everything that they learned before.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, oh, but here's another thing I thought of. It's a problem that they could probably fix easily. Okay, you know, just if anyone that works there is listening to this podcast. So, okay, even if I have her do all the like practice questions and everything on paper, so she's getting that practice and then I have the test printed, but she still does it on the computer, but then she can do it by hand if that's easier for her than trying to figure out, you know, double digit multiplication on a computer, which is weird for me anyway, but so she can do it by hand and then answer the question on a computer.
Speaker 3:No-transcript. You have to assign her that section of that chapter of that course, and that section has a video and practice questions and then the quiz, and so maybe there's a way that I just haven't figured out yet, but it seemed like I couldn't find a way to just get her straight to the test. But we already did the lesson and the practice questions together. I wanted to just do the test and you can't fast forward to the video, because you can only get to the video when you're logging in as the kid. So it thinks the kid is fast forwarding and skipping a lesson and I'm like no, I'm the, I want a code, give me a dad code. And also I could skip through the cause. We already did this and I don't have that. So I was finding myself frustrated with that. The closest I found was I could put the videos on double time, but you stopped to wait, I mean. So that was you know. That was frustrating me.
Speaker 3:I think Taryn has always been of the mindset that, you know, I cause, I I'm a positive person about that, I can do things. But it's more like I can hike a trail, I can hike any trail, but these are trails that already just Taryn is like trail, but these are trails that already just taryn is like I can make a new trail, or I can build a plane, and you know, and and fly the plane instead of instead of walking on this trail and so. So my mindset is that, well, probably the other ones aren't better, this is just the way it is. We'll just, you know, work with what we have. And her mindset is no, no, that doesn't work, we're going to make a better way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, because I am trying to learn from other homeschool moms and all I'm hearing is that each child's different. No curriculum is going to fit you perfectly. I've heard great things about a math program and all I keep thinking is Slate is like not liking this math, and he's been excited about math for a while. Why don't we try out the math program? Because all they do is math, I bet it's great.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of notes from my research into math for and they have. This is another thing about piecing together our own. That might be better is that you know, the way that gifted people learn math is different, and he did test gifted we don't know how gifted yet, I mean but they need a different way of learning math that makes them think about it in a different way from a lot of things that I read. And so then me Academy would be great for just any smart kid to do to learn the math that way, but he might need a different approach. I don't know really, but they have some programs for that.
Speaker 1:And I think that leads us to our biggest problem of the week was that we need to gauge where our kids are at. We haven't been schooling them so we don't really know, and so we had to do all of these testing just to see, like, where do we start now for slate? We know he's reading well above level, his math is well above level, but where do we start math? Do we start him in third grade? Do we start him in fourth grade? Do we start in the middle of a grade? Like where are you? Because we we haven't been with you daily teaching you, we don't know if you know these subjects and we don't know if there's like a core thing that didn't get covered in school, that he just hasn't covered yet. So that was kind of hard too, because ideally I guess you would just pick what grade they're in. But I wanted and I don't know if it exists, so tell me if it does I just wanted like a placement test. So when I started like Scotty's reading app, she took a placement test. It didn't just say, oh, she's in kindergarten, here's where she needs to start. She placement.
Speaker 1:And then they started after the first lesson. They said is this too easy or too hard and for multiple lessons. After that we gauged whether it was in the right spot till we found where she was. And I was assuming we wouldn't be able to do something like that with the academy, and that was not the case. So the kids got tested all week, basically so that we could just find, like you would have them do unit one and it would be like so easy, like okay, well, that just tells us you're not at unit one. It doesn't tell us where you're going to be.
Speaker 3:That is all there is. You would think, with one of the perks of having a computer-based program would be that there is something like that and it would say okay, this is where you need to start. But they just start you at grade level and that's fine. But I mean it does take a little bit more time because there's placement tests 're not even if you did it on a computer.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just the chapter quizzes yeah, and so you know there's what nine chapters in the math course, for example for slate, and so he, I gave him chapter one and then, uh, you know he, okay, he knew all that. So we went on chapter two, gave him chapter. We're going to keep going until we, you know, and so we're still doing testing this coming week, we're still going to be testing to see. But again, I don't want to skip anything because no matter how good you are at math or how good you are at whatever, you can't know something you haven't been taught. And I don't know what he has and hasn't been taught yet. So I'm just making sure we go through a little bit at a time. I wish there was and there might be in other curriculums. There might be better placement tests. You know you would expect in something like the good and the beautiful. There's not, because it's just worksheets.
Speaker 1:So I mean right, and I think that any curriculum you choose, it's probably going to be difficult to find where to start. So we're just in the like, growing pains part of it, but it is a little disappointing for the kids because they're doing things that are boring. They've already done it at school and it's too easy. Well, that's what they're coming from. They were bored at school and they didn't like that they were doing. So then we're right into this.
Speaker 3:And I've been trying to find the balance because I'm like, look, I don't know. I want to tell them this might be easy because it might be stuff you already know. So I'm, but it won't always be that way. But I also don't want them to feel like then, if they don't know it, that oh, I'm dumb or something. And so I've also been telling them this is the stuff you're supposed to be learning now. This is on grade level, but you might already know, I don't know. If you don't know it, don't know. If you don't know it, don't feel bad, because that just means you haven't been taught it. You weren't supposed to be taught it yet it's. You know, this is fourth grade material, you're a fourth grader, so don't worry about it. But if you do already know, we don't want to waste time on it. So that's been a balance too.
Speaker 1:And I pulled Slade aside when he was getting frustrated and he's like I thought I was going to be learning like a lot more multiplication and division and stuff and I'm just doing like baby stuff. So I was like you want me to teach you division? And he was like, yes, teach me. I just grabbed a piece of paper and explained to him what division was, which he kind of already knew, because he wants this information, he loves it. We're not forcing him. And then once I explained it to him, it took me about a minute or two. I wrote out a bunch of problems and he solved all of them and I was like this this is what people say that they love about homeschooling, because it was so awesome. I saw how quick his brain did that and he was like he got it so quickly.
Speaker 1:And I was there to witness that and I was the one that taught him, Like that's so cool.
Speaker 3:But we can also see the holes, because I did find them. Because he was already doing multiplication last year. So Taryn just taught him division. He was doing single digit multiplication in first grade, but they never got to double digit addition in first grade and so it's like he skipped ahead to multiplication but he hadn't done double digit addition and subtractions. But he didn't know about carrying the one or borrowing, regrouping, whatever I think they call it regrouping on his own.
Speaker 1:So he just figured it out and wanted to keep going, but we did need to backtrack this week and do practice on double digit addition and subtraction. But once again he wants word books. Give me a sheet, let me, let me practice on them.
Speaker 3:So and and it worked and and he that was a hole in the learning and but we taught it to him and now he knows it and I think we're moving on because and the book has a lot of repetition and I think that's one of the things that he and say we're getting the most frustrated about, and that's when sailor's grade slipped is when she was getting too much repetition on math or something, because she would the first three worksheets she would ace and then she would get a 50 on the last one because she's just tired of doing it and so questions and and you know, slate wasn't getting frustrated enough to stop trying.
Speaker 3:He's going to try to get all the problems right still, but he's just getting annoyed and now he has that down and we're just going to move on. I think we were supposed to spend a few weeks on it, but we don't need to.
Speaker 1:No, they're picking things up very quickly and I love being able to see it myself every day and I love that we're like you got that. Let's move on. There is no reason to spend weeks on something that you got and you can do well.
Speaker 3:And the point of this isn't to be like oh look, how smart our kids are. It's really not. It's just talking about that. You can tailor to exactly what your kids need, and if it's the opposite, if they need more time on a subject then you spend it, because they get so much pressure. When they go into third grade, it's like now you have to learn multiplication. You get to fourth grade Now you have to learn long division, and if you don't know addition and subtraction yet, that's just too darn bad. You're going to have to learn this anyway. Well, that's not possible. You can't learn long division when you don't know subtraction yet. And if you need to spend that extra time with your kid, you can, because it's so much more important to make sure that by the time they're 18, they know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, even if it takes a little extra time than trying to pretend like they're going to learn high-level algebra 2 and calculus. They don't even need calculus. Just make sure that they know how to do addition, subtract and multiplication, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, exactly. So if you were here to hear about what curriculum we chose, that was a lot, but we're not enthused with the one we chose. But we will definitely update each week if we make any changes, if we start using something different or if we decide. Maybe we love Me Academy, but as of this week, I am not a fan of Me Academy. I think Carson likes it better than I do, but not a fan.
Speaker 3:I have mixed feelings and one of my biggest worries is the longer we're on it. I mean, we're spending two weeks doing testing and specific towards this curriculum it's, you'd think. Oh, it isn't. Math universal, yes, but I don't know what information is in the second grade math for another curriculum, so I'm going to have to start the testing all over.
Speaker 1:I feel like I feel like you feel like we're going to be behind and you're so worried that we're going to be behind and so you think that we wasted all of this time. And I'm looking at it as, when the kids are in school, there are so many days they're not doing. They're not doing anything. They're watching a movie. They haven't even started doing anything All the first week. They're just getting into a anything. They're watching a movie. They haven't even started doing anything All the first week. They're just getting into a routine. They're coloring some papers, they're figuring out the schedule.
Speaker 3:They've done nothing. That's not it at all. We're going to be ahead of, you know, the people in regular school. I'm not worried about that at all. I don't want to waste their time. I want to do a good job, that's it.
Speaker 1:We're just doing our best, though. If we have to change, we have to change.
Speaker 3:But I'm very self-critical. I want to do it right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not. I feel like we're doing a great job. We're doing as good as anyone could be expected to do.
Speaker 3:I want to do the best job. Not that there's a way to test it, but I want to be the best homeschool teacher there's ever been.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, you're shooting for the stars. Maybe you need to lower that a little bit. Did you not hear from the kids? They all said that they loved them. We were great teachers. So, mission accomplished.
Speaker 3:Okay, if we just gave them candy and let them watch TV all week, they would say we were the best teachers ever. I know.
Speaker 1:They're definitely not the people that can grade us here. We both want them to excel and be intelligent people in society and learn everything they're supposed to learn, and we're going to make sure that happens. Like all of this, whether or not we go with one curriculum or not, or if we have to backtrack, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 3:That's true. At the end of the day, the curriculum is just about which one makes our life easier. If we find one that makes our life easier, then we're going to use that one instead.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly. So I am sorry that we rambled on on the school. I knew that would be a long line.
Speaker 3:I'm not, you're welcome. We spent extra time just for you to hear all that we have to say. I know you hang on every word.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening, but let's wrap with talking about what else that came up this week and talk about things that aren't school. So first Monday morning I got a message saying that we could get into the co-op that we wanted to get into but we didn't. So she's like hey, we have these spots available. Do you want them? I asked you about it and we're going to try it out.
Speaker 3:They must have heard how good of a homeschool teacher I am and they were like, oh well, squeeze this guy in.
Speaker 1:He's got jokes always. So we're going to do the co-op and it is once a week. It's on Fridays. We don't know if we're co-op people or not, but parents have to go and help and then, if you want to which I think Kirsten does you can teach a class. The kids get to pick what classes they're taking and they can either take two or three per Friday and it can be anything from like history to art, whatever, but they'll be with the same students, the same people. They have a field day, they have all kinds of stuff like school related, but it's just once a week. So we're trying the co-op, though we might not be co-op people. We don't. I think it will be uncomfortable for me. I'm not really great at meeting new people and I'm very introverted, but Carson's not, so I think that will be fine.
Speaker 3:I like people and you know, I think a big deciding factor on whether it works out or not especially if we're going to be involved in helping and stuff is how well behaved other people's kids are, because it sounds rude, it's hard for us to be around people that have poorly behaved children because ours are not.
Speaker 1:We're coming from a public school where you behavior issues it doesn't matter. They're going to be in school. This is. You know. People can get kicked out. I'm just assuming there's going to be more behavior and it's a Christian based one, so there's going to be things that are not acceptable and it's a Christian-based one, so there's going to be things that are not acceptable. So just basically, be kind to each other is like the number one thing, whereas we weren't seeing a lot of that in public school, people were not teaching their kids to be kind and there was a lot of people that just sent their kids to school, didn't want to hear about it, didn't care whatever. They didn't care what's been going on with their kids. We'll have a lot less of that, so I'm interested to see, I'm hoping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm interested to see how it is to be around like-minded people and their kids, so hopefully we get out of that. What we need, which is some more socialization and that is the number one complaint from people, is socialization with kids in homeschool. Like I comment on my instagram that was like oh no, this is the worst thing ever. They're going to be never exposed to the real world and like babes basically have no life skills because they're never going to be around anyone and that's probably coming from someone that doesn't even have a passport.
Speaker 3:We just took our kids and a lot of times we let them lead the way on the trains in Europe that we were taking and like, hey, you got to find the train. You know, we don't want to miss the train. I mean, they're getting exposed to the real world.
Speaker 1:They're in the real world. I said, oh, I'm sorry, did I not mention that we're going to leave the house and let them out? So socialization is just like a hot topic. So this week we socialized because I didn't want to drop the ball on that. You know, we went to a homeschool meetup which I was terrified to go to. That is just like my ideal of like terrible situation to go into a group of people that I know nothing about, large group of people who already know people. But it went really well.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, there was other people there. It was their first time. I didn't know that and that worked out. I know you didn't know that was going to happen, but that helped. But even the people that run it or that are just there all the time both you know, we met several of those people and they were so nice, they were so welcoming, so nice.
Speaker 3:You know, encourage their kids, to play with their kids without making obvious that that's what was happening. Yeah, you know, so they were really helpful to make us feel welcome, so we liked them a lot.
Speaker 1:And we just met at a park A bunch of people we didn't know. Everyone brought some food, so like some fruit or chips or whatever. They put it all on this big table and there was a splash pad and then the person that's in charge of the group brought like games, like being bagged, tossed, things like that. So it was awesome. We did that one day and that group goes on a big hike once a month and we're going to join the hike. Yes, we are, it was right up our alley. And she said that the hiking group is actually really small. I do great in small groups of people.
Speaker 1:So, I think that'll be really good. We're going to go to a big hike with them in September, so that worked out well. Sailor was dying to go. She's very social, so we went, put myself in that situation and it ended up being great. And then we were thinking about joining this homeschool art class because all three of our kids love art and they put on like an art show at the end of the semester and one of the people there go. So the girl that Sailor made friends with is going to be in our art class. So I feel like it got the ball rolling on making people that they're going to be actual friends see all the time and things like that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:We also went to the park one morning and we haven't made a lot of friends in our neighborhood, but we went again. We just keep going every day and I tell the kids you know, this is how you make friends, like get yourself out there and go where the people are. And we met a whole group of homeschool people and Taylor was just like hey, my name's Taylor, what's your name? I homeschool, I live over there on this street, where are you from? And she really just like cracked the whole ice and we made friends with them. They're in our neighborhood, they homeschool. And then we stayed at the park for like two hours with them. So that was awesome.
Speaker 3:Yes, that was the day that we started homeschooling, but it was worth it.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just thinking in my head we just met these people Like I don't want to leave and like there's no, we don't have to, we gotta hang out at least long enough to like exchange numbers so we can have some friends, right?
Speaker 1:we I got numbers from three different moms like around our neighborhood. Slate got to have a play date. He isn't super social, he kind of has hard time opening up, just like I do and he made a friend and then they had two play dates this week. So that was big for slate. Like I'm so excited for him.
Speaker 3:Me too, Because he even tells us. He's like yeah, I just wait until somebody asks me to play with them. I don't like to ask other people to play with me.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 3:I was like, well, what if they feel that way, what if they're scared to ask you to, and so then you never get. But they really wanted to play with and he's like, well, then, I guess we just won't play together. He's not going to do it.
Speaker 1:No, but it was a great time to focus on that with him because I was like you know, I feel the same way but I make myself do it and he was really interested to have that conversation with me. So that was nice and he did and he opened up, but he made a friend. It was one of his first play dates ever and he's seven and then the next day the boy came to our house and was ready to play again.
Speaker 3:So I think that socially we had a great week yeah, and even one of the days we went out to the park I'd been wanting to I'd met a doctor when we were here before that had a son, slate sage, and he coached him in basketball. I was like, okay, I don't want to be a stalker, but I really hope I run into this guy again because I didn't get his name or number but I really want to play basketball with him. He sounds awesome, the way he described, the way he coached, and because that can be a problem.
Speaker 1:In the league. It's not super competitive.
Speaker 3:Right, it's fun. It's a fun league. I mean they try to win. But it's not about coaches screaming at the refs or parents yelling at people.
Speaker 1:It's just none of that.
Speaker 3:And so I was like, yes, I really want to play basketball in that league, and preferably on this guy's team. He seems awesome and he lives right down the road from us and we did run into him, so it was awesome, and then we got their number, so I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he was like Slate can come just practice with us because he missed the window. So Slate's just going to go get to know the boys and, like, play basketball. He doesn't care about the games anyway, so I think that's going to be good for him. Sports and all of that. We don't start until September. All of the homeschool stuff, the co-op, the girls' art classes Well, all of them are going to art, all their art classes, swim lessons for Slate. So we're pretty like not very busy right now and we didn't realize that homeschool stuff starts later.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of socialization that you just talked about A lot of socialization. I thought we were going to not expose them to the real world. And then the girls, in addition to gymnastics, sometimes do competition cheer. And if you think that's not exposing them to the real world, man, you've never seen a bunch of girls get together in competition cheer.
Speaker 1:That is some real world right there. I know that's the real world, but definitely it's social. Oh it's socialization.
Speaker 3:Social, social, social it doesn't get much more social than that. Every single one of them. They're best friends. They can't imagine they're never going to see each other again at the end of the season and it's like it's crazy.
Speaker 1:So it's funny. If you're worried about our kids being social and getting out of the house, don't worry, we've got that covered. We socialize our butts off this week.
Speaker 3:But we do thank you for your concern.
Speaker 1:Yes, the last thing on my list was that this week what didn't work was that we were all at the kitchen table, which meant all of our workbooks, pencils, crayons, everything were on the table all week long and, as a very type A person, that drove me nuts. So we are pivoting from that and we did order some desks for them. It'll be in a different room and they can keep all their stuff out, but not on the table. So that didn't work.
Speaker 3:And in order to make room for it, we had to sell the Peloton.
Speaker 1:Yeah, say goodbye we had a good run. But we did go to the gym this week. The kids have a kids club, so that's something that we get to do during the day and get a little bit of a break from the kids, because most people, when I told them we were homeschooling, their immediate response was oh my gosh, you'll have to be the most patient people in the world, and I'm here to tell you we are not. Especially me we're not patient, people Not patient.
Speaker 1:And we aren't those people that are like, oh honey, like I'm so sorry, tell me about your feelings, like I feel, like that's what people are imagining. We're like.
Speaker 3:It would be great if I was.
Speaker 1:We try, we try our hardest. But the three kids, similar ages, asking a million questions a day, everyone getting hurt it being loud in our house, it gets to us a lot. We're not doing this because we don't get tired of our kids Like we relate to that. We're like oh well, my kids drive me crazy. When it's been too long, we get it. So we are trying to build in breaks during our day. Like we said, we get nighttime. We do get like to read or watch a show or something without feeling guilty, but we're also getting to go to the gym in the middle of the day, which is nice.
Speaker 1:So we're getting to get a break and getting to work out, which sometimes is hard to fit workout in, so that's really nice. I just wanted to clear the air here. We are, not, like these, really super patient parents. There is a lot of frustration and we get tired of our kids very quickly, some days within an hour of them being awake. But what I keep telling myself is, just like anything else, even school. School wasn't working for us for a long time and I was really hating it. But you just get up and you do it again, right, that's all we're doing. Yeah, we might have a frustrating day with the kids because maybe they were fighting a lot or something, but we're just getting up and doing it again. That's all you can do with kids, right.
Speaker 3:Right and we're around them when they're in a lot better mood, because they were always under slept during the school year. We could just you try to get them in bed earlier, but we have sports and things that keep them up late, and so they never get enough sleep. They're tired and grumpy, but now I mean we're around them, when they're much more pleasant, it's not at the end of the day they're not exhausted. And oh and, by the way, the kids club at the gym. More socialization, see Just in case.
Speaker 1:Plenty of socialization.
Speaker 3:But, yes, we're around them at their best and then, when they are getting to their worst, that's when it's time for them to chill out and read a book or watch a show. And we read our books or watch a show, and that's at the end of the day. So we've already accomplished everything. We've accomplished work, we've accomplished a workout, we've accomplished school, we've been outside for at least an hour All of the things that are important to us. We've had three healthy meals that we cooked at home.
Speaker 1:Reading time. We do every afternoon.
Speaker 3:Yes, 30 minutes of reading outside of the two hours of school that we do. So, yeah, I mean, I think that we've already accomplished a lot by the time we get to the end of the day and we're like, okay, everyone, go to your corners and do whatever makes you happy.
Speaker 1:Well, that is a good point, because when we would pick them up from school they would be unruly. I hated picking them up from school because usually I would do drop off and Carson would do pickup. But in tax time I start taking over pickup too and I'm like I don't know how you do this. They're crazy at the end of the day. They were almost fist fighting some days getting into the car because they're just mad, and then all three of them tried to get in the door at the same time, and so they're like fist fighting in front of people.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you how I did it. I would say usually, before we had even left the parking lot of school, I'd say, okay, complete silence on the rest of the road home, or nobody gets to watch TV tonight, because they would have already been fighting so bad that I couldn't take it anymore snapping at each other and just it was just sheer chaos and we already knew this.
Speaker 1:On the weekends we never experienced that side of them and it was every school day. I would say, oh my, that was horrible. Like the 15 minute drive home was absolute worst time of my day. And then I'm like they never act like this on the weekends. Why are they acting like this now?
Speaker 1:a lot of reasons and, but now we don't have that. Like they are pretty good all day until we get to the end of the day, everyone's tired and needs to just relax or whatever. So that's a very, very, very big plus for homeschooling is that we don't get that. Whatever it is, post-school meltdown. We don't experience that, probably from being inside and not getting energy out.
Speaker 3:And that's a big part of it. Those are several of the reasons. Other reasons include that they were coked up with sugar. At school they got a lot of sugar yeah, so I mean there's a lot of reasons, but yeah, those are some of the big ones.
Speaker 1:The biggest point is that we're not having that, so that's super nice. Well, I think that is all. This is probably going to be one of our longest episodes ever. We keep saying that. Yeah Well, just because we keep saying that, yeah well, just because I feel like we're just sorting things out, and this week was very eye-opening and exciting, and I think that they'll get shorter as we go.
Speaker 3:but yes, and as we go, we will continue updating on how everything's going, but we'll also probably have some more specific advice. I just don't really feel like we're qualified to give that out yet. We have, you know, exactly one week of experience at this point?
Speaker 1:We're not. We're not. This podcast isn't from experts, like a lot of podcasts are experts, right, this is just. This is documentation.
Speaker 3:But we can tell you some things not to do along the way. But we don't even have enough experience to tell you that yet.
Speaker 1:We tried this and it didn't work. So, yes, we have a bonus episode coming out, I think Friday-ish, and we just asked the kids how it went. So if you want to hear from their perspective how the week went, that will be coming out in just like 10, 15 minutes, but let's get this wrapped up. Thank you for listening to well this was a planned podcast.
Speaker 2:That was horrible. We worked really hard on this podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single podcast episode. Thank you, have a good day.