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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!
7. Choosing Our Hard: New Co-op, New Curriculum, and a Lot of Change!
Four weeks into an unexpected homeschooling adventure, we've discovered something surprising: time flies! The morning madness of rushing children out the door has been replaced with meaningful connections and personalized learning that actually work for our family.
That's not to say everything's perfect. Our first co-op day brought a mixture of excitement and frustration as our kids navigated unfamiliar classes with varying levels of excitement.
The transition to our new curriculum, "The Good and Beautiful," has presented its own challenges. And when our daughter with ADHD needs extra time to complete assignments, we adjust our schedule accordingly, because that's the beauty of homeschooling—we can tailor the experience to each child's needs.
Critics ask how we manage homeschooling while working full-time, or question whether two hours of instruction is "enough." But they're missing what we've discovered: the efficiency of one-on-one learning, the elimination of administrative time-wasters, and the freedom to build education around real life rather than forcing life to conform to a rigid school schedule. We're choosing a different kind of "hard"—the hard that builds stronger family bonds and creates space for our children to thrive as unique individuals rather than pieces on an educational assembly line.
Have you ever considered taking an educational road less traveled?
And it's hard to know how to help them at school when you have no idea what's going on. It's hard for your kid to get bullied at school and there's nothing you can do about it. It's hard for your kid to cry every single morning, not wanting to go to school, but you have to send them anyways. It's hard not to see your kid all day long and then just to feel like you get them in the literally worst hours of their day. It's hard to feel guilty all the time because you're working and you never get one-on-one time with them. It's hard to know that they're not getting enough sleep because you're dragging them out of bed after you put them to bed too late because they were at sports. They're so much harder. We're 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 Scotty. We say 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 have officially completed four weeks of homeschooling, which seems like a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say that's like a whole semester for us.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying, oh, four weeks, but it flew by. Four weeks of regular school is the first four weeks is just like maddening. And this was like I can't believe it's been four weeks. The time flew by.
Speaker 3:It did and I mean, yeah, all of those annoyances are not part of this process, which is great, but it also feels like we've been doing this forever in some ways. I don't know. That's weird.
Speaker 1:I don't know when I was planning this episode and I said four weeks, it just I think. Maybe I thought that the time would go by slower because we're not as busy and we're at home with the kids all the time. I was worried that we would get tired of the kids and that it would be harder than it actually has been. But I've been really pleasantly surprised and the time just flew by.
Speaker 3:And we don't get tired of being around them because they don't act the same as they did when we were around them before, when they were over, exhausted and overwhelmed by the chaos of an overburdened schedule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just been really nice. I mean I'm enjoying the time that we're getting to spend with them. This week I was just realizing how much more one on one time we're getting and it's not a lot Like we had considered doing, like mom and dad lunch dates or something, and we have not been able to fit that in. But I am getting some good quality one-on-one time with them pretty consistently, even if it's just Sailor ran to the store with me, or Slate asked me to come into his room when he's like playing piano or something. I'm getting those moments and though they might not be like a full hour or a full day with them, I'm actually getting quite a bit of good time with them and I think it's been good for all of us.
Speaker 3:I think so too. I think that even though I've got more one-on-one time because we do have two girls and one boy, and so the girls have gone with mom for things whether it's scheduled things like gymnastics that they do together, or, you know, if it's them going shopping or something like that then there's been several times that the girls have been with mom and, um, it's just been me and say, which has been really cool for us. But even for Taryn, I think that the two-on-one time is still very different than three-on-one or three-on-two time, Because when all three kids are around each other, a lot of times at least two of them are fighting. But when the girls are all together and it's just them and they're going shopping, then I think they're in good moods, they get along better, Everyone's being nice, and then me and Slate get to do our thing and we have fun. So I think it's been great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just I was pleasantly surprised that that happened, that I was just noticing how much I was getting those little moments that we didn't get when they were going to school. Another thing that happened this week was we started our co-op and we had our first day and it kind of felt like the first day of school. So the kids needed their backpacks and we had to be there at a certain time and everyone got dressed up and, you know, like a school day outfit. It was kind of like thank God we don't have to do this every day.
Speaker 3:Right, just once a week and it really I guess it was the first day of school, because we have school at home. But as far as going somewhere, this, this was it, and it's real similar in a lot of ways. The first day there's a lot of orientation. Not everything is necessarily organized and put together yet, um, and so there's just a lot of getting some of that stuff out of the way, and that's how it is at school as well.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about co-op. I will say first, just for anyone that didn't listen to previous episodes the co-op that we're doing is once a week and the kids pick classes to take. Our kids are taking two classes, so they're only there for a few hours and parents stay on campus. Now, this year we're not teaching anything, but in the future, if we stay in the co-op, parents can teach a class. Right now we just have to stay and help.
Speaker 3:We are helpers. Yeah, everyone is in a class doing something. You're just not the lead teacher, You're helping corral, the kids and everything like that. And I want to add you said the kids pick. Normally that's the plan, but since we were, you know, some of the last people to join because you know this is all new to us, Well, we didn't really get to pick.
Speaker 1:No, the kids got assigned what was left and they weren't super happy with those choices. I was not super impressed with co-op and I'm still open-minded to it because I still think that there is some things that will be good for it. But mainly what we're doing with co-op is we want the kids to make friends and just like the relationships. We're not doing it for the classes and the kids can. If we were to stay in this co-op, for example, the kids can graduate, they can. There's like a ceremony through the co-op. They have like proms, they have dances. There's a lot of things that they provide that a normal school would provide, which is what people always ask. You know like, well, what about this normal experience? So that's kind of the reason why the co-op, but it was not exactly what I was expecting, but it was the first day, so you know.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, I'm a very binary person so I'll just run down the list and go yes or no on everything. So, as far as overall, yes or no on everything. So as far as overall, I think yes so far. I like the people there.
Speaker 3:First class that the little two did was it's like a PE class, basically they call it agility, and that was. That's fine, because they're getting outside, they're going to get some energy out before they go do something else. That's, you know, maybe more enriching mentally. So that's cool, that's a good idea. And the first class that we didn't do as much, you know, agility and running around, as I'm hoping we'll do in the future. I think that that is partially just because it was the first day and we're trying to get organized. Hopefully the behavior from some of the kids will be better in the future so that we can actually play the games that we're supposed to be playing and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:So the next class that Scotty went into was a lot of fun. Me and Taryn were in there and it was, you know, it was kind of like a music class and she was teaching them some basic music theory and they were all really young, like six and younger I think all the kids were probably. So that was cool. I think she did a good job. She had a way of teaching them piano forte, crescendo and decrescendo in a way that they understood and they remembered and they thought was fun. So as a musician I was impressed because I didn't really think you could make music theory attainable for six-year-olds. But she did.
Speaker 1:And Scotty liked it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she had fun, so that was a definite yes. Slate's second class was a no he did not like it. So A definite yes. Slate's second class was a no, he did not like it, so we weren't in there. I don't know exactly what went on, but from what I gathered, he was one of the oldest ones in there to begin with, and on top of that he's pretty smart, and so he felt like it was real babyish for him.
Speaker 1:He was bored. That's why I didn't like it.
Speaker 3:And we've talked about in the past how co-ops like you know, this hiking thing that is kind of a co-op here that we, we really like the people in and we want to, we really like to hike.
Speaker 3:You know, they're all different ages and everyone plays together and people aren't like, oh, you're only hanging out with third graders because you're a third grader, and we think that that's a really positive thing for socializing. Well, what I didn't think about is that you know, there's pretty mixed ages in a lot of these classes. Now they don't have usually 13 year olds and six year olds in class together, but there's a pretty wide range of age groups in some of these and I think he was in there with a lot of like pre-K, kindergarten and first graders. He's a second grader and he's a smart second grader and I don't know that in a more bookish or academic type class that that is really going to be a good option. You know that one didn't go as well A sailor. She had a theater class and she loved it, so she was real nervous about it going to it and she wasn't looking forward to it.
Speaker 3:No, but I knew she would love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she did. She was like the one that was most pleasantly surprised, like she's, like everyone else was like meh, and she was like I loved it oh, yeah, she's.
Speaker 3:She's so excited, she can't wait to, you know, get everything put together and do the play. So we're looking forward to that. Um, and then her other class, we'll see. We'll give it another chance.
Speaker 1:It was, I don't know, bubble gum making, but they didn't make any bubble gum yet yeah, maybe some of these will get better as we go on, because I just want the kids to look forward to it and be excited about it, because it's really not worth the effort, getting them dressed and somewhere on time and to spend the time to be there if they don't enjoy it, you know.
Speaker 3:Right and overall I think if we gave them the choice, Saylor would put up with the bubblegum class in order to be able to keep going and doing the theater class. I think that scotty would want to go, mostly because sailor was going and because she liked that music class. She had fun in the pe type class.
Speaker 1:I think slate would not choose to go if we gave him the option, next week he wants to go to the hiking co-op, which we didn't realize these overlap. So we're basically picking this co-op over the hiking co-op, which we didn't realize these overlap. So we're basically picking this co-op over the hiking co-op and we're going to miss the big hike and I'm kind of sad about that.
Speaker 3:I know me too.
Speaker 1:And there's attendance. So it feels a lot like school to me. I think that's why I have like a bad taste in my mouth about it. It's just because I've been enjoying not being in school and then going back, there's a lot of rules and there was check-in and it was mass chaos and there was a lot of kids that had some behavior issues and it just wasn't. You know, it was kind of chaotic that first day and then us getting there was chaotic. We had to get the kids up and get them dressed and everything and I was like having PTSD from school morning. So it's not really the co-op itself.
Speaker 3:And just to be clear, you know we're we don't hold anything against them for having those rules and having the attendance and having the different things, because this is a private organization and they told us all this very clearly. There's a very detailed handbook that we signed before we ever went to this thing and we knew that that was the case. So I mean that's this isn't complaints about those things per se, just just things that we do and don't like we don't have to disclaimer everything.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is just us saying our initial opinion of the co-op.
Speaker 3:Right. Well, and I'm not saying that because I'm afraid someone's going to be mad at me it's just because I don't like when people sign up for things and complain about it and I don't want to sound like I'm one of those people that's like well, I mean, you signed up for this, but a lot of that is just first day stuff, so we'll see how it goes. We're going to keep going. We're not like going to quit or anything, and then we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Also this week, for a first time, we did call in some help because we are coming up to a tax deadline and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. We had a lot of work to get done, and so I just texted our sitter and was like can you come help us on Friday?
Speaker 3:Thursday, thursday, it was a day.
Speaker 1:Can you come help us on Thursday? So she came for a few hours, she took the kids to gymnastics and we got a few more hours of work done. That wasn't planned I just text her last minute and it was really helpful, but I assume that we're going to have to do things like that when it comes closer to deadline. So we have a big deadline on the 15th and we're just going to have to do what we have to do to get through those like pushes. And we have a big deadline on the 15th and we're just going to have to do what we have to do to get through those like pushes.
Speaker 3:And we'll probably have to do that at least one more time before the end of this fall tax season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think she'll. She'll come back again and help and she was able to sit down with the kids and just do their handwriting and do some reading with them. So it was actually really easy for me to be like here's what they still need to do Peace. We gotta do some work. And I just bring that up because a lot of people are interested how we're making this work with working and homeschooling and basically those types of deadlines for the year. We're just gonna have to get creative, whether that's taking the day off from homeschooling that day, because a lot of things came up and we have like a completely different day when the kids have to just be by themselves. Or maybe they have a day where they watch a movie and we get a couple more hours of work done, like we're just playing it by ear. But for the most part it's been working until we get to these times where there's more work to do.
Speaker 3:You know we're not worried about the academic side of it, because on most days we're doing two lessons when we're supposed to be doing one to get ahead, and that I feel like I mean, yeah, if we finish a whole year in one semester, that's great. That's not really the goal, though. I just want to feel comfortable that you know we're not going to get behind. If we have a tax deadline and so we take a day or two off for that, or if we travel and we're not able to do all the lessons, we plan to take the lessons, but you know how it goes when you travel. We also planned to work a lot when we went to Europe and we didn't work a lot. We worked as much as we absolutely had to, and that's it.
Speaker 1:So I'm not worried about that. I think that our kids are already ahead and that you know we'll do a good job making sure that they stay on track. But I did get a lot of haters this week on my Instagram, which was new, because I feel like there's been a lot of support for homeschooling that I wasn't expecting. And then now, all of a sudden, I'm getting this hate, and one of those is how can we only homeschool for two hours a day? How's that? Like that's not enough for them and they're they're going to be dumb and all of these things. And I just I get it because when you first hear that and you're used to like the traditional standard school, you're like what? Like these kids are only getting two hours and these other kids are getting seven hours. Like these kids are going to be stupid.
Speaker 3:But are they getting seven hours?
Speaker 1:But they're not, and that's just what you have to realize that that's not the case. Also, a lot of people coming at me saying, like homeschooling isn't for everyone. Stop making it, making everybody feel that way. And I feel like I've done a pretty good job of just saying that we did school, it wasn't working for us and so we're trying this.
Speaker 1:That's not really saying what's best, you know what's best is for some people is homeschooling and what's best for others is school. And we haven't even talked about the other options of schooling. You can do public school, you can do private school, you can do hybrid schooling. There's so many things. We're just talking about what we're trying right now.
Speaker 3:I think the haters aren't listening the people specifically on that issue, because how many times have we said like we know that not everybody has a stay at home parent and we don't. We both work, but not everyone has stay-at-home jobs. Sometimes both parents have jobs where they work outside of the home. I always give the example of doctors, nurses and police officers, and if you have both parents that have one of those jobs, please don't stop doing it. I really want there to be ER doctors if I get my leg cut off and I really want there to be police out there when someone breaks into my house so I get it, and that's not jobs that you can do from home. So this it's not an option for everyone.
Speaker 1:Everyone, in every situation, has to pick what works best for their family. So we are not sitting here and I don't feel like we have been being like. Homeschooling is the only option. Homeschooling is the best option. We're just trying to figure out what works for our family and we are enjoying it and we do like it. We also public schooled for four years, so we obviously didn't think that was bad, you know.
Speaker 3:I almost wish that there was some kind of a test that we had to do every year, like that we were required to have our kids do the star test or whatever, like they do for public school kids. They don't in our state, they don't make us do anything, but almost wish they did, because I know that our kids would blow everyone else out of the water. I'm sorry, I know how that sounds, but I'm just saying people are worried they're going to be dumb or they're not going to learn anything and I would love for those people to put their kids up against my kid on a test.
Speaker 1:Just saying I just want it to be clear that we take our kids' education very seriously. I just didn't feel like I was going to be that defensive about homeschool and when people are coming at me I am because like I want what's best for my kids. I'm not sitting here telling you this is the best way. I'm just saying that I promise you we're doing what we need to do to make sure they get a damn good education and we're not letting it fall through the cracks.
Speaker 3:And I think that one just triggers me a little bit. I guess it makes me more angry than other things, because when people talk about the socialization or whatever I mean, I have answers for that, but I don't. That's all subjective. And if you think that a certain kind of socializing that they do at at a public school or whatever is better than other kinds of socializing, that's really an opinion. There's no way to measure that. But when you're talking about academic learning and you think that they're not going to learn what they need to in the two hours, there are objective ways to test that. Let's do a test.
Speaker 1:I would love to Well, they've done a lot of studies on that actually. And you can look those up, but the kids learning for two hours with you is sufficient. It's more than they're getting at school.
Speaker 3:Way more. And if you look at the state standards for how long they're supposed to spend on each subject per day, it's actually the same or less time than we're spending on each subject per day. But that's us spending one-on-one time directly with them on that subject. You know, one teacher, one student versus one teacher spending 25 minutes on math per day with 30 kids that are interrupting and asking a hundred questions. So I mean actually they get just as much academic time and the rest of the stuff they do at school we're still doing. I mean they do piano lessons, they play outside for PE and they're in sports and stuff.
Speaker 1:So I mean they're doing all the things that they do during the school day really made me mad again was the socialization thing, and I know that if you've homeschooled for a long time, that's just something that comes up over and over. Your socialization, your socialization, they're going to be weird, you're not setting them up for success in life, and it just makes me so mad. Because a lot of people were like that wasn't enough socialization in the day. But on Friday, for example, we went to co-op and they were in class in the day. But on Friday, for example, we went to co-op and they were in class. Literally the same setup, like things that were happening exactly at school, you know teachers, kids misbehaving, getting kids from point A to point B, all of the things. Then they immediately went to go skate with a bunch of kids at the skating rink.
Speaker 3:There was over a hundred people there. There was like 50 kids on the skating rink. There was over a hundred people there. There was like 50 kids on the skating rink floor and we were there for two hours. So there's quite a bit of socializing there.
Speaker 1:Well, and then they came home, were home just for a little bit, and then we took them to their gymnastics place. They had a kid's night out and the kids did that and we went on a little date. So all day they were socializing and it's like it's not enough.
Speaker 3:They all made new friends.
Speaker 1:It's not enough. They're not getting enough socialization. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Do these people's children live with their friends at their friend's house? Is that why they're getting all this socialization?
Speaker 1:I don't know, but I guess that's just a hill you have to die on, because so many people are bringing that up.
Speaker 3:Well and again, that one doesn't bother me as much because I'm like it's an opinion, and they think that whatever socialization is happening at school is good and there's a lot of it, and that it's better for their kid. That's hey, that's the beauty of it. We should all raise our kids different ways. I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Everyone should do everything differently. It just hurts me as a parent because I'm like no, I'm doing a good job, but you can't take it that way. You just have to do what you think is best, and so far we love this option. Another thing that happened this week was we changed curriculums. We talked about that last week why? But our good and beautiful stuff did come in the mail and we started it. We only had one day right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:One day of doing the curriculum. So it came in the mail that night we unboxed everything and got organized, flipped through it to see what the parent was supposed to do and then so that we'd be ready for the next day. Now it took quite a bit longer for us to do the good and the beautiful compared to what we were doing before.
Speaker 3:I think there's two parts to that. One is anything new takes longer. The first week with Me Academy took a lot longer than later.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But another part of it I think is permanent, which is that I mean you said this on our last podcast, but the good and the beautiful curriculum is known to be a little bit more rigorous than some homeschool things, so it might always take a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was way more difficult, but I was trying to keep reminding myself that, like Slate, he started on fourth grade literature and reading.
Speaker 3:Yeah, his language arts course is fourth grade and he's a second grader. He's in second grade.
Speaker 1:So we were going through it and he was getting really frustrated. It was hard, for sure, for a fourth grader and it was mostly like the vocabulary and spelling part of it, but he did it and I think he was just frustrated because he's not used to things challenging him, but I think it's going to be a really good for him.
Speaker 3:He needs a challenge Now. If it becomes too much, we can back off to the third grade. Um, we're not going back to second grade cause he, he completed the me Academy second grade language arts already. He'd in three weeks of that he completed the whole thing. So we're not going to go back that far, no matter what. But if we had to, if it's going to like destroy his confidence or make him hate learning, we could, you know, back up to that. I don't think that's going to be necessary.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. I think it was just a shock to him, because he flew through second grade on me academy, everything that we gave him. Him. It was just easy, and he prides himself in being smart, like that's his thing. And then it was hard, like I was like no, that's not the word, it's actually this word and I was being really nice about it. But he was like this is too hard, I'm dumb, like I don't like this, and it was just a very frustrating lesson. But I think it's just more of getting over the hump.
Speaker 3:I think when we remind him that that's a fourth grade course book, it helps, but he still gets a little frustrated.
Speaker 1:He was frustrated. And then I came in here and Taylor was crying and I was like well, what's going on in here?
Speaker 3:And that was during her language arts lesson, and we're really not selling this new curriculum very well, I wanted to just talk about that, the bumps along the way.
Speaker 1:But we'll get to like what we liked about it too.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, well, I'm just saying she was crying because she was getting frustrated. But she was getting frustrated, I think, because it took so long. So she did two math lessons, which she did relatively fast. But she has ADHD, she really doesn't sit and focus for a really long time. So we're just trying to figure out, like should we come inside and then have her do math, take a lunch break and then finish up, you know, reading, language arts? Or like how should we do it, Because it is going to take longer than what we were doing before? She can't like fly through it.
Speaker 3:It will. Scotty did pretty well with it. She only complained when I made her do the handwriting and it did not take her that long, but she just didn't feel like doing it. But I mean well, she's six.
Speaker 1:You never know the day with her.
Speaker 3:But she thought the reading, the language art stuff we did was fun because we did it together and I think she liked that. But whenever we were going to do the handwriting I'm like, well, you don't need me to sit here, you're just, you're practicing these letters. I showed her what to do and then I went to go start working on Lodge and then she was not happy about that.
Speaker 1:I did want to point out that we are doing math and language arts through the good and the beautiful and then we got the handwriting booklet for each of the kids. So what we're doing is one lesson or two. We're trying to figure out how many we want to do. If it's really easy for them, we're doing two in a day and then you move on to the language arts and then we do. We finish with handwriting. For now we don't have any formal work for history or science. A lot of people don't like the history and the science from the Good and the Beautiful. Not that they don't like what's contained in there, they just don't like that. It takes quite a bit of time. I mean you can see that the all the subjects take longer than we were used to. So if you added like a full curriculum, it would probably be like more than you want to do. They like what is in it. They think there's a little bit of too much fluff. I guess I think.
Speaker 3:So I was going to say almost that exact thing about language arts. Uh, so we, we are using, yeah, the language arts, which includes reading and grammar and spelling. We are using, yeah, the language arts which includes reading and grammar and spelling, and then the handwriting and the math. So the math I'm pretty good with. That's. The thing is I didn't get to spend that much time on the math for the older two kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love the math.
Speaker 3:Taryn did that part. I did it with Scotty and I liked it. I didn't get to see what they were doing in here, and that was one of the things I was going to talk about is.
Speaker 3:I struggled with that and that's rare for me because normally Taryn takes the lead on a lot of things in our personal life and I'm just a you know, a good assistant, but with me academy I'd taken the lead on it and I was. I kind of had that control and I felt like a really big sense of loss of control and I would. That's surprising for me because Taryn's type A, so she probably deals with that all the time. But uh, you know, I I was not expecting to feel that way and it was really bothering me that someone was in here doing the math with the older kids and I didn't really know what was going on with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you really want to meet. You're like well, next time you need Scotty. I'm like, oh, after one lesson we need to switch. Okay, I get you, but really it was just because you want to do their math, because it's more exciting to you than first grade math.
Speaker 3:Well, it's not about exciting. I mean, it is more exciting.
Speaker 1:And more important to you.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't even say that more important to you. I wouldn't even say that it's very important to me that they all learn math. It's just that I just want to see what's going on.
Speaker 1:Well, we will switch and we'll both see what's going on with both. But I really liked the good and the beautiful math and here's why. For all of them it's just probably two pages for a lesson. So it starts with the parent saying, hey, here's what we're going today. It tells you exactly what you're teaching them and then you do like a little. It's really just like a block on the paper. You do that with them and then it literally says like student work, so then you leave them alone to do that. Well, once you get past that and you get to fourth grade, they set it up to where the kid can do most of the work themselves. Now, what we were shocked by was that we opened up these workbooks and if you listen to the last episode, part of the whole reason that we didn't want to use me academy was because the dang videos and then guess what qr code for the video sailors had videos's, had videos in it and I'm like it's like scan this QR code and watch the video.
Speaker 1:Why?
Speaker 3:But luckily okay, those haven't seen those in the two little kids books yet. And so that's good, and we were already more comfortable with Sailor doing some of her work on the computer. Um, as long as she's still getting to write enough that you know that that part is improving and everything, but so that at least there is that well, that part actually worked out like.
Speaker 1:I was disappointed when I saw it. I was like, oh my gosh, why is there more videos? And then I read that you know they make it for like fourth grade and up to where the there's not as much parent work. So I set sailor up with the chromebook and then we just we bookmarked it and so it'll just say like lesson one here's the, the video, so she knows exactly where to go. She was able to open up her math and then click on the video and they like went over the concept for today. And then it said, okay, finish in your workbook and she's shut the computer and then finish in her workbook. And she's shut the computer and then finish in her workbook. So she's going to be able to do a lot of that by herself. And I actually liked that because it gives us more time to help the little two. And she enjoyed the video a lot, so it was a really good video.
Speaker 3:And as long as the video is supplementary and an extra thing, not not the whole thing, I like it because they explain a way to think about math. It's different from the way that Taryn or I would explain it, and I don't care which option helps them get the right answer. I'm not that kind of like. They don't need to know seven ways to do it. If the video way is different than ours but they can get to the answer, or if my way, or if Taryn's way, which maybe is different than mine, any of those ways work for me, I don't care, and so having one more option for how to figure out long division or whatever is I mean that's that's great for me.
Speaker 1:It was super easy. She enjoyed the video, she understood what was going on in it and then you know they do all of the math by hand in the book, so loved the math. And also, every single day they have what's called a mental math workbook that comes with the math set.
Speaker 3:Very important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that part is done by a parent. They have it set up where the kid could do it themselves if they're not going to like cheat and look at the answers. But I just it had things that I quizzed her on so it took like 10 minutes and so that's things like memorizing your multiplication tables and it was like count by 25s from 400 to 500, and then it had a random one for going backwards. It's just a way of them getting mentally good with numbers and it's made to where they don't have anything like a piece of paper, anything. So I think that's going to be good and it's everyday practice.
Speaker 3:And that ties into the spiral method of teaching them, which a lot of times we get so bogged down in the function. And when I say we, I mean the children. Whenever they're learning a new function you know, triple digit multiplication or long division that they're not really thinking about what they're doing. You know, or why, um, what the purpose is. And so I think I think when you do the mental math, that helps you in one way step back and say, okay, what are we really doing here, you know. Or also, when they do word problems, I mean that also can help. But to see, like, why, why does this even matter?
Speaker 3:But yeah, I think that, from what you're describing, I'm looking forward to you know, seeing it for myself. But it sounds like the math is cool. I helped Saylor with her language arts and I did have some issues. I liked a lot of the information that was in there, but the first problem I have is that, okay, it's language arts, we expect that to be reading and grammar, maybe some spelling. They're throwing in geography and a little bit of history.
Speaker 3:To me those are more of a social studies thing, which you know we're doing through our own kind of thing that we're putting together, and so I don't know. I just that made the lesson really long and I think it does distract from the core principle of the lesson too. Like if you are going to throw in history, but they learned a little bit of history while they're learning grammar, let's say. But maybe you read a paragraph that's about something historical, but they're like okay, find the missing commas, or find the commas that shouldn't be there or something I don't know. But that would be fine, but that's not what they're doing. I mean, it's like they're just throwing in some geography. They're like, okay, here's where Ecuador is on the map, like, now, where's Ecuador? You know that all of that adds a lot of time to the lesson and you know it was already a longer day. My other problem was just the total length of it and some of those things might've been why it was so long, but part of the reason it took so long wasn't because of the geography or the extra things in there, it was the lessons. And at first I was blaming the curriculum and thinking this lesson is too long and then I realized no, she should be able to do it in that amount of time.
Speaker 3:She knows the answers, she's smart enough, but the problem is the way that they have been learning there.
Speaker 3:As they get older and closer to that first star test, which she recently took, they are teaching them more and more in a way that is more consistent with the star test, and so they're doing tests on computers to multiple choice or they maybe they type the answers too, but I mean that's they're not really graded on spelling and stuff at that age.
Speaker 3:And so when she has to write these things out and I'm trying to make sure she spells everything right and and she's writing with a pencil, not typing something, I mean it it's taking her longer than it probably should to do some of some of that, and so I think that will get faster over time as she gets used to writing answers and gets better at spelling when she writes something out. I mean she told me she was like I can spell better when I can type something and look at it and then it's wrong and I backspace and type it again until it looks right and I'm like, yeah, but I mean you need to be able to write so yeah, and the standards are much higher and I think that was the initial frustration with all of them.
Speaker 1:The standards are higher than they were in their public school. So they're playing a little bit of catch up Now. They all were straight A students in school so they didn't feel like they were behind, they felt like they were ahead, you know. But with this program they are and I understand why they're frustrated with it, but I think it's a good program, sort of.
Speaker 3:I mean Saylor would have been going into fourth grade and the language arts she's doing is fifth grade, so she's not really behind. I mean it's be a challenge.
Speaker 1:So, all in all, I would say the pros for the good and beautiful for me are that it was easy to follow. It's there's no guesswork, super simple compared to me. Academy Um, it's just go through your workbooks. Another pro is that their expectations are higher, and I like that. Another pro is I liked that the math came with the little trinkets and so you can bring some of those into the lesson very easily. You can have some hands-on lessons. You don't have to do anything as a parent Also a pro I love the handwriting, because we know that all three of them need to work on handwriting and it's super easy and the kids actually liked the handwriting book yeah, and for some of them it's to get it neater and prettier, and for some of them it's to be able to just do it, but way faster, and for some of them it's practice, yeah, but cons to the good and the beautiful is that it's more time consuming than we would like, and there is probably a little bit fluff in there that we will likely skip over some of that.
Speaker 3:Yep, your haters might be getting what they want. We might no longer be academically abusing our children. They might be doing school for three hours a day, at least until we get the hang of it, because it did take longer.
Speaker 1:I think three hours a day for kids, this age is absurd. Now people that are coming at me, surely they realize that's for elementary age kids Like, obviously as you get older you build that muscle of being able to sit and focus for a greater amount of time and there's more things to cover, but right now there's no reason for them to be sitting there working on it whenever they're miserable, like they don't want to sit and do that. Like you have to consider their ages.
Speaker 3:We would hope that when they're 16, that they would, if needed, be able to sit and spend a full hour on math, a full hour on, you know, English, a full hour on history and a full hour on science, if that's what they need to do.
Speaker 1:For sure, and we will work up to that. But let's just keep in mind that we have elementary age kids and that's not what we need right now.
Speaker 3:The older they get, the longer they can go. But also our oldest one has ADHD, which makes it harder for her. I mean, taryn was talking about the math and that say, there, did it fast. She did do it fast until she got to the end of the second lesson and then it took her as long to do the last two problems as it took her to do all of the rest of the first and the first half of the second lesson, because she was just like she was done.
Speaker 1:Well, we have not been giving her her focus drops cause we were out, but I ordered them and I have them sitting on her desk ready to go. I think that will help on Monday.
Speaker 3:These are just Mary Ruth's organic focus drops for kids.
Speaker 1:And we love them. They actually do help out a lot. Well, the last thing that was on my list this week was I just wanted to share. I was in co-op with you. We were teaching other people's kids, we were wrangling kids, we were taking kids to the bathroom, we were doing all this stuff and I just looked over at you and my brain was, like what are we doing? Like what is going on?
Speaker 1:A year ago we, our kids, were in public school and we were in that same routine for years and years and I think it just dawned on me how much has changed. Like if you would have told me two years ago, if you would have shown me, like, where I am today, I would have been like, what is Taryn doing? Why did she decide to like go wrangle other people's kids at co-op and teach her kids at school, like school at home, like I. Just it dawned on me how much we have changed and how much has changed in our lives and that it's hard. Like change is hard and it was hard being there and it was hard being in a new group of people, all these things that we didn't know. We're the newbies and I was uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I was very uncomfortable. But change is hard and change is necessary so many times in life. But we can do hard things and change is one of them. So I had a moment where I was just like, wow, this really is our lives right now and I was proud of us and proud of the kids because so much has changed for them and for us in the last couple of months. I always tell the kids that we can do hard things and this for me has been hard and I'm sure it's been hard in some ways for them. But you know, just think last year our life was going to homecoming football game and going to the parade and teachers nights out and book fairs and stuff. That's what we were doing then and then now everything is different.
Speaker 3:Right and I mean, I guess it has been hard in a way. But also you always say you have to pick your heart because there's no, you can't avoid hard, and so that goes with anything, and this is one of those things you can keep. You can do something that's really hard in the short term to change everything. Or you can do something that's kind of hard but forever, and that's to change nothing and just keep doing things that don't make you happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. I like keep telling myself that, like, choose your heart. And when you think of that as homeschooling, choose your heart is homeschool your kids and work. That is very hard and it's very hard to do, and the other side of that would be send your kids to school and deal with all the things that we were dealing with and you're sacrificing all of these things that are only something that you experience while they're young. So the hard is that, yeah, you have these decisions that you made that when they're grown, you can't take back. So that would also be hard right.
Speaker 3:That will be hard later and even in the short term. I mean, it's hard to wake up at 630 in the morning to well, we do anyway. But it's hard to wake your kids up at 630 in the morning to get them ready for school and you know, rush them every single morning so that they're ready on time and get them out the door and it's hard to sit in a pickup line for an hour every single day to pick up your kids from school and it's hard to do the hundreds of things that you have to do when they're in public school.
Speaker 1:And it's hard to know how to help them at school when you have no idea what's going on. It's hard for your kid to get bullied at school and there's nothing you can do about it. It's hard for your kid to cry every single morning, not wanting to go to school, but you have to send them anyways. It's hard not to see your kid all day long and then just to feel like you get them in the literally worst hours of their day. It's hard to feel guilty all the time because you're working and you never get one-on-one time with them. It's hard to know that they're not getting enough sleep because you're dragging them out of bed after you put them to bed too late because they were at sports. There's so much hard.
Speaker 3:All of those things are hard. It's hard to schedule teacher conferences and get up there only to find that they don't really have anything to say a lot of times.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you took off time from work to go up there. I mean, a lot of things are hard.
Speaker 1:So, yes, in this case, how do we do it? I keep getting that question. It's choose your hard, and this is the. This is the hard we chose, because I feel like at least this is the most rewarding heart.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I feel like we pick the thing that is seems the most difficult in the moment, but really in the long term it ends up being the best option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that for our kids and for our relationship with our kids in a lot of ways this will be so much easier when they're older Talk to a lot of people about that too. Like our oldest is close to being a teenager and things, and that's when it gets really hard. It gets hard for girls in junior high. There's a lot going on with schools right now, so that is hard too. But I feel like that we have a closer relationship with them and they have a closer relationship with each other, which, in the future, is much easier and much more enjoyable than basically drifting apart for years when they're in school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, and I think that happens to everybody at that age, because they get busier and busier as they get older and they go through that, you know, that moody teenage time. They don't want to come home from school and then talk, talk, talk to their parents. So I think that'll be nice too if we're still doing this whenever they're at that age. Then we'll at least be getting that time with them.
Speaker 1:I think that we will be getting a lot more during the teenage years, and I mean only time will tell, but I do think that that's part of the good part of this.
Speaker 3:And I mean people always say you know what they go through from age 12 to 18 will have a bigger impact on who they are as an adult than almost anything else that ever happens to them. So if the biggest influence in their lives are people at school, other kids or teachers at school or do you want it to be you know, do you want it to be you? Hey, for some of y'all, y'all might be like Ooh, I don't need it to be me, that's bad choice, I need to send them somewhere else. Hey, I applaud you for knowing yourself well, but for a lot of us, we're like I mean, I want to be that influence.
Speaker 1:So but as they're getting older, I just feel that time is so fleeting and we do have the capacity to do this now. We did not. When they were younger, we couldn't have even had them at home, even though we weren't trying to school them. So right now we're choosing this hard and, though it it's hard, I think that it will be probably one of the most important things that we do.
Speaker 3:I hope so.
Speaker 1:So I think that's probably a good place to wrap up this episode. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll be back next week to update you on week five and give you maybe a little bit more information about how everything's going with the new curriculum, since we only spent one day with it so far, we're no experts? No, not yet. Nope, nope, nope. This is only for us to tell you about all the things that we do that go well and the things that go poorly, so hopefully, you can skip the ones that go poorly and make your own mistakes. Well, until next time, thank you for listening to.
Speaker 3:Well this wasn't the plan podcast.
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