Well This Wasn't The Plan!

18. Homeschool, Holidays, and Why This Year Feels Different

• Carson and Teran Sands • Episode 18

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We unpack why we chose homeschool over private school, how we juggle work with learning, and what actually changed in our home life. From winter routines to Outschool wins and cutting December chaos, we share what’s working, what isn’t, and what we’re adding next.

• letting go of pressure during holidays and keeping daily reading
• handling family reactions and setting screen boundaries with cousins
• adapting routines for cold, windy weather and morning focus
• accelerating math while protecting foundations and confidence
• adding family-style history and science on Fridays
• using Outschool for creative, independent classes
• private school costs, rigor, and homework vs our priorities
• why hybrid programs wouldn’t solve workload or logistics
• mental load relief from ditching constant school “optional” tasks
• feeling confident after seeing both systems up close

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SPEAKER_02:

I actually wanted to do private school. I'm sure everyone is sh is shocked here, but it's ridiculously expensive. But I was like, well, maybe it's worth it. You know, maybe we should do private school because we knew what we were doing wasn't working, but obviously there's more options than just homeschooling. We're two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.

SPEAKER_01:

After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to, well, this wasn't the plan podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm slate, and school's in the kitchen now. I'm Scotty. We says Scott when I say so. I'm Sailor, and this whole podcast was my idea.

SPEAKER_01:

This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool, jobs, parenting, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_02:

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_01:

We're learning to expect the unexpected. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_02:

We're back. We survived Thanksgiving break. It was really nice to have just like a break mentally, I think, from homeschooling, but the kids were also really excited to have 10 days. 10 days off.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 10 days off.

SPEAKER_02:

So that was really nice. Maybe out of both of us, you feel like more pressure than I do to like have them be ahead. And so I just had read many moms said they wish they wouldn't have put so much pressure on during the holidays because, like, think about public school, they're not doing crap at school right now. Like they are watching movies and they're having Polar Express days and all of the things. My sister was telling me that too. So I think it's just a good thing to tell yourself like this is a crazy time of year. We're gonna take the time off that they need, and it makes things smoother whenever you get back to it.

SPEAKER_01:

And it was no more time off than public school kids get. I mean, really, other than that, you know, we don't do Fridays, so they had the Friday before Thanksgiving week off. But yeah, you can't sit here like we do all the time and talk about how we do more in less time and then make them go to school when everyone else has the whole week off. So it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And I don't know that people are doing that. You know, there are some people that homeschool year-round, and you know, you can do it so many different ways, but I do think that you feel some sort of pressure just to like keep moving forward. And then for us, I feel like we're in such a good like routine that it's kind of hard to get out of the routine, but it's necessary.

SPEAKER_01:

The routine's part of it, and the momentum. I mean, they're all doing so well. I I hate kind of hated to stop, but I mean it's good, it's good for everyone. We'll come back stronger.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. So everybody was super excited about the break, but we are gonna have to like start over, get back in our routine and all of that, and that's I guess just part of life. On these breaks, really the only thing that we do is we we did no schooling as far as like our formal curriculum, but we still require the kids to read every single day. So that's like our one like non-negotiable. But I do feel like now that they enjoy reading, and that's just something that they do that's not really something we have to enforce very much. Another thing that came up was this was just this is our first semester homeschooling, and we basically blew up our entire lives to do this, and we gave no one in our families any warning. We pulled our kids from public school where they were going with all of their cousins, and you know, we were into all of the small town traditions and all of that, so it still is a little strange to my family, like what we're doing here, and so you know, there's been a lot of people reach out to me saying, like, I'm the first person in my family to homeschool, and you know, I'm not gonna lie to you, it still is a little awkward because I think that they're still getting used to it. So, you know, the cousins are asking a lot of questions, so are my my parents and things like that, and so you know, that's a little different, and I think that kind of stuff is just like over time it will get better, like you know, it's just the change, the change of everything that we decided to just like okay, what we're doing isn't working, we are making all of these changes, and everyone's just not used to it yet.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but also nobody really says anything, so it's not really a big deal.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, there's just comments, you know. We won't go into all of that. It's just I know my family, I know that they're not 100% on board, but we're getting there. We have we have made some strides forward, absolutely. So there's always like with any family, you know, different rules on like screen time and stuff. And if you listen to the podcast, you know that we are like very low screen time. So all of the cousins were, you know, playing on iPads and all of these things. And I'm like, guys, guys, y'all need to like play together. So I don't know, like a little bit later, I found them all watching YouTube in the dark together, and we kicked them outside, and I feel like that's a little bit of progress because used to like I would just get annoyed that, like, why are they doing this? Like, they are cousins, like they should be playing outside. And we just said, you know what? It's a beautiful day. You guys get outside and play, and they did, and they played outside for hours, and they were playing like a make-believe game, and like so good for them, but it was like the most beautiful day, and so it was kind of frustrating that you have to be the the mean one and kick them out, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, in Texas, the cold front didn't come until a couple days after Thanksgiving, so on Thanksgiving it was still beautiful, it was probably in the 70s, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

It was such a pretty day, but so all the cousins got out and played, and so it was overall a very good Thanksgiving, but bringing up the cold, we have had to change our routine and we really haven't got it down yet, but we need to change it up because of the weather. So, right now it's like 30 and windy, obviously, not like ideal for playing outside, especially when you're from Texas, you kind of have to get used to it all of a sudden. We were going outside first thing, and then as the weather started getting cooler in the mornings, we've kind of had to change that up. So, so far we really don't have that schedule down yet, but we have just been homeschooling like first thing in the morning and then getting outside later in the day, which has been going pretty well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it helped that we have a new thing in the backyard the kids really like it's like a ninja obstacle course thing, and they've been playing a lot on that, which gave us some time to catch up on some other stuff that we didn't necessarily have time to go to the park for an hour with them every day like we had been doing, which we kind of miss getting outside. So we're hoping we can fix that, but they were able to get outside and still get a lot of good time in doing that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, they've been outside, but we didn't, which isn't good. So then now we're like, we gotta get back on our routine, and it's freaking cold. So I don't know. In Texas, it's not really this cold like for long. So I guess we'll just have to like have days where they don't go outside a lot. But I don't know. That's hard for me because one of the reasons we wanted to homeschool is because like they don't get outside enough, and we're like, this is ridiculous, we've got to get them outside. So then I'm like, we have we have to get them outside. It doesn't matter if the weather's horrible, we've gotta go outside, and that just isn't realistic every day, but they do need to burn the energy.

SPEAKER_01:

So and I am a big believer that the no bad weather day thing, I like that theory a lot, and okay, just dress for the occasion and dress warm. And in a lot of parts of Texas, that's totally fine because it's yeah, it might be 20, but the air is still and you can bundle up and it's fine. But it gets so windy here in West Texas that when it's 20 degrees and windy, it's so miserable to go outside. I mean, it's possible, you just not like you would die or anything, but it's not fun at all.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. The wind is just brutal. Now, all the people up north are just laughing at us right now because they're like, oh, Texas thinks it's too cold to go outside, which I think we're just underprepared. But we should make that a goal to, you know, get the proper clothes and get them outside as much as possible still, because this is our first year trying to do this, and then this is the first time that they're not getting outside for a few hours, so it's kind of different.

SPEAKER_01:

And or double down on some things that are indoor but still very active, like going to the skating rink or going to the rock climbing for inside, or or just things like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but all of those involve us taking them and not being and paying money, right, and not being able to work. So some of the times they were like playing in the backyard and playing outside whenever we were responding to emails and wrapping up work. So we're just gonna have to like figure out our new routine. When we figure it out, we will absolutely let you guys know what that is. But so far, we are just basically homeschooling right when they wake up, and like you said earlier, Sailors really liked that because she's been waking up early at like seven-ish, and she just is like, Hey, can I go ahead and get my school done? And so I like that she's taking that responsibility, I like that she's just wants to get it out of the way for the day, and then she has the rest of the day to do what she wants to do. So I like that. And so far it has not been a problem with like her focus or anything.

SPEAKER_01:

It's actually better. Most people with ADD do better in the mornings, and I'm one of those people, so I think that that helps her a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so TBD on the new routine, but hopefully it just doesn't stay this cold for long and we can get outside some more. What else is on our list? We are finishing up second grade for Slate, so our goal is just to have him finished up with second grade math. He's in different levels on everything, which I think is one of the biggest perks of homeschooling, is that you can be at your level in whatever it is. So he is well advanced in math, but I think we just felt like we didn't want him to miss anything. So we've made him go through second grade math, and he's like almost done with it. So he'll be done and he can move on up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, unlike with his language arts, which he was able to skip straight to fourth grade level with the math. We were afraid he would miss stuff, so we just went through it but double speed, basically doubling up on lessons. Some days more than that, or there was one whole section that we looked at at the test, and we were like, Yeah, he can, he doesn't need to do any of these lessons, he can already pass this test. And and he did, or not pass it, I mean get 100 on it.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think he could absolutely do fourth grade math as well, but I was just afraid he just didn't have like some of those foundation things, like a really good understanding of decimals and fractions and things, because he's just never been taught, not that he can't understand it. So we just wanted to get him through, and we're like, let's see how quickly we can get him through. And it has not been hard. He has been able to get through it super quickly, and that's with us like traveling and taking Fridays off and everything. So he's almost done with it, and that's like our big goal before we only have like eight more days of school until Christmas break.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, and we were right, he could have gone into third grade math, but there were would have been holes in there because he knew how to add with regrouping and all of that, but he did not know how to subtract when there's regrouping and everything. He had just never seen it. Of course, I mean I showed him in two minutes and he had it down, but he would have not known how to do that unless you know someone showed him.

SPEAKER_02:

So right. So he's kind of frustrated with that, but we're almost moving forward with that, so that's our goal. And then we get another long break for we have like eight more homeschooling days and then we have Christmas break. And so I think we're just looking forward to having a little bit of time off. The kids are excited to not be in school, and then we get a really long break before we start next semester. And I think for the most part, like we're gonna be doing the same thing next semester, the same curriculum, maybe using some extra tools to help us out because we start tax season and definitely gonna be using out school again. Oh, what I wrote down. We're not doing co-op next spring. So that gives us Fridays where we have something different. And a few of you have asked if we have included history in science yet, and the answer is no. But we're thinking that Friday is a good time to do like science altogether or history or something like that. So we are gonna start putting that into our curriculum now.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. It was important to get a lot of things out of the way first just to make sure we had a good routine and make sure that we had a curriculum that we liked, and we were able to do that and really nail those things down, and of course, get Scotty to where she could read because she couldn't.

SPEAKER_02:

So if you're listening, going, oh my gosh, they're skipping, you know, history and science, our kids are very young and they we know what they were covering in public school, and you know, they're not missing anything right now, but we just wanted to get like get our feet wet, like get going with it, make sure that we like the curriculum and all that, and we're still not gonna be doing it every day. We're still gonna be focusing on the core subjects because we feel like everything builds on that, but we are doing family style for history and science.

SPEAKER_01:

And their language arts contains social studies in it as part of the program. So there it's more geography than history right now, and I think that's that's okay. When they're old enough to understand history as a story, I think that's a good time for them to start learning it. And they might be getting there now that they can really comprehend things. And by that I mean the younger ones.

SPEAKER_02:

The older one, she probably already could, but and I have am trying out this other homeschool curriculum, and it's called Time for Learning, and it's actually a full-blown curriculum, which we don't want that. We want to like be more hands-on with this kind of stuff, but we are gonna try it out, and I'm we're gonna be looking at their science and history stuff too to help. So we'll always let you know if there's like something we find that is super helpful, but we're still kind of in that where we're trying everything and just seeing what helps. So far, we love out school, and that was one one of the things that the kids did while we were still on break because those are classes that they chose. So they're drawing classes, creative things, and they still did that over Thanksgiving break, which was nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we I didn't even think about those because the kids don't really think of those as school. I mean, even though it's called out school, they just think of it as their fun drawing class or whatever fun extracurricular that they pick.

SPEAKER_02:

So and they have the guy, the kid taking voice lessons on out school is on the voice and doing really well. So Carson was like, Oh, I want the kids to take voice lessons.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's one of those things that I'm a singer, but just like I've always been a good skier, I don't teach my kids how to ski. It's a different skill set, and even though I'm a good singer, I don't know how to teach people how to sing. It's just something I've always done. So I think it would be fun for them to take voice lessons and for all of us to sing together and stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, for sure. So 10 out of 10 on the outschool. If you're looking for something to that they can do without you, but you still kind of want to be hands-on on like their core curriculum, out school is wonderful. So that has all kinds of things that they could take on there, and you could get a little bit of work done in there if you're working in homeschooling too. I think that's pretty much we have for the week update. We did get some fan mill in. A lot of it was just like, good job, keep going. You they've been doing it a long time, they work in homeschool too. So hearing from so many people that are making this work in millions of different ways, you know, you can make this work however, but different than us, still listening to the podcast. But there was one question I wanted to address. So she wanted to know why we ended up deciding to go the homeschool route versus doing a private school. And we can talk a little bit about this. I actually wanted to do private school. I'm sure everyone is sh is shocked here, but it's ridiculously expensive. But I was like, well, maybe it's worth it, you know, maybe we should do private school because we knew what we were doing wasn't working, but obviously there's more options than just homeschooling. And so I was looking at like hybrid programs and maybe there's a private school that's like outdoorsy or you know, something like that. Like I was trying to look at things that maybe could fit us a little bit better, and really the reason it was a no is because Carson said no. Who's like, no, I don't think that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I had spoken to a lady that we know, I won't name her name, that had worked in a public school and in a private school, and she said that it was no better. She said it wasn't any different, all the same problems are there. The only thing is the really bad behavior kids, you know, in a private school, they kick them out, and that's that's it. In public schools, they're not allowed to. So that helps a little bit with some of the distractions in class. And, you know, the kids in there, maybe they're a little bit ahead academically, but that's really to be expected. It's probably more of a function of the fact that they have parents that can afford private school than the fact that they're actually in the private school. And so she wasn't, even as a teacher, there, like super impressed with the higher level ability of people that go to that school. Now, there's probably private schools that are even more expensive that have a lot higher level of rigor to the academics, but I would also say they have probably a lot higher requirements for what you have to do in order to get in there. And so you still have to wonder, are these schools actually causing these kids to be this much better? Or did they just only allow in the kids that were already this much smarter? So I don't know. I don't really see a lot of benefit to them, but I I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and the thing was, do we want our kids to be challenged and pushed and have a really good education? Absolutely, but that's not the only thing at the top of our list. The top of our list was letting them be kids and getting our ADHD kid out of the desk more and getting them to be able to do things that are also creative and things like that. So it doesn't really compute. That would be a more rigorous schedule, more homework, things like that. That's kind of something we weren't looking for, which is what yeah, which is what you get with those, because after all of the research we've done, we we know that homework doesn't help. You know, they they are done at the end of the day. It does not do anything other than make the parents feel like the kids are doing more things. So yeah, with all of these came a lot more homework and a lot more responsibility on the kids, which we were looking for less. And then if you you start talking to people like that, you want a lot for that much money, like whether it's 10,000 or 20,000 or$30,000 a kid, you can, you know, there's such a huge range, but you're like, I want a bang for my buck, right? You want it to be a lot better than what you were experiencing, and asking around is just not like parents were like it was a waste of money. So I didn't want to feel like that. Maybe if it to you it's not a lot of money, like it's not that big of a deal. But what we were looking at spending was a lot of money to us, and for it to not make the changes that we wanted, it just seemed like we would be pouring money down the drain.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it might be different if you're in a really terrible like D or F-level public school system, but that's the thing, is we're in one of the highest rated public school systems in the state. So I don't know that a private school other than a super, super elite private school, would even be able to top it, you know. So that wasn't the issue.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Yeah, I mean, obviously there's diff different circumstances, but in our area, like just comparing the two, it just it just seemed like you were paying for nothing. If you wanted your kids to be like push and push and have a lot of homework and stuff, like you could find something that definitely had higher standards in public school, but that's just not what we were looking for. And then I mentioned some of these hybrid schools, and Sailor was like, nope, not doing it. And which I thought was kind of she's kind of like usually go with the flow, but she was like, No, I do not want to do it. So I just felt like maybe this was something we owed it to them to just try it out. And then here we are. Now we're homeschooling and we love it. And we have this podcast and all the things, but yeah, we were really, really on the fence at the start, and I really wanted them to do a hybrid program because in my head they would be out of the house some and that would help us balance work. But now talking to a mom that actually goes to that hybrid program we were considering, I realized that it wouldn't have given me any more time to work. So I was wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that we would end up with all the same, you know, responsibilities and time-consuming tasks that we had when they were in five-day a week school, but without the benefit of them being in basically childcare for five days a week. So it would actually be worse. Whereas with the homeschool option, you know, we don't have all of those extra things that we have to do. And yes, they're here all the time, but it it's it does we don't have a whole lot of extra things on our plate other than sitting down and doing school with them.

SPEAKER_02:

And I cannot tell you how much lighter my brain feels this December. Now, December is always crazy for every mom out there, and then Slate has a birthday in December, we we always go skiing in December, it's just like the most packed month. But when you add on three kids in public school, elementary school, it's just sheer freaking craziness.

SPEAKER_01:

Because they have a day they have to wear green pajamas, you have to get presents for all three of the teachers, you have to get presents usually for other people up at the school, and you have to send, you know, cookies or candy or some crap one day for Christmas parties. You have to go to the Christmas parties.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, and they're on different days, and there is a concert that you need to go to. There's food drives, there is Christmas runs, whatever the fun runs that they call them, and you you dress up to the theme. There is a million things.

SPEAKER_01:

The Cindy Louhu and Grinch Day where they dress up the City Little Grinch.

SPEAKER_02:

Last year our first grader had a calendar that started on December 1st, and then there was a dress-up day every single day of December.

SPEAKER_01:

Up until they got out of school for the semester. Oh, which was a glorious day.

SPEAKER_02:

And you know, I don't mean to sound like a Scrooge when I say all of these things, but it's just getting it was out of hand.

SPEAKER_01:

What a grinch.

SPEAKER_02:

Between the dang Elf on the Shelf and all of the responsibilities for the mom on Christmas, like rapping and shopping and getting in-laws' presents and putting up the tree and all of these things, like it's just too much. It just seems like school's trying to make it all happen at school and at home, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

And they act like it's optional, but it's not. I mean, you can't let your kid be the only one to show up not dressed up as Cindy Louhu or with green pajamas, or be, you know, not send a gift, and then the teacher hates you and your kid. Like, I don't know. It's just you you have to do it, even though it's optional.

SPEAKER_02:

You want to do it when they're like, Do you want to have, do you want to buy your teacher a gift? Yes. The problem is there's so many things to say yes to. And then when you say yes to all of them, you're screwed.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And it's not because we don't think the teacher deserves a gift or because we don't approve of them having a fun pajama day. It's just that it's something every day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and it's can you bring marshmallows today? We're doing this craft. Can you send this today because a teacher's lounge needs something? Can you do this for like the number of sign-up geniuses and requests and things just like hurt my brain to even think about it? And this year, compared to last year, it's just like it's just so nice. Like I can't even explain to you how good it feels not to be in that r bubble, the rush and the craziness right now.

SPEAKER_01:

It's nice, and I don't even I'm not even the one that did most of it.

SPEAKER_02:

It is, it's just so nice. I just it's one of my most favorite things about homeschooling. And you know, I would never even be thankful for it if we didn't go to school, you know?

SPEAKER_01:

That's true. Like, I'm just so grateful that we have cut down some of the chaos, even though sitting here jealous of all the people that, oh, they get five days a week of free daycare.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I think in this case, like we had to go through all of that in order to make the best decision for our family. And I hate when you make a decision and you're like, I don't know if it was the right decision. And this really being able to see both sides of it made us feel or makes me feel like really good about our decision. Like I know what it's like there, I know what it's like here, and I get to decide. Rather, if you just pick one thing from the get-go, you're only seeing one part of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's all we have for you today. I think that's the only question we're gonna answer. But if you have any more, please definitely keep sending those in, and we will answer them every episode.

SPEAKER_01:

So until next time, thank you so much for listening to Wells.

SPEAKER_00:

We will do really hard on this podcast. Make your juice good so you don't miss a single podcast episode. Thank you, have a good day.