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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!
20. We finished our FIRST semester homeschooling + working!!!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We finish our first semester of homeschooling and share what worked, what didn’t, and how we balanced real jobs with real learning. Honest wins, hard pivots, and a few surprises changed our mornings, our kids’ confidence, and our plans for next term.
• routine that protects work blocks and quiet hours
• pen-and-paper curriculum improving writing speed and focus
• testing revealing gaps
• tailored pacing for Slate’s math acceleration
• life skills growth in cooking, chores, and money habits
• travel learning and bravery lessons in Costa Rica
• adding formal science and history next semester
• using OutSchool to cover busy work seasons
• refocusing on one-to-one time with each child
Please send us your questions. Also, please go leave us a review and give us five stars!!!
Homeschool + Working Parents Guide (The Step-by-Step Guide to Your First Year)
The phone we have with NO social media and NO internet browser!
Meet The Family And New Reality
SPEAKER_01Carson does afternoon meetings and they're usually outside or at art class or they have quiet time during that meeting where they're having to read. So we're definitely like strategic about the meetings. We're not just expecting them to be quiet all day.
SPEAKER_02Right. And almost anytime they're allowed to go outside. I mean, even to have breakfast, really. That we have a table outside. They could go sit there and be louder, and that would be okay. But they know that. So I'm like, okay, inside voices if you're inside on a meeting. And yeah, it'd be great if I didn't have a job and I could be with them all day and we could all be loud all day, but that's not life.
SPEAKER_01We're two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.
SPEAKER_02After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to, well, this wasn't the plan podcast.
SPEAKER_00I'm slate, and school's in the kitchen now. I'm Scotty. Lisa Scott and I say so. I'm Sailor, and this whole podcast was my idea.
SPEAKER_02This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool, jobs, parenting, and everything in between.
SPEAKER_01Follow 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_02We're learning to expect the unexpected. So let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00Let's go.
First Semester Complete
SPEAKER_01We have finished our very first semester of homeschooling. Woohoo! No one gave us a medal, but I feel like we deserve one.
SPEAKER_02I also haven't received my teacher's Christmas gift.
SPEAKER_01So we know I bought myself plenty of Christmas gifts because I'm a teacher. And the kids were like, that doesn't make sense because every time I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna get this for me. Oh, it's my teacher gift.
SPEAKER_02Fine. If they have that opinion, they used to get prizes for certain things they did at school that they still get for doing things, but I guess since we're homeschooled, they don't get those prizes either.
SPEAKER_01Right, no prizes. Okay. Actually, they got to go to Six Flags, so I feel like that's a pretty dang good prize.
SPEAKER_02It's not a bad field trip.
SPEAKER_01Today's episode, we're just gonna recap the whole semester. What worked, what didn't work, what happened, what we were surprised about, all of the things. So hopefully, if you are
Morning Noise, Boundaries, And Fixes
SPEAKER_01thinking about homeschooling, this will help you in some way. The first thing that we're gonna do is just recap this week. And this was our last homeschooling week, and then we won't have to homeschool until 2026, which is so exciting. The kids were super pumped about it. I feel like we ended on like a really good note. The only thing that came up this week a lot, and I think the kids were just like jazzed about the break and all of the things we have coming up, they were obnoxiously loud in the mornings, which was so frustrating. So Carson had banged on the wall a few times, like, be quiet, be quiet. That's supposed to be like their warning message. And they were just being so silly and so loud. So I made them put their tennis shoes on and run down the street and back. And that is something we do sometimes, but I forget to use it. Like I feel like it's a good tool in my toolbox, but I forget to do it. So that happened this week, and I actually posted on social media about it to see if people actually did this. And it's very common that people like send their kids outside and make them run around the yard or around the block. Somebody lived by a track, they did that. So I guess it is common. It definitely worked, I think, to get snap them out of them being like super silly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think it works better than you know what I originally told them was I was like, if if I'll bang on the wall, that's your warning, and the next time you're loud, I'm gonna make you change the kitty litter, which is usually my job, but that was an empty threat because all I could vision was like all of the kitty litter dumping out of the little, we have an electronic one out of the drawer onto the floor and just being a bigger mess. I knew I wasn't really gonna enforce that, so it was a really bad threat, so I I shouldn't have done that. Taryn's method is better.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it's all on my shoulders when he's on a meeting because there's nothing really he can do other than bang on the wall. But somebody said, Why do you even take calls? Like I wouldn't do that because I guess kids should be able to be loud. And well, I get that, but we're homeschooling and working. Of course, there's gonna be calls, and our biggest piece of advice here is just to time it the best way you can. And for us, is that most of the meetings happen in the morning, and they only have like about an hour where they need to be quiet, like they can do that, you know, they're asked to be quiet at school all the time. So one hour, and it's usually when they're up getting breakfast, things like that. It's not a time of day where they're like all riled up. And then the second part of this is that Carson does afternoon meetings and they're usually outside or at art class, or they have quiet time during that meeting where they're having to read. So we're definitely like strategic about the meetings, we're not just expecting them to be quiet all day.
SPEAKER_02Right. And almost anytime they're allowed to go outside. I mean, even to have breakfast, really. That we have a table outside, they could go sit there and be louder, and that would be okay. But they know that. So I'm like, okay, inside voices if you're inside on a meeting. And yeah, it'd be great if I didn't have a job and I could be with them all day and we could all be loud all day, but that's not life.
SPEAKER_01Well, and at
Strategic Meetings And Quiet Routines
SPEAKER_01the beginning, they were being loud during breakfast, and then we would move them to the porch. But it's really cold right now, and it really hasn't been happening that much lately. I was thinking about this earlier this week because I'm like, man, we have been just working away on this routine all semester, and some things are clicking, like they're doing them without us prompting them and reminding them. And some things, you know, they might do great one day and the next day we're like, oh my gosh, guys. But then I realized that I've heard teachers say this by the end of the year, like they're finally in like a great routine and everything's working great, systems are working great, and then the year ends. So I think that it's quite common to have to work on this for quite a while before things start becoming like second nature. So I think it's normal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, me too. And I think it's normal that they were a little more amped up in the last week or two, just like they are at school in the last you know, week or two before Christmas break. I mean, a lot of teachers say pretty much everything from Thanksgiving break till Christmas break is just a waste because the kids are so amped up that nothing gets accomplished.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we have so many fun things coming up, and the elf came. Like it's obvious that they're gonna be kind of crazy and excited. And I think it was like we had like two more homeschooling days left and we were counting down the days. So definitely makes sense that they were a little crazy.
SPEAKER_02But some wins, you know, starting with the oldest and going to the youngest. Sailor is still, you know, or was, you know, we're done with this semester now, but she was still getting up and doing a lot of her schoolwork, like before she had breakfast or whatever. We didn't tell her to do this. You know, we are not supposed to start homeschool till 10, but she just did it on her own. She likes that feeling of getting as much of it out of the way as she can and then just asking us for help or, you know, doing the parts with us that she's supposed to do with us. So, I mean, that's really good. And in general, she's a full year ahead on language arts and she's, you know, doing great on math. She's right on track with that. And it's easy enough for her that she is able to do most of the problems really without any help. So that's why she's getting through it so fast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that because she's kind of taking it into her own hands. Like she's the one that asked us to homeschool and we finally listened. And it's been such a good fit for her. So we should have listened all along. She was telling us what she needed, and we finally made that happen. And then we were kind of trying some different things, get the kids outside first, you know, do it later in the day, all of these things. And she's like,
Wins: Sailor’s Self-Start Progress
SPEAKER_01Can I work on it in homeschooling when I wake up? And we were like, sure, if that's what you want to do. So she chose that herself. She gets up earlier than their alarms are even going off, and she works through it, which only means that we have about 15 minutes to sit there with her and check her work, do anything that she didn't understand. And then there's some like problems that we do out loud. So it was crazy because there was not that much left for us to do because fourth grade and up is designed to have them take some more authority of their schooling versus like what we do with the younger two. So that was really nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's actually consistent with me, you know, I'm way better early in the morning as well. That's why we work the way that we do. I get more done per hour and just enjoy working better at that time. Um I've never been a person that wants to be super physically active right in the morning, but that's when my brain works the best. So, but by the afternoon, I'm ready to be moving and I don't want to sit at my desk and work.
SPEAKER_01I'm the exact same way. And I think she just realized that that helps her focus more. She has ADHD and it just works out way better. So I'm glad that she noticed that and she took it into her own hands, and she is doing really well with that.
SPEAKER_02Okay, moving on to Slate. The win for him is he finished math. So all of second grade math he did just in the first semester. Now, if y'all have been listening, you know that he's already two grade levels ahead on language arts because there's a lot of repetitive concepts in there. And so you can skip ahead, but we were afraid with math, there would be concepts that are important that you know, no matter how easily you learn them, you do actually need to take the time to learn them. So we were like, okay, the compromises will do math for second graders since he's a second grader, but I bet he can do double the lessons and he did, and some days he did triple, and he's done. So he'll be working on third grade math, and he'll probably do all of third grade math in the second semester.
SPEAKER_01And he's so excited about it. I love it because he has always loved math, and then he went to first grade and he kind of got I don't know, just he had a bad taste in his mouth about school all of a sudden because he had a hard year. So I feel like we have like healed that and he loves math again. So that makes me
Wins: Slate Speeds Through Math
SPEAKER_01like so excited for him, and he's so ready to start learning like multiplication and division and do harder things like that because he already knows how, but we just didn't want to skip all that important stuff in there.
SPEAKER_02So And he, you know, he was the one driving this speed. Like we were gonna have him do two lessons because I knew he could, but when we started getting to the end, he was like, I know all that. Can I just do two out of like six of the problems? Yes, okay, let's move to the next lesson. He's like, Okay. And he does two of them again, move to the next lesson. And then we're getting through all these. One day, I think we did like 10, and he was the one driving this. And then we got to the end of that, and it's time to do the final exam. And he's like, Let me do it. And I was like, No, I stopped him because I was like, dude, you can't, your brain is tired. You just did 10 math lessons, you've already done language arts today. I'm afraid you'll do bad, and you're gonna think that you aren't good at math. Do it with the fresh brain tomorrow. And he did, he understood that, and he woke up the next day, did it, got a hundred. We're moving on.
SPEAKER_01And so now we can actually do things that he's excited about, which he was not able to do that last year, and he was very frustrated about it. So that's a huge win for Slate. With Scotty, I think the biggest win is that she started out behind based on the testing that they give with our curriculum, and it was like she wasn't severely behind, but she probably should have started back at the kindergarten stuff. And I was like, I don't know, I don't want her to have to go back because she will probably be mad. So we just put in extra work, we did the reading app and we got her caught up, but now she is actually really far ahead. So like they kind of had like benchmarking in the middle of the lessons, and it will say, like, oh, you need to be here. Well, she's miles ahead of that. And then she finished the reading app, and her reading has just like taken off. So that's a huge win for Scotty.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and once she can read, she actually is enjoying all of these things more that we we have from the older two. So that's been great. And she's reading on her own now a lot of graphic novels, but still the fact that she can read stories that are enjoyable instead of see spot run, you know, that's just that's not fun for anybody.
SPEAKER_01And let's talk about this post I made yesterday. And it was that, yay, you know, we're we finished homeschooling and we did it, we deserve this award because you know, our kids are above grade level. And look at us, we did it basically. And the number one question on that was just like, how did you test your kids and how do you know they're above that? And I think that is one of the biggest like aha moments for me starting homeschool
Wins: Scotty’s Reading Breakthrough
SPEAKER_01was like, you have no idea where your kids stand academically. The the A's they're getting mean nothing, or they didn't for our school. And I've actually looked at a lot of research on this now, and they the schools are just basically giving out A's to please parents or B's when it should be a C or whatever. And then our kids would go take these tests and they wouldn't do that well, and we would be so confused. We're like, they have 99s in every subject. Why do they not get the stuff that's like standardized, like, you know, just the basic stuff that the state wants them to know? We don't understand. And the teachers would just be like, well, this or that, you know, there's always some reason. And it was very confusing. Every single time it was confusing. And in reality, we just didn't know what was going on with our kids. So it was like really eye-opening to know that though we were proud of them because they got all A's, they were actually behind.
SPEAKER_02Right. And it is sad because somewhere along the way, the school lost sight of its purpose, which it's funded by society, and so public school is for society. It is to put people out into the world that actually know something, that have learned something. And that's not the the goal anymore. Now the goal is to please parents. And I think the reason for that is that the parents are the ones that can affect the biggest change in the teachers' lives and the school's funding and things like that. So, yes, they are either consciously or subconsciously trying to please the parents because their little darlings couldn't possibly get a B. No.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And then I think it's just slowly over time changed, right? And so the standards are lower to give kids better grades that they don't necessarily deserve because they haven't done what they need to do for that curriculum, or the school hasn't got there, or whatever it is. So that's why it was confusing. So the eye-opening thing for us was that, but we realized that because of these curriculum like testing beforehand. And what I liked was that we knew Slate was ahead, that was easy for us because he's gifted,
Grades vs. Reality: Testing Truths
SPEAKER_01and we just knew that he was above what like first graders knew. But then we took these tests and it was like, okay, have them read this. And it was very specific, like how quickly they can read it, how many words they miss, and then here's where they really need to be. And it was very eye-opening, and we had never done anything like that with the kids. So the way that we know that they're ahead now is because we did those testing beforehand with our curriculum. And I know like Slates even had like an IQ test, and then we have these other reading tests and like reading quizzes. So there's a few ways we've done this just to kind of know like what reading level they're on, what you know, where what grade they should be in math, and all of that. And then our curriculum does a really good job of like comparing where they were and where they should be and all of that. So we've done it a number of ways, but we definitely know that they are ahead of where they need to be because it was very eye-bow it was very eye-opening to see that they weren't exactly like where maybe a fourth grader should be based on these curriculums.
SPEAKER_02But they're caught up now. And just to be more specific on that, the curriculum that we use, they actually had a free printout that we could get off the internet before we order stuff, which makes sense because when you order materials, you know, the one we're using, it's not super cheap. And obviously, you don't want to order the wrong one only to find out I need to order a different year. So they've let you print that out for free and test the kid, and then you can order the curriculum that you actually need.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's good and the beautiful. Go online, you can test your kids. It's so simple to give them a test to see where they are with like math and reading, the core subjects, and you can do that for free.
SPEAKER_02And I'm sure many of the curriculums have this. So, I mean, it's not just that's the one we're using, but there's probably a bunch that have it. You know, I will say though, we started with Me Academy and briefly did that before we switched. They did not have a good way of doing that. Oh, they had a method that they said to use that involved using the, I don't know, it was not very user-friendly or easy to do.
SPEAKER_01So moving on, let's talk about like expectation versus reality this first semester. And I feel like probably I expected a lot different things from homeschooling. One, I expected that it would be really hard, that I would be pulling my hair out, and that I would just keep telling myself, it's worth it, it's worth it. Well, that didn't happen. It's been really easy once we figured out our curriculum to just get the kids homeschooled. That has not even been a big thing on our plate, but I do think that I had like more high hopes of like book clubs and like kids learning Spanish and like finding our friend group and all of that. And I think I just had like unrealistic expectations for the first semester. So what about you? What were your expectations?
SPEAKER_02Well, just in general, I think I had a vague picture in my head of something very much like a school setting, except in our house and with me and you as the teacher, which is silly, I know, but that's kind of what I had in my head. Like almost like I'm standing in front of these children lecturing about stuff, and that's
Choosing Curriculum That Fits
SPEAKER_02just not the reality. That's how you have to learn when you are teaching to 30 children. It's not how it's not the best way to learn whenever. I mean, first of all, they're all learning something different. So I can't stand in front of them all and drone on about something. No, you have to sit down with each one individually, and it's it's a lot more similar to private tutoring if you've ever had private tutoring or done private tutoring yourself. It's it's a lot more similar to that, don't you think?
SPEAKER_01For sure. And Sailor even said the same thing. She thought we're gonna stand up and teach, but it definitely doesn't look like that. It is actually surprisingly easy for one of us to do it if the other one has to do a meeting or has work to do. So that was actually surprising to me that it's not really that difficult to do all on your own once you get into a good routine. And then even though I had some sort of like Mary Poppins thing in my head that it was gonna be like more magical. And things like that. I think what it really is is it slowed our life down a lot. And we actually needed that. I think that's what the kids were asking for. You still have to school, you still have to do all of this, but you don't have to rip them out of bed in the mornings. You don't have to have morning fights. You don't have to do all the dress-up days. You don't have to do all of those things and still get a great education. And that's what it actually was. In reality, it was just slowing us down.
SPEAKER_02Right. You have to wake up two hours before your body's ready to wake up. You have to get dressed and eat breakfast in 30 minutes so that we can make it to school on time and just, I mean, obviously what nobody wants to do in the morning, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So the kids are more rested. We're more rested. I'm less stressed. I posted the other day about what I noticed last week was that for a long time the kids were saying a lot of negative things about themselves that they were hearing like from other people at school. Like, oh, my nose is too big, or mom, do you think my ears are too big?
SPEAKER_02My face is oval.
SPEAKER_01My face my face is oval. I run funny, all of these things. And so there was a lot of negative self-talk, and it really was bothering me because it started so early in kindergarten that they were saying all this. And obviously that's part of life, I
Expectations vs. Reality Of Homeschool
SPEAKER_01get it, but it bothered me because of their age. They were so little. And that has pretty much completely gone away. I haven't heard them say anything negative about themselves in a really, really long time. And I do remember Slate being like, for whatever reason, like, I am the dumbest kid in my whole class. I'm the slowest kid in my whole class. All of these, all of these things that were not true. But he was really getting negative on himself and his self-confidence was really being impacted. And I've seen that change, and I see that he's happier and he's less stressed and he's less anxious, all of those things.
SPEAKER_02Now we know that was because there were kids bullying him at school, saying that to him, which it wasn't true. I mean, actually, when finally, even before we started homeschooling, a little bit of the at least him thinking he was dumb part started going away because they started doing standardized tests and he was number one every time. So it was like, well, okay, maybe he can finally believe that he never believed us, but maybe he can finally start to believe, okay, I'm smart. But there was still a lot of negative self-talk about other things that, you know, I didn't like to hear and that they weren't true anyway. So it's just, and even if they were, like, it's not a good way to think about yourself. So I'm glad that we're not hearing that anymore.
SPEAKER_01And he was coming home from school beat down, and then we felt like we had to like fill his bucket up, like, you're smart, you're kind, you're this, you're this. And that was like a daily struggle. So it's so nice that we're not dealing with that anymore. Now, let's just talk about what actually worked first, and then we'll talk about what didn't work. The first thing that actually did work for us is our routine. So saving the work time and protecting it. So we tried not to sign up for anything in the mornings or do anything that would take our work time away because we have so little of it and we need to make sure that it's protected. So a good solid routine really, really helped us stick to our work schedule.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, if you start work at 6 a.m. and your kids don't get up till eight, you have those two hours guaranteed no interruptions. Then from eight to ten, you know, there are issues because we're supposed to still be working for those two hours. And every once in a while they're interrupting us when they're not supposed to be. But, you know, I mean, in general, that was the best way for us to work.
SPEAKER_01Now, the next thing that actually worked was the good and the beautiful. I feel like if I could have made something up in my head of what I wanted, pen and paper, easy to follow curriculum, that was it. So props to them because it's a really good curriculum and it made it really easy
Confidence, Bullying, And Mental Health
SPEAKER_01for us to work in homeschool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, because of the computers, and I think they were using those in public school and our first, you know, couple of weeks, we were using them here with Me Academy, you know, I think that they get behind on the writing and the spelling. And on writing, I don't mean like creative writing or writing an essay. I'm talking about writing just quickly, being able to write in a way that is useful. Like right now, if they had to sit in a class and take notes from a lecture, it would be impossible because it takes them so long to write something, it's because they never did it. But I feel like we at this age were able to write very quickly. It wasn't my handwriting wasn't pretty, but I could do it, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and a lot of moms are actually talking about that. I saw a post about it today in the mom's group saying, like, my six, my sixth grader, not six-year-old, sorry, my sixth grader is not able to sit down and write like a sentence or two quickly. So they're leaning way too much on technology in schools, and they know that now. I think maybe they're trying to make some steps to change that. But yes, having something that is pen and paper based is so, so important.
SPEAKER_02And I don't know when it starts, but definitely at least by fourth grade and maybe before. But the good and beautiful has them writing essays and short essays and even some long essays. Slate wrote a whole story, including introduction, three paragraphs, and concluding paragraph. Like that, you know, he's well, it's supposed to be for fourth graders, I guess, but he's eight and they're still behind on where they need to be as far as writing quickly. Yes, and they're getting faster.
SPEAKER_01Yes. They we've made so much progress. Now, can they do it? And can they map out a sentence and make sure that they have punctuation and things like that? Yes, and they've learned that they just can't sit and write quickly. So we have had to work on that a lot.
SPEAKER_02It's like they're still drawing the letters, the way that you draw a picture carefully to make it look good. You know, it's like they're having to do that instead of just writing the letters the way that you do it without thinking when you spend your whole life writing.
SPEAKER_01Another thing that worked really well for us this semester was giving the kids jobs each day so that they had a direction for their day. Now, I think that when you're working, you have to get creative because there's gonna be afternoons that you have to jump on a call or there's a deadline or something like that. And to do that, before you jump on a call, before you go answer emails, you need to give your kid a direction.
What Worked: Routine And Tools
SPEAKER_01So whether that's, hey, it's reading time, you need to go read for an hour, or it's quiet time, pull out Legos or a puzzle, you give them a job. And I think that we learned that goes so much better than just expecting them to find something to do all the time. And we can give you a whole list on things that they can do while you're working. And that's something like take an outschool class, do the Legos, like I said, Slate's doing piano lessons. Hey, Slate, go jump on your piano lesson right now. Play the next playground. These things you need to give them a direction and push them in that direction.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sometimes it's something so simple. Like it doesn't have to be even for all three of them because three kids do not play well together. We've learned that they fight, they argue, but two kids play really well together, and it could be any two of our kids. So if Sailor has a drawing class to do from out school during, you know, this one hour that we have a phone meeting, that's great. The other two are gonna go play quietly. But if they're all three playing, we're gonna hear screaming.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, every time. So we give them a direction. We don't tell them that we're doing this, we just do it. And sometimes we're thinking on the fly, like, I'm like, oh, Carson has a meeting today that he normally doesn't have. I'm like, okay, it's time to go outside. You guys are gonna go outside for one hour. And yes, we do still kick our kids outside, especially when it's a beautiful day, and they're pretty good about respecting that and staying out for the next hour. So that was a system that we've kind of done all along, but we really needed to lean on that to give them a purpose so that they are not being crazy and interrupting us during our work. Make a list, make sure they have something to do. Now, a big win for me was that we just obviously wrapped up and then asked the kids, okay, do you guys still want to keep homeschooling or do you want to go back to school? And it was like a 10 out of 10, we want to keep homeschooling. So that made me feel pretty good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I mean, our oldest even said to me, she was like, Yeah, I mean, if it was homeschool versus just playing all day, obviously I would want to play all day. But out of homeschool versus going back to school, then yes, 10 out of 10, I want to homeschool, which obviously they have to learn.
SPEAKER_01So for sure. And I think I just felt good about that because it it's not perfect. Like we love it, but it's not perfect. You have your good days, you have your bad days. We had days early on when the kids would cry because they got a problem wrong, and all those things have got so much better. But in my head, you know, as a parent,
What Didn’t: Mornings Outside, Co-Op, Apps
SPEAKER_01you always look back on the days and you're like, oh, I could have done this better, I could have done this better, or made this like more fun. There's so many things like that parents think in their head, but to have them be like, no, we loved it, I think, you know, gives us a reminder that we're one, we're doing a good job, but two, what they're coming from is so much different. It was like they had a full-time job, you know, they couldn't miss and they had to be on all the time and they had to be in a room with a bunch of kids, and it was always about the group. And now they get a lot more flexibility. It is about them sometimes. They get one-on-one stuff, and they have more say-so in their overall day, and they get to play a lot and they get to go outside a lot, and I think that's just what kids want, you know, they don't they don't need us 24-7. We don't have to be on all day just because we homeschool. And I think maybe I felt like that a little bit, but them saying that just reminded me that their whole life, their whole day-to-day has completely changed, and it changed in a way that they kind of get to be a kid again and they get to do what the kids want to do all day, which is have a lot of time to play.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_01So that's what worked. Let's talk about things that did not work.
SPEAKER_02Going outside first thing. So I think the idea was that they would get their energy out first, but the problem is children don't run out of energy. So actually, when they go run around first thing in the morning, they're using their time when their brain probably would be functioning the best to run around, and then they're they're ramping themselves up. It's not like us, like if we go and run for an hour, we're done afterwards. I want to sit down, but they don't, they're like jacked up after that.
SPEAKER_01They are, they have a lot of energy, and we did that for a long time. We went to the park first thing, and while it was good for us because we got away from our desk and we got outside, and obviously it's good to get morning sunlight and all of that. They would come back and be crazier, and they wouldn't want to leave either. Like, cause we were like, we just need to get outside for a little bit and then we'll go homeschool. We then we have to get to homeschooling because then we have all this other stuff to do, and they're like, No, we don't want to do that, we want to play. So we learned, at least for our kids, it works better if we just get homeschooling out of the way, and then they have plenty of other time to get outside, and they still do.
SPEAKER_02Now, when we get back to next August or September and it's you know 120 degrees at 2 p.m. or 1 p.m. when we normally go outside now. We'll we'll get back to you on that, and we might be doing some time outside in the mornings again. Yeah, well, at least here in that window.
SPEAKER_01Or they won't be able to get outside. But this is working really well for now, and seems like they are more focused.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and even in Texas, it's cold this time of year in the morning. So that's another reason. I mean, not only is it better for school, but just realistically, it's it's 30 degrees and super windy some mornings, but by the afternoon, it's usually in the 50s and sunny and it feels great.
SPEAKER_01Another thing that didn't work was the online schooling. We already just talked about that. So Me Academy didn't work, but once we figure out the curriculum, things started feeling better. So maybe online schooling works for some people, but it just wasn't working for us.
SPEAKER_02I think it worked The Good and the Beautiful worked better for everyone, but I will say the the difference there was less for Sailor. So certainly I'm glad she's writing more and The Good and the Beautiful was better, but she was getting a lot more out of Me Academy than the others. So if you are gonna try that program because it is pretty inexpensive, and if you like that online option, you know, it's probably better for older kids.
SPEAKER_01Well, absolutely, because they have to be able to run the computer. You know, a five-year-old has no
Life Skills And Travel Learning
SPEAKER_01business operating a computer by themselves, so they definitely have to be older. The other thing that didn't work for us was like super crafty, Pinteresty lessons. Like, that's just not who we are. And you know, our kids don't really care that much about that stuff, anyways. You know, at school they come home with a billion art projects every single week. Like, oh, we're gonna learn about A today, and so we're gonna do a dot marker of A, letter A. We don't do that, we pretty much just like get it down to what they need to do, get it done, and then let them do other crafty things. So it's not that we're not crafting, we craft. But our school isn't crafty like what they were used to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, they're in an art class and they do drawing classes on out school and all that, so they're getting plenty of that. But then when we come across in the good and the beautiful, even though in the language arts, there's like a lesson where we're supposed to bake something and we cook with the kids all the time, but I'm not a baker. Slate was really excited, so we did it. And then the next time a crafty thing came along in there, I was like, Do you want to do it? I mean, it's it's up to you. And he's like, No, let's just do the required stuff and move on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we skip over all the fillers, and that's not for everybody for it, but for us, it just didn't work to do all of that.
SPEAKER_02I think if you don't have the time or money or brain space to come up with any other like an art class or other anything outside of the main curriculum, it's good to do those things so that there's at least a little bit of exposure to that. But we're getting plenty of exposure to these extracurricular things.
SPEAKER_01Another thing that didn't work was our co-op. And I think really it didn't work because it was early on Friday mornings, and that's the mornings that we don't do homeschool. And now our kids just like to sleep in and kind of slowly go about their day on Friday because they know that they don't have any school to do. So I think that was for the most part that it was early, and it kind of gave everybody the going back to school vibes, which we didn't like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, we really liked the people there. Sailor was making friends with a bunch of the kids, Slate not as much because he was stuck in classes with people like two years younger than him. And I really liked a lot of the parents. It was nice to talk to other homeschool parents. I almost wanted to keep doing it just so we could keep being around those people, but we weren't actually getting anything out of the program, the classes or whatever. So, and we're very protective of our time. So it was already taking three to four hours out of our Friday, including getting ready and driving up there and doing the classes. But after the first semester, you have to contribute, you have to teach a class. And, you know, we knew that that was gonna be an even bigger time commitment for something we didn't feel like we were getting that much out of. So yeah, we were very protective over time and we decided to pull out of that.
SPEAKER_01And we'll find a different homeschool co-op or group, but it's gonna be an afternoon one moving forward, and not academic based at all.
SPEAKER_02We're doing plenty of that. This was somewhat like extracurricular academic based, not like math or history or whatever, but
Parent Lessons And Encouragement
SPEAKER_02still it was like a classroom setting. But we're talking like the one we really wanted to do, we wish we would have done was the hiking group, and we didn't. So we're gonna try to get back in with them.
SPEAKER_01So the kids grew a lot this semester, and it wasn't just academically, they were able to learn life skills and take on responsibilities that we think are so beneficial for them. So some of the things that they got to do was like they learned a lot about cooking, and Sailor now will wake up and make eggs, which is awesome in my book that she can do that now. She has that skill. We've taught them chores that they never were able to do. We've been doing a lot with like money and them saving for their car and certain jobs that they can earn money and all of these things, and that wouldn't have been possible if they were in public school. So those are something that they learned. Another thing that was awesome this semester was being able to travel. And our big trip during the school year was to Costa Rica, and I think one of the big things that I noticed in the trip is that it was our first trip that everybody was old enough to do a lot of things, and so we signed up for a bunch of scary things. We did like a waterfall zipline and canyoning and big hikes and all of these things, and they were scary, and the kids were scared, they admitted it, and then they were like, Well, I'm just not brave because I was scared, and I was like, No, you did it, so you were brave. Being brave doesn't mean that you're not scared to do it, and they all did it, and we had like the best trip, it was so awesome, and I kept reminding myself that the only reason we're able to do this is because we homeschooled, and so I think them being able to push and do something scary was awesome, and that wouldn't have happened if we didn't homeschool.
SPEAKER_02So we have talked about some of these things, but this next section is you know what we learned as parents, and so just to reiterate some of those, you know, we had no idea where they were in school, like what level they should be at, and everything like that, and we couldn't count on
Semester Two Plans And Closing
SPEAKER_02the fact that they were getting straight A's to tell us that answer because then they're falling on their map testing. So it none it never made sense. Now we do, we know exactly where they're because we see it every day. And we also learned that you don't need to be a teacher or even a Pinterest mom, you know, a crafty Pinterest mom in order to be a good homeschool teacher.
SPEAKER_01There's so many tools for you. You definitely don't have to be. I think we had it in our heads because that's the first thing people will tell you. Well, you don't have to. There's so many things that you can use and follow, and that's exactly what the teachers are doing. You know, they're following what is given to them by their school and their district, and you can do that too.
SPEAKER_02And I never believed people when they told me this. So I feel like I need to, you know, hammer that point a little harder because we have a friend named Heather that has homeschooled her kids forever, and she's like, you have everything you need to be a good teacher, a good homeschooled teacher to your kids. And I was like, that's a nice thing to say. I don't believe you. You have something special that I don't have. Sorry. Sorry, Heather, I didn't believe you. But she was right. And if you think about it from this perspective, you might not be able to be a special needs teacher or a teacher to autistic children. But if you had a special needs child with Down syndrome or you had an autistic kid, you would be a great caregiver to them. You would find a way, you would figure out what you had to do. And it's the same thing for a homeschool parent. You might not be able to teach a classroom full of second graders, but you can teach your second grader that's not the same thing.
SPEAKER_01And you know how they learn, you know what works best for them, and that really is so beneficial. So don't doubt. Yourself, you can absolutely do it. And then another thing that we learned or we got some insight is just what they have been doing for years and realizing the reasons they wanted to be homeschooled. So I think that we just didn't know, and now we do. It was a big insight into their day and what was going on that made them want to homeschool. Now, just to wrap up this episode, here's what we're gonna change for semester two, or here's what we're doing in semester two moving forward. And one thing we're gonna have to do is use Out School more because we're gonna have to work more. Our busy season's coming up, so we're gonna sign them up for some more classes. If you haven't heard us talk about Out School yet, it's just an online platform where they can take classes by themselves. So it's not something that we have to do with them. And there's so many fun ones. So they're gonna sign up for like voice lessons, some of those kind of fun classes. So using Out School more.
SPEAKER_02It's also not going to be hard to get them to do it because it's not something we make them do. They're we're like, okay, we can only sign you up for so many because there's only so much time in the day. That's kind of the where we're at on.
SPEAKER_01Well, we run out of credits all the time, and three kids take a lot of credits and they want to take all the classes. So definitely not something that we have to force them to do. It's something they look forward to do. So we're gonna lean in on all the tools that take things off of our plate during tax season. And then another thing we're doing is we are adding in science and history. We have time for learning right now, which has those lessons. We're gonna be focusing on that. I think maybe on Fridays, they're gonna focus on science and history. And right now we haven't been doing much of that like formally. We've been doing it other ways, but formally because we just wanted to like get started and get into it before we had a lot more on our plate.
SPEAKER_02But the the good and the beautiful did have some decent things, like in the math section, you're learning what when we were in school would have been in our science books, you know, converting liters and milliliters and gallons and all that stuff. Those kinds of things are in there. That's kind of like a basic entry-level chemistry almost. So that's in there. And then in the language arts, they are doing some social studies. It's been a lot more geography than history, but I think that's okay because they need it, they need geography. And they're not going to remember a lot of the history they learn, except, you know, Sailor's getting old enough now. I think she might. So, you know, we'll start on that next semester.
SPEAKER_01And shout out to the titled Twin Books this semester because they teach history and the kids actually like to read them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was fun.
SPEAKER_01So, one of our big goals moving forward for this semester, what we talked about on our last episode, was just sinking in some more one-on-one time with the kids because that was one of our big values and one of the reasons we wanted to homeschool. We just want to like make sure that we're focused on that.
SPEAKER_02We did a lot better with that at the beginning of the semester, and that was one of the things that we kind of fell short as the as the semester progressed, and as we got busier with work and busier with holiday planning and traveling and things, we did less and less of that. So yeah, we really need to re- make that a priority.
SPEAKER_01And I think that wraps it up. We what just wanted to do this episode to encourage anyone who's maybe scared or like thinking about homeschooling and just don't know what it's actually gonna look like. Hopefully, this gives you like an inside view of what it's like, and it's not sugar coated. It's just what we're really struggling with and what actually worked for us this first semester. So if you if we can do it, anybody can do it, right?
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_01I think so.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please send us your questions. Those are really fun to read, and it really helps us, you know, answer questions that maybe we never thought of, but probably a lot of other people besides you have those questions. And also, if you could just take a little bit of time, please go leave us a review. I know you might be driving while you're listening to this. Don't do it if you're driving. Anyone else, if you're working, you know, just take a second, leave us a review, and give us five stars. It really helps the podcast reach more people, and I really think that will help a lot of people get information that they wouldn't know where to find otherwise. So until next time, thank you so much for listening to Wells.
SPEAKER_00This wasn't the Planned Podcast. We will do really hard on this podcast. Make the juke screen so you don't miss a single podcast episode. Thank you, have a good day.