The Homeschool Setup That Gives Moms Their Freedom Back

In this episode of HOMESCHOOL REVOLUTION, I walk you through one of the most important parts of creating a successful homeschool: building systems that help your children become confident, independent learners. I share the philosophy behind My Homeschool Village, explain how our program is organized, and show why investing a little extra time in the beginning can give homeschool families far more freedom throughout the year.

I explain why homeschooling shouldn't feel overwhelming and how creating simple routines, organized resources, and age-appropriate learning paths allows children to take greater ownership of their education. Rather than constantly managing every lesson, parents can spend more time encouraging, mentoring, and enjoying the homeschool journey.

In this episode, I also discuss:

• How to organize your homeschool for independent learning
• Using simple systems to reduce daily stress
• Why homeschooling should protect the light in your child's eyes
• Creating flexible schedules that leave room for childhood
• How to choose curriculum without becoming overwhelmed
• Building routines around reading, writing, math, science, and life skills
• Why copywork is one of the most effective ways to teach writing
• Helping reluctant writers, ADHD learners, and dyslexic children build confidence
• Why children should master copywork before moving into creative writing
• Encouraging entrepreneurship and real-world learning
• Helping parents simplify homeschooling instead of adding more pressure
• The importance of allowing children to learn at their own pace

I also answer questions from homeschool parents about setting up online learning, organizing technology, motivating reluctant learners, supporting children with ADHD and autism, overcoming writing struggles, using copywork effectively, and knowing when firm parenting is necessary to help children develop responsibility and perseverance.

This episode is a reminder that homeschooling isn't about doing more. It's about building a learning environment where children grow in confidence, develop independence, and discover the joy of learning while preserving the curiosity and light that makes childhood so special.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the homeschooling for homeschooling moments for over 20 years, and I've been coming to you for this. This is home, this is a working mom, single mom, single home mom, and too. Any parent who is done with the old way and ready to raise creative competent kids who actually change the world. This isn't just homeschooling. This is revolution. Let's get into it. It's a good Monday morning. First announcement before I get started showing you how to use the program, I'm gonna show you how to actually get your kids set up in an easy way. But first thing, and anybody else with a sped child or a child with, and I know it's said differently in different states, anybody with a child with special needs of any sort. Tomorrow, let me share our screen. I'm gonna show you a couple new things here. As you can see on this, the big screen here, I have multiple programs. This is the Bonfire Academy that we are launching for our teenagers right now. This is my homeschool village with the white background for community, which means moms only, which is where we're at right now. Okay, mom's only. Everything, mom, our groups, our resources, what we need for us is in this group. Inside the one with the black background, when you click on that, you're in the co-op. This is where the kids' classes are. This is where their stuff is, this is where they can communicate with each other. Okay. Now I know it's not under their name. They just need to put, wait a minute, why are they sharing? Actually, like right now, somebody's already posted. Have your child put their name next to yours. We require the parent's name in here for tracking purposes. If otherwise, kids put funky names in and we can't, we don't know who's who, and blah, blah, blah. So keep it under the parent name. But this is where the co-op is. Go back to the community where we are now, inside the calendar. Tomorrow, see the new SPED calendar right here. Tomorrow is our first live with our specialist, Nicole. She's gonna come in and answer questions, help with resources, legalities, all that kind of stuff. That's where SPED is, right here tomorrow at one o'clock. We replaced Megan, needed to go for a bit. She's having some family things going on. And so we just decided to just use her same slot. And we're gonna use, we're gonna do all things special needs in that group. Okay. Our first moment of business. Hi, Kelsey. You made it too. Okay. All right, ladies, are you ready? I'm gonna show you. Okay, I've been working on fixing the holes inside my homeschool village. Our communication all the way through to get you set up and your kids running has been very choppy. And for that, I apologize. It really has been. And I am currently working on really making that flow work. And when you have a commute, you have a program you have to work around, you kind of have to start playing with things. I'm saying this is what I'm doing now. If I find a better way to make this work in a few weeks, it's easier for you. I will do that because I'm constantly tweaking to try to make it better for you. Step one, you are new, pretend everybody's new to my homeschool village today. And what you're gonna do is come here. You're gonna welcome to the village. I have updated this video today. I just redid this at four o'clock this morning. Yes. Hi, Rachel. Oh, good. You'll see this too. And ask any questions you have as I'm going along, okay? Are you able to see the screen I'm sharing before I move for further? You can. Okay. All right. Homeschool co-op. Step one. Step two. Start here. Welcome to Village. Okay. Right here. We are okay. You don't need to see other people. Today, Joanna, it's just me to show to give a tour. So Mondays is just me. Wednesdays is when we all pop on together. Okay. So start the village right here. You're gonna come down. And Joanna, I would start over for you too, and just in case you missed something. The entire village is organized by color. So thank you, Lizzie, for doing this for us. Brown. If it has a brown dot on it, that's where your children, pre-K and kindergarten go for classes for curriculums. If it has a blue dot, that's first through third grade classes and curriculums. If it has a red dot on it, third through sixth grade. And then if it's green, it's seventh grade and up. Now, this is a guide only. If you have a sixth grader who really would do better in a third grade level reading, writing math, then put them there. So it's about grade level, not ages, notice. It's about where more or less they fit in best emotionally. Okay. And that's up to you. Please watch this video. I will literally explain everything I've just talked about here. Um, and then one of the key issues here, guys. My homeschool village was built to keep the light in your child's eye. I don't know how many of you have heard me tell this story, but when I was started homeschooling with my children very young, I was praying about homeschooling and I didn't want to. And so I was trying to find a private school or a charter or something to put my kids in so I wouldn't have to do it myself. And every school I went to, there was something wrong. And I kept praying, going, Lord, what am I supposed to be seeing here? And I kept hearing him say, look deeper, look deeper. Finally, I looked at the children's faces and it was like they were zombies. And I looked at them, they were first and second grade, and they looked like their souls had been sucked out of them. And I went home and I prayed, and I was like, Lord, these bright lights that I have at home, they're three and four. How do I keep that bright light all the way through childhood? And is it even possible? And can they have it as adults? And the answer came very clearly: keep them home. Protect the light in their eyes. So for 20 years, that's what I've done protecting them, keeping the light in their eyes. And sometimes it was curriculums that was putting the light out. And sometimes it was me because I was forcing things down their throats they didn't want or need. Sometimes it was a teacher who I didn't know was demeaning them. Sometimes it was a friend who I didn't know. And as I was watching that temperature light in their eye every day, I would adjust their schedules, their ideas. Now I've taken all this information that I've built over 20 years because I got five kids with bright lights in their eyes, guys. My teenagers and my adults, people comment all the time about how light they are, this light in their eyes. And I'm like, the Lord help me do it, and I'm gonna help you do it too. And this has all been organized and planned for that purpose. Number one. Number two, this is a buffet. Okay. This is not, you do not come in and sign up for everything. You will get so like overwhelmed. Like if you go to a buffet and you load up a plate nicely and eat, you're gonna enjoy your meal. But if you have if you take a buffet and you load up with everything that looks good and bring three plates to your table and eat it all, you're gonna throw up. Same thing with my homeschool village. Same all homeschooling, do not do it all. Okay. Go in and as you're looking at what I'm showing you, take only the pieces, the holes that you have. If you love your math program right now, keep your math program right now. If you love your reading program, then keep your reading program. This is to fill in the holes of what you already have or provide everything you need if that's what you need. But do not throw out what's working if you have something working. Only use this to fix what is not. Okay, we're a mechanic here. We're coming in to fix the problems. We're not coming in to cause a whole bunch more. So, with that in mind, remember you can always come back here for the color codes and I plant them all the way through. I'll show you right now, Joanna. Okay, so you're gonna come down here. Your next step is to click on this link, which will then take you to the classroom. Now watch. I was here in the community. Okay. Now I'm in the classroom. And now I'm gonna go to start here. So all I've done so far, joined my homeschool village, went to the community, and you can either click this or go over to the classroom where you can find it again and click start here. Now, in start here, right here, I give a little explanation of who we are, what we do. Right here, we have all our team members so you can get to know all the teachers, the moms, the people that you're gonna be getting help from. Right here, the tools you need. Now, this is where the setup actually gets started. Number one, you need a Chromebook or an iPad or a laptop or a uh desktop for each individual child. If you cannot, or if you need to buy some, you can go to Amazon or uh Walmart and do uh refurbished Chromebooks. You can get them for around 50 bucks, and they usually guarantee them for at least a year. So if you need to buy them, if you already have one. Yes, uh a Kindle. I don't know if a Kindle will run all the apps. A Kindle, I don't believe, runs all the apps. I don't know if Kindle works. You know what? I have never tried to log in from a Kindle. Yeah, that's what I thought, Joanna. Kindle's usually reading only. Yeah. I don't, I mean, it doesn't run other apps, it would have to run school app, and I don't think a Kindle does. Okay. Once you have everybody's computers, you're gonna log everybody into your online homeschool, my homeschool village, co-op online school where we're at. Okay. You're gonna give each child that login. Go into each computer, log them into your school account co-op. School account co-op, school account co-op. That's where they're all gonna use your account. When they want to make comments, they're just gonna put a little, this is Rachel, or just Rachel. And then because it'll show the mom name, they just put the kid talking and keep going. Okay. Once you've logged them into school and everybody's open and everybody has a school account, the next thing you're gonna do is get everybody a Zoom account. This is the hardest part, okay? Everybody needs their own Zoom account to do the live classes. I wrote down exactly how to do that here. I even write here put a video in so you can watch how to do it. But the key is you need one email address and you can do 10 Zoom accounts on it because what you do is you put, so my my email right now is hello at my homeschoolvillage.com. But if I put Becky plus, hello at my homeschoolvillage.com, Zoom thinks it's a new email address, but Google ignores everything before plus. So I can just add a child's name on the front, put my email on the back, the plus email, and set up a whole new Zoom account under the same email. And I I show that in the video and I and I give you the instructions all the way through here. If you don't have a Gmail, how to do it. Okay, it's all in there. Set up every child on their own free Zoom account. Then bookmark it. Do you guys know how to bookmark it? Do we know how to bookmark a tab? Okay, so in here, I'll I will show you how to bookmark a tab. Now, set up the school account, bookmark school account on your kids' computer. Set up the Zoom account, bookmark it on the top for your kids' computers. Right, Ashley, love me some bookmarks. Okay, next. You ready? Here's what we did. Don't get overwhelmed here, remember? Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna close all these. Chrome, here's Safari, here's iPad. Okay, and then once again, here's color coding. Now I missed, I forgot to tell you something here. See this part right? Nope, nope, nope. Right here. The record book. I just realized I'm gonna make that clearer somewhere. The other thing you want to do is go to this Google link. I created this this weekend. I spent hours, you guys. This is a my homeschool village record keeping book for you and you only. This is where you're going to print this out and give one per kid. Create them a three-ring notebook. Okay. Print these out. Give each child a three-ring notebook. Put these inside. When your child does an assignment, there's going to be a few pages on here, like getting everybody under the same idea, right? Why we homeschool? Here's your attendance record if you need it. My kids don't need one, but if you need to do that, here's your week at a glance. Once again, always go backwards. You report on Friday what you did. You don't plan forward what will never happen. Come on, guys, we have kids. All right. So then you're going to come here and here's the live classes we took. You on Friday, you sit here and you write down what classes your child took inside my homeschool village live. You can put if they're taking other classes outside music classes and dance classes, you can also put those in here. Okay. This is for live classes, whether they're on my homeschool villages co-op, Minecraft Education, or whether you're doing them with a paid teacher somewhere. Write those down. On Friday, what you did in the week, not ahead of time. Remember, we do not plan to fail. We make it look like we we planned well. Let me see. I got to come up with a saying for that. We don't plan to fail by planning ahead. We plan backwards by showing our success. Okay. Then you've got your books to read. And now watch this. Epic. Have your children write down the book they're reading in the different programs. Starfall has a reading and a math. Generation Genius has a section for math, one for science. Prager U Kids.

unknown 14:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Type C even has one for your coding, for your typing accuracy, creative bug. Okay. It's all in here. So if you have this printed out and your child has their own folder, after they come in to my homeschool village and click their bookmark, they're going to then write down what assignment they did in here. Notice child is doing it all. You should not be writing down their assignments for them. And you should not. Now, if you want to go in and say, these are the things I want you to do this week and they need to check them off, you can do that. Okay. It's all about how you work best. So make sure you have this downloaded. Now, back to tools. All right. After you go through all that, I'm gonna I'm gonna come back to this in just a minute. Next, you're gonna go to reading and writing. Now, click the little arrow. See the color coding? If your child is green or seventh grade enough, skip this section. You don't need it. However, if you have a kindergartner, a first through third, or a third through sixth grader, these are the programs you're gonna want to do to learn for reading. So come in here, click on each one, set it up, bookmark it. Set it up, bookmark it, epic, set it up, bookmark it, have fun teaching, set it up, bookmark it. And the instructions are inside each one. Math and science. We only have generation genius in here. If you have a pre-K kindergartner in here, do not do this, skip it. Generation Genius, it'll show you how to set up. Here is your passwords, okay? And those change every once in a while. So you it what anytime those change, you can't get in, come back here to Math and Science Science. Generation Genius. History government. If you have a child that is blue or brown, skip it. Right? This one right here will cover so many of your topics. You guys, you love it. Um, and then we have electives, type C. If you have a child under the age of fourth grade, I would not be using Type C. This is too young, this is too old for them. Too much tech. They shouldn't be on that much tech. Um, and then we have live classes, how to set up your chess club, how to set up Minecraft. Okay, and then at the bottom right here, we have your high school. And I didn't make it green. Silly me. I will go and do that. And then the Bible curriculum. Once the classes that you want, the programs that you have decided to use are bookmarked on that child's computer. So you're gonna pull up your blue kid, right? First through third grade, help them get set up. I would have them do as much as possible. Bookmark their tabs, go to the next child. The green kid, go in, make sure you have what you want. Now that does take some time because you have to decide where they are and what they need. And if you need more help with that, we can help you. Once that's all set up, okay, and you have the programs you need, go to now what? Do this. Once your programs are set up, click, watch this video. This video is actually going to show you um how to use our daily schedule. Okay. So not only are we providing you with all of the curriculums that you may or may not need, we're gonna show you where to put them. Let me show you. You watch this video, and really, and here's another place it is. You go to classrooms Monday. Once you've watched that video, guide you here. Monday, today, here's what you're gonna do with your kids. You're set up, you don't have to worry about it anymore. All the computers are bookmarked, everybody knows what apps are theirs, okay? Now you come in here. Now look, Monday. All you're gonna do on Monday is reading, writing, math, and science. That's it. If they want to do art, they want to read a book. The idea is that you get this done and move on. You can have this done before lunch, okay, or before the lives inside my homeschool village. Or you can get it done and let them read and be for we have I have literally shown you this the schedule to create freedom for your children because they have to learn how to handle their own free time. They need to learn how to be creative, play. They need to be children. So teach them the basics and let them go be children. So that's what this is built up for. This is not an all-day deal. This is not, I'm gonna be doing doing homework from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is literally get it done in two hours or less and be done. Move on. Okay. The whole program is set that way. So your child will come in on Monday, they'll do reading, writing, math, and science. And I do this on purpose because Mondays were fresh. This is a great time to learn new things. They're gonna click on the color that they are now. I realized I have no brown in here. I need to add brown to this one. Add browns, copy that. Okay. Um, I will go ahead and add the browns. Um, but you come on here, literally read through. Look at this. Early Readers says reading time. Sit with mom and an older sibling, pick a book from the home library or epic, read together. If you need epic, there's your epic link and log in. Need Starfall, there's your link. You just click it and go. Okay. So it makes it very easy to write. Come in here. Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna practice writing. I even put right in here, make sure you have set up for have fun teaching. If they are in writing letters, click, boom, it's already there. Print and write. Okay. I've got these already done for you. Not everything, because you have to fill in the holes for your own child. Math, we've got that in here. Early math, I recommend Starfall only, though you can use generation genius. I think it's also good. Go Joanna, don't let it burn. Okay, and then science. We use generation genius. And then if you don't have where's my little link. I I did this, I know I did. Monday. Science gen link. Okay, I'll fix that. See, I'm seeing all the little little things I need to go in and fix. Okay, then go back to classroom. Your child should be doing this on their own. Tuesday, click. Same thing. If my kid is in green, he goes through and he clicks. If my kid is red, he goes through and he clicks. See, this is what was supposed to be on the other spot. If I'm on Generation Genius, boom, get in. Okay, you have your logins. So then I even show on here. So Wednesday, Monday and Tuesday are pretty much the same. We just switch out science for history. Wednesday is totally different because I find my kids need to change up on Wednesday, and quite frankly, so do I. So we make Wednesdays elective days. So here is technology teaching tech, um, type C, sorry, type C and art, which is creative bug. FYI right now, the link on Creative Bug is wacky because they have a certain setup for us. I've already emailed them. I'm already on it. Okay. Um, we're fixing the creative bug link. I don't know what they did, but they're fixing it. So Wednesday is just electives. Go to the library, get more books, read a thon days. Yeah, they're learning a ton on this day. On Thursdays, we call this Thursday life skill day. This is the day you run all your errands, go to co-ops, um, teach them how to grocery shop, teach them how to clean the house, do the laundry, okay? All those things count as education, you guys. And you can even track it in that recording book I gave you. Um, and so you can go in and that shows you what that is. And then Friday is culture and play. Like this is where you go out, go to play dates, field trips, long weekends, nature hikes. It's it's all about life. The last two days. So you're really only doing academics three days a week, and then you're playing learning the other days of the week. And this is what will protect your children's childhood. This schedule protects your children's childhood and will keep that light in their eyes. I I I guarantee it, you guys. I guarantee it. Okay. Hi Candace. Okay. Trying to think what else? How are we doing so far, Courtney? Is this helping? This was all reorganization I did this week. Now, unit studies. When do we do unit studies? Whatever the heck we want. Maybe you want to fill it in on a Thursday because you're actually not running about and it's a rainy day and everybody's staying home. So fill in with unit studies. Maybe you want to use it on a Friday. Some moms do. Some moms are like, I need two weeks off. I want to not touch anything. Let's mix it up. And they'll use unit studies. Um, so the unit studies are made as fillers. Fill them in where you want. Let me show you them. We only launch a month at a time because we're trying to keep you from being overwhelmed. Come in here, click the link, and you have the unit studies. The colored, she does it by a month because these are literal days of the month that you can create your own unit studies. We used to create a unit study a day for you guys, and we were driving everybody crazy. So now we do one a week so that because there's so much in it. So build a scarecrow day. You click it, look, there's social studies, and she puts videos in here. This is Miss Hannah, by the way, who does this for us. There's science. And look at all the science. There is oh my goodness, tons of science. Math, language arts, reading lists, reading, more reading, more reading. Look at all this, you guys. So many great things. You could do one of these instead. Art, physical science. I'm sorry, physical education. You can tie it all into scarecrows, life skills, stem, project ideas. Do you see what Hannah has like, you guys don't even have to think anymore. We did this for you. So you can use these instead of anything else if you want. Monday, do one Monday, do one Tuesday. Or you use this when you're just like, hey guys, you want to do something new today? There you go. And enjoy that. Okay. Can you guys hear my washer going? Somebody forgot to close the door. Questions. Was that too fast? Did it make sense? It will take, okay. The process, Courtney, where did you get stuck? Where did I overwhelm you? What can I show again? There are no bad answers here. There are no wrong questions. And it will take, it'll take a good week for you to get through it, because especially have more than one child, because you have to figure out where your child is. That I can't do for you. Um okay, the zoom. Do you want me to show you the zoom? I'll show you. Can I show you in here? It's because I have all these like preset things and it sometimes doesn't let me in. Let's see if I can get in. Let's see. Oh, Priscilla, I'm so glad this helped. Good. And to remind you of some of the resources we have that you've forgotten about, maybe. It I do it too. Um, all right. Let me show you. See if I can go in. Go here, zoom dot com. Sign up free. And yes, do this on every computer. You can literally have your child do this while you do one computer. Have the older kids do their own computer. Birth year. Put your own in. Do not put your child's birth year. 1976. Yes, that was the year I was born. Continue. Now watch. I'm going to do Ben, because that's my son's name. Plus my homeschoolvill. Oh, sorry, that's not my email address. Hello at myhomeschoolvillage.com is my email address. Continue. Now I have to go to my homeschoolvillage to get this link. Okay. It won't be a Benette. It'll just be hello at my homeschool village to get the link, which you guys won't be able to see, I don't think, because of this, but let me grab it. Ooh, it just started to rain. Okay. Yeah, you can't see. Hold on. I sorry. I just got an email. Want some pre caffeinated gum? No.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Making sure this works, you guys. I know, right? Don't get me started. Okay. Um. Looking for my confirmation email. And it's not coming yet. Now the question is, is it because is it this is what Claude told me to do, guys, so better work.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I'm having some issues.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Recent code. I'm not a robot. Verify bicycles. Anybody else hate these things? Is it horrible that I can't even see the bicycles? Tech. I yeah, tech is honorable. Annoying. Not adorable.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Another bicycle. I think that's a bicycle.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Now they're asking me to do fire hydrants because I obviously don't know what a bicycle is.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Oh my gosh. Anyone else feel it? Do you feel it for me right now? Another fire hydrant. I don't see any other fire hydrants. Now I have to do traffic lights. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

You gotta love Zoom. See, it happens to all of us, you guys. It doesn't matter how tech-savvy you are. Texas tech is annoying.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

I see the bike. I do. Oh my gosh. Now it's resending a check.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

All right, let's see if it actually went to my inbox this time. Okay. See? You know, and I would just I just want to point out that the problems we're having with the tech aren't my homeschool village tech issues. It's other websites issues. And this is the hardest part. I'm trying again. I'm gonna try something.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Okay. Now now I'm confused.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

It's not working for me. Okay, it looks like I'm gonna have to play with this for a while and make a new video. Okay, I promise. I'm gonna go in there. So I'm not wasting your time in here while you're watching me fumble. Also, how do I help my son? He gets frustrated that we don't go fast enough. He cannot finish writing an assignment without playing. It takes him hours to finish. Okay, well okay. Oh, okay. But for my homeschool village, you only need your account for Gmail, Courtney. You don't need to set up that. Like, and and remember, well, supposedly, you're supposed to be able to set up one Gmail and then put like your kid's name plus and then your Gmail. Um, yeah, in order to use my homeschool village, you just need your Gmail. Not your kids all don't need Gmails. That can be a real pain in the butt. You should only need, yeah, you only need one, you. That's it. Okay. And then log them all into school, then log them all into Zoom, then then you go in and log in. And yes, that's a process. Once you're through, okay. Who wants to who wants to testify for me here? Once you're through and everything's set up, it's like your kids just go and you don't have to babysit anymore, and they're working on it, and you actually feel guilty because you found out that your kid educated themselves this week.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

You're like, yay, I'm a good homeschool mom because I didn't actually have to do as much.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

And it's actually quite surprising. So once it's all set up, it's a breeze, right, Karen? The first week is a killer. It's not a killer. It's I hopefully I've made it much easier for you. Once you're set up, it's so much easier. And then your kids are literally independent. So you're gonna have to do a little bit more front-end work to get your children to be independent. So you either do the front work now and then they'll be independent on the other side of it, or you never do the front work and you're every day checking in and what are you doing and how are you doing it? And that's the key to my homeschool village. We have a heavy up front setup, but then you're free instead of checking in every day and watching it every minute, and yeah. Okay, so your child. Let me go back to this. Where'd you go? Oh, Trish, thank you. I'll go back to that in just a minute. Nine, okay, seven and nine-year-old who hates writing. What is he writing? What are you having him write? Oh, thank you, Trish. And yes, always remember you can book a one-on-one with Tony or Trish, and they'll help you navigate if you get stuck somewhere. Um, I do need to work on that. Tony, Trish, will you? I need some suggestions on where we can post that, so it's very obvious they can do that. Um, okay. Priscilla, I know where the problem is. And you're, it's gonna be a funny answer for you. I'm gonna show you. My son is on a waiting list for ADHD and autism and hates writing, etc., and now has started writing. Okay, let me show you. I actually built this in my homeschool village. Did you know? He has to try word definitions and couldn't get it done. Okay, he's at nine years old. He's a boy. Whiteboards are great, chop on the on the sidewalk is great, but let me tell you what, and it's interesting. I learned this the hard way. And then I was talking to another homeschool mom who also has an online program who does the same thing. She had 15 kids, and she actually went this route too. And it's something that the old homeschool moms know but forget to share. You ready? Oh, not start here. I do this all the time. Monday. Take your child to the red. If he's seven to nine years old, you can do blue, but I write if they can if they can write a sentence on their own. Go to red. Now, here's what you're gonna do. My cute husband always knows exactly when I'm live. It's like, I know he doesn't do it on purpose. Um, okay, you're gonna come in here, and here's what you're gonna do: copy work. You're just gonna do copy work. Pull out a book he enjoys. Or I personally like the scriptures, I pull out scriptures. Why? Because it's complicated wording, it's always well done, and there's something powerful about it. So I will pull out a very large Bible and I will pull out one verse that I want them to probably learn on their own. And then I will pull out a folder with very large lines on it, or where whatever's appropriate for their handwork and say, you're gonna copy that verse today. Copy work. Copy work is so underused, but so highly valuable. Your children should be doing copy work for years before they start doing their own sentences, before they're working on grammar, before they're working on periods and all of that stuff. They should go from handwriting letter at a time to copying two and three words together, to copying an entire sentence, to copying an entire paragraph, to copying an entire page. Okay, until they're doing that, they should be copyworking. Until they can read a paragraph and write it from memory, they should be doing copy work. And the reason is because they automatically, what's gonna stick in their heads is the sound of a sentence, the way it looks, the way it works. You're gonna you are gonna look at that copy work and go, you missed a period here. Read that to me without the period. What does it say? Can I read it with the period? What does it say? See the difference. Okay, you missed the comma. Let's read it without the comma. Let's read it with the comma. See the difference. That's all you're gonna do. And you're gonna do that until they say, Mom, can I start writing by myself? You wait for that question. When that question comes, that's when it's time to start journaling. And I and that's when when you come in here into the green. Now it's journal time, and here are journal prompts for your kids. Until they ask, can I write something by myself on my own? Because what's happening is they're reading, reading, reading, reading, and they're copy, copy, copy, copying. They're you're stuffing the language into their heads whether they realize it or not. And all that work over years builds up into when they go to write, they go, something's wrong with the sentence, and they'll figure it out on their own because they want it to sound right, they want it to look right, and it motivates them to do their own. Now, this was the miracle of miracles for me because my third, my third child is ADHD and dyslexic. All we did for him was copyright. He was eight, 19 years old when he left for Argentina, you guys, and he had to write a letter home every week. And I thought, oh my gosh, I don't even know if he's ever written on his own because he hated writing so bad and he struggled with this so much. But that constant repetition, he started writing at home. Now he writes in a journal twice a day because he loves it. All of a sudden he fell in love with writing, but not till he was 19. But he copy wrote, he can do it. When he when he finally sat down to do it, he did beautifully. So, yes, with older children, do it until they just can't stand it anymore. Like they copyright, copyright. It helps their handwriting, it helps their hand-eye coordination. This is why I teach my kids. One of the reasons I teach my kids um cursive, because I'll show them you'll be able to do it faster if you do it in cursive. So we do handwrite, cursive. Some people just go straight to cursive, up to you. Um, and then I show them handwrite or cursive because I'll show them how much faster they can write in cursive, and then they start to love to see how fast they can go. Very good hand-eye coordination. Um, and so you want to focus on that, yeah, at 13. Honestly, I think copywriting should be, and and I say this loosely because we know ages are different, from like eight to 14. You should be copywriting. Once I had one child at 14 say, Mom, how do I write my own book? She started journaling, and you can see her pages get better and better and better. And she started journaling when she got tired of copywriting and she had to rewrite a whole page. I promise not to read the journal, but I did promise to look to make sure it got done and she would date it. To this day, that child writes in her diary every night before she goes to bed. She has, I don't know, know how many diaries, and they're stuff full, and who knew? She was also dyslexic and hated writing, but because of the copy work which moved into her own writing, that's all we ever did. That's it. And now I have three children writing books, okay, and not using AI. What? Okay, so this is this works, you guys. I promise you, this works. Um all right, let me go back and look at the questions here. Yeah, so if they're hating writing, just be like, hey, when you're done copying this page or this sentence, if a sentence is all you can do right now because it needs to move, write a sentence, copy a sentence, run around the house, copy a sentence, run around the. I did that with my boys all the time. Write one sentence, then do a lap around the house outside, then come back and write one sentence, and we'll get three done today. That's I used to do that all the time. Um, mine don't like books, so I did stickers, then got them to tell stories. I write it. I just copies it. I've heard of that a lot. That works. Do you do that with older children, like 13-year-olds? Yes. I've tried journaling with my 13-year-old and he hated it. Maybe I should do this with him instead. Go back to copywriting. Go back to copywriting. I have found, okay, and I will tell this. This is from experience, you guys. I actually did this because of my own experience. I failed at writing in school. Hated it. Hated it. I could read chapter books like nobody's business. But my ADHD brain could not get my hand to slow down as my my thoughts were faster than my hand could write. And so, and I believe this is what's happening to most children. The ADHD kids who don't write, I think this is what's happening because it's what happened to me. My brain ran too fast. My hand could never keep up to this day. Even typing, I can keep up with typing and my brain. I cannot keep up handwriting on my brain. And so I got flustered because I felt my brain and my hand disconnect from each other and I couldn't get them to match up. And so when I would write for school, I would have these great ideas and I would turn in a paper because I was sure my ideas were amazing. And I would get F's and D's, and the teachers would come back and you're punctuation this. And so I looked at this paper thinking, I have this awesome story here. And all I got back was, you misspelled this, you misquoted that, you didn't put a capital here. And so I was like, but did you read my story? And I came back and refused to ever write for anybody again. Well, now I use AI and I type in my idea and I have AI help me with it. And I have stories in my head that I have AI write for me because I still am terrible at writing. Anything you see that actually makes sense in here is because I popped it, my writing into AI first to make sure I don't sound stupid. Then I post it. That's how I do it still, because my writing was so bad. I wish I had copyrighted until I had the confidence to write down my own stories. If you have a child whose brain isn't catching up, put them on typing. Let them get to typing, keep them copywriting, but get them to typing so that they can start getting their brains and hands to go at the same speed. I hope that makes sense. Does that make sense where I'm coming from on this? Um honestly can't remember a single time my public, oh, thank you, my public school kids did any copy work. My seven-year-old was doing their own sentences in kindergarten and they did, but it's too soon. Now, I I know this because I learned a second language when I was in my 20s. So I grew up speaking English, and when I was in 20s, moved to Bogota, Colombia, where I had to learn Spanish. And I lived there for 18 months without English. And here's what I discovered in learning a language. Because we just learn a language we grow up, we don't really understand what it means to learn a language unless you go to learn more. And what it means is you have to hear, hear, hear. I can copywork Spanish all day long and it will it makes sense to me. I can listen to Spanish, I can read Spanish, but if you ask me to think of my own thoughts and put it in Spanish, that's hard. It's a harder skill. It's a more adult skill. It's something they need to grow into and we push it on them way too much. Way too much. Karen says, Rebecca always inspires me to be creative and adaptive with my sons learning. Good. Okay, so does that help with the writing? Um, writing is just, uh I will sit down. So my my brother-in-law is an English teacher and teaches writing. And he and I were debating it one day. Now, here he has a master's degree in writing, and I'm like, that's bull crap because blah, blah, blah. And um, he was like, anyway, we only had one argument, and I won because he's like, You're right, that's how it works. Because he's an English professor, and now he's like, Yeah, that's how it works, but that's not how they teach us to teach it. We have to tell, we have to teach it the way they tell us to teach it. We're not allowed to teach it that way. I'm like, but it works. Yeah, it works. So, okay, questions. Questions about the program, questions about writing, questions about math, questions, um any.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Thank you, Courtney. Am I helping? Are you glad you came? Um, I've watched your videos on TikTok and already have my boys on copy work. Yay!

SPEAKER_02 44:12

I'm glad you're here, Courtney. I am. And this is uh this makes me very happy to have you here. And Mondays is this is what Mondays is about. Me coming in and helping you with the little like my son won't write. So you got to show up on Mondays to get those. I will post those so that so that you're getting to know the program. Let me show you where these videos go. And they only stay for 14 days because um school removes them. So you come up to actually, this will be in the mom group because this is a mom video. If you come here, live recordings. See this right here? These are this is just how school like helps us organize the community so you're not like digging through everything. If you want to know stuff about live recordings, see, it'll be in here. Stays for 14 days and then school deletes it. I have no control over that unless I oh, look at that. April 30. What? Oh, maybe it only stays 14 days if I don't post. So you can come in here and watch all our old videos. Now, please also, so this will be here in about 30 minutes. As soon as this video is done, it will record, it will download, and I can upload it here. Remember, this is where us moms talk. This is for us to bond, to share, to brag, to complain, to be moms together. This is where our children go. Now notice up here, see these? I took out all purple. For those of you who saw purple before, I am taking out purple because we had too many moms go, well, if my kid's blue, what's purple? And they didn't, we didn't have a good explanation. So I just changed it to blue and red. Okay. Purple's gone, it's blue and red. Um, so if your kids attended anything that was purple, it's blue and red. Questions on that one? Um, but this is where, so like if there's a conversation going on about art history, you click here and here's all your stories about art history. You can change right here and get just what's recently posted. You can get all. Um, and then if your child wants to communicate, they'll come in here and be like, Ben. Or they can say, some kids like this, this is Ben. And then he can come in here and be like, Where is everybody?

SPEAKER_01 46:35

I can't even spell now.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Okay, we're gonna ignore this because I'm not actually gonna post for my son. But when he wants to talk to somebody, that's how he does it. Okay, and it's in the co-op questions. Okay, I'm glad you came too, Rachel. How to get an ADHD child to stop saying no to everything you ask them to do educationally. I have an answer. Hold on. They need the why, it will be applicable for them individually. Yeah, okay, Penny, I agree. He I like explaining to my children why. Do you know why I'm teaching? There was one conversation I actually had with a kid that said, look, because I don't want you to be stupid. And he was like, What? I'm not stupid. I said, exactly. But if you're gonna go out in the world, you have to be able to do this, right? Joanna, there is a time for explanation. And there is a time to say, because I said so, and you're not touching your and you're not eating lunch until it's done. I there have I have one child like this. I know what kid you're talking about because I have a child like this. Nothing ever worked for this child. He hated everything, he said no to everything, everything took three hours, and that's when I was like, then you get the mean mom. And I literally had to say, you are making me be the mean mom. So you don't eat until this is done. And I would sit and and and I would walk away. And he'd be like, You wouldn't starve me. Watch me. Like, I'm not gonna starve him. But and I would say, it's not me starving you, dude, it's you starving you. Let me know when you're ready to eat. And sometimes you literally have to do that because guess what? The battle is real. And here's something I did with my this same son, okay. If he made it hard and I had to fight him to get something done, I would say, okay, you now took two hours of my time. This could have taken 10 minutes, but you took up two hours where I was gonna go clean the bathroom, but now you took the time I was gonna use to clean the bathroom. So now you have to go make up mommy's time and go clean the bathroom. And then I would put him in there and I would stand over him until it was done. And I would be, you gotta be mean, okay? And you have to do this with all your kids. Out of my five children, only one did I have to be the mean mom for. And my I would get on the phone with my sister, I'm like, I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him. And she's like, remember, he's a velociraptor. She had three boys, just like this. And she would say, He's a velociraptor. Velociraptors will constantly test their boundaries. They'll get shocked as they're testing them, but they want to test, and if they find a hole, they will dig through and eat you alive. And you have to treat these small boys as little velociraptors and you keep their cage tight. And you sit there, you go, don't want to do it? Fine. Remind them what you control. You control their eating, their sleeping. This same child one day, I literally had to take everything out of his room except for his mattress and blanket because of his behavior. And he had to earn every toy back over a very long period of time. So sometimes you have to just get mean. And then when they're like, Mom, why are you so mean? I say, You're the one that picked mean mom. Did you notice your sisters didn't get mean mom? Okay. Yes, we all have one. So be the mean mom and show him how sweet the beh the kids, that the sweet mom, the kids who have good behavior get. And eventually they'll they're brilliant. This is their problem, they're brilliant. They'll tie it in and they'll go, hmm, I want sweet mom too. But if I behave like them, then I'll get, and they do change their behavior on their own.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Does that you got one of those, Courtney?

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Guys, it's real. And I'm giving you permission to be mean. We are the parents. And if I if I won't fight for my son, who will? And sometimes he is the enemy, right? Like, the only way I got, and to this day, my son and I, he we're very close now. He's 19. We are besties. We have so much fun together. But you know what he says, mom? It was when you were mean that I took you seriously. And I'm like, huh. Even now, I'll look at him, like he'll test me to see if I'll go mean on him. And I'm like, and he thinks it's hilarious now, and it's a joke between us. But at the time, that boy got more spankers than any other kid in the family. Not proud of it, but you do what you gotta do. He was worth the battle. I can look at that boy now and say, you were the enemy to get you where you need to be, but now he is my advocate, and we are a team. But boy, that boy. I lost more hair over that boy and got more wrinkles and gained more weight over that boy.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

I'm not kidding. So now I'm like, it's your fault. I gained 50 pounds during those years. So it's exhausting, but it's worth the battle.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

My my was is the same way, but it's getting better. They do grow out of it, you guys. They do, they really, really do.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Courtney, are you just like, I'm not alone? Yeah, you're not.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

That's the whole point of being here is for you to know you're not alone. Feel it now. Show up on Wednesday and come meet these women that you're seeing in here because they'll pop up their faces, then you get to actually meet to meet them as real people, and we'll keep talking and answering more questions. So, Courtney and anyone else who's lost right now. Your only assignment this week is to go in, watch the new video, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna walk you through again just to make sure. Your only assignment this week is to go to the black background, watch this video. Watch the video, go all the way through, and then this goes straight to the start here. It skips it, but remember it's this right here. And go through this again. Okay, go through that next week. Come back report. Let us know how it's going. As you are going through and you have questions, go to the community and ask the questions. We're all here to do it, we're all here to help you. What I just realized is I didn't put Tony and Trish's info on that post. So I need to make sure that has um Tony and Trish and um calendarly links. Okay. And who to mesh when you need some help. So if you need a little more handheld, that's okay. We're here for that. It's all included. We'll do that for you, Courtney. I'm glad you're happy. So glad you're happy. Any other questions? Okay, we have four minutes to do a giveaway. You guys want to do a quick giveaway? Yeah? Okay. Um, I'm giving away my posters. Now, for those of you who don't know this, I'm gonna see if I can move my computer. Don't look at the mess. You're not here. You don't judge me, right? Yeah. Uh, right here, I'm giving away. So this is a year dry erase poster. This is for quotes, this is for job charts, and this right here is for daily or um menus. This is all dry erase. The four come in a pack. It sells for almost a hundred bucks on its own, you guys. I'm gonna give one away. Who wants one? Yeah. Let's do a okay, give me a number between one and thirty. I just wrote down a number. And whoever's closest is gonna get one. Unless you already have one, and then we'll find something else for you. Everybody in? You never got yours, Joanna. Joanna, I think our problem is Europe, huh? You know what I'm gonna have to do for you, Joanna, when you win? I'm gonna give you um a link to my website instead with a with a discount or something because I think getting you getting you product is hard. I don't know why. So I uh let me look into it. I know, Joanna. It's all you. No, it's not. No, it's not. Okay, the number was 26. 26. Who are we? There are we Ashley. Do you have one of these though? Don't you have one? You do. I knew it. Okay, so let's do this for a minute. Hold on, Ashley. I got some for you, okay? I'm gonna go to the next number, which is Rachel. Check my math, guys. Rachel. Yeah. Okay, Rachel, I'm gonna send you a poster. Okay. I'm going to let me write it down so I don't forget. Okay. And yay. Okay. Ashley. You're welcome, Rachel. Hopefully you're not out of the country, are you? Because these things, this is a big tube. Okay, it's a big tube. Um, and then um Joanna, I'm gonna find out what happened there. I owe you a giveaway. Um, let me see. I wonder if I can do like a t-shirt or something for you and see if that company will send it to you. Because sometimes it's the international. Maybe I can refund money or something back this month. Let's figure that out. And then Ashley. We need to do something for you here. Uh how about I surprise you? I'm still unpacking my journals.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Um, what have you? Oh, the t-shirts. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

You want another shirt?

unknown 56:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Ashley, I will look. I will send look for your um watch your messages in school. Okay, I'll send you a link. Okay, cool. Um she only has the one-celled t-shirt. We need more t-shirts. So we do need to be at vote on the t-shirts. I haven't even seen them yet. I haven't even looked. I'm still catching up for my vacation. So let's um, I will get Trish. Can you and I get on that, on the t-shirts, and we'll put them out for voting this week and then we'll get them out. Um, and next week we'll have our winner. Yeah? Okay. Guys, thank you so much for being here. And then remember, if you have more questions, we are here to help. Don't give up. The first week is the hardest after that piece of cake. Okay. Let me know what you need. I'm so glad you guys showed up today. Thank you. Have a great week. Bye guys. That's the rep for today. I hope you're leaving with something real, something you can actually use. This is a long game. You don't have to get it all right today. Just show up tomorrow. That's enough. If this episode helps you, share it with another mom who needs it. And if you're ready for a village to do this with, click us in the show notes. And until the next thing, keep going. Revolution starts at home.