How to Customize Your Child's Homeschool Journey

In this episode of HOMESCHOOL REVOLUTION, I take you behind the scenes of My Homeschool Village and share how to confidently build a homeschool experience that fits your child instead of trying to force them into a one-size-fits-all education. Every child learns differently, and one of the greatest advantages of homeschooling is the freedom to customize their learning journey based on their strengths, interests, and future goals.

I walk through several of the resources available inside My Homeschool Village, including Shmoop, Generation Genius, TypeC, Creativebug, and Minecraft Education. I explain when to introduce each program, how they work together, and why it's more important to focus on mastery than rushing through grade levels. Whether your child is college-bound, entrepreneur-minded, or simply discovering their passions, there's a path that can help them thrive.

In this episode, I also discuss:

• How to choose curriculum based on your child's learning style
• When to transition from Generation Genius to Shmoop
• Why Shmoop is a great option for junior high and high school students
• Using TypeC to improve typing, grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills
• How Creativebug develops creativity, life skills, and problem-solving
• Why AI can be a valuable homeschool learning tool when used appropriately
• Tracking homeschool progress without becoming overwhelmed
• Filling learning gaps instead of focusing on grade levels
• Why reflection is more effective than rigid lesson planning
• Year-round homeschooling and building consistent learning habits
• Choosing educational paths for college, entrepreneurship, or military careers
• Helping children develop practical skills that prepare them for real life

I also answer questions from homeschool parents about standardized testing, state homeschool requirements, live classes, Minecraft Education, curriculum planning, record keeping, and how to help children learn at their own pace while building confidence and independence.

This episode is a reminder that homeschooling isn't about checking every box or following someone else's plan. It's about creating an education that serves your child, celebrates their unique gifts, and prepares them for the future they are meant to build.

Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/w117671xAAk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Homeschool Revolution. I'm Rebecca Stromsdorfer, homeschool mom of five for over 20 years, and I've been coaching moms just like you for decades. I've done this messy, done it wrong, and figured it out as I went. This podcast is for the working mom, single mom, stay-at-home mom, and yes, dads too. Any parent who is done with the old way and ready to raise creative, confident kids who actually change the world. This isn't just homeschooling. This is revolution. Let's get into it. Hi everybody. So glad you guys are here. Thank you for being here and being on time. Very much appreciate that. Let me know where you're stuck, what help you need. My purpose today was to do a tour through Schmoop to show you guys everything that's inside Schmoop because I don't, I know we have so many wonderful programs in here that it's hard to know how to use them all thoroughly and sometimes where to put them. And so I don't have to do just Schmoop, but if there's another program you're you're you have questions about, by all means, please let me know what those are. Anyway, well, this is where it's at for now. Come follow the pride. The time might have to change again because of the Bonfire Academy. So I will be teaching the high school classes and doing the high school mentorship. If you don't know what the Bonfire Academy is, you can look that up. It's in like a classroom. And I will be taking that on personally with the teenagers. So there might be a few changes because I am going to start dedicating Monday and Tuesday to all the teens, or at least the teens inside the Bonfire Academy. And so a few things might change. We'll see how that goes. All right. So I'm going to do a little tour. Well, okay, let's actually let's adjust to who's here. Okay. I don't wanted to go all the way through Schmoop if everybody's got little kids. Schmoop covers it has some third and fourth and fifth grade classes in there, yes. But even that's too much. I highly recommend you don't use Schmoop until they're junior high, at least, because we have so many great things for the younger kids that are interactive and fun, that I would leave Schmoop until seventh grade, minimal. Okay. Let's do a little tour through Schmoop because I have been playing with it all weekend and I just wanted to, they've been updating and they have some great stuff in here, especially if you are worried about credits tracking, that kind of stuff. So going through Schmoop and then I'll go through other programs, whatever you want to do. But I'm gonna show you Smoop real quick. So let's dive in. First of all, you're gonna go to make sure you are not in the community, but you are inside my homeschool village co-op. Go to classroom and then set up your kids in Schmoop or set up your kids for all. You're gonna scroll all the way down because it's for high school, and you're gonna click on Schmoop, and then it'll walk you through how to log in, how to set up your account, how to log in. Okay. Now I am there. We go. I'm out I'm logged in as one of you. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna come down here and create a classroom. First thing. Create classroom, testing, put your child's name on here. Now each classroom only allows four classes. And I'll be honest, that's enough. You do the four classes and then get four more classes. But you start doing six and seven and eight classes, and your kids gonna flip on you. They're gonna get overwhelmed, they're not gonna learn any topic. Well, they're gonna learn every topic little bits. Just do four. If you really, really, really have to do more, you can set up a separate classroom and be like um Becky One, Becky Two, whatever. You name that, make sure you're inside my homeschool village. I don't know that you have another option. And then right here, you can choose through courses, test prep. So if your child's headed to our SAT, let me show you even ACTs, APs, biology, CSET, digital, FSA, STAR, anybody doing STAR classes, TNT, TOEFL. So these are all tests. If they need to be prepping for any of these types, AsVab, did you see that? If you if your kid needs to be tested for any of these, you're gonna come in here, click the ones you want, and then add that to your class and create classroom. Now, if that's not where you're at and you're in courses, notice fifth grade grammar is the earliest in here right now. I have seen other classes. This is if you're setting up a classroom, there's another way to do that. But by setting up a classroom, you get tracked material. It tracks it, it keeps track grading everything. So you can take the classes without that if you want your kid to, or but if you want it tracked, reportable, you come in here. So say I want eighth grade math, semester A, and they're gonna do um, look at this advanced creative writing, human geography, statistics, world history, algebra. This is where you want to come after Generation Genius has they've gone all the way through Generation Genius and they're kind of done with the science and the math there. Then you come to Schmoop and move forward. Okay. And this is how they do the upper level stuff. There's chemistry, ELA. We've got all kinds of books, hope, history, holocaust. So you pick the classes you're gonna do, and please don't think you have to do them all. No high school child is going to do all of these classes ever. Okay, don't do it. This is about customization, picking what your child's interested in, not going through standardized tests. Okay. Now, if you need to do that or feel like you want to do that, you can. Side note on standardized tests. You will find that any state that requires standardized tests, and Lori, tell me if I'm wrong here, but so far everything I found is some states require your child to be tested. They don't require your child to pass it. If they fail, who cares? Just you don't have to teach to a test. Teaching to a test is the worst way to get a child educated. We're not teaching to test, we educate here and check your check your fine print. But children in states are required to take the test, not pass it. So don't panic. There's nothing they can do if your child fails. It's just going on a record in a cloud somewhere and it'll never affect your life again. Okay. So pick your classes. Oh, the Torah, that would be fascinating. Scroll all the way down, create a classroom. Now it's gonna ask you in here, do you want standard or do you want credit recovery? Means do I need to actually show that there were so many credits in this class, so many credits in this class? And the only reason you need that is if they're headed to college. And some of these classes, I don't know if they could be applied to college credit. But if you want that, you do here. If you just want the class taken and you're not worried about credits, you can go here. And it's however you want it to happen, there's no right way to do it. Let me check your comments here, real quick. Pennsylvania is required testing for third, fifth, and eighth. I also ordered my own untimed test, but not required to pass, correct? Yeah, it's a pass fail thing. The evaluator just needs to see progress from prior year. Okay. And if they fail, as long as they've improved, who cares? That's hard to wrap around. I get it. We all grew up in the system. I understand. So here you can get the overview, manage it, use your class code. Look, the class will have obviously we haven't done anything yet. There's a grade book, there will be the list of assignments. You can email your student. You're doing this as a teacher, by the way. Okay, you're the teacher, you're assigning classrooms per kid. So you pick which one, standard course format, and it walks you through. Okay, just go through upload students. So you can do multiple kids if you have twins or something. You can upload students. Oh, yeah, you want to upload your child. That's if you have a bunch. You don't need to upload, just invite a student. Add your kid in right here, send them an email. They now have access to their classes. That's it. Okay. Change the owner to you. Class name, the kid. Here's their content. And then here's here's each class. It's like broken down and completely organized for you. So you just go through, set it up, and then your child just clicks and moves. Now, ask questions as we go here, you guys. I don't want to overwhelm anybody, but I gotta move fast because there's a lot of information. Um, so you can do it that way. You set up the classroom, you set up the kid, the teacher, the kid, the grades, you get the credits, like the whole school thing. Okay. Or you can just go in under subjects, pick one, pre-algebra, and let's just go through. Let's see, we'll do courses, seventh grade, oh, seventh grade math. Let's do that one. And then there's a lot of reading in here. If your child's not reading, you need to go backwards and start reading first. Here's a sneak peek. I'm not gonna go through here. You kind of go through, do a skim, but you do get to pick do you want common core standards or do you want the Texas? I love Tex. Tex is Texas is the only state who does not require or use Common Core, which I love. So I personally put my kids on the Tex, but if you want Common Core, you can't. I recommend against it personally, stick with the texts personally, and then just start with the number one. And I know these are this is where it gets overwhelming. Don't panic. It gives you all this stuff. Just click on that first one. Okay. Now just go through it. If they don't know this and they need to be taught this, you might need to go back a grade. Or some, I'm not gonna sit here and read through a lesson and do a lesson for you. Ideally, they've gone through here, they do the assignment, they move on. Okay, here are the lessons they do. I prefer you put it in a classroom setting because it at least keeps better track of where they are at. If you go to subjects every time, they have to keep track of where they're at, and they'll forget. So that's just saying you, but you can at least go in here and look at what their topics are under different areas. What do you want to study? You can get more information. But then I would highly recommend you go back to home and you create a classroom. Questions? Oh, look at all the the chats popping up here. Yes, this is junior high up, okay, seventh grade. And I only recommend you move on to seventh grade if they have finished Generation Genius. If they've gone all the way through Generation Genius, then you go to Schmoop. But if they're still liking Generation Genius emotionally, they just kind of need that still. Stay there. I would still stay with Prager U for their history, geography, government, politics. I think they're better. But you don't have to. Yeah, your son is in eighth grade or going into eighth grade. So first make sure he goes all the way through Generation Genius because he's got holes, and that will help you fill any holes. Then move to Schmoop. Does that help? Did I answer that? Okay. Questions on Schmoop? And yes, I can L. Yes, we I this is recorded and will be posted later if you need to look at it again. So anybody, seventh grade and up, use Schmoop as long as Generation Genius is done. Okay. And I say that because Generation Genius teaches in a younger way, an emotionally younger way. And so if they're struggling there, they shouldn't be moving to Schmoop yet. Schmoop is a lot of words. It's a lot of tech, it's not technical jargon. It's actually known for its humor. So it's got dad humor all the way through. It's cute. Their setup can be a little intimidating because there's a lot of words. They are starting to add in more videos. You will occasionally have to buy a book. Okay. Like they cannot give you the any books for free that are public, like done by an author legally. They can't just give those away. You're gonna have to. Some of sometimes in the classrooms, you'll get a here's the link to buy on Amazon this book. And if it's in there, it's because it's vital to the mess, it's vital to the story and the the lesson, but they cannot legally give it to you because there are copyright issues, right? Sorry, I'm getting this little message. 16 unread messages. And I'm like, no, I think I'm okay. Yeah. So go into the lesson ahead of time, see if there's any books you need to buy, and then buy it. Or maybe you can get it on Audible or whatever. But know that they're not gonna provide things that are copyright issues. Like if you're in high school, they would require you go buy your own book. Uh, questions. So this is where you're gonna do your math for high school, and it has all the levels of math, you guys, upper level. When they get stuck on a concept, if it's not quite how you like it in here, remember no one curriculum teaches for every child. So if they're in there and they're stuck and you can't, and the video is not right, just copy paste the topic into honestly, I would do it in Claude, but um, or in Chat GPT and say, where's another video or a YouTube? And there's just a lot of free information. And I can't provide all that because I don't know where your kids' issues are. So this is where being a homeschool mom is what you do is oh, you're stuck. Okay, let's find in the resources online where it can be explained better. Sometimes you can get the same topic explained 10 different ways, and only one will hit your kid's brain. So don't shy away from that. Just do the research on your own. Like, hmm. Anyway, I'm a big fan of, I'm a big fan of AI right now, you guys. I'm learning so much on AI, and it's okay to put your kids on a chat or claw and be like, okay, when you get stuck here, I want you to go into chat and say, I don't understand this. Where else can I learn it, or what other way can I find it? And let them use that. Because part of this homeschooling journey is teaching them AI appropriately. Okay, is that enough of Schmoop? Do I need to stay in here or can we move on to one of the other programs for the younger moms? I'm here to provide what you need because my next thought was to show the daily schedule. The best thing you can do in SHMOOP if you have a child, seventh grade or older, is to get in here and play. Just go click around, get to know it. You have to do that. And I know this is the hardest part about my homeschool village, is having to go in and be like, now I have to get to know this one. But you don't, your child does. Oversee it. Have them get to know it, watch them get to know it. Um, if if your child won't do it on their own, yeah, oversee it. But this is a very good, like, this is one of the best programs you're ever going to find for SAT ACT approval. Like if your kid is college bound, you want Schmoop. If they are not college bound, they still can use Schmoop. And I still recommend it. But this is for to me, the people who really want to be in the military want to go to college. This is really where you need to be. Okay. And if they want to be an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, you need to be in the Bonfire Academy. That's where your kids need to be if they want to be entrepreneurs. So we provided every path here, you guys. You just got to get the right path for your kid. So college, college or military, schmoop. Entrepreneurship, bonfire academy. Okay. All right. Switching topics. Just doing a little check here. I know you guys have questions. All right. Let's go back to oh my found. I just saw that you just sent me a message. Sorry. Glad you found us. Glad you found us. Okay. Please stop me if I am explaining what you don't need. Okay. I don't want to waste your time. So, or even just come in and say, hey, are like, is there any program right now you're wondering about how to use what your child needs? One of a five-year-old, honestly, stick to Miss Lori's classes, Starfall, or the reading, and like generation genius, you're done. Five-year-old does needs to learn to read, needs to learn to write, needs basic math. That's it. Because science, and then Miss Lori's classes, because science is a natural thing for that age. They just automatically ask questions, come make a hypothesis, right? You're just talking science about the bugs. Create a hypothesis. You don't be like, what's the hypothesis? You just go, who, what do you think the how he how do you think he flies? Right? Ask fun, interesting questions, and then talk about them. Epic, Starfall, math and English, and Prenda. Okay. That's all you need for kindergarten, like even then. So you're working on the three R's until they're like eight. So reading, writing, and I hate that they call it the three Rs because let's be honest, it's about schooling and arithmetic. It's arithmetic. I always thought that was rude. Um, you didn't see why it's name on Epic. Uh, did you fill out the form? Trish is here. She's the one who handles that. Did you fill out the form? Yes. Trish. Trish is here. I'm sure she's gonna pop in a little answer here any minute. So let's see what's going on. So that's all you need for a fifth grader. And then if they're interested, get them in generation genius. Let them watch the science videos, let them just they're they're pretty cool. Now, first through sixth grade, seventh, some eighth, depending on it's just all about where they're at, right? You're gonna really focus on type C. You're gonna focus on gener. Well, don't even go to type C till third grade. Until they're writing strong, their handwriting is strong. You don't need type C. You want to get their handwriting strong before they're typing. You need to know they've got it down. Okay, Trisha's handling that right now, Tiffany. Okay. Remember, we don't work weekends, guys. We we work Monday through Friday and often evenings answering questions, but Saturday and Sunday we don't work. We're we are like we're focusing on our family. So if you sign up or if you come in on a Friday or leave a message Friday or Saturday, we try not to work on Sunday, some or Saturday, Sundays. Sometimes it's too tempting and we answer a couple of questions, but generally we don't. We try not to be here. We're hoping you guys aren't too worried about it either. Okay, third grade and up. Make sure you're using type C. Type C, and here's what my son actually told me the other day. Okay. I am not a big teach grammar person. My first three kids, and here's what's funny, okay? I'm homeschooling my fifth kid. I've taught grammar and I've or I've gone through each topic four previous times. So I forget that he necessarily he wasn't necessarily old enough to be listening in on those lessons or learning from those lessons. And so I will be 100% honest here. I'm not even sure what my my last kid knows sometimes because I think I taught it, because I taught it four times, but I didn't count it and and I didn't keep track of well, anyway. So I had him on type C and I'm like, you need to be getting as fast as you gotten on type C. And what he told me the other day, he goes, Mom, I really appreciate you getting me on type C. I'm like, what? He goes, Yeah, I'm learning to get my grammar right, like where to put the periods, where to put the capitals. He's 14, you guys. This is like a bad mummy. Should he have been doing these things earlier? Yes, but he was a late reader. And honestly, I thought I'd put that. This is what happens when it's the last child. But what's happening is Type C is filling in my holes. So Type C is teaching him all the grammar, it's making sure he does it right. He's like, by typing in Type C, I'm learning my grammar skills because it focuses on nouns and predicates and adjectives, all those things, and you can even set it that way. But it also just in the typing of it and the copying, it's copywork inside of Type C, his vocabulary and his grammar is getting much better. He loves reading, he will read, but he has struggled with writing. He hates it, it's his least favorite subject, and so it has been a fight. But type C makes it so he doesn't hate it. So he word practices with his hands so that his handwriting gets better. But his actual grammar and his actual spelling and his actual is all happening through type C because he can type so much faster than he can write, he tends to learn better there for him. And maybe that works for you, maybe not. So, but I want you to think about that. Make sure your kids are using type C for grammar. You don't have to have a separate grammar if you don't want to. I'm a copy work mom. I believe in copy work, and then like a type C, which is also copy work, by the way. That strengthens grammar and vocabulary better than anything. Not to mention inside Type C, there's vocabulary. Is anybody having issues with type C? We were having um issues this last weekend, last two weeks, and then they sent me a thing and I couldn't get in. We were having problems with type C, and I didn't know because I must have missed an email, that you need if you upload Type C as an app on your computer, it works a lot better than if you just log in on a URL every time. So make sure you're uploading Type C onto your computer and it will work much better for you. So that's great. I was actually kind of nervous for my 13-year-old. He is able to read really well, but his spelling isn't that good as well as his grammar. Yes, both my boys did this. Both. And it's funny because one of my children, my 19-year-old actually, he's brilliant, really, really smart. But boy, just wrapping his, even still, wrapping his word, his mouth around certain words is hard. I think he thinks faster than his mouth can keep up with, and he can think faster than his handwriting can keep up with. And I think this is a typical frustration for children. It's not that they're bad at it, it's that their hand Is too slow for their brain. And so you get them on type C and teach them to type quickly. Now, you know, just work typing. Like get them on there and see how fast. Do challenges, do rewards. If you can get to 200 words a minute, I will take you to lunch, whatever, right? Put them through that and get their typing fast and then watch how they take off. So I did this with my second child. She didn't read till she was eight. She wouldn't even write till she was 12. By 14, she hated her writing. She felt stupid. I'm like, what happened? And I was like, let's get you typing. We got her on the type C. That's when I found Type C. We got her in Type C. She strengthened her hand her typing skills. I showed her a Google Doc, and then she was like, Oh, I can type as fast as I think. And she wrote a book. She went from I hate writing to I wrote a book because she started typing. Okay. Do you want me to show you Type C? The video in there is a really good rundown, which is why I'm kind of not doing it to repeat for those of you who've seen it. But Type C is an unused resource inside the village. It is so good. It helps with dyslexia. It helps with ADHD. The settings you can change, the they're typing and they're still learning science, history, geography while typing. Don't know if you saw that. So they're subconsciously learning and learning while they're typing, while they're learning grammar, while they're doing these things. So one of the biggest things about homeschooling that you need to like wrap your head around is that you don't have to teach every subject separately. If in the science, or if in the typing they're learning science, boom, you got two done at once. If during science they are writing out a something, they've got writing done while doing science. You can combine subjects and get as many done as you want. The only time I do writing as a separate assignment from anything else they do is when they're still working on handwriting. And my teenage boys had to do it longer than my teenage girls. My girls, well, two of my girls had beautiful handwriting by the time they were seven because that was their thing. My other three children, two boys and a girl, were a little more ADHD, much more math-minded, and they had to handwrite for a long time while they typed and everything else. So you just go according to what your kid needs. So yes, please dig into type-C. And they even have classes on how to make and edit videos if your kids like that. They have classes on business, they have classes on learning a bunch of the other stuff online, like Microsoft. They have spelling, they have coding, which I used to love that about type C, and I still do. I will now say if your child is into coding, they need to learn how to use AI, not code. Because what they're finding right now is that AI can code better than a human anyway. And so now it's about if you want to code, use AI that will code for you. And that's I'm teaching that inside the high school class, if you're curious. I don't think young kids should be doing that yet. I'm not a big fan of young kids on the computers. Like if your kids under eight, I would be reading with them more and playing and using the computer very little. If they're eight to 12, I'd be doing it an hour a day. But once they're 12, they need to be learning how to work on a computer all day. Not all day, four hours, two hours. But you do need to, there's different courses, right? Appropriateness. So what they do is they go in on type C and if they're gonna do typing, they it puts them through like a whole test on where their typing is at. But then it will also ask what how old they are. So it changes appropriately. So if you have a seventh grader coming in who can't type at all, it's going to give them very basic, but as they get older, they'll be given seventh grade information to copy. But if they're in third grade, they're gonna give them third grade information to copy. So even if a seventh grader and a third grader start at the same beginning, you know, they'll do the A, A, A, A, B, B, B. Fine. Once they're out of that, it will take the seventh grader to here's what you need to know in science. You're gonna type up the science. Here's your history, you're gonna type up the history. So then once inside, yes, log them in. You can assign them different classes, they can just go in and pick. Totally up to you. I just thought it had something on there. Okay. Other questions? So type C creative bug. How many of you using creative bug? Did you know you can use creative bug for science? DIY. There are some like it's not just art. It has like if they go in and they do their herbal, so creative bug has a whole herbal section. How to grow, use, make soaps, that kind of stuff. Did you know that making soap is science? Like, if you're you have a child who's just really interested in that kind of stuff, it's all in creative bug. They can learn how to make soap, their own herbal teas. I think there's even like a healing herbal tea something in there. Life skills, knitting, crocheting, sewing, cross stitch. So there's a lot of that in there. If your child's an artist and loves to draw, you need to be in create in creative bug. They want to learn how to paint. Should we look at it? Okay, just a little heads up on creative bug, okay? And I know I say this. Oh, I I think I say it a lot, maybe I don't. In creative bug, when you go to setup, you come in here, it's under setup collectives, creative bug, and click here. Now that is the only page creative bug will open for you. They have this policy that we have to give them one page and with a login so that we're not giving it to people who don't have our login. So you have to get it from there every time. Now, even if I save this, say I bookmark this tab, and then I go in and let's just like go to that tab. It's gonna ask me to redo it, and it's not gonna work. Never mind it, dude. Okay, as long as you have that that actual link. Okay, so continue. Oh, you guys can't see the screen home on. I'm sorry. Okay, continue to create a bug. Now there are look at everything there is for yarns. Beginners, techniques, all yarn classics, garments, holiday party, home decor, knitting, daily practice, felting, crochet. Um, then we have sewing. They can learn how to sew here. Pattern designing, home decor, quilting for babies, daily practice, needlework, mending. Guys, how many of your kids should be learning how to mend something? Very important life skill. Art and design, painting, print making, sketchbook, surface design, lettering, home decor, drawing it. Look at all these classes. You can even see, oh, look, there's more. And you can flip through. Okay, let's go back. Art and design, paper, collage, decoupage, cutting machines, daily crafts. Yes, moms, you can use this too. And dads if there are any in here. Um, see all kids and teens. Now, look, before we do that, beading, bracelets, earrings, leather, metal wire, and check this out baking, cake decorating, bath and body. Like I said, the soaps and stuff. Oh, oops, okay, I clicked. Macrame, recipes for snacking, bath and body, camps, creative bug. Oh, oh, live classes. Got it. I'm a little slow. Um, so yeah, so there's all those, so kids and teens specific. So if they you want it built for them, here's all kinds of art, crafts. Now, I personally think that arts and crafts are one of the most important things your children can do. And here's why a child who is doing some form of project on their own every day teaches problem solving. So the skills of starting a project, following through on the project, changing the project, figuring out a project are actually the skills that employers are working for now because you have to self-regulate, you have to create your own timing, you have to track things, solve it. So, how to teach your children the skills of the future is actually art. Chakra that art is actually what's being removed from the schools. Hmm. So you really want to be focusing on creative bug as much as possible. Get them, you might look like they're not doing anything important, get their reading, writing, math, science, history done out of the way. Get them on art, find something they love, let them pick it. Like I'll tell, like I used to tell my kids, I don't care what you pick, just pick one, and you're gonna do it until you find one you like. And then they would find like paper folding was some of my kids' favorite. Your mathematicians, they're gonna love that one. So doing these projects actually creates the mindset and the skills that employers today are looking for that you need as an entrepreneur, that you need to really be accepted. These skills have been taken away from the public school system, and it's made it hard for kids to be able to problem solve, ask questions, be creative in a in a situation. For generation juniors, do the kids just go in order of how the videos are listed? Ritza, I'm so glad you asked that question. Let me show you what I did. Okay. Did I put it in here? Maybe I should put it again. So when you come to the welcome video, sorry, the tools you need. You're gonna come to the tools you need. Okay, I am in co-op classroom setup. The tools you need. And there's a book right here, a record book. On this record book, you're gonna click that. I highly recommend you print it if you have a printer. If you don't have a printer, go to your PS and have it printed for you. Or you can upload this on like an iPad and use like good notes to open it. Now, in here, this is it'll explain it. This is like record keeping. You use the page you want. Some states require attendance, some don't. There it is. If you want to plan out, I don't plan out the week, take Friday and write down what you got done. Huge difference in your homeschooling, huge. Life classes we took, books we read, but here's the part I want to show you. Check this out. Starfall, early learning. You can check off what they know while they go through Starfall. Do they know their letters? See, and so you can check those off. Starfall math. Don't forget math in Starfall for your younger kids. You can check off what they know. This is how you track what they're actually doing inside each of these programs. Generation genius math. This is the order in which the video should be watched. Now, it should just be left to right, K through, but you forget where you're at, right? Like it's not made so that you can keep track. So I made it for you. So you come in here and don't start. I I tell everybody start with kindergarten, no matter who your kid is, and let them go all the way through because it allows your child to fill in holes that they might have. Everybody has holes in their education. That is not a failure, moms. Having a hole in your education is not a failure. Nobody can learn everything. It just have your kids go all the way through, mark these off. There's your math. Okay, and it's even divided by grade levels. Yeah, it's a lot. Then you're gonna go through. I did it with their science. You go through and just click it off. And then they even have um language arts. Where is it? Sorry, I hope I'm not making anybody sick. They're adding language arts in. This is up to date as of last week for what they have as language arts. And then um, prager you kids, I left it open. I didn't do the same thing because there's no real good order for Prager U. So, but this allows you to write it down and keep track. Your child children should write these down. And then I even put in typing so they can write their typing practice, they can keep track of their minutes, their words per minute, their accuracy, so they can actually see how they're doing and watch their progress. Clarissa, I'm glad you like this. This took me a long time to make, I'll tell you. Something I've been wanting to do for a very, very long time. And um, I will be honest, thank you, AI. AI helped me make this. I would have taken, I could not have done this until I learned AI, and now AI helped me do it. So, Schmoop, keep track of what they're doing on Schmoop. It has a monthly reflection. Notice everything inside this book is to look back at what you did, not forward about what you want. Because looking forward with a plan is a sure way to just set you and your kids up for frustration at everything you didn't get done because you cannot plan for children and colds and didn't sleep and doesn't feel good, and the peep neighbor who stopped by, and the mom who needs us right now, and the right, you can't plan for that. So we go in and say, you could write it out softly, but then you go back on Friday and go, Did we get that done? No, but we'll get this one done. But look, we got these done, and sometimes it's like, look, we got five things done off of Prager U, but we didn't touch Generation Genius. That's okay. Next week, go over Generation Genius and do five videos there. You don't have to keep it like you can be like a ton of this one this week, and a ton of this one this week, and a ton of this one this week, and that's okay. Because your kids will go in these little ebbs and flows. I love this record book too. I actually printed it out and put it in a three-wing biter. That was my goal. Okay, that's if I could just provide you guys with a printed three-wing binder, which I could do, but it would not be cheap, I would do that. But I have a feeling you'd rather not spend 50 bucks on a pre-printed put-together binder for you with tabs and just print it out and get your own three-wing binder. Am I messed up on that? I just assumed. Eventually I might put this together in a book where you can just buy it done, but not right now. Wins and achievements, our year in words. Notice everything reflecting back. And you can even do a certificate of completion that you fill out. And remember, don't use all the pages. You don't need all the pages. And I'll tell you why. My child at the time was in fifth grade, and we had just discovered Generation Genius, and so I told him to start at the beginning and just watch the videos. I said, watch two videos a day until you're done. And he just went through all the videos because I wanted to see what he didn't know because I wasn't sure. And he just watched the videos. We didn't do the assignments, we didn't go all the way through, he just watched the videos. Um, and he went all the way through, but he liked him so much he didn't stop at fifth grade, he went all the way through eighth. And then he liked him so much he started over and did it again. He's been through Generation Genius Science three times because he loves it so much. He's now 14 years old, and we've moved him on. But what it did for his knowledge of science was shocking to me. He has had full-blown adult conversations with adults in college about science, and my son is better educated than most of the people he's talked to because of Generation Genius. So when I say, yes, put your eighth grader in K, everybody's like, excuse me, my child is not. No, it's because you you're gonna just send them through, they're gonna learn little knits and things, it's just gonna like build on their knowledge. Because if you start them in an eighth grade level, they may have missed some really cool things. So let me explain why I know this. I moved all the time as a kid. We moved every two to three years, and I actually was given sometimes the same topic. So if we moved in the middle of seventh grade from California to Utah, which we did, in seventh grade in California, they taught biology or whatever it was. I don't remember. Like biology in seventh and chemistry in eighth. But in Utah, they did biology and eighth and chemistry and seventh. So they they did not have the same thing. There's no, there was no standard what year every state, every state gets to pick their own curriculum and when and how they teach it. And so as we would move around, I would go through the same topics multiple times. So I had huge holes in my education. There were entire topics I never got because we were moving. I went from in Utah, we were in Utah when I was in seventh grade and I was advanced math. Well, I was doing algebra one, I think, but then we moved to California and they're like, well, she's seventh grade. My mom's like, okay, what's seventh grade math? Pre-algebra. But she's in algebra one now. Sorry, we don't have a class for seventh graders, so she has to do it again. And I had to do, I had to repeat pre-algebra, algebra because that's how the standard was. So that's where I learned is that it doesn't really matter what order, you guys. Math needs a certain order, yes. But science needs a certain order. But go back and fill in holes. Every education will leave a hole, and that just prevents that for you. I'm completely new to this. Are live classes just Tuesday through Thursday? Do you do homeschool all year round? Yes. So live classes. Let's go through, let's turn this off. I forget to turn these off. Calendar. Live classes. So we used to do live classes Monday through Friday, but what we found was that was too much for most homeschoolers. We have most of us like a long weekend. So we like Friday to be out and about days, and we like um Mondays to get a bunch of homework stuff done days. And so we found that our moms and our teachers preferred Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So that allows for more freedom the way homeschoolers like. And if you're not using that yet, you'll get there. So yes, we are Tuesday through Thursday. Monday is being reserved for a Biom Fire Academy. But yeah. So yeah, Tuesday through Thursday. And yes, we do year-round. So we are currently in our summer schedule. It will be over at the end of August. We'll take a week and then we'll start after Labor Day. Then it goes all the way until a week before Christmas, two weeks before Christmas. We take a big break for Christmas, and then January 1st, we start a new semester, and then until end of May, then we take one week in May, and then we're back in June 1st. So we have a three-semester system and it does go year-round. Now, I personally don't believe that my children need three months off in the middle of the heat to for what? Like, I don't think it's logical. Originally, taking the summer off was made for farmers who need the children on the farms, but we're not, and unless you do that, which many still do, we don't. So we keep going because I like that they they just keep the habit. It's like I remember I heard somebody say once it was a teacher, and she said, I wanted to become a teacher because I like the three months off in the summer, and I wanted to keep that. My husband doesn't get his summer off because he's working. Like it, I just don't think it's a great skill to teach. So we go year-round. Learning should not, you should not take a break from learning. That's my opinion. So that's how we run my homeschool village. You are very welcome. Okay, other questions. Lori says, for the Pennsylvania laws, we can start on July 1st. So we've already started. Oh, interesting. Now, Pennsylvania law is one of the strictest in the country, you guys. So don't worry about what Pennsylvania law says unless you're in Pennsylvania. As a homeschooler who's lived in two very open free states, I was in Utah, I've been in even in Maryland, we could start when we wanted to start, and I've lived in Alabama. So those are the three states I've homeschooled in. And though Alabama is a little more strict than the other two, I start when I want to start. I can put whatever I need to put on paperwork, but I've never had to do paperwork. So I can't say never. Anyway, if you're not in Pennsylvania, don't worry about our start date. I don't like really move back in heavy until September. But now that they're old enough, we never really let off either. So people say start and stop, and then it's like, but you don't take summer off. Do your do the dates that work for you. Homeschool when it works for you, don't when it doesn't. Take the breaks when you need them, don't take them when you don't. That's that's the whole beauty of the freedom of homeschooling. Those of you that have heavy states, New York, Pennsylvania, you have to do by different rules, but even then, they're workable. It's about how you report, not what you're actually doing. So if any of you live in really heavy states, New York, Pennsylvania, and you're looking for a little more guidance, let me know. I'll do if there's enough of you next week, I'll do another live on it. And how to report. Which, by the way, that record book is ideal for your reporting if you have to do that. Quick question: Do you think the Minecraft education for my 13-year-old would be too young? No, he was gonna try Minecraft Challenge, but I didn't know if I should do both. So there's two age groups: Minecraft education for K through seventh grade, and then seventh grade through 12th grade. And our our older class is mostly 13, 14-year-olds. Actually, it's more like 12 to 14-year-olds. And so, no, it's good. That's how he's gonna find his buddies. That's how my son started like bonding with kids online inside my homeschool village. And then if your kids know this, Minecraft education is always open on our server, so nobody else can get in. They can keep going in and building, but they can't be in this, like there's nobody running a world, so they can't get into the world the kids were in. They can't, but like they can create a world. And if they've made a friend inside my homeschool village and you're okay with this, they can share that code with somebody in the village and they can play together. So if your child makes a friend and they want to play more, that's up to you. But we do, they can still have access to Minecraft education, they can share it, create their own world, they can share that code, but that code will not work for anybody outside of my homeschool village. Okay, so it keeps them safe. Five-year-olds, we have five-year-olds in our younger Minecraft. We do. Come September, we're gonna add, we're actually gonna cut back on Minecraft a little bit. We're gonna do one Minecraft day, and then we're gonna have a we have two other games coming. So Wednesday, we have one that's a board game day. I don't know if you guys have seen these online. So they'll be playing board games, and then we have another one that is like a Geo, I can't remember the name of it. Where Am I in the World? Kind of like a Carmen San Diego game where they'll learn geography and they play together and challenges and stuff. And so those are coming. So Minecraft one day, the other two, the other two days, and then if they want to hook up, they want to play with other kids because they've made a friend, you can make that work through us. And you don't need us, you can just go do it. So we don't like announce that to the kids because we don't want them sneaking behind mama's back. We tell mom, and if you want to let them know, that's up to you. All right, so are we good? Questions now. Please remember if you need more help, please message at Trish Saxby or at Rebecca Stromstorfer. And I don't think you have to spell Stromstorfer out. I think it's just Rebecca. But make sure you're messaging us or just really use that community. The women in here are so so wonderful. Use the community. And we will see you Wednesday. Wednesday is our live where we hang out together and we feed each other advice. It's not all coming for me, and we get to hang out. So can't wait to meet. We'll see you guys then. Have a great week. Bye-bye. That's the wrap 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 helped you, share it with another mom who needs it. And if you're ready for a village to do this with, find us in the show notes. And until next time, keep going. The revolution starts at home.