011 || 10 Things That Make Homeschooling Easier

It’s Sarah’s birthday week and she’s celebrating with a fun one: ten things that have genuinely made her homeschool life easier. Not things that look good on a list, but things that are actually woven into their daily life and that she would genuinely miss if they were gone.

From batching breakfasts on the weekends (a system she started running a home daycare) to the vintage Bluetooth speaker that replaced the Echo she kind of hates, to the line leader system that ended the bickering, to silent reading time that her girls call their favorite part of the day . . . this episode is practical, a little funny, and full of things worth stealing for your own home.

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Links:

• Shop all Homeschool Glue resources
• Free Starter Glue-Print
• Yoto Players
• Sherwood
• Skylight Calendar
• Read Aloud Revival Podcast — Sarah Mackenzie (silent reading episode)
• Episode 007 — Our Chore System
• Episode 008 — The 5 Systems Every Overwhelmed Homeschool Mom Needs (Mental File Cabinet)
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Transcript

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Today, I'm going to be taking a step back from talking about rhythms and systems and routines and all of those types of things. And I'm just going to share some things that have genuinely made my homeschooling easier, not just the actual homeschool time, but just motherhood and our days in general, because homeschooling, there's such blurry borders of our homeschool because life, our life is homeschool, and homeschool is our life. And so I just thought it would be fun to just take a step back as we get close to summer and just talk about some things that I've implemented over the years that have really helped our homeschool and my motherhood and my children and just have a more peaceful and happy home. So you may have heard me mention some of these things before, some you may have not. All of them are things I would genuinely recommend to any homeschool mom. So let's get into it. Glue. It's messy, it's sticky, it gets everywhere. But without it, nothing holds. Homeschool life can feel messy too. We have the loud days, the mental overload, so many moving parts. But we don't need is more curriculum or more pressure to do it all. We need something that holds. Simple systems, steady rhythms, the kind of structure that makes homeschooling easier instead of heavier. Hi, I'm Sarah, a homeschool mom of four, and this is the Homeschool Glue Podcast. Each week we have an honest conversation about real homeschool life and the simple systems that help overwhelmed homeschool moms clear the mental clutter, build rhythms that actually stick, and create the peaceful lives we are all craving. If you're tired of carrying everything and getting nowhere, you are in the right place. Grab that load of laundry and let's get started. Welcome back to the Homeschool Glue podcast. Today's episode is a fun one, and honestly, it's a little bit of a celebration episode because it is my birthday week and I am in a good mood and I wanted to do something that felt light and useful and maybe gave you a few things to steal for your own home. Plus, heading into the summer, it's just kind of fun to look back at the routines and the not even just routines, but just the things that we've implemented into our days and think about what's worked, what hasn't, and take the summer to kind of try out some new things, to reflect and implement some new things for the fall. And so I just thought this might be a good kickoff to that because I am a, in my mind, a summer baby, even though technically it's still spring. But my birthday was always like the start of the summer in school and or at the end of the school year. And so in my mind, it's just kind of like summer is here, and I just thought this would be kind of a fun topic. So I'm going to be sharing 10 different things that have genuinely made my homeschool life easier, not things that necessarily look good on a list or have made my homeschool look prettier or more put together. Um, and not things that I have tried once and forgot about. These are things that are actually woven into our daily life and that I would genuinely miss if they were gone. These are the things that I would definitely implement right away if for some reason I had to start all over with homeschooling. Some of these are products, but most of these are rhythms or tiny decisions that removed a recurring source of friction in my life. Um I really love to really reflect on what's working or not working in my life and then come up with solutions. It's just something I love, which is why this podcast exists, I suppose. Um, and at the end of the episode, I'm gonna tell you about my birthday bundle sale, which I'm really excited about because it, like I said, it's my birthday week and I get to celebrate on my podcast because it's my podcast, and I just thought it would be fun. And I like to do a little special something for you guys when it is my birthday. So let's get into the 10 different things. If you have been following me throughout all of the iterations of my business, there was housemade of marital glue, which turned into home, uh, which turned into work-life glue, which turned into homeschool glue. Um, I don't even know where the glue even came from. I'm not like obsessed with glue. I just think it's such a great metaphor for holding things together and it's messy, um, but it works really well. But anyway, so if you've followed me through multiple of those iterations over the years, I, for a very long time since I ran a daycare in our home, I have been, and my husband, he's actually the one who normally does this now, but we have been batching breakfast on the weekends. So before I ran a daycare and I was open at 7 a.m. and I was feeding kids breakfast. Well, when you have 10 hungry little kids under the age of five who are hungry in the morning and, you know, they cried when their parents left, and it's just kind of a rocky start to the day, and they're hungry on top of it, you don't want something that's going to take a long time to cook. And so I started doing this quite a few years ago. On the weekends, what we do is we batch one big batch of whatever we're having for breakfast. So, and it's always stuff that can freeze well, which is most things that you make for breakfast. So, this might be we do a lot of protein muffins, protein pancakes, sheep pan pancakes, egg bites. You could do egg burritos, we've done egg sandwiches, um so many like oat oatmeal cups, things like that that can freeze well. We make a huge batch of that that will last us, usually eating it four more times. So depending on how many kids you have. Um, the goal is though, the four more times, and I'll explain why. So we do that on the weekends. So let's say it's pancakes. My husband usually is the one to do this. He will make a huge batch of pancakes, enough to feed us four more times. And so they'll have that for breakfast. He and I don't usually eat breakfast, so the kids will eat that for breakfast, then we'll let it cool, we'll pop it into bags, and we'll freeze it. Well, when you do this for four weeks, so you make a different one each week, a different bulk breakfast. By the end of the month, you now have a rotation of four different breakfasts you can pull out from the freezer and reheat during the week. So that only leaves one extra day, or I guess two, technically two extra days of the week that you actually have to make something, or you might do cereal or a bagel, or kids, you know, just make up a ton of eggs and toast or something like that for those days. We actually do Sundays, we usually do homemade granola bars, so that's our extra thing that we just eat throughout the week because they only last so long. We don't freeze those because we eat them so fast. So that for us, that leaves one extra day, which is like you choose for our kids. So they'll have like cereal or yogurt or whatever smoothies. And so you have four different breakfasts you can pull out and eat quickly. Younger kids can usually make their own breakfast. Right now, I've been working out in the mornings, and so uh, and I didn't want to cut into my work time. So now my oldest, who's 11, usually makes breakfast for everybody, and it's super easy for her, but we have like different jobs that the other kids do, and so we just end up throwing some fruit on the table, you know, on their plates as well, and then they have that breakfast that we pre-made. Um, I know this, you know, some homeschool families love to make a nice, hot, freshly made breakfast every morning. We are not one of them. We really like to get into our day and get homeschool done. Um, I don't want to be one of those who checks it off the list, but because I run a business, I also have a part-time job, the mornings are the times like that we want to get outside together. And so, in order to do that, we have to start homeschool pretty early. And so this has worked out really well because food gets on the table faster, uh, people are eating faster, so there's less crankiness, you know. I don't know if that's true, but it maybe, maybe that's true if that's something you deal with in your home. We deal with a lot of like crankiness when they wake up. But usually once they've eaten, they're in a better mood. And so this gets breakfast on the table really fast and it doesn't take a lot of time. Then they're eating home cooked meals that we made, they're just frozen and we pull it out. Um, and it it just really starts our day off, right? Because I don't love cooking right away in the day and dirtying up the kitchen and I don't know, I just don't love it. And so only having to do that really once or twice a week and then pulling it out every day from the freezer has been a game changer. So even though I don't do daycare anymore, this still is something we do and we love it, and it's a system I'll probably have for a very long time. The second thing that's made homeschool easier for me, or just this homeschool motherhood life, is also having to do with food. Because, as you know, if you're a homeschool mom or a mom in general, like every part of your day revolves around food. The amount of times my kids ask me about what we're having for a meal in the middle of a read-aloud, or like you know, when you're doing something totally random, like they're so focused on the next meal. Anyway, so my next one is meal rotation. So this is very similar to what I talked about for breakfast. So we have a meal rotation for that because we have a system for that already. So that's already rotating is our breakfast. But then also I have like a two-week rotation for lunches. So I just came up with 10 different lunches and then we rotate them. It makes it so much simpler. The kids know what they're having, so they don't usually ask me what's for lunch. The five-year-old still does because she's still trying to figure out days and what meals are tied to what days. But my older two, they know what to expect because we have a lunch rotation, plus they can check to see what's for lunch. But it's just nice, it's so nice. I admittedly really hate meal planning and thinking about food all the time, and yet we still have to. But having the meal rotation really helps because then you already know when you sit down to make your grocery list, you know exactly what to get. You don't have to be planning a new breakfast and a new lunch and a new supper and possibly a new snack every single day. Um, that I cannot do. It just slowly takes away my sanity. Pretty quickly, actually, not even slowly, very quickly takes away my sanity. And so for us, dinner is the only thing that we're pretty much planning every week, and I'm working on systemizing that as well so that it's not something new every week. And we do have kind of like themes for the days, but if you can even get suppers on a meal rotation, like how amazing. And then if you have if you write out the grocery list for that rotation, like that week, and then you let's say you have a three-month rotation, and then you have the grocery list already figured out, like that'll save you so much time. That's something I'm working on right now. Have not fully implemented it yet, but um, that has been so helpful with breakfasts and lunches, so I know it will be super helpful with suppers as well. Um, if you could save yourself some brain power, it will help your homeschooling, even though meals technically, I guess, isn't necessarily part of homeschooling. I mean, it is, but you know, it's not the actual education of your kids. But if you can save brain power with all of these things that you carry as a mom, it will benefit your homeschool and your children and your life and everyone around you because you'll be more peaceful. Okay, next up, I have to talk about this one. I know I've talked about this in other episodes, but this truly is probably the biggest game changer in this whole episode. And I saved it for number three because my birthday is on the third, and three is my lucky number. So that is the mental file cabinet. I talked about it in more detail, I believe, last week. Uh I'll link it below the one I talked about it in a lot more detail. I'm sure I'll have more episodes on this. And I actually have something in the work, so stay tuned for that. But the mental file cabinet, if you haven't heard me talk about it, um, is a place outside of your brain. Um usually it's better digitally, I will say. You can do it in like a binder, but it's harder for it to grow and morph and change because you know, things in our life change, and so having it digitally really does help. Um, but it's something outside of your brain that holds everything that your brain tries to hold on to. So tasks, ideas, appointments, appointment notes, curriculum plans, gift ideas, things you want to remember, your kids' shoe sizes, um, you know, home maintenance, you know, things that have been updated and things like that. Just anything your brain is required to remember, um that it has a hard time holding on to, that goes in my mental file cabinet. There's one place it goes, it goes in there, it's organized, and so my brain does not have to worry about remembering it. And the key to this is actually checking in with it um on a consistent basis, because if your brain realizes you're only occasionally dumping all of these things in there, then it's not going to trust that it's actually holding what it needs to hold. So uh this has been such a huge game changer for me. And I have been a huge planner and bullet journaler and all of the things over the years, but I've never fully implemented this routine until the last few months. And I cannot tell you that the sanity and the peace it has brought me to truly be more present in my life because all of these extra things that I was trying to hold on to, I don't have to hold on to anymore. So when everything has a place to live outside of your head, your brain can actually focus on what's happening right in front of you. You can focus on having new ideas, being creative, thinking outside the box, pouring into your relationships because you're not so focused on the stress that is trying to hold things in your head that your head's not good at holding on to. So I have just absolutely loved having this and will sing its praises. Um, and really am excited to share more about this in the upcoming months. Um, if you are interested in starting one or learning more about this, you can definitely check out my starter glue print. It has five different systems that I recommend homeschool moms implement right away. That will definitely help with the mental load and just carrying everything that we have to carry in the mental file cabinet is in there. So there's more information. You can go to homeschoolglue.com slash start to learn more. Um, and also if you download that, you can get a link to sign up for the wait list for the thing I'm working on. So keep that in mind. Um, it's free, but it's my little gift to you. Um, so if you're interested in in that, make sure you go to homeschoolglue.com slash start. Okay, moving on. My fourth thing is just more of a fun thing that I got for Christmas that we've been loving in our homeschool and just our home in general. It's random, but it actually is beautiful in multiple different ways. So I really kind of hate our Amazon echoes. I get they get unplugged and taken away often because all day long when the kids are using them, it's just like instead of Alexa, I'll say Angelica. Okay. So if you have one listening, it's not hearing me say the name over and over. But all day long I hear Angelica, next song, Angelica, no, I said this. Angelica, next song, Angelica, turn it up, Angelica, blah, blah, blah. And it it literally drives me crazy. So I kind of hate them. I think they're useful. Um, you know, we all have our own thoughts on them. But I wanted something, I was gonna say old school, but Bluetooth speakers are not old school. Um, but you know what I mean. But I wanted something a little less, uh, I wanted something that was not voice activated because that just drives me crazy. And something that my kids can't just change constantly because they live in the era of we can just pick everything, and it it gets a little old quickly when they are trying to and then they fight about it, and it just drives me nuts. So I asked for Christmas for this really cute vintage-looking Bluetooth speaker. So it's like this wooden, kind of like mid-century modern style um speaker, but it's actually a Bluetooth speaker, it also has a radio built in, and it's so cute. It lives in our dining room, which is also our homeschool room, and we use it every day. So we use it mostly for audiobooks during lunch. So we will use our YOTO player once in a while. Um, but if it's a book that I have on my phone and not on a YOTO card, we will just listen over the Bluetooth speaker because we have we listen to an audiobook every day during lunch, and that's like our family read aloud just for fun. And so we use it for that. It gets really loud, which is nice to hear over toddlers who squawk and babble, you know, and then the five-year-old who's constantly asking me questions or whatever. It's easy to hear over that. Um, it's very clear and it's really cute. But also we listen to sometimes we'll listen to our hymn or a folk song or our composer uh musical piece for the week. We will just listen to background music from time to time. You know, if the kids have song requests, I can pick the song, but I'm not having to like hear Angelica, next song, Angelica, next song, constantly. So um I really like it. We have listened to some um some radio here and there. There's not a lot of great stuff on the radio, but it is nice for that as well. And it's just so cute, and I just love how it looks in our room, and so we use that every day. I highly recommend, um, especially if you get annoyed with the echo like I do. I think it's a cool invention, but with kids, it just drives me nuts. So that's my little tip for you if you go nuts with that too. Um, similarly, another thing that we use and love that has made homeschooling easier is our YOTO player, and then I'm adding in Sherwood. So a lot of you are probably familiar by now with the YOTO players. These are, they can be used Bluetooth speaker, but also they are kid-friendly, screen-free-ish um speakers that you can put a card into, and the card has like an audiobook or music or a podcast or something like that. And so there is a screen on it, but it literally just shows a pixelated image. Um, if you're listening to a chapter book, oftentimes the chapter, each chapter has a different pixelated image, which I find really helpful, especially for younger kids. Like my five-year-old can't read yet, so she knows which picture goes along with which Peppa Pig story or whatever it is that we're listening to. Um, and so it's really helpful in that way, but they don't move or anything. The pixels don't move, so the the images don't move. And so it is a screen, but it's not a screen in the way we think of a screen today that's like moving and stimulating. It's more just uh a picture that represents whatever you're listening to instead of having text that says the title or something like that. So we love our Yoda players. We have a large, like standard size one in our dining roomslash homeschool room that we use often. So sometimes we'll listen to our audiobook on there. Um, when I was pregnant with our fourth baby, we were reading the Narnia series, and I would get so tired reading aloud during that first trimester. I was so exhausted. And so anytime I was trying to read aloud, I would start to fall asleep. And so instead, we would listen. We have all the Narnia books for our Yodo players. So we would listen to the Yodo card, and I could stand up and walk around and stay awake while we listen. So in times like that, it's really helpful. There are a lot of um public domain books you can add to make your own cards. There's lots of books that they have available that a lot of homeschoolers read. And so it can be a great way to have your kids, you know, kind of um outsource the schooling, like the reading allowed. You can outsource it to your YOTO. If you need to go do math with one child, you can have them listen to a story on the YOTO. It's also just great because my kids are getting so much more reading in than just what we read for homeschool, which is already so much, or during our silent reading time, which I'll talk about in a second, um, or during, you know, their own reading time, but then they're also listening to a lot of audiobooks throughout the day, especially before bed. Sometimes when they're like doing a craft or during our quiet time, they will listen. Um, and then we recently also got a subscription to Sherwood, which is also they offer a speaker, a Bluetooth speaker for your if you sign up for a year-long subscription. But it's it's different than the YOT. It doesn't have cards or anything like that, but it does have a huge library of living good, you know, um, quality books um for kids. I they also have ebooks, so it's not just audio, but we really have loved that. There's so many good choices. I feel really good about it, Yoto. There are definitely questionable books on there, and I I definitely have to research more before my kids pick books from Yoto. They also have some amazing Christian, you know, resources as well. So it's it's just some more, you know, they're a secular company, so they have lots of different options, but with Sherwood, it's always quality. Um, and I can rest a little bit easier when my kids are picking from that. It is a little trickier because I have to play it through my phone, but um, and and send it to the Bluetooth speaker. But um, overall, we have really loved that, having that as well. And so those two together have been wonderful. I can play it through the YOTO, but I also have the Sherwood speaker. As well. Or I could play it through my um my vintage Bluetooth radio. So lots of audio options out there for us as homeschool parents. Another techie thing that we've really been loving now for a year is our skylight calendar. You definitely don't need to run out and buy one of these, but it has definitely been worth it for our family. Um, I I was one of those when I first heard about it like a year or two before we bought it last year. I have a friend who lives a bit away, so I hadn't seen it in action, but she had talked to me about it, and I was just like, I just don't see how that's useful for that price, you know, to buy a whole thing that will hold all of your information. And you're not, if you're not familiar with what a skylight calendar is, it's basically this digital screen in a frame that holds like you can, it's mainly like a task and chore um calendar type thing. I'm having a hard time describing it, but there are like you have different um profiles, like you have your each of your children, you can have one for yourself, your spouse, whatever. And then you can s uh schedule different things for them to do in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and chores and things like that. And they can get stars and all the as they earn stars, they can cash them in for rewards that you've set up. There are lists that you can keep on there. You there's a meal planner, which we have used the last year. We're kind of switching it over a little bit to a different system, but um, you can keep your meals on there, you can have it display photos. A lot of homeschool families will put like their picture study for the week up there, or they'll put their schedule up there, things like that. You can put homeschool tasks in there and have them check them off and like homeschool sins if you want. Um, then there's the calendar to actually see like what events you have going on. Um, we use it to keep track of who we have different zones. I've have a whole episode on chores, so if you guys are interested in that, but we have each child every month is assigned to a different zone of our house. And so I keep track of what zone each child is in on our skylight calendar. So it's been a really great tool to use for our kids to check off like that they got dressed, they brushed their teeth, um, they did their chores, they practiced piano, all of that kind of stuff. And now they just added the feature. And I had kind of done my own way of implementing this a year ago, but now they have where there's an up for grabs uh portion of the task list, and so you can put different chores that any child can do, and they can go in and check them off and receive stars for that. Um, so it's been really great. My kids have been so motivated to do their chores and do extra things, and they don't get stars for everything, but they're, you know, the bigger things they do get stars for, and then they get to cash them in for rewards. For our kids, it's usually ice cream, money, or we do have an option they really love the toca boca or toca life world or whatever the video game is. It's like the main video game our kids ever play. Um, and they're always wanting to get like a $3 pack to get new like furniture in this game or clothing options or whatever. And so they usually will pick that um or getting like having ice cream as their reward. And so um it's been a really great motivator. It's been great to track things. I love having it. Um, I've loved having it in our kitchen on our counter because then when we're cooking, because we had our meal planner on there, you can just open up the recipes. So it's been really great. We absolutely love it. It's definitely made homeschooling and all of the chores and stuff like that and keeping track of it a lot easier. And so I I definitely see us using it for many, many years. Another really simple but very impactful thing that we implement in our homeschool is having a line leader and a movie chooser. So this one I've like gone in and out of using the line leader. It's been back for a good year. Every time we stop doing it, I we go back because of the bickering and the just, you know, especially I don't know if it's having girls. I don't know, it probably doesn't matter. But having girls, especially, I feel like they just, you know, they want to be the first to do this and they want to help, or they want to be the one to sit by mom or whatever. And I'm sure it's the same for boys. I just happen to have three girls in a row, and so that's the life I live. We'll see with my little boy if it's any different. Um, but we've, you know, they would they used to fight about who gets to get into the car first. I'm just like, really? And my husband and I were both, you know, my husband's an only child. My brother and I are 14 years apart. I was the second, and so we did not really grow up together, and we were so far apart that that wouldn't have been something we would fight about anyway. So it's just not a world that we're used to. And so having a line leader has helped so much because the line leader is the one who gets to do whatever it is that they would normally bicker about. They get to help, they get to pick out our son, toddler son's outfit, because that is what my daughters wanted to do. And so whoever's line leader gets to pick out his clothes, the line leader gets to get into the car first, the line leader gets to, if there's like we get to pick a fruit that day, they get to pick the fruit, they get to sit by me during silent reading, so on and so forth. The line leader is the one, and they don't fight it because they just know on their day they get to be the one. And honestly, I get it. I get it. I grew up basically as an only child, and so I always got to be the one to sit by my mom. I always got to be the one to do everything, and I didn't ever have to share any of that. And so I can definitely see uh why they they want to be able to do that stuff and that why it creates, you know, conflict. And so this is just a really simple way that they not only get to, you know, let somebody else go first, but they get to remember that, okay, I'm gonna get my day. Because as a mom, I rarely remember who did what last. It drives me nuts trying to remember who did that the other day. I don't remember. I don't even remember what I ate an hour ago. I don't remember that stuff. My brain has so many other better things to keep track of. And so having a line leader, I don't have to worry about that. Plus, the kids know it's fair, they're gonna get their day, they're gonna get their time to cuddle with mom at silent reading or whatever. And so they're way less likely to get upset about it because they feel secure that their time is coming. And it helps me as a mom to be more fair with stuff like that because it is easy for one kid to kind of convince you, you know, that they didn't get a chance when really they did, or you know, what have you, or their memory is not so good, and so one kid ends up getting left out. This really helps with that because I know it's consistent because I keep track of it, it's on a piece of paper, so I know who last had it, and they can't really fight with me about it. Same thing for movie chooser. We do movie nights on Friday nights, and we rotate who gets to pick the movie because um, you know, I always got to pick the movie as a kid, and so it's nice that each child has a turn picking the movie, and if they don't like it, we just remind them you don't have to watch it. You can go play. You don't have to watch the movie, and usually they stop whining about it and they watch the movie. So uh I definitely recommend those too if you're having issues with stuff like that. Another one of my favorites is quiet time. This has been a non-negotiable everyday, um, for the most part, weekends here or there, you know, or when things, appointments, and stuff happen. But for the most part, we have quiet time every day. We've had a napper in our house for 11 years now. Um, we, the way our kids are spaced, we've always had a napper. And so it just makes sense to have a quiet time to go along with the nap so that the napper can actually sleep. But even when we don't have a napper, I believe we probably still will implement this. Um, it is what has allowed me to build a business alongside homeschooling because I do work in the wee hours of the morning, but I also work during the afternoons, during this quiet time. It's also amazing because I am an introvert, and at least one of my children is an introvert as well. And this gives us time to refresh and recoup and just uh, you know, as an introvert, we can't fully, you know, we we have no control over how we get our energy. And so by having that quiet time, it allows us to gain energy again and to be um the best version of ourselves we can be going into the the latter half of the day. Um, you know, as homeschool moms, especially, like we are giving to our kids so much. I am like fully on from the second my kids are awake until they go to bed. And so having this quiet time just gives us all a little breather and allows that that time that we need. And for my extroverts, they're getting plenty of social time all day, and so it's great for them to practice, you know, being quiet and remembering that not everybody is the same as them. It has allowed my really creative kids to have time in the day to do crafts and things like that. And my second board, man, that girl is creative. And so, especially in the winters, she is just painting, making things out of clay, making towns out of boxes. Like she's just so creative. And so that gives her time to do that. Um, and it's it's just a wonderful downtime in the day, and we really love it. We even do it on the weekends for the most part, if we're home. Like this gives my husband, he will meal prep for work during that time, um, get yard work done, I'll get some stuff done around the house, or you know, sometimes we use it to take a nap, or we use it to uh I would bullet journal during that time or stuff like that for creative projects as well. It's just really nice to have built into the day. Now, are my kids perfectly silent during this time? No. Um, it's definitely something we work on. And during the warmer months, they're often outside playing. We have some neighbors who are homeschooled as well, and so this is a great time for them to get out and play. But regardless, the expectation is that they are quiet and that they're not disrupting other people. And so it has worked really well for our family. Um, it helped that I did daycare before this, so that that was just part of our day to have a nap time. But um, you know, now with three kids who don't nap and one who still does, it allows our little guy to still nap and get a good rest in, but we all are getting rest in other ways as well. Um, my ninth thing that has helped our homeschooling, we implemented at the start of this last school year, and that is silent reading time. I had listened to Sarah McKenzie's podcast, and she had done a whole episode on silent reading time. I will link that in the show notes if you're interested. It's kind of crazy to think you could have a whole episode about it, but it was fascinating and it really inspired me. I remember in school, because I went to public school, I remember loving both when the teacher would read aloud, which I already do a ton in our homeschool, so I have that covered, but also when we would just have silent reading time to read whatever we wanted to read. Now, I will say when we all had to read the same book, I could never do it because people would be turning the page faster than me. And so it'd be so concentrated on how fast I was reading that I wasn't actually focused on the reading. But when you read different things, and plus when you're at home with your siblings, I don't think there's as much like anxiety about that kind of thing. I don't know. At least my kids don't seem to have that kind of anxiety that I had. But um, when you have that time built into the day, first of all, we cuddle up on the couch. I do this right after our toddler goes down for his nap. So we'll spend 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the day, cuddled up on the couch with my line leader next to me. Um, and we cuddle up, we get cozy with our blankets and we grab a book. Sometimes my older daughters will save a book from the school day to read then. If we, if school kind of ran long and we really want to get outside, I'll ask them, like, do you want to read this now and not have time to go outside, or do you want to restrain silent reading? And they'll often pick silent reading time, which is fine. Otherwise, um, they usually will either pick a free read that I have a list of for them, or they'll just pick their own book. And I am at this point, I don't really care as long as they're reading something and it's, you know, a decent book. And so we will read my five-year-old is not an independent reader yet. So she will either grab some headphones and listen to the YODO, listen to a YOTO card, um, or she will just look at books. We have a lot of like chat books that she'll look at with pictures of our family, or she'll look at picture books, or she'll pretend to read a chapter book. That's cute too. Um, but it's great that she's building the habit of like sitting and paying attention to something quietly for, you know, for her, that's a pretty extended period of time. So um we sit down, we read. I love it because I don't get time to read during the day usually, unless it's an audiobook while I'm doing something else. And so it's helping me to get more reading in too, because I often am very tired at the end of the day. And when I try to read, I fall asleep. And so it has just been um the highlight of our year. My girls all say that silent reading time is their favorite time, which I think is so sweet. So I love that. It's definitely like just sitting next to each other, like you're not even talking, but it's bonding, you know, sitting with people and reading is somewhat of a bonding experience. And then my last thing, like this is pretty simple, but it really does make a big difference for me, and that is setting up my homeschool table the night before. So we homeschool, you know, our main homeschool area is our dining table. And so we eat meals here. Right now, we have breakfast at our kitchen island, but as our little guy gets bigger, that's not going to be possible because it can only fit three kids, and even that is pretty squished. And so um, right now he's in a high chair, so he doesn't have to be at the table. But as he gets bigger and moves to the table, we will have to figure this out. But I love setting up our homeschool table the night before. So usually after supper, we'll do our chores, the table gets clean, the floor gets clean, and then I will come in and set up all our books. If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen a lot of my different photos in the backgrounds of different things of our homeschool table. And I just it just brings me joy to look at it. Plus, it's just very helpful the night before to think about okay, these are the books we're reading. Like I already know what to pull out, but just I'll quick skim over like our history reading, or do we have a book of centuries entry for the day, or what do I need to get out, or this might be helpful to grab this to aid in what we're learning, or something like that. Um, it's just nice to kind of see what the day holds and get out any extra things that I think we might need and just get a sense of how long the chapters are for the day or things like that. Um, and then it's really nice in the morning because I can just come upstairs and, you know, breakfast is happening, we're talking, we're, you know, I'm helping make sure they brush their teeth and get dressed and do their hair and that kind of thing, cleaning up the toddler and dealing with diapers and all of those things. And so it's just nice to not have to also get out all the homeschool stuff. And it's great for my daughters who are older now, eight and eleven, who can transition to their first starting independent work whenever they're ready after breakfast. Some of them are earlier ready or earlier early, ready earlier than the others. And so it's nice that as soon as they're ready, they can just start, you know, practicing cursive or their copy work or looking over their um their paragraph for dictation and spelling and stuff like that. So that way um it's a much smoother transition than if I had to set it all up. They can just get started on it right away. And so, and it's one less thing that I have to do. So I really like that. I definitely recommend it if you're able to. Uh, but like I said, I don't know how it's gonna work for sure once our toddler is um at the table, which will probably be pretty soon. So I might just put stacks of everything to the side and then just bring it over after the table is cleaned after breakfast. But either way, it's just nice to kind of look over what's going to happen that day. Those were my 10 things that have made homeschool easier for me. Um, before I go, I want to tell you about my birthday bundle sale. This was um so well received last year that I decided probably going to do this every year. Um, it's, you know, I gotta say, my birthday is like the perfect timing to have a big sale for my shop because a lot of people are finishing up, you know, picking their homeschool curriculum for next year and in the process of buying everything. And so if there's anything in my shop that you've been eyeing, not only do I have curriculum, but I do have planners for the teacher and the student. I have my lessons with for littles that um lessons with littles that talks about activity ideas for those littles that we are homeschooling alongside and um just some practical advice and wisdom for moms with littles who are underfoot when you're homeschooling. Um yeah, so there are things in there that aren't just necessarily curriculum. And then I have, of course, my daily riches. I now have three volumes of that to fit in um all of the different riches from um Bible and scripture memory to poetry, composer study, picture study, handicraft, virtue reading, copywork, um so many great things, all in four days a week, in as little as like 15 to 20 minutes a day, depending on the day, but it's it's all laid out for you. We've absolutely loved it. I can't wait for year three for our family with volume three next year. So that's all in my shop. And the way it works is the more you bundle, the more you save. And so I will uh just read through the different codes that you would need to use, but I also will uh link a post that I will have up the day the sale starts, which is June 1st, it will start and it will end June 4th, and that post will have all of the codes for you as well. And so if you buy two items, you can use code 2 bundle, so 2 B U N D L E all Capital, no spaces, and you will get 10% off. For three items, you can use code three bundle, so three B U N D L E for 15% off for four items. You can use code four bundle for 20% off. And if you buy five or more items, you can use code five bundle for 25% off. So the more you buy, the more you save. Um, I know a lot of people last year really stocked up on some amazing things. I also have my morning menus in there, which aren't curriculum. Um, but I also have my buds, blooms, and bees. I have my voyage to Thanksgiving, I have seashore science in there if you're looking for science. Um, and I have my wonders of his love if you are already looking ahead to Christmas. So there's lots of things in there. Definitely check it out. Um, now is the time to save. This is definitely the biggest sale that I have all year, but there will be some other sales throughout the year. But this is probably the last one until the school year, so it's a great time to stock up. It runs June 1st through June 4th. Um, and it's my little birthday thank you to you. So um I will have more links and information also in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. Hope this episode was helpful and I hope you got something of value. And as always, happy homeschooling. I'll talk to you soon. I pray this episode blessed you and gave you something useful that will make homeschooling easier or more fulfilling. If this episode made you feel seen or gave you one thing to change this week, would you please share it and leave a review? That's how more homeschool moms who are struggling with overwhelm can find something that actually helps. You can always find me on Instagram at homeschoolglue where we talk simple systems, rich learning, and the real version of homeschool life. You don't need to do it all, you just need systems that stick. I'll see you next week. Happy homeschooling.