Homeschooling & Loving It!

In this podcast you’ll hear from our host Jamie and her special guest educator, Nikki Wilson on the topic of handwriting.

Children are often bored or struggle with the fine motor skills involved with learning how to write letters. Nikkie shares several tips for helping them overcome these roadblocks along with ways to get them to smile!

As an educator, Nikki found several ways to help children enjoy handwriting and remember the process. Using rhythm in an exciting way, children become motivated and begin to enjoy handwriting time. Listen in for easy tips on how to help your little one using rhythm.

Read our Product Review for Rhythm & Writing.

Visit the Rhythm & Writing Website.

Sample lyric video.

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For some homeschoolers, homeschool assessment can be confusing and even challenging. Join Jamie, homeschool mom of 6, as she shares how you can make it simple and easy.

Once upon a time, in the quiet corners of suburban homes, families embarked on a unique educational journey: homeschooling. As they navigated this path, they encountered various forms of assessment to gauge their children’s progress. Let’s delve into the world of homeschool grading and assessment and explore the different ways homeschoolers evaluate their young scholars.

The Morning Routine: Every day, homeschooling parents don their teacher hats, armed with pencils and grade books. Their mission? To assess their child’s progress through daily grades or observations. These grades and observations weren’t just numbers; they were windows into understanding.

Formal or Informal? Formal assessment is the giving and taking of quizzes and tests while informal assessment is the observation that we conduct every day as we homeschool our children!

Flexibility and Freedom: Unlike traditional schools, homeschooling allows flexibility. Parents can choose when to grade, how to grade, and whether to grade at all. Some days, they skip the grading altogether, opting for experiential learning—a trip to the local museum or a nature walk.

The Quest for the Right Level: Imagine a treasure map with an “X” marking the spot. Placement tests served as those “X” marks for homeschoolers. Parents use them to determine the appropriate grade level or mastery level within the grade for their child. Was little Timmy ready for third-grade math or perhaps a leap into fourth-grade beginning algebra?

The Chronicles of Progress: Portfolio assessment was homeschooling’s grand epic—a saga chronicling a student’s journey. Imagine a thick leather-bound book filled with pages of achievement. Each entry told a tale: a poem penned, a science experiment documented, a painting captured. We’ll use Timmy as an example.

Showcase Portfolios: In the portfolio, showcase sections sparkled. Timmy’s best work—his eloquent essay on ancient civilizations, the watercolor masterpiece of a sunflower—found their place. These were the gems he’d proudly share with visiting grandparents.

Progress Portfolios: Progress portfolios whispered secrets of growth. Timmy’s early attempts at cursive writing, shaky and uncertain, now flowed like a babbling brook. His science notes evolved from scribbles to structured hypotheses.

Working Portfolios: Working portfolios held drafts—the raw clay of creativity. Timmy’s short stories, revised and polished, nestled here. His math scratch paper revealed the journey from confusion to clarity.

Virtual Portfolios: In the digital age, virtual portfolios emerged. Timmy’s blog chronicled his adventures—virtual field trips, coding projects, and book reviews. The internet became his canvas, and the world his audience. Visit this podcast for a cool app that let’s you create Virtual Portfolios with a snap.

State Requirements: Some states demand these portfolios for evaluation. Parents meticulously curate them, ensuring a balanced representation of the child’s learning odyssey.

Get this Free Homeschool Portfolio Cover Page Printable

The Patchwork of Laws: Across the nation, homeschooling laws are a patchwork quilt. Some states require detailed reviews, daily grade reporting, and insights into the homeschooling journey. Others simply nod and let families chart their course.

Annual Standardized Tests: In certain states, an annual rite awaits—the standardized test. If this is your fate, please take the time to prepare your students to help avoid test anxiety.

Two Categories of Homeschoolers: First, those accountable to the state—families reporting to comply with laws, their portfolios neatly organized. Second, those not legally considered homeschooled—perhaps virtual academy students. Records are created and maintained by the virtual school.

The Crucial Key, Understanding State Laws: For Timmy’s family, understanding their state’s homeschooling laws was crucial. It determined their testing path, their freedom, and their responsibility. They studied legal texts, joined homeschooling forums, and connected with fellow adventurers. Once their state laws were fulfilled, they had the freedom to choose how to grade and track their student’s achievement with their choice of method.

And so, in the cozy nooks of their homes, homeschool education unfolded—a symphony of achievement, progress, and memories made!

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Join Jamie as she interviews Kimberly Langen, a highly educated and gifted educator who started Spirit of Math in 1994 to challenge learners to think differently!

Kimberly has developed an alternative way to helping gifted and high performing learners stay motivated and learn mathematics in ways that align with their particular style of thinking. This podcast was very enlightening and if you have a gifted or high-performing learner you’ll want to listen in. Kim shares a great many practical tips on how to homeschool and keep your learners motivated.

One of my key takeaways was that mathematics needs to be taught in 4 steps:

1 Drill to build automaticity

2 Core Content including topics and spiral learning for younger children

3 Problem Solving in real world application that allows students to use reasoning and logic

4 Collaborative Group Work that elevated thinking, let them talk about it out loud it will stretch them to new reasoning

And something else I learned, in case you were wondering what the difference was between a gifted learner and a high performing learner:

1 Gifted Learner is a student classified as gifted by demonstrating a high level of intellectual ability.

2 High Performing learner is a learner that is simply very motivated to learn!

Don’t forget that it is also important for these learners to learn from failure. Learning from failure often brings about a new level of logical reasoning that wasn’t accessible before.

If you have a gifted or high performing learner and are feeling challenged on how to homeschool them reach out to Spirit of Math. They have regional classes as well as online options for homeschool students.

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Helping Your Students Pursue Their Excellence

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This episode is one of my favorites! In honor of School Choice Week, I was able to join several other homeschooling mamas who shared their ups and downs and encouragement for homeschoolers new and experienced! We had a great time talking about homeschooling and this episode is full of nuggets of wisdom from four very experienced homeschool parents!

If you are interested in learning more about homeschooling please visit our Getting Started Guide to Homeschooling.

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If you’re not sure if you can or even should homeschool, then this podcast is for you. Join Jamie and Stephanie Palazzolo as they chat about the rights you have as a parent and how to get started. Remember, you can start homeschooling at any time!

Some of the best advice for homeschoolers is that you know your child better than anyone, including a teacher. Don’t sell yourself short, you have been your child’s first teacher since the day they were born, and now that you want to homeschool… you can still be that amazing first teacher.

Take time to visit Stephanie at her site The Homeschool Expert to find help and get your questions answered!

Find more information about Getting Started Homeschooling here. Understand the steps to getting started and watch advice videos from our host, Jamie Gaddy. You’ll soon see that homeschooling is a wise educational option for your children.

Discover what your state requires for homeschoolers.

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What is pursuing “Their Excellence?” If you’re not sure, then you’ll want to listen in to this podcast with Jamie and Jessica where they dig deep into how you can encourage your kids and actually PLAN to help them pursue “their” unique excellence!

Our guest today is a leading expert in the growing world of “learning without walls”–Jessica Parnell, CEO of Edovate Learning Corp. Jessica is a published author, professional speaker, and former homeschool mom alum whose passion for children and education drove her to create and provide personalized education for students at all levels. Jessica specializes in e-learning solutions, home education, advanced education, and help for learning disabilities and is always looking to innovate in the homeschool space.

If you are interested in learning more about Bridgeway Academy, please take the time to learn more by reading our Bridgeway Academy Homeschool Curriculum Review.

Also if you are an unschooler and are looking for homeschooling resources, be sure to check out our Elephango Homeschool Curriculum Review and visit the Elephango website for more information.

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With the growing popularity of homeschooling and the wide selection of materials and resources that are now available, we know that it can be difficult for homeschoolers to find what they need and the basics of what they need to do to organize and keep records in their homeschool. In fact, over the years I’ve often had many questions about what records I needed to keep.

Today Corrina and I are going to discuss homeschool record keeping – – I know this is often a worrisome topic for many homeschool parents. Sometimes we are just not sure what is needed to keep good homeschooling records. It’s our goal today to help clarify just what the homeschooled family needs to be doing to maintain good records. Sometimes it can be difficult to understand.

For some families, the state in which they live will dictate what records are needed. Some states require details while other states require nothing at all.

Modify has developed an app that makes homeschool record-keeping simple. It’s perfect for those families that are more hands-on learning and less formal learning. Students can record and track learning moments independently as well as typical parental tracking. In fact, unschooling families love the Modify app.

Discover all the amazing things that Modify can help you with your homeschool. Click here to learn more about their app!

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Jamie shares her heart about family life and difficulties along the journey but also points to the fact that failure isn’t the end. Even if we have to set aside homeschooling for a bit, there is always a fresh start tomorrow. A Quote from Anne of Green Gables books, “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes.”

Ways to plan your new homeschool year:

Find New Homeschool Curriculum in our Awards

Learn more about Homeschool Products with Our Homeschool Curriculum Reviews

Find Free Planners for you and Your Students

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Let me introduce you to Phil. Phil Denniston is founder and CEO of InflationEducation.net, better bedtime stories revealing the secrets of the debt-based fiat money system using the pricnipals of liberty, sound money, Austrian Economics, and Natural Law. Phil holds a BA in Economics from the University of Colorado.

With InflationEducation.net Phil was able to marry his two passions: Understanding the history and mechanics of our monetary system AND using story-time with his four children (ages 5-14) to reveal the wizard behind the curtain, preparing them for the debt-based fiat money system that awaits.

It’s common knowledge that our country is in financial trouble. And most of us, as parents realize that we need to a step back and begin educating our children – and sometimes ourselves -about money and  for financial stability. But  I noticed when I was reading your bio, that you mentioned the “debt-based fiat money system”  These are terms that not all of our parents will be familiar with can you take a minute to help us better understand? (read more below)

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Phil’s Response:

One challenge for parents’ intent on preparing kids for the world that awaits is finding materials or curriculum revealing how the money system works. By that we mean not just the basics of finance – saving, spending, investing, compound interest, and borrowing – but the essence of money: What is money, what works in the role, what are its historical properties, and how is money created?

Most parents (and school systems) cannot touch the subject because they don’t even know themselves. All of us were raised to believe today’s money is just what it should be, and the only way it could be. Instead, we’re living – right now – in a historical aberration, using unbacked, debt-based fiat money.

Debt growth (both public and private) has exceeded economic growth (or our ability to repay) for decades, and the inflation that is now accelerating – $7 dollars for a dozen eggs? – is the signal that the money system itself is breaking down, unraveling in plain sight, as ‘fiat’ money always does.

Taking a step back, fiat means ‘by decree’. Thus, fiat money like the US Dollar bill, means ‘money because the government says so’, not money that’s backed by anything real or has been chosen to be in the role by the free market. For 5,000 years, what’s worked best as money is gold or silver. Paper notes or digital representations are fine, if exchangeable at fixed rates. This is called a “gold standard”.

Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution calls for just that-

“No State shall… make anything but gold or silver coin a legal tender”.

America’s founders understood the importance of money backed by a measured weight of gold or silver. This is unlike today’s money that can be conjured from thin air by banks and bureaucrats.

At InflationEducation.net, we use ‘better bedtime stories’ to help prepare your family, revealing the secrets of debt-based money using the principles of America’s founding – liberty, sound money, Austrian Economics, and Natural Law. These delightful, full color hardcovers bring it all to light, creating indelible memories for your kids as you mix them in with all the classics during that nightly ritual.

Our customers like to be prepared, thus lean heavily homeschooled. We back it with an unconditional Alliance Guarantee. Buy the bundle, save 40% now and forever, and if you don’t like them, we’ll refund 100% of your money, and you can keep one anyway. It’s that important these stories find your family.

Five titles (so far) include “Where does money come from?”, “Good-Debt, Bad-Debt and the Big Green Blob”, “The Big Bad Business Cycle”, “The Madness of Crowds”, and “The Beautiful Bitcoin Book”.

As wonderful as the stories are, the most valuable thing we offer is totally free. We developed an Ultimate Parent’s Guide to Money, Saving, & Investing, taking 25 years of our own research, shrinking it down to plain English, and using humor to make it simple and fun, including a Silver Saving System for kids, plus a foolproof 10-Step Plan to start them down the path of investing. They have an advantage today that they will never have again – the gift of time – to compound a lifetime of security and abundance.

They grow up fast. One second, you’re cutting grapes in half, and the next, they’re on their own, fending for themselves in a mixed-up world, an unanchored mess of finance and debt. Don’t miss the opportunity to open their mind, revealing the True North that our modern money system lost long ago.

Listen to more of our podcasts here!

Over the years in speaking with homeschooling parents, I’ve heard the phrase, “Homeschooling is making me depressed,” more than once from a discouraged homeschool mom. And yet, the majority of those homeschooling parents felt a lack of energy and inspiration specifically during the winter months! Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a harsh reality for many people during the long, dark winter, and adding the responsibility of homeschooling can make it more difficult. Even for people who don’t necessarily struggle with SAD, homeschooling in February is enough to make the most determined and inspired people feel like quitting.

By the time this month rolls around, the fun holidays have passed, and spring break is still far away. You have devoted hours of effort into grading, teaching, planning, organizing, and driving your children to lessons and classes. Homeschool mom burnout is highest at this time of the year, and you’re likely tired enough to feel it in your bones.

We’ve been there! I think it’s the most difficult month to stay strong, power through, and continue homeschooling. We want to help inject fun and encouragement once again in your family before the February blues become homeschool burnout depression. Join Jamie as she shares how she deals with burnout and keeps her perspective fresh.

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