Homeschooling Outside the Box

While I am not able to do interviews right now, I want to bring you some great talks from past seasons.

Join me for the replay of a fantastic interview with Melissa McMahan.

Homeschooling High School…what is it about this phrase that makes even the most confident homeschool mama shake in her boots a little? The expectations seem to go through the roof. The pressure from the elusive yet always present critics "out there" seems to double. And the group of moms who've gone ahead of you who have the credibility to cheer you on seems to thin out drastically the longer you homeschool.

Melissa McMahan – YouTube host and mother of five lovely daughters – has homeschooled from the beginning and is still going strong with high schoolers in the mix and she's here to tell you…don't give up. High school can be a really wonderful and rewarding time with your children despite the extra weight that it brings.

Join us today as Melissa encourages us to find the joy in homeschooling our children during high school and use it as a time of connection and preparation for their launch into the world.

• Why you should take the high school years seriously…but not in a fearful way
• How humility is the secret trick to homeschooling high school
• How mom's role shifts in the high school years
• How to have a "together time" in the high school years
• How the high school years look when you have younger ones
• The value of car time
• Why homeschooling high school is ideal for OTB kids
• Why you shouldn't quit before the harvest
• All about the coolest field trip Melissa ever took her girls on
• How to get prepared to launch your kids into the world

This is the crux of it all.

When you are homeschooling kids in the K-8 range, you are in the sweet spot, my friend. The pre-school years are largely spent cleaning up messes and putting out fires (hopefully only theoretically ones, but you never know), and trying to get a handle on how to run a home with littles running underfoot. You're building your philosophy(whether you realize it or not) and coming up with routines to create a (mostly) well run home. While I would argue that Kindergarten is really part of the early years and doesn't need to be lumped with the school years, I understand that's a pretty counter cultural opinion. For the sake of this article let's agree that we're talking about kids who have started formal schooling, around age 6 or 7, or Year 1 in Ambleside-speak.

The high school years are a different animal in many ways, the lens often focused on the future. More complex subject matter, heavier work loads, afternoon jobs, friends, formals, sports, hobbies, dual enrollment classes, prep for the ACT, and post-high school plans disrupt what was previously a lovely and semi-predictable homeschool routine. While it's a good, healthy, and necessary thing to grow, the bittersweet truth is your homeschool will begin to feel different as you have less control over everyone's schedule.

Don't get me wrong; I love both the precious moments of the pre-school years and the independent nature of the high school years but when most people think of homeschooling — at least the homeschool of Instagram reels — I'm sure images from the K-8 years are what come to mind. And not without good reason.

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While I am not able to do interviews right now, I want to bring you some great talks from past seasons.

Join me for the replay of a fantastic interview with Andrew Pudewa.

Are you raising effective communicators?

Andrew Pudewa is a well-known name in the homeschool world and for good reason. His ideas on effective communication and the arts of language - listening, speaking, reading, and writing - have helped to shape our homeschool over the years.

I'm excited to share with you today some practical and thought-provoking ideas on how to help your child - no matter what his challenges - to become a more effective communicator and to understand why it's so important.

In This Episode You'll Hear:

• how you can help your children to grow in their thinking and communication skills
• how the Four Arts of Language will make you think differently about Language Arts
• why age and ability have little to do with each other
• why IEW's products work so well with all children, no matter what their challenges

• Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW)
• Suzuki Method
• Andrew's "Nurturing Competent Communicators" Talk
• Sarah Mackenzie and the Read-Aloud Revival
• "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
• "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer
• The Arts of Language Podcast

Isn't this the best month of the year to talk about this?

It seems like January is the time we all want to finally get our lives together and give a valiant effort to do so.

Despite our best efforts, though, somehow the new of the year wears off over the months and by the time the weather warms, life is in its lovely, unavoidable spiral once more.

So why bother?

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In case you missed it...

Join me for the replay of a fantastic interview with Ainsley Arment.

Childhood is a unique growing time for our children; educators, parents, and experts have known this for years and yet childhood often gets swept under the rug at the expense of rigorous academics and a schedule full of structured activities. Children are, for the first time in history, busy. Schedules have largely replaced curiosity. Organized programs have taken priority over free play. And if we're really honest, I think us mamas can admit...it's just too much. What would happen if we embraced a more "wild and free" approach to childhood in our homeschools? What type of atmosphere might we be able to create for our families?

The Wild + Free movement had its humble beginnings about six years ago when Ainsley Arment started an Instagram account to gather and inspire other moms in quest of this "wild and free" type of childhood for their children. What began as a few moms sharing experiences and tips on the internet has grown into an online and in-person community of over 177,000 mamas strong. Wild & Free is not a method; it transcends - and therefore welcomes - many homeschool philosophies and makes room for all mamas to educate their children in a way that works best for their family.

Join us today as Ainsley and I explore the benefits of living Wild + Free in your homeschool.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Ainsley's journey to becoming a Wild + Free homeschooler
• What a Wild + Free education looks like
• Why childhood matters & how we can preserve it
• Ainsley's favorite parts of homeschooling, as well as the most challenging
• What we're reading right now
• How to balance it all...or not ;)
• How to be a Wild + Free mama

Show Notes

• Wild + Free Website
• Wild + Free Holidays
• The Call of the Wild + Free Book

This is it, guys. The final episode of the series. We made it.

It's a big one, too — five principles jammed into one article but they all have to do with wonderful, wonderful curriculum.

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Ah, Christmas.

The lights. The music. The traditions.

The bustle. The gatherings. The Reason for the season.

Starting this month, I'll be gifting my paid subscribers with a bundle of rhythms to help celebrate the season from month to month. They're called "Everything" guides. If you've been around for a while, these are the classic everything guides reimagined and much improved ;).

In the spirit of Christmas, I'll be giving access to everyone this month only. I hope this resource blesses you and — if you're not already — that you'll consider coming along next month as a paid subscriber.

I hope you find some great ideas to help you savor December and celebrate this time of year in a way that is simple and special at the same time.

Click here to enjoy December Everything.

Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Cindy Rinna

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We should teach children, also, not to lean (too confidently) unto their own understanding because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration of (a) mathematical truth and (b) of initial ideas accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide but in the latter is not always a safe one, for whether the initial idea be right or wrong reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

Therefore children should be taught as they become mature enough to understand such teaching that the chief responsibility; which rests upon them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas presented to them. To help them in this choice we should afford them principles of conduct and a wide range of fitting knowledge.

If there is one principle that could have a ripple impact on our current culture, I think it's this one. Understanding the importance as well as the place of reason is crucial and I think it's a gift we can give our kids, especially in their teen years.

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We may offer to children two guides to moral and intellectual self-management which we may call 'the Way of the Will' and 'the Way of Reason.'

The Way of the Will: Children should be taught (a) to distinguish between 'I want' and 'I will.' (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts away from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (This adjust of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort that we may 'will' again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development., and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

"The great things of life, life itself, are not easy of definition," Charlotte begins and true, we must ponder, 'what is the will?' As it concerns us here, her definition of its function is sufficient: "Its function is to choose, to decide, and there seems to be no doubt that the greater becomes the effort of decision the weaker grows the general will."

I'm supposed to be working on my next episode of the "Summer with Charlotte" series that I've been slogging through this summer these past few months but after wrestling through fits and starts in my head I realize the answer is, as usual, simple and honest, if not immediately obvious.

I can't.

Not, I can't ever. I just can't yet because something has happened and writing anything before you, dear listener, know about it feels incredibly dishonest.