The Heart of Homeschooling

This week I’m talking about why it’s important to reflect, take stock, evaluate how the year went. So you can tweak what needs to be tweaked and set yourself up for the best school year yet next year!

I’m sharing the reflection questions I use for my own homeschool and then the ones I use when I’m thinking about how I personally did as the homeschool teacher. They’re both important to think about. 

In this episode I hope you embrace how far you’ve come this year or in all of the years of homeschooling. When you look at those reflection questions you’ll be able to see how much you’ve learned over the year or years.

And finally, I’m going to try to help you be comfortable with sharing your experiences and advice with those moms coming behind you who are going to be asking you how you do it all. 

When moms at church or anywhere else you go find out that you homeschool, they have a million questions, right?

Now I know you might not feel like the best choice to be advising other moms who ask you about homeschooling. 

But I’m going to give you some Biblical and practical encouragement to embrace the level of experience you already have and just share it with them. 

You’ve got a lot of wisdom to share, I promise!

You can grab a copy of the end of school year reflection questions here.

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

You know how we’re always wondering what to do with kids who don’t want to have school on any given day? 

They just don’t seem to want to sit still or pay attention. And it really starts getting bad when the weather gets nice?

It's the bane of a homeschooling mom’s existence!

Buuuut, what do you do when it’s mom who doesn’t want to have school? 

Time to fess up. 

You know it’s not just the kids who aren’t always in the mood for school. 

Right now, we’re wrapping up our school year and I have about one million other things on my plate and my mind and I just can’t seem to focus on school. 

So while I’m trying to stay on task and keep going even when I don’t want to, I thought I would hop on the podcast and talk about what I’m doing to hang in there just in case you’re feeling less than motivated to teach right now too. 

I’ve got 5 things I do to keep me moving, keep me steady and getting to the finish line at any given time.

I've got homeschool planning pages you can grab here  to help you get organized and have some mental clarity going into the next school year. 

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

This week I get to share another conversation I had with my friend and former life coach, Sarah Cramer.  I mean, she’s still a life coach, she’s just my  former life coach. 

But I’m excited about this conversation even more than last week’s because this is what I really  wanted to talk to Sarah about. 

She’s helping me through some fear I’ve been struggling with which I fully share in the episode. 

She shares her own personal struggles with fear of homeschooling, fear of losing her children, fear of moving across the country and gave a little professional advice as well, which I very much appreciated. 

I had a suspicion she would be the right person to help me with what I’m going through because I figured she must have come up against a lot of fear. For starters when she made the decision to live in that RV and homeschool her kids in it for the past year. 

And I was right! She’s got a lot of wisdom in there. 

So if you’ve ever struggled with fear related to homeschooling, you know things like, “I’m afraid this will ruin my life if I do it, or ruin my children’s education, or they won’t learn enough to get into college,” all those fun thoughts that run through our minds.

Or if you’ve got fear about anything else going on in your life like I do, then this is the episode for you!

You can visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

I brought my friend Sarah Cramer back on the show for the next two episodes. This week she’s sharing about how she’s surviving and thriving homeschooling her four active boys in an RV this year, traveling the country. 

We probably all think we could use more space to school our kids, but Sarah’s going to give you a whole new perspective on that. 

She’s figuring out how to get it done in 400 square feet. 

I also got to pick her brain on how she keeps all of her boys’ attention spans on math and all the other things when they’ve got awesome things to get to every afternoon. 

And even though none of us are parked at the Grand Canyon, I don’t know about your house, but there are A LOT of short attention spans in my house at this time of year. 

The trampoline in the backyard feels just as exciting when the weather’s nice. 

Sarah’s got some ideas for what we can all do to keep moving with school even when everyone’s itching to get out and go. 

You can follow along with Sarah's RVing adventures on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/the_coaching_cramers/

You can visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

This week I’ve got to talk about prioritizing REST in our lives as homeschool mom. 

Because we all need it!

And when you’re a busy wife, mom, homemaker and homeschooler, time for rest doesn’t just magically appear, we have to be a little intentional with fitting it in. 

Rest is so elusive in our culture as Americans, we don’t even realize it. We don’t have it built into our culture as a normal part of our day.

For so many other cultures, their days center around afternoon tea, siesta and long lunches. But in America, our days center around work.

We focus on work so much here, the first thing we ask someone when we meet them is, what do you do?

And maybe you didn’t need as much rest in the past as you do now that you’re homeschooling. But you do now  or you’re on the fast track to burnout town!

So I’m bringing you some thoughts and ideas and things that I do in my life to get the rest I need. And of course, bringing my cautionary tales of what happens when we don’t rest. 

You can visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

You know, those pesky problem areas either personally or circumstantially that make it hard to homeschool?

They bother us, they weigh on our minds, they can downright plague us. 

And I’m sure you’re thinking about every last one of them if you’re trying to decide whether or not to keep homeschooling next year. Right??

We can’t pretend they don’t exist, they’re totally real, so let’s dive into what we’re all dealing with and how we can either overcome them or just homeschool around them. 

This week I’m breaking down all those limitations into 4 different categories and tackling them each head on. 

We’ve all got 'em. They're our:

• Physical limitations
• Circumstantial limitations
• Intellectual limitations
• Personal limitations

And of course sharing what makes homeschooling so difficult for me.

I hope you get a good look at what other moms have holding them back and realize you’re not the only one. 

I’m also positive God has given us those hurdles to work around for a reason so let’s think about why that would be. 

I hope you’re enlightened, uplifted and encouraged when you listen!

You can visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

This week I’m talking about all the things making us tired or down right exhausted in our homeschools. 

Well, maybe not all the things, but I have 5 things I’ve struggled with at various times over the years that I think you might have too. 

The bad news is, they’re all things we’re doing to ourselves. The good news is they’re all things we’re doing to ourselves and we have every ability to change them. TODAY. 

You can have more energy TOMORROW, I’m serious!

That’s a big deal for most of us.

You’ve got to have something left in the tank at the end of the day for your sanity and for your husband.

But especially when you’re wrestling with whether or not to keep homeschooling next year, your energy level might be one of the things you’re taking into consideration. 

And it probably went on the cons list. 

So, if you’ve been wondering why homeschooling is zapping so much of your energy, let's take a stab at getting some of it back!

Grab your Daily Action Tracker in full page format here and in half page format here.  And start your daily mini-plan today!

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

This week we’re diving into the burning question, SHOULD YOU KEEP HOMESCHOOLING? 

I know this question is on a lot of hearts and minds at this time every single year. But especially for our covid homeschoolers, you’ve got a lot of thoughts running through your minds about where this homeschooling thing is going for your family. 

I have two of my friends joining me for a roundtable discussion about how we answer that question in our own lives. Because you want different ideas and viewpoints when you’re thinking through that question, not just mine, right? 

So I brought on Rosario Cintron, homeschooling mom of 3, household of 7, who’s going to be sharing all the reasons she has for not homeschooling next year and the reasons she’s still going to keep going. 

You can follow along with Rosario's life at her blog: https://rosariocintron.wordpress.com/

And my very adventurous friend, Sarah Cramer, who homeschools her four energetic and sweet boys in an RV while her family travels the country and learns through experiencing life! 

She also has some great insight into how her family chooses the lifestyle they choose one year at a time, including homeschooling. 

You can follow along with Sarah's RVing adventures at https://www.facebook.com/thecoachingcramers/

I hope hearing all three of us work through our thought processes will inspire you to prayerfully make some decisions of your own. 

We don’t all think about and tackle homeschooling the same way, so I hope you enjoy the different angles we come from!

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

Meal planning itself might not be fun, but it’s super duper fun to ditch decision fatigue when it comes to meals. It’s super duper fun to free up your mind to think about other things during the day. 

And it’s super super duper fun to save time and money when you stop making emergency grocery runs because you don’t have what you need to make dinner on any given night. 

So I think meal planning is fun!

Let’s give our families some more stability and security around family meals and together time at the table. 

Let’s just feel like we’re providing for our families and nailing this homemaking job. 

Plus, I hate thinking about what I need to cook during the school day. My kids need my undivided attention to get through the school day. And I want to give it to them.

This week I have a bunch of tips and tricks to get your started meal planning or tightening up the system you already have.

Grab your blank weekly menu plan here.

And if you want to check 3 weeks of my family's exact menu plan to use as an example, you can download that here. 

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!

This episode is all about the habit of taking action! 

Because sometimes it’s easier to THINK about something or maybe be “encouraged” when you hear someone else talking than to actually DO it. 

That’s a lot of us! 

Or probably ALL of us at some point in time in one area of our lives or another. 

And the thing about homeschooling is it’s a super duper action oriented vocation. Action, action, action all day long. 

Whether it’s the actual teaching, the organizing, the cleaning up from it or the planning, homeschools are always in motion. 

But even in the rest of our lives we might have really good ideas about what we could do with this, that, or the other thing, but we just can’t seem to get moving.

Or maybe we like to learn about new things and research things, but never get started implementing them. 

Because it’s tough! 

So this week I want to talk about how to get things out of our heads and move from idea to action. Or maybe from conviction to transformation if you feel like there are some spiritual things going on your life you need to take action with. 

Visit my site, homeschoolingwell.com, for this episode's transcript, show notes and all of the other resources I have to help you homeschool well!