- Okay, so, you are homeschooling now,
and you weren't expecting to be, maybe you knew
that you never, ever, wanted to homeschool, or you knew
that you were interested and always wanted
to give it a try and hey, here's that chance now.
I don't know where you're coming from, but I know
that we're all in the situation right now,
where we're more home bound, and learning to adapt to that.
That includes me.
I've been homeschooling my kids,
basically since before they were born.
It was what I wanted to do, my daughter's now 12,
she's been homeschooling her whole life.
And then I also have a 10-year-old, a six-year-old,
a two-year-old, and a new baby.
So that's where my experience comes from,
and I hope that I can help you right now,
in this very unexpected situation,
that most of the world is in.
First I wanna say that we are all different people.
One of the things that I love about homeschooling is
that I feel that it really caters to our differences.
I call it ala carte schooling, because I feel
like you can kind of pull the different things
that work best for your family, your kids,
their learning styles, your needs as a parent or caretaker.
So that's the good thing.
The difficult thing about that is
that there isn't an easy solution,
like one thing for everybody that's gonna just work.
So, what I would love, is for you to fill out
in the comment section down below, any questions you have,
whatever your personal experience is right now,
or your personal needs, and I will do my best
to find the most similar answers
and create videos according to those needs.
Because I don't want to waste your time,
I wanna make sure you can find the videos that really have
to do with what you're dealing with right now
in your situation, as much as I can.
I know a lot of you will have questions like,
how do I homeschool my seven-year-old, when I have a baby
at home right now?
How do I work from home,
and also have four kids now in my house?
How do I deal with the fact that I need to work,
and I now have a five-year-old at home,
who needs me completely.
I know you'll have questions like that,
I'd love to get your specific scenarios,
and just really specific questions.
Especially since I'm not exactly familiar
with how the schools are handling it.
I'm seeing different school responses.
So I'd like to know how many people are actually getting
like packets and workbooks that they're supposed
to be working on, and how many people are just kind of like,
on their own and trying to figure it out from nothin.
And how many of you have access to resources or funds.
I know people have different budgets,
and this is completely possible to do, on no budget.
This is completely possible to do on on budget,
especially now that we have computers, like whoa,
free things on the internet, that's awesome.
So I will make a video
that lists my favorite free online resources,
I can also make a video of some
of my favorite curriculum and resources.
But I also wanna be aware of the fact
that we might not be able to do online shopping,
like if people are having hiccups in delivery,
I'm trying to be aware of that.
I don't know if that's a big issue, but, at least for me,
when I've gone to do some of my online shopping
in the last day or two, there's definitely been,
at the very least a slow down.
It's not like, day of delivery,
that we've been seeing more commonly these days.
So I wanna be very aware of the fact
that some people will not be able
to purchase anything at all.
Either because of financial reasons
or because of like delivery and shopping options.
I will in this video give one universal piece of advice.
Because I do feel like one thing we all share is the goal
for our children to grow up and be able
to live on their own.
So, one thing I wanna focus on today is the fact
that this is an opportunity for us to all have our kids
at home, and to do some extra at home training with them.
And this goes to me too
because my kids have been getting older,
and they've been going more and more
to classes during the days, as opposed to being at home.
This is something we focused on a lot
when they were like toddlers, and pre-school aged,
but something that we've been distancing from naturally
as the kids have been getting older
and spending more time away from the house.
So I'm going to be focusing on our life skills,
I'm gonna focus on our kids doing more cooking,
and cleaning, and general social skills,
like between each other.
Not that my kids aren't socializing, because they do
that a lot, but more so, behaviors like kindness
to each other, how to apologize, why do we want
to follow the golden rule, and be kind to people,
and treat them the way that we would like to be treated.
Just to really dive deeper into intentional behaviors,
as opposed to just being with other people,
and that's fun, and this is why it's fun.
So yesterday, for example, we went and we did some planting.
So my husband was able to take the kids out to the garden,
and they were able to plant, and have that responsibility
of getting their hands dirty,
and actually putting in that work.
And then we were able to talk about that cycle of,
what you plant then grows, and can provide for your home.
And then from that, it stemmed into science discussion,
and just a really natural discussion,
about all that plants and gardening can entail.
And so the reason I bring that up is because,
to me that is a perfect example of homeschooling success.
You take something that's an actual need in your life,
so like, okay we would like to be reassured
that we have an ongoing food source, right?
Not in a way to panic you, or worry you, but just like, hey,
why weren't we doing this before?
We should make sure that we have our garden cared for
and prepared if we need to have food
that we're planting on our own.
So you take that need, and then you go okay,
the kids are gonna join in,
and they're going to learn some responsibility, be helpful,
because it's nice to not have to take it all on ourselves.
As that's happening, they're learning how to plant
for themselves in the future, they're learning how
to be helpful in general, just good citizens.
And then you can actually talk about the things
that are going on.
You can talk about science, there's a ton of biology,
and life cycle things that you can talk
about when you're looking at plants.
And then you can also go from there and do like,
basic math discussions, it depends on the level of your kid,
but if they're little, like Duncan,
he can count the tomatoes,
that are like little green ones growing on the vine.
If they're older, you can go in to like,
addition, multiplication, subtraction.
And part of the reason why I'm talking
about this particular example for homeschooling,
is because I'm also trying to be aware of the fact
that a lot of people out there won't have text books,
or workbooks, or computers or things
that they've been given by a school.
I know a lot of you guys do have packets and things.
I won't exactly know what the majority of needs are
until you fill out the comment section down below,
so I'm trying to share the most simple, inexpensive,
no resources at all, solution for homeschooling.
And also, this is actually my preferred way to homeschool,
it's considered more of an unschooling,
if you wanna look up that word.
It's kind of a controversial arena
in the homeschooling land, but there's some great things
about it too, and it's just the concept of,
looking at the world around you, and what you're interested
in, in that moment, and really diving in
and learning about it.
And I think that, that can really be a great thing.
In trying to be respectful of the fact
that some people might not have any resources at all,
I'm gonna start there, and then we'll pivot
and look at other ways,
when you do have different resources, or different needs.
And I understand also people aren't all going
to have gardens, but this is just an example.
And I also wanna say, this is always gonna be perfect,
you know, like, you might be talking about one thing
and be like, oh my gosh they are learning so much,
and then you look at them and they're like,
smudging dirt all over the place,
and then they start fighting, and it's like (sighs),
but don't let that get you down.
Any time that I see things like that, first I'll have
that initial, (growls), reaction (laughs),
a lot of the times,
but then I try to turn it in to like, okay,
so what do they need?
Like, if this turned into fighting with each other,
how can I help them to be respectful
when somebody's talking?
Maybe I jumped into this too quickly,
and we need to go back and just work on those social skills,
or that cleaning skill, or whatever.
So my big tip, that I think is universal,
is to really look at your child, or children,
and their needs right now.
And use the time to assess, how you can help them the best.
And to look at what they're struggling with as a person,
and to be able to help them with that.
And to really just focus on those life skills.
The big take away I want you to have from this is that,
this is a time where we can all work
on our home and life skills.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And when you're getting frustrated, with your kid,
with your situation, with whatever is going on around you.
Take the time to stop, and think about how you can learn
from it, and how they can learn from it.
If it's reading the news, and you're finding
that you're getting a lot of anxiety or frustration
from that, think about that, and go like, well,
what about when my kid is reading the news,
and getting anxiety and frustrations, how can I talk
to them, for in the future,
for how I would hope they could handle this.
Or for yourself, recognize that you're having that anxiety,
and that one thing might help you is a cup of tea
in morning, like me I love starting my day
with a cup of tea.
Almost all of my children are trained on how
to make a cup of tea because they
wanna make sure Mommy's happy first thing in the morning,
and if I'm happy and at peace,
like we all have a better morning.
So they actually really enjoy bringing me tea
in the morning.
And I think that, that's really special,
and it was something that we had to learn.
Like the kids had to learn it, I had to learn that
about myself, that I perform better if I have a little glass
of tea, I can feel all cozy and really excited
to start my day.
So, I try to make sure that, that's there,
either from the kids helping me with it,
or from me helping myself with it.
The takeaway is, instead of getting frustrated completely,
like get frustrated a little bit, I understand.
But instead of completely just being upset
about your situation,
or something your kids are doing in a moment.
Learn to stop and look at that as a learning opportunity.
Getting into the habit of going all right,
this is something I can help them with,
and I can teach them,
and it will make their whole lives better.
You know, if it's a basic thing like picking up a towel,
off the bathroom floor.
That's like the number one complaint you hear
in relationships, like, oh, my husband never picks
up the towel off the bathroom floor.
So like, you have the opportunity right now,
to stop that issue, in your child's future relationships.
And that's awesome.
I'm also not trying to completely ignore,
like the school and the long division, and all of that.
But I just wanna share with you that,
universally we have this ability right now
to really focus on our life and home skills,
and that's really cool.
But please, ask me your questions, tell me your scenarios,
and I will do my best to answer you.
This series obviously isn't planned,
but I have had a lifetime of personal hands on training,
to be able to hopefully help you.
And you're doing great.
And I believe in you,
and you're gonna get some extra time with your kids.
Let's try to do our best to focus on the positive,
even when this is a very unexpected time.
(soothing music)