Is Home Schooling Right For Me

I often get asked about how we knew home schooling was right for us.  For us it started out as the want and desire to stay together as a family when my husband would be on the road working 80-90% of the year.  I had the teaching background and we figured this was a sign from God, saying this was my purpose, since I also had not been able to secure a teaching position in any of the districts around us.  So, we took that leap, and to be honest, now I wouldn’t go back and consider any other option.

My reasons for home schooling now far out weight sending our girls to public school.  For us there are now so many more benefits, than just being together as a family. 

Before I paint the sunshine and rainbow picture perfect image that is home schooling you must determine if home schooling is right for you.  Using this printable check list, you will see many of the reason’s others have chosen to home school. It goes far beyond the religious and other mythical reasons you have associated with home schoolers in the past. 

I personally believe that if you have the desire to home school your child, then you can do it.  It does not take fancy degrees in childhood education to do so.  Starting home schooling is like starting anything that is out of the norm.  You must put in the work in or der to make home school like any other thing you tackle successful.  If your heart isn’t in it and your reason and goals are not clear it will not work for you.

I went through and put together a check list of things that might be reasons to home school your child.  These I gathered through various groups and research that there are a lot of other reasons people home school as well. 

So, go through the list (download it here), and see how many of the reasons ring true with your family.  Some reasons and benefits of home schooling may surprise you.

Still scared? I can help you further.  When you sign up with your e-mail to download the freebie, in a few days I will be sharing more of our home-schooling story with you.

Advice for the Crisis Schooler from a Home School Parent

With social distancing now being mandated no until June 1st, everyone is trying to find a new normal.  Schools are closed and so are many jobs and business at this time.  We are all trying to function, and we are all being thrust into situations we were unprepared for.

As a Home School parent, I have had the slight advantage of feeling fully equipped to handle my child’s education.  However, it has not always been this way.  I set out in life to be a middle school and high school English teacher.  I was not prepared to teach the preschool and elementary years, let alone do it in my own home.  I spent a few years sort of succeeding at homeschooling until I found our natural groove and rhythm.  There were a few things though that I needed to lose, and that was the mind set of public school.  While I would like to be advocating for more people to just become home schoolers now, that is not going to be the future reality for everyone.  Eventually life will go back to normal and things will resume.  In the meantime, though I would like to offer some assistance to those that find themselves suddenly homeschooling during this nation-wide crisis.  It is time we “unite”, so to speak, and get through this together.

Last week I offered guide to help your daily routine while staying at home.  You can still get that HERE.

Today though I would like to offer specific help for those Crisis Schooling.  You have found yourselves thrust into educating your child and working at home now.  I want to offer to help with some of the things I had to unlearn as a public-school teacher and ease the transition of schooling at home during this time.  Some of these ideas overlap a little with my Daily Routine Guide, but I wanted to share how to help specifically with education at this time. In no particular order, I hope the following things help you manage your school time at home with your children better.

1. School will not and does not need to take all day.  We are often done with school by lunch time (we usually start between 8:30-9 most days).

2. Give yourself and the teachers you are working with from your child’s school Grace during this time.  No one knows exactly what they are doing, and some are making it up as they go along.  Be gracious if something is not working out, and don’t harbor attitudes that will affect your child during this time. 

3. Get into a daily routine.  Do not be regimented to times.  There are a few exceptions to this.  If you have work things that must happen at a certain time, or your children are scheduled to be online with their teacher at a certain keep those times.  Everything else however let it take a more natural flow and sequence.  Lots of people are putting gout daily time schedules.  They are great in theory, but not practical currently. 

4. Do not be afraid to use all the amazing free resources that are out there at this time.  Don’t become overwhelmed by them but pick a few favorites to use during this time.  Great audio read alouds, virtual field trips, craft ideas etc, are a great resource to allow your kids to use while you must schedule your own work time.

5. Do not try to replicate school at home.  You are not a classroom of 20-30 students.  This ties in with school not taking all day as well.  You won’t have the activity transitions, lining up time a transporting from activity to activity that a normal school has.  Your child also doesn’t have to sit rigid and still at a desk.  Allow them to be comfortable sitting on the floor with a clipboard or book.  Take school outside if the weather is nice.

6. Designate a little organization for your “school” items.  This needs to happen especially if you have a lot of paper or books that need to be returned to the school or you have to submit work.  Keep everything thing in a folder, backpack, basket etc. so that you know where everything is every day and you won’t have to chase it down the next day.  You don’t need fancy bookshelves and desk or a designated room, but you do need to keep it all together so that there is some organization. 

7. When you are working with multiple age level kids set them up for independent time apart from each other. (this could just mean at opposite ends of the table).  There are things each age can work on, on their own, without your help so that you can give instructions to your other child or work with them on something that requires instruction.  For independent work give your child clear expectations of what they need to work on.  You could write a simple check list of items for them to do each day.  Have them wait with questions until after you are done working with your other child. 

8. If you find yourselves with babies and toddlers during this time, they can join in with you.  Give them things that they only get to use or paly with during “school time”.  Set them up with a coloring sheet, a free play activity etc., the table or wherever you are all working together.    Pull these items you’ve set aside out only during this time.  The rest of the day they play and interact as normal.  Make these items feel special to them. 

I could go on with more and more advice, and I may write another post later in the weeks to come, but for now these are a few things that I think will help most of you during your time of Crisis Schooling. 

A Shift of Focus: What the Future Holds for Momma Bear School

First off, I love writing about our homeschooling journey.  I love sharing what my girls are up to and what they are learning.  I also love trying to reach other homeschooling parents. 

That being said, and allowing myself to be totally transparent here, I feel that I have been failing with this blog.  I am not personally impacting others as I had set out to do when I first began this dream and concept 3 years ago.  While I am not seeking to get rich or have vast amounts of fame, I genuinely feel that this blog has not been serving the purpose I had originally set out to accomplish.

It has been on my heart for many months now ways to accomplish my goals of helping others in the homeschooling community feel confident in themselves and their abilities to meet the schooling needs of their children. I have prayed open heartedly for God to intervene and direct the next steps in my journey.  I first tossed around the idea of creating resources for parents, but with the lack of audience interaction with the blog, I didn’t see how this would accomplish my goals either.

However, in February I was led to a webinar about Teacher Burnout.  While I am not burnt out as a teacher (because let’s face it I have the best teaching job ever), I was burnt out with this blog and its inability to reach my goals. 

My mind has been able to refocus these last few months, with some more praying, planning and work behind the scenes to realize this dream I have had for awhile now.  I envision helping people who are feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of homeschooling their child.  Maybe they have been told that because they lack the kills or the degree that they will be ineffective to their child and will be a disservice to them.  I want to help those that have started to research what it would take to either pull their child out of school or never send them in the first place, because in their heart they long to make a bigger impact on their child’s education.  I want to find those people and offer them both encouragement and the tools that they need to successfully set up and start homeschooling their child.

Instead of focusing on this blog as it stands right now as a “failure” I am choosing to now see it as a steppingstone to what the future can now hold. First things first though, this blog will not be ending.  I will still be posting and creating content for blog post, but with a slightly different focus in the future.  In the interim I will be still posting updates, but as I’ve stated this year I will be reducing those wrap ups to the end of each of our school quarters.  I will write up two posts, one of the things we have done together and another focusing on the girls individually.  My goal is to have one other post a month still relating to homeschooling.

WHERE THE SHIFT COMES IN

I am working currently on a way to expand myself by creating a “boot camp” for parents of a week to two weeks where I help them navigate the ins and outs to begin their homeschooling journey.  In addition to this I am also going to be setting up coaching individuals who need or want the extra help behind the scene.  From choosing curriculum, making different curriculums work for their unique child and helping the establish routines, schedules and fostering the love of learning they are seeking their homeschool to be. 

Once I launch this program the blog will shift into this platform and continue as it has in the past.  I’m hoping to highlight families (that are wiling) and their success along with the continued success of our homeschool and the journeys and adventures we are undertaking.

So I am asking all old and new blog post readers to hang in with me as I begin to shift the focus and content of Momma Bear School and be able to help others in the process.