homeschool mom Archives - Page 5 of 5

That Homeschool Stress Though!

When you first thought of the idea to homeschool your children you probably imagined yourself being the next Elizabeth Thatcher, cultivating a great relationship with your kids. Helping them learn in a fun way with a big smile painted across your face at all times. Patience abounding from every corner of your heart, as you teach with deep understanding and constant kindness. But, two months into it you find yourself wearing your pyjamas for the entire day. You don’t remember when the last time you brushed your hair was, shower? Let’s not even talk about a shower. And, that patience and happiness that you thought you’d portray? Ya, you’ve currently placed your children in their room prisons because their attitudes have caused great irritation in your mind. All those activities and art projects you saw on Pinterest and thought ‘We’re going to do these!!’ Are now crumples of paper and popsicle sticks and one is currently glued to your first grader’s math while the other art disaster is stuck to the table. Your house hasn’t been properly cleaned since ….September? And, your favourite meal is cereal.

You sit down for a break and open up your phone to see another homeschooler on Instagram. Her hair’s done, she has make-up on, she’s posting pictures of her clean house, her perfectly set-up classroom, and her perfectly dressed children. Suddenly, you think ‘What am I doing wrong?’ Suddenly that stress that you were feeling has been impacted and now you feel not just the horrible stress but the feeling of inadequacy. The thoughts ‘Why can’t I do a good job like her?’ ‘Should I even be homeschooling?’ ‘What am I doing wrong?’ Are all flashing through your head. This stress just adds another layer of tension to your already tense shoulders and you feel much more snappy than you did this morning when you woke up.

Before you get to that point, I want to stop you right there. I want you to remember -before you look through the series of perfection Homeschooling parents on Instagram- that you are doing an incredible job. Parenting is hard, parenting during a pandemic is hard, taking care of a house is hard, working is hard, working from home is especially hard. But, you’re more than likely doing most of -if not- all of these things. You are incredible! You have to stop looking at all the things you ‘aren’t’ getting done and start looking at all the things you are accomplishing! Most people would look at your daily life and just curl up in a ball and say ‘NOPE.’ But not you. You’re tackling it all.

But stress, stress is the hardest part of all of our lives. So, what are some tips that we could use to calm down the Homeschooling/parenting stress and instead give us a small dose of peace?

If you haven’t already, listen to The Schoolio Podcast -Episode 5- ‘Tips to Help you Navigate the Stress’ on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1tnFc9JUnzHQ4C7zWtRHbB

or find The Schoolio Podcast on your favourite podcast streaming app.

P.S Don’t forget to subscribe!

Why Your Kids Are Driving You Nuts.

You’re now a few weeks into homeschooling and hopefully by now you’ve started to find a groove. Or you’ve learned 82 ways that DON’T work and you’re still searching for a peaceful rhythm.

Let me ask you this: Are your kids driving you crazy?

Are you wondering how on earth the veteran homeschool moms handle this gig? How do they stand being with their kids so much? I mean, you love those kiddos to pieces and you would literally jump in front of a bus for them, but they’re like, literally always here, am I right?

You’re probably wondering, when do you get a break? When do you get time to yourself? Your kids seem to need a question answered or a snack approved or a fight resolved every 5 minutes!

So, here’s the veteran homeschool mom secret: Homeschooled kids are actually more independent.

I’m sorry to say it, I hope you don’t feel offended, and I know there will be people who disagree. It just doesn’t fit the stereotype that homeschooled kids can’t “cut the apron strings” or “have no real-world experience.” (Trust me, if there was a fake world I had access to, I’d be seriously considering moving in as 2020 carries on, but no matter where I go, here I am in the “real world”.)

People ask me all the time about when I get “time to myself” as a homeschool mom. And at first, I wasn’t sure how to answer. I mean, when I think about it, you’re right, they ARE always here aren’t they? I hadn’t really noticed… I mean, I know they are here. What I truly mean is, I have LOADS of time alone. Half the time I’m really not sure WHERE my kids are. They are home, that I know. But are they in their rooms reading, in the basement playing a boardgame, outside in the backyard? I don’t know. It’s possible I haven’t heard a peep from them in an hour or more.

I write for a living and my desk is in the living room. The living room! Does that blow your mind? I can work in the living room with my kids also in the living room and no one bugs me for long stretches of time. Did your head just explode? My kids aren’t special. They are totally regular kids. Homeschooled kids.

The problem could just be that the school system actually teaches kids to do all these behaviors you are finding obnoxious. And the only way to really fix it is to wait. This is a matter of time, and patience, while your children unlearnsome of the non-academic things school has taught them. I’ve written a list of things the school system has taught your kids that may be driving you bonkers in your early days of homeschooling, and how to help minimize this type of behavior:

1. Asking permission.

Kids in school learn that they have to ask permission for ev.er.y.thing. Need to get a tissue? Sharpen your pencil? Use the washroom? Get a drink of water? Ask. Permission.

I understand why they do this in school: classroom management. You absolutely cannot manage 30+ children with one adult without a lot of rules and asking permission to do anything that’s different than what the rest of the group is doing. It’s a necessity of the school system. But remember now that your kids are at home, they are used to an environment where they can’t make their own decisions and get up and do something on their own. So when you’re trying to get some work done and hoping your kid can do one simple math page independently, but two minutes after you sit down he’s standing beside your desk chair, saying something like, “Ummm, I need my pencil sharpened…”looking lost and confused and you’re thinking to yourself, “SO SHARPEN IT!!! Why does this need to involve me?!?!!?” Don’t pull your hair out just yet. Take a deep breath, and remind your child that he can sharpen his pencil on his own, he can figure out where and what to do, and in the future he can just do it, without your permission first. Be careful not to simply give the permission they’ve asked you for, or this will just continue. Simply empower them to make their own decisions by gently reminding them every time that they don’t need permission, and they can do what they need to when they need to do it, because you trust them to make those decisions.

2. Being constantly scheduled.

Odds are, if your kids have spent time in the school system, they’ve gotten pretty used to having every moment scheduled for them. Classes are scheduled, breaks are scheduled, which subject is delivered when, for how long, and the content of that lesson, is all planned out by adults, and your child had zero say in any of it. And if you’re anything like us when our kids were in the system, school takes up so much of your life that your evenings and weekends are usually pretty planned out too with extra-curriculars, obligations, errands, scheduled playdates, and family outings. Your kids are just not used to making decisions for themselves or deciding for themselves how to use their own time.

This is why you get the “I’m bored”. And you look around at the dozens of toys, games, books, and technology that litter your house and think, “HOW?!? HOW are you not entertained?” But it’s not a matter of not having anything to do, it’s a matter of not knowing what to, because they aren’t used to that kind of choice.

If you think the solution is to micromanage their time, it’s not. I mean, you certainly can, if that brings you joy, and it’ll get rid of the “I’m bored” dilemma, but it won’t teach them anything. Instead, help them brainstorm a mega list of all the things there are to do in your house, and pin it up somewhere. Forbid the words “I’m bored” under threat of chores if you want to, and encourage them to figure out their own entertainment, without (gasp!) any direction from you.

3. Rushing

When my kids were in school, life was a constant rush. As soon as they got up in the morning it was rushing to get breakfast, get ready, get lunches packed, get everyone out the door on time. Kids are rushed and hustled around all day at school:

“Quickly and quietly through the halls please!”

“The bell rang, let’s get a move on!”

“I’m going to count to 3 and by the time I’m done I want everyone in their seats!”

“Get your snowsuit on! Get your boots on! Let’s go, you’re going to miss the bus home!”

The peaceful pace of homeschool can be such a culture shock, for your kids AND you. You now have the ENTIRE day to get 2ish hours of schoolwork done. Do you ever get that anxious, twitchy feeling that there are things that you need to be getting done? You know, that feeling you must be forgetting something important? Kids can feel that too! But they’re less capable than adults of labelling their feelings and anxieties and the roots of them. So, while you might just ring your hands, they might jump around on the living room furniture while you’re trying to have a Zoom meeting with your boss.

Try writing a schedule and putting it somewhere they can see that shows them all their free time blocks. Let them visually see how much free time there is going to be today and talk with them about what they think they might choose to do in those times. This will help them feel less uncomfortable with having open time, and help them learn to entertain themselves, if you begin with helping them make those unfamiliar decisions initially.

4. Fitting In

I’ve talked about the armor our kids wear to protect themselves at school, so I won’t bore you with that rant all over again. But I will say, fitting in is a survival necessity in school social culture.

When it comes to academics, kids also learn to assimilate and blend in. They learn that the “right” thing to do is to have the “right” answer. No outside the box ideas, no brain dumps, rants, or long trains of thought allowed- you’re holding up the class!

As a teacher I know that there’s always those kids who wants to tell you a 20 minute story about what their dog ate for breakfast, or go on and on about the new Pokémon card they got- and you half-listen while bustling around the room trying to get everything prepped and set up. Nodding and giving an “uh huh” as often as you can. Until you finally have to interrupt them with a gentle, “That’s really lovely, but I need you to take your seat now so we can start the class” or “That’s a great story, but we need to let someone else have a turn to talk now.” That child has unfortunately been shut down, shut up, and discouraged. It’s not the teacher’s fault- a classroom is a busy place and s/he has other things to do, other children to attend to. S/he DOES need to start class and other kids DO need a turn to talk. The longer your child has been in the school system, the more this natural curiosity, and love of learning, speaking and expressing their thought process has been shut down.

With your kids learning at home, if your aspiring veterinarian wants to talk about what the dog ate for breakfast in great detail, you can listen. You can google a YouTube video on dogs, you can talk about carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, you can look at pup’s teeth to see how they differ from our own. You can make that train of thought an entire lesson if you want! Try not to stifle their thoughts when they come pouring out!

Maybe your child isn’t like this though. Maybe when you try to “make learning fun” (what a weird saying- when did learning stop being fun?) by letting them choose topics of interest all you get in response is “I don’t know”.

Maybe you try to teach in a Socratic fashion by asking questions, and all you get for answers are “I don’t know”.

Remember that they’ve learned in school to give the right answer, briefly, so class can move on. And they’ve also learned that if they don’t have the right answer, someone else will. So, what’s the point in giving it any lengthy thought? The answer will be provided by either another classmate or the teacher within 30 seconds! This is why your child is so quick to answer with “I don’t know”. In school, you don’t need to think about the answers to questions, you either have the answer or you don’t, and if you don’t, class moves on.

They’ve also learned to only learn what they’re told to (and because that rarely interests them, they’ve also learned to do the bare minimum required). When you ask something as open ended as “What would YOU like to learn about this year?” that question may just be so big and new that they actually “don’t know”.

They’ve never had a choice in their education before, so that may just be too big a question right now. Grab some pre-made curriculum or make your own plan on a topic you think they will like based on their interests and go from there. Help them re-open their minds and imaginations and rediscover their love of learning, and their ideas will come back to them!

The bottom line is, hang in there parents. You and your children are brand new to homeschooling, and you both have a lot of unlearning to do. Your groove will come. Your rhythm will be found. Be patient, be kind, be forgiving, take it slow. Lower your expectations. Now lower them again. Hang on to your sanity in these early days of this crazy new ride, and before you know it, you’ll have smooth sailing ahead of you.

Lindsey Casselman is a writer, teacher, and mom. She is the founder of Linden Tree Learning and a valued team member at Schoolio. Lindsey is passionate about helping all parents gain the tools they need to have a successful homeschooling journey.

Welcome: Schoolio Planning Freebies

What do you need to accomplish in each day when homeschooling? How can you keep your homeschool on track and set realistic goals that can be easily obtained without throwing you into a frenzy? We love our Schoolio Community, and we care deeply about how you are feeling as a homeschool parent. We don’t want you to feel stressed or worried that you are missing something, or spending the entire day trying to reach unrealistic goals.

So what is the best way to have a successful school day? Planning is the best strategy to begin with. So we had our expert planner, Lindsey, create some awesome free schedule planning tools to help you stay on track and not get overwhelmed.

One Month Calendar

Starting out by planning your month is a step in the right direction. You can include field trips, school days and days off on your monthly planner. Pro tip: Use pencil to fill out your monthly calendar, so you can easily erase and update.

Sometimes the plan has to change, that’s totally normal with homeschooling, so be sure to use pencil or erasable pen.

Now let’s break it down to a one week plan, Lindsey created an excellent template for planning out the week. In this planner template, every day is slotted to include Math, Science, Language, Art and so on. Be sure to write down what lessons in which subjects on what days they should be accomplishing them. Remember the Pro Tip, changing up the plan is totally normal.

Weekly Planner

The weekly planner comes in 1 student or 2 students form. If you have more than one child learning from home, you can take advantage of the Weekly Planner for 2 students. If you have more than 2 students, print out more than one page to match the number of students.

It’s beyond important to us that you are happy with your homeschool journey. Because we believe that homeschool should be enjoyable for you and your child, it doesn’t have to be ‘another stressful thing’ added to your already full plate. It can be such an enjoyable ride, that you and your child will never forget.

Take advantage of our free weekly planner and monthly planner downloads. Made free, because we care about your success, time and happiness.

Download our FREE Weekly Planner and One Month Calendar:

Weekly Planner – 1 Student

Weekly Planner – 2 Student

One Month Planner

Let’s Talk About: Planning

When I talk about planning, I’m planning in two different ways: Long-Range and Short-Range. My Long-Range plans are my overall scope for the entire year, which I do before the year begins. My Short-Range is planning week by week, which I plan continuously all year long.

Let’s start with Long-Range planning. First I make a list of all the units I’m going to cover within each subject. If you’ve purchased an all-in-one curriculum like Schoolio, you basically already have this list in your table of contents.

I have two kids, and for efficiency of teaching, I teach them both all of each other’s Science and Social Studies. What does this mean? Well life gets crazy if I’m trying to teach my sixth grader a unit on Electricity in Science at the same time I’m trying to teach my fourth grader a unit on Animal Habitats, so instead they both learn Electricity, and then they both learn Animal Habitats.

When we do the sixth grade unit, my focus for understanding the content is on the sixth grader, for my fourth grader this is an introduction to a topic she’ll understand better in two years. But there’s no reason she can’t participate and learn now. When we turn to the book work, I either photocopy it for my fourth grader (if I think it’s level-appropriate for her), or they work on it as a team with the sixth grader at the helm doing the writing.

When we do the fourth grade unit, my focus for understanding the content is on the fourth grader. For the sixth grader this is a review of a topic he learned two years ago. But there’s no reason he can’t participate and get refreshed on the topic. When I ask questions and when we move to the book work, I remind my sixth grader to let the fourth grader have a go at most of the questions before he provides any answers.

So all that to say, for two kids I am Long-Range planning twice the number of subjects.

The reason long range planning is important is because you want a general idea of how all your subjects fit in to your year. You may have certain subjects you want at certain times of the year (for example, if you’re doing a unit on plants and you want to grow something, you may want to save that unit for the spring), and you also don’t want to get so caught up in one subject that you run out of time at the end of the year for other subjects you were excited about. You also don’t want to move too quickly and complete everything you wanted to for the school year in March, only to wish you’d gone deeper on the subjects you’ve already finished.

Here is an example of a Long Range plan on our Schoolio template for my grade 4 and grade 6 kiddos:

Sometimes I space certain subjects out, and leave entire weeks blank. These are usually my kids’ least favourite topics, so I like to give them a break from it here and there to refresh their minds and not drain them.

I also like to wind down a term by dropping subjects gradually in the weeks before a break, and warm up to a new term by gradually adding subjects after a break.

I also know certain weeks (like mid-November all the way until the new year; or when the weather turns nice in mid-May until end of June) are going to be extra busy with travel, family, or field trips. I never want to have to turn down an experimental, hands on learning opportunity like a field trip because I feel like we’re “behind” in traditional academics.

Once I have my Long-Range Planning done, I’m ready to start my year feeling more prepared in the knowledge of what subjects we are covering, and when. If you’re writing your own material, or you’re trying to figure out how many days per week you want to do a subject, these are easier to backwards plan from this Long-Range plan. If your Science is 10 lessons and you want to complete it in 5 weeks, you want to do Science twice a week. If your Science is 20 lessons and you want to complete it in 5 weeks, you need to do Science 4 days a week, and so on.

Next step is Short-Range planning, or weekly planning. One thing I will say about weekly planning is this: Do NOT plan it too far in advance! You never know when something (or several things) will mess up your best laid plans. Maybe a math lesson just isn’t clicking with your child and you find yourself needing a bunch of practice days before moving on to the next concept. Maybe a spontaneous field trip comes up, someone needs a sick day, or your kids are loving the science topic and you do two lessons in one day. You just never know! And these days WILL happen. Planning weeks and week in advance will cause you to have to redo your schedule many times. I’m a planner by nature and as a teacher I learned to have most of the year laid out well in advance, and I’d love nothing more than to plan my entire year down to the hour, then laminate that sucker and put it on my wall. But in homeschool that just doesn’t work. Trust me on this. I’ve learned this lesson over the years, and now I never do more than two weekly plan templates at a time. Even then I sometimes have to make changes, and they’re a scribbled mess by the end of the two weeks.

Here’s an example of two weeks of weekly planning for my two children:

Week One is very straight forward. I’ve used my purchased curriculum and I’ve slotted in the prescribed lessons in the recommended order. Easy peasy.

As you can see for some lessons my kids will do the same material and for others they will use other material.

Like this:

Their Language (writing) have the same topics, I just have different expectations of the level of work handed in from each of them. This is really helpful to have them both working on “autobiographies” on the same weeks, even if they have very different skill levels in writing.
Both kids are doing Gr. 4 Life Systems in Science.
Both kids are doing Gr. 6 History in Social Studies.

For the subjects that they have different work, like math and grammar, I like to handle them one-on-one. This looks like, one child has free time, or I’ve assigned some silent reading, while I work with the other child alone. It really depends on the kids and their strengths in various subjects. For us, my kids can each work on their own grammar at the same time, because I know only one of them is going to need much help from me. But when it comes to math I want to work with them separately, because I know they will both need help from me. Remember, you are not a ping pong ball!

Week two is starting to show off the beauty of homeschooling.

First a note, see how I plan in practice days, especially in Math? Not every day needs to be a new lesson, in fact, it shouldn’t be, or you’re not going to have all the information well understood and solidified. After many years of teaching my own children, I’m getting more familiar with guessing where they will need more practice and where they won’t. This is based on their own unique needs, but even with experience you just never know. In Week One I guessed my sixth grader would need an extra day to practice integers. It turned out he didn’t. In week two I thought my fourth grader would need two days to practice adding and subtracting to 10,000, it turned out she only needed one day of practice. Yes, here we are in week one and two, and we’re already veering wildly off course. Welcome to homeschooling!

And then, Nana and Papa ask to visit us for the weekend, arriving on Friday – yay! There’s no academics more important than quality family time, so, out with the plan again!

Here’s the changes I made to accommodate their visit:

I switched Creative Writing (usually on Wednesdays) with the final lesson for autobiographies (meant to be on Friday) so that the kids can finish up their autobiographies before Nana and Papa visit, and then I’ll have them prepare to present them orally to their grandparents. The grandparents will LOVE it and the kids get to practice an oral presentation AND share their hard work – triple win! And while they do independent creative writing on Friday morning, I can clean some of the house in preparation for guests.
I’m going to bump our reading time slot on Friday over to Thursday. I’m doing this so I have more free time to prep for guests Friday morning. No big deal, that’s an easy change that makes my life easier.
We will do our spelling test as scheduled, that doesn’t take much time.
Let’s just straight up cancel math it’s a) Friday and b) company! Doing Math is just nuts at this point.
We’re going to add an extra Science lesson on Friday afternoon Because the kids love Life Systems and I know Nana and Papa would love to watch a lesson in action. This is a fun one I know the kids will be engaged with.

One of the greatest parts of homeschooling is flexibility. We can take Friday off entirely if we want to and just be present with the grandparents, and the kids won’t “miss” what’s happening in the classroom. Because the classroom waits for them. Remember never force your life to fit around school, make homeschool fit your life, because life is what’s truly important.

Lindsey Casselman is the founder of Linden Tree Learning and a valued team member here at Schoolio. She not only writes the curriculum for your children, she also homeschools her own children and manages her hobby farm. This woman wears a super-hero cape under her clothes as she works hard to ensure that every parent enjoys their homeschool journey.

Would you like a copy of these amazing planning templates? Simply fill out the form below with your name and email.

In the message section write “Would like free templates” And the templates will be emailed to you in pdf form.