What does homeschooling mean to you? I’m not talking about the method or curriculum. I’m talking about the deeper meaning, the reason you get out of bed in the morning and instead of packing the kids off to a traditional school, gather them around the table for breakfast.

Join your speaker, Felice Gerwitz, a homeschool mom since 1986 who wasn’t sold on the idea until she tried it!

Handouts here – remember to honor copyright.

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Show Notes

Speaker 1 (00:02): 

This is a production of the Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network. Welcome to the Vintage Homeschool Mom. Show your host police GWiz as an author, a publisher, and your radio show host. She will encourage, educate, and inspire you with answers to your most pressing questions from homeschool, marriage, parenting, and much more. Felice loves to equip moms to live a Christian life because every moment counts. Be sure to visit her website@mediaangels.com. And here’s your host police Go with. 

Speaker 2 (00:41): 

Welcome to all of you who are listening today. My name is Fe GWiz, and I am your host for the Vintage Homeschool Mom Show. I am so excited to be coming to you live from my little studio at home. I am a homeschool mom. I’ve homeschooled since 1986, and I am married to,I call him my best friend Jeffrey. Uwe’ve been married for 34 years this year, and,it has been such a journey and such a blessing,to be married to this amazing man who is very, very encouraging, especially about this radio network. I’m gonna go into a little bit about who I am. For those of you who are listening for the first time. This is our first show in the Vintage Home School moms. But,I am the founder of Media Angels, Incorporated, which is a publishing company, and I publish curriculum,seminars and webinars with Ultimate Homeschool Expo as well as many,classes that we’ve recorded for homeschool students. 

Speaker 2 (01:52): 

And obviously, my heart is for homeschooling. I started out as an educator and when we when I married Jeff and we moved to beautiful Fort Myers, Florida I was planning on, you know, teaching, changing the world through the educational system and never even considered homeschooling. And so here I am, years later, since 1986, I’ve been homeschooling five children all these years. Two are graduated, obviously, and adults. And then I’m still homeschooling three more. If you want more details about, you know, who I am and some of the things that we’re trying to accomplish here with the Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network of which I am the founder please go to the Ultimate Homeschool Radio show there. One of my co-hosts, Meredith Curtis, who will be sharing a show with me every month the first Monday of the month, Meredith and I will co-host a show here at Vintage. 

Speaker 2 (02:59): 

And sheswitched the tables on me and interviewed me. So,that show s on, hat, hat show page. So if you go to Ultimate Homeschool Radio show, you’ll be able to hear the interview and that way I can launch into my talk today because we are going to talk about homeschooling. Um consider myself a veteran homeschool mom since I have homeschooled since 1986. And I laughingly like to say <laugh>. It’s, ou know, I’ve homeschooled since the di dinosaurs Rome, the Earth. And my kids say, that sounds dumb, but that’s how I feel. Sometimes. I get up at the convention and will share, seminar, t a live event. And I’ll tell people that I’ve come school since 1986, and they were probably in middle school, and they start by shaking their heads going, No, I couldn’t have been. 

Speaker 2 (03:51): 

And then they start saying, Oh, yeah, I was. So, I’ve been at it a while. My youngest is 13, so I still have a ways to go, and it has been an amazing journey. And because my homeschooling started changing as I progressed on, I wanted to share some of that with you. So being the teacher that I am, I want to start with a simple little, what I’m gonna call the unofficial vintage He school Moms test. If you’re listening to this in the archives streaming through our assess feed or iTunes, I wanna welcome you. And all of the handouts are going to be on a a page on our website. So of course, as this is our first show, that page is not up. So currently you know, if you want the handouts you can email me@felicmediaangels.com and we’ll send you the link. 

Speaker 2 (04:51): 

But there will be a a link for all of the handouts the day of the show on our list and live page. So we’re gonna be taking questions at the end. So those of you who are with me, if you would like to ask some questions, you can just go through and do that at any time. You know, it’s it’s fine. I won’t get to the questions until the end of the broadcast, but I wanted to allow you to join us, listen live, and you know, do that, you know, just join us and, and share with us on our community here. Fine. So let’s begin. I wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of a question and you know, a little test here, question and answer session here, where you could go through and mark either yes or no to the following questions. 

Speaker 2 (05:46): 

And I’m gonna go through them fairly quickly because I want you just to, you know, maybe in your mind, figure out, you know, well, gosh, I don’t know if I consider hunt spilling a lifestyle or if I, you know, it, it basically describes what I do, but not who I am. And, you know, we’re not gonna get into the theological question of, you know, obviously, you know, you are a creature of God if you’re a Christian, and so we’re not gonna get into you while I’m not, you know, lifestyle homeschooling, that’s not who I am. So just bear with me, you know, to take this unofficial vintage home school mom test. So anyway again, for those of you listening, if you go to vintage homeschool moms.com, you’ll find information about the handouts there. So let’s start answer yes or no to the following questions, and you can number your papers one through 10, or if you have the handout, you can follow along with me and just put a y for yes or an n for no. 

Speaker 2 (06:48): 

All right. Number one, do you consider him fulfilling a job? Is it part of what you do each day? You know, yes or no? Number two, do you consider homeschooling a lifestyle? It is a part of the fabric of what your family has become. You are, quote, unquote homeschoolers. Number three, do you homeschool out of need? For example, do you have a child who is special needs are gifted, or you are homeschooling for a specific academic reason? For example, you don’t think the school system is very good. You think you can do better than the home, than the school system, or there is a specific reason that you are homeschooling that is more on an academic you know, surrounds more academic or a need. 

Speaker 2 (07:43): 

Okay, number four, do you homeschool because of a greater purpose? You homeschool because you want your children to exemplify, you know, virtues, whether they’re Christian virtues or character virtues. Good character you wish to raise godly children or for family unity, you would consider any one of, or all of these the main reason you homeschool. Okay? So number four is yes or no. You are homeschooling for a greater purpose. Number five, if you’re right to homeschool with threaten, you would be very upset, but you would give in realizing there is nothing you can do. 

Speaker 2 (08:24): 

Number six, if your right to homeschool is threatened, would you resist with every fiber of your being and hunker down for a big fight? Number seven, do you grow weary and become mentally challenged and drained from a daily fight to balance school and household chores? Number eight, Are you working at balance? But realize some days works? You keep that greater goal in front of you because you recognize giving up is not an option. Number nine, do you track every academic and extracurricular subject? For example, grades for academic sports field trips, or if you go on a field trip, you have them write papers. Anything that is related to school is neatly recorded somewhere. Okay, it’s neatly recorded somewhere to be sure your child is not missing out on a well rounded education. 

Speaker 2 (09:37): 

And number 10, if your life an extension of homeschooling, do you track most of your child’s academics and extracurricular subjects as required by your state law? But you acknowledge that much of your child’s learning comes outside the classroom. Okay, So I want you just to tally, you know, your yeses and no, and and then I’m going to give you the answer to my unofficial test since I created the test. I I have, you know, a slightly vested interest in, in, in the scoring here. So I’m going to share that with you at the very end of the broadcast. So just stay with me. Okay. So we are talking about counseling and whether it is a lifestyle or if it, if you consider it a job. And I think I came from an educational background, especially when I first started. 

Speaker 2 (10:43): 

I had a son who was not going to fit into the school system. And so I was really stressed trying to ensure he was getting the best education possible. I felt that if I had left him in the school system, he would fall through the cl the cracks because while he was special needs, he was high functioning and I wanted him to receive every opportunity. So I really, really stressed over getting Neil the best education. His diagnosis was a form of down syndrome called mosaicism or Trisomy 21. And it was the 21 chromosome number 21 was damaged. So that really sent me into a tail spin. And all of my plans, you know, took nose dive, and I think I looked at home education as the worst of the possible options available, but the only one I felt myself backed up into a corner. 

Speaker 2 (11:43): 

And so I started homeschooling and did a lot of what I listed out for you here in our unofficial past. I documented everything. If we went on a field trip, I, you know, Neil wasn’t very verbal, so I would have him draw pictures to document what we did. I kept a, a portfolio that would’ve rd anybody’s in the state. And in fact, when our school system at the time would send someone to our home, you know, I had no idea we, we shouldn’t let people into our home from the school system. I gladly opened my door, let them in, and they were so impressed with what we were doing, especially with science that they brought out the science coordinator for Lee County School System. And she came to, to see what I was doing because she had heard such rave reviews from the lady who had checked my portfolio the year before. 

Speaker 2 (12:45): 

And one of the things that they commented on that they were very impressed with was the fact that I was one of very few homeschoolers that had a, a school schedule where I had times and I even documented recess. And if we went on a field trip or the library, everything was neatly documented with the time. And, you know, like for example, from 8 45 to nine o’clock, you know, pledge prayers, calendar and weather, you know, we would look at the weather and put it on the chart, and I had a bulletin board up and they just were, you know, I basically, I’d recreated the school in the home. And again, there’s nothing wrong with either of these. In fact, if you scored that you are you know, homeschooling is what you do, or you score that you are a lifestyle homeschooler, neither one of these is a wrong thing. 

Speaker 2 (13:39): 

I don’t want you to think, Oh no, I failed as a homeschooler, because this show is to be encouraging. You are listening today because you’ve been called to homeschool, and if the Lord has called you to homeschool, then he will equip you, You will be equipped because of this calling. So I want you to realize that there are no failures and God does not make junk. So you know, if you are down on yourself, you really need to, you know, keep these words in front of you and, and really think about that because you know, this is to be an encouraging time for you to realize that, you know, there might be some things that need to be tweaked. Look, I’ve been homeschooling since 1986, and there is stuff that needs to be tweaked in my homeschool day and my life. 

Speaker 2 (14:27): 

In fact my daughter who I homeschooled all the way through K through 12, and she graduated from college and now it’s homeschooling. Her little ones she set me took me aside a few years ago and she said, Mom, you know, the kids are not having fun. You know, not her kids, my kids, meaning her siblings. And she wanted to point out that some of of the things that I had done for them when they were younger, I had, you know, pushed aside in favor of a little bit on stricter curriculum for these guys, and that they were complaining and saying, you know, that the schooling wasn’t you know, really what they had hoped it would be. So everyone goes through a you know, either an attitude check or, you know, reevaluates their schooling at some point. So, you know, while I’m you know, feeling that this, these are my years of mentorship now, and I can help you from what I’ve learned, you know, please know that even I get corrected and I am willing to make changes for the better, you know, especially from my family and when it’s done in love. 

Speaker 2 (15:37): 

So, you know, just look at this and, and analyze, you know, what is working for you? And you know, what, what, that, that really is the bottom line. Is it working? And you’ll know that it is working by, its not just the outcomes, you know, that your children are learning, but also the outcomes of what you know your family you know, is it’s what’s happening within your family and the closeness of your family. For many years, that was my goal and my dream, and I grew up in a very close-knit family. We are an Italian household. My parents were immigrants, both from Sicily, and they came to this, this country as it was, you know, for them, just such a land of opportunity. And I don’t think I’ve ever lost that. You know? Yes, we have it a lot easier than my parents did when they came over, you know, virtually penniless. 

Speaker 2 (16:33): 

But the point is, you know, it’s more than that. It was that family was the most important thing, you know, family mattered, and of course, God was over family. So our faith was really number one. And as an outcome of that love of God, you know, that was our family. That was a blessing from the Lord. And so, you know, that is how I have raised my family. And I found that with homeschooling, it just comes, it becomes a natural part. You know, for me, homeschooling definitely did not start as a lifestyle, but it has become a lifestyle. And once it became a lifestyle, I felt the burden lift. I wasn’t so panicked that I, you know, we were not going out for recess at 9 45, you know, to 10 o’clock, and then coming in and having snack at 10 0 5, you know, after we had a bathroom break and washed our hands. 

Speaker 2 (17:34): 

And, you know, I, I look back at some of what I created here at home, and I thought, you know, well, for that time period, especially for my son, he loved the idea of a schedule. And that for him helped to keep him on track. It’s not for every household. It’s not for every, you know child. And so sometimes I see families do a one size fits all. So I want you to look at, you know, why do you homeschool? What are the reasons for your homeschooling? And if you could just jot that down. And then if you are new to homeschooling, I wanna say welcome. And you are in for an amazing journey. And if you are, you know, have been homeschooling a few years, or have, are a veteran homeschooler, you know, you may wanna look at, you know, have your reasons for homeschooling changed for, for me, they did. 

Speaker 2 (18:30): 

And when they did, they really changed for the better. I found that it was the most incredible thing because again, I went from being very scheduled, and, and that is not my nature. So if you’re thinking lawfully, you know, maybe you’re just a super organized person. I know those of you that are listening in the audience are probably choking right now, because I always say that, you know, I am a big picture thinker. I like to be creative, and I love art and doling on paper as I’m talking to you right now, you should see my, my paper. I have the same handouts that you have as you’re listening to this show. But I mean, mine have trees, swirls, circles, and little arrows, and you know, that helps me to think. Also, I am not detail-oriented, so the fact that the Lord gave me you know, this, these different businesses to run is really a testament to prayer and my prayer life, because it makes me stay on my knees. 

Speaker 2 (19:37): 

So I don’t forget the important details that I need to do. So, you know, scheduling does not come easily to me. It was something I, I was taught as an educator. So, you know, that part was really easy for me to do, but it’s not something I like doing. And, you know, my nature really box at a schedule. So having one within my school for that season worked. But right now, our, our schedule is so much different. So for me, it really changed incredibly. And that was, you know, really really a life-changing event because what I found was it was going to give us a chance to do some different things. One of them was my daughter’s interest in writing. And just today I was on a group within Facebook, and I noticed somebody was asking a question, saying, You know, my two children wake up and they’re really excited. 

Speaker 2 (20:40): 

And I think they were very young, I wanna say like eight and nine, or eight and 10. And they were, they’re writing a screenplay. So every day they get excited and they’re writing their screenplay, but she’s upset because they have a person that they’re not getting done. And you know, her husband’s upset because they’re not able to finish their schoolwork. And so she wanted to know, you know, what other people thought of it. And it just brought back so many memories for me, because my daughter decided that she wanted to write a novel, and I had no idea how to write a novel. I started taking some classes early on when Neil was a baby, and I was home with Neil after being an educator in the school system and loving it. And, you know, here I’m gonna change the world. 

Speaker 2 (21:28): 

We have these lofty goals. And anyway, I was sitting there with this little baby, loving it, not wanting to put him down. And this advertisement caught my eye in a magazine, and I asked my husband if I could spend away for this class. And I took several classes on writing fiction, but nothing really happened with that. So with, you know, here I am years later, and I have got this little 12 year old who wants to write, and I said, You know, as, as any homeschool mom, you know, get your schoolwork done and then you can work on your writing. And she did. She was very diligent, got her work done, and I set her up on the computer, and I feel like the next thing I knew, she had 80 pages printed out that were all dialogue, and she was writing the story. 

Speaker 2 (22:16): 

And so I realized, oh gosh, I didn’t really work with her on how to write a fiction. And so, you know, she and I sat down and I said, You know, Christina, I don’t know what to do here. And she said, Well, mom, we’re homeschoolers. We can do this. You know, you can just figure it out, You know? And so that just shows you a little bit about lifestyle that, you know, at that point we were lifestyle homeschoolers. We, there wasn’t anything that we couldn’t learn. My sister-in-law, Janice just embraced from schooling, and she actually homeschooled before I began and was afraid to tell me, because, you know, I was a teacher, her sister was a teacher, and you know, she, she had a background in public relations. So she felt, you know, she didn’t have a teaching degree, but then decided she was gonna homeschool. 

Speaker 2 (23:05): 

And I was, I was really encouraging. I wasn’t, you know one of those that said, you know, well, you shouldn’t homeschool cause you don’t know what you’re doing. I just watched, you know, and soon followed. In fact, Janice read all the books on homeschooling and philosophy and gave me the nutshell version. I never really, I started reading, but never really completed any books on homeschooling, because Janice would tell me all about it. But I loved how Janice homeschooled and she was a lifestyle homeschooler from the get go. She was amazing. And somewhere in her homeschool journey, she decided, You know what? I wanna learn to sew and I’m gonna teach myself to sew. And she did. In fact, my daughter Christina did the same thing. She taught herself the, so what a testament to a homeschool mom, and what a, what an amazing legacy that we are giving our children by example, that there’s something we don’t know will learn. So, you know, that’s how I feel that our homeschooling change and it was just such a blessing for us. Well, I’m gonna come back in just a minute. We have a sponsor and Media Angels is is my company, and that is the sponsor for this episode. I’ll be right back after this word. 

Speaker 2 (24:23): 

Have you attended homeschool conventions? It’s something I love to do. It allows me to listen to amazing speakers, spend time with other like-minded friends and purchase curriculums. However, after the conference lights dim and I’m heading home, the excitement begins to wane. And it is just for that purpose that the Ultimate Homeschool Expo was created. It’s a convention in a box. Choose from one or all six ready to download conferences. Each MP3 file is easy to access and makes a great gift for a homeschool mom. Check out all our recorded titles@ultimatehomeschoolexpo.com, the encouragement you need every day, brought to you by Media Angels Publishing. 

Speaker 2 (25:13): 

Hi, and welcome back. My name is Fe Schitz and I am your host for the Vintage Homeschool Moms Show. And today we’re talking about homeschooling. We’ve been sharing some things, and I am excited to continue on with this discussion. So let’s talk about a family mission statement. Have you, do you have one? You know, what is your family mission statement? I never considered having a family mission statement until I took a business course. My husband and I laughed because I seem to do things backwards. I start a publishing business, and then I start reading books on how to run a publishing business. And then, you know, halfway through you know, running a publishing business, I decide, well, gosh, I better take some business classes. And so, you know, in taking these business classes, they always said, what is your mission statement? 

Speaker 2 (26:04): 

What is your purpose? And you need to have a goal in order to reach it, and that sort of thing. And I started, you know thinking and, and my husband and I would have weekly dates where we just either go grab some coffee or I try to get him down to the beach, which is only about 30 minutes from where I live, but he’s not a beach guy. So that’s a little difficult, but that’s one of my favorite things, just to be able to go in the evenings, grab an ice cream, and walk on the beach with my husband. And so we would talk about the know these deep, deep things like, you know, our kids and, you know, work and, and what’s working and what’s not. And you know, just sitting there and looking at the beautiful sunset and some other things. 

Speaker 2 (26:44): 

And we talked about our, you know, our goals for our family. And I would specifically talk about goals, especially at the beginning of the year for each of my children. And, you know, I have some that are more generous than others. I have some that are so responsible that it is a gift. You can’t even teach that they’re just so responsible. I have others that are not. So that might be a goal for that child and, you know, in different things. And so, you know, we talked about all that stuff, and then we talked about a family mission statement. You know, what was our goal for our family? And our goal obviously revolved around a Christian education and putting God’s first in everything, and then we would add some other things. So do that with your husband, you know, Or if you’re a single homeschool parent, you know, sit down and look at your mission statement and see, you know, if that is something you know that you want to strive for. 

Speaker 2 (27:43): 

I know in business courses, they always say, If you don’t have goals, you’re aimlessly wandering around. And I know our goal is to get our children through whatever academic grade they’re in, but our goal needs to be more than that. And I found that when we looked at our family mission statement, we could go back and say, Okay, you know, we want to add this, or, you know, this isn’t working for us this year, but it’s something we wanna consider in the future. Besides that, we let our children know our family mission statement. And I really wish I had done this with the younger with, while they’re my older children, but in my younger years of homeschooling, because I think that would’ve even brought us closer together. We did a lot of traveling with my first two, and because my husband was so busy with work, we could not leave on extended vacations. 

Speaker 2 (28:42): 

And so I convinced him to buy me a conversion van, and we had a little television in it and, and beautiful leather bucket seats. And that was our homeschool van. I did not allow any movies that were not academic in nature in some way, shape or form. Of course, my children as the years went on, would start to bring in, you know a little bit more of a, you know, humorous movies or something that I considered good family movies or trips. But I remember purchasing, you know, movies that, that had an academic flavor. And of course, this was all pre-internet, so everything we purchased, you know, had you know, that that was a movie. And we had extension extensive library, which I still have, I still have a lot of VHS tape, you know, were so focused on, on that area because that was so important to me. 

Speaker 2 (29:38): 

But we would take little mini trips and you know, go away for the weekend or even do a day trip and go to Tampa, for example, to the museum and then come back for in that evening. And so, you know, that was our little hub, and we so enjoyed that. And I know if we had had a little bit more of a family mission statement in place, I would’ve realized that I was pushing academics so much that it was amazing. I didn’t burn out my children. And I think because their dad is so much fun, I didn’t, but I really have to, you know, give him credit for that one. The other area I wanted to talk to you about is where do you have a need? A lot of times we are so focused on our children that we forget, mom, and, you know, I’m not one that, you know, said, Oh, I have to go have my nails done every week, or I need a pedicure, or I have to get my hair done, or I need time away with the girls. 

Speaker 2 (30:43): 

Now, I’m not saying that’s bad, so don’t start sending me a bunch of emails and going, Oh, please. You know, really because I do like to do all those things and I do get my hair done, and I do on occasion get a pedicure. But I have to tell you, I didn’t even have a manicure or pedicure until I got one as a gift when I turned 30 by two of my friends. So you know, it, it doesn’t mean that you have to, you know, shirk mom, but I think that so many times that we hear things in the media that are just, you know, you deserve this and you deserve that, that we can get off track. And I think sometimes in focusing on ourselves and what we don’t have, it makes us you know, feel very un unhappy and un not satisfied. 

Speaker 2 (31:34): 

I remember a story shared with me about from another speaker who traveled the country speaking, and she said one time she was speaking and she was giving moms a charge to, you know, think of themselves and not to shirk completely, you know, the responsibility of their children, but to, you know, put themselves somewhere up there, if not number, you know, God’s number one kids are, you know, husband number two, kids number three, and mom needs to be at least number four. And she remembered this lady coming up to her and telling her of a situation where she was going to leave her husband because she had found somebody who appreciated her for who she was. And she was thanking this speaker, totally misconstruing the message that she needed to put herself and her needs first. And the speaker was, you know, just blown away because that was not her message. 

Speaker 2 (32:30): 

Her message was not in any way, shape or form, you have to put yourself first in your needs and so forth. And she tried to, you know, discuss with this person a little bit deeper into the situation. And it wasn’t even that her husband wasn’t an amazing person because he was, she had just fallen out of love with him. And so, I know, you know, every situation is different. And, you know, I’m not here to point fingers or anything like that. I’m just saying that if you are putting yourself last and you are not considering your needs, for example, you know, we, we should exercise and, you know, I’m, I’m preaching to myself as I sit here, you know, 10 pounds that I’ve gained. I’m gonna, you know, blame the show <laugh>. I’ve had, I’ve had a lot of computer time the last few months as we’re launching this new network. 

Speaker 2 (33:23): 

But, you know, I need to get out and walk. I need to exercise. I need to think of, you know, my, my health, because that is important. So, you know, do that. Consider what is your most important need? Is it help with your kids? Is it time away with your husband, even if it’s for the evening? Is it putting the kids to bed early so you can have you know, a, a cold drink with your husband on the back porch? Or, you know, even unplugging the internet just so you can have some family time and play a board game. What is your need? And make sure that you list those out and look for solutions. And then I want to ask you, do you have a mentor to help you in your area of need? That’s part of what I’m doing with this show here. 

Speaker 2 (34:13): 

This show is for you. It is to answer your questions in real time. It is a place where you can come weekly at noon eastern time you know, if you are in a different time zone, just you know, adjust the time from here, from Eastern and, you know, come and ask your questions. And I’m gonna be opening up in just a few minutes for, for the audience that is here with any questions you may have. So if you are listening live, there is a question and answer box. So go ahead and put your questions in, and I’ll gladly take those. But do you have help? Is there an area of need where you can you know, find that help that you need? And if there isn’t, you know, that is important that you really need to focus on and look into. 

Speaker 2 (35:08): 

You know, each of these shows is going to take some time to delve into a particular topic. And today we had our topic of homeschooling, but I want to leave you with three points for each of the shows I am going to host. And I want to leave you with a takeaway. And this is a call to action. This is something that I want you to put on your list as something that is a to do, that you will, you know, at least consider taking the initiative and doing something about, number one, a mentor. If you don’t have a mentor, an older home school mom that can take you under her wing and help you get one. You know, I feel, you know, so blessed that I am able to help my daughter homeschooling, that she’s able to call me and ask me questions about curriculum that she can come over here and use books that I still have from all the years of homeschooling. 

Speaker 2 (36:14): 

And when my sister-in-law was done with her homeschool journey she gave me a lot of her books you know, books that I had on my wishlist that I didn’t have and could add to my library. In fact, my children and I are using a specific grammar program that I used when they were the older two were homeschooling. And I still had, of course, the, I’m laughing here, but the VHS tape for that, that grammar program that yes still works and the company is, is still around. And so if you are interested, you just look at it on our showcase and there will soon be a show a button for their grammar program. Because I really enjoyed it and it was very succinct. So, you know, my daughter can come here and I’m her mentor. If you don’t have your mom as a mentor, you know, or some godly woman you can look up to, please look for one. 

Speaker 2 (37:09): 

And if you are that older homeschool mom, then you mentor someone else. Cause I know how important that was for me. I actually had a friend who was homeschooling a special needs child who could help and encourage me. And you know, I always treated Neil normal. I didn’t you know, make all these different excuses. Other than one, I did make an excuse that that really, I think, you know, was a detriment, but I always expected him to be able to do everything I asked him to do. And I, I really know that that part did work for us. The second is a family mission statement. If you don’t have one, really work at getting one. It is really important and it is something that will help you reach your goals; whatever that is for your family, it is important. 

Speaker 2 (38:07): 

And then the other thing is you know, to relax, because you know, because you’re listening to this show, because you’ve been called to homeschool, the Lord will equip you. He will give you the ability, the information you need. You will be able to find things like, for example, our webcast and the others on this network. I feel so blessed that we have this, you know, ultimate homeschool radio network for you. For all of you who are listening, there are so many shows we’re gonna be adding more shows, and they are going to be such a blessing for those who want to know more information about homeschooling or for those who are struggling. So I’m gonna take some questions here, and I see one here that I’m going to answer right now. And so thank you so much for your questions. 

Speaker 2 (39:07): 

And the first is, what do you do to combat those that are not happy about your homeschooling? I have to fight with those who think I should put my kids back in school. Wow, that is a really good question and a really difficult one because I know that that is an uphill battle especially if you’re just trying to do your best with homeschooling, and now you need to fight you know, or argue with those within your family. So the first thing I would say is choose your words, you know, very carefully and not make a case for homeschooling or not, and just con continue on with your focus and goal. And I know that I’ve you know, been up against a little bit of that, not necessarily from the family, but from those who you know, would like to share with me some of their take on, you know, well, we know homeschoolers and they’re the weird kids that never go out or never do anything, you know, and can’t carry on a conversation or whatever. 

Speaker 2 (40:17): 

You know, their take on homeschooling is, and I would just say something like this: thank you for expressing your opinion with me, but our choice is to continue to homeschool. And, you know, if it’s a stranger that is you know, giving you this information, you don’t even necessarily need to thank them. But, you know, I know that you know, for some, this is a real struggle because I know that it has really caused a wedge in some families and, you know, even to the point of them not going and spending the holidays together. So I pray that that is not the case for you and that you can persevere. Okay, well, I don’t see any other questions here at this time. So I am going to go ahead and I’m going to give you the unofficial answer key to the unofficial vintage homeschool moms test. 

Speaker 2 (41:14): 

So the questions were one through 10, and if you answered the odd questions with a yes, then that is that answer is that home spelling is what you do. And if you answered even question 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 with a yes, then you are a lifestyle homeschooler. So there is your answer. And if you have a split, in other words, half of the, of the questions, which would be kind of impossible because it’s five and five and I did on, on purpose. But, you know, you might be a little bit of both. And so, you know, I could have probably gone either way and, you know, sometimes that you know, you have to make a decision and a choice. So I really appreciate you guys coming and stopping by and I am so blessed to, Oh, okay. 

Speaker 2 (42:18): 

There is another question here. Hold on a second. Sorry about that. I was about to sign off. Okay. How do you know when you are doing too much? I get behind in our planned lessons and wonder if I’m being too lax or just doing too much. Okay, this is what I, I would say from a person who had very, very specific goals, and as I I shared with you, like we even had outside time, break time and snack time penciled in, I, I’m gonna, I say this, first of all, I don’t know the ages of your children, and that really does come into play. If they’re younger than I would say sixth grade, I would say you have a little bit more wiggle room, and that is a really good chance for you to do some very creative and hands-on types of things. 

Speaker 2 (43:08): 

I know that for example doing things like lap booking or journaling and things like that, you know, and I know people do it through high school, but that’s the time to really delve into that kind of a thing. If you’re getting behind, I would consider how much you have planned out. For example, if my children were doing every question in their geometry book, they would put in about three hours in during the day and probably another hour at night for homework. So what I do is I give them a sampling. They do all of the odd questions, and then if there’re, even if there’s too many of those, I’ll look at their book and I will break it down into you know, possibly 15 or 20 questions that they’re to do. So you might want to look at that and break it up and not have them answer every question. 

Speaker 2 (44:04): 

If you are doing hands on or unit study activities, you might wanna look at, you know, how long it would take you to do each thing. For example, I know whenever we would do things like I’m sorry, just throw out the, you know, volcano, the paper mache volcano, that those kinds of things always seemed to take more like what we should have done was one day build a little volcano and let it dry and paint it, and then the next day, you know, do the activity. But the kids would be so excited, they wouldn’t want to wait to paint it, just want to do it. So that took all day, which meant we didn’t finish some of the other things we needed to do that day. So just kind of analyze it. And one of the best tips I ever heard was for those who have tried dieting and write down everything you’ve eaten that day, do that, you know, write down you know, jot down what you’re doing and see if there are any time wasters. 

Speaker 2 (45:01): 

For example, is there a discipline problem that needs to be addressed? I will tell you right now, we have pulled off and not done any school because we needed to get discipline in, in place. So those are just things that you wanna look at and just be sure that, you know you’re not, you know, planning too much. So hopefully, I’ve answered that question; if not, you can just ask again or give me a little bit more information there. Okay. Reagan asks, We continue to be bombarded with medical interruptions this year with my mom, my kids, and now myself. Any suggestions on surviving a year of interruptions? Oh, absolutely. Reagan. Last summer my dad got hurt and because of a fall it put us into a spiral with him going to the doctor. I’m not exaggerating like four days out of five with me having to go with him. 

Speaker 2 (45:57): 

And that was just a, a very difficult year. I had you know, three doing high school work, and it was, it was just really difficult. So one of the things that I did was I made sure that they had good information, and that was the other reason that we recorded some classes that my kids could listen to. In fact, they’re watching the, the video series from our American history class you know, on Mondays again, and they took that class two years ago. So we, we do some things like that, that I have available that the kids can, can do, and also having a list of things that you would like them to accomplish. I don’t know the ages of your children if they’re young, but I wanna tell you a little story you’re gonna find. I tell lot of stories to illustrate. 

Speaker 2 (46:53): 

Oh, but my daughter and son, the two oldest loved science, and I have an a confession to make my three youngest don’t. And the reason that I make this confession is because I publish curriculum for science. So you know, that is something that you know, is, has been difficult for me, but they love, love, love history, and the younger older two, love, love, love science. So it was difficult to get the young, the you know, my oldest two interested in history and it’s been difficult to get the youngest three really loving science. So for the older two, one of the things I did was I gave them a lot of biographies to read. And my daughter scored so high in history on the Iowa test they took in high school. And in that there’s a sub-category for history. 

Speaker 2 (47:48): 

And I was amazed at the amount of information she had learned from the biography. So I would do things like that, you know, have some available things the kids can do on their own. And Reagan, just know that you have my prayers. I will definitely be be praying for you. Okay. And the mom that was asking the question about Overscheduling her children are six, 10, and 11, so they qualify for that younger than sixth grade. And so I would look at, you know, what are their attitudes? Are they loving school? Are they having a hard time? Are you struggling with some of those kinds of things? And then I would look at what is your goal? What are your family goals? What is your mission and what is it that you want to accomplish? And for that spread of ages, I would highly recommend doing some activities together, especially picking some middle point and having the six, six year old do some activities that are a little bit younger geared for, for that child. 

Speaker 2 (48:55): 

But then also being able to include that child in with the older children, because I can’t, I could not do all textbooks and workbooks and have everybody in a different thing. It was too difficult to keep track of. It was too difficult to have a pile of things to grade and to evaluate every day. And I know moms and dads that spend evenings for hours going through their kids’ stuff and or having an online school or sending, you know, their papers in and having them scored and that might work for a season for a family. And you know, just for me, it did not work at all. 

So I made sure that we did some testing because kids needed to, you know, get with you know, understanding how to take tests. But we are not a big test-taking family, so you know, we just didn’t have a lot of workbooks and textbooks and so I really thank you for that question. Well guys, thanks so much for joining us today, and I look forward to seeing you again at the vintage homeschool moms. And also, join us at our Ultimate Hunts School Radio Network and see you next week. 

Speaker 1 (50:14): 

Thanks for tuning in to the Vintage Homeschool Mom show. Visit police media angels.com and to vintage homeschool moms.com. Vintage Homeschool Moms is the production of the Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network. 

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