It loomed large in my mind … college applications for my kids…
I wasn’t worried whether my kid could get into college. I had already done tons of research and figured that all out. (I’ll make another video about that some other time.)
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No … the idea that at some point I would have to help her fill out a college application.
And I remembered my college applications from years before -- lots of lines and boxes. Late nights and desperately trying to remember four or more years back …
Ugh!
Then a friend of mine recommended I do something so simple -- so easy -- and I know that applying to college is going to be just a little bit easier.
And now I’m sharing it with you ...my Master College Application List plan.
AND -- when you finish watching, grab my free template that I made just for you to go along with the video.
Download my Master College Application List Template
Hello, ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool, let's talk about how you can make applying to college for your homeschooler just a little bit easier even if your kids aren't even old enough that you're even really thinking about college -- 6, 7, 8, 9. I'm going to teach you a simple trick that's going to make those applying years so much easier right now.
I wish I'd known this trick when my kids were little, but I didn't get started until a little bit later. So, I want to save you some grief and some pain because the reality is applying for college is a big deal, and it takes a lot of work, and colleges are looking for way more in your homeschool kids than just what classes they took. They want to know about their leadership. They want to know about their extracurricular. They want to know about the kid. They want to know if it's the kind of kid who's really going to fit into their school environment.
And because of that, there are applications across the board regardless of what school you're trying to get into are going to be asking questions about a variety of different topics and if you wait until your kid is 16 to start applying for college and you're trying to remember everything that your kid did that you could put on this application, talk about freak-out zone.
So, right now no matter how old your kids are, I want you to do this. I want you to create a master document either in Google Docs or Evernote or wherever you keep these kinds of lists, and I want you to start just writing down the things your kids do.
Now, you don't have to do this every day or even every week, but I recommend you put a reminder on a calendar or a phone, and look at it at least once or twice maybe three times a year. And as your kids get older, probably you want to do it more often.
Now, what do you put in this master doc? What do you put in this document? Because you're going to use this document when it comes time to apply for college. Years and years later, you're going to use the things on this list to fill out this master application.
So, what do you include on the list? Well, here are some ideas of different categories to include, and I'm going to include a link with this video, and you can download a free PDF that's going to walk you through all these steps as well if you would like that. I want to give that to you because ... well ... it's super fun to make that kind of stuff.
Okay. So, what do you need in this? Well, the first thing I would put on the list this master list -- the master college application list -- is the books that your kids have read. Now, if your kids are anything like mine, I'd assume that they're such voracious readers that the list would be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books long. You do not have to write them all. What we're looking for is the classics. The ones that are going to show that they're well read, they're well educated and that they have really kind of moved through a variety kinds of literature both fiction and non-fiction.
If they have certain magazines they read regularly ... Popular Science or National Geographic or whatever ... you can include those there as well. So, you're looking for a list of books and other things that they read that are classics. If you have certain religious books that your kids are reading on a regular basis, I would include those as well.
The second thing that you want to put down is activities. What are the things that they've done? These are activities in a school setting like with a local homeschool co-op or maybe if they've gone part-time or extracurricular things like orchestra or rock climbing or dance or whatever your kids have been doing that outside of academia that makes them more well-rounded. You can list those, and you can list the years that they've been doing them because that way you can show that they did it for 5 years or 2 years. That's just going to be information that's going to be helpful. So, I just list the year they start and then it just keeps going from there.
You can also list the leadership positions they've had, whether they've had a leadership position in like a student council setting in your school co-op, whether they've had leadership at church, whether they've done it in the community, whether they volunteered somewhere -- we can talk about -- volunteering can go in a couple of places, but you can certainly put those down.
Any service opportunities -- this is where volunteer would go in two different places. If they cleaned up something. If they did an Eagle project … that's a huge one! But if they're engaged in any kind of service even small service projects, write it down. You can use potentially that later, and you don't know, so you're going to write it down now.
Any classes that they've taken -- you don't have to get super detailed but starting in about 7th grade, I would start writing down. And I recommend that you just write down every class that your kid is in. And if you are radical unschoolers and there's no classes, then you want to describe what school looked like in a way that you can kind of remember the major projects they were engaged in or the major activities that you did as a family so you have some kind of transcript building material later on.
You want to write down another category is awards and achievements. If they're given an award because they win a contest or because they win something at an event, any awards, any achievements, if the local community honors them in some way, you want to write those down. Any jobs that they've held. Any entrepreneurial type things that they've done, you can totally include those. And those are just some of the categories that I recommend.
So I would go through, and I just would create bold headings and then I would just be plugging stuff in. It might be totally empty if your kid is 9 or 10, but as they get older -- 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade --you'll start to fill those in. And if you see a gap, then you know that might be something you want to encourage your kid to do so they come across as more well-rounded when they are getting ready for the college application process.
So, once again this is just an easy simple way to make the applying part so much easier. I have a free PDF that you can grab at the link below or above wherever it is so that you can access this information so you don't have to … like if you're listening this in a place where you can't scribble that down … and I'll have some details about the different categories and some examples.
I think it's going to be super helpful. It's going to make your life so much easier. Go do it right now.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I give you these tips and tricks and resources every week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
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A little dash of history … a sprinkling of periodic table … and a great story … all mixed together —
THAT’s what makes this particular book that I’m sharing with you today such a great way to mix things up for science in your homeschool.
CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool: https://amzn.to/2iEJBDE
There are moments where I have despaired of EVER getting my kids to want to do something.
Practice handwriting … nope!
Do math problems … nope!
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practice spelling … nope!
And then there are times when a kid will sit down and just do their assignment.
No whining. No crying. No begging.
I wish I had a crystal ball to explain why sometimes it’s easy … and sometimes it’s not.
But I don’t!
What I DO have is a simple sharpie trick that seems to help (at least some of the time!)
(P.S. This trick ALSO works wonders if the Sharpies get into the hands of your artist 2 year old!)
CLICK HERE for some cool, colorful sharpies for your homeschool.
And if you a whiteboard like the one I show you, you can find it here.
Hey guys, I'm ToriAnn Perkey. From my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about the simple Sharpie. Sharpies are permanent markers and, oh my goodness, they can be the bane of every mom's existence. If you've ever tried to get Sharpie off the wall or anything else, you know that this sucker is very, very permanent. I know this because I had a certain daughter who wrote all over her bedroom and all over my sheets and her sheets with a Sharpie.
Yeah, not fun.
But today I want to talk about how you can use a Sharpie, a simple little Sharpie, to make homeschooling so much more fun. Your kids will want to learn. As I'm doing that, I'm going to show you a little trick that's like magic. It seems like magic, and it's made such a difference, and we've used it tons in my homeschool.
So, the cool thing about a Sharpie is it is permanent … except if you apply alcohol to it, you can get it off, which is why you may know that if you take a Sharpie and then you draw on something and then take a dry erase marker and draw over it, it will often pull the Sharpie off. I know, super cool. So, I decided that I would figure out if I could use a Sharpie on a whiteboard without the dry erase marker and have it work -- and it does.
So, let me show you. So, I have these cool whiteboards, and this side is plain and this side is lined, and we have used these tons because they have the line size we've done a ton of our handwriting assignments on these and my kids use this side to do math. It's a lot like having a slate from like 120 years ago -- little chalkboard slates they used to carry around -- only we have these whiteboard slates. What's really fun is I can take the Sharpie and I can draw all over the whiteboard and because it's Sharpie it doesn't come off. It's permanent.
My kids can do a handwriting assignment or a math assignment or whatever they need to do, and they can then come show it to me ... particularly the handwriting side but either way … they can show it to me, and it doesn't rub off accidently. And particularly for lefthanders when they're writing, and they will write this way, right? And then their hand will smear it while they're writing.
But then if you take rubbing alcohol -- and I just bought this container to put the rubbing alcohol in. You do have to have the highest concentration of alcohol you can get. So, you want a 91 percent alcohol.
You take the rubbing alcohol, and you take either a rag or a paper towel, and you can put the rubbing alcohol on the rag or the actual whiteboard and then you go like this. Do you see that? Do you see that? It's like magic, and off it comes.
What I love is that Sharpies have this amazing kinesthetic feel. So, not only do we use black ones, but we get all the colored Sharpies. And my kids who maybe were a little resistant to do handwriting or were resistant to do math when you can write on a surface there's something about Sharpie or dry erase marker on a whiteboard surface that just is so fun and so tactile, and it shifts the learning, and my kids want to do their assignments because they're drawing with colors and they're drawing here.
You can get Sharpies in fine point as well as in the -- well, fine point and then extra fine point. And now that I can buy even extra point, we can do even more complicated math and things that take a much finer writing because you have even just a finer point that you can write with.
So, there it is -- the Sharpie with a dry erase board. So much that we've done in our homeschool with those two humble tools. Ninety one percent alcohol, use a paper towel or a rag. Simple, simple, simple. (Just so you know 91 percent alcohol also gets Sharpie off bunk beds. Who knew?)
So, I'm going to give a link up above or down below. You can check out the Sharpies. You can check out the whiteboard that I recommend on Amazon, if that's something you want to incorporate in your homeschool. Really, really fun. Super cool.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I bring you these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
Grammar … punctuation … spelling … organization … structure …
All of these are so important when it comes to helping my kids communicate effectively with their writing.
They have to be able to put their ideas down on paper in a way that makes sense.
But there’s something else … and it can be a little elusive at times.
Over the years, I’ve discovered a sneaky, secret way to helping my kids become great writers that takes almost NO time out of our homeschool day.
CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool: https://amzn.to/2vopoIs
It was my deep, dark secret.
On the surface, I looked like I had everything together … homeschooling my kids, fixing home-cooked meals, doing cool family things …
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But underneath, I felt like I was drowning.
Almost daily, I would feel the weight of everything that I was trying to do (especially when it was time to fix dinner), and I would start to feel the tightening in my chest.
Too much. Too much.
My brain would start to shut down.
Same went when I was trying to find a new curriculum or homeschool solution.
I would see all the options, and overwhelm would wash over me.
But then I learned one simple trick that has RADICALLY shifted things when I start to feel this way.
It’s so easy .. so simple … and ANYONE can do it.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Hey guys, ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool, let's talk about overwhelmed. Do you feel overwhelmed in your homeschool sometimes?
I know I do.
It is totally normal sometimes to look at everything you have to do and all the responsibility you've taken on and to feel a little overwhelmed. There are books to choose and assignments to give. And there is the house to run, and there are kids to be nurtured.
And all of that is sitting on your shoulders, and you're thinking, “I have taken this on. I'm in charge of raising these little people into big people who are going to be successful, and capable, and contributing members of society that are happy.”
That's a lot. That's a lot, you guys, and it's so normal to sometimes want to climb in your closet and eat your Ben & Jerry's and hide. And I have sometimes been guilty of needing more than one shower in a day just so that I can tune out my children for a while. I totally get it.
The thing I want to teach you today is not something that's going to make everything better. I totally get that there's a lot going on in your life and there are so many things you have to figure out. But I also know that overwhelm does come more or less based on the way you're thinking.
Your mind is this amazing, amazing tool, and if you think you can't handle everything in your life, the brain starts to say, “I must save you. I must save you.” So what it does is it starts to scoop up and send out all those hormones that make you start to feel anxious and depressed because those are the things that will keep you safe. It pushes away all of the bad stuff, and it keeps your body safe because your brain's #1 job is to keep you alive.
So, if you're feeling like there's too much, your brain's going to start doing stuff to keep you alive. But you don't like those feelings because those feelings keep you from doing the very things that will help you - they keep you from problem solving, they keep you from moving forward.
So, when you start to feel overwhelmed, the simple trick that I've started to use that I love is I can actually rewrite the way I'm perceiving the things around me.
Now, it doesn't actually change anything, but it changes how I interact with them, and that is huge because if I believe that I have more power and control over the things that are all around me -- not like being a dictator control where I can suddenly force my children to do things -- but if I believe that I can control and change through problem-solving my environment, then I start to calm down. I start to feel more capable. I start to feel more confident. And this trick has made all the difference.
This is one that I use all the time. Sometimes I use it multiple times a day. So, here it is. Any time I'm feeling overwhelmed and the thoughts are rushing at me and I'm like, “I don't know if I can do all this,” I say three simple phrases: This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. This is simple, this is easy, this is fun. I chant it over and over and over again. This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. This is simple. This is easy. This is fun.
So, if I'm looking at 15 different options for curriculum for a spelling curriculum, for example, I'm like, “You got to teach spelling, and I got to figure that out, and oh my gosh ... I think, “This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. This is simple. This is easy. This is fun.” And my brain goes, “Oh, this is simple. This is easy. This is fun.” And I can calm down, and I can start to think.
If it's 4:30 pm, and I haven't figured dinner -- or it's 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock, and I haven't figured out dinner -- and I'm thinking, “What I'm going to feed my family? What I'm going to feed my family?” And I start to feel that anxiety build -- This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. And as I say that, my brain calms down. The chemicals in my brain start to dissipate, and I think, “I can do this. This is simple, this is easy, this is fun.”
Say it with me -- This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. Don't you see? When you tell your brain how you want something to be, it becomes a reality for your brain. I know it's kind of crazy, but it works. It's worked in my life over and over and over again.
It's a simple trick that I use whenever I started to feel overwhelmed, and it has radically taken the overwhelm out of my homeschool and put me in a place of peaceful, calm problem solving. Wahoo! Which is what we all want, right? This is simple. This is easy. This is fun. Awesome.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I make these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
I’ll admit it … I’ve never been a fan of long division.
And except for my one “mathy” kid, none of my kids have been either.
It’s hard. It makes your brain work. And it has soooooo many steps!
Fortunately, you can make division a little bit easier for your kids (and yourself) by playing games that introduce division skills BEFORE you get to long division.
And today I want to share one of my FAVORITE pre-division games with you!
Hey guys, it's ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, is long division or division in general something that your kids love or something that your kids not so love so much? Yeah, in my home, division is just one of those things that is not a beloved topic, and I get it.
One of my memories from elementary school is doing long division and just dreading it because it is hard. It makes the brain work. It's like [makes sound] so many steps, so many places to make mistakes.
Division is tricky, but today I want to share a resource with you that can make it just a little bit easier. Division, fractions, primes, factors -- all of that is going to be easier with this game that I want to share with you today.
It is called Prime Climb, and I love this game. I have loved this game since it showed up as a Kickstarter campaign in my newsfeed. It was about 3 or 4 years -- no, maybe -- yeah, 3 or 4 years ago. We grabbed this game. I have never regretted it.
This is one of my absolute favorite math games that we play in our house, and let me tell you all the reasons why I love this game. First of all, it's completely visual, and I was looking for visual games because I wanted games that my kids could play regardless of whether they were reading well or not -- because some of my kids have some of those struggles. And so they were old enough to be starting to learn more difficult math concepts but they couldn't read yet. So, I love the fact this math is completely visual.
Second, I love the fact that it's so visual that it works for visual learners as well as more right brain thinkers as well as the left brain thinkers -- and I have both.
So, let me just give you an idea here. This is the game board, and let's make sure you guys can see it and this -- it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And it was put together by a couple of genuine mathematicians -- really strong ones.
And what's really, really -- oh my gosh, this is so cool -- is you'll notice down here the #2 is all gold, right? The #3 is all blue. Well, when you get to 4, you'll notice it's gold … and let me show you -- let me see if I can do this. It's got a divider in between that.
So, what you see is they've taken 2, and they've shown how by division it makes 4. If we come up to 6 -- ah, this game board. If we come up to 6, what you can see here -- maybe I can do this. Aha. If we come up to 6, it is the blue -- I can't do my colors. It's the green and the yellow combined. Did you see that? So, it's like yellow and green combined which is the 2 x 3. And then we get to 5 which is another prime, right? So, there's no -- it's just a solid prime, and then 7's a prime.
But if we come over here to say this red one, red's a 37 -- these are the prime factors. So, they don't get to be red. But once we get here ... once you get into the higher numbers ... any number that's completely prime is red, but any number that's created by other numbers is a division and a colorful combination mathematically -- visually with those. So, 36 is a 3, a 3, and a 2, and a 2, and you'll notice that's factor trees.
Factor trees visually represented with colors. Thirty five is your blue 5 and your purple 7. Okay, when I realized what they had one with every number up to 101, I really, really just sort of wigged out. I was like [crazy happy sound 🙂].
So, what you do as you play this game is your goal is to move your piece all the way from the start to the center. And there's cards that give you different instructions about how fast you can move. There's dice that you roll. There's going backwards. There's going forwards. And there's the additional added step that you have to do factoring math to move forward or to move back. And depending on how complicated you make it determines how much math your kids need to know to be able to do this game.
So, you're able to do at different levels. My 6 year old was able to figure it out, but my 10 year old and my 12 year old still enjoy playing. And as an adult and as teenagers, we still enjoy playing because it's one of those games that grows with you. It stretches your brain. It gets you thinking, so all the family can play.
So, Prime Climb is one of those games that is so packed with math at the same time it's fun, it's visual, it's going to keep you moving forward. And it's by people who understood that if they could take a math concept that was a little hard to understand and primes, factors -- all those things that go into division, into fractions -- and they could make it simpler, it was going to make everything after primes and factoring so much easier.
And this is one of those games that when my kids then get to division, get to those higher level things, they already understand what's going on. When they look at fractions, and they're trying to figure out how to come up with multiples, how to come up with all those things, these concepts that we've learned in Prime Climb and in other games like this are now embedded in their brain and moving them forward faster because they can see the concepts.
I love it, love it, love it. So, if this is something you're interested in, fortunately you don't have to wait for another Kickstarter campaign. You can pick it up on Amazon. Just check up the link up above or down below -- wherever it is based on where you're watching this video. It's definitely going to be worth your time to check this out.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I bring you these videos every week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
Do your kids get distracted while you’re doing school?
Are you calling them back? Asking them to finish? Asking them to start?!?
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Sometimes it feels like I’m herding cats to get everybody into one place to try and do one thing all together.
BUT … I also know that I tend to get distracted too! And when I get distracted, our homeschool REALLY gets off track!
So today I’m sharing the number one thing I do so that I keep MY biggest distraction at bay.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Hey guys, ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, does your homeschool sometimes get off track? Do you wake up in the morning, and you think you got this great plan and everything's going to go really well and by about 9:15 AM things are starting to fall apart and you're thinking argh. And this happens day after day after day?
Oh, staying on track is tricky when you're a homeschool mom.
You have all of these different factors that you're trying to keep in control. You're trying to corral one or many children. And trying to take all these disparate personalities and say hey, we're all going to do the same thing every single day.
And on top of that you're trying to be a mom and deal with the fact that sometimes kids are having a hard day or they're not getting along. And you're trying to run a house, which means that you're also doing laundry and you're also cooking.
Keeping track and staying on track is really hard. And today I want to tell you the #1 hack that I use in my home to keep us just a little more on track every single day, because distractions are the biggest bane to any homeschool.
Of all the things I mentioned the thing that will get you off track the fastest is distractions. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes. They can look like all sorts of things and what distracts me may not distract you but I know one distraction that distracts almost all of us and it's this.
It is your phone.
Your little phone -- your window to the world that is so wonderful, that is in your pocket. It gives you so many answers.
It is also the thing that dings and beeps and clicks and rings all the time. I know because mine dings and clicks and rings and beeps all the time. And it's so hard when it makes those noises to not look at it.
And I have been guilty of being in the middle of reading a book to my children and having my phone ring and say, hey, just hold on just a second, I'm going to get this. And then the next thing I know, I'm on my phone talking to someone, and my kids are scattered to the four winds, and the reading is over.
Or I'll be in the middle of helping a kid with math, and it will ding, and I'll have a notification, and I think okay, I can just kind of look at this while I'm helping them. And before I know it I'm over here on my phone doing this, and I've totally lost the kid.
Of course -- this right here is so distracting. So, here's my #1 hack that I've started doing that makes such a difference in my homeschool. I put my phone on airplane mode during school hours. I put it on airplane mode. I don't silence it because then I can pick it up, and it has all those little notes that say things happened. Still distracting. Argh!
And you guys, it's totally normal to be distracted. Our brains actually release dopamine -- the feel good chemical -- whenever our phone goes off. It's like a little reward that says, ding, something happy just happened. And your brain wants that. So, of course you're going to go look at it. It's totally normal.
But it is something that you get to be in charge of. So, put your phone on airplane mode when it's school time. That for me means a couple hours in the morning.
I flip it up. I put it on airplane mode. I put it over to the side. And then after lunch, I totally pick it up, I turn it on and then it's like Christmas because my phone's like Brrrrrrnnnnnnng, and then it's super exciting, right?
There are so few times when someone has to get a hold of me that I figured that having my phone on airplane mode is kind of like being in a movie or in the doctor's office or some other place where I can't look at my phone. It's like it's okay to not be available all the time because if I'm not available for everyone all of the time, I'm really available for my kids some of the time, which is part of making your homeschool work -- making your homeschool stay on track. Because if you're not distracted, then you can stay focused on the reading. You can stay focused on the math. You can stay on target just a little bit better.
Now, airplane mode is not going to help you with kids fighting. We'll have to talk about that another time. But it will help you with that little dinging and that little ringing that pulls you away all the time.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
For six and half years, I never got a full night’s sleep.
My oldest had sleep issues and would wake up … every … single … night.
I was soooooo tired.
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But we were still homeschooling. And even AFTER she slept through the night, the other three children took their turns waking me up.
Aching legs … bad dreams … croupy coughs.
It seemed I went FOREVER without sleeping.
And we still homeschooled.
But there were times when I was soooo tired, that the thought of doing ANYTHING extra was more than I could handle.
Enter today’s science resource! (duh duh duh!!!!)
I’ve used this awesome series over the years to feel like we were “doing” science when I just couldn’t muster the effort to “do” science.
And even if you’re sleeping blissfully through the night, these are amazing for those days when kids are sick or you just need a little extra time to do something … anything!
Seriously … who doesn’t need that?!?
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Hey guys! It's ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, I get it! Sometimes you are tired. I know because sometimes I am tired. As a homeschool mom, we are doing so many things, and sometimes, well, the days don't go as planned.
The baby doesn't sleep through the night. We don't sleep through the night. The teenagers are coming home late. Whatever it is, and we are exhausted. We've had kids yelling or running, or it's just not been a good day, and we realize we've got to do some science.
Whether you're trying to hit all of those earmarks every week for your curriculum or your report that you need to do, or you just realize that you'd like to shake it up a little bit and you've got to fit some science in. But you are too tired to get out all of the equipment and doing a science experiment, and like …. okay ... just the thought of it when I'm tired is way, way too much for me.
Which is why I'm going to show you a resource that I use on the days when I'm so tired that science is not an option. It is called Magic School Bus. Oh yes.
So, these were books. They were turned into movies, and they are on DVD, and you can buy the complete set. You guys ... this is a lot of science! Now, for some of us, we grew up with Magic School Bus, right? And we know all about this. But for those of you who didn't, let me tell you a little bit about what makes Magic School Bus so amazing.
So, the idea is that there's this crazy teacher called Ms. Frizzle, and the kids in the class -- whenever they have a science question or something that they're learning about -- rather than sit in class, she takes them. She puts them on the magic school bus, which can shrink or grow humongous or can sprout wings or can go in the ocean or can fly in outer space ... whatever ... and the bus takes these kids on adventures, so that they are embedded into whatever science topic it is that she wants them to learn about.
Oh, it's so much fun. Every episode ran on PBS, so it's like a 30 minute -- well, it's probably like a 25-minute episode. Perfect amount of time. I used these when I was too tired for science. I was also using them for a long time when we ate lunch. I would just put in the DVD. We'd watch it while we ate lunch.
It was an easy way to slide science into the day. They were learning so many things. And what I love about Magic School Bus is except for the solar system one, which was made before Pluto was declassified as a planet, every bit of the science is really strong science.
They're going to be talking about photosynthesis. They're going to be talking about molecules. They're going to be talking about the physics of simple machines. They're going to be talking about the geography of volcanoes and the different parts of the earth. It covers the gamut of elementary science and every disc -- so, if I open this up, you'll see that there are 1, 2, 3, 4 -- oh, there are numbers at the bottom. There are eight discs in the complete set. Eight discs and every disc has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 episodes. So, 8 x 7 is a lot of episodes, right? Fifty six. That's like an entire year of science plus some!
Aaaah, I love it! But what we would do is when the kids were sick, or we were tired -- we would watch when we're tired. But if the kids were sick, sometimes they would watch several in a row because during the day I'd say, “Well, if you're sick. You need to watch something educational.” And so they would pull out Magic School Bus.
My teenagers still pull out Magic School Bus because it's that much fun. It's fun. It's engaging. They've got lots of characters. I love the fact that they can be watching something. They can be learning the science. And then we can follow up with that with more knowledge -- with maybe, if we want to do some kind of experiment later on. I'm not saying you have to, but if you wanted to.
There are lots of extensions to this series because it was so popular, but you don't have to get any of the extensions. But I highly recommend that you check out the DVDs because they are really, really helpful for being, honestly, a successful homeschool mom, because there are times when this is all you can do. When all you can do is open up the DVD player, put the DVDs in, and close it. And Magic School Bus is one of the things that's really tricky to find online. Believe me ... if I could find it on YouTube, I probably would just watch it on YouTube, but you can't. They religiously, religiously make sure that this content is copyrighted and protected. So, if you really want to have access to it, you got to buy the DVDs. Totally worth it.
Ahhh, okay, I love it. So, if you're interested, make sure you check out the link up above or down below or wherever it is based on where you're watching this video.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I bring you these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
I’ve thought it … many times … “I’m failing my kids!”
This very thought showed up just last week after a particularly difficult day where nothing seemed to go right.
And thoughts like this USED to really get to me … they would eat me up inside.
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But no longer! I know what to do to stop thoughts like this before they completely derail my homeschool.
So if you’ve ever thought -- or are thinking right now -- that you’re failing your kids, this video is for you!
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hey guys! ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool, do you ever worry that you're failing your kids?
Do you ever worry like you sit up in the middle of the night and you think, “I'm destroying my children?” It's totally normal to think that. I wish I had a dollar for every time the thought “I think I'm failing my kids” has gone through my mind. And it usually happens when your kid isn't reading when you think they should be reading. Or when they've gotten really upset when you've given them assignment, and they've stormed off to their room, and you think, “That's it. This isn't working. I'm totally failing.”
Or when you hear how somebody's gotten their kids into college at 13, and kid after kid after kid is doing that. Or this kid's going to school and this amazing thing. Or they just built a rocket in their backyard, and your kid's fiddling with popsicle sticks, and you think, “I'm failing my kids. Where are the homeschool kids that are doing all these amazing things and giving TED Talks and changing the world, and my kids don't even want to do a lemonade stand?”
Yeah, it is so easy to think, “I'm failing my kids,” and I've been there. But I want to tell you there's something I do whenever this thought flits into my mind that has really, really helped me. So, I'm hoping that it will help you.
If you ever think, “Oh, I'm failing my kids,” I want you to remember they aren't your kids as an accident. They didn't just come to you because the stork randomly picked your house and dropped your kid off on your front porch. You have your kids for a reason, and you're homeschooling your kids because you felt that this was the best choice for your kids.
You are the kind of mom who cares about your kids, and they didn't come to you by accident. They came to you on purpose. They are with you for a reason. And if they are with you, then you aren't failing them. You are trying. You are trying hard. And you're getting up every day and trying again. Mom, that is what matters. It matters that you show up bit by bit.
The kids that we get, the package we get, the difficulties that we work with -- it's all part of what was supposed to happen. And when we put all those pieces together, and we put the kids and us and homeschooling in the mix, there are days that don't go well. There are things that don't go well. But when I remember ... when I remember ... that they're mine for a reason -- they're mine because the Lord knew that I was going to take care of them -- that I was going to look for answers -- that I was going to figure out what was best for them -- then I feel just a little bit better, because I know that tomorrow I'll keep looking for answers. I'll be asking questions on Facebook. I'll be reading books. I'll be watching videos. I won't quit until I find what's best for my kid, and I've seen that over and over and over again.
When I talk to you in the park -- when I talk to you at a school event -- when we're all gathered together, I've talked to you at a field trip ... what I find over and over again is you love your kids, and you are trying so hard to find what's best for them. And that tells me that you are not failing them. You are awesome.
So, the next time that little scary thought flits into your brain, I want you to say, “No, I am not failing my kids because I am finding answers. I'm finding answers. I may not find them right away, but I'm finding them.” And I tell myself that a lot because I'm always looking for answers. I'm always solving problems. I'm a homeschool mom, and so are you.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
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I LOVE storytelling and creative writing toys and games.
And today … I’m going to share one of my FAVORITES!
I love this game because it’s open-ended … and I think of all the resources I love, it does the best at helping with writing prompting that create a vast ocean of ideas no matter what age you are.
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It’s the first resource I pull out when I teach teenagers creative writing, and we still pull it out at home when we need creative juices to flow.
But it also works so well for kindergarten and preschool ages - although you'll have to modify how you play with the cards if your child can't read yet.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Hey guys! ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, are the writing assignments in your home getting a little boring? Or do your kids feel just a little confined because they feel like the writing assignments they have to do are coming out of a book that maybe they're not super interested in? Or maybe you're not using a curriculum at all, but you know that you want your kids to be creative doing creative writing, and you're not quite sure how to get them started?
Well, today I've got something that's going to knock your socks off that I love to help kids get the creative juices flowing. It is called “Storymatic,” and it is a fabulous, fabulous resource for generating creative stories. In fact, they say “6 gazillion stories in one little box,” and I'm not kidding you, it's totally true.
So, let me tell you all about this amazing resource for your homeschool family. When you open it up, it has two kinds of cards -- the yellow cards and the blue cards -- and they do different things. The blue cards are characters or -- yeah, so, “family members are robots” or “flying blanket.” So, it's a character or it's a situation. “Homesick.” Here's another one, “mysterious stranger comes to town.” So, the cards -- nice quality cards ... I love the fact that they're not flimsy at all ... all have -- the blue cards have that kind of thing written on it.
Now, on this side, we get things like “someone with a secret,” “fortuneteller,” “thumb sucker.” So, what happens is in the most basic way of using these cards -- you get a blue card and you get a yellow card, and you put them together, and you start to generate a story. In this case, we would have a fortuneteller and a flying blanket. Suddenly, my brain starts to think how could I create a story about a flying blanket and a fortuneteller, and I can promise, you and your kids will start to have lots and lots of fun.
You can make it more interesting if you want to add extra card. So, you could have a “fortuneteller,” a “thumb sucker” (two characters), and a “flying blanket.” And these are character cards that are super fun. So, you can actually take two character cards, add a situation and create that. So, here we have a gentle giant. So, now new story -- what if you had a thumb sucker, a gentle giant, and family members that are robots? Totally different story.
Now, if you're looking for more than one way to use these cards -- and there's a gazillion ways to use the cards just like there's a gazillion stories -- it comes with this really amazing little booklet full of ideas on how to use the cards. And that's what I really, really like about it, is they understand that you may want to use the cards in different ways, and you may need a little bit of a starter help to figure out different ways to use the cards. And this is full of ideas just over and over and over again from “flash” to “double time” to “write it,” “draw it,” which is where you get to draw and write word by word -- where you do tandem telling, and one person starts the story and then says one word and then the next word goes to the next person, the next person. Things like that. Group games, individual games -- so many ways to use these cards.
Now, these cards are a little pricier than some of the other storytelling resources that I've recommended before. And I hesitated ... I waited a while to buy these. I was a little worried because I thought “I don't know. I don't know.” But I'm here to tell you, I have never ever ever regretted purchasing Storymatic. Of all my storytelling resources, this one's one of my favorites.
Okay. The other thing I want to tell you is there's a kid's version and an adult version. I only own the kid version, because I was a little nervous about what might be in the adult version because it's definitely designed for adults. But I was also worried that it would be really too kiddish to use with my teenagers. Not at all. I feel like adults can get -- and teenagers -- can get just as much out of the kid version of the game as anybody. And, in fact, I think as an adult you could totally get Storymatic and have a blast. So, I've never bothered with the adult version because well, I really don't think I need it.
So, there you go. If you are looking for a brand new way to just radically up-level your writing assignments or your storytelling or any of that creative, fun playing that's going on in your house, this is definitely a resource you want to look at. And you can check it out at the link up above or down below or wherever it shows up wherever you're watching this video.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I'm here every week making these videos for you so that you can be a successful, confident homeschool mom.
