But then I caught myself.

And I instantly knew how to turn myself around before I spiraled into the abyss of despair.

And that’s what I want to teach you in my video today.

Transcript

Hello, my name's ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool -- Are you secretly sabotaging your homeschool? I know, I know, you're doing your best. You're trying your hardest -- feels like you are doing everything you can. And yet it doesn't seem like everything's going like you wanted to.

You look around, and you think, “This is a train wreck.” Well, let me tell you, there might be something you're doing that is secretly sabotaging your desire to have a successful homeschool, and you don't even realize it.

So, let me ask you a question. Do you ever get on social media -- Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram -- and scrolling through your feed, you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I'm failing?” Or, “Oh, I could never do a homeschool activity like that.”  Or, “Why do her kids want to read and mine just want to play with their Pokémon cards or their Barbies?”

Do you ever find yourself comparing ... comparing that these homeschool moms look amazing? That everything's happy. That everything's going well, and you aren't? Do you ever watch my videos and think, “Oh my gosh, she totally has it all together? What's wrong with me?”

Newsflash! I do not have it all together. I promise, I promise, I promise no homeschool mom does! But we all fall into this trap of comparing. Now, I want to ask ... is there ever a time where you're also scrolling through your feed, and you see something and you're like, “Ah, that's a great idea, I want to try that?” Or, “Oh my goodness, I'm so glad that her 10 year old just started reading. I feel like we're going to make it.”  Or, “Oh my goodness, they are traveling, and their kids are with them, and they're doing all these cool exciting things. We could do that too!”

Why is it that sometimes we look at Facebook and social media across the board, and we get jealous, and other times, we get inspired? Well, I want to tell you what the distinction is because understanding this will help you stop sabotaging your homeschool by comparing yourself with all of the other things going on around you.

The distinction is this -- It's all going on inside your head. You're looking at the same feed. You're looking at the same stories as everybody else, and there's not a whole lot of difference in the stories or the person who's sharing it. It's how you interpret the stories.

If you look at a story or a picture or you hear someone talking in the park or at a co-op or anything like, and they start telling you something or you see something and you think, “Oh, I could never do that,” then you start to get jealous. Jealousy comes from when you think it's impossible for you to reach that thing that you're seeing.

But if you see something and you are inspired, it's because inside your head you think, “I could totally do that. I could do that if we did this and this or if I learned how to do this.” Or, “Oh, we're already so close to that. I just have to tweak this.”

That's why some people can look at a really cool craft for a homeschooler and be jealous because they're like, “Oh, I could never do crafts or my kids will never do crafts.” And other moms can look at the exact same craft and go, “Ah, that's so cute. We should totally do that tomorrow.”

It has to do with whether or not the mom feels like it's hopeless or something totally doable.  That's the difference. And you're sabotaging your homeschool if you are looking at things in a mindset of “That's impossible. It would never work for me” because it turns all your insides into this yucky, negative place where you feel bad about yourself because you're not doing certain things.

And I'm here to tell you nobody does everything on the internet in their homeschool. I don't do 99 percent of the things that you see on the internet in my homeschool, and I have a successful homeschool.

Successful homeschools do not come from the kinds of activities that you do -- whether it's a specific curriculum or a specific book or a specific philosophy. That's not what makes a confident, successful homeschool. What makes you have a successful homeschool is when you feel good about what you're doing, when you feel confident.

And if there's something that isn't working, you go solve it. When you're inspired to move forward. When you see ideas and they inspire you to come up with your own ideas. That's the difference. That's the difference between a sabotaged homeschool and a successful homeschool … it’s how you're thinking about it in your mind, not what you're actually doing.

So, if you catch yourself feeling jealous, stop and think, “Do I want to do that? Do I really want that?” Because if you don't want that, then stop being jealous because you don't want to do it in the first place. If you do want to do it, then shift into, “Well, how could I make that happen? How?”

The minute we open the door that it's possible is the minute that our life can start to change, and we can start to move into a learning, growing, changing place. And that is the essence of being confident -- is knowing that you can figure things out.

So, I want to encourage you. Encourage you to be paying attention when you're flipping through your feed or you're listening at the park -- how you're interpreting the things around you.

Are you jealous and maybe sabotaging and don't even know it, or are you inspired? And the really cool thing is the next time this happens, you can decide whether you're going to be jealous or be inspired. It's really that easy.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I bring you these videos every week to help you be a successful, confident homeschool mom.

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But that’s okay! Because my job is to facilitate a great education … not be the teacher for every subject.

As my kids get into the higher-level math, I find other AMAZING mentors and teachers to help teach them.

But before my kids get there, I make sure we set a good foundation. That means focusing on thinking skills that help prepare them to do higher level math.

And today, I want to share a  math resource that we have used for years in my homeschool to build those skills.

These books teach a foundational skill for higher-level math AND they are super fun to sit on the couch and read!

CLICK HERE to check it Greg Tang's books for your homeschool.

Rather keep reading than watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

Transcript

Hi everybody! It's ToriAnn Perkey here. From my homeschool to your homeschool, do you want your kids to do well at the higher level math? I'm talking past the addition, the subtraction, the multiplication, and the division. I'm talking about algebra. I'm talking about trigonometry. I'm talking about those really high level concepts that make them do well on the test that get them into college ... that help them do well in college. Do you want your kids to do well in higher level math?

And whether your kids are going to college or not, this is an interesting question to ask because higher level math is all about learning how to think. And if you know how to think, you're going to do better at whatever you decide to do, right? So, you want your kids to do better. How do you get them there? How do you ensure that they're going to do well at higher level math?

Well, I am here to tell you it is not just learning how your multiplication tables work -- like not learning how to memorize -- and it's not just knowing how to plug numbers into equations and chug out the answer on the other side. No, it's problem solving.

Problem solving is how you ensure that your kids can go from this level of math all the way up here to this level math. 

And today I want to show you a resource that we've used in my home that I love because it just gets the problem-solving brain working like crazy. It is the book series by Greg Tang, and all the books have different titles. This particular one is called "Math Potatoes." His very first book the one that made him an international bestseller is called "The Grapes of Math," and yes, he does have fabulously funny puns with every single book.

Now, these books are really, really cool. They work for all ages. There are some that are definitely geared towards the younger kids, and there are some that are a little more geared towards the older kids, but my kids across the board have enjoyed them all.

Let me show you how this one works then we'll talk a little bit about the distinctions in the other ones. So, every page is a spread like this. Do you see that? There's a poem on this side, and then some kind of picture pattern on this side. Remember, this is all about problem solving -- specifically visual problem solving -- which makes it great for your visual learners who maybe have a little bit more trouble with math.

So, the poem if you read it, it always rhymes, but it's going to ask them to do some kind of mathematical problem solving without counting or without doing it the normal obvious way. So, for example -- and I won't read the whole poem but basically what they're supposed to do is figure out how many shells -- this one's called Shell Shock -- how many shells are over here. And the hint that's given in the poem is to look for patterns in squares.

So, you'll notice that over here the patterns are such that the kid could count every single one. But if they notice that there are patterns of nine in the squares and over and over again they can actually count up the nine squares. And he mentions in here “Be careful not to double count,” right? Because you don't want to double count this square right here and they're learning -- and then they can find the answer of how many shells there are.

So, they're learning how to think differently. How to look for patterns in their math. And problem solving and pattern finding is key to be successful at higher level math.  So, every single page in this series -- here's one about stars, and it has a different kind of pattern and problem to find. Here's one with peanuts. So, every problem in this book, every two-page spread, has a different kind of problem solving and a different kind of critical thinking, a different kind of pattern finding and pattern finding. Oh, so key! So, I have a couple of other books.

Now, he has -- I didn't bring them all.  He has some that are to help with multiplication, some that help with addition and subtraction.  Let's see … and then a couple -- another one that I really like is one that he calls "Math-terpieces" and what's really fun about this is that he actually patterns his entire poem over a masterpiece work of art.  So you get to talk a little bit about Van Gogh's Starry Night. You can go bunny trail that. Here's your poem, and this one you're supposed to find patterns. Four different ways to make seven. You'll notice three stars or four stars. Counting is important. One star, two star, three and two, and so looking for different ways to group these up to make seven.

Again, patterns, critical thinking, problem solving with a really fun picture book that's full of artwork. Okay, I get super excited. Let's see this one is "Math Appeal," another book that he has, and I love this one again just because it has -- every single one of them is different. So, you're looking for different patterns. Here the kids are looking for focusing on 15s as they count all the geese in the sky. So, how can they find 15s in this picture? How can they find 15s and then group them in different ways?

This series of books, whether you get one or you get all, is definitely going to help your kids have that pattern finding, problem-solving brain that they need to do higher level math well and to feel confident doing it. So, if it's something you think would work for your homeschool, you can look up above or down below. I'm going to have a link somewhere that will help you get to it.

From my homeschool to your homeschool, I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I bring you these videos every week so that you can be a successful, confident homeschool mom.

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This was LONG before I knew the arguments about socialization and the benefits of homeschooling.

All I knew is that the homeschooled kids I’d known in high school were weird. So I assumed ALL homeschooled kids were weird.

Her answer is something I’ll NEVER forget.

It stayed with me when we decided to homeschool.

And now, it’s the answer I give every single time someone asks me the question.

It’s based on one simple question you can ask yourself … and depending on your answer determines whether your kids will be weird.

Watch the video to find out more ...

Transcript

Hey guys! ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool. I've got a question for you.

Are you ever worried that your kids are gonna turn weird?

Or do you ever sense that the people around you who aren't so sure about you homeschooling? Thinking your kids are gonna turn out weird?

Yeah, it seems to be kind of this prevalent thing that kind of surfaces over and over again in the homeschool community. Either because we're bringing it up or because we're hearing questions about it.

So today, I want to peel back the curtain just a little bit. Talk about where the question comes from. Whether or not your kids are actually going to be weird. And how you can know right now whether or not they're gonna be weird or not. And what you can do about it if you're thinking that they might be weird.

Okay so first of all, where does this question come from? I think it comes from the fact that our generation. So my generation, I graduated from high school in 1995. And I only knew one or two homeschoolers in my high school. They would come to highs school part-time and they would stay home. I knew someone else who'd been homeschooled and they were weird. Like they didn't fit in. They were awkward socially, they had different ideas about education. They didn't seem "normal".

So when I was thinking about homeschooling over and over again, I kept referencing those examples and I kept thinking yeah, homeschool kids are weird. No way I want my kids to be like that. But there are lots of reasons why I started homeschooling and the more I got to know other homeschoolers, I realized we run the gamut of weirdness to not weirdness. And frankly, I fall way far I think kind of on the weird corky side way more than the normal side. We're gonna talk about that in just a minute.

But what I started to realize is that the reason kids are weird has nothing to do with whether they're homeschooled or not. Instead, it has everything to do with whether their parents are weird. What kind of family are they being raised in?

I mean think about it. There are super normal kids who homeschool. And if you look at their parents, they're super normal. They're like picture-perfect, come out of magazine. Everybody looks great and put together normal.

And then there are other homeschoolers I meet who really seem pretty weird. Like totally different than the norm. Let's define weird as not necessarily odd or yucky but just different. And then I look at their parents and guess what, their parents are different. They're different than the norm. They have different attitudes about things, they're interested in different things, and they socially interact in maybe some different kind of ways.

So if you want to know whether your kids are gonna be weird, you have to look at you.

If you're weird, your kids are gonna be weird. If you're not weird, your kids aren't going to be weird. And to just reinforce this, I want you to think back to your school experience. Were there kids in your school who were "weird"? Yeah. My public high school had lots of kids who were weird. And lots of kids who were normal and lots of kids who were lots of different things. And I'm guessing that if I went and met their parents, and I met a lot of parents, their parents were a lot like them.

So the reality is our culture is not how you choose to educate your child. It's actually how you choose to live your life as a family that determines whether your kids are gonna be weird or not. So what do you want to do about that? 

Well, if you are worried about your kids being able to interact effectively in society. If you're worried about your kids being "weird", then it's time to look at how can you change the culture in your family? How can you talk differently? How can you act differently? Can you be engaged in different things?

But I'm here to tell you that it's probably a good thing. Because once your kids get out into society, there's room for everybody. And kids who are different who think differently and act differently and move differently through the world are the ones who change the world.

And if you're a family that's chosen to homeschool, well maybe the word we should use instead is you're gonna be a little peculiar. You're gonna be called peculiar because you've moved outside of the norm. And isn't that what weird is? Is being outside of the norm? Don't you want to be outside of the norm if you're homeschooling? Well, yeah.

So yes, we want our kids to be able to interact socially. Yes, we want them to be able to interview for a job and get a job or just start a business. Yes, we want them to be able to go a party and have friends. Absolutely! But I want to embrace the fact that we're kinda quirky over here at the Perkey house. We're kinda peculiar. And not just because we homeschool, because that's what makes us Perkey's. And I kinda like that.

So rather than pushing it away, I'm gonna embrace the fact that we're kinda weird. And kinda peculiar and kinda different. And that's okay. And I hope that you can embrace what makes you different and unique and exciting and amazing. Because when we all come together in this beautiful planet, it's pretty awesome.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I bring you these videos every week to help you be a confident, successful homeschool mom.

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Over the years, I’ve tried so many different approaches -- memorizing basic lists, using copywork, playing tons of games -- and each has pros and cons.

What I’ve found is that the type of learner that I have really determines what kind of approach works best.

My wholistic thinkers do really well with games and spell check and copywork. Each time they see a word misspelled, it gets filed away … and over time their spelling continues to improve.

I’m always amazed because these wholistic-thinking kids are also the ones who seem to be allergic to lists and memorizing anything … it’s almost as if they need to just absorb the spelling through everyday exposure.

On the other side are my linear thinkers. They LOVE lists … and really need them to do well.

My dyslexic linear thinker must methodically and logically taught spelling -- helping her see the patterns and the connections. Her spelling is slowly improving through consistent focus.

My other non-dyslexic linear thinker uses the lists and immediately sees the connections on his own. He LOVES words. He also LOVES word games because spelling comes so naturally to him.

So with this mix of kids, I’ve found that a mixed approach to spelling has been effective. Some get lists, some get copywork.

But games are one way that we all can come together -- adjusting to accommodate the different skill levels.

I want to share with you one of my favorite word games that we’ve been able to adapt in several ways into our homeschool.

Play it straight -- or modify it to teach and review specific words. So much fun no matter how you to do it!

CLICK HERE to check Bananagrams out for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hey everybody, it's ToriAnn Perkey. From my homeschool to your homeschool, do you have dreaded spelling lists? 

Do you pull out the spelling list and your kids go, "Oh Mom, not another spelling list!" 

Spelling is one of those things that we know our kids need to do when we're homeschooling.  Is there a way to do it that's more fun, more engaging, more exciting? Because I'm going to tell you that anything that is more fun, more engaging and more exciting is going to work so much better in your homeschool.  And throughout all the different homeschooling things that we did, I was always looking for ways to make the boring, the mundane, the write-it-down-5-times type of spelling list thing ... is there a way to make it more fun?  There almost always is. Which is why today I want to tell you about a really cool game that we used in our home instead of dreaded spelling list. And it's so multipurpose that we used it far beyond and continue to use it far beyond the ways that it's designed. And it is ... Bananagrams.  Yay!

Okay.  So, have you ever seen Bananagrams?  This is the cutest little package. It's a banana, right?  And when you open it up inside are these letter tiles. I'm just going to pull out a few.  And here we have like an F, and a V, and an I, and in a lot of ways at this point it seems a lot like Scrabble, but this game does not play like Scrabble.

First of all, these tiles are made out of plastic.  You probably can hear that, and they're smooth. I love the tactile feel of these tiles. And they're a little bit smaller than Scrabble tiles.  The second thing that I like about them -- or I like about this game -- is that when you're just playing the straight rules, it is so much faster than Scrabble.

I don't know if you ever get bored playing Scrabble.  I know there's lots of people who don't, but I do because I have to wait for everyone else to take their turn. And if you're playing with younger kids, and they're waiting, it's not going to work.

So, what's cool about Bananagrams is the gameplay. Everyone's playing at the same time.  They're building their own, individual Scrabble boards with the same cross patterns and things like that, but you are building them all at the same time. So everybody gets to play. And you can modify the rules for the younger kids versus the older kids so that everybody has an equal chance depending on where they are.

Now, when I first saw Bananagrams, I was really excited for my kids who knew how to spell because I knew we were going to have fun playing it and practicing spelling words. Practicing how to spell any word while you're playing a game is way more fun than learning a spelling list.

But how do you use a game like this ... a bunch of random letter tiles ... how do you do that if your kids can't spell?  Well, the letter tiles themselves become these fabulous, fabulous kinesthetic tools to help kids spell. So, you can be laying out the tiles, you could have the spelling list, and you could say, "Okay, take the list and create me a grid like a Scrabble grid or a Bananagram grid using these words.  Can you do it?" Or you could take the tiles and you could lay them all out and you say, "Can you just find all the letters that go to your words?” Or what else could you do? Anything where the kids have to look at the word and spell it but they're doing it with tiles instead of with their hand writing on a piece of paper.

And I found that for my kinesthetic kids, those kinds of games were so, so, so much more effective.  We would even play games where the tiles are spread out across the floor and you have to run and get the tile, so there's that high movement.  So much better, so much more fun. And then you still have the game that you can play as they get to be better spellers, so it's multipurpose. You don't just have a manipulative sitting on your shelf waiting to be used for this one part of your curriculum or your one part of school, and then when it's done, you're done.  I like multipurpose. Way more effective. Yes!

So, if you are looking for a way to get rid of the boring way to do spelling and liven it up a little bit, then this little game right here is one that I would highly, highly recommend. And you can check it out on Amazon.  I'll put a link up above, down below, or wherever it is wherever you're watching this.

From my homeschool to your homeschool, I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I'm here to help you be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

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But over the years, I made one crucial mistake that made my oldest not care about what she did after high school.

In this video, I talk about the mistake I made and what I did to fix it.

My only regret is that I didn’t start fixing it sooner!

Transcript

Hey guys! It's ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to tell you the number one most important thing to do if you want your kids to go to college. And it's probably not what you think it is.

Because I know that when I first started thinking about the whole, "How am I gonna get my homeschool kid into college?" I started thinking in terms of ACT, SAT scores.

Or I started thinking about, "Well, do we have to have grades? Do we have to have a diploma?"

I started thinking about what subjects do we have to cover and can my kids get a scholarship?

I had all of these questions rumbling around in my mind, so I started researching like crazy. And it wasn't until after I'd done a bunch of research that I realized I was skipping the most important question. And in order to understand this, I have to tell you a little story.

So in our homeschool, I think it's really important that my kids have a choice. That there's lots of alternatives to being able to be a successful adult and college is only one of them. And so for years and years and years, when we would talk about college, to my oldest and all my kids, we would say, "You can go to college if you want, or if you want to do something else, you totally can."

Because I totally believe that's true. And for a long time I thought I was doing my kids this amazing service because I was opening up their horizons and making it possible for them to do all sorts of things. And then what I noticed was that my oldest started to say ... I would say, "Do you wanna go to college?" and she'd say, "Not really." And I'd say, "Okay, so what are you gonna do instead?” “Yeah, I don't know." 

And I realized that in my desire to make sure that she knew she had options, I had actually created this place where she had no vision at all. And I also know that even though there's lots of options, college really is kind of the gateway to a lot of opportunities unless you have something else in mind. 

So I started to change the way we talked about it. And I started to say, "You need to go to college, unless you have another option. You need to go to college." And this shifted everything. Because once we started having this conversation, my daughter started to realize that she needed to think more about college.

And when she started thinking more about college, then we could start saying, "Okay, what do you see? What kind of college would you wanna go to? What kind of experience do you wanna have? And I can see you in college, and I can see you doing this, and I can see you doing this. And … oh … you're really gonna enjoy this."

And then we would also talk about entrepreneurship. We talk about these things. And her mind went from, "I don't know" to "Huh. Well, I think I would do this if went to college, and I think I would wanna study this." And she changed the way she could see herself in the future.

So what's the number one thing you need to do if you want your kids to be college bound? 

You need to set a foundation that says, "I see you in college. I see you being successful. I see you studying different topics. I see you making friends. I see you launching into a beautiful, successful life." The number one thing you have to do is create vision. Create a vision of what they're going to look like in college and that they're going to college. 

And you can create a vision that they'll also be entrepreneurs. Or you can create a vision that they're going to be living whatever dream that they have. If they start to express a different dream, you can totally support that and talk about that.

But if you don't have vision, and your kids don't have vision, then it doesn't matter. All of the other research you're gonna do about SAT and ACT and grades and diplomas. I can make a totally other video about How to Get Into College and whether any of those things are important.

We can talk about that later.

But before you can research that and have it mean anything ... have any value ... you have to have a vision that you're going.

So don't make the same mistake I did. Make sure that your kids know that college is definitely where you want them to be unless they have another plan. And that's how we talk about it all the time now. You're going to college unless you have another plan.

And it shifted everything in our home, and I know that it's making a difference for my younger kids, and they're talking about it sooner. And they have a different sense of where they're headed more so than my oldest who really did feel kinda lost for a while. Because I wasn't helping her create the vision. 

So create a vision of where you want your kids to end up. And then help them get there by doing all the other things that move them in that direction.

Alright, I'm ToriAnn Perkey. And I make these videos every week so that you can be a confident, successful homeschool mom.

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Of my four kids, one came out of the womb loving math. I swear he could count before he could speak.

But the other three … well … it’s been a journey.

Along the way, I decided that I wanted my kids to love math. Because math is beautiful.

I didn’t want them to think math was just numbers on a white piece of paper that they plugged and chugged.

I wanted them to see that math was EVERYWHERE -- in the way flowers bloomed, in the way that water boiled, in the way the ball rolled down the hill.

It is patterns and shapes -- a living, breathing way to explain the world.

So we spent lots of time looking at the beauty of math.

But I also knew that they needed to enjoy computation -- so with my oldest I started using books that made computation fun and engaging.

No blank white pages for us -- I wanted stories and giggles and laughter.

One of my favorite resources that I found to help us do that was Life of Fred, a curriculum that incorporates heavy-duty math into a silly, engaging story that all my kids have loved.

They read it for fun. Seriously.

So if you’re looking to make a math a little more alive, CLICK HERE to check Life of Fred out for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hey guys! ToriAnn Perkey here! From my homeschool to your homeschool. Today, I wanna talk about living math and how you can incorporate it into your homeschool. And then I have a really cool resource that we've used in my home, one of our living math resources.

So what is living math? Well, living math is the idea that math is more than just plugging numbers into equations. It's more than just counting, telling time, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Math is alive. It's all around us and it explains the world. It explains why things work and it's beautiful. Math is beautiful. And in order for your kids to love math, they are going to fall in love with the idea that math is a wonderful, beautiful thing aside from computation.

So how do you do that? How do you take a subject that, for most of us in school, was pretty dry and boring unless we loved it inherently? And how do we turn it into something alive? Well, it comes from seeing how math fits into the bigger world. Seeing how math gets used everyday. And it comes from seeing that math can make us giggle and laugh and be in wonder and awe.

And there are many many resources out there to help you do this. And most of those resources are kind of a pick and choose. It can be a book that you read or a game that you play and I've talked about a lot of those as I've made these videos and these reviews and I'll talk about a lot more. Because this was an area where I felt really really strongly that I wanted my kids to fall in love.

But I do believe there is one curriculum in the math homeschool world that is particularly suited for anyone who wants to have more living math in their home. And it's more suited for kids who are interested in math from a language arts point of view. So these are gonna be kids who don't just wanna sit down and do a workbook but they want it to be incorporated into a story.

The reason I found these books is because my oldest was like that. She loved, loved, loved stories. But she didn't love sitting down and doing a workbook. And so that's when I went and found Life of Fred. Seriously, a math curriculum called Life of Fred. What? I know, sounds super silly. And if you've heard about this, you know it's amazing. If you haven't let me introduce you to Fred.

I'm gonna show you his picture. This was one of our first introductions to this book. This is Fred. He's a simple line drawing because the guy who wrote this curriculum, brilliant mathematician named, wanna make sure I say his name right, Stanley Schmidt was doing all the drawings himself. The illustrations are pretty crazy. They're all either hand-drawn silly like barely, barely illustrations. Or they're clip-art pulled off of the internet, it's just part of the style.

But let me tell you what I love about Life of Fred. It's all about a five year old kid who is a brilliant mathematician who works as a professor in an imaginary university called Kitten's University in Kansas. And the reason he is there teaching is because he was left there by his parents and you don't even hear that story until way into the calculus book. But he was left there by his parents and he makes a living teaching math. He's brilliant at math, but he's not so smart at, like the wisdom of living in the world. So he has to learn how to navigate the world while solving math.

And it's all sorts of situations and problems that he has to deal with. He has a doll that is his best friend that lives with him. And this doll is so funny. He's an amazing artist. So there's an entire book, one of the books is all about how this doll is making money selling his famous artwork and then how Fred feels about that and how they're having to deal with the supply and the demand. And then there's another one where the doll's really scared because Fred brings home a tiger as his pet. Then the tiger is attacking the doll, so the doll is scared.

So it's a book that appeals to boys, it's a book that appeals to girls and the storylines are written in such a way that they're hitting the kinds of things that you would want your kids to learn about in the real world. About asking good questions before you buy some and not being taken advantage of. About making good choices with your time. About being honest. These are the things that also show up in the book. It's a very character-driven book without being religious. There's no specific religion at all mentioned in the book but it is character-based and character-driven.

There's an entire elementary series and I brought a couple of those books here. It starts with apples and each one covers just a few subjects that you would hit in elementary. And then it goes apples, butterflies, cats, dogs. I think E is elephant and you're seeing the pattern here. It's A, B, C, D, E. Those go all the way up to J and then by the time you get to upper elementary then there's a fractions book, there's a decimals and percents book.

Then you migrate your way into pre-algebra and you go all the way up. These books go all the way to calculus. And I like 'em because there's a story and the math is integrated into the story.

So you're reading a chapter, you have some math to practice at the end. How did we use this? We didn't even use it really as a "curriculum", we would sit down and read it. We would read it as part of our morning routine. We would read a math book together and my kids loved it so much they'd actually pull it off the shelf and read it on their own. Because they wanted to know what happened to Fred.

And while they're reading all about Fred, they're also reading about math. Reading about math. It's almost like this antithetical phrase and yet I love it because my kids are soaking up and absorbing mathematical concepts without the extra effort that goes into saying, "You have to sit down and do this."

We did actually work the problems together and then later on they've been re-introduced to those concepts in other ways. But I loved introducing math in this way. And the best place to actually acquire this curriculum and you can see samples and you can check it out and look at all the different options, is a place called Z Twist Books. It's the cheapest place I've ever found it and I will leave a link either up above or down below. You can check it out, see if it's the kind of thing that would be really great to have on your shelf.

I love it. I believe living math is the only way to genuinely motivate and inspire kids to fall in love with the concept of math. It works even for my kids who don't love to "do math." They still love the concept of math. And in the end, that's one of the most important things for me when it comes to our education.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can have a super successful and confident homeschool.

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And knowing how to ANSWER that question can feel a little tricky!

Today I'm sharing the answer I've developed over the last 14 years that seems to work every single time.

Learn this, and you'll never feel awkward answering the socialization question again!

Want to read instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of this video.

Transcript

Hey guys! ToriAnn here! And from my homeschool to your homeschool, I’ve got a question for you. Have you ever heard someone ask you, “So what about socialization?”

You’re in the grocery store or maybe you’re at a family event and someone’s going to ask you how you’re going to socialize your kids.

Do you know how you’re gonna answer that question?

Or do you start to get all squidgy and squealy inside and feel all rumbly cause you don’t know what to say.

And behind that question, you can hear the real question which is, “Are you gonna destroy your kids?”

Yeah. So I used to get this question all the time. My in-laws would ask it. My parents would ask it. My siblings asked it. I would hear it in a church. I would hear it at the store. What are you gonna do about socialization?

And I got the question so much that I decided I was gonna come up with an answer that was going to work every single time. Because I was tired of fumbling around it and trying to come up with something that didn’t really feel like it satisfied them and usually took us down the rabbit hole of a whole bunch of other questions that didn’t really make a lot of sense and made the whole conversation harder. And it made it sound like I didn’t really know what I was doing with my homeschooling -- which is never a good idea.

So I came up with the answer to the “socialization” question, and ever since then, every time I use this, the answer just puts everything to rest. I can feel everyone I’m talking to take a deep breath. And I don’t get lots of follow up questions that aren’t just interested. They’re not critical questions, they’re, “Oh tell me more about that.”

So are you dying to know what this is?

Okay, so here’s the answer to the question. When someone comes up to me or we’re in a conversation and they say, “So what about socialization?” this is what I say --

“Well, you know, I treat socialization just like any other subject. I’m the facilitator of my kids’ education and development. Which means that I make sure that they get lots of socialization opportunities, and they’re getting educated in how to interact with human beings whether they’re adults or kids in a really great way.”

That’s the answer.

That you are creating opportunities and that you’re treating it like a subject, like any other subject.

And then if I feel like it, I follow up with something like this. “And besides, there are so many opportunities for homeschoolers to socialize with kids their age that if we wanted to, we could be gone every single day of the week and never be home and actually educate. But we don’t do that. So we just pick and choose. But my kids get so many opportunities to interact with other people. Yeah, they get tons of socialization.”

Between those two answers, it pretty much puts all the fears to rest.

And that’s how I want to end this little video. Remember that when people are asking you questions, they’re coming from one of two places.

They’re either curious. Which means you don’t need to feel defensive because they really are just curious and they wanna know what’s going on. And they’re learning more about homeschooling and they’re trying to figure out how it works and they figure you’re a good source of information because you are homeschooling or you’re thinking about it or you’re just getting started.

Or they’re worried. They’re worried that these kids that they care about, either because they’re in your neighborhood or they’re a neighbor or they’re a friend or maybe they’re a family member. You know grandmas and grandpas, they worry. They wanna make sure the kids are gonna be okay. That’s what they’re really asking.

So when you have an answer that’s confident and when you have an answer that’s clear that you’re in charge and you have a plan, it calms everybody down. And when everybody’s calm, the conversation gets a lot easier.

Alright, I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I bring you these videos every week so that you can feel like a confident, successful homeschooler.

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