Category Archives for Getting Started

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.

Transcript

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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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.

Transcript

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.

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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.

Transcript

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.

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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!

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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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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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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