Tag Archives for " Homeschool "

You see some other homeschool mom doing something amazing.

Maybe she’s just posted a picture of how her family of 8 all gathered around the table to mummify a chicken for their unit on Ancient History.

Or maybe she’s showing multiple pictures of their homemade pioneer meal to wrap up reading Little House on the Prairie.

OR ...

Maybe you took a few minutes on Pinterest and ended up saving 50 pins with fun science activities … or tea party ideas … or fieldtrip enhancements …

And suddenly you are feeling Homeschool Envy -- the green-eyed monster that appears at your side telling you that somehow your homeschool will NEVER measure up to all of these other amazing homeschools.

And along with the Envy monster comes his side-kick Homeschool Guilt -- reminding you that you are failing your homeschool kids … that they are not learning anything … that your homeschool isn’t working at all.

In that moment -- what will you do?

How will you battle and win against Homeschool Envy (and get rid of Homeschool Guilt too!)??

You must go back to the beginning. 

And this week’s video is all about how to do that.

Rather read than watch? Keep scrolling to read a transcript of the video.

Transcript

Hello, my name is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about how you can avoid homeschool envy. As long as you're homeschooling, envy can start to creep in.

Envy is when you start looking at all the other things that the homeschool moms are doing, and especially on Facebook or on Pinterest, and you start to just think, "Oh, I want that. I want that for my homeschool. But you start to feel yucky inside because you don't know that there's any way that you could possibly also recreate that in your home."

So today I want to turn the tables just a little bit and get you out of homeschool envy. And the way you want to do that is to talk about the fact that when you are homeschooling, you will always have a buffet of possibilities. You will have so many things in every subject area that you could cover, that you could easily start to feel well overwhelmed or guilty, or just like you're failing because you're not doing even a fraction of everything you see.

And so the cure, the antidote to overcome this buffet overload is to step back and get really, really clear on your priorities, on what's important to you. Because if you can -- if you can look at all of those things and line them up against your priorities, what you think is best for your homeschool, then you'll be able to pick and choose.

Now how do you prioritize? Well, you need to get clear on 1) how your homeschool wants to function. What do you want happening in your homeschool? And that happens through creating a vision. It also happens when you get to know your kids' personalities, their learning styles, all of those things.

And then once you've done that, you can look through and you can say, "Okay, I need to figure out what is the best thing I could do? What's the better thing and what's the good thing? " I like to call it good, better and best. Because there are lots and lots of great options out there. And what you need to figure out is which of the great options fit in this priority scale? And what do I mean by that? Well, let me give you an example.

Let's say you want to study history, and you're looking and thinking about all of the options. Well, "good" for your family, depending on your kids and how they learn, good could actually be doing a really intense, hands-on activity where they're getting their hands dirty and they're making a huge mess. Better might be doing a simple activity that you know you can pick up in 10 minutes and it's not going to make wreak havoc in your home. And best might be just sitting down and telling a story or even watching a YouTube video about that topic.

You see all three of things allow you to accomplish teaching about that subject, but they may not all be the best fit for your family. On the other hand, maybe you know that your kid isn't going to learn a whole lot if they're just watching a video, but they will learn a lot if you do that messy activity, and so you actually swap your good and your best, and your best is the messy activity, and you do less somewhere else.

It all depends on your kid's learning style, your kid's personality, your personality and learning style, your vision for your own school. It depends on all those pieces.

But once you have it, you can prioritize, and you can step out of homeschool envy, and you can feel better because you know that the things you are picking for your homeschool are actually really the best things for your homeschool.

Now, how do you set that vision? How do you figure out your kids personalities and learning styles? Well, I have a free webinar that I'd love to have you check out because I go over exactly those things and several additional things that will help you create a successful and confident homeschool. It's called Confident Homeschool Secrets, and you can sign up for free to watch it right away. Just click on the link up above or down below. You know, wherever you're watching this video, and you can-- it'll shoot into your inbox and you can start watching it as well as soon as right now.

Okay. I just want to end by saying that homeschool envy doesn't have to have you turning green. You can feel confident as you're homeschooling. You can feel good about picking the very best things for your kids. Prioritize, get clear on what your family needs, and you'll be halfway there. 

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

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It also provides an easier way to practice grammar and punctuation and all the other writing conventions that will help them communicate well as they get older.

But some kids have it easier than others.

I have two kids who took to creative writing like ducks to water … writing long stories -- first on paper and then the computer.

However, two really struggled to write much -- mostly because they struggled to write at all.

Dyslexia (for both) and dysgraphia (for one) made it so the creative ideas in their heads couldn’t make it to the paper easily. [I talk about all the skills you need to write in this post.]

So I went hunting for ways to help them express their creativity sooner while their reading, writing, and typing skills caught up.

I wanted them to practice their storytelling skills -- and I was looking for additional storytelling ideas to make it happen.

And THIS game is one of the answers I found.

We LOVE Dixit in our home … fun and fast to play. Works for all ages. And there’s NO reading so my youngest kid (who couldn’t read until he was 11 ½ !) could still play along with everyone else.

One caveat that I don’t mention in the video -- a few of the cards are a little creepy for a few of my kids (we have VERY sensitive souls over here) -- maybe two out of the entire deck. We just put those aside and play with the rest. It doesn’t affect game play at all.

CLICK HERE to check it DIXIT for your homeschool.

Hello, I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to tell you about a really cool game that will help you sharpen your kid's creative writing skills ... and the game doesn't have any words.

I know pretty crazy, but stick with me.

So the game ...So first of all, before I tell you about the game, what I want to explain is why I think this game works the way it does. You see, creative writing involves a lot of things. It involves being able to write on the paper. It involves creating sentences and involves knowing, grammar, punctuation, all those things.

But no matter what age you are, the number one thing you have to be able to do to be a strong creative writer is to be able to come up with really cool stories. And this game helps support that even before kids can read and even before they can write.

And what I love about it is if your kid is a struggling reader or a struggling writer -- and we have several of those in my homeschool -- then this is a game that they can play that can be strengthening their writing skills as you're still working on some of those other pieces.

So what is the game called? Well, the game is called Dixit. And this is a game that is well loved in our family. It actually -- the word Dixit means to tell or speak in Latin -- and it's a storytelling game.

And how does it work? Well, the game comes with 84 cards. And the cards look like this. This is the back of the card and this is the front. Each one contains a storytelling scene, and they're all kind of surreal. I'm going to hold these up so you can see them. As you can see, they're kind of different.

And the idea is that you're going to come up with a story element about one of these cards. Now, that alone is a very fun way to do storytelling, and you can play with the cards just like that. But let me tell you a little bit more about how the actual game works.

You sit around -- it's up to six players (unless you play on teams) -- you sit around. You have five or six of these cards in your hand and nobody else can see them. And when it's your turn, you pick one of your cards, and you try to come up with a phrase that you think will match not just your card, but other cards that people are holding. And it can be a sound, it can be a word, it can be a short phrase. It's not a whole story, it's just a small piece.

Then everyone else ... so you say that and you put your card down. So if I have this card, for example, I might say "message." Simple, right? If you look really closely -- let's see if I can get that to focus -- this guy is holding an envelope with a message.

All right, so now I have said "message." I put my card down. Everyone else in the circle goes through their cards and tries to find a card that will match. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Kinda like Apple to Apple ... Apples to Apples, if you've ever played that game.

Then I, as the storyteller, flip all the cards over and everyone looks at all the cards. They don't know which one was mine and which one belongs to anyone else except themselves. And then everybody gets has these tokens, one to six (I only held up two) and the they vote for which one they think ...which card they believe goes with the word that the storyteller -- the word, the sound, the phrase --that the storyteller said.

And if they get it right, they get a certain number of points. If as the storyteller,people pick my card, I get a certain number of points. If nobody picks ... if everyone picks somebody else's card, -- oh, if somebody -- if they pick someone else's -- if someone picks their card, they get a point. So there's different ways that you get points.

The goal is the storyteller is to pick a word or a phrase or a sound that is not too obvious, but not too obscure. You want to hit right in the middle. And it's a really clever way to really think about what are the other cards probably going to do. What does your card do? And it pushes the brain in problem-solving with language in a way that I've never done with any other game. And when you're done, you keep score and then you move on. It takes about 30 minutes to play depending on how many people you have.

Now we love this game so much that after we purchased the original game, we actually purchased several expansion sets as well. And this is one of the expansion sets right here. Each expansion set comes with a whole new set of cards that have the same back so you can mix them all together, which is why I'm just going to put in the caveat that these cards I showed you may not actually be from the original game because we've mixed all ours up and now I don't know which cards come with the original game.

So that is a game that I strongly recommend you consider for your homeschool. So much fun to play. All ages can play together. You don't have to read. And it really, really, really pushes the brain to think about words and language and sound in a different kind of way that actually helps with their creative-writing skills as well.

So if this is a game that sounds interesting to you, you can check it out at the link up, above or down below. You know how this works. It's wherever you are watching this video. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from homeschool to homeschool, I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

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Summer is winding down and the school year is about to start.

Which means you are probably working on your plan for your homeschool year … as well as thinking about your schedule for your homeschool day.

How will you start out your morning?

When will you do math … and spelling … and help the 6 yr old with their reading?

And when will you get all the laundry get done?!?

I don’t have all the answers, but I have learned over the years that if I include certain things into my homeschool day EVERYTHING goes so much better.

School work gets done.

We spend time together.

And the house stays relatively clean! (Well … at least I think so. But clean is relative when you homeschool!)

So that’s what I’m sharing with you today -- the 5 essential elements for a successful homeschool daily schedule.

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

Transcript

​Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about how to structure your homeschool day so it can be successful. I have five essential things I want to encourage you to include.

So if you are planning on homeschooling or you've actually already started homeschooling, there are a lot of pieces and elements you have to pull together to make this successful. You are committing to a really important thing, right? You're committing to facilitating an education for your children. It is not to be taken lightly. And how you structure your day is going to be really, really important.

Now your homeschool is unique. Your kids are unique. And your situation is unique. So I'm not going to tell you what order to do things in. And I'm certainly not going to tell you exactly what to do within these different pieces because you need to figure that out. But I am going to tell you that successful homeschools include these five essential parts, and you get to figure out how you piece them together.

So what are they?

Well, the first one is work time. Time to work together. And structure your time so that you are working in the home, preferably together. But even if just everybody has chores so that you can keep your home up.

The second one is you want to have time where you spend time all together where you gather as a family. One of the benefits of homeschool is that you are actually together. And this is a little bit easier to do when your kids are young. It gets a little bit harder as they get older, as they start to go out and be involved in other things, even during the homeschool day. But finding time to come and be together as a family, whether it's a few minutes or a longer period of time -- really important.

The third one is you want to have a chunk of time set aside at some point during the day when people can work on individual parts of their homeschooling, whether it be their math or their individual reading or music practice. They're going to need a chunk of time during the day that's set aside for that. And again, you get to figure out how to piece these together, but you're going to need that.

The next is -- it's really important that kids have time to play. And we call play different things as kids get older, whether it's play or whether it's recreational time or downtime. Kids need that and so do you. And so it's really important to create time and structure time within the day that you know the kids are going to be free to explore, experiment, do their own kinds of things.

The last essential key piece that I really cannot recommend more strongly than I'm about to recommend is you structure time for you. You must have time on a daily basis where you recharge your batteries, whatever that looks like for you. And I know that sounds impossible. But I promise you, if you are not recharging you, you'll burn out. And homeschool mom burnout is a real thing. So figure out a piece of each day that can be just for you. You will be able to homeschool more confidently and more successfully if you have that in place.

So those are the five things I recommend. Work time, time together, time alone, time to play, and time for you. Now, if you'd like more details about how to do this, as well as other key things to get in place in order to have a successful and confident homeschool, than I would love to have you sign up for my free webinar. It's called Confident Homeschool Secrets. You can check the link out. It's up above or down below. You know, wherever you're watching this video. And it's totally free.

You're going to go ... I'm going to go over the seven key things that I recommend you do to have a foundation in place that helps you have a successful and confident homeschool. Because I know that if you can get those pieces in place. And particularly this piece -- if you can figure out how to structure your day, you are going to have a homeschool that you love. You're going to have a homeschool that your kids look forward to and a homeschool that you look forward to.

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

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When we started, we didn’t call it gameschooling -- we just called it “fun.”

I think we gravitated to games because I didn’t have traditional learners in my homeschool.

They didn’t want to sit and do worksheets. They didn’t want to fill out lapbooks. 

And several couldn’t read until much later -- so I needed something that didn’t require them to read independently.

They also wanted to jump and run and move. I had kinesthetic, dyslexic, ADHD kids ...

So we played games. Lots and lots of games.

And Blokus has always been one of our favorites.

I think it’s one of the first games we ever bought soon after we decided to homeschool.

I remember standing in the store, trying to decide if it was worth the cost. (This was before Amazon made it easy to sit on my couch and deliberate the same question!

I almost didn’t buy it … but I’m SOOOO glad that I did.

Because my kids have played Blokus for years. 

I love how it is great for spatial learning, for problem solving. I love how it works for visual learners and you can play with all ages.

I love how it keeps working for my family year after year after year.

Seriously -- it will be a great add for your homeschool.

Click HERE to check out Blokus for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about a game that we've had in my family for years. There are so many different ways to play with this game. And no matter how you play, it's going to enhance and increase spatial learning in your kids. So it's a fabulous game for your homeschool.

The game is called the Blokus, and you may or may not have heard of this game. It's been around for a long time. There's variations. I absolutely love this game. This game is really good because if you remember playing Tetris as a kid, it takes Tetris-type shapes and the kids are physically manipulating them. So it's everything that the video game did with Tetris with it's the ability to see shapes fitting in different places, but they're doing it with their hands, which means there's that whole kinesthetic element.

So what is a part of this game? Well, you start with a blank gray board. And I don't know if you can see this, but you see how it's got a texture to it. So there's a grid board, and it's up to four players in the classic version of the game. And the pieces come in different shapes, and they're all these different - I don't know if you can see that - but you see how they have ridges?

And so this is five squares. It's one-by-one squares attached in different ways. So you have different shapes and depending on the shape determines how it fits on the board. The traditional way that you play is up to four people start in a corner ... one person starts in each corner. So there's four corners, and you start placing pieces, and the rule is that you have to touch the pieces corner to corner, like so, and they're not allowed to overlap.

And the goal strategically is to see who can get the most pieces on the board before all the spaces are gone. So there's a lot of strategy involved.

What I love is that, one, there's no words in this game, which means that your kids who are not readers yet, they can totally play. And you can play big kids against little kids. The whole family can play.

Second, I love the fact that there just is so much geometry and spatial reasoning and mathematical thinking and problem solving going on as you're trying to figure out how to place these blocks.

But what I also love is that the number of ways to play with the game when you're not playing the game is huge. The reason this game has been a favorite in our homeschool for years is not because of the actual game, although we do like playing it. It is because there are so many ways to play with these pieces on this board.

So I've had kids who will create patterns. I've had them create a grid -- see if they can put all the colors together and how they can make squares. I've also had them figure out how they can create multicolored patterns because there's blue, green, yellow and red. I've had them line up all the pieces along the floor. I've had them look at -- because there's different sizes of pieces -- you know, there's some that are really tiny like this and then there's big ones like this. I've had them stacked pieces on top of each other too.

It's amazing to me how many ways they figured out to play with these very simple pieces. That's what I love about it. I'm going to invest in a game that can be a family game, but the kids can get out and they can play with it any time, even if they're all by themselves, and my kids did.

All of my kids played with this game and continue to play with this game. The one caveat I will give you is there are, of course, lots of actual pieces. So if you have little babies, you'll want to figure out a way to keep it out of that. And we were really good about taking the pieces and putting them in Ziploc bags and storing them in the game so that we could keep track of everything. Because this is a tiny little piece you can't play without it, and it would be really easy to lose. So we were really careful about that.

But other than that, man, this is an amazing game. I strongly recommend it for your family and your homeschool. If it sounds like something you'd be interested in, then click on the link up above or down below, you know, wherever you're watching this video and check it out. Because anytime you can have a game that has so many different purposes and so many different ways to play, it's going to be a win for your family. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

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The reality is being a homeschool dad is different than being a homeschool mom -- and he is going to have his own sets of fears and concerns (just like you do!)

So do both parents have to agree to homeschool?

Short answer … at least to some degree!

Otherwise, the level of conflict in your home will be crazy and that doesn’t do anyone any good!

For years, my husband was VERY wishy-washy about homeschool … he was willing to go along with the idea, but he was torn with lots of worries about how it was all going to work out.

But over the years, things changed and now he’s a HUGE advocate for homeschooling!

So how do you get your husband on board with your homeschool? 

Today I’m sharing 5 key steps that can dramatically improve your ability to get your husband to understand homeschool and help him feel more supportive toward homeschooling.

I used ALL FIVE of these tips with my husband … and I’ve seen them work for other spouses as well.

In this video I mention my free class Confident Homeschool Secrets. It’s a great way to help your husband AND you feel confident about homeschooling. 

Click here to register to watch Confident Homeschool Secrets.

Transcript

Hello. My name's ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about five steps you can take if your spouse is not on board with your homeschooling.

You know, in a perfect world every couple would be perfectly aligned, and if one wanted something the other would go along with it. But it doesn't always work out that way. And often a mom-- and I'm going to talk to the moms here cause it's usually the moms-- the mom is learning about homeschooling, she's feeling like it might be a good fit for her kids. Maybe she's started talking to people, and she mentions it to her spouse, and he is not on board.

And even if they're talking about it, and she's trying to explain why it would be a good idea, he is just not buying it. So today here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about five steps you can take to hopefully get to a little bit more of a meeting of the minds if your spouse isn't on board with your homeschooling.

So number one, the first thing I recommend is try to have open communication. You know, if you are really starting to feel like homeschooling is a good fit for your family, and you really start to want it, it can be really hard to have objective conversations if your spouse isn't on board, and you can even take it personally.

If he isn't supporting you, you can feel like he doesn't care. He doesn't care about your children because he doesn't see why it's a good idea. So the first step I would recommend taking is try to have open communication. And when you're having this open communication, what that means is that you are trying to, without emotion involved, understand his fears and concerns.

Almost always if a spouse is not on board, it's because there's something that -- it's something or many things he's afraid of or he's concerned about. And those can run the gamut from how will they get into college to whether the house will be clean to whether you have the emotional ability to manage having kids home all the time. Or, you know, will they learn everything they need to learn or will ... How about, you know, will they be able to make friends?

You don't know what his concerns are if you don't ask. So trying to create a safe space where you can have an open dialogue and say, You know what ... What is it that you're concerned about? And don't immediately get defensive with whatever answers he gives you. Respond with, Okay, I can see that. And then work toward either finding answers that will answer that concern or saying, Well, how could we problem solve that s it could work. Looking for problems, solutions to the concerns and the fears, rather than dismissing them.

You don't want to be dismissive because they're real, and he cares about your kids too. He wants them to be successful and happy just like you do. And so it's good to listen and hear. And some of his concerns may be valid.

Like are you going to be able to handle the extra stress around the house or the time that you no longer have to give to these things that now go to your kids? Listen to those concerns and problem solve together.

Okay, the second step I recommend is have him talk to other homeschooled dads. So my husband did not like homeschooling when we first started. He was willing to give it a try, but he wasn't really on board. And I noticed that no matter how much I talked about it, or no matter how many things I tried to share with him or that I had learned, it didn't actually make a huge difference.

But when he started talking to other homeschool dads, whether they were at a conference or whether it was just at a community event or people we randomly met, that happened to homeschool-- when he talked to the Dads, his attitude started to change. There was something about the way they talked, what they said, the way they could address his concerns and fears that I was not able to do -- even with open communication. I knew what they were, but I couldn't address them.

So it's as he talked to them that he was able to start to feel really good about homeschooling. So my second recommendation is have him talk to other dads, find dads that he can talk to, who feel good about homeschooling and let them talk to him.

The third thing I want to recommend, the third step you can take if your spouse isn't on board is that you recommend that you take it one year at a time. Sometimes when we commit to something, it can feel really big and really huge, and you've got a six or a seven year old, and your husband is asking about college, Well, how are they going to get into college?

And one of the things you can do to kind of back out of that so that you can test the waters without feeling like you are overwhelming or committing to an idea that may or may not work. You say, You know what? Let's just try it for a year. Let's just try a year and see how it goes. If it goes, great, we can do it again. If not, we can problem solve and look at other solutions. This allows you to do a test run without fully committing. Even if you know you're fully committed.

For our family for years, we said, Let's just take it one year at a time. And then there was some point where we just stopped saying that, and I think it helped both my husband, and I feel like we could sit and move forward with the idea without feeling like we were freaked out about the idea.

Okay, so the fourth thing I recommend, the fourth way to try to help ... step to take if your spouse isn't on board is be open to modified solutions. It can be really easy to be reading about homeschooling and seeing all of these possibilities and want to dive in and be gungho100%, but if your spouse isn't on board because some of those ideas sound really radical, it might require that initially, not longterm, but initially you come to some middle ground. Whether that is, you know, if you're really drawn to radical unschooling, but he's worried about them filling in all their holes ... and I made other videos about that.

But you pull together, you say, Well, maybe we do some curriculum. Or maybe he's worried about them falling behind in math. So you say, Well, I'd like to try this way with this. Can I do this with the science, which is a little bit more up and down and all over the place in elementary school, but we'll still, you know, do 15 minutes of math every day or whatever. Look at finding a way to modify your vision so the two of you can have a meeting of the minds, and he's willing a little more willing to try to give it a go.

The last thing I want to recommend, the fifth way, the fifth step you can take if your home, if your spouse isn't completely on board with your homeschooling, is invite him to try to get a little bit of learning himself.

Now, this is kind of a minefield because some dads are all in and some are not. Some are readers, some like to listen. So if you've read certain books, or you've listened to certain podcasts, you can invite him to do those things. You can invite him to go to a homeschool conference with you and go to some classes. It's a great way to meet a dad or several dads that way. Or I have another option for you as well.

I have a free webinar. It's called Confident Homeschool Secrets. It's all about how you can successfully set up a homeschool so that it will be ...It will be successful so you'll feel confident. And it goes through different key fundamental principles that you need to have in order to have a successful homeschool. It's totally free, and you can sign up by just clicking the link up above or down below, you know, wherever you're watching this video, and then you can invite your husband to watch that.

I promise it's only an hour. It is an easy, easy thing to sit down and listen to. I'm going to give really practical application. I'm going to tell some stories, and I'm going to help you both feel a little bit more like homeschooling is doable and help people feel successful.

So if that sounds like something that he would be interested in, or if you'd be interested in, then be sure to click the link up above or down below and sign up for that. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

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(And there’s nothing like a science experiment that flops to shift the energy in your homeschool for the day!)

That’s why I LOVE the books I’m reviewing today.

The experiments work every time. The kids love them. And I get SUPER excited because they really are SO MUCH FUN.

These experiments will work with kids as young as preschool and kindergarten -- but they also have the wow factor (think money on fire!) that is going to appeal to middle school and high school aged students.

Many can be done in 10 minutes -- although some take 20 minutes or longer. And all your supplies can be found in the grocery store or dollar store.

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool:
Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste
Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes

(UPDATE: I recently became aware there is also a ​Steven Spangler Science Club​ -- which is a box subscription with monthly science experiments shipped to your door. I personally haven't tried it, but it looks pretty awesome!)

Transcript

Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey from my homeschool to your homeschool, does your homeschool have naked eggs and exploding toothpaste? Well, if it doesn't, then it should. And today I'm going to tell you how to make that happen. Why? Because I have two very, very, very special science books that are all about that.

The first one is called Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes. And the second one is Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste. These are both science books put out by Steven Spangler. He is a fun, fun, fun science guy who was seen on the Ellen DeGeneres show several years ago.

And these are science experiment books, right? Which as a homeschool mom, they're kind of a dime a dozen. I feel like I cannot move two inches through a curriculum fair or even a bookstore without coming across some kind of science book. So why would I take the time to recommend these?

Well, I just really liked them. And let me show you why. So first of all, I love how they are designed. I think that it's a book designed for moms and kids. You know, this is a book that you could give to your kid and they would enjoy. But I also think that for moms, how a book is designed, it makes a huge difference. And these are slick. The pictures are fun.

So here's a really great example. The photography is really powerful. I feel like the instructions are well laid out, and then I really like how the visually it's a really strong visual book. There's no hand-- it's not hand drawn, it's not about-- it's not black and white. It's very colorful. The other thing I really like about this particular science book is there's the whole instructions and then there's a What's Going on Here section, and inside the section you are going to that's where you're going to get the actual science.

So as a mom you can be doing the science experiment with your kids or give the book to them, and they can do the science experiment. But then over here you're then able to kind of be looking on the side and do the teaching piece and fill in the teaching as you're doing the science experiments.

I also like it because every experiment I've done actually works, which is saying a lot. We didn't do a ton of science experiments throughout the years just because the mess was really hard for me. But when we did science experiments, and I tried lots of different books, this was the book I kept coming back to-- these two books. And I will tell you at the back of this book Fire Bubbles, there is a section of experiments that are only for people who have access to chemicals and ingredients that a science teacher has access to.

All of the other experiments, including some about setting money on fire, and there's another one about glacial gac, and there's one about soap exploding in your microwave. Those are all done with things that you can find around your house or easily buy in the grocery store.

But there is a section in that Fire Bubbles book does require having access to some additional materials. So know that if you're only going to pick up one, I would start with this one because you'll be able to do every single science experiment. I loved it so much. We got both. But you know, that's me.

So just wanted to tell you about those. I love it. I think it's fun to do experiments. I think it's a way to just expand and make your homeschooling more than just sitting and doing books. It's an easy way for the kids to do hands on.

And these are really fun for all ages. I will tell you that as a mom, when the soap is exploding in the microwave, I'm getting excited. I'm like, yeah, that's so cool.

When we're setting money on fire. Yeah, that's pretty fun too. So it didn't actually burn, but you have to do the experiment to see how that works. So I highly recommend these books.

If you want to check them out, you can check out the links up above or down below. You know how this works, and you can go take a look at those for your own homeschool. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

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Now I’m looking back and realizing I’ve learned A LOT over the last 15 years. 

And what I realized REALLY surprised me.

What I thought I would learn isn’t necessarily what I have learned … but I’m so grateful for what I’ve picked up along the way.

And I hope what I’ve learned can help you too (even if you’re just starting out on your homeschool adventure!)

So this week I’m sharing the top 5 things I’ve learned from 15 years of homeschooling.

Transcript

Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today,I want to talk about the five most surprising things I've learned over 15 years of homeschooling. That's right. I've been doing this for 15 years. My oldest is headed off to college. I've got a bunch of teenagers now and I've picked up a few things along the way. I knew I'd learn a lot, but there's some things I've been really surprised about, and that's what I want to share with you today.

So the first thing that just really surprised me is that my kids need me less and more than I thought they would. So my kids need me less because it is just phenomenal how much learning they actually do on their own. I know that over and over, people ask me, well, how do you teach high school this? Or how do you do this? And I say, well, we find the right resources, and they kind of just take care of it.

So a big part of this surprising learning, this surprising journey that I've been on is learning that they really do need me a lot less than I thought they would when I first started.

On the other hand, they need me a lot more. They need me to show up and be supportive emotionally in so many ways. And that's true of any teenager. They're also involved in so many different activities, and I'm volunteering and I'm helping and I'm teaching and I'm coordinating and I'm running the home.

They also need me to help create the vision and to help facilitate this educational journey. And it's time consuming to do that in a different kind of way. So rather than being at the table marking books with pencils or showing them how to do things, I've become more of a coordinator and a facilitator, which is a lot more than I thought it would. So that's the first thing that my kids need me more and less than I thought they would. First surprising thing.

The second thing that's really surprised me as my kids have gotten older is it's a lot harder to let go then I thought it would be. I assumed that because of my personality, I would be so excited to see them grow and progress and want them to move on and do exciting things and be involved in things.

But because they've been home and because I've been so involved with so many aspects of their educational experience for so long, as my teenagers and now my adult children are starting to really move beyond my sphere of influence, I find I'm having a little bit of trouble letting go -- the control part of me, the part that loved to be in all the pieces and know what was going on.

I really ... there's parts I really don't know much about anymore. And it's surprised me how much I miss being that involved. And not in a bad controlling type of way, but just a knowing and able to help and answer questions and help them see and coordinate. So it's been really interesting.

So the second thing I've learned ... that I've been surprised to learn is just that it's harder to let go of the role that I took on when they were little as they move out into the bigger world, which is of course what I want.

The third thing that I have been surprised to learn is that even with all of my efforts to try and do this, I still could have let them play more, and I could have worried less. I am watching my children become phenomenal adults, and as I watched the progression of that happen, even though ...

I mean it's not a smooth road, it's got bumps and hills and detours. I'm seeing them become these amazing people and realizing that the worry and the guilt and the frustration and the worry ... I could have let more of that go. There needs to be some of it because otherwise I wouldn't have done all the things I did, but the nights when I would lie in bed and think I'm ruining my children -- I'm realizing I could have done even less of that than I thought. 

So number three surprising thing that I've learned is that I could have worried less and we could have played more.

The fourth thing, the fourth surprising thing is that I found my tribe, my people, my best friends in the homeschool community. I did not envision when we started that it would be as much for me as it was for my kids. That I would find people who were as invested in education, as invested in child development, as invested in raising adults that were successful, contributing members of society, were as invested in learning all about different subjects, were as invested in creating community.

All of the things that I cared about, I didn't realize how much I was going to love interacting with other women who cared about the same things. So the fifth-- the fourth most surprising thing about all of this, this homeschool journey, is that I found my best friends in the homeschool community.

The fifth thing, the fifth most surprising thing, I think that I've learned in this in this 15 years is that I didn't get bored. So little disclosure, I'm really good at starting projects and not finishing them. I'm really good at gung-ho, get going, super excited, but at some point I'm going to trickle out and lose attention span and move on to other things. And I have a wake of fairly large projects in my life that testify to that. I never have lost my love for homeschooling. I've never gotten bored.

And I think it's because my kids are constantly changing. They're constantly growing. They're constantly becoming new and different, and they're engaged in new things, that we're learning new things. There's always a lot of new, and it kept me excited. And the year would come to an end and then we'd plan and then we'd start a new year.

So it was projects in chunks maybe, I don't know. But I've just been so surprised to recognize as I look back that I am not bored and I haven't lost interest. I'm still as excited and is engaged to get up and get started and do it as I was 15 years ago. And that is pretty dang mind boggling.

So I hope some of these Aha moments have been helpful for you. If you'd like more help. I have a free Homeschool Help Center that I would love to invite you to be a part of. It has a variety of free resources in it that will help you be a successful and confident homeschool parent, and it's super easy to join. There's no cost. There's a link up above or down below, you know, wherever you're watching this video. You click on that link, you'll give me a little information, and then you're in, and you can take advantage of all of those resources. I'd love to offer that to you so you can be as excited about your homeschooling as I am about mine.

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

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They come out of nowhere …

You’re standing in the grocery store line … or at a family gathering … or at the park …

And someone lays a “really tough” homeschool question on you.

How do you respond?

What do you say?

No worries -- I’ve got your back. Here’s what you do ...

Transcript

Hello! My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about how you answer the really tough homeschool questions - the really tough ones, the ones that they come at you out of the blue maybe from a family member or a person in the grocery store line and you just kind of like, “Well… ???

They're hard, and we don't all get the same tough questions, but if you're homeschooling, you are going to get tough questions. So, how do you answer them? How do you answer those really tough questions in a way that makes you feel okay?

Well, you guys, here's the deal. There's no perfect way to answer a really tough question, and because there are so many different kinds of homeschooling questions, I can't really give you the perfect answer for any of them. I can give you some, and we could go on and on and on about those, but I want to talk more about the way you answer a tough question matters almost more than what you actually say.

Here’s the deal. When you answer a question, the way you say it, the tone of your voice, your body language -- those matter way more than the actual words. So, if you get asked a really tough question -- the kind that just throw you for a loop -- and you're like, “I don't know and I'm really worried too” and everything in your voice and your body language says, “I've no idea what I'm doing, and I think I'm destroying my children, and it's a train wreck at our house, and don't even come in my front door because you would see the dishes in the sink, and then the Cheerios all over the floor, and you would see that we haven't folded laundry in 3 weeks, and homeschooling is a train wreck but I just …” -- okay, if you do that, guys, guys, everything about you screams, “I have no idea what I'm doing and it's a train wreck.”

But you can get the same question, and if you can find it in you to stand strong with your feet firmly planted and your shoulders back -- even if you don't feel this -- like you are faking it. Pretend -- you're pretending, you're pretending even if you don't feel it -- and you say, “You know what? You're right. That is a tough question.” And label it a tough question. Say, “Here's what I'm currently thinking. Here's what I'm currently thinking,” which gives you space to change your mind, which gives you space to say I'm still figuring that out. Even if I'm just still figuring that out -- but here's what I'm currently working on or here's what we're currently doing.

Confidence in your voice and in your body language and the way you present that information -- what you're communicating to that other person is “I've got this. I've got this even though I have dishes in the sink, and there's Cheerios all over the floor, and I haven't folded laundry in 3 weeks. I've got this even though we just spent 2 weeks watching screens because we were sick. I've got this even though parts of my life are kind of messy and chaotic and I'm a hot mess. Even though … I've got this.”

If your body language says that, then it doesn't really matter the words you say to answer that really tough question, because what they hear is “I'm confidently handling that really tough question.”

So, that is my recommendation for you. And if you don't feel confident -- like if you're still learning the confidence thing -- I'm here to tell you pretend, pretend. Pull back your shoulders, plant your feet, look them in the eye, and take a deep breath, and say, “That's a really tough question and here's what I'm currently thinking.”

If you can do that, their energy will shift and everything will go more smoothly.

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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Transcript

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And over the years we’ve tried all kinds of systems to try and keep screens from overwhelming our life.

BUT …

There are also times when using screens has SAVED my homeschool.

And now that my kids are older, I’m starting to understand that a lot of what I worried about I didn’t need to worry about.

So when did my kids ONLY watch screens? You’re about to find out ...

Transcript

Hey guys! ToriAnn Perkey here, from my homeschool to your homeschool, I have a little confession. There have been times in my homeschool where we have watched a lot of screens as in like months of screens. Is that even okay to say?

Kind of debated whether to say this or not because I don't want to give anybody permission to just watch screens all the time but I think sometimes we hear about these amazing homeschool families and like they don't ever do screens or you feel like you are the only one who plops your kid down in front of screens and I wanted to make this video and talk about this because there have been times in our homeschooling life where we watched a lot of screens.

A couple of the times were every time I had a new baby they just weren't sleeping. I was tired -- like new baby recovery was always really hard for me. So, we watched a lot of screens while I was recovering.

There's also been times when my kids have been super, super sick and not just the one kid but the one kid who'll be sick and then all the other kids are not sick but it's like we can't homeschool because the sick kid's taking all the time and so we actually had several months where somebody was always sick. So, there were so many screens on.

That's happened a couple of times, and we've also had times when other things were going on in my life private, personal things or other responsibilities. I'm not saying this happens all the time, but like the only way I could homeschool was if I put him in front of "Liberty's Kids," and I put him in front of "Cyberchase," and I put him in front of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" and that's what school was.

This is the thing I want to tell you. We didn't do that all the time. I don't want you to think that all of our homeschooling is screens. You guys know that, right? I talk about all the other cool stuff we do. I'm trying to keep it real over here, but - but here is the thing. My kids are turning out pretty darn awesome.

It's not perfect, they're not perfect, but they're turning out okay. They like to learn. They learn lots of things. They all know how to read. They all know how to be creative. They all know how to entertain themselves without screens.

So, screen time in and of itself is not going to destroy your children. If you are in a stage of life where all you can do is get up in the morning, and you're just on survival mode, and it's all you can do is to push the button, then it's okay.

If you go for years - no, I'm not talking about that. But I'm saying new baby, husband loses his job, packing to move. Okay that we watched a lot of screens. Moving across the country - a lot of screens.

It is okay to sometimes have to put your kids in front of screens. You're going to be okay. They're going to be okay. Go back to your regular schedule and then kind of pick up wherever you left off. I am living proof that your kids will be okay.

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

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