Tag Archives for " Homeschool "

As I’m gearing up for another school year, I’m thinking about priorities ... What subjects I’ll teach ... What order we’ll do things in.

And with all of that, I’m also thinking about what I put before ALL academics in my homeschool.

Because over the years I’ve learned that if I put this first … everything else has a much better chance of falling into place.

Transcript

Hey guys! This is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to talk about a really important topic today -- it's the question of what's more important relationships or academics.

This is a tough question because any time in your homeschool you're going to wrestle with both. You're going to have to be worrying about making the academics happen. We’ve got to be teaching the subjects, and the skills, and the learning, and all of that, but we're also in these relationships because we're interacting, and we're the parent, and they're the child and there's us and the spouse and all of this.

Sometimes everything's chugging along, and it's going awesome. You're like, “Woo-hoo, it's working!” And then sometimes everything is a mess -- the academics aren't working or the relationships aren't working, and it's like, “Well, which is more important? If something's not working and I can only focus on one, what should I do?”

So, everyone may not agree with me, but I strongly, strongly, strongly believe that if you have to pick between relationships and academics, you want to pick relationships and this is why. If you pick relationships, and you get your relationships in a good place -- so, let's say you're struggling with a kid. You don't have a good relationship and you're fighting every day and it's like, “Well, do I solve that or do we still …” You're fighting and they're not doing school work or do we do school work?

If you stop the school work and you focus on the relationship, if you focus on getting in a good place, then you can go back to the academics. You can go back to the learning and you can go back and say okay, now we're going to work on this. But if you try to force the academics, you try to make this happen when the relationship is not in a good place, this is not going to do very well. It will not go well.

We can't learn if our relationships aren't in a good place. Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- after you have your basic needs met, like eating and safety, the next level is relationships, and learning comes after that. If you don't take care of relationships, this learning stuff -- it will be a train wreck.

So, if I have to pick -- and there have been times when I have picked -- I have picked relationships because the parenting was an issue, the discipline was an issue, or a kid was really struggling, or we were having depression, or anxiety, or a learning disability, or there was friction -- there are all sorts of things happen in relationships. I will always stop, address that. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it takes days, or weeks, or months. I will address that and then we'll figure out how to problem solve this. Sometimes you can do a little bit of this while you're working on this, but I'm here to tell you this is my focus, this - relationships.

I always will pick that first because in the end if they learn their times-tables, does not matter to me as much as whether or not we can still communicate. In the end, if they don't learn whether or not World War II came before or after World War I, that does not matter as much as whether or not we get along and whether or not we have a good relationship. Because if this is intact, the kid can go learn this on their own later on. It's not ideal, but if this isn't working none of this will happen.

So, which is more important? Well, they're both important, but which one do you pick first? I say pick relationships. If you're in a situation where it's really you're doing this with a kid right now, and it's kind of a train wreck or it's super toxic, would you step back and assess if maybe it's time to pull back from academics and put more of your energy and bandwidth into healing that relationship? Please, please because I think it's going to really serve you well in the long run.

Yay! Okay. So, that's what I wanted to say today about relationships and academics and trying to sort all that out together.

My name is 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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Is a diploma something you need to worry about in your homeschool? 

Crazy answer ... probably NOT!

There is a HUGE misunderstanding about how diplomas and transcripts work … and what your kid actually needs to get into college.

So in today’s video, I’m going to put your mind at ease.

Transcript

Hello! My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about the difference between a diploma and an accredited transcript. This is a question that I get all the time. Does my kid need a diploma to graduate from high school? This is a question that you start thinking about more as your kids get older, but the reality is, it's a question that you probably have swimming in your head even when your kids are little because you're thinking -- well, how did they graduate from high school so that they can get into college? Which is the goal!

And I today I want to talk about the difference between the two, because it is a key difference that I didn't understand. And when I started to understand, I was able to better be able to formulate how we were going to navigate doing homeschooling through high school so my kids could still go to college.

So, here's the basic difference. A diploma is a piece of paper that is given from an institution that says you have done what is required to be considered graduated. It does not have any weight or anything special about it other than the fact that an institution gives it. And there's only a couple -- now, this video it may be different by the time you're watching this video -- but at the time of the making of this video, there's only a couple places that say you're required to have a diploma in order to be able to progress.

And the military used to have some rules about diplomas. In the state of Utah the highway patrol says the kid needs a diploma, but almost everyone doesn't talk about the diploma. You only think about that because that was the tangible piece of paper that you received at the end of your high school experience. But the reality is that any homeschool family can issue a diploma to their high school kids because they can say,  “Yes, you went through my homeschool. You graduated.” Print out a piece of paper that says you graduated from the Perkey Academy of Excellence, or whatever. Obviously, I'm the Perkey Academy of Excellence. Okay, our school would be called that possibly. Yours would be something else. But my point is I can give my kids a diploma. It's a piece of paper. 

It's the accredited transcript that's actually going to matter, because if you think about it -- most kids when they're applying to college don't have a diploma -- like, none of them do. because they're applying halfway through their senior year. and they haven't finished high school yet. So, they don't have a diploma. They don't. So, colleges can't ask for a diploma. They aren't going to ask for a diploma. What they're asking for when you apply for college is an accredited transcript. The transcript is a list of all the classes that a student has taken in their high school experience, and if your homeschooling, that may start at 14 when they enter 9th grade. Or it may actually start sooner depending on what you're doing with your kid's education. But it's a list of classes taken each year, and they're broken into subject, and they're given a credit amount.

Now, here's the thing that's really interesting. An accredited transcript is -- well, let me back up. Anyone can make a transcript. If you are a homeschool mom, you can make a transcript of what your kids have taken in their years of school with you. That is totally acceptable. But an accredited transcript is a transcript that is issued by an institution that's been accredited by one of several regional boards throughout the United States. And if you're watching this video outside the United States, I'm going to apologize. I actually don't know how it works in other parts of the world. This is a US-centric video. Sorry about that.

Okay, so back to our regular scheduled programming. If you want an accredited transcript, you have to take classes from an institution -- whether it's a school or an online source that has been accredited -- which means that this regional body has come to this school, they've looked at this schooling entity, and said, “Yes, what you do qualifies to go on this kind of transcript.” And they give them the stamp of approval and they say, “Yes, you can have accreditation.” And different high school students -- so, if you go to one high school for 4 years, you will have one transcript from one school and all the accredited credits -- say that three times fast. The accredited credits come from one place. However, if you have cobbled together an educational experience from lots of different resources, then the accredited transcript will actually have credits that come from lots of different sources.

So, when you're thinking about applying for college what the colleges want is this accredited transcript possibly. Not the diploma. So, you can take the diploma and put it off to the side except for some very specific situations. And you should just research wherever your kids going to go to college because that's going to tell you what you're shooting for.

So, the second piece of this that I think a lot of people don't know that I didn't know until I started doing the research several years ago for my oldest is that when a university is looking for applications, they have a really broad variety of rules about this accredited transcript. Some colleges say you can have an accredited transcript or a portfolio. You don't actually have to have any of those accredited grades if you can do a portfolio of work that shows the things you've been doing, and they all have different requirements about what those will look like, and they actually allow anybody to submit one or the other. It's not just homeschool kids. There are other places that say, “Well, we need an accredited transcript, but we only need 16 credits.”

Now, in Utah you must have 24 credits to get a diploma from your high school, but the college that my daughter is thinking about going to only requires 16 accredited credits -- which is roughly 2 years of high school credit. So, you could do part high school for 4 years and then go do other things and still have that accredited transcript. However, there are some schools that say, “You know what? If you don't have an accredited transcript, we'll just take your ACT or your SAT score and we'll just weigh that higher in the application process.”

So, your kid can actually go to school without an accredited transcript because you've done homeschooling experiences that aren't accredited but are still really valuable. They do well on the ACT and they're still going to be fine. Oh my goodness! There's so much angst around this diploma and this accredited transcript thing when I talk to people, and then I explain it and after I knew it like I was so worried about it but then after I learned it, I was like wait, we have options. We have a lot of options.

So, I hope this video has explained the difference between an accredited transcript and a diploma. If you have questions, put them down below wherever you're watching this video. I'll do my best to answer them. It's just one small piece. It moves you a little bit closer to understanding this whole getting into college thing but it's so, so, so important.

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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Whether you're planning for your first year of kindergarten OR you're planning to start with high school, this book has everything you need.

Cathy Duffy’s book has been around forever -- for good reason.

If you don’t have it, by the end of my video -- you’ll want it.

Promise!

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool.

Transcript

Hello! My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to tell you today about the very first book I always recommend every new homeschooler grab. Before they ever look at a specific curriculum, before they ever look at a specific way to set up their home, this is the book. Because if you get this book, then everything else gets easier. It is the "102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum" by Cathy Duffy and if you have not heard about this book, your life is about to change.

Here's what I love about this book. Cathy Duffy started as a curriculum reviewer. She would go through and review different curriculum. She would talk about why they worked and why they didn't, and she would only pick the best. So, she didn't include everything she looked at. Over time, her book that she put out became kind of the bible for how to figure out how to pick a curriculum for your kid or what are the other things that you could pick up that would be interesting for your kid. I have found some of my amazing resources in her stuff.

Then she became so -- I don't know -- famous, popular at what she was doing -- that she then built a website. Because if you only do 102, you really can't fit everything that's out there. So her website which is also -- the way I always find it is I just do homeschool reviews Cathy Duffy and it's Cathy with a C. But when you find her website, then there's so much more you can look at. But here's why I trust her reviews.

The beginning of the book -- and this is why I think it's the first book you buy is -- the beginning of the book starts with talking about what is the style of homeschooling you want to do. And then it goes on, and it says what is the personality of your children. And she has her own way of describing them that very much aligns with how I like to kind of break things into different categories. Then she goes into thinking about when are we going to learn things and what is important for us to learn, and she doesn't tell you one way. She gives you some basic foundational principles that work to figure out what works best for you, and I subscribe to those ideas 100 percent.

If you've watched my homeschooling 101 whether it's been online or whether you've been to one of my classes, this is the model that I choose to follow whenever I'm inviting a new homeschooler to kind of really think about what they're doing because this is going to set you up in the right way. Then once you've gone through that the rest of the book -- you see all of that? So, like that much is what I just described.

The rest of the book is curriculum reviews, and it's not just a couple of sentences. It is paragraphs and paragraphs about why it works, who it works for, which type of personality it's going to be best for, what kind of style it's going to be best for. This is one-stop shopping. One-stop shopping, and I know that when you're a homeschool mom and you're feeling overwhelmed and there's a lot to try to figure out, this is the place to start.

So, if you're going to buy one thing for your homeschool, this is the one. This is where you begin. This is what you get. After you've gotten this, you'll know what else to get if you're going to get anything at all. It's where you need to start.

Alright. If it's something that you think would be helpful for your homeschool, check the link up above or down below. I leave it wherever it is, but it kind of depends on what you're watching this particular video on.

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

Did you know that?

It could be in your homeschool … or in your home … or something else entirely.

But it’s coming.

And this week I’m telling you all about HOW I know that -- and what you can do to prepare.

Transcript

Hello! My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, is a big change coming? Is it coming in your life? Well, actually it is ... because here I am to tell you that everybody experiences big changes in their life about every 6 months. So, if you haven't just had a big change, you're going to. I know that I'm also going to have a big change in about every 6 months. Now, why is this important to know?

Well, here's the deal. We get all settled in our ways. We get things organized, or we kind of get a rhythm. We get a routine -- and then something happens and suddenly it's not working anymore, and it can be really frustrating. We can be frustrated with ourselves, and we're like, “Argh, what's wrong with these kid? Or what's wrong with me? Or why is this not working?” When in fact it has nothing to do with you, or doing it wrong, or your kids are a problem. It has everything to do with the fact that the kids changed

The kids are growing at a phenomenal rate. Their brains are growing, their bodies are growing like all over the place. And because of that, they're changing, and so therefore the way you're doing things is going to have to change in order to continue to adapt to the new family dynamic. 

It used be that I didn't even realize this, and I'd be so frustrated because I’d feel like we just got everything settled, now I've got to change everything again. Or I’d think “Why is this not working? Why is this not working?” And then I realized -- I started to see the pattern. I was like -- oh, now we've hit the 6-month “change window.”

Like the moment when it's going to go, and I’ve got to go pull out my charts and redo them. Or we’ve got to rethink the chore list. Or we’ve got to pull out a new book, or well -- that curriculum's done. We're going to try something else,  or well -- that game's over. We’ve got to try something else. 

I want everything to stay the same because it would make it so easy, but the reality is it can't stay the same. It can't because the kids are changing, and I'm changing -- like I would hope that I continue to grow and be interested in new things. And what we were interested in in 6 months ago isn't what we're going to be interested in now, and things have to change. So, we might as well embrace the change and charge forward rather than being frustrated that I'm being derailed or the kids are a problem or whatever.

So, I just wanted to share that tip with you that there's a good chance that if change isn't coming, it hasn't come yet, it's coming. Some kid is about to change, and you're going to have to rethink how you do stuff. And hopefully that will save you a little grief and a little frustration.

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

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I’ve never met a single homeschool mom who doesn’t worry about her kids.

And even though we tell each other NOT to worry, we still do.

So today, I’m sharing my thoughts on “worry” and what you should do about it.

And I’m including one little thing I try to remember that helps me on the days when the worry seems to be spiraling out of control.

Because the truth is . You’ll never stop worrying.

Transcript

Hello! My name's ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I've got a little secret for you. You are never going to stop worrying about your homeschooling, but I also want to tell you that you need to worry less. What? Like how can I hold both of those in my brain?

Well, here's the deal, guys. Everybody worries. Whether you homeschool or not, every parent worries about their kids. We worry. We want them to be successful, and we don't know what the end result is going to be. So, of course we're going to worry. We're going to worry if they get into college. We're going to worry if they're going to know enough. We're going to worry if they have the skills to be successful. We're going to worry if they're going to find the right person and get married. We're going to worry about all of those things. That is super normal. That's called being a parent. But when worry becomes paralyzing, it's not so hot. So, so, I also want to encourage you to worry less.

The reality is that if you are showing up every day, if you are trying, if you are making an effort, you're doing a lot better than you think you are. I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. You are doing better than you think you are. I know because I stand in groups of other homeschooling moms, and we're all talking, and we're all worrying.

And yet when I look at their kids, and I'm teaching their kids in these homeschool co-ops with teens, I'm looking at their kids I'm thinking, “What are you worried about? This kid is amazing. I'm seeing this, and I'm seeing this.” And they're like, “Yeah, well, what about this?” I'm thinking, “No, you are doing amazing things, and this kid is doing amazing. He's amazing.”

And then I start talking about my kid and I'm like, “Oh, I'm worried about this, and I'm worried about this.” And they're like, “Are you kidding? I love this kid of yours. I love this about them and this about them.” I think, “Oh yeah, I guess those things are going pretty well.”

So, as a homeschool community, we need to worry less, but we will never stop worrying. We're never going to stop, but I want to encourage you to stop worrying quite so much. Like I said if you're showing up every day, if you're trying, if you're trying to give an education to this kid, if you're working hard on the parenting and the life skills like if you're just trying -- and I'm talking trying. I'm not talking perfection. I'm talking trying -- then you're doing okay.

Your kids are going to be okay. They're going to grow up and be amazing people. You're going to do okay. You are doing okay. I meet you at conferences. I talk to you in the park. I talk to you guys everywhere. Your kids are going to be okay.

So, stop worrying quite so much. Just a little bit. Just a little bit of worry. You're going to have to worry a little bit. It's still going to happen, but you don't have to worry as much as you are worrying.

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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