At some point, if you homeschool, you will fight the fundamental homeschool battle.
You’ll be trying to motivate your kids. Trying to get them to do their math … or spelling … or reading.
And instead of gleefully going along with your plan, your kid will push back. They’ll be defiant. They’ll say “no.”
OR they’ll be passive aggressive and just sit there -- staring at you with a look that says, “I DARE you to make me learn anything.”
How do I know this??
I’ve seen so many different kinds of homeschool bad attitudes in my house. Maybe I’m just “lucky,” but my sense from talking to other homeschool moms is this is something that we all have to figure out in order to keep homeschooling successfully.
So what do you do?
How do you work with an uncooperative child and actually motivate them so they WANT to learn?
How do you work with your kid when they’re being defiant?
How do you fight the homeschool battle and win?
That’s what I’m talking about today. It’s not easy … but it is possible.
And if you get a few key things in place, you’ll find that you have fewer battles and more peace in your homeschool.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video
Transcript
Hello. My name is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today we're gonna talk about how to battle a bad attitude in your homeschool. Do you have a homeschool kid who you just feel like has a bad attitude, they're grumpy, they're frustrated, and you're like, dude, just fix your attitude. This is going to get better. Well, this video then is for you. We're going to talk about how you battle those bad attitudes and help shift the energy in your home so it can be more positive.
And the first thing I want to say is you need to know, this is something every homeschool family struggles with because at some point, every kid's going to show up at some point with a bad attitude. And it happens all the time. It really, really does. And it can happen for all sorts of reasons and it can happen because you're having a bad day. It can happen because your kid's having a bad day, they're grumpy for some reason. It happens for all sorts of reasons. And so yeah, how do we battle this? How do we do this?
Well first, I just want to let you know I've seen it all, my kids, everything I'm about to tell you I have seen in my home. I've got four kids, I've been homeschooling for over 16 years. They are all teenagers. I have seen the bad attitude and what I'm about to tell you does actually make a difference. Okay? So first of all, let's talk about what bad attitudes look like. Because sometimes we just use these phrases and we don't get really clear on all the different ways a bad attitude might be showing up. Okay?
So you, a bad attitude can be a kid who's being sassy or rude. They're being disrespectful, they're talking back. That's a bad attitude. It can be a kid who is stonewalling you and just like giving you that stone cold face where they're refusing to do something and you say, I'd like you to do this. And they're just like, and they just stare at you. Like if I stare at you long enough, maybe you'll go away. That's “bad attitude”.
They might fall apart. So you ask them to do something and instead of working through it, their emotional regulation is so poor that they just, they throw a tantrum or they just start to cry and I'm not talking like tears of frustration and they're working through it. I'm talking about fall apart, can't handle it on the floor. It looks like a tantrum or maybe it just looks like a full on meltdown of other kinds.
It might also look like what I like to call “slothing,” where they just get super passive aggressive and they're doing it, but they're doing it really slow or they're doing it really sloppy. And it's this sort of like, "Well, you can make me do this, but you can't make me do it well", right. So these are all bad attitudes show up in life, lots of different ways and some are a little more subtle than others.So what do we do?
Well, first we recognize that some of this is to be expected because our children are human and they are learning how to be mature adults. And bad attitude is something that takes time to work out of your system. I know adults who still have bad attitudes who still do all of the things I just listed, right?
So it's not like we just come onto this planet knowing how to handle hard situations, knowing how to interact with people. So sometimes battling the bad attitude has as much to do with me just recognizing that it is actually going to show up and not being frustrated that it's there.
Recognizing that it is part of my children's human experience and it is also going to show up because part of this human experience is about agency and choice. It's about letting our kids make choices because one of the reasons they're on this planet is to learn how to make choices. And if we don't give them the space to do that, they don't learn. And so human beings by nature want freedom.
They want choice. That is like, embedded in the DNA of a human being. And so your child is figuring out agency and choice. And one of the ways they do that is by pushing back against the things you ask them to do. Well, if they're pushing back, there are respectful ways to do that, but those often have to be taught well. They do.
They have to be taught. They have to be learned and practiced. Meanwhile, bad attitude shows up, and bad attitude can show up in a four year old. It can show up in a 16 year old and it will look different most of the time, but it's going to show up because it's them practicing their agency in inappropriate ways. We want them practicing their agency. We just want them learning how to do it in an appropriate way. So it's recognizing that this is actually something that's supposed to happen.
Now, on top of that, it's also helpful to recognize that some kids just need more freedom and agency than others. They just, their little souls crave choice. And so if you have one of those kids, they're going to push back on everything. And often they'll do it in stronger and stronger and stronger ways. And you end up just doing this back and forth and back and forth as you're battling because this child's like, "I need to choose!" And you're saying, "I need you to do this." And so it becomes this battle, right? So recognizing that some kids need more agency and freedom can help you adjust your expectations of the bad attitude.
Okay. So with that, let's talk about a couple specific things that you can do to help make these battles less of a battle and more of a journey that you're taking together. The first one is to pick your battles, get really clear on what's important. Not everything is important. And if you pick all your battles, you won't win any of them. So decide what hill you're going to plant on. Decide which things are the most important and let other things go.
And depending on the kid you have, you may let a lot of things go that you normally would not let go. But you recognize that these things are the ones you're going to plant your flag on. That is the first thing. You gotta pick your battles and I have been amazed over the years at how many things I thought I had to hold on to that I really didn't. That didn't matter nearly as much as I thought they mattered and as I chose to let those things go, everything actually got better and not just because I was a pushover, but I was actually not fighting about everything. Okay.
The second thing is to set clear expectations. A lot of battles can actually happen because we think a kid should just know what we want them to do. And then they're frustrated because they thought they were going to get to do something different or they thought a different level of doing it was going to be okay. And so that battle happens because the expectations aren't the same.
I've talked about this in other videos and I'm going to talk about it more because it is so key to just all human interaction, but anytime you have conflict, anytime you have this going on, it's because your expectation does not match your child's expectation and any time expectation doesn't meet reality, there's going to be conflict. There's going to be unhappiness. There's going to be something negative.
So with the clearer you can get on expectations, the better off you are and then you need to have ways to follow through when they don't meet those expectations which you have shared in advance is kind of bigger than I want to go into in this whole video, but this expectations thing is sharing. Super important.
The third thing, and I just want to share today, is don't feed the monster. When your child starts to give you bad attitude and they start to push and they start to give you a hard time, it is going to trigger you. I don't care how calm you are, it's going to bug you because your agency, your human soul is not going to like it for all sorts of reasons.
And we're not going to go into all of those in this video, but you're not gonna like it and you're going to want to push back. And as you push back and they start to push back, it is going to bring up parts of you that maybe you don't like a whole lot that you don't like when they show up. Don't feed that monster. It is inside every single one of us.
Take a timeout, walk away, take a deep breath. There is almost nothing that your child is doing that requires immediate response. Almost everything can wait a little while till you've gotten to a place where you can respond and without the monster doing the talking. If you can do that, you will deescalate situations. It will not turn into this huge battle, but instead it will be something where you can actually be having rational conversations.
That's some of the ways to navigate this bad attitude that shows up, particularly when you're trying to get your kids to do stuff in your homeschool and they don't want to do it. The reality is when we're trying to get our kids to do stuff, it's because we're trying to motivate them. We're trying to tell them, you need to do this and this and this because we want them to get things done.
We want them to be motivated and in an ideal world, they'd be motivated to do those things without all of these battles, right? So if that is something that resonates with you, if you're wrestling with how do I set clear expectations? If you're wrestling with how do I motivate my kids, I want you to check out a course I've put together, it's called The Motivation Formula. There's a link up above, down below, you know, wherever you're watching this video.
And the reason is, I've gone through and I've talked in detail and really help you figure out how to manage the agency of your child while still setting expectations and asking them to do things I've talked about. How do you know what to do with a kid who really holds onto their agency? I've talked about how do you set those clear expectations so that after you get all these pieces in place, your kids will want to learn.
They'll be motivated to learn on their own without begging, without bribing, without yelling. All those things that you're doing that possibly are creating these battles that you're trying to avoid and creating the bad attitude even though you're not trying to. Sometimes the bad attitude comes from how we show up and not just how our kids are. So if that's something that sounds interesting, be sure to check it out.
It's like I said, the links up above, down below. It's called The Motivation Formula and it's a course I've put together to help you with some of these things because the reality is bad attitude shows up in every homeschool. But successful and confident homeschools, the ones where the moms are able to consistently keep going, are the ones who figure this out without it turning into world war three. And hopefully some of the things I've given you today have been helpful. If so, please know that I make these videos every week, every week, so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
Are you interested in what it takes to have a really good homeschool day?
After 16 years of homeschooling, I’ve figured out a thing or two that you can do.
For me, a really good homeschool day means you:
It also means that my kids are engaged in meaningful, productive, learning activities. (Over the years, that often meant cool games instead of just workbooks. You can check out my reviews to see some of my favorites.)
So how do you do it? How do you have a day where you settle into bed at the end of the day and think “Today I was a good homeschool mom!”?
I have a few tricks that I’ve developed over the years. And that’s what I’m talking about today.
Transcript
Hello ToriAnn Perkey here and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about how to have a really, really, really good homeschool day.
Do you know what it takes to have a really, really, really good homeschool day? Well stick around because that's what we're talking about. Now I know that not every day can be amazing. But you can actually significantly shift how many good homeschool days you have if you adjust one thing. And that is expectations and you don't have to adjust it one way or the other. You just have to get clear on the expectations that you have about your homeschool day.
Let's talk for a minute about expectations. Expectations are what you hope to have happen, and then what actually happens during the day is either going to be less or more or right in alignment with those expectations. And it actually isn't how much gets accomplished during the day that determines whether or not you have a good day. It's where how much gets accomplished lines up with your expectations. So, for example, if your expectations are here and you and your kids only get this much done, then you're not going to feel like it was a very good day. If your expectations are here and you actually do this much, you're going to feel like it was an amazing day.
So let's talk about how do you get your expectations to be in a place where you can consistently have really good days. Now, before I go any further, if you're new or struggling, I actually have information about this along with a lot of other topics in my free homeschool help center. So be sure to check out the resources down below this video if that's something that you would be interested in. They're all free and they help you do your homeschool in different ways.
Okay, so let's talk about expectations. There's two kinds of expectations that you really do need to get clear on in order to have a good day. The first one is you need to get clear on your expectations for your kids. If you guys, your expectations are there, whether or not you stated them. What you hope will happen, what you want them to be doing. And if you aren't clearly letting your kids know what it is you want them to do and how you hope the day will run, there is no way for them to meet you in the middle and even begin to remotely do it. It'll be very hit or miss, so you want to be really, really clear.
What do you want them to do? How do you want them to show up? What kinds of activities do you want them to do? What kind of attitude do you want? Have you had those conversations? Now, don't get me wrong, I do not believe that just if you have those conversations, suddenly everybody's going to fall in line and you're going to have an amazing day. Don't get me, I'm not going there because believe me, that is not how it worked in my home it's not how it does work in my home. However, when we get clear expectations you have a better chance of then having a conversation if something doesn't line up.
So what were some of the expectations I had or I have in my homeschool? Well, when my kids were little, and now my kids are all teenagers, but when my kids were little, the expectation was you'll come sit on the couch and you'll read with us and you'll have a good attitude. You won't whine and complain. When we play a game, you will show up and be kind to your siblings. You will be respectful about the time that I've put into preparing this, even if you don't love it. And again, they didn't always meet it, but we had systems in place for when they didn't meet it, it was called discipline.
So once we set up the expectation, I knew what to do if it wasn't being met. And it wasn't like we were being drill sergeants. It wasn't like I was making them do lots and lots of things. I was setting up fun and engaging and exciting things to do, but sometimes they just didn't want to do it. So the expectation was, please show up, have a good attitude, we're going to do it for this amount of time and then you're free to go do things the rest of the day, and that worked really, really well.
Now, I didn't always have something planned and so if I were to describe my baseline for any type of good homeschool day, I would say it was engaging in productive, meaningful learning activities. [NOTE: See my reviews page for lots of awesome activities for your homeschool.] That's the expectation I have for my children. So now that they're even older and I'm not as involved in the little itty bitty days of their lives, they're much more self sufficient. They're doing a lot of the learning on their own or they have outside classes that they're engaging with that give them the education. Now that we're more engaged that way, my expectation is the same even though the activities have changed and that is, are they engaged in productive, meaningful learning experiences?
Now your expectations for your kids might be completely different. It might be a certain amount of time. It might be completing certain types of activities. It might be did everyone just get along today? Depending on where the baseline is is in your family right now. But regardless, it's that expectations piece that lets me know whether or not I'm having a good day based on whether that sort of thing can happen.
Now this is the trick. You have your expectations that you have for your kids. The other expectations that you have to work on are your own expectations. How do you perceive what is happening and how do you feel when it doesn't line up? This one is a little bit trickier because it has to, you know, all sorts of things play into expectations, guilt, fear, desire, hope, and those are really, really deep, powerful emotions that can impact how you feel about your day. But setting realistic expectations. Yes, I want everything to run perfectly. Yes, I want everyone to get along. Yes, I would love it if everyone were leaping for joy. Every time I put something in front of them.
I would love that, but it's not realistic. So the second piece is getting realistic with my expectations. And that means I have to do two things that are not easy, but super important.
The first one is I have to allow agency. Whether your kid is four or whether your kid is 17 they want agency. They want to be able to make their own choices. And even if they don't like what they're being asked to do and maybe they don't want to do it, I have to allow them the space to make the choice whether or not they're going to engage. Now some behavior's not okay. There are consequences. There's discipline. Absolutely. And that's a subject for another video.
But agency means the kid actually gets to choose. And when I'm being realistic, I'm allowing them the freedom to make the choice. Not easy because in my like, non-agency world, I want to force them to do all the good things because I think I know best. But the reality is it doesn't work that way.
And now the second thing about adjusting realistic to realistic expectations is remembering not every day is going to be an amazing day. Not every day can be. And every kid in your family is going to have their own mix of good, not so good and terrible days. Every single kid. And unfortunately not every kid has the same mix.
I've got one kid who has a great day, probably seven out of 10 there's a couple of rough patches there and that's always been true. Seven out of 10 most of the time I know that kid is going to show up. I got another kid who hits good days about every three and 10 which means there is a lot of days where they're struggling for some reason, whether it's emotional, whether it's academic, whether it's whatever. They just came with a different package. Days are harder for them and we're working with that. Right?
It's not like I get to pick and choose how they show up. I get to pick and choose how I react to what they show up with, so knowing that some are going to be more likely to have good days than others, helps me adjust my expectations and be more realistic. Now once in a blue moon, once in a blue moon, everybody has a fantastic day and those are the red letter days that you write down and you remember and you journal about. But I'd like to say that usually you can hit a good day about one in 10. About one in 10 is when everybody shows up fairly high on the show up happy level. Everybody's kind of humming along, things are moving well. One in 10 so if you're having one really good day in 10 mama, you are a successful homeschool mom.
And your expectations, adjusting those to that level. Maybe that will help just a little bit. Now if you are struggling, there are lots of ways to try to get the expectations and everything else in a better place. Make sure you check out my free homeschool help center. Lots and lots of free resources there to help you. So many different opportunities to learn different things. In the end, homeschooling is a journey and setting your expectations so you can have good days is one piece of being a successful homeschooler.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
It happens even to the best homeschool mom …
You’ve got your homeschool year planned out. It’s full of fun activities and awesome field trips.
You’ve got the perfect curriculum (if there is such a thing!) and the perfect school room.
And then things start to fall apart.
The kids don’t want to do that amazing activity. They fight you to do math or they groan when you pull out the science book.
And you start to think “WHY am I doing this?!?” And you’re ready to quit!
How do I know? … Because I’ve been there over and over and over again.
After 15+ years, I’ve wanted to quit homeschooling more times than I can count.
I’ve had sleepless nights wondering if I was failing my kids.
I’ve worried that we weren’t doing enough … or that I was pushing too hard (or not hard enough!)
But I found ways to push through … which is why after 15+ years, I’m STILL homeschooling.
How did I do it? That’s what I’m talking about today.
So if you’re struggling with your homeschool. If you want to quit but KNOW you have to keep going … this video is for you. ❤️
In the video I talk about creating a homeschool vision. If that’s something you need help with, check out my FREE lesson on how to create a homeschool vision!
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hello,
My name is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool today I want to talk about what do you do if you don't want to homeschool anymore, but you know you have to keep going. Or you know, you should be homeschooling but you really, really, really don't want to homeschool anymore. What do you do? Okay, so this happens to all of us.
I've been homeschooling for over 15 years. I've got four kids. You know, we started when they were really little. Now they're all teenagers and beyond. And there have been lots of times where I think, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to keep going. But I knew deep down in my heart that I was supposed to keep going. So you know, what do you do?
There were lots of reasons why I got there. You know, maybe it's sometimes it was because my kids were driving me crazy. They didn't want to work or they were fighting all the time. Things like that. And that was really hard. Sometimes it was because I was in a bad place. I was really struggling over the course of our homeschool life. I've had lots of experiences where I personally was falling apart and I'm trying to hold together this whole homeschool thing and my house thing while this part of me over here is not working. And that was really hard.
Another reason that I found some times that I would be really struggling is I would have this dream, this picture in my head of what homeschool should look like and our reality. It was not matching the dream, and that disconnect between the two would be so difficult. I just want to throw in the towel.
So how did I do it? How did I keep going all of these years? Because 15 plus years is a long time. Well, let's talk about that. You know, what do you do? I'm going to go through six different things and I'm sure there's more. But I think all of these done, one or more of these, can help you kind of, you know, get a little bit of the fire back, a little bit of the desire back. Because I, you know, if you're supposed to still be homeschooling, we want to make it so it's not quite as hard as drudgery, as something you're dreading. Okay.
So the first thing, I talk about this all the time, is you go back to the vision, you go back to why you started in the first place and it's really important that you have this written down so you can go back and look at it just in these times. Because if you go back and you look at your vision, you'll remember why you did it in the first place. And I can't tell you how many times I referenced my vision. My vision for tailoring an education, my vision for helping my kids who had special needs, all of these different reasons. I think, okay, I can do this because it's that important to me. And if you don't have a vision, you need to write one.
I have a free lesson that you can access immediately that will help you work through the steps to write your homeschool vision. I'll leave a link down below or up above, you know, wherever you're watching this video so you can go do that. That's the first thing I recommend. Go back to the vision.
The second thing I recommend you do is assess what is not working. Are there underlying problems that need to be addressed? Is it a long term thing? Is it a short term thing? Have you just been through a major life change, a new baby, a move, something like that that's affecting how you feel about the homeschool or just how you're feeling about life in general. And homeschool seems like the thing to quick, is it, is it a long-term issue that maybe needs to be addressed?
Is it a discipline thing and you're having trouble parenting, which just is exacerbated when you're homeschooling? Is it because you have a child who is really struggling in areas that have nothing to do with academics? Maybe they have depression, maybe that they have reading or other learning issues. You know, something that you recognize as kind of a long-term journey and you need to give time to that. But because they're struggling in that way or your struggling, the overall homeschool is suffering. So is there something that needs to be addressed and if so, how can you address it?
You know, once you become really intentional about recognizing what the problem is, then you begin to say, okay, what is it I need to do to be able to fix or address or manage this issue? So that's the second thing I recommend you do. Assess what is it that's actually working and not working.
The third thing I recommend you do is, you know, review your schedule and figure out are you trying to do too much? Because when you have a really packed schedule, you feel overwhelmed and you can start dreading anything related to homeschooling because everything feels too hard. And I've made another video that's all about the benefits of simplifying your homeschool schedule and some ways to go about doing that. I will leave a link down below this video so you can check that out. If that is something that you need to maybe do is just go through your schedule and figure out is there a way to simplify it.
The next thing is asking yourself is there a way to change things up? You know, sometimes the reason we are so dreading our homeschool and we want to quit is because we've done the same thing over and over and over and we're just bored and boredom is a killer. Like it makes it so you don't want to do anything. So maybe it's time to change it up.
Even if what you were doing is something you were super committed to and it was working and it might just be time to put that aside for a while. And just go on field trips for a little bit or just watch documentaries for a while or just snuggle and do, I don't know, an entire review of all the Disney Canon. You know, whatever it is that would kind of just recharge you and your kids and kind of get you in a place where you think, yeah, we can go back and try some of those other things. Sometimes taking a break and changing it is really awesome.
Another way you can consider changing it is, maybe instead of just completely taking a break, you decide that instead of doing this kind of math, you're going to take a break and you're gonna switch it up and you're going to play math games or you are going to do math activities. And just the switch of this focus on how you're doing the subject can also make a huge, huge difference.
The last thing I recommend is, no, two more things. One is take an actual break and I kind of alluded to that just a minute ago. You know the reason we homeschool is because we can take breaks, adjust schedules, revise and change up things. So it may be that you need your fall break, significantly like, end of November all the way through to the end of the year. It may be that you need your spring break in February where you're and you might then take a second spring break in April. You might need that.
You might need to say, you know what, we're just going to not homeschool on Fridays for the near future. We're just going to have a day to play. You know, taking a real break where you have a mental downtime, you get to work on some of those other projects can make a big difference and then you can come back and be excited to start up again.
Now the final thing I recommend is take a look at your own self care. And I know self care is super like popular buzzy word. Everybody's talking about how you need to do self care. And almost to the point where I'm, I personally am kind of annoyed about hearing about it. But I am going to bring it up because the reason it has become so trendy is because it's based in fact.
If you aren't taking time for you, if you aren't making time for a little bit of recharge time, you will burnout. And burnout is a huge problem in the homeschool world. Because on top of all the normal mom and home and home running things you have to do, you also have homeschool. And many of you are also working part time or you're juggling a new baby or all of those. You have to carve out just a little bit of time for you.
Now what you do during that time, totally up to you. For some people it's doing some kind of crafting. For some people it's going to a store by yourself. For some people it's sitting down and reading. For some people it's just going into a quiet, dark closet and closing the door and just turning off your mind for a couple minutes while you listen to some quiet music.
You get to decide what your special time is, but if you aren't making that special time, then ultimately your brain and your body will start to shut down. And that's one of the reasons you're feeling the way you do is because you just are feeling like you just never get a break. So if you don't have time for that, if you legitimately look around and you say, I don't know how I would make time for that. Then it is time to assess what can I cut out? What can I simplify? What can I let go of, change my expectations, to just give myself a little bit of time for that self care.
All of these things, you know, one or more of these things will help you get a little bit of the desire back, a little bit of the fire so that you go from thinking, "I do not want to homeschool." To "You know what? I like this. This is why I'm doing this. This is a good thing. I'm happy to be here. Let's go."
I'm ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
There are moments where I have despaired of EVER getting my kids to want to do something.
Practice handwriting … nope!
Do math problems … nope!
SCROLL TO WATCH
practice spelling … nope!
And then there are times when a kid will sit down and just do their assignment.
No whining. No crying. No begging.
I wish I had a crystal ball to explain why sometimes it’s easy … and sometimes it’s not.
But I don’t!
What I DO have is a simple sharpie trick that seems to help (at least some of the time!)
(P.S. This trick ALSO works wonders if the Sharpies get into the hands of your artist 2 year old!)
CLICK HERE for some cool, colorful sharpies for your homeschool.
And if you a whiteboard like the one I show you, you can find it here.
Hey guys, I'm ToriAnn Perkey. From my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about the simple Sharpie. Sharpies are permanent markers and, oh my goodness, they can be the bane of every mom's existence. If you've ever tried to get Sharpie off the wall or anything else, you know that this sucker is very, very permanent. I know this because I had a certain daughter who wrote all over her bedroom and all over my sheets and her sheets with a Sharpie.
Yeah, not fun.
But today I want to talk about how you can use a Sharpie, a simple little Sharpie, to make homeschooling so much more fun. Your kids will want to learn. As I'm doing that, I'm going to show you a little trick that's like magic. It seems like magic, and it's made such a difference, and we've used it tons in my homeschool.
So, the cool thing about a Sharpie is it is permanent … except if you apply alcohol to it, you can get it off, which is why you may know that if you take a Sharpie and then you draw on something and then take a dry erase marker and draw over it, it will often pull the Sharpie off. I know, super cool. So, I decided that I would figure out if I could use a Sharpie on a whiteboard without the dry erase marker and have it work -- and it does.
So, let me show you. So, I have these cool whiteboards, and this side is plain and this side is lined, and we have used these tons because they have the line size we've done a ton of our handwriting assignments on these and my kids use this side to do math. It's a lot like having a slate from like 120 years ago -- little chalkboard slates they used to carry around -- only we have these whiteboard slates. What's really fun is I can take the Sharpie and I can draw all over the whiteboard and because it's Sharpie it doesn't come off. It's permanent.
My kids can do a handwriting assignment or a math assignment or whatever they need to do, and they can then come show it to me ... particularly the handwriting side but either way … they can show it to me, and it doesn't rub off accidently. And particularly for lefthanders when they're writing, and they will write this way, right? And then their hand will smear it while they're writing.
But then if you take rubbing alcohol -- and I just bought this container to put the rubbing alcohol in. You do have to have the highest concentration of alcohol you can get. So, you want a 91 percent alcohol.
You take the rubbing alcohol, and you take either a rag or a paper towel, and you can put the rubbing alcohol on the rag or the actual whiteboard and then you go like this. Do you see that? Do you see that? It's like magic, and off it comes.
What I love is that Sharpies have this amazing kinesthetic feel. So, not only do we use black ones, but we get all the colored Sharpies. And my kids who maybe were a little resistant to do handwriting or were resistant to do math when you can write on a surface there's something about Sharpie or dry erase marker on a whiteboard surface that just is so fun and so tactile, and it shifts the learning, and my kids want to do their assignments because they're drawing with colors and they're drawing here.
You can get Sharpies in fine point as well as in the -- well, fine point and then extra fine point. And now that I can buy even extra point, we can do even more complicated math and things that take a much finer writing because you have even just a finer point that you can write with.
So, there it is -- the Sharpie with a dry erase board. So much that we've done in our homeschool with those two humble tools. Ninety one percent alcohol, use a paper towel or a rag. Simple, simple, simple. (Just so you know 91 percent alcohol also gets Sharpie off bunk beds. Who knew?)
So, I'm going to give a link up above or down below. You can check out the Sharpies. You can check out the whiteboard that I recommend on Amazon, if that's something you want to incorporate in your homeschool. Really, really fun. Super cool.
I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I bring you these videos every single week so that you can be a super successful and confident homeschool mom.
