Tips for Beginner Homeschool Moms

y'all I need help and I don't always like asking for it hey friends today I want to talk to you about my five tips that I often give friends who come to me asking for homeschool advice whether it's their first year of homeschooling or if they're just simply considering starting their own homeschool journey don't try to mimic traditional school this took me a solid two years to figure out how to really like unschool my brain my husband and I both graduated from a public school and so the idea of homeschooling in my mind was literally just doing school at home so the first year more so the first year the second year wasn't quite as bad but I still struggled a little bit but I really expected the boys to do exactly what I did at school so little things like I wanted them to sit at a table now when we started they were in second in third grade so I was expecting them to sit at a table properly right raise their hands if they had a question we started and ended strictly at a certain time and just everything that I did at school I was trying to do at home and it took me a really long time to figure out hey school doesn't have to look like that I have the freedom to choose whatever I want if we want to start at 9:30 instead of 7:30 we can do that if we want to school outside one day we can do that the point is that your home school can look like whatever you want it to look like that best fits your family and your needs know your reasons for homeschooling this is going to help you when you have a bad day because you will it's not a matter of if it's a matter of win knowing why you're homeschooling in general will help you to stay the course our reasons for homeschooling the boys were never to like have them graduate early would that be a bonus maybe but that's not the goal the goal of ours we really have two main reasons the first for us is to help mold the boys into godly young men that's our biggest reason really as parents period but also in our homeschool journey our second reason is to instill a love of learning for the boys you know I truly believe that we're learning our entire lifetime and I want the boys to know that I want the boys to love learning and love reading and so anytime throughout the year if I see that they have an interest in bugs that's an example because we've done this then I if I have the conviction to I'll set aside our chosen curriculum for a week or so and we'll just do our own little unit study on bugs you know there's some subjects that we do a unit studies style but that's not something that we're married to for the year but if that's a conviction of ours and the boys are super interested in learning about bugs and insects then let's do it you know we could find science and math and spelling and all of those things within that so the point is that we just really want to instill that love of learning and that when they find something that they're interested in I want to teach them how to research that how to how to go beyond knowing I'm interested in this how do I learn more about it the third tip is to attend a homeschool convention I love going to conventions I already know the curriculum that I have chosen so I don't necessarily go to look at the curriculum I love getting my hands on curriculum in the beginning I really was a curriculum junkie or hoarder I still have a lot of that it's it's hard for me to let go but I love going to conventions for the classes you guys like the wisdom that you can get from those classes is phenomenal I mean my boys are both just entering middle school and I've already set in on college prep classes and how to find scholarships and things like that that we really don't need for a few years but there's just so much wisdom in that and I was and then I loved being able to prepare for the future in that way so if you have the opportunity to attend a homeschool convention I urge you to because number one you'll be able to get your hands on lots of different curriculums meet the creators of a lot of this curriculum which is super cool I fangirl over them sometimes and you can get so much wisdom from the classes offered at these conventions fun side story about that this last convention that I went to in Houston I had the opportunity to meet Sarah Mackenzie the creator of the read aloud revival and she asked me a simple question and I was totally fangirling over her and she was like oh that's so awesome because I told her that like you know I've been listening to her podcast for years and all this stuff and she asked me what our favorite read aloud was and y'all like I totally went blank and you know what I said I said oh well we love fiction any book that we read in the past like totally blank but anyways I'm sure she remembers that I'm sure she was like oh I'm sure you've listened to my podcast for years prioritize your home school hours this past fall I started a side business and I found out very quickly that I my priorities were completely out of order I saw that I was getting super stressed out my kids were getting stressed my husband was getting stressed and after talking it out with him I realized that I was putting aside our school time to meet the needs of clients and it wasn't working out so I realized okay I had to I had to shift my focus I had to reprioritize and get those things in order because it was affecting not just our home school but like our home in our life in general and me as a person so really want to stress prioritize your home school hours if you say that we're going to school from 9:00 to 1:00 then block out those hours and make sure that you spend that time only home schooling not on your phone not worrying about work if you work part time or anything like that but really just focus on your kids and the truth is if you're solely focusing on home schooling and not trying to dual duties then you probably get it done a lot faster than you plan to anyways so prioritize your home school hours source out duties if at all possible for example if you are financially able to hire someone to help you with cleaning the house then do that if you are financially able to hire a tutor for one of your students that may be struggling in a subject or is just simply a subject that you're not super comfortable with teaching hire a tutor for most people myself included your first year of homeschooling is a lot of trial and error a lot of learning you're entering a new season you're just trying to figure things out and that can be really stressful so know that ahead of time going into it and alleviate any of that stress that you possibly can one thing I'm doing right now and this is our fifth year of homeschooling is I'm just simply looking for someone to help me clean my floors in the house we just built a new home and it's a pretty large home and I don't I can clean everything else pretty quickly but those floors man they take some time like a few hours every week if I were to clean them every week which I don't but when that do clean the floors they take a long time so right now I'm just looking for someone to help me clean the floors because that can be stressful and if you know like I said if you're financially able to then by all means alleviate some of that stress on yourself those are my top five tips that I often give to new home schoolers I would love to hear what your top tip is leave it in the comments below and if you found this video helpful I would love if you would give it a thumbs up and until next time guys have a great one this took me a solid two not five my fourth tip guys oh no I don't want my number song oh my finger doesn't mean we're okay [Music]

Channel: Maureen Wilkinson

Views: 137,818

Rating: 4.9245729 out of 5

Keywords: homeschool, tips, homeschool tips, beginner homeschool, tips for mom, homeschooling tips, beginning homeschool, homeschool advice, homeschool curriculum 2018-19, homeschool curriculum 2018-2019, homeschool routine

Id: EExrAcO_7AU

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2018