In Due Season Homeschool; Your Guide to Living Well Throughout Your Homeschool Journey – Details, episodes & analysis

Parents are leaving the public school in mass. With the local districts

establishing the rules for access to extracurricular activities, some parents find their access barred. There are questions about the right to access field trips, prom, and graduation ceremonies. Before these parents demand their rights, I would love to propose a conversation.

Firstly, we need to establish a clear picture of the cost of homeschooling and the powerful deterrents districts will use to stem the loss of students from the rolls.

Secondly, we are poised for the most significant opportunity homeschooling has experienced in a decade. The influx of energy, creativity, and numbers to build a vibrant, thriving community could be what homeschoolers need to meet these needs in a way that compliments our values and family-oriented goals.

Join me for the beginning of an ongoing conversation...

Amber Smith shares the facts you need to talk over with your student before you enter the high school years. Let's clear up some misconceptions and despel some fears aroung graduation. I'll share some opportunities you might not be aware of and the advantages to choosing to homeschool your child through high school.

What do you do next when you’ve decided homeschooling Is the best choice for your family. Typically, the next question parents usually ask is, "What curriculum should I choose?" That can wait! There are a few points to consider before you want to buy a single thing. A Successful school year needs a little planning and there are two things that will help you more than any others.

Knowing what you want to accomplish in your first year of schooling as well as how you want to transfer that knowledge will help you to know what kind of tools you are looking for.

These play a huge role in how we receive information. Knowing more about how your child learns will shape the kinds of materials you will choose.

There are many goals you might need to address in your plan to homeschool. Some of your goals will be education or academics driven. Do you have a student who is missing foundational skill-sets. This can cause them to have trouble learning in specific areas? Missing concrete reading skills or early math skills can cause learning to come to a halt as soon as the workload excellerates.

This is not an uncommon occurrence, even with gifted students. Children who can easily navigate the school system with advanced intellect can sometimes need a time of remediation and skill building when they are moved into more advanced course work. I hear from parents whose child is advanced in mathematics, struggling with the transition to higher level math. Often the struggle lies not in math essential knowledge, but instead in the fact that the child is meeting with difficulty for the first time.

One vital skill to intentionally work on could be building patience with problem solving. Forcing a child to slow down is as vital as excellerating. Education is not a race to the finish. The goal of education is mastery of self and the development of an appetite for learning that lasts the child's life.

You might need to create a plan for remediation to relearn those important skills. Building foundational skills is going to help in the long run of your homeschool, and sometimes it's important that we take time to lay that firm foundation before we jump into core academics.

Knowing what skills you plan to work on will help you choose a curriculum and learning tools that address those areas. Especially because there are many tools to choose from. Most curriculum companies have placement tests that you can print or administer online. You could have an assessment test done at a local agency or through your public school. There are skill assessments and guides in many books and online and often you can find these at your public library. In the early years I read many books like Ruth Beechick's Three R's and Language Wars to help me become familiar with common expectations for early childhood learning.

Surprise! You are now an educator, it is time to get an education of your own as well. There is absolutely no subject that you can not find another parent or expert has written about. I am convinced that there is not another better time in history to be a homeschooling parent. The only drawback is the overwhelming amount of information available to us. If you aren't confident about a subject or topic, start doing your own research. That is how I became confident in my ability to educate my own kids.

read the full transcript at www.200fingersandtoes.com/

March 9, 2020

Episode 001; 5 Smartest Reasons Parents are choosing Homeschool

• Key Topics & Time Stamps:
• Struggling Students & Homeschool Renewal (00:30)
• Homeschool Student’s Learning is Deeper
• Students Learn About What They Care About (8:48)
• Social Media Builds Lasting Relationships (10:04)
• Lack of Cliques and Bullies (10:50)
• School is Not Set Apart from the “Real World” (12:10)

List of resources mentioned in episode, suggested reading & social media handles:

• Creating Your Own Road Map for Your Homeschool with a Free Mini-Course. I created to give to my listeners to help get you on a fast track to a great year.
• Homeschooling During Displacement https://blog.sonlight.com/homeschooling-displacement.html
• Help with creating and rebuilding healthy relationships Boundaries By Cloud & Townsend
• Restoring respect and love with your teens Parenting Teens with Love and Logic
• Homeschool Marketer: Demographics Report for more stats about homeschool families
• Business Insider Article: Homeschooling could be the smartest way to teach kids in the 21st century — here are 5 reasons why
• Outliers; Malcolm Gladwell The ability to dig deeper into specialized learning is one of the factors that Gladwell sites for some of the biggest rising stars of our recent history. Bill Gates and the Beetles are Outliers; not only their unique placement in the right moment in history, but the ability to spend significant time honing their skills led to their successes. Outliers explores the factors that lead to success. Is it simple work ethic, genetic genius or simply a combination of the right place and time? Gladwell breaks down the personal cases of historically significant Outliers to explore this idea.
• Homeschool Students Well Prepared for College; Kelsey Sheehy, Huffpost 

Sign up for the FREE mini-course created for listeners and build your  "WHY" page for Your Homeschool Road Map

Are you looking for a guide to help you begin your homeschool year? In Due Season is a course to help you destroy the effect of comparison and learn the value of your "Why" as a map to guide you. Join us at a special Podcast launch price, as we explore five other vital and powerful truths that will ensure that this will be the best year yet.

● I’d love to connect with you. Please follow me on your favorite social media channel, you can find me at   200fingersandtoes FB page, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest Be sure to say you found me from the podcast

● Share this podcast with a friend who is considering homeschooling or a homeschooler who would love to share their wisdom with me too! Let’s create a community of support, start by subscribing so you don’t miss the next episode

Go to the blog https://wp.me/p5VyLS-25L for transcript

Managing Paper in Your HomeschoolSummary

• How do you tame the paper monster? 0:05

  • Amber has been homeschooling for a million years and has 10 kids. She has had 7 million pieces of paper over the last 20 years.

  • Amber shares some ideas for record keeping.

• Doing math online and digital math. 1:40

  • The kids have been able to write on a writable tablet that connects to the computer and use a digital pencil.

  • One way to reduce paper is to do math online.

• Science and how it prepares students for higher education. 3:44

  • Science is another subject that has a lot of paper, but it was the one subject that prepared her children for college level work.

  • A bound student journal is a huge blessing.

• Buying a workbook. 6:02

  • I didn't have the money to buy five workbooks, it was not in my budget, so if you are not able to do that, do not feel guilty.

  • Most things that are created for homeschoolers grant permission to copy those for multiple students.

• Create a turn in location. 8:16

  • Create a turn-in location, a safe place for people to take their completed work.

  • The more concrete the consequences of unfinished work, the more peacefully the conflict in the house is going to be resolved.

• Record keeping and keeping transcripts. 10:34

  • High school students should start keeping their transcript now, even if they are junior high students. Hslda is a good source for high school transcripts.

  • If you have a digital online source, keep a file on each child for the school year for your state.

• The importance of forecasting ahead of time. 12:33

  • Always include the title, the year of publication and the addition to the book in the addition. Record keeping is important.

  • Write a transcript for every student.

• How to compile your student's transcripts? 14:06

  • Keep a digital file on your computer, but keep a hard copy file in their records. Keep personal information, birth certificate, important papers, etc.

  • Keep a copy of their transcript.

• How to reduce paper typhoon. 15:34

  • Keeping the paper typhoon at bay and reducing the amount of papers to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

  • A binder for each child and a plastic sleeve for each activity.

Organization SkillsSummary

• Keeping students organized. 0:05

  • This episode is about keeping students organized and helping them help themselves. Amber J. Smith from 200fingersandtoes.com shares the tried and true methods used in the twenty years of homeschooling her own huge family of ten.

  • Amber shares ORGANIZING tips and tools to help you create your best homeschooling experience yet.

• How do we help our kids be organized? 1:59

  • How to help keep kids organized. Minimize the amount of things they have to navigate and take care of each day.

  • How parents can help their children develop a sense of organization.

• Making the playroom fun. 3:45

  • Make it fun, even in the messy playroom, by finding all the trash in the room and having buckets for toys to categorize and organize.

  • Create some hinge points in the day.

• How to develop organization in your home? 5:28

  • Having a way to develop organization. My oldest is 23, and the bookshelf has gone through many homeschooling reiterations.

  • One of the ways that we helped keep the kids organized with their personal items was by buying a toolbox for each child and their own toolbox.

• How to organize your school supplies? 7:53

  • She bought one for each child in the house and all of their workbooks and reading books fit in that bucket. She also bought them all the supplies they needed at the beginning of the year.

  • Then she created a supply station for herself.

• Backup supplies for homeschooling. 9:57

  • All of the back-up supplies were in some of the teaching textbooks. All of the other items were in the teacher binder.

  • She created The 30 Day Homeschool Reset course to help with building accountability.

• Accountability for the parent first. 11:47

  • The importance of creating a habit of creating order and being organized.

  • How to be intentional and show up to school prepared and ready on task with what they need for the day and anticipate their needs with resources and tools.

• How to build a habit of being responsible. 14:10

  • Look at your homeschooling space and see if you are helping or hurting in your organization. Look for creative ways to solve the problems that you are looking at in building an organization.

  • Check out a blog post that shares some of the tools used for organization in homeschool.

What we Are Using in Our Homeschool This Year

Episode 008

Track List:

1. Introduction
   
2. The Unsung Hero of the Sonlight Catalog
   
3. Record Keeping and Creating Accountability
   
4. Transition to High School Level Work
   
5. Honing Computer Research Skills
   
6. Moving Into Non-Fiction with Higher Level Content
   
7. Raising Fact Finders & Critical Thinkers
   
8. A Non-North American Centric Program
   

Listen to the full blog post HERE

Want the FREE schedule pages? Get them here and read more about creating a schedule that first your homeschool in this blog post.

Want more information about how I use Sonlight Curriculum in my homeschool? I wrote a year-long series of articles for the Sonlight Blog. You can access 22 helpful articles and more great homeschool tips HERE

There are many places that provide literature based homeschool curriculums. I created a tool to help you, the Curriculum Guide & Homeschool Reference List is a part of my Home School Quick Startup Guide and that is available as well as our course for homeschool parents at In Due Season. The Homeschool Quick Startup guide contains everything you need to answer your immediate questions and get you a strong start in your first home school year.

Maybe you're making a transition from public school to homeschool, and you're not quite sure where to begin. This guide has all the answers, plus live  links to any of the locations that I talk about. When we cover a specific curriculum, the link is provided for it in the home school guide so you can click and find everything you need with one simplified resource at your very hands. You can download it today for $15 and find all of your homeschool start up questions answered.

Why Now is the Best Time to Study China in Your Homeschool

In Due Season

Episode 007

       Track List:

1. Intro to Episode 007
   
2. Digging Deeper Into the Eastern Hemisphere
   
3. Using Hands On Learning Kits
   
4. Why We Need to Learn About China Now
   
5. Learning Empathy Through Story
   
6. The Importance of Adding Biographies to Your Homeschool
   
7. Keeping the True Geography of the World in Perspective
   
8. Celebrating 30 Years of Sonlight
   

Early in 2020, China was at the top of every news story. As shut downs from the Covid-19 outbreak began, we looked to China for vital first information. Our children were seeing the empty streets of towns and cities they had never heard of before. The problem is that the context was couched in the fear of a dangerous and unknown sickness.

As adults, it is easy to rapidly move from one news story to the next without changing gears. This influx of news snippets and bold headlines are constantly reshaping our world view under the surface. We combat this slide with the facts that we have stored in our minds. By using EHE this school year to study China, we take the helm and intentionally we begin to shape our children’s view of the parts of the world they cannot see...

Read the FULL Blog post HERE

Do you want to learn more about Sonlight’s Hands On History Kits? Here is the link to Hands-On History Kit for World Cultures and Chinese art, calligraphy.

Hungry for more? Stay tuned for more reasons why I am excited to be using EHE for the third time to study China and more with my homeschool students in EP008 next week.

In the meantime help Sonlight Curriculum celebrate 30 year of helping homeschooling families discover the bigger world around them. Enter to win prizes all month long HERE. The contest runs now through 9/30/20 with a new giveaway item each Wednesday and the GRAND PRIZE of an All-Subject Package of your choice from Sonlight. Enter the contest weekly for eligibility.

Find out HOW TO GIVE YOUR STUDENT THE EDGE WITH CURRENT EVENTS RESOURCES with links and examples of what we use in our homeschool HERE

In Due Season Episode 6

Can you homeschool if you can not afford the latest and greatest tools and tech? When I homeschooled my oldest three students, we were living on a shoestring budget. If I couldn't make it we found a way not to need it. These three kids all earned academic scholarships with their transcript and test scores. A few key educational goals helped us stay on track. I share them in this episode. A great education should not be available to only those who can afford it. It should be the gift every parent can afford to give their kids. Let's talk about how you can do that.

Topics Covered

Homeschooling without Tech Tools, on very limited Resources
Replicating this system as a homeschool Idea
What did my homeschool start look like?
Homeschooling without cash
Be Disciplined to Spend Less, Commit to Commit for the long haul