Episode 13: Embracing back-to-school season as a homeschooler

Let's talk about making back-to-school season special in our homeschools — plus tips for easing back into busy fall routines and things you can do right now to make your whole year better.

Transcript

We use an automatic transcription app for our podcast, which makes it possible for us to include transcripts for our podcast episodes — but it does sometimes make weird errors! We do edit it, but I’m sure we miss things sometimes.

[00:00:00] Amy: Hello, and welcome to Secular Homeschooling with Blair and Amy. Brought to you by SEA Homeschoolers and home.school.life. I'm Amy. 

[00:00:11] Blair: And I'm Blair. 

[00:00:13] Amy: And we are here today on this muggy, hot summer day to talk about what we're all looking forward to, which is getting back to school? 

[00:00:23] Blair: I think most homeschoolers think of it as not-back-to-school. Yeah, it is hot. It's not muggy where I live in Southern California, but hot. Yes, it is. So.

I always think it's interesting the whole back to school, not back to school, because most homeschoolers who've been doing it for a while, they're more year round than back to school. We always did so many things during the school year, that there were these stragglers going into the summer.

What about you? 

[00:00:58] Amy: We’re year-round homeschoolers. I may have told you this story before, but when I started homeschooling, my daughter was in second grade — I couldn't figure out when to stop. Like, what was the right stopping point? And so we just kept going. And then it was the new — she was in third grade, and then we just kept going and kept going. So we definitely are still here around the school years, but just because I could never figure out where to stop.

I will say that we do a lot of stuff during the traditional school year, like a lot of our classes and a lot of our co ops and a lot of our activities are during the kind of September to May period. So summer is slower for us because our to-do list outside of home gets smaller, but we are year round homeschoolers. I do think, though, that it is fun to mark the beginning of a new grade. Even though my kids never know what grade they're in, a new learning year. I think it's fun to start fresh and obviously a big part of that is school supplies, because school supplies are the best.

[00:02:05] Blair: Oh I know, that was one of the things that I really miss, school, clothes shopping, and supplies, and much to my husband's consternation. We still usually did do some clothing shopping.

You know what, it used to be much more, at least based on what I see and see, it used to be much more common for people to not really want to use grades, but I think that, and it's not just been since COVID, I think it's been over the last 10 years, people are much more likely to talk about what grade their child's in, even if they're homeschooled. Is that something that you've noticed, Amy? 

[00:02:47] Amy: I think so, and I honestly think that it's because even though grades aren't super important as homeschoolers, it is the question that people ask kids all the time.

Every time you meet somebody, at the checkout at the grocery store or at the doctor's office, they say, what grade are you in? And so I do think that we've agreed that this is the social norm, is that you don't describe your child by how old they are, but by what grade they're in.

So I think more homeschoolers are doing that because we have more homeschoolers who are just regular moms. Secular homeschoolers are just regular moms making an educational choice for their kids. You don't want to have to get into a big philosophical discussion with a nice lady. 

[00:03:30] Blair: And it used to be much more loose about the grades and the ages you put on materials.

I know because when I wrote climate change, one of the reviewers got back to me and said, you don't have an age range on this. then I went looking at my other books that I had out. And when they first came out, they didn't have an age or grade range. And then they did.

And it is because people want to know that. I think sometimes it's because they want to have the flexibility of going back into traditional school, but also, as more homeschooled kids go to college. I think it just naturally lends itself to having your child's grade in mind because, if you've got someone who's in fifth grade, you're thinking, how many more years until they go to college?

[00:04:27] Amy: And it's an awesome milestone, I think, for kids. I think it's fun to start fifth grade or third grade or sixth grade. Get your shiny new notebook, some shiny new books, some new shoes, since they outgrow their shoes every five minutes. And just enjoy that, it can be a really nice moment to celebrate. Plus, you did it! You got through another year! Yay, you! 

[00:04:51] Blair: I really like that you use the word celebrate because when we, especially those of us who are in the sort of support business for homeschoolers, we don't focus enough on the celebration aspect because most of the people that come to us not because they're celebrating, but because they're struggling in some way.

And I really — We had struggles and we had hard times, and there were times when my child did not wish that I had not homeschooled him, but that has changed as he's gotten older and really become more familiar with, through his friend group, what it looks like to be in traditional school. 

To we, the things that I, so it, there's a lot more celebrative aspects. And so I think it's good to start and end with the celebration. 

[00:05:52] Amy: I totally agree. I think it's one of the most fun things. And it's nice for you. Take that moment, take a picture, label it. First day of third grade, first day of second grade, you're not going to regret that, right?

You're going to be really glad in years to come when you have that to look back at. I think these moments, these memories are really important. And we're so lucky as homeschoolers that we get a lot of moments like that. It almost feels like we don't need those big moments because we have a million little ones.

But I think those big moments are nice too. 

[00:06:25] Blair: So one of the things that, so my son went to kindergarten, traditional school. And I saw a recipe for making a school bus cake. Now, something I don't think I've talked about at all, is that I came really close to going to chef school instead of getting a degree in chemistry.

They go together. Oh, chemists, most chemists are really good cooks. Because they do, they go together. And I, in my family growing up was always known as like one, there's some really good cooks in my family. I'm right in there with them. so I would make these totally elaborate cake using candy and cut in special shapes and like a school bus.

And so after doing that in kindergarten, I thought, What am I going to do for first grade? And I would choose, so we did single subject science and single subject history, and usually I would do science. I would choose some, something thematic, so for first grade when we were doing biology, I think we were doing ancients in history. I made a mummy. 

[00:07:41] Amy: Amazing. 

[00:07:42] Blair: It was this pyramid cake and you opened the lid, you took the top off and there was a cake mummy inside. 

[00:07:50] Amy: Oh my gosh, that is amazing. You took pictures? 

[00:07:54] Blair: Oh, there, if you could see my office, it's really clean except for one corner has two computers sitting on top of each other.

And yeah, it's on, and then I've got another computer in a shed. Somewhere probably on a computer. The problem is I started homeschooling so long ago, there wasn't even an online to put it into. Yes. Pictures did happen, but they're probably on rolls somewhere. I've gotten those snapshots somewhere.

But I encourage you highly, and if you want to make cool shapes, Licorice is your friend. 

[00:08:27] Amy: Really, that's a good idea. I love that. 

[00:08:32] Blair: Licorice and the tape. We used fruit roll ups, but now people, I think my grandkids, if I were to do that for them, would rather have me make sour strands or something.

Yeah, okay. 

[00:08:45] Amy: I think I love that we always have a pancake start the first day of school. We always make pancakes together. And so I think having little family rituals and traditions like that — pancakes are not as fancy as cake cakes, but they're a fun way to start the year.

[00:09:01] Blair: Ooh, you could make pancakes in shapes, like you could make a three for third grade or bunny shaped. Okay, in case you're wondering, I do make pancakes shaped like that, and I like to make for the youngers. I like to make sandwiches that I cut out in numbers and letters as they're learning their alphabet.

And so it's not unusual to get a come over to my house just as you're learning how to spell your name and find that you have a sandwich. 

[00:09:35] Amy: When my daughter was in school during the couple of years that she was in school, I would pack her lunch every day. And I would try to Martha Stewart it.

I would cut her sandwiches into flowers and butterflies. And one day, she came home, and she just looked at me, and she said, Mama. Can I just have rectangles, please?

My adorable sandwiches are not even appreciated but that is what I gave her — rectangles. 

[00:10:02] Blair: Oh, I overdo it on that. But yep, not that my son has never told me not to do that. So I've been lucky. Now, of course, I don't really do it. But I am a foodie and I focus a lot on foods in case anyone's — I'm vegan. Yeah, eating out is a production. So we usually just stay home and I keep thinking, If I had the time, I'd be writing these amazing cookbooks, but not gonna happen. So let's get back to not back to school instead of Blair's cooking fetish.

[00:10:32] Amy: One of the things that I think is really challenging with back to school is that even if you don't take the summer off, definitely life slows down. And a lot of us are like ramping up when we return to fall and our co op starts and our drama classes start or whatever. So I'm going to say that one thing that I think is really important is to build yourself up to this, right?

If you had a kid in traditional school, you would spend the two weeks before school started trying to get your kid back on a normal sleep schedule, right? You'd push them to go to bed a little earlier and wake up a little earlier so that you'd be ready when school rolled around, and I think the same thing works really well with homeschooling. I have found that I don't try to start all our new stuff one week — I start a few weeks before I officially want to start by making sure that we're doing our family read alouds every day. And then, after a little while I add in math. So we're doing a little bit of math every day, and then I add in a little bit of something else so that by the time I officially start back this school, we already have our rhythm back, like our regular learning rhythm back, and it's much easier, gentler, and less stressful on all of us if we make it a process and not just a beginning boom.

[00:12:00] Blair: So the build up does something else as well. The build up also gets kids ready.

One of the things you hear from parents is that wait my I'm getting all sorts of pushback as we start academics again well that, a transition that Amy's talking about will help with that. But the other thing that helps with it is just to start preparing your child have a calendar — Oh 15 days until we start back to school. Now I did — this doesn't really relate to back to school, but I did want to interject, if your child struggles with a subject, don't take the summer off. And in this doesn't just apply to kids who are homeschooled — one of my — I have a granddaughter that kind of struggles with math, and I had a grandson who started school during Covid and really struggled with reading and is about to go into 3rd grade, so it's really important and I got wind of it at the end of 1st grade. So by the time he was done with 2nd grade, he was above grade level. But we did not let him take the summer off from reading because we didn't want to see any slide. Not everyone in his class who had the same experience as him. He struggled to learn to read, and so we all have been very thoughtful, and my granddaughter that math is an issue with, we've been really thoughtful about making sure that she's been doing math this summer Not a lot not, so much that, I mean they all complain the other day, on the 4th of July, we were having a conversation about how much we did it because we loved them, not because we wanted to torture them.

[00:13:54] Amy: Yeah, I think that you're right, and I think one of the really great things about homeschooling, That your routine, your family's homeschool routine, should actually be a very every day, every season kind of routine. I think that is part of the great thing about homeschooling is you don't have to get up at six o'clock and start doing math.

Get ready, wait by the school bus. You don't have to be like outta the house by seven. You can start your classes. As my kids get older, our classes roll back and back, and now we rarely start anything before 10am, and that is fine with me. Because we have the freedom to do that.

[00:14:37] Blair: Celebrate. Have a celebration. Make a crazy cake send it in, Amy or I will put it on Instagram. 

[00:14:45] Amy: Oh, it's actually your crazy back to school cake. 

[00:14:49] Blair: Not back to school cakes. The maybe I will be inspired to do something for my grandkids this year, and if I am I will absolutely share pictures.

So this let's talk about how you can set yourself up for success. That's the other thing that I think It will, a lot of people are really excited, but also a little nervous. Or what's even worse is when you're super excited and then three weeks in, you start to get nervous. Cause it's so —

[00:15:24] Amy: Nervous-cited that's from My Little Pony.

[00:15:28] Blair: Nervous-cited. Okay. It can really help for you to be organized. Now I know a lot of you are thinking but I talk all the time about organization and you're not super organized. but it really can help if you're organized and you do a little planning about what it's going to look like at the start.

It just makes it so much easier because your kids aren't the only ones who go from, 10 to 50 miles an hour or overnight, you do too. And so if have everything organized for the first month, or at least couple of weeks and you have a plan for what it's going to look like — that's meant to be broken, of course cause that's, it's easy to plan and then your kids get involved. What do you think? What advice, I think those two tips at least to really beginning are so important for success. 

[00:16:27] Amy: I think one of the things that we don't do often enough as homeschoolers is to when we start each new season of homeschooling, you might do it at the beginning of every new school year. You might do it like semester-y. But ask yourself, when this season is finished, what will make me feel like it has been a successful term of learning?

What is a successful term of learning going to look like for you? Does it mean that you're going to finish this particular curriculum? Does it mean that you're going to work with your child to build this particular skill? Is it a schedule thing? Are you going to do math three days a week? No matter what. Are you going to make nature walks part of your routine? What is really important for you to accomplish in this season of learning? And then don't lose sight of that, right? Because if you articulate it to yourself, it's more likely that you're going to accomplish it.

If you don't take time to articulate it to yourself and check in with yourself about it over the semester, you really don't have anything that you're working toward. I think having a few things that you're working toward is one of the ways that homeschooling can feel a lot more successful.

Nobody else is out there saying, okay, here are the metrics that you have to hit — you have to set your own metrics, and in order to feel like you're hitting metrics, you have to actually set them. You're the boss of that. You have to set the metric. So I definitely think so. 

[00:17:53] Blair: I love that you brought that in but I wanted a couple of the things that you listed.

I would encourage people not to use, do not use, we are going to finish this curriculum this year, my child is going to master these 10 skills. 

[00:18:11] Amy: Never, With 10 skills!

[00:18:13] Blair: But what I would really encourage you to do instead is come up with a system that you are going to use to track progress.

Because that is how all of us should be measuring success That's a traditional school mindset, that you have to get through a certain amount or that certain things have to be done. Fet some sort of practice work, sample something, figure out where your child is at the beginning, and then don't wait all the way to the end to grab a sample, because it can be really important for your child's learning for you to check in and use a diagnostic, not consistent testing, but a diagnostic to see if more learning needs to be done, more teaching needs to be done around certain things. But it also is how you can track your child's progress.

And I see people really stressed out all the time in the homeschool community and they, a lot of times when you talk to them, more one on one, you learn that they haven't really been tracking. And so they're looking at yesterday. Yesterday is not a good measure of whether your child has learned. Something a month ago, two months ago, the beginning of the school year. That's how you figure it out. If your child is learning. Yeah, I actually didn't think we'd talk about this, but I think it's important that over the summer when parents get this lull that maybe they rethink What could help them? So that they're not as worried or burnt out. Do some free work. Think about if you homeschooled last year or your child was in traditional school, think about what the stressors were, why you're homeschooling. Think about what the stressors were when you homeschooled last year and really think about what you can do so that you can be less stress and less burnout.

[00:20:24] Amy: Yeah, I love that. I want to say too, just like to chime in, talking about the difference between diagnostics and testing. I think you hear anything that sounds like testing, and we get riled up about it because we really dislike the emphasis on testing that schools have, and I think for me it helps to think about testing as it's a Pyrex measuring cup that you have in your cabinet, right?

It is a cup, there are lines on it, and when you pour water in it, you want to see how close to the lines your water gets. That's what testing is like, it's seeing how your kid measures up to these standards.

But diagnostics are like a measuring tape. You're pulling it out to see how tall your child is. You're pulling it out to see how much they've grown. You're not measuring it against anything but your own kid. And so for me that is helpful because I think diagnostics are really helpful because you're measuring your particular kid's progress. There's not all this whole context of how's everybody else doing and where do you fit into that.

Sorry I feel strongly that diagnostics are really helpful and that testing is problematic. 

[00:21:29] Blair: And this is, you and I've been having this conversation because just in case you're wondering, the curriculum Amy and I are working in has diagnostics. And so I came up with this idea, I wrote this whole thing, and then I freaked out because I was like, are people going to think this is all this testing?

Actually, if burnout is something, find somebody you can talk to. Find somebody who brings your level of am I getting this right? Down. So burnout should be thought of before you're burnt out. You want to add anything to that, Amy? 

[00:22:01] Amy: Yes. Think of your curriculum the way that Coco Chanel thought of her wardrobe. Always get rid of one thing before you start. Take one thing off. Because I promise you that the most stressful thing for homeschoolers is overloading. There's so many cool resources, so many cool possibilities. You can do everything and it makes you want to do everything. But don't. Don't. Take something off.

Take at least one thing off your plate before you start. I promise you will not regret it. In fact, I, myself, have gotten into the habit of cutting what I want to do in half. And then cutting it in half again for my classes that I teach with my high schoolers, because I know that's what I can get to and do a really great job with and have them do a really good job and come away from it feeling like we've been productive and awesome.

And not have the complete, I don't know, do you guys have this, the February collapse where you just want to curl up in a ball under your bed and cry and wait for it to be May? Why isn't it May yet? So I think cutting something from your to do list is ALWAYS a good idea to minimize burnout.

It's hard, but do it anyway. 

[00:23:16] Blair: I just need to admit to everyone that I did not do a good job of that. There was always more things that I could bring in — the problem with that is you can get your kids burn out. But the other thing that can happen is that as kids are learning, it can be a little scattered when you do that.

I read so much. I'm always like inhaling books. it's a problem. I keep telling my family, at least it's just books, but I do buy a lot of books. I was always stuffing more resources and more information. And where were you when I really needed you, Amy?

This is important advice. If you're like me and you have a problem with always bringing in more and more, now with the internet, that's. Way easier to do. 

[00:24:06] Amy: There are just so many great things. There really are. And the only reason that I know this is a good idea is because I've not done it for many years.

And I, I get seriously burned out. I just would like. Spin and spin and add and add and add and like I just I was tired by December. And I feel like then you're rushing through things to get to the next thing. You're like, oh we gotta finish math so we can do this awesome history. Oh, we gotta finish this history so we can do our science experiment.

And that's okay. Part of the great thing about homeschooling is that you can really slow down and learn. And so if all you do on Tuesday is this really awesome science experiment and you do it from beginning to end and you talk about it and you think about it and you reproduce it. To me, that is much more valuable than checking off an entire page of, quick lessons. For my kids, that was better. And for me, that was better learning and it wasn't learning that burned us out. It was learning that excited us. 

[00:25:06] Blair: Oh, that sounds really good. So find that. Yeah. Where were you when I needed you like 10 years ago?

[00:25:14] Amy: Okay. I doing exactly what you were doing. it's very easy to look back and say, I should have done this, I think. 

[00:25:21] Blair: Oh, yeah. 

[00:25:22] Amy: You can take Blair’s and my advice because we have already made all the mistakes and burned ourselves out a lot. 

[00:25:29] Blair: So burnout should be thought of before you're burned out.

So if you see yourself doing that, cut back a little and realize that the dumping of so many different resources and information. Be thoughtful about cognitive overload. Now this is starting to sound more like a talk that we should be giving in the middle of October, not a, back to school talk.

So let's talk about one of the most fun things I think to do you're going to start school again is something that I always like to think of as a hook. And I would hook in a lot of different things. Like we always had a book that was a hook, but I like to do fun things.

Now we lived up in Eastern Sierra. for most of my son's life. And we had so much fun. We would do these big camping trips or hiking if possible. I would pair what we did with something from science or history, even language arts. I really love to do that. Do you?

Come up with the hook, Amy. 

[00:26:48] Amy: Yes. So I am a very humanities person and my teaching, and I always have one kind of text, by which I mean like a movie or a poem or a book, not just, doesn't just have to be a printed thing., It could also be a piece of art. So when we do U S history, we start with the American Gothic painting. When we do European history, we start with Rilke's Ninth Elegy. When we do Japanese history, we start with the wave.

So it's just this idea, this one object that we can keep coming back to and looking at and comparing and building on. And it is, I think it is really great. I think of that as a hook.

I think that's such a good idea. Also, Blair's idea about implementing your hook — do the fun camping trip to look at the rocks that you're studying. Write that on your calendar right now at the beginning of your school year. Say, okay, October is a great month for camping, so I'm going to make sure that I put that we're going to study, I don't know whether rocks in California are like, Blair, but like gypsum. We're going to study gypsum in October, and we're going to go camping to this place that has a lot of it. I don't know, Blair. 

[00:27:55] Blair: A random rock to choose.

[00:27:56] Amy: I don't even know why. 

[00:28:00] Blair: I happen to have some right here. Look at how nicely it's separated. 

[00:28:05] Amy: Blair is such a rock nerd, you don't even know.

But go ahead and write it on your calendar now, because what's going to happen is you're going to get busy, and life is going to get exciting and tumultuous, and you're going to get to the end of the year, and you're going to be like, oh crap, I really wanted to go camping to look at gypsum. Or, oh, crap. I really wanted to read this book over the winter break because it was such a great segue between the two things that we're doing. 

[00:28:30] Blair: I really wanted to go see the pandas that are now in San Diego.

[00:28:34] Amy: Yes — the Sheep to Shawl Festival and we missed it for the third year in a row.

So go right now, take your home school calendar and write down all of those things in it. All those things that like you love, that you want to do at a specific time, and you will thank me for it later. Because you will get busy and you will forget. This is the most organized, the most focused that you're going to be all year.

So take advantage of that and fill out your calendar right now. 

[00:29:05] Blair: Okay, now part of that I'm going to say stuff happens. I'll tell all of you listeners. Amy just put a podcast up and I got on today and said wow you put the one that we didn't edit So I thought it was a little messy stuff happens or leaving it up by the way We'll let you figure out if you see if you could figure out which one we didn't do an edit on.

Just know Blair sometimes gets halfway through a sentence and decides she wants to word it differently. It's a writer's thing. But stuff happens. And so what Amy's talking about on that calendar, do not let that get to you. Do the stuff. That's the magic.

Or, make a commitment for not back to school this year that the stuff that you're not going to say, Oh, we only did three days of math this week, we've got to do five so we can't go see pandas, or we can't spend the whole day making a video.

Back to, not back to school. Okay, whatever. Don't — it's too early in the year for that. Don't let the cool, fun stuff get left in the way. And it took me, so my son was on a ski team and it took me a year. Luckily, it only took a year for me to recognize that when extra practices happened or it was a, you would think that with snow, that would mean nobody skied, but that would be like everybody that's So everybody would want to be out skiing.

And his school friends would often, their school would close and go skiing. So those things, when you have planned, don't —that's where just do a little math in the summer, do a little whatever, but do not let the cool fun stuff get shelved.

So those things you write on your calendar, they're going to multiply, there's going to be more cool opportunities. Do those. And your child will look back, at least this is my experience, and I hope Amy's daughter has said the same thing. Amy's child that's at college, I think it's your daughter, your child will tell you that They were so lucky to be homeschooled because you made time for those cool things that just make you excited for, that you're even alive.

[00:31:41] Amy: They're definitely the things that kids remember and the things that you remember. And in a way, I think they are the things that make you feel like — quotes — “a good homeschool mom.” These are the things that you can only do because you're homeschooling ,that build the relationship that you wanna have with your kids.

And writing it in the calendar is not a blood oath, right? Like sometimes things come up and they keep you from doing the thing that you wanna do, and that's okay too. Like it snows and you wanna go play in the snow. So you're not gonna go celebrate Hobbit Day at the downtown second breakfast party.

But if you don't write it in the calendar, you definitely won't do it. You'll definitely forget about some of those things. So writing it down encourages you to remember them, the memories that you want to make with your kid, which is. Blair says, the magic of homeschooling. You get to have magic!

So don't miss it! Don't miss it to do extra math. 

[00:32:41] Blair: I just thought of, we could start a movement of not back to school at least once a month. The whole school year. It could be, it's our not back to school day in October or not back to school day in, you could actually put on the calendar, you'd be even looser and put cup, not back to school day so it doesn't have to be rock collecting, it can be whatever you want.

And if it's not, if everybody's totally stressed and it's been really long, it can be like teacher and service days. Which in my family, everyone's teacher and service day. Why? They have enough holidays. And I'm like, you have no idea how hard it is to teach. And even if they're not planning, even if what they're doing is sitting binge watching some series Bridgerton, my husband came in and he's, you didn't watch all eight episodes tonight?

[00:33:38] Amy: I watched the first season. It was very entertaining. 

[00:33:44] Blair: I have now watched, I don't watch much tv and so sometimes I, because I read, but I did, when I have nights where nobody's home, and it's just me and the dogs, and I don't feel like reading, I'll watch that.

So now it's done. Till the next time.

[00:34:07] Amy: In addition to the calendar, one other thing that I like to do as we're starting a new school year that I think is genius? That I came up with when the kids were little, is I started a terrible day box. It's a plastic bin in my front hall closet.

And I started it out because people would always give my kids presents over the holidays. They'd get jigsaw puzzles and craft kits and art supplies and new board games. And they would also get stuff that they were really excited about. So this stuff was like, they would just get put to the side.

So I took it and I put it in this big box. And then whenever we were having a really bad day, I would pull out a surprise from the box, and it would make our bad day better. Now we might have a bad day because it was just like a bad day, but also sometimes, how you planned like a really fun field trip and it rains. Or you get a flat tire, and so you can't go, or your air conditioning goes out where you've had a fun thing that you were gonna get to do, and then you don't get to do it, the Terrible Day box is also good for that.

But I find having this little stockpile of random fun stuff that you can just reach in and pull something out has been great for our homeschool. I cannot make my in-laws stop giving my children presents. So I have stuff. You could do the same thing with like a jar with fun ideas on it. Make a hopscotch thing in the backyard or draw with sidewalk chalk or pretend that you’re horses for the day or whatever your kids are into.

[00:35:41] Blair: You're not going to get grandparents to stop giving stuff. It's, we're, it's a requirement. I was stricter with myself now, but when the first ones came, the first two, oh, I could not. Okay, so we encourage you to celebrate. Throughout the year. Why are you homeschooling?

And I like homeschoolers to really pay attention to why you are doing this and make sure that you make the time to keep doing things that support the reason that you started homeschooling I think it's important to — whether it's a bad day box, which wasn't what I thought you were going to say I thought she was going to say when everybody's losing their temper with each other, which I don't lose my temper very much and neither does my son.

And so when we both lose our temper, there's no playing a board game together and we don't yell at each other. You'd have to be around me. I'm like, really hard to rile. I would just end school. I'd say, you know what? Wow okay, learning is not happening and neither is teaching right now. Let's take a break. And if everybody can stop thinking about how irritated they are with each other, we can come back to it. That isn't a bad idea. It isn't bad to know how you're going to handle that. Think about the burnout before you get burnt out. And, If you need to take a day, Amy and I are giving you permission right now to do that.

[00:37:27] Amy: If you need permission. I will write you a doctor's note. 

[00:37:31] Blair: Yeah, just, one of the things I consistently see homeschoolers do is that they don't give themselves the grace that they need in doing this job that they are so want to get right or they wouldn't be doing it. 

I've really not met a homeschooler that didn't really become invested in what they were doing. And sometimes we all have bad days, whether you do what I do or whether you pull out the box, like Amy, or whatever you do. So Amy told me something that she does and It's on our list of things you want to make sure and discuss.

Amy is going to tell you about her pep talk letter. 

[00:38:26] Amy: So I'm an anxious person. And my reaction to things going wrong is always to think that it's all my fault and I've ruined everything. I catastrophize when something doesn't go perfectly. I'm getting better at it, but I still really struggle.

And one of the things that I have done, in fact, since the very first full year that we homeschooled, because when we pulled my daughter out of school in second grade, we thought we'll try this until we figure out what to do next. So it was a stopgap and then the following year when we were like, okay, no, we're gonna keep doing this, I was like, oh god, i'm gonna ruin my daughter's life she was like what eight and I'm like she's never gonna get into college — which is probably not the — so I wrote myself a note like: dear Amy, and I wrote all the reasons that we were homeschooling, all the reasons that I thought that it was a good choice for our family, all the things that I really loved about it. I took time to write down, specific great memories, great moments. And then I folded it up in real folded note style, which is how you can tell I'm a real Gen X er because I can fold the note so that it makes its own envelope.

Yeah. So I wrote that and I put it in my dresser drawer and when I had those days where it happened because, oh my gosh, I had those days, I still have them, where I felt like I was doing everything wrong and I'd made a terrible mistake and I was going to ruin my daughter's life, I would pull out that letter and I would read it.

And so now every year at the beginning of every new year, I write myself a letter, a little pep talk. It's Hey, you're doing this for a reason and you're good at it. Like good things have happened because of it. Your kid is doing great. And here's all this evidence to support that. And so have your bad day, but know that it's a bad day. It's not a bad decision. You can do this. Love, Amy.

And I find it is really helpful because nobody knows what I need to hear more than I do when I'm stressed and worried. And so when you're feeling really good about homeschooling, you have those moments where you're like, you know what, this is the greatest thing ever and I'm so glad that we're doing this. And my kid is like making this awesome progress, stop and write yourself a little note and tell yourself that. And then when you're having a day that is not great, you can open it and it is really shockingly helpful. It sounds silly. It's probably like some weird self help thing that people do.

But it has been a real gift to me over the years. 

[00:40:52] Blair: And be specific about it too, what you did, the same thing we would tell you about evaluations. Don't just say, did a great job, be really specific about what happened and then save those. I wish I'd have done that because wouldn't it be great to have, not just for me, but to share with my son.

[00:41:14] Amy: It would. Yeah, I think it's actually awesome and I'm really glad I have all those letters to look back at now that my youngest is getting ready to finish, it's really lovely to be able to look back at it. What a great experience it's been.

Give yourself opportunities to recognize what a great experience it is and what a gift the time is. Some days — I once asked my parents if I was gifted and my parents were like we wouldn't have paid for you, so there are definitely days where it's like, the gift is you wouldn't have paid for it, but it really is, a really special thing to get to homeschool — and yeah, you’ve got to remind yourself of that sometimes, because it doesn't always feel that way.

[00:41:52] Blair: There are hard days which is another reason to celebrate, to remember to insert. Now I'm totally hooked on the monthly celebrations, if not back to school. 

[00:42:05] Amy: No, I love that idea. We should do it at SEA. we should have a day in SEA, where it's just like that monthly celebration day.

[00:42:11] Blair: What did you do? Just that yeah. Oh my goodness, my to-do pile. You would think that I wasn't busier in the homeschool community than I've ever been, but I am. 

[00:42:26] Amy: It's like now that you're not actually homeschooling, you have time to do homeschool stuff. 

[00:42:31] Blair: Oh, goodness. So much.

And I think I need to remember to celebrate the not back to school part of it. The not back to school part isn't negative to school either, but I do think that you should think about what it is about homeschooling that is, for you that's superior 

[00:42:57] Amy: And I think there are a lot of things that homeschoolers miss out on not being part of the school community.

It's just the way that it is, right? You don't usually have field day or field trips on a bus. I know the most homeschoolery thing ever. We did a poll a few years ago, and it was like getting to ride a school bus. Thinking that getting to ride a school bus was the most exciting thing in the world.

[00:43:21] Blair: Your students, your students were missing? 

[00:43:25] Amy: We actually did like a whole survey in home.school.life, in the magazine, and we had like thousands of people respond. They voted — there were things like wearing your pajamas all day and mummifying a chicken. So we have this whole list of things, but thinking that riding the school bus was exciting was the number one thing that said homeschoolers, that was the most homeschooler-y thing ever.

So there are things that homeschoolers don't get to do that other kids do. There are like these annual celebrations that school kids are being a part of, and back to school is a big one. You see it everywhere. There are TV episodes about it and aisles and stores dedicated to it. And everyone talking about it. Are you excited to go back to school? When do you go back to school? And so I think like honoring the way, it's celebrating that you've made a different decision is really fun. And it's not being against school or traditional school. It's just celebrating what you're doing, which I think is fair.

[00:44:22] Blair: I don't know that my grandkids are excited about going back to school. I think their parents are looking forward to it though. 

[00:44:32] Amy: That is the other thing about home schooling that I think we don't talk about enough is that like having a family routine Is such a saver. I mean because in school, you have a school routine, right? You have a home routine to get you ready for school Then you're in school and then you have a home from school routine and then you have weekends.

But homeschooling is fun really,

[00:45:07] Blair: Okay, so Amy and I would love it if you shared your traditions, especially if you think someone else can benefit from it. 

[00:45:16] Amy: Yes, for sure. I think that there are all these cool things, but I always hear people talk about it and I'm like, why didn't I think of that?

Every time Blair says something, I'm like, I never thought of that! Such a good idea! So we can all share those things with each other and give other people great ideas. Please leave good ideas in the comments or share them on the SEA Facebook page. Maybe we can start a post there about it when we put this podcast up.

[00:45:40] Blair: We'll do that. That's a great idea. Are you reading anything? 

[00:45:43] Amy: I am. Oh, I've been on the holds, I just got literally today. I'm so excited. I just got the new book. James, have you read this, which is a new version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who helps Huckleberry Finn on his journey. It is supposed to be fantastic and amazing. I'm so excited to read it because I love The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an early example of an anti racist novel, but as an early example of an anti racist novel, it's still a bit racist. So I love the idea of having a Huckleberry Finn adjacent text to read that I can actually feel good about reading with students.

So fingers crossed. I'm very excited about it. What about you? What are you reading? 

[00:46:33] Blair: I am reading a couple of things. I'm actually biding my time not reading anything big because the fourth book in T. J. Klune's book in the Werewolf series comes out, and the fifth or sixth book in Deborah Harkness's Discovery of Witches series comes out.

And so I am — I have read all the books leading up to the end of those. And so I'm just, everything I pick up is just I'm reading magazines and a lot of articles and stuff right now. Actually, if you really want to know what I spent time reading this week, it was Project 2025 when I don't even, I don't even want to go into it, but yeah, that's depressing, scary. Depressing isn't the right word. It's petrifying. If you like living in a democracy, 

[00:47:27] Amy: That's like terrifying and heartbreaking and emotionally devastating , 

[00:47:32] Blair: I think we need to figure out a way to turn Trump as the root word into some horrible, it's really an authoritarian regime that is rich, mostly white.

[00:47:48] Amy: not even rich people. 

[00:47:50] Blair: That's not who's supporting it the people that, the Federalist Society, you don't think those are all a bunch of rich, mostly white guys? And mostly guys, 

[00:48:04] Blair: Vote it's a matter of voting against your best interests. Anyway, we're working. This is it should not be too political because yeah, that's so i'm waiting for — maybe we'll do an episode about it just to talk about it in a more thoughtful way, like how do we talk to our homeschool kids about this?

Very concerning and strange document. 

You know what, I think we'll talk about it in the context of when we talk about the Truth Matters and On Tyranny. I think it's a perfect and that is coming up, us doing that. 

[00:48:38] Amy: But our next episode is actually going to be about one of the most fun things, banned books.

Love me some banned books. 

[00:48:46] Blair: I live in a state where we banned the banning of books. We'll be talking about what it looks like. California gets bad press. But I'm sitting on the inside and it doesn't look nearly as bad. 

[00:49:01] Amy: I live in a state where a teacher got fired for reading a not banned book that was in the school library out loud to her class because they decided it was offensive.

So yeah, opposite. 

[00:49:15] Blair: So yeah, all that news, people leaving California, I hate to break it to you, they're moving to your state cause it's redder.  

Yeah, let's not end on a negative note. Congratulations at the beginning of another year. Amy and I are here to support you.

If you ever are thinking, I wish Amy and Blair would talk about — whatever. Reach out to us and let us know. Who knows, it might be what we talk about on one of our episodes, because as you can tell, we're pretty freewheeling. 

[00:49:48] Amy: No, we really love it. Any ideas you have, we are super excited about. Happy not back to school.

Hope this is your best homeschool year yet. 

[00:49:59] Blair: Every year should be your absolute best. You can't have one second back that you live in some ways, live in the moment. 

[00:50:08] Amy: Yeah, absolutely. Homeschooling is the best. I don't know. It gives you such a great relationship with your kids. I'm so thankful that I got to spend all those minutes with them, all those magic minutes. I would not trade that for anything. 

[00:50:22] Blair: It has made my life richer, so much richer to have that connection and time with my child.

[00:50:33] Amy: We're so lucky. Happy homeschooling. See you soon. 

[00:50:36] Blair: Bye everyone