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Jessica’s Homeschooling Journey

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I started homeschooling because I lost my job. My husband said, “Well now you can homeschool,” but I did not want to. I fought kicking and screaming.

Working Woman

Jessica did not start off as a homeschooling mom or even a stay at home mom. It was not what she expected or wanted. She has had a varied and interesting job life, and her most recent job, prior to homeschooling, was on the North Shore where she worked as a police officer. Her duties were varied and she worked shifts as a patrol officer for many years, working days, evenings, or even midnight shifts. She also worked as a community relations officer and had a desk job working days. She went into schools and taught crime prevention and drug prevention. She went to parent groups and talked about how to keep their children safe, offered workshops, the works.

Blindsided

All the kids were in school and various programs. Jessica had toyed with home schooling, but was not ready. Kids were 10, 7, 5, and 3 years old when Jessica was blindsided to lose her job. Her husband said well now you can homeschool, but she choked and could not even imagine. She didn’t know legally what she could and could not do, and of course, there was the question of how do you even teach? Also, she found that her confidence took a nosedive after the layoff. Looking back she realized she had fallen into a bit of a depression at that point. She would take her kids to school and drop them off, then go home and take a nap – which lasted until it was time to pick them up. All her life she had worked and brought in a check, and for the first time she was not able to do that. She had a home and four children to take care of, and she felt ill equipped to know how to manage. She wishes she could say she spent that first year cleaning up the house and getting things together, but she just did not know what to do or where to start. So finally one day, Jessica called her aunt and asked her if it is normal to need this much sleep. Her aunt cut to the quick and said, “Jessica, it sounds like you are depressed. You need to pull yourself together, get a purpose, and get moving.”  Giving it some thought, Jessica decided she would make her kids’ school her purpose. She decided to go to the school every day and volunteer in any capacity. She volunteered in the library, planning to be that mom who backed up the teachers and help make it happen. However, her idyllic picture of how it would be did not end up reflecting reality. She discovered that she did not like what she saw over there at their school. She was there every day, and she and her little one would work their hours in the library. She began to peek into the classrooms, and saw the inner workings of how the school operated. One thing that was particularly distressing was her son’s teacher.  Jessica’s son was now in 5th grade, and ten years old. The teacher seemed to have a problem with boys in general, and African American boys in particular. The boys were always in trouble. School would start at 8:15, and by 8:30 there would be trouble. There were only seven boys in the class, and they were often sitting on the bench at the principal’s office. And then, to add to Jessica’s dismay, she noticed her son began to dread getting up, dread going to school. It was as though he had brakes on his feet. More concerning, he began to have a depressed affect. He began to drag himself around and she heard him groaning, “Oh God, I just want to die.” 

Enough is Enough

Words like that will unravel the fabric of any mom’s heart. So Jessica started advocating. She began to speak to the teacher, and to the principal. She did not like anything the principal had to say in response. She spoke with other moms, she wrote letters. She felt all it accomplished was stir up more dirt in the messy pot, and finally she realized the school could not and would not meet their needs. Her son was getting beaten down – the teacher told him he had nothing between his ears, and kids believe what their teachers say. He thought he couldn’t learn, so of course he stopped trying. Jessica’s heart could take it no more. She threw in the towel of changing the school, changing the system that allowed such a teacher to knock children down, year after year. The system that allowed a man to whisper into innocent ears that they could not amount to anything, that they were a burden and caused trouble by their very existence. Instead Jessica decided to change what she did have the power to change – the life of her own child who God had given her to bring up. So she pulled all three of the kids out of school to join Baby Sister.

Homeschooling,
Here We Come

That was when she embarked on her homeschool journey. It was a good journey Jessica states emphatically, but those first few years were hard. The oldest son had to relearn, or learn, that he could in fact, learn. He needed to rebuild his crumpled self confidence, and find wonder in learning and discovering. At the time Jessica began homeschooling, the kids were in 6th, 4th and 1st, and adding the 3-year old made it crazy a thousand times over. The two who had spent several years in school had to learn that education at home was not going to be the same. Her fourth grader also had run into some problems in school of a different nature which Jessica found herself trying to undo and work through. Her teacher had said she had trouble transitioning – when they were working on spelling she did not want to switch gears to math. But Jessica noticed another problem. Her daughter made up words all the time. She had developed a system of guessing based off of pictures and context. She is a very artistic girl so she was able to roll with it. But the problem remained: she did not know how to read. Jessica needed to take her back to the beginning with phonics and teach her the basics – all while teaching the first grader the same thing. So on Jessica’s first go-round with homeschooling she has two kids she’s going through intensive reading challenges, a toddler, and a child who was essentially  broken down. That is a lot for one momma trying to find her way. Every day she would cry into her pillow and her husband would remind her that her purpose right now is not to teach them, but to win their hearts for God, to have a good time, to get the kids back. If you get some school done, great, but remember that is not the purpose right now. The reminder was so important because her instinct was to dwell on all the things they did not know and listen to the voice that said she had to teach them all those things today. 

Getting to Know the Kids

So as she started to ease into being home with her kids each day, she realized they had not enjoyed relaxed outings together. They had not visited the museums, conservatories, parks, and so many attractions available to her in Chicago. They began to do fun things, always trying to learn as they went. It was eye-opening and exhilarating to just be together and discover the world around them. It got to the point where her son began to ask if they could please just stay home sometimes. Jessica was getting into it and having a great time, and kept finding more and more places to visit. It wasn’t long before a new concern crept up – she began to gain weight as they continued to pursue all the things they had not had time for in the past. In her mind families should go out for ice cream, so they did that – all the time. She joked she gained weight being a cookie mom – you know, one that loves her kids through baking cookies and making food. She would bake a cake and put a map on top of it – all for their education!

Connecting With Other Moms

Eventually things settled down for Jessica and they pursued a more academic avenue as the kids got older, and she began to meet other families who were doing what they were doing. She recalls meeting a mom whose child had dyslexia. She was a homeschooling mom and also a licensed school teacher, and she shared with Jessica how she taught phonics using colored blocks with letters on them. Jessica says she would never have thought of such a thing, and her friend helped her make some blocks for her girls, and they began to use them and play with them. This led to another friend sharing that she liked to use scrabble pieces. So off Jessica went to thrift stores to find old Scrabble games to gather plenty of tiles to put to use. She realized there is truly a wealth of information and knowledge out there, and she began to branch out and meet more people and engage in activities. This was useful for the kids to make friends and enjoy group activities, but also very useful for Jessica to learn from others and see how they were doing things. She recalls one mom in particular who had something like seven kids. Being a fly on her wall would be ideal, Jessica thought, because there has to be a great way to do it that isn’t so hard. Homeschooling her four seemed so hard, but here this other mom was doing it with seven. So she mentioned it to her seven-child friend, and the woman said her house is for sure  going to be different from Jessica’s. And Jessica’s kids are different from her kids. There is no catch-all system because there are so many different personalities and abilities. Jessica thought about this for a while and agreed that is probably right. 

Learning Together

One of Jessica’s favorite things about homeschooling is that she and her kids learned together. History is one of the funnest subjects for the Black family. They enjoyed many hours of reading out loud together, and it gives Jessica such pleasure when they correct her on the sequence of events or the factors surrounding an event in history. She says she never learned as much as during those busy homeschooling years. She recalls a conversation with a woman at the library who wanted to homeschool but had misgivings about her own knowledge base – both in pedagogy as far as how to teach children and how do they learn, and also when it comes to subject matter she was not familiar with. That’s when Jessica realized you actually don’t need to be an expert to help your children learn. She had her children studying Latin in a small in-home co-op for a few years. They really took to it and excelled, whereas she fell off the wagon early on. And that is ok – Jessica knows she does not have use or need of Latin at this point in life. In fact, it thrilled her heart to see them grown knowledge in an area she was not up to speed.

Daily Life

Fast forward now eight years into homeschooling. There is no normal for Jessica’s days with the kids. Her husband is also a police officer and has spent years working nights. When he arrives home early in the morning, sometimes everyone stays in bed for a while to extend quiet for him to get some sleep.  And when they do get up they need to be quiet so he can rest, and she has a school room which happens to be directly above his head. Trying to keep the door closed can lead to slamming doors, and who can sleep through slamming doors? Probably nobody, but definitely not Jessica’s husband who is in the 95th percentile worldwide in light sleeping. 

No Normal

In general, a normal day would start about mid-morning for the Black family, and they hit the ground running, getting themselves ready and doing chores. After everything is straightened, Jessica likes to sit them down for breakfast/brunch while she has a devotion time and a family meeting where they discuss what is happening that day and days immediately following. After the meeting they generally do math. Her high schooler is very independent and just does what is on her schedule. Jessica does history and English with the two little ones at some point in the day. She keeps a very open hand on her day as she always factors in her husband’s sleep schedule. When he wakes up he generally brings school to a halt. They might fix lunch and eat it together, or just spend time with the kids. She smiles, “We just roll with it.”

A Great Day

What are some memories of some really great days? Jessica chuckles, confessing she does have some wonderful memories, but she is suspicious they are different from the days her kids might say are the best ones. They would say they loved the days Mom wasn’t feeling well or was super tired and would rest her head on the table while reading to them. Once they were certain she had crossed the bridge to Lala Land, they would sneak away, leaving her to snooze and enjoy an afternoon of their own mischief. She, on the other hand, treasures the days they did things together as a family, when everyone was involved and invested. She recalls the day they were doing what was supposed to be one hour of science. They were investigating different liquids and how well or if they mixed with water, whether things floated. There was liquid in jars, and there were different colors. One of the curious minds began to wonder if they could make hair a certain different color, and they began to talk about pigments, and one thing led to another and soon they were in the Kool Aid dying hair. They all have black hair of course, so they had to dye the dog’s hair because it was a lighter color, because he did not have Melanin so he picked up color. Their hair, with the Melanin, did not pick up the color, and Jessica was so happy to have a day where they had a question and learned by exploring and figuring it out. She knows the kids remember that day, learned a lot, and were able to later build on that information.

A Hard Day

On the flip side, we have awful days all the time, Jessica admits. One awful day was when the kitten died. Yes, that was a very bad day. They had just gotten some three week-old kittens which they were learning to take care of as part of their school. Every day they took care of them, bottle feeding them and keeping them in a guinea pig cage – the works. They bottle fed them for a few weeks and then they began to think about how to transition the little kitties to solid food. J’s eldest daughter uncovered the information that they need a mother to show them so of course without hesitation, she got down on her hands and knees to teach the kittens how to eat. She kept on coaxing them and one by one they got the hang of it and came out to sample the solid victuals. But one day one of the kittens collapsed onto the kitchen floor and just died right there! It was truly a tragic day. Apparently all kinds of chaos and mayhem ensued. The girls began to cry hysterically, while the oldest, Jessica’s son, capitalized on the sorrow and wondered out loud whether cat stew might be on the menu for the evening, increasing the agony and wails from the girls. Jessica fought despair as this crisis occurred early in the day, and she could see the plans she had carefully laid for the day slipping through her fingers. Then she remembered that one of her friends, another homeschooling mom, had experience working at an animal shelter before she had kids – maybe she could offer some help! It wasn’t long before the friend arrived with her daughter and assessed the situation. The kitten was not quite dead yet – still had a faint heartbeat, but was on her way out. She calmly explained that sometimes that happens. Sometimes kittens have a genetic condition and they just can’t make it. She looked at Jessica and told her today must be a day of mourning. “You have to let the kids grieve. They need to process this and cry and talk about how much they loved the kitten. Oh, and you know this kitten has fleas,” she added. At this point Jessica was in despair. What does that even mean? She showed Jessica the fleas, and there was a cloud of them. She picked up another other kitten, and, wouldn’t you know, it had fleas, too! A quick investigation of the house revealed Jessica’s entire house had the little guys, and the friend said, “You are going to have to get this house fumigated.” A mourning session and fleas in the house. How are the kids going to do any kind of learning? Jessica felt at a total loss. The friend took the kitten so they did not have to deal with that, and the kids wept for hours. They could not stop crying and talking about the kitten, while Jessica is thinking, “We only had it for six weeks; where is all this emotion coming from?”

Picking Up the Pieces

The day disappeared like dew on a summer morning, and Dad walked through the door wondering what was going on. They explained the kitten died, and the sorrow and distress they were feeling. Dad listened and patiently let them weep for about twenty minutes. Then he announced, “That is enough. We have cried for this kitten enough, and there will be no more crying.” Much to Jessica’s surprise, they stopped. Everyone wiped their tears and pulled themselves together, ready to move on. Poor Jessica still had to break the news that the house was infested with fleas, and she recalls that saying he was unhappy was an understatement. He had never been thrilled with the kittens anyway, and this was not helping. That all happened on a Wednesday. They did no academic work that day. Or on Thursday, or even Friday. Instead they had to fumigate the house and evacuate. And they had to convince Dad to allow them to keep the other kittens. It was a bad homeschooling experience at the time, but looking back, Jessica chuckles and sees the very real humor and lessons learned. 

What a ride. Be sure to check back in a few more years after Baby Sister graduates. You can bet your money Jessica will say it was an exhilarating and wondrous journey, one she would never trade. Homeschooling journeys always are.

Webinar 4 – Our Homeschooling Story

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Marshell Edwards shares some of her own homeschooling story. She tells how she found homeschooling, why it appeals to her, what kind of communities it has helped her discover, and shares some of her own successes and challenges over the years. She also offers encouragement and advice to young homeschoolers.

1.Jenny Ginter’s Introduction
2.How Marshell Found Homeschooling
3.Being with Family
4.Homeschooling Methods
5.Finding Community
6.TEACH and ODE
7.Scheduling with Babies
8.Q&A – Has your schedule changed?
9.Q&A – Do you regret any of your homeschooling decisions?
10.Q&A – Do you have advice for new homeschoolers?
11.Q&A – How does your husband help?
12.Q&A – How do you respond to people who are skeptical about homeschooling?
13.Q&A – Introduce Marshell’s Story Project

Marshell Edwards

Marshell Edwards is the homeschooling mother of six. She has been working with One Day Enrichment for four years and has personally conducted over 30 hours of recorded interviews with homeschooling parents. She will be offering a window into her days as she currently is in the trenches juggling the needs children and babies of various ages.

Webinar 1 – Eight Different Approaches to Homeschooling

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In this workshop, Julie Polanco discusses eight different homeschooling styles and the pros and cons of each. She helps new homeschoolers understand the freedom they have. Come learn and figure out what will work best for you. Feel confident that you can succeed by following your instincts and listening to your children’s needs. You can view the entire webinar from the beginning here, or you can jump to a specific place using the links below.

1.Jenny Ginter’s Introduction
2.Julie Polanco’s Introduction
3.Illinois Laws for Homeschooling
4.Introducing the Eight Approaches
5.METHOD 1 Traditional Textbook Method
6.METHOD 2 Classical Method
7.METHOD 3 Unit Studies
8.METHOD 4 Charlotte Mason/Great Books Approach
9.METHOD 5 Road/World Schooling
10.METHOD 6 Eclectic Method
11.METHOD 7 Light-Directed/Relaxed Method
12.METHOD 8 Unschooling
13.Homeschooling High School
14.Question and Answer

About Julie Polanco

Julie Polanco is the mother of four amazing children and wife to one wonderful man. She has been imagining and writing since childhood. Julie has written more than seventy published articles and short works for the healthcare, alternative education, and parenting sectors. In addition to her own work, she has ghostwritten two full-length books for others. Julie loves the outdoors and imagining new worlds hidden among the bushes and trees. Music, too, has been part of her earliest memories. She loves learning new things, especially the locations of new restaurants and out-of-the-way places. To discover more about Julie, please visit her site at www.julienaturally.com and subscribe to her newsletter.

Webinar 2 – “MegaSkills”

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With the birth of your first child you became a teacher, so even if you are just embarking on homeschooling, you’re already experienced!  This presentation is a confidence booster.  You’ll learn creative and workable ways to continue to fuel your children’s “inner engines of learning” as Dorothy Rich put it in her book MegaSkills. These are the characteristics and qualities that will enhance your children’s performance with school work and on whatever roads they pursue in life, and make the journey more enjoyable for everyone along the way.

1.Jenny Ginter’s Introduction
2.Cindy Dunn’s Introduction
3.“MegaSkills” Introduction – Resourcefulness
4.Historical Background, Dorothy Rich
5.Encouragement and Overview
6.SKILL 1 Confidence
7.SKILL 2 Motivation
8.SKILL 3 Effort
9.SKILL 4 Responsibility
10.SKILL 5 Initiative
11.SKILL 6 Perseverance
12.SKILL 7 Caring
13.SKILL 8 Teamwork
14.SKILL 9 Common Sense
15.SKILL 10 Problem Solving
16.Summary and Review
17.Question and Answer

Cindy Dunn

Cindy Dunn left the employee benefits management field when she took up the managing of motherhood and has experienced benefits beyond calculation ever since.  Having two children born eleven years apart meant two overlapping rounds of homeschooling over 23 years, winding up a couple years ago.  She describes her teaching philosophy as paralleling a definition of organic – cultivating without force or contrivance – and enjoys sharing practical and creative means for nurturing students, and parents too, into full bloom.

Webinar 3 – The Value of Literature

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Hearing words spoken aloud is necessary for a child’s early development, and reading to your child can be a beautiful shared experience for both of you. Parents are usually already aware of the importance of reading to a child until they can read on their own, but Cindy Miller argues that this practice should be continued throughout a child’s education. She recounts five main benefits of reading aloud, drawing from The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease, and shares how this has enriched her own family’s homeschooling experience. Cindy also provides a list of titles and resources to help you find good books for reading aloud, available here.

1.Jenny Ginter’s Introduction
2.Cindy Miller’s Introduction
3.Reading at the Miller House
4.Early Development
5.Continued Benefits of Reading Aloud
6.BENEFIT 1 Empathy
7.BENEFIT 2 Academic Performance
8.BENEFIT 3 Fluency and Expression
9.BENEFIT 4 Community
10.BENEFIT 5 Enriched Time
11.Q&A How do I find engaging books?
12.Q&A What if my kids are different ages?
13.Q&A Christianity and choosing books
14.Q&A What about poetry?
15.Q&A What about writing?
16.Q&A Do you ask your kids to read aloud?
17.Q&A How much time do you spend reading aloud?
18.Conclusion
Reading Resources

Cindy Miller

Even before she had reached kindergarten, Cindy Miller had become a voracious reader and a lover of the written word. That love for reading has come in handy as she’s taught her own nine children over the past 28 years. For 16 of those years she has shared her passion for literature and writing with the homeschool community through teaching in co-ops and in the One Day Enrichment program.

Six tips for Homeschooling with Toddlers and Babies

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A soft, warm, cooing, sweet-smelling baby could conceivably be a welcome addition to an idyllic homeschooling morning. The young children sit around the table, contentedly coloring, writing in their math workbook, or working diligently on a creative geography project while the baby nestles in your arms and you gently explain concepts to the older kids as questions arise. It is possible – and it is also possible to roller skate with a wedding cake balanced on your head. No, my friends, homeschooling with a baby, and often a baby and a toddler, is a challenge and almost never looks like the aforementioned scene. My babies have not been eager to comply with my plans – in the first year they usually fuss unless I carry and jostle them. If I try to sit and explain a concept to a child, the sweet little baby will usually scrunch her face together and make communication impossible with the sound she generates. This, in turn, creates stress in the child who decides math is too hard and gives up. What is a homeschooling mom to do? In my two decades of homeschooling I have had a baby and a toddler in tow every single year, and it is not impossible because I am still alive and (at least partially) sane. And my older children have successfully completed their high school education and found success beyond. 

  1. Hold your plans loosely. It is ok to take a break when the babies and little ones can’t be distracted to cooperate. And keeping harmony while learning to help each other have a good morning experience trumps learning a fact or a concept any day – even if it were possible to learn anything in chaos. Which it is not. So take a break from math even if math is on your schedule and you are a Type A personality who badly wants to check the box completed.
  2. If you have an infant, a baby carrier that fits snugly around the baby is truly a wonderful investment. Nothing soothes a little one like the warm feel of your tummy folds and the familiar sound of your beating heart. She will drift off to sleep and you will be able to pick up where you left off. Even if you can’t sit. Think of all the exercise you are getting – for free and without arranging childcare. Just another perk of the job.
  3. When Baby gets too independent to travel attached to you, sitting on a blanket with toys is a wonderful change. You will feel so light and free that doing math will seem like a breeze! You could consider having one child sit with Baby while you work with another, and switching off. Very effective. You can only work with one child at a time anyway. If you only have one other than the baby, try taking your work to the floor. Might inspire you to vacuum later! There’s an unexpected bonus.
  4. A mobile baby – that is a challenge for the most experienced and stout-hearted among us. Danger lurks everywhere – from the lego that wants to lodge in your sweet baby’s throat to the dangerous cliff at the edge of the living room (stairs!) to unclosed doors leading to toilet bowls, to unknown risks that make your blood turn cold – and you can’t relax for one blessed moment! This is the most difficult time to make homeschooling older kids work. In these times, recruit all older sibling help you can, stay vigilant, and take heart. This too shall pass. I promise. In my home I have a 100% survival rate from this stage of development. I can confidently predict you will also experience the same success rate – and that is a win! Way more important than math. 
  5. An excellent resource to make use of in addition to older siblings is the high chair. Finger foods is an obvious distraction to keep your little one busy, but as they get older they can enjoy coloring with a crayon clutched in a fist straight onto the plastic tray! Those trays clean up so nicely, even crayola crayon marks wipe right off. And if you find any remnants of color I would imagine you would consider them a small price to pay for the moments of peace and quiet you would trade them in for. This is actually a trick that works earlier than you would expect or think of coloring as an activity. As the child continues to grow and choking hazards diminish, try allowing her to play with dried beans in the high chair tray along with a couple of plastic cup measures and spoons. This trick should be used sparingly (clean-up can be arduous) but it really does afford an even longer stretch of quiet time because no toddler can resist the allure of dried beans. 
  6. Make use of nap time. Unless you need a nap. If you do, and often you will because everyone knows babies don’t sleep well at night, please take one. Being a little better-rested (and more pleasant and clear-minded as a result) is way more important than math.

In summary, let me just encourage you to hang in there, and remember every baby stage is short-lived. You will experience so many perks for your own personal development during this time. You will become light on your toes. No one sits for four consecutive seconds when homeschooling with babies and toddlers. This is great for your cardiovascular system, great for your mental sharpness, and great for nimbleness of body. You will reap the benefits of your spritely body all the many days of your life. And the patience you will learn will earn you accolades and sainthood. Or at least it will help you cope with the many interruptions you will encounter always.

Seriously, enjoy each day. Those babies grow so fast; before you know it you will be struggling to remember how she looked and felt in your arms and how those sweet sounds made your heart swell. Math isn’t going anywhere.