Its Only Homeschool

Magic Questions

It’s funny how one day you’re a newbie homeschool parent with a little kid and a bazillion questions about the new educational adventure you’ve embarked on, and somehow in what seems the blink of an eye, you’ve become one of those “veteran homeschoolers” you looked at with envy all those years ago.

Now, we homeschool in Missouri, and our state’s law is currently (as of 2019) hours-based. So, we’re supposed to have a homeschool plan, and then we log hours they’ve spent. The requirement is for 1,000 hours with 600 of those hours in core subjects (400 of the 600 in the designated home location) and the remaining 400 in either core or non-core areas.

Each year as the beginning of the school year rolls around, I see parents asking frantic questions about logging hours and wondering how on earth they will ever get that thousand hours.

One thousand hours — it seems like such a big number.

But really, it’s not, especially once you discover “the magic questions.”

However, before I tell you what the magic questions are, let me remind you, homeschool doesn’t need to look like traditional school. Not just not a little bit.

Not. At. All.

In fact, not only does homeschool not need to look like traditional school, it shouldn’t look like a traditional box school — because if it does, then what in God’s green earth is the reason for homeschooling?

Homeschool — whatever your homeschool may end up looking like — should be unique to your family’s needs and desires.

Now…what are these magic questions?

Magic Question #1 is answered with a simple yes or no: “is s/he learning?”

Really — that’s it. Is s/he learning?

So, if your children are learning something, regardless of whether it’s something you’ve formally assigned or not, it’s school. It doesn’t matter if it’s a math worksheet, reading comic books, playing outside, sorting laundry, or watching a YouTube video.

If your daughter is teaching herself to how to do origami folding…it’s loggable time. If your son watches the birds at a bird feeder and learns how to identify them…it’s loggable. If everyone in the house gets obsessed with ancient Egypt and you attempt to mummify a chicken (yes — it can and has been done by a homeschool mom friend of mine!) … again, loggable.

Learning time is loggable time.

It didn’t take me long to realize that — provided you don’t squash it out of them — kids are naturally curious. It’s in their DNA. Some days it’s literally all they do — think up things to ask you questions about until you think your brain will literally drip out you ears.

Don’t believe me? Think about how many times your toddler asked you “why” something. Why is the sky blue? Why are there rainbows? Why do cats purr? Why do feet stink? Why is the sun hot? Why do chickens lay eggs? Why is grass green? Why are there bees? Why do I have to go to bed?

When you think about it, every single one of those questions is an opportunity for learning. Sure, when you explain why the sky is blue, the answer you give a 3 year old will differ from the answer for a 13 year old, but it’s still age-appropriate learning. That means, if your child meets the criteria for homeschooling, it’s “school.”

Magic Question #2, once you’ve answered “yes” to the “is s/he learning?” question, is “what’s s/he learning?”

Reading, language arts, math, science, social studies, fine arts, practical arts? Log it.

Your origami loving daughter is definitely engaged in fine art, but if you say, “Wow, that’s really cool? How did origami get started?” and she can tell you — or she goes and finds out because your question made her curious — then you’re looking at social studies time.

When you’re biking with your son and realize he’s identified two dozen different birds during the course of your ride, you know you need to be logging that bird time as science.

There you have it — the magic questions: Is s/he learning? and What is s/he learning?

Let the learning happen…then grab your homeschool log book and write it down.

Write it all down.

Note: homeschool laws vary from state to state, with some requiring more documentation than others, but looking at what they’re learning remains home educational bedrock.

Use Your Superpowers

In the Spider-Man® universe, one of the guiding principles is that “with great power comes great responsibility,” something Peter Parker learned the hard way. He had the power—the superpower actually—to stop a criminal, but he didn’t and lost his Uncle Ben as a result.

Homeschool parents relate. With the great power to guide our children’s education comes the great responsibility to do right by them.

My homeschool parent friends are keenly aware of this. Homeschool families flock to homeschool conferences and expos. Stop by any social media group for home educators and you’ll find parents asking about curriculum, following state laws, seeking help to solve this or that problem.

We want to do this right.

However, one of the things I’ve noticed in recent years is, while parents will take responsibility for their children’s education, sometimes there’s a reticence to take full advantage of their power as decision makers.

We hesitate.

I see too many parents wanting someone else—someone “out there”—to assure them it’s okay for their children to take an open book history test, to tell them it’s okay to use a computer science class as a science credit, to give them some sort of cosmos permission to count a cookie baking sesssion filled with fractions as a math lesson.

I regularly find myself encouraging new homeschoolers to seize the day—to seize their power as teacher, the principal, and the school board.

You decide. You make the call. You be the one. You and no one else.

Don’t wait for someone else’s approval or permission or go-ahead. Look to yourself.

Seizing your own power as an educator means taking full advantage of what it means to homeschool.

Depending on where you live, you may have more or fewer government regulations, but regardless of which state you call home, you have options. You have the freedom to decide exactly what your homeschool will look like.

Yes, your homeschool will look vastly different from every other homeschool family’s homeschool.

And. That’s. Okay.

In fact, it’s supposed to be that way.

When your homeschool looks radically different from your best friend’s homeschool, don’t doubt yourself…and don’t doubt your friend. You’re unique homeschool parents, and you’re raising individuals. Why wouldn’t your homeschools look different?

In fact, if your homeschool looks exactly like some other family’s homeschool, I’ll be so bold as to say chances are good either you’re doing it wrong for you…or they’re doing it wrong for them.

As homeschool parents, consider how with great responsibility comes great power.

This year, do yourself a favor: Be Brave. Take advantage of the power you have to direct your children’s learning, then use your superpowers as a homeschool parent for good…create a homeschool experience as unique as your children.

Something to Stew About…Or Not…

I remember an old Garrison Keillor line — something to the effect that his mother never looked back at the house as she pulled out of the driveway because she knew the house was bursting into flames behind her. I can relate to that.

I probably stew too much (and that’s something else to stew about, right?). It’s those garden variety worries that go with the territory of momming, owning a business, and homeschooling.

When friends and relatives hear you’re planning to planning to leave a secure job with benefits to become self-employed, you’re probably going to get the skunk-eye. When people hear you plan to homeschool, some of them jump on board with you and say, “That’s so terrific! You’ll be wonderful at this!!!” When you hear that…remember them (maybe even in your will) because people who activity support your commitment to being self-employed or homeschooling are absolutely worth their weight in gold.

Because there are, unfortunately and inevitably, the others.

The ones who feel compelled to say horrible things, as if it’s their moral duty to stick their noses in where they don’t belong. Why this is, I’m not sure, but they sure as shootin’ can’t keep their mouths shut.

When we talked to one family member about my leaving my career in academics to join Rich in his fledgling design studio, he said, “But what does and artist actually…DO? Why would anybody pay you for that?”

Upon hearing that we were considering homeschooling for our son, another relative told us “homeschooling can be really damaging to kids. They have trouble socially. You really ought to rethink that.”

(Hmmm…let me think for a second…. Nope! DIDN’T ASK YOU!)

I worried. Sure, it’s easy to say “blow it off” or “ignore them,” but sometimes at the end of a long day…those comments would echo in my head.

Whoosh! There I’d be…worrying!!!

What if we go after this business and go broke in the process?
He’s an only child! What if he never makes friends?
What if, what if, what if…

All those “what ifs” are something to worry about! Really! Right???

Actually, maybe not so much.

During the last umpteen years we’ve homemschooled, and the even longer list of years we’ve been self-employed, something amazing happened.

We didn’t go broke. Instead, we’ve built a business that allows us to keep the lights on and live life on our own terms.
Our son has made friends and been on sleepovers. He’s spoken in front of groups, performed alone in front of huge crowds, and won and lost during competitions.
Most of the what ifs never happened, and the one that did turned out to be problems that were quite surmountable.

Over the years, I’ve trained myself to pay attention to what’s going on around me.

Remember the client who emailed saying, “Thank you so much for your help. You make us look terrific, and it’s always so easy to work with you.”

Remember the sheriff deputy who said, “Oh, I remember your son. He asked a really insightful question at a presentation I did.”

Somewhere along the way, I realized that most of what I worry about never happens. And I don’t want to let worry about an uncertain tomorrow be a thief of today’s joy.

Fever…What a Lovely Way to Burn

post_phlox — I think phlox causes Spring Fever. When I see those first purple blossoms, the urge to get outside becomes overwhelming!

Spring is here, and I’ve got a case of spring fever to go along with it!

Spring is all about change. The earth is coming back to life, and there are lots of changes in our schedule to go along with it.

I facilitate our local homeschool group’s co-op. It runs 10 weeks in the fall and 10 weeks in the spring, so now that gig is up until next fall.

The summertime schedule has begun.

Oh, there’s no shortage of things to fill the time that’s suddenly freed up. The lawn mower definitely needs make its appointed rounds, and the dandelions are singlehandedly moving forward on their mission for yard-wide domination. No matter where I look I see dirt to dig in, weeds to pull, and flower beds to put to rights after a six month hiatus.

Still in the midst of all of this…there’s a small business to run and a kid to homeschool.

When Rich and I first started our business, spring was the time we found ourselves telling each other we really needed to stay at in the studio and get a bunch of work done. So that’s what we’d do, and by the end of the day, we’d both be grumpy.

These days I’m more realistic. (Honestly, I can’t figure out what we were thinking!)

Who in their right mind wants spend a glorious day inside doing working when the sunshine, birds, and flowers lure us out? Even worse, the lawn and garden centers sing their Siren song to us as we drive by.

What I do know is that nearly twenty years into our self-employment venture, I understand spring better. Maybe I understand myself a little better, too.

During these days of spring fever, I pull out my calendar from earlier in the year and look back at the notes I made in January and February. This year there lots of cold, gray days that yielded enough of the white stuff to leave people home from work, but since our morning commute is just a quick trip up the stairs, we got our work done. Our days went on as planned.

We pretty much didn’t take any snow days.

Now, when the weather is positively glorious, we take guilt-free sunshine days instead!

Sure, there’s still work to be done, but because we’ve been working all along, there’s time to smell the roses…and the iris, weigela, tulips, dianthus, pansies, and verbena.

Yes, we’ve got Spring Fever, and it’s such a lovely way to burn.

Planning for Chaos

For some people it’s the holidays. For others it’s October and one too many fall festivals. For us, time marches on…to March, the month that goes kablooey.

See, here’s the deal: my son ice skates, which means, for our family, March is The. Ice. Show.

For going on 60 years now, our local ice rink puts on an amazing ice show every year (it’s the longest continuously running ice show in Missouri), and a couple of weeks later, we host an ice skating competition. It’s two big events, one right after another — so there’s extra rehearsals, extra practice time on the ice, visits from out of town relatives, and …well, kablooey!

The first year Wyatt participated, we didn’t know what we were getting into, but “it’ll be fun.” And, indeed it was fun…but March was a train wreck.

The next year, I thought the first year was an anomaly and the second time around it would be better.

Not so much.

By the third time at the rodeo, rather that fight against it, I realized we needed to plan for March hitching a ride on the crazy train. It was the new normal. We know that beyond this point in the calendar there be dragons…and we plan accordingly.

The week after the ice show (when we are tired) we take the week off from school. Aah, the joys of homeschooling!

Because the ice competition is two weeks after the show, we keep all the other weekends in March free of commitments.

The freezer and pantry are both stocked with the ingredients for quick meals and snacks (tuna tetrazinni, spaghetti, chili & cinnamon rolls), and I’m made peace with the fact that sometimes we may just hit the drive-thru and bring home a pizza. It’s hot (mostly), and it keeps us from starving.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a family event like this one or a business event (like planning a conference or dealing with a major project), plan ahead. Especially plan ahead to practicing a little self-empathy.

We’re just a little human family — and being nice to ourselves helps make the chaos more manageable.