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I have been really looking forward to sharing the content of today’s episode with you for quite a long time. Honestly, since back in the fall, and I finally just felt like the timing was right to share this with you. So we’re going to be talking about our homeschooling journey today. And I don’t know if you’re listening in today because you’re interested in stepping into homeschool yourself, or if you just want to follow along on this crazy journey of life that we are living over here. But either way, for whatever reason you’re listening in today, I am so very glad that you’re here and I really hope you take value out of this!
The Seed Was Planted
Hmm, where to begin? God started putting the idea of homeschooling on my heart, as I think He did for many people back in 2020 when the whole wide world shut down due to the pandemic known as COVID19. At the time, we were living at my mom’s house as we were building our new house, which we have since moved in..thankfully. It’s been an awesome blessing. And there we were living kind of on the basement level, my mom and stepdad were living on the upstairs level. And here come the kids home from the school year and the whole world shuts down. And we immediately, like everyone else, tried to start figuring out what’s going on and what the heck we were going to do. And like many other people, we set up little stations around the kitchen table, and did our very best to do a very crude, not even well done version of some kind of homeschool that included no formal curriculum whatsoever, just some worksheets and printables and crayons and a hope and a prayer.
It was crazy. Do you even remember that timeframe and how absolutely crazy it was? The most fun thing that we did in that timeframe is the kids and my husband and myself, we actually helped them create and launch a YouTube channel called HCubed Kids. And if you have elementary-aged kids, you gotta go check it out. They haven’t posted in quite a long time but man alive did we create some really fun and funny, some educational, but just some great videos that they put into that YouTube channel. That was one of the most memorable things that we did in 2020. We recreated Beauty and the Beast, we made musical instruments, we made snow forts. It snowed in April of that year, if I remember right, and we just made all kinds of crazy videos. So definitely check that out.
But that was kind of the first seed that got planted in my heart as far as considering the idea of homeschool and all I kept thinking was, I love this precious sweet time with the kids. This is awesome. The family time is awesome, the slowdown is awesome. I loved not having to rush in and out to school and to sports and all the things and just having the slow down pace of life. But I just kept thinking, this is not for me. I could never do this. I could never be a homeschool mom. I have no clue what I’m doing. I don’t know how to teach these kids anything. Holy cow. This is not for me.
And time went on and the next school year rolled around. And I felt God just kind of knocking on the door in my heart saying, “Just consider the possibility of homeschool.” And I was like, no way, no how. I’m unqualified, I don’t know how to do that, definitely not going to do that. And He just kept whispering in my heart, “Just be open to the possibility.” And so I began to chat with just a few of my closest friends about how God just whispered this word, homeschool, into my heart. And I don’t know what it means. But the only thing I do know is that it is not for me, I ain’t doing that. And so like I said, the school year rolled around, we put our kids back in public school and all throughout that school year, I just felt like God kept whispering homeschool, homeschool, and He began to plant seeds. And I began to just do a little tiny bit of research and think and ask, “Could this actually be a possibility? Is He actually calling us into homeschool? Or is it just a test of faith?” And I don’t know if it was me or the Lord, but I just kept saying and thinking, you know what? The public school is the mission field, and my kids are supposed to go be missionaries. Now, I’ve got to fast forward and tell you that I have since heard a quote that went something like this, “We would never send an untrained missionary across the world into a foreign country to spread the Gospel”, right? And this quote was saying that sort of like what we’re doing with sending our kids in a public school at such a young age, that’s not the mission field. Our kids are the mission field and we as the parents are called to raise up and train and equip our kids. We should be pouring into our kids right now so that later they are equipped to go out into the mission field of the world. And it was just such a different perspective because here I was kind of hiding behind the excuse…I’m going to keep putting my kids in public school because they’re the missionaries and that’s the mission field. And now I look at it as I’m the missionary and my kids are my first mission field. So that’s just a little side note.
As the year progressed, God really just kept tugging on my heart. And interestingly enough, throughout the year 2022, two of my kids actually came to me at different points and mentioned homeschooling. And I still was like, no way, no how. And then my sister Dori who has been here on the podcast before, she’s got a handful of littles of her own that she works with on homeschooling; they’re not actually elementary age yet, but she has worked with them on homeschooling from a very young age, and she began to speak into my life, and to encourage me to say, “Katie, I think you could do this.” And she told me to go check out this book, it’s called “Homeschool Basics” by Tricia Goyer and Kristi Clover. And when she came on the podcast, she actually talked about that book and recommended it. And so I ordered the book and I decided that I would read through this resource, which ended up being a really excellent resource. And then God just continued to gently knock on my heart. And He began putting people in my path and families in my path that were homeschoolers. We went on a family vacation, and we ran into this awesome homeschool family. And we were on another family trip and I had dressed our family in matching t-shirts, because I do that a lot, and I had a lady say to me,” Oh my gosh, so adorable. Are you guys a homeschool family?” And I told her no, but it was just planting seeds and planting seeds. And then I ran into someone actually at an orthodontist appointment for my daughter. And this lady is actually now a really good friend of mine, but we were sitting in the orthodontist’s office and somehow, I don’t remember how the conversation went down, but somehow I figured out that they were a homeschool family. And I was really curious. And I just approached her and asked her to tell me all the things, like what is this about? And so her and I formed this awesome friendship. And we started emailing each other, like books worth of questions and answers. And she was just sharing her heart with me and her family’s homeschool journey. And then I began to meet more local people in our local community that homeschooled and I look back at it now with total clarity on how God was aligning everything and going before me and preparing me and setting the stage and setting all of this up for our journey that was about to unfold.
And so I just continued to think about it and think about it and reach out and ask questions. And honestly, I kind of continued to hide behind impostor syndrome and excuses that I still just was not qualified. There was no way I could figure this thing out. And then, I decided to just have a conversation with the local homeschool coordinator. So here in the state of Iowa, we have different options when it comes to homeschool and one of those options is something called dual enrollment. And within that option, there’s something called the Homeschool Assistance Program, which is a local program that we can utilize. And so the coordinator of this homeschool assistance program locally is just absolutely top-notch. She’s phenomenal. She has a large family, and they have been homeschooling for years and years and years. And she does it very well and she’s very helpful and kind and knowledgeable. So I just set up a simple meeting with her, just to take a little bit closer look to see if this might actually possibly be a possibility. I asked her every single question that I could think of. We sat out on her front porch, and I brought my notebook and she brought out all her homeschool stuff. And I’d say, “Tell me about this. Can you show me that?” And she’s digging through all of her papers and curriculum and what their day looks like. And she’s answering all my gajillion questions. And I gotta say, in that moment, I started to feel like, maybe this is possible. It planted a big beautiful seed.
From Doubt to Optimistic Expectation
So I left that meeting at her house, I went and I parked my car down by the river. And I decided, you know, I really have not actually prayed about this, like real intentionally prayed, I have just hid behind excuses and said, “Yeah, no, that’s definitely not for me. I like my free time during the days, so I can work on mine and my husband’s businesses and, you know, it’s easy. The teachers handle that. And this is routine. And this is what we’re comfortable with.” I realized I had just been hiding behind all of that and I hadn’t actually really intentionally prayed about it and asked God what He really truly wanted for our family. So I parked down by the river, and I just poured it all out to the Lord. And I asked God if this was supposed to be our path forward to not only put the desire in my heart, but to actually go above and beyond and put joy and excitement in my heart. Like, I prayed big, huge prayers. If you’ve ever read the Circle Maker, this was like a Circle Maker style, big, huge prayer because I wasn’t just like God, show me if this is for us. I said, “God, if this is for us, fling that door wide open. Shut all the other doors, slam them tight, and actually put joy and excitement in my heart. Do this thing big time so that I know that this is what we’re supposed to be doing.” And let me just tell you, He delivered. He moved me from a place of ego and doubt and dread to joy, and optimistic expectation. But God, right? God alone. I mean, I seriously prayed. I said, “God, please put joy, gigantic joy in my heart around this and partner with me and help me and help us and lead us in your wisdom if this is really what you want for us and help us to bring glory to your great name through this process.”
I kid you not…it was only about 36 hours later that I was visiting with my mom, who knew that I was considering the possibility of homeschool at this point, very gently considering, and she was asking me what the latest update was. And I found myself gushing to her about this meeting that I’d had with the homeschool coordinator and how I was feeling excited and expectant and how I I felt like I was counting down the days in optimistic expectation of what our first day of homeschool could look like together. And in that moment, upon the realization of what I was saying, I just paused and I stood there frozen in front of my mom. I think she probably thought something was wrong with me because I just realized all that had just gushed out of my mouth. And I was struck by how God had softened my heart and moved mountains around this decision to homeschool as I thought about what it was going to be like to teach my kids at home, and to have my days filled with pouring into them and nurturing them and growing and learning right along beside them, even though it meant life as I knew it was about to change. I knew without a doubt at that point that homeschool was our next step.
And so the only thing I really needed to do was to have a conversation with my youngest child, my little social butterfly who was adamant that he was NOT going to homeschool. It was not for him, he liked going to public school and he liked playing and seeing his friends every single day and that was his motivation and he was going stand firmly on it. He had no interest in homeschooling and so after that conversation with my mom, I took my youngest child out on a gravel road walk and just had a simple heart to heart with him. I very gently and briefly shared with him what God had done in my heart, and what I thought our homeschool could look like. I shared how it can be a huge blessing and how it could be wonderful and fun for him, and how he would still prioritize and make time for his friends and how we would possibly even meet and make new friends, which by the way, we absolutely did. God put awesome people in our path. He so went before us and our kids have made so many wonderful new friends through our local co-op, which we’ll talk about here in just a minute. In fact, that’s where my kids are right now. And they’re actually at the weekly co-op program with my husband. Typically, I take them every week and sometimes he joins us. But this week, he took them so that I could record this podcast for you! And so at the end of that conversation, I just said, “Bub, would you trust me? Would you try it for one year with me? Can we do this together? Can we step into this together, trusting each other and leaning into God and knowing that it might be a really good thing.” And he said, “Mama, I’ll try this with you.”
So there we were, I had all three kids on board and I had my husband’s support and I felt like I had some local support and we were starting to build some community. At that point, God had moved mountains in my heart. And so we jumped in. The thing was, at that point, it was only a few weeks until school should actually start. And that’s when all this came to a head and the decision was made. And so admittedly, I did a ton of research in very little time to get a solid handle, or at least, to feel like I had a solid handle on what the heck we might be getting into.
Homeschool Expectations vs. Reality
Now, at this point in the game, halfway through our school year, I can honestly say that stepping into homeschool is a lot like having kids; you really just have to jump in and then you figure it out along the way. It seems like you almost learn more by doing than by researching. And I do have to say though, it was definitely wise to research the state and federal laws as well as researching curriculum options because trust me, there are many options…lots of good ones, by the way.
So there it was, we were going to jump in, and I had just a few weeks to get things ready. There were lots of late nights, lots of researching, lots of just joy and excited expectation about what was to come.
So at this point, I feel like we should talk about my expectations and those feelings and thoughts I was having at that point versus reality. And I have to just kind of laugh when I think about this because before our homeschool year started, I had all these funny and stereotypical thoughts and expectations like okay, as their teacher-mom, am I now supposed to just wear long skirts and tidy little buns with my glasses down on my nose? Is that what this is supposed to look like? Well, the funny thing is, it turns out that I actually have a love for skorts – those short-skirts. And so at the beginning of the year, I was wearing those and the cool thing was I feel so much prettier and more put together when I actually dress up. And so I kind of found this like happy medium where I was wearing these skorts, and it was making me feel really great. But I figured out quickly that is so not necessary. I mean, really, what you’re doing in homeschool is you’re living your everyday life. So you dress normal, you dress how you want to dress, it doesn’t have to be anything weird or stereotypical. And as you probably know, as a mom over here, I love a good messy bun on the top of my head anyway and so that’s what works most days for me. And that’s 100% okay. And the funny and cool thing about this is that really like I said, every family just does what’s best for them. There’s not this big stereotype behind it that you have to do it any certain way. You’re just living life. Most days, I do try to put some makeup on and do my hair because it makes me feel good and it makes me feel like I am present, I’m alert, I’m awake. I’ve never showed up in pajamas, personally. I know a lot of homeschool families do and that’s fine. I try not to show up in sweatpants but I will admit I do occasionally show up in sweatpants but for the most part, it’s like jeans and a t-shirt, usually a t-shirt that says “Homeschool Mom” and a messy bun. So that’s my typical attire which is different than this kind of expectation that I had.
And then I had this expectation of how the heck am I going to be able to teach everyone at once? Like is this going to be like a one-room schoolhouse? And so this kind of thought expectation has kind of gone the spectrum and like up and down because there were days in the beginning where I was like how the heck am I supposed to teach everybody at once and it took a little bit of time and juggling to figure it out and everybody’s schedules and their different developmental levels, where they’re at in school, but we definitely figured it out. And yeah, part of our day does look like a one-room schoolhouse. We spend our morning together doing what I call family class. So we do our Bible class, and we’ll do some fun unit studies. We study and memorize scripture, prayers, different songs, things like that. And then we typically will do a science or a history lesson and we do it together…we do it one-room schoolhouse style for real. And guess what? Turns out, we all love learning like that. It’s so fun to be gathered around the table together, me and my three kids, all of us with our Bibles open. It is the sweetest most special time in the world. And then when it comes to language arts and math where everybody’s on a different level, we kind of have a schedule where it’s kind of rotating, and then I’m able to help everyone when I need to help them.
And then the other thing was, I had this expectation that I would just plan out our week, it would all go according to schedule, and everything would be great and there would never be any changes made. And wow was I so wrong with that expectation. So first, I was scheduling out our week in pen on a paper calendar. Well, I quickly realized I’d better do that in pencil because there’s a lot of changes happening. And if we miss a day, well then I have to erase it and move it to the next day. And maybe we do this lesson instead of that lesson. Now, I’m a planner. So this was a little bit of a learning curve for me. So I started in pen, and then I moved to pencil. And now I actually do our schedule and plan out our week digitally, just on my Mac inside of what would be an Excel spreadsheet. But I do that in the Apple program. And I’m able to just make quick daily adjustments and it’s so handy and nice because I can just print out that schedule every week when we’re finished and then I have that for my record keeping.
I’m sure there were many more expectations that were probably totally hilarious and totally shattered. Those are just some of the ones that come to mind right off the top of my head.
Our First Few Days of Homeschool
Now when it came to our first few days of school this year, I knew that there would be up and down moments because homeschool is very different than public school. And my kids had been a part of public school for years and years. So I was mentally prepared to know that there was going to be some comparison. There was going to be some like, “Mom, that’s not how we do it. We do it different in public school, like what is this?” And oh my gosh, I get tickled because our very first day of school, we gather around the table and I’m kind of nervous. You know, we’re all dressed up, we took pictures and all this stuff and it finally comes time to gather around the table. I’m excited, but I’m nervous. And very first thing, my youngest kiddo, eight years old, raises his hand and I’m like, “What are you doing?” And he’s like, “Mom, I have a question.” And I’m like, “This is homeschool, dude. We’re at home, you don’t have to raise your hand,” and I get so tickled because very first thing on our very first day, he’s raising his hand like he would first day of public school. So I thought, oh, wow, this is going to take some what we as homeschoolers call “unschooling” to figure this out, to reset, to retrain our brain. And I knew in that moment, it was potentially going to take this entire first school year to unlearn what had been learned in public school and to learn in a new and different way.
Oh, my gosh, our very first day, in fact, our very first three days, I wanted to just really step into it gently and plan a lot of fun things, which we did. We did things like we took a four wheeler ride down to the wildflower field and we did a nature observation study where we sketched and made notes about what we were studying. And then we came back up to the homeschool room and we did little bits of research on those things that we had been studying. We did brain games, we read together for read-aloud, and I just kept it really fun and engaging. But I have to admit, especially my oldest, who is in eighth grade was like, “Mom, what is this?” And actually, in fact, she said to me at one point, “Mom, this is not school. This is not real school.” And to be honest, it kind of hurt my feelings because I’d worked really hard, preparing a really fun and engaging first three days of school that felt a lot more intentionally like family time than school and I totally did it on purpose. Well, it really threw her off. And I think it kind of freaked her out because she’s like, oh, gosh, I’m not actually going to learn anything this year, which, as you can expect at this point in the game, the kids have learned so much. In fact, Chloe, the oldest one, in her writing program that we’re working through, she actually writes one paper each week. And she had been talking with some of her public school friends who told her that they have not written one single paper yet this year, that they’re on their very first paper right now halfway through the year. And so the kids at this point have learned so much. And I really I push them gently and lovingly. I encourage them. They’re all doing math a grade level above where they are. And their reading is off the charts, which we’ll talk about that in a little bit…blows my mind the way that they’re all reading.
But that’s what our very first day looked like. And I remember sending the text to my some of my friends who checked in on me, they said, “How’s your day going?” And I was like, well, it’s going a lot like this. It was a lot of ups and downs. And I said one moment, I’m like, “This is amazing. Why doesn’t everybody homeschool?” And 20 minutes later, I’m thinking, “I cannot do this, why in the world does anybody homeschool?” And it was just like, up and down, up and down, up and down. And so then on day two, admittedly, I was actually feeling kind of defeated. And I was really tired because I poured out so much energy into day one and preparing and I was feeling like, I had no clue what I had gotten us into.
And then came day three, and we had our very first co-op event, led by that local coordinator who I told you about. She’s just amazing, her name is Tanya and I will be forever grateful for her. Honestly, I’m not going to say that we couldn’t or wouldn’t have homeschooled without her help and her input, but I absolutely know in my heart that it has made our life so much better and so much easier. And so she puts together these awesome weekly events, and our very first one, we were kayaking at a local lake. And it was so much fun. And there was just tons of community and support at this point in our teeny, tiny little town and county and community, which is, I mean, unbelievably small. At this point, we have 50 kids in our homeschool co-op. And there’s just this absolute sense of community and support and like family at this point. And so on our third day of homeschool, when we had this first co-op event, it was like this little God wink, like God was saying, “Katie, you’ve got community and support. And you’ve got this awesome group of people that you can lean into. And you can pour out your questions and frustrations and your wins and your failures and lean into them and they’ve got you and I’ve got you.” And so that was just a huge breath of like, Okay, we’re going to be okay. But then over the next two weeks, there was just so much up and down, so much unlearning, such high highs and such low lows. And I remember at one point in time, I did actually step outside in the middle of our homeschool day. And I just had to take a deep breath because I was really frustrated. My husband had to go up to the homeschool room with the kids and have a little chat with them. And I was like, “Babe, I’m gonna quit, I can’t do this.” And he continued to speak encouragement into me. And after those first two weeks, and those ups and downs, things began to level out and wonderful things began to happen. The kids began to grow closer together as siblings. And we began to respect each other more. And they began to ask just really awesome, engaging questions. And they began to learn and they began to grow. And I began to feel more confident. I knew that God was in this as things were smoothing out. And I just simply knew at that point, that this definitely was for us, that we were in it, that the Lord was with us and that everything was going to be okay.
Where we are today
And so here we are today. We do still have tough moments, I’m not going to lie about that. We’ve had a day where everyone cried, sometimes we have a day where everybody’s off. Sometimes we have a day where one kid is off. Sometimes we have a day where I’m off, but guess what? That’s life. And for each of those hard moments, we have all these incredible, wonderful, beautiful moments. At this point in the game, one of the biggest things that I kind of look back and realize, maybe I still deal with this a little bit, but there’s this whole thing of teacher versus mom, and which hat am I supposed to wear and what is that going to look like? And the thing is that I’m a teacher at heart. In fact, it’s one of my spiritual gifts. But I’ve tried to make it really clear to my kids that I don’t really want to wear separate hats, that I don’t want to be known as teacher-mom to them. I just want to be mom to them. I want to be a mom who’s nurturing and who is teaching and who is doing what I really believe that God has called me to do. I adore being the mom to my kiddos and like I said, we have really hard days sometimes, but again, for all those hard days, we have 100 great days. And we’re all of the understanding that we’re in this together as a family, and it really takes all of us doing our part to make it work.
Homeschool Intentions
So at the beginning of the year, we clearly laid out our intentions for our first year of homeschool, which I think is so important. And so here’s what they were:
- Grow closer to God
- Grow closer as a family
- Foster a love of learning, reading, and a deeper appreciation for nature
At this point, which we’re about halfway through the year, I can honestly say that although every day hasn’t been perfect, I really feel like we are nailing those intentions, I really do. We’re in the Bible together every single day and I’ve seen more spiritual growth and wisdom in my kids than ever before. We’ve definitely grown much closer as a family. I mean, we do absolutely everything together at this point; we live and learn and explore. And we just do life together now, whereas before the kids would go to public school, stop by home for a quick meal, head out to sports practice or to do homework or whatever, and everyone would fall into bed exhausted at night and then we just rinse and repeat the next day. We’d really only interact for a few minutes a day, maybe an hour if we were lucky. Now we do it all together.
Now, I will also be clear that we have set some boundaries, and everybody has their space and their alone time as well. And we just simply all respect that. When we are in our bedroom, that is like our safe place and our private area. And there is a hard boundary there. And so we understand that and respect that. So everybody gets some of that alone time as well. But it really is just this beautiful thing where we’re in it as a family.
And then fostering a love of learning, reading, and nature has unfolded so beautifully. So back to this reading thing I was referencing before…I gave my kids a reading challenge at the beginning of our school year. And at this point, again, about halfway through the school year, they have each read somewhere around the 20 book mark, and I’m talking books in their reading level, so chapter books. Honestly, my eighth grader is reading like high level high school chapter books, novels. I’m guessing by the end of the year that they will each have read around 50 books, which I think is so cool. And I told them, I said, “We’ve got to take a picture of you holding in your hands all the books that you’ve read this school year just as a memory because this is so cool.” The things that they’re learning through reading these books, and they’re all sorts of books, everything from Magic Treehouse to nature and survival books up to Chronicles of Narnia, and beyond, the things that they’re reading and the things that they’re learning, there are no words, really. All I can say is they’re growing and learning by leaps and bounds and the things that they’re learning are so vast, it’s just so incredible.
Speaking of books, I shared with you the first homeschool book that I read was “Homeschool Basics” by Tricia Goyer and Kristi
Clover. And so if you’re interested, I just want to share their two other books that I really highly recommend if you’re considering your own homeschool journey. One of them is called “Better Together” by Pam Barnhill, and then the other one is called “Teaching From Rest” by Sarah Mackenzie.
Quick Recap
As we close out this episode, I just want to recap by saying that there were really three things that shifted my mindset and my heart set along with the Lord. Of course, that was the biggest part. But these three things really helped me and they helped our family to step into homeschool this year. One was my sister Dori, who has just been my ultimate cheerleader. The second thing was resources and education, so researching homeschool on my own, along with those three books that I mentioned. And then the third thing has been community and support through our local co-op because community is so important in the world of homeschool and thankfully, there are a lot of great options available from in-person to online. I knew that our local co-op and community was going to be wonderful when at our second homeschool get together, we visited a local museum that was actually part of the Underground Railroad. And after we were done touring the museum, there was this whole big group of homeschool kids out in the backyard, there were probably 35 or 40 kids there that day, all ages, from pre-K up through seniors in high school and they were all playing volleyball together. And everyone was kind and compassionate, and empathetic and interacting, just like we interact in the real world. Nobody saw the difference in ages, all they saw was that they were friends and that they were a family and that we were all in this together. And they were all playing volleyball together and my heart just felt so full like it could explode. And I absolutely knew in that moment how very important community support was going to be for our family. And so like I said, we plug into that every single week and I’m so very thankful that that’s there for us to utilize.
Okay friend, I hope that you thoroughly enjoyed this episode and just this little kind of peek behind the scenes of our homeschool journey. I’m sure in the future I’ll be sharing much more about it. I would love to continue to share resources with you as we continue to walk forward and learn what else the Lord has for us in our family in this brand new season. So thank you for joining me today and until next time, keep on living and loving with deep faith and great joy.
