Everyday Educator - For Your Scribbler—and Beyond!
00:00:00.000 | (soft music)
00:00:02.420 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.820 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:09.540 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.300 | and I am excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:15.000 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.260 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.340 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.820 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:26.900 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:29.080 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:33.200 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.160 | But don't forget,
00:00:39.040 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.500 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.500 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:52.200 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:57.060 | Well, listeners, I am excited to welcome you
00:01:00.020 | to this wonderful fall day podcast
00:01:04.020 | here at the end of October.
00:01:05.960 | The end of October has always, at our house,
00:01:11.520 | been a special time in homeschooling.
00:01:14.660 | I remember when my girls were really, really young
00:01:17.800 | and we had just started homeschooling.
00:01:20.500 | Late October was that time
00:01:23.060 | when I began to get a little itchy.
00:01:26.820 | I began to think, yeah, this is going pretty well,
00:01:31.820 | but am I doing everything I'm supposed to be doing?
00:01:35.640 | Or some years, man, this is getting sort of hard
00:01:40.080 | and I feel like we might be in a rut
00:01:42.880 | and now I'm wondering, is this what I'm supposed to be doing?
00:01:46.880 | Am I doing everything I'm supposed to do?
00:01:49.760 | Are my girls getting everything they're supposed to get?
00:01:53.980 | I also know that this time of year
00:01:57.520 | is when folks who have kids that are maybe three or four
00:02:02.520 | and they're not officially homeschooling yet,
00:02:07.680 | but as the fall rolls on and the new year approaches,
00:02:11.600 | they began to think, what am I gonna do with my kids?
00:02:15.500 | Am I really gonna try this homeschooling thing?
00:02:18.480 | And what would that really look like?
00:02:20.720 | And am I able to do that and where do I even go for advice?
00:02:25.720 | And so today I have invited a good friend,
00:02:31.000 | Katie Beth Pearson, homeschooling mom
00:02:35.460 | with some experience under her belt to join me today.
00:02:39.800 | And we are gonna talk about advice, right?
00:02:43.800 | For getting started as a homeschooler,
00:02:49.400 | advice for those of you with young children
00:02:54.400 | who are wondering, am I doing it right?
00:02:58.480 | Am I doing enough?
00:03:00.240 | What's a better way to get started
00:03:04.880 | and prepare our family to love learning together so much
00:03:09.880 | that we can stick it out till the very end.
00:03:13.040 | Katie Beth, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:03:16.400 | - Oh, thank you for inviting me, Lisa.
00:03:18.320 | This is quite the honor.
00:03:19.720 | I appreciate it.
00:03:20.560 | - Well, every time I talk to you about homeschooling,
00:03:22.720 | I feel like our enthusiasm feeds off of each other.
00:03:26.560 | And I thought, what better way to encourage some moms
00:03:31.560 | and dads who may be having a few qualms
00:03:35.200 | or even if things are going great.
00:03:38.600 | And this happened to me sometimes in the early years,
00:03:41.040 | things would be going along really smoothly
00:03:43.600 | and I would begin to think, but as there's something else,
00:03:48.200 | this seems too easy.
00:03:50.160 | Something must be wrong.
00:03:52.080 | Is there something else I'm supposed to be thinking?
00:03:55.920 | So I just thought we would put everybody's mind at rest
00:04:00.080 | and hey, maybe give people something new
00:04:02.800 | to think about to boot.
00:04:04.720 | - Absolutely, yeah.
00:04:06.960 | - Let me ask you this.
00:04:08.160 | How long have you homeschooled?
00:04:13.560 | - I love that question because I like to say
00:04:18.560 | I've homeschooled since I became a mother, right?
00:04:22.320 | Because education is not just about the academics.
00:04:28.040 | So I absolutely take credit in teaching my daughters to walk
00:04:32.920 | and in potty training them because I was teaching them,
00:04:37.000 | teaching them table manners.
00:04:39.540 | But how long have I taken on the sole responsibility
00:04:44.540 | of educating my children academically
00:04:49.780 | was six weeks into pre-K for my first child.
00:04:54.420 | I always knew the second we found out we were pregnant
00:05:00.020 | and we were starting our family,
00:05:01.560 | I always knew I wanted to homeschool my kids.
00:05:05.640 | But I did not feel equipped to teach them the basics.
00:05:10.640 | The squiggly line here is an M
00:05:16.840 | or this bumpy shape right here is the number three
00:05:21.140 | and what that meant.
00:05:22.820 | So I felt like I could just outsource their academics
00:05:27.480 | for the first few years and let somebody else take control
00:05:31.680 | of giving them those foundational bits of knowledge
00:05:35.520 | and then I could take it from there.
00:05:37.960 | You know, the Lord just grabs you by the heart
00:05:40.380 | and tells you, "Ma'am, when I convict you of something,
00:05:44.280 | "I don't mean for you to outsource that."
00:05:47.600 | And so about six weeks into pre-K,
00:05:52.160 | I was humbled and utterly exhausted from the routine
00:05:58.040 | of taking my child to preschool
00:06:02.380 | and I had a brand new baby on my hip at the time
00:06:05.400 | and it was just, I was putting in more work emotionally
00:06:10.400 | and time-wise just for her to go to a preschool
00:06:15.520 | and I wasn't seeing any kind of emotional return
00:06:20.240 | from my daughter.
00:06:21.080 | She was exhausted.
00:06:23.000 | She was not necessarily enjoying the time.
00:06:26.760 | I wasn't enjoying it and I missed her
00:06:29.600 | 'cause she was a cool person
00:06:31.880 | and it was that time when I was like,
00:06:34.460 | "Okay, I guess I'll share you with somebody else now."
00:06:37.220 | So my husband and I had a conversation over dinner
00:06:41.700 | and we regrouped and we decided that
00:06:45.040 | if I was gonna homeschool, what better time than to do it
00:06:49.640 | in the moment that I felt convicted about it.
00:06:52.040 | So we unenrolled her from the public school
00:06:56.640 | and just took time to figure it out.
00:07:01.560 | So my oldest daughter is 17.
00:07:04.600 | So I'll claim 17 years of homeschooling
00:07:09.600 | but I think if I were to do the math,
00:07:11.500 | I think she might've been four when she was in preschool.
00:07:14.100 | So 13 years of academics.
00:07:16.440 | - Oh, that is so cool.
00:07:18.180 | And let me ask you this and it can just be a short answer.
00:07:21.860 | We're gonna dive into it more deeply, I'm sure.
00:07:25.220 | Has it always been easy, Katie Bess?
00:07:27.660 | - Oh, no ma'am.
00:07:30.600 | I've done so many things in my life
00:07:34.000 | and I think homeschooling my children
00:07:37.240 | has been probably the most humbling job I've ever had.
00:07:41.540 | So no, but it has been rewarding.
00:07:45.040 | It has been beautiful moments of watching things click
00:07:50.040 | with my children that I would've missed out on,
00:07:53.820 | that I would've had to forfeit if they were in a classroom.
00:07:59.660 | But then there were those terrible times
00:08:03.400 | of watching them wrestle
00:08:06.720 | and it's hard to watch your child wrestle with something.
00:08:10.720 | You understand it because you're an adult and you've seen it
00:08:14.080 | and you had your own wrestling match with it.
00:08:16.840 | And so you just want it to come to them.
00:08:19.720 | And in the moment, I just wanted to fix it for them.
00:08:25.120 | And looking back and watching the reward
00:08:29.700 | of something coming together that they've wrestled through
00:08:32.580 | and clicking and that was worth so much more
00:08:36.880 | than them never having to wrestle through it to begin with.
00:08:40.980 | So no, it's by no means has it been easy or simple,
00:08:45.980 | but it has been the most rewarding thing
00:08:49.980 | I think I've tackled as an adult.
00:08:53.060 | - One of the best things I think that you could ever say
00:08:58.060 | to encourage young families, you just said,
00:09:05.360 | wrestling is important for our children to do.
00:09:12.640 | And a lot of times I think when we start out homeschooling,
00:09:17.040 | we want to make learning for our children,
00:09:20.840 | obviously appealing and fun and doable.
00:09:24.840 | And we feel like, we feel this, I know I did,
00:09:27.420 | I felt this huge burden to make school
00:09:31.280 | and learning easy for my kids.
00:09:34.040 | Oh, I've got to make it easy and if it's not,
00:09:37.160 | if it's not easy, then probably I'm doing it wrong.
00:09:40.880 | And I wrestled with that so much.
00:09:43.560 | But your great wisdom is that wrestling is important
00:09:49.280 | for our children and that everybody is not gonna get
00:09:53.640 | the concept right away and that's okay.
00:09:58.320 | Sometimes the deepest lessons that our children learn
00:10:01.280 | are in the midst of the wrestling to get through it,
00:10:05.200 | the wrestling to find the breakthrough
00:10:08.400 | that cements that idea in your head.
00:10:10.800 | And so that's a great piece of wisdom.
00:10:14.480 | - Because you fought for it, right?
00:10:16.800 | Because it didn't just get handed to you, you dug in,
00:10:21.200 | you stubbornly decided this was not gonna defeat me,
00:10:25.400 | this is going to be my triumph.
00:10:28.000 | So it makes that so much sweeter when it didn't defeat you,
00:10:32.440 | even if it felt like it had defeated you
00:10:34.960 | time and time again beforehand.
00:10:37.920 | So yeah, when you wrestle with something,
00:10:41.320 | you're earning those stripes.
00:10:43.520 | You're not just giving, being handed them.
00:10:46.600 | - I think that's myth number one
00:10:48.400 | that we'll just bust right now.
00:10:50.040 | It's supposed to be easy.
00:10:52.720 | It's not supposed to be easy.
00:10:54.880 | It's not supposed to be easy for the student
00:10:57.680 | and it's not supposed to be easy for us.
00:11:01.560 | What is something that you have learned in your,
00:11:06.040 | I don't know, either 12 or 17, however you count it,
00:11:09.480 | what is something that you, that is totally not
00:11:14.000 | what you expected about homeschooling?
00:11:16.920 | - So a little background first.
00:11:20.440 | I was publicly educated my whole life.
00:11:24.120 | And then I went to college and when I went to college,
00:11:27.400 | I volunteered at our local school district
00:11:30.440 | in the high school.
00:11:31.520 | My neighbor was the only high school English teacher
00:11:36.600 | in the whole town.
00:11:37.680 | So she needed some help and I didn't mind it, I loved her.
00:11:42.040 | But what I noticed was that the parents of these students
00:11:46.040 | that I was helping, they knew of their children,
00:11:49.840 | but they didn't seem to know their children.
00:11:52.800 | They knew, you know, my kid plays soccer
00:11:56.120 | or my child is weak in math,
00:11:58.240 | but they didn't really know their children
00:12:02.200 | in a way that I felt like I wanted to know my own children.
00:12:06.840 | What I didn't expect when I decided to homeschool
00:12:10.320 | or when my husband and I decided to homeschool
00:12:12.360 | was that we wouldn't know of our children.
00:12:16.240 | We would know our children.
00:12:18.640 | - Yeah.
00:12:19.720 | - And it's a beautiful intimacy that I have with them
00:12:24.580 | where I just know what to expect when my kids wake up
00:12:29.520 | and they have a certain look on their face
00:12:31.360 | and I know, oh, today's gonna be a grumpy day.
00:12:34.480 | Or they're just boiling with excitement
00:12:38.880 | because they finished that wrestling match
00:12:41.560 | and now they can't wait to show up to community day
00:12:44.360 | to boast about it, to present on it,
00:12:47.800 | or to have conversations with their classmates
00:12:51.280 | because they've won the wrestling match at home
00:12:54.080 | and now they're just bursting with energy
00:12:57.400 | because they want to share that excitement
00:12:59.720 | with their classmates.
00:13:01.200 | And it just in the look of an eye
00:13:05.360 | when they're glancing at me or even more richly,
00:13:09.960 | they know me and they know when I need a hug
00:13:14.280 | and they recognize that I'm not just an ATM.
00:13:18.520 | I'm not a chauffeur.
00:13:20.680 | I'm a person that they enjoy spending time with
00:13:23.960 | and I didn't expect that 'cause the world will tell you,
00:13:28.280 | oh, little girls are great until they become teenagers
00:13:31.860 | and then they're tyrants.
00:13:33.360 | And I've been waiting for that tyrant moment
00:13:36.180 | and it hasn't come yet, thank you, Jesus.
00:13:38.880 | I don't think it will
00:13:41.560 | because we have this great relationship with each other
00:13:44.880 | because we spend so much time together.
00:13:47.200 | - Yes, that's beautiful.
00:13:50.600 | The whole idea that when you're homeschooling,
00:13:54.520 | you're not just guiding their academic growth
00:13:58.360 | but you're shepherding their heart.
00:14:01.120 | And like you said, you know each other intimately
00:14:05.040 | because you spend a lot of time together
00:14:09.640 | and you see each other in the waking moments
00:14:12.720 | and in the sleepy moments and in, like you said,
00:14:16.080 | in the triumphant moments when they've gotten something
00:14:19.600 | and they're eager to share,
00:14:21.000 | but also in the wrestling moments
00:14:23.060 | when something is coming hard
00:14:25.280 | or when something has broken their heart.
00:14:30.240 | - I'm glad that you said that.
00:14:32.640 | I feel like when we talk to people about homeschooling,
00:14:36.620 | we don't make enough of that.
00:14:39.060 | We don't celebrate that enough.
00:14:42.540 | Here's the truth, you guys,
00:14:45.000 | about homeschooling your children.
00:14:47.480 | You won't just know if they're good at math
00:14:52.240 | or can really translate Latin
00:14:54.600 | without looking at the answer key.
00:14:58.240 | You will also know how they deal with disappointment.
00:15:03.240 | You will also be able to see what hurts their heart.
00:15:08.560 | You will be able to see that on their faces
00:15:11.200 | because you're with them.
00:15:12.720 | The Lord will knit together the hearts of your family.
00:15:19.120 | I know we homeschooled our girls the whole way
00:15:21.700 | and when our oldest left to go to college,
00:15:25.760 | it was very strange.
00:15:27.840 | My husband cried for a week.
00:15:29.920 | It was so hard.
00:15:31.880 | It was so different because as a pastor,
00:15:34.880 | his office has always been in our home.
00:15:38.280 | And so we have literally all been home together
00:15:42.200 | all the time forever.
00:15:46.660 | And so we saw each other in the happy times
00:15:50.100 | and in the sad times and in the get along together times
00:15:54.720 | and in the struggle to find peace in our home time.
00:15:58.720 | But God had given us the gift of one another.
00:16:02.620 | And so it's a heart knitting
00:16:08.440 | that is also a beautiful outgrowth of home education.
00:16:13.440 | - Absolutely.
00:16:15.640 | One of my daughters, when she's wrestling,
00:16:19.180 | it's a public affair.
00:16:20.720 | She needs to talk it through.
00:16:22.520 | She needs to bounce ideas off of each other.
00:16:25.700 | She needs to hear other perspectives
00:16:27.880 | and it's very out in the open.
00:16:30.960 | And my other daughter needs to be alone.
00:16:34.560 | She needs to go in her room.
00:16:36.080 | She needs to close the door.
00:16:38.200 | She needs to privately wrestle
00:16:40.480 | and then think that she might have come up with
00:16:43.120 | her train of thought to gather her words,
00:16:45.800 | to gather her language.
00:16:47.640 | And then she'll come out and discuss it with us
00:16:50.940 | still with a loose grip on her opinions.
00:16:54.480 | But it was interesting to me how differently
00:16:57.900 | my children wrestle with a hardship.
00:17:01.060 | One is very public and very open to the noise
00:17:05.640 | and the other one, the noise is clutter.
00:17:08.780 | And she needs to have that Jesus praying on the mountain top
00:17:13.320 | kind of solitude to gather her own peace in the storm
00:17:18.980 | before she can tackle it outwardly.
00:17:21.800 | And I don't think I would have known that
00:17:23.400 | about either of them,
00:17:25.600 | had I not spent 24/7 shepherding them
00:17:29.800 | to find out how the Lord made them as fully formed people.
00:17:34.120 | I'm not molding my children.
00:17:35.940 | They have already been molded.
00:17:38.140 | I'm just guiding them down the paths
00:17:40.280 | the Lord has called them to.
00:17:42.280 | - That's lovely, that is lovely.
00:17:44.480 | And so much of what we are privileged to do
00:17:48.920 | as homeschooling parents is not academic.
00:17:52.320 | People start thinking, when people begin to consider
00:17:57.640 | whether or not they want to homeschool,
00:17:59.660 | what we mostly consider is, can I teach my child to read
00:18:04.340 | and what will I do when they get to calculus in high school
00:18:07.240 | because I hated math?
00:18:08.640 | We think about the academics.
00:18:10.380 | We don't think about helping to fine tune their character
00:18:16.300 | or help them develop good health habits
00:18:20.860 | or guide them as they learn to manage a life,
00:18:25.620 | not just a mind.
00:18:28.460 | And so that's something for all of us to think about.
00:18:33.460 | Homeschooling is more than just book learning.
00:18:38.400 | I am sure that you have changed something
00:18:42.900 | that you have changed some things
00:18:45.540 | about your homeschooling style over the year.
00:18:49.020 | What would you say, what are the biggest changes
00:18:52.420 | in your homeschool style from the early days to now?
00:18:57.100 | And it might be because the age of your children,
00:18:59.500 | Katie Beth, or maybe it is because of something
00:19:02.780 | that you learned about better ways of teaching.
00:19:06.740 | Hit us with that advice.
00:19:08.620 | - Man, we were just talking about this a few weeks ago,
00:19:12.900 | my husband and myself, when we first started out,
00:19:16.220 | we didn't know what we were doing.
00:19:19.180 | I only knew public school.
00:19:22.060 | So I knew the classroom model with the desks and the chairs
00:19:25.980 | and the very regimented time hacks.
00:19:28.660 | And so in my mind, I needed to do school at home
00:19:33.320 | with very individual desks for each child
00:19:36.420 | and a regimented schedule of reading time and math time.
00:19:40.740 | And there's goodness and beauty to that,
00:19:44.140 | but it was militant in my homeschool.
00:19:47.340 | And it was unforgiving and it left no room
00:19:52.340 | for curiosity or interests.
00:19:55.140 | I did not know about classical conversations
00:19:59.540 | when we first started out.
00:20:01.020 | So we were going it alone.
00:20:04.700 | We lived in an area where there weren't
00:20:08.540 | a whole lot of homeschoolers.
00:20:10.540 | So I didn't have that big sister wisdom
00:20:14.380 | that you get in community.
00:20:17.340 | I didn't have a family that I could say,
00:20:19.980 | I like what I see when I'm looking at you.
00:20:23.420 | Can you teach me your ways?
00:20:24.980 | What did you do wrong?
00:20:26.900 | What did you do well?
00:20:28.620 | And I didn't get those community days of lunchtime chatter
00:20:32.340 | and things like that.
00:20:34.220 | And it was like I was an isolated island winging it.
00:20:39.220 | And so we tried a variety of options.
00:20:44.300 | This was before social media.
00:20:46.060 | So I just Google produced certain things,
00:20:50.860 | but not a whole lot of things.
00:20:52.500 | And so we tried unschooling, we tried eclectic,
00:20:56.220 | we tried a whole lot of different things.
00:21:00.420 | But today we have found beauty in knowing a few core things.
00:21:05.420 | We spend more time valuing the process than the product.
00:21:13.820 | The product is good.
00:21:15.720 | I don't want you to give sloppy work.
00:21:18.020 | I don't want you to not pour yourself into it,
00:21:22.020 | but I also care more about how you got to your conclusions
00:21:27.380 | well before I ask, what is your conclusion?
00:21:31.020 | So I want to hear your thought processes.
00:21:33.420 | I want to hear how you got to this answer,
00:21:36.620 | whether it's math or Latin declensions
00:21:39.580 | or even science fair project.
00:21:42.220 | I want to know what led you to this.
00:21:44.700 | And it's more conversational in my homeschool now.
00:21:48.900 | We spend a lot of time, I have teenage girls,
00:21:52.140 | we still cuddle on the couch and read a book together.
00:21:56.620 | I don't, I think there'll be 30 years old
00:21:58.980 | and come visit my house and we'll cuddle on the couch
00:22:01.460 | and read a good book together.
00:22:03.060 | You will, I bet.
00:22:04.920 | I just hope so because it's such a precious time for us,
00:22:08.100 | especially as the weather cools off
00:22:10.780 | and it's blanket season.
00:22:12.820 | So we have a favorite blanket that we like to cuddle under.
00:22:17.500 | And then we spend more time instead of opening a book
00:22:24.220 | with the intent of filling in answers.
00:22:28.180 | We do open our books,
00:22:29.820 | but it's more of a curiosity driven thing.
00:22:33.820 | Whereas before I was a check box person,
00:22:38.120 | I liked to have my to-do list
00:22:40.620 | and I like to check all of the boxes off on that to-do list
00:22:43.620 | and then I felt accomplished.
00:22:45.380 | So we've changed quite a bit over the years.
00:22:49.500 | And I think that's okay.
00:22:51.180 | I think it's okay to look at what you're doing,
00:22:54.420 | decide it's not what's best
00:22:57.460 | or it's not working the way you had envisioned
00:23:00.500 | and then pivot and try something else.
00:23:02.980 | - Right, that's really smart.
00:23:05.220 | I'm glad that you said that.
00:23:06.940 | I feel like they're probably listeners
00:23:09.780 | who started out homeschooling in a certain way
00:23:14.780 | and maybe it was working or maybe it's never worked
00:23:18.020 | and they're afraid to change lanes.
00:23:20.620 | Because as parents, we feel like,
00:23:23.260 | well, I should just commit to,
00:23:27.220 | I should commit to a lane in my homeschooling and stay there
00:23:30.540 | and jumping around is not helpful
00:23:32.460 | and it makes me look wishy-washy or like heaven forbid,
00:23:35.620 | I don't know what I'm doing.
00:23:37.020 | I think what Katie Beth and I would say to all of you guys
00:23:41.340 | is that it is actually not just okay
00:23:46.340 | but good to change your method
00:23:50.940 | or change what you're pursuing,
00:23:54.220 | especially how you're pursuing it
00:23:56.580 | if something doesn't work anymore.
00:23:58.740 | Or if you have outgrown a certain method
00:24:04.620 | or if you see it really is not serving
00:24:07.820 | your child's learning style well.
00:24:11.500 | - Absolutely.
00:24:12.460 | - That's a good encouraging thing, Katie Beth.
00:24:15.260 | Change is okay and it can actually be good
00:24:19.780 | and you should not be afraid to change what you're doing,
00:24:26.140 | especially in those early years.
00:24:28.620 | You are not gonna mess up your child.
00:24:31.460 | - Oh, no.
00:24:32.540 | - You are learning, in essence, in the early years,
00:24:35.860 | you're actually learning along with your child
00:24:38.220 | because you're learning how do you learn,
00:24:41.100 | how do they learn, what are the options out there
00:24:44.740 | for us and like you said, most of us try in the beginning
00:24:49.740 | to bring our public school experience home
00:24:54.540 | and we have a lot of checklists
00:24:56.500 | and we have a lot of seat work maybe
00:24:59.940 | or desk work or lessons to do.
00:25:02.940 | And then as we relax and think,
00:25:06.500 | but what am I trying to teach my children?
00:25:11.340 | I'm trying to teach them to know God
00:25:14.980 | and to know his world and to love it
00:25:18.380 | and maybe a book or a list is not the best way to do that,
00:25:23.380 | at least not every day.
00:25:25.820 | So make a change.
00:25:27.340 | Katie Beth, you and I have a friend
00:25:29.020 | who has been seeking advice on getting started
00:25:33.620 | for her sister, her sister who has a little four-year-old
00:25:37.460 | and lots of people have weighed in with some awesome
00:25:41.980 | suggestions and I would like to get your take on these first
00:25:46.860 | and then I want some of your best ideas
00:25:51.300 | with your years of experience under your belt.
00:25:54.460 | What are some of your best ideas for getting started?
00:25:57.420 | Okay, so one person said take lots of naps.
00:26:01.780 | How do you feel about that?
00:26:03.620 | Lisa, I have never taken a nap I regretted.
00:26:08.620 | Can I just put that out there?
00:26:10.900 | I have avoided naps and I have regretted those,
00:26:14.540 | but I have never regretted a nap in my adulthood
00:26:17.980 | that I have taken and some of my best naps
00:26:21.380 | were right alongside my babies
00:26:23.340 | when we were just too tired to keep going
00:26:26.980 | and we just cuddled up and dozed off for a little bit
00:26:30.300 | and the rest that you get from it
00:26:32.380 | and the precious moments of being still and silent,
00:26:36.780 | especially with your wiggling littles
00:26:39.900 | that just never stop moving,
00:26:42.580 | you get that precious time together to take a nap.
00:26:45.220 | So please prioritize nap time with the little ones.
00:26:49.620 | Yeah, I agree, especially when your children are little.
00:26:53.500 | So many of us feel like, oh, when we start,
00:26:58.060 | we've got to teach them to read
00:26:59.260 | and we need to know all about numbers
00:27:01.100 | and I want to teach them to draw
00:27:03.340 | and we're going to learn about science
00:27:05.100 | and we're going to do experiments every other day
00:27:08.220 | and we're going to learn to draw maps
00:27:10.180 | and we're going to read about people in other countries
00:27:12.380 | and it just makes you tired to think about it
00:27:15.860 | and think about how that feels to a little four,
00:27:18.580 | five, six year old who has not been designed to sit
00:27:23.580 | for long periods of time in one spot.
00:27:28.580 | They need to get up and run around
00:27:30.820 | and they need to run around a lot
00:27:33.220 | and it will make them tired
00:27:34.860 | and so taking a nap is a great thing.
00:27:37.500 | Taking a rest is a good thing
00:27:39.460 | and following the rhythm of your body is good.
00:27:42.780 | Lots of people weighed in on things like reading a lot
00:27:47.780 | and collecting books and going to the library
00:27:51.500 | and availing themselves of the Copper Lodge books,
00:27:56.500 | the old world echoes and the new world echoes
00:28:00.540 | and all kinds of stories.
00:28:02.900 | How do you feel about reading with your children?
00:28:06.300 | - Oh man, we love reading together
00:28:10.300 | and I'll tell you it's not always age appropriate books.
00:28:15.300 | Not that they're inappropriate
00:28:17.580 | but there were times when my husband was working
00:28:20.660 | on his master's thesis
00:28:22.340 | and the girls just wanted time with daddy
00:28:25.380 | and he had deadlines for papers
00:28:27.380 | and so instead of being holed up in his office
00:28:31.340 | and working on his paper,
00:28:33.060 | he would read some of his textbooks to them
00:28:36.100 | and they would be curled up in his lap
00:28:38.340 | and listening in and killing two birds with one stone
00:28:42.580 | but and then we would pull out poetry books and story books
00:28:46.900 | and books that tug at your heartstrings
00:28:49.260 | and teach you to cry and it's okay
00:28:52.100 | and then books that help you to laugh
00:28:54.220 | and what a beautiful way.
00:28:56.260 | I don't think it's possible to own too many books.
00:29:01.260 | I think it's possible to not own enough bookshelves.
00:29:05.300 | - Yes, yes.
00:29:06.740 | - I think you can never overdo a book.
00:29:09.900 | So absolutely bring books everywhere you go.
00:29:13.540 | Have one at the ready for the time at the bank
00:29:16.540 | when you're waiting in line to make your deposit
00:29:19.220 | or if you need to go get your oil changed,
00:29:21.860 | pull that book out and start reading to your babies
00:29:24.180 | 'cause it models for them that wonder and curiosity
00:29:28.460 | of what mysteries lie within those pages.
00:29:32.260 | - I love it, that's great, great ideas.
00:29:34.700 | Okay, somebody else said, get rain boots to play in the rain
00:29:39.100 | and a shovel to dig in the dirt
00:29:41.300 | and a magnifying glass to search out tiny wonders
00:29:45.020 | and a blanket to lie in the grass
00:29:47.220 | to search the wonder in the sky
00:29:49.260 | and a bucket to fill with rain and dirt and wonders.
00:29:52.740 | What would you say to all of that?
00:29:55.100 | - Oh man, where was that knowledge and wisdom
00:29:59.260 | when I had littles?
00:30:01.060 | Those were things in my mind at the time
00:30:04.020 | that were clutter and messy.
00:30:06.340 | - Well, and extra and if we have time
00:30:09.540 | and when we're done with school, we will do all that.
00:30:14.540 | - Let's do our history, let's work on our math
00:30:19.180 | and then if we have time before we have to make dinner,
00:30:22.100 | we'll go splash in the mud.
00:30:23.980 | Ma'am, let's make some time to splash in the mud,
00:30:26.480 | put it in your schedule.
00:30:27.820 | If you're a schedule-based person, you schedule messy time
00:30:32.260 | because those are the times that they will outgrow
00:30:36.220 | and then you'll find yourself in a park one day
00:30:38.500 | looking at a mama who does prioritize it and go,
00:30:41.940 | oh, I wish I could be part of that right now.
00:30:44.060 | - Yes, and the whole idea that that's how little people learn
00:30:51.380 | by moving their bodies out in the world
00:30:54.460 | and getting their hands dirty and touching things
00:30:59.020 | that you as a grownup go yuck about, that's important.
00:31:03.700 | Helping them to search out the beauty and the wonder
00:31:08.380 | in the world is the best way to begin teaching them
00:31:13.060 | and I'm with you, I wish somebody had said
00:31:18.540 | that is not extra, that is the beauty.
00:31:23.020 | And you know, I was lucky enough that,
00:31:27.180 | especially when my older daughter came along,
00:31:30.500 | I feel like you do, that we started homeschooling
00:31:33.200 | the minute she was born 'cause we would name everything
00:31:37.020 | and I would carry her around.
00:31:39.500 | We had no close neighbors and so my daughter and I
00:31:43.220 | were each other's only companions.
00:31:46.280 | My husband was there too but he was studying
00:31:48.300 | or visiting shut-ins or visiting in the hospital.
00:31:51.900 | But we were each other's everything
00:31:53.740 | and I talked to her absolutely all the time.
00:31:57.100 | I named everything in sight before naming
00:31:59.940 | was a core habit that I didn't do anything about.
00:32:02.940 | Yes, so we would go outside and I can remember
00:32:06.060 | my mom calling one day saying,
00:32:08.420 | well, what have you been doing?
00:32:09.460 | And I said, well, we're putting on our boots
00:32:12.220 | to go outside and we're gonna play in the rain
00:32:14.500 | and she said, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard
00:32:17.020 | and I said, mom, it's warm and it's not thunder
00:32:20.500 | and it's not lightning and we have some great puddles
00:32:23.300 | in the driveway and we're gonna go and stomp the puddles
00:32:27.580 | and that was wonderful.
00:32:29.240 | And so, Katie Beth, if you and I can give moms
00:32:32.340 | and dads permission to do that extra stuff
00:32:35.660 | and recognize that it's not extra,
00:32:37.900 | that's actually how your children are learning,
00:32:40.560 | then this will have been a good podcast.
00:32:42.980 | - Yeah, my husband said something wonderful last night.
00:32:46.140 | He said, those types of activities give you the opportunity
00:32:51.140 | to interact with your environment
00:32:54.180 | through your children's eyes.
00:32:55.980 | - Ooh, I like that.
00:32:57.980 | - And it just struck me, what brilliance, right?
00:33:01.460 | Dads really can swoop in with a win.
00:33:03.940 | So-- - That's so good.
00:33:06.700 | We forget what the world looks like from their level.
00:33:11.320 | - Yeah, from their perspective,
00:33:13.180 | when they get to see the tiniest bug that we step over,
00:33:16.420 | right, or a really cool pattern on a leaf
00:33:20.760 | or a gnarly twisted twig and they find those things
00:33:24.680 | so fascinating and I'm too busy as an adult
00:33:28.940 | doing adulting things, so I had to remind myself,
00:33:32.860 | slow down and realize they are seeing this
00:33:35.900 | for the very first time and enjoy it
00:33:38.420 | because your first time is over.
00:33:40.560 | So enjoy their first time and watch them
00:33:44.340 | in their world interacting through their eyes.
00:33:48.440 | - The beauty of it, and that's attending.
00:33:51.040 | We've been talking about NCC,
00:33:53.340 | the five core habits for a while, and that's attending.
00:33:57.040 | And little children attend.
00:33:59.900 | They pay attention to what's in front of them
00:34:04.140 | way better than we do naturally.
00:34:07.480 | And I don't want to breed that out of them.
00:34:12.480 | I don't want to hurry them through the world
00:34:17.340 | not giving them time to attend to all the little things
00:34:21.900 | that they see and all the differences they might perceive
00:34:25.760 | and everything that their senses could tell them.
00:34:29.260 | One person suggested to this thinking about it mom
00:34:35.320 | to go outdoors as much as possible.
00:34:37.980 | In fact, to even use the outside as the classroom
00:34:42.980 | whenever you can.
00:34:44.500 | And I thought that was a very inspired suggestion.
00:34:47.760 | Just getting back in touch with nature is a great thing.
00:34:51.820 | - There is just something beautiful and grounding
00:34:54.740 | about a blanket on a beautiful park or a grassy yard
00:34:59.740 | under the shade of a tree and just watching,
00:35:04.100 | watching the clouds in the sky, watching the bugs go past,
00:35:08.360 | watching the ants marching in a line
00:35:10.740 | and the simplicity and the silence of it,
00:35:14.260 | even if it is a noisy environment that just calms your soul
00:35:18.900 | and reminds you that the Lord has made more than just you.
00:35:23.180 | And he's built this world with you in mind.
00:35:26.600 | And so we should enjoy it and soak it up, right?
00:35:29.560 | - Yes, that's great.
00:35:31.300 | That is very, very good advice.
00:35:33.660 | - All right, somebody else said,
00:35:35.460 | this is what you need to collect as you begin to homeschool.
00:35:39.420 | Crayons, paint, a picnic blanket and sidewalk chalk.
00:35:44.420 | What do you think about those suggestions?
00:35:49.600 | - I loved those suggestions.
00:35:52.280 | Again, where were these ideas when I first got started?
00:35:56.780 | I wish I would have had a notebook in my daughter's hands
00:36:00.420 | at all times to just draw what you see.
00:36:04.020 | Come home and tell daddy about your day
00:36:06.220 | when you're done with your day.
00:36:08.420 | And he's getting off work and taking off his shoes
00:36:12.140 | and sitting down for dinner and tell him a story
00:36:14.900 | about what you drew and be more of a participant
00:36:19.560 | in your own world, rather than a bystander,
00:36:23.140 | engaging fully with what it is that you do
00:36:27.700 | and how best to do it, but with some crayons.
00:36:31.220 | - Yeah.
00:36:32.260 | - With some crayons and sidewalk chalk,
00:36:34.420 | draw big, draw small, just draw.
00:36:37.380 | - Yes, yeah, I love that.
00:36:39.780 | It gives our kids a way to express what they're seeing,
00:36:44.780 | what they're learning about,
00:36:47.220 | but sometimes also what they're feeling.
00:36:50.340 | I can remember watching my girls draw
00:36:54.560 | and I could sometimes tell when they were disturbed,
00:36:58.560 | when they were angry or sad about something,
00:37:03.700 | by watching the way, sometimes by what they would draw,
00:37:07.940 | but watching the way that they would draw.
00:37:11.480 | It just gave me a window into their emotions sometimes.
00:37:15.420 | So I loved that.
00:37:16.860 | We have, at our house, we have always had a craft closet.
00:37:22.620 | And so we put, we called it plain on one side paper.
00:37:27.620 | My girls were very prolific drawers and writers
00:37:31.340 | and we could not afford to keep them in paper.
00:37:33.840 | So we recycled the pages that my husband created
00:37:38.800 | of sermon copies.
00:37:40.100 | And so we called it plain on one side paper.
00:37:42.880 | So we had a box of plain on one side paper
00:37:45.700 | and we had beads and clay and glitter,
00:37:49.620 | which was strictly monitored, I must admit.
00:37:52.580 | And markers and crayons and string
00:37:56.160 | and stray pieces of cardboard.
00:37:57.940 | We kept all kinds of things.
00:37:59.460 | And I will tell y'all, my girls are grown now.
00:38:03.520 | They are married.
00:38:04.360 | I have a grandson now, but we still have a craft closet
00:38:08.020 | and the girls will still call home and say,
00:38:11.500 | "In the craft closet, is there any orange yarn?
00:38:16.080 | Or do you still have plaster of Paris?
00:38:19.780 | And do we have any sun stickers?"
00:38:23.460 | And almost every time I'm able to say yes,
00:38:27.120 | because the craft closet is something
00:38:29.060 | that we added to over the years.
00:38:32.300 | In fact, one person said that a craft closet
00:38:35.900 | that you keep adding to is a great idea for holiday gifts.
00:38:40.900 | Like you could tell your in-laws or your kids' friends
00:38:48.020 | who say, "Well, what's something I could get them
00:38:50.660 | for Christmas, art supplies, craft supplies?"
00:38:54.660 | I loved having, both of my girls had their own box
00:38:59.660 | that had colored pencils and tape and scissors
00:39:04.480 | and a glue stick and a ruler.
00:39:07.840 | One of them, one year, asked for a hole punch,
00:39:10.500 | a little hole punch, and I thought,
00:39:11.660 | "I don't know why you want that
00:39:12.900 | and it's probably gonna make a mess.
00:39:15.220 | We're gonna do, I'm gonna let you have that."
00:39:17.380 | They had their own box.
00:39:19.060 | So that kind of stuff was super important.
00:39:22.660 | It gave them their own materials that they had charge over
00:39:27.660 | that they could use to make whatever
00:39:31.820 | their imagination dreamed up.
00:39:34.260 | - Oh yeah, and just being able
00:39:36.140 | to work their little fingers, right?
00:39:38.620 | Crafting is working your brain and your fingers.
00:39:42.420 | So when they're trying to sew together two pieces
00:39:45.260 | of a material for a blanket for their doll
00:39:48.900 | or they're cutting up scraps of colored paper
00:39:53.100 | to put on a montage of some sort or a collage,
00:39:56.900 | it just, they're working their brains and their fingers
00:40:00.080 | and it's fun to watch my daughters crinkle
00:40:02.860 | their little faces up as they're trying
00:40:04.900 | to make something happen that they have a vision
00:40:09.260 | but they just can't figure out how to execute that vision.
00:40:12.820 | And sometimes I join in on the craft time
00:40:16.980 | and sometimes I just sit back
00:40:18.940 | and it's better than watching television
00:40:21.060 | because it's unfolding, it's like live entertainment for us.
00:40:25.500 | - I love the experimentation that happens and they do,
00:40:29.040 | they learn a lot about cause and effect that way.
00:40:31.620 | They learn try, try again if something doesn't work out
00:40:36.260 | or sometimes the thing that you envision in your mind
00:40:39.700 | comes out much differently through your fingers
00:40:42.600 | but that's a great lesson to learn
00:40:46.380 | and it is a lesson that is caught more easily than taught
00:40:51.260 | and so for them to have that experience, it's really good.
00:40:55.900 | And one friend and I thought this was a lovely piece
00:41:00.260 | of advice, I was kind of high strung as a new homeschooler
00:41:04.080 | and as a type A person, this friend said,
00:41:07.140 | "Don't fret over the mess."
00:41:11.620 | - Yeah.
00:41:12.680 | - I had a hard time with that in the beginning.
00:41:16.040 | - You and me both, I felt like I wasn't doing
00:41:20.360 | a good enough job as a homemaker
00:41:22.900 | if my home didn't look like an Etsy board
00:41:27.400 | or a Pinterest board or it didn't look magazine ready
00:41:32.400 | and I had a couple extra loads of laundry
00:41:36.580 | or a few dishes in the sink and I'll tell you what,
00:41:40.660 | like when I told you I never took a nap that I regretted,
00:41:45.100 | I will take a messy kitchen and especially if it comes
00:41:50.980 | with some scraps of paper and some strings
00:41:54.260 | that are from a recent craft project
00:41:56.920 | over a well-tended two paper but board children any day
00:42:01.920 | and there's ways to incorporate education
00:42:08.860 | with not just academics but your education
00:42:11.700 | with keeping a tidy house.
00:42:13.800 | I'm not saying live in utter disgust
00:42:17.260 | but there's ways to dance and sing
00:42:20.560 | and practice your memory work or practice your times tables,
00:42:25.560 | things like that while you're putting away the clean dishes.
00:42:28.740 | - Yes, absolutely.
00:42:30.420 | - Don't let chores rule your schedule.
00:42:34.780 | That's what I would tell 25-year-old Katie Beth.
00:42:38.780 | - Yes, oh, I love that.
00:42:41.260 | I love that and you don't want your children
00:42:45.300 | to feel like keeping your house clean is more important
00:42:50.300 | than playing with them or exploring with them
00:42:55.140 | or reading with them or really almost anything with them.
00:42:59.060 | You don't want them to feel like that your house
00:43:02.340 | is more important to you than they are.
00:43:05.820 | - Indeed, yeah.
00:43:08.000 | Some people were very specific
00:43:11.260 | and the things they were telling this new person
00:43:14.620 | to begin to accumulate math manipulatives,
00:43:17.980 | did you guys have manipulatives, Katie Beth?
00:43:21.300 | - Oh, and you know what, if I'm gonna be honest with you,
00:43:24.200 | I think they were used as like building blocks
00:43:27.700 | and toys more than math manipulatives.
00:43:31.860 | And that was okay because they were seeing something
00:43:35.500 | and using it in a different way
00:43:37.340 | while still playing with math
00:43:39.600 | and realizing this block of eight can only go this far.
00:43:44.600 | So I'm gonna need to add these blocks of fours
00:43:48.160 | to get what I wanted with it.
00:43:49.760 | But yes, we have more math minutes.
00:43:53.240 | Even today, I can't let these go.
00:43:56.480 | I think I'm gonna keep them until I have grandkids.
00:43:59.980 | - Oh yeah, yeah, I know.
00:44:02.300 | I still have all my Cuisinair rods
00:44:04.920 | and all my little snap blocks and the girls.
00:44:08.500 | We used them.
00:44:09.520 | We use them sometimes even when the girls were older
00:44:13.020 | because they helped with percentages even.
00:44:17.600 | So anyway, I never regretted those things either.
00:44:20.480 | Somebody even said a laminator.
00:44:22.700 | Did you have a laminator?
00:44:24.840 | - I took forever to buy a laminator and I don't know why.
00:44:29.840 | I think my older daughter was in challenge A
00:44:34.760 | before I ever bought a laminator.
00:44:36.760 | And I remember after that year,
00:44:38.840 | I looked at my husband and said, "What took me so long?"
00:44:42.600 | - Isn't that funny?
00:44:43.880 | - And we still have things from that year
00:44:47.000 | that I had made and laminated that she still uses.
00:44:50.920 | So it can be dangerous though.
00:44:54.000 | Watch out.
00:44:54.820 | You'll find yourself wanting to laminate everything.
00:44:57.580 | Yes.
00:44:58.800 | - That's hilarious.
00:45:00.380 | That's hilarious.
00:45:01.220 | Well, I am like super shocked to look up
00:45:04.200 | and realize that we've been talking
00:45:05.720 | for about 40 minutes already.
00:45:08.360 | I know.
00:45:09.200 | And so I actually may ask you to come back another time,
00:45:13.680 | Katie Beth, if you will.
00:45:15.640 | - I would be honored.
00:45:16.920 | - Because one, I had several people
00:45:20.440 | who when we were asking about,
00:45:23.680 | what would you tell this mom
00:45:25.960 | who is considering homeschooling
00:45:27.880 | and is not really sure if it's for them
00:45:30.240 | or how to get started?
00:45:32.460 | I had several people say,
00:45:35.460 | "Oh man, she really needs to get hold
00:45:38.000 | "of a Scribblers at Home resource book.
00:45:43.000 | "The Scribblers at Home Recipes from Lifelong Learners."
00:45:46.540 | Somebody said, "It's a lovely book of vision
00:45:50.940 | "for moms of young ones
00:45:53.380 | "that Scribblers helps us find joy in the journey
00:45:56.280 | "and helps us find a gentle rhythm of family learning."
00:46:00.860 | And I would say as moms and dads start off
00:46:05.860 | on this homeschool journey,
00:46:08.080 | you've heard Katie Beth and I say,
00:46:10.780 | don't be too married to a routine
00:46:13.760 | and don't just bring public school home
00:46:15.920 | and make your kids sit at a desk all the time.
00:46:18.720 | I tell young moms, if you pray together,
00:46:23.720 | play together, read together,
00:46:27.440 | explore together and serve together every day,
00:46:32.440 | then you've had a good homeschool day.
00:46:35.880 | And that really is,
00:46:38.780 | that's what Scribblers encourages parents to do
00:46:44.660 | and equips mom and dads to do.
00:46:47.360 | So I'd really like to talk about
00:46:53.200 | how Scribblers can help parents pursue those ideas
00:46:58.200 | from the very beginning.
00:47:00.960 | So would you come back
00:47:02.000 | and talk to me about that another time?
00:47:04.280 | - I would be more than honored, yes ma'am.
00:47:06.520 | - I would be so glad to do that with you.
00:47:08.440 | I wanna ask you one last question before you go.
00:47:11.460 | Katie Beth, what makes you an everyday educator?
00:47:20.320 | - Oh, what a wonderful question.
00:47:23.200 | I would say curiosity.
00:47:25.600 | I think modeling curiosity for my children
00:47:29.600 | is the starting point,
00:47:32.980 | but then pausing and watching their curiosity take hold
00:47:37.980 | and watch their investigations
00:47:40.640 | helps to guide our homeschool more than anything else.
00:47:45.820 | Just having a sense of wonder and curiosity about our world
00:47:50.820 | and about our place in the world,
00:47:54.740 | but more importantly about our relationship with God.
00:47:57.720 | - I love that, I love that curiosity.
00:48:02.060 | That's awesome, that's awesome.
00:48:04.180 | Well, listeners, I hope that this has been helpful to you,
00:48:09.180 | either for you as you are beginning
00:48:12.340 | your homeschooling journey,
00:48:14.180 | or as you're thinking, oh, I wonder if I need
00:48:16.600 | to make some kind of shift.
00:48:18.340 | I wonder if there's some other way
00:48:20.700 | that our family could grow together
00:48:23.840 | as we learn about God's world together,
00:48:27.580 | a way to build a family culture of learning.
00:48:31.340 | I hope this has been good for you,
00:48:33.060 | and I do hope that you'll join us the next time
00:48:36.360 | as we talk a little bit about how scribblers
00:48:39.120 | can help families, not just families
00:48:42.460 | of four to eight year olds, but families of every age
00:48:46.460 | build a culture of family learning together at home.
00:48:51.460 | I also want to give you guys another heads up
00:48:56.580 | about a great event where you could perhaps find
00:49:01.500 | a homeschool mentor like Katie Beth was talking about
00:49:04.660 | earlier, our National Events Weekend for 2024
00:49:12.180 | will be here before you know it,
00:49:13.520 | even though that's not till May,
00:49:15.460 | but what will really be here before you know it
00:49:18.380 | is the registration opening for National Events Weekend.
00:49:23.380 | Registration opens soon, November the 1st.
00:49:28.040 | So if you are curious about National Event Weekend
00:49:32.260 | and what you and your family could do
00:49:35.260 | if you traveled to Southern Pines
00:49:37.720 | at the beginning of May next year,
00:49:40.840 | then I would encourage you to learn more
00:49:44.340 | by going to classicalconversationsfoundation.org.
00:49:49.340 | It is a great weekend.
00:49:53.060 | We've got our regular national conference
00:49:55.360 | where you get to hear talks from homeschool leaders
00:49:58.640 | like Lee Bortons and Robert Bortons,
00:50:01.380 | where you will meet other homeschoolers
00:50:03.560 | and hook up perhaps with a mentor
00:50:06.360 | of your very own national commencement happens
00:50:09.980 | during that weekend.
00:50:11.080 | And this year, the National Memory Master Championship
00:50:15.640 | will happen that weekend
00:50:16.840 | and you could see some of those events.
00:50:18.980 | So if you're interested and you want to find out more,
00:50:22.980 | go to classicalconversationsfoundation.org.
00:50:27.980 | We hope to see your family there next May,
00:50:31.680 | but I for sure hope to see you or hear you
00:50:34.900 | next time on the podcast.
00:50:37.100 | Katie Beth, thank you for being with me
00:50:39.300 | and I'll look forward to our next conversation.
00:50:42.280 | - Thank you so much, Lisa.
00:50:43.840 | - Bye guys.
00:50:45.380 | (gentle music)
00:50:47.960 | (music fades)
00:50:50.460 | [BLANK_AUDIO]