Everyday Educator - How Do I Know I Started? Beginning the Homeschool Journey
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:03.280 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:05.800 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:08.560 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.360 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:13.600 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:16.960 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.040 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.320 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.680 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.080 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.400 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.240 | But don't forget,
00:00:37.480 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:41.040 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:46.040 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:50.680 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:56.160 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to talk to you today
00:01:01.160 | about this question that people have asked me for years
00:01:06.400 | and that I asked myself all those many years ago
00:01:11.400 | when I started homeschooling.
00:01:14.320 | How do I know that I started already?
00:01:19.320 | It's all about the beginning homeschool journey.
00:01:22.640 | I have met so many young moms and dads
00:01:27.400 | who are very interested in this whole notion
00:01:32.400 | of home-centered education.
00:01:36.840 | They are so mesmerized by the idea
00:01:40.680 | that their family could grow closer together every day
00:01:45.680 | for all the years that their children will spend at home
00:01:48.840 | and that they could actually learn together as a family.
00:01:53.840 | But I have lots of these preschool homeschooling-minded moms
00:02:00.040 | who say, "I don't really know when I'm supposed
00:02:03.320 | "to start this and I don't know
00:02:06.560 | "what it's supposed to look like.
00:02:08.200 | "And did I already start?
00:02:10.460 | "And did I do it right?
00:02:12.960 | "And am I doing it right?"
00:02:14.880 | And you know, as parents, we have a lot of angst
00:02:18.760 | and we have a lot of anxiety and we have a lot of fear.
00:02:22.480 | But I cajoled a good friend of mine
00:02:25.480 | into coming on today to talk to me about this.
00:02:28.240 | And I'm hoping that in the course of our conversation
00:02:33.240 | and our remembrances and our words of wisdom
00:02:37.040 | that we wish somebody had posed to us all those years ago,
00:02:41.600 | that you, moms and dads, will get some encouragement,
00:02:45.920 | will get a little inspiration,
00:02:47.760 | and maybe even some new ideas.
00:02:51.200 | So I want you to welcome my good friend, Amy Jones.
00:02:55.040 | She is joining me on this journey today.
00:02:57.840 | Amy, thanks for coming.
00:02:59.680 | - Oh, thank you.
00:03:00.600 | This is, again, a delightful way of remembering.
00:03:05.600 | And you know, Lisa, as I was thinking
00:03:08.760 | about what you were just saying,
00:03:10.440 | just recognizing God's work in our life
00:03:17.200 | and how in the midst of just being really bewildered,
00:03:21.400 | I don't know if you ever felt that way.
00:03:22.800 | - Yes.
00:03:24.160 | - I started that way.
00:03:25.240 | I still feel that way a lot.
00:03:26.640 | That God's path, just His shepherding is remarkable.
00:03:32.680 | Looking back, isn't it always when you're looking back
00:03:35.160 | and praise His steps as He's guided you?
00:03:38.320 | So it's given me a lot of joy to be remembering
00:03:44.080 | and just of how He superintended
00:03:47.560 | when I just really didn't know what was happening.
00:03:50.920 | I could see all His work.
00:03:53.080 | It was really lovely.
00:03:54.600 | So thank you for helping me remember that.
00:03:56.880 | - It is so true, Amy,
00:04:00.320 | that it is sometimes easier to see
00:04:04.320 | the sure, steady arm of the Lord
00:04:08.840 | that was around your shoulders
00:04:10.440 | and that had a hand on your shoulder
00:04:13.560 | the whole time.
00:04:14.600 | It's easier for me to see that when I look back
00:04:18.520 | and I realize, wow, that whole time,
00:04:21.560 | God was walking right beside of me
00:04:23.640 | and He was helping me.
00:04:25.800 | He was helping to guide my steps.
00:04:27.880 | Every time I ask Him, He did it.
00:04:30.200 | And when I ran ahead, He was usually,
00:04:34.760 | well, He was always waiting to welcome me back
00:04:37.160 | when I stumbled back with a skinned knee
00:04:39.400 | because I had run off on my own impetuously
00:04:43.960 | in some direction that just looked promising,
00:04:47.400 | but upon exploration turned out to be the wrong path.
00:04:50.680 | But I love that reminder that God is here
00:04:56.120 | and He is working
00:04:57.240 | and He is drawing us to Himself.
00:04:59.800 | And that is the most important work
00:05:06.200 | of the Holy Spirit, to draw us to the Lord.
00:05:09.640 | And I think that it is the most important job
00:05:16.520 | of parenting to draw our children to the Lord,
00:05:20.840 | to introduce them to Him and show them
00:05:24.680 | that He is real and that He is strong
00:05:29.160 | and that He is loving
00:05:31.160 | and that He is joyful and merciful.
00:05:34.760 | So that's really cool.
00:05:37.880 | I want us to talk about those early days
00:05:42.440 | of homeschooling.
00:05:43.880 | Do you remember your first days of homeschooling?
00:05:47.080 | And how many kids did you have when you began?
00:05:49.480 | And did you start homeschooling intentionally?
00:05:53.720 | Oh, those are good questions.
00:05:56.200 | Yes, we had two children at the time.
00:06:00.440 | We now have four.
00:06:01.720 | I have, Will was five and Mary Claire was like three.
00:06:07.560 | And, you know, when you say intentionally,
00:06:11.400 | I guess I would say, you know,
00:06:13.560 | the first day of kindergarten.
00:06:15.080 | You know how you have that?
00:06:16.280 | Oh, yes, yes.
00:06:17.640 | You're five and now everyone's asking,
00:06:19.800 | what are you going to do?
00:06:20.760 | You know, you have all the questions
00:06:22.120 | and you have to sign them up.
00:06:25.160 | I don't know if they do that.
00:06:26.040 | Oh gosh, yes, yes.
00:06:28.040 | Umbrella schools and curriculum.
00:06:30.280 | And all of a sudden it felt very official.
00:06:32.680 | You know, they're officially starting.
00:06:34.920 | We had to count days in those days.
00:06:36.680 | I don't know.
00:06:37.000 | Oh, goodness, yes.
00:06:38.040 | And so it felt very public school-y,
00:06:42.680 | if that makes sense to you.
00:06:44.440 | It was like, oh, you have to have a curriculum
00:06:48.200 | and you have to have these objective standards
00:06:50.680 | and that sort of thing.
00:06:51.560 | And what I found was interesting
00:06:54.040 | is the way the Lord,
00:06:56.120 | and I would encourage parents,
00:06:57.640 | the way the Lord had been already shaping
00:06:59.880 | my understanding or my husband and I's understanding
00:07:04.040 | of a family and what is a family.
00:07:07.640 | And so we did intentionally choose to homeschool
00:07:11.240 | because I thought,
00:07:11.960 | well, I can't hurt them at kindergarten, right?
00:07:14.040 | I mean, like I had taught school before.
00:07:16.920 | I was especially a teacher for a number of years.
00:07:18.840 | So I thought, well,
00:07:19.560 | I don't think I can mess them up too bad for kindergarten.
00:07:23.960 | And also, this is my selfishness.
00:07:26.760 | I thought, you know, by golly,
00:07:29.240 | I have changed all their diapers.
00:07:31.400 | I taught him how to potty train.
00:07:34.120 | And I saw his first steps.
00:07:36.680 | I don't want anyone else to teach him to read.
00:07:39.080 | I want him to sit in the lap,
00:07:42.760 | let's read a story and be the person that it's just like,
00:07:47.160 | oh, he just recognized the word cat.
00:07:49.400 | You know, so I wanted to be that person.
00:07:52.280 | So what and I, my husband and I, we, we were,
00:07:56.440 | and also my first one, this is interesting.
00:07:59.080 | The Lord gave us a wanderer.
00:08:01.000 | Oh, much a person that would just stand outside
00:08:05.640 | and look at the sky and, and he'd meander around.
00:08:09.320 | You can never find him, you know,
00:08:10.760 | and we just thought, you know,
00:08:14.200 | he's not really going to be,
00:08:16.920 | he would not necessarily fit in a sitting desk situation.
00:08:23.080 | He asked a lot of questions.
00:08:26.120 | And he's, yeah, he just, he was just kind of a free spirit.
00:08:30.760 | And he wasn't undisciplined.
00:08:32.200 | He just was like, explored things.
00:08:34.200 | - Right, right.
00:08:35.720 | Ask a lot of questions.
00:08:36.760 | - Ask a lot of questions.
00:08:38.200 | - Yes.
00:08:38.760 | - And we just wanted to keep that spirit in a sense
00:08:42.920 | that wandering, delightful person.
00:08:46.120 | We wanted that to, to grow and, and to be nurtured.
00:08:52.280 | And so, yes, we intentionally, I thought, well, okay,
00:08:56.280 | it's kindergarten.
00:08:57.160 | I think I can, I, you know, I taught school.
00:08:59.640 | I think I can talk and then, and then there's, but,
00:09:03.400 | but I will tell you, Lisa, it's so interesting to me
00:09:06.200 | that the Lord had been working in me
00:09:08.200 | because I had been teaching.
00:09:09.480 | But even before that, as a student
00:09:12.520 | and college is learning to education, I had,
00:09:15.960 | it's always been this pull for me.
00:09:18.040 | On one side, it was the professional education idea
00:09:20.840 | where, you know, you have school and you have curriculum
00:09:23.400 | and you have objectives and you check off lists
00:09:25.720 | and you see your child as, well,
00:09:28.040 | what have they accomplished today?
00:09:30.200 | They really, and then there was this other part of me
00:09:33.320 | that I had a church family, three families
00:09:36.200 | that the mothers were homeschooling.
00:09:37.960 | This was back in the 80s.
00:09:38.920 | So this wasn't-
00:09:39.640 | - Right, very unusual.
00:09:41.000 | - Very unusual.
00:09:42.040 | But there were very different people.
00:09:43.800 | I had been involved with our kids
00:09:45.320 | in all sorts of ways in the church.
00:09:46.920 | And I could think, man,
00:09:48.360 | they talk to each other differently.
00:09:50.280 | They, they use words I don't use with children.
00:09:53.880 | They treat them as whole beings there.
00:09:56.440 | And I would spend time in their homes
00:09:57.960 | and their homes were like this wonderful,
00:10:00.120 | it wasn't, they weren't, they were messy homes
00:10:02.920 | and they were normal homes,
00:10:04.520 | but there was something about their vision
00:10:08.120 | for how they treated their children
00:10:10.280 | as well as like very nurturing
00:10:13.240 | and very much a vision for,
00:10:15.000 | this is the kind of person I want them to become,
00:10:19.000 | not the thing I want them to do.
00:10:22.440 | It was very unique.
00:10:24.360 | And I kept thinking, what is it about this?
00:10:26.600 | And, and so as,
00:10:28.280 | and then I had this professional education side
00:10:30.360 | and I worked as a special ed teacher
00:10:32.280 | with children who were very involved physically.
00:10:36.520 | So I, it, it sort of informed me like,
00:10:40.520 | and I, so I worked very closely
00:10:42.600 | with these children's, my students' parents.
00:10:45.320 | I mean, I was in their home a lot.
00:10:47.000 | So I kept thinking, who are, children are people
00:10:51.880 | and they have, whether they can write their name or not,
00:10:56.040 | whether this child may never be able to write their name.
00:11:01.000 | Yet they're, they, they have a culture.
00:11:03.640 | They have a heritage.
00:11:05.720 | They are nurtured.
00:11:06.760 | They're, they're definitely influenced by their family,
00:11:11.240 | but they're also influencing their family,
00:11:13.960 | how they're such a vital part of their family.
00:11:17.000 | And then seeing how these homeschool moms treated,
00:11:20.520 | grew, had this vision of their own culture
00:11:23.400 | and their family, I kept thinking, I want that.
00:11:26.360 | I want this, I want this holistic, wholesome place
00:11:32.440 | where my children feel nurtured,
00:11:35.160 | not because of what they can do or how they perform,
00:11:39.320 | but really who they are.
00:11:42.440 | Like, it's like, well, I'm sure you discovered that,
00:11:45.320 | like your children are not who you are.
00:11:47.400 | Your children are gifts from God
00:11:50.040 | and you're just keep unwrapping them.
00:11:51.880 | - Yes.
00:11:53.400 | - Discover things about them that I think I,
00:11:56.040 | I would never think that.
00:11:56.920 | - I would never have done that.
00:11:58.120 | I probably would not have done it that way, God.
00:12:00.440 | I mean, because it makes it harder for me
00:12:03.400 | because I don't understand that.
00:12:04.760 | - I don't understand.
00:12:05.720 | So I feel like, yes, we intentionally moved in that journey,
00:12:09.240 | but I think the past experiences really informed,
00:12:13.480 | helped us both start having those conversations.
00:12:16.920 | Like, well, what is it these having children
00:12:20.200 | and what, who are children?
00:12:21.400 | - Right.
00:12:22.040 | I think that's really, that's really cool
00:12:25.240 | that you intentionally homeschooled
00:12:28.760 | for a variety of reasons,
00:12:32.440 | but your idea of what that might mean
00:12:36.600 | and should mean and could mean in your family
00:12:40.200 | continued to evolve as you got to know your children
00:12:45.320 | and as you got to know the possibilities of homeschooling.
00:12:49.320 | That's actually, Amy, that is super encouraging.
00:12:52.120 | I know for our listeners to think,
00:12:54.760 | oh, so you don't necessarily,
00:12:59.160 | everybody doesn't have it all figured out when we start.
00:13:01.800 | We are all just kind of,
00:13:03.720 | I think that the majority of us
00:13:07.080 | are maybe not bumbling through,
00:13:10.280 | but the Lord leads us.
00:13:13.240 | It's a journey for us as well as for our children.
00:13:17.080 | And the Lord removes the scales from our eyes
00:13:20.680 | and He leads us down fresh paths.
00:13:24.040 | And we discover more and more
00:13:25.960 | about what He is wanting us to discover
00:13:30.280 | about Him, about our children,
00:13:33.640 | about ourselves, and about the journey as we go.
00:13:37.880 | So I like that.
00:13:39.400 | So you did begin intentionally.
00:13:41.400 | And it was mostly when your oldest
00:13:44.840 | was ready to start kindergarten.
00:13:47.080 | - But you know, that was the dilemma, right?
00:13:50.120 | Because it felt like that was the official day.
00:13:53.320 | You know, I go in September 1st and whatever.
00:13:56.840 | But actually we had been, you know,
00:13:59.320 | and this is what I wanted to say.
00:14:00.360 | You've been teaching your children for years.
00:14:06.360 | I mean, since they were infants,
00:14:09.640 | you're like, you know, this is how we eat our food.
00:14:13.480 | This is how we say this word.
00:14:15.640 | You're revealing to them that this is how a family works.
00:14:19.640 | This is how being loved works
00:14:21.160 | or how going to sleep works.
00:14:23.000 | Or this is what a bath is like.
00:14:25.560 | And this is why we take baths.
00:14:27.560 | And then you answer all their little questions, you know.
00:14:30.040 | - Yes, as you live together.
00:14:33.000 | - Isn't that an extension of what you do as an adult too?
00:14:37.240 | Like you're always learning.
00:14:38.760 | You're a person, you know.
00:14:40.680 | - Yes, yes.
00:14:42.200 | - Stop, start at five and here's your books
00:14:46.760 | and this is your accomplishment.
00:14:48.360 | It's very holistic.
00:14:50.680 | And like you were saying, even as parents,
00:14:53.480 | you're constantly growing.
00:14:55.000 | Didn't you just grow tremendously?
00:14:57.080 | - So much.
00:14:58.120 | I thought homeschooling was all about my kids.
00:15:00.680 | And now I wonder if it was all about me all along,
00:15:03.800 | what God was leading me to learn
00:15:05.640 | and how he just took him 18 years of my children's lives
00:15:09.960 | to shape me into half the person
00:15:12.520 | he really wants me to be eventually.
00:15:15.000 | - Absolutely, I shamefully admit that.
00:15:17.320 | - Well, I know that I meet in my travels,
00:15:22.520 | I meet a lot of moms and dads at practicums
00:15:26.440 | and at other events who say,
00:15:28.200 | well, I know it's probably about time for us to decide
00:15:32.200 | if we're gonna homeschool or not.
00:15:33.640 | And I think for so many of us,
00:15:37.000 | because like you were saying, you start kindergarten
00:15:41.800 | and then all of a sudden there is a curriculum
00:15:44.840 | and there's a days you have to register
00:15:48.680 | and you have to count your days
00:15:50.200 | and you have to have a curriculum.
00:15:51.960 | And so that's what we think of is homeschooling begins
00:15:55.960 | when you start keeping attendance
00:15:58.920 | or marking progress reports or checking off boxes.
00:16:04.600 | And I remember coming to the realization
00:16:09.080 | that the Lord might be calling us to homeschool.
00:16:12.280 | And I was stroking out over,
00:16:14.680 | when am I going to start homeschooling?
00:16:17.640 | And I had a friend, a dear friend,
00:16:20.040 | who's actually at the time,
00:16:21.560 | the family were missionaries in Brazil
00:16:24.600 | and they were home on furlough
00:16:25.880 | and had come to stay with us for a while.
00:16:27.640 | And she had been with us for about a week
00:16:30.120 | and she was a homeschooling mom.
00:16:32.040 | And I thought, yeah, but you're on the mission field.
00:16:34.040 | So obviously that's what you're gonna do.
00:16:36.200 | And I was talking to her about,
00:16:38.440 | I'm thinking I'm considering homeschooling,
00:16:40.920 | but I'm not really sure when to start or how to start.
00:16:44.920 | And I'm not really sure that I'm really up for this.
00:16:47.720 | And she looked at me so funny and she said,
00:16:51.160 | what are you even talking about?
00:16:53.560 | She said, I have lived with you for a week
00:16:56.760 | and I have watched you with your children.
00:16:59.320 | You are already homeschooling.
00:17:02.360 | What do you mean you're already doing it?
00:17:05.640 | And I said, but I don't have a curriculum.
00:17:09.400 | She said, you, like you were just saying, Amy,
00:17:13.160 | you are teaching your child how to set the table
00:17:17.400 | and how to fix breakfast and how to serve a guest
00:17:21.320 | and how to take turns and how to go to the library
00:17:27.080 | and how to keep up with your belongings.
00:17:29.560 | And what makes the sun rise?
00:17:33.160 | And why is it cooler now?
00:17:35.960 | And why does the moon follow me?
00:17:38.200 | And she said, you're answering all of the questions.
00:17:41.320 | She said, you're already homeschooling.
00:17:44.040 | But I suspect a lot of our listeners
00:17:49.400 | were saying to themselves the things that you and I said, Amy.
00:17:53.960 | We have to have a curriculum when we start homeschooling.
00:18:00.680 | If we're going to really homeschool,
00:18:03.160 | we need to have a start date and we need to have a schedule
00:18:07.800 | and we need to have a daily lesson plan
00:18:11.560 | and we need to have a space dedicated in our home
00:18:14.760 | where we always go and sit
00:18:16.280 | and we need to have a routine or a schedule.
00:18:19.720 | And so we think that even when our children are really little
00:18:25.640 | and we know they're not really ready
00:18:28.520 | for a regimented kind of day,
00:18:32.360 | that that would be very odd and hard for all of us to get used to.
00:18:38.920 | Yeah, but we get so anxious about it
00:18:42.680 | because in our minds, there is school and homeschool.
00:18:49.320 | And then there's before we start.
00:18:51.960 | And I just want us to think,
00:18:53.560 | I think that one of my desires with this podcast
00:18:59.480 | is for us to blur those lines a little bit,
00:19:02.760 | to realize that the camera's really kind of blurred there.
00:19:06.840 | The edges are very blurred.
00:19:08.680 | If you're going to begin homeschooling
00:19:14.200 | with your three and four and five-year-old even,
00:19:17.400 | it might not need to look like you always thought it needed to look.
00:19:25.160 | Amy, let me ask you this.
00:19:27.160 | Is there a real line between homeschooling and not homeschooling yet?
00:19:34.360 | Yes, I think part of it is--
00:19:36.920 | and this is what we have to wrestle with.
00:19:40.760 | And it's a good wrestling, Lisa.
00:19:43.080 | It's a very important definition
00:19:49.800 | that we need to really hammer out within our family culture.
00:19:55.160 | What is education?
00:20:03.960 | What does that mean?
00:20:05.160 | And what kind of human being are we becoming?
00:20:14.680 | And how does that work?
00:20:16.200 | And I think that there's really not--
00:20:19.400 | if you think of education in terms of learning about the world
00:20:26.760 | and other people and the culture,
00:20:30.040 | and if you think about education in a very broad sense,
00:20:33.720 | there's not a line because we're doing it all the time.
00:20:37.960 | I'm still doing it.
00:20:39.080 | You're still doing it.
00:20:40.120 | We're still learning and growing because we're eternal beings.
00:20:44.440 | God is shaping and forming us as believers into the conformity of Christ.
00:20:49.640 | And that encompasses a whole lot of things.
00:20:54.280 | The world is a really big, complicated, deep, rich, wide, open place.
00:20:59.960 | So, and it's going to take more than a lifetime, right, to discover all that.
00:21:05.000 | So that's the journey God has us on.
00:21:07.960 | And I think what the struggle with us is that our education,
00:21:15.160 | I'm saying our public education system really, really narrows that vision.
00:21:20.680 | Very, very, very, very, very small and very, very fragmented and different.
00:21:28.200 | And they label it different parts as if you're a different parts,
00:21:34.280 | like you're a reading person or you're--
00:21:36.600 | Right.
00:21:37.240 | This is your math part.
00:21:38.520 | Or this is, we're going to socialize you now
00:21:42.440 | because you're going to learn how to deal with your neighbor and who is your neighbor.
00:21:46.760 | And it's all like relegated instead of going, that's not who we--
00:21:51.640 | that's just very unnatural.
00:21:54.040 | That's just not--
00:21:54.600 | Right, that's actually not how the world is.
00:21:59.400 | No, no.
00:22:00.440 | I mean, hardly ever do you function with just in a room with 28 people who are your same age.
00:22:08.520 | Well, and--
00:22:09.000 | When is that?
00:22:09.640 | That never happens in real life.
00:22:11.560 | And what does that mean if I'm 25 and there are other 25-year-olds?
00:22:16.520 | Are we all the same?
00:22:18.120 | Are we all going to learn in the same way, in the same pattern?
00:22:21.880 | Like, oh, I know calculus and you don't.
00:22:24.920 | So you must not be up to par on being a 25-year-old.
00:22:28.840 | It's so unnatural to think--
00:22:30.920 | Yeah, yeah.
00:22:32.040 | So peer-oriented and so much like this standardized idea of how we move even through stages.
00:22:40.760 | I mean, people say, oh, you're a late bloomer.
00:22:44.440 | What does that mean?
00:22:45.560 | Like, are we on time for something?
00:22:50.200 | And so I think the way the homeschooling is like, to me, it's much more you are--
00:22:57.400 | You must study, naturally study your children.
00:23:02.920 | You study and you think and you pray and you talk to your spouse and you talk to your community
00:23:09.720 | and like, hey, it seems like they're struggling here.
00:23:13.000 | Is that struggling or are they just not ready?
00:23:15.240 | And I think that's a really good struggle.
00:23:19.480 | I think that's a really good wrestling God allows us to go through, because we have to
00:23:24.440 | come out with what's the definition of who our family is, what we believe, how we want
00:23:31.720 | to treat one another, who we want to invite into our home, and how we want to serve people.
00:23:37.640 | And how do we want to pray?
00:23:39.320 | How do I want to expose them to what the world is like?
00:23:43.160 | Do I want them exposed in this way or that?
00:23:45.960 | How am I going to-- how are we going to shepherd, protect?
00:23:49.160 | And I don't know.
00:23:50.360 | To me, it's much like you said, the line is-- there's not a line.
00:23:55.720 | Like, one day I'm going to start learning something because I'm five and then up until
00:24:00.040 | then, nope.
00:24:01.080 | It's just-- and we're sort of told that it doesn't-- our world doesn't validate our humanity
00:24:09.720 | well, and I think we are tempted-- and I'm totally this person-- tempted to validate
00:24:18.760 | our schooling by going back to that model that we were familiar-- or I was familiar
00:24:27.800 | with.
00:24:28.440 | Absolutely, when we feel like we need a checklist.
00:24:31.320 | Yeah, there's a lesson--
00:24:32.360 | Or a progress report.
00:24:33.560 | A progress report.
00:24:34.680 | And at the end of the day, or like, did you make a percentage?
00:24:39.000 | Did you know all the answers?
00:24:42.920 | That's good.
00:24:44.200 | Did you know half the answers?
00:24:46.040 | That's bad.
00:24:47.160 | You know, so I've been sort of conditioned to believe that, and we are kind of put on
00:24:52.760 | the spotlight when people ask us, "Well, what do you do every day?"
00:24:56.120 | You know, my child always said, "Well, nothing really."
00:24:59.160 | I know!
00:25:00.120 | My kids-- I remember one answer.
00:25:03.800 | My older child said, "Oh, well, we never really did school at all until Sarah was in
00:25:08.760 | kindergarten."
00:25:09.480 | Well, by then, Stephanie was in the third grade, and I'm like, "Oh, my stars.
00:25:13.880 | They're going to come for me."
00:25:15.160 | That's not the truth, but then-- but now I can look back and be very pleased.
00:25:21.400 | I'm actually very excited for those three years of her life.
00:25:27.000 | She was learning so much, but she didn't think that was school because it was so interesting
00:25:33.000 | and it was so fun.
00:25:34.040 | And so that's actually awesome.
00:25:36.600 | See, I know now, and I can tell from listening to you, I know now that to begin homeschooling,
00:25:44.680 | like all these people are asking me, to begin homeschooling, I did not need a full curriculum
00:25:52.440 | or a heavily planned schedule, but just like you're saying, Amy, I did need to have thought
00:26:01.160 | about what I wanted my kids to learn and why I wanted them to know those things.
00:26:07.880 | And I needed to know something about how I would like to introduce them to people and
00:26:13.720 | places and ideas.
00:26:16.120 | So why is that pre-thinking?
00:26:18.680 | Because, you know, I'll be honest, people come up and they say, "Okay, I'm ready to
00:26:22.840 | start homeschooling my kids.
00:26:24.040 | I think it's time for us to start homeschooling."
00:26:26.680 | And they ask me about a curriculum and a schedule.
00:26:29.720 | But I would like to say to people, that's actually not the first thing.
00:26:35.560 | Actually, the first thing is to think about, like what you were saying, what do we want
00:26:40.280 | our family to be like?
00:26:41.800 | What are our family's-- what are our family's goals and what are our family's rules and
00:26:47.640 | what are our family's priorities?
00:26:50.200 | And how do we want to learn and how much do we want to do together?
00:26:54.360 | Why are those--why is that pre-thinking stuff so important, Amy?
00:26:59.480 | >> Well, I think what it does is it brings us back again to--it forces us to think, well,
00:27:09.240 | what is the definition of a family?
00:27:11.320 | It's the first culture God has designed, right?
00:27:14.840 | He designed this beautiful culture of dad, mom, and child, and that there are children
00:27:24.920 | and he says, "These are blessings.
00:27:26.920 | These are blessings that he's bestowed on us."
00:27:29.800 | And so seeing that in light of that, that--and he also reminds us like when you're standing
00:27:38.440 | up or walking or eating at the table, that you are testifying to the goodness of his
00:27:45.880 | nature.
00:27:46.600 | And then we're helping children recognize like, look, here's the Lord.
00:27:50.760 | Look, he created this world or what you're interested in, you know, this turtle or this
00:27:56.280 | cloud or, you know, you are--like you said, you're under--you're thinking and praying
00:28:04.680 | and being deliberate.
00:28:05.800 | I want to say this is not just Harry Carey, you know, you're not just like, "Oh, well,
00:28:12.520 | what's our day going to be like?"
00:28:14.040 | It's not like that.
00:28:15.000 | It's like, what is the shaping and forming of this culture that we're creating?
00:28:22.440 | And we're creating a heritage.
00:28:24.280 | I mean, you see it in your family.
00:28:25.720 | You have grandchildren, and they're going to have children, and they're going to have
00:28:28.920 | children.
00:28:29.480 | So what is it that the Lord would call us and how he would want us to shape our family?
00:28:36.120 | And I think that that pre-thinking and just spending time praying and studying your children
00:28:42.520 | and recognize the uniqueness of your own home.
00:28:46.360 | Like, where has he put us?
00:28:47.720 | Has he put us in a neighborhood?
00:28:49.000 | Has he put us on a farm?
00:28:50.360 | Has he put us in an apartment?
00:28:51.880 | Has he put us--where has he put us?
00:28:53.880 | What church setting has he put us in?
00:28:55.800 | And so the rhythm of the day, I would strongly recommend that you don't have to have a schedule,
00:29:03.400 | like at 9.02 we do this and 9.03.
00:29:05.640 | But saying, "Okay, we have a predictable rhythm of our day, and I want to think about
00:29:11.640 | what that looks like."
00:29:12.600 | Like if dad doesn't go to work until 10 a.m., mom needs to sleep in because she's a nurse
00:29:19.160 | or whatever, then contemplate, like, "Okay, here's the rhythm of our day.
00:29:24.200 | We take Fridays off because dad is home or we work on Saturday because of that."
00:29:29.960 | You know, think about the rhythm of your family.
00:29:32.600 | It doesn't have to sit in a strict, like, eight o'clock to three o'clock.
00:29:37.480 | The bus drops them off.
00:29:38.520 | You know, it's not like that.
00:29:40.280 | So really allowing yourself the freedom to examine the uniqueness of your family and
00:29:47.640 | then incorporating a rhythm to your family.
00:29:51.000 | And then, yeah, the curriculum is pretty much, it can be a life curriculum, right?
00:29:59.880 | But it's also like how, look around, what community are we in?
00:30:04.360 | How can we serve other people?
00:30:05.880 | How do we start our day?
00:30:08.440 | Like in prayer, help them to, you know, they delight in what you delight in.
00:30:12.760 | So finding your delight in the Lord and seeking Him, like letting them see you pray, letting
00:30:18.920 | them see this is how we serve one another in our home and how we serve people outside
00:30:23.160 | our home.
00:30:23.800 | What are some things that are exciting to explore?
00:30:26.680 | And that's where, to me, that exploration stage, or it's where you can really start
00:30:32.600 | incorporating.
00:30:33.000 | If you want curriculum, just listen to your kids.
00:30:37.000 | Like, what are they really interested in?
00:30:39.800 | And then looking for, I don't know, salamanders.
00:30:44.440 | Well, go to the prairie and go to the aquarium and look around in a stream and draw some
00:30:51.800 | pictures.
00:30:52.680 | And, you know, that start, I think it really, for younger kids, it really helps if you sort
00:31:00.440 | of start your own curriculum exploration, like give it a shot, you know, just say, you
00:31:08.360 | know, we're just going to give it a shot this way.
00:31:10.600 | We're going to listen to what do you want to learn about, and then we're going to figure
00:31:15.080 | it out.
00:31:15.640 | And then I'm going to examine it at the end of the week.
00:31:17.880 | Well, hey, how did that work?
00:31:20.760 | You know, did we write?
00:31:22.200 | Did we learn any words?
00:31:23.720 | Like, did we learn any new words?
00:31:25.960 | Maybe we learned what a hellbender was.
00:31:27.880 | I never know what a salamander was.
00:31:29.400 | Maybe we went to the aquarium.
00:31:32.200 | You know, just I think you'll be surprised at what you, your children learn.
00:31:39.800 | They're just natural little learners.
00:31:43.160 | And I don't think you have to have it all together.
00:31:45.800 | Yeah, I know you don't, because I never did.
00:31:47.720 | And I know you really don't.
00:31:49.320 | And you don't.
00:31:50.440 | For those moms and dads who are listening, who say, okay, I'm talking about, I feel like,
00:31:57.560 | you know, my three-year-old and my four-year-old are ready to do something.
00:32:02.760 | And I'm not trying to teach them to read.
00:32:05.080 | I know that I don't need a quote unquote curriculum.
00:32:08.840 | But what is it that I'm supposed to be doing?
00:32:13.800 | If I say I'm going to start homeschooling them, what would it look like?
00:32:17.080 | Amy, you have given some beautiful ideas.
00:32:21.480 | So you don't have to have a schedule where every day at nine o'clock you do this and
00:32:27.320 | every day at two o'clock you do that.
00:32:29.320 | But having a rhythm or a routine is actually very comforting to children.
00:32:40.840 | They actually like enough of a routine that things are predictable.
00:32:48.040 | It makes them feel safe.
00:32:50.120 | It helps them feel a little bit in control.
00:32:52.280 | Because let's face it, a three-year-old is not in control of much.
00:32:55.720 | And hello, at home should not be the one in control of the family.
00:33:00.360 | That's a big mistake.
00:33:01.800 | If you have made that mistake, you are already feeling the effects.
00:33:04.680 | But having things be predictable.
00:33:08.120 | So it may be that a rhythm or routine might look like every morning you snuggle in bed
00:33:18.600 | to wake up, and you read a Bible verse, and you get up and you make the bed.
00:33:24.120 | And they know that after that, every morning we're going to eat breakfast, and then we're
00:33:28.840 | going to brush our teeth, and then we'll do some little chores.
00:33:32.200 | And everybody has their own chore, and then maybe you rotate.
00:33:35.640 | And maybe every morning you read, and then every morning you play outside.
00:33:42.920 | And then there's lots of things, like Amy was describing, that fit into there.
00:33:47.960 | Maybe you are really interested in why are the leaves in the backyard red, and they used
00:33:55.640 | to be green.
00:33:56.840 | So maybe you're going to read The Fall of Freddy the Leaf, or you're going to go to
00:34:02.280 | the library and find books about what happens to the forest in the fall, or what doesn't
00:34:08.840 | happen to the forest in the fall, depending on where you live.
00:34:11.240 | And then you're going to go outside and play, and you're going to collect things that weren't
00:34:17.320 | there two months ago.
00:34:18.920 | Why are there acorns on the ground now?
00:34:21.560 | But it's a routine.
00:34:24.360 | And then people eat lunch, and then you have nap time, or maybe you have quiet in your
00:34:28.840 | room with a book time.
00:34:30.280 | These are predictable things.
00:34:33.080 | It's not a schedule.
00:34:35.000 | And you can change it up.
00:34:37.080 | But if you are looking for something that says, "I am now intentionally doing something,"
00:34:44.920 | a routine is very comforting for a little child, but it also helps you as the mom or
00:34:51.480 | dad, the homeschool parent, to feel like you are intentionally creating an atmosphere of
00:34:59.560 | family learning.
00:35:00.840 | Yes, exactly.
00:35:02.440 | That's exactly right.
00:35:03.800 | And the routine, you're not recreating the day from scratch every day.
00:35:10.920 | Right.
00:35:11.420 | It's exhausting.
00:35:13.240 | If you've been a first year teacher, and you get through the first week, and you go,
00:35:17.000 | "I've got to do 50 more weeks of this," you cannot do it.
00:35:21.240 | You cannot make Disney World every day in your home.
00:35:24.600 | You cannot do that.
00:35:25.880 | And it's not healthy for your children.
00:35:28.200 | So to me, that rhythm, that routine, we all thrive on that.
00:35:32.280 | And as a mother, I felt like it was sort of expected.
00:35:37.800 | So it kind of carried.
00:35:39.080 | I wasn't pushing the rock up the hill every day like, "Okay, yes."
00:35:42.920 | Surprise.
00:35:43.420 | Do chores.
00:35:44.840 | Like, no, every day we do chores.
00:35:46.680 | Now, sometimes, a lot of times, we got resistance.
00:35:49.720 | Like, "Why do I have to empty the dishwasher?"
00:35:51.560 | And you're like, "Okay, but this is what we do."
00:35:54.040 | It just helped everyone know what their expectations were.
00:35:57.320 | And that also helped with discipline.
00:36:01.160 | Like, when you did have a child that complained or was like, whined, that they have to go
00:36:05.800 | to devotions.
00:36:07.000 | Yes, of course.
00:36:09.160 | Here's a great opportunity for us to learn about our character is to practice the self-discipline
00:36:16.760 | or to fold our hands when we pray instead of poke our neighbor.
00:36:20.120 | You know, those are ways.
00:36:23.000 | And isn't that the way God teaches us?
00:36:25.400 | He's like, there's those rhythms.
00:36:27.560 | And when we rail against those, it's like we get disciplined or God shows us something
00:36:33.560 | about ourselves that we're like, "Wow, I didn't realize that I had a struggle
00:36:38.440 | with obedience."
00:36:39.400 | You know, it's just how He teaches us.
00:36:42.200 | And I think, honestly, you as parents are really their curriculum.
00:36:47.480 | Your love for them and your delight in things and the way you manage.
00:36:51.880 | And it's not perfection, the way you seek forgiveness.
00:36:55.960 | I mean, I think even apologizing to your children sometimes like, "Mommy was grouchy.
00:37:00.280 | I'm so sorry."
00:37:02.200 | That really, those lessons, Lisa, are the hidden ones.
00:37:07.800 | And it is so, it is.
00:37:11.160 | It's very beautiful.
00:37:12.520 | And when you are learning alongside your children, when you are with them every day, you see
00:37:19.800 | those little foibles that come up so easily and so surely in all of our children.
00:37:28.600 | But it also, when you are with them every day and you think, "Okay, A, I don't want
00:37:33.960 | to always deal with this.
00:37:35.320 | I don't want to have to deal with this every day.
00:37:37.720 | We need to find a solution to this."
00:37:40.040 | But when you're with your child every day, you know your child's personality.
00:37:44.360 | And you know when, "Okay, so this is defiance, but this is anything.
00:37:49.960 | Weariness, fear, anxiety, hunger.
00:37:54.200 | And what do I need?
00:37:56.200 | What is this?
00:37:57.000 | What is this child?
00:37:58.280 | Who is this child?
00:38:00.040 | And how can I help this child to cope?"
00:38:02.920 | I know with my grandson, who's two, pretty verbal too.
00:38:08.120 | So he will, he has, oh, sometimes he does not want to, he just wants to do what he wants
00:38:16.680 | to do.
00:38:17.560 | And he is quite persistent in that.
00:38:21.080 | Want to do this.
00:38:22.200 | Want to do this.
00:38:23.240 | Want to do this.
00:38:24.120 | And you try to distract him.
00:38:25.960 | What we have discovered works with him is when he gets, when he starts to kind of spin
00:38:32.760 | out of control because this thing he wants to do or wants to see is not going to be forthcoming
00:38:39.000 | right away, we will say to him, "That cannot happen."
00:38:41.880 | I'll hold his hand.
00:38:42.840 | "But do you want me to tell you the plan?"
00:38:44.840 | And he's like, "Yes."
00:38:47.560 | And I said, "Okay, this is the plan.
00:38:49.160 | First, we are going to change sister.
00:38:52.840 | Then we are going to get a milk drink.
00:38:55.800 | Then we are going to find your shoes.
00:38:57.960 | Then we are going to go outside.
00:39:01.400 | And if it is still raining, we will stomp in the puddles."
00:39:04.520 | And so then he's like, "Okay, he can go with the plan."
00:39:09.240 | But, you know, you would think, I don't need to explain this to a two-year-old.
00:39:15.640 | I just need to say, "No, not now."
00:39:17.400 | But that's not where he is.
00:39:19.400 | He's actually in the thinking about it.
00:39:21.880 | Why can't I do it now?
00:39:24.040 | And that works for him.
00:39:25.240 | So for parents who are thinking, "I feel like I need to be doing something intentionally.
00:39:34.840 | If I'm going to be homeschooling, it needs to look like something."
00:39:39.160 | Well, I want you to hold the "look like something" very loosely.
00:39:42.920 | It can be just as broad as we were saying that that routine is.
00:39:50.040 | But the pieces can look different.
00:39:53.000 | What's inside each activity could look different every day.
00:39:58.520 | And listen, the duration of each piece might be different every day.
00:40:03.800 | Amy, did you always do the same thing for the same amount of time every day?
00:40:07.560 | I don't remember.
00:40:09.560 | I told my daughter who's homeschooling.
00:40:12.520 | I probably, in the 20-something years we homeschooled, maybe had 10 days that went, quote,
00:40:18.120 | "well," or like I thought.
00:40:20.440 | Maybe.
00:40:21.080 | Maybe.
00:40:21.400 | I don't even know if there were 10.
00:40:22.680 | No.
00:40:23.400 | Because you're dealing with human beings.
00:40:26.520 | If I was working in a factory, I could say I turned out 20,000 chocolate bonbons.
00:40:34.920 | And that would be measured.
00:40:37.640 | And I would get a pat on the head and send home.
00:40:40.120 | But that's just not how people work.
00:40:44.680 | If you look at even in terms of Scripture, there's nothing.
00:40:49.320 | There's so many unpredictable things that people do.
00:40:52.600 | And God works very individualistically with us.
00:40:57.880 | He knows.
00:40:59.560 | He knows our form.
00:41:00.840 | He knows before words are on our mouth.
00:41:03.400 | I mean, He knows us.
00:41:04.600 | He knows us so well.
00:41:05.880 | And we invite Him to search us and know us.
00:41:09.880 | So there's this beauty of, and I think that's the loveliness of being a parent.
00:41:16.120 | It is so amazing that we get to study a human being.
00:41:21.880 | We get to, like you said, discover things about children like, oh, like this child,
00:41:29.320 | they need quiet in the afternoon.
00:41:32.520 | Yes.
00:41:33.080 | This child needs to run and fill the floor.
00:41:38.600 | This child, this child is a wiggle worm, you know.
00:41:41.880 | This child is going to ask a million questions.
00:41:44.600 | I have one.
00:41:45.480 | It's like Gideon, like what he would like, what's first?
00:41:49.800 | What second he would ask?
00:41:51.000 | Well, what are we doing today?
00:41:53.000 | It used to drive me crazy.
00:41:54.120 | I think, well, why does he keep asking?
00:41:55.720 | I know, what's it to you, kid?
00:41:57.880 | Why does it matter?
00:42:00.600 | But it really mattered to him.
00:42:02.520 | Like he knew how to anticipate for his day.
00:42:05.320 | And so we would just stop and say, well, now we're going to do this.
00:42:09.000 | And then next we're going to do this.
00:42:10.440 | And then after that, we're going to, you know, do this.
00:42:12.600 | And that was just settling.
00:42:14.760 | And we're all different like that.
00:42:16.520 | And I tried just giving ourselves the grace to apply to others.
00:42:22.520 | We are not.
00:42:23.240 | And, and also to realize you're not going to get it right.
00:42:26.600 | You're, you're not, you're, you're going to wrong sometimes.
00:42:30.680 | And I feel like what I loved about the Lord is he would reassure us that if I got it wrong
00:42:36.760 | the first time, bye, cracky, I would have to, it would be another time.
00:42:42.520 | I would practice the skill of not getting frustrated or understanding what long suffering
00:42:49.240 | means, not in a bad way, but knowing how to appreciate someone, to put someone else's
00:42:56.120 | interest ahead of my own.
00:42:57.560 | I mean, I found out how much selfish ambition and empty could see my lands when I had children.
00:43:03.720 | It was so bad.
00:43:06.520 | And I just think sometimes offering ourselves the grace and the grace to our children to
00:43:11.480 | recognize God has put a, you're only going to have one Gideon in the entire, if you think
00:43:17.800 | about it, one Gideon of all the billions of people that are born on this world, in this
00:43:24.840 | world, only one, you know?
00:43:27.480 | And so what privilege?
00:43:30.120 | I just think, my goodness, what else could I be doing that's better than that?
00:43:35.400 | You know, like, I don't know what I could be investing in, except this eternal little
00:43:41.160 | being.
00:43:41.560 | That's right.
00:43:42.520 | You're shepherding this little soul.
00:43:44.760 | It's remarkable.
00:43:46.760 | Yes.
00:43:47.560 | You know, it's the kind of thing where we think homeschool is only about teaching our
00:43:55.320 | child to read, or to relate to numbers well, or to be able to orient events in time, or
00:44:04.600 | look at something under a microscope and know how to, you know, move the eyepiece so that
00:44:13.880 | we can see it clearly.
00:44:15.160 | We think all of those things as school, all of those things as homeschooling.
00:44:19.320 | But listen, parents of three and four-year-olds are not primarily considering those things.
00:44:26.600 | So what are we hoping to do?
00:44:29.480 | Well, you are hoping to raise a child who is unselfish, as far as a three and four-year-old
00:44:37.080 | can be unselfish.
00:44:39.080 | You're trying to raise a child who knows how to take turns and to sit quietly.
00:44:44.920 | So what are some, Amy, help me think.
00:44:47.320 | What are some of those foundational ideas, like kindness and sharing, and some of those
00:44:56.760 | foundational skills, like tying your shoe and setting the table?
00:45:02.920 | Things that aren't academic, but that are awesome starting points for shepherding these
00:45:10.840 | little souls into their growing up years.
00:45:14.520 | Oh, yeah.
00:45:15.080 | I think, and I would just say, you know, definitely you have good manners, like how you greet
00:45:25.560 | people, or, you know, maybe you want to visit someone.
00:45:30.920 | Like our young ones, sometimes their great-grandmother, you know, older people look a little untouchable.
00:45:37.880 | Just kind of helping them understand about people and how to greet people, you know,
00:45:44.200 | how to wash your hands, you know, how to help another child, like playing with a younger
00:45:52.520 | sibling on, like on their terms instead of your terms.
00:45:56.120 | That's really tricky.
00:45:58.360 | And understand that, and you can model those things, you know, how to celebrate the day,
00:46:04.520 | like, ooh, what can, what fun thing did you do to help them report back?
00:46:08.680 | What are some, let's think about some things that were fun today, and what we can be thankful
00:46:14.200 | for, and not in a heavy handed way, but just like, wasn't it fun to take that walk today?
00:46:20.680 | Wasn't that a surprise when we saw daddy come home?
00:46:24.040 | You know, I think just helping them recognize or drawing attention to things in their day,
00:46:30.760 | in the rhythm of their day that are really good things, or like, ooh, it really hurt,
00:46:36.280 | you know, so-and-so's feelings when we were unkind, you know, and having those conversations
00:46:41.720 | about behavior, but also character, and also just like how you use a spoon, or how do you
00:46:48.520 | set the table?
00:46:49.640 | Yes, yes.
00:46:51.000 | Little things that that's a way we, let's go pick flowers for the table tonight, you
00:46:54.920 | know, little decorations and helping them recognize that that blesses and helps other
00:47:00.520 | people feel good, you know, but also there are just, educate yourself as a mom or dad,
00:47:07.240 | like, what are some little things they should be doing?
00:47:09.880 | Can they skip yet?
00:47:11.160 | Or one foot, can they ride a tricycle?
00:47:15.400 | Or can they hold a pencil or a crayon?
00:47:18.600 | Get them to just scribble.
00:47:20.680 | Yeah, there are all kinds of things that will help them develop large muscle coordination
00:47:26.520 | and small muscle coordination.
00:47:28.280 | And there are, for three and four year olds, there are all kinds of activities that will
00:47:34.360 | lead to reading and writing that aren't, that you would say, but that's not, that's not
00:47:41.640 | learning how to read.
00:47:43.000 | But learning how to track from left to right is part of learning how to read.
00:47:48.680 | So, so what do you do?
00:47:51.320 | So when you're reading before, before nap time, put your finger under the words that
00:47:57.720 | you're reading and move from left to right.
00:47:59.960 | Or when you are doing puzzles with your kids, take all the puzzle pieces out and put them
00:48:05.720 | to the left of the puzzle.
00:48:07.720 | And then you're moving from left to right to put the puzzle back together.
00:48:12.760 | Things like, things like that.
00:48:14.760 | Things like identifying letters and identifying numbers.
00:48:20.280 | When you're at the store or riding down the road or taking a walk, you can do it with
00:48:25.960 | house numbers or finding patterns is great.
00:48:30.600 | I can remember not realizing that finding patterns, seeing patterns in the world is
00:48:40.360 | math.
00:48:41.480 | And I can remember when my oldest daughter was really little, she went through this phase
00:48:46.840 | where she wanted to play blocks like all the time.
00:48:49.960 | I mean, so often, so much blocks.
00:48:52.440 | And I would just, you know, I would get enough of the blocks pretty fast.
00:48:56.200 | I realized that I was playing the blocks beside of her.
00:49:01.960 | She didn't always need me to be, you know, making the story or the tower with her.
00:49:07.000 | And so I was picking up blocks and I was, I didn't really realize that I was laying
00:49:12.440 | them down in color patterns just to keep my brain from just turning to mush as we sat
00:49:18.040 | there on the floor for hours.
00:49:19.320 | And then one day she looked to see what I was doing and she watched me for a while.
00:49:26.040 | And then she reached over and picked up the next block.
00:49:29.080 | And it was the continuation of the pattern.
00:49:31.560 | And I had no idea that she was paying attention.
00:49:35.400 | That's a math skill.
00:49:36.680 | That's a math skill.
00:49:38.600 | Making cookies is a math skill because it's measurement.
00:49:41.720 | Playing with water.
00:49:43.720 | Gideon the other night was in the big bathtub at my house.
00:49:46.680 | He loves Lolly's bathtub because it's big.
00:49:49.400 | And he had two cups in his hand, little plastic cups, and they were similar in size, but not
00:49:54.600 | exact.
00:49:55.400 | And so he was filling the water up and then he'd pour all the blue cup into the green
00:49:59.480 | cup and then all the green cup into the blue cup.
00:50:01.800 | And he went back and forth like that for a while.
00:50:04.440 | And then he was not really paying attention to me.
00:50:06.840 | He was looking down, he said almost to himself, and he held up the green cup and he said,
00:50:11.320 | "That's the big one."
00:50:13.080 | You know, it's like, "That's my word.
00:50:16.200 | You're right."
00:50:16.680 | And so then he played for a while and then he said, "The blue one is little."
00:50:21.160 | And then he just went on.
00:50:22.520 | You know, they're making observations.
00:50:24.760 | So intentional play, there are ways that you can make play intentional and winsome and
00:50:37.480 | engaging for little people and big people.
00:50:41.240 | And that's best.
00:50:42.920 | That's the best way to usher your family into homeschooling.
00:50:46.520 | - It is.
00:50:47.960 | And it's just, if you can imagine from the time those, that infant to the time they're
00:50:55.640 | three, think of everything they have learned in those three years.
00:51:01.080 | Think it is absolutely amazing what their little brains and bodies are doing and discovering
00:51:08.600 | and learning.
00:51:09.400 | You don't have to do much more than just, if they can think about a three year, think
00:51:14.600 | about Gideon.
00:51:15.240 | Was he two?
00:51:16.440 | - Yeah, he's two.
00:51:17.480 | - He's walking.
00:51:20.120 | He was an infant.
00:51:22.040 | He probably, I don't know, weighed seven pounds, you know.
00:51:24.920 | And just the Lord has so blessed our children with that natural interest, the natural proclivity
00:51:32.520 | to learn and move.
00:51:33.880 | And I think sometimes I just limited them because of my own limitations of understanding
00:51:39.480 | what you need to do this when in front of you, there is so much in your home.
00:51:44.520 | You don't have to buy lots of stuff.
00:51:46.600 | There's so much around that you can just like, yes, pouring water, like hours.
00:51:52.200 | - Yes, playing in the sink.
00:51:54.600 | My girls like to play Polly's in the sink.
00:51:57.080 | Yes, they did.
00:51:57.880 | - Yes, so just being aware and being open to understanding how this person, this is
00:52:05.800 | a person that God has designed and you get the privilege of being part of how you shape
00:52:12.280 | and form them and just asking the Lord to open my eyes.
00:52:15.800 | That's what I had to do.
00:52:16.840 | Show me because I was pretty limited in my vision at first, but the Lord is gracious.
00:52:24.520 | - I love that, Amy.
00:52:26.360 | I love that.
00:52:28.120 | So moms and dads, this is what we're saying.
00:52:30.280 | Don't let your idea of home-centered education be dictated by the narrow version of education
00:52:41.480 | you may have had as you were growing up.
00:52:45.800 | Realize that your family can learn together and with your really young children that you
00:52:55.080 | want to ease into the homeschool journey, you can teach a plethora of things through
00:53:04.280 | intentional play, through conversation, and through wonder and imagination.
00:53:11.880 | And that is the perfect, that's the perfect path for the beginning of your homeschool
00:53:17.640 | journey.
00:53:18.120 | We think that you will enjoy it more than you ever believed possible if you can relax
00:53:27.560 | and enjoy the journey with your kids.
00:53:31.640 | I want to tell you, though, if you still are interested and you want to know what maybe
00:53:38.120 | it would look like in a few more years when you are ready for a community, when you are
00:53:44.040 | ready for maybe a little more intentional learning, a little more structured play, you
00:53:51.880 | may be interested in what makes our classical conversations groups unique.
00:54:00.120 | If you are interested in homeschooling or interested in the classical conversations
00:54:06.360 | communities you hear so much about, you can go online to classicalconversations.com/events
00:54:18.520 | and find out about local open houses near you.
00:54:23.480 | You will discover our Christ-centered classical approach to education.
00:54:29.240 | And you'll meet some other CC parents, some experienced CC parents, and you can get instant
00:54:36.520 | answers to some of your homeschooling questions.
00:54:39.800 | So find an information near you or even one online.
00:54:44.440 | Go to classicalconversations.com/events.
00:54:51.400 | Well, I hope that this has given you some good things to think about and maybe been
00:54:56.280 | a little bit of an encouragement, too.
00:54:58.280 | Amy, I appreciate walking down memory lane with you and getting some good ideas from
00:55:04.360 | you that I'm going to use with my grandkids.
00:55:06.920 | So I appreciate you being with me today.
00:55:09.000 | It's been a lovely conversation.
00:55:10.840 | Thank you, Lisa.
00:55:11.720 | It's a lot of fun.
00:55:12.840 | Yeah, I love it.
00:55:13.960 | I love it.
00:55:14.520 | Listeners, I'll see you next week, okay?
00:55:17.240 | Bye-bye.
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