Are you new to homeschooling and really want someone to talk to? Are you wondering how you are going to make it through this first year of homeschooling your kids?
This week on the podcast I chat with Lindsey Casselman of Linden Tree Learning. She shares some practical advice for new homeschoolers to ease the overwhelm.
Listen to the podcast here:
Lindsey received a Bachelor of Arts from Brock University in St. Catharines, ON, followed by a Bachelor of Education from York University in Toronto, ON. At York she was accepted into the Urban Diversity Teacher’s Education program, which trains students to become teachers who emphasize equity, diversity, and social justice in their methodology.
Lindsey has two children and has been homeschooling them on their family hobby farm and honey bee apiary near Kingston, ON for the past 4 years.
Lindsey is very active in the homeschool community and enjoys planning events, organizing field trips, and creating homeschool content. She is passionate about helping people discover the joys of home education.
As a parent I seek to be kind and loving towards my children. Learning about what the bible has to say about gentleness really gets me excited and passionate. Some view gentleness as weak, but it takes great strength of character and self control to be gentle in many situations. Discovering what God has to say about gentleness truly encompasses all that I want to be!
To me gentle parenting is about treating my children the way I want them to treat others. So much of the parenting advice available encourages parents to show a firm hand and teach their kids a lesson. But no one would really want to be spoken to like that as an adult. Gentle parenting is humbling myself and valuing my children as worthy of respect and kindness. Recognizing that they are still learning and growing needing empathy as well as coaching and guidance.
This may sound idealistic but that is what makes my work as a parenting coach different. I am in the tenches as a working, homeschooling mom of three boys. Having struggled deeply and learned how to change my mindset and transform my family's life shows that I've done the hard work and understand what you are going through. You can read more about my story here.
It was such a joy and honour to write a guest post for Gentle Christian Parenting. Gentleness means showing care and respect for others in the way that we act and speak. This is why I love adding that wonderful word to the style of parenting I strive for.
Minimalism and Homeschooling to many sounds like an oxymoron. I mean many homeschoolers are known for their abundance of books and piles of curriculum. But your homeschooling journey doesn't have to feel overwhelming. It really is all about focusing on what is most important for your family. Then setting those priorities as what you choose to work on.
Join me on the podcast as I chat with Zara Fagen as we talk all about minimalist homeschooling.
Podcast:
YouTube:
Zara Fagen, PhD firmly believes that you don’t have to choose between educational success and sanity while homeschooling – you can have both by decluttering your child’s education.
Zara applies her unique brand of analysis and reproducible results that she gained as a neurobiologist to teach other homeschoolers how to be awesome at homeschooling, instead of trying to be it all.
Zara keeps things as simple as possible in Indiana with her husband, 4 children, and 3 businesses. She is a recovering perfectionist, proud science geek, and aspiring snowbird.
On the Podcast we talk about:
Advice to get started
What does minimalist homeschooling look like
Handling multiple kids in your homeschooling
Getting clear on what you value most
Why it's important to also focus on what your child loves
Tips for new homeschoolers
Shifting your mindset
You'll want to also check out Zara's new membership community too!
Are you frustrated with homeschooling, wondering how to make the light bulb in your child’s mind turn on more often? Here’s a key that almost always makes a difference: CONNECTING with your child. It’s like a switch.
Connecting with your child enables better learning. You may have heard homeschoolers say “The relationship with your child is always more important than curriculum.” This post elaborates on this idea, giving you an explanation and practical tips that will help you improve your homeschool journey from the foundation of a solid relationship.
**This post contains affiliate links. I do get a small ompensation if you sign up for Earthschooling using the link at the bottom*
Are you looking for an educational method that addresses the whole child?
Our family has been using Waldorf curriculums for years and we really love Earthschooling. I am so excited to have Kristi Burns with us on the podcast sharing all about Waldorf education and Earthschooling.
Listen to the podcast here
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Kristie is the Dean of Students and Director of Curriculum Development at Earthschooling
Dr. Kristie Burns, Mh, ND, Ph.D. has an BA in Anthropology and Linguistics from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She holds a masters and doctorate degree in plant biology and Naturopathy. She was trained as an early childhood Waldorf teacher and as an early-childhood Montessori assistant. Kristie has also attended and taught at numerous Waldorf Education Conferences from 1998 to 2009. Kristie worked as a private tutor from 1989 to 1995 and was an ESL tutor, and photography instructor at the American University in Cairo from 1991-1993.
Kristie taught classes and served as the director at a Waldorf-inpired Enrichment School in an International community for four years and at a Waldorf-inspired Enrichment School in Iowa for an additional six years. Kristie Burns has been creating Waldorf-inspired curriculum with a consulting board of professional Waldorf teachers since 1994. Kristie is also a Certified Wildlife Educator through the ZAA. Earthschooling was the first Waldorf curriculum to be offered online. When Earthschooling first started Kristie was advised against even trying to put Waldorf education online and was told that nobody would be interested in an online version of Waldorf education.
Her three children are now grown. Her eldest daughter is near completion of her Masters in Social Work degree and currently manages www.WaldorfBooks.com while also helping her run Earthschooling with an extended group of contractors and staff. Her youngest daughter writes music and stories and is pursuing a music career in LA after soaking up years of storytelling and music in her mom's Waldorf classes. Her son is an accomplished electrician's apprentice who loves creating and building things with his hands and can build almost anything once given the idea and a few instructions.
Now that is a bigger explanation and Kristi does a wonderful job of explaining that in the podcast. But Waldorf is based on the works of Rudolf Steiner who included the head, heart and hands into creating a holistic approach to learning. Topics are introduced at developmentally ready stages in our children's lives according to what is going on for them. I also appreciate that handiwork and the arts are just as important as core subjects.
In the podcast episode we discuss:
We talk about how Earthschooling started
How Kristie ensures that Earthschooling is Waldorf
What is Waldorf Education
How to teach multiple children
Advice for new homeschooler
How can we connect with you?
The best way to connect with us is by visiting www.Earthschooling.com and following us on Instagram @Earthschooling. Once you go to the landing page and read through it the next place I would recommend going to is the main SHOP page which you can get to by clicking on the SHOP tab at the top. Don’t scroll down to any of the categories. Just click SHOP. This will take you to a page with a bunch of icons that are fun to browse through and they give you a good idea of what we have available. We have everything from single lesson blocks to core curriculum, to curriculm packages and now, even a new project called The BEarth Academy, where we have real teachers teaching classes online for students.
If you go to www.EarthschoolingFREE.comyou can download three free full items and a lot of samples. There is also a tour through Earthschooling video there as well as samples of the curriculum from each grade.
I have a love/hate relationship with homeschool curriculum.
I’m obsessed with looking at new curriculum.
Waiting for the delivery guy…
Opening the box…
That new curriculum smell…
I think I’ve purchased more homeschool curriculum than I can even use in the 18 years I’ll be homeschooling.
But that’s why I hate it. I keep purchasing all this curriculum then I never use half of it.
Over the past few years, looking at curriculum for my own kiddos and working with thousands of homeschooling families, I’ve learned the 5 important things that you need to consider before choosing a homeschool curriculum.
When you take the time to reflect on these 5 things, your homeschool curriculum choices start to narrow and choosing the best one for your family becomes super easy.
Your Goals
Before you even hit Google to begin your search, you need to define your goals. I recommend creating 3-4 goals per kid. If you reach those goals, you can always create more, but it’s better to just focus on a few at a time.
I usually create 1 for math, 1 for reading, and 1 for writing. Make them specific and attainable within the school year. I tend to make goals that move them forward one small step until they fully master the skill.
By creating smaller goals, you and your child will feel more successful.
Now that you know your goals, you can begin looking for a curriculum that will help you achieve those goals.
Your Ideal Homeschool Day
Before you can consider how to start homeschooling, it’s important to think about your ideal homeschool day. If you lived in a perfect world, what would your homeschool day look like? What would you do? What would you learn about?
Write it all down and don’t hold back.
It’s a good idea to have your ideal homeschool day in your mind when looking for your homeschool curriculum.
The chance of your ideal day happening may be slim, but if you’re using a curriculum that doesn’t even allow for your ideal day to happen then it never will.
It’s all about having the possibility of your ideal homeschool day.
Your Educational Philosophy
Let’s travel back in time with this one. Take time to reflect on your past educational experiences. What were your favorite subjects? What did you enjoy about your education? What didn’t you enjoy? What would you change about your educational experiences?
Use your answers to design your own educational philosophy for your homeschool.
An important thing to remember here…
You are not choosing a homeschool method. You’re taking your past educational experiences and creating your own unique educational philosophy. How do you want your educational experiences to go for your kiddos?
Your Child’s Learning Style
Most homeschool parents don’t use a child’s learning style correctly. They tend to use only their preferred learning style, but that can severely limit your child’s educational experiences.
All kids learn best through hands-on experiences, no matter what their learning style may be.
A learning style should be used to introduce new concepts/skills then a hands-on activity should follow it to help solidify the information that was learned.
For example, if your child is an auditory learner, you may watch a documentary on fossils and archeology. To help make this information stick, you could follow the video with a fossil dig.
But there is a catch with learning styles as well. Just because your child has a preferred learning style, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use other types of learning styles to introduce concepts. You should use a variety of learning styles throughout the year, especially if your child has a hard time grasping a concept.
By introducing concepts in a variety of ways, your child deepens their learning and develops a greater understanding.
So when you’re looking for a curriculum, you want to make sure the most prevalent learning style is your child’s preferred learning style, but it should also include hands-on activities and other activities that incorporate the other learning styles.
This tip alone should dramatically decrease your curriculum choices. As a quick guide, visual learners do best with literature based curriculum. Auditory learners do best with online/video based curriculum. Kinesthetic learners will do best with either since both should include hands-on activities.
The Right Way to Use a Homeschool Curriculum
Curriculum is not a means to an end. It should not be followed step by step or day by day.
Instead, curriculum is more like a road trip map. When you set out for a road trip, you usually have your end destination in mind, but all the pit stops along the way may not be planned.
A curriculum is the map to get to your end destination, but along the way your child may want to explore rabbit holes. You may spend more time on a certain concept that they are not fully grasping.
A curriculum is just an outline, not your full learning experience. When looking for the best homeschool curriculum for your kiddo, make sure it’s flexible and allows you to explore the pit stops along the way.
Need help choosing a curriculum? Click the image below to download our Choosing Curriculum Guide.
About Amanda
Amanda helps homeschoolers raise self-motivated learners by bringing the adventure of learning right into your living room. She’s the creator of The Captivated Learner and The Learning Lifestyle. Amanda is a single, entrepreneur, homeschooling mama of two kiddos. You can follow her on Facebook.
We often think of education as academics only but it is so much more than that. The goal of education is to learn how to learn so our children can move towards becoming thriving independent adult.
With this in mind let’s look at the heart of homeschooling to create a journey that fits your unique family.
In a previous blog post about homeschooling for beginners I go through the steps of how to start homeschooling (and in this podcast episode).
I always encourage families to start with why you are homeschooling. This will determine your priorities, approach and curriculum. Are you in it for a short time or long time? COVID? Faith? Freedom? Struggles? Go ahead and journal, write down all your reasons (I'll wait). Even families who have been homeschooling for a long time, often loose sight of why they are homeschooling, so this is a great exercise for anyone.
Now dig deeper:
What are your family values?
What is most important to your family?
What is special or unique about your family and situation?
What characteristics and life skills do you want your children to have when they leave this homeschooling experiences ?
While your at it extend that to their whole time living in your home.
Now you have your goals, so work towards that. You can see it is a much bigger picture. When you are education your children at home, you have opportunity to engage in so much more than just academics.
Remember though that your family will be different than others. You have your own journey. Celebrate what makes it unique rather than fighting to fit in a box. You may be single, or a working parent, or a family with special needs. For our family we are entrepreneurs. I run two businesses from home and take this opportunity to get our children involved in our work. You see our children and school are no longer an inconvenience to our work life, we have found a way to see the whole picture and mix it all.
But wait. What does all this have to do with homeschooling? EVERYTHING!
You are at home. You are a family. This is why I’m a parenting and homeschooling coach. You can’t separate the two so easily. This journey is about your unique family.
Are you feeling pumped and excited?
I want to leave you with some practical tips though to help you with this journey.
Connecting with your child improves learning. They are more relaxed and willing to accept mistakes and new things. You can also determine their interests to focus on strengths to play into.
Drop the labels. You may want to focus on a particular method, but don’t get too hung up. There is no Waldorf or Charlotte Mason police checking up on you. You will only stress yourself out and forget about your priorities. Use labels as a guide even for diagnosis about your children. Focus more on the child than their labels.
Connection over correction.You can use every challenge that comes up and see them as an opportunity to practice and work on the characteristics and life goals I mentioned earlier. Whether they are academic or not, work together towards solutions and problem solving. Now you are thinking long term and modelling real life!
Emotion coaching will come up often. We all have big feelings that can overwhelm us. Rather than trying to discipline and move forward as a teacher would in school, remember you are home. You are your child’s guide and teacher. Help them with coping skills, and self-regulation so they can move on with the rest of the day. Remember parenting is about connection and empathy.
The heart of homeschooling is home. It is about family. It is about relationships
If you'd like more support in your parenting and homeschooling journey visit
It has been over 5 months since the world shut down due to COVID-19. Although things are starting to open up many families are still being very cautious about who they are getting together with.
I'm curious to know how this has all affected your family? How are your kids handling social distancing?
Every child handles stress differently, some may be extra clingy or whine, others may be irritable. Older children may close up and be more quiet. What is important is to remember that our children are just as stressed as adults and need help navigating these big feelings. - Meaghan Jackson
For my boys it started off just fine. In fact they were happy to have a break from our busy schedule. This then led to boredom and missing their friends. After a few months I noticed the older two were more depressed and the youngest was acting out. I'll give you some tips for what we've been doing to help near the end. Each of my boys has responded differently.
My youngest couldn't understand why his friends stoped coming to our house for playgroup. He was mad that we stopped going to activities and a little scared because it was hard to understand what the grown ups were talking about. I wrote more about his feelings here.
My middle son has really disliked zoom calls. He finds it difficult to navigate the flow of the conversation with internet lags, breaks and not picking up on physical cues. He has chosen not to participate in anything online (aside from Netflix and video games of course). This has made it very difficult to meet his social needs. We have created a Kids Messenger account but he isn't really interested in that. It is often hard for kids to come up with things to talk about. So, he has been stuck with just his brothers for the most part, and is sick of them. His annoyance and patience is wearing thin.
My older son has been doing well with zoom calls. He joins me once a week for our co-op that I moved online. His youth group has also been meeting weekly online too so he is getting to see his friends that way. Although we have been a relatively limited screens family, I compromised with the pandemic. TJ has been gaming with two friends daily. It has been a lot of fun and looks forward to chatting and playing with friends. Outside of this though, he is bored. Both older boys have said there is jus nothing to look forward to each week. We have tried to add in some fun theme days, but they miss the interaction with others.
So what have we done to help?
Make a list of ideas to get our of your funk. When I noticed the boys were just not themselves, I made a list of ideas to get us out of the funk. I hoped that would motivate us to keep going an help with their attitudes. We even made a pretty poster chart to hang on the wall.
Connect with someone outside our family
Get off our property
Mindfulness
Help someone
Do something fun
Eat healthy
Exercise
Tidy a small area
Pray
Social distance play dates are great if you feel comfortable with that. We have been able to get out to the beach and creek with close friends. We found that if there is something for the kids to explore, they are engaged and do not need to be in close contact. Do what you feel works for your family. So are creating a bubble or small circle of friends, others are choosing to keep their distance. Even a change of scenery with your own family is good.
Talking more about feelings has been a regular habit. Allowing the boys to vent and share how they feel is much better than bottling it all up. I have lots of blog posts about feelings. But I wanted to share that recognizing our kids are under stress, softens your heart towards them. We try to work on mindfulness activities like positive affirmations, yoga and breathing.
Strengthen your faith if that aligns with your family values. For our family as Christians we recognized that we needed God's help to get us through this tough time. We have been praying more often, and finding verses that offer comfort and encouragement.
Finally we lowered our expectations a little. It is now summer after all and if we just focus on our mental health and bringing some joy back into our days that will create some fantastic summer memories. The house isn't perfect (but then no one is coming by to visit). The school work is more relaxed (but they are still learning all the time). It is all about realizing your limitations and working on what you can.
This news segment we are featured in ties so well with this topic
Don't let social distancing lead to emotional distancing. Reach out, open up and let people in. We may not be able to be with each other right now, but we can still be there for each other. - Lori Deschene
How about your family? Share in the comments about how you are doing. What has helped? Where are you struggling?
When I think of language rich homeschooling with a relaxed enjoyable feel, I instantly think of Julie Bogart of Brave Writer. She has so much experience and wisdom to share. Every time I listen to her or read her book I am encouraged by how simple and doable it is to get excited about writing. I'll be the first to admit that English is not my best subject. Coming from a degree in engineering I am more comfortable with math and science.
It was an absolutely pleasure for me to talk with Julie for my podcast. I encourage you to listen or watch the full episode; this blog post shares the highlights of our conversation.
Podcast Episode
Julie Bogart is the popular voice of common sense and compassion in the homeschool community. She's the creator of the innovative writing program called Brave Writer and the popular fast-growing practice called Poetry Teatime. She’s the founder of a homeschool coaching community called The Brave Learner Home. She home educated her five children for 17 years who are now globe-trotting adults.
Julie draws from her work with tens of thousands of homeschool families over the last 20+ years, and her own homeschool journey to enrich the homeschool and parenting experience. Her writing program includes award-winning online writing classes and paradigm-shifting writing manuals that allow parents and kids to become allies in the writing process.
Julie is also the author of the best-selling book The Brave Learner and host of the popular podcast “A Brave Writer’s Life in Brief.” She enjoys raising African violets and playing with her brand new granddaughter. Julie lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Can you explain to us a little about what the Brave Writer lifestyle is to our listeners? And also, how did you come up with that?
So back when I was raising my kids, I had five of them and we had an average sized house and it felt like things were cluttered and chaotic all the time. And I am not a natural housekeeper. Some people take a lot of pleasure in getting things organized and clean, and I just get depressed. So I realized one day that I did not have those skills. I didn't have it as an intuitive sense. And I signed up for a series of emails from the fly lady, which a lot of people know she's world famous. And I started following her instructions. She'd send an email it would say, stop what you're doing and do a five minute drawer clean out. And so I would I'd stop what I was doing and clean out a drawer. And then she would say it's Tuesday vacuum the living room and I would vacuum the living room and then on. In the evening, she'd say, before you go to bed, make sure you shine your sink. So I shine my sink. And over time, those things became habits. And I started to feel like they were more natural to me.
Suddenly it dawned on me that when I was meeting women in my classes that I was teaching or at conferences where I was speaking, they would ask me the question, but how do you create a language rich environment? What does it mean to naturally build a lifestyle where kids are engaged with writing and reading and it's, it's pleasurable. I hadn't realized that that was natural to me. It came to me naturally I knew what to do. If we had an hour free, I would be thinking of a little Language game. I'd be thinking of a way to play with adverbs or we would be driving down the road and analyzing the sales power of billboards and voting on which one was the most effective. Language games and the thought about writing and reading and quotes and analyzing movies, all of that was natural to me. I realized maybe I needed to set up a kind of tutorial the way the fly lady had done for me with housekeeping. So it started with a Yahoo group, which was an email list. I just started scheduling what I thought were the essentials of this lifestyle. So things like copy work and dictation, reading aloud to your kids, going to the art museum and learning to narrate the art that you see and taking nature hikes.
One of the strategies that we use in what we call the Brave Writer lifestyle, is putting your child in the driver's seat, letting them teach you something for a change. So get on their video game and be the novice and let them put into language, all the steps you need to be effective. What's really amazing about that is when you come in as a novice, and your child is the expert, they have to work really hard. They're not talking to a sibling who knows how to use the A and the B control on the Xbox or the Wii. They literally have to help you know which thumb to use. So they're actually doing the work of what would be typically a howto make the peanut butter and jelly sandwich kind of paragraph, but they're doing it in real time with a real outcome they care about.
So it was all these elements poetry tea-time, having a movie afternoon every week, going to the library on a regular basis. I just stuck them into this email list. And I even included things like one on one time making eye contact, being sure to hug a child today and don't worry that you can't hug all five in a day. So just hug one today, make a note on your calendar. Remember to hug another one tomorrow, very realistic. What I found was that by putting it in that sort of weekly pattern for people, they found the same thing I did with the fly lady, those habits start to feel natural, you start to see the results. And you've built a lifestyle, not just a list of curriculum steps to follow.
I love that because it just makes it so much more practical than many homeschool conferences and things. Often we get just the curriculum and lesson plans but you are getting to the heart of how to actually do this.
I love that comment, because when I first wrote the core manual of Brave Writer, which is called the writers jungle. And so when I first wrote it, I was sitting down I spent a lot of time, I worked as a freelance writer and a ghostwriter in a magazine editor before I started writing, and so I sat down with the burden of a friend, which was, I don't know how to teach writing, you seem to be able to do it with your children. How can you help me?
So we did a seven week class at the time I attended this one church and they let us do it during Sunday school. So, seven weeks of teaching about writing, all these parents came, it was homeschool parents, school teachers, fathers. It was shocking the number of parents who came. It started with 15 and by the end of the seven weeks, we had like 40 people in there. And they all acted like I was giving them information they'd never heard in their lives. And all I could think was, well your kids are in school or you have homeschool curriculum. What on earth are you being taught if what I'm sharing with you is not? what's in those books?
So I started looking and those books were all organized around what to do. Nobody was showing parents how to do it. So they would say things like have your child write a descriptive paragraph. Make sure it has five sentences, three of them need to be supports. The top sentence is a topic sentence. The bottom sentence is the clincher. You know, a solid paragraph is like a cardboard box as a top supporting sides and a bottom. I mean, none of that helps you find words that live inside your body. None of those help you do an adequate job of delving into description. They're expecting that all that stuff is already alive and active in the child. And all they had to do was the finished work, which is, you know, putting it in a list situating it in a proper structure, so thousands upon thousands. I do not think it's an exaggeration to say that millions of adults who have been raised in that system today, still don't think they're good writers, and some of them have master's degrees. In other words, that system never got it to help.
So when I sat down to write The Writers Jungle the question I asked myself was, what do you do if you have a child sitting next to you who says, I can't think of anything to write? I did not sit down and think, okay, what's a paragraph? Because we speak in paragraphs, we read paragraphs, we know what paragraphs are, that is not the major missing ingredient. What's missing for a child is one, the courage to expose their inner world to an adult who's getting ready to criticize it, and then to finding more language than they knew they had. So if you can create a safe space and guide them into finding that language, suddenly they have writing power and they can write paragraphs, they can even like writing.
That is so incredible. And I know that from reading and our family uses some of your things, that you take the like the writing process and how parents are involved, you do that differently from most curriculums. Most just assume that the child should be doing it all alone right from the beginning. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Oh, yeah, for sure. That's my favorite topic. So when we are raising children, parents are beautiful partners in every way. From the time that baby's born and you're changing its diaper and you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding it, you are the chief source of support for that child's growth and development. I have a brand new granddaughter right now and watching my son and daughter-in-law, engage with that baby, they do everything. Noah picks her up and he's constantly holding her up to flowers and trees and bark, so that she can touch things that are natural, not just toys in a house. They wear her, they feed her they sing to her they give her things to play with. They're not waiting for her to someday have the skill of holding things. They're literally putting things in her hand, so that she will discover, oh, this thing is in my hand. We do this from a very young age, and the baby starts cooing and you coo back and then you start saying words and then the baby makes sounds. Then we record them and send them all over the world to family, because we are so thrilled with this child's development.
So I remember when my son Noah was, 11 months old, I was washing dishes at the sink. He said the word Nana, just spontaneously, he was in his chair, and I wheeled around and being the writer that I am, I turned to him and I said, Noah, that is brilliant. But you need to know the word Nana is part of a bigger word. The word is banana. It's a noun, and it fits in a sentence like this. I would like a banana and because it's request, you need to use the oral format called etiquettes. What I'm going to need to hear from you is some version of I would like a banana please Mama. Do you think I did that with an 11 month old? Of course I didn't.
I did what everyone does. I yelled for his father to come downstairs, I made an international phone call to my mother. I wrote the date and time in a baby book. And we fed him six more bananas, trying to get him to say Nana one more time, there was never a moment where we thought Nana is insufficient grammar. It doesn't adequately express. And we certainly didn't go about teaching him to speak by saying, the first thing you need to learn is what a noun is and a verb and how those work together in a sentence.
And yet, it's like we get amnesia when we get to writing. So when we start with speaking, we're so natural. Probably three months later, Noah said something like me want Nana, and I was like, good you get one because you just communicated a full thought. Is it grammatically correct? No, but of course he's going to become grammatically correct, because he lives with me. And that's gonna happen. So then a little more time goes by. And I would say things like, do you mean I want a banana? Do you mean, Mommy, please get me a banana? And then he would literally parrot my words. And I didn't suddenly wonder, are those his words? If he's copying me do they count as his own words? Maybe I should stop speaking, so that he never uses any of my words in speech, because otherwise I won't know if they're his words. We never think that with speech. In fact, when grandma's coming, we literally give them scripts of how to be polite, how to say thank you for the present. And we never think to ourselves, well, that's not a genuine expression of gratitude because he's using my words. No, we think etiquette and training. My child is learning to be a polite human being respectful of his elders. So one day, Noah will be in the other room five years old and he'll yell, Hey, Mom, get me a banana. Now at the point that he's so fluid, he can yell from another room. The words make sense. Now I require him to use the format called etiquette. And I yell back to him, Hey, what do you say? And that's when he can say, Please, because he's not thinking about his mouth. He isn't struggling to put words together. He is so fluent in self expression, adding the format Piece of cake.
In writing, then, partnership means the same thing. When your child first picks up that pen, start scribbling on the page the goal isn't to anxiously worry that those scribbles don't look like letters yet. That child moves to copying random letters and all different lower and uppercase and does it on your wall. One of our Brave Writers new instructors yesterday said milestone achieved, you know Chloe is writing her name on the door. Now here's permanent marker, child's name written on the door. These are developmental milestones, not things to fear. Now, of course, you're going to show Chloe we have paper for that, or a window marker in a window. But the point is, we are celebrating each risk that the child takes to make a connection to the written word. Eventually, as they are becoming more and more fluent in speech, and when their physical act of writing and reading have not yet caught up, we're going to jot some of those words down for them. We're going to be their transcriptionist, their secretary.
So when your child starts telling you the clever little thing about the dog in the backyard, you're going to stop stir-frying dinner, start jotting it down. Let that child see you catch them in the spontaneous active self-expression. Put some of that in writing, and read it back to the family at dinner. Let your kids see that you value the inner life, the language that bubbles up naturally, that it deserves to be preserved and enjoyed by an interested audience. That is how we start to build writers. And I promise you, if you raise children that way, writing actually feels as natural as speech. But no one teaches it that way.
Julie explains more about her program and how it is unique. I encourage you to listen to the whole episode or visit Brave Write for more information
Let your kids see that you value the inner life, the language that bubbles up naturally, that it deserves to be preserved and enjoyed by an interested audience. That is how we start to build writers. And I promise you, if you raise children that way, writing actually feels as natural as speech. But no one teaches it that way.
I know that right now, homeschooling is exploding due to the pandemic and everything that's going on. What advice would you have for a family way that is new to this?
Oh, absolutely so challenging. What we're discovering and we've had thousands and thousands of new people come to Brave Writer during this season, it's just been a wild ride. And what we're discovering is, in the past, a new homeschooler had friends who homeschool. That's how she heard about it. Homeschooling is the ultimate viral marketing. You know, you have two friends who are in your church group or your gymnastics class or next door neighbor. And those people have been modeling and talking about it, and then they hand you a book and you read it and then you start thinking about it. And then you find out there's a group in your area and then you talk to your spouse, and then you sign up. And that takes time. It's usually either before the kids are school age or pulling them out of school, but it's a process over time. That is a decision they're making. This is entirely new this circumstance, because people who've been thrust into homeschooling who never consider doing it, don't have role models or friends. They're all friends with public school parents or private school parents. And they've never imagined themselves being in charge of education. It's not in their vocabulary to think that way. So they come in, and they're like, Okay, I'm a homeschooler. Now, how do I sign up for the homeschooling online program? And what they mean is they think there's some national organization with homeschool videos that you sign up for. And you're like, no, that's not really how homeschooling works. Or they say, Okay, well, I just want an all-in-one. And I would like it for all my kids, and I want them to follow this schedule. It's like, but that's not what homeschooling is, either. So they're coming in with really green understanding and very little conviction. So there's a lot of opportunity there. One of the best things about it is they don't come in with a strong conviction. So they're very open to new information resources. They are eager to learn about education. They're not coming in worried that school was going to ruin their children. So there's it's a lot less ideological, it's a lot more pragmatic, which is where we really like to stay in Brave Writer is at the level of pragmatism.
I created something I call the six week on route to homeschooling with these schoolers in mind and anyone who's new or looking to sort of revamped their homeschool and follow more of a Brave Writer style of education. And that is going to be the first thing we roll out in our online membership community called the Brave Learner Home and it will walk them through the preparation and how to understand curriculum shopping and how to file with your state and just some of those basics of prep, and then it will take us through four weeks, have an actual homeschool model that they can adapt and make personal to them. So that's one of the ways that we're helping those families. Brave Writer also offers the Brave Learner Home program to help parents feel more confident in their teaching. There are also online writing courses.
I love that you are offering so much support. Is there anything else going on in Brave Writer that you wanted to share with us so that we can make sure everyone knows about it?
Well, the brave learner home really is an interesting experiment that we're conducting right now. So the way it works now is the Brave Learner Home Membership for a lifetime is free with a Brave Writer program purchase or a Brave Writer online class purchase of $198 or more. We are really trying to make that something you never think about again. So if you take it online class with us now you're in. You can use it during a busy during a light season, and ignore it during a busy season and not feel guilty and wish you had canceled your order. So it's going to be this platform that is a support. And now there's like over 3500 members. So we've got all these people who clearly wanted that support. And that's our goal. We have hired staff. It will be really wonderful, particularly if you are new to this way of thinking about education.
The second thing I just would mention is we do offer online writing classes. And our staff are all homeschooling parents who are professional writers, so they understand both experiences. Our classes last anywhere from three to six weeks, some of our classes, enrol you, the parent with the child so that we help you become a great writing team together.
That is incredible. So you're providing support for the parents to become better teachers?
Exactly. We don't ever put time for ourselves. But that's the biggest part is how do we even implement this? And the Online Writing is an incredible opportunity for everyone because often we want to find an expert in a field, someone who can really dig in and help. Having someone else help you with the writing with your kids is a great experience for everyone.
Well, the one thing I love about our online classes in particular, is that they are only three to six weeks. We're not trying to take over your writing program. This is not semester length teaching, you can dive in and take a Movie Club. You can do Passion for Fiction. You could do the expository essay rhetorical critique and analysis just for six weeks, so your children know this is a deal for a limited amount of time focused on one subject. And then you can take a month off after take a big break. We try to think about writing and teaching the way a homeschooler does, not the way school does. And so even for covid schoolers, what we call these parents are just flooding us for even just six months, you can come in for that six week essay class because it's not happening effectively in your school. So maybe they're still doing online school, but you want to make sure they're still moving towards that outcome that you want to see. Or we've got middle school classes that are designed based on passion projects or nonfiction. And so you can keep those skills going without making a year-long or a semester long commitment.
PLEASE do take time to listen or watch the whole episode. There was much more Julie had to share with us.
