4. We Survived Our First Week Homeschooling + Working! Here's How it Went!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It feels right, Like it feels like it was a really
good fit for us.
We don't have everythingfigured out.
We've got a lot to learn.
We're still newbies.
One week is just laughable inthe grand scheme of things, but
it feels like it was meant to be.
We are two full-time workingparents who just made a crazy

(00:22):
decision.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
After four years in public school, we're
homeschooling our three kids anddocumenting the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Never in a million years did I think we would be
homeschool people Welcome towell, this wasn't the plan.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm Slate and school's in the kitchen.
Now I'm Scotty.
We just start when I say so.
I'm Sailor and this wholepodcast was my idea.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly
juggling homeschool jobs,parenting and everything in
between.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Follow along each week as we document how it's
going and share the good, thebad and the ugly, because we
know some days are going to beugly and we're not holding back.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
We're learning to expect the unexpected, so let's
get into it.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
We survived our very first week of homeschooling.
We're alive.
We did it so week ofhomeschooling.
We're live, we did it, so let'stalk about it.
I made notes all week long.
I have two pages right here,but we just talked about it.
We're going to try to condensethis down 30, 45 minutes.
There's a lot to talk about thefirst week.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I don't think we're going to have as much to talk
about every single week, butthis week there's quite a lot
have as much to talk about everysingle week, but this week
there's quite a lot and, in mypersonality style, I have a list
of notes in my head that halfof which have been forgotten
already and the other half arethere, and then there will be
new ones that get added to thelist.
As I'm talking, that, we're notthere at the start of the

(02:00):
episode yes, so type a righthere, type b there, type awesome
right here.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I know you there.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Type awesome right here.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I know you were thinking about it during the
week because you were like, ohyeah, I was talking about that
on the podcast and I had allthese thoughts and so I was just
writing them down, but I thinkyou forgot.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
And I also said, I should write them down, but you
didn't, but I didn't.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
All right.
So first thing that we want totalk about was just like how
we're feeling after this veryfirst week of doing something
completely different.
I feel like we just startedlike a new life.
I just keep waiting for it tosink in because it's so
different.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yes, so, different.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
So different.
But for this week,homeschooling has been something
that has been weighing on myheart for a long time, even well
before I thought that it wouldever happen, because I just
thought if we worked, we couldnever homeschool.
So it's been something that'son my heart and my mind and it
just feels surreal that we'reactually here.

(02:57):
And another thing that Ithought about a lot this week
was that it feels right, like itfeels like it was a really good
fit for us.
We don't have everythingfigured out, we've got a lot to
learn, we're still newbies.
One week is just laughable inthe grand scheme of things, but
it feels like it was meant to beand I don't think that we would

(03:20):
ever realize that without goingto school, because we got to
see both worlds and it wasn'tlike we just tried kindergarten,
like we had kids in multiplegrades, multiple years.
We got to see what the schoolsystem was like and that helped
us make a decision.
I don't think that we couldhave ever jumped into home where

(03:41):
we would never have jumped intohomeschooling, because that's
not, that wasn't our plan andthat wasn't anything that we
ever saw us doing but to havethe school experience we needed.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
That or we would never be here and I think that
you can actually learn a lotfrom your kids going through
public school.
I mean things that maybe thatwere good, but also things that
you don't want to do.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Absolutely.
I just think that what ablessing it is that we get to
have both sides because we canfeel confident in our decision.
That's how I feel.
I feel like if there's so manypeople telling me that
homeschooling is bad fordifferent reasons, and then
obviously those people sayingthat school is bad, but I get to
feel very confident because Iknow that we tried both and this

(04:29):
feels right.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
And this is what works for us.
But what I think is the mostbeautiful not to sound like a
politician, but is that we havethe choice.
Yeah.
Because we were on our vacationin Europe and they don't have
that.
It's illegal to homeschool.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
If you don't send your kids to school over there,
they will take your kids awayfrom you.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well, we're extremely lucky and I think we had a
really great week.
Yeah, me too.
Me too it was tiring at times,but I think a big part of that
was just that we had gone onvacation and then we got out of
the habit of waking up early andgetting back on the routine of
waking up at six in the morning.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
For sure the biggest thing for me this week that was
like kind of negative was thefeeling that we have so many
things now that we can do in aday.
It was very overwhelming.
So we have to decide what's thebest thing that you can do for
a day, what's the best schedulefor kids and what do they need

(05:26):
to learn in a day, and that'svery overwhelming because there
is so many options.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
It's funny because I already made the comparison to
prison before and it is the sameway.
People get out of prison andthey feel that way.
They feel like someone's beentelling them what time to get up
, what time to eat, what to eat,for so long or the military is
another example.
But it's hard for people tomake that transition to having

(05:54):
that choice.
I feel a very similar way, butnot about all the different
things that we could do besidescurriculum, homeschooling things
.
I feel that way, justspecifically about the
curriculum.
There's only so much time in theday, there's only so much
learning space in a kid's brainon a day.
It gets a little bit bigger asthey get older, but you have a

(06:15):
window and then that's it.
You know they can't reallyfocus longer than a certain
amount of time.
So I mean there's foreignlanguages, there's math, science
, reading, history, all thethings we know, but there's
music lessons.
There's so many things.
There's so manyextracurriculars that could be
added in there and I mean youknow how we are as parents.

(06:35):
We want our kids to haveeverything, to know everything,
to do everything, but that it'snot healthy and it's not
possible.
So that is a little bit of astruggle for me.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
For sure.
We have a whole list of thingsthat we think this will be
awesome if we do it when wehomeschool, because we have all
this time.
But you have to make all ofthese choices, just like
anything else.
Time goes by very quickly in aday.
So talking about that, let'sjump into the schedule.
So how the schedule went thisweek we were working from six to

(07:09):
10.
That was the first thing in theschedule, and the first bump in
the road for us this week wasthat I didn't update our work
schedule early enough, so we hadplanned to do school from 10 to
12.
And that didn't work outbecause we already had meetings
booked during those times.
So we had to adjust a lot thisweek, which was completely fine

(07:32):
because we just moved school,but it was also frustrating.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, because we were trying to get into a routine
and one of the benefits ofhomeschool is the flexibility
and the schedule.
But I do think it's good to tryto have a schedule, at least
for our children.
Maybe that's not the case ifyou have, you know, two parents
homeschooling one kid.
I mean, I don't know if there'snearly as much importance on
that.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
There's so much research showing it's way better
for kids to have a schedule anda structure and a routine.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
I guess it's good for everyone.
For us it's a necessity becausethere's just no way that if
they don't all know that in thiswindow we're going to be doing
this, then just roundingeverybody up can take a really
long time.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, and I think that's when people get
themselves into a pickle andthey actually don't homeschool
their children.
Well, they are like well, we'rejust going to be fluid and
flexible, and then the schoolingactually doesn't get done
because, as we've seen, that theday passes by and things just
don't get done.
It can happen.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
You have to be real diligent.
I mean, whenever we wereresearching, I saw online on
Reddit actually, but a lady waslike please help, oh my God, it
was a homeschooling Redditthread and please help, I made
it through the whole year.
You know, we had some things,we had a family member in the
hospital, so we skipped a coupleweeks, and then one thing led
to another and we got throughthe whole school year and we
haven't done anything.

(08:50):
And I just I mean, first of all, I'm sorry that happened, but
I'm also kind of annoyed,because that's what gives
homeschoolers a bad rep.
That's not what the majority is, but you know people, that's
the kind of people that aremaking comments.
They see people like that andthen they're like, oh, that's

(09:10):
for people that don't want theirkids to learn anything.
I don't think that could befurther from the truth, but
there are a few examples likethat where it does happen.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I heard the same thing.
Someone's sister pulled herkids out to homeschool them.
They didn't do anything allyear except for watch TV and
like hang out, so like summer,and then they put them right
back into school and they werebehind Of course.
Okay, mark my words.
That will not happen with us.
I am too type A.
I care too much about where mykids are and what they're

(09:38):
learning.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Like we're not going to let it go by the wayside.
A little bit of an advantage,because I mean everyone thinks
their kids hung the moon.
But I mean really, objectivelyspeaking, our kids are all three
really smart and learn easily,so it is easier a little bit for
us, probably, than some people.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Okay, that sounds really braggy.
It's not, it's just how it isyeah, they do pick up on things
very quickly and we'll talkabout that.
But I think it's just more.
The parent has to be the parent.
You know that education isimportant and if you aren't
putting that as a priority inyour day, or you're not making
sure that your kid understandswhat the priority is and you

(10:17):
don't get it done, then no,homeschooling is not for you.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, that's true, but it's really important to me.
That's true, but it's reallyimportant to me and I don't know
.
There's been a lot of things inour lives that I don't keep up
with as well as Taryn does.
She's more type A, but I'm ontop of it on this.
I'm, you know, because it'simportant to me, I'm excited
about it, and so you know we'reand Taryn's on top of it because
she's Taryn.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
So yeah, because I'm just too type A Probably not a
good thing a lot of times.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
But for this it's great.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yes, it does work really well for this.
I absolutely loved workingearly in the morning.
This week was rough because wewere not used to waking up at 6.
We got all off schedule when wetraveled to Europe and the time
difference and even though wenormally do wake up at 6, we
were way off and so it was hard.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Right, but we had done.
We had started doing that awhile back for our work schedule
because I found that I'm waymore productive during that
window, especially from 6am to8am, for just for some reason.
And it helps that we work fromhome, but if I can just get up
pour a cup of coffee and sitdown and start working
immediately, I am just.

(11:30):
I get more done in those twohours than I can in any other
six hour window, so that's beengreat.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
I found that definitely to be true and for me
it was hard to get back to workafter drop off and everything,
and it was very stressful.
And then go back to work afterdrop off and everything, and it
was very stressful, and then goback to work.
I love checking it off my listfor the day, because I get in, I
see if there's any alarmingclient emails or things that
need to be taken care of, andeverything gets taken care of

(11:58):
for the day and I usually havelike one major task, whether
it's payroll or bookkeeping, andI get that done and then the
rest of the day I don't worryabout work.
I know it'll be there when weget back, but I know that I've
done what I need to do.
It feels like freeing.
It feels like I can actuallycheck out of work and be a mom,

(12:19):
a teacher, whatever, instead ofI always felt like I wasn't
doing enough because I wastrying to bounce back from
getting the kids up, getting toschool, getting to work, taking
someone to orthodontist,whatever.
I was always bouncing around.
I love getting it done firstthing in the day because there's
nothing that gets in the way ofwork, which is nice.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
That is nice, because we have to earn a living.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, number one thing we need money.
So other things I wrote downabout the schedule was that
Sailor's like really pumped tohomeschool.
She's like on a homeschoolinghigh, she's so excited.
We said yes.
So she got the kids up.
She had them up before I toldthem they had to be up.
She had them dressed, she hadthe breakfast out, she made sure

(13:05):
they did their morning choresand they were outside before
they even need to.
It's like she woke Slade upbefore time.
So they did really well on thatschedule.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I mean, and I think part of it is you know, kids
just hear what they want to hear.
And she's asked if we're evergoing to send them back to
school and I said probably notif they don't want to go back.
I mean, unless if it justturned out they didn't do
anything, they didn't learnanything at home, or we were
terrible teachers or something,which are all very unlikely, and
I told her are all very, veryunlikely things, but all she

(13:38):
hears is that there's a chancethat they could have to go back
to school, and so she's likebusting her butt to make sure
that everything goes smoothly,which is kind of funny.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
She's not always, but in this sense she was the
typical oldest daughter.
She had everybody doing whatthey were supposed to do.
She was like mom and dad areworking until 10, then we got to
be outside and so she was on avery regimented schedule.
I say we have a routine,because it's not going to be
exactly at 1030 we do this orwhatever.

(14:09):
But she took it very literally,so she wanted to make sure that
everybody was doing what theyneeded to do on the exact time.
So I thought that was very cuteand you know, nice of her to
make sure that they're goingdoing what they're supposed to
do and taking theirresponsibilities.
Well, chores went really well.
I was really proud of them.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
So I think that they they did really well with it and
I think that she also is tryingto earn those fun fridays,
because those are the days thatyou know we're just schooling
muddy through.
Thursday and fridays I takethem to do something fun and I
haven't told them everythingthat's on the list.
But there's four tiers ofthings and it is based on how
well they keep up witheverything, because I don't want

(14:51):
to have a punishment Likethere's no fun Friday or we're
just going to stare at the wallday Friday.
But it could be just somethingfree and cheap, like going to
the park, and that's the funFriday, which is not probably
the most fun.
But then there's super highlevels which are like we're
going to go to a theme park andyou know, but that would involve
everything is done perfectlyall week.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
So well, we just told them that we have fun Friday.
We don't do school on Friday.
And if they show up every dayfor homeschool with a good
attitude and do their chores inthe morning without being
reminded do their chores.
Then on Fridays we do chores asa family.

(15:33):
We clean up the entire houseand then Carson takes them out
of the house so that I can justfinish up like mopping and stuff
.
But they did really great withall of that this week stuff.
But they did really great withall of that this week.
One other thing that I wrotedown was that people kept
telling me that how are yougoing to work, how are you guys
going to keep working if youhave to homeschool?

(15:56):
And I always was like I thinkI'm going to have more time,
which sounds kind of dumb.
I get that, but we talked aboutthat.
We need to add up the amount oftime that we're spending, like
to get them to school, pick uplines, homework, packing lunches
, cleaning out their bags everynight and checking their folders
from their teachers,communicating on parents, all of

(16:18):
those things Right, and it doesadd up.
That's a lot of time.
We haven't added it up yet.
We will, because we'reaccountants.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
And on the flip side, we'll add up how much time
we're spending, you know, lessonprepping and getting everything
ready for curriculum andactually teaching the children,
and so that will.
That will help us.
You know, balance both sidesand see how much time.
I mean and I think Taryn'sright I think we really won't be
spending that much more time inthis situation.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Well, tbd on the exact time, but for me and it
might just be a preference thing, because I preferred getting my
work done and not having itstressing out during the day but
I felt like I had way more timeto work and do the things that
I need to do versus way moretime to work and do the things
that I need to do versus, youknow, dropping them off at

(17:08):
school and then being back atschool by three.
So I wrote that down and itfelt like I had more time in my
day to do the work tasks that Ihave to do.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
And we'll have to adapt that calculation over time
because I mean, you know, thefirst week I spent way more time
getting curriculum ready andthings than I will long term.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
This week doesn't count with that, because we're
just figuring all of that out.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
I printed a whole textbook on accident.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, there was a lot of Sorry, Mother.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Earth Didn't mean to do that.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
I also wrote down that we probably need to get the
kids alarms because they needto be up by nine, right, and we
didn't this week.
So get them their alarm goingto let them know when it's time
to get up if they're stillsleeping, because we have a lot
to fit into a day.
I think I was assuming that wewould have all these hours and

(18:00):
it would feel like we can't fillthem.
No, no, no, we have.
It feels like the day goes byso fast and then it's like late
afternoon, like way past,whenever school would have ended
, and there's so many things todo in a day between getting the
kids outside us, working, tryingto fit in a workout, getting
reading time, their actualschool, and then we haven't even

(18:23):
started sports and activitiesquite yet.
So we have a full day.
We don't have the luxury ofstarting super late in our day.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Right, and it's also.
It's a slippery slope because Ithink Saylor's more like you,
that her body naturally fallsinto a healthier sleep rhythm
and that she'll go to bed atabout the same time and wake up
at about the same time every day, without forcing herself to go
to bed at a scheduled time andforcing herself to wake up with
an alarm.
The slate's more like me.
It is a slippery slope.
I'll sleep till 630 and thenI'll stay up a little bit later

(18:54):
that night, so then the next dayI'll sleep till seven, so then
I'll stay up even later thatnight.
And it keeps going.
And before you know it, if Iwasn't setting an alarm and
going to bed very deliberatelyat a certain time, then I would
be staying up till 1 am andsleeping until you know 10 am.
I know that because that'sexactly what happened to me on
vacation.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, a person has a hard time staying on a sleep
schedule, and the kids havealways been on a really good one
, but as they've gotten older,we have been letting them stay
up.
I'm talking they used to go tobed at seven every night, and
even when Sailor was older shewould go to bed at seven, but
she would like read.
So we had a lot of time, justyou know, you and I.

(19:35):
And then now we're letting themstay up later.
So we still think sleep issuper important for them.
So we're putting them to bedbetween eight and 9, depending
on the night, so we're notletting them stay up till like
midnight or anything.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
But they're staying up too late still, even though
we turn off the TV and tell themto go to bed.
But I guess we'll have to, youknow, I guess be a little bit
stricter for a while until theyget into a good sleep schedule,
because I hear them coming inthere to fill up their water and
putting ice in it Sorry, thatwas lightning.
I hear them coming in to putice in their cup at 1130 at

(20:13):
night.
Sometimes I'm hearing somebodyput water in their cup and ice
and I'm like what are they evendoing awake?
I don't even know which kid itis.
Because I don't engage, I'm notgoing in there, because then
they'll be up even longer.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Well, that was last night.
They had a goal to stay up tillmidnight.
We didn't know this and theyread in Sailor's room.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
I didn't know that either.
I knew that Slate slept inthere.
I didn't know why.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, they read for a really long time and their goal
was midnight, even thoughSailor wanted to stay up all
night.
They didn't tell us any of this.
We didn't even know he was inour room.
But I said that's completelyfine for you guys to do that.
Sometimes it can be on a schoolnight.
So right you know you cannot seeat belly, so we're going to be
stricter on those times so thatwe can get our day started and
get into a really good rhythm.
One thing that I didn't talkabout and he said tv we turn off

(21:00):
the tv.
So one thing that I reallyloved about this week was that
in the evening so we don't letthe kids like do TV time or like
any sort of tablets or whateverduring the day, but at
nighttime, if we're home andwe're not at sports or something
, they do get to watch a show ora movie or whatever.

(21:20):
So we save TV till later in theday.
Now, when they went to school, Ihad a lot of guilt with that,
not because I think it's badthat they watched TV, but it's
because we would get home and doall the necessary things like
homework or study their words,sports, meals and showering, and

(21:43):
then they watched TV.
There was literally no time forus with them.
So then I felt guilty that theywere just sitting in there
watching TV when I haven't spenta single minute the good
connection minute with them inthe whole day.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Right, and we want that time and I think they want
that time, but they don't wantit at that time, just like we
don't, because they're tiredfrom the day.
They're like I deserve to getto relax and read a book or
watch a show.
Please don't make me engage youin conversation right now and I
think I'm sure that's how theyfeel and so kind of a little bit
how we felt at that time.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
I absolutely did.
And then I felt guilty forfeeling that way.
I felt like, oh my gosh, I'mdone.
I have done a million thingstoday, like I'm so ready to just
like either be alone or take ashower or watch my show or
whatever.
And then I just felt guiltybecause I needed to spend time
with my kids.
So it's just something that'sbothered me for a really long

(22:39):
time.
And this week it was refreshingbecause we've spent all day
together.
We don't need any moreone-on-one time.
We have spent a lot of qualitytime together all day doing
exactly what we think is theideal day as a family.
And then everybody can go youcan go read in your room, you
can go watch a show, I can takea shower, and there is no guilt.

(23:01):
And it felt freeing.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Right.
I mean because the first two tothree hours that we're working
they're not even awake yet, andthen they have breakfast while
we finish up work, but thenthat's it.
I mean, then we go to the parktogether and that's good quality
time.
We have lunch together, we dohomeschool together, and then we
usually do something togetherin the afternoon, or divide and

(23:23):
conquer, and then maybe, youknow, I have one of the kids or
two of the kids and you have onefor whatever activities they're
going to end up doing, and sothen we're together for a lot of
that stuff and then we all havedinner together.
So yes, at the end of the day,if Taryn and I want to read at 7
o'clock, then we've alreadyspent a lot of quality time with
the kids that day.
Then we've already spent a lotof quality time with the kids
that day.
So we don't feel guilty to sitdown and read a book and let

(23:46):
them watch a show separatelyaway from us.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
No guilt, no guilt, no guilt at all for the evening
relaxation, which was amazing.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
We really never did until this, until this started,
because we were going all dayuntil we got the kids in bed.
Then we would relax after gotthe kids in bed, then we would
relax after the kids were in bed, and until then we never sat
down or read a book, watched aTV show or anything.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
No, we would be getting home late.
A lot of times I would becoming home with Taylor at night
and you guys were already inbed.
So there is no relaxing at sixor seven in the evening.
We were either out of the houseor cooking dinner, cleaning up
dinner, getting them showered,all of that, so our relaxing
always started after they werein bed.
So this is such a nice change.

(24:34):
I feel like we get so much moretime to do something we want to
do.
Whether I want to go for a walkor read a book, or we watch a
show together, I feel like wehave more time.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Right, and even whenever they're learning, even
if it's something hard, whichhasn't been a lot of that yet
but whenever they overcomesomething and learn it, it's
very rewarding and it's nice tobe a part of that, instead of
just hearing about it oroftentimes not even hearing
about it.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Well, let's talk about that.
Let's move into schooling andcurriculum and how that went,
because that was my number onethought from the week was wow,
it was crazy to go from havingnothing and knowing nothing
about their education to be infull control of it, because I

(25:21):
actually got to see a lot ofthings and with the way schools
set up now, specifically likefrom when COVID changed, there
is not a lot of contact with theteacher directly face-to-face
because of the way you pick upand drop off and your kids don't
tell you very much.
They're like how's your day?
Great, we got to see exactlyinto their day.

(25:44):
So it's a really weird feelingfor years not knowing what's
going on with their educationand then now literally being in
the driver's seat.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Right, it feels pretty good.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
It feels great.
I think one of the things thatfirst popped up for me when we
were doing it was that I wasworking with Sailor on something
and she was rock and rolling.
She was doing great with it.
We journaled, we moved toanother subject, then we moved
to like the kind of the last.
We were getting towards the endof that and she just hit a wall
Like she was done.
She didn't want to do it, hermotivation was gone.

(26:18):
She was getting really jittery,like moving in her seat, like
oh, I can see the ADHD.
And I've never got toexperience it with school work.
She's always been like that ahundred percent of the time
because we're teaching her atthe end of the day.
So if I had to go over spellingwords with her, it was always
awful because she's done, she'salready done her school for the

(26:38):
day.
So I experienced that, but Inever got to experience a good
part of it.
Like she has a really goodwindow, it just doesn't last
long.
So never got to experience agood part of it Like she has a
really good window.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
It just doesn't last long.
So I got to see her ADHD like ateacher would experience it.
You can't overcome the ADHDjust by being smart.
You can with other subjects,but with spelling words you're
just memorizing.
There's literally nothing youcan do to learn it fast.
You just have to do it.
You just have to sit down anddo it.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
I do remember that it's really hard for her and she
has gotten better at it asshe's gotten older and just
worked that muscle I guess yes,and her focus is a little bit
longer than it was when she waslike five or six.
But we have known she's hadADHD for a while and we've told

(27:36):
her teachers because we see itat home that the end of the day
it's the worst.
We can't get her to focus onanything but that's the end of
her focus.
But when we asked them they'vealways said she's great, she's
fine.
I don't know what you'retalking about Like, and it kind
of made me feel crazy for awhile that we're like labeling
our kid when she doesn't need alabel.
But once I understood, like, alot more about ADHD and did

(27:59):
research a lot of times.
Teachers don't catch girls thathave ADHD.
Because she was doing well, shejust burned out.
Like if they did three mathpapers the first two would be
really great, the second one shewould do part of the first of
them and then she would just bedone and she wouldn't even do
the back half of the sheet.
So her grades would be like 99,95, 91, 60.

(28:21):
And it wasn't because shewasn't understanding it, but
when you would talk to theteacher.
The teacher would be like ohwell, it's fine.
Like a lot of people strugglewith that, well, there's not
enough one-on-one for them torealize what's happening.
What was happening wasn't thatshe wasn't understanding the
material, was that she had mether limit of focus for the day.
So the fact that we've beendealing with that for years and

(28:45):
I was able to see it firsthand,it was nice.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
And sometimes you have to overcome your own
thinking too, because I noticedit too.
We were sitting at the kitchentable and I think we are going
to talk about that some.
But we were sitting there,slate and Taylor were sitting at
the table together and I'mworking with Slate and she's
looking over at what he'sworking on.
She's supposed to be working onher math worksheet and I'm like

(29:10):
hey, look at your paper.
You need to work on yours.
You already know how to doaddition, even double-digit
addition.
You get it down Work on yourpaper.
And I had to tell her threetimes and finally I'm like, well
, I'm stupid, like why am I?
She can't, it's not, I mean no,it's not possible.
It's like telling a turtle tofly he can watch the birds all
day and he's never going to doit.

(29:30):
You, I had to move slate toanother spot to work with him
and let sailor sit there and notbe distracted.
And it is distracting.
I mean, I'm sitting theretalking to him.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
You know, two feet away from her face, I would be
distracted is distracting, butin a school setting there is a
million things going on andthere's limited space.
Limited space.
There's 18 plus kids in thereand everyone's making noise,
asking questions, getting up,going to the bathroom, like
that's what she's used to.
So I'm like, well, having twoother kids in here, that's not.

(30:02):
You know, that shouldn't be anissue.
But we want her to do her best,and her best is to be able to
focus to the best of her ability.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
And so, yeah, I do think that we need to get her
started on her work and thengive her a quiet spot and then
check in on her.
And that's another perk of thetwo-hour schedule, because, yeah
, it would be really sad to sita kid by by herself for six or
seven hours at school and, okay,that's just, you're going to
have to sit there by yourselfall day with, not me, but it's
she's not by herself.
I'm going back and forthbetween sailor and slate.
For the most part this weekthat's what I was doing, and so
you know I'm there to superviseand to ask questions whenever

(30:41):
she needs them.
But for those two hours whilewe're working, yeah, it is great
for her to be a little bit in abubble so that she can focus,
and it worked really well.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, and we can do that, so why not?
I would say for the wholeschooling part of our week and
everything that my overall thingwas that it went well.
The kids were open to usteaching them.
We didn't really have any badattitudes like I don't want to
learn from you.

(31:11):
Our kids were really reallygood with all of that.
The hard part that I wrote downand that was like the hardest
part for me, was just going fromchild to child and bouncing
around.
You can't imagine how teachersdo it with that many kids.
But we were like guys, we'reonly two people, there's two of

(31:32):
us, there's three of them and itseemed really hard to manage
that setup.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yes, I agree.
I mean I think that we've saidit several times we think that
teachers have a really hard joband you know us homeschooling
isn't a, you know, reflection ofthe job we think they're doing.
I think that I would never beable to teach 25 children, or
even 18, or however many theyhave.
I think that even two peoplewho aren't experienced teachers,

(31:58):
teaching one and a half kids isour splits between the two of
us is going to be way easier.
But even then it was hardbecause I felt like we needed a
third adult sometimes.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, I think we were wanting to sit down with them
one-on-one and work them throughthings.
But when we were doing that,another kid was like mom, mom,
dad, dad, and we're like guys,you have to just sit there just
like you would at school.
You've got to sit there andwait for us to come to you,
because we can't bounce around.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Part of that is because we're still testing and
some of the curriculum is tooeasy, so we're pushing through
it really quickly, and so Imight put Slate on a reading
comprehension test and then I'mgoing to work with Saylor and I
think that I'm going to have,you know, a solid 15 to 20
minutes.
I can sit down and work with heron something that's more

(32:49):
complicated and two minuteslater he's done with the test
and he's calling me and yes, hegot all the answers right.
He needs to be moved on.
But I can't skip the wholecourse.
I want to skip just eachchapter as he's completing these
things, so that I know, okay,he's good on that, but I don't

(33:11):
want to skip the whole course incase there's something
important in there.
So just figuring out some ofthat, some of the specifics, has
been a little bit of achallenge.
I do think, when they're allworking on something that's
actually a little bit difficult,that they're actually having to
learn new things, that I'll beable to have one that needs me,
one that's practicing what theyjust learned, and then swap back
and forth much more easily.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
And because he's talking about the two kids, what
happened?
Just naturally and I don't knowif we'll switch this up or not
our youngest needed the mosthelp because she's working on
reading.
She can't just sit down and doa math paper by herself, yet you
have to have a lot ofinstruction, and so it was like
one person needed to be with her, which ended up being me, and

(33:53):
then the other two.
They can read and write wellenough now that they could sit
down and do like a spellingworksheet or math worksheet or
whatever.
They actually have thatcapacity to do that, but our
youngest does not.
So it's like I need to be withher, guiding her through here's
step one, two, three, four, sothat we can get through the
school part of our day.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Right.
Well, when you can't read, youcan't do a worksheet.
I mean you have to be told whatto do, and then you do need
that practice, so someone has totell you what to do.
But I mean, Slate and Taylorare able to read the
instructions and do theworksheets and Scotty really
can't do anything alone, whichwe already kind of knew that.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
But I am with her.
And there was one day that wewent to the park.
The whole schedule got thrownoff because we made new friends
and we were like, that's fine,we'll adjust, we'll do it later
in the day.
And we did, and as we imagined,doing it later in the day was
not good and we did and as weimagined, doing it later in the
day was not good.
The kids didn't act as goodabout it and didn't go as
smoothly.

(34:51):
It took way longer and Scottywas not so good about that day.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
And to top it off, that was the day that they
decided to teach Slateridiculous things he didn't want
to learn.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
He was mad.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
It was the one with the vocabulary and the math
commutative and all that andhe's like can we do numbers?
I don't know what is this.
This is dumb.
And he really was not happy tobe doing that.
I think it would have been fineif he hadn't have been tired, I
mean, and he understood whatthey were talking about.
He just didn't want to do theproblems that way that he

(35:26):
already knows how to do them.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, he wouldn't do math problems.
He didn't want to do readingmath problems.
So our initial thought of weneed to do it early in the day
was absolutely correct.
We need to do it early in theday, get school over with, don't
wait until everybody's tiredand grumpy and that will
occasionally happen, but for themost part, we will be
committing to doing it early sothat that doesn't happen again,
because we experienced it and wewere right.

(35:48):
Right.
So let's talk about thecurriculum, because when I
shared about all of this, I feellike that was the number one
question.
What is the curriculum we'reusing?
Do we like it?
All those things.
So let's jump into that.
Carson is the curriculum man.
So we chose Me Academy.

(36:09):
But we're working through thosekinks, if you want to tell them
about that.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yes.
So we had researched severaldifferent things and we landed
on that one.
We like the idea that it seemedlike you would be able to do
some things on the computer, butmostly you could do things on
paper, which is what we wanted,and what we found so far is that
it's not as seamless as I washoping.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
That was the whole reason we picked it right.
It was that there's a trial andit's $1.99 for the month for
kids.
You can try it out, and I heardfrom so many people homeschool
people that they tried acurriculum and didn't like it.
So I didn't want to spend $600per kid on something without
trying it.
So I learned that we picked MeAcademy based on the fact that

(37:00):
we don't want our kids on like atablet or screen and doing all
their work like that, because wewant them to work on their
handwriting and do things on penand paper.
But Me Academy is supposed tohave the option where you go and
you can print the PDF for theday.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
But they do have that option.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
They have that option ?
Yes, but what is the problemwith that option that we found
this week?

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Well, there's several , so one of them is it doesn't
always OK.
Sometimes part of the lesson isthat option that we found this
week.
Well, there's several, so oneof them is it doesn't always
okay.
Sometimes part of the lesson isthat they watch a video, and
sometimes part of the lesson isthat they take a test.
Sometimes that test or quiz isin the PDF, sometimes it's not.
The video is never in there.
And then another time the quizwas in there, but it was.

(37:48):
It was trying to get Slate tomatch a picture to a sentence
which is still way below hisreading level, but that's,
that's what it was.
So we're trying to get throughthat to see where he needs to be
placed, and the pictures thatare printed on the PDF were
black and white and they were sotiny that none of us could see
what was even supposed to be onthere.
So I had to put him back on thecomputer and say, okay, you

(38:12):
need to look at the pictures onhere so that we can.
Actually, I mean, and he did it, but I like some of the things
that they do on the computerthough.
I like the, for example, theapostrophe lesson that Saylor
did.
That's part of the languagearts.
I liked her doing that on thecomputer.
I could have printed the PDFfor that.

(38:33):
I actually did print it anddidn't use it because I know
when to use apostrophes.
I know about apostrophes, butit's different than math.
With math I can explain it tooin a very I don't know in a good
way where people can understandit.
I feel like with the apostropheI'm like I don't.
I know when to use it, but Idon't know how to explain it.
I don't know.
Let someone else to teach.

(38:54):
So how do you teach that?
You know, and I'm sure I couldhave figured it out, but the
video lesson explained it.
Say they understood it.
The video was five minutes.
She, you know, she did the 10practice questions and got them
all right.
So I'm like okay, moving on, Idon't have to stress myself out
about how do I teach this kidhow to do an apostrophe.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
So they have video lessons which is me Academy.
A lot of people, just their kidsits at the computer and works
through the lessons and theyhave basically virtual teachers
because they're going to watch avideo about this and then
they'll maybe take a test andthen you know.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
And that's fine.
But Taryn really wants the kidswriting and so do I.
I mean we need the kids writingand doing math by hand, some
working on their handwriting.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
The reason I want the kids writing is because I've
heard of so many people whodidn't think of that and then
their kid is really behind withthat.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yes, and that is a problem because I mean okay,
I've talked about it beforeslate's really good at math.
He's his brain is getting away.
If he's writing, he's solvingthese problems.
He's like solving threeproblems before he's even
written the answer to the firstone and he really needs to like
speed up his number writing andhis letter writing and

(40:07):
everything.
And so, yes, you're right, theyneed to work on that.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yes, his handwriting is atrocious.
Scotty hasn't even had enoughpractice writing.
They need to sit down, writeevery day, work on their
handwriting and get that down.
Even just for thinking througha math problem.
It's better.
Handwriting and get that down,even just for like thinking
through a math problem, it'sit's better.
So, yeah, I'm like anti doingit on the computer right now.

(40:32):
I love that.
If you had a workbook, like thegood and the beautiful people
love that, you order a whole boxand you get a book for each
subject, okay, then it's likeday one, you do that, do that.
It tells you what to tell yourkid and then you do the
worksheets.
And then the next day where doyou go?
Oh, day two it makes it reallyeasy for kids to know what

(40:54):
they're expected of.
So if kids were older theywould be like mom, I worked
through all of my subjects andthen you could go back and like
check it or if they had aquestion, but it's self like
they could do it themselvesreally easily and they wouldn't
need a computer.
So I like that.
I.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
But let's pause, because at the beginning, before
okay, you said I was thecurriculum guide, which is sort
of true, because once we decidedon the academy, I downloaded it
and, and you know, kind of tookthe lead on that, learned how
to use it, printed the stuff,did that part.
But really I mean Tarynresearched the different
curriculums, yeah, and you knewof the Good and the Beautiful

(41:36):
before it's like the mostpopular one.
Right, it's one of the ones youhad mentioned, but you leaned
more towards Me Academy and evennow I don't remember why that
was.
What was the reasoning?

Speaker 1 (41:45):
The pricing and I did like certain aspects of like.
I didn't want to go all in Like.
I think it was $600 per kid persemester.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
That's a lot.
Do you have to get all of thesubjects or can you choose?
No, you don't.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
But I've assumed if we were going to use one
curriculum, we're using thatcurriculum.
I have since found this weekthat every single homeschool mom
that I've asked, hey, whatcurriculum are you guys using?
Then they say, oh, we piecetogether what we like.
So they like, you know aspecific like IXL.
Math is really really good, butwe don't like their reading.

(42:17):
So then we do reading throughreadingcom and then like so I
just that wasn't in my head atthe time.
I just thought we were going tolike go all in on a curriculum
and I thought the same.
And.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
I thought, once we had picked Me Academy, we tried
it and so I still like a lot ofaspects of the math and the
reading and the language artsportion of it.
So reading, writing andarithmetic right your basics.
The science and the historyhave already removed those from
their course studies becausewe're going to do our own thing

(42:50):
for geography, for history, forcivics.
We're going to do that our ownway because what I'm seeing on
there it doesn't seem likeanything that children will
retain.
I actually love history.
I'm a big history buff and Ilove civics and politics and all
that.
Everything I know about it Ilearned after I was already done
with high school and collegebecause I got interested in it.

(43:11):
None of the things I learnedabout it I remember from school
and that's the way it lookedlike it was set up to teach and
I just thought it wasn't becauseit was like teaching things I
didn't believe or anything weirdlike that.
I just didn't think it wasanything the kids would retain,
and the science didn't seem likeanything they would retain
either.
And now we found out one ofthese, you know, homeschool

(43:31):
co-ops we're going to join it'slike a nature, science, outdoor
kind of thing and they learn alot about science.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
It's not a co-op, it's a nature group.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
A nature group.
Okay, but they learn a lotabout science.
I mean, there's actual, youknow, learning going on in this
hands-on learning and I feellike you know for science at
this age they're going to retainthat a lot better than you know
just reading about how turtlesreproduce or whatever.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Most homeschool people do that for science, yes,
and learn, you know, by doingthings on the things that you
can do that you know by doingthings on the things that you
can do.
That so that is a good thingabout Me Academy is that you
could easily go in there andtake it out Like you can build
your curriculum in there, whichsounds really good.

(44:17):
But I just had a lot ofproblems with it week one Also.
One of them was that we'vealways done workbooks from
Amazon.
I'll buy them in the summer andwe'll go through a couple of
things just to keep the kidslike not backsliding in the
summer.
And I was like the Amazonworkbook that I bought for $5.99

(44:37):
, the worksheets were way betterthan the Me Academy worksheets.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Now I will say for Me Academy they have the optional
on Amazon workbooks for some ofthe courses not all of them.
Some of them you can only printa PDF, but math is one of them.
You can go on Amazon and buythe workbook and it goes along
better than probably printingthe PDF does.
It probably functions betterfor that purpose.
So there is an option there.

(45:04):
So there is an option there.
But one of the other problems Ithink I'm going to have with me
Academy going forward is whenthe price goes up to full,
because we only had the onemonth at $1.99.
I don't even remember what theprice is, but it's a really good
value if you're getting four orfive core subjects per kid for
that.
Even when it goes up towhatever $40 a month, whatever

(45:24):
it is, it's a great value.
Even when it goes up towhatever $40 a month, whatever
it is, it's a great value.
But when you start strippingaway, you know, oh, we're going
to do science with this naturegroup, which there's a fee for
that.
It's not.
It's not a bad fee, but I meanthere is a fee for that.
So now I'm paying for thatseparately.
I'm making up my own historylessons for them or geography
lessons, and so I'm now I'm onlyusing it for math and social

(45:45):
study or, sorry, for math andlanguage arts reading, and I
mean so the value starts todecrease because it's the same
price, no matter how much of theprogram you use.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
You could have 17 subjects going at a time if you
wanted, yeah they have a lot tochoose from on there as far as
subjects, a lot of, even outsideof the core subjects.
But I am like, after this firstweek I don't like Me.
Academy Now I will give it moretime.
I'm not going to just you knowgo ahead and write it off right

(46:14):
now.
But my initial thought is Idon't like it and we've already
made the decision not to haveScottie do that for now because
it was not going well with herthe things that we needed to do
for first grade so I liked itbetter.
The reading program we werealready doing, which is an app
that takes about 15-20 minutes aday.

(46:36):
We've been doing that for like18 months and then the math
worksheets that I have fromAmazon were way better.
So I doing that, and then we'realso writing and doing journal
and then I've got an additionallike geography, like you know,
learning about coins and thingslike that that I know that they
learn in first grade.
Now it's easier because I knowwhat is covered in first grade.

(46:59):
I can easily put together what Ithink she can do in a day and
do it with her, and that wentway better than trying to do the
Meet Academy.
But I think the biggest problemis that the video lessons are
great right, they really are.
They teach them things, butit's the bouncing back and forth
you can't be.
You can either be all in I'mgoing to do everything on
computer, or you are in thislike middle ground and just

(47:24):
doesn't work to try to bounceback and forth.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
And you could do none of it on the computer.
But then it defeats the purposeof having me academy.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
No, it's not helpful if you do all PDF.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Another problem with the bouncing back and forth is
so Saylor does a whole, you know, couple of days worth of
worksheets in a day, because Iaccidentally assigned her two
days worth of work in a day butshe did them all.
And then now, okay, it's not inme academy that she did that
work, she had to do it on thecomputer.
Okay, I can go in there andthere's a way.
Maybe I can give her credit.

(47:54):
I think the easiest thing Ifound was just to unassign it,
because she'd already done itand so I don't know it it.
If she was doing everything onthe computer, I think the way it
would track would be reallygood, but then she wouldn't be
writing the math the way that wewant her to.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Slate writes his numbers backwards a lot now
Sailor does.
Sometimes She'll write a numberbackwards.
So I think, writing them andnot thinking about it, they need
to be there before they're onthe computer a lot which if
you're not doing it on thecomputer, then you have to hand
grade everything and you have tosee where they're at and it's
not saying, hey, Taylor didreally well in this math thing

(48:30):
and she's just struggling onthis one thing, so review that
and you'll be good.
That would be great, that's.
You know, one of the thingsabout the academy was that that
kind of tracks their progressand lets you know if there's any
areas that they're strugglingwith.
But if you do it all on paper,you just basically have to
review everything and see wherethey're at and then, just like

(48:52):
school I guess at some pointgive like an exam and then grade
that a little bit more in depth, making sure that they retained
everything that they learnedbefore.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yes, okay, oh, but here's another thing I thought
of.
It's a problem that they couldprobably fix easily.
Okay, you know, just if anyonethat works there is listening to
this podcast.
So, okay, even if I have her doall the like practice questions
and everything on paper, soshe's getting that practice and
then I have the test printed,but she still does it on the

(49:22):
computer, but then she can do itby hand if that's easier for
her than trying to figure out,you know, double digit
multiplication on a computer,which is weird for me anyway,
but so she can do it by hand andthen answer the question on a
computer.
No-transcript.
You have to assign her thatsection of that chapter of that

(49:43):
course, and that section has avideo and practice questions and
then the quiz, and so maybethere's a way that I just
haven't figured out yet, but itseemed like I couldn't find a
way to just get her straight tothe test.
But we already did the lessonand the practice questions
together.
I wanted to just do the testand you can't fast forward to

(50:04):
the video, because you can onlyget to the video when you're
logging in as the kid.
So it thinks the kid is fastforwarding and skipping a lesson
and I'm like no, I'm the, Iwant a code, give me a dad code.
And also I could skip throughthe cause.
We already did this and I don'thave that.
So I was finding myselffrustrated with that.
The closest I found was I couldput the videos on double time,
but you stopped to wait, I mean.

(50:25):
So that was you know.
That was frustrating me.
I think Taryn has always been ofthe mindset that, you know, I
cause, I I'm a positive personabout that, I can do things.
But it's more like I can hike atrail, I can hike any trail,
but these are trails thatalready just Taryn is like trail

(50:46):
, but these are trails thatalready just taryn is like I can
make a new trail, or I canbuild a plane, and you know, and
and fly the plane instead ofinstead of walking on this trail
and so.
So my mindset is that, well,probably the other ones aren't
better, this is just the way itis.
We'll just, you know, work withwhat we have.
And her mindset is no, no, thatdoesn't work, we're going to
make a better way.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
So yeah, because I am trying to learn from other
homeschool moms and all I'mhearing is that each child's
different.
No curriculum is going to fityou perfectly.
I've heard great things about amath program and all I keep
thinking is Slate is like notliking this math, and he's been
excited about math for a while.
Why don't we try out the mathprogram?

(51:27):
Because all they do is math, Ibet it's great.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
I had a lot of notes from my research into math for
and they have.
This is another thing aboutpiecing together our own.
That might be better is thatyou know, the way that gifted
people learn math is different,and he did test gifted we don't
know how gifted yet, I mean butthey need a different way of

(51:51):
learning math that makes themthink about it in a different
way from a lot of things that Iread.
And so then me Academy would begreat for just any smart kid to
do to learn the math that way,but he might need a different
approach.
I don't know really, but theyhave some programs for that.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
And I think that leads us to our biggest problem
of the week was that we need togauge where our kids are at.
We haven't been schooling themso we don't really know, and so
we had to do all of thesetesting just to see, like, where
do we start now for slate?
We know he's reading well abovelevel, his math is well above

(52:31):
level, but where do we startmath?
Do we start him in third grade?
Do we start him in fourth grade?
Do we start in the middle of agrade?
Like where are you?
Because we we haven't been withyou daily teaching you, we
don't know if you know thesesubjects and we don't know if
there's like a core thing thatdidn't get covered in school,
that he just hasn't covered yet.
So that was kind of hard too,because ideally I guess you

(52:54):
would just pick what gradethey're in.
But I wanted and I don't knowif it exists, so tell me if it
does I just wanted like aplacement test.
So when I started like Scotty'sreading app, she took a
placement test.
It didn't just say, oh, she'sin kindergarten, here's where
she needs to start.
She placement.
And then they started after thefirst lesson.

(53:16):
They said is this too easy ortoo hard and for multiple
lessons.
After that we gauged whether itwas in the right spot till we
found where she was.
And I was assuming we wouldn'tbe able to do something like
that with the academy, and thatwas not the case.
So the kids got tested all week, basically so that we could
just find, like you would havethem do unit one and it would be

(53:38):
like so easy, like okay, well,that just tells us you're not at
unit one.
It doesn't tell us where you'regoing to be.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
That is all there is.
You would think, with one ofthe perks of having a
computer-based program would bethat there is something like
that and it would say okay, thisis where you need to start.
But they just start you atgrade level and that's fine.
But I mean it does take alittle bit more time because
there's placement tests 're noteven if you did it on a computer
.
I mean, it's just the chapterquizzes yeah, and so you know
there's what nine chapters inthe math course, for example for

(54:11):
slate, and so he, I gave himchapter one and then, uh, you
know he, okay, he knew all that.
So we went on chapter two, gavehim chapter.
We're going to keep going untilwe, you know, and so we're
still doing testing this comingweek, we're still going to be
testing to see.
But again, I don't want to skipanything because no matter how

(54:32):
good you are at math or how goodyou are at whatever, you can't
know something you haven't beentaught.
And I don't know what he hasand hasn't been taught yet.
So I'm just making sure we gothrough a little bit at a time.
I wish there was and theremight be in other curriculums.
There might be better placementtests.
You know you would expect insomething like the good and the
beautiful.
There's not, because it's justworksheets.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
So I mean right, and I think that any curriculum you
choose, it's probably going tobe difficult to find where to
start.
So we're just in the like,growing pains part of it, but it
is a little disappointing forthe kids because they're doing
things that are boring.
They've already done it atschool and it's too easy.
Well, that's what they'recoming from.

(55:12):
They were bored at school andthey didn't like that they were
doing.
So then we're right into this.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
And I've been trying to find the balance because I'm
like, look, I don't know.
I want to tell them this mightbe easy because it might be
stuff you already know.
So I'm, but it won't always bethat way.
But I also don't want them tofeel like then, if they don't
know it, that oh, I'm dumb orsomething.
And so I've also been tellingthem this is the stuff you're
supposed to be learning now.
This is on grade level, but youmight already know, I don't

(55:39):
know.
If you don't know it, don'tknow.
If you don't know it, don'tfeel bad, because that just
means you haven't been taught it.
You weren't supposed to betaught it yet it's.
You know, this is fourth gradematerial, you're a fourth grader
, so don't worry about it.
But if you do already know, wedon't want to waste time on it.
So that's been a balance too.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
And I pulled Slade aside when he was getting
frustrated and he's like Ithought I was going to be
learning like a lot moremultiplication and division and
stuff and I'm just doing likebaby stuff.
So I was like you want me toteach you division?
And he was like, yes, teach me.
I just grabbed a piece of paperand explained to him what

(56:16):
division was, which he kind ofalready knew, because he wants
this information, he loves it.
We're not forcing him.
And then once I explained it tohim, it took me about a minute
or two.
I wrote out a bunch of problemsand he solved all of them and I
was like this this is whatpeople say that they love about
homeschooling, because it was soawesome.
I saw how quick his brain didthat and he was like he got it

(56:38):
so quickly.
And I was there to witness thatand I was the one that taught
him, Like that's so cool.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
But we can also see the holes, because I did find
them.
Because he was already doingmultiplication last year.
So Taryn just taught himdivision.
He was doing single digitmultiplication in first grade,
but they never got to doubledigit addition in first grade
and so it's like he skippedahead to multiplication but he
hadn't done double digitaddition and subtractions.
But he didn't know aboutcarrying the one or borrowing,

(57:06):
regrouping, whatever I thinkthey call it regrouping on his
own.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
So he just figured it out and wanted to keep going,
but we did need to backtrackthis week and do practice on
double digit addition andsubtraction.
But once again he wants wordbooks.
Give me a sheet, let me, let mepractice on them.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
So and and it worked and and he that was a hole in
the learning and but we taughtit to him and now he knows it
and I think we're moving onbecause and the book has a lot
of repetition and I think that'sone of the things that he and
say we're getting the mostfrustrated about, and that's
when sailor's grade slipped iswhen she was getting too much
repetition on math or something,because she would the first

(57:45):
three worksheets she would aceand then she would get a 50 on
the last one because she's justtired of doing it and so
questions and and you know,slate wasn't getting frustrated
enough to stop trying.
He's going to try to get all theproblems right still, but he's
just getting annoyed and now hehas that down and we're just
going to move on.
I think we were supposed tospend a few weeks on it, but we

(58:05):
don't need to.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
No, they're picking things up very quickly and I
love being able to see it myselfevery day and I love that we're
like you got that.
Let's move on.
There is no reason to spendweeks on something that you got
and you can do well.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
And the point of this isn't to be like oh look, how
smart our kids are.
It's really not.
It's just talking about that.
You can tailor to exactly whatyour kids need, and if it's the
opposite, if they need more timeon a subject then you spend it,
because they get so muchpressure.
When they go into third grade,it's like now you have to learn
multiplication.
You get to fourth grade Now youhave to learn long division,

(58:42):
and if you don't know additionand subtraction yet, that's just
too darn bad.
You're going to have to learnthis anyway.
Well, that's not possible.
You can't learn long divisionwhen you don't know subtraction
yet.
And if you need to spend thatextra time with your kid, you
can, because it's so much moreimportant to make sure that by
the time they're 18, they knowhow to add, subtract, multiply
and divide, even if it takes alittle extra time than trying to

(59:05):
pretend like they're going tolearn high-level algebra 2 and
calculus.
They don't even need calculus.
Just make sure that they knowhow to do addition, subtract and
multiplication, you know.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yes, yes, exactly.
So if you were here to hearabout what curriculum we chose,
that was a lot, but we're notenthused with the one we chose.
But we will definitely updateeach week if we make any changes
, if we start using somethingdifferent or if we decide.
Maybe we love Me Academy, butas of this week, I am not a fan

(59:38):
of Me Academy.
I think Carson likes it betterthan I do, but not a fan.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
I have mixed feelings and one of my biggest worries
is the longer we're on it.
I mean, we're spending twoweeks doing testing and specific
towards this curriculum it's,you'd think.
Oh, it isn't.
Math universal, yes, but Idon't know what information is
in the second grade math foranother curriculum, so I'm going
to have to start the testingall over.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
I feel like I feel like you feel like we're going
to be behind and you're soworried that we're going to be
behind and so you think that wewasted all of this time.
And I'm looking at it as, whenthe kids are in school, there
are so many days they're notdoing.
They're not doing anything.

(01:00:21):
They're watching a movie.
They haven't even started doinganything All the first week.
They're just getting into aanything.
They're watching a movie.
They haven't even started doinganything All the first week.
They're just getting into aroutine.
They're coloring some papers,they're figuring out the
schedule.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
They've done nothing.
That's not it at all.
We're going to be ahead of, youknow, the people in regular
school.
I'm not worried about that atall.
I don't want to waste theirtime.
I want to do a good job, that'sit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
We're just doing our best, though.
If we have to change, we haveto change.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
But I'm very self-critical.
I want to do it right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Well, I'm not.
I feel like we're doing a greatjob.
We're doing as good as anyonecould be expected to do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
I want to do the best job.
Not that there's a way to testit, but I want to be the best
homeschool teacher there's everbeen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Okay, well, you're shooting for the stars.
Maybe you need to lower that alittle bit.
Did you not hear from the kids?
They all said that they lovedthem.
We were great teachers.
So, mission accomplished.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Okay, if we just gave them candy and let them watch
TV all week, they would say wewere the best teachers ever.
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
They're definitely not the people that can grade us
here.
We both want them to excel andbe intelligent people in society
and learn everything they'resupposed to learn, and we're
going to make sure that happens.
Like all of this, whether ornot we go with one curriculum or
not, or if we have to backtrack, it's going to be okay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
That's true.
At the end of the day, thecurriculum is just about which
one makes our life easier.
If we find one that makes ourlife easier, then we're going to
use that one instead.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Yes, exactly.
So I am sorry that we rambledon on the school.
I knew that would be a longline.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
I'm not, you're welcome.
We spent extra time just foryou to hear all that we have to
say.
I know you hang on every word.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening, but let's
wrap with talking about whatelse that came up this week and
talk about things that aren'tschool.
So first Monday morning I got amessage saying that we could
get into the co-op that wewanted to get into but we didn't
.
So she's like hey, we havethese spots available.

(01:02:21):
Do you want them?
I asked you about it and we'regoing to try it out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
They must have heard how good of a homeschool teacher
I am and they were like, ohwell, squeeze this guy in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
He's got jokes always .
So we're going to do the co-opand it is once a week.
It's on Fridays.
We don't know if we're co-oppeople or not, but parents have
to go and help and then, if youwant to which I think Kirsten
does you can teach a class.
The kids get to pick whatclasses they're taking and they

(01:02:52):
can either take two or three perFriday and it can be anything
from like history to art,whatever, but they'll be with
the same students, the samepeople.
They have a field day, theyhave all kinds of stuff like
school related, but it's justonce a week.
So we're trying the co-op,though we might not be co-op

(01:03:14):
people.
We don't.
I think it will beuncomfortable for me.
I'm not really great at meetingnew people and I'm very
introverted, but Carson's not,so I think that will be fine.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
I like people and you know, I think a big deciding
factor on whether it works outor not especially if we're going
to be involved in helping andstuff is how well behaved other
people's kids are, because itsounds rude, it's hard for us to
be around people that havepoorly behaved children because
ours are not.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
We're coming from a public school where you behavior
issues it doesn't matter.
They're going to be in school.
This is.
You know.
People can get kicked out.
I'm just assuming there's goingto be more behavior and it's a
Christian based one, so there'sgoing to be things that are not
acceptable and it's aChristian-based one, so there's
going to be things that are notacceptable.
So just basically, be kind toeach other is like the number

(01:04:09):
one thing, whereas we weren'tseeing a lot of that in public
school, people were not teachingtheir kids to be kind and there
was a lot of people that justsent their kids to school,
didn't want to hear about it,didn't care whatever.
They didn't care what's beengoing on with their kids.
We'll have a lot less of that,so I'm interested to see, I'm
hoping.
Yeah, I'm interested to see howit is to be around like-minded

(01:04:30):
people and their kids, sohopefully we get out of that.
What we need, which is somemore socialization and that is
the number one complaint frompeople, is socialization with
kids in homeschool.
Like I comment on my instagramthat was like oh no, this is the
worst thing ever.
They're going to be neverexposed to the real world and

(01:04:51):
like babes basically have nolife skills because they're
never going to be around anyoneand that's probably coming from
someone that doesn't even have apassport.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
We just took our kids and a lot of times we let them
lead the way on the trains inEurope that we were taking and
like, hey, you got to find thetrain.
You know, we don't want to missthe train.
I mean, they're getting exposedto the real world.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
They're in the real world.
I said, oh, I'm sorry, did Inot mention that we're going to
leave the house and let them out?
So socialization is just like ahot topic.
So this week we socializedbecause I didn't want to drop
the ball on that.
You know, we went to ahomeschool meetup which I was
terrified to go to.
That is just like my ideal oflike terrible situation to go

(01:05:33):
into a group of people that Iknow nothing about, large group
of people who already knowpeople.
But it went really well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Well, first of all, there was other people there.
It was their first time.
I didn't know that and thatworked out.
I know you didn't know that wasgoing to happen, but that
helped.
But even the people that run itor that are just there all the
time both you know, we metseveral of those people and they
were so nice, they were sowelcoming, so nice.
You know, encourage their kids,to play with their kids without

(01:06:04):
making obvious that that's whatwas happening.
Yeah, you know, so they werereally helpful to make us feel
welcome, so we liked them a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
And we just met at a park A bunch of people we didn't
know.
Everyone brought some food, solike some fruit or chips or
whatever.
They put it all on this bigtable and there was a splash pad
and then the person that's incharge of the group brought like
games, like being bagged,tossed, things like that.
So it was awesome.
We did that one day and thatgroup goes on a big hike once a

(01:06:34):
month and we're going to jointhe hike.
Yes, we are, it was right upour alley.
And she said that the hikinggroup is actually really small.
I do great in small groups ofpeople.
So, I think that'll be reallygood.
We're going to go to a big hikewith them in September, so that
worked out well.
Sailor was dying to go.
She's very social, so we went,put myself in that situation and

(01:06:56):
it ended up being great.
And then we were thinking aboutjoining this homeschool art
class because all three of ourkids love art and they put on
like an art show at the end ofthe semester and one of the
people there go.
So the girl that Sailor madefriends with is going to be in
our art class.
So I feel like it got the ballrolling on making people that

(01:07:17):
they're going to be actualfriends see all the time and
things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
We also went to the park one morning and we haven't
made a lot of friends in ourneighborhood, but we went again.
We just keep going every dayand I tell the kids you know,
this is how you make friends,like get yourself out there and
go where the people are.
And we met a whole group ofhomeschool people and Taylor was
just like hey, my name's Taylor, what's your name?
I homeschool, I live over thereon this street, where are you

(01:07:42):
from?
And she really just likecracked the whole ice and we
made friends with them.
They're in our neighborhood,they homeschool.
And then we stayed at the parkfor like two hours with them.
So that was awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Yes, that was the day that we started homeschooling,
but it was worth it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Well, I was just thinking in my head we just met
these people Like I don't wantto leave and like there's no, we
don't have to, we gotta hangout at least long enough to like
exchange numbers so we can havesome friends, right?
we I got numbers from threedifferent moms like around our
neighborhood.
Slate got to have a play date.
He isn't super social, he kindof has hard time opening up,

(01:08:17):
just like I do and he made afriend and then they had two
play dates this week.
So that was big for slate.
Like I'm so excited for him.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Me too, Because he even tells us.
He's like yeah, I just waituntil somebody asks me to play
with them.
I don't like to ask otherpeople to play with me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
I was like, well, what if they feel that way, what
if they're scared to ask you to, and so then you never get.
But they really wanted to playwith and he's like, well, then,
I guess we just won't playtogether.
He's not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
No, but it was a great time to focus on that with
him because I was like you know, I feel the same way but I make
myself do it and he was reallyinterested to have that
conversation with me.
So that was nice and he did andhe opened up, but he made a
friend.
It was one of his first playdates ever and he's seven and
then the next day the boy cameto our house and was ready to
play again.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
So I think that socially we had a great week
yeah, and even one of the dayswe went out to the park I'd been
wanting to I'd met a doctorwhen we were here before that
had a son, slate sage, and hecoached him in basketball.
I was like, okay, I don't wantto be a stalker, but I really
hope I run into this guy againbecause I didn't get his name or
number but I really want toplay basketball with him.

(01:09:29):
He sounds awesome, the way hedescribed, the way he coached,
and because that can be aproblem.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
In the league.
It's not super competitive.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
Right, it's fun.
It's a fun league.
I mean they try to win.
But it's not about coachesscreaming at the refs or parents
yelling at people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
It's just none of that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
And so I was like, yes, I really want to play
basketball in that league, andpreferably on this guy's team.
He seems awesome and he livesright down the road from us and
we did run into him, so it wasawesome, and then we got their
number, so I'm looking forwardto that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
Yeah, and he was like Slate can come just practice
with us because he missed thewindow.
So Slate's just going to go getto know the boys and, like,
play basketball.
He doesn't care about the gamesanyway, so I think that's going
to be good for him.
Sports and all of that.
We don't start until September.
All of the homeschool stuff,the co-op, the girls' art

(01:10:20):
classes Well, all of them aregoing to art, all their art
classes, swim lessons for Slate.
So we're pretty like not verybusy right now and we didn't
realize that homeschool stuffstarts later.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
That's a lot of socialization that you just
talked about A lot ofsocialization.
I thought we were going to notexpose them to the real world.
And then the girls, in additionto gymnastics, sometimes do
competition cheer.
And if you think that's notexposing them to the real world,
man, you've never seen a bunchof girls get together in
competition cheer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
That is some real world right there.
I know that's the real world,but definitely it's social.
Oh it's socialization.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Social, social, social it doesn't get much more
social than that.
Every single one of them.
They're best friends.
They can't imagine they'renever going to see each other
again at the end of the seasonand it's like it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
So it's funny.
If you're worried about ourkids being social and getting
out of the house, don't worry,we've got that covered.
We socialize our butts off thisweek.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
But we do thank you for your concern.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Yes, the last thing on my list was that this week
what didn't work was that wewere all at the kitchen table,
which meant all of our workbooks, pencils, crayons, everything
were on the table all week longand, as a very type A person,
that drove me nuts.
So we are pivoting from thatand we did order some desks for

(01:11:37):
them.
It'll be in a different roomand they can keep all their
stuff out, but not on the table.
So that didn't work.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
And in order to make room for it, we had to sell the
Peloton.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Yeah, say goodbye we had a good run.
But we did go to the gym thisweek.
The kids have a kids club, sothat's something that we get to
do during the day and get alittle bit of a break from the
kids, because most people, whenI told them we were
homeschooling, their immediateresponse was oh my gosh, you'll
have to be the most patientpeople in the world, and I'm

(01:12:08):
here to tell you we are not.
Especially me we're not patient, people Not patient.
And we aren't those people thatare like, oh honey, like I'm so
sorry, tell me about yourfeelings, like I feel, like
that's what people are imagining.
We're like.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
It would be great if I was.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
We try, we try our hardest.
But the three kids, similarages, asking a million questions
a day, everyone getting hurt itbeing loud in our house, it
gets to us a lot.
We're not doing this because wedon't get tired of our kids
Like we relate to that.
We're like oh well, my kidsdrive me crazy.
When it's been too long, we getit.

(01:12:47):
So we are trying to build inbreaks during our day.
Like we said, we get nighttime.
We do get like to read or watcha show or something without
feeling guilty, but we're alsogetting to go to the gym in the
middle of the day, which is nice.
So we're getting to get a breakand getting to work out, which

(01:13:08):
sometimes is hard to fit workoutin, so that's really nice.
I just wanted to clear the airhere.
We are, not, like these, reallysuper patient parents.
There is a lot of frustrationand we get tired of our kids
very quickly, some days withinan hour of them being awake.
But what I keep telling myselfis, just like anything else,

(01:13:32):
even school.
School wasn't working for usfor a long time and I was really
hating it.
But you just get up and you doit again, right, that's all
we're doing.
Yeah, we might have afrustrating day with the kids
because maybe they were fightinga lot or something, but we're
just getting up and doing itagain.
That's all you can do with kids, right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
Right and we're around them when they're in a
lot better mood, because theywere always under slept during
the school year.
We could just you try to getthem in bed earlier, but we have
sports and things that keepthem up late, and so they never
get enough sleep.
They're tired and grumpy, butnow I mean we're around them,
when they're much more pleasant,it's not at the end of the day
they're not exhausted.
And oh and, by the way, thekids club at the gym.

(01:14:18):
More socialization, see Just incase.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Plenty of socialization.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
But, yes, we're around them at their best and
then, when they are getting totheir worst, that's when it's
time for them to chill out andread a book or watch a show.
And we read our books or watcha show, and that's at the end of
the day.
So we've already accomplishedeverything.
We've accomplished work, we'veaccomplished a workout, we've
accomplished school, we've beenoutside for at least an hour All

(01:14:44):
of the things that areimportant to us.
We've had three healthy mealsthat we cooked at home.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Reading time.
We do every afternoon.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
Yes, 30 minutes of reading outside of the two hours
of school that we do.
So, yeah, I mean, I think thatwe've already accomplished a lot
by the time we get to the endof the day and we're like, okay,
everyone, go to your cornersand do whatever makes you happy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
Well, that is a good point, because when we would
pick them up from school theywould be unruly.
I hated picking them up fromschool because usually I would
do drop off and Carson would dopickup.
But in tax time I start takingover pickup too and I'm like I
don't know how you do this.
They're crazy at the end of theday.
They were almost fist fightingsome days getting into the car

(01:15:26):
because they're just mad, andthen all three of them tried to
get in the door at the same time, and so they're like fist
fighting in front of people.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
I'll tell you how I did it.
I would say usually, before wehad even left the parking lot of
school, I'd say, okay, completesilence on the rest of the road
home, or nobody gets to watchTV tonight, because they would
have already been fighting sobad that I couldn't take it
anymore snapping at each otherand just it was just sheer chaos
and we already knew this.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
On the weekends we never experienced that side of
them and it was every school day.
I would say, oh my, that washorrible.
Like the 15 minute drive homewas absolute worst time of my
day.
And then I'm like they neveract like this on the weekends.
Why are they acting like thisnow?
a lot of reasons and, but now wedon't have that.
Like they are pretty good allday until we get to the end of

(01:16:16):
the day, everyone's tired andneeds to just relax or whatever.
So that's a very, very, verybig plus for homeschooling is
that we don't get that.
Whatever it is, post-schoolmeltdown.
We don't experience that,probably from being inside and

(01:16:36):
not getting energy out.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
And that's a big part of it.
Those are several of thereasons.
Other reasons include that theywere coked up with sugar.
At school they got a lot ofsugar yeah, so I mean there's a
lot of reasons, but yeah, thoseare some of the big ones.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
The biggest point is that we're not having that, so
that's super nice.
Well, I think that is all.
This is probably going to beone of our longest episodes ever
.
We keep saying that.
Yeah Well, just because we keepsaying that, yeah well, just
because I feel like we're justsorting things out, and this
week was very eye-opening andexciting, and I think that

(01:17:15):
they'll get shorter as we go.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
but yes, and as we go , we will continue updating on
how everything's going, butwe'll also probably have some
more specific advice.
I just don't really feel likewe're qualified to give that out
yet.
We have, you know, exactly oneweek of experience at this point
?

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
We're not.
We're not.
This podcast isn't from experts, like a lot of podcasts are
experts, right, this is just.
This is documentation.

Speaker 3 (01:17:39):
But we can tell you some things not to do along the
way.
But we don't even have enoughexperience to tell you that yet.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
We tried this and it didn't work.
So, yes, we have a bonusepisode coming out, I think
Friday-ish, and we just askedthe kids how it went.
So if you want to hear fromtheir perspective how the week
went, that will be coming out injust like 10, 15 minutes, but
let's get this wrapped up.
Thank you for listening to wellthis was a planned podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
That was horrible.
We worked really hard on thispodcast.
Make sure to subscribe so youdon't miss a single podcast
episode.
Thank you, have a good day.

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