March 8, 2025 • 53 mins
What happens when the whole world becomes your classroom? Meet Melissa Smith – mother of nine, road-schooling pioneer, and passionate advocate for educational freedom. In this captivating conversation, Melissa reveals how her family transformed an RV into a learning oasis that has traversed America, turning national parks into science labs and historic sites into living textbooks.
With children ranging from 28 to 11 years old, Melissa brings decades of homeschooling wisdom, sharing how her educational approach evolved from traditional home-based learning to their current nomadic lifestyle.
Particularly moving is Melissa's insight into adapting education for children with different learning needs. Her experience with Auditory Processing Disorder transformed from a challenge into an opportunity to customize learning in ways traditional schools simply couldn't provide.
Whether you're a seasoned homeschooler, a curious parent exploring options, or someone fascinated by unconventional educational paths, this episode offers a treasure trove of practical wisdom. Ready to reimagine what learning could look like for your family? This conversation might just be your roadmap to educational adventure.
For those interested in taking Melissa's Webinar: the next step toward personal empowerment and success, they can learn more and enroll here: or visit my website at www.synholisticsolutions.com.
The Homeschool How To Community: JOIN TODAY!- Be a part of these interviews, join our monthly Q&A sessions, get full access to my Curriculum Series and go through my course and roadmap that condenses all the things I have learned from interviewing homeschoolers! Join today!!
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HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why are people homeschooling,how do you do it, how does it
differ from region to region,and should I homeschool my kids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Melissa Smith.
Melissa, thank you so much forbeing here.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm so excited.
Where are you right now,melissa?
Because you're a travelinghomeschool family, huh.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yes, we are, and we have been for several years, but
right now we are in SouthernCalifornia.
We're actually from California,but we left for the East Coast
and we were in the East Coastprobably since 2021.
And it kind of came back toCalifornia, went back to the
East Coast and we spent probablya good two years there without
(01:06):
coming back to California.
But now we're on the West Coastand it's fun.
You get to kind of just pick upand go where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So, okay, let's start with how many kids do you have
and what are their ages?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Okay, so, as you said , my name is Melissa Smith and
we are a family of nine, we havenine children.
And then is Melissa Smith, andwe are a family of nine, we have
nine children.
And then, plus my husband and I, our children range from 28
years old to 11.
And when we startedhomeschooling, it was like in
the year 2000 or 2002, aroundthere, so homeschooling looked a
(01:39):
lot different back then.
And then we startedhomeschooling on the road in
2019 with our last four littlegirls, and so we have a daughter
, four boys and four girls.
I feel like when I'm talking,I'm talking like I have like
five different lives, becausestarting raising children in
1996 and then still raisingchildren in 2025, it's like I'm
(02:03):
in two different worlds.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And can I ask is this too personal?
Is it all like the same dad andeverything.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yes, yes, yes, it is, we got married in 1995.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We missed diapers.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, we did.
We loved them.
I mean, I could have ownedWalmart, you know, because we
had like two or three in diapersat a time, about five car seats
at a time.
We had like two or three indiapers at a time, about five
car seats at a time and withfour little boys in one section
of our raising children, youknow, a girl and then four boys
it was like they're very busy,they're very active.
Every day was like mommy, whereare we going to go?
(02:36):
What are we going to do today?
And so life looked reallydifferent back then, when we had
the four little boys and myoldest daughter.
Then, when we had the fourlittle boys and my oldest
daughter, and then when they gotolder and we were like, okay,
well, we're going to hit theroad with the last four girls,
and that just felt like acompletely different life.
You know, I'm so grateful to beon this podcast.
I was like we could totallymake a series because I could
(02:58):
take you back in time to 1996.
And then you move you forwardto 2015.
And then now we're in 2025.
And we just have a ton ofstories and we love to share
them.
I love to be able to talk abouthomeschooling, so okay.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So have they always been homeschooled, or you had
them in traditional school forpart of?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
it?
We did.
We did have some of our kidsinto traditional school and we
started when my daughter, likeyou know, back in the 90s, you
could start school at five yearsold, and so because she was an
October baby, she started reallyyoung.
So I had friends thathomeschooled and they taught me
what they used to tell me theygo, melissa, you need a
(03:42):
homeschool like this.
It's called the kitchen tableschooling.
And I said, what's the kitchentable schooling?
And so, as I started to learnthat you take all your aged kids
and you put them around thetable, and I had the same
curriculum for English and thesame for math and we taught as a
whole, as a family, so westarted homeschooling and then
(04:03):
life happened for a little bitand so some of them had to go
into school, and that wasprobably just the first two.
And then when we moved fromCalifornia to Idaho that was a
great state to homeschool in,and so we had so much fun just
homeschooling.
We had seven children by thetime we moved there and we just
were able to homeschool, do whatwe wanted to do, which I like
(04:24):
doing, is to be able tohomeschool the way I want to.
And a little bit of backstoryabout myself is when I was
younger I went to school to be ateacher.
So I was already working withspecial need kids and I was
already getting my degree inteaching.
But when I had my firstdaughter I decided to be a
stay-at-home mom.
So I didn't quite finish mycredential, but I love children
(04:44):
and I taught preschool and Ijust really wanted to be with my
own children.
I think what happened for mewas, through the years I've
developed these statements likea mindset of what my purpose is
and what my why is.
But when I was younger I didn'tkind of understand that and I
was trying to muck through thethe field and homeschooling
wasn't like it was today, and sowe had some ups and we had some
(05:08):
downs and we learned what weliked about public school and we
learned what we didn't likeabout public school.
And through my journey I'vegotten to the point where I
absolutely love what we're doing.
I have my purpose of why we dowhat we do and I also am a life
coach and I work with women andhelping them to empower
themselves to find their innerhappiness through my company
(05:30):
called SYN Holistic Solutions,and I'm a specialist for
homeschooling moms who justbegin.
Sometimes, when you startbeginning, it's such a different
mindset that you have questions, and I want to be there to help
you through this journey,because it really can be a
beautiful journey with whateveryou decide to do, whether you're
at home, whether you're on theroad, wherever you're going to
(05:51):
educate your children.
I've heard in some of your pastpodcasts and I love one podcast
had talked about that we aretheir first teachers and who's
better to teach our kids andeducate our children than us?
And when you start to thinkabout how many hours a day
they're in school and how manyhours a day they're actually
(06:12):
home with me or with the parentis lopsided, it's not even
balanced.
And so through the years Iwanted to homeschool because I
loved my kids so much.
I just didn't want to send themall day to somebody who's going
to be with them more than me,and I had certain values and
beliefs that I wanted to teachand have around my children, and
(06:36):
those values I wasn't findingin the school system.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, and it's so funny it happens so gradually,
almost like what's the sayingLobster in hot water Is it what
animal?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
is it supposed to be, but the crabs, the crabs in the
bucket, and they keep pullingyou down.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, no, no, no, the one where it's boiling and you
don't know it's boiling.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Because it's like they're like okay, we're going
to send everybody to school, allright, that sounds like a great
idea.
Then I don't have to worryabout teaching reading and
writing and math.
And then it went from just likea couple hours a day to slowly
longer hours and and earlierages and later ages, until now
it's.
I mean, I know in my lifetimeI've talked about this you go to
(07:18):
kindergarten for half half aday when I was five and now it's
full day kindergarten and afull day preschool.
So it's like earlier andearlier and earlier that they're
just where we don't even thinkof it.
It's like, well, of course I'mgoing to send them to preschool
at four years old, full day inan actual school building.
But it's when you stop to thinkabout it it is a little crazy.
(07:41):
So that's cool that you've seenkind of the difference of the
public school setting and the.
You know the homeschooling.
How did your kids feel betweengoing?
Do they like one more thananother?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yes, I think for some of them they might have
different opinions.
I was talking to one of my sonsand he's 21 and he was saying
some of the things that hereally liked about homeschooling
, because he was able to go toelementary school and homeschool
go to high school and then heended up homeschooling high
school and he said, being ableto homeschool, he could go
(08:14):
through the curriculum fasterand he said that homeschooling
allowed him a chance to create abusiness, to maybe fail at a
business and do another business, to be able to have that
opportunity at a young age to bean entrepreneur and to be able
to grow into hisentrepreneurship.
He said that he learned so muchbeing able to have that
(08:35):
opportunity that now, as a 21year old, he's very successful.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Wow, that's a huge point too.
It's not that every businessyou are going to have or every
idea you're going to have isgoing to be successful.
That doesn't mean you give up.
It just means you learn from itand keep going.
What a valuable lesson and I'vebeen thinking a lot about this
is that school just makes you sobusy telling you where you got
to be throughout the day, andthen we just transfer into the
(09:00):
workforce where it tells youwhere you have to be all
throughout the day, Right and uh.
And then you get to thisretirement age of you know, 65
or whatever and you're like Idon't even know what my
interests are, and they've donesuch a good job with putting a
TV or a screen in front of usthat we really never have the
time to find what actuallyinterests us or to create things
(09:22):
.
So I love that homeschoolingdoes give us that time and, like
boredom is good.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right and I actually really love that.
I think when I work with people, I tell them like if you're
going to homeschool, there aresome questions.
I ask what's your purpose of,why you want to homeschool?
You know what is your why?
Because if you really know yourpurpose and your why, then you
can match your mindset aroundthat.
And I find a lot of people whosay, oh my goodness, you're on
(09:47):
the road and you'rehomeschooling and you have all
these kids.
Or even when we were home andwe had all the kids
homeschooling, you know how doyou do this and I just couldn't
be with my children that long,all day long, and I said,
because I don't public school inmy home, If you're going to do
public school in your home, thensend them to public school.
I always say that because myschooling looks very different
(10:09):
and I actually don't really carefor the word schooling.
I like the word learning becauseI want my children to have a
love of learning, to be able tonot have a light switch.
You see kids who go to publicschool and I've seen this with
my own.
What do they say when you askthem how do you like school?
It's awful.
You ask my children.
How do you like school?
(10:30):
I love it.
What did you learn?
Oh, we went to Virginia.
We went and learned about theCivil War.
You know, we did all of theseactivities and what I was
learning in Virginia matchedwith what I was doing with
Acellus Online.
And then you have like aconversation with them and they
can talk to adults and they canlike express their feelings and
their excitement of what they'relearning.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
When it comes to teaching my kids, I choose the
Tuttle Twins curriculum becauseit's not just for them.
I'm learning so much rightalongside them.
What I love is how engaging itis for kids.
They take real world conceptsand weave them into stories that
kids can actually understandand relate to.
Whether it's US history,critical thinking or even the
Tuttle Twins Guide to TrueConspiracies, it's all presented
(11:14):
in a way that sticks.
I especially love learning aboutgovernment, because I never
learned this stuff in school howthe government is supposed to
work versus how it actuallyworks and it's so cool that I
get to have these conversationswith my son about it and he gets
it.
They've got books for toddlers,a fantastic series for ages
five through 11, and so muchmore.
They even have a Tuttle TwinsAcademy.
I can't wait to get started onthat, because they have classes
(11:37):
for business andentrepreneurship.
You can get 40% off selectitems using code Cheryl40.
That's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0.
Just grab the link in theshow's description and start
learning together as a family.
Trust me, you'll love whatyou're going to learn, because
they never taught this to you inschool.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And I say don't ever lose that, because learning is
not a light switch.
I'm still going to learn at 52and I'm going to learn at 72 and
I'm going to learn at 105.
There's no light switch and Ifeel like the public school is
giving us an in-service of wherethe children think this is
school and when there's no moreschool, I'm done learning and
I'm like that's not true,because we always need to be
(12:18):
adding a skill, we always needto be figuring out what's my
passion, what am I good at, whatcould I enhance and be better
at?
So in our homeschool it's verymuch looking at each individual
and seeing you're really good atthis.
Would you like to take someclasses at this?
Like, your art is amazing.
What would you like to do withit?
You could do graphic design.
(12:38):
We could like take you to thisclass and you could, you know,
learn some more mediums, theysay in art, and so we talk about
it and I don't know if you likestorytelling, but I do have a
really wonderful story about oneof my kids.
Do you want to hear a littlebit of a story?
So, one of my kids.
He was in school, out of schooland he was our child that had
four blood clots when he was ababy.
(13:00):
We almost lost him at eightdays old, and when he was four
months I noticed that hecouldn't crawl, he couldn't roll
over, he couldn't sit up,nothing.
So the doctor put us inphysical therapy and I had to go
through physical therapy withhim and work with him every
single day.
And they said if you work hisbrain, his brain will work.
And so I had two older childrenand him, and then I was
(13:23):
pregnant and then I startedhomeschooling and so we had
therapists in our house and wewere going to therapy, working
with the children that we werehomeschooling and working with
him.
So it's probably why we kind ofdid put some of them in.
And that started another storywith my daughter that I'll have
to tell you sometime.
But with this fabulous story andthis son he was able to get to
(13:44):
the point where he walked andthen, as he got older, he played
basketball and he was fabulousat it.
And when he went to high schoolhe finally got to the point
where he saw me homeschoolinghis sisters and he just said you
know, could you just homeschoolme too?
And so we pulled him out and Ihad a wonderful teacher, because
I always like to do my ownthing.
But in California I had tofigure out the charter schools
(14:06):
or the loophole, because I'm anunschooler but not, you know, I
like them to be on computerprograms, but also we like to go
do whatever we want to do.
We have a lot of conversations,we have discussions, I learn a
lot, so then I teach it to mychildren.
And so this particular son saidmom, I want to take Spanish.
And I found this wonderful ladyand we could use the charter
(14:28):
school had funding.
So he took three years of likereally good, authentic Spanish.
And then one day he comes homeand he says I found this Porsche
for $500.
I'm going to go pick it up andbring it home to our garage and
fix it.
And I was like okay, do youwant me to put you like in a
mechanic school?
And he's like nope.
So he goes on YouTube and Iwalk in one day and he was so
(14:50):
excited because he figured outlike the rotor of the car you
know, and he was figuring outthe engine and so he was able to
explore into something hands-onand take that.
And then he was working forsomebody that was teaching him
how to clean bounce houses.
And all of our boys werecleaning bounce houses and this
(15:11):
one, this one mentor of him, hesaid hey, you know what?
Why don't I help you start yourown bounce house business?
So then he comes into thekitchen with his computer and he
starts learning how to build awebsite.
You know how to advertise thiscompany.
And he said you know what I'mgoing to fix motorcycles sell
the motorcycles to buy my bouncehouses.
(15:31):
So he started fixingmotorcycles, selling his
motorcycles, getting bouncehouses.
He ended up running a bouncehouse business at the age of
maybe 15.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
And then you know selling it for a Dr Seuss book
or something.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, and it's just amazing that he wouldn't have
been able to do that.
Had he stayed in the schoolsystem, he would never have that
thought, he would never havethat time.
By the time.
They leave in the morning andget home at night with sports,
and then we have a class thatthey take in the morning through
our church.
They're gone so sorry, so manyhours in the day.
(16:06):
He would never have been ableto have that time.
And I think that's what we'refinding is our brain cells can't
think when we're constantlybeing stimulated, and that's
what I feel like the schoolsystem and the phone.
It's just.
It's stimulating them andactually killing their brain
cells at the same time very truenow and that's a beautiful
(16:26):
story.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Thank you for sharing that, um, and just when you
think along the the lines ofwhat you were actually able to
teach him through the physicaltherapy, yes, they're like what
a perfect example ofhomeschooling right there,
because it's like you did getassistance from outside, help
which we can do as homeschoolers.
Right, you know, it doesn'thave to be you reading your
teacher's manual and thenregurgitating it to them, like
(16:48):
in the school system.
It can be like, oh, you want totake Spanish, here's a good
Spanish teacher, but you canwrite like a la carte, you know
what you want to portion out topeople.
And then, but you were alsoteaching him yourself with what
they were having you work withhim at home doing.
And so it's like, right there,you're the teacher.
(17:12):
And that's kind of what I wentthrough with the speech Cause I
was trying to get him speechtherapy in school and apparently
that is like very hard to do,right?
Uh, I was like you know what?
I'm tired of waiting on thesepeople.
They're not getting back to me.
I'm just going to watch YouTubevideos and reach out to friends
.
I know who went to school forit and we fixed it in a year.
We fixed his speech.
I mean, you know it's like, oh,we didn't need the professional
after all, which was kind of acool feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So you fixed his speech and then you were able to
go forward with what he needed.
And you knew what he neededbecause you're with him all the
time.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right and like right now we're working on reading and
I'm like this is taking anincredibly long time, like is
something wrong, you know, isthere an issue with dyslexia or
anything?
But you know I can reach out topeople which I have, or I'm
talking with one of the peopleI've had on my podcast tomorrow
morning so she can evaluate,give me some different lesson
plans, because you know, theones I've been doing obviously
(18:01):
aren't doing the trick or it'sjust not the age that he's
supposed to learn reading at.
So you know how old is your son.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We're fully equipped to sit.
And that's interesting that youbring that up, because we have
a story with our oldest and ittook us a lot of pain and a lot
of tears to figure out what wasgoing on with her, because she
wasn't reading until maybe like11, 12 years old, and so this
might be very good informationfor viewers out there that there
(18:30):
is a diagnosis.
It's APD, it's auditoryprocessing disorder, and a
segment of APD is phoneticallydeaf.
We did not find that out untilwe took her to I think it was
Sylvan back in the time and theyfinally came to me after like
years of like crying andstressing and praying of what is
happening, putting her inschool, taking her out of school
(18:52):
and I think that's why I putthe kids in, because I was like,
well, am I failing as a mom?
Because I can't figure outwhat's going on.
And finally, when they saidshe's phonetically deaf, she
can't hear sounds and so I wentover to the school and told them
the diagnosis.
They did nothing and I went tothe class.
I stood outside and I saw herjust staring at the teacher like
(19:14):
a deer in headlights.
And they would send homehundreds of paperwork every
Friday and say do this over theweekend and bring it back on
Monday.
And I finally said, no, she'sgetting depressed, you're not
teaching her what she needs tobe, you're not giving her the
type of IEP that she needs,you're not attending to her
individual needs, and we knowthat there's 11 different
(19:34):
intelligences and our schoolsystem only teaches to one,
which is sit down and listen.
And if you don't fall into thatcategory, then you're lost.
And if you don't test at thecertain level that they want you
to test at, then you might gethelp in that, but maybe not
reading.
And so we ended up pulling herout and I had children in school
at the time and I would get up,get them to school and they
(19:55):
were in walking distance or busdistance to come home.
And then I found, like a Becca,I found an umbrella school and
I was able to work with herconfidence and help her, because
she was getting so depressedthat that could cause a whole
world of you know issues as youget older.
And so what I found is wefinally got to the point now
(20:16):
because we found it's hereditaryand we have two other children
with the same diagnosis, and nowthat we have more technology, I
have found you cannot diagnosethis phonetically deaf through
APD without an audiologist andwithout somebody who will go
deeper, because it's not hearing.
You will pass a hearing test,but it's a part in your brain.
(20:37):
When the sound waves come in,it's missing in the brain and so
it doesn't hear the soundscoming in, so it actually has to
fall underneath.
Maybe where is some of the helpthat we could get through the
Deaf Association, which I'm toldto go to an audiology, now that
I'm still fighting and tryingto figure out how to get further
into this, because my youngestone, I know, has the same issue
(21:00):
and so we have.
And I like to say it's not adisability but it's a superpower
.
And how are we going to workwith this superpower?
Because you are smart andyou're amazing and you do
anything you want to do, but weunderstand that that sounds are
a little bit difficult.
So what can we do to help you?
And we have found that Moby Maxhas been one of the best
programs for us to help withthis.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Okay, that's interesting because I had
someone on my podcast who herdaughter was on the spectrum,
but she raved about Moby Max aswell, and I haven't checked that
one out yet, but maybe it'stime, I don't know.
I just whatever they're doing,it must work for different
things.
But you're right, yeah, youwouldn't and I think she said
this too If your child had abroken leg, you wouldn't not
(21:42):
give them crutches you know youwould you need to give them what
they need to help them.
You know, move forward, soright yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, and there's so many different skills and ways
when it comes to the brain andhow a child is receiving
information, and I feel likethere are school systems that
are really trying but we're kindof missing so much that
teachers probably would want todo but they're not able to do,
you know, and their class sizesare so big they can't spend that
individual time.
(22:12):
And I know working withchildren that are in my own
family that have had superpowersthat have kept them from being
able to be in the regular sitdown, be quiet, you know
atmosphere, and so I do have toteach different to each child.
I don't do the same curriculumfor each one of them.
I have one child that loveswell, my older girl.
(22:33):
They love a cellist where theteacher teaches.
But my younger daughter, sheloves Moby Maxx because they
test you and put you whereyou're at, and so it's not like
a workbook where she can misssome things.
The Moby Maxx will catch whatshe gets right, what she gets
wrong, and the algorithm putsher where she needs to be.
But she also does teachingtextbooks for math and teaching
(22:54):
textbooks has really helped herbecause, just because she can't
hear sounds and she strugglesmaybe with the reading.
She's really good at the mathand so we use a lot of different
curriculum that help with whateach child needs.
So when parents come to me andthey're yelling and screaming,
you know like I can't get themto listen.
I'm like, well, that child justmight want to cook.
You know, like my one thatbuilt cars, he was a cook.
(23:16):
He got in the kitchen and hestarted cooking.
A lot of things for him washands-on.
And then I have some kids thatjust really like to be on a
cellist and do all the school,school through that.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So, yeah, why don't you get into a little bit of the
curriculum that you've used onyour various children and I know
that you do a road schooling aswell, so I'm sure that
integrates into what you guysare learning and how you're
learning it and really just youknow, paints this awesome
picture of like just such a funchildhood.
So, but, yeah, let's get intothat, like what the day-to-day
(23:47):
looks like and how you make surethat they're at the levels that
you know and I say this all thetime too like there's nothing
that says they have to know X, yand Z by any certain age.
But if some are college boundor if some are going out into
the world to start a business,you want to make sure they have
the basics to do that.
How do you make all of thatwork with the curriculum and
road schooling?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Okay.
So when we do the roadschooling, that was when we got
down to the last four girls, andwhen we started in 2019, our
youngest was six, and so thatprobably I'm not too sure that
probably put my oldest at 12 orsomething, but we had
established the computerprograms that they liked.
So Acellus back then isdifferent than it is today.
(24:28):
After COVID it changed, so wedo what's called Powerhouse
Acellus.
It's only like $25 a month andthey get up to six classes and
our girls loved that, but theyreally like to do their math on
teaching textbooks.
So when you're doing roadschool, they can get up and they
can get their chores donebecause everybody has a chore to
take care of in the RV and thenthey do their exercise, they
(24:51):
eat their breakfast, they getready for the day and then they
will do their curriculum thatthey have, whether it's Moby Max
or teaching textbooks or Celis.
We also love time for learning.
I think we did one that'scalled Excel, like we have done
a lot of different ones.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thinking about homeschooling but not sure where
to start, or maybe you'realready on the journey and want
more guidance.
Join the homeschool how tocommunity.
You'll get exclusive access tolive interviews with me and my
guests where you get to askquestions, plus monthly Q and a
sessions with homeschoolingexperts.
You'll also get my fullcurriculum series where I chat
(25:28):
one-on-one with homeschoolers tofind the specifics about each
curriculum all to help you findthe right fit for you and your
family.
And don't miss my comprehensivecourse breaking down everything
I've learned from interviewingover a hundred homeschooling
families on my podcast, completewith an easy to follow roadmap.
Ready to make homeschoolingeasier?
(25:49):
Sign up today using the link inmy show's description.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
But I find what works for them and then once they
know that they're done with that, then we do museums and we talk
and we walk and we find hikesand I would highly consider if
you're going to be an RVer to dothe national parks, the
national parks you can go in andbe a junior ranger.
Get the book to junior rangerand they learn a wealth of
(26:16):
information in those books andthen they take the book back and
they get like a pin or a badge.
So when we did the Civil War wewent to all of the different
national parks and went to allthe different battlefields and
then took it back and that wascool because they got an actual
like patch and I found on Amazonwhere they could get a sash and
so all of the national parkbadges and like pins that they
(26:37):
get they could put on their sashand so that was just a wealth
of information to be able tolearn that information hands-on.
And we found that sometimes inthe books in California was
different than some of theinformation we were getting
hands-on in the East Coast.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And so that was interesting.
Wait rewind for one minute forme.
So doing the national parksmeans what Is this?
A website that you just sign upon and say like I'm going to
come visit, teach us something.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
No, the national parks.
Like you're in an incrediblearea.
I love your area where you'reat, you know all the national
yes, you sure Go down.
There's so much that we did upin that area.
But the national parks you know, like in Virginia where George
Washington was a baby, you'vegot those.
You can get the bold and thebeautiful pass and then you can
(27:25):
go to every national park forfree.
So once you I know that we weretalking a little bit about,
like the financial and you knowRVing and teaching Well, once
you get that pass, which is onlylike 80 bucks I think for the
year, you can go to any nationalpark and so that way when you
go, you just walk, you camp outin the national park.
No, you just, well, you can.
(27:46):
You can do that too.
A lot of RVers will go to thenational park and stay the night
, but we have a very big RV andso we don't usually fit in those
, and that I could give you awhole nother episode of like how
we RV and where we stay andwhat we do with our parks.
But some people do do thenational parks.
Yes, there is so muchinformation because the mindset
(28:07):
of an RVer is very differentthan brick and mortar and it's
kind of like the differencebetween public school and
homeschool.
You know, there's just acompletely different mindset.
You definitely are like a nomad, but there's so much to be able
to do on the road and there'sso much to see.
In the United States, if youhave a chance to just even take
your car and go to a nationalpark, have your child be a
(28:29):
junior ranger.
It's an actually like a lot ofthe national parks, they have
the visitor centers.
So when you go to the parkyou'll a lot of times at one end
or the other you'll have avisitor center.
So you go into the visitorcenter you'll see somebody
dressed in you know theiruniform and you say, hi, we're
here, you know we want to do theJunior Ranger program and
they're like, oh great, they'reso excited and they'll give you
(28:51):
the book and they'll tell youhow much they need to complete
and then it tells you where togo and what to look at.
So like we just did one inCalifornia and we went to Joshua
Tree National Park and had Inot had that book, I probably
would have been bored.
But once you have the book,you're able to see what plants
we're looking at what does theJoshua tree look like, the
difference between the Joshuatree and a cactus.
(29:12):
And they complete the book andthen they bring it back and then
they recite like a littleJunior Ranger oath and then they
give them a little pin and itjust like puts action into the
learning.
And it's not in your house orin a school room or in a book.
It's actually seen with youreyes and touching with your
hands.
And the visitor centers areawesome and the national parks
(29:35):
are around the whole UnitedStates.
So that would be one thing Iwould be like okay, that's
totally awesome to do, andthat's why we do the online
programs, because then I want tobe able to know that they're at
the level that they need to beto be able to graduate, to go to
college.
And I do have a little bit ofsomething that I do do with that
when they get a little older,to know if they're ready for
(29:58):
college, but when they'reyounger, you want them to kind
of like do your lessons, butthen now let's go on a hike, now
let's go to a museum and, ifyou ever have a chance to go to
the presidential museumsactually it's called the
presidential libraries.
Those are all through theUnited States as well.
Those are awesome to go toBecause if your viewers or
listeners are wanting to havelike a list of things the
(30:20):
national parks, the presidentiallibraries, any of your history
museums, any of your sciencemuseums I know that we've done a
lot.
I think they're called like theNASA museums.
There's one in Texas, there wasone in Florida, they're all
over.
Any of those museums areawesome to learn from.
And then I really lovedVirginia.
When we went to WilliamsburgVirginia, because that's where
(30:42):
you really can get into like theRevolution War and we did the
triangle history there.
We could do it again and againand really dive in and talk
about it.
And then a lot of times you cansay, if you don't have a
curriculum for history orscience, that's like an actual
company.
What I like to do with historyand science is the museums and
then say, okay, what did youlearn today?
(31:03):
Let's color that, let's write aparagraph about that.
Now, tell me three points thatwe learned today, and then
that's kind of covers mycurriculum in that.
And so that's why I don'treally like to be pigeon-tailed
by any kind of like charterschool or anything that has to
look at their ocellus and seehow many hours and stuff they're
doing.
Because I want to be able to goout into the world and learn on
(31:25):
the road.
I want to be able to learn onthe hike.
I want to be able to go outinto the world and learn on the
road.
I want to be able to learn onthe hike.
I want to be able to learn inthe museum.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And so just for people who might not even know
what that means.
So when you're connected to acharter school, it's that you're
homeschooling, but you'regiving them information or test
scores about what your childrenare accomplishing in return for,
maybe, reimbursement for someof the expenses.
Is that accurate.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Correct.
When you do a charter school,that's called a public charter
school in some states where theygive you funding.
Every state is different and soyou might have a little bit
more freedom.
I think maybe in Arizona and Iknow you might in Florida, but,
like in California, when I do acharter school I have to turn in
paperwork.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Well honey, I'm in New York, I'm not in Florida.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So you probably have strict rules, like California
did when we're with the charterschools, there's no funding.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
There's no funding available.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So if you're with a charter school that gives you
funding.
You have to do state testingand you have to turn in
something once a month and youhave to be able to tell them
what your curriculum is.
And so what I found whathappened was when I tell them
I'm doing a CELUS, they want topull up a CELUS and see when
they are on and what they'redoing, and I'm like, no, I'm
(32:41):
using this as a supplement, butI'm not using this as my full
curriculum, because I want to beable to go to these museums, I
want to be able to talk and havediscussions, I want to be able
to be the one that teaches, andso I actually being in
California this time, I have anaffidavit and our school is
called Bright Path Academy and Irun my own private school, and
(33:03):
so we're able to do ourcurriculum and keep our
attendance and keep a file ofpapers that they do, and I go
through HSLDA and I pay for thatmembership and they have a
great source of helping you withbuilding your transcript at the
end.
But I've already have done thatseveral times already.
We have found a college thatour kids can go to through our
(33:24):
church, where we can put in ahomeschool transcript and they
can also start college classesat 16.
So my trick that I said that Ido and any city school you
really can start at 16.
Now I start them online withmath and English, which is the
same as like a senior math andEnglish.
So like if you get up to youknow geometry and then I think
(33:44):
you go to algebra too, and thenwhen you go to like a junior
college and then they start youagain, they test you and then
they put you into where you test.
So you might even be incalculus, but if you don't test
that at the junior college, theywon't put you in.
That.
They'll give you a test andthen you start with that class
at that junior college and thenyou can start that at 16.
(34:04):
So then they can be takingcollege classes online as a high
schooler and then when theygraduate closer to 18 and they
can go and and that alltransfers over those college
credits.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Is that the ASU universal learner?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
For the college they go to.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, someone had said, they could start that
there at 16 as well.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, most.
You might look at where yourarea like I know most junior
colleges now you can call andthey call it concurrent
enrollment and you just say Ihave a high schooler who's 16
who would like to take some onor take college classes and a
lot of the college classes youcan actually go to college as a
high school student at a juniorcollege.
(34:47):
So at a community college youcan go to a community college
Most community colleges you cancall and say I have a high
schooler and they would like totake concurrent enrollment and
then they'll tell you what thenext steps are.
We have a school that our kidsgo to in Idaho and they can do
online.
They can apply to the collegeas a high school student and do
(35:09):
online classes and so then whenI get ready to send them to the
university, those transfer withthem over.
But that's how I kind of knowthat they're ready is because if
they're getting good grades asa junior and senior in math and
English and other courses thatthey're taking, then you know
that they're kind of met thatlevel.
And so I have a 15 year oldright now that's taking a cell
(35:30):
list classes on powerhouse andshe's like I got to do
schoolwork.
I got to do schoolwork becauseshe has learned to love to learn
and she wants to make sure thatshe hits that you know, that
level of knowledge to be able togo to college at you know, 17,
18 and be able to get goodgrades.
So she puts a lot of time andeffort into her high school
(35:52):
curriculum on Powerhouse andmake sure that she's you know
where she needs to be, so whenshe's 17, she can go do what she
wants to do.
So, kind of answering yourquestion on making sure that
they can go do what they want todo, whether it's a trade school
or a business or college,whatever it is that they choose
and you know, running a podcast,like you do, or like I run a
(36:12):
coaching company and my kids didthe bounce houses and a lot of
them are sell agents, they sellproducts and so anything that
they want to do I have.
I have a child who was like 11years old and she was an artist.
And I go out to the garage andI'm like what are you doing?
And she's like I'm makingpinatas and she would make like
Eiffel Towers and moms wouldcall and say I want this pinata
(36:37):
for my like centerpiece and Ineed an Eiffel Tower with panda
bears, and she would build outof cardboard and tissue paper an
Eiffel Tower and panda bears,and at 11 years old, she was
making, you know, 40 bucks, andthey were different than what
you could get at Walmart becauseshe could create anything you
asked her to do.
She was an artist, you know.
(36:58):
You could say here's thispicture, build this.
And she could build it.
And so it's just incredible tobe able to do what you and I are
doing, because where else wouldthe children be able to just
have a fountain of, you know,knowledge and opportunity, which
I find is right here, beingable to, to, you know,
homeschool and have this, youknow, um, this freedom that we
(37:19):
can do this?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So let's get into them.
We talked a little bit about it.
But the finances, I mean it'shard to homeschool nine and on
one income, or, if you want itto work, I mean that's near
impossible with that many kidsand homeschooling and then doing
the road schooling as well.
So how financially could onemake this work, or did you make
(37:41):
this work?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Okay.
So when we were, what point ofmy life should I talk about the
road schooling part?
Right, how do we make that work?
So when we were, what point ofmy life should I talk about the
road schooling part?
Right, how do we make that work?
So, when we're on the road, myhusband has always owned his own
business and so we have foundthings that we can do that are
membership wise.
So, like our gym we go to isaround the whole United States,
(38:02):
is $25 a month and we could goto any Planet Fitness as we
travel.
And then he has an office whichis called Regis and that's
worldwide, so he can go to theoffice.
Everything now is online, so hedoes you know everything's new.
If he does have to leave, thenhe catches a flight and goes
where he needs to go and comesback to me.
And we have used the ThousandTrails system mostly.
(38:25):
I like it because it's gated,you have a code to get in and I
feel safer with the children andwe move about every three weeks
so we can work, we canhomeschool and we can check out
the area that we're in, haveplenty of time.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
What is it?
What's a Thousand Trails?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Thousand Trails has been around forever and they
have like okay, so they havememberships and they have
different kinds of membershipsyou can get.
So we got a membership thatonce you pay the membership, we
own that membership for life andso we can like um will it to
one of our children and itallows us to stay into any
(39:03):
thousand trails park for 21 daysand we can go from park to park
.
Now they are changing thatright now that you don't get it
for a lifetime, but they arehaving it where you can still
buy a certain amount for two,four, six years and be able to
go into the park for, you know,three weeks and then go to
another park for three weeks.
And so we have found.
(39:24):
For us that has really worked.
And we also have found in theEast Coast they also do what's
called Encore and so we had likeprobably over a hundred
different parks that we could goto, and Florida was amazing
because you had a lot of choices.
So that was affordable becausewe bought into that like five
years ago and so, other thanpaying the dues, we don't have
(39:46):
any night-to-night costs that wehave to do because we already
bought it.
So it's kind of like a timesharealmost, and then they give you
different perks, like if youwant to do RPI, where I can go
buy a condo for a week, usually$300 to $600 for the week, and
those are all over the UnitedStates.
But some RVers like to go tostate parks or national parks or
(40:10):
they'll do boondocking.
There's also like Harvest Host,there's Escapees, there's
different kinds of groups youcan be part of and RVers they
know that we had talked aboutlike how do you do it
financially and how do you alsodo it socially?
Well, there are on Facebook.
There's a group and I thinkit's called RV families and a
(40:36):
lot of them will meet up atdifferent states and different
areas because they allhomeschool and the moms will
meet and then they will gotogether to activities and then
those kids are with each otherat the campground.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Hey everyone, this is Cheryl.
I want to thank you so much forchecking out the podcast.
I'm going to keep this shortand sweet because I know your
time is valuable.
I want to ask you a seriousquestion Do your kids know what
to do to actually save theirlife in an emergency?
The most important thing we cantalk to our kids about is
knowing their first and lastname, knowing mom and dad's
(41:12):
first and last name, mom's phonenumber, dad's phone number,
their address, what to do ifthey get lost, what to do if
someone who's watching them hasa heart attack, a stroke, an
accident where they fall andyour child needs to get help.
We live in a world where there'sno landline phones anymore,
basically, and cell phones lock.
Does your child know how tocall 911 from a locked cell
phone?
It is absolutely possible, andmy book demonstrates how to do
that, whether it's an Android,whether it's an iPhone and, most
(41:34):
importantly, it starts theconversation, because I was
going through homeschoolingcurriculum with my kids,
realizing that, gee, maybe theyskim over this stuff, but they
don't get into depth, so mychild's not going to remember
this should an accident occur,right?
I asked a couple of teacherswhat they do in school and they
said they really don't doanything either other than talk
(41:56):
about what to do in a fireduring the month of October fire
prevention month.
So I wrote a book because thisis near and dear to my heart.
I have had multiple friends thathave lost kids in tragedies and
I don't want to see it happenagain if it doesn't have to.
We were at the fair over thesummer and the first thing I
said to my son when we walkedthrough that gate was what's my
first and last name, what isyour first and last name and
(42:18):
what is my phone number?
And if you get lost, what areyou going to do?
You can get my book on Amazonand I will put the link in my
show's description again.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
It's called let's talk emergencies and I really
hope you'll check it out becausethere's just no need to be
scared when you can chooseprepared and so you, you see
that a lot and you see a lot ofyoung families that are out and
about and traveling andhomeschooling and and, in the
area where Washington DC is, allof those museums.
(42:47):
When I was there last year,they were all still free.
So we met a family who had sixkids and every day they were
going from, I think, we were ina part of Virginia and they were
driving down to Washington DCand they were, you know,
catching all of those museumsthat they could, and that's how
they homeschooled was.
Just you know, different areas,different museums, and you know
(43:08):
questions and playing and andkids just get so much out of
that.
I also don't put a lot of moneylike powerhouse through a cell.
This is only $25.
Moby max is only $25.
And I think I paid maybe ahundred or something for the
year for teaching textbooks.
So that's about all that I pay.
And I have my own onlinecoaching program and I've
(43:32):
written bullet planners about 19of them.
I created a three-month programthat helps women find their
happiness internally and onceyou find your internal happiness
, you can reach pretty muchanything you want.
And I talk a whole bunch aboutthat and I video it and you can
buy it as a video course.
I also found that being able todo that gives me a little bit
(43:54):
of my passion to be able to doand then share that with the
kids.
I love to write, I love tospeak and I love to be able to
help other people, and so I keepdoing that on the road as I'm
working with the kids and I justfind, as I'm doing my work and
they're doing their work, we'reable to all learn and grow and
just have the great mindset thatI want to have.
(44:15):
I've always dreamed of likebeing a nomad.
For me, being stuck in one spotwas really hard and as I got
older and the kids got older, Iwas like, okay, the world's my
playground, let's go.
Where do you want to go?
And I always felt that way.
With the last four girls I waslike we're going to travel the
world together.
And these last four girls wedid, and I have two of them in
college right now and two ofthem home and I just I love it
(44:38):
and I just don't know if you'vealso have heard just to kind of
put in there for some moms tocheck out Thomas Jefferson
education.
That philosophy helps you to asa mom, to be able to do your own
learning as well as teachingyour children.
So as you're learning, yourchildren are learning, and I
learned that as a young mom,when we had eight children.
(44:59):
I learned that philosophy andso that's kind of how I've
always kind of have managed.
My homeschool is kind ofthrough that philosophy of one,
what do the children want tolearn?
And two, what do they need tolearn to be able to get to where
they need to go?
And three, it's so wonderfulfor them to see that I'm still
learning, because then that putsin their heart there's never a
(45:21):
stop to learning.
It's not a light switch.
It's something that we continuedoing all through our life.
I even believe even after thislife we're continuing to learn.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I agree, and I say that all the time.
Even just like reading theTuttle Twins books to my son,
I'm like, wow, I never knew thisor this is why this happened.
This is why this war actuallyhappened.
It wasn't what they told us inschool and it's just yeah, and
learning the podcast and youknow all just marketing and that
(45:52):
sort of stuff.
It really is cool and I, yeah,we watched happy feet earlier
today and it made a reference tolike different types of
penguins and I'm like what doyou mean there's different types
of penguins?
So now I like want to get intolooking at you know different
types of penguins.
And so now I like want to getinto looking at you know
different types of penguins andwhere do they come from and what
are their.
You know different habitats andwhat do they eat and that sort
(46:13):
of stuff.
So yeah, it's everywhere.
It's just we normally don'thave the time to stop and wonder
and then do something about it.
You know, find it, and I'vebeen thinking a lot lately too
about the amount of time wespend in school or even in work
waiting, just like waiting whenyou work for someone else.
You know, I worked for thegovernment for 16 years.
It's just, and like kidswaiting for the school bus and
(46:36):
waiting to get into class andthen waiting for the class to
settle and waiting for theteacher to call attendance and
waiting to line up and wait.
It's like there I calculated itout, it was like an insane
amount of hours a year that youspend just waiting.
Like what a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Well, it is.
And also like if we're notteaching skills.
I don't know like one thing Idon't know if you know um that I
am a meditation teacher, and soit's like we're missing.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
So much Do you meditate on the bounce houses?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I do.
You know what I mean.
If you're not trained to bouncein the bounce house to have a
baby, you're meditating.
I mean, come on, that's.
I mean they just are reading somuch and they don't know what
to do with that waiting.
You know, the first thing theydo is pull out their phone and
they're just constantlystimulating.
We're not finding any stillness, we're not finding any peace,
and that's why our anxiety anddepression at such a young age
right now, is like an epidemicissue.
(47:33):
You know, because we're just,they're just so stimulated and
everything they do we're notable to get out like find some
peace, find some stillness.
And that's probably why I am ameditation teacher and I went
towards during the recession.
I ended up going back to schooland became a massage therapist,
because it was a difficult timein our life and our kids had to
(47:54):
go back to school.
And so here I'm going to school, I'm homeschooling eight kids
trying to finish a bachelor'sdegree.
I mean, I had an insane amountof stuff on my plate.
So, like no wonder, we hit theroad and went in an RV, because
you do have to change thatmindset and we were forced a
little bit to RV because we hada black mold issue in one of our
houses and so that kind offorced us out.
(48:16):
We're all super sick.
And so I just, we had a trailerwe owned and I just in a week I
just pulled everything out andremodeled it and made a little
school room and made a littlechalkboard.
And my daughter, one of theyoungest ones, was six and I
just, you know, when you thinkabout you talk about, do the
kids miss out on anything?
I know you and I are talkingabout, like, do they miss out on
(48:36):
prom?
Do they miss out on dances orsocial events or whatever?
And I think now when they'reolder and they're in college,
they kind of say like you know,my friends were my sisters.
You know I didn't really havelike friends outside.
I kind of struggle a little biton how to make friends, but we
were blessed because our churchis worldwide, so everywhere we
went they were part of acommunity and a church and got
(48:58):
to go to camp and we would tryto manage our time around those
activities.
But they also see that collegeis so much fun.
The two girls that are incollege they're making friends
and they're able to date andthey're able to do, you know my
daughter's the face of hercollege and she's on dance team
and she's still out in the EastCoast in Virginia and she's like
doing great and she's like youknow, those last four girls were
(49:19):
complete pretty.
You know homeschoolers.
We had kids boys that were inschool at the time and they were
doing homeschoolers.
We had kids boys that were inschool at the time and they were
doing basketball.
And then the four girls werehomeschooling.
I was juggling kind of betweentheir activities and the girls'
activities and they said we justremember going from basketball
game to basketball game and Ihad the little pink backpacks
and I got the little hot dog androlled it up and foil and said
(49:41):
let's go.
So they remember being kind ofon the road and always kind of
on the road and it's really madethem.
Their character is very able tochange.
You know they're able to switchdirections and and they're able
to go to college and they'reable to learn and get good
grades and they're verywell-rounded.
And that was kind of.
I think, when you think aboutyour purpose of homeschooling as
(50:02):
a mom and you're going do Iwant to do this?
Well, start thinking like, well, what's your purpose, what's
your why?
Because anytime you have a why,whether it's like your why with
podcasting, my why with lifecoaching, you know.
Why do you want to make money?
Or why do you want to RV, whydo you want to homeschool, or
why do you want to be married,like you know.
I mean like all of these why's.
When you really get thatdeepness of what your why is,
(50:23):
then, when the hard times come,you can push through those hard
times because you know what yourpurpose is.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (50:30):
I love that.
Melissa, as we round out thehour, where can people find you
and what do you have going onthat you can tell us about, so
that people can connect with youif they want to?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Well, I own a health and wellness center and my
website issynholisticsolutionscom, and we
are offering a free two-daywebinar on Release your Energy
and Bring In your Wealth andAbundance of Peace and Happiness
and you'll be seeing that on myInstagram.
You can find me everywherethat's at synholisticsolutions
(51:01):
on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterestand YouTube, and we invite you
free to our webinar March 18thand 19th to be able to spend an
hour with me where I will teachyou a lesson, we will do a
meditation and I intuitivelyhave some affirmation healing
alignments that I will bepresenting at this webinar on
(51:22):
day one and day two and thatwill help you to clear out your
energy and to bring in theabundance and wealth that you're
looking for.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I think I need that.
I need the meditation.
I am guilty of what you weresaying.
With the screens on, it's likewhen you have a quiet moment,
you're almost like uncomfortablebecause and that's probably why
you grab for the phone like, oh, somebody needs something.
I don't even know what.
Let me see.
Because, it is.
It's like hard to just stop andthink.
You know, all throughout theday you think, oh, I've got to
(51:52):
do this, I have to do that, Ihave to do that.
And when everybody is quiet andyou have a moment, you're like
I don't know what to do.
So I think that's the moment Ineed to just leave the phone and
go sit and be still and becomfortable in that.
So thank you for reminding usof that today, and I will link
everything in the show'sdescription so that people can
find you very easily.
(52:12):
I just want to thank you somuch for being on the show today
and sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Well, I want to thank you for having me here.
I am so excited and I'm sograteful to be able to meet you,
and good luck to everythingthat you're doing, and I hope we
get to see each other again.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Absolutely.
Thank you, Melissa.
Thank you for tuning into thisweek's episode of the homeschool
how to.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
Or, if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
(52:48):
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why are people homeschooling,how do you do it, how does it
differ from region to region,and should I homeschool my kids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Melissa Smith.
Melissa, thank you so much forbeing here.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm so excited.
Where are you right now,melissa?
Because you're a travelinghomeschool family, huh.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yes, we are, and we have been for several years, but
right now we are in SouthernCalifornia.
We're actually from California,but we left for the East Coast
and we were in the East Coastprobably since 2021.
And it kind of came back toCalifornia, went back to the
East Coast and we spent probablya good two years there without
(01:06):
coming back to California.
But now we're on the West Coastand it's fun.
You get to kind of just pick upand go where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So, okay, let's start with how many kids do you have
and what are their ages?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Okay, so, as you said , my name is Melissa Smith and
we are a family of nine, we havenine children.
And then is Melissa Smith, andwe are a family of nine, we have
nine children.
And then, plus my husband and I, our children range from 28
years old to 11.
And when we startedhomeschooling, it was like in
the year 2000 or 2002, aroundthere, so homeschooling looked a
(01:39):
lot different back then.
And then we startedhomeschooling on the road in
2019 with our last four littlegirls, and so we have a daughter
, four boys and four girls.
I feel like when I'm talking,I'm talking like I have like
five different lives, becausestarting raising children in
1996 and then still raisingchildren in 2025, it's like I'm
(02:03):
in two different worlds.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And can I ask is this too personal?
Is it all like the same dad andeverything.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yes, yes, yes, it is, we got married in 1995.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We missed diapers.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah, we did.
We loved them.
I mean, I could have ownedWalmart, you know, because we
had like two or three in diapersat a time, about five car seats
at a time.
We had like two or three indiapers at a time, about five
car seats at a time and withfour little boys in one section
of our raising children, youknow, a girl and then four boys
it was like they're very busy,they're very active.
Every day was like mommy, whereare we going to go?
(02:36):
What are we going to do today?
And so life looked reallydifferent back then, when we had
the four little boys and myoldest daughter.
Then, when we had the fourlittle boys and my oldest
daughter, and then when they gotolder and we were like, okay,
well, we're going to hit theroad with the last four girls,
and that just felt like acompletely different life.
You know, I'm so grateful to beon this podcast.
I was like we could totallymake a series because I could
(02:58):
take you back in time to 1996.
And then you move you forwardto 2015.
And then now we're in 2025.
And we just have a ton ofstories and we love to share
them.
I love to be able to talk abouthomeschooling, so okay.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
So have they always been homeschooled, or you had
them in traditional school forpart of?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
it?
We did.
We did have some of our kidsinto traditional school and we
started when my daughter, likeyou know, back in the 90s, you
could start school at five yearsold, and so because she was an
October baby, she started reallyyoung.
So I had friends thathomeschooled and they taught me
what they used to tell me theygo, melissa, you need a
(03:42):
homeschool like this.
It's called the kitchen tableschooling.
And I said, what's the kitchentable schooling?
And so, as I started to learnthat you take all your aged kids
and you put them around thetable, and I had the same
curriculum for English and thesame for math and we taught as a
whole, as a family, so westarted homeschooling and then
(04:03):
life happened for a little bitand so some of them had to go
into school, and that wasprobably just the first two.
And then when we moved fromCalifornia to Idaho that was a
great state to homeschool in,and so we had so much fun just
homeschooling.
We had seven children by thetime we moved there and we just
were able to homeschool, do whatwe wanted to do, which I like
(04:24):
doing, is to be able tohomeschool the way I want to.
And a little bit of backstoryabout myself is when I was
younger I went to school to be ateacher.
So I was already working withspecial need kids and I was
already getting my degree inteaching.
But when I had my firstdaughter I decided to be a
stay-at-home mom.
So I didn't quite finish mycredential, but I love children
(04:44):
and I taught preschool and Ijust really wanted to be with my
own children.
I think what happened for mewas, through the years I've
developed these statements likea mindset of what my purpose is
and what my why is.
But when I was younger I didn'tkind of understand that and I
was trying to muck through thethe field and homeschooling
wasn't like it was today, and sowe had some ups and we had some
(05:08):
downs and we learned what weliked about public school and we
learned what we didn't likeabout public school.
And through my journey I'vegotten to the point where I
absolutely love what we're doing.
I have my purpose of why we dowhat we do and I also am a life
coach and I work with women andhelping them to empower
themselves to find their innerhappiness through my company
(05:30):
called SYN Holistic Solutions,and I'm a specialist for
homeschooling moms who justbegin.
Sometimes, when you startbeginning, it's such a different
mindset that you have questions, and I want to be there to help
you through this journey,because it really can be a
beautiful journey with whateveryou decide to do, whether you're
at home, whether you're on theroad, wherever you're going to
(05:51):
educate your children.
I've heard in some of your pastpodcasts and I love one podcast
had talked about that we aretheir first teachers and who's
better to teach our kids andeducate our children than us?
And when you start to thinkabout how many hours a day
they're in school and how manyhours a day they're actually
(06:12):
home with me or with the parentis lopsided, it's not even
balanced.
And so through the years Iwanted to homeschool because I
loved my kids so much.
I just didn't want to send themall day to somebody who's going
to be with them more than me,and I had certain values and
beliefs that I wanted to teachand have around my children, and
(06:36):
those values I wasn't findingin the school system.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, and it's so funny it happens so gradually,
almost like what's the sayingLobster in hot water Is it what
animal?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
is it supposed to be, but the crabs, the crabs in the
bucket, and they keep pullingyou down.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, no, no, no, the one where it's boiling and you
don't know it's boiling.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Because it's like they're like okay, we're going
to send everybody to school, allright, that sounds like a great
idea.
Then I don't have to worryabout teaching reading and
writing and math.
And then it went from just likea couple hours a day to slowly
longer hours and and earlierages and later ages, until now
it's.
I mean, I know in my lifetimeI've talked about this you go to
(07:18):
kindergarten for half half aday when I was five and now it's
full day kindergarten and afull day preschool.
So it's like earlier andearlier and earlier that they're
just where we don't even thinkof it.
It's like, well, of course I'mgoing to send them to preschool
at four years old, full day inan actual school building.
But it's when you stop to thinkabout it it is a little crazy.
(07:41):
So that's cool that you've seenkind of the difference of the
public school setting and the.
You know the homeschooling.
How did your kids feel betweengoing?
Do they like one more thananother?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yes, I think for some of them they might have
different opinions.
I was talking to one of my sonsand he's 21 and he was saying
some of the things that hereally liked about homeschooling
, because he was able to go toelementary school and homeschool
go to high school and then heended up homeschooling high
school and he said, being ableto homeschool, he could go
(08:14):
through the curriculum fasterand he said that homeschooling
allowed him a chance to create abusiness, to maybe fail at a
business and do another business, to be able to have that
opportunity at a young age to bean entrepreneur and to be able
to grow into hisentrepreneurship.
He said that he learned so muchbeing able to have that
(08:35):
opportunity that now, as a 21year old, he's very successful.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Wow, that's a huge point too.
It's not that every businessyou are going to have or every
idea you're going to have isgoing to be successful.
That doesn't mean you give up.
It just means you learn from itand keep going.
What a valuable lesson and I'vebeen thinking a lot about this
is that school just makes you sobusy telling you where you got
to be throughout the day, andthen we just transfer into the
(09:00):
workforce where it tells youwhere you have to be all
throughout the day, Right and uh.
And then you get to thisretirement age of you know, 65
or whatever and you're like Idon't even know what my
interests are, and they've donesuch a good job with putting a
TV or a screen in front of usthat we really never have the
time to find what actuallyinterests us or to create things
(09:22):
.
So I love that homeschoolingdoes give us that time and, like
boredom is good.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right and I actually really love that.
I think when I work with people, I tell them like if you're
going to homeschool, there aresome questions.
I ask what's your purpose of,why you want to homeschool?
You know what is your why?
Because if you really know yourpurpose and your why, then you
can match your mindset aroundthat.
And I find a lot of people whosay, oh my goodness, you're on
(09:47):
the road and you'rehomeschooling and you have all
these kids.
Or even when we were home andwe had all the kids
homeschooling, you know how doyou do this and I just couldn't
be with my children that long,all day long, and I said,
because I don't public school inmy home, If you're going to do
public school in your home, thensend them to public school.
I always say that because myschooling looks very different
(10:09):
and I actually don't really carefor the word schooling.
I like the word learning becauseI want my children to have a
love of learning, to be able tonot have a light switch.
You see kids who go to publicschool and I've seen this with
my own.
What do they say when you askthem how do you like school?
It's awful.
You ask my children.
How do you like school?
(10:30):
I love it.
What did you learn?
Oh, we went to Virginia.
We went and learned about theCivil War.
You know, we did all of theseactivities and what I was
learning in Virginia matchedwith what I was doing with
Acellus Online.
And then you have like aconversation with them and they
can talk to adults and they canlike express their feelings and
their excitement of what they'relearning.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
When it comes to teaching my kids, I choose the
Tuttle Twins curriculum becauseit's not just for them.
I'm learning so much rightalongside them.
What I love is how engaging itis for kids.
They take real world conceptsand weave them into stories that
kids can actually understandand relate to.
Whether it's US history,critical thinking or even the
Tuttle Twins Guide to TrueConspiracies, it's all presented
(11:14):
in a way that sticks.
I especially love learning aboutgovernment, because I never
learned this stuff in school howthe government is supposed to
work versus how it actuallyworks and it's so cool that I
get to have these conversationswith my son about it and he gets
it.
They've got books for toddlers,a fantastic series for ages
five through 11, and so muchmore.
They even have a Tuttle TwinsAcademy.
I can't wait to get started onthat, because they have classes
(11:37):
for business andentrepreneurship.
You can get 40% off selectitems using code Cheryl40.
That's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0.
Just grab the link in theshow's description and start
learning together as a family.
Trust me, you'll love whatyou're going to learn, because
they never taught this to you inschool.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And I say don't ever lose that, because learning is
not a light switch.
I'm still going to learn at 52and I'm going to learn at 72 and
I'm going to learn at 105.
There's no light switch and Ifeel like the public school is
giving us an in-service of wherethe children think this is
school and when there's no moreschool, I'm done learning and
I'm like that's not true,because we always need to be
(12:18):
adding a skill, we always needto be figuring out what's my
passion, what am I good at, whatcould I enhance and be better
at?
So in our homeschool it's verymuch looking at each individual
and seeing you're really good atthis.
Would you like to take someclasses at this?
Like, your art is amazing.
What would you like to do withit?
You could do graphic design.
(12:38):
We could like take you to thisclass and you could, you know,
learn some more mediums, theysay in art, and so we talk about
it and I don't know if you likestorytelling, but I do have a
really wonderful story about oneof my kids.
Do you want to hear a littlebit of a story?
So, one of my kids.
He was in school, out of schooland he was our child that had
four blood clots when he was ababy.
(13:00):
We almost lost him at eightdays old, and when he was four
months I noticed that hecouldn't crawl, he couldn't roll
over, he couldn't sit up,nothing.
So the doctor put us inphysical therapy and I had to go
through physical therapy withhim and work with him every
single day.
And they said if you work hisbrain, his brain will work.
And so I had two older childrenand him, and then I was
(13:23):
pregnant and then I startedhomeschooling and so we had
therapists in our house and wewere going to therapy, working
with the children that we werehomeschooling and working with
him.
So it's probably why we kind ofdid put some of them in.
And that started another storywith my daughter that I'll have
to tell you sometime.
But with this fabulous story andthis son he was able to get to
(13:44):
the point where he walked andthen, as he got older, he played
basketball and he was fabulousat it.
And when he went to high schoolhe finally got to the point
where he saw me homeschoolinghis sisters and he just said you
know, could you just homeschoolme too?
And so we pulled him out and Ihad a wonderful teacher, because
I always like to do my ownthing.
But in California I had tofigure out the charter schools
(14:06):
or the loophole, because I'm anunschooler but not, you know, I
like them to be on computerprograms, but also we like to go
do whatever we want to do.
We have a lot of conversations,we have discussions, I learn a
lot, so then I teach it to mychildren.
And so this particular son saidmom, I want to take Spanish.
And I found this wonderful ladyand we could use the charter
(14:28):
school had funding.
So he took three years of likereally good, authentic Spanish.
And then one day he comes homeand he says I found this Porsche
for $500.
I'm going to go pick it up andbring it home to our garage and
fix it.
And I was like okay, do youwant me to put you like in a
mechanic school?
And he's like nope.
So he goes on YouTube and Iwalk in one day and he was so
(14:50):
excited because he figured outlike the rotor of the car you
know, and he was figuring outthe engine and so he was able to
explore into something hands-onand take that.
And then he was working forsomebody that was teaching him
how to clean bounce houses.
And all of our boys werecleaning bounce houses and this
(15:11):
one, this one mentor of him, hesaid hey, you know what?
Why don't I help you start yourown bounce house business?
So then he comes into thekitchen with his computer and he
starts learning how to build awebsite.
You know how to advertise thiscompany.
And he said you know what I'mgoing to fix motorcycles sell
the motorcycles to buy my bouncehouses.
(15:31):
So he started fixingmotorcycles, selling his
motorcycles, getting bouncehouses.
He ended up running a bouncehouse business at the age of
maybe 15.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
And then you know selling it for a Dr Seuss book
or something.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, and it's just amazing that he wouldn't have
been able to do that.
Had he stayed in the schoolsystem, he would never have that
thought, he would never havethat time.
By the time.
They leave in the morning andget home at night with sports,
and then we have a class thatthey take in the morning through
our church.
They're gone so sorry, so manyhours in the day.
(16:06):
He would never have been ableto have that time.
And I think that's what we'refinding is our brain cells can't
think when we're constantlybeing stimulated, and that's
what I feel like the schoolsystem and the phone.
It's just.
It's stimulating them andactually killing their brain
cells at the same time very truenow and that's a beautiful
(16:26):
story.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Thank you for sharing that, um, and just when you
think along the the lines ofwhat you were actually able to
teach him through the physicaltherapy, yes, they're like what
a perfect example ofhomeschooling right there,
because it's like you did getassistance from outside, help
which we can do as homeschoolers.
Right, you know, it doesn'thave to be you reading your
teacher's manual and thenregurgitating it to them, like
(16:48):
in the school system.
It can be like, oh, you want totake Spanish, here's a good
Spanish teacher, but you canwrite like a la carte, you know
what you want to portion out topeople.
And then, but you were alsoteaching him yourself with what
they were having you work withhim at home doing.
And so it's like, right there,you're the teacher.
(17:12):
And that's kind of what I wentthrough with the speech Cause I
was trying to get him speechtherapy in school and apparently
that is like very hard to do,right?
Uh, I was like you know what?
I'm tired of waiting on thesepeople.
They're not getting back to me.
I'm just going to watch YouTubevideos and reach out to friends
.
I know who went to school forit and we fixed it in a year.
We fixed his speech.
I mean, you know it's like, oh,we didn't need the professional
after all, which was kind of acool feeling.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
So you fixed his speech and then you were able to
go forward with what he needed.
And you knew what he neededbecause you're with him all the
time.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Right and like right now we're working on reading and
I'm like this is taking anincredibly long time, like is
something wrong, you know, isthere an issue with dyslexia or
anything?
But you know I can reach out topeople which I have, or I'm
talking with one of the peopleI've had on my podcast tomorrow
morning so she can evaluate,give me some different lesson
plans, because you know, theones I've been doing obviously
(18:01):
aren't doing the trick or it'sjust not the age that he's
supposed to learn reading at.
So you know how old is your son.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We're fully equipped to sit.
And that's interesting that youbring that up, because we have
a story with our oldest and ittook us a lot of pain and a lot
of tears to figure out what wasgoing on with her, because she
wasn't reading until maybe like11, 12 years old, and so this
might be very good informationfor viewers out there that there
(18:30):
is a diagnosis.
It's APD, it's auditoryprocessing disorder, and a
segment of APD is phoneticallydeaf.
We did not find that out untilwe took her to I think it was
Sylvan back in the time and theyfinally came to me after like
years of like crying andstressing and praying of what is
happening, putting her inschool, taking her out of school
(18:52):
and I think that's why I putthe kids in, because I was like,
well, am I failing as a mom?
Because I can't figure outwhat's going on.
And finally, when they saidshe's phonetically deaf, she
can't hear sounds and so I wentover to the school and told them
the diagnosis.
They did nothing and I went tothe class.
I stood outside and I saw herjust staring at the teacher like
(19:14):
a deer in headlights.
And they would send homehundreds of paperwork every
Friday and say do this over theweekend and bring it back on
Monday.
And I finally said, no, she'sgetting depressed, you're not
teaching her what she needs tobe, you're not giving her the
type of IEP that she needs,you're not attending to her
individual needs, and we knowthat there's 11 different
(19:34):
intelligences and our schoolsystem only teaches to one,
which is sit down and listen.
And if you don't fall into thatcategory, then you're lost.
And if you don't test at thecertain level that they want you
to test at, then you might gethelp in that, but maybe not
reading.
And so we ended up pulling herout and I had children in school
at the time and I would get up,get them to school and they
(19:55):
were in walking distance or busdistance to come home.
And then I found, like a Becca,I found an umbrella school and
I was able to work with herconfidence and help her, because
she was getting so depressedthat that could cause a whole
world of you know issues as youget older.
And so what I found is wefinally got to the point now
(20:16):
because we found it's hereditaryand we have two other children
with the same diagnosis, and nowthat we have more technology, I
have found you cannot diagnosethis phonetically deaf through
APD without an audiologist andwithout somebody who will go
deeper, because it's not hearing.
You will pass a hearing test,but it's a part in your brain.
(20:37):
When the sound waves come in,it's missing in the brain and so
it doesn't hear the soundscoming in, so it actually has to
fall underneath.
Maybe where is some of the helpthat we could get through the
Deaf Association, which I'm toldto go to an audiology, now that
I'm still fighting and tryingto figure out how to get further
into this, because my youngestone, I know, has the same issue
(21:00):
and so we have.
And I like to say it's not adisability but it's a superpower
.
And how are we going to workwith this superpower?
Because you are smart andyou're amazing and you do
anything you want to do, but weunderstand that that sounds are
a little bit difficult.
So what can we do to help you?
And we have found that Moby Maxhas been one of the best
programs for us to help withthis.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Okay, that's interesting because I had
someone on my podcast who herdaughter was on the spectrum,
but she raved about Moby Max aswell, and I haven't checked that
one out yet, but maybe it'stime, I don't know.
I just whatever they're doing,it must work for different
things.
But you're right, yeah, youwouldn't and I think she said
this too If your child had abroken leg, you wouldn't not
(21:42):
give them crutches you know youwould you need to give them what
they need to help them.
You know, move forward, soright yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah, and there's so many different skills and ways
when it comes to the brain andhow a child is receiving
information, and I feel likethere are school systems that
are really trying but we're kindof missing so much that
teachers probably would want todo but they're not able to do,
you know, and their class sizesare so big they can't spend that
individual time.
(22:12):
And I know working withchildren that are in my own
family that have had superpowersthat have kept them from being
able to be in the regular sitdown, be quiet, you know
atmosphere, and so I do have toteach different to each child.
I don't do the same curriculumfor each one of them.
I have one child that loveswell, my older girl.
(22:33):
They love a cellist where theteacher teaches.
But my younger daughter, sheloves Moby Maxx because they
test you and put you whereyou're at, and so it's not like
a workbook where she can misssome things.
The Moby Maxx will catch whatshe gets right, what she gets
wrong, and the algorithm putsher where she needs to be.
But she also does teachingtextbooks for math and teaching
(22:54):
textbooks has really helped herbecause, just because she can't
hear sounds and she strugglesmaybe with the reading.
She's really good at the mathand so we use a lot of different
curriculum that help with whateach child needs.
So when parents come to me andthey're yelling and screaming,
you know like I can't get themto listen.
I'm like, well, that child justmight want to cook.
You know, like my one thatbuilt cars, he was a cook.
(23:16):
He got in the kitchen and hestarted cooking.
A lot of things for him washands-on.
And then I have some kids thatjust really like to be on a
cellist and do all the school,school through that.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So, yeah, why don't you get into a little bit of the
curriculum that you've used onyour various children and I know
that you do a road schooling aswell, so I'm sure that
integrates into what you guysare learning and how you're
learning it and really just youknow, paints this awesome
picture of like just such a funchildhood.
So, but, yeah, let's get intothat, like what the day-to-day
(23:47):
looks like and how you make surethat they're at the levels that
you know and I say this all thetime too like there's nothing
that says they have to know X, yand Z by any certain age.
But if some are college boundor if some are going out into
the world to start a business,you want to make sure they have
the basics to do that.
How do you make all of thatwork with the curriculum and
road schooling?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Okay.
So when we do the roadschooling, that was when we got
down to the last four girls, andwhen we started in 2019, our
youngest was six, and so thatprobably I'm not too sure that
probably put my oldest at 12 orsomething, but we had
established the computerprograms that they liked.
So Acellus back then isdifferent than it is today.
(24:28):
After COVID it changed, so wedo what's called Powerhouse
Acellus.
It's only like $25 a month andthey get up to six classes and
our girls loved that, but theyreally like to do their math on
teaching textbooks.
So when you're doing roadschool, they can get up and they
can get their chores donebecause everybody has a chore to
take care of in the RV and thenthey do their exercise, they
(24:51):
eat their breakfast, they getready for the day and then they
will do their curriculum thatthey have, whether it's Moby Max
or teaching textbooks or Celis.
We also love time for learning.
I think we did one that'scalled Excel, like we have done
a lot of different ones.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thinking about homeschooling but not sure where
to start, or maybe you'realready on the journey and want
more guidance.
Join the homeschool how tocommunity.
You'll get exclusive access tolive interviews with me and my
guests where you get to askquestions, plus monthly Q and a
sessions with homeschoolingexperts.
You'll also get my fullcurriculum series where I chat
(25:28):
one-on-one with homeschoolers tofind the specifics about each
curriculum all to help you findthe right fit for you and your
family.
And don't miss my comprehensivecourse breaking down everything
I've learned from interviewingover a hundred homeschooling
families on my podcast, completewith an easy to follow roadmap.
Ready to make homeschoolingeasier?
(25:49):
Sign up today using the link inmy show's description.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
But I find what works for them and then once they
know that they're done with that, then we do museums and we talk
and we walk and we find hikesand I would highly consider if
you're going to be an RVer to dothe national parks, the
national parks you can go in andbe a junior ranger.
Get the book to junior rangerand they learn a wealth of
(26:16):
information in those books andthen they take the book back and
they get like a pin or a badge.
So when we did the Civil War wewent to all of the different
national parks and went to allthe different battlefields and
then took it back and that wascool because they got an actual
like patch and I found on Amazonwhere they could get a sash and
so all of the national parkbadges and like pins that they
(26:37):
get they could put on their sashand so that was just a wealth
of information to be able tolearn that information hands-on.
And we found that sometimes inthe books in California was
different than some of theinformation we were getting
hands-on in the East Coast.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And so that was interesting.
Wait rewind for one minute forme.
So doing the national parksmeans what Is this?
A website that you just sign upon and say like I'm going to
come visit, teach us something.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
No, the national parks.
Like you're in an incrediblearea.
I love your area where you'reat, you know all the national
yes, you sure Go down.
There's so much that we did upin that area.
But the national parks you know, like in Virginia where George
Washington was a baby, you'vegot those.
You can get the bold and thebeautiful pass and then you can
(27:25):
go to every national park forfree.
So once you I know that we weretalking a little bit about,
like the financial and you knowRVing and teaching Well, once
you get that pass, which is onlylike 80 bucks I think for the
year, you can go to any nationalpark and so that way when you
go, you just walk, you camp outin the national park.
No, you just, well, you can.
(27:46):
You can do that too.
A lot of RVers will go to thenational park and stay the night
, but we have a very big RV andso we don't usually fit in those
, and that I could give you awhole nother episode of like how
we RV and where we stay andwhat we do with our parks.
But some people do do thenational parks.
Yes, there is so muchinformation because the mindset
(28:07):
of an RVer is very differentthan brick and mortar and it's
kind of like the differencebetween public school and
homeschool.
You know, there's just acompletely different mindset.
You definitely are like a nomad, but there's so much to be able
to do on the road and there'sso much to see.
In the United States, if youhave a chance to just even take
your car and go to a nationalpark, have your child be a
(28:29):
junior ranger.
It's an actually like a lot ofthe national parks, they have
the visitor centers.
So when you go to the parkyou'll a lot of times at one end
or the other you'll have avisitor center.
So you go into the visitorcenter you'll see somebody
dressed in you know theiruniform and you say, hi, we're
here, you know we want to do theJunior Ranger program and
they're like, oh great, they'reso excited and they'll give you
(28:51):
the book and they'll tell youhow much they need to complete
and then it tells you where togo and what to look at.
So like we just did one inCalifornia and we went to Joshua
Tree National Park and had Inot had that book, I probably
would have been bored.
But once you have the book,you're able to see what plants
we're looking at what does theJoshua tree look like, the
difference between the Joshuatree and a cactus.
(29:12):
And they complete the book andthen they bring it back and then
they recite like a littleJunior Ranger oath and then they
give them a little pin and itjust like puts action into the
learning.
And it's not in your house orin a school room or in a book.
It's actually seen with youreyes and touching with your
hands.
And the visitor centers areawesome and the national parks
(29:35):
are around the whole UnitedStates.
So that would be one thing Iwould be like okay, that's
totally awesome to do, andthat's why we do the online
programs, because then I want tobe able to know that they're at
the level that they need to beto be able to graduate, to go to
college.
And I do have a little bit ofsomething that I do do with that
when they get a little older,to know if they're ready for
(29:58):
college, but when they'reyounger, you want them to kind
of like do your lessons, butthen now let's go on a hike, now
let's go to a museum and, ifyou ever have a chance to go to
the presidential museumsactually it's called the
presidential libraries.
Those are all through theUnited States as well.
Those are awesome to go toBecause if your viewers or
listeners are wanting to havelike a list of things the
(30:20):
national parks, the presidentiallibraries, any of your history
museums, any of your sciencemuseums I know that we've done a
lot.
I think they're called like theNASA museums.
There's one in Texas, there wasone in Florida, they're all
over.
Any of those museums areawesome to learn from.
And then I really lovedVirginia.
When we went to WilliamsburgVirginia, because that's where
(30:42):
you really can get into like theRevolution War and we did the
triangle history there.
We could do it again and againand really dive in and talk
about it.
And then a lot of times you cansay, if you don't have a
curriculum for history orscience, that's like an actual
company.
What I like to do with historyand science is the museums and
then say, okay, what did youlearn today?
(31:03):
Let's color that, let's write aparagraph about that.
Now, tell me three points thatwe learned today, and then
that's kind of covers mycurriculum in that.
And so that's why I don'treally like to be pigeon-tailed
by any kind of like charterschool or anything that has to
look at their ocellus and seehow many hours and stuff they're
doing.
Because I want to be able to goout into the world and learn on
(31:25):
the road.
I want to be able to learn onthe hike.
I want to be able to go outinto the world and learn on the
road.
I want to be able to learn onthe hike.
I want to be able to learn inthe museum.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And so just for people who might not even know
what that means.
So when you're connected to acharter school, it's that you're
homeschooling, but you'regiving them information or test
scores about what your childrenare accomplishing in return for,
maybe, reimbursement for someof the expenses.
Is that accurate.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Correct.
When you do a charter school,that's called a public charter
school in some states where theygive you funding.
Every state is different and soyou might have a little bit
more freedom.
I think maybe in Arizona and Iknow you might in Florida, but,
like in California, when I do acharter school I have to turn in
paperwork.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Well honey, I'm in New York, I'm not in Florida.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So you probably have strict rules, like California
did when we're with the charterschools, there's no funding.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
There's no funding available.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So if you're with a charter school that gives you
funding.
You have to do state testingand you have to turn in
something once a month and youhave to be able to tell them
what your curriculum is.
And so what I found whathappened was when I tell them
I'm doing a CELUS, they want topull up a CELUS and see when
they are on and what they'redoing, and I'm like, no, I'm
(32:41):
using this as a supplement, butI'm not using this as my full
curriculum, because I want to beable to go to these museums, I
want to be able to talk and havediscussions, I want to be able
to be the one that teaches, andso I actually being in
California this time, I have anaffidavit and our school is
called Bright Path Academy and Irun my own private school, and
(33:03):
so we're able to do ourcurriculum and keep our
attendance and keep a file ofpapers that they do, and I go
through HSLDA and I pay for thatmembership and they have a
great source of helping you withbuilding your transcript at the
end.
But I've already have done thatseveral times already.
We have found a college thatour kids can go to through our
(33:24):
church, where we can put in ahomeschool transcript and they
can also start college classesat 16.
So my trick that I said that Ido and any city school you
really can start at 16.
Now I start them online withmath and English, which is the
same as like a senior math andEnglish.
So like if you get up to youknow geometry and then I think
(33:44):
you go to algebra too, and thenwhen you go to like a junior
college and then they start youagain, they test you and then
they put you into where you test.
So you might even be incalculus, but if you don't test
that at the junior college, theywon't put you in.
That.
They'll give you a test andthen you start with that class
at that junior college and thenyou can start that at 16.
(34:04):
So then they can be takingcollege classes online as a high
schooler and then when theygraduate closer to 18 and they
can go and and that alltransfers over those college
credits.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Is that the ASU universal learner?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
For the college they go to.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, someone had said, they could start that
there at 16 as well.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, most.
You might look at where yourarea like I know most junior
colleges now you can call andthey call it concurrent
enrollment and you just say Ihave a high schooler who's 16
who would like to take some onor take college classes and a
lot of the college classes youcan actually go to college as a
high school student at a juniorcollege.
(34:47):
So at a community college youcan go to a community college
Most community colleges you cancall and say I have a high
schooler and they would like totake concurrent enrollment and
then they'll tell you what thenext steps are.
We have a school that our kidsgo to in Idaho and they can do
online.
They can apply to the collegeas a high school student and do
(35:09):
online classes and so then whenI get ready to send them to the
university, those transfer withthem over.
But that's how I kind of knowthat they're ready is because if
they're getting good grades asa junior and senior in math and
English and other courses thatthey're taking, then you know
that they're kind of met thatlevel.
And so I have a 15 year oldright now that's taking a cell
(35:30):
list classes on powerhouse andshe's like I got to do
schoolwork.
I got to do schoolwork becauseshe has learned to love to learn
and she wants to make sure thatshe hits that you know, that
level of knowledge to be able togo to college at you know, 17,
18 and be able to get goodgrades.
So she puts a lot of time andeffort into her high school
(35:52):
curriculum on Powerhouse andmake sure that she's you know
where she needs to be, so whenshe's 17, she can go do what she
wants to do.
So, kind of answering yourquestion on making sure that
they can go do what they want todo, whether it's a trade school
or a business or college,whatever it is that they choose
and you know, running a podcast,like you do, or like I run a
(36:12):
coaching company and my kids didthe bounce houses and a lot of
them are sell agents, they sellproducts and so anything that
they want to do I have.
I have a child who was like 11years old and she was an artist.
And I go out to the garage andI'm like what are you doing?
And she's like I'm makingpinatas and she would make like
Eiffel Towers and moms wouldcall and say I want this pinata
(36:37):
for my like centerpiece and Ineed an Eiffel Tower with panda
bears, and she would build outof cardboard and tissue paper an
Eiffel Tower and panda bears,and at 11 years old, she was
making, you know, 40 bucks, andthey were different than what
you could get at Walmart becauseshe could create anything you
asked her to do.
She was an artist, you know.
(36:58):
You could say here's thispicture, build this.
And she could build it.
And so it's just incredible tobe able to do what you and I are
doing, because where else wouldthe children be able to just
have a fountain of, you know,knowledge and opportunity, which
I find is right here, beingable to, to, you know,
homeschool and have this, youknow, um, this freedom that we
(37:19):
can do this?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So let's get into them.
We talked a little bit about it.
But the finances, I mean it'shard to homeschool nine and on
one income, or, if you want itto work, I mean that's near
impossible with that many kidsand homeschooling and then doing
the road schooling as well.
So how financially could onemake this work, or did you make
(37:41):
this work?
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Okay.
So when we were, what point ofmy life should I talk about the
road schooling part?
Right, how do we make that work?
So when we were, what point ofmy life should I talk about the
road schooling part?
Right, how do we make that work?
So, when we're on the road, myhusband has always owned his own
business and so we have foundthings that we can do that are
membership wise.
So, like our gym we go to isaround the whole United States,
(38:02):
is $25 a month and we could goto any Planet Fitness as we
travel.
And then he has an office whichis called Regis and that's
worldwide, so he can go to theoffice.
Everything now is online, so hedoes you know everything's new.
If he does have to leave, thenhe catches a flight and goes
where he needs to go and comesback to me.
And we have used the ThousandTrails system mostly.
(38:25):
I like it because it's gated,you have a code to get in and I
feel safer with the children andwe move about every three weeks
so we can work, we canhomeschool and we can check out
the area that we're in, haveplenty of time.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
What is it?
What's a Thousand Trails?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Thousand Trails has been around forever and they
have like okay, so they havememberships and they have
different kinds of membershipsyou can get.
So we got a membership thatonce you pay the membership, we
own that membership for life andso we can like um will it to
one of our children and itallows us to stay into any
(39:03):
thousand trails park for 21 daysand we can go from park to park
.
Now they are changing thatright now that you don't get it
for a lifetime, but they arehaving it where you can still
buy a certain amount for two,four, six years and be able to
go into the park for, you know,three weeks and then go to
another park for three weeks.
And so we have found.
(39:24):
For us that has really worked.
And we also have found in theEast Coast they also do what's
called Encore and so we had likeprobably over a hundred
different parks that we could goto, and Florida was amazing
because you had a lot of choices.
So that was affordable becausewe bought into that like five
years ago and so, other thanpaying the dues, we don't have
(39:46):
any night-to-night costs that wehave to do because we already
bought it.
So it's kind of like a timesharealmost, and then they give you
different perks, like if youwant to do RPI, where I can go
buy a condo for a week, usually$300 to $600 for the week, and
those are all over the UnitedStates.
But some RVers like to go tostate parks or national parks or
(40:10):
they'll do boondocking.
There's also like Harvest Host,there's Escapees, there's
different kinds of groups youcan be part of and RVers they
know that we had talked aboutlike how do you do it
financially and how do you alsodo it socially?
Well, there are on Facebook.
There's a group and I thinkit's called RV families and a
(40:36):
lot of them will meet up atdifferent states and different
areas because they allhomeschool and the moms will
meet and then they will gotogether to activities and then
those kids are with each otherat the campground.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Hey everyone, this is Cheryl.
I want to thank you so much forchecking out the podcast.
I'm going to keep this shortand sweet because I know your
time is valuable.
I want to ask you a seriousquestion Do your kids know what
to do to actually save theirlife in an emergency?
The most important thing we cantalk to our kids about is
knowing their first and lastname, knowing mom and dad's
(41:12):
first and last name, mom's phonenumber, dad's phone number,
their address, what to do ifthey get lost, what to do if
someone who's watching them hasa heart attack, a stroke, an
accident where they fall andyour child needs to get help.
We live in a world where there'sno landline phones anymore,
basically, and cell phones lock.
Does your child know how tocall 911 from a locked cell
phone?
It is absolutely possible, andmy book demonstrates how to do
that, whether it's an Android,whether it's an iPhone and, most
(41:34):
importantly, it starts theconversation, because I was
going through homeschoolingcurriculum with my kids,
realizing that, gee, maybe theyskim over this stuff, but they
don't get into depth, so mychild's not going to remember
this should an accident occur,right?
I asked a couple of teacherswhat they do in school and they
said they really don't doanything either other than talk
(41:56):
about what to do in a fireduring the month of October fire
prevention month.
So I wrote a book because thisis near and dear to my heart.
I have had multiple friends thathave lost kids in tragedies and
I don't want to see it happenagain if it doesn't have to.
We were at the fair over thesummer and the first thing I
said to my son when we walkedthrough that gate was what's my
first and last name, what isyour first and last name and
(42:18):
what is my phone number?
And if you get lost, what areyou going to do?
You can get my book on Amazonand I will put the link in my
show's description again.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
It's called let's talk emergencies and I really
hope you'll check it out becausethere's just no need to be
scared when you can chooseprepared and so you, you see
that a lot and you see a lot ofyoung families that are out and
about and traveling andhomeschooling and and, in the
area where Washington DC is, allof those museums.
(42:47):
When I was there last year,they were all still free.
So we met a family who had sixkids and every day they were
going from, I think, we were ina part of Virginia and they were
driving down to Washington DCand they were, you know,
catching all of those museumsthat they could, and that's how
they homeschooled was.
Just you know, different areas,different museums, and you know
(43:08):
questions and playing and andkids just get so much out of
that.
I also don't put a lot of moneylike powerhouse through a cell.
This is only $25.
Moby max is only $25.
And I think I paid maybe ahundred or something for the
year for teaching textbooks.
So that's about all that I pay.
And I have my own onlinecoaching program and I've
(43:32):
written bullet planners about 19of them.
I created a three-month programthat helps women find their
happiness internally and onceyou find your internal happiness
, you can reach pretty muchanything you want.
And I talk a whole bunch aboutthat and I video it and you can
buy it as a video course.
I also found that being able todo that gives me a little bit
(43:54):
of my passion to be able to doand then share that with the
kids.
I love to write, I love tospeak and I love to be able to
help other people, and so I keepdoing that on the road as I'm
working with the kids and I justfind, as I'm doing my work and
they're doing their work, we'reable to all learn and grow and
just have the great mindset thatI want to have.
(44:15):
I've always dreamed of likebeing a nomad.
For me, being stuck in one spotwas really hard and as I got
older and the kids got older, Iwas like, okay, the world's my
playground, let's go.
Where do you want to go?
And I always felt that way.
With the last four girls I waslike we're going to travel the
world together.
And these last four girls wedid, and I have two of them in
college right now and two ofthem home and I just I love it
(44:38):
and I just don't know if you'vealso have heard just to kind of
put in there for some moms tocheck out Thomas Jefferson
education.
That philosophy helps you to asa mom, to be able to do your own
learning as well as teachingyour children.
So as you're learning, yourchildren are learning, and I
learned that as a young mom,when we had eight children.
(44:59):
I learned that philosophy andso that's kind of how I've
always kind of have managed.
My homeschool is kind ofthrough that philosophy of one,
what do the children want tolearn?
And two, what do they need tolearn to be able to get to where
they need to go?
And three, it's so wonderfulfor them to see that I'm still
learning, because then that putsin their heart there's never a
(45:21):
stop to learning.
It's not a light switch.
It's something that we continuedoing all through our life.
I even believe even after thislife we're continuing to learn.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I agree, and I say that all the time.
Even just like reading theTuttle Twins books to my son,
I'm like, wow, I never knew thisor this is why this happened.
This is why this war actuallyhappened.
It wasn't what they told us inschool and it's just yeah, and
learning the podcast and youknow all just marketing and that
(45:52):
sort of stuff.
It really is cool and I, yeah,we watched happy feet earlier
today and it made a reference tolike different types of
penguins and I'm like what doyou mean there's different types
of penguins?
So now I like want to get intolooking at you know different
types of penguins.
And so now I like want to getinto looking at you know
different types of penguins andwhere do they come from and what
are their.
You know different habitats andwhat do they eat and that sort
(46:13):
of stuff.
So yeah, it's everywhere.
It's just we normally don'thave the time to stop and wonder
and then do something about it.
You know, find it, and I'vebeen thinking a lot lately too
about the amount of time wespend in school or even in work
waiting, just like waiting whenyou work for someone else.
You know, I worked for thegovernment for 16 years.
It's just, and like kidswaiting for the school bus and
(46:36):
waiting to get into class andthen waiting for the class to
settle and waiting for theteacher to call attendance and
waiting to line up and wait.
It's like there I calculated itout, it was like an insane
amount of hours a year that youspend just waiting.
Like what a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Well, it is.
And also like if we're notteaching skills.
I don't know like one thing Idon't know if you know um that I
am a meditation teacher, and soit's like we're missing.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
So much Do you meditate on the bounce houses?
Is that?
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I do.
You know what I mean.
If you're not trained to bouncein the bounce house to have a
baby, you're meditating.
I mean, come on, that's.
I mean they just are reading somuch and they don't know what
to do with that waiting.
You know, the first thing theydo is pull out their phone and
they're just constantlystimulating.
We're not finding any stillness, we're not finding any peace,
and that's why our anxiety anddepression at such a young age
right now, is like an epidemicissue.
(47:33):
You know, because we're just,they're just so stimulated and
everything they do we're notable to get out like find some
peace, find some stillness.
And that's probably why I am ameditation teacher and I went
towards during the recession.
I ended up going back to schooland became a massage therapist,
because it was a difficult timein our life and our kids had to
(47:54):
go back to school.
And so here I'm going to school, I'm homeschooling eight kids
trying to finish a bachelor'sdegree.
I mean, I had an insane amountof stuff on my plate.
So, like no wonder, we hit theroad and went in an RV, because
you do have to change thatmindset and we were forced a
little bit to RV because we hada black mold issue in one of our
houses and so that kind offorced us out.
(48:16):
We're all super sick.
And so I just, we had a trailerwe owned and I just in a week I
just pulled everything out andremodeled it and made a little
school room and made a littlechalkboard.
And my daughter, one of theyoungest ones, was six and I
just, you know, when you thinkabout you talk about, do the
kids miss out on anything?
I know you and I are talkingabout, like, do they miss out on
(48:36):
prom?
Do they miss out on dances orsocial events or whatever?
And I think now when they'reolder and they're in college,
they kind of say like you know,my friends were my sisters.
You know I didn't really havelike friends outside.
I kind of struggle a little biton how to make friends, but we
were blessed because our churchis worldwide, so everywhere we
went they were part of acommunity and a church and got
(48:58):
to go to camp and we would tryto manage our time around those
activities.
But they also see that collegeis so much fun.
The two girls that are incollege they're making friends
and they're able to date andthey're able to do, you know my
daughter's the face of hercollege and she's on dance team
and she's still out in the EastCoast in Virginia and she's like
doing great and she's like youknow, those last four girls were
(49:19):
complete pretty.
You know homeschoolers.
We had kids boys that were inschool at the time and they were
doing homeschoolers.
We had kids boys that were inschool at the time and they were
doing basketball.
And then the four girls werehomeschooling.
I was juggling kind of betweentheir activities and the girls'
activities and they said we justremember going from basketball
game to basketball game and Ihad the little pink backpacks
and I got the little hot dog androlled it up and foil and said
(49:41):
let's go.
So they remember being kind ofon the road and always kind of
on the road and it's really madethem.
Their character is very able tochange.
You know they're able to switchdirections and and they're able
to go to college and they'reable to learn and get good
grades and they're verywell-rounded.
And that was kind of.
I think, when you think aboutyour purpose of homeschooling as
(50:02):
a mom and you're going do Iwant to do this?
Well, start thinking like, well, what's your purpose, what's
your why?
Because anytime you have a why,whether it's like your why with
podcasting, my why with lifecoaching, you know.
Why do you want to make money?
Or why do you want to RV, whydo you want to homeschool, or
why do you want to be married,like you know.
I mean like all of these why's.
When you really get thatdeepness of what your why is,
(50:23):
then, when the hard times come,you can push through those hard
times because you know what yourpurpose is.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (50:30):
I love that.
Melissa, as we round out thehour, where can people find you
and what do you have going onthat you can tell us about, so
that people can connect with youif they want to?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Well, I own a health and wellness center and my
website issynholisticsolutionscom, and we
are offering a free two-daywebinar on Release your Energy
and Bring In your Wealth andAbundance of Peace and Happiness
and you'll be seeing that on myInstagram.
You can find me everywherethat's at synholisticsolutions
(51:01):
on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterestand YouTube, and we invite you
free to our webinar March 18thand 19th to be able to spend an
hour with me where I will teachyou a lesson, we will do a
meditation and I intuitivelyhave some affirmation healing
alignments that I will bepresenting at this webinar on
(51:22):
day one and day two and thatwill help you to clear out your
energy and to bring in theabundance and wealth that you're
looking for.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I think I need that.
I need the meditation.
I am guilty of what you weresaying.
With the screens on, it's likewhen you have a quiet moment,
you're almost like uncomfortablebecause and that's probably why
you grab for the phone like, oh, somebody needs something.
I don't even know what.
Let me see.
Because, it is.
It's like hard to just stop andthink.
You know, all throughout theday you think, oh, I've got to
(51:52):
do this, I have to do that, Ihave to do that.
And when everybody is quiet andyou have a moment, you're like
I don't know what to do.
So I think that's the moment Ineed to just leave the phone and
go sit and be still and becomfortable in that.
So thank you for reminding usof that today, and I will link
everything in the show'sdescription so that people can
find you very easily.
(52:12):
I just want to thank you somuch for being on the show today
and sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Well, I want to thank you for having me here.
I am so excited and I'm sograteful to be able to meet you,
and good luck to everythingthat you're doing, and I hope we
get to see each other again.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Absolutely.
Thank you, Melissa.
Thank you for tuning into thisweek's episode of the homeschool
how to.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
Or, if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
(52:48):
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
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