So you know those times when you are interested in an e-book bundle or an e-course and it sounds good and you’re hopefully optimistic and then it just blows. you. away. with how good it is? That is how I felt when I had the opportunity to review the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course from Successful Homeschooling Made Easy through the Schoolhouse Review Crew.
I’ve closing in on finishing my third year of homeschooling if you don’t count all the years I had tried and failed between ages 2 & 5 :). I’ve figured some things out. I have other things that I just can’t seem to get to work for us and it feels like I’ve tried everything. I generally have it fairly under control though. Thanks to this weekly e-course, I have some new ideas to try!
Successful Homeschooling Made Easy
So Successful Homeschooling Made Easy is a 26-week e-course that is basically like a How to Homeschool 101. She very gently shows you how to begin homeschooling from starting with reading, writing and math, creating a schedule, knowing WHY you homeschool, housekeeping, and more. It’s gentle and slow, which is great for someone who is absolutely terrified about the step they are making. It’s also super practical for people like me who are ready to cannonball into the pool without checking the depth first.
Every week you will receive a super short email with a link to a PDF file. She recommends printing them and putting them in a binder, but I prefer to keep things electronic. I have the files saved in Dropbox and only print out the pages where I need to work. Each lesson includes assignments to help you take the contents and make them your own. Many also include worksheets or questions to answer. Those are the pages I print.
How I Used Successful Homeschooling Made Easy
Now, for this e-course, we received the first 4 weeks at once and then an email each week after that. I don’t think it normally works like that, but because of review window, we got 9 weeks of the class (about 1/3 of the way through).
Because we are THISCLOSE to finishing our school year, I have not put any of her suggestions into effect. YET! I am one of those check off all the boxes people and I literally have 2 weeks of school left. I am going to check off all those boxes if it kills me ;).
But, I LOVE her ideas and I know that they will work better than what I’ve been doing because when we did some of them, well, things went better :). I’ve also been framing many of her tips in the — how does what we already do work within her tips — lens. And most of them fit rather well, but slightly differently.
Because I am a list checker person, I like to muscle through and get all the schoolwork done in the morning. But I think my kids would prefer a gentler schedule that goes all day like Stephanie suggests.
We do school year round though June & August are lighter and July is writing and math only. Using Stephanie’s suggestions, I am going to go back to reading FIRST thing in June. I had several books we were reading during Lent and then fell off the wagon when everyone got sick in mid-march.
I also will move to having a planned mid-morning snack because I have to anyway :). Rather than rushing the kids through it, I will take a bit of a break myself! I think the kids will also be happy with my decision to bring back regular library trips and make games a regular part of our day, too.
Summary
I have REALLY enjoyed taking this e-course. The lessons are meaty enough to be able to keep you from driving yourself nuts waiting for the next lesson, but gentle enough to let you wade cautiously into the pool.
If you can get out of your own way and FORCE yourself to stop and do one thing at a time and do it well (you people like me, you know who you are), this will work really well for forcing the slow down. I haven’t heard a single thing that I haven’t learned in 3 years of homeschooling, but I have taken her advice to get back to enjoying homeschooling instead of surviving school at home (which is totally different).
I’m really looking forward to taking the summer to readjust what our day looks like (and how I deal with it) without the (self-induced) pressure of diving into third grade and teaching reading to #2. I’m also looking forward to the schedule change and slow down that will allow me to address my own laziness that causes my kids to drive me nuts (like the constant pestering because I’m not paying attention) as well as be more diligent about their diligence.
Honestly, if you are beginning to homeschool for this coming school year, you really need to enroll in this course and start wading through it in about August.
If you are homeschooling currently but you are now finishing up and at your wits end and considering sending them to school, stop. You might get some new ideas and encouragement from Successful Homeschooling Made Easy that will help you decide if you really need to send them to school or if you just need to think about it differently.
