I know I’m not alone in homeschooling but it can still feel that way – like I’m hiking through the woods by myself… It helps to get advice from people who’ve already ‘hiked through the woods’ and ‘blazed a trail’… Sam is that person.

If you’re interested in home learning, you’ll want to listen to Sam… She will inspire you and help you on your home learning venture.

This playbook is a great source of home learning.

Easy way to watch and get informed, ask questions and get answers, and then hear a guest speaker regarding methods to attract your child(ren) to subject matter.

We were blessed to have Michelle Howard be the guest speaker and the info she shared in 45 minutes was almost non stop! Couldn’t jot everything down fast enough, but fortunately the replay was available!

The Q&A will Sam was great and her own homeschooling experiences was beneficial!

This week I attended the Empowerment Challenge. I have also just finished reading “They’re Your Kids.”

1) I feel encouraged in my decision to homeschool, (there is so much unethical and incorrect teaching happening in schools today, especially with Common Core and the twisted gender identity messages).

2) I feel bolstered in my confidence to teach my son at home (sadly, even though I am a certified and veteran teacher in northern NY, I recognize that the public school has programmed me to feel inadequate to teach all the subject areas at home myself).

3) My view of education has greatly expanded (for example I am seeing more and more that I do not need to re-create the school curriculum experience at home, that my son will be able to be somewhat independent and self-directed in his home-learning, and I am not a failure as a parent if my child does not get a high school diploma… ouch… still a little painful to say the last one. I recognize he (and we) will have much more than a piece of paper). 🙂

4) I liked the concrete assignment on Day 1 to write a goal and mission statement. We will now have a visual reminder in our home to encourage us, and keep our eyes on the goal. I love the idea of naming our own school… we’ll work on that.

5) My only suggestion for improvement would be to adjust the Day 3 assignment. I am vague on exactly what you hoped we would complete with Five in a Row. Is it a book company? Is it a method of five good extensions projects around a topic? I love the realization that true learning reaches the heart, as was the main message I took home on Day 3. I hope I have engaged the heart at least on occasion in my career of teaching. I certainly tried. If making us think was the goal of your assignment, then the assignment was not a lost cause, even if we didn’t produce concrete results. I don’t know if I understand FIAR correctly, but it reminds me of beloved time in elementary school with a teacher who loved a topic and lived it with the students (for example: hearing about Johnny Appleseed, making one of his legendary hats to wear, doing math with apples, enjoying cider and donuts, and planting an apple tree).

6) I appreciate the resource links and ideas that were suggested such as: Living Librairies List, HSLDA, learning Latin just because, and using library resources for some things rather than buying all textbooks.

7) When a local power outage kicked me off the meeting on Thursday for a few moments, I was happy that Chicke was helping facilitate the Zoom and allowed me to re-enter. It is VERY HELPFUL for the quality of your event to have a co-facilitator keeping things running smooth. I had flash backs to all the remote learning that happened with the school closures due to the Covid mandates. I tried my best to operate the logistics of the Zoom, keep attendance, watch for genuine questions and inappropriate comments/behaviors in both the chat and student videos, offer tech help, and actually get some meaningful teaching accomplished, but it was very discouraging.

8) Last but not least, I recognize the wonderful opportunity I had to be on a Zoom meeting with Sam Sorbo and only 10 people. I’m glad I followed the heavenly nudge to commit to attend even though I knew I had to leave early for work Wed and Friday. Thank you also for the bonus offers on the last day!

I attended Sam’s home learning conference. My teens also attended the teen event Friday evening. The conference exceeded my expectations. We are not a “home schooling” family but will home learn this upcoming academic year. The conference really shifted how we will approach learning & empowered us to be confident in our decision. There were also resources but not too many. It wasn’t overwhelming. After the teen night, my daughter asked to attend the next day. She was engaged and took part in choosing her own educational resources. I highly recommend all families attend. It’s filled with gold nuggets.