Finding (Homeschooling ) Mentors

Homeschooling can be a lonely business.  Even if you’re a part of a learning community, most people in your life will probably not be homeschooling.  Finding and making connections online has really strengthened my homeschooling mojo!  Book recommendations, new resources, a listening ear–I’ve found all of these from online connections.  And just about the best news ever got announced yesterday!  Melissa Wiley will be speaking at Julie Bogart’s Brave Writer Retreat in July 2016.

These two woman have shaped and influenced our homeschool so much.  From Julie, I get the perspective of someone who has finished her homeschooling journey.  From Melissa, I get someone who’s right along side me.  Her youngest two are the same ages as my oldest two.  The parallels never stop amazing me!  And they’re going to be speaking at the same event.  Wow.

Your Morning Basket

More than anything else this year, reading Pam Barnhill’s new book has rekindled my love of circle time.  It’s the bedrock of our homeschooling practice, but it had gotten stale and I lacked the motivation to breathe new life into our learning together.  Pam freshened my vision and gave me some baby steps to start taking.  We are still in the early days.  But we’ve experienced so much success already.  One recent addition–adding hymns back to our routine.  And we found the wonderful Traditional Hymns youtube channel.  We’re singing All People that on Earth Do Dwell this month, and will be singing Now Thank We All Our God for Thanksgiving next month.

Simplified Organization

Alright, alright.  Not a homeschooling resource per se.  But because Mystie Winckler homeschools her own 5 children, she gets it.  She gets the struggle to get dinner on the table.  She gets the challenge of finding a place for everything, and making sure that everything’s (occasionally) in its place.  Working through her course these pasts months has helped me clarify some problem areas (not reviewing my calendar) and given me strategies for overcoming them (weekly review, evening review).  I am looking forward to finishing up the course this year and then I might tackle Work the Plan after the New Year!

Mystie is hosting a free planning webinar about bullet journaling and other paper planners on Wednesday, October 28th at 2pm.  You can learn more and sign up to get the link (and replay!) right here.