I recently was blessed to hear Jeannie Fulbright speak at our homeschool support group’s Back to School Kick Off Day. Jeannie, is a marvelous speaker, with a warm heart, and love for Jesus that comes through abundantly in her voice, words and mannerisms. I am so glad that I went today. My heart needed a lift.
You see, due to the normal nightly wakings of having a precious baby in our home, a new puppy, and my regular issues with insomnia I was exhausted (to say the least) the morning of the conference. Had it not been for Big Daddy encouraging me to go, and my dear friend picking me up—-I would have crawled back in bed and missed out on her terrifically uplifting and motivating messages. Yes, that’s right I said m-e-s-s-a-g-e-s. What is better than hearing Jeannie Fulbright speak? Hearing her speak 3 times on various topics!
Here are a few of the gems I took away from her lectures:
Homeschooling: Methods that Win and Methods that Wipe Out
Ways you will burn out:
- Comparing yourself children, lives, homeschool or children to others.
- Focusing on weaknesses in your children, instead of nurturing their strengths
- Choosing overwhelming or burdensome curriculum
- Not training your children to be independent learners.
Things to do:
- If you are doing what you are intended to do in your homeschool you will not burn out. You will have enough energy to accomplish what you’ve been called to do for your family.
- Seek God’s peace before you make your plans.
- Focus on spiritual maturity before academics
- Spend early years focusing on love of learning. Don’t worry about gaps at this level.
How to Homeschool Multiple Kids
- Be goal oriented first
- Encourage Independence
- Once they read, they read to learn
- Evaluate curriculum for independent learning opportunities
- Encourage children to teach/assist younger ones
- Talk to your children about the attitude they express when serving in the family.
- Teach shorter lessons, more frequently
- Use a multi age curriculum so you can teach them together.
- Create a schedule/chart for each child and have them be in charge of following it
- Focus on heart training
Solving Your Science Struggles
- Make sure its easy to teach
- Focus on teaching scientific concepts.
- Reading about science should be the bulk of your program
- make sure its interesting to you. Learn with your kids
- Don’t push worksheets with Science.
- Make sure the experiments compliment what you are learning and aren’t just an experiment w/ no purpose.
- Point your children to the creator when teaching about his creations
- Its okay to teach one field at a time in depth.
This has been a great summer for me as far as refueling my little homeschooling soul. I have been blessed to attend our state’s homeschooling conference, attended Heart of the Matter’s Virtual Homeschool conference, and then our local support group’s Back to School Kick off. I think this is going to be a great year. I’m very excited and I have a lot of notes and great advice to get me through any rough patches I know I will hit. I honestly don’t see how anyone can homeschool successfully without refueling themselves and having some sort of support.
How do you refuel and re energize yourself in preparation for a new school year? What support do you lean on in your homeschool? Are you a member of local support group? Do you have another homeschooling friend or online source of encouragement?
