How to Homeschool: A Step-by-Step Guide with Kristi Clover

In a world where the “traditional” educational model has devolved to the point of abject danger and degeneracy, millions of families are seeking alternatives and homeschooling has reemerged as the gold-standard in education. In the latest episode of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, host Yvette Hampton sat down with homeschooling expert, author, and speaker Kristi Clover to delve into the ins and outs of homeschooling. With valuable insights and practical tips, Kristi empowers parents to embark on this impactful journey. Let’s explore some key takeaways from this illuminating conversation.

For more on this topic, make sure you download our free Homeschool Survival Kit. This 70+ page eBook walks you through every step, from just getting started to graduating your last child with confidence.

“The first thing you need to do is establish your purpose. Figure out why you’re homeschooling, what your goals are, and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Kristi Clover

Establishing Purpose and Motivation:

Kristi emphasizes the importance of knowing the “why” behind homeschooling. She guides parents to solidify their purpose as the foundation for their homeschooling journey. As she explains, “The first thing you need to do is establish your purpose. Figure out why you’re homeschooling, what your goals are, and what you’re trying to accomplish.” This clarity enables parents to navigate challenges with determination and resilience – even when you experience the inevitable setbacks associated with parenting and teaching your kids at home.

Embracing Flexibility and Personalized Learning:

One of the primary advantages of homeschooling is the ability to tailor education to each child’s unique needs and interests. Kristi emphasizes the importance of incorporating children’s passions into the curriculum, stating, “Find out what subjects and activities really inspire your children… Let them dig deep into those interests.” By doing so, parents tap into their children’s natural curiosity, encouraging enthusiasm for learning and empowering them to become experts in their chosen fields.

Creating a Customized Homeschool Experience:

Homeschooling need not follow a rigid, conventional model. Kristi encourages parents to design their own homeschool experience, emphasizing that it doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) replicate the public school system. She states, “You don’t have to re-create a mini public school in your home. You can really tailor it to your own family and your own goals.” This flexibility allows parents to develop a curriculum that aligns with their family’s values and creates an inspiring learning environment.

Prioritizing Discipleship:

For Kristi, homeschooling extends beyond academics. It is an opportunity for parents to disciple their children’s hearts and instill a Christian worldview. “Whoever spends the most time with the children is the one truly parenting and discipling them,” she asserts. Homeschooling allows parents to prioritize character development, Biblical values, and Christ-centered teaching while providing a high-quality education.

Seeking Support and Resources:

Homeschooling can be an enriching and rewarding journey, but it also comes with challenges. Kristi emphasizes the value of seeking support from the homeschool community and attending conventions to connect with like-minded individuals and gather valuable resources. She also recommends the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) as a crucial resource for legal support.

Adapting Curriculum to Suit Learning Styles:

Another crucial aspect of homeschooling is tailoring the curriculum to meet the unique needs and learning styles of children. Kristi encourages parents to evaluate themselves as teachers and create a curriculum that aligns with their children’s learning preferences. She remarks, “As I observed my children, I paid attention to their tactile and visual learning preferences, and adapted our curriculum accordingly.” Kristi shares her experience of initially using a hands-on curriculum for her two close-aged children and then transitioning to more video-based learning materials as her family grew.

Organizing with the Crate System:

One of the key highlights of the podcast is Kristi’s discussion on the crate system, an effective method she uses to organize homeschool materials. Kristi explains how this system promotes independence and provides a manageable view of the week’s workload for students. She shares, “The crate system allows you to put homeschooling on autopilot. It helps you navigate emergencies or personal situations with ease.” Kristi has expanded on the crate system and other helpful tips for homeschool organization in her book, M.O.M. – Master Organizer of Mayhem.

Finding Success in Homeschooling:

While homeschooling can feel overwhelming at times, Kristi encourages parents to remember that it is a calling and a journey of faith. She compares homeschooling to a scene from an Indiana Jones movie, where taking a step of faith leads to finding solid ground. Kristi advises, “Keep your faith in Christ at the center of your homeschooling journey. There may be hard days and challenges, but it is all worth it in the end.”

More on this subject: How to Homeschool: My Original Roadmap

Conclusion:

In this series, Kristi Clover provides parents with a wealth of insights and guidance on how to embark on a successful homeschooling journey. By uncovering the “why” behind homeschooling, embracing flexibility, and prioritizing discipleship, parents can empower themselves to create a tailor-made educational experience for their children. With determination, resourcefulness, and a supportive network, homeschooling families can embrace the incredible opportunity to shape their children’s hearts and minds.

“Teaching children to love the Lord with their whole being is challenging, but my hope is that my actions and life will have a stronger impact on their learning than any curriculum.” Homeschooling is not just about academics—it’s about creating an atmosphere of love, care, and growth within the family.

Recommended Resources: 

Free Homeschool Survival Kit 

“How to Homeschool” the original document that my friend, Holly Learner gave me as a roadmap for homeschooling.

Homeschool Basics: How to Get Started, Keep Motivated, and Bring Out the Best in Your Kids, by Kristi Clover

M.O.M. – Master Organizer of Mayhem, by Kristi Clover

More from Kristi Clover on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast

Education: The Key to Saving Our Nation – Alex Newman on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast

Getting Started in Homeschooling – Israel Wayne on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast 

🍿🍿🍿 Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for FREE today!

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ Are you in need of a fresh vision for your homeschool? Join us for 4 days of Homeschool Encouragement at the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. Use the coupon code PODCAST to save 25% on registration today! 

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways can homeschooling provide flexibility and fewer restrictions, as compared to traditional schooling?

2. What are Kristi and Yvette’s primary goals for homeschooling and why are they important? How do they align with your goals?

3. How does Kristi approach the idea of children making their own choices regarding faith, and what is the role of the parent in this process?

4. What are some alternative teaching methods mentioned in the episode, and how can they be implemented in homeschooling?

5. What are some potential benefits and challenges of homeschooling, and how can parents address the challenges and maximize the benefits?

6. Have you ever tried organizing your homeschool materials using a crate system or any other system? What worked well for you and what challenges did you face?

7. How do you prioritize and choose curriculum materials for your homeschool? Do you follow a specific approach, such as Charlotte Mason or unit studies, or do you customize your curriculum based on your child’s needs?

8. What are some practical ways you incorporate character development into your homeschooling? Have you found any resources or methods particularly helpful in teaching character traits?

9. How do you handle the pressure to create a perfect homeschool image on social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram? Have you ever felt overwhelmed or discouraged seeing other homeschooling families’ seemingly perfect setups?

10. Have you ever tried incorporating video-based learning materials, such as the ones recommended by the speaker? How has it impacted your teaching and your child’s learning experience?

11. How do you adapt your homeschooling approach as your family grows and the needs of your children change? Have you found any specific strategies or methods helpful in teaching different grade levels simultaneously?

12. How do you handle the challenges of teaching children who may have different learning styles or preferences? Do you customize their curriculum or adjust your teaching methods to accommodate their needs?

13. How do you find and evaluate homeschooling methods and curricula? Do you rely on recommendations from friends, online resources, or attending homeschooling conferences and seminars?

14. How do you balance the desire for academic achievement with the importance of character development in your homeschooling? How do you prioritize one over the other or find a balance between the two?

Read the full transcript:

Yvette Hampton:

Hey everyone. This is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am so glad you are with us this week. We have an incredible guest on and she’s been on with us before. She was part of the Homegrown Generation Family Expo that we did back in March. And we’ve had her on the podcast a few times. And so I’m so excited to have Kristi Clover back with us. We are going to talk this week about how to homeschool because so many people are asking that question, how do I homeschool? How do I do this thing? And so we are going to dig deep into this and I could think of no better person to do this than with Kristi Clover this week. I want to tell you kind of a little story about how this all came to be. So 13 years ago, my friend Holly Lerner, who is a good friend of mine, she kind of has been my homeschool mentor and mom mentor when I very first became a mom. And she’s been homeschooling for quite some time. And so she wrote this two page document for me on how to homeschool. It was literally titled how to Homeschool. And 13 years later, I still have this document. And I came across it the other day. I hadn’t seen it for quite some time and I thought, you know what? There are so many new people homeschooling. And though we talk about homeschooling all the time, I really wanted to do a how to episode. And so I was looking at that and thinking, oh, this would be great. We need to do an episode on this and kind of go off some of her points. And then I had Kristi Clover scheduled to come on today and we were going to talk about chores and how to teach our kids to do chores and teach them responsibility and all of that fun stuff. And so I went on her website to look at some things and the first thing that I clicked on, I don’t even know how I got to it, but the first thing I clicked on was Kristi’s how to homeschool. And I was huh, OK, perhaps this is what the Lord wants us to talk about today. So I called Kristi like 2 hours ago and I said, hey, what do you think about switching gears? Do you want to talk about how to homeschool? And she was like, sure, I’m up for anything. And so we’re talking about this because this is really, I feel like what the Lord put on our hearts to talk about today. And because we have so many new people homeschooling and they’re asking the question, they want to know what to do, how do they do this? So we are going to dig deep into this this week and I hope that you’re going to be encouraged. Kristi, tell our listeners for those who are not familiar with you introduce yourself and your family to us. Sure.

Kristi Clover:

Yeah. So I am a homeschool mom. I’m a veteran homeschool mom. We’ve been homeschooling for over two years now. We have graduated two of our five kids out of our home school. And we have a very unique experience when it comes to homeschooling from the standpoint of we had our kids in a private Christian preschool. We did public school. We pulled our kids out of public school to do homeschooling. So that’s kind of our home school background. Other than that, yeah, I have this whole online life where I love encouraging people. And that is the beauty of getting to do this online, is I feel like I can actually encourage so many families using these online platforms that are available to us. But I’ve written a few books. I have a free book called Sanity Savers for Moms, and that is available on my website for free. And then I also have a book, I’ll just plug it here called Mom Master Organizer of Mayhem. And that’s all about home organization, but with moms in mind because I want you to give yourself a lot of grace. And then I also have Homeschool Basics, which is why we’re talking today. It’s about how to get started, motivate your kids, and bring out the best in your kids.

Yvette Hampton:

Awesome. So many good resources. And we have done episodes with you on every one of those. So back in March, when we did the Homegrown Generation, we talked about sanity savers for Moms. So we’ll put a link to the Homegrown Generation Family Expo. So if you guys have not participated in that, it’s still available. You can still sign up for that. It’s $20. And you have access to the entire conference with Christie’s session as well as all the others, and access to the whole one that we did back in 2020. And that one had Heidi St. John and Kirk Cameron and a whole bunch of other people as well. So, yeah, you can sign up for that and hear that whole session. And then we did another one on your mom book and on Homeschool Basics. So we’ll put links to all those things in the show notes. But before we get into this, we are going to get into the logistics of how to homeschool because that’s why we’re here and that’s what we’re going to talk about this week. But before we do, I want to talk about just kind of setting the foundation for all of this because we can throw out all of the how to’s, right? We can give all the points. You start here, start here, do this next. Next. But really, when it all comes down to it, what really matters is what is your goal? What is your why? Why are you even homeschooling? And so we talk about this on the podcast all the time, but I want to talk through a couple of verses really quickly. And the first one is Ecclesiastes 1213. And this is probably my favorite verse in the whole Bible. If I could choose one that has to be my favorite, this is probably the one that I would choose. And it says, this the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, you guys, that’s it. That’s the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commandments. And it says the very first few words is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Like, that’s it.

Kristi Clover:

This is what you do.

Yvette Hampton:

Exactly. I mean, I feel like we could just be like and done. That’s how you home school, just fear God and keep his commandments. Right. That really is all that matters is that we fear God and keep his commandments, and then that we teach that to our kids. And as we’re teaching that, of course, they think of Deuteronomy 6:4-9. And this is kind of the homeschool-y verse that you hear a lot of people say, and I think it’s kind of gotten, I want to say almost swept under the rug because people were like, yeah, Deuteronomy six, that’s the thing. But I’m going to read it again, because again, I think it’s so important for where we are today and for what it is that we’re doing in homeschooling our kids. And this is what it says. It says here, o Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk aby the way and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And you guys, that’s it. That’s really what matters, the end of the matter. All of this, all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, and then go and teach them to your kids, and teach them when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise. That’s what God’s commanded us to do. And so the very first thing when knowing how to homeschool is you got to know your why. And this is something that we as parents, we really have to take seriously, because this is the foundation of our parenting. This is the foundation of our homeschooling, and it is the most important thing. I know that was a long introduction to this how to homeschool. And people are like, just get to the nitty gritty. Give me my list. And they’ve got their pen and hopefully their Schoolhouse Rocked podcast notes. But Kristi, you speak all over the country on this specific topic and I want you to kind of dig in with us. What is kind of going off of what we started talking about? What is the first thing that parents need to focus on?

Kristi Clover:

Well, I do think, as you said, that understanding the why behind your homeschooling is so vital because that’s what’s going to help you during those hard days. And you’re like, what am I doing? You’re like that’s, right? So I always encourage people to write down your why and keep it posted somewhere so you can go back and look at it helps to have scripture. I love looking at those different scripture references you mentioned. But the other part of it that both my husband are really passionate about is that we really feel like as parents, we’re called to disciple our children. And Vodi Bakum has the most fun way of looking at that deuteronomy verse that you talked about. And he’s like, there’s no public school in the desert. So when Moses is giving these instructions to Israelites, it’s not like, okay, yeah, while they’re at a public school, they’ll do the public school thing. And then when we’re around them, yeah, that’s when we teach our kids. We’re called to train our kids up in the Lord. And I think it’s just so important and I think it’s easy to think when because what I hear a lot from people is, well, if I home school, it’s going to drive us all crazy. Like, I’m going to drive my kids crazy, my kids are going to drive me crazy. They’re going to drive each other crazy. And that’s a very common thing. And it happens. I will just tell you, yes, that’s going to happen. But really it comes back to parenting. It’s calling you to get on top of some different parenting issues that you probably have going on. And that’s really important because I think it’s easy to say, well, I’ll just have the school take care of it. And right now, what we know that’s happening in school, that’s the last place you really want your kids to be. What is happening is no longer a secret agenda. It’s now a very blatant agenda that is coming out into our school systems. And we’ve been fed a lie for a long time. And I think I’ve homeschooled long enough now because this is, I think, our 15th or so year homeschooling. And that you start recognizing this lie that we have been told is that trust us, trust the schools. You’re not equipped to teach your children. We are equipped to teach your children. And that’s a lie we’ve been fed for a long time. And so we’re supposed to put this trust in this government agency that right now is trying to push more politics than academics and so that’s the other part of the issue is you might feel like you’re not equipped. God is going to call you and equip you. If he is calling you to parent your child, he’s going to equip you in that. So that’s really important to understand that if you’re feeling unable to homeschool, you need to lean on in the Lord and find support. There’s so much out there to help you support. And so that I think is really, again, going back to discipleship is really being the heart of the issue and just knowing that God is going to help you, he’s going to give you discernment, he’ll help you find better curriculum. If the curriculum you’re using isn’t working for you, you have amazing resources. Like you guys have so many great resources, especially with the homegrown homeschooling program that you guys put on. It was so good to be a part of that and just to see all the different people that are there. But I always encourage people get to a homeschool convention, find your people. So that’s where you find your people. And then online you can do a Google search and find other homeschool communities as well because those are the people who are going to help you figure out how am I doing this whole homeschool thing when you really look again.

Yvette Hampton:

Big right? And so what you’re saying is homeschooling really is discipleship and discipleship is parenting and parenting is discipleship. And so our kids are being parented by someone, right? They’re either being parented by us or they’re being parented by the public school system or private school system, wherever you have your kids. So whoever has them for the most amount of time is the one who’s truly parenting and discipling their hearts for the majority of time. And so yeah, it is a high calling and it’s a lot of work. It is not for the faint of heart but it is for every parent who has a know. And I think you and I are on the same page. And I know we’ve talked with Heidi St. John about this as like we used to be in that boat where we were. Well, you know, homeschooling is for some but maybe not for everybody. Maybe God’s calling this person to it, but not that person. And we’re now in the boat of like he’s calling all parents to homeschool because he has called all parents to disciple the hearts of their children just as we’ve read in Ephesians or in Deuteronomy and in Ecclesiastes. I mean, that is what God has called us to do as parents. And so it is training up our children right in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. As Ephesians 6:4, it’s teaching them obedience, it’s teaching them to obey. Colossians 3:20 is children, obey your parents in all things. For this. Pleases the Lord. We want our kids to have blessings and so therefore we want them to obey the things that we’re teaching. There’s just so much scripture that backs up our responsibility as parents to teach them the word of God and to teach them all the things of the Lord. And so that is what we’re called to do. So yeah. So your first point, of course, is start with the end of mind and know why you’re doing this. Why are you homeschooling? What is your purpose in doing this? So what would be your next thing now once parents have figured out, okay, here’s our why, we know what we’re doing. We know that we’re called to disciple our kids and to teach them the ways of the Lord. But then they’re like, but what next? What do we do now?

Kristi Clover:

What next? Well, honestly, I mean, if you want to get practical, your next thing is to figure out what your state laws are. So if you have a child, because I’ll meet people that are like, I have a three year old, I want to home school. And it’s like, well, absolutely, teach your kid whatever you want, but pretty much every state does not require you to register a three year old, so you don’t have to officially homeschool. And in the state of California, I’m very familiar with our homeschool laws here, we’re not even required to start homeschooling until our child is age six as of September 1. So there’s some of those types of things. But knowing your state laws is really important, and that is as easy as going to HSLDA, which is Homeschool Legal Defense Association. So if you go to HSLDA, not just Christian some homeschoolees for you, but they have a list of all that you need as far as how to get homeschooling in your state. And so that’s probably the practically figure out your why, pray about it, and then contact HSLDA. And we’re lifetime members because we did the math. We started figuring out we’re yep, yep, might as well pay the lifetime membership. And we love supporting them as well, but they have all the information about how to get started. So in California, we homeschool under a private school affidavit. So we actually aren’t even part of any other kind of a school system. We’re part of the private school system, so a lot of people don’t know that. In fact, fun fact is that California is one of the easier states to homeschool in, which is shocking for everyone. And I think it’s because we’re under the umbrella of private schools. So it’s really saved us a lot of headache as they continue to make all of these fun changes in our public schools. I mean, some of the curriculum they have for the longest time, parents in my area were like, oh, that doesn’t come here. We’re such a conservative part of California. It’s everywhere. And even our church has gotten involved. We’re going to school board meetings and begging them to stop teaching sex education to kindergartners and the content that is in these are pornographic and it’s not healthy for any child. I mean, they’re sexualizing our children at such a young age. So again, it goes back to that why if I were just starting off, if I had a child getting ready to be in the school system, my why would look a lot different now than it did when I started. I think discipleship I want my kids to have a Christian worldview, that’s what’s most important to me is that they understand. I want them to love the Lord with all their heartful, mind and strength and develop a love for learning. And those are really our two goals. And really if they come out with nothing more than just to love the Lord and they hated every aspect of learning, they’re not going to love it anymore in public school. But you know what? That’s my job as a parent, is to introduce them all that I can. And the hardest part, now that I have two young adults again, you may not be thinking this if you’re just starting out or have kids under the age of 18, but your kids get to make their own decision on whether or not to follow the Lord. And it’s our job to present all that we can, to give them as much love and to shine for Jesus. And in fact, one thing I’d like to remind myself about that Deuteronomy verse, Deuteronomy 6 is that what it says is that we’re to put these in our own heart first.

Yvette Hampton:

Amen.

Kristi Clover:

And then we’re to impress them onto our kids. So you need to be loving the Lord and really learning what that looks like and teach your kids how to love the Lord. And that’s not always going to be because you found the perfect math curriculum or writing curriculum that’s important, but your kids hearts are more important. And what’s happening right now is our kids are being thrown into a Babylon. So that’s really the dynamic that we have and we probably have had that for a long time and we just haven’t seen it until COVID wasn’t as obvious. Oh, no. And now it’s crazy to see how revealing they are. I mean, Satanic groups are literally like, oh yeah, we’re out here, we’re for this. Oh yeah, right, exactly. So that’s what again, it comes down to the heart of your child. And I like to think about like when Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they were all taken like the Israelites were taken captive. And you have I don’t remember the number, but I believe it was millions of Israelite children were being taken away from their homeland and they were being thrown into Babylon, being taught all the cultural things, being educated in the Babylonian style of education, which was very it’s anti God. They believe in multiple gods and all kinds of crazy stuff. And yet at the end of the day. There were only four Israelite kids that we hear that stood up for the Lord. And so that’s what’s important is that we have to give our kids a firm foundation. And yes, the Lord will totally work. And yes, the Lord I was 15 and living in a dysfunctional Christian family when the Lord really gripped my heart, and he can do that for anyone. But I love that I can give my kids this foundation and that, I mean, the Lord’s still going to be at work, but I don’t want them in a Babylon environment. So that’s my little two cent on that is that I just think we are in a different day and age now. And I think if it takes every ounce of your energy, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to protect your children.

Yvette Hampton:

Yes, absolutely. It’s our job to do that. To protect their hearts, protect their bodies, protect their minds, protect their souls. So we’re here to help you do that. You said you’ve been homeschooling for somewhere around 15 years, right?

Kristi Clover:

Kristi yeah, about 15 years. Graduated, two kids so far. So we’re doing it.

Yvette Hampton:

So cool. Yay.

Kristi Clover:

It’s working.

Yvette Hampton:

And they’re still functional adults, which is amazing.

Kristi Clover:

Full time jobs. My oldest is married. I didn’t even think I mentioned that on the Monday’s episode. Yeah. My oldest, I am a mother of I’ll tell you that’s. Busy adding that 6th child, that was the easiest thing ever. No morning sickness, just a really day and then voila, I have another addition to our family. It’s awesome.

Yvette Hampton:

That’s so cool. I love that. I look forward to getting to that point. We’re getting there quickly. Brooklyn’s going to be a senior this year. Oh, man. I know. It’s so fast. It is so fast. We will have a middle schooler and a high schooler. Who’s almost done with high school. Yeah, I know. I was looking at my calendar the other day and the co op that we’re doing this year with both my girls, they have a graduation planning meeting and I was like, I have to go to a meeting to plan her graduation. It’s just so surreal and it’s weird. Like, I remember when I was pregnant with her, this was probably about two weeks before she was born and just thinking like, how surreal it was. She’s almost here. She’s almost going to be on this earth, out of my body, and how bizarre that reality was. And so getting to this next phase of life, because it really is the next big phase. She’s going to adult now. Yeah, it’s bizarre. And I’m so thankful that the Lord’s given us all these years to home school and to be able to build a relationship with her and with my youngest daughter. I mean, I’m so very grateful for that. Which on a quick note, I’ve said this, I think before on the podcast, but I’m going to go back to something you talked about on Monday, you talked about how oftentimes parents will say, oh, just the thought of being with their kids all day and their kids being with them and them being with each other. And one of the things I’ve realized is that oftentimes parents who don’t home school, they think that they don’t want to be with their kids or can’t be with their kids because their kids will drive them crazy. The reason their kids drive them crazy is because they’re not the ones raising them. Someone else is raising them with their own morals, standards and values and beliefs. And not that your kids are going to be perfect if they’re in your home, but when you’re raising them your way, it’s a very different outcome usually than when someone else is raising them and you have them in the evenings and on the weekends and on spring break and in the summertime. And then you think, I don’t really like this kid. I don’t like the way they act. Take them in, take on that role of full time parenting, not part time parenting, and see how things change. I think people will be really surprised to see what the Lord does and how he can work through you and your kids lives you have on your website. It’s a home school webinar. It’s the how to home school webinar. It’s kind of a crash course. I want to go through that and I want to do like the crash crash course. The crash course of the crash course. We do the crash course.

Kristi Clover:

We can do the crash course of the crash course. Yes. If you need more help in the crash course, right.

Yvette Hampton:

If you need further explanation things, we will put a link to that from Christie’s website as well. But we talked about setting that foundation. We talked about HSLDA and knowing what your state laws are and really knowing the why of homeschooling. What would be the next thing that parents need to consider when know here’s.

Kristi Clover:

The thing is that I’m going to speak to the families, okay? So if you are pulling your kid out of school, so you already have kids in school and now you’re going to be homeschooling them at home. Honestly, one of the biggest recommendations I have. And it was something that was told to me when we first started homeschooling, because it was a kindergartner and a first grader out of school is you need to spend at least a good month, if not just your first year of time, just getting back to being a family and what that looks like, because you’re changing the dynamics. And so sometimes you don’t even need to home school with curriculum and that blows people’s mind. I mean, math is one of those things, like math and phonics, like learning to read and math are two things that are helpful to have some curriculum. But there’s so many ways to learn that’s kind of a little unschooling. So you might be if you’re one of those parents, you’re like, yeah, that’s all nice and pretty, Kristi, but I need curriculum. Then there is curriculum out there, but I just want people to know that you can homeschool and kind of do it the easy way. You can study science by looking out and seeing what the weather is. Track the weather, see what that looks like, compare the weather to your area, to other areas that’s learning science. Maybe go to the library, check out some books on weather. You can pick up a rock and see what’s underneath it and study that. We tend to kind of study what’s around us. So we have hummingbirds that are constantly building nests in our yard. So we did a whole little unit study on hummingbirds. And for those of you that I just dropped a word that is a home school ease word unit studies that’s simply taking a subject and building curriculum around that and not like official curriculum that you’re taking something like a hummingbird. And I’m going to find some books about hummingbirds, I’m going to learn science. Maybe there’s not so much history around hummingbirds, but sometimes there is. You’d be surprised. Like with cats, you can study the history of cats in Egypt, cats in other countries. So there’s so many fun ways to really learn how to learn. And that would be my encouragement to families is don’t feel bogged down by all of the choices that you have and sometimes that is just what you need. You need a gentle start. Open your Bible, maybe get there’s some great missionary books out there. YWAM has a whole series of missionary books that we really enjoy. One of my favorite books is about to blank on, oh, I need to go get it. It’s hero tales. That’s the name of it, hero Tales. And it’s just snippets of different missionary lives and they also have like a character study on there. So when you learn about missionaries, you can learn about the countries that they’re from. What are some of the unique things that are happening there? What are some cultures and customs of those things? Find them on a map. So there’s so many ways when you start homeschooling, you really learn how to make it a lifestyle. So that’s my encouragement to those who are pulling their kids out. If you’re pulling your kids out of high school or you’re pulling them out and starting into high school, you do need to be more deliberate. I would say like 2nd, 3rd grade down, you can totally be relaxed about your start for homeschooling. Just stick to the basics, have fun with it. But then if you’re homeschooling, like even junior high to high school, you can know because especially for high school, you’re building a transcript. And so that’s just as scary as it might sound. You are calling up HSLDA, looking on their website, finding.

Yvette Hampton:

Out.

Kristi Clover:

And again, HSLDA is Homeschool Legal Defense Association. There are lawyers in the homeschooling realm, and they’ll show you exactly what’s required in your state law to graduate your child, and it will blow your mind. It will blow your mind, because we got used. I was just sharing with this with someone today at coffee that when we go through high school, we think, oh, four years of English, four years of science, four years of math. And it’s shocking that in California at least, it’s like two to three years of English, two years of math, two years of science, and they graduate. I mean, it is crazy to see what’s required in your state, and so that’s all you’re paying attention to is what’s required and then have fun with it. And another important part of starting off is what are your kids interested in? And learn about that, and that is going to spark their interest. So when I first told the kids, because we were a few weeks into this school, and they’re having fun at recess and all that, and so my oldest was like, more time to read. Okay, let’s home school. I can read all day. And then my second at the time, he was like, but I just want to play soccer all day. Can I do that? And then I was like, well, no, we can’t do soccer all day. We can play more soccer than you can do at school. But he was so cute. I’m like, So what do you think? He’s like, can we do a volcano? And I was like, absolutely. We are going to build a volcano. So we ended up doing this cute little unit study on Hawaii. So we learned about Hawaiian culture. We happened to have a Hawaii vacation that we were tying it into. So we went to Hawaii. We took microscopes in Hawaii and learned about the sun and how intense it is. And I brought chocolate. And I learned this is like this cute little science project I read about. And I learned you should always bring extra chocolate for your children to eat, because as we were burning, I was showing how intense the sun is when it goes to the microscope, and it burned the chocolate. And they’re like, that’s cool, but can we eat it? I’m like.

Yvette Hampton:

Right.

Kristi Clover:

Sorry. So bring extra chocolate. That’s my hack for you and for mom, too. And yes, that’s a must. So homeschooling and chocolate go very closely together. But no, just figure out what your kids are passionate about and what they’re interested in did. Because I had little boys at the start of our homeschool journey, so we did knights, and so we studied the medieval period, and we learned about all these crazy things. And we did Egypt, because Egypt’s a fun thing to learn about with boys. And so just find what they’re interested in. And as you’re building when you go into high school, what’s amazing is how it takes what is it like, however many thousands of hours to become an expert at something. We have that opportunity to do that in our home schools because our kids have more time. We’re not spending all of the changing class periods changing teacher time. We’re in there. We get it done. We’re usually done by lunch. My high schoolers go a little bit beyond lunch, typically, but my oldest has a passion for reading and for writing, and so I just let him go in that area. We centered a lot of his homeschooling around writing. He wrote two novels by the time he was 17. He didn’t publish them, but he wrote two novels, which is a huge undertaking. Then my second, who we graduated, he had a real passion and infinity and just an inspiration with photography. And so he was always writing. It rained. He was, like, out the door with his camera. He wanted to catch the dew drops and the raindrops falling off the flowers, and so we just were able to really get him involved in learning about that. Now he’s a professional photographer, and my oldest son is working, and he’s doing copy editing with his job. And so it’s just so cool to see how you can really look for these strengths. You can build up the weaknesses, but look for those strengths and pour into them and just let them flourish. And that’s something that you can’t do in other things. So I’m hoping that by saying all that, it will really encourage people that you have to take off these, like, well, what are they learning in public school? I need my home school to look like the public school. This is your school, and honestly, we can say that, so we’re blue in the face. It’ll take three years. This is honest to goodness three years of homeschooling before you, ah, I don’t care what the public schools are doing. This is my home school. And it’s like, just breathe a little, but just keep reminding yourself that Christine Yvette told you that this is your home school and you can design it the way you want to. It doesn’t need to look like the public school.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, I love the three years. That’s so funny. And I think you’re spot on because that’s about how long it took me to realize, oh, okay, so this is not going to look like my schedule. That looked like the public school schedule. And it was so frustrating because I always felt like I was failing my kids and I was failing myself, and I just was doing it all wrong. And so it took about that long, and so, yeah, learn it before you don’t do the three years. Just skip the three years of trying to replicate regular, traditional school and do it the way that works best for your families. Kristi, you’ve got five kids and you have a wide range, so your oldest is how old? And your youngest is how old?

Kristi Clover:

21. Down to nine, actually. Well, and by the time this airs, she’ll be ten. So that’ll give her some credit there. She’s going to be like, mom, I’m ten.

Yvette Hampton:

Right? Yeah. Not nine anymore where credit is due. Right.

Kristi Clover:

So we have eleven year gap.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, especially when you get into those double digits. I mean you got to give her the double digits.

Kristi Clover:

My baby is going to have double digits. Oh man, breathing through that.

Yvette Hampton:

Oh, it’s okay. Deep breath, deep breath.

Kristi Clover:

I know.

Yvette Hampton:

So you’ve got an eleven year age gap with your kids. It’s the question of course, that everybody asks, how do you home school with all I mean, that’s a big range of ages and different grades and different levels for everything. So tell us what your typical homeschool day looks like.

Kristi Clover:

Well, my typical homeschool day now looks a little bit different because everyone is in our home school. So it’s a little easier with everyone homeschooling and everyone is a reader now. So I’ve kind of entered into that sweet spot where we have all readers because once you have readers, it actually does get a lot easier. So I always tell people that it’s when you have the pre readers, it’s a little more complicated. So the number one thing is to whether you because I’ve homeschooled through it all. So we started homeschooling with two kids in kindergarten and first grade, and I had a toddler, which is honestly one of the hardest parts of homeschooling is working around your toddlers. So babies, you can totally work around their schedule because their schedule is kind of what you put them on. But toddlers are like, why aren’t we playing? We’re supposed to be playing. So my number one recommendation if you are homeschooling with young kids alongside of your school age kids, is to have a game plan for those kids. Don’t just think, oh, I’m planning my curriculum. You need to plan your curriculum or plan what you’re doing for them, your school age kids, but then also have a game plan for fun. Let them be part of your home school around two and a half. They’re like, school is fun because you’re giving them coloring books. I would make copies of what I was doing with the older boys and they were just scribbling all over it and they’re like, yeah, we got this. That is my recommendation there. And I actually part of my how to homeschool webinar and part of my homeschool organization course. Both of those have a whole section just about how to juggle that how do you homeschool and you have big kids and little kids in the house because it’s really important. It is a juggling act and it is difficult, but it’s totally doable. I just want to encourage you that it’s totally doable. And so I have a lot of very specific tips for that. But my typical schedule now, as it kind of always is, is that I try to divide up their work between work that needs to be done with mom and work that they can do independently and sometimes that’s kind of a combo. So I might have to introduce a sheet so I might be talking through a grammar worksheet or a math page and kind of giving them some information about how they’re going to be doing this and then they can do the rest on their own. So penmanship is pretty much always on their own. So they save all of those for either when I’m working with another sibling or for later on in the day. And I say that because it helps with making kids focus. So by the time we hit lunch, if they have had a focus day and they need more help, yes, of course I help them, but they just know that the work that requires my help needs to be done before lunch. So morning time, I’m 100% there. I’m switching off between kids so I’m having them do some of the independent work while I work with another and then we switch off and kind of trying to figure it out. Most of my time is usually with my younger learners and my older kids all learn kind of they start learning how to organize themselves and how to structure their days. That’s just part of the rhythm that I try to teach them and it teaches them independence as well. But that’s really what I try to do because we’ll also have those kids who will just not get to their work and will find every excuse not to do their work. So it was helpful for me to say, well buddy, we need to make sure that we have this done earlier. So I’ll probably give them a little help in the afternoon. They’ll be like tomorrow. And I’ll give little reminders for that child. Sometimes the ones that tend to kind of put it off is like, okay, remember, mommy’s going to go run some errands later this afternoon. So if you need me and you need my help, then this is what we do. And my next bit of information between the mornings and the afternoons and dividing up what is the mom time stuff and the independent stuff. And again, that’s why high school sometimes will go later because they’re doing mostly independent at that time, sure, but also just helping them to kind of I don’t know if you’re this way, but I find that there’s some subjects I don’t get to and so I move those up front. So if I’m not getting to writing then guess what our very first subject is of the day is going to be writing. Because I’m fresh in the morning, my kids are fresh in the morning and that really helps us. And so I try to move the things that by the end of the day it’s the subjects. And it’s the things that I’m like, I’m tired. I’m the whining kid. I’m the one. I’m like, Are we done yet? The kids are like, no, mom. So I find that I need that extra motivation because we’re doing our read alouds up front, but really looking at how you can structure things. And you know what, one of the things we did when we had especially babies that weren’t sleeping well, I was trying to do sleep training and homeschooling and all the things. And my husband traveled for like 20 years of our marriage, so most of my homeschooling, of my older boys, he was on the road. So it was me and five kids. And so we had to juggle that. What I found is oftentimes when the babies are going to bed at like 738 o’clock, then I’m doing a read aloud or I’m doing our Bible time at that time. So there are some times in some seasons of our lives when I would just kind of pick some things to do in the evening because it was just easier to do it then. So that’s a few of my little tips for kind of routines. But you don’t need to have and I do say routines. I try to tell people, please don’t try to schedule your whole year into a teacher planner because you’re just going to have a mountain of eraser dust. And so that’s one of the things that I try to teach in my homeschool organization course, is really how to strip that from your mind. Because that’s the first thing I did when we started homeschooling. I bought a teacher planner because I’m like, well, that’s me too, at Target.

Yvette Hampton:

Which I’d never buy anything at Target now, but I did 13 years ago, right?

Kristi Clover:

And you just end up erasing. I don’t think I made it more than a week into it when I was erasing and drawing arrows and trying to figure out how to put tabs on it to know where in the world I was. And so I really try to teach people in my organization course how to take things by week, how to divide it out using the table of contents. So there’s lots of strategy to really simplify, and especially for you as the parent, because we can really drive ourselves insane when we’re trying to plan out. Some states require 180 days. We’re like, that’s 180 days of planning. Please get that off your brain. That is so much more complicated than looking at 36 weeks or 34, depending upon your state. So that’s really how I try to simplify things. And what I’ve learned later in life, and actually I’ve learned this about myself through homeschooling, is that I actually have add a little bit of ADHD hyperactive. My mind’s always going. So that’s my h. My brain makes me creative, makes me be able to do interviews like this on the fly. But I’m also easily distracted. What I’ve learned is, if things aren’t simple, my brain literally puts up a strike sign. They’re like my brain is just like, no, you think that you want to do that, but we’re not doing that. And I cannot get myself to do it unless I have figured out the simplest way. And then my brain’s like, okay, I can do this. So I think that’s what’s really unique is that I have really had to learn how to be efficient in all that.

Yvette Hampton:

Yes, I’m exactly the same way, and it definitely works for me. I’m pretty sure we answered a question similar to this on a Q&A that we did recently with Aby. And we talked about planning. And one of the things that I said was, I learned this years ago, was to get a notebook, just a spiral bound notebook. And each day and you could do it by the week if you really wanted to, if that makes you feel better. But each day, just write down what the next thing is that your kids have to do. So each kid has their own spiral bound notebook. Write down their checklist. My girls like, checklists, and I like, checklists. It just makes me feel accomplished. And there’s that satisfaction in checking off the thing that you’ve done. And so, yeah, it’s so much easier to do it that way.

Kristi Clover:

But you do have to kind of.

Yvette Hampton:

Plan out here’s our course of action, what’s our goal? And I think it’s important to know what our goal is for the end of that year.

Yvette Hampton:

Kristi, we talked last time at the end of our episode a little bit about scheduling and what your schedule looked like with your kids. I want to talk a little bit more specifically about curriculum today because I know this is one of the questions that everyone’s favorite questions when they get started. We talked about kind of deschooling and starting slow for those younger years. But talk to the mom who maybe she’s pulling in her middle school kid or her high school kid or maybe even elementary school, and she’s just like, I want curriculum. But there’s so much there’s so much to choose from. And I think this is the most at least for myself, this is the most overwhelming part of homeschooling is knowing what curriculum to choose because it can get really expensive. And then how do I choose it? And then once I choose it, what do I do with it?

Kristi Clover:

How do I use yeah, so that’s a great question. And I think that it requires an honest evaluation of yourself as the teacher because your curriculum needs to be something that will work for your kids learning styles, and you’re probably just figuring that out. When you’re a new home school mom, you probably have observed certain things, like, are your kids very tactile? They tend to listen better. Do they tend to visually see things. And really, when you’re incorporating all of the senses, that’s when they’re learning best. But you also have to pay attention to your teaching style because I only have the capacity for so much. And so when we first started homeschooling, we had two kids in school and we had a toddler. I was able to do more hands on type of curriculum, curriculum where we were doing more things together because my oldest two are so close in age, they’re only 17 months apart. So I could kind of teach them together except for reading and math, which those are usually the two subjects where everybody’s kind of learning incrementally and they build upon each other. But in all the other subjects, I was teaching them together. And so that was a lot easier until I suddenly had high school and junior high and elementary and a baby and someone else in between, like a toddler. It’s hard when you have this big stretch. So that’s when I had to get real and be like, I can’t really set up all of the things that I thought I could. I needed more video based learning. And so our math curriculum is video based. Our writing curriculum is more video, in fact. Yeah. As much as I love IEW and I love all things fun and fabulous, such a great curriculum, I also know okay, I’m going to be very honest. Andrew, if you’re listening, don’t listen to this part. I have never completely finished the all things fun and fascinating. I’ve gotten at least halfway through with my kids, but I rely on andrew poudois to teach my children. So we have just gotten to a point where that’s what I do with my kids. They watch Andrew on the TV, and then they do their thing, and then I can kind of come in and help from.

Yvette Hampton:

So just for those of you who are like, what in the world is she talking about? And who’s andrew Poudawa is the founder president of IEW, which is the Institute for Excellence in Writing. They’re one of our sponsors on the podcast. And we’re not talking about them because they are it’s because we’ve used them. You’ve used them, and it’s fantastic writing curriculum. And so a lot of their curriculum is video based. I think almost everything they have, not all of it, but a lot of their main is video based. And so Andrew kind of like CTC math, teaches your kids how to do math online. Andrew Poudawa, who’s the founder, he does basically like the classroom lecture, but he’s mean, so engaging, and they’re fantastic videos. And so you can do the curriculum with your kids, but he teaches it to them for you so that you don’t have to teach. So that’s what she’s talking about. I wanted to just clarify that. So people are like, who is Andrew?

Kristi Clover:

Andrew, what is she talking about? Yes, I try not to do homeschoolees, and I did it, so I apologize. Institute for Excellence in Writing, IEW yeah, those were a few of those real moments. And what’s great is that here’s the other thing, is most curriculums do have a resource where you can call in and ask, and they do. And so I was like, I’m not getting to writing. I’ve tried doing it in the morning. I’ve got too many kids doing different levels of writing. And so I was like, okay, so they helped me figure out this would be good for these kids, this would be good for those kids. But I had to get very real with myself. So my Pollyanna, optimistic person of like, I can do it all. Yeah, that did not happen. That didn’t play out past the first week of homeschooling. So when you’re picking curriculum, I would encourage you to think how many age levels if you have kids clover together, then it’s going to be easier. I still combine history and science with at least two kids in my home school, if I can’t get them all kind of under that umbrella. So this year, for instance, my son who is doing 9th grade work, he did American history using sunlight, whereas the girls and I did American History using not grass. And we read that together. So he was able to do his work independently. We were able to do our work independently. So there’s a lot of different things like that. But you need to really pay attention to typically there’s multiple subjects that you’re teaching, so you want to see what is your capacity, do you have young kids in the house. When you have babies and toddlers in the house, I encourage people, especially if they have younger ages of school age kids, please just stick to the basics reading, writing, and arithmetic and incorporate science and history into those subjects so you’re not killing yourselves. Because what people do is they’ll break down language arts. Okay, I need a curriculum for vocabulary, writing, penmanship, grammar, whatever, other spelling. So you’ve got five language arts that you buy curriculum for those, and then you’re like, oh, history, geography, oh, I should do math work, which is I guess, geography. Then we’ll do math, we’ll do math concepts, we’ll do like, math theory, and then, oh, we need Bible, we need Bible theory, we need worldview. So you end up having like 20 things that you think you have to teach. And that’s one of the reasons why when here’s something straight from my course. So what I always encourage people to do is create a course of study. And so what that is, is you’re taking each subject you’re required to teach in that, like in our school, Bible is number one. So state doesn’t require but clover, we require that in our school. So I write those down and then I write down the curriculum that I’m going to be using or I’m thinking about using, and then I kind of take a look at it and say, oh, can I use this here? And so that helps me to see, do I have a gap? Am I hitting everything I need to hit? Wow. Because sometimes you can skip over. You’ll save so much money when you do it like that. And so really trying to see how you can spread things out, does it look like a lot on paper? Because it’s going to feel like a lot for your kids. And so that’s another thing, is please give your poor children a break. They don’t need to do everything all the time, so you can even split things up. I think that’s a common misconception because we look at the public school like we talked about earlier, and we look at the public school and say, okay, how do I teach all these subjects all at once? Because that’s what they do in school. And that’s not what you can seriously have like a month of doing science and a month of doing history and a month of however you want to do it. You just need to teach them little samples and you’ll figure it out. And the best advice I can give to families trying to figure out where to start with curriculum is just start with something. You can start at costco. You can honestly go to Costco and get the workbooks and just have your kids do some workbooks. Get some books from the library, pull out your Bible, and that can kind of be your simple starter. But you can change the if your child is hitting their head up against a wall because they’re just like, this is so hard, then you might not have a curriculum that works with how they’re learning. The other thing that’s really important to understand is that when your child’s getting frustrated, so when you feel the tension rising and they’re getting frustrated, oftentimes it’s because you’re going too hard too fast. So it’s time to hit the pause button. Who cares what you’ve had planned for people going through my course, I’m like, I don’t care what’s in the crate because I teach people a crate system. You’re going to stop right there and you’re going to give your kids a break and let’s make sure that they have some fundamentals. And I think all of my kids have gone through this with math in particular. There just comes a point where they’re learning learning and then they’re just frustrated. And what it usually comes down to is that they don’t have their fundamentals down. So we’ll take like up to a month sometimes, take a break from who cares, take a break from the curriculum, and we’re just going to do math drills. And so we’ll just focus on times tables or focus on addition or subtraction, just really get that so that they can answer those questions four times three and they’re like, twelve, they’ve got it down. And that is going to be what makes all of the harder like the upper division math so much easier when they really have those fundamentals. And so sometimes it’s not a learning. I think some parents like, oh no, my child is a learning. Oh no, this is a parenting issue. Sometimes it’s just you have the wrong curriculum or sometimes you need to hit the pause button and scale back. Same with phonics as well. Same with reading. It’s okay. I think in society people are just like, your child’s not reading by age five or six. Like what? I have a friend, I know, I have a girlfriend and she still to this day has not told me which of her children, but one of her sons did not read until he was twelve years old. And he went from not being able to read at twelve years old to reading like the Bible aloud to the family reading chapter books. Because sometimes you just have to wait for the brain to get it and then it just takes off and they catch up like that. So never be worried if you feel like your child is behind, your child is learning at their rate. And when the brain gets it, then it’s so amazing to watch. And for the record, that friend that has five kids, all of them have master’s degrees. So it’s not like, oh no, didn’t read until twelve. They were phenomenal. And honestly, I even hate saying that as some sort of a line because I don’t even believe that you have to. And this is probably shocking for everyone. I am so out of the box now of like, you have to do this and do this and do the formula. I don’t think you need the piece of paper. There’s a lot of things that you can do that don’t require that. And by piece of paper, I mean college degree.

Yvette Hampton:

That $150,000 of debt rocked onto it, right?

Kristi Clover:

No, I mean, we are totally thinking outside the box. My husband used to be in the financial industry because every time he mentioned we homeschool our kids and they’re like, well, what are you going to do about college? He’s like, well, actually, my kids can get into college easily. And our oldest is in college, almost done, but he’s doing online and he’s working full time and he’s married. Yeah, and he’s married and supporting his wife. And it’s just this beautiful thing that when you think outside of the box and you have to do that in homeschooling and what you’ll find is that it becomes a lifestyle. And again, it takes three years. I know it’s going to drive everybody crazy, but it’s going to take three years until you go, I think I got this down. I think I know what I’m doing. But it takes that long. So just give yourself grace. In both of my books, I’m like the name of the game is give yourself grace. It’s okay. Yeah, it’s going to be okay.

Yvette Hampton:

One thing I want to say, going back to curriculum is I think one of the greatest things we can do is find maybe three people whose kids are around the same ages as your kids or maybe a little bit older. Ask them what they use, and ask them, especially during the summertime, if you can borrow their curriculum just for like, two weeks, bring it home, look through it yourself, see if it’s something that would work for you, and then look at it with your kids. And see if it’s something that would work well for you and your kids. Or you can look at it online. A lot of companies, I think every one of our sponsors, has trial things that you can do for free. They have free lessons that you can try out, stuff like that. So try it out for free before buying it.

Kristi Clover:

Yes.

Yvette Hampton:

But ask your friends what they use and what they like about it. And not that you have to do what they do, but that’s going to really help you to narrow down what might work best for your family and maybe friends who do things a little bit differently. Maybe you’ve got a friend who does more Charlotte Mason style and one who’s more unit studies and one who’s more classical. So figure out what works best for your family, talk with your friends and see if that curriculum that they’re using might be a good fit for you. Okay, Kristi, because I want to get back into this really quickly. I want to talk about. You talked about a crate system and organization. I want to talk about organization. Like, how do we organize our homeschool day? Now, we have set the foundation. We know why we’re homeschooling. We know what our goal is. We know where we’re going with it, right? We know what the end goal is. We talked about what our day might look like. We talked about curriculum, what now? How do we put it all into practice? How do we organize it all and actually put it into play?

Kristi Clover:

All right, so how to organize your home. I love again, my brain works a little differently as far as I really was looking for ways to organize our homeschool. And that’s actually, when I started on YouTube was funny, is I did this little video of like, oh, here, let me show you a few of the different systems I use in my home school, and it exploded. So that video is one of my most popular videos. And I introduced people a little bit to my crate system there. And I had so many questions that I decided to create a homeschool organization course. So my homeschool organization course you can find that@homeschoolorganization.com so pretty easy to find. But I talk through not only how to plan and prep for your year, I also help people how to use different systems. And so one of my kind of featured systems is the crate system. And so we pretty much can train you how to put all of your kids, all of your curriculum, into one crate. So you have one crate that has all of the curriculum for the year in that crate divided by weeks. And that’s the key, is that I think it’s so natural for people to think because teacher planners are by day. So we talked about teacher planners earlier. Teacher planners are by day. And I really want you to get that until it is like, Monday. You’re not thinking about daily work. I want you to think by week. And so that’s what the crate system is designed to do. Now, what’s amazing with the crate system, because you planned out your entire home school by week. And again, you have one crate. You have all of your kids in that one crate. We color code our kids, and so they can pull it out, but it creates independence for my kids and also creates a bite sized look at the week. And so one of my friends who was using the system, she was like, Kristi, you’ve revolutionized how we homeschool because her daughter would feel so overwhelmed not knowing what was coming each day. And so she was able to stay. She’d pull out her crate or pull out her folder for the week, and she’s like, this is all I have to get done for the entire week. And so from there, there’s different systems I recommend. Sometimes I recommend some kids can handle just shoving your week’s worth in a clipboard and they are good to go. Like, they just know kind of naturally how to divide it up. That was my oldest son. He was fine. He could take the whole week, stick it in there, he’d do a few pages of math so he could handle that. Other kids need your help training them, how to put it into more of a daily binder or whatever system that you want to have with them. So that is kind of a little bit how the crate system works. And there’s all kinds of nuances that go along with it because it naturally happens. I always say it happens around week twelve. And every year I’m like, yes, week twelve. Week 13 is about the time that I’m like, I need to do adjusting here because we’ve slowed down, sped up. Like we’re pulling things from weeks ahead, we’re a couple of weeks behind and I’m shoving things into the next week. So it kind of just creates this one spot. Works great for military families, works great for missionaries. I’ve had a lot of families. I’ve had parents come up to me crying when they came and saw me one year to the next year. They’re like, I was ready to throw in the towel, was so overwhelmed. And so I really try to come at it practically because I knew what I needed as a homeschool mom, and I wanted to teach that to people. And so part of just the way that I show people again is to introduce all of these different systems and how they work together, how you can tweak it. And I have people that are so cute because they’re like, I love your creek system, but I kind of changed it a little and I’m like, awesome.

Yvette Hampton:

Do what works for you.

Kristi Clover:

And we change it up. Sometimes I’ll put my daughter’s readers in there and so the readers are actually in there. And I can’t do that when I have all five of my kids in one crate because it gets a little and sometimes I will have a second crate that’s okay, I have the space for it. So it depends on your space. It depends on all those things. And again, it’s always fluctuating. So my second oldest, so my second son, when he hit high school, it’s got one of those file boxes and that became his mini crate. And I created that a little differently. Because he needed to see not only his weekly work, but I needed a spot for him to be able to easily because he was working so independently. I needed a spot for him to move his work because we were realizing again, you just kind of have to figure out what’s working. But for him, it’s like, this is work that now mom needs to edit. So like any papers, math, anything that I needed to grade or edit, then we kind of developed a system where I’m pulling things and he’s pulling things. You just kind of work on things together. But really the key feature for the crate is that you have everything in one spot and you’re literally putting your school on autopilot. That is the key feature of the crate and how it works so beautifully. And it’s worked in times when I had to fly to Spain for an emergency situation with a family member who got hurt in Spain and I had to go out and be with them. And it helped when we had another emergency situation with another family. And it allowed me to be able to stay longer. It allowed me to be able to pick up and go. When I had to have surgery one time that was unexpected. My home school continued when I’ve had morning sickness. My kids could handle it when I was suddenly turning very green and couldn’t do it. And again, what I love about it is that again, homeschooling is life. I think that’s what people forget is that before I want, I’d rather my kids get B’s. Not that I grade, that’s a whole other topic about grading. But I’d rather my kids not be as academically strong, but be amazing men and women of God, amazing parents, amazing spouses. That is my goal. Not just to create these perfect kids that look great on the pedestal. I’m not about creating pedestal kids, no one is perfect. Your home school, let me just say this, your home school will not be perfect. Your home, your parenting, your kids, you. No one is perfect. And that should never be what we’re striving for. If you are keeping your eyes like your verse talked about, I’ve never heard that verse used, by the way, for homeschooling. And I love it. I have to sneak that and put that on my little verses.

Yvette Hampton:

You’re welcome. Ecclesiastes 1213.

Kristi Clover:

I know, and I’m blanking on the verse because we have another one that we use about how, like, a student will never be above his master. Is it Luke? It was Luke.

Yvette Hampton:

Yes, it’s Luke. 640.

Kristi Clover:

Yeah. So good because, yeah, when they’re fully trained, they should be like the teacher and I’m like, be like the master. And I’m like, I don’t want my kids to look like the public school, but I’ve totally lost my train of thought of where I was. But just to know that it’s not about creating perfect and I think in this day and age of pinterest and instagram and all these places, we want to put on the happy face, like, look at my happy family. You know what? That’s not what it’s all about. We are called to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. And that is honestly, it is a hard thing to teach. But I also know that there’s not really a lot of curriculum that’s going to completely teach that to my kids. What there is, is my life and that’s going to speak a lot louder than anything else. So when my kids see me have to take a break and go and bless a family member and love on a family member, that’s going to be what happens is that they’re seeing that and learning that in the moment.

Yvette Hampton:

Yeah, that’s real life. It’s real life learning. Because school isn’t just about the academics. The academics are important, but it’s not the most important part. We talk about that all the time on the podcast. But it’s true. It is a part of homeschooling, but it is not the only part and it is not the most important part about homeschooling. Okay, this crate system sounds amazing. Is this part of your because I’m looking on your website, the Ultimate Homeschool Organization course.

Kristi Clover:

Yes.

Yvette Hampton:

You talk about the crate system in.

Kristi Clover:

There and how to organize organization. Yes. Homeschoolorganization.com, if you go there or Kristiclover.com will also get you there, but yeah, either this will send you straight to me. So the crate system and all of my systems are all housed in there. And again, I was very deliberate about how I pieced everything together and then I have bonus videos to make sure I explain all the little nuances. Because it’s easy to talk with a crate system like I just did and to show you how to plan it out, but then getting it to work with other systems because you said you like checklists. And I help people create the simplest checklist you can ever create. In fact, you can put together a teacher planner. It’s included, I’m like for free within the course. It’s included in the course. And how to put together your own teacher planner. And it’s like the simplest thing ever. And it’s using the weekly system. And I do want to say one thing because we’re talking about home school organization and we’re talking about how we love checklists. And some curriculum comes with checklists and they’re usually pretty darn overwhelming. And I want to introduce one wonderful tip that everyone will love, and that is the power of the X. And that is you do not have to do everything in the curriculum. Checking it off feels great, but you are the teacher. And if your kids are getting bogged down and feel like there is too much, you know what, for history, you’re probably going to cycle it through three or four times. They’re going to pick up new nuggets here and there. They don’t need to read this extra book. They don’t need to do all this extra work. So sometimes you as a parent can just decide, we’re going to skip this part. Harder to do with phonics and math. Those you just take a week off and just pick up where you left off. But don’t be afraid to just cross it out and just be done. Yeah, we’re not doing that this year.

Yvette Hampton:

Oh, man, I love that. Okay, so we’ll put links to that in the show notes. And then you have your book home school basics. Again, we’ve done a whole podcast episode on that, so we’ll put a link to that. And that book is fantastic, you guys. I highly recommend it because she gives more detail on all of these things in the book as well. So if you’re a reader and you enjoy reading, then that is a book for you. Kristi, do you have any last bit of encouragement that you can leave with our.

Kristi Clover:

You know, this is what I like to compare homeschooling choosing to homeschool. So number one, you can homeschool your kids. You can do it. It’s going to probably be way easier than you think it is because you are probably putting a ton of extra pressure on yourself. But with the new Indiana Jones movie coming out soon, and I don’t know what point this is releasing or when you’re listening to this, but that’s all the buzz right now. There’s a new Indiana Jones movie coming out and I would say that the best representation of what it feels like to homeschool is like in the best Indiana Jones movie, which is number three, which is moment. And it’s like, sorry, Harrison Ford, but that was the best. There’s this moment where he has to save his dad’s life and he has to step out and he has to take the step of faith. And so you see him put his foot out and it looks like he’s going to fall. Like there’s this huge chasm between him and the other side. And that’s what it feels like. It feels like, I am going to take this step in homeschool and I’m going to fall to my death. It is sometimes so terrifying. Like, this is going to be a hot mess. And sometimes it literally takes day one. We are homeschooling. Everyone else is back in school and my kids are in my house. What am I doing? So what I love about that moment in the movie is his foot goes out. You still think he’s going to fall and die. And he steps forward and there’s solid ground. And then the camera pans out and you have this new angle and you see the whole time there was this very straight and it’s a straight and narrow path, but it’s a solid path that he can get across the other side. And that’s exactly what it’s like to homeschool, is sometimes you have to take that step of faith. Just like Peter getting out of the boat, just like Indiana Jones at that chasm, there is firm foundation and that’s Christ. And as long as you keep your eyes on Christ, you will get through your homeschool season and you will never, ever regret it. Every hard day, every tear, blood, sweat, tears. Like whatever it is, there’s usually not blood involved. Unless you’re like me and you. Yeah, I’m always cutting myself. I’m like my. Kids are like, mom usually bruises. I’m like, I don’t. But it’s so worth it. And you just have to give yourself grace along the way, and that’s the most important thing. It’s not going to be perfect. So take away your perfect little like, there’s no trophy at the end of the day, but there is a crown of glory that you’re going to at the end of the day for working. And this is, I truly believe, a calling. As a mother, a calling as a father. We are called to finish strong. And it is hard, it’s really hard to parent your child. You are raising a human being, and it’s a mighty calling, but you can do it. And the Lord will see you through it. And he will bring people along your path, too, to encourage you. Don’t try to do it alone.

Rescuing Our Children: An Urgent Call to Take Back Education

“Parents must understand that sending their children into the public school system without adequate training is like sending them into a spiritual war unarmed.”

Alex Newman

In March, we had the privilege of having Alex Newman join us as a speaker for the Homegrown Generation Family Expo, with a session titled “Rescuing Our Children.” In that session, Alex hit upon a topic that is crucial to parents. Alex argues that parents have the sole responsibility of educating their children, and using government funding to provide that education jeopardizes not only the quality of education but also religious freedom. He presents a passionate plea to parents to reclaim their rightful role as the primary educators of their children. Newman’s insights shed light on the dire state of our current education system and offers a compelling case for homeschooling as a powerful antidote. Let’s take a closer look at some key takeaways from this eye-opening discussion.

“God has given clear responsibilities, clear authorities to different people, different institutions. And the Bible is very clear about who is ultimately responsible for the education and the discipling of children. It’s parents. And maybe you could argue there’s a supplemental role there for the church, certainly not the civil government, not Caesar.”

Alex Newman

The Perils of Government Funding:

Newman ardently argues that relying on government funds for education may compromise our educational and religious freedoms. He cautions against accepting any financial assistance tied to government regulations, citing examples from Canada, where government funding has led to restrictions on private and religious schools. He believes that such reliance on government funding, albeit seemingly beneficial at first, can ultimately lead to government control over what can and cannot be taught in schools. Newman stresses the importance of seeking support from communities and churches, rather than placing trust in government programs.

For more on this subject, read our comprehensive article on school choice here.

“Using government funds for education puts educational and religious freedoms at risk.”

Alex Newman

Homeschooling as a Vital Solution:

Within the episode, Newman underscores the importance of homeschooling as the best alternative to public schooling. Citing concerns about the public school system as a wicked place, he emphasizes the urgency of providing children with solid biblical education and grounding in God’s word. Newman draws from Psalm 1:1-2, which urges parents to guide their children away from wicked counsel and seeks to equip parents with the necessary tools for homeschooling. He understands that parental responsibilities may seem overwhelming, but encourages hesitant parents to “just go for it.”

Safeguarding Educational and Religious Liberties:

Newman strongly recommends reading Education: Does God Have an Opinion? by Israel Wayne, as it provides deep insights into the biblical foundations of homeschooling. He advocates against bills like HB1 in Florida, which plans to provide tax money to homeschoolers and private school students, but also subjects them to Common Core-aligned tests. Such measures, Newman suggests, place vulnerable homeschooling families at risk and interfere with their educational autonomy.

“What I tell people is, first and foremost, get your own children out of the public schools. And once your own children are safe, then you can worry about what’s happening in the public school system. I don’t believe that it’s a sensible strategy, and I don’t believe that it’s a biblical strategy to send your kids into a spiritual war when they haven’t been properly trained. Your kids are not going to end up being assault and light.”

Alex Newman

The Unsettling Truths and Solutions:

“They’re being dumbed down on an industrial scale. […] What they are going to learn is a fraudulent version of history, a totally fraudulent worldview, a totally fraudulent understanding of science, and some of the most grotesque things on sexual issues that you can even begin to imagine.”

Alex Newman

Newman delves into the troubling origins of our public school system, tracing its roots back to non-Christian thinkers like Plato and Robert Owen. He explains how these ideologies paved the way for the adoption of government-based education, ultimately aiming to undermine Christianity and promote socialist ideals. With the system hell-bent on indoctrination and dumbing down, Newman highlights the urgent need for parents to shield their children and dismantle the public system through homeschooling or alternative educational approaches.

Quoting Alex, “The public school system was designed to control children and create worker drones.” He unravels how the path towards total power for totalitarians lies in molding young minds, capturing not only their educational growth but their souls as well. This revelation serves as a wake-up call for parents to take back control of their children’s education.

Conclusion:

As parents, we are left with a resounding call to action. Alex’s wake up call encourages fervent prayer, research, and equipping ourselves with the necessary tools to provide our children with a holistic education founded on biblical principles. The power to rescue our children lies in our hands.

If you resonate with the urgency to reclaim education from the clutches of the public school system, we highly recommend giving this episode a listen. You will find not only a wealth of knowledge and inspiration but also practical steps you can take to become the primary educator your children deserve.

Remember, by shaping hearts and minds with a biblical worldview, we can empower our children to be discerning, courageous, and capable individuals who will impact the world for God’s glory.

Recommended Resources:

Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children, by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman

Education: Does God Have an Opinion? by Israel Wayne

Education: The Key to Saving Our Nation – Alex Newman on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast

Fighting For Our Children – Alex Newman on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast

Discussion Questions:

Want to use this interview for a co-op meeting or small group? Here are a few discussion questions to keep the conversation moving in the right direction:

1. What is Alex Neman’s perspective on the public school system, and why does he hold this opinion?

2. What are some of the examples cited by Alex to support his arguments against government funding for education?

3. Why is the guest critical of the HB1 bill in Florida?

4. What are Alex’s thoughts on colleges actively seeking out homeschoolers? Why does he believe this is the case?

5. What is Alex Neman’s opinion on elite universities, and what is his advice for finding a good college?

6. What does Alex believe is the ultimate agenda behind the public school system?

7. What does Alex propose as a solution for parents who wish to opt-out of contributing to public schools with their tax money?

8. What are some of the historical roots of government-based education?

9. Why should we be concerned about the indoctrination and “dumbing down” of children in the American public school system?

10. What is Alex’s advice for parents who wish to protect their children from the dangers of cultural trends and spiritual warfare?

It’s not too late to enjoy the Homegrown Generation Family Expo – now at a new, lower price! Register today for lifetime access to every session – and BONUS access to the 2020 conference – all for just $20.  Register at HomegrownGeneration.com.

Keep it FREE:

We have always wanted to make the barrier to entry for homeschooling as low as possible, so we have made all but one of our resources completely free (and we’re considering how we can make that one free too). READ MORE HERE.

We pray that the Schoolhouse Rocked Ministry is a blessing to you and your family. Here are a few ways to be involved in this important mission…

Read the full transcript to “Rescuing our Children,” with Alex Newman below:

Continue reading “Rescuing Our Children: An Urgent Call to Take Back Education”

Why June is the Perfect Month to Start Homeschooling

It’s that time of year again. Each June public and private school teachers, unions, and education associations fall all over themselves in the ultimate virtue signaling contest – trying to demonstrate who has the most “pride.”

Even while Target, Bud Light, The North Face, and Kohl’s are reeling from large-scale boycotts in response to woke LGBTQ+ ad campaigns and product displays, teachers and administrators are doubling down on their support of gay and trans indoctrination in classrooms and school libraries across the country.

On the first night of the month, in a little under an hour, I was able to find dozens of instances of teachers and their representative organizations changing their social media avatars, and posting their “pride month” celebrations. Tens of thousands more of these posts will be made throughout the month.

But it’s important to remember that the indoctrination isn’t reserved just for June. This is their agenda year round. Atheism, Marxism, Globalism, Multiculturalism, and unrestricted sexual exploration are the underlying values that modern public education is built on – and unfortunately, many private schools are following suit.

It’s not just individuals and private organizations pushing this agenda. The U.S. Department of Education is heading up the charge toward sexual deviancy, abortion, gender confusion, and genital mutilation. Not only do they openly advocate for LGBT positions, but they set the national standards and hold the purse strings that direct the activities of schools in every state (yes, even the conservative ones).

In fact, not only are they pushing this agenda in the classroom, but they are using affirmative action to actively hire teachers who will promote these ideals.

National Education Association Policy Statements for 2022-2023 state, “NEA reaffirms its strong support for the use of affirmative action in employment (a) to cure the effects of past ethnic or gender discrimination by the particular employer involved, and (b) to achieve or maintain ethnic or gender diversity in an employer’s workforce.”

In their push to normalize gender confusion the NEA is training teachers through their National Education Association Pronoun Guide, which includes the following instruction for teachers:

“Role model your pronouns before inviting everyone to introduce theirs.

‘Hi, my name is Meg and I use she/her/hers pronouns. Could everyone please go around and share their name and pronouns.

Explain what pronouns are and why you’re asking people to introduce theirs before you do.

‘Hey everyone! So during introductions we are going to introduce our name and pronouns. Pronouns are words that we use to replace names, like she/her/hers, he/him/his, or they/ them/theirs. I want to make sure that we are referring to each other in the way that feels most accurate, so we are going to be going around and if everyone could share their name and pronouns that’d be great!‘”

I’m sorry parents. The problem is pervasive and it’s no longer enough to say “it’s not happening in my school” and ignore it. This is the publicly-stated position of the teachers unions and the state and federal education departments that run your schools. It is happening everywhere, you can’t opt out, and it’s your responsibility to protect your children.

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

Luke 6:40 ESV

Here’s the great news. June is the PERFECT month to start homeschooling!

SUMMER IS HERE!

With the school year ending it’s the perfect time to start fresh. The school year has wrapped up and you can use the summertime to prepare for your first year of homeschooling. Check out our free Homeschool Survival Kit for a step-by-step guide to beginning your homeschool journey. This guide will help you make sure you’re in compliance with your state laws (it’s legal to homeschool in all 50 states) and will give you all of the resources you need to start strong, including recommendations for curriculum, teaching methods, and fun activities to keep your kids engaged.

IT’S THE PERFECT TIME TO DESCHOOL!

We always suggest that parents take some time to “deschool” when transitioning their kids from the classroom to homeschooling. Because home education is so different from the “traditional” school model that most of us are accustomed to, it takes some time for everyone – parents and kids – to adjust. This is where deschooling comes in. During this season of adjustment take it easy. Use this time to build relationships, enjoy the outdoors, build memories together, and rediscover what it means to be a family.

“This is not an exaggeration to say, this is the movement that is needed to save this country.”

Rick Green, Wallbuilders

For parents, this is a great time to observe your children and try to discover what their passions and gifts are. For kids, it’s time to rediscover CHILDHOOD. During this time your kids should re-learn what it means to be a child (or adolescent or teen). Let them play, explore, get dirty, and soak in the sun – and know that the whole time they’ll be learning valuable life skills!

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
    fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Proverbs 1:7 ESV

A quick note: during this deschooling period we do recommend two “academic” pursuits. First, spend time reading God’s Word to your kids (this is a great time to explore the concept of a “morning basket”). If you’ve never done family Bible time together this is a great time to start. As you move into this new season of home education, it’s important to build your academic model on the true foundation of knowledge and wisdom – God’s Word. In fact, homeschooling allows you to integrate the truth of Scripture into every subject.

Next, spend time reading great books to your kids and encourage them to read on their own. While this my seem “school-y,” reading should be viewed as a life-long activity, and reading aloud to your kids is a great way to bond with them.

START THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR FRESH – AT HOME!

If you are reluctant to make this big change, if you think you’re not capable, or if you just don’t know where to start I would encourage you to sit down with your family and watch the documentary Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution tonight. You can stream the film for free here. Not only will it help you to understand the “why” and “how” of home education, but you’ll hear from other parents who NEVER thought they could or would homeschool their kids and are now outspoken advocates for this revolution in education.

Schoolhouse Rocked” will rock your educational world to the foundations and give you and your kids great hope for the future! The old-school paradigm has proven broken and a new way of learning is here. Don’t miss this important film!”

Kirk Cameron

Why “Opting Out” of CSE Isn’t an Option

As a natural people-pleaser, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Consequently, I am always disappointed when I have to share stories about radical comprehensive sex ed (CSE) programs being pushed in school districts and states that you would never expect, transgender teachers demanding to use the restrooms of their elementary students of the opposite sex, and other, similarly infuriating and dangerous news items. But because I am dedicated to sharing the very real dangers of public schools, and I am deeply involved in this cultural and spiritual battle, I share them regularly.

While I am never surprised that these posts get a very strong response from homeschooling parents and from parents with kids in public schools, I am regularly shocked certain specific responses. Today I encountered a relatively common response, that I felt I had to address… with more bad news.

This morning, on the Schoolhouse Rocked Facebook page, I posted a letter that was sent to the parents of fourth grade students at Bridgeport Elementary school in Tualatin, Oregon. The letter informed parents that the fourth grade students would be participating in a series of lessons questioning the definition of “family,” considering the question “What Is Culture,” and examining “Perspective and Stereotypes” and how “understanding stereotypes can lead to prejudice and discrimination.” At first glance, these topics may seem relatively innocuous, but for those of you who have been paying attention, you will recognize that this letter represents a week of indoctrination in the finer points of “alternative family structures” and a heavy dose of pro-LGBT propaganda. To top it off, the parents who received this letter were simply being informed of the upcoming instruction and were not being given the opportunity to opt out.

This prompted a very common and innocent response from a concerned reader, which must be examined more closely here. Keep in mind, the intent of the commenter was appropriate: namely to protect the safety of students and the rights of parents, but her response indicates a common misunderstanding of the roles of schools, teachers, administrators, and parents, which is shared among the VAST majority of parents in this country – whether they send their children to public or private schools, or choose to homeschool them. In fact, this comment came from a “top fan” on our facebook page, which leads me to believe that she is likely very “plugged in” and well-informed.

My simple post read, “Sorry, no opting out. Parents wake up and WALK AWAY!”, to which she responded, “This makes me so mad! The government does not have the right to force these things on children, and take away the parents rights to say ‘no!'”

Here’s the bad news…

Actually, the government has the legal right to force anything they want on the children who are dropped off by their parents, at government funded, government run schools. Under the legal principal of “In Loco Parentis” these government schools become the legal guardians of their students while they are in their “care”. Parents who don’t want the government to determine how their children will be raised, trained, indoctrinated, and discipled (let alone, what type of medical treatments or birth control methods they will receive) must understand that the only way they have any say is if they keep them home.

Schools are not taking away any rights from parents, especially the right to say “no”. Parents forfeit their rights, their parental authority, and far too much of their influence the day they enroll their precious young sons and daughters in kindergarten.

It is quite presumptuous for parents to turn their children over to “more qualified” people to teach them and develop their character, then to complain about how they are being taught and trained. It is especially silly to expect schools that openly espouse anti-Christian and anti-family philosophies, such as evolution, secular humanism, multiculturalism, the LGBT agenda, and socialism to do anything other than raise anti-family, secular humanists who embrace multiculturalism, the LGBT agenda, and socialism. It is no surprise that this is exactly what we are seeing in culture, and the consequences are devastating. This is why the only option for “opting out” that has any effect is to take your children home!

Ready to take your children back? Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for free tonight and learn how. After you have watched the movie, download the Free Homeschool Survival Kit. This free 70+ page resource will give you the encouragement and tools you need to start strong and finish well. 

Want even more encouragement? Visit HomegrownGeneration.com, where you will find over 50 hours of homeschool encouragement.

“Nope” graffiti – Photo by Daniel Herron on Unsplash

Red hand – Photo by Giulia May on Unsplash

“No” red sign – Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash

Coronavirus “Back to School” Plans and a Can of Worms

As I read the newest announcement of back to school plans in light of the COVID-19 situation, I realized every one of these plans opens several cans of worms. Iowa has announced that the state will not require masks or social distancing when children return to the public schools in the fall. While this may or may not be welcome news to Iowa families, there are several very nuanced points that need to be considered in this announcement. 

1) Any way you slice it, the COVID thing is going to have a big effect on homeschooling in the coming year. “Jill Pennington Swanson is considering home-schooling her children this fall if students and teachers are not required to wear face coverings in the classroom.

The Waukee mother of six said she is disappointed that Iowa is not taking more stringent safety precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus in schools.”

2) Iowa has 327 school districts and 119 additional accredited non-public schools?!?! REALLY? Iowa? “Instead, the state will leave those decisions in the hands of local school boards, which could lead to a variety of approaches across Iowa’s 327 school districts and 119 accredited nonpublic schools.”

3) This is going to lead to more CHAOS and arbitrariness, with every district deciding on its own requirements. “Officials at Des Moines Public Schools said this week that they would require students and teachers to wear face masks in buildings. Ankeny, on the other hand, will not require face masks or temperature checks when school resumes.” This will only lead to more parent, teacher, and student frustration – and ultimately, more people leaving the public schools.

4) Parents won’t actually know what to expect until just before kids are supposed to go back to school – and then, things will likely change when the predicted “next wave” comes. “The majority of Des Moines-area school district officials that spoke with the Register said those decisions are still being worked out and it could be weeks before parents know what will happen when school starts.” Again, this will lead to more frustration and confusion. “‘It would just be nice to know what they are thinking,’ Pennington Swanson said. “I know August is a ways off, but for planning it would be nice to know what direction they are leaning.”

Late Friday afternoon, the Department of Education released a statement saying further clarification of the guidelines is needed. It promised to ‘release additional information in the near future.'”

5) People have no concept of the difference between a guideline, an order, and a law – and consequently, too many people are living under unnecessary, arbitrar restrictions, which have endangered peoples health, undermined the economy, and trampled on the constitution and the God-given rights of the people. “Jean Hessburg, a spokeswoman for the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), the state’s teacher’s union, said the state’s plan doesn’t comply with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for public places.” A plan doesn’t have to “comply” with guidelines. It can meet them, exceed them, or ignore them. They are guidelines, not laws, and not orders (which are normally applied to agencies, not individuals).

6) The media repeats outright lies in their fearmongering effort. They don’t bother to fact check them if they fit with their agenda, even if they are completely illogical. “The recommendations come as states across the country grapple with how to reopen schools during the largest pandemic to hit the United States in a generation.” Sorry, not even close. Many flu seasons have had higher rates of infection and death in this generation.

7) Teacher’s Unions use bully tactics to promote their progressive agenda. “‘It is a gamble and obscene that the governor and the Department of Education are gambling on the health and safety of our students, our staff and school employees,’ Hessburg said. ‘This virus has demonstrated that it knows no bounds and students can bring the virus home to families and ravage a family.'” Note the attack on the governor and state Department of Education officials in their attempt to influence statewide health policy (hint: the union should be supporting teachers and students, and should confine their interests to educational matters, not health policy. Also, recognize the very subtle anthropomorphisation of the virus, “This virus knows has demonstrated that it knows no bounds…” – the union is casting the virus as a sentient enemy to reinforce the fear that we should all be feeling.

8) I wonder how many of the 50,000 Iowa Teacher’s Union members agree with the position of the union and its president. “ISEA President Mike Beranek released a statement Thursday urging school districts to create their own guidelines mandating face coverings, physical distancing and other safety protocols. The union represents more than 50,000 public school teachers and other education professionals.

‘I simply don’t understand why the state of Iowa is not taking a cue from what is happening in our country and implementing guidelines that are scientifically proven and recommended by our health specialists all throughout our country,’ he said. There they go again, with the “scientifically proven” stuff. I will save my rant on the religion of Scientism for another post, but just remember how inaccurate the projections, death counts, early test results, consensus on masks, and treatment protocols (eg. respirators causing more harm than good, and housing infected people in nursing homes) have been throughout this circus.

9) Finally, REALLY, 50,000 members!?! How many of you hear that number – 50,000 unionized teachers in IOWA alone – and get a cold chill as you realize just how big this behemoth of public education is, how much money is spent, and how much influence is bought by these unions (many times, with the money of unwilling members). 

For more perspective on this important issue I highly recommend Standing Up to Goliath, by Rebecca Friedrichs. In this EXCELLENT and terrifying book, Rebecca Friedrichs discusses the incredible influence and dangerous agenda that the national and statewide teachers unions wield. She shares firsthand accounts of the abuses of students and teachers that were overlooked and covered up by unions in an effort to protect bad, tenured teachers and their own bottom lines, as massive money making machines. Finally, she recounts her historic court battle against the unions to stop them from coercing teachers and stealing dues from unwilling members (and non-members). This is a must-read if you care about education, labor, or or the founding principles of our nation.

There is a better way! Bring your kids home! If you are considering homeschooling in the coming year, please read COVID-19 – Homeschooling during Coronavirus School Closures to get started. We have a ton of free resources available at SchoolhouseRocked.com, on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, and at HomegrownGeneration.com, where we host a live, interactive, online homeschool conference.

You can do this!

Free homeschooling course to help you get started. Over 9 hours of free videos to help you learn to educate your children at home!

Photo by sippakorn yamkasikorn on Unsplash – Worms

Photo by Miikka Luotio on Unsplash – Child in mask on a bus

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash – Child in mask

Religious Instruction (Indoctrination) is Prominent in Public Schools


Many people want to believe that if their children attend a public school they will receive a “neutral education.” Unfortunately, they fail to realize that education is NEVER neutral. All education is indoctrination. All education is discipleship. It’s just a matter of what worldview is being promoted, what values are being taught, who is discipling your children, and what they believe.

So I ask you, who is indoctrinating YOUR children?

In the past few days, three very stark examples of religious indoctrination in public schools have come to light, so I want to share them here. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking these same worldview aren’t being taught in your local schools, because they are.

Religion is prominent in schools, with one exception: Christianity.

As a side note, before I get to the examples of the past few days, I have to address “secular” education, because I constantly hear objections to Christian education and Christian Home Education from “secular homeschoolers”. One must realize that atheism, secularism, and secular humanism ARE religious worldviews. Secularism IS religion. Atheism IS religion. They just replace the God of the Bible or the gods of mens’ imaginations with SELF as god. Even agnosticism IS religion, but it replaces God with a self who is unconvinced. I am aware of the simplicity of these statements, but no further explanation or justification is required when a statement is self-evident.

Ready to take your children back? Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for free tonight and learn how. After you have watched the movie, download the Free Homeschool Survival Kit. This free 70+ page resource will give you the encouragement and tools you need to start strong and finish well.

Even secularists MUST be aware of the level of religious indoctrination occurring in public schools, and secularists MUST consider the consequences of a fully-implemented secular worldview. I strongly doubt that ANY secular parent would want all (if any) of the philosophies I have outlined below to be adopted by their children.

Story 1, MUSLIM INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“Charles County Public Schools released a statement after the Supreme Court’s denial saying, ‘The decision reaffirms a favorable U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruling earlier this year that the school did not ‘impermissibly endorse any religion and did not compel Wood to profess any belief.'”

“One Muslim scholar strongly disagrees. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said: ‘They made this the student recite the Islamic call to call of witness a prayer, which makes her a Muslim. That’s absurd.'” – Lauren Green, Fox News

Story 2, BUDDHIST INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“While the controversial program claims to be a “secularized” version of Buddhist practices that have traditionally been viewed as occult and dangerous by Christians, critics are nevertheless sounding the alarm. And despite claims of being “secular,” it does not take much digging beneath the surface to detect the obvious anti-Christian nature of the “mindfulness education” schemes.” Alex Newman, Freedom Project Media

Story 2, SATANIC INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

At Grant Lee school outside Richard’s Bay, in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, a parent is shocked and heartbroken to find a sprawling “art” display featuring torn up Bibles, paintings and sculptures of Satan and demons, paintings and drawings of Christ in compromised interactions with Satan, and paintings depicting Jesus Christ and his disciples as clowns. I urge you to watch the whole video and share this post, as it is so shocking, it is likely to even offend staunch secularists.

Grant Lee School Satanism – South Africa

While this is a school in South Africa, don’t be deceived. This is the true spirit of government schools being exposed. This same spirit governs the public schools in the United States and the rest of the world.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard parents say things like “I know that –insert evil practice or message here– is going on in some schools, but that’s not happening in my kids’ school.”, “We have a great school.”, “Our school is a blue ribbon school (or whatever other silly, made up award).”, or “My daughter’s teacher (or principal) is a Christian.” WAKE UP!!! THIS IS THE SPIRIT THAT GOVERNS YOUR KID’S SCHOOL. If your kids are in public school this is what they are being taught, whether or not they have a christian teacher or principal:

1) There is no God and everything, including you, came about by blind chance, therefore NOTHING has any ultimate value or meaning.

2) Homosexuality, transgenderism, gay marriage, and ANY other deviant sexual practice that makes you “happy” are valid and good and should be explored, with no restraint, whenever you feel “ready”. To say or believe anything else is HATRED and BIGOTRY and must be silenced, punished, and ultimately corrected, as those who espouse these hateful beliefs are forced to become “allies” who approve and endorse these behaviors themselves.

3) Socialism is fair and good.

4) America and her representative republican form of Government are evil and oppressive.

5) Capitalism, corporations, and “the rich” are evil.

6) Religion (specifically Christianity) should be stripped from every public place, practice, and institution, UNLESS that religion is Islam, which is a religion of peace and should be defended and taught as true and virtuous.

7) There are no absolutes. You determine what is right for you (and almost nothing is truly wrong), but your determination of right and wrong has no bearing on my values, unless you disapprove of something I do or think, in which case you are a hater and a bigot and must be silenced.

8) Race, gender (whether biological or imagined), sexual identity, and economic status matter much more than merit, knowledge, beliefs, values, or skills when determining EVERYTHING about your life. Anyone who disagrees is a racist/homophobe/misogynist/privileged white male/or some other acceptable scapegoat for personal responsibility and reasonable response.

9) The CLIMATE is the most important issue EVER, and WE MUST do whatever we can (including sterilizing and killing giant portions of the population, regulating childbearing, and demanding that people eat what the UN, “scientists”, and government deem to be the least impactful foods (namely NO MEAT).

10) Human lives have no value. It is a greater virtue to KILL a baby in the womb than to allow that baby to possibly face any suffering (including poverty, single parenthood, physical or mental problems, or being “unwanted”).

11) Some human lives have less value than others (even though none really have any value because they are all products of chance anyway).

12) Parents are not qualified to teach their children. Teachers must be educated and licensed, and instruction should only happen in age-segregated groups.

13) Parents are not able to feed their children. Children must have access to THREE school meals a day.

14) Parents are CERTAINLY not qualified to teach their kids about sex, reproduction, or “gender”, and these classes should be provided by and taught be the loving specialists at Planned Parenthood (under other creative names, of course).

15) Parents are not qualified to handle the health needs of their children. If a child notifies a teacher, administrator, school nurse of any of a plethora of “sensitive” health or psychological issues the school WILL perform the necessary treatment or refer the child to a “qualified” expert for treatment, without the approval or knowledge of the parent.

The list goes on…

Do you doubt any of the above examples? PLEASE do the research. I promise, all of these are true, going on in your district, and easily researched. Need some help getting started, just Google “Comprehensive Sex Ed” and take a trip down a very dark rabbit hole. Want to get closer to home, just add your state’s name to the search. I promise you, just this subject will be enough to convince you that the public schools IN YOUR DISTRICT have an agenda that is dangerous for students, for families, and for culture.

TAKE ACTION!!! PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN! Contrary to the beliefs of school administrators, teachers, Planned Parenthood, and government officials (and what you have likely been convinced of) THEY ARE YOUR CHILDREN. You have other options, and if your ONLY option truly is public school, you must spend considerable effort learning what your children are being taught and UNDOING THE DAMAGE at the end of every day. OPT OUT of comprehensive Sex Ed. DON’T CONSENT to any medical treatments without your approval – you will find this is impossible – so talk with your kids and tell them what to expect and who to talk to when they have issues.

Finally, spread the word. SHARE THIS POST and watch the news and social media for more posts like this. Share those too.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Why Do I Homeschool?

“Why do I homeschool? Because today my children will be at home with me, learning about the catastrophic events that happened in New York. About the evil that happens when we deviate from God’s design. And about how we have a God that mourns because he loves his people. They will be home with me, praying for the preborn babies, rather than in a public school system that tells them they get to choose for themselves what is good and evil, rather than looking to God for truth.” Aby Rinella

What does the Bible say about training the hearts of our children?

In this interview, for the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, Yvette Hampton and Aby Rinella discuss what the Bible calls us to as parents, especially concerning the day-to-day education of our children.

Yvette Hampton: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am loving my guest today. We have been sitting here chit chatting for a few minutes, and you are going to love getting to know her. Her name is Aby Rinella, and she is in Idaho right now where it is snowing, and I am in Georgia where it is not. So we’re talking about the difference in weather, but you are going to love her. She is a sweet, sweet friend of mine who strangely, we have never actually met in person.

Aby: That’s crazy.

Aby Rinella is, above all, a follower of Jesus. She is also the director of her local homeschool co-op, director of women’s ministry at her church, wife, mom and teacher to the Rinella children. She writes and speaks on homeschool, motherhood, parental rights, the culture war and more and has a passion for encouraging and inspiring women to live the life they were designed to live.
Aby and her husband also write for the outdoor industry about their adventures together, showing their kids the Creator by spending time in His creation.
You can find all of Aby’s published work at CalledToTheTop.com

Yvette: But we have talked a whole lot on the phone, and FaceTime, and just really gotten to know each other over the past couple of months and she has been an incredible blessing to me and my family and I know she’s going to be great blessing to you. So Aby, I am so excited to have you on. Welcome to the show.

Aby: Thanks Yvette, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Yvette: Yeah, tell us about your family, the Rinella family.

Aby: I am the wife of Jesse Rinella, and we have three little ones. We have fifth grade, second grade, you know how homeschool is, what grade are we in, it depends. Do you wanna know math or language?

Yvette: Right.

Aby: So I have a 10, eight and four. Yeah, and we’ve been homeschooling from the very beginning.

Yvette: I love it, love it. And you’re a hunting family.

Aby: We are a hunting family.

Yvette: That’s a big part of who you are.

Aby: It is. It’s something that we love to do, it’s something we’ve always loved to do and we get our kids out with us and it’s really an awesome way to show a creator, through being in his creation to our kids and let them see just how awesome God is by being out in his creation.

Yvette: Oh, so great.

Aby: Yeah.

Yvette: So, several months ago, it’s been quite some time now we got this email from you. And we get a lot of emails from different people who just reach out for various reasons, but yours was a little different in that you reached out to us and you just said, “I’m Aby, I’m a homeschool mom, I am in Idaho and how can I help?” And the ones where people just say, “How can I help and how can I pray?” Or, “I’m praying for you.” Are the most amazing messages we can get, especially from people that we don’t know because that just means that the Lord has laid that on your heart. And so you have been just a great encouragement to our family over the past many months as we continue on with production of Schoolhouse Rocked and you’ve connected us with the homeschool Idaho organization, and they’ve been great and encouraging. And you and I have had some really great conversations about homeschooling.

And I want to talk today about, “why homeschool?” And it’s a question that so many people ask, and oftentimes we say, “If you don’t know your why’s.” I talked with Leslie Nunnery from Teach Them Diligently about this the other day, and if people don’t know their why of homeschooling, it’s very likely that they’re going to give up.

Aby: Exactly.

Yvette: And they’re gonna just say, “This just isn’t for me.” And so, let’s talk about your why. I want to hear your story of why you chose to homeschool your kids, and then why you continue to do so.

Aby: Okay, and to expand on what you said, I think we need to know our why but at the same time, it needs to be the right why, because there’s a lot of reasons that people homeschool that don’t hold, that aren’t the foundation that’s going to hold strong when the winds come because they’re going to.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: The tough times are gonna come.

Yvette: They are.

Aby: And that big yellow bus is going to look so good. So I think it’s about having a why and also having the right why. So my story is, I was a public school teacher and I came from a line of public school teachers, and I loved teaching public school and then when I got pregnant with my first, it just was a no-brainer that I was going to stay home with my baby. It wasn’t even like something we really prayed about, it just was something we knew that that’s how God designed it. And my husband actually said to me, “God didn’t give us these kids to give to someone else to raise.” And when he said that, it just it was a no-brainer and through a lot of just seeing God’s hand and God’s miracle in our life, I was able to quit my teaching job and stay home and it was only by the hand of God.

So we made that decision and then it just was never a huge thought of homeschool. I never really thought of it and in fact, back in my early days when I was going to college to be an educator, I remember sitting in the living room with my mother in law, or in the dining room in the kitchen and arguing with her over how silly I thought homeschool was and actually how wrong I thought it was. But she is such a godly, gracious woman, she just beared with me and probably prayed that her husband would ditch me or son, I’m sorry, son. But anyway, she held on and my husband was homeschooled for a while so. God changed my heart. What it came down to is, again, God didn’t give me these kids to let someone else raise. So when it came time to schooling them, it was not a question, they were to be home with me.

And so my why, you asked my why, it started with a lot of why’s. It started with I was a teacher so why would I teach other people’s kids when I can teach my own, and then it went to how awesome of relationships we could have to have the kids at home and then it went through looking at the statistics that academically homeschool students do so much better. And really, all of those are awesome blessings of homeschool, they’re awesome results of homeschool, but they weren’t enough of a why. And for everything that my husband and I do, we go to the Word of God and we say, “What does God say.” Because our emotions can change. On good days we want to be home, on bad days we might not.

So we really just went to the Word of God and we said, “What does God say about this? What is the word of God tell us when it comes to where our children should be and what they should be taught, and who should be teaching them. So, in that, and we can discuss more what we discovered in looking to God’s word for that, but that ended up being our why. Our why became because this is how God designed it, because this is God’s best and this is what He wants us to do. And that why has held us through really hard days where academically we aren’t succeeding above the rest, and where it really isn’t that fun. And so that’s become a really important foundation for our family, is knowing that we’re doing the will of God.

Schoolhouse Rocked Backstage Pass members can watch this interview, which includes 30 minutes of additional content!  Save 10% on any paid Backstage Pass Membership when you use the coupon code “Podcast10“!

Yvette: And there’s so much joy in knowing that God has given our children to us. Like you said, he didn’t give them to us to then hand them off to someone else. That’s one of my favorite parts of the interviews that we’ve done for the movie, is we interviewed Sam Sorbo, and she said, “What is it that society tells us once your kids turn five, I mean they’re your responsibility until they’re five and then all of a sudden it’s your job to hand them over to someone else and let someone else raise them.”

Aby: Absolutely.

Yvette: And that is not.

Aby: No, and logically it doesn’t make sense. I think when we’re pregnant … I mean think how many books you read when you were pregnant. You made sure you took the folic acid, and you make sure you didn’t eat the raw fish, because we have this innate, as women, as parents we have this thing that’s in us that wants to protect our children.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: We want to protect our kids and we do it when we’re pregnant with them. We’re so careful when we’re pregnant with them to make sure that we’re eating right and taking the right things and going to our checkups. And then when they’re infants, and when they’re toddlers, “I got to make sure my car seat’s the right thing.” And they’re wearing the right helmets and we’re naturally protectors and we want to protect our kids. And then all a sudden, they turn five and we forget that we have an enemy that’s there to steal, kill and destroy our kids.

Yvette: That’s true, yeah.

Aby: And we’re to protect them from that, and I always think breaking their leg, they’re going to heal from that quicker than they’re going to heal from exposure to Satan’s attacks. And it is our responsibility and our job to protect our kids and that doesn’t end at five years old.

Yvette: Right. No, it doesn’t. And it is our responsibility to do that and it is a great blessing. I mean, the Bible tells us children are our heritage from the Lord. They are such a blessing and society tells us, “Oh, it’s so great, once they turn five you get to put them on a bus and ship them out to school.”

Aby: Yeah.

Yvette: “And you could have all this free time and you’re going to be free.”

Aby: Right.

Yvette: I remember one of my neighbors once who lived right next door, she was I think probably eight at the time. And she said, “Why do you homeschool?” And I told her, “Because I love being with my girls. I love being able to teach them and spend the days with them.” And she goes, “But you know, if you didn’t homeschool and you sent them to school, you would have time to go to lunch with your friends.” This is like an eight year old girl. She goes, “You could go to the movies and go to lunch with your friends during the day.” And I was like, “That’s true.”

Aby: That is true.

Yvette: And some days that sounds really appealing. And some days I need that.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: Which again, that’s why we need community and that’s another whole topic.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: But I love being the one that gets to train the hearts of my children. Yesterday morning, as a matter of fact, my little one she had done something. She’s my super strong-willed one, and she really has very strong opinions about things. All the way to what kind of sock she’s wearing.

Aby: Oh my goodness. That’s hilarious.

Yvette: And I forget what it was, but there was some kind of little debate with her and she wanted to do one thing and I said, “No, that’s not what you’re going to do, you’re going to do this.” And so she got upset and so we had this opportunity, and we sat and talked for probably 20 minutes, just the two of us. She’s eight years old, and I said, “God made you on purpose and for a purpose, and he has blessed you with this amazing and strong personality on purpose.”

Aby: Yeah.

Yvette: “But it’s mommy’s job and daddy’s job to help you direct your strong will in a way that honors and pleases the Lord.”

Aby: Absolutely.

Yvette: And we talked about it for a long time and she was crying and finally she just … I could see it in her eyes that it kind of clicked in her like, “Oh, yeah. I do have a purpose in this life.” And I was able at the end to say, “You know honey, if you were in school all day, I wouldn’t have this opportunity right now, today, to sit and talk to you about this.” Now that doesn’t mean that kids who are in school and separated from their parents, that their parents don’t have opportunities to direct them towards Christ.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: Certainly they do, but they don’t have the opportunity to do it day-in and day-out all day long. There’s so many missed opportunities.

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: And Deuteronomy six, six and seven is a verse obviously that constantly over and over again you hear homeschooling parents talk about, “And these words I command to you that they should be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.” And when we leave that to someone else to do all day long, we give up that opportunity to be able to teach the ways of the Lord to our children.

Aby: Yes, and we do and in Matthew 18, six it says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, better to have a millstone hung around his neck and drowned.” And that’s not as quite as an uplifting one as the Deuteronomy.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: But I often think to send our kids into a place where at the very best, they have to stay silent about the existence of a God. I mean, I understand that not every school is teaching the transgender movement, and the abortion. I understand they’re not all doing that, but at the very best case scenario, they’re staying silent about a creator and they’re staying silent about a God. And they’re not able to tell kids, “You were created on purpose, for a purpose and God has a design for you.” And to me, the thought of my child, all day long, learning things void of God’s word Would be leading them to stumble. It really felt like I wasn’t protecting them the way that God required me to, because it would be leading them to stumble and then I’d be spending all my time unteaching.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: What they were being taught and having to reteach truth, and I didn’t want to spend all my time with my kids having to unteach. I wanted to, through our daily living, teach them and not even I wanted to, but God tells us to in these verses and I wanted to be obedient to God.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: And, he says, “All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training up in righteousness.” So that our kids are equipped for every good work and that verse is saying that we’re to use scripture in everything. In math, in language and that’s not being done if I send them out to where they have to stay silent about God. And so, to me those verses read this is my job, this isn’t just about what I want to do and that I’m wired this way, and that I enjoy teaching because I, it’s really just, this is God’s command to me and I know that when we’re obedient to God, there’s incredible blessing.

Yvette: Oh yeah. There are so many blessings. I’ve said it so many times on the podcast, because we say it to our girls all the time that, “Obedience brings blessings, but sin causes pain.”

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: And when we do obey God and we take seriously the role that he’s given us as parents to train up our children in the way that they should go, we will reap the benefits and blessings of that. And not that we will, I should take our children will.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: And again, it’s not that parents can’t teach their kids things, but like you said when they’re in a public school setting, and they’re being taught everything that’s contrary to God’s word.

Aby: Yes, yes.

Yvette: You talk about undoing it and we’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast. We talked with Brian Osborne from Answers in Genesis a few weeks ago, and he was a public school teacher for 13 years and he said the same thing, “You better be prepared to undo what your kids are being taught.” But I don’t know how possible and practical that is, because if you’re not in the classroom with them, you really don’t know everything that they’re being taught. You don’t know what they’re hearing on the playground.

Aby: Exactly.

Yvette: You don’t know what’s being said in the locker room, and not even the things that are said but things that are done. We’re from California, and I know everybody across the country kind of looks at California it’s like, “Oh, California. They have so many crazy laws and stuff.” And they do, but it’s not just in California. It is quickly spreading throughout all parts of the country, and I think oftentimes people will say, and people have said this to me, and I’m sure they’ve said it to you, “But the public schools in my area are really good.” Okay, well that means they’re just doing a better job of teaching your kids everything that’s contrary to the Word of God.

Aby: Exactly.

Yvette: And it’s a very scary thing for me to think about, because in California right now it’s not just the educational agenda that they have. It is a cultural agenda that they have. Kids in public schools right now in California, if a little girl decides that she wants to be a boy now any age, I mean it could be kindergarten through 12th grade, if she decides that she wants to be a boy for the day, they have to by law respect her wishes and her desire to be another gender, and they have to give her all the privileges of that gender. And the same obviously with a little boy. If a 14-year-old boy says, “I want to be a girl today.” They have to give him access to the girls bathroom and the girls locker room, and they can’t tell his parents. They are not allowed by law to tell his parents. Girls can go, and I say California only because I’m most familiar with it because that’s home.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: But they will take a little girl at 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old little girl, to have an abortion to murder her baby. And by law they are not allowed to tell her parents.

Aby: And if that’s not causing our little ones to stumble, I don’t know what is because that is leading them right into temptation. And even though we don’t believe that, and we’re not teaching that at home, if we’re sending them into a system every single day that sets that foundation, and I just I go back to Ephesians four that says, “Do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” And for me, not for me, for all of us, for Bible believing Christians we are called to set a foundation for our children in Christ.

And when we send to them more hours a day, or any hours a day actually, to a system that says it’s okay to murder babies, it’s okay to be something that you’re not, then you’re giving them that. Or even, there is no creator. This earth happened by chance, they’re building a foundation all day long. And then they come home and then you’re giving them a different foundation and essentially these young children who are so moldable, they’re building this up and then you’re taking the bricks down at home and putting new bricks in, and then they go back to school and they’re tearing the bricks down of what you’re teaching at home. And it’s just this vicious cycle, and we’re stunting our children’s spiritual growth, because they’re hearing two polar opposite things.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: And to me, if I was a child, which I was in the public school, that led to exasperation.

Yvette: Sure.

Aby: And it says, “Do not. Do not exasperate your children.” And how can that not exasperate a child to have to go fill in a bubble on a test that says, “Yes, I believe that a boy can be a girl and the girl can be a boy. Or yes, I believe that there is no God and that this earth was created by chance, or that there is no creator.” And I would ask my children to say that during the day and then I’d come home and tell them to be bold and stand up for Christ and these little kids are getting such an incredibly mixed message. And then we end up with at the worst kids walking away, and at the very best they end up with a watered down Christianity because they’ve had two foundations being built.

Yvette: Right. It’s very confusing for them.

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: And they need to have that solid foundation. That’s again, exactly what Brian Osborne and I talked about is, they have to have that solid foundation set for them of knowing what they believe and why they believe what they believe.

Aby: Absolutely.

Yvette: And when you’re putting them in an institution with teachers who oftentimes really love these kids.

Aby: Yeah.

Yvette: I mean, you have public school teacher, you loved kids I’m sure.

Aby: And I loved those kids. And you know why I was silenced, and I’m the personality and temperament, I couldn’t. I could not spend all day with those kids and not tell them the truth.

Yvette: Right, yeah. But not all teachers are like that. And not all teachers, obviously believe in the truth. And so when you’re sending your kids into that environment you’re telling them, “Your teacher is right. Believe what they say. Obviously believe in the history, believe in the science, believe in the math, believe in the English Lit. Believe in everything that they’re teaching you.” Just simply by sending them there.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: When we go to church, we go sit in church and we worship and we are taught by our pastor because we want to learn from them. We’re students, we’re disciples of them. Because we trust them.

Aby: And we trust what they’re telling us.

Yvette: That’s truth. That’s right. And when we send our kids to Sunday school or to youth group or anywhere where they’re receiving instruction, the simple fact of sending our kids there is saying, “We believe what this person is teaching you is true.”

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: And so then for you to bring them home and say, “I’m just kidding, that part was-”

Aby: That’s actually a lie.

Yvette: This is true but that’s not true, but this is true but that’s not true.

Aby: Yup.

Yvette: That’s very confusing to kids.

Aby: Yes. And then to tell kids they’re lying to you every day, but you need to respect them. And then to tell them, “You need to stand up for what’s true, but you need to take the test and say what they want you to say rather than the truth.” That’s not protecting our children. And I think there is an innate fierceness in moms to protect our kids. That whole mama bear thing, that whole, anybody tries to mess with my kids, and I want to encourage moms not to lose that. Don’t lose that when it comes to their … We want to protect our kids from stranger danger, and we want to protect our kids if they’re walking in the middle of the road, we would put our life on the line to throw them out of the road and we would put our own life in danger.

And yet, why are we losing this when it comes to their spirits? When it comes to their minds and their hearts, when we know that there’s an enemy that’s after them. We need to have that same fierceness in protecting and defending our children’s innocence. The way that we do from the very beginning. It’s not optional, it’s commanded by God.

Yvette: Yeah. Amen. I agree completely.

So we’re talking about protection. I remember years ago, Garrett and I, I might have told this story before on the podcast, I can’t remember. But Garett and I were at a parenting conference, and our oldest was really, really little if she was even born yet. And he said, “If someone were to break into your house and your children were in danger, you would not as a parent go curl up in the closet and be like okay kids, good luck.”

Aby: Best of luck.

Yvette: Good luck with that. I’ll be in the closet hiding. I’ll pray for you.

Aby: Yes, yes.

Yvette: And when the intruder is gone I’ll tell you what you should have done.

We wouldn’t do that. I mean, our job is like you said, to protect our children, to protect their hearts. Not just to protect them physically and actually, and I’ve told this story for sure. When we first started homeschooling, it was a physical protection thing for us. The school that Brooklyn would’ve gone to, it would not have been physically safe for her to go.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: And that was the whole reason why we started homeschooling. At that point it wasn’t because we had this great revelation from God and that it wasn’t the spiritual stuff. I don’t know, we were just very much against homeschooling, and you and I can talk about that in a minute. But we had so many misconceptions about it, and then it came down to the physical safety of our daughter. And we said, “Okay, we have no other choice. We have to homeschool her.”

Aby: Right.

Yvette: And I’m so thankful that we did. But we quickly recognized that it was not just a physical protection.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: It was a spiritual and emotional protection that we needed to cover her with as well.

Aby: And no one would question you if you said I’m physically protecting my child, and no one would question what a great decision that was. But when it comes to spiritually protecting our kids all of the sudden people think we’re crazy.

Yvette: Yes. Yeah, that’s right. So one of the reasons that we said we’d never homeschool was because we had so many misconceptions about homeschooling.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: And there’s all the negative stereotypes and stuff. What have you come across with that? Because I know that you talk to a lot of homeschool moms.

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: What are some of those misconceptions that you get from them and how do you help to debunk those?

Aby: There are a lot. It’s an interesting generation that we’re in, because when I talked to the homeschoolers that have gone ahead of us, a lot of them say, “Oh people would say we’d never want to homeschool.” And I actually feel like I’m hearing a lot of parents say, “Oh, we’d love to, but.” And I think that’s an interesting shift I don’t get.

Yvette: Yes.

Aby: I feel like I don’t get a lot of people go, “I can’t believe you do that, that’s so bad.” Actually, I more hear parents say, “I think that what you’re doing is great. I think it’s awesome for your kids. I just couldn’t.” And then they get out their list and, which is a step in the right direction. At least they’re feeling that pull. But I think probably the number one is maybe moms with careers that, “I couldn’t give up my career.” And probably the number one is finances. And that was the first panic that my husband and I had is well what about, well I had. He was like, “God provides I can’t even believe you’re thinking about this.”

But I just go back to when a mom says that first of all, we have to validate that. It is scary, but when we know that God has called us to do something, we also know that he’s going to give us everything we need to do it. And that just goes hand-in-hand. But I always think of Second Chronicles when King Judah was prepping for a war and he paid, the Bible says 100 talents and I looked that up, and that’s a lot of money. Like it’s debatable how much it was, but tons and tons, more than I’ll ever see in my life. But he paid 100 talents of silver for men that God would not have approved of him using. And when a wise man, a godly man came and said, “You need to get rid of these people.” He said, “But what about the money I paid, but what about my money, but what about the finances?”

And I think that’s what we tend to say. But what about the finances? I can’t afford to stay home and homeschool my kids. And in that story in Second Chronicles, the godly man replies, “The Lord can give you much more than that.” And God doesn’t just say things in the Bible and then forget about us in 2019. It’s the same message to us today. When we obey God he can give us so much more than we can do. I have a little quote on my wall that says, ‘God can do more with our obedience than we can do with our compromise.’ And so that’s probably the first one that people panic is, but what about the money?

And the second one I hear a lot is, “But my kid’s supposed to be salt and light.” And you just did an incredible podcast with Misty Bailey, so if anybody gets that, what about salt and light? Go back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast and listen to that one, because that one is debunked very quickly through scripture, honestly.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: Which all these are. It’s all God’s word. What does God’s word tell us? It doesn’t matter what Yvette, or myself tells you.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: What is God saying in His Word? And he’s got all the answers there. I think a lot of it is fear, a lot of moms, one of the other big ones is fear. Just, “I’m not equipped.” I hear so often, “Well yeah Aby, you did it because you were a public school teacher. You were a teacher, you were trained to be a teacher.” And I honestly, that is probably my biggest challenge to overcome, is the fact that I was trained to be a teacher in the system.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: It took me years to overcome that. But you know God, He tells us in Isaiah 40 that He will gently lead those with young. He will lead, so if we follow Him then we are equipped.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: I wasn’t equipped when I got pregnant with my first daughter. I had no idea what I was going to do. Nothing. I remember looking at that blue nose sucker going, “What is this thing even for?” And I’m supposed to save her life with this thing? Talk about not equipped, and yet God gave her to me. And then He quipped me to raise her. And so He did the same thing with school, and He will do the same thing with every mom when we answer the call to teach and train our kids and His righteousness. He will equipped us, and that we’re to trust in the Lord, not our own understanding. I don’t understand half the math I teach my kids. But I trust in the Lord and they’re learning it.

Yvette: Yup.

Aby: And He tells us we can do all things through Him, and I think that’s the big one is we’ve got to stop thinking that we need to do it on our own.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: And if we can’t do it on our own then we might as well send them to the experts. Because the reality is, is we are the experts in our own children’s lives. He made them for us, and He made us for them, and so we just became the expert the day that you conceived that child. He quipped you and you just became the expert.

Yvette: That’s right.

Aby: So you can do it, moms. You can. You can do it through Him. His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in your weakness.

Yvette: Yep. Seek first the kingdom of God. We were just talking about that with Karen DeBeus, and He will give us everything we need. And it’s scary.

Aby: He does.

Yvette: One of the best things I have ever read about homeschooling is, do it scared.

Aby: Do it scared. That’s awesome, I love that.

Yvette: Do it scared. It’s okay to be scared to do something.

Aby: Yes.

Yvette: ‘Cause anything worth doing is scary sometimes.

Aby: Absolutely.

Yvette: Like you said, it’s scary when the doctor puts this baby in your arms and you’re like.

Aby: Yup. I’m supposed to do what?

Yvette: Yeah. Literally their whole life is in your hands.

Aby: Exactly.

Yvette: But let me rephrase that. They’re not in our hands, there in the Lord’s hands.

Aby: They are in the Lord’s hands. And He gave them to us because He knows that He can do it.

Yvette: Right.

Aby: And He knows that our weakness is when we rely on Him and when we are terrified out of our mind, that’s when we go to Him.

Yvette: Right. But praise God that we get to lean on Him to help us do this.

Aby: Absolutely.

Yvette: Because if we had to do it on our own, oh goodness I know for myself, I’d be an absolute disaster.

Aby: Right.

Yvette: If I had to rely on myself to figure out this parenting thing, and this homeschooling thing and this marriage thing. I would destroy it to pieces.

Aby: Yeah, absolutely. And I think about marriage and I think back to the why. I think if my husband, if you’d asked him why he married me, his answer would have been 20 years ago when we met, if it would have been like, “Well, I thought she was cute we had fun together.” He’d be singing probably a very different tune right now.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: And it probably wouldn’t have sustained our marriage, but when you did ask him he would say, “Because I made a commitment to the Lord. I made a commitment to God, and God’s word says and describes marriage.” And that’s what gets you though the hard times is your why. If your why is we laugh together, then what about those days that you don’t.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: But if your why is, “Because God has ordained this marriage.” Then you get through it all, and it’s the same with homeschool. If your why is, “Because my kids are so fun to be with.” Well, for crying out loud I tell you, you better get a new why real quick. ‘Cause there’s gonna be days when they’re not.

Yvette: No, your kids aren’t fun every single day like mine?

Aby: No. 90% of the time but on the 10%. But if your why is, “Because God called me to do this.”

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: Then you can get through anything, and because He can get you through anything.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: And one of the other ones I get a lot that cracks me up of, this one I probably hear more than any, “I love what you’re doing but I would never have the patience to do it.”

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: I get that one all the time. “I wouldn’t have the patience.” Or, “It’s not my thing.” You know, it’s not my thing. And I think, “Well, I don’t have the patience to do this either.”

Yvette: No.

Aby: But we’re doing it because … And it isn’t about being someone’s thing. It became your thing the day you brought that child home from the hospital.

Yvette: Yeah.

Aby: It became your thing, because He made you a mom, and He called you to be a mom and that child’s walk is … Not their walk is dependent on you, but what you teach them and train them now will forever affect what foundation they have in the future. So it might not be your thing, but it needs to become your thing because it’s His thing.

Yvette: Yeah. And it’s a great thing.

Aby: And it’s a great thing. It is so amazing, and if you don’t have the patience to do it there is nothing that will teach you patience faster. Oh, God will refine you in it. And honestly, it’s a blessing. It’s like you said that you tell your kids, I love that. I use that ever since I heard you say that I use that all the time. They’re like, “Yvette.” They say that. But with obedience comes blessing, and we could do a whole episode on the blessings of homeschool. It is truly, for me one of the greatest blessings I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Yvette: Yeah, well hey. Let’s do this. We are out of time for the podcast. And so we need to close this up, I want you to just encourage those mamas at the end of this, but for Backstage Pass members, we are going to continue this conversation so let’s continue it. Let’s talk about the blessings of it. But thank you for being on the podcast.

Aby: Yes, thank you. And if you’re not a Backstage Pass member, guess what you can become one right now. (and you can save 10% on any paid membership by using the coupon code, “Podcast10“)

Yvette: And Aby’s one, right?

Aby: I am, so come hang out with me!

Yvette: Backstage pass membership is great. For those who don’t know what it is, if you might be listening to this for the first time, we have the Schoolhouse Rocked backstage pass membership site. And what that is we have all kinds of videos like the one that, Aby and I are doing right now. We extend a lot of our podcasts into an extra kind of bonus section and continue discussing what it was that we’re discussing. So those are up, but we also have, as we filmed for the movie Schoolhouse Rocked, we have a ton of footage from the movie. And so we obviously can’t get it all in an hour and a half long documentary, and so we’re taking all of those full interviews, uncut interviews and putting them up on the backstage pass membership site so you can get the entire interview instead of just the 15 minutes or 10 minutes of each person that’s going to make up the movie itself. And lots of bonus stuff. We are adding stuff to it weekly.

Yvette: So, it is a great resource. And it’s a great way to support Schoolhouse Rocked as we continue working through production stuff, every membership sign up that we get, that money goes directly to production on the movie. So you’re supporting the movie.

Aby: That’s awesome.

Yvette: You’re getting something great in return and Aby’s there so you can hang out with her. So, really quickly, I would love for you to just give an encouragement to those moms, the moms I want you to encourage today, are those who are in the thick of it right now, and they’re tired, and they just are ready to give up. And they’re just saying, “I can’t do this anymore. And I need to find something else besides this homeschool gig, because it’s not working for me.” How would you encourage that mom?

Aby: The first thing I would say is, “You’re not the first one to feel that and think that. Every veteran homeschool mom has felt that feeling.” So that does not mean that you’re not equipped, it doesn’t mean that they all have something that you don’t to be successful. We’ve all felt it, because that’s the enemy and the enemy wants to attack us when we’re doing God’s work.

The second thing I would say is what Second Peter tells us is that God gives us everything we need. If you try to do it on your own, it’s not gonna work. But God will give it to you. That’s a promise. That’s not a suggestion that’s not a, “Hey, try this.” That is a promise that God will. You were made for this. The day He gave you that child is the day He called you to raise that child in truth, and in righteousness, and so He’s going to stand by your side and He’s gonna fight the fight with you. And He will equipped you, He will, He will do that He promises.

And the last thing I would say is not just know your why, but you need to make God’s word your why. Because God’s word is our rock and we can stand on his word so on the days that all the other why’s aren’t enough, God’s word is always sufficient. So when His word and His command to us become our why, then there’s nothing that’s going to shake us. So that would be my encouragement, and get a  group of moms that feel … Community is huge. God gave us the church, God gave us community for a reason.

Yvette: Yeah, love it beautifully said. Really quickly, where can people find you?

Aby: People can find me.

Yvette: Besides in your living room.

Aby: I’m right here in my living room, and I’m usually in the mountains or sometimes I’m in the bathroom hiding. But no, people can find me at CalledToTheTop.com. And that’s not really a blog, but it’s just where all of my husband and I published articles. We write for many different organizations, and all of our articles are just, that’s kind of their housing. So if you want to read any of the stuff that we’ve put out there, we write on family and the culture war, and family values, homeschool, and we also write a lot on hunting and outdoor industry.

Yvette: I love it so much. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Aby: Thank you so much.

Yvette: Aby, you are a huge blessing.

Aby: Thank you.

Yvette: And thank you for how you have encouraged and supported us as well.

Aby: Thanks so much.

Photo by Jenn Evelyn-Ann on Unsplash

Overcoming Feelings of Inadequacy in your Homeschool – Yvette Hampton on the Joy in the Journey Podcast

Schoolhouse Rocked producer, Yvette Hampton, recently appeared on the Joy in the Journey Podcast to talk with host, Misty Bailey about overcoming the feelings of inadequacy that so many homeschool moms face.

Click here to listen to this encouraging episode of the Joy in the Journey Podcast.

Married for twenty-three years, and a homeschool mom for seven, Yvette has a heart for building up other homeschool moms. She has heard the stories of how unprepared many moms feel to handle the education of their children, in fact, she has shared (and shares) many of those same insecurities. Now, she has embraced the idea of slowing down, focusing on what is truly important, and enjoying the privilege of investing in her children every day.

I am sure you will be encouraged in your own homeschooling journey when you listen.

 “Salt and Light” in the Public Schools? 

Yvette and Misty also talked recently, about another important issue. In a recent episode of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast they talked about whether our kids have the responsibility of being “salt and light” in public schools. Are we missing an opportunity to evangelize when we remove our kids from public schools, and if they do not have the responsibility of being “salt and light” there, who does? Finally, they discussed how, when, and where our kids should be “salt and light”, and how we can prepare them.

You can find Misty at https://www.findingjoyinthejourney.net.

For more on this subject, pic up a copy of the excellent book, Already Gone by Ken Ham, Britt Beamer, and Todd Hillard.