Ok so this is an essay I wrote for an application I filled out. My son does Classical Conversations and we are starting the process of forming our own community. A part of that process is my applying for a community director role to be able to form a CC community. 

I have two main observations from Dorothy Sayers essay. The first, is, that it does absolutely blow my mind just how relevant her essay is to today. And while, I would like to think she was an alarmist in how the education system was dying at the time, we can see the proof of its death over the last 2 generations since she wrote her essay. Her warning “Christian ethics which are so rooted in their (Atheists, unsaved,etc) unconscious assumptions that it never occurs to them to question it. But one cannot live on capital for ever. A tradition, however firmly rooted, if it is never watered, though it dies hard, yet in the end it dies” forces you to accept that the tradition of learning from before is dead.

The problem with modern education is that students are simply not taught how to learn. By learning each subject in isolation, our youth never see how learning and knowledge are so inner-connected. And by the removal of Christ from our learning, they never see how all learning and knowledge is actually coming from God himself.

My second observation after reading this essay, and also about who just was Dorothy Sayers, I believe she would loathe being compared to Charlotte Mason and what Mason has done for education. Sayers never claimed we needed to start with the classical tradition anew, she proposed we go back 300 years and pick up where we left off with some modifications. Those modifications were about starting to teach children who are younger to learn. She still saw the child as a whole person capable of learning for themselves. 

The Trivium is not the curriculum. It is the tool. All persons are capable of learning anything when we teach them the trivium. In order to understand any subject, we must understand grammar first. In order to learn the grammar of anything we must observe and remember what we are learning. The second phase of learning is the dialectic stage. This is where students learn to reason what it is they’re learning. And then finally there is the Rhetoric stage, where students present and defend their thoughts. Learning to tackle their subjects in this manner sets them up to actually be life-long learners.

What do you think? Do you agree Dorothy would hate being compared to Mason today the way she has? Let me know!

Lori

​To know God and to make Him known.
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Okay, so lets talk. When we first started looking into homeschooling, I legit googled:
“Is homeschooling even legal???”

Because it felt… kind of rebellious? A little scary? A little bit like am I even allowed to tell the school I'm not sending my kids in? Like seriously guys, we just moved earlier this year, and I am still nervous about sending in our first letter of intent to the local school district.  😅 I know homeschooling is legal and I'm still nervous.

So if you’re here and you’re wondering the same thing—hi. You’re not alone. And yes, the good news is:

Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states.

The slightly more complicated news is... every state has its own rules. Because why wouldn't they all have their own set of laws.

🗺️ Step 1: Check Your State Laws

Before you go downloading curriculum or printing a daily schedule (or panic buying every FB sponsored curriculum add you see for the next 6 months)... just pause and check the law in your state. The best site I’ve found for this is hslda.org/legal. You can just click your state and it breaks it down into normal-human language.

Some states are super chill—like, just write a letter of intent and you’re done. Others want a little more, like testing or portfolio reviews. But none of it is impossible.

📄 Step 2: The Basics Most People Need

Now this totally depends on your state, but here are some things that are common (but not required everywhere):

• A Letter of Intent — You just send a little note to your school district saying, “Hey, we’re homeschooling now. Thanks, bye.”
• A portfolio — This is basically a scrapbook of your child’s work. Some states want you to keep it. Some don’t care.
• An evaluator or testing — A few states want a certified teacher to look at your portfolio once a year or for your child to take a standardized test. Again, not all.

But you do not need to:

• Be a certified teacher
• Have a degree in education
• Know how to do Algebra II

You are allowed to homeschool your kids even if you forgot what PEMDAS means.
(Parentheses, Exponents… something, something. It’s fine. We’re fine.)

🙃 Step 3: Don’t Panic.

Seriously.I know it can feel overwhelming. But most of this stuff becomes second nature really quickly. When I first started, I was so afraid I’d forget a form or miss a deadline and ruin my child’s life forever. I would (Spoiler: I didn’t.) The truth is, most school districts are used to homeschoolers and the process is actually super doable once you get into it. And for the ones that aren't, stick to what you legally know. Those laws come from the state, not from the local school district. Just because they say something is different from the law doesn't automatically make them right.

And honestly? A lot of this is just noise at the beginning.If you can figure out:

• What your state needs from you
• What your kid needs from you

Then everything else becomes manageable.

You do not have to have it all figured out today. Just take one step at a time. You are allowed to learn as you go. This is a part of redeeming your own education. This is the real life application of that.

And I’ll say this too, because maybe someone needs to hear it: You are not under-qualified to teach your child. No matter what your high school GPA was. No matter if you finished college. No matter what your mother-in-law says. God gave you these kids, on this journey, for a reason.

You're doing better than you think. And I'm right here, cheering you on.

—Lori 💛

To Know God and to Make Him Known

Okay, real talk? I used to think a “real homeschool routine” meant color-coded blocks and laminated checklists and waking up at 6:00 AM with a smile.

                                                Spoiler: it doesn’t. And I don’t. 😅

I’ve tried to make quite a few versions of “the perfect daily homeschool schedule” and honestly… most of them lasted about a week. Two weeks if I was in a Pinterest mood. I'm not very good with sticking to a super strict schedule. The more detailed I've made them, the easier it seemed to fail.

But I’ve learned a few things the hard way (is there any other way?) and I wanted to share what’s working for us right now. Because building a homeschool routine that actually works is less about structure and more about grace.

                                                      1. Start With Anchors, Not Hours

I don’t plan by the clock. I plan more by the moments of the day. We eat breakfast — then we do our first subject. We clean up lunch and the youngest goes down for a nap — then it’s read-aloud time. Dinner’s in the oven — that’s when I finally do the dishes I've ignored all day. Routines built around natural parts of the day feel way easier to stick to.
 
                                             2. Pick 3 Priorities (And Let the Rest Be Bonus)

Some days we get math, reading, and CC memory work done. Some days it’s just math and a meltdown... If I’ve hit our 3 core things, I call it a win. I do also try to make sure Sam reads at least 1 book by himself at bedtime, before he goes to sleep.

The extras? Art, music, baking, nature walks — they happen when they happen. And they’re lovely. But they’re not required for me to feel like “we did school.” And I feel like when you let these things happen more naturally, they tend to happen more often.

                                                            3. Make Room for Life

Doctor’s appointments, toddler chaos, weird moods, cereal for dinner — they ALL count. Your homeschool routine isn’t meant to replace real life. It’s meant to fit inside it. 

One big thing I do, is I purposely do not make any plans for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This allows us to have more spontaneity for fun things in our routine.

                                                            4. Keep It Short and Sweet

Little kids don’t need hours of seat work. And you know big kids don’t either, honestly. Short lessons, movement breaks, snacks, and grace. Lots of grace. You know when your kids need a break. Don't feel like you have to keep pushing them to finish something just because you have to.

It really is ok if you’re still figuring it out how to plan your homeschool day (like I am every year, honestly), you’re not behind. You’re just building something real. Something sustainable. And something that leaves space for both learning and living.

You’ve got this. ❤️

Lori

To Know God and To Make Him Known

Starting to homeschool can feel so overwhelming, especially when you're staring at hundreds of curriculum options. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How do I know what will actually work for my child?”, you’re not alone. While there isn’t a straightforward answer on how to find the curriculum that is best for your child, the secret to finding the right one often lies in understanding your child’s learning style. Once you know how your child learns best, choosing curriculum becomes less stressful and more successful.

1: Observe How Your Child Learns Naturally 

Before you buy anything, take a few weeks to simply observe. Watch how your child engages with the world. Here are some prompts to consider:

• Do they love listening to audiobooks or songs? They may be an auditory learner.
• Do they need to see pictures, charts, or read instructions to understand? Likely a visual learner.
• Do they learn best by building, moving, or doing things hands-on? That's a kinesthetic learner.

Understanding this can help you avoid buying a curriculum that doesn’t match their strengths.

2: Match Curriculum to Learning Style

Once you’ve identified your child’s learning style, look for curriculum that aligns with it:

• Visual Learners: Look for colorful textbooks, graphic organizers, video lessons, and illustrated stories. Picking a curriculum that is more book style versus being online.
• Auditory Learners: Choose programs with strong read-aloud components, audiobooks, and songs. This is where an on-line program may be more beneficial to your child.
• Kinesthetic Learners: Seek out hands-on projects, experiments, unit studies, and curricula that integrate movement. There are some fantastic nature-based curriculums out there that encourage movement and outdoors to benefit this type of learner. 

Pro Tip: Many kids are a mix of these! Don’t be afraid to blend resources. Seriously almost every curriculum company allows you to buy products a-la carte and MANY homeschool families do this.

3: Set Realistic Expectations (For You and Your Child)

Even the “perfect” curriculum will need adjusting. Your child may love one subject and resist another. That’s normal. Instead of looking for a one-size-fits-all program, focus on flexibility.
How to do that is:

• Is it easy to modify?
• Can I skip or substitute parts?
• Does it allow room for creativity and pacing?

Your confidence in knowing you find the right tools will grow as you learn to adapt the curriculum to your child—not the other way around.

4: Try Before You Buy (If Possible)

Many homeschool publishers offer samples, free trials, or YouTube reviews. Use them! This gives you a sneak peek at how your child might respond.

• Have your child watch a sample video or read a short lesson.
• Ask how they felt: Was it boring? Fun? Confusing?
• Watch their body language—sometimes that tells you more than words!

5: Trust Yourself

You don’t need a teaching degree to choose the right curriculum—you need a willing heart and a watchful eye. You know your child better than anyone else.

If something isn’t working, you can change it. That’s the beauty of homeschooling.

Choosing the right homeschool curriculum isn’t about finding the most expensive or most popular one. It’s about choosing what works for your child. By understanding their learning style and starting with their strengths, you’re setting up your homeschool for success.
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Was this helpful but you want a more in-depth look into figuring out how to homeschool? Check out my eBook How to Start Homeschooling With the End in Mind. Click below to get your copy today!

And remember: you’re doing a great job, just remember to keeping one step at a time.

Lori
To Know God and to Make Him Known

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Co-ops are a way for families to come together in fellowship and gives children an opportunity to learn with others. There are so many positives to being a part of a community this way. The first thing to know about co-ops is they come in many shapes and sizes. Depending on the area you are in, you will have the ability to shop around for a co-op that fits your family's rhythm.

Some things to know about co-ops:

• They are not normally drop off programs and require some sort of parental involvement. Even if that is just watching the exits and cleaning up after.
• Some can offer ala-carte classes while others follow a specific curriculum.
• Co-ops are typically locally run by fellow homeschool families. They are stand-alone organizations.
• There is generally a low cost. Any fees collected are used to help cover the cost of the space being used or supplies that are needed for individual classes
• Co-ops are generally open about beliefs. One of the points of being in a co-op is to come together with like-minded families to fellowship and learn together. There are both secular and religious co-ops. You just have to search them out.
• They are not hybrid schools.

While co-ops are great for a flexible way to get your children to learn with others, there are a few negatives to joining and attending a co-op.

• Once you join a co-op, you are financially committed. Typically, if you find you can't attend anymore, you won't be able to get a refund. This is due to co-ops typically being non-profit. All fee's collected do go to the needs of the co-op.
• You don't really have any control over the curriculum or content of the curriculum being taught.
• Lastly, in order for co-ops to be successful, you really do need to be consistent with attending. This can be hard for families to have this type of rigidity in their schedules.

If you are wanting to try and find a co-op local to you, check out the HSLDA website for co-ops listed by state. If you are on Facebook, check out your states FB pages for co-ops in your state.

Check out my latest eBook about helping families start homeschooling with the end in mind.  It will help provide you with so much information to get started with homeschooling today! See book here!

To Know God and to Make Him Known

Lori

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There is culture shift happening. More and more parents, religious or not, are realizing that they are able to raise AND educate their own children. We have all grown up in the “age of experts” and are slowly starting to realize, that we are actually the experts of our own children.

I'm sure the growth of homeschooling today would just blow the minds of those homeschoolers that came before us. It's an exciting time to start homeschooling!

Lori

To Know God and To Make Him Known

My new eBook is available for purchase for JUST $5! It is a simple, how-to guide on how to get started homeschooling today. How To Start Homeschooling With the End in Mind will help you:

• Learn what homeschooling is and isn't.
• Determine the educational philosophy for your family.
• Learn how to determine the best homeschool curriculum for your children.
• A solid list of resources to further your own education.

5. Overloading the Schedule

When you start homeschooling, it is usually pretty easy to see all the freedom that comes along with that pretty quickly. RESIST the urge to overload your schedule. This can happen in a couple of ways.

First, resist the urge to plan lots of field trips. While on hands learning is especially beneficial, not everything has to be a field trip. This can be especially difficult to avoid though once you are plugged into a local homeschool community. You just need to set a limit for your expectations of what field trips look like for your family.

Tip: 2 field trips a semester. One fun, learning opportunity and one fine arts opportunity. (This is what we do, and it is working wonderfully so far.)

Ok, second, you do not need to homeschool for 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. Even the kids in public school aren’t “doing” school for this long. Because of the sheer number of children to manage, public schools have to have 8-hour days. There is a lot of wasted time going on. 

Most homeschooling is going to be learning how to be a part of the home "business" with drops of curriculum in between. John Taylor Gatto says that it only takes about 50 hours to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. After that, a child can learn by themselves. Our jobs are not to make our children think, but to create an environment that encourages learning for themselves. If daily schedules get overloaded, our children are not free to pursue their own learning, just ours.

Tip: Create a flexible daily routine that includes breaks, physical activity such as play, and time for interests outside of academics.

4. Not Tailoring the Curriculum to the Child’s Learning Style

Every child really does learn differently, even within the same family. It can be easy to make the mistake of choosing a one-size-fits-all curriculum that doesn’t take into account their child’s individual learning style—whether it’s visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or something else.
 
I have 2 main thoughts here: 

• Beware of picking out a curriculum that fits YOUR learning style. A lot of us can get super distracted by curriculums that we would've loved in school. But that doesn't mean your child will thrive while doing it.
• Don't be afraid to change curriculums if the one you picked isn’t working. You will not set your child back and, especially early on, there really isn’t any virtue in pressing on in this tough situation. If it’s not working, stop and find something else.

Tip: Research different learning styles and choose or adapt a curriculum that suits your child. Check out the HSLDA article that tells you all about children's learning styles and why understanding these are important. Remember, picking a curriculum doesn't have to happen TODAY. Simply reading, writing, and working on math skills is more than enough to carry your child's learning while you search for a curriculum. 

3. Neglecting to Establish Boundaries Between Home and School Life

So many homeschooling families can often struggle with maintaining a clear separation between school time and family time. I really think this is because so much learning can come from just doing life together. Just to try to avoid making every single moment into a learning moment by constantly quizzing them. Your kids are learning. Simply correct incorrect information as you go while avoiding turning living life into a schoolroom type lecture.

Tip: Set up a designated learning space, even if it's just a small corner of a room. Avoid the urge to constantly “test” your children to see if they are learning while doing life together.
Create a schedule for your day that includes a clear balance for school education and regular family time. This isn’t a schedule to live and die by. But just to help you get the feel for how a regular day can go. Click here for an example of a daily schedule designed for elementary age kids.

2. Feeling Isolated and Not Seeking Support

Homeschooling can be lonely, especially for those who don't know any other homeschooling families. It can be hard to see the need for community and support when you don't even know where to find it. This lack of community and support will not make homeschooling impossible at all, it will just make the long hard days feel harder and you to feel more isolated and lonelier. 

Tip: Find community! Join a local or online homeschooling group to connect with other homeschooling families. Whether through social media, forums, or local co-ops. The HSLDA website has a fantastic resource for finding local and state support groups. Click here to head over to that page.

1. Focusing Too Much on Bringing “School” into the Home

 At the end of the day, educating our children is simply a continuation of us parenting them. This is why public schools themselves are not necessarily the bad guys. ( Although, I say that ignoring the conversation about the amount of propaganda and bad morals in state run schools. That is an important conversation for another day.) Schools are simply the tool a lot of parents use to educate their children.

Avoid trying to duplicate “school” within your home. The school and how they do things isn’t the end all be all in education and it simply wasn’t designed to be replicated in the home. You are in charge of designing how to parent, and educate, your child. You are their expert, and you know what it is they need best. Create a learning environment that is tailored to your child so they can thrive and grow!

Tip: Cultivate what education in your home looks like. One way to do this is determine what YOUR education philosophy is and apply it to the way you educate your child. There are many curriculums designed to cultivate help you cultivate your family rhythm. Go over to the curriculum page to start exploring the different learning styles to see what fits best for your family!

My Final Thoughts:

Chances are you are a brand-new homeschooling family and probably don't know very many other families who do homeschool. Try to not let that intimidate you or discourage you. It is so ok to not know what you are doing at first and adjust as you go. As I said before, you are your child's expert, and you are going to know best what they need to be educated well! You are doing a great job!

Lori

To Know God and to Make Him Known

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Tell me what you think of these ideas! I love how some of these activities allow for multiple kids to play together, so they are great for siblings. 

Lori

To Know God and To Make Him Known

Seriously blogging is hard. I'm not a strong writer and I feel like every time I sit down to write something I get caught up in feeling like I should have something better to say.

I'm not polished. 

I clearly haven't cared about grammar since the 7th grade.

I super struggle with feeling embarrassed about my thoughts.

Imposture syndrome is real guys. It's super real and I know I CANNOT be the only one struggling with it.  So, if you are reading this, I really appreciate you and the time you are giving to read these words. 

This is the last week of summer before co-op is in session for the new school year. Samuel is very excited to go back to seeing friends each week. Every time we go somewhere he asks which friend is going to be there. It's super sweet.

This year will be rough. I am tutoring his class. On community days, the class leader is called a tutor. We are still in the littles class, which is actually a perfect fit for us. Sam still needs the flexibility of the little ages and Colson will be with me as well. I am his childcare too! It's fine, we're fine, this year will be fun! 

Back to tutoring. My job is to model what a CC (Classical Conversations) day looks like. I am modeling what it looks like to go over the information, teach the content, and show ideas for what to do. My goal is to show how I would do this in my own home too. What I am hoping, is that as I model going over the content once a week, my confidence will grow to actually do the work here at home each day. 

Last year as so hard, with Colson just being a baby and with Sam learning so many basic social things. I don't even know what is reasonable to expect from this year... We will see and it will be fine :) 

Ok, that's it for this morning! I hope today is beautiful!

Lori

To Know God and To Make Him Known