It’s the time of year when new opportunities and new goals — and maybe new pressures — are everywhere around us! How do you create focus so you don’t get overwhelmed? In simple terms, keep what you need and what you know works and when you need something more, steal ideas and make them your own. Listen in as Gina and Christyn offer their best ideas for being a keeper AND a homeschool kleptomaniac!
4:34 When we think of “keeping,” we’re talking about keeping records, keeping a schedule, and keeping your relationship in a positive place. When we turn to “kleptomania,” (and not taking the medical diagnosis lightly at all), we look at the casual cultural use of the word, as in basically taking ideas from wherever you can find them.
6:54 Gina talks about keeping schoolwork for a graduating senior, and her methods for saving and purging through the years
9:48 Christyn has what she refers to as her “Little Women” shelves of plastic tubs, all neatly labeled with what she’s required to keep by state mandate, and what she keeps for sentimental reasons
12:30 If you’ve got a system that works for you, keep it! Gina talks about the scheduling systems she’d had in the past and how that changed up recently when her son got a job
15:14 Christyn talks about the “two classes then a break” system she’s used since the beginning that still works in the high school years — and how the occasional siren call to switch up things for a new idea doesn’t always work out!
17:00 Once you find your fit for your homeschool style, routine, schedule, whatever, keep to it. Because in the end, that’s going to lead to the most important thing of all to keep: your relationship.
17:48 Gina talks about how prioritizing the relationship made a difference in homeschooling
20:44 Christyn talks about a “make it or break it” relationship moment in her homeschool
22:51 Moving to “kleptomania,” Christyn shares the ways she took parts of popular homeschooling trends and made them work for her over the years
23:58 Gina talks about stealing ideas from herself! She and her husband are self-employed and she realized some of their business practices would work well for homeschooling, too
26:55 Look carefully at ALL the options out there, then take all of that information and then make it work FOR YOUR HOUSE
27:15 Gina and Christyn talk about how they took ideas to create programs for their homeschool group, such as Geography Fair and co-op — and how, as they transition away from leadership roles in those areas, they fully expect new leaders to keep some ideas and steal other new ideas to keep those programs fresh
29:15 As homeschool parents, we’re the keepers of everything: documentation, routines, physical and emotional health. It can be hard, so when we see ways to make our job easier, we take them. We figure out how to use them. We keep what works for us. That’s how we homeschool
