SR 869: Flexible Planning: Homeschooling with Purpose – Pam Barnhill, Part 3

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Building your consistency muscle in your homeschool is going to have

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the biggest benefit for your homeschool over anything

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else. It is bigger than choosing the perfect curriculum. It

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is bigger than getting the right method. It’s bigger than all of that.

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Just choosing something and being consistent with it

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regularly. Hey, everyone, this is Yvette Hampton.

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Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am back with Pam Barnhill

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and we are having a great time this week. She is such an encouragement to

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me. I’ve told you guys this before, but one of the reasons I continue doing

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this podcast is because even though I’ve graduated my oldest,

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I still have five years to go, and I still always feel

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like I need encouragement from other homeschool moms and

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resources. And sometimes I find that things aren’t working the way that I’ve been doing

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them. As a matter of fact, this year, I mean, it’s just a whole new

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season for us as an only homeschooling one child instead of two. And it is

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different. And so I’m always trying to find ways to be encouraged. And

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so I love having guests on like Pam who encourage me and

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give me resources, and she’ll say something. I’m like, oh, I never thought about that

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before. That’s a really great idea. And so she is, she’s just such a joy

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to have. So if you missed the last two episodes with Pam, go back and

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listen to those and you will be greatly encouraged. So we’re going to keep talking

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about these things today. But before we do, I want to say thank you to

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our sponsor, BJU Press Homeschool. If you’re looking for great Christian

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homeschool curriculum that is taught from a really good, solid biblical

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worldview, and whether that is teacher led or video led, whatever works

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best for your homeschool, check them out

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bjupresshomeschool.com. and they’ve got something for you.

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Bjupresshomeschool.com. well, Pam, welcome

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back to the schoolhouse Rocked podcast. Um, let’s talk about,

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like, just having an abundant homeschool. Like what? Like,

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what are some of the basics? And I know this is something that you and

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your team have been working on for some time now and

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just bringing more encouragement to homeschool

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families so that we’re not just getting through

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with the homeschool years and being able to check that box, but so that we

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can truly have a wonderful and

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fruitful and abundant time with our kids

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as they’re under our roof and we’re homeschooling them. Yeah, yeah. So

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we have been exploring this idea of kind of the five

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basics to an abundant homeschool. And you’re right, we

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don’t just want to get by with our kids. We actually want it to be

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life giving, not just for our children, but also for us as

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well. And so how can we homeschool with a little bit more

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joy? And then what are the basic steps to that? Whether we’re brand

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new to homeschooling or maybe we’ve been homeschooling for ten or 15 years

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and we feel like we need a reset. And so we’ve come up with kind

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of these five basic things that we feel like you, you know, it’s

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good to have in place. And the first one of those is to consider

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your motivations. So why are you doing this homeschool

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thing? What does education look like in your home? If

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you’ve caught the first two episodes from earlier this week, I’ve mentioned it a couple

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of times now, like, what is your homeschool vision? So I really think

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there are three parts to this. Like, what is important about

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education to you and your family? That’s the first thing. You

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know, some families might be a little more stem oriented.

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They may be more all about the freedom that comes from homeschooling,

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whereas other families, they might be a little more academics

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oriented, or we’re all about relationships or

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child led learning. It’s going to be different for every single family.

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And so what does your family think about motivation? So that’s the first

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thing. The second thing, or what does your family think about education?

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The second thing is, what is your motivation? Why are you

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homeschooling? Because when homeschooling gets hard and it’s going

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to, you want to be able to look back on that why?

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And remind yourself why you’re doing all this hard

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work. Why are you doing this? And then the third part of this kind of

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consider your motivations is the atmosphere of your

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home. Like, I would just encourage you to sit down with a blank piece of

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paper and prayerfully consider writing down, what do you

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want the atmosphere of your home to be like? Do you want it to be

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light and vibrant and busy? Do you want it to

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be full of science experiments and art

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supplies? Do you want it to be cozy and quiet?

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I mean, you can cultivate quiet in your home school.

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So, like, what is the atmosphere of your home? Because that

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is what you can control. You can work on the particular

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atmosphere. You can’t necessarily control where your kids end up 20 years from

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now, but the atmosphere is something that you could

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absolutely work on. So considering your motivations,

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is step one. That’s your first basic, and then your next

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one is to establish simple routines.

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So every homeschool family, whether they want more of a

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daily flow and a daily rhythm, or if they

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want something way more structured, you know, the Charlotte Mason people

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sometimes pull out their timetables and they’re like, we’re going to be doing

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these subjects at these times. Yeah, that never worked for

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me. But more power to them. Whatever the case may be,

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you’re going to need some kind of routine for your day.

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Some kind of. We’re starting with this and we’re moving on to this next

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thing. I like to plan my day in these big chunks. You

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know, we kind of have pre morning time. When the

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kids were little, that was a time that they got up to play. I was

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getting a few morning chores done. Now it’s very quiet

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in my house. Pre morning time, I actually have to go wake people

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up for that time of day. Then we would move

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into morning time, after morning time, morning basket, we would move

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into individual work. And then individual work would just

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vary depending on the age of the kid as to how long it took. But

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I love to plan my day in those big chunks. But every single

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day, the big chunks kind of happened in the same order.

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And that was that routine that I had established for us.

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And those routines are very important. The third step, the

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third basic that I have for an abundant homeschool is

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commit to a minimum viable

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day, or I like to call it an MVD.

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So your minimum viable day is the least amount

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of school that you can do and still

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feel good about having gotten a school

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day done. Did that make sense? Yeah,

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absolutely. Okay. Because sometimes if you’re only. If you only

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have time to do a few things, what are those few things

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that you’re going to focus on? Right. And what. What we’ve discovered when people

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start this process, this minimum viable day process, and

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this is something that we’ve always taught in our homeschool consistency boot

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camp. For people who have struggled with homeschool, consistency is a lot of times people

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try to add too much to their minimum viable day. Like, I’m really talking

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about for a while with some of my kids, it was math and morning

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time, or even I had one kid who really

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struggled with dyslexia. And so it became like reading

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instruction and morning time, or reading instruction in math, like

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two to three subjects. And so the

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next part of that is commit to it, because

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building your consistency muscle in your homeschool is going to have

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the biggest benefit for your homeschool over anything

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else. It is bigger than choosing the perfect curriculum. It

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is bigger than getting the right method. It’s bigger than all of that.

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Just choosing something and being consistent with it

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regularly. And so when you decide what that minimum viable day

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is and you commit to it, then you’re proving to yourself that

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you can be a consistent homeschooler. And perhaps even more importantly,

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you’re proving to your kids that we’re gonna get up and we’re gonna do school

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every day. And so you get a lot less pushback from them.

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Your days just flow more smoothly. Sure. Because then they know what

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to expect. That’s exactly right. They know what to expect. That

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establishing your routines and committing to that minimum

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viable day. And so it got to where, like, even if we had to run

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to the doctor’s office for part of the day, or,

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you know, if the day just went crazy, off the rails, or sometimes

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if I just got distracted by scrolling on my phone

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and I looked up and it was like, it’s 11:00 a.m. right?

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We’ve done nothing and we’ve got to get out the door to gymnastics

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at 130 homeschool gymnastic class. There’s no

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way I’m going to get my school day done. At least I

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had my minimum viable day to fall back on. And that just told the

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kids we did school because they weren’t keeping track, they weren’t keeping

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sure of what was a minimum day and not a minimum day.

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Right. For them. We were either doing school or not doing

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school. And so having that MVD, that means we did

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school on those days. And it maintained that routine. It

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maintained that consistency. You know, we run that

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homeschool consistency boot camp, and we’ve been doing it

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often. Yeah. Since about 2017. I had

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this mom one time, I was speaking at a homeschool convention, and she came and

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she sat down in my booth. She says, I have a funny story for you.

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She had four teenagers. Like, her youngest was like twelve or 13.

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And she said, I got up yesterday, I was laying in my bed at 08:00

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a.m. and I knew that I was traveling

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here yesterday. So I’m laid in my bed at 08:00 a.m. and I hear

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all the doors down the hallway of my house open,

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and my kids come out and pad to the living room and sit

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down, ready to start school. She says, I totally

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forgot to tell them that we were not going to be doing school. That day.

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They had been in our consistency boot camp. She’d been in it for the six

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weeks before that. And her teenagers, that’s

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just what they did. They just got, came out and sat down even though

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she wasn’t there. They were ready to start school. Oh, my goodness. Because

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she had built that consistency muscle and she just said, you know, there was so

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much less pushback, so much less strife in her

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homeschool because they had been homeschooling so consistently over that

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six weeks. Yeah. That is so good. I

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think that’s like every homeschool mom’s dream is for their kids to just show

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up on the couch. Oh, wake. You talked about having to wake up your kids.

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Oh, dear. My girls. I always tell them they’re like

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the best, worst waker uppers in the world. I know it’s not a

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word, but it is so hard to wake them up. My youngest used

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to be, she’s the one who requires the least amount of sleep, I

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think of all of us in our family. And she’s just very personable, very

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active, loves life. She’s just awake and

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ready for the day. And she has always been that way since she was born.

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I mean, just like she would wake up with a smile on her face and

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singing and ready for the day. And then she hit 13 and

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she, she is still such a delight. But it’s just so funny because now, I

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mean, she could sleep till twelve or 01:00 if I would let her. And it’s

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like those, those clocks turn. They become teenagers and all of a sudden

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they need so much more sleep. And so I find that difficult

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sometimes, too, to know, like, okay, they really need

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sleep, but they don’t sleep until 12:00 during the school

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year, but during the summertime, I’ll let them sleep late. I don’t care. Um, there’s

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not that much going on. And, um, but, yeah, it’s, it’s hard

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to get them up and get them motivated and, and going in the morning because

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they’re just so tired. And so I find it difficult

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to get them up when I know that they need sleep in the morning. But

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it’s, it’s necessary. We have to get up and do life. So let’s take a

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break. We’ll be right back.

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We are back with Pam. All right, we’ve talked about three of the five

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basics. What are the last two? So basic

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number four is to sprinkle wonder. So once you

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kind of get your vision, you get your routine in place and you

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are working on being consistent. The next thing we want to do is we really

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want to start adding a little bit of wonder to our

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homeschool. And when I talk about wonder, you know, GK

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Chesterton has this wonderful quote. He says that the world will never

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starve for want of wonders, but only for want

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of wonder. And he’s talking about us and our ability

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to marvel at different things. And that’s

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a great quote. I love it so much. But I don’t want you to think,

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oh, great, now I’ve got to go out and find all these marvelous things for

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my kids to look at, because wonder is also a verb. So

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how can we. How can we be curious about the world around

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us? How can we be excited about some of the things that we’re learning?

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And notice that I said sprinkle wonder, not drench your

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homeschool in wonder. I mean, everything you do in your homeschool is not going to

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be just, you know, turning cartwheels kind of fun.

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It’s just not the way it works. So I like to focus on bringing more

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joy than fun to your home school. Like, we don’t want to have to

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be feeling like we’ve got to tie ourselves up in knots in order to make

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every lesson absolutely fun. But we can sprinkle those little bits

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of wonder. And one of the ways that I like to do that is by,

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you know, changing up some topics. We have our

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explorations in our wonder studies

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in our membership on the website. And every month is a different topic.

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And we explore the music related to that topic and the art related

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to that topic. And it’s just a fabulous way

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our members can sign up for a text where they get a text every morning

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with one activity. And even with teenagers, it’s

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just a fabulous way to add, you know, a couple years ago, my

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kids just were fascinated. There was this photographer,

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the theme for the month was bugs, and there was this

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photographer who had taken these, like, super close up macro shots of all of

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these different bug body parts. And we spent a couple of

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days just marveling at these photos

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and his process and how he took these photos. It was just absolutely

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fascinating. It started so many different conversations. With my teens,

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we also have read, like, math poems.

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There’s this great book by Fiona Pappas called Math Poetry

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in two voices. And so you would read the poems

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together, and sometimes you would alternate

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reading lines, but other times the lines were meant to be read on top of

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each other. And we just had such a fun time reading poems about

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pie and tessellations and just all of these topics that don’t

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normally show up in your kids mathematic curriculum. Yeah. Oh, wow. I don’t,

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I have no idea what a tessellation is. Yeah, so they’re repeating patterns, but

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just great little sprinkles of wonder. Keeps the

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learning interesting and exciting even, you know, even for your

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teenagers, even for you, you know, just learning alongside your kids. So

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that’s, that’s number four. And then the last one would be to

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anticipate adjustments. So any time that we’re going

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to be talking about homeschooling, there are things that are going to need to

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be adjusted. And, you know, it’s always great to like set your plan up beginning

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of the school year and go, this is perfect for the whole year.

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And, you know, like three months later, you’re like, this is not perfect for the

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whole year. And so I really

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encourage you first of all to schedule in what we call

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periodic reviews into your homeschool planning time.

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So, you know, every six weeks, every twelve weeks, something

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like that. Taking a look at what’s working and what’s not working,

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holding off on making curriculum changes until those

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periodic review times. Sometimes if you just kind of push

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through the hard parts a little bit, you don’t actually have to go pull out

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your credit card to try to solve your problem. That’s another thing. And

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then finally to realize that the homeschool year, you

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can’t maintain August energy

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right throughout your entire homeschool year. It is perfectly natural

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and normal for the energy and the vibe of your

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homeschool to ebb and flow as the year goes on. So as you’re sitting

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there in November, you’re sitting there in February and you’re

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wondering, why is this just not like it was in August?

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It’s not supposed to be. It’s just natural and normal

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for this to kind of go up and down. And when we lean

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into the fact that that’s natural and normal, then we stop beating

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ourselves up for why can’t we maintain this intensity throughout the whole school

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year? Yeah, and every homeschool mom for the most part,

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is like that. We go through these seasons and I feel like usually

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we kind of end on a higher note because we know

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summer’s coming. And then now we’re in the middle of summer and I’m

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like, ah, you know, I can’t wait to, for school to be back. You

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know, we just get so anxious about being back into the rhythm

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of school and just that schedule. And so

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summer’s fun, but it also,

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you know, I don’t know. I like the structure of the school year better.

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Yeah. I think the biggest thing is just to realize that you’re

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never going to maintain like August. For most of us who went to

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public school, there’s this excitement, there’s this like,

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you know, you see all the shiny school supplies out,

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new curriculum, a new schedule, you see all the back to school photos and maybe

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you do something fun like a not back to school day or something. And it’s

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just really awesome. It just like it’s not meant to

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stay the whole year long. You would just be completely worn out.

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So. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Such good stuff.

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Pam, in the last few minutes we have just a couple minutes left,

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just throughout. Some other resources that you have because you have so many.

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So I know you can’t possibly list them all, but what are some

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other things that would just help as we’re kicking off this new school year?

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Help these moms to be able to homeschool successfully with, you

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know, excitement and encouragement.

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Because it’s what we need. Moms need encouragement. So if you don’t

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have your year planned, I do highly recommend you come and check out our course.

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Put your homeschool year on autopilot. So many of the

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planning things that I’ve talked about today are

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included in the course. And we walk you step by step on how to create

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that flexible plan for your home school. For

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those mamas and dads who are

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starting the high school years, we now have a high school resource called

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navigating high school, which is a comprehensive course for

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parents who are maybe a little bit apprehensive about high school. How do I do

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this? And so we walk you through it step by step. We have a transcript

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generator in there. And then we focus heavily on

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a lot of not only the practical things that you need to do,

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but also the mindset shifts that are

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vital to feeling confident that you’re doing

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what you need to do in homeschooling high school. And then

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we’re really leaning into whole family learning over at

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homeschool better together. So we have a few resources for that.

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Our wonder studies. That is our monthly membership. It has

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three different pieces. It has our little explorers preschool program,

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our explorations, which is all fine arts, and then

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our voyages, which is unit studies. But all

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three revolve around the same theme. So you can take kids

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of any age range. In August it’s bees and honey,

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in September it’s apples. And then we get into

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like themes like ships and sailing and presidents and

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engineering. We just have so many fun themes switches up every

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month, but you’re able to do your science, your history

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and geography and your language arts using these

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themes in our voyages. And then we have this fabulous

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new resource called language arts together, which I

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absolutely love. I wrote a couple of these last year with, I

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did one with trumpet of the swan and the magician’s nephew. And so those are

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designed to take kids in like first through 8th grade and using

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differentiated instruction, being able to do a

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large part of your language arts with just one engaging read

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aloud. Yeah. And your kids at the table. And so we break it down, we

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give you a daily lesson. We tell you exactly what to do,

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exactly what to say. The lessons take about 20 to 30

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minutes and you’ve got language arts for your entire family. And

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then our brand new resource, following on the heels of that,

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is citizenship together. And our first unit with that one is about the

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us election coming up this fall. Same kind of

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principle. This one’s geared a little more towards middle school, but

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you’re able to bring in a large age range of kids and

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study the elections altogether. Yeah, that’s going to be

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fun. It’s such an interesting time.

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Current political situation, we’re studying the elections in general and what

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it means and be a good citizen. So, yeah, yeah,

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it is really fun once your kids hit 18 and they’re able to go to

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the voting polls with you. And it’s been fun, you know, taking

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Brooklyn and, yeah, I texted a little. Bit sticker on

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primary day and I’m like, you

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get to go vote. And she’s like, well, who for? And I’m like, I don’t

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know. You’re the one who has to figure that out. Right?

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But you do get to go vote. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. So

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much fun for them. So. Well, Pam, thank you again so much for

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your time this week. It has been such a pleasure chatting with you. You guys

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can find all things Pam Barnhill at our website, pambarnhill.com,

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and we will put links to all the things in the show notes to make

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it easy for you guys to find. Thank you so much for being with us.

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If you have not listened to my husband Garritt’s new podcast, the

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Thinking Dad, please listen to it. It’s so good. And then pass

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it on to your husband because it’s funny. We have heard now from several

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moms who listen to it and they’ve been so encouraged by it. And I love

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that moms are listening as well. Um, but it is, it is definitely

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geared towards the men, but the guests that he’s had on there have been phenomenal.

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And so you will be encouraged as well. And you can listen to it together

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as a family. And that would be a great thing for you guys to do.

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So listen to it wherever you’re listening to this podcast or watching on

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YouTube. It’s called the Thinking Dad. And we will be back next

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week with another fantastic guest. Stay tuned to hear what’s coming up next on the

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podcast, and we will see you back here then. Bye.