[Tea] Starter Kit for Home Educators (like you! 😉)

Welcome to "Tea with Julie," a weekly missive by me, Julie Bogart. My wish is to give you food for thought over a cup of tea to enhance your life as an educator, parent, and awesome adult. Glad you're here. Pinkies up!
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Cincinnati, August 22, 2020

Hi Friend,

Whether you're brand new to homeschool, new to Brave Writer, or simply back at it again, I know you want to be the best home educator you can be for your kids.

You may spend hours researching which curriculum to buy, but how much time do you dedicate to becoming the kind of home educator your children deserve?

This summer, I did a series of four podcasts designed to give you the teacher-training you need.

I share with you strategies for how to make your home a place where learning is contagious and consistent!

So grab your Airpods or your Beats or whatever headphones you use and tune in.

Consider this series your Home Education Teacher In-Service Training!

1. Out of the Classroom: Brave Schooling

Lots of you are working and schooling. I get it. I've done it!

This school year is different from any other. We're not going into it with the same sense of confidence or the same tools, resources, and experiences that we rely on to be good homeschoolers. Instead, we’re coming in with uncertainty amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this podcast episode, I help you let go of schoolish expectations and embrace your home as a perfect place to create learning opportunities. I talk about how homeschooling differs from traditional school and the essential steps to facilitate learning at home.

Learning is not an activity that is confined to just school, and I want to teach you how to make learning a natural part of your life and your children's!

2. Joy-Centered Learning for the Reluctant Learner

Once you embrace a new way to bring learning to life, inevitably one of your kids will resist.

You may ask: What do I do about children who refuse to learn—children who:

balk,
throw fits,
and are consistently in a bad mood about their education?

What now?

Learn how to step back from insistence and coercion to rediscover the joy of learning—whether that comes through interests or directed school subjects. This episode is deeply practical with steps you can take to make even academic subjects meaningful to the most resistant learner.

3. Creativity in Teaching

Now that you are the primary director of your child's education, you may wonder how to make it interesting to your kids.

Are you one of those people who thinks you aren’t inventive enough to imagine creative learning experiences?

I invite you to summon new definitions for creativity and imagination in teaching. In fact, I happen to know that if you tap into what you're already good at, you'll be able to teach your children any subject (even the ones that are challenging to you!).

In this episode, I walk you through five stages of creativity in teaching and offer you oodles of ideas for how to bring that creativity into your homeschool.

4. Growing Minds

Finally, what's the point of all this education if your children' don't become more curious about the world, more able to assess and explore it themselves? We have a sacred trust: growing our children's minds.

Did you ever think of learning as training your brain chemistry?

The goal of skill-building in learning is automaticity, fluency, ease of use. It’s as useful to the child learning to ride a bike as it is the teen learning to think critically. Becoming automatic looks like

ease,
skill, or
fluency.

For novice homeschoolers, teaching from the book seems like the easiest and most approachable way to educate. But what if you looked at workbooks as a reinforcing tool, not as the main teaching tool? What if instead you found ways to convey the power of that subject outside of the book first?

In this episode, I show you how to cultivate the critical thinker in your child! You can do it!

Once you have listened to all four podcasts, you will feel a sigh of relief knowing you have tools to help you be the best educator you can be for your children.

If you are still worried about public school standards after all that, I hear you!

Tune in for my fifth podcast in the starter kit.

BONUS Episode

5. When You Worry about Public School Standards

I know this is your underlying fear, so let's deal it a knock-out blow, shall we?

Let’s talk about the difference between being educated and schooled, being a learner and being a student.

Are you worried that you may “ruin” your kids? They may love learning but will they have serious academic gaffes if you keep your kids home? Or perhaps you worry they won’t be socialized or will miss out on school traditions like sports, marching band, prom, and Spanish club.

Do you wonder how a child “catches up” if behind in a particular subject area?
What happens to the child who wants to enter school but never kept up with math or skipped over science?

Homeschoolers have proven for decades that they can enter the school system at any point in time and be successful. While we all know that in theory, it's easy to wonder if your child is the exception.

So let’s put that fear to rest once and for all.

I'm so glad you are a part of our Tea with Julie community.

If you're looking for ongoing support in your homeschool, take a look at the Brave Learner Home where we do this kind of training all year long.

Here's to a great 2020-2021!

Warmly,

P.S. Catch up on all the “Tea with Julie” emails here!