From Chaos to Confidence: Organizing Your Homeschool Year With Guest Amie Gardner
Homeschool Better Together with Pam Barnhill
Pam Barnhill
4.9 • 683 Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to the Homeschool Better Together Podcast. In today's episode, host Pam Barnhill and guest Amie Gardner dive into the intricacies of homeschool planning and the tools that can make it all more manageable. Amie shares her experience using Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot, which has been a game-changer in balancing lesson plans for her family and creating a confident, structured homeschooling environment.
We'll also hear about Amie's journey from feeling overwhelmed with curriculum to finding flexibility and peace of mind. Pam and Amie reflect on the pressures of finding the perfect curriculum and fostering a love for learning in children.
This episode is packed with valuable insights, practical tips, and heartfelt discussion aimed at helping you navigate your homeschooling journey with confidence and ease.
Resource and Links:
- Homeschool Planet
- All About Reading
- Tapestry of Grace
- Sonlight Curriculum
- Put Your Homeschool Year on Autopilot
- Navigating High School
- Homeschooling Better Together Community
Key Takeaways:
- Discover how Amie Gardner uses Put Your Year on Autopilot and Plan Your Year to simplify homeschool planning, providing a checks and balances system for her lesson planning
- Understand the benefits of online homeschool planners in tracking and shifting dates, helping to create an organized education plan within a short timeframe.
- Explore the flexibility and customization offered by Plan Your Year, making it adaptable for any homeschool approach and reducing chaos in daily schedules.
- Hear Amie's journey from starting homeschooling due to her oldest child's struggles in public school, to finding the right resources that helped her develop a confident and effective homeschool routine.
- Learn the advantages and potential challenges of the buffet curriculum approach, and the importance of making decisions ahead of time to avoid decision fatigue.
- Gain insights into the benefits of structured yet flexible planning processes that provide a sense of direction, reduce overwhelm, and ensure comprehensive subject coverage.
- Reflect on the balance between finding the perfect curriculum and fostering a love for learning, understanding the pressure on curriculum providers and the value of scripted homeschool curriculums.
For full show notes and a transcript of today’s episode, head to pambarnhill.com/hsbt6
To join our free homeschool community, you can create an account right here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? |
| 0:05.4 | Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? |
| 0:10.3 | Welcome to Home School Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. |
| 0:18.2 | I'm Pam Barnhill, and it's time to step out of the overwhelm and |
| 0:22.0 | into the wonder. Let's do this. I am joined today by homeschool mom, Amy Gardner. She is a member |
| 0:34.2 | of our homeschool better together community, and she is also one of our super planners. |
| 0:40.1 | She has been using Put Your Home School Year on autopilot. And we wanted to have her come on today and talk to you about her experience doing that and how it has helped her planning. So Amy, welcome to the podcast. |
| 0:53.8 | Thank you, Pam. Thanks so much for having me. |
| 0:56.3 | Oh, well, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on. Can you start off by telling |
| 1:01.2 | everybody just a little bit about your homeschool and like how many kids you're homeschooling and how long |
| 1:05.9 | you've been doing it? Yes, so I have five kids, but I'm homeschooling three of them right now. Two of them chose to go to the public school for high school. And I started homeschooling when my oldest was in first grade. We were in the public schools and we pulled him out and started homeschooling. And that was back in 2013. So been homeschooling for quite a while. And the three that I have at home are ages 14, |
| 1:33.6 | nine, and four. So I got quite the range at home right now. Yeah, you do. So what was it that |
| 1:41.6 | prompted you guys to start homeschooling? We were not getting the support |
| 1:46.3 | in the public school that we needed to get. We were watching our oldest really just struggle |
| 1:54.1 | socially. He actually was worse in the public school socially than he wasn't home, which is usually the opposite |
| 2:03.8 | of what everyone says to you when you first start homeschooling. But we pulled him for a year |
| 2:09.7 | and decided, let's just see what happens. And even our pediatrician noticed a difference in him |
| 2:15.8 | and just really noticed that he was thriving at home |
| 2:19.6 | because he was feeling safe at home. And he also was bored there. You know, the math program, |
| 2:30.5 | they have you do these math facts sheets. And he knew the math fact sheets within the first |
| 2:38.1 | two weeks of the school year and the you know the teacher was very kind but she just said |
| 2:45.5 | this is what I got to get my kids to and if they they're above it, then there's not much leeway I |
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