Lisa from Golden Grasses a Homeschoolers at Home Interview

Today we’re talking with Lisa Nehring of Golden Grasses. Lisa is a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew this year with me and I thought it would be nice to get a glimpse into her home and life and find out how she homeschools.

Kemi: Tell us a little bit about your children’s ages and grades?

Lisa: I am currently homeschooling my youngest two kids, ages 14 (9th gr) and 11 (6th gr). We’ve graduated 3 kids from homeschool so far- our oldest is 27, a college grad, married and working, our 24 is grad of a Cosmetology program, recently engaged and just purchased a house with her fiancé, our 20 year is a current full time college student.

Kemi: What homeschooling method do you use?

Lisa: I have the privilege of working at home and am also a distributor for Organo Gold Coffee and Tea. I also Tutor a Master’s class for our Classical Conversations Foundations class and my husband and I often speak on parenting, marriage and education.

Kemi: Lisa can you give us a peek into your typical homeschool day?

Lisa: My husband and I get up first and I check my work email and Skype. My husband leaves between 9-10 a.m. so often we’ll share news or chat over coffee with our 20 year old, who lives at home and attends college full time locally. The kids get up a bit later than we do and they will eat, feed the dog and barn cats, chat with us, read, or sneak outside to play before I call them to start school for the day!

My husband is a social scientist by profession and a science nerd by passion and he checks the NOAA and NASA sites daily, along with other places like Biblical Archeology Review, etc. He often spends time each day sharing information on these sites with the kids, or showing fascinating discoveries (the excavation of King David’s Temple in Jerusalem or the Orion landing on the NASA website). My kids often go to the NOAA website on their own to check the weather, maps and satellites.

We get started between 9 and 1 a.m. with review work or grammar chart copy-work. We are part of a Classical Conversations community and Hannah is in Foundations (memory work in seven areas- history, Latin, Grammar, geography, science, Math, Bible) and both kids are in Essentials (grammar, writing, math). We have done CC on our own for several years and our kids know the routine and quite a bit of the memory work.  I go over the Foundations memory work, including timeline with them, geography, using maps, and play some games we might have done in class (I tutor Foundations, so the games come home with us!). I will write mental math problems on the white board for them to solve, ala Essentials. I also print out some review sheets from CC Connected for Hannah and she will work on those. Once memory work, grammar, and mental math is done), we’ll move on to writing our paper for the week (IEW- we’ve used it and I’ve taught it for years), and our other subjects. Hannah is using Spelling U See so I might dictate her spelling to her. Cub works on Latin (he is almost finished with First Form Latin) and Advanced Biology (Apologia). I will explain the day’s math lesson to Hannah (Saxon 8/7) and she will complete it. Cub is working with a tutor using the Art of Problem Solving for Algebra. We are also reading Notgrass American History together.

Both kids take 10 week, on-line live, interactive Learning Labs in the fall, winter and spring through Bridgeway Academy. These classes meet at a set time once a week with homework due a few days before class meets. In the fall, Cub took Chemistry Lab so he usually spent 2-3 hours a week on Saturday mornings with his Dad going over the assignment, doing the experiment, writing up the lab report and submitting the work. Flower took Architecture with Brick Building and would have to send in a picture of her completed project every week as well.

We also have a small (30 person) co-op that meets at our house once a week. This fall the kids have taken The Grammar of Poetry, Biology and a Cultural Awareness class with missionaries who just returned from 4 years in Turkey. There is some homework for each class, including writing poems, doing lab reports and drawing maps of the Middle East so they spend time (usually the day before) getting their homework completed for class!

The same afternoon as our co-op Flower goes to another science class, taught by a friend of ours, focusing on Size in the Universe. She sees friends from a former co-op there, so the focus is two-fold; more great science and seeing life-long buddies!

Every other week on Fridays, both Cub and Flower go to a 1 ½ hour art class, taught by another friend, who has taught our kids art for years in a former co-op. The medium and techniques and artists learned about are varied, but the great training is always consistent!

In the afternoons I make calls for work, do paperwork and keep very busy with my
job. I am mostly available for questions from the kids, but they are pretty independent in the afternoons. They might work on Rosetta Stone on the computer, read something assigned for history or literature, draw, have free time, read out-loud to each other, do chores or focus on homework due. Often the kids will start dinner for me while I am working.

Because we live in the country, surrounded by fields, we do not have neighbors, or people knocking on our door to play. When we are home, we have time to focus on school and work. This means that we have to be intentional about getting together with people, which explains part of how busy it might seem we are.

We are all massive literature and history lovers so we all often have various books going that we share with each other, often reading aloud (our current read-aloud is Wings of Fire). We also love videos and YouTubes and laughing so we take frequent humor breaks with the likes of Tim Hawkins or Mr. Bretts Class. The kids spend as much time outside as possible, even when it’s cold, playing with our current batch of barn cats, climbing trees or tromping through the fields. They all have a great appreciation for nature, having seen a lot of wildlife up close and personal, such as coons, skunks, deer, eagles, hawks, even badgers and martins.

My husband and 20 year old often work or take classes late into the evening and the kids and I eat earlier, perhaps watching a video, reading out-loud or playing a game, while waiting for them to get home. When they do, we re-group in the living room together, sharing information or news of the day. The kids go shower, do their personal Bible reading and then are off to bed. Dad goes in and prayers/ blesses them every night and I go talk to them and tuck them in. We often answer questions about their Bible reading or other things as we do so. (Doesn’t this sound like such a cool homeschool? )

Kemi: We love to see where homeschooling happens. Can you give us a peek into your homeschool room?

Lisa’s Homeschool Room

Kemi: So you know that Homemaking Organized is all about homemaking or the details of home. We love to find out how others keep their homes. Can you tell us about your own homekeeping and how you manage to fit it in with homeschool?

Lisa: My 20 year old has a room in our finished basement, so he “switches around the laundry (we have a laundry shoot- so it all gets “down” to him. Once a week, I fold all the clean clothes and the 14 and 11 year old put it all away.
The kids and I clean the kitchen every morning. We load the dishwasher every night.
We have 2 ½ baths and each kid at home cleans a bathroom every Saturday.
We haul our own trash so the 14 year old takes out the burn-ables and burns them, as well as managing the recyclables. The 20 year old takes out the compost as needed.
We have often had a huge garden and we all garden together, and do yard work together.

Every Wednesday evening the two kids and I thoroughly pick up and clean the first floor and basement as our co-op comes on Thursday. We pick up, dust, vacuum and sweep. Our house is so much cleaner now that co=op is at our house!
We are still doing some house re-building projects from a house fire 5 years ago, so sometimes we have seriously messy construction areas. Our friends are gracious and willing to come to our lived in house and we are so glad to have them despite our lived in house!
I have discovered the JOY of , Norwex cleaning clothes. I’m not a rep, but, seriously, they are brilliant and clean like nothing else (with NO chemicals!) Worth every penny!
My husband and I make our bed every morning. Our kids mostly do : )
I hang up all of the clothes that we’ve thrown on the chair in our bedroom all week long at least once a week!
Kemi: Lisa what other work might you do ?

Lisa: I work as a high school Academic Advisor for Bridgeway Academy- an accredited Home School Academy serving homeschoolers worldwide! I have the privilege of working at home and am also a distributor for Organo Gold Coffee and Tea. I also Tutor a Master’s class for our Classical Conversations Foundations class and my husband and I often speak on parenting, marriage and education.
Kemi: Do you have any crafts or hobbies that you would like to share?

Lisa: Our house re-build has been our main “hobby” for the past ½ decade, along with DIY- you know, furnishing and decorating the house. In the past I have been passionate about fiber arts and scrapbooking.

Lisa Nehring- married to 1 husband, 2 graduate degrees, 5 kids, and a black belt in homeschooling (24 years and counting!)