Successful Homeschooling Made Easy a Schoolhouse Crew Review
 
Sometimes I wish I could go back and revamp our homeschool, tweek things to make them work better, and work with our schedule that doesn’t have us still schooling by the time dad gets home.
Recently the Schoolhouse Review Crew got a chance to review the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course by Successful Homeschooling Made Easy.
Created by Stephanie Walmsley each lesson in the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course is a step towards a family friendly homeschool program that fits your family and lifestyle.
There are 26 weeks of lessons in this course and they are sent each week as PDFs in your email inbox. Each PDF is 7 to 20 pages long. Stephanie recommends printing them out and keeping them in a binder for future reference. Good tip!
A Walk Through the Beginning of Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course
To quickly get up to speed for this review we were sent the first four lessons at once.
Lesson 1 Start Homeschooling Today and Literacy: Lesson 1 was an introduction to how the program works and what you can expect in the coming weeks.
After the introduction we started working through a questionnaire that ended with creating a schedule and before homeschool morning routine that fit our home life style. Morning or Afternoon. We landed in morning which was a surprise to me.
Initially I didn’t care what the answers were and I went for the later riser schedule. Turns out that actually didn’t work for us and we are morning homeschoolers (never would have thought that).
Stephanie also had us break up our homeschool day up a little differently than we normally would. The first half of the homeschool day is called “Literacy Hour” where you work on your child’s literacy. Now this is the area where my daughter excels so I usually left it for later in the day when she was less fresh but we have since moved it to morning per Ms. Walmsley’s suggestion.
There are also tips on what kinds of things to work on during this time but since we already have a curriculum I just skimmed those areas.
You can see our before and after homeschool scheduled below…
Lesson 2 Math Made Easy: Here we worked on fitting Math into our schedule. Since we are already working with a full curriculum I just put that in after the recommended break. There were also recommended books and every day activities that will help your child apply math to every day life.
Math is a subject that is notorious for being difficult to grasp. We received suggestions for resources, games to play and how to include math in every day living. Some of this I already knew and attempt to do but there were a few tidbits in there I hadn’t thought of.
Note: There is also a bonus lesson on Math that is almost like a set of homeschool math lessons in themselves.
Lesson 3 Welcome Home: Lesson 3 is kind of like a breather. It’s a full lesson of inspirational quotes and tidbits from fellow seasoned homeschoolers. Every homeschool experience is different but here you can read what worked for some and what didn’t.
Lesson 4 Fireproof Your Homeschool: That’s a nice name for this lesson. Since we’re supposed to be 4 weeks into creating a homeschool routine this is where we tweeked things that weren’t working and pulled together a long term vision for our homeschools. So far things were working so I didn’t tweek. Stephanie also asks some personal questions not normally heard in homeschool circles. What does mom want for her future? Hmmmm….. I tried to envision my daughter away from home, my husband retired and what would we be doing? I think I know but not ready to share yet…
Lesson 5, 3 Key Ingredients for Success: By now the bulk of our homeschool schedules are done. This is probably more for a homeschooler that is putting together their own curriculum. Like I’ve said (over and over, and over again) we use a boxed curriculum and a few other things so for us it’s mostly a matter of putting it to paper in a different arrangement than I previously had going on.
Lesson 5 was homework for you mom but before that the suggestion is made to play some classical music throughout the day. In our boxed DVD curriculum, whenever it comes to seatwork they do this, play some pretty classical music. I had actually never thought, “Gee Kemi why not pull out all those great classical CDs you have and play them during seatwork?” Anyway so we’ve been doing that when we have extra writing going on. That’s a nice new extra addition to our day. We do tend to humm along so we’ll see if that increases focus for us or reduces it.
Also we are guided to figure out what you want from this homeschool journey and where you see yourself in 10 or so years down the line. A little bit more of me thinking. Hmmm…..
Lesson 6, Fulfilling Your Own Dreams: This was another lesson on not forgetting to see to your own needs and taking care of you so that you can give your child what they need and want. To say it nicely I think in this day and age in the general public there is generally less of mom neglecting herself than there used to but there are quite a few homeschooling self sacrificing moms who need a hug and some TLC.
What Did I Think of the Successful Homeschooling Made Easy Course
Totally reworking our schedule based on Stephanie’s suggestions of when to do what subjects I moved our math to later in our school day and started of with English, Reading, and the like. After doing that I just knew we would be in school ALL DAY! But you know what ?! Since incorporating this new schedule we have been finishing much quicker and really getting through our subjects with more clarity. It’s kind of strange. I don’t know if Stephanie meant for this to happen but it’s really feeling good and my daughter is excited. By the way she went through the answering of questions and picking out a schedule with me.
Revamping our schedule has actually shortened our school days (yaaayyy).
Right now we’re into Lesson 8 of Successful Homeschooling Made Easy and I really like what I’ve been gleaning so far. We’re just getting into the good part where we balance school and home (rubbing hands together). Parents can have a tendency to run themselves and their children into the ground seeking out activities to be involved it. Activities are nice but not overdoing it is nicer.
I’m not a newbie to homeschooling and there is a bit of homeschooling in my extended family but a course like this has helped me to tweek and touch up some areas that may get missed when you open the box and pull out your curriculum.
In the interest of doing this review I’ve only scratched the surface
I’m excited to keep going with this eCourse and see where we can take our homeschool.
This eCourse is designed for the new homeschooler and for the seasoned but stressed out homeschooler alike. Enjoy homeschooling again and get past the burnout.
Getting ready to homeschool? Need to breathe some fresh air into your stale homeschooling days? Sign up for Successful Homeschooling Made Easy for just $10 a month or get the full eCourse for a one type payment of $48.
