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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#110: Roadschooling Across America – Mom of 9 Shares Their Story!
What happens when the whole world becomes your classroom? Meet Melissa Smith – mother of nine, road-schooling pioneer, and passionate advocate for educational freedom. In this captivating conversation, Melissa reveals how her family transformed an RV into a learning oasis that has traversed America, turning national parks into science labs and historic sites into living textbooks.
With children ranging from 28 to 11 years old, Melissa brings decades of homeschooling wisdom, sharing how her educational approach evolved from traditional home-based learning to their current nomadic lifestyle.
Particularly moving is Melissa's insight into adapting education for children with different learning needs. Her experience with Auditory Processing Disorder transformed from a challenge into an opportunity to customize learning in ways traditional schools simply couldn't provide.
Whether you're a seasoned homeschooler, a curious parent exploring options, or someone fascinated by unconventional educational paths, this episode offers a treasure trove of practical wisdom. Ready to reimagine what learning could look like for your family? This conversation might just be your roadmap to educational adventure.
For those interested in taking Melissa's Webinar: the next step toward personal empowerment and success, they can learn more and enroll here: or visit my website at www.synholisticsolutions.com.
The Homeschool How To Community: JOIN TODAY!- Be a part of these interviews, join our monthly Q&A sessions, get full access to my Curriculum Series and go through my course and roadmap that condenses all the things I have learned from interviewing homeschoolers! Join today!!
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease:
Let's Talk, Emergencies! -and don't forget The Activity Book!
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region, and should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with us today I have Melissa Smith. Melissa, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited. Where are you right now, melissa? Because you're a traveling homeschool family, huh.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are, and we have been for several years, but right now we are in Southern California. We're actually from California, but we left for the East Coast and we were in the East Coast probably since 2021. And it kind of came back to California, went back to the East Coast and we spent probably a good two years there without coming back to California. But now we're on the West Coast and it's fun. You get to kind of just pick up and go where you want to go.
Speaker 1:So, okay, let's start with how many kids do you have and what are their ages?
Speaker 2:Okay, so, as you said, my name is Melissa Smith and we are a family of nine, we have nine children. And then is Melissa Smith, and we are a family of nine, we have nine children. And then, plus my husband and I, our children range from 28 years old to 11. And when we started homeschooling, it was like in the year 2000 or 2002, around there, so homeschooling looked a lot different back then. And then we started homeschooling on the road in 2019 with our last four little girls, and so we have a daughter, four boys and four girls. I feel like when I'm talking, I'm talking like I have like five different lives, because starting raising children in 1996 and then still raising children in 2025, it's like I'm in two different worlds.
Speaker 1:And can I ask is this too personal? Is it all like the same dad and everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, it is, we got married in 1995.
Speaker 1:We missed diapers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did. We loved them. I mean, I could have owned Walmart, you know, because we had like two or three in diapers at a time, about five car seats at a time. We had like two or three in diapers at a time, about five car seats at a time and with four little boys in one section of our raising children, you know, a girl and then four boys it was like they're very busy, they're very active. Every day was like mommy, where are we going to go? What are we going to do today? And so life looked really different back then, when we had the four little boys and my oldest daughter. Then, when we had the four little boys and my oldest daughter, and then when they got older and we were like, okay, well, we're going to hit the road with the last four girls, and that just felt like a completely different life.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm so grateful to be on this podcast. I was like we could totally make a series because I could take you back in time to 1996. And then you move you forward to 2015. And then now we're in 2025. And we just have a ton of stories and we love to share them. I love to be able to talk about homeschooling, so okay.
Speaker 1:So have they always been homeschooled, or you had them in traditional school for part of?
Speaker 2:it? We did. We did have some of our kids into traditional school and we started when my daughter, like you know, back in the 90s, you could start school at five years old, and so because she was an October baby, she started really young. So I had friends that homeschooled and they taught me what they used to tell me they go, melissa, you need a homeschool like this. It's called the kitchen table schooling. And I said, what's the kitchen table schooling? And so, as I started to learn that you take all your aged kids and you put them around the table, and I had the same curriculum for English and the same for math and we taught as a whole, as a family, so we started homeschooling and then life happened for a little bit and so some of them had to go into school, and that was probably just the first two. And then when we moved from California to Idaho that was a great state to homeschool in, and so we had so much fun just homeschooling. We had seven children by the time we moved there and we just were able to homeschool, do what we wanted to do, which I like doing, is to be able to homeschool the way I want to.
Speaker 2:And a little bit of backstory about myself is when I was younger I went to school to be a teacher. So I was already working with special need kids and I was already getting my degree in teaching. But when I had my first daughter I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. So I didn't quite finish my credential, but I love children and I taught preschool and I just really wanted to be with my own children. I think what happened for me was, through the years I've developed these statements like a mindset of what my purpose is and what my why is. But when I was younger I didn't kind of understand that and I was trying to muck through the the field and homeschooling wasn't like it was today, and so we had some ups and we had some downs and we learned what we liked about public school and we learned what we didn't like about public school.
Speaker 2:And through my journey I've gotten to the point where I absolutely love what we're doing.
Speaker 2:I have my purpose of why we do what we do and I also am a life coach and I work with women and helping them to empower themselves to find their inner happiness through my company called SYN Holistic Solutions, and I'm a specialist for homeschooling moms who just begin.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when you start beginning, it's such a different mindset that you have questions, and I want to be there to help you through this journey, because it really can be a beautiful journey with whatever you decide to do, whether you're at home, whether you're on the road, wherever you're going to educate your children. I've heard in some of your past podcasts and I love one podcast had talked about that we are their first teachers and who's better to teach our kids and educate our children than us? And when you start to think about how many hours a day they're in school and how many hours a day they're actually home with me or with the parent is lopsided, it's not even balanced. And so through the years I wanted to homeschool because I loved my kids so much. I just didn't want to send them all day to somebody who's going to be with them more than me, and I had certain values and beliefs that I wanted to teach and have around my children, and those values I wasn't finding in the school system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so funny it happens so gradually, almost like what's the saying Lobster in hot water Is it what animal?
Speaker 2:is it supposed to be, but the crabs, the crabs in the bucket, and they keep pulling you down.
Speaker 1:Well, no, no, no, the one where it's boiling and you don't know it's boiling.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because it's like they're like okay, we're going to send everybody to school, all right, that sounds like a great idea. Then I don't have to worry about teaching reading and writing and math. And then it went from just like a couple hours a day to slowly longer hours and and earlier ages and later ages, until now it's. I mean, I know in my lifetime I've talked about this you go to kindergarten for half half a day when I was five and now it's full day kindergarten and a full day preschool. So it's like earlier and earlier and earlier that they're just where we don't even think of it. It's like, well, of course I'm going to send them to preschool at four years old, full day in an actual school building. But it's when you stop to think about it it is a little crazy. So that's cool that you've seen kind of the difference of the public school setting and the. You know the homeschooling. How did your kids feel between going? Do they like one more than another?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think for some of them they might have different opinions. I was talking to one of my sons and he's 21 and he was saying some of the things that he really liked about homeschooling, because he was able to go to elementary school and homeschool go to high school and then he ended up homeschooling high school and he said, being able to homeschool, he could go through the curriculum faster and he said that homeschooling allowed him a chance to create a business, to maybe fail at a business and do another business, to be able to have that opportunity at a young age to be an entrepreneur and to be able to grow into his entrepreneurship. He said that he learned so much being able to have that opportunity that now, as a 21 year old, he's very successful.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a huge point too. It's not that every business you are going to have or every idea you're going to have is going to be successful. That doesn't mean you give up. It just means you learn from it and keep going.
Speaker 1:What a valuable lesson and I've been thinking a lot about this is that school just makes you so busy telling you where you got to be throughout the day, and then we just transfer into the workforce where it tells you where you have to be all throughout the day, Right and uh. And then you get to this retirement age of you know, 65 or whatever and you're like I don't even know what my interests are, and they've done such a good job with putting a TV or a screen in front of us that we really never have the time to find what actually interests us or to create things. So I love that homeschooling does give us that time and, like boredom is good.
Speaker 2:Right and I actually really love that. I think when I work with people, I tell them like if you're going to homeschool, there are some questions. I ask what's your purpose of, why you want to homeschool? You know what is your why? Because if you really know your purpose and your why, then you can match your mindset around that. And I find a lot of people who say, oh my goodness, you're on the road and you're homeschooling and you have all these kids. Or even when we were home and we had all the kids homeschooling, you know how do you do this and I just couldn't be with my children that long, all day long, and I said, because I don't public school in my home, If you're going to do public school in your home, then send them to public school. I always say that because my schooling looks very different and I actually don't really care for the word schooling.
Speaker 2:I like the word learning because I want my children to have a love of learning, to be able to not have a light switch. You see kids who go to public school and I've seen this with my own. What do they say when you ask them how do you like school? It's awful. You ask my children. How do you like school? I love it. What did you learn? Oh, we went to Virginia. We went and learned about the Civil War. You know, we did all of these activities and what I was learning in Virginia matched with what I was doing with Acellus Online. And then you have like a conversation with them and they can talk to adults and they can like express their feelings and their excitement of what they're learning.
Speaker 1:When it comes to teaching my kids, I choose the Tuttle Twins curriculum because it's not just for them. I'm learning so much right alongside them. What I love is how engaging it is for kids. They take real world concepts and weave them into stories that kids can actually understand and relate to. Whether it's US history, critical thinking or even the Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies, it's all presented in a way that sticks.
Speaker 1:I especially love learning about government, because I never learned this stuff in school how the government is supposed to work versus how it actually works and it's so cool that I get to have these conversations with my son about it and he gets it. They've got books for toddlers, a fantastic series for ages five through 11, and so much more. They even have a Tuttle Twins Academy. I can't wait to get started on that, because they have classes for business and entrepreneurship. You can get 40% off select items using code Cheryl40. That's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0. Just grab the link in the show's description and start learning together as a family. Trust me, you'll love what you're going to learn, because they never taught this to you in school.
Speaker 2:And I say don't ever lose that, because learning is not a light switch. I'm still going to learn at 52 and I'm going to learn at 72 and I'm going to learn at 105. There's no light switch and I feel like the public school is giving us an in-service of where the children think this is school and when there's no more school, I'm done learning and I'm like that's not true, because we always need to be adding a skill, we always need to be figuring out what's my passion, what am I good at, what could I enhance and be better at? So in our homeschool it's very much looking at each individual and seeing you're really good at this. Would you like to take some classes at this? Like, your art is amazing. What would you like to do with it? You could do graphic design. We could like take you to this class and you could, you know, learn some more mediums, they say in art, and so we talk about it and I don't know if you like storytelling, but I do have a really wonderful story about one of my kids. Do you want to hear a little bit of a story?
Speaker 2:So, one of my kids. He was in school, out of school and he was our child that had four blood clots when he was a baby. We almost lost him at eight days old, and when he was four months I noticed that he couldn't crawl, he couldn't roll over, he couldn't sit up, nothing. So the doctor put us in physical therapy and I had to go through physical therapy with him and work with him every single day. And they said if you work his brain, his brain will work. And so I had two older children and him, and then I was pregnant and then I started homeschooling and so we had therapists in our house and we were going to therapy, working with the children that we were homeschooling and working with him. So it's probably why we kind of did put some of them in. And that started another story with my daughter that I'll have to tell you sometime.
Speaker 2:But with this fabulous story and this son he was able to get to the point where he walked and then, as he got older, he played basketball and he was fabulous at it. And when he went to high school he finally got to the point where he saw me homeschooling his sisters and he just said you know, could you just homeschool me too? And so we pulled him out and I had a wonderful teacher, because I always like to do my own thing. But in California I had to figure out the charter schools or the loophole, because I'm an unschooler but not, you know, I like them to be on computer programs, but also we like to go do whatever we want to do. We have a lot of conversations, we have discussions, I learn a lot, so then I teach it to my children. And so this particular son said mom, I want to take Spanish. And I found this wonderful lady and we could use the charter school had funding. So he took three years of like really good, authentic Spanish.
Speaker 2:And then one day he comes home and he says I found this Porsche for $500. I'm going to go pick it up and bring it home to our garage and fix it. And I was like okay, do you want me to put you like in a mechanic school? And he's like nope. So he goes on YouTube and I walk in one day and he was so excited because he figured out like the rotor of the car you know, and he was figuring out the engine and so he was able to explore into something hands-on and take that.
Speaker 2:And then he was working for somebody that was teaching him how to clean bounce houses. And all of our boys were cleaning bounce houses and this one, this one mentor of him, he said hey, you know what? Why don't I help you start your own bounce house business? So then he comes into the kitchen with his computer and he starts learning how to build a website. You know how to advertise this company. And he said you know what I'm going to fix motorcycles sell the motorcycles to buy my bounce houses. So he started fixing motorcycles, selling his motorcycles, getting bounce houses. He ended up running a bounce house business at the age of maybe 15.
Speaker 1:And then you know selling it for a Dr Seuss book or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just amazing that he wouldn't have been able to do that. Had he stayed in the school system, he would never have that thought, he would never have that time. By the time. They leave in the morning and get home at night with sports, and then we have a class that they take in the morning through our church. They're gone so sorry, so many hours in the day. He would never have been able to have that time. And I think that's what we're finding is our brain cells can't think when we're constantly being stimulated, and that's what I feel like the school system and the phone. It's just. It's stimulating them and actually killing their brain cells at the same time very true now and that's a beautiful story.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that, um, and just when you think along the the lines of what you were actually able to teach him through the physical therapy, yes, they're like what a perfect example of homeschooling right there, because it's like you did get assistance from outside, help which we can do as homeschoolers. Right, you know, it doesn't have to be you reading your teacher's manual and then regurgitating it to them, like in the school system. It can be like, oh, you want to take Spanish, here's a good Spanish teacher, but you can write like a la carte, you know what you want to portion out to people. And then, but you were also teaching him yourself with what they were having you work with him at home doing. And so it's like, right there, you're the teacher.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of what I went through with the speech Cause I was trying to get him speech therapy in school and apparently that is like very hard to do, right? Uh, I was like you know what? I'm tired of waiting on these people. They're not getting back to me. I'm just going to watch YouTube videos and reach out to friends. I know who went to school for it and we fixed it in a year. We fixed his speech. I mean, you know it's like, oh, we didn't need the professional after all, which was kind of a cool feeling.
Speaker 2:So you fixed his speech and then you were able to go forward with what he needed. And you knew what he needed because you're with him all the time.
Speaker 1:Right and like right now we're working on reading and I'm like this is taking an incredibly long time, like is something wrong, you know, is there an issue with dyslexia or anything? But you know I can reach out to people which I have, or I'm talking with one of the people I've had on my podcast tomorrow morning so she can evaluate, give me some different lesson plans, because you know, the ones I've been doing obviously aren't doing the trick or it's just not the age that he's supposed to learn reading at. So you know how old is your son.
Speaker 2:We're fully equipped to sit. And that's interesting that you bring that up, because we have a story with our oldest and it took us a lot of pain and a lot of tears to figure out what was going on with her, because she wasn't reading until maybe like 11, 12 years old, and so this might be very good information for viewers out there that there is a diagnosis. It's APD, it's auditory processing disorder, and a segment of APD is phonetically deaf. We did not find that out until we took her to I think it was Sylvan back in the time and they finally came to me after like years of like crying and stressing and praying of what is happening, putting her in school, taking her out of school and I think that's why I put the kids in, because I was like, well, am I failing as a mom? Because I can't figure out what's going on. And finally, when they said she's phonetically deaf, she can't hear sounds and so I went over to the school and told them the diagnosis. They did nothing and I went to the class. I stood outside and I saw her just staring at the teacher like a deer in headlights. And they would send home hundreds of paperwork every Friday and say do this over the weekend and bring it back on Monday.
Speaker 2:And I finally said, no, she's getting depressed, you're not teaching her what she needs to be, you're not giving her the type of IEP that she needs, you're not attending to her individual needs, and we know that there's 11 different intelligences and our school system only teaches to one, which is sit down and listen. And if you don't fall into that category, then you're lost. And if you don't test at the certain level that they want you to test at, then you might get help in that, but maybe not reading. And so we ended up pulling her out and I had children in school at the time and I would get up, get them to school and they were in walking distance or bus distance to come home. And then I found, like a Becca, I found an umbrella school and I was able to work with her confidence and help her, because she was getting so depressed that that could cause a whole world of you know issues as you get older.
Speaker 2:And so what I found is we finally got to the point now because we found it's hereditary and we have two other children with the same diagnosis, and now that we have more technology, I have found you cannot diagnose this phonetically deaf through APD without an audiologist and without somebody who will go deeper, because it's not hearing. You will pass a hearing test, but it's a part in your brain. When the sound waves come in, it's missing in the brain and so it doesn't hear the sounds coming in, so it actually has to fall underneath. Maybe where is some of the help that we could get through the Deaf Association, which I'm told to go to an audiology, now that I'm still fighting and trying to figure out how to get further into this, because my youngest one, I know, has the same issue and so we have.
Speaker 2:And I like to say it's not a disability but it's a superpower. And how are we going to work with this superpower? Because you are smart and you're amazing and you do anything you want to do, but we understand that that sounds are a little bit difficult. So what can we do to help you? And we have found that Moby Max has been one of the best programs for us to help with this.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's interesting because I had someone on my podcast who her daughter was on the spectrum, but she raved about Moby Max as well, and I haven't checked that one out yet, but maybe it's time, I don't know. I just whatever they're doing, it must work for different things. But you're right, yeah, you wouldn't and I think she said this too If your child had a broken leg, you wouldn't not give them crutches you know you would you need to give them what they need to help them. You know, move forward, so right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's so many different skills and ways when it comes to the brain and how a child is receiving information, and I feel like there are school systems that are really trying but we're kind of missing so much that teachers probably would want to do but they're not able to do, you know, and their class sizes are so big they can't spend that individual time. And I know working with children that are in my own family that have had superpowers that have kept them from being able to be in the regular sit down, be quiet, you know atmosphere, and so I do have to teach different to each child. I don't do the same curriculum for each one of them. I have one child that loves well, my older girl. They love a cellist where the teacher teaches. But my younger daughter, she loves Moby Maxx because they test you and put you where you're at, and so it's not like a workbook where she can miss some things. The Moby Maxx will catch what she gets right, what she gets wrong, and the algorithm puts her where she needs to be.
Speaker 2:But she also does teaching textbooks for math and teaching textbooks has really helped her because, just because she can't hear sounds and she struggles maybe with the reading. She's really good at the math and so we use a lot of different curriculum that help with what each child needs. So when parents come to me and they're yelling and screaming, you know like I can't get them to listen. I'm like, well, that child just might want to cook. You know, like my one that built cars, he was a cook. He got in the kitchen and he started cooking. A lot of things for him was hands-on. And then I have some kids that just really like to be on a cellist and do all the school, school through that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, why don't you get into a little bit of the curriculum that you've used on your various children and I know that you do a road schooling as well, so I'm sure that integrates into what you guys are learning and how you're learning it and really just you know, paints this awesome picture of like just such a fun childhood. So, but, yeah, let's get into that, like what the day-to-day looks like and how you make sure that they're at the levels that you know and I say this all the time too like there's nothing that says they have to know X, y and Z by any certain age. But if some are college bound or if some are going out into the world to start a business, you want to make sure they have the basics to do that. How do you make all of that work with the curriculum and road schooling?
Speaker 2:Okay. So when we do the road schooling, that was when we got down to the last four girls, and when we started in 2019, our youngest was six, and so that probably I'm not too sure that probably put my oldest at 12 or something, but we had established the computer programs that they liked. So Acellus back then is different than it is today. After COVID it changed, so we do what's called Powerhouse Acellus. It's only like $25 a month and they get up to six classes and our girls loved that, but they really like to do their math on teaching textbooks. So when you're doing road school, they can get up and they can get their chores done because everybody has a chore to take care of in the RV and then they do their exercise, they eat their breakfast, they get ready for the day and then they will do their curriculum that they have, whether it's Moby Max or teaching textbooks or Celis. We also love time for learning. I think we did one that's called Excel, like we have done a lot of different ones.
Speaker 1:Thinking about homeschooling but not sure where to start, or maybe you're already on the journey and want more guidance. Join the homeschool how to community. You'll get exclusive access to live interviews with me and my guests where you get to ask questions, plus monthly Q and a sessions with homeschooling experts. You'll also get my full curriculum series where I chat one-on-one with homeschoolers to find the specifics about each curriculum all to help you find the right fit for you and your family. And don't miss my comprehensive course breaking down everything I've learned from interviewing over a hundred homeschooling families on my podcast, complete with an easy to follow roadmap. Ready to make homeschooling easier? Sign up today using the link in my show's description.
Speaker 2:But I find what works for them and then once they know that they're done with that, then we do museums and we talk and we walk and we find hikes and I would highly consider if you're going to be an RVer to do the national parks, the national parks you can go in and be a junior ranger.
Speaker 2:Get the book to junior ranger and they learn a wealth of information in those books and then they take the book back and they get like a pin or a badge. So when we did the Civil War we went to all of the different national parks and went to all the different battlefields and then took it back and that was cool because they got an actual like patch and I found on Amazon where they could get a sash and so all of the national park badges and like pins that they get they could put on their sash and so that was just a wealth of information to be able to learn that information hands-on. And we found that sometimes in the books in California was different than some of the information we were getting hands-on in the East Coast.
Speaker 1:And so that was interesting. Wait rewind for one minute for me. So doing the national parks means what Is this? A website that you just sign up on and say like I'm going to come visit, teach us something.
Speaker 2:No, the national parks. Like you're in an incredible area. I love your area where you're at, you know all the national yes, you sure Go down.
Speaker 2:There's so much that we did up in that area. But the national parks you know, like in Virginia where George Washington was a baby, you've got those. You can get the bold and the beautiful pass and then you can go to every national park for free. So once you I know that we were talking a little bit about, like the financial and you know RVing and teaching Well, once you get that pass, which is only like 80 bucks I think for the year, you can go to any national park and so that way when you go, you just walk, you camp out in the national park. No, you just, well, you can. You can do that too. A lot of RVers will go to the national park and stay the night, but we have a very big RV and so we don't usually fit in those, and that I could give you a whole nother episode of like how we RV and where we stay and what we do with our parks. But some people do do the national parks.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is so much information because the mindset of an RVer is very different than brick and mortar and it's kind of like the difference between public school and homeschool. You know, there's just a completely different mindset. You definitely are like a nomad, but there's so much to be able to do on the road and there's so much to see. In the United States, if you have a chance to just even take your car and go to a national park, have your child be a junior ranger. It's an actually like a lot of the national parks, they have the visitor centers. So when you go to the park you'll a lot of times at one end or the other you'll have a visitor center. So you go into the visitor center you'll see somebody dressed in you know their uniform and you say, hi, we're here, you know we want to do the Junior Ranger program and they're like, oh great, they're so excited and they'll give you the book and they'll tell you how much they need to complete and then it tells you where to go and what to look at. So like we just did one in California and we went to Joshua Tree National Park and had I not had that book, I probably would have been bored. But once you have the book, you're able to see what plants we're looking at what does the Joshua tree look like, the difference between the Joshua tree and a cactus. And they complete the book and then they bring it back and then they recite like a little Junior Ranger oath and then they give them a little pin and it just like puts action into the learning. And it's not in your house or in a school room or in a book. It's actually seen with your eyes and touching with your hands. And the visitor centers are awesome and the national parks are around the whole United States. So that would be one thing I would be like okay, that's totally awesome to do, and that's why we do the online programs, because then I want to be able to know that they're at the level that they need to be to be able to graduate, to go to college. And I do have a little bit of something that I do do with that when they get a little older, to know if they're ready for college, but when they're younger, you want them to kind of like do your lessons, but then now let's go on a hike, now let's go to a museum and, if you ever have a chance to go to the presidential museums actually it's called the presidential libraries. Those are all through the United States as well. Those are awesome to go to Because if your viewers or listeners are wanting to have like a list of things the national parks, the presidential libraries, any of your history museums, any of your science museums I know that we've done a lot.
Speaker 2:I think they're called like the NASA museums. There's one in Texas, there was one in Florida, they're all over. Any of those museums are awesome to learn from. And then I really loved Virginia. When we went to Williamsburg Virginia, because that's where you really can get into like the Revolution War and we did the triangle history there. We could do it again and again and really dive in and talk about it.
Speaker 2:And then a lot of times you can say, if you don't have a curriculum for history or science, that's like an actual company. What I like to do with history and science is the museums and then say, okay, what did you learn today? Let's color that, let's write a paragraph about that. Now, tell me three points that we learned today, and then that's kind of covers my curriculum in that. And so that's why I don't really like to be pigeon-tailed by any kind of like charter school or anything that has to look at their ocellus and see how many hours and stuff they're doing. Because I want to be able to go out into the world and learn on the road. I want to be able to learn on the hike. I want to be able to go out into the world and learn on the road. I want to be able to learn on the hike. I want to be able to learn in the museum. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:And so just for people who might not even know what that means. So when you're connected to a charter school, it's that you're homeschooling, but you're giving them information or test scores about what your children are accomplishing in return for, maybe, reimbursement for some of the expenses. Is that accurate.
Speaker 2:Correct. When you do a charter school, that's called a public charter school in some states where they give you funding. Every state is different and so you might have a little bit more freedom. I think maybe in Arizona and I know you might in Florida, but, like in California, when I do a charter school I have to turn in paperwork.
Speaker 1:Well honey, I'm in New York, I'm not in Florida.
Speaker 2:So you probably have strict rules, like California did when we're with the charter schools, there's no funding.
Speaker 1:There's no funding available.
Speaker 2:So if you're with a charter school that gives you funding. You have to do state testing and you have to turn in something once a month and you have to be able to tell them what your curriculum is. And so what I found what happened was when I tell them I'm doing a CELUS, they want to pull up a CELUS and see when they are on and what they're doing, and I'm like, no, I'm using this as a supplement, but I'm not using this as my full curriculum, because I want to be able to go to these museums, I want to be able to talk and have discussions, I want to be able to be the one that teaches, and so I actually being in California this time, I have an affidavit and our school is called Bright Path Academy and I run my own private school, and so we're able to do our curriculum and keep our attendance and keep a file of papers that they do, and I go through HSLDA and I pay for that membership and they have a great source of helping you with building your transcript at the end. But I've already have done that several times already. We have found a college that our kids can go to through our church, where we can put in a homeschool transcript and they can also start college classes at 16.
Speaker 2:So my trick that I said that I do and any city school you really can start at 16. Now I start them online with math and English, which is the same as like a senior math and English. So like if you get up to you know geometry and then I think you go to algebra too, and then when you go to like a junior college and then they start you again, they test you and then they put you into where you test. So you might even be in calculus, but if you don't test that at the junior college, they won't put you in. That. They'll give you a test and then you start with that class at that junior college and then you can start that at 16. So then they can be taking college classes online as a high schooler and then when they graduate closer to 18 and they can go and and that all transfers over those college credits.
Speaker 1:Is that the ASU universal learner?
Speaker 2:For the college they go to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, someone had said, they could start that there at 16 as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most. You might look at where your area like I know most junior colleges now you can call and they call it concurrent enrollment and you just say I have a high schooler who's 16 who would like to take some on or take college classes and a lot of the college classes you can actually go to college as a high school student at a junior college. So at a community college you can go to a community college Most community colleges you can call and say I have a high schooler and they would like to take concurrent enrollment and then they'll tell you what the next steps are. We have a school that our kids go to in Idaho and they can do online. They can apply to the college as a high school student and do online classes and so then when I get ready to send them to the university, those transfer with them over. But that's how I kind of know that they're ready is because if they're getting good grades as a junior and senior in math and English and other courses that they're taking, then you know that they're kind of met that level.
Speaker 2:And so I have a 15 year old right now that's taking a cell list classes on powerhouse and she's like I got to do schoolwork. I got to do schoolwork because she has learned to love to learn and she wants to make sure that she hits that you know, that level of knowledge to be able to go to college at you know, 17, 18 and be able to get good grades. So she puts a lot of time and effort into her high school curriculum on Powerhouse and make sure that she's you know where she needs to be, so when she's 17, she can go do what she wants to do. So, kind of answering your question on making sure that they can go do what they want to do, whether it's a trade school or a business or college, whatever it is that they choose and you know, running a podcast, like you do, or like I run a coaching company and my kids did the bounce houses and a lot of them are sell agents, they sell products and so anything that they want to do I have.
Speaker 2:I have a child who was like 11 years old and she was an artist. And I go out to the garage and I'm like what are you doing? And she's like I'm making pinatas and she would make like Eiffel Towers and moms would call and say I want this pinata for my like centerpiece and I need an Eiffel Tower with panda bears, and she would build out of cardboard and tissue paper an Eiffel Tower and panda bears, and at 11 years old, she was making, you know, 40 bucks, and they were different than what you could get at Walmart because she could create anything you asked her to do.
Speaker 2:She was an artist, you know. You could say here's this picture, build this. And she could build it. And so it's just incredible to be able to do what you and I are doing, because where else would the children be able to just have a fountain of, you know, knowledge and opportunity, which I find is right here, being able to, to, you know, homeschool and have this, you know, um, this freedom that we can do this?
Speaker 1:So let's get into them. We talked a little bit about it. But the finances, I mean it's hard to homeschool nine and on one income, or, if you want it to work, I mean that's near impossible with that many kids and homeschooling and then doing the road schooling as well. So how financially could one make this work, or did you make this work?
Speaker 2:Okay. So when we were, what point of my life should I talk about the road schooling part? Right, how do we make that work? So when we were, what point of my life should I talk about the road schooling part? Right, how do we make that work? So, when we're on the road, my husband has always owned his own business and so we have found things that we can do that are membership wise. So, like our gym we go to is around the whole United States, is $25 a month and we could go to any Planet Fitness as we travel.
Speaker 2:And then he has an office which is called Regis and that's worldwide, so he can go to the office. Everything now is online, so he does you know everything's new. If he does have to leave, then he catches a flight and goes where he needs to go and comes back to me. And we have used the Thousand Trails system mostly. I like it because it's gated, you have a code to get in and I feel safer with the children and we move about every three weeks so we can work, we can homeschool and we can check out the area that we're in, have plenty of time.
Speaker 1:What is it? What's a Thousand Trails?
Speaker 2:Thousand Trails has been around forever and they have like okay, so they have memberships and they have different kinds of memberships you can get. So we got a membership that once you pay the membership, we own that membership for life and so we can like um will it to one of our children and it allows us to stay into any thousand trails park for 21 days and we can go from park to park. Now they are changing that right now that you don't get it for a lifetime, but they are having it where you can still buy a certain amount for two, four, six years and be able to go into the park for, you know, three weeks and then go to another park for three weeks. And so we have found. For us that has really worked. And we also have found in the East Coast they also do what's called Encore and so we had like probably over a hundred different parks that we could go to, and Florida was amazing because you had a lot of choices. So that was affordable because we bought into that like five years ago and so, other than paying the dues, we don't have any night-to-night costs that we have to do because we already bought it.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like a timeshare almost, and then they give you different perks, like if you want to do RPI, where I can go buy a condo for a week, usually $300 to $600 for the week, and those are all over the United States. But some RVers like to go to state parks or national parks or they'll do boondocking. There's also like Harvest Host, there's Escapees, there's different kinds of groups you can be part of and RVers they know that we had talked about like how do you do it financially and how do you also do it socially? Well, there are on Facebook. There's a group and I think it's called RV families and a lot of them will meet up at different states and different areas because they all homeschool and the moms will meet and then they will go together to activities and then those kids are with each other at the campground.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, this is Cheryl. I want to thank you so much for checking out the podcast. I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I know your time is valuable. I want to ask you a serious question Do your kids know what to do to actually save their life in an emergency? The most important thing we can talk to our kids about is knowing their first and last name, knowing mom and dad's first and last name, mom's phone number, dad's phone number, their address, what to do if they get lost, what to do if someone who's watching them has a heart attack, a stroke, an accident where they fall and your child needs to get help.
Speaker 1:We live in a world where there's no landline phones anymore, basically, and cell phones lock. Does your child know how to call 911 from a locked cell phone? It is absolutely possible, and my book demonstrates how to do that, whether it's an Android, whether it's an iPhone and, most importantly, it starts the conversation, because I was going through homeschooling curriculum with my kids, realizing that, gee, maybe they skim over this stuff, but they don't get into depth, so my child's not going to remember this should an accident occur, right? I asked a couple of teachers what they do in school and they said they really don't do anything either other than talk about what to do in a fire during the month of October fire prevention month. So I wrote a book because this is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:I have had multiple friends that have lost kids in tragedies and I don't want to see it happen again if it doesn't have to. We were at the fair over the summer and the first thing I said to my son when we walked through that gate was what's my first and last name, what is your first and last name and what is my phone number? And if you get lost, what are you going to do? You can get my book on Amazon and I will put the link in my show's description again.
Speaker 2:It's called let's talk emergencies and I really hope you'll check it out because there's just no need to be scared when you can choose prepared and so you, you see that a lot and you see a lot of young families that are out and about and traveling and homeschooling and and, in the area where Washington DC is, all of those museums. When I was there last year, they were all still free. So we met a family who had six kids and every day they were going from, I think, we were in a part of Virginia and they were driving down to Washington DC and they were, you know, catching all of those museums that they could, and that's how they homeschooled was. Just you know, different areas, different museums, and you know questions and playing and and kids just get so much out of that. I also don't put a lot of money like powerhouse through a cell. This is only $25. Moby max is only $25. And I think I paid maybe a hundred or something for the year for teaching textbooks. So that's about all that I pay. And I have my own online coaching program and I've written bullet planners about 19 of them. I created a three-month program that helps women find their happiness internally and once you find your internal happiness, you can reach pretty much anything you want. And I talk a whole bunch about that and I video it and you can buy it as a video course. I also found that being able to do that gives me a little bit of my passion to be able to do and then share that with the kids. I love to write, I love to speak and I love to be able to help other people, and so I keep doing that on the road as I'm working with the kids and I just find, as I'm doing my work and they're doing their work, we're able to all learn and grow and just have the great mindset that I want to have.
Speaker 2:I've always dreamed of like being a nomad. For me, being stuck in one spot was really hard and as I got older and the kids got older, I was like, okay, the world's my playground, let's go. Where do you want to go? And I always felt that way. With the last four girls I was like we're going to travel the world together. And these last four girls we did, and I have two of them in college right now and two of them home and I just I love it and I just don't know if you've also have heard just to kind of put in there for some moms to check out Thomas Jefferson education.
Speaker 2:That philosophy helps you to as a mom, to be able to do your own learning as well as teaching your children. So as you're learning, your children are learning, and I learned that as a young mom, when we had eight children. I learned that philosophy and so that's kind of how I've always kind of have managed. My homeschool is kind of through that philosophy of one, what do the children want to learn? And two, what do they need to learn to be able to get to where they need to go? And three, it's so wonderful for them to see that I'm still learning, because then that puts in their heart there's never a stop to learning. It's not a light switch. It's something that we continue doing all through our life. I even believe even after this life we're continuing to learn.
Speaker 1:I agree, and I say that all the time. Even just like reading the Tuttle Twins books to my son, I'm like, wow, I never knew this or this is why this happened. This is why this war actually happened. It wasn't what they told us in school and it's just yeah, and learning the podcast and you know all just marketing and that sort of stuff. It really is cool and I, yeah, we watched happy feet earlier today and it made a reference to like different types of penguins and I'm like what do you mean there's different types of penguins?
Speaker 1:So now I like want to get into looking at you know different types of penguins. And so now I like want to get into looking at you know different types of penguins and where do they come from and what are their. You know different habitats and what do they eat and that sort of stuff. So yeah, it's everywhere. It's just we normally don't have the time to stop and wonder and then do something about it. You know, find it, and I've been thinking a lot lately too about the amount of time we spend in school or even in work waiting, just like waiting when you work for someone else. You know, I worked for the government for 16 years. It's just, and like kids waiting for the school bus and waiting to get into class and then waiting for the class to settle and waiting for the teacher to call attendance and waiting to line up and wait. It's like there I calculated it out, it was like an insane amount of hours a year that you spend just waiting. Like what a waste of time.
Speaker 2:Well, it is. And also like if we're not teaching skills. I don't know like one thing I don't know if you know um that I am a meditation teacher, and so it's like we're missing.
Speaker 1:So much Do you meditate on the bounce houses? Is that?
Speaker 2:I do. You know what I mean. If you're not trained to bounce in the bounce house to have a baby, you're meditating. I mean, come on, that's. I mean they just are reading so much and they don't know what to do with that waiting. You know, the first thing they do is pull out their phone and they're just constantly stimulating. We're not finding any stillness, we're not finding any peace, and that's why our anxiety and depression at such a young age right now, is like an epidemic issue. You know, because we're just, they're just so stimulated and everything they do we're not able to get out like find some peace, find some stillness. And that's probably why I am a meditation teacher and I went towards during the recession.
Speaker 2:I ended up going back to school and became a massage therapist, because it was a difficult time in our life and our kids had to go back to school. And so here I'm going to school, I'm homeschooling eight kids trying to finish a bachelor's degree. I mean, I had an insane amount of stuff on my plate. So, like no wonder, we hit the road and went in an RV, because you do have to change that mindset and we were forced a little bit to RV because we had a black mold issue in one of our houses and so that kind of forced us out. We're all super sick. And so I just, we had a trailer we owned and I just in a week I just pulled everything out and remodeled it and made a little school room and made a little chalkboard.
Speaker 2:And my daughter, one of the youngest ones, was six and I just, you know, when you think about you talk about, do the kids miss out on anything? I know you and I are talking about, like, do they miss out on prom? Do they miss out on dances or social events or whatever? And I think now when they're older and they're in college, they kind of say like you know, my friends were my sisters. You know I didn't really have like friends outside. I kind of struggle a little bit on how to make friends, but we were blessed because our church is worldwide, so everywhere we went they were part of a community and a church and got to go to camp and we would try to manage our time around those activities. But they also see that college is so much fun. The two girls that are in college they're making friends and they're able to date and they're able to do, you know my daughter's the face of her college and she's on dance team and she's still out in the East Coast in Virginia and she's like doing great and she's like you know, those last four girls were complete pretty.
Speaker 2:You know homeschoolers. We had kids boys that were in school at the time and they were doing homeschoolers. We had kids boys that were in school at the time and they were doing basketball. And then the four girls were homeschooling. I was juggling kind of between their activities and the girls' activities and they said we just remember going from basketball game to basketball game and I had the little pink backpacks and I got the little hot dog and rolled it up and foil and said let's go. So they remember being kind of on the road and always kind of on the road and it's really made them. Their character is very able to change. You know they're able to switch directions and and they're able to go to college and they're able to learn and get good grades and they're very well-rounded. And that was kind of.
Speaker 2:I think, when you think about your purpose of homeschooling as a mom and you're going do I want to do this? Well, start thinking like, well, what's your purpose, what's your why? Because anytime you have a why, whether it's like your why with podcasting, my why with life coaching, you know. Why do you want to make money? Or why do you want to RV, why do you want to homeschool, or why do you want to be married, like you know. I mean like all of these why's. When you really get that deepness of what your why is, then, when the hard times come, you can push through those hard times because you know what your purpose is. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:I love that. Melissa, as we round out the hour, where can people find you and what do you have going on that you can tell us about, so that people can connect with you if they want to?
Speaker 2:Well, I own a health and wellness center and my website is synholisticsolutionscom, and we are offering a free two-day webinar on Release your Energy and Bring In your Wealth and Abundance of Peace and Happiness and you'll be seeing that on my Instagram. You can find me everywhere that's at synholisticsolutions on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube, and we invite you free to our webinar March 18th and 19th to be able to spend an hour with me where I will teach you a lesson, we will do a meditation and I intuitively have some affirmation healing alignments that I will be presenting at this webinar on day one and day two and that will help you to clear out your energy and to bring in the abundance and wealth that you're looking for.
Speaker 1:I think I need that. I need the meditation. I am guilty of what you were saying. With the screens on, it's like when you have a quiet moment, you're almost like uncomfortable because and that's probably why you grab for the phone like, oh, somebody needs something. I don't even know what. Let me see.
Speaker 1:Because, it is. It's like hard to just stop and think. You know, all throughout the day you think, oh, I've got to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. And when everybody is quiet and you have a moment, you're like I don't know what to do. So I think that's the moment I need to just leave the phone and go sit and be still and be comfortable in that. So thank you for reminding us of that today, and I will link everything in the show's description so that people can find you very easily. I just want to thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to thank you for having me here. I am so excited and I'm so grateful to be able to meet you, and good luck to everything that you're doing, and I hope we get to see each other again. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the homeschool how to. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.