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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
#114: How Five Years of Homeschooling Set Laura’s Kids Up for Life
The moment Laura Bains heard the word "homeschooling," she knew it was her calling—even before understanding what it meant. Though her husband, a first-generation immigrant who valued traditional education, needed convincing, Laura's instincts proved right. In this revealing conversation, Laura shares how just five years of homeschooling transformed not only her children's lives but her own professional journey.
Laura's refreshingly practical approach focused on fundamentals: "I need you to be able to read, write, and do math—the rest you'll figure out on your own." With structured learning from 9 AM to 1 PM and afternoons free for self-directed exploration, her children thrived. Her son discovered electrical engineering at age four, building circuits and programming while her daughter read far beyond grade level. Most importantly, both learned to teach themselves—a skill that would define their academic futures.
When they eventually returned to traditional school, they excelled beyond expectations. Laura's daughter medaled on the honor roll throughout high school before pursuing a mathematics degree, while her son took senior-level classes as a freshman and became the school's unofficial tech specialist. Their success showcases how even a limited homeschooling period can provide a lifetime foundation.
Now a full-time tutor with extraordinary results, Laura's final message resonates deeply: "Homeschooling is not just about your kids. Find yourself in there too."
Whether you're considering homeschooling, currently in the trenches, or simply curious about alternative education paths, this conversation offers both practical insights and inspiring encouragement. What might your homeschooling journey unlock—not just for your children, but for you?
Laura's FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1385951045396974
Laura's website: www.amuseinphonics.ca
Home Grown Collective: It’s time to take food security into our own hands! Responsibly grown, locally sourced, and accessible to all. This app is free and easy to use! Just download in the app store or log on at HomeGrownCollective.org to connect with local farmers, find fresh food, and support sustainable agriculture. Whether you’re a consumer or a grower looking to expand your business, this platform has the tools to make it happen—commission-free sales, a social share tool, and even a farmer reimbursement program!
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 Laura Baines. Laura, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. It's my very first podcast Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, when you were homeschooling, they probably didn't have podcasts?
Speaker 2:huh, they did not. They did not. It was a fly by the seat of your pants kind of deals. We didn't really even have internet, really, but like that, that's how far back we were going. It was like you ordered curriculum on the phone and I don't I'm trying to. I don't remember even how we found it, but yeah, that's what you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So what, how many kids do you have and how old are they now?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have two kids, uh well, two adults. Now they are 26 and just turned 23. Um, so I have, my oldest is a girl and my youngest is a is a boy, and uh yeah, they're both out working now full-time.
Speaker 1:So what did you? Always homeschool them, or were they in school first?
Speaker 2:so, um, the moment I heard the word homeschooling, I knew I wanted to do it. I'd never heard the word before. It was like a two by four, straight out of heaven. I it was like a stop in your tracks. I didn't know what it was, but I was like I didn't know what it was, but I was like I don't know what that is. But I got to do this. And then so my daughter went to school for junior kindergarten and kindergarten, senior kindergarten, and let me just see, I went kicking and screaming. I did not want her there, and my husband, who is a first generation immigrant, came to Canada for the education system. So it was a little bit of a struggle, let me tell you, to convince them, or convince him to take them out, and he's like, no, they're fine, they're fine, and so that's all. That was a little bit of a challenge. So they came out in. My daughter came out three weeks into grade one.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say are you from Canada? Because I interviewed a woman, chloe, a couple of weeks ago about game schooling and she called it junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten. I hadn't. She was from Canada and I hadn't heard that before, because we preschool and kindergarten.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, so we have preschool here, so that's kind of like a toddler ish program and then you go to like grade uh, junior kindergarten is when you're four, senior kindergarten is when you are five, and then grade one is when you're six.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know, that's interesting and I wonder if we're headed to that direction, because when I was going to kindergarten it was a half a day, and I'm I'll be 41 tomorrow, so uh, yeah, it was only half day, and now you have kids in kindergarten full day.
Speaker 1:I remember when my sister's youngest son was in school and he's 18 now it became mandatory that you have to go for a full day, because I think they had a time where you could be full day or half day, whatever the parent wanted. But now, like you said, then there's the year before that in Canada, the junior kindergarten, or we call it preschool, but we have two years of preschool. Because, yeah, my son was four in a preschool program but there were three-year-olds in it as well, so it was a three four program, so you could do it for two years, but what a lot of people did was send their three-year-old and then, when they were four, they went to the school where you're actually in the elementary school for the full day, taking a bus, doing all the real school things, which is just crazy to me. So, yeah, so where did your husband come from originally?
Speaker 2:So he's from Punjab, so he's East Indian, and they came over to Canada when he was four. So he came over right in junior kindergarten and didn't speak a word of English and had the Jehovah Witnesses actually taught them how to read and speak English which is really funny to me and yeah, and then by the time he was in grade one, he had an incredible vocabulary. So he skipped grade two because he came right at that time when language is really rich, like his brain was just so receptive to all things language. So he was, he was way, way, way far ahead of his classmates. For sure, by the time he was in, by the time he went to school, he was so far ahead of his classmates because he was just in such a rich environment With the Jehovah Witnesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Jehovah Witnesses, literally the Kate, because they were, you know, they were quite happy to come in and they would just read the Bible stories three or four times a week. So they had free tutoring three or four times a week from the Jehovah Witnesses, and so that's how they. Uh, and they're Sikhs, just to let you know, my, my in-laws are Sikhs and but they were like, yeah, come on in. And uh, yeah, so that's how he learned how to, that's where they learned how to speak English, and that's where they learned how to read Wow.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because he has this connotation about the school system being so wonderful. But really he didn't learn that in the school system, he learned that privately he did not.
Speaker 2:He didn't learn it in the school system at all, which is really funny, um, but he so his brothers and sisters they were all in school by the time that they got here. It was a. It was a whole uh thing the way they. They came over to india in three, or came over from india in three, um, like tours basically. There was like some came and then some came, and then the rest of them came and so, but he was the only one that came in while he was still not supposed to be in school. So that's how he learned how to English was all about. The Jehovah's Witnesses were there for weeks on end teaching them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, funny story, yeah. So I mean, eventually you got him to agree to homeschool, you know, to let you homeschool the kids.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, no, well, you know what I just so you know what did, as I'm like, I'm a naturally born teacher, I'm just naturally gifted that way. And so the whole year before um grade one I had was doing unit studies with my kids for fun. Like we were like have an ocean day, and I remember we had like streamers hanging from the ceiling and we would have like fish food and we had ladybug days and all that, and without thinking twice about what we were doing, like it wasn't intentional, it was just like, oh, you want to learn about fish this week, let's do that. And then, of course, by the time we got into grade one, I realized that we had done all of the science from grade one, just for fun. And so, yeah, so what it really was was that they had an open house at the school and but the teacher was sick, and so she just opened up her classroom and you could just walk through. I mean, I don't think that would happen these days, but you could just walk through the classroom and there was a whole pile of things that we kind of went. Hmm, hmm, really. And I think it was sort of after that that I said to him we've done, I've done all the school work, like I've done everything.
Speaker 2:She was reading at a grade six. She was reading Black Beauty before she went into grade one. So yeah, so she was an early reader and so you know, of course. So, yeah, and so in grade one, you know of course, we went on there. They had a capital A and a lowercase a and we're thinking, are you kidding me? Like this is not going to go well. So I just said to my husband, like let me just try it for this year, like let's give it a shot for a year. She's already done all the science, she's clearly reading, no problem. So yeah, so that's what happened was, uh, we said it was going to be a year by year decision, but it was a kicking and screaming he. He didn't really want them to come out, but I was really feeling very convicted about it.
Speaker 1:So so I did, wow, okay, so at that time your daughter was first grade and you're how old was your son, or he wasn't in school yet.
Speaker 2:Uh, he wasn't in school yet, he was three. Uh, um, just, I think, yeah, he was three when we started, so he would have still been in that preschool age, but the preschool actually kicked him out cause he wouldn't stop crying, so he wasn't even allowed to be in preschool. So he was home with me all the time anyway. So he was already home with me anyway. So it made sense Okay.
Speaker 1:So you said that you kind of had to order curriculum by phone. Back then Was it did a Becca, even were they a thing.
Speaker 2:Yep, so that's who. We used a Becca for math and language, the math program we loved about Becker Math my kids so. My husband's an engineer, he's an electrical engineer, and so math is a thing in our house for sure, and so, yeah, so we did a Becker Math and my kids loved it. And they were just recalling they're like the time trials were the best, remember when we could do all that math, and they timed us to see how good they were. So my kids loved they. We did about two and a half hours of math a day. They loved math. Well, they loved it. It was like can we do more? Can we do more? And I'm thinking, well, yeah, of course. So we did a Becca, we did tons and tons of math, and then we did a Becca language for one year, but that was just not our thing. So we switched off of a Becca after the first year. It was just, it was way too complex for me. I didn't understand. I didn't understand it. So I was like I don't know how they're going to do it.
Speaker 1:So um, I think that makes people feel like, oh good, all right, math comes, because most of us are not doing two and a half hours of math every day. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't think I do that a week, but six-year-old. But my kids loved it, literally. I think they loved the fact that there was little pictures on there and I never checked their work. I ordered the what do you call them the answer books, and so they would do a page and check their answers and so I would look at it maybe once a week and go, okay, we're good. I wasn't even. I would look at it maybe once a week and go, okay, we're good.
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Speaker 2:And then so they were doing all of it. They were doing the teaching themselves because they could both read. They were doing the teaching themselves and the correcting themselves. So I would just kind of flip through and go yeah, you're right, it's good, let's keep going.
Speaker 1:But, but then it's good to hear that, you know. Then you tried the Abeka for the language and that just wasn't a good fit. So I think that's good for people to know that just because you have one brand doesn't mean it's going to be across the board. Everything works for you and there's nothing wrong with you. If it doesn't work for you, you can seek other things.
Speaker 1:And I love what you were saying about the unit studies, cause as I've delved into talking to more homeschoolers and trying unit studies myself, those are my favorite because I do get bored with the okay, what's today's lesson and let's do some practice on some, you know. But I love the unit studies and how you can kind of blend in your language arts and your science and all got a lot of the subjects right into that one topic that you're discussing. Like we had done some for the fall. So it was learning about the moon and looking at some poetry about the moon and listening to a song, and you know you're doing a science project holding a clementine and a flashlight. You know, clementine on the pencil and a flashlight and moving around a dark pantry. But yeah, I love the unit study aspect. I have not hung streamers from my ceiling yet or eaten fish food. But I mean, you're bringing up great ideas and which is why you create a curriculum and we'll get into that in a little bit.
Speaker 1:But how did it go? How long did? Did you homeschool them? Did they go through for the whole ride?
Speaker 2:No, so they okay. So what happened? Was we? Um, the sad part was is, when I pulled my kids out of school, my neighbor stopped talking to me. So the neighbor, the, the neighborhood kids, would not talk to my kids anymore. I don't know what happened, it was. It was um heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:So we ultimately moved out of that um, out of that house. Um, I know I can't even. Yeah, they just they were like Nope, you're good. There was some perception that my kids were better than theirs or whatever. It was devastating for our family for sure, because all of a sudden they had no kids and they had no friends anymore, because nobody would talk to us anymore. It was the strangest thing I could even imagine.
Speaker 2:And then so we ultimately moved out to the country, which it was funny because when I just asked my daughter, I said what do you guys remember about homeschooling? Like you know, I really didn't know. They're old and so anyway, but they both remember the environment. They both remember like, the country, property we lived on. They both remembered like it was interesting. They remember that far more than any other lessons.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so we moved out to the country and and then so we were only, we were home for five years and they both wanted to go back. So they were both like looking for more than what I could give them anymore, because now we were in the country, we were driving all the time to wherever we needed to go and so, yeah, so they went back in grade six and grade three. But the interesting thing was, as at home I had skipped, I had skipped them each a grade. So when they went back to grade six and grade three, they had already done grade six and grade three. But the grade six and grade three, that in the school was completely different than what we had done at home. There was nothing the same. All the language was different, all the the books were different, the writing was different. Really weird.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, but they but so yeah, they went back in grade six and grade three, which you guys don't have down here, but we have something up here called eqao. Eqao is standardized testing and the kids do it in grade three, grade six, grade nine, in grade 10, and so let me tell you how excited the principal was when I bring in my grade three and grade six homeschooled students. She was thinking our scores are going to go through the roof with these kids. It was really funny. Actually, she was so excited that they were coming in in the EQAO years to do these tests for them. So that was funny.
Speaker 1:So did they do better than the other kids.
Speaker 2:Oh they were. So they were off the charts, so they, it's OK. So here's the thing I'm just going to tell you about the homeschool world. I remember thinking, you know, we were in a, we were in a co-op and the people around me were lifers. They were homeschool lifers, for sure. I knew my kids were going to go back to school someday, like I just knew that and so. But the other people around us? We were lifers, that.
Speaker 2:So these were people who were doing things like you know. They were like horseback riding at international levels. They played six instruments, they talked four languages, they traveled the world. You know, these were people who were like homeschoolers extreme. And so I look at my kids and I was like, well, we didn't even bother with geography, because I don't. I was like my goal for homeschooling was literally, let's do language. I need you to be able to read, I need you to be able to write and I need you to be able to do math. The rest of it you can figure out on your own. I really don't care about any of the rest of it. You'll figure it out.
Speaker 1:You're smart, you'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:So that was literally my goal was like, okay, math and language and writing. And then, um, so when, so when we went back I didn't really think my kids were that smart. I mean, they, they, they play any instruments, they, they could do math and they could read and they could write. That's what they could do. And they got back into school and they were like killing it. They were like teaching their teachers how to do stuff. They were. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:So my son in grade three, he had, um, he's an electrical guy. He had he was building circuits at home, he was building software programs at home. He was like he was. He knew from the time he was four he was going to be an electrical engineer. He just knew that. And so when he got into school, of course there was no issues with reading, no issues with math and no issues with writing. So he was bored like bored silly. And so they had him and they realized he was really good with technology. So he was the school technology guy for the whole time he was there.
Speaker 2:They were like something's broken, call Clark, he can do it. It was like, literally, and OK. So here's the funny thing is that when he went to high school they still called him. They're like Clark, can you come back and fix this? So they were calling his teachers would be like can you find this thing on the Internet for me Like it was crazy? So yeah, so neither one of them struggled academically at all, but this was in the time. This was here's my little thing. This was in the time when they, the schools, were focusing more on character development. So my kids would have like won every single award in the school, every single academic award in the school and some of the character ones too. In the graduations. There was no mention of academics at all, which I thought was telling, because I thought my schools were going, my kids were going to school for academics, but that wasn't the case, there was no mention of academics at that graduation at all, and so this was their high school graduation, so this would have been maybe five 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:So this was at their grade eight. When they went from grade eight to grade nine, so maybe 15 years ago. Yeah, mention of academics.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I I bet you most people didn't even notice that. You know but you're.
Speaker 2:But we did because we did because they would have won them all. So you know yeah yeah oh, wow yeah that is interesting so.
Speaker 1:So then did they continue on with high school?
Speaker 2:yep so they both were in high school and um. So my daughter was the only one in her high school year that uh was on the um, like meddled in the honor role all four years. She won gold twice, silver once and bronze once. So we have four years of high school here and so she, she meddled all four years. She um came in second in her graduating year. So she was always book smart. She was always. You know, she's like oh, I have a math test today. Whoops, I forgot to study. Let me get 110% on it. One of those ones, right? Yeah, one of those. And she went on to go do math as her degree. Like she has a math degree. My son wasn't as smart as that, like, he didn't get the marks, like that, but he was um. He was taking grade 12 classes when he was in grade nine, all the computer ones and the science ones. He was taking all of those ones because he just liked it. I mean, he, he, he was, he was self-taught.
Speaker 1:And that you know. It's amazing because just those years, like do you think that would have happened to them had you never homeschooled them?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all, because we schooled from nine o'clock in the morning on the dot until one on the dot, and then we always had lunch at one and then. So they had the afternoon to do whatever they wanted. And so he decided when he literally decided when he was four he was going to be an engineer, and so we bought him snap circuits. Do you know snap circuits?
Speaker 1:No, okay, so snap circuits no.
Speaker 2:Okay, so snap, circuits are like Lego and then but they attach by and there's, you can run circuits in them. You can actually make lights go and sirens go and that's all battery things and you it's all by battery and so you actually can build circuits to make things happen. And so he was building circuits when he was four and five years old and teach himself that. But he, you know they'd already learned how to teach themselves stuff because I never taught them any math, like I never taught them math, they just taught themselves math. So they had. So he was self-taught for sure. I do not think. I don't think he would have been as far ahead as he was had he not had that kind of it was interesting, because it wasn't, it wasn't really a good. I didn't think he would have been as far ahead as he was had he not had that kind of it was interesting, because it wasn't, it wasn't really a good, I didn't teach them anything, it was him Like it was him.
Speaker 1:He did it, but you gave them the time and ability to one know that they can teach themselves things once they learned how to read, and to the boredom of the afternoons, to give them the time to learn what interests them, which is what I'm seeing. A lot of that we are being denied as humans because we're just told where to be at all hours of the day. And if we're not told where to be, if it's like our downtime in the evening, it's getting ready for the next day when we're told where to be. So you don't have that time to really find what interests you.
Speaker 2:So that's huge. You need to be bored in order for you to find out what makes you tick Like. You can't do that while you're bombarded with all of the information about where you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's funny because if there's one thing that you know anybody says, when you say, oh, how was school today? You always say boring. So it's like you are bored all day, but you're sitting there at a desk with nothing interesting around you, so it's not the right kind of boredom, because you don't have the freedom to find something that interests you. So it's they're different board.
Speaker 2:They're different ways to be bored.
Speaker 1:Um, all right, that's so cool. So then, all right. So once your kids went back into school, did you notice any sort of difference? Like you know, I know they were they must've been a little bit bored in class. Did they ever talk about wanting to be homeschooled again, or were they happy that they were there?
Speaker 2:They were happy. They were there, they, they, they. It was funny. We all decided at five years we'd had enough, like we, we all were like we've done what we needed to do, we got it, and so, no, they never wanted to come out. But don't forget, they were kind of um hand chosen at school or I'm trying to think what that expression is, but they were sort of handpicked. At school I had one that was doing all the technology and the other one, my, the. My daughter was the older one. She was teaching everybody how to do stuff, like she was um. So if they ever needed help in the kindergarten room or whatever they were doing, that's who they were pulling out of class. They were pulling her out of class because there was. She wasn't missing anything at all yeah.
Speaker 1:So they really found like what kind of what interests them and their passions through that, through being needed there yeah, and they and they were and they were, they were chosen.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think every kid had that experience. I had the same experience growing up, but like chosen out of out of the classroom to do some of these special things, which does make a difference for how you see yourself. And the other thing too is when my daughter was in school, so she went in in grade six, she was 5'11 when she went into grade six, so she stood out like a sore thumb. She was extremely tall. She was a head taller than anybody else in the school and she's 6'3 now. So she's 6'3 and my son's 6'5. So it's like their size made a difference. For sure, yeah, their size made a difference, but yeah, they were just chosen to do their thing, so they didn't. They didn't lose school at all. They. They quite liked it because it was just fun. They got to do all the fun stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So then, once they graduated and they went on to, you know, to college and to do their careers, you found yourself in the teaching realm again. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:I did so when they went back to school, I went back to teacher's college so that we all started school on the same day. So I went to teacher's college, which was kind of neat, you know. You kind of come home at night and you're like, well, who did you have lunch with, well, who did you have lunch with, well, who did you have lunch with? You know, it was all three of us. And so, yeah, I went to teacher's college and then was in the classroom to do my practicums and hated it, hated, hated, hated the classroom. It was like there wasn't enough time to teach, and so I ended up trying to figure out how I was going to teach without having a classroom, which is not the easiest thing to do. But you know, where there's a will, there's a way, and ended up sort of doing a variety of things. I ended up tutoring though really using a lot of the homeschool ideas that, because I knew that it was effective. Right, I already had seen it my own kids. So, yeah, so I end up tutoring math for one, because math is easy to teach, and for me it was anyway, it makes complete sense. And then, so parents then started to say to me well, if you can do that with math, can you do with language? And I was like, well, I don't know, language is a whole different ball game. It requires way more parts of the brain. Let me think about that.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I thought about it for about a year and thought, wow, how would I do that? And then I kind of came up with a game plan and I was full before I could even put the word out. There they were like Laura's going to do language. So the word got out and I was six kids a day. I had six kids a day to be doing that, and then the lockdowns hit and what I had done before was, when I had the six kids, I would have three in at a time. So it was kind of like a little homeschool, but mom wasn't the teacher, so, and in order to be into that program you had to be three grade levels behind. That was my, my cutoff, and so, anyway, so we were doing Okay, so these were kids in school.
Speaker 2:These were kids in school and their parents were pulling get this one. Their parents were pulling them out of school for two and a half hours a day, three times a week, to come and see me Yep, to come and see me. Just because they knew what I could do. They'd seen it in my own kids. Teachers were recommending me and then, which is funny to me, that teachers recommend me, but anyway, then the lockdowns hit and I had to not do that anymore and had to go one-on-one virtual and then, um, so then, as the kids started to come back into my office, I realized there was a gap of five, six years now with some of these kids from expectation to what they were capable of. It was driving me crazy. Like I had a grade five student who came to me who couldn't read. He could read the word the, and that was it. Like he couldn't read anything at grade. A grade five student who came to me who couldn't read he could read the word the, and that was it. Like he couldn't read anything at grade five.
Speaker 1:Grade five. And how old are you then? You're about 10?
Speaker 2:10. Couldn't read. A thing had been. He was a farm, he was a farm kid they had. They lacked a good internet during the lockdown so they did no school at all during the lockdowns internet during the lockdown, so they did no school at all during the lockdowns and they were farming. They were like they had. They had cows, they needed to do stuff, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how to do some things. He just didn't know how to read.
Speaker 2:Yes, but you know, as soon as you go back into school and people realize that you, there's a gap, now you're targeted as a bully for bullying, right, and so this stopped going to school he was. He was so much anxiety that he was no longer going to school anymore. So when his parents found me and said, you know, and then I worked as a tutor full-time that he could, they could bring him at noon I was be like okay, so, uh, yeah. So I had a pile of kids like this all in grade five, grade six couldn't read a thing, and so I needed so this is where it kind of came up I needed a resource that was it gave them a better sort of diet of food than dog on a log and cat on a mat.
Speaker 2:Because by the time you're in grade five, you know I had to start with Matt and Sam. Like I had to start with Matt and Sam, but I couldn't keep him on that forever because we needed to make some progress, and so I ended up writing some books for him. Um, I ended up writing some books for him and then I was surprised I actually was shocked at how well they worked. And uh, and what? Not only how well they worked, but how he was feeling when he was reading them. He's like, wow, look at these big words I can read. I go yes, when you have the right resource in front of you for where you are, then it works. And so, actually, I just pulled this one out. This is the one that I wrote for him. I wrote AR.
Speaker 2:I wrote the AR book, and AR says R and this is all about Clark the shark and scarlet the lark and they're stuck on an arc. Uh, yeah, so it's a whole, it's a book, just with lots and lots of these ar words in it. Like about about half the words on every page have the ar word in it and then so he was able to decode it and he was able to figure it out. So he was not stuck at and on matt and, uh, you know, on matt and sam, like he just wasn't stuck there. And the reason I took this is because this was in his name, so the AR was straight from his name. So he already knew that AR said R from his name, so I was able just to just pull that out and go from there.
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?
Speaker 1: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. 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 gonna 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.
Speaker 1:So I wrote a book because this is near and dear to my heart. 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. 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.
Speaker 2:I wrote these books for him, and then they worked.
Speaker 1:How many books did you?
Speaker 2:write for him. Well, in total I ended up writing 41 books. So I have 41 different books. So all the different letter patterns, like A, w, a, u, e, W, like tons of like all the different letter patterns, a-u, e-w, like tons of like all the different letter patterns, all the R-controlled vowels, all the W-controlled vowels, you know the vowel teams, all those. So I wrote there's 41 of them, and so this.
Speaker 2:So the cool thing about this though the cool thing I just got to show you, the cool thing about this is that on this page I don't know if your viewers can see this or not, but on this page it says I can read these words right at the top, and what I did was, for any word that doesn't sound out completely, I sounded out for them. The play is, I had a lowercase P and a lowercase L and then a capital A so that they recognize that play. So anytime I use a capital letter on this page, it actually said the letter name. So as the kids are reading, so as the kids are reading, so as the kids are reading, look at this. So let me just find a good page on this one. So on this page you can see if you can see that or not, words that are underlying there. So everything on that page either has the AR word on it or it sounds out, or or if it doesn't sound out, like the word make doesn't sound out, but so I have the word make on the front page and they can actually flip there and figure out that that's the word make.
Speaker 2:Because for a kid like this, I I can't teach them all the vowel teams, I can't teach them all the things at once. We just needed to focus. For somebody in grade five, we just needed, like high level, high concentration, to just do one at a time and not have to worry about all the rest of them. So that's how I did it. So, yeah, so I ended up writing this curriculum and of course I have, you know, I have my homeschool experience in there because I have, like all these cool ideas.
Speaker 2:What's this one? So this one, it's called Amuse at Home. Oh, amuse at Home has so on this book. They all have different books, but on this one. So Clark the Shark and Scarlet the Lark end up playing cards at dark on the ark in this book, and so what I did was, in the back of it, I actually taught you how to play a card game and this was one of the favorite card games I used when we were homeschooling and it's a math game, so it's for basic numeracy and I just gave you the rules in there on how to play that, so, which I thought was kind of fun.
Speaker 2:So that would be like you know, that's that sort of post one o'clock time when you know like what are we going to do now that all the sort of the formal stuff is done? Well, let's learn how to play cards, or you know that. So there's all sorts of like I have like spelling activities in there and games and puzzles and oh I don't know recipes. There's 41 different activities like outing ideas, and then there's this other part in it too. So this is like the teacher in me that went to teacher's college.
Speaker 2:So this one it just says research shark, research shark, behavior and their habits, and then also name all the months in order, because of course, this happens in March, and so all these ideas about how to like extend your learning, like as a homeschooler, I would have loved this be like oh, that's a good idea, let's do that today. Or you know, let's. You know, one of them has like an idea for a puppet show. One of them has ideas for like sewing something you know, let's. You know, one of them has like an idea for a puppet show. One of them has ideas for like sewing something you know, whatever. So, whatever it is, there's something related to all of them in there. So, yeah, so can I just show you this? This is what it looks like.
Speaker 2:This is the book. It's 600 pages of learning and I wrote this is the cool thing, this is this one. So the cool thing is I don't know if you can see that there's two copies of every book in there. There's actually 82 of these books in there, okay, so if you have multiple children at home which you probably do, if you're homeschooling, then you have lots of chances to use the books.
Speaker 1:So, and where can people find that?
Speaker 2:I can put a link in the show's description. But yeah, so that's uh, so it's called Amuse and Phonics, so it's wwwamuseinphonicsca. Spelled exactly how you would expect it A M U S E I N P H O N I.
Speaker 1:C, sca. So there, yeah, we'll put a link to that. That's awesome. I'm going through that process now with my son, who's six, trying to learn to. He is not reading black beauty on his own. Um, we have been working on phonics for geez I think, two years now, at least a year and a half now, starting out with the Hagerty phonics which is like used in the schools and kindergarten, and but it's, it was just so dry. But I'm like, okay, we have to do this stuff and we I would force them through it. And then it was like, okay, let's take a break. And then we did the all about reading, pre-reading, and that was fine and, um, and he liked it. And then this year I was like, oh, let's try the teacher child to eat and run, read in 100 easy lessons. But there, they don't like after the first 20, they're not easy lessons anymore. They're probably easy for your kids. They are not easy for him.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember teaching my kids how to read. Do you know that, Honestly?
Speaker 1:really.
Speaker 2:We did it from spelling. Like I think we did it from spelling. We would do a craft and then I would say well, let's write down whatever it was we just did. And I would this is what I remember and I would say would say okay, so we just did a butterfly, so what's the first sound of butterfly book? What letter is that b? And then I would say the ah. And so they I think that's how we I don't even remember teaching them how to read- honestly, I don't.
Speaker 1:The funny part about that is my son makes lists all the time and I'm always going, okay, well, what's? And my husband too all right, well, what sound is it? Well, what's next, what's now?
Speaker 2:finally, I'm just like it's u-t-t-e-r-f-l-y while you're doing that you have to tell them why you have to have two t's in the word butter. So the e doesn't change the u, right, so you actually right, you have to explain that that's why butter has to have two t's in it, so that the e is too far away from the U to change it Okay.
Speaker 1:Well see, I didn't get to that part yet in the courses, so maybe I do need to get your book so that it explains why?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you know the interesting. So part of the thing that I had to figure out was for this, these students that were coming in, we didn't have time to do the sequenced, we didn't have time to do all the sequence stuff like, and we just didn't have time to do it. And their parents expected far more progress than what we were. They we needed progress every single day and so I didn't want a sequenced program. I wanted them to feel like look at what I can do. Because as soon as they get to look at what I can do, then their whole mindset has changed to be like wow, I can read. Yes, you can. Actually it's not really rocket science. It's not rocket science to teach somebody to read as long as you can start to figure out and decode. And actually I'm just going to tell you something.
Speaker 2:When we were using these books with him, I had originally told his parents it was going to take probably two to two and a half years of tutoring to try and get him like up to speed. And he was reading in about I tried to kick him out of the program after five months because he was reading by. In five months he was reading and they kept him in for another like six months, just because it was just a nice little safety net for them. But uh, he was reading novels. He was reading novels. After about, um, like after about five months, he was reading novels.
Speaker 2:I thought you don't really need to be here you've got enough of a base to figure him out, and I have such a waiting list that I don't like to keep kids in too long, because because it becomes sort of like this security yeah like you've got. You've got the information, now just go be awesome. And um, so I tried to get him out of the program. It didn't really work and then, um so they stayed in for about another six months or so and I, uh, I was as you were saying with the you and the reason for the two T's.
Speaker 1:it made me think of a post that I had on Instagram recently. This was from a comic. I'll see if I can play it in the microphone here, but it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:That's it. H-o-e-m home. No, home is H-O-E-M.
Speaker 1:Something is dumb and I think we don't realize it until we're teaching our kids.
Speaker 2:I know right, some of those we can explain. I can explain the sum away for sure, but you know some of those we can explain. But yeah, I know it's fun, that's actually called the scribal O, just to let you know. That's called the scribal O in the sum and it's from when they used to do cursive. So here's the thing when they they used to do cursive. So here's the thing when they used this is some s-o-m-e, s-o-m-e, so yes, so when they used to do cursive, they it would look so that they was a u and then an m and it just kind of looked like a whole bunch of just loops, and so what they did was they just closed off the they. They put kind of a cap on top of the o so that it separated it from the M. So that's why the O, when it's next to an N, an M or a V, often sounds like a U, like that's so interesting. Yeah, it's called the scribal O. So like love, money, glove, yeah, it's called the scribal O.
Speaker 1:They never taught me that in school. What about num and U?
Speaker 2:and I don't know okay, so the, so the well, the and the b. I mean, who knows what the b is for? I didn't go into a big thing about, uh, you know morphology and all that. The b is silent. Uh, there must be a reason for it to be there, like in thumb and comb, I don't know um, but so there are, but there is some, but there is some. There's a, lots of words that, that, um, that work with that scribal, oh theory okay.
Speaker 1:Well, at least you know there might be a reason somewhere, and it's not that they're just trying to make us go nuts, and it's the same in canada as it is in america except for we have a u in a lots of our words, like color.
Speaker 2:We have a u in that, in that right, yes, okay, so our color is C O L O U? R, which makes it really fun for reading, because then it should be clower.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But when you're trying to teach it. So actually I like the, I like the American stuff better for that one, it's easier to teach it all.
Speaker 1:Oh funny. Yeah, oh well, is there anything else, laura, that you wanted to make sure we touched upon while we have you here today? I, like I said, I'll make sure to share the link to your your phonics book in the show's description, so people can check that out.
Speaker 2:You know what I want to say. I want to say to the moms out there. I want to say to the moms that homeschooling is not just about your kids. I want moms to know that there's something in there for them too. And so while you're homeschooling your children, you are also learning. You're learning something You're probably relearning, like I know.
Speaker 2:For me, when I had to teach history, I was terrified about teaching history and then realized, with the right resource, it was way more fun than what I remember from grade nine. But you know, while I want to speak to the moms, really because I kind of found my, my raison d'etre through homeschooling, like I knew that I was going to be a teacher somehow some way, and I literally tutor full time. Now I have like 12 students a day or something like that. So I really want moms to be encouraged in this, because it seems like it's all about the kids all the time. I mean, it's very busy that way. You have your kids with you 24-7. But really there's something in there for a mom to sort of glean out of that and find a new part of their personality they may have never seen before, and a new part of their identity, and whether it's a new hobby, whether it's a new realization about themselves, whether it's a new way to perceive themselves, whether it's how they fit into that community and how they're going to stand up to some of the naysayers that's a big one, sayers. That's a big one Just to have the confidence to know that they're doing the right thing by their children and to really stand up to some of those people Often it's parents, spouses, neighbors it's all of that that you have to fight against and you're going against the grain many, many, many times.
Speaker 2:I really want the women to find the strength in that because we do know that it's mostly women doing the homeschooling and find the strength in that to really just be themselves and just come out of this a thousand times stronger than when they went into it, way more confident, uh, willing to take up the space that is they deserve to take up on this planet, just like own their space, own their identity, own their own, all of that, um, and because the kids are going to leave, the kids will leave home one day They'll be off doing their thing, because you've groomed them to have interests and personality and all of those things and at the end of the day they're still a human being, they're still a mom, they're still a woman there that you know they've got their thing going on. They've got it going on, they've. They've worked all that through. And so I just really want to speak to the women out there and just really encourage them that this is not just about the children. Find yourself in there too.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, thank you, and I, yeah, you're, you're so right. And I think, like because I was working, you know, in a cubicle for 16 years and it was like we had talked about in the beginning of the episode, someone always telling you where to be, and it wasn't until I started homeschooling that I was like, wow, I, this is, I'm learning about the Silk Road. I don't ever remember learning about it in school and if I did, it was presented in the most boring way, or or I just didn't care, or a little bit of both. But it's like when you're at that age now where it makes sense and then your kids can see you light up about learning it, it really is something special. And then to find time to you know, whether it's learning how to cook or grow food, you know, have a garden or or read books that you never thought you'd read, that make you think ways that you never thought you would. You're so right and I love that that you ended on that note. Thank you so much, laura, for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for having me. What a joy and what a pleasure this has been. What an experience. I feel like I just I've hit the jackpot today. It's just been such a neat experience to be able to kind of revisit and relive. Probably the very best five years of my life was homeschooling, so I say that all the time.
Speaker 1:And look at the solid foundation that it built with your kids in just those five years, but it carried on for the lifetime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, it really is, and it's uh, it's really cool to watch them. I don't know what your audience is, but it's really cool to watch them as adults sort of figure that out. I mean, did I do it perfectly? No, no, did I make mistakes? Of course I made mistakes, but you know, to watch them sort of be so confident in who they are now and have the full assurance that they are just walking in the road they're supposed to be walking on, that to me is really a treasure, as somebody who's finished this journey many, many years ago. So, yeah, it's really awesome to see that.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for paving the way for us too.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Making way for the homeschoolers.
Speaker 2:All right, laura, thanks so much, thank you All right, bye-bye.
Speaker 1: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.