about me

About Shelli

Thank you for visiting my site! I’m a veteran home educator and writer of the long running blog, Mama of Letters. In 2025, I crossed the homeschool finish line when my eldest son graduated, having homeschooled from preschool through 12th grade. After that, he took a gap year and auditioned for music schools, and he’ll be attending a conservatory beginning in Fall 2026. My younger son homeschooled from preschool through 7th grade, and he began attending a private school in the 8th grade. He’s doing very well there and will graduate from high school in 2028.

While homeschooling, I wanted to teach my children how to learn, not just what to learn, and to give them some control over their own education. I tried to give them the tools, guidance, and time to dive deep into the subjects that interested them. We used project-based homeschooling techniques so the boys could spend most of their energy on what fascinated them, but we also kept up with core academic lessons. As they grew older, I tried to increase both the time we spent on those lessons and how much I challenged them.

People look at my boys now and congratulate me because they are remarkable kids. I’m incredibly proud of them. But I also know that I didn’t do it perfectly, and if I had to do it again, I might make different decisions.

I’m building this new site to share what I learned, and I truly hope it will be useful for new homeschooling families. If you find it helpful, I hope you will share it with your homeschooling friends. If you are wondering if homeschooling is right for your family, I would be happy to speak to you and share what worked and didn’t work for us.

I’m also considering inviting other homeschool moms to contribute to this site in the future — I’m not sure what that would look like yet — if you have ideas and want to collaborate, contact me.

Finally, I hope you’ll let me know, if anything on Mama of Letters helps you. Really, the messages I receive from you are what keep me working on this site.