education Archives - Mama of Letters

Homeschool Graduate

It’s time to jump for joy because I have a homeschool graduate. He should get more accolades than just a diploma and blog post, but there isn’t a lot of pomp and circumstance when there’s just one student in the school.

At five-years-old, he was a nature boy, and he loved snakes. Later he got into building things. He made countless toys out of cardboard, and he had Lego sets and robots, and he took pottery classes too. Then he found the piano, and that was it. However, all these things he still enjoys. He still likes to wander around the woods and see what critters and plants he can find, and he loves looking at art and admiring other artists’ craftsmanship. I love that he’s such an interesting, likeable person.

Last month marked the end of his homeschool education as he finished all the requirements his dad and I set forth for his high school diploma, which are typical college entrance requirements but with a focus on foreign language (Chinese and German) and piano performance (due to his strong interest in these areas). During high school, he practiced piano 4~6 hours a day, 7 days a week, taking time off only occasionally. This was his choice. Next year, he will be auditioning for music conservatories, so our journey is not over yet! But right now I want to bask in the fact that I actually did it….I homeschooled my son for his entire K-12 education, and despite all the stress and worry I experienced, it worked out!

His academic and music achievements might satisfy the naysayers, but I’m more happy that he’s curious and likes learning. This was my ultimate goal — to raise life-long learners. More importantly, he’s a kind and friendly young man (I’ve been told by others who have met him). He’s extremely hardworking, so I know that he’ll create a career in music, though I don’t know what that will look like yet. He’s not in it for fame or money; he loves music. He’s truly remarkable, and I know I’m biased, but he really is. I couldn’t ask for more reward than this as I close out my “homeschool parent” career.

Yesterday my husband told me that he knew I spent thousands of hours homeschooling our kids, researching homeschool resources and reading about education philosophies. He said he knows because he saw me do it. My graduate asked me how it felt to have my life’s work finished, and he told me that homeschooling him and his brother may be my life’s greatest achievement, and it’s nothing to snuff at. So this is my reward too. I am glad that the people who count appreciate my work.

However, my life’s not over! This is just a new beginning. I have a bit more work to do for my boys, but I will also enter a new phase of my life, and I look forward to it.

Although I don’t blog very much anymore, I may add a few updates now and again. If you ever have questions about homeschooling, I’m happy to answer them and offer encouragement. You can reach out anytime.

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4 Comments | home education, homeschool high school, Homeschooling | shelli | June 19, 2025

Homeschooling Senior Year

I’m in the middle of my eldest son’s senior year, and my younger son is a freshman at a private school near here. Oh the mixed feelings I have. Some days I feel blue because we’re nearing the end of an era. Many days I’m excited for the future. I’m also a little anxious because the future is unknown. We have plans, and we think they’re good plans, but who knows? This is what makes life exciting, though.

Some good news from this year is that my pianist received a 2024 YoungArts Award, which, according to the website, was given to “nearly 700 of the most accomplished young visual, literary and performing artists from across the country, heralding the next generation of artists to watch.” You can follow my son on his YouTube channel, and I’ll be sure to write a post when we’re celebrating his homeschool graduation.

This photo shows us celebrating the completion of 2nd grade and Pre-K.

Other than these awards and inevitable milestones, I don’t feel I have the right to tell my boys’ stories because they are at an age where privacy is important. All I can say is that they both seem happy about where they are, and I’m very proud of their work ethic. I’m especially proud of the feedback I get from other people who tell me how kind they are. That makes my heart sing. It makes all those years of homeschooling and sacrifice worth it.

Even though I still have more work to do with my homeschooled senior, and my high school student needs me to drive him to school among other brick-and-mortar-school-parent-duties (it’s a strange place to be after homeschooling all these years!), I have been giving more thought to what my life is going to look like after my boys are finished with school here–after they are away at a conservatory or college–yikes. I can’t believe I am at this point in our homeschool journey.

I have started to build a new community for myself that isn’t tied to having young children. I have started writing more too. This is all I have right now, but I hope my post-homeschooling journey might also include more gardening, traveling with my husband, and some kind of work. I’m 53 years old, so I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s all simmering like when you first add the ingredients to your pot. There’s no aroma yet, and it needs more salt. It’ll be a while before I have a comforting soup.

That’s all I can tell you for now. If you don’t mind sharing, where are you in your homeschooling journey? Remember, I’m always happy to answer your questions about homeschooling/not homeschooling. Just send me an email.

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2 Comments | 12th grade, home education, Homeschooling | shelli | December 3, 2024

on the back end of homeschooling

I’ve been wondering what I should call this post: Homeschool Update. Life Update. Big Transitions. So much new and exciting. Homeschool Life Nearing Its End. The Busiest Year of my Life. ???

All of that is true, but none of it makes a good title. What is also true is that this is the first week I have had the headspace to think, relax and want to write something here. We are also starting to feel the beginnings of autumn weather. I think those two things go together. It’s a time of transition.

This year has been sad and difficult. I lost my mother to dementia this spring, but I’m grateful I was able to help her in her final days. I am working on a memorial service for her now, so that’s keeping my brain occupied. It saddens me as I write this realizing how much of the motivation I had for keeping a blog was to keep my Mom in the loop. She was probably the only person on Earth who read everything I wrote, and I often wrote with her in mind. In the early days, I posted photographs of my boys, and I knew she would enjoy that. There is an absence here as I type, and this may be one reason why I don’t blog as much.

The biggest news I have is that my youngest boy decided to attend 8th grade at a brick and mortar school this year! Making this decision, finding the right school, and helping him prepare for it took up most of last year (along with helping my mother). It filled me with worry and anxiety, wanting to pivot when I realized homeschool wasn’t working for him anymore, but what to do next? There’s too much to write and say about this, and it’s not all my story to tell. But I will tell you that I’m thrilled with this decision, and he’s happy too. He’s enjoying school. In fact, I would say that because he spent so many years homeschooling, it gave him a great foundation and love of learning so that school is actually interesting to him. Or maybe it’s just a case of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” haha. Either way, it was the right decision and right time for him.

It was also the right time for me. While I have heard of families who successfully homeschool several kids all the way through high school, I found it challenging to give both boys what they needed, especially as they entered into higher grades. I am still homeschooling my 11th grader, and it’s been a challenge figuring out how to give him a good high school education while making his musical studies a priority. However, also because of that, his needs are easier to meet at home. My younger son, on the other hand, does not know what he wants to do for a career, and, of course, that’s normal for a 14-year-old. He still wants to explore, although he’s always leaned a bit toward science with a special interest in ornithology. Because of this, I want to make sure he gets very good science classes, and frankly, I just didn’t feel I could do this at home. I have not found adequate homeschool science curriculum for four years of high school science credits with at least three including labs, i.e. biology, chemistry, physics and one other. (I emphasize four years because it all depends on what the state law requires, and in the case of my state law, it allows a homeschool parent to decide what is required for the homeschool high school diploma. For my youngest son, since he’s interested in science, I want him to have what is required by the state to graduate from a public high school, and that’s four years of science.)

Yes, there are good online science classes. My eldest son took a good online biology class, and we were able to complete the labs without a problem. But chemistry at home? Perhaps someone will write a comment here and tell me about a great chemistry class I did not find, but in 2022-2023, I looked at many options, and I thought my elder son’s online course was just adequate. Maybe I have too high of expectations, but I did not want to take chances on my younger son who might go into science.

As a side note, I do know of a highly rated online private high school, and there are other online high schools I did not look at, but the best one costs just as much as a private school. :/ So it can be done at home, but for a price we weren’t willing to pay. Also, I’m sure there are parents who are willing and able to do awesome chemistry labs at home by buying the equipment and figuring it all out themselves, but I am not one of those parents.

When my boys were very little, I heard a veteran homeschool mom say in a very soothing, Southern drawl: “Ima buuuurned out homeschool mom.” At that time, I was feeling excitement over all the possibilities homeschooling would give us. Now I know what she was feeling too.

However, I’m not totally burned out yet. I love that I still have some homeschool years left with my eldest son, and we’ll be doing American Literature this year — THIS IS MY SUBJECT. **happy dance**

But I see my days as a homeschool mom winding down, and I’m not unhappy about this. Mentally, I am tired when it comes to most things homeschool, and the excitement I had many years ago to homeschool high school has been replaced by the reality that while it can be done, it’s not easy.

Luckily, it’s all working out for the best. I am so happy to see my boys growing up, becoming independent, having opinions and wanting more than what is within this house and what I’m capable of giving them. Really, this has been my goal all along…..to create two individuals who know what they’re interested in, who value learning, who love to read, who are creative, confident, kind and willing to work toward their goals.

I feel like I’ve accomplished so much, and it brings me joy.

Thanks for reading this far. Remember I’m always available by email to answer your questions. I never get tired of helping other parents.

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7 Comments | Homeschooling, Life, Reflections | shelli | September 19, 2023

Supporting the Little Makers

How to Support Kids Who Like to Build Things

Some kids will be natural builders. They will gravitate toward toys such as blocks, Legos, Zoob pieces, Tinker toys or many others that are available. They can also do wonders with cardboard and lots of tape. They like building, making, and creating. Let them do this to their heart’s content. There are other kids who may not like building, or they just do it a little. That’s okay too. Let kids do what they want when they have free, unstructured time.

Supporting the little makers is perfect project-based homeschooling territory, and over time, it may help you see how these techniques work.

Every parent wants their child to be independent and do things on their own, but that’s not going to happen until well into adulthood. So don’t think that when I say “fostering independent learners” or something similar, it means that you need to let your kids struggle or always play alone. On the contrary, when you follow project-based homeschooling techniques, you’re going to be available to your child and offer them the support they need.

During the time you set aside for your child’s projects, you can consider your child the boss, and you’re the employee. Your child gets to tell you what they want to happen, and you can do it for them. This is especially helpful when your child is little, and they may not have the manual dexterity to create what they envision. The important thing is not to take over your child’s project. Just ask them what they need you to do and don’t do anything else.

Don’t wander off or look at your phone during this time unless it becomes clear that your child doesn’t want you there. Sit there and let them know you’re available to help. Be interested in what they are doing. You can show interest by asking them questions about what they are building, but sometimes they’ll be happy if you just watch. Be enthusiastic. Just taking 30 minutes to an hour to sit by your child’s side even if they don’t need you to do anything will show your child you love and support them!

You can sometimes make suggestions, but I recommend waiting until they’re a little stuck or having a hard time accomplishing something. Always hesitate and ask questions. Wait and watch to see if they can figure it out on their own. Project-based homeschooling is about letting your child do the work when they can. You may think your child could not possibly figure out a way to fix a problem, but they might surprise you. I know there were a few times when I was working with my son, and I could see an easy way to make whatever it was he wanted, but I didn’t say anything. I saw him start doing something that I didn’t think would work, but then guess what? He made it work! His mind was working differently from mine, but his way worked just as well.

Of course, there were also times he got frustrated, cried, and I wondered what the heck I was doing. This is definitely a long road and takes practice for the parent. You are getting to know your child, learning when to step in and when to back off.

Do you have a little maker? I’d love to hear about them!

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home education, Project-based Homeschooling | shelli | December 4, 2022

Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Homeschooling

I’ve been homeschooling for over ten years, and now that I have some hindsight, it may be a good time to tell you what I love about homeschooling. Keep in mind that this is my experience; it may be different for other families. I may follow this up with a post about what I don’t love about homeschooling, but I’ll have to think about that.

So here are the top five reasons why I love homeschooling:

Flexibility. Whether it’s curriculum, taking time off, or giving my kids the time they need to master a subject, I would say that flexibility has been the best part of homeschooling. We are not on anyone else’s calendar. We can sleep in, if we need it. When Life gets hectic, we can take some time off. If I end up disliking the curriculum I bought, I can toss it and try another one. My boys can take their music lessons with their teachers during the school day, so we can get a good time for that, and we can go to the park or zoo when it’s not crowded. Since my husband’s time off from his work does not correlate with the public school calendar, that is a big bonus too. This doesn’t mean we aren’t busy. It means my family gets to decide how we use our time.
Out of the Box Learning. Although I try to match the traditional course of study as much as possible, I have a lot of flexibility in how I teach it, and if I can tell it’s not working for my kids, I can put it off or skip it. (If they hate it, they are not learning it.) We can learn so much in an informal way, such as through the documentaries we watch, visiting museums or conversations with knowledgeable people. My kids also like looking up the answers to their questions on the Internet, though they learn in many other ways too, such as through video games, T.V. shows, and, yes, books. Sometimes they surprise me with knowledge I didn’t even know they had. It’s amazing how good kids’ memories are when they are interested in something.
Going at their pace. I have nudged, and I have challenged, but I don’t force learning, and that makes a big difference. Take, for example, how my boys learned how to read. I started them off around the age of four or five with 15~20 minute reading lessons, and depending on how well they did, I either kept going or I took long breaks from teaching it. I took a full year off from teaching reading to my eldest son when I could tell he wasn’t ready for it, and when we went back to it, I spent 20~30 minutes a day teaching him how to read. I remember getting a little anxious and stressed about it. Would they ever learn? But I knew going at their pace was better than pushing it. Around seven-years-old, they started to get it, and then at age eight, they began reading perfectly. At nine-years-old, they started reading books without being told to read. I never made them read anything outside our short lessons, and I also let them read whatever they wanted. They both started with comic books and graphic novels. Now they are avid readers, and they read long novels or non-fiction on their own time. In fact, we can’t keep enough library books on hand for my younger son! I love this, and I hate to think how different it may have turned out, if they were in public school and forced to meet certain milestones in reading before they were ready.
Discovering interests unencumbered. If homeschooling parents give kids enough freedom, they have time and energy to discover what they’re interested in. Then they can begin to gain valuable skills. (If you’re lucky, this will prevent them from floundering for years as a young adult like I did.) I don’t think you have to be an unschooler to do this. I don’t unschool, but I have used project-based homeschooling techniques (PBH), which helped me see how I could give my kids the time and tools to create and explore while also teaching them subjects I thought were important. Some kids don’t want to explore or create. They may prefer reading or gaming. Others will keep trying new things and not settle on any one thing. That’s okay! Let them do that. You never know where it might go. Other kids may find something and wham! You can see that they’ve found their vocation. That happened for my eldest son, the pianist. The flexibility of homeschooling gives my son time to practice the piano, do his lessons, and just be a kid too. If you’d like to learn more about PBH, I am offering a class on it.
Close family ties. This is a byproduct I never thought about before I started homeschooling. I love how close we are as a family, and I love that my boys are best friends. They rarely squabble, and when they do, it’s amusing to watch. Since my boys are three years apart, I think things would have been very different, if they attended school. I’m grateful I have been there for every special moment and milestone, and I know my husband is too. (However, this doesn’t mean that we don’t need space from each other. When we need space, we have places to retreat to in the house.) This is an unexpected part of homeschooling that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

See what I dislike about homeschooling by clicking here.

What do you love about homeschooling? If you are considering homeschooling, what is holding you back?

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5 Comments | home education, Homeschooling | shelli | September 17, 2022

Slow and Steady

Time plays tricks on us. There are days that I feel the swift passing of time. I turned fifty recently, yet I hardly feel fifty. Well, maybe my aches and pains tell me I’m fifty, but all the memories from my life are stacked up neatly in my brain as if they happened yesterday. Something might trigger a forgotten memory, and it will come alive as if I just lived it.

My boys grow taller. They both have deeper voices now. Weren’t they just chubby cheeked and needing more hugs? Weren’t they just knee-deep in projects that created chaos on our activity room floor?

I am being swept away in this river of time, and I can never get to the shore.

On the other hand, when I think about homeschooling, I notice how this is a slow life. We tend to want to speed it up. We want our children to learn how to read so that we can tick that off our list of anxieties:

“Can I teach my kid how to read? I think I can, but I won’t know until they start reading. Lesson time, kids!” But maybe our child isn’t ready to read, so we reign in our impatience and go at their pace. Slow and steady.

“When will I get around to teaching a foreign language? I have so many other subjects I need to teach.”

“Why are they having trouble with math? They weren’t having trouble last week. Is it the curriculum? Is it me?”

There is so much about this life that we won’t be sure about until it’s all over. Tests don’t tell us everything we’d like to know. This can be hard. For most of my homeschooling-parenting life, I have had a good dose of confidence with a heaping spoonful of insecurity — perhaps just enough to keep me on my toes.

For anyone venturing onto this path of home education, I would say that if you’re reading this, you’re probably reading other materials on homeschooling too. You’re probably doing a lot of research about your options and any particular issues that you are dealing with. If you’re doing that, then I have confidence that you’re a good parent, and you’ll be just fine. You may have bad days. You may have years that aren’t the greatest. But this a slow road.

You build an education for a child bit by bit, according to what he/she/they can handle. You won’t notice the progress until one day something jumps out at you. Your child might say something very kind, they may do something generous, and you’ll be awash with relief — you fostered a nice person! Another day, your child may be presented with a challenge that you have no control over, and — bam — they handle it beautifully. Or you may get those standardized test results and — whoa!– your child scored in the 95th percentile! You weren’t expecting that, but now you’re a happy homeschooling mom.

You’re never expecting it, but time will take care of all your worries. If you feel you need to try something else, trust me, you have time. Kids unfold like flowers, one or two petals at a time, and you’ll know what you need to do when you need to do it. Enjoy being home with your kids. Enjoy the slowness of this path. Enjoy the uncertainty too because tomorrow that one will be gone and there may be a bigger uncertainty looming.

Nothing stays the same, and while it doesn’t always feel like it, this river of time is swift. I’m going to drift along and see where it takes me.

Is time going too fast or too slow for you today? Please answer in the comments section. And if you need any help with homeschooling, I hope you’ll check out my store. Thanks!

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4 Comments | Homeschooling, Reflections | shelli | July 11, 2022

Why I changed my mind about standardized tests for homeschoolers

We are almost finished taking our standardized tests this year, and for my 15-year-old, it’s the last year that I’m required to test him by law. Yay! But I’ll probably test him every year now because he wants to prepare to take the SAT. Although I didn’t like having to test him at a young age, as he has got older, I find it to be a useful tool. Although I hear how testing in the public schools can be stressful for teachers and students, at home I can create a relaxed atmosphere around the test taking.

Here is why I like administering standardized tests in my homeschool:

1. We can schedule the test whenever it works in our schedule. I always test my boys around May/June, and I test for the academic year they are in even if they haven’t finished all the coursework for that year. (We homeschool lessons year-round, if we find time during the summer.) But I can pick the week and make sure we’re free of other obligations.

2. We test over a few days, which is recommended by the manufacturers of the tests, so the boys only take one or two tests on any given day.

3. On the days we do the tests, I don’t require the boys to do any other lessons that day, although my 15-year-old did do more math homework in the afternoon this year.

4. Since all we have to do is take the test on those days, it gives us time to go for more walks and relax or do whatever those days. So it’s actually a less stressful day for us!

5. I always tell the boys to not worry about how they perform on the tests. It’s truly a tool for me to see which subject areas they may need a little more instruction in. But so far, it’s given me huge peace of mind that we’re doing good. 👍

6. For my eldest son, and also my younger, testing them every year starting at the end of middle school will give them practice for if/when they take the SAT/ACT. (By state law, I’m required to test them every three years starting in the 3rd grade and ending in 9th.) They already seem more relaxed about taking the tests. They like to tell me about the test and what they found easy or what they had to guess at. (The tests are written in a way that they couldn’t possibly know the answer to every question.)

Update: Now my kids have finished homeschooling, and I’m a retired homeschool mom! If you’d like to speak to me about my homeschool experience, sign up for a chat in my shop. You can also follow me by signing up for my newsletter.

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1 Comment | home education, Homeschooling | shelli | May 26, 2022

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

One of many highlights of our recent trip was being able to visit The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you’ll know I’ve written several times about my younger son’s love of birds. He’s nine-years-old now, and he’s been talking about birds since he was about four. I am pleasantly surprised that his interest has not faded, though he definitely has his own way of navigating this project. We haven’t done a lot of in depth study about birds. Instead, we’ve drawn them, watched them, identified dozens of them, collected toy birds, made toy birds, and only occasionally read books about them. Though I encourage it and offer whatever I can to foster his love of birds, I haven’t pushed all the ideas I would like to see done. This has been a good decision. It’s truly a child-led project.

We’ve known about the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for awhile now, and I have been wanting to visit it, but I never thought we would be able to see it so soon. Then my eldest son’s interest in music took us to Cleveland, and well, though that’s not extremely close to Ithaca, it was close enough for us. We had to go!

We loved Ithaca, and we loved the Lab. We went twice. On the first visit, we walked the trails in Sapsucker Woods for about an hour, and then we took the behind-the-scenes tour of the lab. The next day, we went back and took a longer walk through the beautiful Sapsucker Woods.

It’s a beautiful building. About 250~300 faculty, students and staff work there. We were told it is mostly member-supported, and Cornell University contributes only a tiny percentage of its budget. It has the beautiful Wall of Birds (click on that link and you won’t be sorry), the Macaulay Library, which you can contribute to, and the Lab also houses Cornell University’s Museum of Vertebrates, so bird specimens aren’t the only resource available to students and researchers.

Here is the Lab’s mission statement:

Our mission is to interpret and conserve the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds.

If you are at all interested in birds, then you have probably already been to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website. You have probably used the section All About Birds, which can help you identify the birds you see outside your window. Or you have contributed your sightings to to eBird or another one of their popular citizen science projects.

Their website has much more on it, and if you are a bird lover or you have a child who is, then there’s a lot of educational materials that you can use. I can’t wait until my son gets a little older. I think he’ll really enjoy the Bird Academy. There are also activities and planned lessons for teachers or homeschooling co-op parents in their K-12 Education section. There’s even more than that, but I’ll stop there and let you explore their website yourself. You can also read about the history of the Lab on Wikipedia.

Sapsucker Woods is a special place, and we knew it before we even stepped on a trail. I’ll show you our walks through my photos.