Action4Canada - Parent Webinar - May 9, 2023

00:00:00.000 and i'm excited today to talk to you about how to manage children many children at home when you

00:00:16.000 choose to homeschool and how to juggle various ages and the curriculum that's required but

00:00:25.760 mostly just juggling your time and we have a wonderful guest here today she's actually my

00:00:32.640 sister-in-law wendy livingstone and she's my mentor and i've learned so much from her

00:00:39.920 all the years before but before we start with wendy i just wanted to show you

00:00:47.040 our screen at action for canada the homeschool association directory

00:00:55.040 if you scroll down you will i've shown this the last two webinars we've done

00:00:59.760 just lots of homeschooling information here we got the hslda the homeschool legal defense association

00:01:07.200 we got some great videos just to see what's going on across your country and interviews

00:01:13.600 and then if you scroll back up

00:01:17.040 right here is the directory this is always my favorite page because this is what breaks down

00:01:22.480 each province and you want to see let's say we'll look at the first one alberta

00:01:30.080 a-h-e-a alberta home education education association so each province

00:01:37.200 has their own association and they will find you the support you need to get started whether it is

00:01:47.520 curriculum or how to pull your child or if you just need to find a local support group in your area

00:01:55.200 so like in bc we have one manitoba so each one there's phone numbers and emails just reach out to

00:02:04.400 them and the reason we're breaking it down is some of the laws do vary and particularly in quebec so you

00:02:12.400 want to know the laws and they're quite simple and straightforward they're not overwhelming

00:02:19.920 and then each province will take care of you here we got curriculum providers

00:02:27.600 and we're always adding to it usually every other week there's more stuff on here

00:02:33.280 and you just want to have a look at this stuff here

00:02:37.840 okay so i'm going to stop my share here and come back on the screen and introduce wendy

00:02:47.040 wendy livingstone is a mother of 42 years or a wife of 42 years and a mother of seven kids

00:02:54.160 and i think the oldest is in her later 30s the youngest in the early 20s and just a wealth of

00:03:04.560 support and information encouragement and it's not like you need to have seven kids if you've got

00:03:11.920 three and you're trying to juggle three kids that was me trying to figure out how to do the oldest one

00:03:18.480 keep her challenged and yet not lose the younger one and draw her into her learning

00:03:23.680 so welcome wendy and we're also going to at the end uh talk a little bit about

00:03:30.640 the compass community learning center as she is also the administrative assistant for that

00:03:36.800 and she can explain a little bit a bit more about what that is so welcome wendy and the floor is yours

00:03:44.160 thank you very much i am honored to be here i am not an expert but i have experience

00:03:51.520 experience there are a lot of uh excellent uh multiple children families that have homeschooled

00:04:00.880 thank you for choosing me it helps to know doris livingstone um okay i would like to start by sharing

00:04:12.000 my screen for my presentation start from the beginning

00:04:21.520 okay why homeschool i homeschooled because i have seen the village and i don't want it to raise my

00:04:31.680 children i'm wendy livingstone and um doris gave me a great introduction thank you and i'll do my best to

00:04:40.880 zip through this okay i did put my uh younger or my oldest daughter in kindergarten and i called public school

00:04:51.760 public school hurry up and hurry up and brush your hair hurry up and brush your teeth hurry up and get

00:04:57.440 your shoes on hurry up and get you in the car whereas homeschooling we can spend more time peacefully

00:05:05.280 going about life taking time for important things rather than hurrying up and i am a collector of

00:05:15.920 memes from facebook and everywhere and here's an easy recipe for homeschooling observe what they do in

00:05:25.120 public school and do the opposite okay this um actually um appealed to my husband the most

00:05:36.320 i was inspired by an amazing pack of worksheets in elementary school that totally changed my life

00:05:46.560 said no child ever um i had boys that looked similar to this

00:05:52.240 yes okay um just briefly way back in the olden days when homeschooling in bc wasn't legal but it

00:06:04.720 wasn't illegal and i kept my children in in the house till about three when other children were out of

00:06:11.200 school so that we weren't reported i read i read a lot of books and these oldies but goodies are great

00:06:21.680 and what i gleaned from the moors was that children's eyes especially boys don't fully develop until they're

00:06:29.520 about 10 years old so they suggested that you don't force them to read text or do busy work on worksheets

00:06:39.120 and let them go out and play um we did hands-on experiments crafts building projects hammers and nails

00:06:48.480 even for the girls i read this over again and i thought is there anything girly in there the girls did all

00:06:54.480 these things with us paper mache masks duct tape swords treasure hunts and scavenger hunts and the

00:07:04.240 moors he was the doctor and she was the teacher they have lots of research in their books um and it's

00:07:11.600 tried and true old research it's it's nothing new nothing none of the research that suggests that boys can

00:07:20.240 be girls and girls can be boys um i i learned to never stop reading and learning um you can teach

00:07:29.280 your kids that they learn by example and one of the funny little things is i have lots of books beside

00:07:36.560 my bed and when the kids come in i i show them these are all the books that mom's reading um one of the

00:07:45.280 books that i recommend was uh what the bible says about child training parenting with confidence with

00:07:52.800 j richard fugate and i can touch on that later an important tip for large families eat meals together

00:08:05.040 uh making meals nor eating meals together making it normal so that the children expect to be

00:08:14.240 to come over even as adults and they're going to have a meal with mom and dad and what follows is

00:08:19.840 conversation and we've joked at home that we should put our all of our cell phones in a lead box and

00:08:29.360 stack them at the door so that we can't be overheard because our conversations are quite spicy

00:08:37.920 um we talk about current affairs um another thing about raising a large family and this little talk

00:08:48.400 that i have sorry i'm reading off a piece of paper is raising normal kids totally different from the world

00:08:56.000 on purpose so one of the tips my oldest daughter had for um other homeschoolers she was about 17 0.96

00:09:06.640 and she gave a talk in front of the church ladies that wanted to know about homeschooling

00:09:12.480 and she said please parents don't let your kids dress up like

00:09:21.120 ragamuffins excuse me if you take them out into the real world have a good pair of shoes a good pair 1.00

00:09:28.960 of jeans a nice shirt a nice dress something so that they're going to be observed anyway out in the mall

00:09:37.680 because uh they're out of school if it's school time so the kids felt better if at least they didn't

00:09:46.400 look terrible so we'd put on our going out in the world clothes um another tip uh the story i have

00:09:57.040 as a young couple lived next door to us and the the fellow in his 30s came over and asked my husband

00:10:04.560 if he could please change a light bulb for him and we made a decision then and there that we were going

00:10:12.400 to train up our kids to do all of the things they would need to run a household and not need someone

00:10:19.840 else to come and change a light bulb uh normal skills is um is what we were teaching our kids um

00:10:30.480 sorry another tip was uh eating meals together oh sports

00:10:37.520 we had seven children and uh they ranged in ages but we made a decision early on that they could do

00:10:47.840 one thing we'd concentrate on each child one thing at a time they couldn't all be in all sports

00:10:56.720 there were there was only one driver and i had to divvy things up so the other thing was we didn't

00:11:05.680 start them until they were 10 years old because by the time they were 10 they could actually understand

00:11:10.800 the rules of the game like t-ball seems so silly because really when you're going to learn baseball

00:11:16.960 you're not going to hit the ball off of the stick so we did everything at home we got the kids a lot

00:11:25.280 of things were second hand baseballs gloves ice skates we went to public skating um

00:11:33.040 um bikes we rode bikes together um they played basketball in the driveway they learned all the

00:11:43.040 sports at home and if they showed a really keen interest in any one thing and they wanted to join

00:11:51.680 a team there were teams of course in the community that they could they could join so we let them do one

00:11:59.040 thing at a time um a quick story my son my son was a hockey player i put him in hockey when he was 12.

00:12:10.400 had we put him in at about five he might have been an in a nhl player but um we put him in at 12

00:12:18.320 and he joined a men's league after he finished school and one of the fellows in the locker room

00:12:24.400 came up to him and he said you're a christian aren't you and my son son thought about it for just a

00:12:30.960 second and he said yes i am and the fellow said yeah you don't swear i was very pleased with that

00:12:39.520 um academics uh let's see i asked my daughter my oldest daughter before i did a homeschool talk

00:12:50.400 honey what stands out in your mind what do you remember what what was something that you can

00:12:57.360 pass on what what do you what advice do you have for other other kids she said mom i don't remember

00:13:04.320 you teaching me anything well i almost died i almost cried and she said no no not that we didn't learn

00:13:12.000 but you made everything fun i tried okay that's just a story i had bible verses in my school room and

00:13:23.360 having a school room is another thing i might talk about how are we doing for time uh i had bible verses

00:13:30.160 and the one that i posted was uh proverbs 1 verse 7 fear the lord fear of the lord is the foundation of 0.97

00:13:39.680 true knowledge but you have to remember and i wish i'd emphasize this more the next part goes but a fool

00:13:47.600 despises wisdom and discipline so i wouldn't call my children fools but i wish i'd pointed that out

00:13:55.360 excuse me thank you um uh let's see quick story about a large family i i read somewhere i've read so much

00:14:11.280 oh what a blessing anyway read somewhere if you concentrate while you only have one or two children

00:14:20.080 to train them up really well uh i trained each daughter that came up in line to make pancakes

00:14:30.240 so i used to make pancakes my husband decided he'd use a buttermilk pancake recipe and he made pancakes

00:14:40.480 my oldest daughter learned to make them and so on down the line well daniel came along when my oldest

00:14:46.240 daughter was 16 and i think the pancake met making had passed on down to the 10 year old

00:14:53.360 and they were all out at a youth retreat and we had maybe just daniel sorry my youngest and maybe my

00:15:01.680 youngest daughter at home and i was making pancakes and my youngest son came got up and he comes into

00:15:08.720 the kitchen and he says mom you know how to make pancakes

00:15:13.360 okay i have notes on dating which we won't get into um dr fugate's book uh oh

00:15:28.800 i started out homeschooling at the kitchen table and that was fine except that we had to move

00:15:35.600 everything to have lunch and then we get it all back out again and i'd move everything off to set the

00:15:41.440 table for dinner so we decided we needed to we wanted to designate an area and we started off with three

00:15:52.160 children then i had the twins and they would not um tolerate being ignored so they would climb on the

00:16:02.880 table and sit on the kids books and look them right in the face and demand attention

00:16:10.320 was very sweet but we decided we needed a school room and we went up to the attic and we turned it into

00:16:19.520 a school room now and the tip i have today is highlights of your life sorry okay hi i'm wendy this

00:16:30.080 is for mom's cafe and it's organizational tips and the tip i have today is highlights of your life

00:16:40.160 we're going to use highlighter pens and this is all an inexpensive way to do some organization

00:16:49.520 so here on my inexpensive book i have everything that i need to know so today my to-do list is make a

00:16:58.960 doctor's appointment when you find out that it's uh tuesday at 4 pm you're going to make it pink because

00:17:11.600 it's something you have to remember plan a birthday party depends who it's for but if it's something

00:17:19.680 really important you highlight it in yellow so it's a visual so that you can see you really have to

00:17:29.440 remember this this is the doctor's appointment it's in pink so you remember that once you've got the

00:17:36.320 party organized and done you make it blue my reasoning behind this is so that if you're used to doing a

00:17:47.040 a to-do list on a piece of paper you might even think yay i'm done crumple crumple chuck somebody comes

00:17:55.760 in and says well what did you do today and you go oh um let me find my piece of paper from the garbage

00:18:02.000 no i say do this and each time you get something done you took the meat out of the freezer

00:18:10.320 and you look at this and you think well i know i did more than that today hey i talked to

00:18:16.480 my mother-in-law my mother-in-law phoned okay and i spoke to her write that down and go yes i did it

00:18:27.760 at the end of the day you've got highlighters in blue for having had it done it was yellow to really

00:18:37.920 remember but you got it done so you've made it blue when you go back in your book and you're looking at

00:18:44.240 things that you needed to remember to do there's in yellow this one isn't a good example another

00:18:52.640 reason though why i suggest you have highlighters in your pen in your purse is when you're out with

00:19:00.640 the kids you can say have a page and highlight you can color while mom is busy and you might even collect

00:19:10.240 some lovely artwork from your kids okay now using this same idea i suggest you get a dollar store

00:19:21.520 um organizer um day planner and this is what mine looks like so we were in february let me just show

00:19:30.000 you february there was mom's cafe this is what i'm working on we had a birthday another birthday and

00:19:38.960 another birthday just stuff like that so this is this month here's our mom's cafe oh a bunch of things

00:19:47.120 i'm doing this is handy because it fits in your diaper bag and uh any plans you make you have your

00:19:58.800 calendar with you at all times i know you can put it on your phone but when you scroll down your phone

00:20:04.960 trying to find what it is you're looking for this is faster the other thing is you might have your

00:20:12.240 um young child playing a game on their phone and you won't be able to retrieve your phone fast enough

00:20:21.440 to make a date in your calendar i'm just saying paper is easy this is all dollar store then

00:20:29.200 um what else i have these books from for forever and i've made notes and i've highlighted things

00:20:40.000 this is something i really need to remember don't zoom in on it i don't know what it says

00:20:45.760 but this is i have kept this book i take notes at a meeting uh if this is the book i have handy when

00:20:54.160 i'm at church i make notes this is an old one the other thing about either one of these

00:21:01.680 that you can do well all three all three of these items this is six dollars and 49 cents of staples

00:21:08.880 this was a dollar 25 and you can get a little cheap book anywhere the highlighters i made a point of

00:21:16.160 finding out for three color four colors let's see any four colors uh they were three dollars and 59 cents

00:21:26.160 for some highlighters and you can get started right away um the other thing i was going to say

00:21:33.600 is if you have this little calendar book uh instead of feeling guilty moms for forgetting things or not 0.60

00:21:42.720 getting your uh child's photo album updated in this book you'll have first tooth took his first step etc

00:21:53.760 well when you go to do your your child's photo album you've got 2017 2016 15 14 13 and you can go

00:22:07.920 through your pages and see when those special dates were for that child it's an idea um

00:22:19.120 this is a mock-up this is wendy and we'll do a better job for mom's cafe and i'll have my makeup on by then

00:22:28.640 thank you

00:22:29.040 okay just sort of as a review the highlights for your notebook um colors are a visual um i went to a

00:22:41.360 seminar that stated that our brains work best if if you're trying to memorize something you can use

00:22:49.600 different colors for different aspects of a paper to review um anything so for me just as

00:22:58.720 this is an idea pink is to remember so phone numbers and special dates yellow is for priorities

00:23:06.880 and blue is when you get it done and of course keep the highlighters in your purse and kids can color

00:23:15.760 they think it's an honor to get one of mom's pages to use so the wall calendar is the the thing

00:23:24.000 that i didn't show you so all of this color ideas came from the book managers of their homes and i'll

00:23:32.400 get into that in a minute but this is what i had done mama's pink kids are blue orange purple red yellow

00:23:41.280 but dad is green your day planner goes into your diaper bag or your purse remember to write in the

00:23:50.400 special dates like your baby's first tooth first step birthdays and anniversaries etc now here we go

00:23:58.880 this is the book and i have to tell you uh of all the purchases i made this book has um stories in it

00:24:09.920 the people that did the pilot project wrote in to the maxwells and told them all of the

00:24:18.320 the things that they had learned i think i have it on a different page but the premise of this book

00:24:26.000 is to spend 15 minutes doing something uh any random well 15 minutes consecutively 15 minutes doing math

00:24:37.680 15 minutes doing english i did half an hour because it took it took me 10 minutes to get the kids to change

00:24:45.920 gears but but here we go let's see pink is to remember yellow is something important oh in my my copy of

00:24:55.040 this book and then multiple colors all the times i went through this book and re-read oh here it is okay

00:25:03.920 so in the back of the book uh the maxwells have a chart a grid and you can put the different colors for

00:25:12.160 the different children in the different spots it helped me to have my husband join me one time in

00:25:20.560 setting up our grid and i had three different children on the same computer at the same time

00:25:27.760 it need i needed that second set of eyes to help me so after i got the hang of how to do

00:25:35.200 uh their grid which can be used over and over again my husband made me this um this chart and i've had as

00:25:44.160 many as five kids on it and um let's see a half hour hot tub time for mom and dad without the kids so hot 1.00

00:25:57.200 tub time is doing whatever you don't have to have a hot tub i i scheduled it in there though no phones

00:26:04.960 no computers no tv screens just conversation now you're thinking i couldn't possibly have seven kids

00:26:15.920 sure you can but but let me show you this i started out when i was 24 with just one child

00:26:22.240 then i had two children for four years three children for three years i jumped from three

00:26:31.760 children to the twins having the twins and just having those children for three years and so on and

00:26:41.040 so on down to the end here i don't know if you can see my mouse i actually had probably more time

00:26:47.440 homeschooling one child than than with multiples but here's a close-up of it um 25 years old to 55

00:26:59.600 years old really were my intense years and it was over very quickly this i think you need to screen

00:27:06.880 share we don't see that oh you can't see this oh i'm sorry yeah uh now i don't know how to oh i thought

00:27:13.440 i was screen sharing have you seen this you have not seen this page no oh dear okay well this will

00:27:23.680 make it handy to get to see it so quick i did a quick review but you didn't see my page

00:27:32.000 uh pink is for something to remember yellow is important and blue is when it's done the other

00:27:37.600 reason i liked this um exercise is because if you make your list and you go yay i've completed it

00:27:45.520 crumple crumple chuck you never see all the things you've done a lot of times you can go back and say

00:27:53.200 did i actually ever wash out the the um the back of the truck uh i don't remember let's check my book

00:28:01.840 and see if i've got it done um it was handy to go review is what i found then okay so here was all

00:28:10.800 this important stuff i was always pink and my husband was green and uh he was out of town a lot

00:28:19.920 so we had green going from sunday to thursday night dad was away and i uh solo parented for a lot of years

00:28:30.560 and uh the things i learned when my husband wasn't home was when he did phone not that i'd fib but i

00:28:40.240 wouldn't tell him some of the challenges because he couldn't do anything about the challenges while he

00:28:45.840 was away but i'd write them down and just let him know so that on friday when we took the day off we

00:28:54.160 only homeschooled in the end i i it evolved into four days a week so that we could have fridays off

00:29:01.920 with dad very important and um and he'd have three days to catch up do his laundry have chats with the

00:29:12.320 kids and discipline hardly seems fair but it worked that way oh so this is the book that i was telling

00:29:19.120 you about highly recommend purchasing this book this is the grid that i was trying to show you earlier

00:29:28.000 um and and the part about hot tubs you can read it there um so the premise is half an hour a day

00:29:37.920 and by the end of the week you can have two and a half hours uh that you've accomplished or that you've

00:29:45.040 dedicated to one thing and in the day we quite often did school from nine to noon and then in the

00:29:53.280 rest of the day was our piano practice sports uh pe home ec uh so the next page oh so this is what you

00:30:04.640 couldn't see this is the grid of my life um there's a a part here where my daughter wasn't in the home

00:30:14.080 she was in argentina with her older siblings on a missions trip and they kept her she was only there

00:30:20.800 about four months but this was just an example reminds me of what she was doing you can just barely

00:30:27.840 see some color in here the kids were still home but the the intense colors are the their homeschool years

00:30:36.480 um so this is just uh it's 20 years that you're concentrating on your family

00:30:46.000 um intense years wonderful years i encourage you it's i'd never do it any other way this is a little

00:30:56.640 bit hard to look at the first child one two three this is um she homeschooled till 18 i did about 18

00:31:07.280 on this grid for you to have a look at so toya when she was 15 was in argentina oh i wasn't going to use

00:31:14.160 names anyway um and then they and then here's my youngest finishing at 18 and he moved out with

00:31:28.160 his brother at 19 and i was an empty nester by 60. very sad a large family this is our morning um routine

00:31:41.360 uh the kids would get up whatever time 7 38 if i could manage 7 7 30 was best when the baby got up we all got

00:31:53.280 up one child to empty the dishwasher one child to set the table the other child to assemble breakfast goodies

00:32:02.320 we'd sit down to eat and pray very very important to dedicate our day to the lord start off

00:32:11.840 well eat and chat and discuss the day's adventures we'd leave and and this is something that i learned um

00:32:20.080 um if you were to do your chores all day um at the end of the day you'd wonder how you would ever

00:32:27.920 fit homeschooling in because you've got all those children home so the important thing is

00:32:33.920 is it evolves it uh you figure it out and we would do breakfast and leave the table leave the chores

00:32:44.000 and everything sit and do our bible devotions read um we would do current affairs which would lead to

00:32:53.280 history and geography while the littles would color i found a beautiful bible coloring book

00:33:01.680 um and as the littles learned to read they'd have their own bible version now the older children would

00:33:11.280 get a little bit um impatient when the littles couldn't pronounce a word but if they were reading

00:33:17.600 different versions of the verses and the chapters the older kids couldn't criticize because it was a

00:33:24.960 different book an idea um i suggest you follow the rabbit trails they lead to awesome discussions research

00:33:36.720 comes out of uh things mom do you know everything no i don't know everything let's find out and we'd go to

00:33:46.000 the library i think that that you're allowed 50 books out on each card oh boy i'm running out of time

00:33:55.840 here i've been going on and on this was important for me to tell share with you don't ever let anyone

00:34:03.600 tell you that they're you're homeschooling the wrong way education is discipleship homeschooling is

00:34:11.600 parenting with school books there are as many ways to educate your child as there are to dress them

00:34:19.280 the most important thing to remember is that you are the parents god entrusted with your children

00:34:27.440 and no one else you need to do what's best for your family and your children if you do read classics

00:34:35.440 or don't it's okay if your if your kids learn to read at three or eight or ten it's okay if you use

00:34:44.560 textbooks for everything and never do crafts it's okay if your kids graduate with full scholarships

00:34:51.760 or go to work on the farm it's okay public schools are factories and children are the product

00:34:59.520 the product must meet certain requirements and must be as standardized as possible thank goodness your

00:35:08.640 child is not standard you they are unique individuals created in the image of god you know all children

00:35:17.760 are different if you have two or more of them your family is not standard either embrace that

00:35:26.000 do what works choose your methods and curriculum with prayer and wisdom and not for peer pressure or

00:35:33.760 social media pressures seek help when you need it or ask for advice from a trusted source but don't let

00:35:43.280 anyone tell you that you're homeschooling the wrong way and very important be a family not a school

00:35:52.080 okay really quickly these are things we wish they had that we could learn well being homeschooled we can

00:36:01.840 learn these things our grandma was the horticulturalist professor in on our property how to grow food

00:36:10.800 composting seed saving medicinal herbs first aid foraging mushroom id water filtration

00:36:20.640 uh fermentation no till yeah that word fruit preservations and then i always want to say with a large

00:36:31.600 family it was so important to do home ec very important um making their beds all of these things down

00:36:41.920 near the bottom nurturing younger siblings um textiles is sewing auto mechanics oh dads are fabulous

00:36:53.760 uh dad might say honey i'm leaving uh after lunch to go out to the car i'm going to work on something or

00:37:02.000 other and i'd say great take the kids teach them to work on the car budgeting how important is that

00:37:10.000 that applying for a bank loan and better still save up all their money and don't need a loan for their

00:37:17.920 car um our children did school diligently till they were about and i don't mean they weren't diligent

00:37:26.080 after 14 but around 14 or 15 when they were able to have a part-time job it's what they chose to do

00:37:34.240 and they had some independence and some money i encouraged them to get their driver's license my

00:37:40.480 goodness that's so much help um and it sets them up i think i have here sets them up to be a grown-up okay stop sharing

00:37:53.040 okay this is great wendy this is so so good um so many useful uh tips on how to manage the time and the

00:38:03.520 children whether you've got two three or four or even one it's re-learning how to um yeah just manage

00:38:11.360 our time and all the great tips uh one of the the questions i see in the chat is when it comes to

00:38:18.080 curriculum um how do you and i know you've only got a few minutes before you need to get off the screen

00:38:24.960 so i wanted to give you some time just to talk about how to manage um curriculum so my experience

00:38:32.880 was unit studies were my saving grace where i took a subject and required um different expectations from

00:38:42.320 each grade level of my children and then my older one sort of started to really become a a motivated

00:38:50.480 self learner and moved on and then i kept the other two sort of at the same subjects but different

00:38:56.720 expectations so what would you recommend could you give us a few tips on how you manage curriculum

00:39:03.600 for okay children when i started uh there wasn't an awful lot of curriculum for homeschoolers

00:39:12.160 so what we did was quite eclectic nowadays um i went to costco i had a difficult pregnancy and i went to

00:39:22.400 costco and i got the complete book of grade six or something and it was helpful it was awesome we did

00:39:30.400 our bible study we had our prayer tree um and then we would do some pages in grade six in the workbook

00:39:38.960 handy very handy um when i had my older two girls with some curriculum that i got for grade 10 and

00:39:49.920 and grade eight oh another tip when i had the older girls doing grade eight and grade 10 and i had all of 1.00

00:39:57.520 these littles i got a gal come into the house and she would have the kids from nine to eleven downstairs all 1.00

00:40:07.680 the littles and i had the big the bigs upstairs and we concentrated on just doing older curriculum for

00:40:18.000 the older two while rita had the kids downstairs and then she'd make us lunch it was wonderful another tip

00:40:27.680 was um when i took kids um when i took kids sorry this isn't curriculum what do i what can i help you oh

00:40:37.120 when i had bigs and and middles i went to a curriculum fair to uh the alberta canadian educators homeschool

00:40:48.480 store i have it wrong brenda i said brenda i've got five little kids and one of them's 10 and the

00:40:56.560 little ones only two or whatever he was and i said what can i do to incorporate all of them at once

00:41:05.360 for at least an hour and a half and she said there's come sit by me and five in a row

00:41:12.640 five in a row five in a row is take is what i purchased you take a book out of the library

00:41:18.880 and for five days you concentrate on the artwork the incorporate math uh geography and history

00:41:28.320 and whatever is in the book and when you catch on to how it works you can do it with any book you're

00:41:35.040 using and like doris said uh unit study um the book the book only was a launch pad to something else and

00:41:44.960 what i did on my blackboard or a whiteboard or a piece of paper with the kids is we did i i call it

00:41:52.640 oh i think it's called web uh uh whatever it is sorry your subject is in the middle frogs they lay eggs

00:42:02.080 they're in the pond uh their life cycle and from there the kids go let's go out to the pond and

00:42:10.080 we do a pond day um let's collect eggs and watch them turn into tadpoles oh my so we did that with

00:42:19.360 a lot of things so the unit study quite often was our own uh invention our own creation

00:42:26.000 how's that anything else doris you're muted yeah so no that's fantastic and just before we go into

00:42:38.480 q a can you touch on a little bit about the compass community learning centers okay i am a die hard

00:42:45.760 homeschooler everybody can homeschool to a certain extent i was asked one day uh we they heard a

00:42:54.560 presentation about pull your kids out of school um and if you want to learn about homeschooling go ask

00:43:00.720 wendy beautiful little gal came back she says i have a seven-year-old i've got to pull him out of

00:43:06.000 school i said great can you stay home with him uh no i can't i work full-time oh do you have a grandma

00:43:12.720 or an auntie that can watch him in the day so that you can homeschool when you're able to no we're

00:43:18.960 here from korea alone i said i'm sorry you can't homeschool but from there was launched was birthed

00:43:28.160 the idea although i'd heard it before other people have done this to set up a school in a church

00:43:34.640 basement so that's what we did there were a couple of uh core members of us on the board and i had

00:43:44.480 bare bones ideas uh mrs horvath is our executive director of compass community learning centers

00:43:54.480 it is a group three independent school and we like to say no shekels no shackles we don't take 0.99

00:44:03.920 government money and we don't have to follow government curriculum we um we are we have a

00:44:11.360 certificate that allows us to be a school we had looked into homeschooling could homeschool families

00:44:18.880 drop in drop off their kids to go to work we found out that you cannot drop off homeschoolers if

00:44:26.160 they are registered with the government as homeschoolers they have to be with their parents 0.80

00:44:32.960 to a certain extent they can't be dropped off at a school and if the government were to find out

00:44:38.480 it was a ten thousand dollar fine a day so we said well we're just doing child minding and we can do

00:44:47.280 kids in a group setting in the church basement well then we'd be an unlicensed daycare center and we

00:44:56.320 would be charged ten thousand dollars a day that's why we came up with the group three independent school

00:45:04.720 there are several of them ours is unique no not that unique we're a classical christian education center

00:45:13.200 and we operated our pilot program on three days a week we have one of one or two of our students comes

00:45:22.640 just for four days a week makes it a little bit hard to follow through on his curriculum for that fifth

00:45:30.560 day but we send homework with his mom and it's five days a week and it's for uh sing we find we have

00:45:39.680 christian single moms um a lot of immigrants surprisingly we had immigrants come to us and say i'm so happy to

00:45:49.360 find you we thought we were moving to canada and canada was a christian nation sadly not

00:45:57.600 um so we have compass we have a website it's compass clc.com and you can check out our website

00:46:10.480 we have two schools at the moment we're in the works of a third and a fourth um yeah it's very exciting

00:46:20.080 i i i'm the administrator of that i do a lot of the behind the scenes paperwork

00:46:28.400 okay and just to clarify that this is in british colombia and um when do you do know how the laws

00:46:36.720 are across the country i know in quebec it would probably be a challenge um i don't know how that

00:46:43.040 works so if you're in another province um and that's of interest to you uh you could start with

00:46:51.200 wendy or start with your homeschool association they may they may know the law well they will know the

00:46:57.600 laws and same with hslva they would know the laws on whether you're allowed to do that in your

00:47:02.080 province or not but it is an option three here in british colombia yes um and interestingly while we

00:47:10.880 were putting this uh pilot project together um i had a feeling that what we were what we had hoped

00:47:19.040 for might not be legal and it was hslda that i called it was um i got in touch with a lawyer it's not

00:47:27.440 what they they are scheduled to do but i've been with hslda for probably 30 some odd years ever since

00:47:37.280 they were they came to canada and as as one of their loyal uh members or um i guess a member um

00:47:48.800 she gave me the time and gave me some very good advice so that was very helpful and and i i would

00:47:55.920 say you're right doris hslda would help you in your province thank you and do you have a few minutes just

00:48:04.720 to touch on the parents united canada and your involvement with that okay so before there was

00:48:12.160 action for canada there i was i am with parents united canada and we have little tiny programs i

00:48:22.880 started the educational choices so that i could help parents in bc know that you can register or enroll and

00:48:34.240 public school dls private schools uh homeschooling and now this option to have a group three independent

00:48:45.680 school um and we just we're just mini and i in preparation for this opportunity to speak to you

00:48:57.440 today i went on your website and i watched peter stock and he covers so many things i didn't touch

00:49:07.440 on a bunch of things because he's covered it very well so yeah peter stock for those who uh didn't uh

00:49:15.840 hear the webinar two weeks ago he's the president of the homeschool legal defense association and his

00:49:22.160 webinar is recorded on our action for canada website if you want to go digging in there um i also wanted

00:49:30.000 to just screen share on mine and hopefully i can find it hmm i think it's here

00:49:39.200 the link is also this link to hslda is on our website as well if you are seriously considering

00:49:52.960 homeschooling um this is on the hslda website it's showing the homeschool conferences across canada

00:50:03.440 and on the left here it'll show the provinces and you can see on the right the dates of the ones that

00:50:10.000 have already happened so watch for those if you're in manitoba it looks like it was in march ontario they

00:50:19.920 had one but ontario is having another one may 13th and may 5 6 so they just have theirs last week the big

00:50:26.480 one these uh new brunswick's got one coming up and then the the one on the bottom ontario new and

00:50:34.560 used curriculum those are always fun to go to because if you're budget-minded as i was we were on

00:50:39.840 one income for many years um it was great to go and and get used curriculum to uh you know use in your

00:50:50.800 day-to-day schoolwork so keep an eye on this website if that interests you i would encourage you to attend

00:50:57.280 a live conference you get knowledgeable uh speakers on every subject that matters to you um the curriculum

00:51:06.640 fair though the like the vendor hall is open where you can um see and touch and look and read a

00:51:14.720 curriculum and then all the great conversations that happen in the vendors hall and in the hallways

00:51:20.560 with other people and uh you you you get inspired so when i go when i used to go every year

00:51:26.400 they were typically the first weekend in june um in british columbia and uh i was ready i was ready to

00:51:37.760 learn and remind myself why am i doing this oh yeah this is why i'm doing this this is why i'm going to

00:51:44.480 hang on and then i would prepare my summer and take all my time off from schooling but in my mind preparing

00:51:52.080 for september and i didn't usually start until like the third week of september because i really wanted

00:51:57.760 to enjoy that last part of summer with the kids so um yeah have a look at that so i will stop the

00:52:06.000 screen share and um we've got wendy have you got like ten five minutes to answer any questions five okay

00:52:14.800 just opening up the floor if anybody's got questions or if you want to pop it in the chat that would be fine too

00:52:21.360 one of the things that i really appreciated what you said wendy was teaching life skills um

00:52:33.680 i remember when my daughters my oldest daughter's best friend wonderful girl from the public school 0.98

00:52:41.600 and uh had never baked cookies and she was no they were older they were in grade 10 or 11 she never

00:52:50.880 baked cookies and i was marveled and i thought wow like to me that's so basic and um one of the things

00:53:01.040 that you get to do in homeschooling is you get to teach all the little things on the side all the time

00:53:05.680 they just sort of pick it up because they're hanging out and watching and being part of you whether

00:53:09.440 it's in the in the garage or in the kitchen or in the yard or you work along with your parent the

00:53:15.280 child works along their parents so these life skills are so important as we move into adulthood and

00:53:22.000 becoming citizens again in society and um yeah that's what we want for our kids and for those of you who

00:53:30.320 are just getting started um it's one day and one month and one year at a time and then one year goes

00:53:38.960 after the other and it's amazing i did k to 12 best years ever best and i'm very close relationally with

00:53:46.960 my children and that's another benefit is uh when you when you see the big picture and you you hold out

00:53:53.120 it for the long haul so true yeah and we need to have these conversations especially with the way

00:53:59.920 canada and the world is in this time and uh prepare our children for their years ahead and as they move

00:54:09.520 to become adults and and parents themselves and uh yeah and keep homeschooling alive for the next

00:54:18.160 generation as well so i think we're going to wrap it up here i know wendy has to to leave and uh thank

00:54:25.120 you for being here and what's the best way to reach you wendy if anybody wanted to reach out to you

00:54:34.080 hmm i guess uh wendy at parents united canada.com is where i i check it all the time to see it if

00:54:42.480 anybody's trying to contact me um yeah i think that works okay thank you yeah thank you so much and for

00:54:53.520 myself if anybody has questions about homeschooling uh anything anything at all um my email address

00:55:01.920 is uh homeschooling at action for canada and those are the full words action for canada with the number

00:55:09.760 four dot ca homeschooling at action for canada dot ca i just see it's in the chat there so thank you

00:55:19.440 everyone we're going to close it up here and uh we look forward to seeing you again in two weeks go

00:55:25.920 ahead wendy just let me say thank you very much it's been wonderful um action for canada and you guys

00:55:34.000 are doing a great job thank you very much and i'll say goodbye thank you thanks wendy bye-bye

Action4Canada - May 13, 2023

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