Parent Webinar - May 9, 2023
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
137.17131
Summary
In this episode, I chat with my sister-in-law, Wendy Livingstone, about how to manage children, many children at home, when you choose to homeschool, and how to juggle various ages and the curriculum that's required.
Transcript
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and i'm excited today to talk to you about how to manage children many children at home when you
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choose to homeschool and how to juggle various ages and the curriculum that's required but
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mostly just juggling your time and we have a wonderful guest here today she's actually my
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sister-in-law wendy livingstone and she's my mentor and i've learned so much from her
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all the years before but before we start with wendy i just wanted to show you
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our screen at action for canada the homeschool association directory
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if you scroll down you will i've shown this the last two webinars we've done
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just lots of homeschooling information here we got the hslda the homeschool legal defense association
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we got some great videos just to see what's going on across your country and interviews
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right here is the directory this is always my favorite page because this is what breaks down
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each province and you want to see let's say we'll look at the first one alberta
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a-h-e-a alberta home education education association so each province
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has their own association and they will find you the support you need to get started whether it is
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curriculum or how to pull your child or if you just need to find a local support group in your area
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so like in bc we have one manitoba so each one there's phone numbers and emails just reach out to
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them and the reason we're breaking it down is some of the laws do vary and particularly in quebec so you
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want to know the laws and they're quite simple and straightforward they're not overwhelming
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and then each province will take care of you here we got curriculum providers
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and we're always adding to it usually every other week there's more stuff on here
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and you just want to have a look at this stuff here
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okay so i'm going to stop my share here and come back on the screen and introduce wendy
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wendy livingstone is a mother of 42 years or a wife of 42 years and a mother of seven kids
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and i think the oldest is in her later 30s the youngest in the early 20s and just a wealth of
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support and information encouragement and it's not like you need to have seven kids if you've got
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three and you're trying to juggle three kids that was me trying to figure out how to do the oldest one
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keep her challenged and yet not lose the younger one and draw her into her learning
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so welcome wendy and we're also going to at the end uh talk a little bit about
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the compass community learning center as she is also the administrative assistant for that
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and she can explain a little bit a bit more about what that is so welcome wendy and the floor is yours
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thank you very much i am honored to be here i am not an expert but i have experience
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experience there are a lot of uh excellent uh multiple children families that have homeschooled
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thank you for choosing me it helps to know doris livingstone um okay i would like to start by sharing
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my screen for my presentation start from the beginning
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okay why homeschool i homeschooled because i have seen the village and i don't want it to raise my
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children i'm wendy livingstone and um doris gave me a great introduction thank you and i'll do my best to
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zip through this okay i did put my uh younger or my oldest daughter in kindergarten and i called public school
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public school hurry up and hurry up and brush your hair hurry up and brush your teeth hurry up and get
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your shoes on hurry up and get you in the car whereas homeschooling we can spend more time peacefully
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going about life taking time for important things rather than hurrying up and i am a collector of
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memes from facebook and everywhere and here's an easy recipe for homeschooling observe what they do in
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public school and do the opposite okay this um actually um appealed to my husband the most
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i was inspired by an amazing pack of worksheets in elementary school that totally changed my life
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said no child ever um i had boys that looked similar to this
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yes okay um just briefly way back in the olden days when homeschooling in bc wasn't legal but it
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wasn't illegal and i kept my children in in the house till about three when other children were out of
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school so that we weren't reported i read i read a lot of books and these oldies but goodies are great
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and what i gleaned from the moors was that children's eyes especially boys don't fully develop until they're
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about 10 years old so they suggested that you don't force them to read text or do busy work on worksheets
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and let them go out and play um we did hands-on experiments crafts building projects hammers and nails
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even for the girls i read this over again and i thought is there anything girly in there the girls did all
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these things with us paper mache masks duct tape swords treasure hunts and scavenger hunts and the
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moors he was the doctor and she was the teacher they have lots of research in their books um and it's
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tried and true old research it's it's nothing new nothing none of the research that suggests that boys can
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be girls and girls can be boys um i i learned to never stop reading and learning um you can teach
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your kids that they learn by example and one of the funny little things is i have lots of books beside
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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
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books that i recommend was uh what the bible says about child training parenting with confidence with
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j richard fugate and i can touch on that later an important tip for large families eat meals together
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uh making meals nor eating meals together making it normal so that the children expect to be
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to come over even as adults and they're going to have a meal with mom and dad and what follows is
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conversation and we've joked at home that we should put our all of our cell phones in a lead box and
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stack them at the door so that we can't be overheard because our conversations are quite spicy
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um we talk about current affairs um another thing about raising a large family and this little talk
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that i have sorry i'm reading off a piece of paper is raising normal kids totally different from the world
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on purpose so one of the tips my oldest daughter had for um other homeschoolers she was about 17
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and she gave a talk in front of the church ladies that wanted to know about homeschooling
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and she said please parents don't let your kids dress up like
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ragamuffins excuse me if you take them out into the real world have a good pair of shoes a good pair
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of jeans a nice shirt a nice dress something so that they're going to be observed anyway out in the mall
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because uh they're out of school if it's school time so the kids felt better if at least they didn't
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look terrible so we'd put on our going out in the world clothes um another tip uh the story i have
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as a young couple lived next door to us and the the fellow in his 30s came over and asked my husband
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if he could please change a light bulb for him and we made a decision then and there that we were going
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to train up our kids to do all of the things they would need to run a household and not need someone
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else to come and change a light bulb uh normal skills is um is what we were teaching our kids um
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sorry another tip was uh eating meals together oh sports
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we had seven children and uh they ranged in ages but we made a decision early on that they could do
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one thing we'd concentrate on each child one thing at a time they couldn't all be in all sports
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there were there was only one driver and i had to divvy things up so the other thing was we didn't
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start them until they were 10 years old because by the time they were 10 they could actually understand
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the rules of the game like t-ball seems so silly because really when you're going to learn baseball
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you're not going to hit the ball off of the stick so we did everything at home we got the kids a lot
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of things were second hand baseballs gloves ice skates we went to public skating um
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um bikes we rode bikes together um they played basketball in the driveway they learned all the
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sports at home and if they showed a really keen interest in any one thing and they wanted to join
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a team there were teams of course in the community that they could they could join so we let them do one
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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.
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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
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and he joined a men's league after he finished school and one of the fellows in the locker room
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came up to him and he said you're a christian aren't you and my son son thought about it for just a
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second and he said yes i am and the fellow said yeah you don't swear i was very pleased with that
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um academics uh let's see i asked my daughter my oldest daughter before i did a homeschool talk
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honey what stands out in your mind what do you remember what what was something that you can
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pass on what what do you what advice do you have for other other kids she said mom i don't remember
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you teaching me anything well i almost died i almost cried and she said no no not that we didn't learn
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but you made everything fun i tried okay that's just a story i had bible verses in my school room and
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having a school room is another thing i might talk about how are we doing for time uh i had bible verses
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and the one that i posted was uh proverbs 1 verse 7 fear the lord fear of the lord is the foundation of
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true knowledge but you have to remember and i wish i'd emphasize this more the next part goes but a fool
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despises wisdom and discipline so i wouldn't call my children fools but i wish i'd pointed that out
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excuse me thank you um uh let's see quick story about a large family i i read somewhere i've read so much
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oh what a blessing anyway read somewhere if you concentrate while you only have one or two children
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to train them up really well uh i trained each daughter that came up in line to make pancakes
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so i used to make pancakes my husband decided he'd use a buttermilk pancake recipe and he made pancakes
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my oldest daughter learned to make them and so on down the line well daniel came along when my oldest
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daughter was 16 and i think the pancake met making had passed on down to the 10 year old
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and they were all out at a youth retreat and we had maybe just daniel sorry my youngest and maybe my
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youngest daughter at home and i was making pancakes and my youngest son came got up and he comes into
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the kitchen and he says mom you know how to make pancakes
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okay i have notes on dating which we won't get into um dr fugate's book uh oh
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i started out homeschooling at the kitchen table and that was fine except that we had to move
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everything to have lunch and then we get it all back out again and i'd move everything off to set the
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table for dinner so we decided we needed to we wanted to designate an area and we started off with three
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children then i had the twins and they would not um tolerate being ignored so they would climb on the
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table and sit on the kids books and look them right in the face and demand attention
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was very sweet but we decided we needed a school room and we went up to the attic and we turned it into
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a school room now and the tip i have today is highlights of your life sorry okay hi i'm wendy this
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is for mom's cafe and it's organizational tips and the tip i have today is highlights of your life
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we're going to use highlighter pens and this is all an inexpensive way to do some organization
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so here on my inexpensive book i have everything that i need to know so today my to-do list is make a
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doctor's appointment when you find out that it's uh tuesday at 4 pm you're going to make it pink because
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it's something you have to remember plan a birthday party depends who it's for but if it's something
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really important you highlight it in yellow so it's a visual so that you can see you really have to
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remember this this is the doctor's appointment it's in pink so you remember that once you've got the
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party organized and done you make it blue my reasoning behind this is so that if you're used to doing a
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a to-do list on a piece of paper you might even think yay i'm done crumple crumple chuck somebody comes
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in and says well what did you do today and you go oh um let me find my piece of paper from the garbage
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no i say do this and each time you get something done you took the meat out of the freezer
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and you look at this and you think well i know i did more than that today hey i talked to
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my mother-in-law my mother-in-law phoned okay and i spoke to her write that down and go yes i did it
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at the end of the day you've got highlighters in blue for having had it done it was yellow to really
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remember but you got it done so you've made it blue when you go back in your book and you're looking at
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things that you needed to remember to do there's in yellow this one isn't a good example another
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reason though why i suggest you have highlighters in your pen in your purse is when you're out with
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the kids you can say have a page and highlight you can color while mom is busy and you might even collect
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some lovely artwork from your kids okay now using this same idea i suggest you get a dollar store
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um organizer um day planner and this is what mine looks like so we were in february let me just show
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you february there was mom's cafe this is what i'm working on we had a birthday another birthday and
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another birthday just stuff like that so this is this month here's our mom's cafe oh a bunch of things
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i'm doing this is handy because it fits in your diaper bag and uh any plans you make you have your
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calendar with you at all times i know you can put it on your phone but when you scroll down your phone
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trying to find what it is you're looking for this is faster the other thing is you might have your
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um young child playing a game on their phone and you won't be able to retrieve your phone fast enough
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to make a date in your calendar i'm just saying paper is easy this is all dollar store then
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um what else i have these books from for forever and i've made notes and i've highlighted things
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this is something i really need to remember don't zoom in on it i don't know what it says
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but this is i have kept this book i take notes at a meeting uh if this is the book i have handy when
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i'm at church i make notes this is an old one the other thing about either one of these
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that you can do well all three all three of these items this is six dollars and 49 cents of staples
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this was a dollar 25 and you can get a little cheap book anywhere the highlighters i made a point of
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finding out for three color four colors let's see any four colors uh they were three dollars and 59 cents
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for some highlighters and you can get started right away um the other thing i was going to say
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is if you have this little calendar book uh instead of feeling guilty moms for forgetting things or not
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getting your uh child's photo album updated in this book you'll have first tooth took his first step etc
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well when you go to do your your child's photo album you've got 2017 2016 15 14 13 and you can go
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through your pages and see when those special dates were for that child it's an idea um
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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
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okay just sort of as a review the highlights for your notebook um colors are a visual um i went to a
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seminar that stated that our brains work best if if you're trying to memorize something you can use
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different colors for different aspects of a paper to review um anything so for me just as
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this is an idea pink is to remember so phone numbers and special dates yellow is for priorities
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and blue is when you get it done and of course keep the highlighters in your purse and kids can color
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they think it's an honor to get one of mom's pages to use so the wall calendar is the the thing
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that i didn't show you so all of this color ideas came from the book managers of their homes and i'll
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get into that in a minute but this is what i had done mama's pink kids are blue orange purple red yellow
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but dad is green your day planner goes into your diaper bag or your purse remember to write in the
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special dates like your baby's first tooth first step birthdays and anniversaries etc now here we go
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this is the book and i have to tell you uh of all the purchases i made this book has um stories in it
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the people that did the pilot project wrote in to the maxwells and told them all of the
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the things that they had learned i think i have it on a different page but the premise of this book
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is to spend 15 minutes doing something uh any random well 15 minutes consecutively 15 minutes doing math
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15 minutes doing english i did half an hour because it took it took me 10 minutes to get the kids to change
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gears but but here we go let's see pink is to remember yellow is something important oh in my my copy of
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this book and then multiple colors all the times i went through this book and re-read oh here it is okay
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so in the back of the book uh the maxwells have a chart a grid and you can put the different colors for
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the different children in the different spots it helped me to have my husband join me one time in
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setting up our grid and i had three different children on the same computer at the same time
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it need i needed that second set of eyes to help me so after i got the hang of how to do
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uh their grid which can be used over and over again my husband made me this um this chart and i've had as
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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
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tub time is doing whatever you don't have to have a hot tub i i scheduled it in there though no phones
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no computers no tv screens just conversation now you're thinking i couldn't possibly have seven kids
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sure you can but but let me show you this i started out when i was 24 with just one child
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then i had two children for four years three children for three years i jumped from three
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children to the twins having the twins and just having those children for three years and so on and
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so on down to the end here i don't know if you can see my mouse i actually had probably more time
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homeschooling one child than than with multiples but here's a close-up of it um 25 years old to 55
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years old really were my intense years and it was over very quickly this i think you need to screen
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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
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i was screen sharing have you seen this you have not seen this page no oh dear okay well this will
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make it handy to get to see it so quick i did a quick review but you didn't see my page
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uh pink is for something to remember yellow is important and blue is when it's done the other
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reason i liked this um exercise is because if you make your list and you go yay i've completed it
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crumple crumple chuck you never see all the things you've done a lot of times you can go back and say
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did i actually ever wash out the the um the back of the truck uh i don't remember let's check my book
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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
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this important stuff i was always pink and my husband was green and uh he was out of town a lot
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so we had green going from sunday to thursday night dad was away and i uh solo parented for a lot of years
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and uh the things i learned when my husband wasn't home was when he did phone not that i'd fib but i
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wouldn't tell him some of the challenges because he couldn't do anything about the challenges while he
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was away but i'd write them down and just let him know so that on friday when we took the day off we
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only homeschooled in the end i i it evolved into four days a week so that we could have fridays off
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with dad very important and um and he'd have three days to catch up do his laundry have chats with the
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kids and discipline hardly seems fair but it worked that way oh so this is the book that i was telling
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you about highly recommend purchasing this book this is the grid that i was trying to show you earlier
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um and and the part about hot tubs you can read it there um so the premise is half an hour a day
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and by the end of the week you can have two and a half hours uh that you've accomplished or that you've
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dedicated to one thing and in the day we quite often did school from nine to noon and then in the
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rest of the day was our piano practice sports uh pe home ec uh so the next page oh so this is what you
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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
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she was in argentina with her older siblings on a missions trip and they kept her she was only there
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about four months but this was just an example reminds me of what she was doing you can just barely
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see some color in here the kids were still home but the the intense colors are the their homeschool years
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um so this is just uh it's 20 years that you're concentrating on your family
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um intense years wonderful years i encourage you it's i'd never do it any other way this is a little
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bit hard to look at the first child one two three this is um she homeschooled till 18 i did about 18
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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
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names anyway um and then they and then here's my youngest finishing at 18 and he moved out with
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his brother at 19 and i was an empty nester by 60. very sad a large family this is our morning um routine
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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
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up one child to empty the dishwasher one child to set the table the other child to assemble breakfast goodies
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we'd sit down to eat and pray very very important to dedicate our day to the lord start off
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well eat and chat and discuss the day's adventures we'd leave and and this is something that i learned um
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um if you were to do your chores all day um at the end of the day you'd wonder how you would ever
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fit homeschooling in because you've got all those children home so the important thing is
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is it evolves it uh you figure it out and we would do breakfast and leave the table leave the chores
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and everything sit and do our bible devotions read um we would do current affairs which would lead to
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history and geography while the littles would color i found a beautiful bible coloring book
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um and as the littles learned to read they'd have their own bible version now the older children would
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get a little bit um impatient when the littles couldn't pronounce a word but if they were reading
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different versions of the verses and the chapters the older kids couldn't criticize because it was a
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different book an idea um i suggest you follow the rabbit trails they lead to awesome discussions research
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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
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the library i think that that you're allowed 50 books out on each card oh boy i'm running out of time
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here i've been going on and on this was important for me to tell share with you don't ever let anyone
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tell you that they're you're homeschooling the wrong way education is discipleship homeschooling is
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parenting with school books there are as many ways to educate your child as there are to dress them
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the most important thing to remember is that you are the parents god entrusted with your children
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and no one else you need to do what's best for your family and your children if you do read classics
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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
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textbooks for everything and never do crafts it's okay if your kids graduate with full scholarships
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or go to work on the farm it's okay public schools are factories and children are the product
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the product must meet certain requirements and must be as standardized as possible thank goodness your
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child is not standard you they are unique individuals created in the image of god you know all children
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are different if you have two or more of them your family is not standard either embrace that
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do what works choose your methods and curriculum with prayer and wisdom and not for peer pressure or
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social media pressures seek help when you need it or ask for advice from a trusted source but don't let
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anyone tell you that you're homeschooling the wrong way and very important be a family not a school
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okay really quickly these are things we wish they had that we could learn well being homeschooled we can
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learn these things our grandma was the horticulturalist professor in on our property how to grow food
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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
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
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
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
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
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