Hi friends and welcome back.

We're talking about the "Top 10 Reasons Why You Can Homeschool,"

and today we're gonna talk about spending more time together.

You don't wanna miss those moments.

My daughters love to sleep in and my son loves to wake up early with

me and get a lot of his schoolwork done, but we laugh together, he

sneaks food in the kitchen with me.

These are moments that I cherish so much.

My daughters, they laze outta bed sometimes at nine and then they read

together and build projects together until they jump into some math and

some reading and language arts.

But these experiences, this time spent with my own children, the time spent

together as siblings is truly priceless.

God shows up for us every day.

We're able to come together and read his word and sing hymns together.

Read beautiful poetry together, look at beautiful art together,

we're able to do most of our science together, and read some history books.

Right now our kids are looking at around the world history and world

cultures, which has been such a fun time.

We also read good and wise and beautiful literature.

Charlotte Mason said "In all the time, we have books, books, teaming

with ideas, fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which

we can wish to introduce children."

Many of the books we've loved such as Treasure Island, Railway Children, Heidi,

the Wing Feather Saga, or with my girls, I'd love to read to them in the evenings.

Understood Betsy, The Secret Garden, strawberry Girl, A Little Princess.

There are so many classics and so many wonderful books that we can enjoy.

Us parents can enjoy alongside our kids.

We've also loved history classics that have such a big place in our

hearts and they can cement such strong character in our children, like The

Cabin Faced West or The Pony Express, or the Courage of Sarah Noble.

There are many more older books that we're gonna get to when my

children are a little bit older.

Right now, I have a middle school boy and he's reading some books on his

own that, I pray, my prayer for him is that it is cementing good, strong male

characters into his mind and his heart.

When we homeschool together, there's less rushing around.

Life is lived together and life is enjoyed, and everything in life is

learning from when my kids were babies and toddlers, a trip to the grocery store

could sometimes be the only thing I did that day, but that was okay because we

learned as we picked at our apples or as we weighed our grapes or a trip to

the doctor or any car trip in general.

We love using the car as learning time, and I have a great car resources link

that I'll attach here to the show, but we also have nature hikes together.

We love that there's no car pickup or car drop off time.

That's a huge benefit to homeschooling.

We save time in that, but we also then have time for friends and field

trips, and we've been able to go to the zoo or join our local nature center.

There are so many options I have actually this year I've had to

say, or I've wanted to say no more to more things than saying yes.

So if you are just beginning your homeschool journey, I would absolutely

encourage you to not take too much on.

and, I can say that for the last two, three years, we

didn't have any group or co-op.

We have joined one this year, which has been a blessing, but really to establish

those learning styles and those learning schedules can really be foundational

and it's so much better when the whole family isn't rushing around constantly.

Sure.

These are kids.

Your kids might have some sports or other extracurriculars, and that's great too.

But remember that you can say no to some of those things.

On that note, with sports, it's wonderful because my kids can have their academics

time, usually in the morning, family time at lunch, and then in the afternoon

it can be used for their own interests.

So when they're ready to go to sport activity, my kids are swimmers, they

have not been in school all day.

They're not exhausted to go.

This is their excitement for the day, and they're ready to kind of

give it their all, so to speak.

But there is wisdom in that alone time at home where we try to be a

little quieter in the afternoons.

It doesn't always work perfectly, but this is something that Charlotte Mason

calls masterly in activity, letting the child be alone with their thoughts,

their own creations, and even with dangers that they may be faced with.

That's all learning.

If your child is outside climbing a tree, that is learning and we want

to make sure that we're not, we're not going to, and this is her words,

oppress the young people with our own anxious care and letting them alone.

Let children alone.

The education of habit is successful insofar as it enables the mother

to let her children alone.

Not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions, a running

fire of do and don't, but letting them go their way and grow, having first

secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose.

So spending that time with your children also includes giving them that time of

letting alone and masterly inactivity.

Real life spent together with all the emotions and all the learning moments,

and the love and the tenderness.

You grow and learn together.

Susan Shaffer McCauley said, "real life brings hardships,

disappointments, and the reality of sin.

And that is true too.

It is a time for forgiveness and patience with one another.

And oh, can siblings teach that to one another?"

I wanna close with another quote from Charlotte Mason, and she said, "In school

education, the question is not how much does the youth know when he has finished

his education, but how much does he care?

And about how many orders of things does he care?

In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set, and therefore,

how full is the life he has before him?

We don't wanna squelch the wonder in a child by giving

them too many things to do.

We wanna give them that time and that love from us by spending that time with

them, but also spending that time to allow them to have masterly inactivity.

William Ross Wallace said in a beautiful poem in 1865:

They say that man is mighty,

He governs land and sea;

He wields a mighty scepter

O'er lesser powers than he;

But a mighty power and stronger,

Man from his throne hath hurled,

For the hand that rocks the cradle

Is the hand that rules the world."

And that's true.

You are your child's greatest influence and spending your time with your

children will never be a regret.

My prayer for you today is that you jump in, you face it head on you, allow

yourself to be brave because I believe that every parent who has the desire,