Journey into Minimalist Homeschooling | as seen in The Salty Tribe Journal
I stumbled upon Jane Manka of Salty Tribe Co. a while back, loved her blog and story. I follow her on Instagram and love seeing her gorgeous snapshots of the NC coast. Being in the western mountains of North Carolina, I love getting a fill of the eastern coast! To my surprise, I was asked by Jane to write an article for the debut publication of her magazine for minimalist homeschooling!
I received my copy of the magazine today (visit The Salty Tribe Co. shop HERE) and am so impressed! It is God centered, full of heart and realness, BEAUTIFULLY designed, not a single ad or junk, and just an overall treat! A must pick, I can't wait for more to come!
I'd love to share the article I contributed to the publication. When asked to talk about our Minimalist Homeschool- why we do it and what it's about.... I couldn't think of any better answer than this.
Homeschooling can be hard. Frustrating. Discouraging. Overwhelming. Do you ever feel like you just don’t have a good handle on it and are probably messing your kids up more than you’d like to admit? Yep… Been there. More than once.
I think (unfortunately) that this is a common point found with most all parents- homeschooling or not. We want to do the best for our kids! We want them to have the best, to grow up and be successful and live wonderful lives! I feel that we’ve been led to believe that the way to do that isn’t necessarily the best. We’re overwhelmed by curriculums, after school activities, sports programs, etc… and it’s too much. What happens if we were to apply a minimalist approach to it?
That’s exactly what our family did. Five years of homeschooling our three kiddos, feeling frustrated, discouraged and overwhelmed. Trying to keep the balance of what curriculum, what activities, and oh no we’re not doing any sports! I had started applying a minimalistic approach when it came to the amount of STUFF we had in our home, I started looking at how I could minimize the excess with our home based wedding business, and then the revelation to apply this same method with our homeschool approach hit me one day. You know, like walking into a brick wall… because God knows I’m not always the most observant so He needs to be rather direct with me. Thank you Lord.
We want our children to grow up and be good people, have successful and happy lives. How are they going to do any of that? Through God. By the blood of Jesus Christ. If our children have the knowledge and the understanding of God, of what a true relationship with the Lord is and the realistic applications of what it means to live a life following the footsteps of Jesus—won’t that make their adult lives happy? Good? Successful? More importantly, won’t their salvation to come AFTER their life on this world be far more important than any possible athletic or musical accomplishments? Over SAT scores that get them into the best college? Over a career with six figure pay and a reserved parking spot?
We think so. Our kids salvation (and our own, of course) is THE most important thing we need to be worried about and working toward. THAT is the most important goal in our house, in our homeschool. Learning our culture’s core subjects will come. Living a normal life, working along side us as parents will incorporate those skills. We’re seeing more and more from studies around the globe that children really only retain information in shorter periods- after that it’s all in one ear and out the other. What if we take all that time and enjoy this precious life? Have fun! Help others! Play!
This is where our free program came from – The Minimalist Homeschool. It’s the plan I use with our kids, and we’re sharing it with everyone to use too! We’ve currently got a partial year posted for those that want to finish up the school year with a God centered, minimalist style and this summer we’ll be releasing the full year plan for 2017/2018.
Our plan is available for kids from kinder through high school- each day is broken down with an activity for family time in the Bible, one on one instruction for each age group to learn the core topics of reading, writing and math. Then there are five elective topics with activities so that each day you can pick just one additional topic to work on and learn through as a family. Simple. Minimal. Powerful. Our family of three kids has school done within about 2 hours each day and the rest is open for the fun elective topic, play and carefree days! Five years of homeschool struggles… and we’ve finally gotten a handle on it. The kids are happy, momma isn’t stressed, and we’re keeping God in the center of it all.
I’d love to invite you over to www.MinimalistHomeschool.com to check out our free program, we also share more through our blog and have a support community on Facebook too! What a beautiful opportunity we have to be alive, to be blessed with our amazing children, and to get so much time with them. Let’s make the most out of it!
