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Meet Ashley! A fellow blogger and Teacher Turned Homeschool BoyMom!
Tell us about you and your family.
How long have you been homeschooling?
Tell us about your homeschooling approach.
Year-round homeschooling or traditional calendar homeschooling for this teacher turned homeschool boymom?
Tell us about your homeschooling routine.
- 7:30am – boys are up and play quietly in their room.
- 8am – breakfast and bible (we use the Jesus Storybook Bible…love it!)
- Clean up and play
- 9am – quick calendar lesson (for the 5 and 3-year-old) while the 7-year-old “warms up his brain” by practicing piano and/or doing a quick Daily Math Problem.
- 9:15am – We will break for some yoga (via YouTube) or play outside.
- 9:45am – Reading usually happens in the morning for everyone. 15 minutes with each kid, even the 3-year-old because he deserves some Mommy time and wants to do everything his older brothers do.
- 11am – Math with Mommy (15-20 minute “sprinkle” for the 7-year-old and sometimes the 5-year-old)
- 11:30am – PLAY! while Mommy fixes lunch
- 12pm – Read-aloud and lunch (I read them a book aloud or we practice our Reading Strategy cards)
- 12:30 – Clean up lunch and “team clean” the house aka quick pick up. Then…PLAY!
- 1pm-3pm – quiet house…shhhhhh! 3-year-old naps! 5 year old sometimes naps or reads/plays quietly.
- Within that 2 hours of silent blissfulness, the 7-year-old and Mommy work on Writing or Computer skills/Coding (which we are learning together!) Sometimes, the 5-year-old joins us.
- 3pm – SNACK and PLAY for the rest of the day!
Complete the sentence: Our homeschooling happens mostly at…
What have you picked for your curriculum next year?
- Reading – Reading Strategy Cards by Celebration Press, good ole library books and “out of adoption” public school guided reading books. Our favorite author is Joy Cowley!
- Phonics – “Making Words” by Patricia Cunningham
- Writing – Kid’s Email so that my kids can read and email family members each day. I’ve dipped in and out of this teacher resource, Units of Primary Study for Primary Writing by Lucy Calkins
- Math – Instant Math Centers by Janet Bruno
- Science – The Bearded Science Guy on YouTube
- Art – Art Hub for Kids (also on YouTube)
- Computer Coding – Usborne Children’s Book – Coding for Beginners using Scratch
List 3 books about homeschooling that really impacted you.
- The Homegrown Preschooler by Kathy H Lee and Leslie Richards
- Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight – Managing Your Days Through the Homeschool Years by Heidi St. John
- Project-based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners – by Lori Pickert
Your family is going on an unplanned trip, not much time to pack, you must homeschool the kids while traveling and you can only take 5 of your homeschooling resources/books with you. What would you take?
- Legos! Legos! and more Legos!
- Our Jesus Story Book Bible
- Spiral notebooks with empty pages and pencils
- iPhone to document our learning through pictures and videos, also for listening to music and podcasts.
- a BIG bag of M&Ms – Using these, I can teach math to my 7 and 5-year-olds, review colors and counting with my toddler, and they mix well with anything for a tasty, road trip snack!
If you had the chance to start homeschooling all over again today with the knowledge and experience you have now, what would you do differently?

I am a public teacher/reading coach turned homeschooling mother to 3 fun boys! My passion is to inspire parents with adaptable educational ideas for their children. If I am not teaching my boys, I’m a teacher others. I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others through interactive workshops that parents can attend with their children.
Ashley, I love your references to sprinkling learning throughout the day. That’s what we do as well. I am also a mother of three boys and they love to learn . We learn while getting our wiggles out too.
I really like that you give them some outdoor play via Youtube because that does help to reinforce the need for them to pay attention. it’s great that your husband gets time with them as well. Homeschooling is so awesome when the entire family can do it together!
Angel recently posted…10 books you should read this summer
So glad that you found a connection with my post. I love following your ideas as well, Angel. Thanks for reading.
This is great! I love that you had the courage to step out so soon and where able to begin working the kinks out and find your rhythm. I laughed when you said “it doesn’t always look this formal” because I imagined our own school day compared to what I expected it to look like. Thanks for sharing and the laugh I enjoyed your story.
So glad that you enjoyed this post, Domonick!
Ashley, your homeschool approach (and they journey it has taken) sounds just like ours! I was a classroom teacher before HS, too … and we definitely started out doing “school at home” … then stress shifted us in more of an unschool-y direction and now we’re hovering around a child-led format. It’s a process, isn’t it!
Lynna @ Homeschooling without Training Wheels recently posted…3 Kinds of “I’m Sorry”
I’m a public school teacher turned homeschooler too. It is amazing to me how many teachers are now homeschooling their own kids. Out of all the teachers I know, only 2 send their kids to school.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing! I know so many in our local homeschool community too. I would love to hear more and to write a blog post about why former public school teachers are deciding to homeschool their kids instead of sending them to a public school.
We started homeschooling when my daughter had a negative school experience. I quickly came to realize that if I was going to spend a ton of time prepping lessons and activities each week it might as well be for my own kids.
That’s right! My son did not have a good experience in public school either, that’s when we decided to pull him out and homeschool our kids. I was still working full time as a pastor and I had a toddler and an infant, so the first two years were challenging, but we manage to take turns teaching our children and never looked back! We have accessed them every year and they scored way above the public school average. This is my first year home, full time as a homeschool mom and I couldn’t be more fulfilled!
Jennifer – I love hearing other teachers turned homeschoolers journeys! How many years have you been schooling your own kiddos?
We should connect via social media also!
We are heading into our 6th year homeschooling. I love it 🙂