60 Homeschooling Tips From 60 Years of Homeschooling

{This post contains affiliate links. They don’t bite. If you want to skip my yammer and check out the book 60 Homeschooling Tips From 60 Years: Inspiring Tips and Ideas from Two Veteran Homeschoolers, click here.}

60 Homeschooling Tips from 60 Years--two AMAZING veteran homeschool moms of 15 kids share their wisdom and a giveaway.

We’ve been homeschoolers for 13 years if you count from kindergarten…or 18 years if you count from the moment every parent becomes a teacher. As our firstborn approaches her 18th birthday and highschool graduation, one thought pops into our adoring parental minds:

How on earth did we manage to not mess that poor creature up any more than we did?

The sheer unadulterated grace of God had a big part in the mere survival of our children, but beyond that, we figured it out ourselves and sought help from people who had gone before–mentors, trail blazers, people who…er…you know…already did the stuff we were trying to do. And since we knew no real-life homeschoolers, we learned some of it the hard way and gleaned more from homeschooling authors and onliners. (Onliners are people online. I think I just made that word up.)

You can do the same–glean, I mean, not learn the hard way.

Help From Experienced Homeschoolers

I was recently given a treasure of an ebook entitled 60 Homeschooling Tips from 60 Years: Inspiring Tips and Ideas From Two Veteran Homeschoolers. From hereon out I will refer to it as 60 Tips, because I’ve used all my energy homeschooling seven children and don’t have enough left to type out that impressive title. (Read: I’m lazy.)

More impressive than the title are the contents. Excuse me while I ramble for a moment.

The Homeschool Mama at 2 a.m.–It Isn’t Pretty.

Do you know how many times I’ve woken up at the homeschool mama’s bewitching hour (2 a.m.) and panicked, “I’m ruining my kids!”? I mean, I’m not even sure how to properly punctuate that last sentence, and I’m in charge of educating seven human beings?! If I had the foresight to keep track of the number of 2 a.m. meltdowns I’ve had, I’d tell you, and you would be very impressed…or depressed.

At 2 a.m. a homeschooling mama is a lonely, degenerate failure who is not only dooming her poor uneducated children to a life on the outskirts of society with their zippers open, food on their faces, fingers in their noses, and giant “geek” stickers on their foreheads (not the Bill Gates kind of geek, either), but she is also undoubtedly (at 2 a.m.) raising moral degenerates who will no better be able to keep a law of God or a mustard seed of faith than they will a job, if indeed they can ever get a job or even marry someone who has a job, because the only people who get jobs or get married or get to heaven are people who are not homeschooled by lonely degenerate failures, which is what this unfortunate mama is when she wakes up at 2 a.m.

Two in the morning in my head is pretty exciting…and a little dramatic. My husband loves that about me.

What does this have to do with 60 Tips?

60 Homeschooling Tips From 60 Years--Read what two experienced mothers have to say about homeschooling their combined 15 children. SO helpful!

Here’s what:

The two ladies who wrote 60 Tips have a combined 60 years of homeschooling experience. That makes my 13 years (or 18, depending on when you start counting) a flash in the pan. Sixty years! That’s a lifetime of experience!

I appreciate experience. I smile politely when the mom of a preschooler tells me how I should raise my teenagers or what reading curriculum I must have to teach my seventh child how to read, but…seriously?

These two ladies–they’ve raised or are raising 15 children between them. They know how to homeschool! They know how to raise Godly children! They have wisdom.

And they share that with the 2 a.m. mamas.

They don’t just tell the 2 a.m. mama to get off her butt and raise better kids (although there is sufficient butt-kicking in there), but they encourage the 2 a.m. mama and give her practical, doable ways to accomplish her goals–homeschooling or otherwise.

They tell the 2 a.m. mama, “Hey, what you’re doing is amazing and important and beautiful and wonderful and your kids are so stinkin’ blessed to have you putting so much of yourself into their lives! Now relax and have some fun…or stop having quite so much fun if your kids haven’t done a math problem in a month because you’re mired in 2 a.m-all-day-long depression and are drowning your imagined failures and made-up sorrows by hanging out on Pinterest and Facebook all day. In fact, why don’t you try tip 17? Or 34? Or 57? Or go smooch on your hubby. There you go. Now you’re smiling again, 2 a.m. mama.”

Another good thing about 60 Tips is that it is written far more clearly than that last paragraph. Yup. Much better writing in that book. And I don’t recall reading the words “stinkin'” or “smooch on your hubby” in any of the tips.

The tips and chapters are short, doable, practical, doable, interesting, and doable. Doable. Do-able. Able to be done…even by a mama who was up sweating and imagining since 2 a.m.

I can do this!

You Have to Meet Donna and Kathie!

Let me tell you about one of the authors, because I love her dearly, and, even though I’ve never met her face-to-face, I’ve been learning from her for the past five years…or is it four? Who’s counting! (She even inspired some posts on The Simple Homemaker, most particularly the smile post.) Her name is Donna Reish.

Donna seems to me to have the energy of five moms and accomplish the workload of ten moms. She is a published author, a talented ballroom dancer, an avid cook, and a beloved teacher. I want to be like her, not because of all the books she’s written, not because of all she has accomplished, but because of her family.

Her family radiates joy, and it comes from her (and originally from Christ).

I want her joy in parenting and her joy in wife-ing and her joy in homeschooling. And I want my children to have the same joy and family love and Christ-love that her children have.

Plus (listen up, because this is what the 2 a.m. mama wants to know), her kids are successful–in marriage, in the home, in the working world, on the mission field, in their faith. 

I’ve been sitting at Donna’s virtual feet for five (or is it four?) years now learning from her, wishing to absorb all her knowledge and wisdom and, yes, her joy. With 60 Tips I can. Okay, it doesn’t contain all her knowledge and wisdom and joy, but it does contain plenty to encourage and educate and kick-me-in-the-butt a little bit…at 8 a.m., not 2 a.m. I especially love it when I read a tip and I can say, “We do that! Gold stickers for everyone!” or “That is exactly what I need to keep in mind. Thank you, Gals!” or “Holy schmoly, that is brilliant!”

Visit Donna at her site Character Ink or on Facebook. Go there. That is an order.

The other author is Kathie Morrissey, and she is also wonderful. I am just learning about her for the first time, so, for once, I’m not going to run off at the mouth. You’re welcome. You can find her on Facebook or at her blog The Character Corner, where I immediately subscribed to her posts–she’s that good. Go!

A Note For you Overwhelmed Mamas:

I always thought that, because Donna has the energy of five mamas and I have the energy of half a mama (which is technically a “ma”), I couldn’t accomplish with my kids what she has with hers, and my kids wouldn’t be “successful.”

I was wrong.

The approaches to homeschooling and parenting that Donna and Kathie lay out in 60 Tips show that even us mere mortals can do this! You can. I can! We may not be doing it the way other mamas are doing it, but isn’t that the joy of homeschooling–doing what works best for your family?

Please check it out here if you need encouraging or help getting on track.

The rest of this post is about the giveaways, which have already ended. Congratulations to the winners! Please subscribe to be alerted to future giveaways.

{I was given a free e-copy of 60 Tips, but it didn’t affect my opinion. In fact, when I realized that the price was only $5…well, I spent far more than that in my homeschool days getting a lot less help. Also, if you buy 60 Tips through one of my links, I will receive a percentage of the purchase price at no cost to you. It helps support our homeschool and site. In fact, it’s being saved to buy Donna and Ray Reish’s other book, The Well-Trained Heart.}

About Those Homeschool Giveaways…

Now then (Now then? When is that actually? Now or then…or somewhere in between?), I have a giveaway, and Donna and Kathie have a giveaway. Their giveaway is much better, but don’t let that stop you from entering mine, which, by the way, is really from them.

At their giveaway you can win over $300 of homeschooling and parenting helps. including 60 Tips. Oh my, people, they are amazing products! Check it out right here. You know what? Don’t bother entering, because I’ve already decided I’m going to win. Grin.

Before you go there and enter, though, sign up below for my giveaway. Two of you receive a free e-copy of 60 Homeschooling Tips from 60 Years: Inspiring Tips and Ideas From Two Veteran Homeschoolers. If you don’t win, this valuable resource is only $5. Put it on your Christmas list…or just buy it right here. {affiliate link}

Okay, let’s summarize.

Enter to win 60 Homeschooling Tips from 60 Years: Inspiring Tips and Ideas From Two Veteran Homeschoolers below.

Buy a copy of the ebook right hereThat’s 60 years of wisdom for only $5! Totally worth it! Totally.

Enter the $300 author giveaway right here.

Click here to pin this post and share this amazing resource, because, my suspicions tell me, there are other 2 a.m. mamas out there who could use the love and wisdom Donna and Kathie share.

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DON’T MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO WIN THIS AMAZING PACKAGE! Register to WIN at The Character Corner

Fight Summer Brain Drain and Illiteracy at the Same Time

Attack Summer Brain Drain and Widespread Illiteracy with This Free Summer Reading Program


Let’s cut right to the chase. Illiteracy is a huge issue throughout the world. “Summer brain drain” is also a problem–a first world problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Here’s a solution to both:

We Give Books is an organization that puts books in the hands of children who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them. Right there they’ve won me over. Throw in cookies and I’m totally sold!

You can help fight illiteracy for free!

Join the We Give Books summer reading program, read books for free online from their rather impressive library (or read print books of your own), and We Give Books will donate real books to needy children.

I don’t have all the details figured out, but they do, so check them out here.

By the way, if you school year-round like we do, this program is still a nice shift for something a little different and to get the kiddos thinking about helping others. What a great motivator to get reading, and if that doesn’t work, bribe ’em with cookies or s’mores.

Check out more summer reading programs here.

By the way, there’s nothing in this for me–it’s simply a great idea that deserves a little more chatting up.