Meet Amanda, the Homeschool Mom!
Hi! I’m Amanda, the face behind Homeschool With Mom. Welcome to my little corner of the Internet!
I live with my husband and 5 kids on a 20 acre farm.
My husband and I have been married 12 wonderful years. We have 5 kids, ages 8 and under, a dog, 3 cats, and a pond full of fish…if that counts.
We moved to our current property on 20 acres about 2.5 years ago. Having grown up in an agricultural family, we have loved living next door to the family farm, purchasing our own 50 acre farm, and being a part of all that farm life has to offer!
Some of my passions include reading my Bible and devotions daily, coffee, making homemade meals from scratch, keeping a cozy home, reading all the books, and spending time with family.
Our homeschooling story
My oldest daughter, now 8 years old, was all set to head off to kindergarten at the public school in August of 2021. At the time, we were living about 2 hours away from where we live now. She was enrolled in the public school up until a week before school was set to start, at which point I made the decision to homeschool.
I knew nothing about homeschooling, mind you. What I did know was that the world wasn’t the same as it was before 2020. It was just a fact.
On top of that, my husband had been working from home for well over a year at that point. We had just welcomed our 3rd daughter into the world, and I was still in all my postpartum feels (iykyk). Sending our first born into a school that was still trying to figure out life post-2020 while the rest of us were at home just didn’t feel quite right. It was a priority of ours to keep everything as “normal” as possible for our young girls, even though the world was upside down.
Just days before she was set to head off for that first day of school, we decided it was best to keep her home for the year. We reasoned that it was “just kindergarten.” I could surely handle teaching some letters and numbers to her at home, we could keep our flexible schedule, and we would all stay home together.
Easy peasy, right?!
A transformed homeschool view
Okay, so it wasn’t that simple, but it also wasn’t difficult either. There was a learning curve for all of us, but we all adjusted very quickly!
Not only did we conquer that first year of diving head first into homeschool, we kept on going!
In the past 3 years, I have devoured every homeschooling book, podcast, and curriculum review on YouTube. To say I have a completely transformed view of homeschooling now would be an understatement.
I used to be one of “those people” who worried about socialization and completely ruining any hope for my children’s future by homeschooling. If you’re also on that side of the fence, let me reassure you that there is hope. It’s actually a beautiful, satisfying, fulfilling, and remarkable journey.
And, yes, your kids will have friends! 🙂
Turns out, homeschooling was the best decision we could have made for our kids and ourselves.
We ended up relocating back to my hometown, right next to my parent’s farm, and buying a total of 75 acres of land for ourselves. We homeschool not only for the flexibility of being hands-on with the farm, but also for all the extra family time we get with one another, the ability to educate our children with a Biblical foundation, and the freedom homeschooling allows us in raising our kids.
It has been the biggest blessing!
Our Homeschool Philosophy
We loosely follow a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education. I love the gentle pace at which the kids learn through the beauty of nature, art, and living books.
On this site, you will find tons of book recommendations, which is the foundation of the Charlotte Mason philosophy. Coined “living books”, Charlotte encouraged reading books that feed the mind, are exciting and full of life. Not to be confused with “twaddle,” which are books that contain mostly fluff and no real substance.
Most, if not all, of the book recommendations you will find on this site are living books. We love and cherish our reading time together and want to share those resources with you, too!
What to expect
When you come to this blog, you can expect to find tons of resources for homeschooling moms. I will be sharing book and curriculum reviews, planning and organization tips, as well as activities you can incorporate into your school days.
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