Homeschool Lifestyle ~ Easy Way to Homeschool Episode 450
The very first podcast I ever created for Vintage Homeschool Moms was a podcast on the homeschool lifestyle and I asked the question is homeschooling what you do or who you are and it has had thousands of downloads and is probably one of my favorite all-time shows… so this podcast today is a revisiting of the topic eight years later and a question I’d like you to consider.

First – happy birthday to us! It is the 8th bday of the UHPN - I want to give a shout out to our homeschool podcast network and the wonderful podcasters! They work hard to give you wonderful content for free – you can thank me and them by subscribing to their podcast channels – giving them a star rating and sharing the episode with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and your support!

I think it is appropriate that we celebrate year 8 of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network with a look at the Homeschool Lifestyle podcast I created years ago – it was and still is a major part of my life to consider that I am a homeschooler. I say it proudly because so much has changed from 1986 the year I began homeschooling to now. Back in the day the only homeschoolers I knew were a little on the strange side, they didn’t get out much but part of the reason was they were doing their schoolwork and many people still thought that homeschooling was not legal since the battle had been won not that long ago.

Homeschooling soon became of us a way of life. My kids were with me 24/7 and sometimes it was a bit frustrating to not have a minute to myself. But soon there were boundaries, rules learned and relearned and some character building and encouragement were taking place in order to forge a greater bond and friendship between each of my kids, I had two at that time.

We learned to do things together as a family. Schoolwork was the center and focus of our day and once that was completed the other items quickly stacked up such as grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, and more. We worked and played together and once dad got home I was beat!

I realized as I struggled at times that I was trying to compartmentalize things. School here. Cleaning here. Groceries here. Cooking here. The score was kids, home and husband 100, me—zero. But, that was fine. I was young and had boundless energy until I didn’t.

I soon learned that homeschooling was more than a sum total of the time it took to complete academic subjects but that we could roll with the learning outside of the books, activities, and plans. We could incorporate learning no matter what we did. A trip to the grocery store turned into a lesson in math, or character wants vs. needs, and the quality of flexibility or self-control. A ride in the car turned into finding license plates from various states and finding the state on a map. We could count all the cars or trucks of one color – find all the blue trucks or green trucks. And, we would listen to lessons.

We began to incorporate the idea of day trips. On a weekend we’d take a Saturday or a Sunday and visit a local landmark, park, or museum. Of course, these turned into mini-lessons and the children thrived. We rescued a dog – several through the course of our homeschool, housed turtles and fish tanks, as well as learned about nature and the creatures that inhabited our lands. They looked at the world and saw a classroom beyond books. This was an exciting time for our family.

As the children got older their needs became focused. Several of my children were athletically gifted (they got this from their dad, not me!) and this meant trips to tournaments and practices. Again, all life lessons and incorporated into the overarching theme of their homeschool. We realized that looking at the world as a classroom meant that learning took place no matter what we were doing and this gave them a cha...