Hi! My name is Andie and I’m a homeschool graduate who’s now schooling her own kids at home! My husband is a firefighter/EMT who is working today. At home we have 4-year-old Lily, almost-2-year-old Abby and we’re expecting our first boy in August 2018! We enjoy spending time on the front porch, visiting our local amusement park, and hanging out at the rescue squad where my husband and I volunteer as EMTs.
Our Morning:
Our typical day starts slowly, with breakfast and a show (Cat in the Hat and “Monkey George” are favorites here).
Around 9:00 or 10:00, my oldest starts working on school. Since she’s in preschool this year, we’re following her lead with what subjects we do on a given day. (Flexibility is one of my favorite things about Timberdoodle!) Today, she chose to start with Wedgits before doing her Montessori map book and a couple pages in Mathematical Concepts. Little sister joins us for any and all stories (and we have a ton)! Since it’s spring, we’ve got gardening/animal stories displayed on our bookshelf.
Our Afternoon:
After a quick lunch (Lily’s favorite sandwich – ham, mayonnaise, and chippies…yum?) we load into the van and head to our once-a-week enrichment co-op. Abby spends the afternoon with her nana, as she’s too young for class yet, but Lily has spent the past several weeks playing outside with her friends, learning about nature, and doing stories and crafts! All the moms pitch in and teach a couple classes and it’s been a highlight of our school year! We’ll be sad when it lets out for the summer.
Our Evening:
Co-op days are super busy, so we usually grab a quick dinner on the way home. Lily will usually tell us all about her classes on the half hour drive – it’s so fun to hear the things she’s learning about and what she remembers from her lessons! On nights when Daddy is home, we’ll watch a movie as a family (usually a princess movie, much to his chagrin), but when it’s just me and the girls, like tonight, we’ll head to bed and spend time reading stories, making up stories, and doing shadow puppets on the wall.
Favorite Timberdoodle Tool:
This year, we’re using a custom preschool kit, and the best learning tool has been Wedgits! Both girls have LOVED building with them and spend hours playing.
More About Our Family:
My husband and I are trying to raise our girls with a heart for serving the community. While he’s a career firefighter, we also volunteer in our local community. He serves with both the fire department and the rescue squad and I serve on the rescue squad. As they get older, we hope to encourage them to serve the community as well in some way, whether it be on the ambulance or fire truck, or with another organization.
What made you consider Timberdoodle for the first time?
I’ve bought individual things from Timberdoodle years ago. We tried the Elite kit this year. We love them!
Before you decided to use Timberdoodle, what was your biggest obstacle or concern about using a Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit?
Cost for 5 of 11 kids still in school.
What helped you overcome that?
Older 2 only needed certain classes to finish their year. So I didn’t need a whole set for them. We decided to spend the extra on our 3 youngest (2 9th graders and a 3rd grader). Glad we did!
If your friend decided to start homeschooling and felt overwhelmed, what would you tell her?
Start with a plan. Be flexible. Life happens. Take it one day at a time, literally.
Is there anything unique about your family that you’d like to share with us?
What is the point of scheduling in a weekly fashion?
Why independent learning?
All of these questions and more are answered here!
Hope: Hi! I’m Hope from Timberdoodle Company and I’m here with my mom, Deb, who is one of the founders of Timberdoodle Company. We’re here today to talk a little bit about the Curriculum Handbooks. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what our curriculum handbooks look like and what they entail.
Deb: Our handbooks are fairly lightweight. They’re fairly slim and some people are concerned. “How in the world can you tell me what to do for a year with something of this size?” Let me just explain.
In other curriculums that you may see–at a curriculum fair or online or through a friend–their handbooks or manuals are going to be massive. The reason is that they may be sending you a box of books. In those books there will be something similar to this: Otis and the Kittens. Great book! But if you got this book you would not know how to use it. In their guidebook they’re going to tell you to read the book, to do math by counting the kittens, in Social Studies to talk about how firefighters work, talk about what burns/what doesn’t burn… They’re going to bring out a lot of detail that you may not cover when you read this book as we do to our kids. In their guidebook it may be–Tuesday the 23rd: Read Otis and the Kittens. Now today, go out and count kittens. Or go out and build a fire and talk about what a fire needs to have. They’ll give you a lot of great things to do. Wonderful approach to homeschooling! However, it’s not the approach we’ve taken.
Timberdoodle’s curriculum is more of a framework. We think kids want to get done with schoolwork and get out and do something fun. For you guys, you wanted to farm. So it’s horseback riding and raising sheep and all the other things that are involved with farming. You didn’t want to spend all day doing something else. So we gave you the framework and then when that was done in a couple hours you were free to do whatever you wanted.
This is what our handbooks do you for you. Most of the curriculum that you’re going to be getting will come with answers or instructions. For example: Mathematical Reasoning for Pre-K. It’s going to tell you exactly what you should be doing with your child. It gives you all the instructions right on it. To have a handbook that would say to you, “Go to page 82 and do ____” would be redundant. Most of the books that you get in your curriculum kits are going to be self-explanatory.
Likewise with the Easy Grammar books. In the teacher’s book you’ve got the answers on one side, the instruction on the other. Cover it with black construction paper. Do it. Check your work. A theory that we worked with with our kids was as soon as they were old enough to read they were old enough to assume responsibility for their own schoolwork. So I would have the child do this and correct their own work. Again, these are self-contained units. You don’t need me to tell you when to do it and how to do it.
Hope: Here’s an example of how our guide would complement telling you how to do it. With The Big Book of Things to Spot it’s pretty clear you open it up and you’re finding 10 of these, 3 of those, or 4 of the other. In our guide we’re just going to tell you the number of pages you’re going to need to do to get through it. We’ll also make suggestions like: use this as a consumable to make your life easier. Go ahead and have your child cross them off instead of just counting them out. So we will complement the information included of how to make things easier.
Deb: Not for all of them, but for some of them it’s very helpful. What it looks like in your planner is similar to this: Easy Grammar Plus, so many worksheets. To get it done in the year do 9 worksheets. It goes further in there to break it down if you want a weekly checklist. It does it for Basic, Complete, and Elite. Again, it’s fairly simple because everything else is already covered in the information there. We try to discourage you from buying the handbook by itself because it’s not going to be any more helpful than just the book. It’s not going to help you much.
The exception is going to be for building. That’s in the back of some of the handbooks. For example: Plus-Plus. The box that comes with your kit does include include directions. We think it’s really important to have both convergent and divergent construction going on. So the handbook includes ideas like have your child make…
Hope: …something they ate or something they work in the garden with or something like that.
Deb: Right. So it’s a vague something that they’ve got to build. It’s going to have the exact things for preschool. This is what they’re going to be building: a watermelon and a garden. But for first grade it gets a lot more complex. Same Plus-Plus, other than it’s in a small size. Again, they’re going to have a list of ideas. The divergent ideas: build a bridge, build a house, build something that your uncle likes to play with. Then the convergent has to be built this way or it’s not going to work. Those are the exceptions in our handbook. If you want to know before you buy if your handbook contains anything else, we’re happy to tell you that.
The other thing that they have in there is the reading list. What can you tell us about the reading lists?
Hope: You’ll have several reading lists. You have The Light Reader, The Avid Reader, The Committed Reader. It will give you an idea of what type of book that your child should be reading. For example: read a classic novel, or read a book about history. It will give you the kind of category or the idea of what kind of book to pick out. Then depending on how committed of a reader you are, it’s got more ideas for you.
Deb: We love this because we are avid readers ourselves, but it’s easy to get into a rut. We see it again with our own kids. They are currently into truck books. They only want to read construction stuff. Yet they have a deficiency in social skills. So again, Otis and the Kittens lets you do the trucks but it works on the emotional intelligence. Likewise, if you have a child who always has to read pre-selected books and you don’t give them the chance to pick out what they like they are going to be more reluctant readers.
Hope: The beauty of the reading list is it does give you some flexibility in that.
Deb: A lot of flexibility! A biography is a good example. If a kid was very much into… horses…
Hope: They’ll find a biography of somebody who trained horses or something.
Deb: Yeah. So again, a lot of flexibility, but it keeps them reading which I think is very important. That is also in the manuals. But, the beauty is not really in the manuals. It is going to be in the online scheduler. It gives you the flexibility beyond this. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
Hope: You have the guts of the schedule here. It’s telling you in a nutshell, “Here’s your weekly checklist. If you do 5 lessons of Easy Grammar every week, you will get done with Easy Grammar.” That is the bread and butter behind our scheduling. We’ve divided it up for you. We’ve told you if you make sure your child gets this much done every week, by the end of the school year you’ll be done. The online scheduler is going to give you a little bit more flexibility in what you want to plug in. When do you want to start your schedule? How long do you want it to go? It already has our curriculum options put into it. For example: “I went with your whole Elite kit but I customized it. I took out Mystery of History 2 and I put in Mystery of History 3. Now I feel like I’m all messed up because the lessons aren’t the right length.” The online scheduler will work all that out for you.
Deb: Right. And if you trade in a different science it’s going to help you with that. It also will give you a lot more flexibility with, for example, a robotics set which is a 12-week course. You can put the 12 weeks at the beginning or you can put it at the end. In the past you would see it on every week–“Do a lesson in robotics”–but you’d already finished it. Well, this year it’s going to be more accurate for you. So when you completed the paintings in third grade…or whatever you’ve done… it evaporates. Or maybe it comes back because you want to schedule the paintings during Christmas break. You can do that. It’s got a lot more flexibility.
For me, why I like it, why we did it with you guys, is that life is very flexible. We don’t know from week-to-week where we want to be on any particular topic. This allows you some flex. You can say, “I think we’re going on vacation in March so I would like to have all my math done before March.” Or if you’re saying, “I think this is pretty rugged stuff. I think we need a full year…” you can make it a whole calendar year.
Hope: Again, with our kits… someone asked, “I just can’t see how in the world this really works out for scheduling an entire year.” I just want to show you again how simple it is. This is third grade so they’re probably reading sufficiently by themselves at this point. They’re able to run their school schedule. They can decide, “I’m just going to do one Daily Trait Writing today and I’ll save the rest for another day.” Or they can whack out a bunch of these all at once. So it gives you the flexibility to say, “This part now, or this part I’m going to put off towards the end of the week…” or “I’m going to rush through all this now.” It helps build that executive functioning skill. They need that life skill to plan out how they’re going to tackle that. It’s not that overwhelming. Even if you were to sit down that day and say, “I don’t know what to do.” Bring out the whole bin. Then all you’re going to do is look at this checklist and say, “Let’s just take off all the Complete-a-Sketch. Let’s just do this.” And you’ll at least know you’ve made progress towards the end of your week.
Deb: Right. And I remember with you guys, some of you would sit down Monday and get all the schoolwork done for the week. Others would just work away at it all week long and panic on Friday. However works well for the child. Get the schoolwork done and move on to what actually interests them, instead of a whole day of just academics. Because, honestly, no child needs that.
Hope: No. And the other advantage of this independent learning is that, as the parent, it enables you to step back and do what you need to do so you don’t have to be tied to school all day. Again, once they’re reading, hand them the checklist and let them run with it some so that you can step back and do what only you can do.
Deb: Any other questions?
Hope: That covers “Detailed lesson plans?” No. You have what you need. “How does it work with customized curriculums?” That’s going to be the online scheduler.
Deb: It is. We certainly get a number of our customers whose children are all over the map. So they may be an advanced reader. Our oldest was reading at 18 months. That is unusual. If you have an advanced reader who is at a more typical level in math then you may not be able to customize it that great. They’re customizing it within a grade. So if you’re in third grade you can go up and down a grade.
Hope: But you do have the flexibility to add in.
Deb: That’s exactly right. You can add as many as you want. You may have to do a little calculation. Not a big deal. You look at how many lessons there are. Typically there’s 180 lessons in almost every curriculum. You just do the math and put it in there. There’s an unlimited amount that you can put in. You can input your trips to the gym if you want. You can put whatever you want on this online scheduler and print it out and it’s going to be glorious!
Hope: Okay. Does buying the handbook only for those who don’t qualify for the kit give access to the schedule customizer?
Deb: Yes. But again, the people who are going to benefit from it are the people who actually have the curriculum. I know some people buy it thinking it’s going to be…
Hope: …the schedule to save their lives. It’s not. It’s related specifically towards this curriculum.
Deb: Yes, exactly.
Hope: Along that same line of thought, some ask if they can order the handbook separately from a kit. They are ordering pieces of a kit at a time. Can they order the handbook separately during one of these times?
Deb: They can. It is not cost effective. I think if they look at the cost of ordering it separately, because they’re paying for the handbook and the online scheduler and they’re paying shipping, whereas if you buy a kit–even a Basic kit–you will get free shipping and the handbook and the scheduler. It’s far more cost efficient to do it that way. I would recommend that they wait until they can afford to buy a child’s particular curriculum, and then save up and do the next one.
Hope: Does it come with the checklist for each week or do they need to photocopy it? Kind of answered through the custom scheduler.
Deb: They can photocopy it but it makes more sense to use the online scheduler.
Hope: Does it start at a particular time and run for a set school year?
Deb: It can. But you set the time. You say how long the school year is. We’ve had some families who jump ship and pull out of the public school mid-year and then want to finish on time. So they’re compressing it. That will give you them that ability.
Hope: That’s where the online scheduler really is to their advantage because they can take what would be a typical 36-week school year and get it done in 20 or whatever. It will do all the math for you to do that.
Deb: Exactly.
Hope: How much prep work or materials are needed for the lessons? What would be a realistic idea of how much prep we need to do for each lesson?
Deb: That one is going to depend on the age. I think the baby one actually needs a little more prep than 12th grade. Some of them–for example, the literature program–you probably want to spend a half hour going through and making sure you understand what’s being accomplished there. Likewise on the Math-U-See. Once you’ve done a lesson or two to get your feet wet you’re going to…
Hope: …just waltz into it every day and do it.
Deb: It’s not going to be a problem.
Hope: But when you get your box, at the beginning of the year, you should expect to spend some time looking through the books and make sure you understand. “Okay. I will need to use this teacher’s manual with it.” Or, “No, it looks like I can just use the student book and the workbook and I will be fine.” Kind of figure out where it fits for you. But daily you should have little to no prep.
Deb: Exactly. With the exception of, perhaps, the science. Depending on what science program you pick, some of them are very experiment intense. They use things easy to find around the home but you don’t want to be sitting down and having to pop up again. So I would recommend every week looking ahead to find what you need and put in into a little ziploc bag or whatever.
Hope: Send your child on a treasure hunt!
Deb: Certainly! You can do that, too, and be prepared for that. Another exception is Boom Science. Everything’s in there but it will require some prep to get the bowls and the spoons or whatever it’s going to need. So not everything is as easy as, say, a grammar book. But pretty much we try to make sure that things are easy for the parent and, ideally, leading toward the child teaching himself.
Hope: Next question–Does my student work independently? And the goal is yes.
Deb: Absolutely. Yes.
Hope: That’s pretty much as soon as they can read. Or if you’re starting this with a 7th grader who’s never worked independently before, then you’re going to have to train them into that. But the goal is immediately yes.
And why did we choose this system? I think we’ve covered that with you had a life and we had lives and we don’t spend all day at the school table. So get in, get it done, and move on.
I think that wraps up the majority of our questions.
Deb: If you have any additional questions feel free to email us or ask on Facebook and we’re happy to try to answer your questions. Or call. Our customer service people are well acquainted with the handbooks and should be able to help you.
What made you consider Timberdoodle for the first time?
We where homeschooling for the first time. My son is 5 and he did attend public preschool. I do feel he had a great foundation started. Initially I tried kindergarten without a set curriculum on my own and I felt it wasn’t going as well as it could be and I needed better instruction and more so a guide to follow. I researched options online through various homeschool sites and found Timberdoodle. I chose Timberdoodle after viewing their chosen subject items I felt they where the best options and the best for my sons learning. So far we are 13 weeks in and he has taken to each subject and it’s so great to see the progress and how he is learning. I am very impressed with Timberdoodle and I love their curriculum choices. I plan on continuing with Timberdoodle for first grade and can’t wait to see how much more I can help my son learn!
Before you decided to use Timberdoodle, what was your biggest obstacle or concern about using a Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit?
Nothing.
What helped you overcome that?
Easy guide with what should be done each day in each subject category
If your friend decided to start homeschooling and felt overwhelmed, what would you tell her?
I would tell her to go online and look through the Timberdoodle site and see if she feels it would work for her family.
Is there anything unique about your family that you’d like to share with us?
We are just a family that wants the best for their kids. For them to live, learn and grow in their favorite environments.
I’m Windy, Alaskan domestic goddess! My husband and I love Alaska and sharing it with our two boys, 8 and 10. We also have three dogs that are just like family. We live very close to our grandparents and cousins–like, down-the-road close. So we spend a lot of time with family.
Winter hobbies include snowman building and sledding. Summer months we garden, make improvements on our land and spend lots of time swimming and exploring the woods and building forts.
Our Morning:
A typical day for us:
Dad leaves early for work and the kids and I have breakfast. Then we get the books–math and language arts in the morning. We love Teaching Textbooks for math. Language arts is usually always based on whatever book we are reading aloud. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one we read. We also work on writing stories and grammar.
Then there’s lunch.
Our Afternoon:
After the oldest goes to speech, we will be gone for an hour or so.
Then we will come back and work on individual stuff. The oldest loves technology: computer and coding, robots, Legos and drawing. The youngest loves to experiment and do science, aka “messy stuff.” He has collections of rocks and other various items.
Once a week we go on a fun field trip: children’s museum, fish hatchery, UAF… wherever it takes us.
The boys also take taekwondo lessons. Sparring is their favorite!
It seems like a lot but we do have plenty of time to explore our interests and hang out with family!
Timberdoodle curriculum sets have loads of STEAM activities- robotics, coding and how things work. These activities always lead to others. It’s a lot of fun to see where they go next!
Our Evening:
Dad comes home from work and we have dinner.
Sometimes we play board games or watch movies. Family walks in the woods. Dad reads to the boys most evenings.
Favorite Timberdoodle Tool:
Teaching Textbooks- both my boys love the computer aspect and the bonus rounds are very exciting.
What made you consider Timberdoodle for the first time?
Your booth at the homeschool convention.
Before you decided to use Timberdoodle, what was your biggest obstacle or concern about using a Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit?
It looked like too much fun and not enough learning.
What helped you overcome that?
Seeing it.
If your friend decided to start homeschooling and felt overwhelmed, what would you tell her?
I have brought your catalog over to many friends as well as had them come to my house and look over our curriculum. I would tell her take it slow there are many ways to homeschool. Find what works for you and your child.
Is there anything unique about your family that you’d like to share with us?
We have 3 children: 8th, 6th, and 3rd grades. Two have ADHD which can make school difficult. Thankfully with much of this curriculum I can have them work in separate (often quieter) areas which helps them focus. The reading assignments are short enough that they don’t feel overwhelmed. They love the critical thinking games. I really love how easy Timberdoodle makes scheduling their school week. I give my kids their schedule each week with all of the week’s work on it and tell them the number of items they must complete each day. Then they get to choose which subjects to do an when!
Hi! My name is MaryAnne and I’m a California-based homeschooling mom. My kids are 5, 7, 10, and 12 years old, and we have a puppy too. My husband is a university professor. Crafts and music are popular in our house.
Our Morning:
I’m writing about Friday, March 16th, based off of bullet journaling notes.
The kids always get up first, around 6:00 am. Thankfully, they are awesome about playing or reading quietly until I wake up. They also get themselves breakfast, except for the mornings when they forget and I suddenly realize mid-morning why they are so grumpy.
I started my day by cleaning the bathrooms. This was a lucky day where the kids started schoolwork on their own. We combine a lot of curriculum from Timberdoodle with other curriculum that I’ve found to meet my kids’ interests. My kindergartener’s curriculum this year was almost entirely from Timberdoodle. The older kids like Dr. Bonyfide, Spelling You See, geography, and Word Roots books that we got from Timberdoodle. They also loved some of the fun educational things Timberdoodle carries, like Zentangle and Extreme Dot to Dot. The graphic novel style history books were also a hit with my kids.
This morning my oldest daughter had a cello lesson. I drove her to that, helped my 5-year-old practice violin, then picked her up. My 8-year-old needed a break from schoolwork, so she spent some time playing fetch with our puppy and also worked on a craft she is busy with (needle felting).
Our Afternoon:
My 12-year-old makes lunch most days. I really love that!
This afternoon she had a class at a local farm after lunch. She gets to feed the animals, goes on hikes, and learns a little bit about foraging and animal husbandry. It’s been an amazing experience for her.
The kids finished up their schoolwork, and my 8-year-old and 10-year-old got their practicing done.
Then it was time for chores (laundry today, plus cleaning the kitchen) and the kids got to play.
We live next door to my 8-year-old and 5-year-old’s best friends, and they spend hours playing at one another’s homes. My 12-year-old also runs a book club that my 10-year-old and 8-year-old go to along with the 7-year-old who lives next door.
Our Evening:
We live next to the university where my husband works, and I’m super lucky because he sometimes takes the kids to the dorm dining halls for dinner. He did that on this day. I stayed home and caught up on blog work and ate leftovers for dinner. I use my slow cooker a lot for other days, and I also like to make a lot of rice plus sauces and veggies that I can fix in 30 minutes (well, a little longer for the rice, but it doesn’t need supervision in the rice cooker). My 12-year-old is cooking more and more, and that is always incredibly helpful.
Our 5-year-old goes to bed at 7:00 pm, although I usually spend a lot of time reading to her and talking to her before she falls asleep. The three older kids read or build Legos quietly for an extra hour.
Favorite Timberdoodle Tool:
I LOVED the Math-U-See manipulatives that I bought with my 5-year-old’s kindergarten curriculum kit. All of my kids used those for various problems over the course of the year, and I think we’ll be using them throughout my children’s school years.
More About Our Family:
All of my kids play instruments and sing in choirs. Homeschooling gives them time to do this, play, meet up with friends, and still keep up with schoolwork.
Follow Us on Social Media:
Blog: Mama Smiles – part of the Timberdoodle Blog Team!
What made you consider Timberdoodle for the first time?
After receiving the catalog I was hooked. I also loved the damaged item sale!
Before you decided to use Timberdoodle, what was your biggest obstacle or concern about using a Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit?
As a first time homeschooling parent, I didn’t know how much curriculum we would need and I was unsure which kit to purchase at first.
What helped you overcome that?
I was able to purchase a basic kit with the essential items for the core subjects, and then took advantage of the great deals during the damaged item sale to add more great items to our kit.
If your friend decided to start homeschooling and felt overwhelmed, what would you tell her?
Go with a company like Timberdoodle, that offers a full box curriculum, and do as much as you can, realizing you don’t need to do it all. Also, be very flexible and change up the schedule to what works best for each child.
Is there anything unique about your family that you’d like to share with us?
Our first year of homeschooling with Timberdoodle was also the time we had a newborn and faced the challenges of juggling school for the older child and caring for the baby. It gets easier!
Hi! We are the Pleasants family. An Air Force family of six for 26 years, we have just retired and moved to sunny Arizona. And yes, it is hot here, but we are already loving all the sun and embracing a new way of life. Our girls are 24 and 20, one has graduated from college and the other is beginning her senior year. Both were homeschooled their entire lives. I am currently still schooling our two boys, ages 16 and 10, in 11th and 6th grade.
Our Morning:
Our school days are going to look a bit different here in Arizona. We are still adjusting to the time zone change so we are up pretty early.
Our youngest, Colby, heads to the pool immediately! After breakfast the rest of us join him for a few hours of swimming.
If you can’t find us at the pool, we are exploring the new areas or running errands. There is an aquarium, a zoo, gardens, farmer’s markets and more still waiting for us to discover.
Our Afternoon:
After a light lunch, it is time to hit the books! We are currently on a “summer school” schedule, so we work for a couple of hours on math, Bible, writing and grammar. During the intense heat of the day (it is 103 degrees right now!) is the perfect time to curl up on the couch with curriculum or a good book. Even our college kiddo has online classes to work on. We have been homechooling for 20 years now, so we are pretty eclectic when it comes to curriculum. I still love finding new products that stretch us as learners and get my kids engaged and excited. My boys are auditory learners so we use a lot of online curriculum.
Our Evening:
Dad just started a new job and we are looking for a house to buy, so our evenings still fluctuate a bit right now.
We do make it a habit of sitting down to eat together- it is a great time to unwind together, talk about our days, and regroup for the next day. Occasionally you will find us back in the car looking at houses or trying out a new-to-us gelato shop.
Our evenings end with family devotions and a dip in the pool or hot tub. A great way to relax after a busy day!
More About Our Family:
What makes us unique? This is our 15th move as a military family, and we are finally putting down roots. We never thought we would retire in Arizona, but we are excited to see what God has for us here. We are grateful that during transitions times such as the one we are in, our school can go with us and minimal disruption occurs.
What made you consider Timberdoodle for the first time?
I was recommended a few different curriculums and chose Timberdoodle after comparing and researching what others’ thoughts and reviews were.
Before you decided to use Timberdoodle, what was your biggest obstacle or concern about using a Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit?
I was concerned that I wasn’t going to know how to begin doing everything with my child. It seems so overwhelming at first, but it truly is not and you are able to mold the curriculum into a routine that works best for you and your child.
What helped you overcome that?
We took it one day at a time, changed it up each day, until what we did what was enjoyed by both of us and worked smoothly for both of us.
If your friend decided to start homeschooling and felt overwhelmed, what would you tell her?
I’d tell her I felt the same way, and that it is totally normal to feel that way, and that that feeling goes away!
Is there anything unique about your family that you’d like to share with us?
I have a rather “busy” 2.5-year-old and a 7-month-old who highly enjoys his “mama-time”. Some days we end homeschool sooner than others so I can tend to my little ones a little better, and other days we get more work done than needed because my little ones are having a great morning! We just take it one day at a time!
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