Last week, Andrew Pudewa and Julie Walker hosted a webinar called “A Crash Course for Accidental Homeschooling.” If you weren’t able to participate in the live event, you are in luck. You can visit this link to watch the recording and download the slides. All across America, schools are going on hiatus, many for the rest of the academic year. Parents are suddenly finding themselves in the midst of needing to either help their children navigate online education or possibly even to replace it altogether with a fully home-based education.
Are you one of those parents? If so, that webinar will be of particular interest to you. Andrew, the founder and director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, comfortingly conveys relevant information about home education that will encourage you as you begin working with your students. Many of you are veteran teachers or teaching parents. Now is a perfect time to share your wisdom and comfort with the people around you who are brand new to teaching at home.
Dividing his presentation into three sections, Andrew describes the culture, curriculum, and care that go into home education. Starting with the topic of culture, Andrew highlights the differences between a school-at-home approach and homeschooling. He encourages listeners to give themselves permission to take time to adjust to a new schedule and approach to learning. One of the most important steps to take is to acknowledge that you can’t do it all. Therefore, taking a relaxed approach to the new reality is critical.
From addressing the culture, Andrew moves into his next topic of discussion: 
curriculum. Describing the differences between arts and sciences, he shares some engaging ways parents can include science that gets families out of the home and into nature. With regard to the arts, he shares a variety of ways that families can inculcate an environment that embraces many aspects of art, including music, fine art, poetry, literature, culinary arts, and more.
Rounding up the webinar, Andrew then addresses ways to care for your family during these stressful times. You may be overwhelmed at suddenly finding yourself homeschooling your children, but you can do it! Whether you are brand new to this thing called homeschooling or are a seasoned veteran, you will enjoy Andrew’s helpful and inspiring insights. Share this encouraging webinar. It will give those who are new a number of concrete steps they can take to assail those stressful feelings and instead step into this new role, whether it be for the moment, the month, or more, with grace, confidence, and (dare we say it) excitement.
To access a full complement of links to information, books, and poems that Andrew shared, check out the show notes from Podcast episode 214.
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Jennifer Mauser has always loved reading and writing and received a B.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 1991. Once she and her husband had children, they decided to homeschool, and she put all her training to use in the home. In addition to homeschooling her children, Jennifer teaches IEW classes out of her home, coaches budding writers via email, and tutors students who struggle with dyslexia. |
