Planning for After the Holidays?

Brave Writer

While you take a holiday break from homeschooling, your mind may wander to new education ideas for January.

You might:

  • mull over a unit study approach for weather while you sip mulled wine.
  • wrestle with whether to switch math programs while you slap, smack, and knead the sweet roll dough.
  • wonder as you wander through a neighborhood of lights whether you should try that co-op even though you hate driving anywhere in the winter.

Be present for the holiday cheer, but allow your mind to take some of those flights of fancy. It’s OK to try something new in the new year and for it to even fail. You’re learning as much about learning as your kids are. That’s just all part of the ordinary natural process of being a home educating parent.

Also: take some time off from wondering as well. Be present to the giftgiving and the yummy foods and the board games and the puzzles

Rooting for you!

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

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A-Z Guide to Literary Devices

Brave Writer

Brave Writer’s A–Z Guide to Literary Devices teaches kids to spot and use the tools authors rely on, with simple explanations, example passages from books they love, playful “Try it!” writing prompts, and a Literary Life Log to track discoveries.  

If your kids have ever:

  • pictured a vivid world while reading . . .
  • felt a poem hum like music . . .
  • watched a character change and grow . . .

. . . they’ve already experienced literary devices in action—whether they knew it or not! 

The A–Z Guide to Literary Devices helps your family make sense of those sparks of literary magic. 

What’s Inside the A–Z Guide?

This guide is both comprehensive and kid-friendly—an engaging companion to our literature guides! 

You’ll find:

  • Easy-to-understand definitions for common (and some uncommon) literary devices
  • Passage examples from beloved books (many of them from our Literature Singles)
  • Try It! prompts to help your kids use each device in tiny writing bursts

Use it as a reference on the fly—or settle in and explore one device at a time. There’s no right way to use it. It grows with your family.

Brave Writer

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[Podcast #315] The 8 Stages of Homeschooling

Brave Writer Podcast

How do we move from “I think I want to homeschool” to “We’ve created an education that fits us”?

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we walk through the eight natural stages homeschool parents experience, from jumping in without a clue, to swapping curriculum in search of the “perfect” program, to finally trusting ourselves and embracing “us schooling.”

We share real stories from our own homeschools, talk about ideological pressure from methods and social media, and offer practical ideas for planning from behind and building a routine you can bend without breaking.

Tune in to discover your stage and what might come next, and then join us to share where you are in your journey!

Show Notes

The longer we homeschool, the more we realize that we’re not just teaching our kids—we’re growing up as educators right alongside them. No one hands us a diploma that says “qualified homeschool parent.” Instead, we move through a series of stages, slowly gaining confidence in our ability to craft an education that fits our families.

Getting Started: Jumping In

Many of us start with a rush of enthusiasm. We catch a glimpse of what home education could be—through a book, a podcast, an Instagram account, or the chaos of online schooling—and we jump in. We buy the books, order the curriculum, and suddenly our children are looking at us like, “Okay, how does this work?” That feeling of being underprepared is not a sign you’re failing; it’s often the first stage of growth.

Recreating What We Know

From there, it’s natural to “play school.” We recreate the classroom we remember: bulletin boards, workbooks lined up in magazine files, color-coded schedules. We’re trying to make learning look official, because that’s what we know. Over time, though, we notice a gap between the tidy plan and the messy reality of family life. Someone melts down, someone’s sick, someone’s building an elaborate Lego world during read-aloud time—and, secretly, we’d rather join them than fight it.

Exploring Methods

That’s when we often discover methods. Charlotte Mason, unschooling, classical education, Montessori, Waldorf—each offers a philosophy that promises deeper learning. We read books like The Well-Trained Mind and John Holt’s Learning All the Time. We join communities and try on new language: living books, strewing, narration, nature study, project-based learning. This can feel like getting a personal master’s degree in education. At the same time, the pressure to “do it right” according to a method can be intense. It’s easy to believe that if we just followed the rules more faithfully, everything would finally run smoothly.

Curriculum Swapping and Second-Guessing

When the method stops working—or doesn’t fit every child—many of us slide into the curriculum-swapping stage. We collect programs the way other people collect hobby supplies. A shiny new resource appears on social media and we wonder, “Am I shortchanging my kids if we don’t use that too?” Underneath all the second-guessing is fear: fear that there is a secret right answer out there, and we haven’t found it yet.

Building Confidence Over Time

What gradually changes is not our children or the market of materials, but us. After enough experiments, we start to notice patterns. We:

  • see which routines hold us together and which expectations always backfire,
  • pay attention to how each child learns best,
  • and begin to trust that a consistent, flexible rhythm—a shared read-aloud, some language arts, a bit of math, space for science, history, and play—can carry more weight than any single book or program.

Seeing Growth Through Planning From Behind

We also discover the power of “planning from behind.” When we chronicle what actually happens in a notebook or blog rather than obsessing over undone plans, we start to see growth that would otherwise be invisible. A struggle that felt overwhelming in October has quietly eased by April. A child who once resisted writing is now creating comics or stories for fun. Those realizations build our confidence more than any external approval ever could.

Arriving at Us Schooling

Eventually, we arrive at a place we might call “us schooling.” We’re no longer trying to fit someone else’s mold. Instead, we’ve pieced together an education that reflects our family’s values, capacities, quirks, and dreams. It’s not perfect. There are still hard days and unfinished assignments. But there is a growing sense of calm: we know our kids, we know ourselves, and we trust the learning that unfolds in the middle of real life.

Wherever you are on this continuum—jumping in, swapping curriculum, or quietly owning your “us school”—you’re not behind. You’re in process. And that process is exactly how you become the educator your children need.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA

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Brave Learning: Homeschooling and the Holidays

Brave Learning

Recently on Brave Learning…

We’ve been talking about homeschooling through the holidays on Substack!

  • 10 Ways to Take Advantage of the Holidays: The holidays are upon us. The tendency is to brace oneself for the onslaught of spending, relatives, too much food, and the pressure to make “perfect memories for the children.” Pause. Appreciate the good you’ve already got going.
  • Squeeze Writing into the Holidays: There are so many ways to make writing a natural part of life, but holidays take it up a notch! Here are six tips.
  • When They Don’t Get It: All fall, you’ve blissfully gone along planning your days, teaching your children, enjoying the closeness of family learning unaware that anyone outside your four walls would suspect you of inflicting harm or undermining your children’s social skills or academic prowess.
  • All They Want for the Holidays: Homeschooling parents are devoted beyond measure. We stay home year round to be with our kids. We do it out of love, out of a commitment to excellence, and relationship. Still, sometimes that commitment looks more like habit and a battle of the wills than the joy of interaction.

Subscribe to Brave Learning on Substack where we chat, discuss, problem-solve, and create together. Here’s what you can expect: weekly themed content, freewriting prompts, and a podcast for kiddos called Monday Morning Meeting (first 6 are free)! 

Brave Learning with Julie Bogart on Substack

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When We Find Someone Else’s Viewpoint Irrational

Brave Writer Raising Critical Thinkers

Let’s talk about how to think critically when we find someone else’s viewpoint irrational.

Naturally how we define terms, the way we understand the difference between community values and individual rights is going to shape how we evaluate anyone’s opinion or perspective. I’m not saying that we can’t call out what we see as fundamentally immoral.

But persuasion out of a view that feels comfortable and natural to another person doesn’t come from one of us simply telling that person they are wrong.

Critical thinking is…

To me, critical thinking is not so much about getting it right and then trying to convince others. That’s a conversion mindset that rarely works. Instead, Critical Thinking is about understanding the logic that any individual or community applies to their viewpoint, even when we think that person or group is being illogical.

Every person thinks their viewpoint makes justifiable sense. Every. Single. One. Our job as thinkers is to discover that logic—to understand better and to allow that understanding to be a part of our solution-making.

Watch the Accompanying Video

Raising Critical Thinkers

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