Written by Kara Anderson
People ask me every once in a while.
They lean in close, touch the top of my hand and say it in a way that I think is supposed to mean,
“Of course I’m not referring to you … ”
“But aren’t some homeschoolers a little, you know … weird?” they ask wrinkling their noses or raising their eyebrows.
Yes. Probably.
BUT.
I often think that many of us are not weird enough.
For instance last week, my daughter’s Girl Scout Cookie order form was due.
Her troop meets at the cute neighborhood school nearby, and so Friday morning, I told the kids we would need to go there to drop off the forms.
“But Mom,” said my 10-year-old with a look of pure puzzlement. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
I was rushing, doing the homeschool-mom-multi-task dance — pouring tea, putting on a boot and making a grocery list.
“Sure. We need to drop the forms off today,” I said.
“But MOM,” he said again. “Are you really going to walk into a school at 10:30 a.m. on a school day with your two homeschooled kids and then just walk back out?”
Oh.
Right.
Homeschooling had become so darn “normal” around here, that I figured it might be time to weird it up again.
Are you ready to embrace being a weird (enough) homeschooler too?
I’ve got some ideas:
Put waaaaay too many library books on hold.
The library hold system is like my online shopping.
Last week, I literally put a book on hold on the way to dinner with my dad and several on hold WHILE AT ANOTHER LIBRARY.
Most normal people check Facebook on their phones or send a text. I go to my library’s website and ask for everything Mac Barnett has ever written.
Speaking of books, find a great series, but only read the first one!
Weird idea, right? But here’s my new trick – I find a great series, like The Chronicles of Prydain, and I read the first one with my kids.
And then, during the next library visit, when we are filling a steamer trunk with our holds, they literally exclaim with glee when they find the next in the series.
“Can I read this right now, Mom?”
Um … well … if you REALLY want to …
Do things whenever you want! (Except maybe visit the public school down the street)
Last year, we visited a popular vacation site and got a $400 hotel room for $49.
Don’t get excited. There were also resort fees — $30 extra. And what did that fee pay for?
Absolutely no waiting for ANYTHING at their indoor theme park or water park.
We played laser tag for like 8 hours.
I like to think that it was a bonding experience. Team Anderson!
Let your kids dress how they like and grow out their hair.
My son calls his group of friends “my gang of long-haired, pre-teen apes.”
He loves them. (I do too!)
They get together weekly to play Pokemon, write songs for their band and talk endlessly about Minecraft.
They are entirely themselves, and I think that’s pretty awesome.
Bring games places.
Seriously! Bananagrams. Blink. Anything small and portable will do.
Or, if games aren’t your thing, bring a puzzle, a book to share or a small craft project (that isn’t too messy – no glitter!).
Sit down with slices of pie or cookies and some tea, and enjoy a quiet afternoon together.
(Because sometimes, homeschooling is just way more fun away from home.)
On the topic of treats, eat waaaay too many brownies.
Last week was the week of brownies in our house.
My 8-year-old has a goal of “mastering the kitchen,” by the time she turns 9, and she has started with brownies.
We’ve made brownies many times together, but last week, she made them three times on her own – first with me close by, then with almost no help at all (except taking them out of the oven) and finally, she doubled the recipe on her own.
(Doubling! Double brownies! Yeah!)
She is mastering a skill right now, and it’s great.
Plus, she’s moved on to lemon sugar cookies.
Let your kids be hackers.
My son is teaching himself computer programming right now.
Wait – don’t freak out.
I’m not talking about that kind of hacking. I’m talking about “hackschooling” — the idea that anything can be hacked, figured out, learned.
He wants to create a video game, and so he is making himself learn how to do it.
Partially because of his own drive and partially because of his mother’s ineptitude (I’m about as tech savvy as a yard sale rotary phone), he is learning on his own.
And he can’t be stopped, no matter what sorts of stumbling blocks come up.
Maybe the best thing is the way his confidence is growing each time he overcomes an obstacle. It’s amazing to watch.
Yeah – you could say it’s weird what we’re doing here – vacationing in the middle of the week, playing Twister at Panera (just kidding – try SET instead) and raising spirited kids who spend hours baking and learning how video games work.
It isn’t what I imagined five years ago when we started this business.
But you know what? They’re really happy.
So today, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What sorts of weird things do you do as a homeschooler?
Originally published Feb 11, 2015.
Weekend homeschool links
I can relate to the part about the library holds!
Me too! Just got another email notification that my new hold is ready. I just picked the last on up on Friday.
Oh, yes! The plethora of library holds. Some librarians seem to like that. Some don’t. 🙂
I almost always have something on hold. Quite frequently my hold requests are maxed out (our library only allows 7 at a time). It is also common for us to have 50 or more books out at a time.
My wierd thing is that I (semi) plan my schedule around the library’s activities.
We’ve been homeschooling for nine years now–three of those overseas. I think, finally, we qualify as weird enough. Except, maybe, that my son is in youth group at church and all three kids do after school sports…Those things might bump them back (slightly) into the “normal” category. Hmmm.
Hannah’s latest post: A Little Yes
Oh the library! I have so many on hold, but I’ve never read anything by Mac Barnett so I already have my library page up and putting some on hold now!
Johanna’s latest post: January 2015 in Books
Oh Johanna! You’re going to love him. He has books for all ages, and the Brixton Brothers series is hysterical, especially if you have Hardy Boys fans in your home.
Haha, yep, that’s us, right down to the Pokemon and Minecraft. 😀
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We are first year homeschoolers and already I relate to most of these things. In fact, we were already doing many of them (abusing our library, growing out hair, self-teaching programming) before we started this adventure so maybe that’s why it fits like a glove (most days). In addition, we head to the city every Friday for Field Trip Friday which culminates in my youngest’s circus arts class, my oldest watches ad copies recipes from Alton Brown, and our family owns and attempts to play way too many different instruments.
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Oh I love this post… I am guessing we might have stepped over the weird line when the other day a friend of mine said, “I used to send friends who wanted to home school to you for questions, but I don’t anymore because no one wants to be told that their children have to play all day in order to learn.” Oh my, I do say that often, and firmly believe it. If our kids are not getting enough time to play then they definitely don’t have time to learn. Aren’t playing and learning one and the same anyway?!!!
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Guilty of just about all of these, especially the library book & the bringing games everywhere ones. 🙂
Sarah M
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Oh, the library holds! So True for me about Facebook checking vs. checking on library holds! Also spend a lot of time looking on Amazon for “books others have bought” similar to books we have loved. Kids have squeezed with delight at the library when we see a new book in a series has come out.
We always have a book on CD going in the car, no matter how short the drive.
That sounds very familiar Michelle. There are SO MANY good books out there waiting to be read and heard!
I often find a good series and read only the first one to my kids. It’s amazing how well that works. My son has actually almost finished the Chronicles of Prydain… he loved the Book Of Three and couldn’t wait to read the rest!
I love this post! So true and so applicable! Libraries are so kind & giving in their hold systems…how would we survive without them??? We live in a rural area, with a tiny library. Thank goodness they can access the large libraries that are over an hour away from us. The Septimus Heap series is my kids’ absolute favorite right now. Thanks!
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I just told our favorite librarian, “What would we do without you?!” I’m going to check out that series!! Thanks!
Whenever I hit my max check outs at the library, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside 🙂
Yes! There are so many things about homeschooling that I worry if I am getting right — but teaching my kids how great the library is? Nailed it! 😉
My kids (15, 14, 7 and 5) (very normal academically) talk Shakespeare. 😉
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What a fun post! We are weird by not enjoying our library! I know! After a couple of years of library homeschool classes and activities I finally embraced the fact my son didn’t enjoy it. When we need books, we head to one of the used book stores and like the environment a lot more.
Yes Lori! We have a lovely used book store about an hour and a half from here. It is one of my favorite field trips!
I’d like to know your vacation spot, where you got a good room rate! 😀
Wait…what? What popular vacationing spot for only $40????
Wisconsin Dells! The land of water slides! 🙂
Good ideas. I am not sure they make us weird, but certainly great for making the most of situations. We have done the walking into public school thing, but I never thought of it as awkward. I do like the idea of taking games places. We already have our read aloud with us when we leave the house. Maybe Yahtzee at a Starbucks?
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Us, weird?! Absolutely! We do Just Dance on Wii for “gym” regularly, which we don’t own by the way, we just have one or two constantly borrowed from the library. We spiral notebooks coming out the wazoo!! We go swimming on Tuesday’s in the late morning when the only other people at the pool are the water aerobics ladies who either smile or scowel at us depending on how close our splashing gets! I use hand sanitizer to remove everything from permanent marker off the walls to sticky glue off shoes. We watch a lot of PBS. My son tried to incubate a store bought egg in his top bunk, and another time tried to pickle one in his closet. We live in the middle of town but have chickens. My kids have memorized about every How It’s Made episode ever made, but have yet to diagram a sentence. I get complements constantly about how sweet and smart my kids are. Weird is awesome!!
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Weird IS awesome. Good for you Judith! 🙂
Our library will forever hold my heart. We hit our record last week with 40 items out at once (we typically have 10-20 per week). I wish we started keeping a book log of sorts when we started this journey!
You are Katie! Your kids will remember forever, and books will be a language you always share 🙂
I’m so weird that when we started our homeschooling journey 4 years I started typing a list of the books we’ve read but since then I’ve discovered Goodreads. I just have my 6 yr old scan the books so we have a record of what we’ve read. Not sure what we’ll use it for but it feels good to do it.
I love Goodreads! As far as tracking the books you read with your kids, I think that’s awesome, and maybe in 10 or 20 years when they think, “What was that one book about that one person, where that thing happened?”, they’ll have a much easier time locating the book than I’ve had trying to find books from my childhood. 😉
We get weird looks at the drs office as we sit there in the waiting room practicing our writing or sight words. The funniest weird moment by far was when my Dr found us laughing hysterically with paper fish scattered all of the floor of his exam room and our homemade fishing pole bobbing in the air as we discovered that the magnet was attracted to the door frame and came out of the string we had tied it to in order to pick up our fish. The Dr and office staff wasn’t quite sure what to make of us that day. I love being a weird home school family.
I loved every bit of this. I so enjoyed being able to read through a little bit of what your days might entail and feel the joy that encompasses your home. Thank you so much for sharing!
Let’s just say we had our mac n cheese by candle light tonight so we could experience what it would be like to be without power. Never mind the fact we had to cook the Mac n cheese in the stove so I guess our experience was greatly lacking.
Library books! Oh yes! Though our current library only allows you to have 25 items out 🙁 Myself, my husband and our daughter are pretty much always maxed out, we have to use multiple cards to get our stack of hold books most weeks, LOL. I’ve apologized to the librarians and have always been told that they LOVE when people use the library that much. (They have shown their love by often overriding the max number for us).
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We are also famous at our library, and I never bring enough bags for all our holds. Just added Mac Barnett on our authors to check out, thanks!
I love this so much. I remember when I decided to start homeschooling thinking my kids would be weird, but then I remembered genetics predisposed them to an above average amount of weird. Homeschooling wouldn’t make a difference there. Ha!
Love the teachable moments of homeschooling! Like this past weekend, we were stuck on the side of the road (rental car broke down, followed by taxi cab braking down…)but anyway, my daughter and I spent the better part of an hour discussing and observing fire ants mounds, their building skills and social behaviors on the side of the road. Guess that makes us pretty weird! Love it!
Totally weird here too! Too many books on hold and we all have a large tote on wheels that we lug in and out of the library when we go! For art today we taped paper on the underside of the seat of chairs around the table, then we spent a few minutes drawing (while laying on the floor holding pencils/markers/crayons up) and then when the timer went off we moved to the next chair (essentially aiding to further along the previous artists work or maybe finish it). Just doing art in a different position at a different angle brought new ideas and topics of conversation. We did this while listening to zydeco music for the kids’ first time. It was cheerful and it showed in the art masterpieces!!! We are framing one! Now we will do independent play/crafting while mom reads the last chapter of Lewis Carroll’s, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. After which we will jump on trampoline and the girls will wrestle while mom throws dinner together and then off to the local university for a formal art class for all! Weird it up peeps….that is where is best learning, creativity and ingenuity come from! Thanks for your post, your words comforted my heart!
Love your idea for creating art “upside down”. I’ll have to try that!
Cool! I am12 and i love being a “weird” homeschooler. I LOVE having a-brobdignagian vocabulary so i read ALL the time! If you have a daughter you should try The Penderwicks series.That is one of my current favorites. Do you read Tolkien? Or c.s. Lewis? If you have an older kid you should try The Rangers Apprentice by John Flanagan
We do the game/puzzle traveling thing, too, Kara! Coffee and games with my littles? Heaven!
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A year ago a friend observed that we switched to a picnic basket for library books. I was too busy to note her laughter and replied excitedly that the sturdy handles have been amazing. Love the hold system. We will go ahead and request the next 4 in a series at one time. I was disappointed the other day when we finally got up to triple digits checked out and found out we still haven’t hit the max. Does anyone else have discussions with their five year about the merits of various libraries in the area? And my kid wears his clothes backwards and prefers it that way.
Our library’s Bookmobile comes right to our house with our loads of books on hold. It’s like Christmas morning every time that huge bus pulls up to our doorstep! They can justify the stop since we get so many books. ????
Also, my kids just attended the Baltimore Comic Con where my 17 yr. old daughter was the lone representation in costume of her favorite current book series, Ranger’s Apprentice. Wonderfully weird!
I SO enjoyed this one! I remember carrying one handful of books out to the car once and a kid remarking, “That’s a lot of books!” and I was thinking, “Wait until you see my three kids guarding THEIR stacks inside!” Haha! I guess we’ll just never be normal.
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We’re waaay over the library. Too many holds. Late fees. Our family is considered fairly large and it’s too hard to keep track of. But weird things we do? We order new school books in the Fall and in the Spring. My kids and I get more excited about that than presents! When people find out we’re homeschoolers, they ask what their favorite subjects are. Instead of an easy answer like, “Science”, my kids will describe everything they’re doing in every subject. Like, they go into great detail about the “Bug Science” course they’re taking and how Part 1 has been all about parasites. You could imagine how a conversation like that goes with strangers/acquaintances . My kids know way more about ancient history than most adults. It’s funny to see my ten year old talking to someone about ancient Mesopotamia. My kids LIKE having glasses and they proudly call themselves nerds. It seems I’m making them sound arrogant and snoody. But they really just love to learn and they love sharing their knowledge with others.
I LOVE this! Last week I went to pick up our holds at the library to find that they had devoted an entire shelf to just us!
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Weird things? We still snuggle – all the time, all morning long (no rushing to get lunches and backpacks), and my kids don’t even know it’s “weird” to still hug me in public. LOVE that.
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I really enjoyed reading your article! So much of it sounds like us. I pulled my son from public school at the age of 8 and now he is 16. We are still homeschooling and I am thinking about homeschooling my 2 grandsons, 5 and 7. I would love to take the three boys on a trip to Wisconsin Dells. Do you have any information on how you got such great discouns?
I remember reading this when it was originally published on Quilll and Camera, Kara! And I was chuckling to myself. On Saturday I just returned 102 books to the library before we head off to vacation. Yes, 102. I am guilty of putting massive amounts on hold and also hoarding them, renewing to our limit. The library is safe sort of addiction, right? Thanks for always sharing your unique and comical perspective!!
Fabulously weird! Yes, to all of it! And in dress how she wishes; at 9 anime/comic/renaissance inspired costumes get worn to town. She is adored for her unique, witty, spunky personality.
My husband just recently got a job in a Christian school and he invited us there to eat lunch with him one day while school was in session. It was so weird!
Weird is awesome. This morning was spent rescuing a grub that was half frozen on our porch. My nature loving girl carefully placed him in a snack cup with dirt and leaves and kept an eye on him warming up all morning. I ditched the morning’s plans to spend time learning about grubs and beetles, and then when the ground was warm enough we returned him to a pile of fresh dirt and watched him burrow into the earth. Several neighbors stopped and asked if all was okay (since we were in our pj’s sitting in damp grass in December) but it was just another day around here. I did get a funny look from my husband when he picked up the snack cup from the counter and was met with a shriek of “Don’t eat my grub, Dad!!”
When we go to the library we leave with a massive canvas shopping bag with so many books we can hardly lift it. Probably not a surprise that the librarians say hello to us if they randomly pass us in the street.
I love the fact within the home ed community you can be a bit “weird” and no one seems to think that that is weird :).
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This made my heart happy! Thanks for a great read. My mom drives bus; our weird thing, last week, was my kids getting a ride on her school bus (two blocks) from her house to ours! I think our weirdness comes in the form of those sorts of little random things we do.
Love this! I think I was weird enough before we started homeschooling… LOL. Our kids were in private school (private school kids can get the same “weird” comments), we’d vacation in the middle of the week in Sep or May (I figured they could easily make up the work and family time is more important), we didn’t have Cable TV, etc. That’s why I think homeschooling has been a great fit for us (roadschooling actually). Since the begining of the school year we have been traveling the country, learning about sea turtles in the FL keys, about the civil war at Fort Sumter, and on and on. So our weirdness factor basically quadrupled… LOL some of these tips might help me keep up the weird, when we get home. Thanks!
I am right there with ya on the library holds. I have gotten to the point that I’ve spaced out our return/check back out dates so that we don’t have to haul as many books to the library at once since we usually have two library cards maxed out. Good thing our library is just 5 minutes from our house because we are there at least once a week, sometimes 3-4 times. Lol! I don’t even buy books on Amazon anymore unless I can’t find them at one of our system’ libraries! I love that my girl can dye her hair whatever color she wants and feels free to be whoever she wants to be too 🙂
I’ve heard it said the homeschooler is only as weird as their parents. I usually respond that way to people’s questions on socialization and then say, Lord help my children! We all laugh and then I ask them a question about themselves and Change the focus onto them. I find that if you look at each individual adult or child, schooled or homeschool, we all have our own quirks and “weirdness”. So I don’t really worry about my kids being weird. We arevwho God made us, placed where He our us and I’m thankful for that. Rest in those facts.
*typos and autocorrect in the end. Supposed to read: placed where He put us.
Great post! You made me smile. We are so weird! I often say we are so out of the box that we sometimes forget where the box is.
I love the unique weirdness of being a homeschooler. Thankfully, it never really leaves you! I graduated from high school over 7 years ago, and have enjoyed being my own person with a different perspective from the rest of the crowd. My fiancee was also homeschooled, and I love his quirkiness too! I found this great comment on a youtube video that I think sums it up pretty well:
“As a former homeschooled kid, one defining feature of homeschooled kids that I always recognize is unabashed dorkiness. Think of how much your parents (assuming you have good, loving parents) simply enjoy you. Or if you have kids, think about how much you love them just the way they are. And think of the dorky in-jokes you and your siblings have. Now imagine never going to school and never encountering peer pressure or judgement about your weirdness. That weirdness would grow into a full quirky personality, that you wouldn’t know was quirky because no-one ever told you so. That’s the way homeschoolers are.”
I wish I could remember who wrote this comment!
Hopefully this is encouraging to the moms out there wondering if they’re doing the right thing. 🙂