The nuts and bolts of homeschooling your military child. From curriculum to grading, we cover it all! With special guest and fellow podcaster Crystal

[00:00:00] Alison: Welcome to today's show. We have crystal on the show and crystal is the host of, military homeschool podcast. And You know, I mentioned last week that when I started this show back 87 episodes ago, I had always wanted to do a series on homeschooling because I think it's very prevalent in the military community.

[00:00:26] Alison: I think that there's a lot, especially in light of where our nation is going and in light of I think a lot of realizations that people have come to. I think it's one of the Positive things that have come out of coven and the time that we got shut down is that a lot of us really took a step back and paid.

[00:00:49] Alison: I think we're paying a little bit more attention to our environments to what we are giving our energy to to our relationships and how our kids are responding to all of those things as well. And I think that. There's a lot of questions about school and are, are kids being set up for success? Are kids being taught to take a test, a standardized test?

[00:01:19] Alison: Are your kids passions and creativity being enhanced by their schooling or are they? Kind of getting pushed into a particular path. So so anyways, I think that a lot of I don't know if I would, I don't know about you, but for me I've definitely been thinking about homeschooling a lot more as my daughters are getting older, my, my oldest daughter is in middle school now and the, the social stuff is starting to come into play.

[00:01:52] Alison: And it really makes me think about. You know, is she in the best environment that she can be in to grow into an awesome human and thrive? And I think that I'm asking myself that a lot. So I don't know if other other parents are doing the same thing is, are they in the right spot? Is homeschooling maybe an option for us?

[00:02:13] Alison: So that's kind of what we're exploring in this little series that we're doing. So crystal, cool. Is we're going to talk about your homeschooling journey and what you've experienced, and then we'll kind of go from there. Does that sound good? 

[00:02:27] Crystal: That sounds awesome. Okay, 

[00:02:29] Alison: cool. So Crystal, welcome to the show.

[00:02:31] Alison: Super happy to have you here. And if, if I always like to start off the episode with your kind of your military affiliation and what is your military life look like so far? 

[00:02:43] Crystal: Oh, great. Well, thank you so much for inviting me on the show. I'm super excited to share with your listeners. And so thank you so much.

[00:02:51] Crystal: And for us, where my husband's active duty army chaplain we just PCS to Fort Leonard would Right now though, we're geo batching. So we're getting close to retirement or I should say his retirement from the military. But so we're currently geo batching. We bought our retirement home, which makes us sound really old.

[00:03:23] Crystal: Nope. 

[00:03:24] Alison: We bought our retirement land like eight years ago. So you, I get it. I'm totally with you. Someday we'll get there. 

[00:03:32] Crystal: I get it. But so far, we have been our only OCONUS assignment has been to Hawaii which in a way that did seem very much like a whole different experience. It was great. It was also a little bit isolating, believe it or not that's one way, or that's one place where I've been really thankful for homeschooling because.

[00:04:04] Crystal: I, I feel like that gave my kids consistency. But as far as military, my husband is looking, by the time he retires, he will have had 25 plus years of military service. We've been moving, let's see, for the last 10, 11 years, we've been moving every two years. So again, the consistency of homeschooling has just been such a.

[00:04:35] Crystal: Blessing to us. But. It's, it's been a journey, but you know what, I have absolutely enjoyed meeting people from all walks of life. That is one thing that entering in to military life has surprised me is, You generally have, or at least I did, I came from a small community and so very limited military service in the area, you know, National Guard but I really didn't know anyone in the military, at least active duty.

[00:05:12] Crystal: And so I had my view of military service, Oh, through the media, through books, through. TV shows, that type of thing. So I really just had a picture and it was generally the one type of person that served in the military and that was it, you know, but wow, what a journey I'm an introvert by nature, but I have absolutely adored.

[00:05:40] Crystal: Meeting people from all different countries both in and out of the service different cultures, different faiths, different just views on life, political parties, and we come together for one common cause, you know, that's to serve our country, you know, my husband's a chaplain. And so one thing I love about that is it's not denominational.

[00:06:09] Crystal: You know, we have all faiths all beliefs and but the goal is to serve the military families. And so that has been my most exciting aspect of military life, something I'm very proud of. I should say, because I just love getting to know so many different people, women, men, children, and just getting to know them.

[00:06:37] Crystal: And that's, yeah. 

[00:06:39] Alison: Yeah, I so I'm, I'm curious because I don't know much about the chaplain community but I would imagine that. That is, are you involved in that a lot because of what he does? Because his, I mean, part of his job is fellowship, right? So it does that bring you as the military family really into what he does and how he serves as well?

[00:07:07] Alison: Or I'm just curious because like for me. My husband goes off to work and does what he does and then he comes home and I and and similar to you. We were just talking about at your transition that you are really working with mostly civilians or your husband's really working with mostly civilians and that's where my husband is too.

[00:07:25] Alison: So I feel very. Separated from military like we don't have the big command. We don't have the we just don't have that. I don't even live near a base like the closest base is like almost 40 minutes away, you know, so that's how I so I feel very isolated in that way. So I'm just curious in the in the chaplain community.

[00:07:44] Alison: Is that more of a, you know, the family is a little bit more 

[00:07:47] Crystal: involved in that. Yes, generally the wives tend to, or I should say the spouse, because we also have female chaplains and so the spouse. Oftentimes, and it's optional, but a lot of time, we're right in there with our spouses. So for instance, with my husband I might serve on PwC or if he has a family that he's ministering to, I might come alongside and see what I can do, start a meal chain or go over and try to support the family in some way, you know, so we're, We're very much involved, but it's still confidential.

[00:08:32] Crystal: So I want to assure everyone in that way that my husband is. Is 1 to confidentiality and then something that he holds in high regard. So he doesn't generally tell me all the issues. He will ask the family 1st before that. He says, well, can I may my wife come over and see what she can do to help? You know, there was 1 family back several years ago that, her husband was deployed and, you know, generally we come alongside any wives that are deployed, but she or any wives who has spouses deployed, but she was actually new to the country. And so she, her language was very limited. She didn't speak much English. And so as a result, she was kind of intimidated to get involved, you know, and then she had a very complicated pregnancy.

[00:09:29] Crystal: And so my husband asked her, could my wife come and visit you? She was in the hospital. And so I went and I visited her and it was such it turned out to be such a blessing to get to know her and her family as she kind of walked through that and helped advocate for her to some degree. I wasn't a I'm not a medical professional, but I could, as I got to know her, I was able when she would be hospitalized to help maybe.

[00:09:58] Crystal: Translate that a little bit, because it doesn't matter language barrier is only a barrier if you don't try to get to know each other. And so she was learning English, and we just learned to communicate that way and love and prayer just transcends language, I think, yeah, yeah, that was such a blessing and so it's.

[00:10:25] Crystal: We're involved in that way. Okay. Other than that, not so much. We're often there when our husband gets the call in the middle of the night to go attend to a, a soldier or someone that's having an issue. Lots of prayer support. 

[00:10:41] Crystal: And so that's kind of how we're involved. So up until we PCS to Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, which is where we came from before Fort Leonard Wood, I had been very involved in the community, the military community. On the army side of it, I'm not sure about other branches, but on the army side of it, our chaplains are embedded with the troops.

[00:11:06] Crystal: So there we're right there with. Families in that unit. Mm hmm. 

[00:11:13] Alison: Yeah, and is the unit that your husband is attached to now, is that a unit that deploys? So are you guys seeing like an op tempo with deployments or is he mostly stateside? 

[00:11:24] Crystal: What's the? This time he's actually the garrison chaplain. So he serves all the families on post and oversees other chaplains and Generally, make sure that the religious support programs are running smoothly and the chapel communities are thriving.

[00:11:47] Crystal: Gotcha. 

[00:11:47] Alison: Okay. Okay. So that's I, I like hearing about that because I, again, I, I'm not familiar with the, what the different, you know, cause I think all the little jobs that people have they all look a little bit different, you know? So I always think it's interesting to hear what other people's experiences are, you know, that have different types of jobs.

[00:12:10] Alison: So how, so then let's talk about homeschooling. So you tell us a little bit about. You know, your, your family, how many kids you have, how long have you been homeschooling for? And then we'll kind of back up and talk about like how you, cause when I was talking to Natalie last week, she's been homeschooling for 23 years.

[00:12:32] Alison: So when, Asking , and I don't know where you're at, but, so asking her about like, when you got started, that's kind of a long way to go back. So, , what, what has your 

[00:12:42] Crystal: homeschool I'm preschool with her. Yeah. Oh, are you okay? . 

[00:12:45] Alison: Okay. So what ha, what has, what has your homeschooling, what has your homeschooling journey looked like?

[00:12:52] Crystal: Well it actually goes back even further. Not, not for me personally, but within my family, because my uncle and aunt were, my family just thought they were rebels. It was back in the eighties. Nobody had heard of. Educating your child at home and much less the word homeschooling. And they decided that they were going to homeschool their daughter, Shandle, and they like to travel.

[00:13:24] Crystal: And we always thought that it must be that he just doesn't want to settle down and actually put her in school and have that responsibility. And I remember being jealous though, because my school. career wasn't so great. A lot of bullying. And so I dreaded school every day, but I would read. Anything I could get my hands on at home and taught myself to write at home, you know, a lot of my education actually still came from home because I just couldn't learn in school in an atmosphere where I was being bullied.

[00:14:04] Crystal: Yeah. So I was jealous of my cousin who, and I thought, ah, how I wish my mom would pull me out. Yeah. Let me learn from home. We didn't have a word back then. Well, then. Sure. Years later. She went on, she, she now owns alongside her husband, a successful business to where now she travels in her RV all over the place, you know, but she has all these great experiences from that travel and she didn't have to miss school in the process.

[00:14:38] Crystal: They took it with them. Yeah. Then in the, my kids started, my two oldest daughters started out in public school and it was just what I thought we should do, you know, everybody else did that. And my oldest daughter who was in second grade at the time was coming home, home complaining that she was being hurt by this boy at school, at school.

[00:15:05] Crystal: And I thought, oh, it just, I remembered what it was like for me. And I gave her the same spiel that I was given, just ignore, tell your teacher, all that. And it got bad enough that she was coming home with bruises and other personal things were happening. Yeah. I went and I talked to the, the administrator, well, I started with the teacher and then moved up to the administrators and kids will be kids was kind of the feedback I got kids will be kids.

[00:15:42] Crystal: And so I started praying because we could not at that time afford to put the, my daughters in private school. Yeah. And so I just wasn't sure what to do. Well, Believe it or not, I was looking, I was flipping through the channels one day to listen to something while I did dishes and cleaned up the kitchen and Oprah came on and I'm not one to listen to talk shows, but the topic caught my attention and she was talking about homeschooling with a family that she had on stage.

[00:16:20] Crystal: I don't remember much about them, but I remember she took me by surprise by how positively. She was talking about homeschooling with this family and how well they were coming off. And so I just had it on in the background. It was kind of listening and thinking, ah, I kind of wish I could do that, but I wonder if I could, I wonder if it's legal.

[00:16:43] Crystal: That was my biggest question. Yeah. So I just kind of tucked it in the back of my mind and I thought, well, I don't know if my husband would ever go for it. This is the year 2000. And At this point. And so I just started praying and then I don't know the timeframe, but within a day or two, I was at Target and I was browsing through the books and I saw this book on something like 101 homeschooling questions answered or something like that.

[00:17:17] Crystal: And I wish I still had that book because I would love to give the authors kudos for they, they were. It was pivotal for me. Yeah, I was flipping through the book and I'm like, ah. I wanted to buy it and I kind of looked around. I felt like I was doing something illegal or something. So I stuck it in my car and I thought I'm going to buy it.

[00:17:41] Crystal: I'm going to read it. I just, just out of curiosity and I stuck it under some other items and I prayed that when I got out, got to the checkout that I wouldn't be asked about it, that she would just scan it and go. And so, we got, I got to the checkout, and she's scanning all my items, and then she sees the book, she holds on to it, and she kind of reads it, and she goes, Do you homeschool?

[00:18:09] Crystal: I'm looking around like, and I said, well, no, I was just kind of curious about it. And she goes, Oh, you should homeschool. I always wished my mom would have homeschooled me. She homeschooled my baby sister and she's in college now. And it was the best thing ever. I was like. Wow. It's one, you know, another thing.

[00:18:33] Crystal: It's like, I wonder if God's trying to tell me something. So I took the book home, read it over. Long story short, I prayed and I thought my husband is very financially savvy. So I thought he's going to wonder what it's going to cost. So I wrote out what I thought it would cost and took it to him and, and used my bargaining mind to say, you know, I know it's going to cost.

[00:19:00] Crystal: You know, these are the reasons why, and to my surprise, he was totally on board and but he said, we, we need to keep the cost down very free, which is totally, you know, I'm looking back, I think. I really didn't need all the stuff I thought I needed. I was just trying to have school at home versus homeschooling.

[00:19:29] Crystal: Yeah. At the time I needed, I thought I needed the dry erase board, the some desks and on top of the curriculum and all these other things. Yeah. So I set up school at home. And we started out that way, and it just, it wasn't long before I realized instead of school at home, we needed to do life. And so That's a whole other story, but I kind of chucked the books and I, we still use textbooks and each year looks a little bit different depending on each child along the way.

[00:20:08] Crystal: We've added three more in my youngest. Okay, so my two oldest are biological, and then my youngest three were adopted. And so once they were adopted, they too were homeschooled. The two youngest were babies, and then the middle child, but he was actually the last to be added to the family, was homeschooled after he was adopted at 11.

[00:20:36] Crystal: So that's kind of been our journey. And to this point, we've been homeschooling for 23 years in the spring of 20. Oh, sorry. 2000 and our last one graduated in the spring of 2023 this year. Wow. Yeah. 

[00:20:58] Alison: Oh, I okay. So that's, so again, a really long time. And, and back a long time ago. So I'm curious as you were, because I think there's a lot of people that had the same question when you sat down and you were like, okay.

[00:21:13] Alison: Let's get down to the nuts and bolts of this. How much is this going to cost like to do? So what are the things at, just out of curiosity, if you remember, what are some of the things that you had on what you kind of said, you know, the curriculum and I need a whiteboard and we're going to have desks and we're going to like, so what are kind of some of the things that you put on your need to have list?

[00:21:30] Alison: And then if you could talk a little bit about, because you said that you got all of this stuff and then you realize that. You know, you really wanted to teach for life, not so can you kind of dive into that just a little bit on on what that looked like at the beginning and then how you kind of adapted and transitioned and what that looked like for you 

[00:21:49] Crystal: guys.

[00:21:50] Crystal: Absolutely. So, in the beginning, I took a is a Christian Christian book distributors catalog. Okay, specifically, I can't remember back then they had one specifically for homeschooling but I found. Home school curriculum in there, and I decided I was going, I believe I used Bob Jones. Yeah, press at the get go, so I bought.

[00:22:17] Crystal: The whole thing, the teacher keys, all the tests and the worksheets and the textbooks and the student workbooks and the whole nine yards for every single subject. And back then my daughters were starting into a second and third grade and, and two separate grades. And did school at home. So we had to have a desk for each of them and the dry erase board and all the paper.

[00:22:45] Crystal: And then I had to add in. Well, of course you need art and music and P and, you know, all at the same time. And the, if I remember, right. It back then, and that was the year 2000, I had calculated that the cost for the curriculum alone was going to be over somewhere around 350 per child. Mm hmm. And now by today's standards, that doesn't seem so much.

[00:23:16] Crystal: But back then, with the family that you know, we didn't have a lot of, you know, extra money. Extra. Mm hmm. When you add in rent and, and, you know, car payments and all that stuff. So it, it was an investment and my husband went with me on that or I couldn't even have got started, but looking back.

[00:23:42] Crystal: I realized, first of all, I can't do it all. I'm one person and a teacher in a public or private school. They're teaching one grade. And so and even they are overwhelmed. So if they're overwhelmed when that's what they're paid to do, and I'm not knocking teachers at all. I have friends that are teachers.

[00:24:02] Crystal: I love them. I admire them and they agreed because they love the kids. But they truly do. 

[00:24:10] Alison: They have to, otherwise you can't put up with half the stuff they have to put up with, right? You have to love what you do, otherwise it's not, it's not going to work out well. Right, for 

[00:24:21] Crystal: sure. And, you know, they have P. E.

[00:24:22] Crystal: teachers and art teachers and other ones that come alongside them to help them. And so, when you kind of peel back that onion, so to speak, You realize what you need to look at first, what, or at least from my, in my opinion, what's important for you and your family? You know, what do your kids need? What are your values for us?

[00:24:48] Crystal: It was something that was going to teach them the Bible. Okay. We did for a few years use a a curriculum that taught Bible but there were times when we just use the Bible because they're, they're going to chapel. And so they were getting that Many times at different places they were involved in Awanas and then later on youth groups where they were getting that and just opening up the Bible and reading it and discussing it and you know, Bible studies, it doesn't even have to be expensive.

[00:25:28] Crystal: There's a lot of Bible studies for kids and teens that you can utilize. It doesn't have to be an expensive curriculum with a teacher key and everything else. So that's something I learned right off could be flexible. Okay. This is the big one though, and I'm not very good at math. And so that was...

[00:25:49] Crystal: Me neither. Me neither. 

[00:25:52] Alison: Me 

[00:25:53] Crystal: neither. Thankfully, my husband is, So is mine. 

[00:25:57] Alison: That's hilarious. See, you marry. That's why you pick a partner, right? You go, you, you compliment each other in that way. He does the math in our family. That is not my forte. 

[00:26:06] Crystal: No, when you're dating, you need to ask. Are you good? That's 

[00:26:08] Alison: right.

[00:26:08] Alison: Exactly. Are you good? Yeah. Well, what are you good at? Okay. I'm good at these things. All right. We're good. That's funny. 

[00:26:15] Crystal: So for quite a while that was that worked really well because I could take a curriculum and didn't have to Have all the things and that's the other thing I learned You don't have to test over everything.

[00:26:28] Crystal: It's not always feasible to do every single quiz. If you're, you're going through a curriculum, if you're going through your curriculum, say, in math, and you realize they're, they're grasping the concept, they're doing it, they're getting, you know, if you are looking over their papers that they're doing daily, and they're doing a good job, then, you Is the quiz really something that you need?

[00:26:54] Crystal: Sometimes it's a time filler. Sometimes, and in the classroom, they do need that to more accurately assess a student's knowledge of a subject. However, your mom, you're with your child, you're not in a huge classroom, and you are working one on one with your child, so you generally know that they're grasping that concept.

[00:27:17] Crystal: Okay. So you don't always have to do every single test. And then you can just keep proceeding forward. So sometimes I didn't buy the quiz packet, you know, it's, it's the little things I picked off at a time. Okay. I never completely got rid of curriculum, but I learned to use it as a tool versus it dictating to me how we homeschooled.

[00:27:49] Crystal: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Other things is we, we became eclectic, what they call eclectic and homeschooling. So for instance, Bible might actually be just the Bible or the Bible along with a Bible study and then the other things they get such as chapel. And then for English. We might have a base English book that has the basics, you know, what's a noun and a verb and, and how to structure a sentence, but then the writing might come from books I have them read.

[00:28:29] Crystal: And or a little bit more free writing sometimes, and sometimes it changed with our family, family situation, we were at a time when we were PCS thing in the middle of a school year, I either put that aside, all together, or I would. Change that up, you know, we might do a lot of reading, but when you read, you are learning English and you're learning literature and you're, you can learn science and history just from a book.

[00:29:05] Crystal: It just depends on what book you choose. And then the activities, you know, if we're in the middle of a PCS, well, our new duty station, that community in the area around it becomes. Our field trips, you know, learn about the community, learn, go to the museums, go to the museums on post. What a great way to learn about military.

[00:29:29] Crystal: History, go to the museums on post. And so just each year it's looked a little bit different. It depends on their needs. I have one that struggles more in English and one that struggles more in math. And so sometimes my two youngest even though they were the same age, same grade and I'm using air quotes there.

[00:29:53] Crystal: Grade is subjective in homeschool life, but my daughter might be a little bit behind my son in math, but ahead in English. So instead of letting that hold them back where while you need to stay with your brother or with your sister, I let them go forward. And sometimes that meant my son would have more one on one.

[00:30:22] Crystal: From me in English, but I love English, so I was quite happy to give that, but my daughter would often need something online which that's another great resource because there are so many great curriculums and, even online classes that they can take now we used to teaching textbooks a lot and that has been a godsend.

[00:30:50] Crystal: And then the year that when she did algebra. To my husband was working insane hours. Thankfully, my son in law, who is a math genius. I'm convinced of it. We had Skype and so sometimes you have to think outside the box. So he would tutor her through Skype and kind of go through her lessons with her.

[00:31:14] Crystal: And so then we had to use something that. Wasn't teaching textbooks, but he could access to so we've just used a very, a whole variety of curriculums. It just depended on what our needs were at the time and where we were at in that season. Yeah, 

[00:31:33] Alison: so I'm just, I'm thinking about this as like a, cause I'm, I'm a very practical, like, give me a list.

[00:31:41] Alison: Give me, let me check the boxes. We need to have this, this, this, we do this, this, this. And so I think that's similar to how you started and that you were like, okay, we've got to have. All these things about all this curriculum, and then you slowly realize that you don't need this, this, or you don't need that, or you don't need that, or my kid needs this or that.

[00:31:58] Alison: How do you stay on top of, because, because I don't know other people's concerns, but I know it's a concern of mine. When I think about it is you want to make sure. That your kid is still where they're supposed to be benchmark wise where they're supposed to be right? Where is that? I don't know for like a 3rd grader.

[00:32:19] Alison: What are the what should they know? Right? And then how do you how do you kind of measure your kids where they are and making sure that they're tracking. all at grade level where they should be. So I just worry that, you know, are they missing something? Are they gonna, you know, are they gonna they, I never taught them this and now they're, I don't know, what, what has your experience 

[00:32:42] Crystal: been with that?

[00:32:44] Crystal: What I did is I still kind of went by what most of the curriculums were saying, you know, as far as what they need to know. And you can also go on and Google something to the effect of what should my child learn in third grade? Okay. And it'll give you a list. And so we still kind of loosely used that.

[00:33:06] Crystal: There were some years that my oldest daughter, for instance, she loved to read. And so she, she was reading well above grade level. And so I didn't hold her back. But then I had another child and I won't mention who they are in case they listen. No worries. She really struggled with reading. Sure.

[00:33:30] Crystal: Really struggled in front. Yeah. I was just racking my brain with how I could help this one read. They hated it. They didn't know anything to do with the book. They just, they weren't interested. And so at first when they were younger, I was worried. I thought, Oh, they're never going to learn to read.

[00:33:51] Crystal: I'm a total homeschool mom failure. So I just kind of thought, okay. One day for my own sanity, I kind of relaxed a little bit and I thought, I'm just going to find what they like. Okay. And so I found out that they like horses. And so we started with just some picture books with horses and I would have this one.

[00:34:14] Crystal: Tell me what, you know, tell me about the horse. What, what do you think the horse is doing? You know, what do you like about this horse? And then if it had words, I would read. To them, you know, so I started out reading a lot to them, not making them read to me, but I would read to them a lot. And then. Just slowly as they became they were drawn in then I started adding in well read this to me and Just working with them because we did have a curriculum that was helping with reading skills and language skills, but I did not make this one read to me as much as You might for that age.

[00:35:04] Crystal: Mm hmm. But then the more they wanted to learn about horses The more the and I didn't let them and that was before, you know, kind of before youtube, you know Online, I didn't let them get it through videos once in a while But they wanted to learn about horses. I started to just say well, won't you look through this book?

[00:35:25] Crystal: And pretty soon they were reading, you know, then it became natural and then it was harder and harder and harder Things up to the point that in high school, they were they loved horseback riding and with any camp or anything where I could put them in horseback riding lessons or anything they were down for it, you know, and they wanted to learn about being a veterinarian that worked with horses.

[00:35:52] Crystal: And so it was a process, but sometimes it just means taking a step back and realizing it's not you. And it's not even them. It's just who it's the phase they're in. You'll eventually get there and then finding what. Clicks with them, you know, if it's spaceships or horses or what clicks with them or with money.

[00:36:18] Crystal: I had another one that struggled in math. Yeah. For some reason, money talked. Does to me too. That's probably the only good with math. There you go. So I would, I got play money and. Learn to count through play money, but now years later, they can make change backwards. Other kids, they're a hundred 

[00:36:44] Alison: percent.

[00:36:44] Alison: It's a skill that kids do not have these days. They sure don't. They sure don't. And that's a very, that's, it's a, that's so interesting because you think about, you know, what your kids and there's like this parallelograms.

[00:37:01] Alison: When parallelogram season comes around, like we don't ever learn about taxes and what that looks like and how you file and why and all this other stuff we never learned about that. Like, that's very practical information, right? But you're learning all of these very abstract, seemingly random math. Facts and things that I've never used in my adult life.

[00:37:22] Alison: So you have to kind of question, what 

[00:37:24] Crystal: are we, what are we doing 

[00:37:25] Alison: here? Is this, is this really how we want to do this? So then what do you, okay, so, so for you guys personally, you just went through, you kind of had a loose curriculum or did you like at the beginning of each year, do you, so, oh gosh, sorry, this is like.

[00:37:42] Alison: Turning into 5, 000 different questions, but like do you, do you have like a specific, do you continually school the whole time? Or do you have like a standard school year where like you start in kind of like August, September, and then you take a break over the holidays and then you go until the summer and then you take the summer off?

[00:38:00] Alison: Or are you continually going the whole time? We'll start with that question. 

[00:38:04] Crystal: I do not do that. Well, I, when I heard of others who school year round and all the benefits from that, that they could take breaks when they needed it or PCS or whatever I thought I was going to try that. It did not work for me.

[00:38:18] Crystal: I need. Okay. Sure. So so I loosely go by the local schools district calendar. Okay, and that doesn't dictate my life, but right thing is, is I also know when I can take field trips and they're going to be in school. So, oh yeah, that's smart have the library. So, I loosely go by that and that's how and that's tends to be what has always worked best for us I might.

[00:38:51] Crystal: Go a little bit longer or start a little bit earlier, depending on, but I also think that even if you're in the middle of a PCS, your kids can still be learning, but it doesn't necessarily have to be with the curriculum. Sure. The other point is, as far as curriculum, I do start each school year off with a plan.

[00:39:11] Crystal: Okay, 

[00:39:12] Alison: that was going to be my next question. That was going to be my next question. 

[00:39:14] Crystal: Okay. A loose plan. Okay. I do still get, you know, order curriculum. Okay. I love curriculum. I'm probably a curriculum holic. Okay. I'm not sure if I need to go into some sort of therapy for it, but all kidding aside though, I do think it definitely has a place.

[00:39:35] Crystal: You don't need the curriculum for and you also don't need to completely, it gives you a guide, but you don't have to be tied to it. So if I'm covering something in history, say when we lived on Oahu, that is so rich in history. Oh, yeah. We didn't have to. Follow as closely in our history books when it covered world war two, because not only were we living right there, Pearl Harbor.

[00:40:02] Crystal: And and my husband enlightened us cause because he's a world war two fanatic and just, he's a history buff. So they got a lot of. Real on, you know, right there in person, you know, we'd drive through Wheeler Field and, and my husband would point out the bullet holes that were still in some of the buildings from World War II.

[00:40:30] Crystal: And he could explain, you know, what had happened and how it came up to Wheeler Field and, and different things like that. So, sometimes you can skip or you can skip around. Okay. In your curriculum, if you have a child that is acing a unit of math, you can skip to the next one. They don't have to go through that and, and be redundant if they're getting it.

[00:40:56] Crystal: But if they're not, you can always go back and add some fillers until they get it and then move forward. Okay. 

[00:41:03] Alison: When you have multiple kids, like you were talking about, you've got multiple kids that are different grade levels and trying to take this time and do this with this one and this time and do that with that one.

[00:41:12] Alison: And these are this one's likes and dislikes. And these are this one's. You know likes and dislikes and just trying to, it just seems very overwhelming and like confusing and stressful to be very honest. So how, how do you manage like, what are some kind of strategies that you have for. Cause you were saying that you like to have structure and that's how I am too.

[00:41:40] Alison: So I feel ya. So what are some things that you, or some practices that you've put into place to help keep things organized and give yourself a structure? Cause you were saying, and I get it, right? You're Hey, we, we need to have history, right? Every year, but we're in Hawaii. So our history this year is going to be world war two, because this is where we are.

[00:41:58] Alison: And it makes sense to do that. Right. And like we're in Colorado right now, we're going to study westward expansion because hello, that's what happened in this, you know, in this state. So I get that. So can you kind of like talk to us a little bit about your structure and how you, how you use that even with your kids, different learning styles and needs.

[00:42:19] Crystal: So Really what I do is in at one point. I was homeschooling. I never homeschooled all five at the same time, but okay Well, no, I take that back because because I did some preschool things and even before that my two youngest had some they were adopted and one from some abuse and so I learned early on to use some things to kind of Stimulate their mind, you know, and so To some degree, I was homeschooling, and as moms, we're always teaching our children from birth to graduation.

[00:42:59] Crystal: So What I would do is, I, math often was very individualized, so I might have to work one on one or, but early on I taught independence. It became obvious to me that that was going to be a necessity, that they, and I remembered back to when I was learning at home. Because I wasn't getting it at school, because I was distracted by the bullying and other things going on.

[00:43:26] Crystal: So, I learned so much at home, just from reading and writing and, and... Things like that. So kids can learn very independently early on. So while one was even Early on you could have them read independently. So it's free reading time So go grab a book and it may even for the three or four year old if you're wanting to distract them Get go get a board book, you know and look through it and you're gonna look through that for about five or ten minutes while I work with My other one, and that's my time to work with them on math or English.

[00:44:07] Crystal: Often history, especially, was done together. We just loved it. We'd read the books together. Often we used what we call living books. Okay. To teach history rather than a textbook. Okay. loosely know what they should learn each year, but some years we learned it in different years than what is standard.

[00:44:30] Crystal: For instance, World War II, but we would read books together. We'd have family read aloud time and, and my husband and I would take turns. And then as the older ones got old enough to start reading, What a great way for them to learn to read out loud, you know, so it was also reading time too. So they would read to us and we'd take turns and, and read aloud.

[00:44:53] Crystal: And that would, you know, it would be a living history book. Like I love, or, or literature. I love the Christmas Carol. And so we would do that. And then, so we'd read the Christmas Carol. And at the same time, in other subjects, we were learning about. England at that time. And the plight of the orphan at that time.

[00:45:16] Crystal: And you know, what does Victorian England look like? Who was Queen Victoria? We learned British history and, but it was centered around this book, but each child was learning at their age. So while one may be doing a. Book report over the Christmas Carol. The other one might be doing a craft, depending on their age.

[00:45:38] Crystal: So, that's some different ways that we, we did a lot of unit studies too, so that we could do that around different books. Okay. 

[00:45:50] Alison: So what would you what, so you've had, you've been doing this for a long time. Are all your kids out of the house 

[00:45:59] Crystal: now? Did you say? The two youngest have graduated, but they're still living with us and they're in college.

[00:46:04] Crystal: Currently. Gotcha. 

[00:46:05] Alison: Okay. Yes. So what kind of thing? So, I mean, your youngest, you had from babies, right? You said from preschool all the way through. So can you tell us like what did you see? Like, what are some. Positive and some, you know, if there were any negative things that you, you guys experienced through that 

[00:46:27] Crystal: time.

[00:46:29] Crystal: Overall, I would have to say that I saw nothing but positive. Okay. The biggest being stability. and consistency. Okay. We did attempt for a short time in Hawaii to put them in school for a year. Okay. Okay. Because I thought, Oh, we're in Hawaii, and the schools were, it was really cool, and I thought, Oh, they need this experience.

[00:46:58] Crystal: It didn't work out so well. Okay. In some subjects, they were well ahead of their class. Okay. And then others I felt like they just didn't get the attention they needed. And that is when I really saw firsthand how different. Each state, you know, we think of common core, each state still views education differently.

[00:47:24] Crystal: And they, they just didn't thrive so well. Okay. And so I pull, and this was with the two youngest, so I pulled them out and started homeschooling again. And I was also a little worried. I had heard that Hawaii had much stricter regulations on homeschooling. Oh. Actually ended up being. Like, they had, in the end, even though they had these regulations, it was extraordinarily easy to homeschool in Hawaii.

[00:47:56] Crystal: Okay. I had always kept records. I would not ever recommend not keeping good records. It's not just for... Legal reasons, but later on as your kids enter high school, you're going to want that because if they're college bound, if you think at any point they're going to be college bound, you want those records so that you can write their transcripts and what kind and what 

[00:48:22] Alison: kind of things did you keep like what are like you, you don't keep every single thing that they do, like what kind of what kind of items are, do you want to keep for your records?

[00:48:32] Crystal: What I've always kept is is samples of their work. Okay. And it, and grades. Always, every year I kept the grades. I issued them grade cards, so to speak, you know. They, so I knew what their grades were each semester. So if the local school system was giving out grades, I was giving out grades. Okay.

[00:48:56] Crystal: Because that helped me make sure they were staying on track. Okay. We didn't always do standardized testing. That's another way that you can, and if you do that though, keep the results of this for your records, but it doesn't have to be a lot, just some samples of their work. If they wrote an essay and it was, especially if it was particularly good, keep it because that's also a great keepsake.

[00:49:24] Crystal: If your child brings these, these Items home from school, you're probably going to keep them, you know, great artwork or, you know, an A plus on an exam, that type of thing. So keep that. And then, especially as they enter high school, you want to keep that. I, I have three that have one that has graduated college.

[00:49:49] Crystal: The other two are in college. And then the other two didn't go into college. They went through, they went straight into trades and entrepreneurism. But entrepreneurship, sorry. So, but we've had no problem with them going into college based on my transcripts. Okay. But I kept all that because.

[00:50:16] Crystal: You want to be able to build a transcript that shows what they're capable of, you know, and, and shows that they've been well rounded and you need to be able to calculate their GPA and when you do that, it's actually a breeze, but you don't want to have to think back when they're in 12th grade or going into college the following summer.

[00:50:44] Crystal: What did they learn in 9th grade? If you have that there, especially if you're actually in the process of each year, then of adding that to their transcript, which I wasn't always so good at it makes it much easier to complete the transcript. 

[00:51:02] Alison: Okay. And then is there, because that seems like. Just listening to that seems incredibly overwhelming to me, but one of the things that that Natalie shared is she said that there are so many resources and people that you can talk to and groups and whatnot, and it is, it might seem like it's overwhelming, but there is so much out there that it's so like, for example, you're like, Oh, I need to make a transcript for my kid to me.

[00:51:32] Alison: I'm like, well, holy. Well, what does that even look like? I don't even, you know, but I'm sure if you google homeschooling transcripts, right? There's probably tons of templates out there, right? Is that, is that what you have found as well? Or 

[00:51:46] Crystal: yeah, that's what I did for my second oldest. And then 10 years later with my two youngest, I did that again and just googled what the, and, and got a.

[00:52:00] Crystal: Trans or a template that I was able to then tweak for what they did because they've taken homeschool courses and co op courses and online courses, you know, so I was able to tweak it to include all that. And, and it's actually really extremely simple. I, I, I get overwhelmed each time. But it actually is very simple to put that together.

[00:52:27] Crystal: And especially if you've been keeping your records all along. So all I had to do is I kept it all in Google. So I pulled up my Google drive and was able for my two youngest, the others, I had to keep paper, a paper trail. And then later we used a homeschool manager software with Seth and Erica, my two youngest, I just used a spreadsheet that I had created in Google drive and kept track of it.

[00:52:55] Crystal: Over the years and was able to just kind of plug it in and, and, and 

[00:52:59] Alison: like what kind of information is on that spreadsheet, like the textbook that you use, the, the topics you covered, like what kind of information was in that, 

[00:53:07] Crystal: what I used was so my spreadsheet would include the curriculum. So for English, it might say English nine and what the curriculum.

[00:53:20] Crystal: So say a Becca and what. Then there's was English nine or whatever that was called and then what their grade each semester was. And then what their final grade at the end of the year was, and then any notes that I needed, for instance we also started keeping their essays on, or in Google. So I had a Google Drive, so I would link to their Google Drive, so I would have access to their written work, I say written, but their typed work, so I had access to their essays or whatever that they had in Google for that year and then also if they had.

[00:54:06] Crystal: It links to anything that I think I might need course descriptions a lot of and that was just for me. I wouldn't say you have to but it was very helpful. Went to make sure that if I switched between different. Curriculums or had skipped something. I could go back, just go online to, you know, Bob Jones University studied this and in their English curriculum for that year.

[00:54:33] Crystal: And so I was sure that they had what they needed. Okay. And then 

[00:54:38] Alison: how was that for you? You know, because you said that that you're moving tempo has been pretty rigorous moving every couple of years, which we've been there. We had a season where we were moving every 2 years. It is not enjoyable, especially when your kids are in school.

[00:54:52] Alison: How do you manage the the different requirements for each state? 

[00:55:01] Crystal: I use HSLDA, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, which I'm sure Natalie she did. Yeah, she did. Yeah, but it is a godsend because I, when we would even be asked, okay, you know, where do you want to go? And we'd get our we'd put together our dream sheet, you know, and I'd look up, okay, what's the requirements for these different ones and maybe, and a lot of times we picked the areas based off of what their homeschool requirements were.

[00:55:33] Crystal: Okay. In the end, the ones that I thought were going to be more difficult, like Hawaii, ended up not being bad at all. And they actually have a lot of homeschoolers in Hawaii and they're used to the military there. Homeschooling in the military is growing. Yeah. I didn't find it to be so hard at all. And then another place where I had to keep, or I thought I was going to have to keep a lot of records and it turned out to be a good thing is South Carolina.

[00:56:07] Crystal: We had to be part of a homeschool association to kind of oversee us. Okay. Well, that was amazing because they, that was when my two youngest were going into high school and they would keep their transcripts based off of what I, the information I submitted to them. And so each, at the end of each year for the two years we were there, they sent us then the transcript.

[00:56:32] Crystal: And so I kept a hold of that. And then that's what I used to build on each year after and that actually was a blessing because I kept it current. Just I thought I've got two years now. I just have to do two more. I'm going to keep it current. So when they enrolled in college, it only took me a few minutes to pull up their transcripts and send it in.

[00:56:55] Crystal: Yeah. 

[00:56:56] Alison: Okay. So what kind of, what kind of things have you been in this space for a really long time? And obviously you have a lot of touch points closely with military families. What would you say are kind of the common specifics pushbacks that you hear from people about homeschooling and, and pulling their, bringing their kids home for schooling.

[00:57:19] Alison: What are, what are some of the big things that you hear people pushing back about? 

[00:57:25] Crystal: Oh, socialization. I think we were talking about that earlier. Yeah. Socialization actually is a huge one, but If you think about it in school, you're always told, or at least I was when I was in school, need to be quiet, don't talk during class, you know, you might be able to visit a little bit during lunch or recess, but even that was very structured and most of my friendships were built after school.

[00:57:55] Crystal: And so the same with our children, you know, and, and it goes back to also when I was in school, I was bullied. And so I struggled with learning in the public school environment because of that. I couldn't concentrate. So. By bringing them home, you're giving them the opportunity to learn in a place where they can, you can be sure that they're learning.

[00:58:23] Crystal: They have that environment. It's great if they have special needs, because then you can really work on those needs, work around what they need for that. And a lot of times, like with ADHD, they can't handle the bigger classrooms. But then there's homeschool groups. We've been part of a homeschool group that just did field trips.

[00:58:44] Crystal: We've been in co ops. They also church, chapel youth groups. There's. YMCA and their kids programs. They participated in sports. A lot of states will allow you to put your child into their sports program, even though they're homeschooled and take part of the public school sports or different things like that.

[00:59:08] Crystal: They've we had one of the neatest opportunities we had is we had a couple of older ladies. girls who loved to crochet and they would crochet scripture quilts or blankets or whatever they were called. And each each square had some sort of scripture attached to it. And so they started a little group of homeschool girls that would get together.

[00:59:35] Crystal: And my two oldest daughters were part of that and learned to crochet, but it was a group of girls that they hadn't several of which they hadn't met before. Before this brought together by these older ladies, whose children were grown and gone. And so they wanted to pour in to the community. And so they were part of this, this crocheting group, just things like that.

[00:59:59] Alison: Can you just tell us a little bit about the podcast that you have? Cause you have a podcast that's specifically for military homeschooling family. So can you tell us just a little bit about what people can expect to find on your 

[01:00:11] Crystal: show? Absolutely. My goal with Military Homeschool Podcast is really to bring relevant information or stories to encourage because I love to hear how other people homeschool and what their experiences are both within and outside of the military community.

[01:00:30] Crystal: We talk about things that are relevant to all homeschoolers and then also things that are relevant to military families because our lifestyle is unique. So my goal is to bring a variety of information, but to kind of come alongside, it's mostly for the moms because I, I try to speak mom to mom. And we just talk about a variety of subjects.

[01:00:52] Crystal: We've talked about marriage. We've talked about working from home. We've talked about homeschooling. One child while the other child is in public school, and it's just a variety of topics hopefully informative and encouraging and inspirational. Awesome. 

[01:01:13] Alison: So it sounds like if you're okay. So based on last week's episode, we were talking to Natalie and she gave a lot of compelling reasons of how, why homeschooling and she wasn't advocating for homeschooling or whatever.

[01:01:26] Alison: She was just, it was just, it was very. Eye opening as to how easy it can be to do it. Cause I think a lot of people are just intimidated by it. So it sounds like the podcast is a great place for, if people are curious, is this the right thing you were just mentioning that you have lots of different guests on the show and talking about different things like, okay, what if one of my kids, cause I'm in that boat, I think my older daughter would benefit a lot from being homeschooled.

[01:01:53] Alison: But my younger daughter, I think really enjoys public school and is doing well there. So I. You know, we're kind of, what do you do in that situation? So I think that would be really helpful to kind of dive through your, your catalog. And maybe if you have specific questions, those are might be answered in the podcast.

[01:02:09] Alison: Okay. So if people are interested we will definitely link to the to your podcast and the show notes. And then is that the best way for people to get in touch with you? If, if people want to get in touch with you, if they've got questions, what's the best way to, to do that? 

[01:02:23] Crystal: They can contact me through militaryhomeschoolpodcasts at gmail.

[01:02:27] Crystal: com or go to my webpage where my show notes are and links to my podcast episodes are at militaryhomeschoolpodcast. com or social media Facebook and Instagram are both at militaryhomeschoolpodcast. Awesome. 

[01:02:44] Alison: Okay, cool. And I'll make sure that we link all of that stuff in the show notes as well. All right, Crystal, thank you so much for your time.

[01:02:50] Alison: I really appreciate 

[01:02:51] Crystal: you being here. Thank you so much, Allison.