S9 E21 | Ending Your School Year Well (Jeannie Fulbright & Shiela Catanzarite)
Show Notes:
God's desire is for us to take time for rest, to enjoy our family, to reconnect with Him and one another, have time for fun, developing new interests, skills, and pursuing our Divine Curiosity and the passions and purposes God puts on our and our children's hearts. In this episode, Jeannie and Shiela discuss ending your school year well, bringing closure in a way that fuels a sense of accomplishment and encourages a love for and confidence in the learning that was acquired. You will find ideas for wrapping up the school year, scheduling your summer, and chronicling the joys, successes, fun, funny, and praiseworthy moments of the last year for your own sense of accomplishment.
About Jeannie
Jeannie Fulbright, a 24-year veteran homeschooler, is the author of the #1 best-selling, multi award-winning Apologia Young Explorer science series: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics, Botany, Zoology, and Anatomy & Physiology. She is also the author of the action-packed historical time travel book series Rumble Tumbles Through Time, as well as preschool science books and activity kits, the Charlotte Mason Heirloom Planner, and many high-quality Charlotte Mason based products. Jeannie and her husband Jeff became empty nesters in 2019. All four of their children all went to the University of Georgia on scholarship (homeschooling works!). For more than 20 years Jeannie has traveled around the country speaking to homeschoolers at conventions, covering a plethora of topics from Charlotte Mason to marriage and prayer.
About Shiela
Shiela Catanzarite is an author, speaker, editor, and communication coach. She's a 20-year Charlotte Mason veteran homeschooler and has worked as Jeannie Fulbright’s editor and designer for 20 years helping develop Jeannie’s award-winning Apologia science curriculum and most recently her Charlotte Mason products published through Jeannie Fulbright Press. Shiela is the author of the newly published Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry and is finishing up her second book in the series Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture, to be released spring 2024.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in Special Education and a master’s degree in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary, Shiela has been teaching language arts in some capacity for 40+ years. Her passion remains helping students understand the elements of language and how to use these elements artfully to communicate effectively. Shiela is currently a language communication coach, working one-on-one with students who have language learning and communication challenges. She also writes curriculum for her private middle and high school English language communication classes that focus on writing and speaking.
Both of Shiela's and her husband Bruce’s daughters attended private universities on scholarship and went on to pursue graduate studies in medicine and global business. She attributes their love for learning and academic achievement to homeschooling with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and methodology.
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Show Transcript:
Jeannie Fulbright Welcome to the Charlotte Mason Show, a podcast that is all things Charlotte Mason and her tried and true philosophy of education designed to help you homeschool with more confidence, joy and success. It is our hope that you'll find golden nuggets that will transform the way you think and the way you homeschool. I'm your host, author of the bestselling Charlotte Mason science curriculum, Jeannie Fulbright, and I am so glad you joined me today.
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Jeannie Fulbright Well, welcome everybody to the last Charlotte Mason show for the season. We are taking a summer break and we will be back in September. So it's Shiela and I here to talk about some ideas for ending your school year well. And some of you may have already ended, but these are good ideas for ways to spend your summer. So I hope this will be relevant for everybody. Hey Shiela, glad to have you here with me.
Shiela Catanzarite Hi, it's good to be here. It's hard to believe we've gone through the whole season, but I'm excited about today and excited about what we're going to share, and it's good to see you.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, it is. We need to get together in real life. We haven't done that in a while.
Shiela Catanzarite We'll see. We're busy creating, so.
Jeannie Fulbright Life is busy. We are both creating. I am finishing up my history curriculum and I'm really excited about it. But right now, I am kind of in a difficult place because I have four more lessons to write, so four more weeks of the curriculum. And it's American history and it starts pre-Columbian, and then it ends with the finishing of the American Revolution. And right now with the American Revolution, really the whole book is written in story format, so it's not historical fiction because it really is historical accuracy, so it's more like a fictional drama. It's a dramatization of history, of actual history.
Shiela Catanzarite It's going to be amazing.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, my beta readers love it. I mean, they're saying their favorite... The kids are saying their favorite subject is history now, and I love that. But I'm kind of stuck on this last American Revolution because it's hard to take a war, kind of a long running war, and put it into story format. And so I decided I'm going to take each character that was an important character in the war and tell their story. And also you'll learn about what happened in the American Revolution through their stories. And so it's taking a lot of research and I probably won't finish until... I'll finish this summer. So the book probably won't be available until maybe next spring. So, you know, it takes a while to write a book.
Shiela Catanzarite It does. It has lots of revision work, but I'm so glad you're getting it out to people to beta test it because that's who you're writing it for. It's really important to get their feedback. But I know, Jeannie, that based on your science and, you know, everything you've done in the homeschool community for so many years, people are really going to be anticipating it coming out and I have no doubt it's going to be fabulous. Congratulations! You've got to get that last push in.
Jeannie Fulbright Thank you! Yeah, it's just this last bit is really going to take a lot of work. So Shiela, what are you working on this summer.
Shiela Catanzarite Well, you know, I've been teaching classes. I teach language and composition, advanced language and composition classes. And it was really exciting because this year I brought some homeschoolers into my classes that I met at the GHC Convention, so there are siblings of students who are using Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry. So I have some high school siblings and they've been taking my writing class. It's been amazing and so I've had a lot of people ask about that, so I'm going to be offering advanced language and composition classes to high school homeschoolers, but I'm actually working on creating a beta test for Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture, which is a volume, the next volume that I've written in the series with Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry, so we're trying to figure that out. God's word is so brilliant and deep and rich, and we're wanting to make it accessible to our community of Living Verse Homeschoolers. And so, Jeannie, we're working on trying to get a sample ready. We're going to be beta testing it in June and July, and working on all of our revision works... Been through a lot of revision.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, oh, I've seen... I just want everybody to know, I have seen the early drafts of Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture, and it is powerful. It is so powerful because God's Word has so much meaning, and there's so much you can... I mean, of course you're going to be learning language arts, but there's also deeper meaning that your children are going to be pulling from and God's word never returns void. The Bible tells us his word goes out to produce what it is meant to produce, and your children will be changed. They will be spiritually, emotionally, intellectually changed and transformed. And they're going to love this. I think this is going to be a one of our keystone products because it is life transforming.
Shiela Catanzarite Oh, I pray it is. Well, God's word is. But, you know, it's interesting, Jeannie, when you look at God's Word from the perspective of how all of these passages were assembled with all of this brilliant literature, literary devices and language devices and all the types of language that God uses when he communicates, I mean, some of our best epic novels and plays and everything were rooted in the Scripture. The Scripture was the model for some of those early writers, those classical pieces of literature that we have. And so when you look at the Scripture from the standpoint of, you know, why is there repetition? Why did God use repetition? Why do we have a metaphor here? You're thinking God is communicating something really important. And there's a variety of ways in which, you know, messages can be communicated, dependent upon the way that the elements of language and the words are assembled. So when you look at the variety in which God has created many different ways to communicate the message of the gospel and his love for us — there's letters and there are narratives, and parables; there's so many different ways of writing included in the Scripture, God is a God of variety — it's so brilliant. And so it's been really fun, even though I went to seminary and I have a degree from Dallas Seminary and studied all of the books of the Bible in depth, I have never really seen God's Word the way that I have seen it come alive since I've been writing the curriculum. So we have to keep going back and simplifying a little bit. Jeannie and I are trying to, you know, just simplify it and make sure that this is accessible and we're working on looking at the prepositions and we're looking at the sentence structures and all that so that we do get the grammar in. But I think it's going to be a very unique product and I think it's going to be life giving, it has been for me and for Jeannie. So you can pray for us. We're trying to put it in a format that is most easily accessible for your children to be blessed and changed by the Word of God, and to learn from the Master Communicator, the Master author, God Himself.
Jeannie Fulbright The Word.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes, and to let that model for your children and your family prolific in just strong writing. So I'm excited about it. It's been definitely a work, but you know what? Our best products, Jeannie, have been things that have taken a long time. The planner took a really long time and a lot of revision work but it's such an incredible product because the work that has gone into it to make it what it is. And we want to offer high quality, really well researched and refined products. And so I'm excited about it. It's coming out a year later, it won't be out until, you know, the spring convention season with your history, but we decided that, you know, it's worth taking the extra time to make it what it's meant to be — the best it can be. So we do believe it needs to go through a beta test. And for those listening, I'll be sending out, through my newsletter — I'm sure you too, Jeannie, through your newsletter — the opportunity to be a beta tester for Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture. We will love your feedback, but that's going to be coming and so that'll be something you can do over the summer with your children. Speaking of summer learning, if you're a beta tester, you can beta test that and we would love that and we know it'll be a blessing for you.
Jeannie Fulbright And I want to ask you before we move on to ending well, what is the format of your high school language arts courses? And I know that nobody is more prepared to teach high school language arts than you. And so I think it would have been such a wonderful thing to have had you as my teacher if I had been a homeschooler. So tell me how the format is and what... Is it a live class?
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah, well, it is live. It's kind of patterned after the way I've written the curriculum. So the Living Verse series of taking a complete passage, a whole work, and studying kind of just the way it's structured in the artistry, the language arts element. So it's similar to that. I have a certain philosophy and framework that I use with my students but the classes are live. I've had a lot of people ask for them, and actually some people who've used Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry, we have a lot of middle schoolers using it, even though it's written more for the up through six, a lot of eighth graders. So I have some eighth graders who've used Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry coming into the class, the high school class. So I just really have a heart to continue teaching, you know, the children, but we meet once a week, the way that I structured it. In my newsletter, I'm going to be sending out more information, but we meet once a week for an hour and 15 minutes. I created a student notebook, I've written all the curriculum. It's very interactive and there are a lot of writing assignments. I focus heavily on editing and learning to self edit and writing a lot of variations, but we basically study different genres of writing and looking at... We study the best, kind of like Charlotte Mason said, "The best of the living works." And why is this so powerful? How did the author structure this? What type of language devices and literary devices were used? And I have some really strong testimonials up on my website of people who've taken my class. And so I offer a weekly live class. It's 30 weeks and then people have asked for recorded classes, so I'm looking at doing a hybrid option as well, where you come to a live class for once a month, and then you watch recorded classes for the next three weeks and submit your homework, and you come back at the beginning of the month for another live class. So a lot of homeschoolers need the option of flexibility. They can't come to a weekly time, but those who've already taken my class want to do the live weekly. They like that because the interaction, so. But I have had other people contact me and say, "We really want the recorded option." So I'm trying to see what the response is and I'm committed to taking your, you know... We want to offer the elementary children a really high quality, interactive, life giving language arts, but we want to continue to offer, as they get older and for the high school community, something for them as well. So I'm kind of doing both and it's fun. We'll see how it goes. But if you have my newsletter, I'll be announcing that and you can sign up for it on my website. So that's what it is, Jeannie.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah. Okay, well, it sounds great, Shiela, I'm so glad you're doing that. I know language arts is really a struggle in the homeschool community because the way that the American education system has presented language arts turns it into not an art. It takes the art out of language arts, and it separates spelling and it separates vocabulary and it separates grammar and it separates reading. It separates writing all separate and that's not the art of language. And what you've done is you've taken that deep, that deconstruction of language arts, and you've brought it back together and made it what it truly is, which is the art of language.
Shiela Catanzarite Right? Yeah and there's a place for all of the punctuation to go.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, you have to learn that too, I mean...
Shiela Catanzarite They will write in class, it helps them find their voice and confidence in writing. So anyway, it's fun.
Jeannie Fulbright I love that. Okay, well, so ending the school year and I just think this is an important topic because a lot of times as homeschoolers, we're not sure how to end the school year. We know that when a kid is in a public school or private school classroom, there's an end date. And whether the teacher has finished the curriculum or not, they end on that date. And I find that homeschoolers, they sometimes take a different approach, which I think puts more stress on both mom and children, and that is — we have to finish the curriculum. It's not about the end date, it's about finishing everything. And if you don't finish it by that date, you still got to finish it after that date. And that adds so much more unpleasantness and it's unnecessary. That's the most important part: it's unnecessary to finish a curriculum. I homeschooled all my children and they all went to college on scholarship, and they all graduated from college, a couple of them at the very top, magna cum laude. And we never finished a curriculum. We never finished a curriculum. And even when my children took classes outside of the house, they didn't finish the curriculum either. The teacher, just as they do in public and private school, they would go through and they would decide which chapters they were going to do with the students, and it wasn't every chapter. It just wasn't. We need to get out of our mind that the curriculum is the master and the, you know, the Holy Grail that we have to finish everything that was written by some human, some faulty human, made these decisions. So it wasn't God who wrote the curriculum, and we need to understand that we are the master of the curriculum. We never finished a curriculum and my children went on to do wonderful, great things. And so we have to release this tyranny. It's tyranny. We let the curriculum be our tyrannical leader and we've got to release that need.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah, I think just being curriculum writers, Jeannie... As you were saying that I was like, "But we write curriculum and everything is important." But honestly, even as a curriculum writer, I think this is important to understand because, you know, Jeannie and I write curriculum and of course, you're trying to imagine the children and what they're going to learn, and the curriculum has to be broad enough to meet all the needs. So just keep in mind that the person who created the curriculum has like 30 lessons or, you know, 30 weeks of curriculum of what they felt like, this is the full offering, but your children may not need the full offering. And so it's okay to say, "You know what? We've already done that or we covered that in history. We already went to the beach and study charts so we don't need that chapter." It's not really a waste to decide that we don't need everything in here. Just remember that it's a huge offering and sometimes it's beneficial to do all of them. Some curriculum, you're going to be like, "We don't want to miss anything. This is amazing." But also Jeannie, you know, you can skip and go in a different order, as well. Or maybe you're like, "Okay, we're doing Swimming Creatures." Jeannie's brand new, edition two. It's gorgeous. I remember doing Swimming Creatures, one of our favorites, Jeannie's science book. So maybe you're in this school, you're like, we're doing swimming. Oh, this is the chapter for swimming creatures, or this is the chapter for, you know, the shells in the Swimming Creatures book. And we're going to skip that because we're going to the beach.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, we'll save that for this summer when we go on vacation.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes, exactly. So when you think of curriculum, just remember that. And also you have a whole homeschool, you know, years of homeschooling to cover it. So you may decide we're going to do these three chapters this year. Next year, we're going to do this. And so have freedom with the curriculum. Buy the curriculum that you were really drawn to you, that your heart is drawn to, that you feel God has led you to, that you know is life giving, that is written by a living book author. Go ahead and purchase it. But no, you're not set in the schedule. We create schedules just for the people who are trying to, you know, just to give you a framework, but just be free in the framework and know that you don't have to do all of them, and you don't have to do all of them this year. You can break it up and do it over two years. So again, going back to the beauty of homeschooling, is just the freedom and we write curriculum as an offering for you. Take the offering and make it fit what your family needs.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes, absolutely. And except for with my science and my history, most every curriculum you use, you are going to see the same concepts in the new curriculum next year. So a lot of it is repetitious. And I know especially with math, the first 30% of math every year is review of last year's curriculum, last year's information, because they knew the teacher was not going to finish the curriculum because they don't finish the curriculum in schools. And so they don't expect them to get to those last 30%. And so the first 30% of math is, you know, they have some new concepts in there, but it's mostly review. And a lot of times you do need review in math if you're not doing any math over the summer, but they say, you know, for math, it's something like, "If you don't use it in eight weeks, you lose it." I mean, it's a possibility. Also another thing with math is I hired a tutor who was a top student at Georgia Tech, computer science student. He was a senior, and I hired him to come teach my boys math when they were in high school, and they were both doing geometry. I had my boys tracking together, and so they were both doing geometry and he came and he was like, "Okay, let me see the textbook you got." And then he was like, "No, this textbook... I can't teach from this textbook. This is not a great textbook for geometry." And so I was like, "Okay, well, let's go to my curriculum closet," because I had way too much curriculum. And we went through and finally he found one book that he was like, "Yeah, this teaches well. This covers the concepts they're going to need to learn." But he even went through that and he was like, "Oh, we do not need that chapter, we do not need that chapter and we definitely don't need to learn that. They're never going to see that even in college, even if they're a Stem major in college." And so that kind of built my confidence about math. We think high school math is going to be so complicated, and they have to do everything in the curriculum, but sometimes they really don't. Well, I don't want that to make you feel stressed about, "Well, maybe we're doing stuff we don't need to be doing," but all I'm trying to do is let you know that it's okay. It's okay. You don't need to finish the curriculum. They're gonna see it again. God is going to fill all the gaps. Because guess what? People come out of public high school and private school with gaps. Everybody has gaps. When you went into college, or if you didn't go to college, you went into your career, you had gaps in your education. You had things that you maybe were taught but didn't really learn. You had things that you weren't taught. And everybody has gaps in their education and you have to just accept that. But you have to have confidence and faith that God will make sure that if there's a gap that he wanted that child to learn, he will fill that gap. He will make sure they learn what they need to learn to do what God has called them to do. Because Ephesians 2:10 says, "For you are God's masterpiece. You are created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand," for your children to do. They were created for good works. God has a plan and a purpose for their lives, and he is going to ensure that they are prepared to do what it is that he has for them to do. I was just talking to my daughter about this the other... I guess it was yesterday. She called me and she said, "Mom, I just don't know if I'm doing God's will, if I'm in God's will. I don't know what he wants me to do." And I explained to her, I said, "You know, there were a lot of things that I..." One thing, I didn't like math in high school. It was really, really presented in such a way that it... I mean, not math. I didn't like math that much, but I especially didn't like science. And really, high school science was so poorly done, poorly presented that I didn't think that I wanted to have anything to do with science. But then I got to the University of Texas at Austin and I decided to be a pharmacy major. For some reason, I just made the decision. Well actually, the real reason was because my next door neighbor was the Dean of Pharmacy. And he was my best friend's father. And I thought, you know what, I'll just join the pharmacy school. And so I ended up finding such a joy in science, I loved it. I thought chemistry was the most remarkable, beautiful thing and made so much sense. And here I am doing calculus, not even knowing I'm doing calculus because I'm loving chemistry. And this was just something that God... I didn't end up being a pharmacist because I met a pharmacist and he hated his job, and I met another pharmacist and he hated his job. And I thought, okay, I don't want to be a pharmacist because the couple that I've met weren't passionate about what they were doing, and I wanted to be passionate about what I was doing. But those very intense science courses, which I felt like, I wasted so many... Now that I've changed my major, all those science courses are electives. I wasted all my electives on science and but you know, 20, 10 years later, God has me writing science books. When I thought was a mistake in my life was actually what God prepared me to do. And then I started to explain to my daughter that when computers came out in the 90s, I got obsessed with programing — with HTML and learning to build a website and all this stuff. I just wanted to know everything about how to work computers and that felt like a waste of time. Like, why are you wasting your time? You need to be taking care of these children, which, you know, I was taking care of the kids, but in my free time, I was learning computers and that ended up being really important for my work. When I did start writing the science books. I was able to build a website, I was able to, you know, talk to people online and, you know, God prepares our children for what it is he's going to have them do. We are not the ones that are responsible — God is. God is the one who is responsible for our children and their future. We're just co laborers. We're God's employees with these children. So he will fulfill. Everything he needs for them, He will ensure they get.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes, it's so true. And you know, Jeannie, I remember your older daughter Heather doing all the things she did with her little art newsletter that she did and her camps and her artistic... And you know, what she ended up doing with her life and her photography business and doing the magazines and the writing and everything. And just now, remembering our children when they were young, and I remember my younger daughter and your daughter, Jordan (Gigi), setting up a business that had a cash register — a little business in the house, and they would sell things and they would design things. And just looking at being in business and marketing. And you know, my daughter now does a lot of design work and marketing work, and it's very true to who she was, you know, and then our older daughter loving medicine, you know, loving to clean the wounds of all the children on the street who were hurt and being so concerned about the children in the hospital and being in medical school now. And so you know, God imagined what our children would be before we knew that we were even going to have them, before we were entrusted with our children. God imagined who they would be. He created them intricately with all of their physical qualities, all of their mental, emotional — every quality that they have, God imagined them and said, "Before you've even lived a day, I already know the days that you're going to live." So he had a purpose and a plan, created them on purpose, for a purpose, and we are simply to be stewards. And I think listening to God is such an important aspect of being a homeschool mom because you're with your children and like you said, Jeannie, despite us, we don't have to be perfect. It's okay. We're going to fail, we're going to miss things, we apologize when we say something or do something that we know was hurtful to them. We apologize, but we're not expecting ourselves even to be perfect because we're stewarding these lives. And if we're listening to God and his leading, where we see something in our child or they mention, "I didn't get a chance to do this. You know, I really want to do this project." You know, opening opportunities for them, opening up experiences for them so that they can step into what God has called them to do and be. And you were great about this, Jeannie. You were always providing opportunities for your children in summer. Don't you think summer is such a great time to let them immerse and engage with some of the passions and interests that they had during the school year. I remember that's when Heather did all of the camps during the summer.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes, she did.
Shiela Catanzarite That was a big part of what built her and a big part of the path God had for her life.
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Jeannie Fulbright Absolutely. And, you know, summer is a time for children to be able to engage in their divine curiosity. And that is the curiosity that God gives them to pursue their interests or a skill or just something that just ignites their imagination and allow them to immerse in that during the summer with more time than they would during the school year. And that's when they develop who they are. And as you were talking about our daughters when they were little and they had their little fashion magazine and their little business and they were designing all these templates and all this stuff, and you know, that ended up being what your daughter does for a living. And if you had thought, okay, well no, you need to spend more time doing this other thing. And this is fine, but you need to stop doing that now. You need to come here and do this math worksheet. Finish that first before you do this. Then you're basically taking over God's leading. You're taking over God's leadership which is leading them to explore an interest and build neural pathways and understanding in that specific interest which is actually developing their brain for the person that God has created for them to be and the things that God has created for them to do.
Shiela Catanzarite We gotta step back and recognize what God's doing and listen to our children, don't you think, Jeannie?
Jeannie Fulbright Yes.
Shiela Catanzarite I mean, Charlotte Mason was big on "Children are born persons. We need to respect the Holy Spirit's work and leading in their lives." And yes, it's a balance because, you know, we are responsible for their needs when they're young. But we want to, very quickly, step back and give opportunity and freedom for the Holy Spirit to move in them and to listen and to see where they're showing the interest and the passion, even if it's something that doesn't last but for a season. Maybe they're like, you know, they want to try an instrument and you feel like, okay, this really doesn't fit in our schedule. It's a little more money than I wanted, but they're really showing a passion and an interest. If you give that opportunity, even if they don't end up sticking with it, it still was an important part of discovering who they are and that experience built them in a unique way that cannot build them through any other experience. So I just think the freedom of just saying, "Let's just let them try it."
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, absolutely.
Shiela Catanzarite It's okay. We have freedom if God moves differently or they continue to move in that direction, and just always going back to that freedom with homeschooling. But there's freedom when, like you said, Jeannie, we really embrace this idea that this Ephesians 2 truth that, "they are God's masterpiece created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand." We didn't prepare the good works. We are stewarding the good works. He prepared them for them to walk in. So if we look at this homeschooling as we're just cooperating with God to prepare them for the good works. He's called them, and education is a part of that. But education is more than the academic part. The summer opportunity and the summer learning, whatever it looks like, whether it's going on a trip or whether the beach, the learning is there and they're going to learn in new and different ways. That's an important part of their education, very important part. You have to give time and space for that to happen in those summer months.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, summer really is the best time to just allow yourself to de-stress. Just don't feel like, oh, we have to, we have to... Don't make your schedule over-tight in the summer and have certain things that you have to do, and you have to get done. Let it be a time of peaceful, just exploration. Let them explore their divine curiosity. Let them explore their interests that God is leading them into. Let them try new things. I would say that it's important also to have a schedule, to have your day somewhat scheduled because children thrive on schedules and if they know, okay, this is my time where I'm going to get to do, you know, whatever I want to do. But, you know, still have your morning routines. Maybe for the first week where you just, you know, you need just not think and rest, but after that, continue with your morning devotions and then have your, you know, "this is our chore time and now you've got this many hours, and then we're going to go and, you know, run some errands." Whatever it is, but it just... It needs to be sort of a regular schedule because children thrive on that and within those boundaries, then they can truly become creative. And let boredom... you know, a lot of creativity comes out of boredom.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes.
Jeannie Fulbright And so when children say they're bored, that is... Well, yay. That's when you will become the most creative. Because when you're bored, that's when your mind starts working and you start trying to think of what you want to do, and then you become, you come up with ideas. And yeah, I know it's harder now because there's the lure of the video games, but if you can put the video games at a specific time during the day, and they have a specific time where they are pursuing their own interests or playing — even playing is valuable and important for the development of the brain — but if they have that time, then they can become... They can start obeying the leadership of the Holy Spirit towards developing and working within the persons that God has created them to be, because God already knows what they're going to do, and he starts working on the neural pathways and the development and the understanding at the age of five or younger.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes.
Jeannie Fulbright He begins to show those things. Your children will begin to show those interests and those things that they're going to need for the work that God has for them.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes. And Jeannie, when you were talking about schedule, I saw an example of this last night. This was my last week of teaching my classes, and my 10th graders came in and we had just gone through a very rigorous academic... So they go to public school, and they had just academic schedule and all the AP and everything. And they were like, "I don't know what to do. I've been on autopilot. I've been on autopilot for the whole school year, and it's over and I don't know what to do now." And it literally, they were just... It was really interesting. They were really struggling. "I don't know what to do when I get up because..." And so I think that, you know, like you were saying, even at that age, even though they're mature high school, they've been in this specific schedule that they found a lot of, you know, purpose in and now that's gone. And they're trying to figure out, what do I do with my time and what do I do with myself? So I think, like you said, it's important to give our children, and maybe recast, "Okay, now it's summer and we're going to enjoy a lot more free time, but we're going to do this," and giving them some type of structure to fit into. But I would say as well, something I think is important is kind of, debriefing, not debriefing. That's not a good word. It's not a very life giving word, but just celebrating the end of the year and really taking time to think about that. You can do this in this way, a creative way, but I had all my students write a narrative poem to end the year. So even sixth grade. And they had to model it after Robert Louis Stevenson's poem and it had to be for... No, it's actually not that poem, it was a different poem. It was a poem from a soldier who had been in battle and lost his ability to speak and through poetry, and we know this about poetry through writing and verse, he was able to remember the trauma that he experienced, and he was able to speak again. So we studied this really prolific narrative poem. So I told them, you have to write a narrative poem on this school year. It doesn't have to be about school, it just has to be what happened, and they all did it. They did it in a poetry format, you know, and I told them, "Four stanzas, this is your rhyme scheme." No, "16 stanzas, four lines." So I did give some boundary, but within that, they had freedom. They were able to really process through so much. They were like, "I had no idea." Most of it was, "This was really hard. I grew through this." But they were able to see — every single one of them, even the sixth graders — were able to see how they grew through the year, through the struggles. And it was really interesting because, you know, we know with poetry, poetry is process where we have music, we have art, in that side of the brain that has a reward center. You've got more, the emotion. So when we allow our children to process and think through and maybe reflect in poetic language, it draws out things that you didn't even know were there. So my students were processing through things they had no, they we're like, "I had no idea I even felt that." So it was just fascinating to see that. But again, I think that exercise helped them to kind of package the year, "Okay, this is what this year was about," and it was reflective. And these girls that came in after doing that last night and reading their poems, they're like, "Okay, I know what that was about. I know how I grew. Let me think about how I can work on volunteering or something else this summer." So I think the value of bringing closure to what you just went through in this schedule, celebrate it, like, "This was incredible. We're so proud. This is amazing. Let's see what we learned through this. And then let's see what how we might use our days in the summer." I think that's a really valuable thing. I just saw an example of that last night. And however you choose to do that... Jeannie, did you all celebrate the end of your year in a special way?
Jeannie Fulbright Well, as you know, our homeschool group had our big end of the year party, which was so fun. I always love those, but I think the Charlotte Mason methodology, she had three, 12 week terms. And at the end of each 12 week term, she would simply create an oral exam. It was simply an oral exam. And she would maybe take one question out of each lesson, perhaps that they did. And it wasn't a comprehensive final exam as they had in school where you're doing everything the entire school year. So if you haven't been doing oral exams every 12 weeks, what I would do is I would just go back the last 12 weeks before that because, you know, the 12 week time period is a best, kind of, this is what we've just learned. This is the last 12 weeks that we have learned. Let me ask you questions, you know, okay, name three types of animals in the order Ursidae. And they know the Ursa are the bears, and so name three types of bears and then you move to the next chapter, okay. Now name, you know, what is unique about a cheetah compared to other wild cats? And, you know, just questions that... Not hard questions, not to make it hard — questions that actually will build their confidence because they know the answer. And it shows them that they have acquired knowledge. And when children feel like they are able to answer these questions that they wouldn't have been able to answer 12 weeks before that, they are able to answer now, they feel a confidence in their ability to do well in school, and this makes them excited to do well in school. And the reason this is important, the reason we don't want to do a hard final exam, that they're going to not get them all right, is because they have learned a lot. They've learned some important things. And if they are able to express what they've learned, the confidence actually grows their love for school. It grows their love for learning. We love things we're good at. We hate things we are bad at.
Shiela Catanzarite Well, we're not meant to be good at everything. Only the things God has called us to be.
Jeannie Fulbright Right. Exactly.
Shiela Catanzarite Well, our children don't need to be perfect in every subject either on that.
Jeannie Fulbright And if your child has a special passion for one subject, then you can add some more questions in there. You don't want to make it too easy because they'll be like, "I know a lot more than that." So if they're really so into science and we're talking about science every single day, then you can add more questions. Or they were talking about history, you can add more questions in there. But really we want to make it gentle, we want to make it uplifting, we want to make it confidence building and just help them feel like, I finished the school year. I have learned a lot this past year or these past 12 weeks.
Shiela Catanzarite That's so important.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes, absolutely. We want them to feel happy about what they've done and feel good about it.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah, Jeannie, I haven't heard anyone talk about that. That's something that would be interesting to explore more. Just a way that Charlotte Mason, you know, that that would work. I mean, you did a great job explaining that just now, but how you could really plan for these oral examinations, maybe call them even something different, but where the child is expressing back and narrating their knowledge, because when they hear themselves, when they hear themselves express their learning, it does build that confidence. And I think that would be a wonderful way just to celebrate and say... bring closure on it and, "Wow, look what you did. And look how God blessed us." That's a really fun idea. You could do a night of... You plan a special night to do that. I love that idea. I haven't heard anyone really go into detail about that, so.
Jeannie Fulbright Yeah, I think some people who are trying to model after Charlotte Mason, they sometimes take it too far and they try to make it like the end of the year exams in public school. And they just take this entire year. Really, it was at the end of every 12 week session, and it was not comprehensive. Because when a child is explaining to you the, you know, when they're just naming the three bears that they remember learning about, "Learned about the polar bear, sun bear and the giant panda," their brain is remembering all the stuff they learned about those bears, and they're also thinking about other bears. And so it's like a review and they don't have to be telling you what their brain is doing. We don't have to ask," Okay, what is everything you learned about bears?" We just have them able to say, "I learned and I know about..." You know? So it gives them the opportunity to think again, to remember, and it reinforces those neural pathways that they're learning. And when a child tells you what they've learned, there is a growing of neurons.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah.
Jeannie Fulbright When a child learns something, there is a chemical change that goes on in the brain and then the chemicals go away. But when a child tells you back what they learned, then that chemical change actually develops more brain cells, they grow bigger brains, they grow neural pathways.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah. It's true. And there's different pathways that grow with verbal narration as opposed to written narration and narration with art. You have to have all of it. You can't have one part of the brain, you have to have all of that. Which is why we love our curriculum, because it integrates written narration, verbal narration and visual narration. And you engage the whole child and it's really deep and rich and learning is so enjoyable for the child. It really builds confidence.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes, absolutely. So I definitely think that's a great idea for finishing the year strong. And just kind of going through and especially things that you knew they loved, you know, add those to the oral exam. So, and, you know, just taking that time off. God actually called his people to holidays, taking time off. There were seven or eight standard holidays that God called them to take. Some were longer than others, some were quite longer than others, but he did not want them to be doing their regular stuff on those holidays. He wanted them to be celebrating, to be focusing on him, to be, you know, spending time with one another. And you were actually sinning if you didn't these holidays, if you didn't take that time off, you were sinning. God took the seventh day off of the week. Not because God needed to rest. Did God need to rest? No. He was modeling what he wanted us to do. And we are people who need rest. And we as homeschool moms do not take this seriously enough. We cannot be the best we can be if we do not take times for absolute rest because God designed us, he built our bodies to need and absolutely must have times of rest. And there were times when I decided we're going to homeschool year round but we would definitely take breaks in between, a lot more breaks. But even if you are homeschooling year round, you must take a couple of weeks of rest quite often throughout, you know, throughout your homeschool year. And if you're going to take the entire summer off, that's wonderful. And I think, you know, the times of rest, there's a lot of research that shows that if people who take vacations from their regular duties, it decreases burnout, it improves family relationship, it improves your health, your mental health and your physical health. The cortisol that we release when we feel stressed is really dangerous for our health.
Shiela Catanzarite It is.
Jeannie Fulbright We need times where there is just no cortisol happening at all. My daughter actually called me yesterday and she's about to have her second child and next month is her due date and her first child is acting up a lot. Her two year old is acting up a lot, and he was just being really unmanageable. And she's worried because of some little issues she's seeing with his development, which are really just normal, you know, normal developmental issues. And she called me and she's like, "I just, I don't even know why I'm having... I can't... I'm not going to be able to be a mom of two. I just, I can't be a mom of one!" So I just said, "You know what? You're stressed about this developmental thing, you're stressed about the baby coming, you've got all this stuff going on. You are releasing cortisol and there have been studies that show that when we release cortisol, it actually comes out of our skin as a... Sort of like a type of pheromone, sort of like a flight or fight, you know, like bees release pheromones." And I said, "You know how it is when you walk in the room, you don't even see your husband's face, but you know something's wrong. You know, something bad has happened or he's upset. You don't even see his face, you can just feel it like it's in the atmosphere. That's the cortisol release." And I said, "What's going on right now is you're over worried about this developmental thinks you're talking about it a lot so that's releasing cortisol. Then you're trying to set up the new nursery and you're stressed about getting all that done and you're stressed about, you know, all the things. And so you're releasing cortisol and that is your baby's, you know, your two year old is feeling that cortisol release. And that's causing him to respond. He's acting up. He's stressed out. You're stressing him out. Your cortisol is increasing his cortisol. And that's why he is, you know, acting..." I just, you know, we prayed and everything just was so much better. But it's about just calming down and let's take some time off and it's just so important that, you know, we take time off from that cortisol release. And homeschooling is, you know, you do release cortisol throughout the day. I mean maybe not every day but many days. Not everything goes according to schedule or plan. And if you have a tendency towards anxiety, then you are releasing a lot of cortisol when that happens and you need times where you just rest, let your body recover.
Shiela Catanzarite And let them go out to play.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes, absolutely. And, you know, these times off will actually improve our productivity and our children's productivity when they go back to their work. So it's really important. It also, the studies have shown that time off improves family relationships. And so your children will get along better. Your children will get along better when you're not releasing cortisol. And when they're not releasing cortisol. We just need to all stop the cortisol and just be at rest as God wants us to be. He wants us to be at rest. And when we're in a really close relationship with God, we do feel that rest. We don't walk into that anxiety quite as easily. And those times offer great time to just really reconnect with the Lord and just spend that time growing in your relationship with him, your faith in him, and your trust in Him and his plan for your life and your children. And it's such an important part of the homeschool mom's homeschool journey.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah. And just the letting go is so important. Don't carry it. We're not meant to carry things that God is responsible for with our children. If you look at homeschooling as a stewardship, stewarding something is different than carrying something. You know, we steward something that someone else is carrying. They're responsible. God is responsible. We're just stewarding our children's lives. And that should release us. Step back and listen and watch. Cooperate with the Lord. "Lord, this summer, what is my child showing a desire to do?" And it really can be... In your relationship with the Lord, it can be a sweet rhythm. If you're walking with God and listening with your children and cooperating with him throughout the day, whether it's working on a manner or an attitude or, you know, driving to take them to volunteer somewhere, you're walking with God, you're praying for your children, you're listening to God, you're following his leading and listening to your children. I mean, if you see it that way, homeschooling and being a homeschool parent, you know, then it becomes a partnership with the Lord. It's just a sense of, I'm walking with God through this with my children, and it's sweet, you know, and it's hard to do it if you don't have that.
Jeannie Fulbright Absolutely. I think it's important that we really do get this concept of stewardship. We just embrace it. We get it from our head into our heart, Shiela. I think that's the hardest thing for us as homeschool moms to remember and even as moms of grown children. You know, when you have grown children, let me tell you, you thought that this was the hard part. When you have grown children, they can make whatever decision they want to make, even if you don't think this is the best decision for them. They get in relationships you don't want them to be in, they take jobs you don't want them to take. It's just... And you have no control. Enjoy having a little bit of control.
Shiela Catanzarite And if they go away to school, you have no idea what they're doing with it. And it's not that you don't trust them but you don't trust everybody else. So, it's just a lot.
Jeannie Fulbright And that's where you have to just truly know God is... God loves them. He loves them so much more than you love them. He has so much more interest in their lives and who they are and what they're doing than you do. Much more and he loves them so unconditionally. We don't even understand. We think we love our children unconditionally. We don't even know the half of it. God loves them absolutely and he has a plan and purpose for their lives. Our greatest purpose in this parenting is prayer. The most power we have is not our words, not our advice, not our structures and our schedules and our... It is prayer and it's their heart that God wants. Because if they have a heart for the Lord, then they're going to be doing his will, walking his path, making mistakes. Because, you know, we even made mistakes when we left home. I mean, when I left home, I was not perfect. I was very, very far from perfect. But God is constantly letting our children walk paths that are mistakes, and then they learn from them because we learn more from our mistakes. And they're letting them have successes and they're letting them, you know, walk along different trails that we didn't know they were going to go. And all these things happen because of their walk with the Lord. And so we need to know that we are really just stewarding our children's walk with the Lord. And our biggest responsibility is helping them learn to see our... For them to see our faith, for them to see our trust in the Lord. For them to see that, you know what? God is in control. Maybe we made this mistake this year, but God knew we were going to make that mistake and he has a plan for it. Maybe we bought the wrong curriculum and, you know, it kind of wore us all down. Well, we learned from that. And God is going to redeem the curriculum that the locusts have eaten.
Shiela Catanzarite The least of the worries. The curriculum is just an offering.
Jeannie Fulbright Yes.
Shiela Catanzarite It's an offering, so take it in and consume whatever it is, the best of what you can get from it but yeah, the curriculum. It seems like such a big deal but by the time they end the homeschooling, I don't think it was...
Jeannie Fulbright It was never about the curriculum. It was about building those memories and building their hearts for him. And, you know, walking in a way that that models a dependance on God. And not perfect, not perfection. We can never be perfect. If we were perfect, our children wouldn't need the Lord because they would just have us. But we cannot be perfect.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah, making it fun. I went to a high school graduation of one of my students and I was floored. It's a school... It's a lottery. You have to apply to get into it. It's not private, but it's... And the principal, I'm sure he was a Christian. It just was incredible. And some of my students go to this school and some of them don't. But he said this at graduation. He said, "Every day I tell my students, I get on the microphone and I say three things: number one, be amazing. Number two, have fun. And number three, make this the best day ever." And I thought, this is the principal of the school saying to have fun. I was like, yes, yes. Because I mean, you know, and it's so important. And I just thought, wow, this is incredible. The school had such a different philosophy. It wasn't a typical public school, but the idea of having fun, it's so important. That's what your children remember. You want them to say, "We had such a fun homeschool. We did this and we did that and we laughed." It's really, really important. Have fun. And have fun in a different way in the summer. Summer's more free and open. Find different ways to have fun, laugh, enjoy each other, but just make your homeschooling a fun adventure that your children will want to come back home to see you because they remember that home was a place that was fun. We learned a lot, that we had adventures and it was interesting and life giving. And that's what I would just say when it's all said and done, that's really the most important thing. That's what builds amazing people, is a home atmosphere of joy and fun and acceptance and love and freedom and opportunity and walk with and listen to God.
Jeannie Fulbright And such an important part of this is recording those times, those times that you had fun on those special memories, because Shiela and I both had years and years with our children, homeschooling them. And we only have a collection of memories. And so that's why Shiela and I created the Charlotte Mason Heirloom Planner, because there is a place at the end of every month where you record your favorite memories and moments. You could put a picture there. You can write about the most exciting discovery, the, you know, answered prayer, all the fun things that you want to remember. Because it's hard to remember all the good things. Our minds are typically... Our minds are designed to remember danger because it keeps us protected. And we, you know, for many years, you know... Read the Bible, it was all about wars, there were wars, wars, wars, wars, wars. So people needed to learn to be careful and be, you know, protected. And so we're hard wired to remember our mistakes. And that is one of the things that I want to encourage you, homeschool moms, is write down your successes because you will forget them, and you will ruminate over your mistakes and you will not do that if you have a place... The planner is great, but if you don't have a planner, keep a notebook.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes.
Jeannie Fulbright But write down the successes. Write down all the wonderful things. Sit down now and write down every wonderful thing. Everything you laughed about, every place you went that was exciting. Keep that there because you want to talk about that with your children regularly so that they remember, when things are hard, they remember that things have been really wonderful and that they will be wonderful in the future. It's not always going to be hard, and they're not always going to be miserable about whatever just happened because, you know, things happen. Our children get disappointments.
Shiela Catanzarite Right. But, you know, doesn't the Lord tell us, you know, think on the things that are true and wonderful and lovely? And that's really an application of that, Jeannie. I think in our homeschool, it's easy, "Oh, my child's not getting this. We didn't do that." There's so much guilt and shame that can come but if you are taking time... And the planner is such an incredible product. How I wish we would have had that. It's sitting down and saying, "Oh yeah, well, you know, God told us that in this world you'll have trouble. He told us we would. We know that trials are a part of... But look what God did in this." So you can like, yeah, that's part of it. And then you record all the wonderful things and I wish we had done that.
Jeannie Fulbright I know.
Shiela Catanzarite Not only, I mean, the process of actually doing it keeps everyone in a sense of vision and anticipation, I think, but also just having the keepsake of going to look back and remember. You will never pour out for anyone the amount of love and sacrifice that you will pour out during your homeschooling years. This is a time of pouring out. You want to just have the memories of that and preserved in a beautiful form. I wish I would have had that.
Jeannie Fulbright I know. The verse is Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatsoever things are true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, meditate on these things." We are supposed to think about those things instead of ruminating about our mistakes. And that's why I want to encourage you to finish your years as a homeschool mom with a beautiful list of all of your successes and all the things that were right, all the things that were lovely, all the things that were excellent and praiseworthy, so that you have a record of those things and you remember that you have done a great job. So often we think, I'm just a terrible homeschool mom. I remember one time I was talking to a friend of mine. She said, "Oh, I was in this homeschool group, it was kind of far away." And she was part of that group. And she said one of them, they were like at a moms meeting, and one of the moms was saying, "I just feel like Jeannie Fulbright is going to come to my house and she's going to see what a terrible job I'm doing," and then she goes, "I just have all this anxiety about what a terrible job I'm doing." I'm sitting there thinking while my friend's telling me thing, I'm thinking, I feel like I'm going to see what a terrible job I'm doing. We're always thinking we're all doing a terrible job when the fact is, is that we're all walking in God's will. We're making mistakes. Those mistakes were all in the book before one of them ever came to be, as it says in Psalm 139. But we are to think about the beautiful things, the good things and admirable things. And so I want to encourage you, moms. Just as a final, end of the year encouragement is write down the beautiful things that happened, the wonderful things that your children learned, the excitement, the things they got passionate about, the things that they did well. The things that you did well and, you know, how many times did you go outside to play. Write about those things and what they did during their adventures and what they were interested... Just all the things. Write it down because that is your report card, the beautiful things. Because God tells us, these are the things we're to think on. Don't write down the bad things. You don't want to ruminate over the negative. We want to ruminate over the things that are lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, and the only way we can do that is if we have a record of that. And if you don't have the Charlotte Mason Heirloom Planner, I highly recommend it because it is a place of encouragement. You can go to my website, JeannieFulbright.com. It is a piece of encouragement. Every week you have a new verse, a tip for homeschooling, a new Charlotte Mason quote, and a place at the end of every month to record all of your... Every week you have the habits you're working on, the things you're praying about, the you know, all of those things. And you can look at the reviews. I love reading people's reviews on it, on my website, because this is exactly what we were hoping when we created it.
Shiela Catanzarite Yeah and it's what we wanted. We created what we wanted. And it's fun to see the fruit of that, Jeannie. And it's fun at the convention, seeing people come back and say, "I'm coming back for my one for this year," who had used it. And I just... Yeah, that was super fun to see God bless that in that way.
Jeannie Fulbright So, well, with that, we are going to complete this podcast, but we want you to stay in touch with us. I know Shiela is pretty... Are you pretty active on Instagram? I don't know if you are.
Shiela Catanzarite I'm on Instagram, but I'm focusing a lot of attention on my weekly newsletter.
Jeannie Fulbright Oh yes.
Shiela Catanzarite I send out a weekly newsletter in Language Arts and this is what I do, I've just settled in this niche of language and composition because that's what people need and what God's given me to give. And that's why I'm beginning to share my offerings. And so it's a fun newsletter. I publish children's writing and I publish, you know, tips and vocabulary. But I am going to start putting out some newsletters that have information about my offerings and classes, so I think the best way to keep up with me is through my newsletter. I can communicate directly with you. Social media is valuable for some things, but I feel like with the newsletter I can directly speak to you. Feel free to email me and reply or go to my website to the contact. You can send me a message. I have people reach out to me that way. I'm here for you. I'm creating, you know, through Jeannie, you know, curriculum. And we're really excited about that. And I have the classes, and I just want to be here for the homeschool community in this space of language and writing and all of the things there. And if you want to be a beta tester for Living Verse Scripture, we would love that. So I will be sending out, in my newsletter, some information about that.
Jeannie Fulbright And your website is ShielaCatanzarite.com.
Shiela Catanzarite Yes, yes. So you can be a beta tester but you've got to sign up from a newsletter, so go to my website and go down to... You can go to the resources page. I send you a free resource, you can choose someone. I get your email and just know that when you sign up to get a resource, you do go on my newsletter list, so I just want to let you know. And that way you'll be in touch with me and then you can learn.
Jeannie Fulbright And it's a valuable newsletter. She gives a lot of great tips and teaching fun. So yeah, it is great. And I am probably taking a little bit of a break from my newsletter. I will send out a couple this year, especially if I do have a beta test opportunity, a beta reader opportunity. Right now I'm about to finish my history, so there's no more beta readers for that. But I'll be starting a new history soon — The American history starting at the, you know, the new country after we won the Revolution and signed the, you know, built the Constitution and all of that, then the second one will be all the stuff that happens in, you know, the North, the spreading of our country. And all the important things that happened in slavery and all of that, for the second half. And I'll be starting that probably, I don't know. Sometime maybe this fall. But anyway, you can get in touch with me through my newsletter as well. And the great thing about the newsletter is you can just hit reply and it will come directly to our email. Also, I am occasionally on TikTok. I hope to start doing more TikToks, so you can find me there. Jeannie Fulbright Press, or just Jeannie Fulbright, I don't know, but I am there as well. I'm a little bit on Instagram and sometimes if you message me on Instagram, sometimes I'll see them. But the best way is just to email me from my website and I will get your emails from there or you can message me on TikTok as well. So I really would love for you to send us, send Shiela and I, you can send it through my mail at JeannieFulbright.com, or just reply to our newsletters and let us know if there's any topic you want us to cover. The friendship talk that we did, a few months ago, that was actually somebody asked me, "I've been struggling with the whole friendship issue and homeschooling," so if there's things specific that you want us to cover or talk about, we would love to hear from you, because we want to talk about the topics that are important to you, that matter to you.
Shiela Catanzarite Absolutely.
Jeannie Fulbright Well, thank you everybody, and I hope you all have a wonderful summer. God bless.
Shiela Catanzarite See you later.
Jeannie Fulbright Hey, a couple more things: Do you wish you had a Charlotte Mason mentor? Someone to keep you focused on the things that matter--the Lord, His word, and prayer, and habit-training, and living books, nature study, and, of course, the most neglected thing of all, self-care? Well, I have the perfect mentor for you: the Charlotte Mason heirloom planner. It is much more than a planner. It's a guide and a mentor and a place to chronicle your treasured moments and memories. All the things you want to remember and keep sacred and special from this homeschool journey. Check it out on my website at JeannieFulbright.com, and learn about that and so many of the other Charlotte Mason curriculum and tools that I have created to make your homeschool journey the richest and most fulfilling experience of your life. Thanks again for listening to the Charlotte Mason Show.
Jeannie Fulbright If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, leave us a review. Tell us what you love about the show. This will help other homeschooling parents like you get connected to our community. And finally, tag us on Instagram @HomeschoolingDotMom, and let us know what you thought of today's episode. And don't forget to check out my friends at Medi-Share because you deserve healthcare. You can trust to learn more about Medi-Share and why over 400,000 Christians have made the switch, go to GreatHomeschoolConvention.com/MediShare.
Jeannie Fulbright Have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? I would love for you to come. On my website I have a special coupon code that you can use when you register. The Great Homeschool Conventions are the homeschooling events of the year with amazing speakers, hundreds of workshops to help you homeschool well, and the largest curriculum exhibit halls in the United States. People travel from all over the United States to Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, California, and Texas to find encouragement, friendship, and curriculum. Be sure to go to my website JeannieFulbright.com for your coupon code. And when you're at the convention, please come by my booth and say "hello" because I love meeting homeschoolers in real life. It's always fun to have new homeschool friends. So thank you so much for listening and I do hope to see you at the convention. Have a blessed rest of the week.
