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TRANSCRIPT
Shanxi: Hello, this is Shanxi Omoniyi, host of MPE's Homeschool Hints podcast to encourage you wherever you may be on your homeschool journey.
Today I'm really super excited to have Lyndsey Mimnagh, founder of Treehouse Schoolhouse. I actually heard about Lyndsey through our homeschool conference room. I was just telling her before we started recording this, there were some other moms in the mom’s nursing room, and we were swapping curriculum ideas and lesson planning and one of them said, I really go to Treehouse Schoolhouse. And so that was the first time I heard about Lyndsey, so Lyndsey, let's go ahead and tell us a little bit about your homeschool journey and how you got started.
Lyndsey: Sure. So hi, everyone. I'm Lyndsey. I live in North Carolina. I have 4 kids. My youngest right now is 5, and my oldest is 12. So we are just this school year going to be having four kids school age for the first time, so I have done the “swimming in diapers while trying to teach them math lesson,” and you know all of that potty training, well, you know, all the things.
And so I finally feel like I can breathe a little and all four kids will be school age. And one of the things we're gonna talk about today is family-centered learning, and how I bring all the ages together. And that's one of my passions. So I'm excited to chat about that, but my husband and I are both entrepreneurs. And so we live so much of our life at home.
So we live at home, we school at home, we work at home, and it's just a fun, beautiful, creative, messy, fulfilling life that we live over here. So I'm happy to just share a little part of that outside of my home.
And what I do for my job is I create homeschool curriculums. So I was an educator before I was a mother, I was in full time children's ministry. I was an educator at another point in my career life, I was a missionary at one point, and so I took all my passions of children's ministry and of education, and I started developing curriculum for my own children, and we turned around and started publishing it.
And so now Treehouse Schoolhouse has been part of our life since 2017, and we have a very active blog and a YouTube channel, and I have a full team and we have a warehouse of curriculum and we're constantly putting new things out. So, it's a dream to be able to homeschool and then also create resources for families all over the world.
Shanxi: Can you give us some ideas of your general mission and vision for homeschooling and home education and family-centered learning?
Lyndsey: Yeah. So I'm a very eclectic homeschooler. I love the Charlotte Mason method. I would say I lean most heavily into that just because living books are – I'm super passionate about living books and really our children loving literature, and that's not something I grew up exposed to. And so, it's something I fell in love with when I became a mom and I started learning how to pick a good book. And I just fell in love with that.
And then, I've always been a nature girl. I've always been a hiker, a backpacker, camper, and so, you know, I've always felt like I could connect with the Lord through nature as well. I've lived on an island, I did my mission training in Hawaii. And so like I just love nature. And so nature study and just seeing God through nature is a really big deal to me, and it's something that when I. Learned about Charlotte Mason I was like, oh, she was, that's what she was passionate about too.
And just having her children stop and slow down and see the small details and live connected and slow. And really that word connected is huge for me in my homeschool. It's connection to. God, it's connection to each other, and that's why I love family-centered learning, just that sibling and that parent connection.
And then connection with nature, which points us back to God.
And then just the interconnection of subjects where you can read one book and you can learn history, and you can learn geography, and you can learn science. And so, this idea that we have in our modern education of like, we're doing 30 minutes of science, and 30 minutes of spelling.
It's just not how I see the world, and it's not how our education is in our home. So I get these questions a lot: What do you do for your third grader for history?
And I'm like, well, first of all, all my kids kind of learn history together, and we're all using, you know, different levels of books or different projects. But I do the best that I can to keep as many of my kids together there as much as possible because it just creates this really rich environment of learning in our home and connections and bonding.
Shanxi: What have you found, maybe, some of the challenges or surprises along the way of incorporating this love of living books?
Lyndsey: Yeah, specifically books. I would say like, I do have a child who, as much as I expose that child to the same living literature is to have other every other child – that child is going to be drawn to what Charlotte Mason calls twaddle. So, you know, books that aren't, you know, the richest.
And I'm not an all-or-nothing person, so I'm like, you know what? We eat a little junk food. We mostly eat nutritious food. You know, we read the living books, our library, our homeschooling is full of books. But I'm not gonna say no to a book that's not against what we believe. Like, of course, there's where we draw the line.
But, you know, some comic books or, you know, something like that. And so we just treat it like that where it's like, this is a fun sometimes thing. But the more that you expose your children to, the good stuff, their appetite will grow. And I do believe that. It just requires a little more work with some children than others.
Probably another thing I've come against, thankfully, we have a really rich homeschool community of children who read the same types of books mostly as us, but I do have some people in my life that their children don't read those books, and so their children are reading books that I wouldn't deem appropriate, you know, or that aren't filling their minds with good things and thoughtful things.
And so, my kids will see those books or, you know, want to read those books or, you know, just be confused by why these certain friends don't think that what they're reading is cool. <laughs> If they're excited about Anne of Green Gables or something like that, other girls you know may say, well, why aren't you reading this? This is what's cool. That's been something, but really not a big problem because my kids really do love books, and they love stories.
And it's been something that's part of life, their entire journey, ever since they were toddlers. We've just exposed them to good books. So that's what they're used to. And that is what is normal, because that's what they're used to. So that's been really good.
But I'm not afraid for my kids to read things that are, you know, deeper themes or about war, death or, you know, just divorce or these things, especially as they get older, as long as I know what's going on and what they're reading. And we discuss, and we always have that. And that's why I love reading aloud to my children those heavier books or those, you know, those ones with the more mature themes, because then I'm right there to have those discussions.
And what better way for a child to learn about the hard things in life, than their mom reading them a book and then talking about it? So, they're gonna learn at some point. Why not it be in that safe environment?
Shanxi: Can you give us some ideas about how to cultivate just this level of learning and life skills in our children, especially in today's modern day and age where everybody agrees, you know, we should be teaching our children critical thinking skills. We should be equipping them for changing technologies and artificial intelligence, and this brave new world that we're all into – and yet at the same time, it's not something that you can easily check, “Having critical thinking skills today,” Like you were saying, we don't do 30 minutes of critical thinking, science and history.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I think that the most important thing is that our, like you mentioned, our kids actually love learning and they know how to think and they know how to learn. And like you said, you don't just say, OK, now we're going to have a lesson on how to think.
But a lot of it has goes back to your educational philosophy and how you walk out your education. Because rather than me viewing it as, here is a checklist of things about science I need to teach my child right now because they're in 3rd grade or something because people ask me these questions all the time. As someone who's seen as an expert in the home schooling field, they're like, OK, I have a third grader. Give me a list of everything I need to cover in third grade for science, for example.
I have such a hard time with those questions because it's just really not about that. It's about inspiring your child to love learning anything, whether that be beetles in 3rd grade or, you know, it might be the solar system in 5th grade or whatever that thing is.
It's giving your child some freedom to lead the way in their education because if a child is passionate about a subject, and they come to you and they say, Mom, I really, really want to learn about this. Can you help me?
Or you just observe that they're really passionate about it, and then you go to the library and you get the books, and then you come up with projects and then you connect them with a mentor as they get older, it's like, Oh, my child, I'm seeing this bent. And then that maybe they'll be a musician. I should find someone that could mentor them and that.
They're going to come alive and they're never going to forget that, and that's going to be deep into their heart.
And yes, the careers are gonna change. We could, like, equip all of our children right now for the specific careers that are out there. And then when they get to that age, the careers won't even exist, maybe. And so, we need to be equipping our children to love, to learn, to have passions, to not be afraid, to step out and be creative and confident in who they are, who they were created to be, and the special giftings that they have, because that will not change like who they are as a human and what God. In them, that's forever, and so they can go into the world as a confident, creative, critical thinking, you know, loving-to-learn human, and they're going to find something that God wants them to do, not to mention having them really fall in love with Jesus and having them learn to hear his voice because he's going to be the one who guides them into their passions, and into their callings.
We can do what we can do as parents, but really they're his. And so, if I can equip my children by teaching them the word of God and having, helping cultivate that relationship between them and God, and helping them see the most important thing in life is a life that honors God, and that will follow his will, then you know, those are the things I focus on, not what does my third grader need to know in science? That stuff comes secondary.
OK, we can teach them that. You can go by that list if you want, but it's more your heart behind it, of what the main goal is. And I think that's what it comes back to, is what is success? Success is a child who loves learning. Success is a child who loves the Lord. Just ask yourself, ask the Lord, sit down with your husband and be like, I need to write down a list of what is success in my homeschooling journey. It may look different for each family, but that will keep you grounded.
Shanxi: What have you found challenging to keep that long-term focus in your homeschool? I mean, I know it's very easy to, you know, sit down at the beginning of the school year when you're pumped and excited and then it's like, the slog.
Lyndsey: Yeah, honestly it’s, I think that you know the resources that I choose to use in our homeschool, I really prioritize, like I said before, connection and fun. And you know, if something is not working, I am not afraid to just pivot because again, the goal, what is the goal? The goal is that my children love learning, that my children love coming together, and that I see the light bulbs going off and I see them, you know, collaborating on something or going outside and playing, you know, the Revolutionary War after we read the book. Why? Because they love it. They're into it. They're excited about it. They're talking to their friends about school and about what they're learning, what they're doing. And so, if that's not happening, then I have a check and I'm like, OK, whatever we're doing is not inspiring that. So what do I need to change that?
And I'm always changing things. I'm changing the daily rhythm and which, when do we do what? I'm changing what books are getting. I'm always stopping and evaluating, probably on a, you know, biweekly basis. I'm over here going, is that working? Is that inspiring learning? Is that too much on their plate? Is that challenging them at the right level? So, just constantly evaluating, and then, yeah, keeping those goals as the center focus. And when I do get overwhelmed and do get bogged down because it happens, I've got my husband there to say, remember the goals, you remember the plan, remember why we're doing this, and remember what we're looking for as success.
Shanxi: There are some blog posts and resources on your website for parents who may not have had an experience of passing on life skills. Maybe they feel, you know, woefully unprepared and not equipped to pass on life skills. So they're doing, they're like, nobody taught me how to balance a checkbook. They're trying to do something different, but it's really hard when you haven't seen that modeled in your own life. What have you found helpful for those families?
Lyndsey: I love this question because my husband, his background was very similar to this. He wasn't equipped for a lot of life, and a lot of life he's had to figure out on his own. And so he's really passionate about this topic as well.
And we sat down when our kids were little, and we wrote out a big list of, like, what do we want to teach our kids? Just like, not academics, but like how to crack an egg? These simple things, and when people come to me and they're like, I don't think I could homeschool, I couldn't teach my child to read.
And I'm like, you're already teaching them so much. You've taught them how to tie their shoe. You've taught them how to ride a bike. You've taught them how to be kind in conflict, like you're teaching them every day. You are already a teacher.
And so all of these things that we need to teach them. First of all, they're not just gonna happen. I mean, some might because, especially if you're already an intentional parent and you invite them into your life, and you slow down and you invite them into the kitchen and maybe some of they're gonna learn to crack that egg, or they're gonna learn these certain things.
But there are a lot of things that without some intention will really fall through the cracks and we cannot hit everything. We're not gonna be perfect, but try to remember back to when you were entering the real world.
When I think of Lindsay at 17, 18, 19, 20 – moving out, going to college for the first time, getting in a dorm, trying to learn how to cook or trying to figure out car maintenance or how to go to the post office and mail something, and I felt scared, you know. All these little things, like try to really put yourself in that position, and write a list.
What do I need to equip my child now?
This depends on their age because this is very age specific. So on my blog I have a free list that's more like preschool-, elementary-focused of 100 life skills to intentionally teach your child, and they're broken up by subject – like in the kitchen or self-care or home care.
And so you can print that out, and you can check off what your kid already knows or even do like a little summer test, like can they do this? Can they do that? Do they know what a whisk is?
And then you can intentionally say, OK, this year we're going to work on this.
Now for me specifically, like I mentioned, I have a 12-year-old. I also have a 10-year-old, and so my husband and I will sit down sometime before the school year starts and say, what are some specific life skills that we want these specific children to learn this year?
And then you can schedule them in. You can actually say, by the end of the year, I want my daughter to be able to cook, from start to finish, 5 meals. Or, I want my son to be able to have a budget and be able to go grocery shopping for the week.
Whatever those things are, according to their age, don't just say they're going to happen at some point. Actually, intentionally make a choice to put them in your planner and do it. That's the best way I've learned how, is just to make a list, make a plan, and actually do it.
Shanxi: I know for me specifically, when I was a brand-new mom and thinking of ways to incorporate my toddler into kitchens, I found myself overreacting, like, when I could just see the accidents happening like ahead of time. And so I feel like sometimes I was putting her off because I was, like, don't touch that. Don't touch that. Wait for me to do it. I felt like I was sometimes hindering more than helping by projecting all the things that I could see going wrong. And she was just about to have fun, and then I would jump in with her, don't touch that, don't touch that.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I definitely think you have to let go. And I think if you realize what the goal is, it helps you maintain patience, because if you're just trying to cook a meal really quick and you've got people coming over and the house is a mess and blah, and then that's the minute that your child's like, hey, can I help?
Maybe that's not a good moment, but if you schedule it into your homeschool day and you're like, OK, this afternoon, I'm actually gonna teach them how to make lasagna. Yeah. Then you're going to be more patient and you're going to see it as a lesson, just like you have more patience if you're like, we're gonna sit down and do this thing.
One thing that I struggle with sometimes is, I actually try to push my kids too much where I'm like, oh, they're big enough. They can do that thing. And so, then when they fail or when something happens, they're hard on themselves because I just believed in them so much. And I told them like, No, you got this.
The other day – we have an 8-month-old golden retriever, and she's just now starting to get really strong –and I just didn't realize her strength is stronger than my 6-year-old son. And so, I had him let her out. I wanted him to go out and take her out to go to the bathroom on a leash. And we live on a hill.
You know, maybe some other parent would say, like, why would you let your 6-year-old by himself go outside with this, you know, dog? The dog could get loose or whatever.
But I was just like, he's capable. And I didn't even think about it. I went on doing my own thing.
Next thing you know, the dog started to chase our cat and pulled him all around the yard – he didn't want to let go of the leash – down the hill. He got all scraped up, and now he's like, I'm never doing that again.
And so it's building that confidence and apologizing, like, oh buddy, I should have gone out there with you. You hadn't done that before. You know all of that. And so yeah, I think it's just baby steps and building their confidence and believing in them, but also giving them the right tools at the right time.
Shanxi: Yeah, I love that you shared that because I think also, sometimes in our parental minds, we can wrap ourselves into this fear of failure. But I remember some, you know, really wise homeschool mom telling me, it's more like the freedom to fail. And you want them to start early, and when the stakes are relatively low, as opposed to building up this culture of just being so afraid of failure that when it does happen, you know they're not prepared for it.
And that did help me, like, oh, yeah, I can see that it would actually be better for them to fail fast, and fail now than fail later. And I might not be there to help them.
Lyndsey: Yeah. Right, exactly. Being there is the big point. You know, one thing we really encourage our older children to do, is to go up to the counter at a restaurant and order something, or get a straw, or, you know, speak to people, look in their eyes, talk to adults.
They're so shy at first. But now, you know, we were at a park this morning, and there was a snow cone truck that was giving away free snow cones at this event. And I said, oh, yeah, we can all go up and get one, and my 10-year-old daughter said, oh, I'll take them.
I said OK, well, you can only get these certain flavors, and she said, OK, I'll go ask if they have them. And she just took my two little kids up there as, you know, the mother hen, and she ordered, and she was confident, and they came back. And I'm like, OK, we're doing this. So, you know, I think you're right. It's just, you know, the first few times she's like, no, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.
Then you look back a year later and you're like, Wow, like, that consistency paid off and now she's confident. She’s bold. She's looking in their eyes and, you know, not afraid to ask questions. And I think it just, it requires that consistency for sure.
So, start young because we have a lot to teach them, before they move out, of these practical things, and so yeah, my encouragement is to start young and be intentional.
Shanxi: What else have you found to be helpful as people try to be more intentional about just family-centered learning in general? Maybe they don't have, you know, four children. Maybe they just have two or even one. What would you say are some ideas of just being able to think holistically about education in general?
Lyndsey: I think the biggest thing is realizing that they are always learning – not just in this time block that is your school time, even if you have one child, or your husband works full time and can't be super involved with their home education.
What about at the dinner table? What conversations can you have that is an extension of their learning because they're sitting there?
Or can you travel as a family to places that are going to inspire education and inspire learning?
And then incorporating other members of your family. I love incorporating like grandparents or aunts and uncles that have skills. Those are practical life skills, or they have different a culture. They have a different background, they have a different perspective on something.
Can they bring something to the table?
When you go visit Grandma and Grandpa, can you just take one extra step and say, hey, Dad, you know, while we're there, could you show the kids that thing you're passionate about? Can you teach them something?
Family-centered learning reaches beyond curriculum. Like, that's something we do in our home. There I try to take one subject and you know, make it all different levels so we can all stay together and learn something at the same time time.
But family centered learning is really a lot about what we're talking about with life skills, because the other day my husband was on the roof, cleaning out the gutters and he invited my 6-year-old up there, and we were about to start like what I would call our school lessons.
And I just had this moment where I was like, you know, him learning how to clean out the gutters and having this bonding moment with dad, how he's helping the family, that's education to me.
So, we're going to hold off on "lessons,” and I'm going to let that be his lesson.
As parents, are we too busy with our own life, with our work life, with our social media life, with whatever – our own thing – that we are so disconnected from what our kids are doing and thinking every day and learning?
Not even in our school hours, but like we were mentioning, if you're in the kitchen and you're inviting a kid in, can you not be looking at your phone? Can you be talking to them about where the zucchini came from? And where it grows in the world, and what nutrients it has, and why we're going to put it in this dish?
And just anything that happens and teaching them math, they're measuring. And, you know, all these things that we do every day as humans who have things to do so going to the grocery store, going to the dentist, can we bring our kids along? Can we invite them in and teach them things without having it be an extra formal lesson?
And I think that is really what family-centered learning is. It's all of the family growing together, bonding and learning just through life and through intentional discipleship and intentional decisions in your curriculum. Intentional read-alouds. There's a lot of intentional things we do, but it's also just living life together.
Shanxi: Asy other thoughts that you can think of, especially over the summer as people are gearing up for start of another school year? Maybe this is their first year homeschooling and they're just feeling overwhelmed with, where do I begin? What is it going to look like?
Lyndsey: Yeah. I would just say, before you even do your first lesson, to ask yourself how your relationship is with your children? And is there something that you could work on?
And in the summer, to connect to their hearts and to have them, you and them connected, so that when you begin a lesson or when a challenge comes, there's that relationship, that it falls back on.
Because I always tell people that homeschooling is an extension of your parenting. It's not this separate entity. I'm mom now. Now I'm teacher. If you don't have a connected, loving, respectful relationship first, homeschooling is going to be really difficult.
And so even if you're taking your child out of school and this is the first year and you don't have that relationship, I would say start there, even if you needed to not start school so soon, because that's going to be your marker of success that's going to start you off on a good foot.
And then the other thing I would go back to is your goals and your philosophy of education. Why do you believe what you believe about education? You know, you and your husband making some of these decisions together about, what is education?
If we erase everything we know about education – the way we were raised, the way we were educated, what we believe, what's happening in the world with education – and we just have a blank slate.
These are our children. What do we believe about education? And in these years that we are spending so many hours giving them school, what does it need to be? What is the goal? What does it need to look like?
And you might be surprised to find that it's not following some arbitrary guide out there about each grade being a certain thing, looking a certain way and having a certain test.
You may find that you see it very similarly to me, where it's very holistic and you just want your children to love learning and be excited about books and be excited about life and learn together as a family.
And so, you know, I can't say ABC, do this, but I will say that I'm a very practical person as well. I have a lot of big ideas and visions, but on my blog, I have so many blogs. I've been blogging for so long that I just have answered all the questions. You know, any question that comes to me, I'm like, we're turning that into a blog post.
So you want to know exactly how to start? Best options for choosing curriculum? How do I find out what my educational philosophy is? I have a quiz on my website. I just have so many things on there. I have freebies, book lists to get you started.
If you’re like, I don't even know what a living book is, I don't even know she's talking about. I have a blog post for that. That's my thing. I have a blog post for that.
So yeah, you can head over to my website. Check out my blog posts. Check out my freebies. I hope it's a source that just helps you get started because that's my passion. It’s equipping parents and saying, you can do this.
I know it feels scary and new, and you have no idea what it's going to look like, but you love your child more than anyone in the world. And so, with that love, you can do so much for them. And so that would be my advice, is starting with that connection and love.
Shanxi: Thanks so much for listening. We hope you are encouraged in your homeschool journey.
Please continue the conversation with us on our website, midwesthomeschoolers.org, or email us at podcast@midwestparenteducators.org. We're also active on social media if you'd like to connect with us there. Thanks to Kevin McLeod of incompetech.com for providing this royalty-free song Wholesome, which is licensed under creativecommons.org.
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