Intentional Homeschooling: Finding Your Family’s Rhythm

intentional homeschooling family rhythm kristen pearls and oak homeschool conversations
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Welcome to another delightful episode of Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology! In this episode, we sit down with Kristen from Pearls and Oak, a first-generation homeschooling mom deeply committed to nurturing her daughter’s education while embarking on a learning journey alongside her. Rooted in their Christian faith, Kristen’s family finds inspiration in shared passions and curiosities, weaving them into the fabric of their daily learning experiences. Join us as Kristen shares her journey into homeschooling, the joys, challenges, and unique approach to education that has shaped her family’s homeschooling experience. I especially love hearing how they’ve crafted an individualized homeschool schedule that perfectly fits their family’s needs.

intentional homeschooling family rhythm kristen pearls and oak homeschool conversations

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Is homeschooling a viable option for an only child?

Kristen opens up about her unexpected path to homeschooling. She initially dismissed the idea due to misconceptions about homeschooling an only child. However, through exposure to homeschooling communities and encouragement from friends and family, Kristen embraced homeschooling as a viable option for her family.

intentional homeschooling family rhythm kristen pearls and oak homeschool conversations

Personalized homeschool schedules

She discusses the importance of flexibility in homeschooling, allowing for personalized schedules and learning experiences tailored to their unique circumstances. Kristen also highlights the significance of patience in navigating the challenges of homeschooling, emphasizing the need for intentional planning and reliance on faith and prayer.

I loved hearing Kristen’s innovative approach to homeschool scheduling, as she shares her family’s unconventional year-round schooling model and the benefits of incorporating breaks aligned with their lifestyle and interests.

Made2Homeschool online homeschool community

Kristen also emphasizes the value of community support in homeschooling, highlighting the role of online homeschool communities like Made2Homeschool in providing resources, encouragement, and connections for homeschooling families.

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Freedom, creativity, and joy in homeschooling

She also reminds us of the freedom and creativity inherent in homeschooling, encouraging families to think outside the box and embrace alternative approaches to education.

Kristen reflects on the joys of homeschooling her daughter. Homeschooling fosters their deep bond and relationship, and provides the freedom to tailor their educational journey to their family’s needs and values. Her story serves as an inspiration to homeschooling families everywhere, reminding us of the power of flexibility, faith, and community in navigating the homeschooling journey with humility and doxology.

intentional homeschooling family rhythm kristen pearls and oak homeschool conversations

Key Takeaways:

  1. Unexpected Paths to Homeschooling: Kristen’s journey into homeschooling wasn’t planned but was influenced by exposure to others’ experiences and encouragement from her community.
  2. Flexibility in Education: Homeschooling allows for flexibility in scheduling, curriculum, and learning environments, enabling families to tailor education to their unique circumstances and needs.
  3. Personal Growth and Relationship Building: Homeschooling fosters deep bonds and relationships between parents and children, allowing for mutual learning and growth.
  4. Challenges and Patience: Patience is a significant challenge in homeschooling, but it’s something that can be practiced and developed over time. Challenges also include finding balance and managing multiple responsibilities.
  5. Purposeful Planning: Proactively planning for breaks and adjusting schedules according to family needs can help maintain mental well-being and prevent feelings of being behind.
  6. Socialization and Connection: Homeschooling provides opportunities for socialization through activities like co-ops, sports, and community involvement, but it requires intentionality, especially for families with only one child.
  7. Community Support: Online homeschool communities like Made2Homeschool offer support, encouragement, resources, and connections for homeschooling families, fostering a sense of belonging and unity.
  8. Freedom and Creativity: Homeschooling allows families to think outside the box and explore alternative approaches to education, emphasizing individuality and creativity.
  9. Adaptability and Learning Styles: Homeschooling families can adapt their approach to accommodate various learning styles, preferences, and life circumstances, ensuring a personalized and effective education.
  10. Prayer and Faith: Faith and prayer play significant roles in navigating the challenges of homeschooling, providing strength, guidance, and perspective for families on their educational journey.

Listen to the full podcast episode “Intentional Homeschooling: Finding Your Family’s Rhythm with Kristen from Pearls and Oak,” Homeschool Conversations with Humility and Doxology Season 9, Episode 8

“As a first-generation homeschooling mom, I am deeply committed to nurturing my daughter’s education while embarking on a learning journey alongside her. My husband and I have joyfully shared a decade together, embracing the adventures of life as a tight-knit trio. Rooted in our Christian faith, our family foundation is steadfastly anchored in Jesus Christ, who guides our lives and shapes our values. In our unique approach to education, we find inspiration in our shared passions and curiosities, weaving them into the fabric of our daily learning experiences. Together, we explore the world with open minds and hearts, fostering a love for lifelong learning that extends far beyond the confines of traditional schooling. As we navigate this journey, our family thrives on the bonds we create and the knowledge we uncover together, cherishing each moment as we grow, learn, and evolve as individuals and as a family unit.”

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Amy: Hello, friends. Today I am joined by Kristen from Pearls and Oak. Kristen is a first-generation homeschooling mom who is deeply committed to nurturing her daughter’s education while embarking on a learning journey alongside her. Kristen and her husband have joyfully shared a decade together, embracing the adventures of life as a tight-knit trio. Rooted in their Christian faith, their family foundation is steadfastly anchored in Jesus Christ who guides their lives and shapes their values.

In their family’s unique approach to education, they find inspiration in shared passions and curiosities, weaving them into the fabric of their daily learning experiences. Together, they explore the world with open minds and hearts, fostering a love of learning that extends far beyond the confines of traditional schooling. As they navigate this journey, Kristen’s family thrives on the bonds they create and the knowledge they uncover together, cherishing each moment as they grow, learn, and evolve as individuals and as a family unit.

I have gotten to know Kristen a little bit over the past year as we have been part of Made2Homeschool, an online homeschool community. We’ll talk more about that later, but I’m really excited to get to chat with you today, Kristen. Here at the beginning, I always give the formal little bios, but I like to hear from my guests themselves a little bit about you, your family, how you got started homeschooling. I’m especially curious if you came in with an already established idea of how you thought your homeschool was going to go, or if it’s evolved and changed over time.

Kristen: As in my bio, I am a homeschooling mom of one child. That’s unique in itself when it comes to our situation deciding to homeschool because at first, I had no plans on homeschooling. I didn’t really know anyone that homeschooled. I thought, I only have one, I’m only going to have one, and it doesn’t seem like homeschooling one child is really a thing, so that’s probably not really going to be something that we’ll do. That actually came a little bit later once homeschooling even became something on my radar, I quickly shut it down. It was something that just, it kept coming back up, kept coming back up, and the Lord, he just made sure that he put people in front of me that had homeschooling experience, or that encouraged me to consider it and things like that.

It was not something that I knew from the get-go, but I have always homeschooled. It was a decision that we made prior to my daughter being of public school age. I actually spent a few months scouting out daycare centers, VPK centers, and all that stuff. After the first one, I was like, “I just really don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can do the VPK daycare thing.” Then after the next few, at that point, then I was committed. I was like, “We’re not going to do this. Let’s see what homeschooling is about before she gets school age. Then that’ll give me a year or two to see if that’s a possibility, and then I could still put her in school, if I need to. Here we are, still homeschooling. [chuckles]

Amy: Kristen, you said you didn’t know anyone at the time who homeschooled personally, but then you started having these people in your life who were pointing you towards homeschooling. Were you finding that in your real life, or was this stuff as you were researching online?

Kristen: A little bit of both. My husband’s cousin, she actually homeschools. I knew that, but I didn’t have any conversation with her until it really– there were other people in passing. To make a long story short, I used to have a business and I would do like craft fairs and craft shows and things like that. Totally unrelated to homeschooling, I would have people that visited my booth with their kids and we’re just chatting, and they’re looking at different things I offer, and homeschooling would come up. Then I would be talking to someone else in a business-related conversation, and they would bring homeschooling up.

Then my husband, I had conversations with him, obviously. He’s like, “Yes, Brittany does that. Brittany homeschools all of hers. You should ask her.” I’m like, “Yes, she does actually. I didn’t even think about that.” Then I had conversations with her, and once I realized she homeschools and she very, very much encouraged me. Her and I, we are like kindred spirits. I’m like, “If she can do it and make it work, then I can do it and make it work.” Then that led me into YouTube researching, trying to find out what homeschooling even meant and curriculums, and all of that, that kind of stuff.

Amy: Then once you get into that rabbit hole, you never come out.

Kristen: Yes, then that was it. I was sold after that.

Amy: Kristen, what have been some of your favorite parts of homeschooling?

Kristen: Oh, man, all of it, really. That’s not true. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies when it comes to homeschooling. Really, I just love the opportunity to be with my daughter in all seasons, no matter what that looks like. Sometimes those seasons are really robust and great school seasons, and we’re doing a lot of book learning, and videos and crafts, and all of those really fun things. Then other seasons, it’s nothing like that. It’s just life, because all that you can do is life. It’s hard things, it’s life changing things. It’s transitions for families, things like that, and just being able to be together in whatever season that is has really been my favorite part.

Watching my daughter and I’s relationship, as it has changed and grown just over the almost eight years she’s been alive, I know that will continue, and that makes me excited.

Amy: I love that. The togetherness is such a gift that we get from homeschooling. You mentioned it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. What have been some of the challenges that you faced in homeschooling? How have you thought to overcome those challenges?

Kristen: Here’s the thing. The hard part is the humans involved because we are all sinners, we all have our faults, and we all have things that we are just not phenomenal at. One thing, it’s actually, we try to find humor in it as much as we can. I grew up thinking that I was not given patience. Just funny thing, my mom was like, “I didn’t give you patience. I’m so sorry. I’m not a patient person, so that’s not a trait I passed down to you talking to me.” I just grew up thinking, I’m more patient than my mom, so that’s progress, but I’m just not made to be patient. The Lord has changed me.

Now, I am not the most patient, but he gave me the phrase, patience is practiced, a long time ago. That is a common theme through our months, through our homeschooling journey. I have taught my daughter that, and so we will help each other. Because there will be times where I’m being impatient, or my attention has been diverted somewhere for too long, and she’s like, “Hey, here I am.” We really help each other in all of those things. That’s part of that relationship where she feels comfortable enough to come to me and tell me, “This is what I need from you, mom. I feel like we really haven’t spent much time together,” and I make it a point to then set aside time to spend with her.

The patience is practiced thing, it’s funny, but also, it’s very true. I think I hear often, people are like, “I’m not patient enough to homeschool.” Quite honestly, I don’t think there’s anyone that is patient enough for it. There’s very few that naturally, that’s just a gifting that they have. They’re just very naturally a patient, calm person, but I don’t think that’s the majority. It is definitely something that the Lord does in you through the process of homeschooling, along with lots of other things, figuring out how to schedule, learning how to adapt based on your child’s needs, the season that you’re in. Again, during those, this is a really great book learning season, then this is a really hard life season. Just learning how to adapt and maneuver through all those things, while it’s a blessing, it can be very challenging. That’s why it’s good to remember that patience is a fruit of the spirit. It’s given to us. It is a gift of grace. I love that phrase, that patience is practice. I might steal that one and use that one with my kids. That’s awesome.

Kristen: I’m actually trying to teach my mom. Every time my mom calls, not every time, but when she calls and we’re just chit-chatting and she’ll tell me something about work or whatever. I’m like, “Mom, you need to remember, patience is practiced.” [laughs]

Amy: As you have gone through these years learning how to fit homeschooling best into your family’s situation, I would really love to hear about the way you schedule your homeschool, because you and I have talked about it a little bit, and it just always strikes me as just so unique and really cool the way you’ve used the flexibility and freedom that homeschooling provides to create a schedule that best fits your family. Can you talk to us a little bit about the way you do your homeschool scheduling?

Kristen: Sure. Actually, at the very beginning, these are part of those things that just change through homeschooling. I thought that I loved the idea of year-long schooling. Schooling all the time, it’s just built into your life. You take breaks whenever you want to, all of those things. We tried that and it was okay, but I found that there was a specific time of year that it just wasn’t working. It seemed like we just would never get any school done.

While I wasn’t concerned then, because I wasn’t concerned, we had the rest of the year, but there was just those two or three months that I always felt like we should be doing something, but we just never could because it was just busy season for us. Eventually, that led to, why am I trying to do school then? Why do I feel like I have to? I don’t have to. We can just use that as our time off. That could be our break for the school year. That’s actually November, December, and January, that’s what we consider our summer break. That’s because, one, it’s the holiday season.

We are a hunting family, it’s very much who we are. It’s what we enjoy as a family. We all go together, it’s a whole thing. It just happens to fall, November, December, and January. In my mind, it just made sense to take that time off. One, because it’s busy with hunting season, but also this is Thanksgiving, it’s Christmas, it’s getting back into the New Year. It just made sense and it worked. Then when I was actually planning our school year last year, it worked out perfectly that right in the middle is my daughter’s birthday. We try to take like a week off. The week of her birthday, we generally will take off of school. Then I thought about it a little bit more and I’m like, actually, let’s make that a little bit of an extended break, so I can do like some initial clean out of the classroom. We can regroup and all of that stuff from the first half of the year to prepare for the second half.

It works out really great that we’ve got three. This year, it turned out to be three weeks in the middle of the school year. Then we take, like I said, November, December, and January off as the start of our school year.

Amy: I love that because you were purposeful. I think that so often, I will find that if I know there’s going to be a difficult season or a challenging season, even if it’s just a short time, it’s so much better for me mentally as mom to just go ahead and proactively purpose to take that time off, or change the plan ahead of time instead of trying to push through, and that feeling of being behind the whole time, like we should be doing more and we’re not. If you can just think about it ahead of time and decide on purpose to take the time off, it’s so much better, I think, for everyone involved.

Kristen: Exactly, and it worked out really great last year. Last year was our first year intentionally scheduling that way, and it works out so wonderful. Obviously, that will be our move going forward until we need to change it again, if we need to change it again. Right now, it just works, and so we’re going to stick with it.

Amy: Have you noticed any downsides to having a non-traditional school schedule?

Kristen: Yes and no. It does make it difficult. Right now is curriculum buying season, we’re just getting into curriculum buying season. Everyone’s having all the sales and all those things, but I just bought all of my curriculum like in December. I tend to miss out on the sales a little bit, which is okay because I still can squeeze some in like around Black Friday sales, and things like that. It’s not terrible, but it is one of those things.

Then also, a lot of my daughter’s friends that are in homeschool co-op with us, they follow a more traditional school schedule. While they’re all off during the summer, we are schooling through the summer. We’re just a little bit less available than a lot of them for play dates and things like that. Which I’ve not found to be too terrible because again, we homeschool, we can always just take a day if there’s something really fun that we want to do, we’ll just take the day off, no big deal.

Having those three weeks really helps too, because I can coordinate some of those fun summer things during those three weeks. We’re able to really get the bulk of our school done during that summer period. Other than that, it’s really been fine.

Amy: If you were talking to a mom who maybe they aren’t a hunting family, but they have some other unique situation in their family, or they’re thinking about year round, which is something that’s not maybe a traditional fall, spring semester, do you have any advice for how to make that plan, how to think about it ahead of time?

Kristen: Yes. For me, it was as simple as what is the timeframe that we need to be off? Looking at your overall schedule or your calendar, and anticipating those times that you’re going to need time off. If your child is really heavily involved in a sport, and for this entire month you’re going to be traveling and things like that for that sport, then as much as you can, I don’t know exactly how far in advance they give you timeframes for those types of things. Just as an example, just plan to take that entire month off.

However, so that you don’t have that feeling of being behind, saying I took an entire month off, but like, where do I fit the rest of it in, plan for where you’re going to put that in. Maybe you do take July off, but you’re going to start in August and rotate it that way. I know plenty of people that will choose to do like four weeks or six weeks of school on and one week off. There’s a lot of options that you can choose, or you can just do whatever works for you.

If it’s better for you to have every Wednesday off, because Wednesday is the day for doctor’s appointments and library runs or things like that, I would say the best place to start would be to monitor your homeschool over an allotted period of time. Depending on what your schedule is, what you’re currently schooling, look at the last six months, realistically, and what have been the days or the weeks, or what activities are going on that are difficult for you to school around. Then what is that going to look like next year? Are those things going to continue? If so, how can you work around them? Just really trying to anticipate as much as you can.

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You’re not going to be able to account for everything. Definitely give yourself plenty of leeway, but if there are things that you can plan for, I highly encourage putting those on the schedule and then figuring out how you’re going to take those days, and put them somewhere else.

Amy: That’s really good advice. I loved that you brought up, maybe you always need to take like a Wednesday off. I know a lot of pastor families actually, Saturday is not a really good family weekend day because dad’s preparing for the sermon on Sunday. A lot of times a pastor’s family will take maybe Monday as their family day off, or another day and Saturday ends up being another one of their school days. I love just as homeschoolers, that we have so much freedom and flexibility, and I think sometimes we forget that. We just sort of go with the flow or do what everybody else does, and we don’t, again, think ahead like what actually is going to best fit our family in this season. It’s really great to be reminded of the freedom we have.

Kristen: Another thing too is you don’t have to school during the day either. I know plenty of families who will school evening time, or mom will take care of certain subjects during the day and then dad takes over certain subjects during the evening times one or two days a week. When you get outside of the box and you start thinking outside of the box, it really opens up a lot of possibilities. There is joy in that, and it is such a blessing to know that you don’t have to stick to just what the public school schedule is.

Amy: I love that. I hope that is going to really encourage and maybe give some spark of creativity to the moms listening. As they think about the upcoming school year, they can think, hey, let me reevaluate, maybe there’s a better way that will fit our family best.

Kristen, you’ve mentioned that you are homeschooling one child, I would love to hear about some of the advantages that you have found in homeschooling an only child.

Kristen: The biggest advantage is it’s just her and I. Like I mentioned before, we really as much as we can, it’s still mother-daughter relationship, still parent-child relationship, but we really do have a great friend relationship as well. We I just love her and I just love being with her, and it’s because I’ve been able to spend so much time with her, and have really gotten to know her and she’s gotten to know me. There have been times that, like I said before, we will hold each other accountable and for that, I am really thankful.

Again still parent-child relationship, so there still needs to be respect and obedience, and things there, but in the example I used before, if she just really feels like, can we just do this activity because I just feel like you haven’t been spending very much time with me, or mom I just really need snuggles, or things like that. I am really appreciative that we have the kind of relationship that’s something that I’ve really worked hard to have where she feels comfortable to come to me with things and that I honor those.

It’s not always right away. It’s not always in maybe the way that she anticipates, but sometimes that’s all that I have at the moment, or I may have to defer something for an hour or whatever. That has been really wonderful. I don’t know, she’s just like my little mini best friend, kind of. I say that lightly because, again, parent-child relationship, but she is. Just yesterday, we went and got haircuts. It was the first day of our county fair, which is a huge, huge deal here. It’s the thing. For 10 days, it’s the fair. Just on a whim we were like, “You know what, let’s go, let’s go. It’s only five bucks admission, so it’s really cheap. We’re just going to go,” and we did. We walked around our favorite little area, and then we shared some dinner. We went and looked at all the animals. We were there for a couple of hours. It just was so nice, where it’s just her and I. I don’t have a toddler or a baby where now I have to worry. I don’t have a diaper bag, or I don’t have these things. She’s old enough now that we can do some of those fun things, and I love it

Amy: I love hearing the love that you have, and the joy you have in your daughter comes through so clearly. That’s really beautiful. Do you think there are any misconceptions people might have about homeschooling an only child.

Kristen: I think a lot of people may think it’s easier to school an only– and I think in some ways, yes, it is easier, but there are challenges with an only child also, that families of multiples don’t experience. A very simple example is I am the only person, so I need to complete this task, or I need to do these chores, so I need you and your brother or your sister to go play, and they, again, lightly happily go play, but there’s no one for her to play with. That gets difficult at times because she just needs me sometimes.

I have found that if I have scheduled time with her, if I’m very intentional on the me and her time, then it’s a lot easier for her to go and be independent because she just had time with mom. There are ways around it, but I think it’s not any easier, it’s just different. I think that’s all.

Amy: Are there any other challenges you’ve found with homeschooling? You mentioned just as it’s the good thing, it’s you and her together that can also be challenging when you are the only other person there. Are there any other challenges you face, or have you had to be more purposeful and having connections with other families, or other activities?

Kristen: Yes. I think one thing that I try not to be too concerned about, but I think it’s one of those things that it’s always in the back of my mind is the dreaded socialization, but that’s because she’s an only child. I think whether you have an only child or not. I think you need to be intentional when it comes to socialization, when it comes to a certain point. The thing is I’m not terribly concerned because I do have her in other activities. She goes like she has dance classes, and she has co-op, and we have friends near and all of that stuff. I think it’s just one of those things that just is always back there that I have to be intentional about because there are no other siblings for her.

Whereas I think with multiples, I know that it’s still something that people can be concerned about, but they have siblings to play with and talk to. They learn to value other people’s opinions that are of a same age, or a similar age conflict resolution. All of those types of things that they learn from having siblings, I have to be intentional with her on going through some of those things.

Amy: It sounds like you have just really figured out how to, again back with the scheduling, figuring out how to make homeschooling work for your particular family and I see that playing out in the way you’re homeschooling your daughter too, it’s just really exciting to see the way you are making that fit for each of you.

Kristen: Thank you.

Amy: Kristen, I mentioned at the beginning, you and I got originally connected through our online homeschool community, Made2Homeschool. I know people have probably heard me talking about it a little bit, but I thought it would be fun to hear from someone else’s perspective, so for someone who is new and they’re like, wait, I’ve somehow missed this idea, can you explain, what is Made2Homeschool, and what are some of the things that you are enjoying the most inside the community?

Kristen: Very simply, Made2Homeschool is an online homeschool community, think Facebook, but without Facebook. [laughs] We have specific like a Facebook feed or like a group, but again, not Facebook, run by christian content creators, christian founders. We have a printable library, where you have access to all of the printables that I think our little homeschool hearts could imagine. We have a video and article library, so blog post things like that. We do live workshops on Mondays.

Workshops are going to be a, what would you call them? Like a presentation.

Amy: Yes, it’s almost like you went to a homeschool convention, you went in and you had a session, only it’s right there, and it’s live, and you can ask questions right there with the person live, which is really awesome.

Kristen: Exactly. My personal favorite is actually just the Hangouts. We have live Hangouts and that’s what it is. You just come in, we’re all just chit-chatting. It varies, different contributors will Amy them at different days and times, based on their availability, but that’s one of my favorite parts. I love just being in there and hanging out because sometimes we’re talking homeschooling, sometimes we’re talking parenting, sometimes we’re talking about things that aren’t related to either one of those. Sometimes we just got these really cute new shoes that we want to share or just fun things like that. I think that’s my personal favorite part of the Made2Homeschool community.

Amy: I’m really enjoying having a place where you can share curriculum, or ask questions about other parts of life as a homeschool mom. There’s also an opportunity to ask for prayer requests and people pray for one another, and check in on each other afterwards. I think it’s been a really sweet, encouraging place on the internet. It’s hard to find social media that doesn’t make you want to cry occasionally.

Kristen: It’s very true.

Amy: Yes.

Kristen: When people say they’re going to pray for you, they actually mean it. Sometimes on social media, people will say that they’re praying for you, but these are people who will actually, like right then and there, they are praying for you. I think there is something so incredibly valuable in knowing that, and knowing that I have a place and you have a place that we can go and know that there are people who are behind us, and are in prayer with us with whatever it is that we’re going through.

Amy: It’s nice too, because we find, of course, a commonality in homeschooling, but not necessarily in “one right way” of homeschooling, which I also really love, because it can be hard to find your place sometimes online if you don’t fit a mold of a particular perspective on homeschooling or education. To be able to come together and be like, “Hey, we all do things a little differently. We can learn from each other,” but there’s the shared bond of a love for Jesus. That is certainly a much better place to find unity than a particular homeschool philosophy.

Kristen: Yes, exactly.

Amy: Kristen, here at the end, I’m going to ask you the questions I ask all of my guests. The first one is, what have you been reading lately?

Kristen: Actually, the last thing that I read, it’s an American Girl book on The Boston Tea Party. That’s been our read aloud, because that is currently what we’re doing. We are doing the Felicity American Girl Unit Study from Little School of Smiths. That’s the last thing I read.

Amy: I love that. I’m going to tell a story on myself, and it will show you how old I am. Felicity came out like, I guess, 23 years ago-ish. For my seventh birthday, that was the big reveal where Felicity was being revealed as an American Girl. They had this whole thing at Williamsburg. My family and I, that was my gift and my birthday party was sort of our family going to Williamsburg and doing this whole Felicity Tea Party. I had Kirsten, and a friend of my mom’s made me a dress to match my Kirsten doll. I just have a very soft spot in my heart for Felicity because of that amazing experience.

Kristen: That’s pretty awesome though. That is amazing. I love that.

Amy: Plus she loved horses. She was a little bit of a tomboy, I liked that.

Kristen: Right, exactly.

Amy: All right, the second question I ask all my guests is, what is your best tip for keeping or helping the homeschool day run more smoothly?

Kristen: Prayer. Lots of it, and patience is practiced.

Amy: Both very good and appropriate. Really, you need the prayer in order to practice the patience. They go together.

Kristen: Goes hand in hand, all of it.

Amy: Oh, Kirsten, where can people find you all around the internet?

Kristen: I am on YouTube and Instagram @pearlsandoak. Then I’m, of course, over in Made2Homeschool.

Amy: I will have links to Kristen in the show notes for this episode, humilityanddoxology.com. While you are here listening to this podcast episode, if you would take a minute to leave a rating and review, and make sure you’re subscribed, so you don’t miss future Homeschool Conversations episodes. I hope you will come and join Kirsten and myself in Made2Homeschool, and join the conversation over there as well. You can find that at humilityanddoxology.com/M2H or just check the link in the show notes.

Kirsten, thank you so much for joining me today. It was fun to get a chance to talk to you like this. Normally, we’re on Marco Polo, but this was really fun.

Kirsten: Yes, thank you.


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