Welcome to Homeschool Energy!

Welcome to the Fun!

We will be your guides on this amazing adventure known as home educating your children. Because let’s face it – before you can teach your kids, you may need a few lessons yourself. And it’s okay! We all had to start from scratch and learn as we go. We all had many questions and needed advice. We all had people question our decisions and make us second-guess what is right for our family. We’ve been there and it is our desire to help you and your family navigate through the decision to homeschool and thrive in the experience.

We are Andy and Lori, founders of Homeschool Energy. We currently homeschool our three daughters.  Our journey began in 2014 when we felt compelled to pull our twin daughters out of public school before the second grade. Our youngest has been homeschooled since the beginning. While homeschooling our children, we have had to strive for balance as we keep connected in our marriage, spend quality time with the girls, work from home, handle health issues, experience moving out of state, and learn how to help a child with learning challenges.

Don’t Try to Be Perfect

Homeschool Energy is all about creating an atmosphere of learning that is sustainable, re-energizing, and focused on what really matters. We believe that our children’s interests and unique qualities are the drivers that push them to grow and provide opportunities for learning and exploration. Instead of spinning your wheels trying to do everything and be perfect, we think there is a better way that focuses on these special traits and takes the busy work and fluff out of education. Homeschool is tailor-made for this approach.

Why do we choose to homeschool? There is usually no one answer as to why families choose to home educate their children and every family’s goals are different. Our reasons include being able to teach toward our faith as Christians, concerns over the public education curriculum and practices, and our desire to offer our daughters the chance to have a learning experience that is geared for their individual learning styles, challenges, and passions. Whatever your reasons are to choose homeschooling your children, we welcome everyone to become a part of our community and join us in this journey!

Community is Key

Years prior to becoming homeschoolers, we found ourselves surrounded by close friends who were already educating their children at home. Every circumstance was different, but each had the same desire to not just teach their children what to learn, but to teach their children how to learn and to build a love of learning that would last a lifetime. This really began to resonate with us as we looked at our own school experiences and realized that there had to be a better way to provide our kids with the knowledge they needed to become productive adults.

Taking the leap into homeschooling was exciting and bumpy. We are not going to sugar-coat it for you. Homeschooling is hard but it is also rewarding. Both of us came from public school backgrounds, so we started homeschooling with the idea of a classroom model in mind only to realize how that does not work at home. We made a lot of mistakes and our twin girls were the guinea pigs in our early homeschool experiment. Luckily, like we said, we were surrounded by a community of like-minded people, so we were given a lot of good advice.

Keeping It Real

Our desire in creating this blog is to share knowledge and experiences we have had over the years. We will be the first to admit that we do not have it all figured out, but we will do our best to be honest and real with you. There are so many cautionary tales to share and in hindsight some may seem like a no-brainer and others are worth a head shake, but hey! Let us smooth out the path for you and your family so your journey isn’t nearly as bumpy.

Homeschool Energy is a platform to help educate new and current home educating families and provide them with information, guides, and creative ideas. There are a lot of homeschool blogs and resources out there, so what makes us different? We are bit unpolished and we like that. If you are seeking a perfect looking homeschool family, we aren’t it. We are just dedicated parents looking for some camaraderie with other imperfect people who love their kids and are committed to help them achieve their educational goals.

For Those Just Starting AND the Veterans

New families looking to start homeschooling can benefit from reading the beginner’s content sections relating to why to choose to homeschool, how to homeschool, legal information, learning styles, the cost of homeschooling, and common questions new families usually ask. Homeschooling is not just an educational choice, but an entire lifestyle commitment. The entire family is affected by the choice including the relationship between spouses and the relationship between siblings. We will candidly discuss the challenges and blessings of the homeschool life.

And for those that have been homeschooling for a while, we may be able to give you a refreshing take on the process of educating your children. We all come from different backgrounds and have unique perspectives. Why not share this knowledge and uniqueness to help each other out! If you’re a homeschool veteran, we welcome you and and any advice that you have for us and our community.

Hey Dads!

Let’s be honest, Dads are all too often left out of the homeschool conversation. While the homeschool Moms surely outnumber the Dads when it comes to who is teaching our children, this doesn’t mean that Dad doesn’t have some responsibility and say in all of this. We welcome Dads and want every man to know they have a seat at the table here at Homeschool Energy.

Andy brings a unique approach to the homeschool conversation from the dad’s perspective that we hope to be refreshing to both moms and dads alike. Whether dad isn’t quite onboard yet with this whole homeschooling thing or he has already volunteered to teach math (God love him!), let’s all dive into how the dad’s role can look like for each family.

Interest Based Education

You will find that we use terms like “interest-based education” because it sums up our homeschool philosophy in a nutshell, so let’s be clear what we are talking about here. We believe that children are naturally motivated to learn when they are learning about things that are exciting and applicable to real life. Just think about any time in recent history when you wanted to learn something new. You were probably pretty motivated to figure it out because you wanted to learn. It is the same for our kiddos, too! Let’s explore how to do that, together.

We Believe in Individualization

We use the word “individualized” a lot too. This doesn’t mean that each child is working completely independent from the rest of the family or in a silo doing their own thing. Homeschooling is still a group effort and there are many benefits with families working together! Our definition of “individualized” means that each child is working at their own pace. There is no moving on if the child doesn’t understand something and there is no holding back if they are rocking their lessons.

Our Mission

Homeschool Energy’s mission is to provide a place for homeschooling families to glean practical advice and encouragement while keeping it real and honest so they can provide their children with an interest-based individualized education. Sound good to you?

To get started, simply sign up below to join our community.

Let’s all work together to make this journey less hard and more rewarding!

Cheers,

Lori & Andy
Founders, Homeschool Energy