Get to Know Me: Meet the Homeschool Teacher Tag | Homeschool Show & Tell Series

[Music] hey everybody Welcome to the wock way I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be our first homeschool show and tell of the season the homeschool Show and Tell is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from rooted and rest and myself our goal with the homeschool Show and Tell has always been to show that there's not one right way to home school which means that there's really not a wrong way to H School we do that by bringing homeschoolers from around the world together each and every month to share their take on a certain topic this month's topic since it is our first video back of the year we decided to bring back a favorite which is a meet the teacher so we have 10 questions that everybody's going to be answering so that you can get to know us for the new home school year first and foremost I'm going to introduce myself in case you're new hi I am Jessica waldock from the waldock way I've been homeschooling since the beginning I have one child I am homeschooling and only um I work from home the walock way is my full-time job and I absolutely love homeschooling like I literally think that I was made for this okay let's get started the first question is how many years have you homeschooled I've homeschooled since the beginning Emily is in seventh grade I'm going to just count because some people count preschool some people don't preschool Kinder 1 2 3D fourth fifth 6th 7eventh so if we count preschool 9 years if we don't 8 years do you have a homeschool style hm can a style be having no idea what you're doing but doing it really really well if so that's my style no I'm just kidding if I had to pick a style I would say that we're unit study homeschoolers that is the base of our hes school it has kind of been since the very beginning um even before I knew that like unit study was the official name of it I remember our first year homeschooling in preschool um I knew nothing officially like I really didn't even know I was homeschooling I just was like she's a baby and the preschool so far away and let me just do abcon one 123s with her at home and Emily loved animals like she's always loved animals so I was like oh I'll do the alphabet with animals so for a we did ants and alligators and I remember for D we did like this whole like dinosaur Deep dive looking back it was a dinosaur unit study but I didn't know that because I didn't even know that like unit study was a thing so if I had to pick like one method or style that's what I would go with what is your favorite subject to teach I actually love teaching all subjects except math and it's not that I don't like math because I actually really really love math but I'm really good at it and it comes very naturally to me and it does not to Emily and so we tend to butt heads over it like I mean really it's a power struggle um which means it's not my favorite to teach if I had to pick one thing like if I had to pick a subject that that was going to be the thing that I taught for forever and ever um it would probably be history because there's just so much you can do to bring history to life and I absolutely loathed history when I was in school because it was so boring so now I find it so exciting to teach and like relearn right alongside Emily because there's so much that apparently went in one year and out the other when I was in school if you could only choose three homeschool tools or resources what would they be o books games and a Wi-Fi connection like hands down if I can have books and I can have games and I can have some internet so we can watch YouTube video um I'm good like I could literally just homeschool with books games in YouTube no questions asked um in fact that is why all of our waldock way products include books games and YouTube because I like will stake our entire hom school on the fact that I could do it with just those three things what inspires you as a teacher oh I would probably say other homeschool moms like I know that social media and YouTube and blog post and all of that can get a really bad rap and like we can all be like oh comparison is the thief of joy and it is I'm not going to say that it's not but I can't imagine homeschooling without um people like Abby who I collaborate with here like I can text her it's midnight and be like I want to pull my hair out and she's got kids that are older than Emily or kids that are you know maybe a little bit different and she can be like it's fine it's fine um in fact my friend shaa from different by Design I will link her uh has graduated to and the other day I voxed her in a panic about high school transcripts I was like oh my gosh it's so much closer than I realized um and she first of all told me that I had time and then realized that that didn't help because I was spiraling out of control so she gave me a plethora of information and I was like okay I feel better now um but those same women inspire me each and every day like they absolutely inspire me to be a better person to be a better homeschool mom like I know that comparison can be the thief of Joy but I think if we look at it as like inspiration versus comparison it it changes our mindset completely um like I can watch Abby or some of the other moms bake bread from scratch and be inspired that that is beautiful but also know that that is absolutely never going to happen in our home school it's not who we are so I can say hey that is beautiful and I love seeing it and it inspires me to want to do something beautiful with Emily but baking bread is not going to be that beautiful thing are you an early bird or a night owl hands down a night owl I have tried and I am getting better about getting up earlier because I will be the first to say if you can get up earlier it really is kind of helpful um it means that I can get my workout in uninterrupted and not have to be rushed and I love that um and by earlier I mean like 8:30 to 900 I'm still not trying to get up at the crack of dawn like I am not waking up with the roosters it's not happening um but I will still hands down every time revert back to it's been a crazy day I want a little bit of alone time and I will stay up till 2: or 3: in the morning because I can get alone quiet peaceful time and probably regret it the next day but it's who I am and I have just grown to accept it I am a night owl by nature and it's probably never going to change what is your favorite teacher treat coffee tea candy chocolate Etc um it used to be Dr pepper I don't really drink coffee I will only drink tea if it's hot I mean if it's cold cuz I only like hot tea which means I don't drink it very often cuz we live in Florida and it's not ever cold enough for that um now it's probably the quest peanut butter cups I've actually grown to like them even more than Reese's um so if I really am going to treat myself it's a quest pant butter cup and a zero sugar Cherry Coke like absolutely love them love love love do you prep and plan or go with the flow a mixture of both so I like to have a general idea of where I'm going for the week for the month for the semester whatever it is like for example this is the topic that we're going to study these are the things I would like to see us get done um but I never am like this is what we're going to do on Monday because as soon as I say this is what we're going to do on Monday all heck is going to break loose things are going to go crazy and nothing is going to get done on Monday because maybe the AC went out in the house or who knows what something is going to happen and Monday is going to end up not being a day that we can homeschool so I have a general like this is what I would like to see us get done this semester this month this week and if we can knock 2third of that out on Monday then we only have onethird of it left to do Tuesday through Friday like I don't care where that happens um sometimes we will get really into our unit study and we will end up doing all of our unit study in four of the five days and then on the fifth day I'm like hey we really probably should do some math so we'll do a couple lessons of math I just have a general idea of this is where I would like to see us go this week um and how we get there is however we get there and then I will record what we did in Reverse so like I write down what we actually got done for that week I don't necessarily even care what day I got done on so I don't plan like on Monday on Tuesday on Wednesday on Thursday this is what we did for the week this is what we got done and then the last one is what is something you really enjoy outside of being a homeschool parent this is actually a very um funny personal question because a few years ago I really like I remember struggling with it because I was like wait a minute I don't know that I have an answer like what I enjoy doing outside of homeschooling is like creating curriculum and working for the Wallock way but technically every piece and part of that comes back to homeschooling uh so I remember struggling with this like I didn't really think I had anything that I enjoyed outside of being a homeschool parent but in the last year I have been on a health journey and I feel like I have kind of found myself because somehow I lost me myself um and now some of the things that I enjoy outside of homeschooling that have absolutely nothing to do with homeschool are reading journaling working out um I go every 3 weeks and get my nails done and I absolutely love that I go by myself I love my nail tech it's like the one like one kind of like treat that I give myself and I absolutely love it um so there's been a lot of things in the last couple of years that I have found that I love like I absolutely love strength training it's something I never would have thought that I would have said I don't like it if I miss it um love doing it I love reading um thrill and romcoms are my favorite and yes I know they're like night and day but that's my favorite I could binge read every one of them uh I try not to because sometimes that ends up being the reason that I stayed up late and then regret it the next morning so I try to make myself you know be realistic and not binge every single one um but yeah I've really enjoyed finding myself I still really enjoy what I do for the wal duck way like love creating unit studies love filming YouTube videos for you guys love blogging I love all of it but technically all of that comes back to homes school so the things that are completely not related to H school that I enjoy are reading working out journaling listening to podcasts just kind of I guess doing things that fill my cup I hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little bit better and even if you do not have a YouTube channel I would still love to get to know you so why don't you answer a few of the questions down in the comments but also don't forget to check the description for the playlist so that you can watch all of the rest of the videos for the people who are participating in the hes School show until until this year [Music]