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Whether you are brand new to homeschooling and looking for guidance or are simply looking for fresh new ideas, I am here to help!
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Why purchase a coaching package?
There’s no reason to do this on your own – reach out to someone who has put in their time and has the experience required to make the process so much easier for you!
Every family’s homeschool journey is different and I am ready to guide you down the path that will work best for your family through personalized coaching and curriculum design.
I have spent years homeschooling my own children and others, as well as organizing or running countless activities and workshops. I have worked with hundreds of children of all ages and families from all backgrounds. I regularly create new curriculum elements, lesson plans, record keeping sheets, and more. I have a collection of carefully curated resources compiled from years and years of research and I am excited to share it all with you!
I also believe in continuing education and regularly engage in teacher professional development programs to add to my bank of knowledge and skills – expertise I can pass on to my coaching clients.
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I am a National Geographic Educator, an Apple Teacher, a Nearpod Certified Educator, a Trained Elementary Piano Teacher with RCM, a Trained Archery Coach with Coach Canada and, most importantly, an experienced homeschooling parent.
I have taken the following classes (among many, many others) to further my learning and help other homeschooling families:
- STEAM Up Your Classroom
- Fostering a Growth Mindset
- Arts Integration in The Classroom
- My P.E. Superpowers
- Differentiating Performance Tasks for All Learners
- Get Ready for Hour of Code
- Music and Language Learning
- How Video Helps Teach Students
- Stem Ideas to Keep Your Students Engaged
- Integrating Media Literacy and Critical Thinking
- Teaching Computer Science Fundamentals
- Parental Separation: Implications for the School
- Educational Psychology
- Harness the Power of Curriculum Design Thinking Process
- Developing Fact Fluency with Understanding
- Connecting Assessment, Instruction, and Learning
- Tapping Research to Personalize Early Elementary Math Learning
- Empowering Readers with Tech Tools
- Ten Tips to Differentiate for Readers
- Coding+STEAM: Getting Students Future Ready
- Students Collaborate with Digital Tools to Support Bee Populations
- Differentiating Lessons Involving Robotics for All Learners
- Teaching Big History
- Play, Learning, and the Brain
- Enhancing Pupil Learning on Museum Visits
- Using Visualization in Maths Teaching
- Teaching Skills for Educators
- Effective Communication Techniques for Educators
- Motivating Students to Learn
- Age Appropriate Computer Science for K-5 Students
- Instructional Planning for Successful Teaching
- Arts Integration Meets Diverse Learner Needs
- Creating Modern Learning Environments
- Build Confident Communicators in the Classroom
- Simple STEAM: Preparing Young Children for Careers of the Future
- How to Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students
- Fostering Confidence to Engage Students in Learning
- Creating a Supportive Environment for Problem Solving in the Math Classroom
- Teaching Media Literacy in the Classroom
- Decoding Assessment Questions: Immediate Action for Deeper Understanding
- Achieving Media Balance in a Tech Immersed World
- The 21st Century District’s Framework for Evaluating Digital Curriculum
- What’s the Problem? Finding the Right Math Problem to Challenge Students
- Mixing Green Time with Screen Time
- Google This! The Research Project Revisited
- Minimizing Summer Slide Through Collective Impact Model
- Leading Instructional Change by Equipping a Community of Learners
- Using Online and Mobile Apps to Target Bloom’s Taxonomy
- How to Use the iPad’s Abilities to Cultivate and Capture More Learning
- Global Collaboration
- How Online Mapping Activities Shape Learning Experiences for K-12 Learners
- Designing for the 21st Century Classroom
- Amplifying Student Voice with Technology
- Handwriting Reimagined
- Using Student Learning Data to Foster a Growth Culture
- Creating Strong Home-School Connections Through Music
- Wonderful Ideas to Ignite Collaboration, Creativity, and Computational Thinking
- The Importance of Keyboarding
- End Peer Cruelty, Build Empathy: Creating Safe, Caring, Inclusive Learning
- Using Research to Improve Education: Resources to Explore Over the Summer
- Personalized Instruction
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Still not convinced?
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A bit more about me and my teaching style…
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I understand that there is no “one size fits all” model for homeschooling. I definitely have my favourite resources and practices, but I understand that they won’t all be perfect for every family, or even each individual learner within a family. I have studied and dabble with every possible method of homeschooling, create my curriculum with an eclectic mix of all, and am ready to help my clients do the same.
Personally, I try to pay attention to Bloom’s Taxonomy while also endeavouring to adhere to the teachings of great philosophers like Plato who said, “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their mind, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
While I value making sure that the children are on task with their expected curriculum, I also put a great value on experiential learning and try to implement emergent curriculum wherever possible. Student-led learning, critical thinking, growth mindset – these are all things that I encourage in our girls. In many cases, it is much more valuable for the instructor to take on a facilitator role and allow students to discover that they are perfectly capable of accomplishing great things without being told exactly what to do.
Additionally, we are trying to cultivate skills that future employers are looking for. The 21st-century skills – ” The Four C’s” (critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration) – are becoming increasingly important as employers look for these skills. I try to encourage these through design thinking, project-based learning, and even gamification in the classroom.
With the varied ability levels in our “class”, I make sure to provide scaffolding and augmented tasks to be sure that each student is receiving a differentiated learning experience. My methods are quite similar to those in multi-level classrooms in alternative schools. Additionally, because I have such a small number of learners, I am able to provide individualized instruction on a much more frequent basis.
I truly believe that learning does not only take place in a classroom and confined to a workbook. I am trying to create lifelong learners, to encourage discovery learning, to expose our children to meaningful learning opportunities and provide a well-rounded education. I would hope that the main goal for all homeschooling patents is to encourage the whole child, one who loves learning, and not to simply create a tiny being who can regurgitate facts.
Aside from the academic, our situation as homeschoolers allows for a real-life model of socialization in a way that being confined to public school never could. Our girls are able to interact in an intelligent manner with everyone from babies to adults and are consistently complimented on their superior social skills. Their social-emotional learning and soft skills are far beyond what one would normally expect for children of their age.
When it comes to assessment, I use rubrics in appropriate situations but also incorporate many other forms of assessment. Being an instructor with a 4:1 ratio allows me to constantly be in a state of formative assessment. Also, due to our small “class” size, I am able to conduct summative assessments regularly in a more relaxed way that preserves the love of learning. We also have formal assessments such as regular spelling tests, but assessments are often done in a holistic way that puts less intense pressure on the outcome. In addition to my personally assessing the children, regular feedback from instructors, directors, and facilitators that are a part of our wider homeschool community are incredibly valuable forms of assessment.
Of course, I am always seeking to gain knowledge and grow personally, so I not only run many of my lesson plans and assessments by a teacher mentor, I also take many professional development courses designed for teachers on the topics of assessment, classroom instruction, and a variety of other areas. I strive to take what I learn in these sessions and implement best practices into our homeschool.
I can’t wait to help your family on their homeschool journey!