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Friends are special, especially in the blogging world. We love to support out blogger friends and share their special offers and freebies with our subscribers, because we love our subscribers, too! So, it was very special to sit down with Yvie Field learn more about how she serves the homeschool community with her big heart. Let’s all meet Homeschool on the Range.
Could you tell us a little bit about you and you family?
After six years of living full-time as roadschoolers, we settled into some acreage in middle America and are enjoying a simple life! We homeschool our teenage boys using a combination of Charlotte Mason and unit studies methods, and still love reading aloud together as a family everyday!
I have been a board certified high school counselor for nearly 20 years, and have a passion for helping other homeschool moms. I’ve worked in elementary, middle, and high schools in both a teaching and counseling capacity, and have homeschooled both ends of the special needs spectrum…so ask me anything! At our non-profit, The Homeschool House, we help new homeschoolers find their footing and get the materials they need. We even do a Homeschool Consultation!
Meet Homeschool on the Range!
What is your blog’s name and what is it about?
Homeschool On the Range is a play on words from ‘Home on the Range,’ and it’s about living simply out here in rural America…homemaking, homeschooling, and homesteading are our three basic pillars.
Why did you start this blog?
I actually started another blog about six years ago when our family was roadschool full-time as a way to show family and friends where we were and what we were learning / doing. It unexpectedly grew to have quite a following! When we moved back home last year, I decided to keep up the blogging, but morph into something more appropriate to our circumstances, which include homesteading and schooling upper grades kids. There is considerably less out there for homeschooling moms of older kids, and so I want to reach those folks.
What is your favorite part of homeschooling?
I’m going to come right out and say it….I like sleeping in! But seriously, the flexibility that homeschooling affords us allows the kids to jump down rabbit holes when they want to explore something further, let’s us take lots of field trips, gives us a chance to be a family (rather than people going in separate directions from the same house), and let’s us get extra sleep when we need it…..all good things!
What is your biggest challenge?
Trying to do it all….like every other working mom, I try to be the chief, cook, and bottle washer around the house, homeschool the kids, run a non-profit (with some friends), and run a small business….all at the same time! Fortunately, there is chocolate.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new homeschool mom what would it be?
I would recommend that she step back, let the kids learn (or re-learn, if deschooling) the JOY of learning, and find a groove that works for their family. Every family is different…what works for us is not going to look the same as what works for you. Also, don’t spend a lot of money on the first curriculum you see….because you’ll probably change your mind five or six times!
How do you add creativity to your homeschool?
We do a lot of hands-on projects. Today (as I write this), we’re reading a book together called The Winged Watchman. It’s about WW2 in Holland, and so the boys are using craft sticks to build a miniature working windmill. These are the kinds of projects that we like to include a few times each week, as well as larger projects. For example, they are building some fairly large projects for shop class that have taken all semester!
What products do you offer and where can we find them?
We are currently creating novel studies and products for middle and high school students – such as the Homeschool to College Success program. We host these, along with our older products for elementary school (lots of Lego-themed things!) at http://OKBookShack.org/shop.
Anything else that you would like to share?
For promo week, we are offering your readers a 20% off discount to the Cottage Shoppe with code WELCOME (through 5/20 – Consultation excluded).
Thank you so much, Yvie! We really enjoyed getting to meet Homeschool on the Range.
