I’ve come across lots of homeschooling moms online who were teachers before they decided to homeschool. It’s easy to see the teacher in them coming through in their posts, pictures, and creations. Here are ten signs a homeschooling mom was a teacher first. (And, yes, I’m one of them, too!)
1. She has a love affair (bordering on serious addiction) with organizational materials.
You will find rolling carts, storage bins, file cabinets, and organizers of every kind throughout her pictures and blog posts.
2. If she taught elementary school, she’s probably doing circle time or morning time with her children.
Complete with calendar time.
3. You can find pocket charts in her home and they are in use.
4. She creates and sells printables that look professionally designed.
This includes cute clip art and all sorts of nice fonts. Nothing looks slapped together or uses clip art from the last century.
5. She talks about literacy, not language arts.
6. She has a system for everything.
She’s a planner, keeps written lesson plans, and is the master of routines. She thinks nothing of educating three or four kids at once because it’s the same in many ways as rotating her class through center time. Nothing looks out of place in her pictures and it probably looks that way most of the time at the end of the day. Old habits die hard.
7. She has more children’s books in her home than the local library.
The vast majority of them came from Scholastic or Amazon.
8. She is intimately acquainted with where to find the little things.
This includes Oriental Trading Company and often features items she purchased there when discussing their learning activities. She also knows the location of every dollar store and Target dollar bin in a twenty mile radius.
9. Her learning room has decorated walls.
Because she definitely has a learning room. These walls are adorned with:
- posters
- alphabet charts
- timelines
- number charts
- and (more) pocket charts.
10. She knows how to celebrate every season and holiday that comes along.
She can instantly pull out resources from her files for each and every one whether it is:
Were you a teacher before you became a homeschooling mom? How has your teacher experience carried over into your homeschool?
Children’s Picture Books About Courage
So not every homeschool mom is like that? I never knew!
Muffet,
No, every homeschool mom is definitely not like this. There are all kinds of great homeschool moms who are nothing like this. But I’m sure there are some who weren’t teachers who are also obsessed with organizing carts and Target dollar bins. 🙂
So true. We’re also occasionally tempted to link our lessons to our state standards. [Alternately rejoicing that we’re not required to do so anymore!] And we can NEVER resist a trip to the nearest teacher supply store! Also, I bet all of those books are categorized in some way. Mine are color coded, and live on specific color-coded shelves. 🙂
Hi Ginger,
Those are good ones, too! Alas, my books are not color-coded. If I had more children, I might be tempted. But with one it isn’t necessary. And color-coding things came after I left teaching. Otherwise it definitely would have appealed to me! LOL!
LOL. I was a teacher, but this list is probably evidence of why I only lasted 5 weeks in that career (after wanting to teach since 7th grade…alas).
Now, #7, that’s absolutely me (oh the books I have). I’m starting to devolop #1 and aiming at #4 (I’m an artist so that’s more the reason for that…hate junky looking design, and find myself saying “hmm, I could make something better” for my lessons and then doing that, though I haven’t tried to sell any of it yet).
But #6…number 6 was my downfall. While I may buy books and pin ideas for things we won’t be studying for years, I struggle to have a definite plan even a week in advance. I have tried but I honestly can not wrap my mind around planning that far ahead. Even buying supplies too early is a problem cause it gives me time to forget where I put them. That’s a huge part of why I’m not teaching full time now (that and so much work I was up until 10 pm or later doing it, loosing sleep, and sanity…GOD BLESS CLASSROOM TEACHERS). Homeschooling is so much more flexible, so much more forgiving.
Gale –
That was one thing I never adjusted to as a teacher – long term planning. I mean it’s Wednesday and you want me to plan out in detail in writing what I’m going to do in my classroom next week on Thursday and Friday? You have to be kidding me! I don’t even know what I want to do tomorrow morning. I’m super intuitive and that’s how I ran my classroom. How would I know what my class would be ready to do next week? I have to gauge how things are going hour by hour and then decide. That kind of approach didn’t work then and it certainly wouldn’t work now with testing mania, etc.. LOL!
The whole no freedom thing as a teacher was a deal breaker in many ways for me.
Oh my goodness! You are spot on!! I think it may be a handicap to homeschooling! Lol
I know! Sometimes I can’t decide if it helps or hurts to have been a teacher before. A bit of both, I suspect. LOL! 🙂
Ha! Pretty much every one of those fits me to a T. Too funny.
🙂