Ripple Effect: How to Inspire Your Kids

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

A messy dining room, a dozen unfinished projects, soggy boots, muddy footprints, a broken telescope, a lost library book, a forgotten passion, a new hobby, and wonder in the eyes of a child.

This is the homeschool life.

Simple moments, like pebbles in quiet pond, the work you do today will ripple through generations.

Yes, what you do today will make a difference for years to come!

Homeschooling isn’t glamorous, and the day to day activities may seem a lot like pushing a rock up a mountain. But through it all I’ve seen how embracing the role of both mom and teacher has unseen power and influence that you wouldn’t believe though it’s right in front of you. And the work you do and example you set will influence your future generations.

Rewind–what’s your story? Who you are today has a lot to do with the path of past generations.

Here’s a glimpse into my story and the beautiful tapestry of learning, passion, and love that has woven itself through my family’s history.

My grandmother was a mother of four and a civil engineer—a woman ahead of her time. She somehow balanced her professional life with the demands of motherhood, and through her, I learned the value of determination and perseverance. She showed me how to think outside the box. When the world said, “You can’t do it all!” my grandma said, “Oh yes you can!” And when I’m facing a struggle I often hear her voice in my ear whispering, “Where there’s a will there’s a way!”

My mother, an artist, educational strategist, Bible scholar and homeschool mom, carried a quiet passion into our home. She made learning an adventure, and always helped us kids find the answers to even the most outlandish of questions. She had a way of filling our days with creativity and the belief that anything was possible, with Jesus. Her art wasn’t just on canvas—it was in the way she taught us to see beauty in the world, and faith in the One who is GOOD, WISE and ALL Powerful!

Because of her faith and example I will never forget that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”

And now, as a homeschooling mom of my own children, I see how this legacy continues to unfold.

Homeschooling has given me the chance to watch my own children discover their unique passions and explore them in their own time.

Not just growing in skills and knowledge, but in faith and determination!

(Click here to continue reading)

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Four Grade Levels in One Year: Former Foster Child Finds Success and Confidence with Dyslexia Games

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment
Dyslexia Games Series B

Written by Heather Vaught

Eight-year-old Kassidy faced significant challenges with reading and learning in the public school environment. Thanks to Dyslexia Games, she’s at grade level and bursting with newfound confidence.

“She was eight years old when she came into our family,” says Jill Cain, adoptive mother of former foster child Kassidy. “It was a night and day difference between her and my biological children. She didn’t know letter sounds, but she could read some sight words, which didn’t make sense to me. There were other things too; it was like a jumbled puzzle that didn’t add up.”

Jill homeschools her biological children, but because Kassidy was a foster child at the time, she had to be in public school. The school provided her with a personal aide for an hour each day, but it didn’t help. Jill suspected dyslexia, but the school didn’t agree and passed Kassidy to the next grade, even though she couldn’t read.

The Emotional Toll

“When it came time for school or homework, she was completely shut down. She would cross her arms and not even try,” remembers Jill. “And when she did try, it was tears.”

Jill finally convinced the school to test Kassidy, and a dyslexia diagnosis was confirmed. She also convinced the school to hold her back the next school year to give her more time to learn and catch up with her peers. In the meantime, Jill researched dyslexia resources online.

Making matters worse, Kassidy was bullied at school. “The experience in public school greatly affected her,” laments Jill. “Her self-confidence was so low and it affected our relationships. She was very isolated.”

Fighting for a Fair Chance

In Jill’s online research, she stumbled upon Dyslexia Games by Sarah Janisse Brown. It looked promising, but Jill wondered if it would help Kassidy learn. “I knew she was bright and capable as she excelled in so many other areas,” notes Jill. “But how do I even do this, if the public school can’t do it?”

She decided to shelve her doubts, but the next step was for Jill to get legal permission to homeschool Kassidy. “I went all the way to the top,” she says. It took time, but finally, they were granted permission, and their homeschooling journey began.

Jill initiated some “deschooling” time first to give Kassidy a chance to decompress and build confidence and security. Then, when she felt like Kassidy was ready, she started her on just one page a day in Dyslexia Games.

 “It really drained her,” notes Jill. “It was completely exhausting to do one page. There were days she just wanted to bail, and I was unsure whether this was the right way to proceed because we didn’t see any progress.”

Breakthrough! Four Grade Levels in One Year

Persistence paid off. After about three weeks, Jill observed the first signs of improvement. When she pointed out something that needed correction, Kassidy figured it out herself. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh! This is working!’” Jill exclaims.

That was just the encouragement they both needed to keep going. As they progressed through the program, Kassidy experienced several more breakthrough moments in letter recognition, reading skills, and math skills.

“She had about a six-month jump in math in six weeks, that I just can’t explain except for Dyslexia Games,” Jill adds.

Jill turned the reins over to Kassidy, who began doing several pages a day. By the end of Dyslexia Games, Series B, she was reading at a 4th-grade level, representing a jump of four grade levels in one year.

Kassidy’s confidence soared. “We’re a read-aloud family,” says Jill. “We go around the room and read aloud. Before, she would refuse. Now she will read an entire chapter!”

Click here to keep reading about Kassidy’s story, including some tips from Jill!

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Unlocking Potential: How Dyslexia Games Transformed Learning for a South African Family

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Written by Heather Vaught

When traditional schooling failed her son and the pandemic forced shutdowns, Clerissa Kritzinger turned to homeschooling, which ignited a love of learning in her family.

“I was at my wit’s end,” Clerissa Kritzinger recalls. “We had tried everything the traditional system offered, but nothing seemed to work. The tension in our relationship was palpable.”

Clerissa’s journey began with her oldest son’s struggles in school. Despite various therapies and medications for his ADHD diagnosis, his situation didn’t improve. 

The Kritzingers moved Anthony to a tutoring center, hoping that a smaller environment with more one-on-one attention would make a difference. Then facing pandemic-related school closures, Clerissa found herself alone with her son’s reading difficulties.

A Turning Point: Discovering Dyslexia

Homeschooling was not common in South Africa, but with the pandemic, it became a widespread reality. Clerissa found herself with no other choice. She quickly discovered that teachers had been sugar-coating Anthony’s progress, and she was upset. She chose a different curriculum, hoping that would make a difference.

It wasn’t until her friend, Alene, suggested her son might be dyslexic that Clerissa found a new direction. After researching and finding Nessy, a free online dyslexia screening tool, she confirmed her son’s condition. 

“It was a moment of relief and clarity,” she shares. “Finally understanding the cause of my son’s struggles opened up a world of possibilities.”

Alene also recommended Fun-Schooling journals and Dyslexia Games by Sarah Janisse Brown, author and founder of Thinking Tree Books. 

Slow and Steady: The Impact of Dyslexia Games

“You’ve got to be kidding me. How is my kid going to learn to read by doing pictures?” says Clerissa of the moment she first looked through Dyslexia Games. “It did not make sense to me.”

Alene reminded her that her daughter began reading within three months of using Dyslexia Games. “Just trust the process,” she advised.

So Clerissa plowed ahead with assigning her son two pages a day. She was surprised to see him enjoying the games and asking for more pages. His concentration began to improve. 

Then, a month and a half in, Anthony started to pick out random words during daily activities like grocery shopping or playing a game. At three months, Clerissa introduced a phonics program and he took off with it.

“It was like night and day,” Clerissa explains. “He’s never been depressed since we started homeschooling and using Dyslexia Games. The meltdowns that used to happen every single day at school just stopped. Now, his favorite place is the library.”

“The Dyslexia Games approach is so different from traditional methods,” Clerissa notes. “It’s like it speaks directly to the dyslexic brain, creating new neural pathways for learning to read.”

Click here to continue with Clerissa’s story.

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“Arrive”: It’s Only the Beginning

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

As You arrive in our life for the first time
For the first time
We see greatness lie in Your eyes
And this is what we will sing
‘Cause this is only the beginning.

Use today as your beginning. Study the life of Emmanuel, “God with us,” by reading through the New Testament this coming year, together as a family.

Turning Home Into the Epicenter of Human Life

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

My house is a place of creativity, innovation, technology, tradition, beauty, art, music, good food, and education. Fun comes first!
As the one who organizes and orchestrates the events and environment for over a dozen children and an adventurous husband, I’ve embraced an opportunity to throw out the common uses of the rooms in my house.
Most houses were designed to serve as a place of relaxation and comfort for hardworking couples, and school age children. As a homeschooling mom and home-based entrepreneur I began to rethink the way Americans use their homes.
I saw the impractical design of a home as an opportunity to transform the underutilized living spaces into something far more useful and exciting.

What It Looks Like
Our kitchen is now a “Science Kitchen” and a place for fermenting, cooking classes, experiments, a place for making body-care products, and for inventing new remedies and recipes. In the past our kitchen was a birth center, where a few of our kids were born!
Our living room is a lending library and music room where family and friends gather to create music together and to read, share and borrow books. Our living room is also a place where children can play with puzzles and puppets. Sometimes it becomes a church, where we gather daily for Bible stories, worship and prayer.
Our dining room serves the usual purpose of a space for family meals, often squeezing two dozen of us around three tables! But often we set up the space as an Art and Game cafe! Watercolors, beads, and rubber stamps await the touch and imagination of creative kids. We added a coffee bar with three espresso machines and a beautiful assortment of ceramic mugs and flavored syrups. During the week the tables are used as a school space for my five or six youngest kids.

The nook attached to the kitchen is a tearoom, with a DIY tea making station complete with about twenty healing blends of loose leaf teas made from herbs, flowers and spices which were grown in our garden, foraged from our woods and meadows, and imported from around the world. On our recent trips to Italy, Greece and Israel we searched for local blends to bring home and recreate.
The media room in the basement is a Preschool Paradise – even though our youngest child is nine. We fill my house with young moms who have little ones every chance we get.
Our office is a studio of creativity, design, publishing, and relaxation for myself and my team of collaborators who often drop in to work on projects with me.
Our garage is a charging station for two Teslas and a Cybertruck. It is also a gym for my kids who are into fitness and bodybuilding, and another part of the garage is a pottery and jewelry making studio. My husband has a workshop in yet another section of the garage.
Half of the old barn has been renovated into a DIY creative space for neighborhood homeschoolers, complete with a Lego city, shelves full of games, a small stage, and loads of art supplies. The other half of the barn serves as an art studio for our daughters who are studying oil painting and drawing. The space also includes the set for a podcast studio.

Keep reading by clicking here.

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Untangling from Mediocrity

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Was there a time when you understood what really mattered, and then you looked at your life?

Was there a moment when you understood the truth about all the things that were irrelevant to the precious, meaningless in light of the meaningful, and futile when side by side with the greatest?

When your eyes were open to the purpose of your life, did you find your calling there?

And when you found your calling, did you listen?

And when you listened, did you surrender?

Did you learn to obey the voice calling you to surrender everything, break the chains, and unload the burdens so that you could be free to run your race? Or are you still entangled with the everyday pressures and demands of mediocrity?

Here’s some inspiration for those of you who need to get to that place of throwing off the entanglements.

If you are not free to run your race, it really is time to stop everything and change direction.

Look ten years down the road. If you change nothing, you will be exactly where you are now, just older and with more debt. Every day like the last, striving, struggling, climbing a ladder to nowhere, or digging some hole ever deeper.

But don’t mistake faithfulness in the little things for a meaningless life. If you are being faithful where you are, doing the hard daily work of your calling, you must persevere! For example, your faithfulness as a mother with young children. Your days are long, your work gives you little rest, but the influence of your sacrifice for others is precious, meaningful and great.

Perhaps you heard the call to missions, and you work in the dirt and spend your days feeding dozens of hungry children, cleaning bathrooms in an orphanage, serving in gardens, villages, churches, and schools–but there is nothing romantic about your missionary life. It is hard work and you have dirt under your fingernails. But you are storing up treasures in heaven, and adding many smiles to earth. This hard work may seem thankless, and it’s lonely at times, but your love brings hope, and that’s enough.

Maybe you are a dad, looking for another income stream, putting a roof over dozens of other homes so you can keep a roof over the one home that matters most. It’s hot. It’s long days. It’s thankless work, and you come home to smiling kids and a weary wife. It’s a season where nothing seems romantic; but in a world where so many families are falling apart, your family is sticking together. You look around and what might not seem like much, is actually everything. When it comes to the value of family, you are rich, proud, and looking forward to the day when He says, “Well done my good and faithful servant!”

Click here to continue reading.

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Super Simple Homeschooling

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

When it comes to homeschooling, I’ve always taken an approach centered on creativity and real-world preparation. I begin to teach my children when they’re very little that you can create something with what’s around you that people will pay money for.

Take one of my daughters, for example. She had a passion for dogs and horses her entire childhood. Instead of forcing her into a generalized curriculum, we built her education around her love for animals, helping her explore how she could turn that passion into a meaningful career.

Of course, many parents worry, “Well, what if my kid’s not interested in something?” To me, that’s not a roadblock — it’s an opportunity. I don’t focus only on a career. What it comes down to is your child’s innate calling. One of my sons needed to be the kind of person who does a diverse number of different things. He needed to try a variety of experiences and be encouraged to explore, and this helped his calling to surface!

I tell my kids this: “When you’re 13 or 14, if you’re ready to start a business, we’re going to invest in your business.” When I was young, kids used to be excited to be 16 and get a driver’s license. Now you see 13-year-olds excited for their first phone. In our family, instead of focusing on getting a phone, my kids look forward to that moment where we’re going to invest in their business. They know to think toward that and plan toward that leading up to their 13th birthday.

Instead of spending $100,000 for them to get a degree for who-knows-what, I’d rather invest early in something that’s meaningful to them. We start by investing one to three thousand dollars in their interests, and then we spend the next 4 or 5 years immersing them in the careers they want to have. They get one-on-one lessons, equipment, and a high-quality learning experience in their fields as teenagers. It’s about letting them major in the thing they want to do.

I really believe that as I encourage that child to follow that path and their calling, the doors are going to open for them. As that calling begins to develop, I look for an opportunity to find a mentor or a Masterclass to continue their knowledge beyond what I can provide. It’s not about following a rigid path but is instead about trusting the process and nurturing their growth along the way.

My approach isn’t about perfection or endless resources. There are a variety of ways to homeschool your children in a career-based fashion when limited budgets come into play. That’s where creativity comes in! In 2014, we were living with 9 kids, on $80 a day. Our home was in Croatia, and it had no running water. We had one electrical outlet, and we got our water out of a cistern. Even then, I found ways to support my kids’ dreams.

For example, my first son had dreams of becoming a chef. For his 13th birthday, we made an Amazon wish list for friends and family, and every item was related to his dream of being a chef. Within a year, he ended up being a personal chef for a woman with celiac disease. When given resources and support, I truly believe a child with a calling can achieve their wildest imaginings!

Another way I help support my children is by letting them be a part of the Fun-Schooling journals. When my kids are ready to jump into a career, I make a Fun-Schooling book with them that they can sell as a way to help fund their goals.

Ultimately, when parents worry about how their kids will make a career out of niche interests, I tell them to just trust. If your child loves dinosaurs, don’t worry that he loves dinosaurs. A lot of times we worry about how our child is going to make a career out of their interests, but it ends up coming down to the same thing. Just trust.

Brand New Reading Resource (& Giveaway)

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

We are so excited to share the news that the new Reading Therapy is out!!! I’ve been working on this all year to create a new workbook to help kids who are struggling to sound out words to read fluently! I’m so excited about this. Take 20 minutes a day to work with your child to master 150 wonderful words! By the end of the book your child will be writing stories, poems and letters!

This book is created for the kids who are reading words like farm and cat, but want to read words like radiant and mighty!

Do you want to be part of our research study? Let me know at Sarah@BrownIdea.com

Get the PDF now to print at home for all your kids.

This book is the bridge between Dyslexia Therapy and grade level schoolwork. It’s the book I wish I had the year I failed 3rd grade.

Are you a 2nd or 3rd grade teacher with students who are struggling to read?

I’d love to give you this workbook as a gift to use in your classroom. Tag a teacher!

Giveaway!!!

Get the PDF version of our new book for Free!!! “150 Wonderful Words – Vocabulary, Spelling & Reading”

Coupon Code: 150WonderfulWords

Get it here: https://www.funschooling.com/product-page/pdf-150-wonderful-words-vocabulary-spelling-reading

Code expires December 17, 2024

See something else you need?

Here’s a “Buy One Get One Free” offer for any of our PDFs!

Coupon Code: FunSchoolBOGO2024

Expires December 31, 2024

How AI Can Make Us All Feel Like 1950s Housewives

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

In every era of rapid technological advancement, humanity faces a crossroads. Today, as AI and robotics threaten to replace human labor on an unprecedented scale, we are confronted with deep questions: What will happen to our jobs, our purpose, and our value? How will we spend our time, our energy, and our lives?

This isn’t the first time we’ve faced such a dilemma. A striking parallel existed in the 1950s when household technologies revolutionized daily life. Tasks that had once demanded weeks of effort—gardening, raising meat and eggs, canning food, sewing clothing—were suddenly replaced by mass production and modern appliances. The washing machine, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, and telephone transformed the role of the housewife, freeing up vast amounts of time.

For many women, this was both liberating and disorienting. The work that once defined their survival and value within the family became unnecessary. They were no longer the primary producers of food and clothing, and their contribution shifted. Many entered the workforce or turned to consumerism and leisure.

But this “freedom” came with unforeseen consequences. Fast-forward 75 years, and we see a society grappling with obesity, mental health crises, loneliness, and fractured families. The very technologies that promised to make life easier have left many people without a sense of challenge or purpose.

Now, as AI advances at breakneck speed, we are entering a new era of disruption. Entire industries may be transformed or rendered irrelevant. What will happen when robots and technology handle most of the tasks that once filled our days? Will humans—like the 1950s housewives—find themselves with too much time, too little purpose, and no meaningful challenges?

Humans need to be challenged. We thrive on purpose, on working hard for something that matters, and on the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles. If AI takes over the bulk of our work, the question is not “What will we do with our time?” but rather, “How will we use it meaningfully?”

Click here to consider some answers to these questions, and discover some actionable points for you and your family.

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How to Spot Your Child’s Natural Interests

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

What is a natural interest? A natural interest is an area of life that you’re drawn to! For a lot of people, they might call this their hobby or side project. Natural interests can cover a vast variety of subjects – from a specific animal to the overarching act of reading, to drawing with charcoal or recording/writing music! Natural interests are our callings. So how do you spot this in your child from an early age?

Identifying your child’s natural interests can help guide their growth and learning! Here are some simple ways to spot what excites and intrigues them:

  1. Observe Their Early Play: Pay attention to the activities they choose most often — whether it’s building, drawing, or imaginative play! These can reveal their passions, such as an interest in architecture, fashion, or writing creative stories!
  2. Follow Their Questions: The “why” and “how” questions they ask can point to what they’re curious about, like science, nature, or history!
  3. Notice What Captures Their Attention: Take note of what they focus on for long periods and what they ask to learn more about — this shows what they’re naturally drawn to!
  4. Encourage Exploration: Provide different activities (arts, sports, books) and see what excites them the most! Giving them a variety of topics to learn about can help you notice which ones they focus on the most! By observing your child’s play, questions, and actions, you can help nurture their natural interests and encourage their growth!

Learn more about preparing your child for their future calling/career here.

Find journals for every possible area of interest imaginable by clicking the image below!