Mom-Schooling

Why We Love Fun-Schooling

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

I thought I just chime in and share why I love fun-schooling so much.

When my kids were little, I was trying to do a lot of Charlotte Mason learning, some Montessori schooling at home, classical learning and a lot of Unschooling. It was exhausting! Our whole life style revolved around me being a worn out teacher-mom.

I have so many children with such diverse needs and passions, I wanted to give each one their own path. I gathered tons of different curriculum from conventions and it was overwhelming to create all these custom plans for each child!

And so I had the idea to make the Fun-Schooling journals when my oldest child was 16. I created ONE do-it-yourself homeschooling journal that guides each unique child through the experience of studying their passion, their hobby or their career goals – while still focusing on all the required subjects!

The first DIY journal could be adapted to any child age 7-17. I created a different cover for each child and put the first Journal on Amazon with a bunch of different covers, and bought them from Amazon for my own kids. I was just using Amazon for print-on-demand book making for my own kids. But I had the books up for sale just in case other families wanted a copy.

So when I created the first DIY homeschool journal I was expecting my 10th child and I really just wanted to take a break for six weeks so I could focus on the new baby.

So I thought I’d make a six week curriculum where the kids use 10 pages a day, without much help from me. I would build myself into the book!

The idea is that they would get a stack of library books and a bunch of documentaries about anything they were interested in, and they were to use those resources along with the journal while getting in all those academics.

My idea was that they could do everything independently with one journal and I would just have to add a math curriculum.

It worked great! After the kids finish their first DIY journal they asked for themed journals. One wanted to study horses. One wanted to focus on travel and fashion. One wanted Minecraft theme. One wanted to focus on dogs. Another was really into nature. My son Joe was crazy about space. I said yes to my kids and we started collaborating on making Fun-Schooling journals together- based on each of my kids’ passions.

The whole idea was an amazing success. My kids started earning royalties and were doing their homeschooling independently!

One thing I really love about Fun-Schooling is that it frees me up to be mom, and it gave me time to enjoy my preschooler and baby.

So instead of spending my day struggling over their schoolwork and trying to make sure that everything is organized in a really boring way… I started focusing more on pursuing my passions and reading to my kids more.

I thought it would be great to be an example to my kids of the learning I want to see in them. Down the rabbit trail I go… I started making Mom-School journals that look a lot like their DIY Fun-Schooling journals!

Not only did the kids love Fun-Schooling – I do too.

When we first started Fun-Schooling, I had 10 kids. Before Fun-Schooling, our homeschooling days were really stressful and I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough, yet I was going non-stop.

Our home just became so much more peaceful, full of wonder, and just more harmonious with Fun-Schooling. Best of all – lots of other families started discovering Fun-Schooling too!

Within two years of making the first DIY journal we sold so many Fun-Schooling books that we were able to do things we never thought possible.

We were able to support ourselves as volunteers in Ukraine, and eventually we were able to adopt five more kids because we had the extra income and I didn’t feel like I was overwhelmed by the ten kids I already had.

As more of my kids became teenagers, we helped them to focus on pursuing their careers, instead of focusing on high school credits, and now five of our kids are adults and have started their own successful businesses and are able to be independent.

Fun-Schooling made such a huge difference in our every day life and empowered us to really become who we were meant to be!

It wasn’t just the kids pursuing their passions.

I also was able to pursue mine, and somehow I found time in the past 8 years to create, collaborate and publish over 400 books!

The Modeling Mom

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 2 Comments

In my earlier years, I spent some time modeling. You can read about it in my biography, Windows to Our World. Now, I spend a lot more time modeling in a different way, enjoying my passions and studying my interests and doing my projects. I invest more time in modeling than I do trying to compel my kids to do their school work. I just model a love for learning, a passion for projects and show them what it looks like to live life to the fullest.

I am fully alive and totally focused on pursuing things that I am excited about. I invite them in to be part of my interest, and they invite me to be part of their learning. Anything I want to encourage them to do more of, I do myself in relation to my own interests.

I have a life, and I have adventures, and I enjoy projects and activities that have nothing to do with my kids. This is the essence of Mom-Schooling! My children see that I am a very passionate learner and I am living dreams right in the middle of raising a family. I share my accomplishments and struggles, and they share theirs.

I am curious about their learning and pursuits and they are just as interested in mine. Because I am enjoying life as a learner, they do too. I have done so many things in my life that my kids can learn from. I entered an election and became vice president of the town council. I wrote for newspapers and magazines. I made new kinds of foods and put on parties. I read books and listened to audio books. I tried to build a village, and failed. I invested, I won, and lost. I show them what fun it is to be a wife and mom. I teach them that it’s okay to eat chocolate in the morning and fill up journals with poems. I make tea for myself and some for them, and they make tea for me. I plant trees and research strange animals. I travel. My husband makes music and fixes computers and plays Pacman… We do a lot of things that we love, and we have fun. They can join us, copy us, learn from us, ignore us… and when they are gone we will still have each other and our hobbies and interests! This is Mom School!

There are a lot of things I don’t do to make time for what I love, and what I love the most… family.

Sarah’s 2023 Mom-Schooling Basket!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Today I took an hour
To rearrange my things
To think about my goals
And to reignite my dreams
I went from shelf to shelf
To gaze upon each book
As if to stop and ask myself
To take a deeper look
To think of who I want to be
The skills I hope to learn
To set imagination free
To love, to grow to yearn.
I found my favorite basket
Full of other people’s things
I dumped it out, and asked it
To be the keeper of new dreams.
I start fresh from empty
And held it with one hand
Without hesitation we
Set off to make new plans.
I found my favorite books again
And promised to begin
To treat them as my dear friends,
And then I found some pens
I found my father’s Bible
Filled with his notes and lines
I’ll take his thoughts once more to heart and try to make them mine.
I have a little journal, for each and every child
I fill the pages with my prayers
Through times of tears and smiles
I have some colored pencils
Some photos and memories
I’ll add a story book of course
For my little girls to read.
My basket is almost ready
My heart and mind feel full
Now I just need a cup of tea
And a journal for my soul
Today I took an hour
To rearrange my things
I’m ready now to grow and learn
And to reignite my dreams

Reboot, Refresh, Succeed!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Are you afraid of failing? Don’t be. There are some amazing examples of “beauty for ashes” throughout history–Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein!

You are going to enjoy life and homeschooling so much more if “fear of failure” isn’t such a big deal. It’s totally fine if you fail. It’s really not a big deal if you try something and it doesn’t work. It’s fine if you take a risk and the results are messy. It’s okay to do something that is less than perfect. It’s fine to not be that girl who seems to have it all together. Fear of failure is just going to hold you back from living life to the fullest.

Why do we think it’s a big deal to make mistakes? Because we went to school, and we were shamed by our poor grades and our misspelled words and our test scores. We were taught that the worst thing you can do is…. try and fail. I fail at stuff all the time, but I’m over it. I don’t like messing up, but I try and sometimes things do turn out wonderful.

If you want peace in your mothering- live your life from a place of grace and courage, with love! You don’t need to be driven by fear of failure because failure is totally okay. That’s how we learn! So be okay, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s better to erase fear of failure from your motivations. Keep trying, pursuing, dreaming!

“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you cannot paint’ then by all means paint,

and that voice will be silenced.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

When you are feeling stuck because you are afraid to fail, just tell yourself that it’s actually not that big of a deal. You are resilient. Your kids are resilient. Everyone will be fine, and you will be a better example to your children if you are motivated by things like love, curiosity, faith or creativity… even if you don’t like the result EVERY TIME.

Everyone fails…it’s important to show our kids an example of what it looks like to fail well. When something doesn’t work out, it becomes either a stumbling block or a stepping stone. Show them how to step up and forward with courage and grace!

Time for a refreshing reboot? Grab your favorite relaxing drink, one of our Art Logic Therapy journals, and find a cozy corner for a little while. It will do wonders for refocusing your perspective!

The “Why” of Mom-Schooling

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Mom-School happens when you remember who you are through your passions, your interests and your needs. You fill a basket with learning tools for yourself, then in your free time you dig into your Mom-School Basket, read a book or watch a tutorial about something you want to learn… instead of watching TV, Netflix, or cruising Facebook.

Mom-School energizes me while the children curiously look into my basket, watch me learn, see me grow… and they discover that I am not just their mom, but a woman with dreams, goals, ideas, needs and desires.

They see me research and join me for an online class, they flip through my Mom-School Journal and see my careful efforts and beautiful handwriting. They see me as someone who is curious, they see me as a detective, an explorer, a creator, a follower, a leader and a friend.

Mom-School is waking up with ideas, and being full of wonder. It’s problem solving and crafting, it’s higher education or a new recipe.

Mom-School is remembering who you are in the midst of the busy season of mothering and holding on to your dreams so your children will be inspired to become who they were created to be, because they are basking in the example of you.

Mom-School is refreshing and calming, and it’s worth your time and mine. Mom-School is empowering to you as a woman and sets the stage for your children to follow your example because you make learning look so delightful.

Join our Mom-Schooling Facebook group here!

Sarah’s Mom Tips: “Important” vs. “Necessary”

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

This is a very handy tool for mothers.

Just TWO simple definitions:

The problem with being a homeschooling mom is that we feel so driven to accomplish the things that are defined as “Necessary” that we often push the “Important” things off our plates and procrastinate.

We MUST focus some of our time and energy on the things that are important, and therein you will find JOY!

If your life revolves around doing the things that you “HAVE TO GET DONE OR ELSE!” your life will be full of stress and anxiety and this feeling that you are doing SO MUCH but you don’t have time for what matters.

So often the “Necessary” things wear us out and keep stacking up. Tell me what is SO important about the IMPORTANT things and why is it NECESSARY to focus on the IMPORTANT THINGS TOO?

“Don’t sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate”–good words to consider when weighing this question. Ultimately, what is the lasting thing that I should invest in with my energy and focus?

One important thing? Self care. Your making self care a priority teaches them to do the same.

Best Tip for Busy, Unromantic Moms

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

I have 15 kids and own a Publishing Company. I’m busy!

But not too busy for investing in marriage! Here is a bit of advice that will light up your love life. I try to keep our bedroom as a peaceful and romantic retreat.

By making the bed every morning and not letting our nest become a laundry pile or stowaway zone… we can have a place of relaxation and comfort at the beginning and ending of each day. Store laundry and kid-junk somewhere else. Sweep and vacuum often.

Only keep what inspires peace and delight in your special place.

Moms, make your room as uncluttered and beautiful as can be; you will be much more in the mood to enjoy your space with your husband if it’s pretty.

Even if the whole house is a kid-mess, make your room amazing. This room should be a first priority, but most woman make it the last. It’s easier to just shut the door.

Husbands will be more peaceful and content with the condition of the whole home, if he can count on the bedroom being a place of rest and romance.

Don’t let your bedroom become the place where all the junk is tossed when we clean the rest of the house. Make it beautiful today. You will find so much peace in this. When you go to a beautiful room at the end of the day, you might even feel like your work is done because your room speaks beauty and rest to your heart and mind.

Your might actually feel more romantic at the end if the day if your room is a place or peace. At the end of the day turn on peaceful music, light a candle, and enjoy the evening.

Sarah’s Mom Tips: Learn This Poem!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Getting started with Fun-Schooling? Here’s one important tip:

For every element of FUN that you ADD you must take away something that is boring, or irrelevant or frustrating to you or your child. Just adding Fun-Schooling can feel like eating dessert too quickly after getting over-stuffed with a triple plate of Chinese food. You are going to love Fun-Schooling, it can bring so much peace, joy and delight to your days. 🙂

Don’t forget Mom-School, being an example is your most powerful tool as a homeschool mom.

Memorize this poem…

“For each new element of FUN

Something DULL must be undone!”

Dyslexia Games and the Fight Against Brain Fog (Part 1)

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 2 Comments

(Guest post by Ferne Hood)

When Sarah Janisse Brown’s daughter Anna was struggling with dyslexia and finding it hard to read, Sarah began creating patterns and pictures in sequences and doing these “games” with Anna again and again! The result was incredible as Anna soon began to read comics and recipes, and then moved on to novels and the Bible. Anna didn’t realize she was actually learning to read when she was doing these puzzles with her mom, she just thought she was having fun. But her success led to Sarah creating a series of workbooks containing her Brain puzzles called Dyslexia Games, to help countless other kids and their parents who were having the same struggles.

            As some moms began going through the games with their children, and inadvertently doing them themselves, they soon realized that the games were having a significant impact on them too. It seemed as though the Dyslexia Games were helping these moms in their struggle with brain fog! So Sarah decided to conduct a little experiment. She launched a Facebook group and asked moms struggling with brain fog to commit to intentionally using Dyslexia Games to see if they could improve their brain function. Around 800 moms committed to the trial, keeping notes of their progress along the way. And the results have been astounding. Not only have these moms discovered a passion (or aversion!) to designing t-shirts and drinking green lemonade, and maybe a newly formed addiction to stationary, but they are happier, more focused, more present and feeling less scatterbrained as a result of committing to doing just a few pages a day.

            In the first week alone, participants were already starting to notice a difference. Melanie said, “I definitely noticed a clearer mind and was able to get more done each day. Doing two pages each day has opened a desire up in me to be more creative and to take up doing art with my daughter!” And Janice said, “I look forward to it every day! My brain feels good and likes working on the puzzles. Afterwards I feel more focused and refreshed.”

            Even after just a handful of days, the positive affect of Dyslexia Games was noticeable. Many moms mentioned how it was even helping to ease their anxiety. Elina commented, “I have had way less anxiety since I started the brain games. I’ve been more motivated and have come up with many new solutions for problems I’ve had for a while.” And Michelle said, “I got the best sleep last night that I have had in a pretty long time. I have also found that I’m less anxious if I do these. I am prone to panic attacks and have found that if I feel anxious and I focus on doing these I don’t do my regular nervous habits and the feeling doesn’t escalate at all. It is a fabulous coping tool for me!”

            An easing in anxiety, increase in creativity and focus, and more bonding with their children – it seemed like week 1 was impacting for so many moms. (click here to continue reading)

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Fun-Schooling in 3 Easy Steps for Your Younger Kids

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment
Fun-Schooling basket

So often people imagine Fun-Schooling must be as difficult as every other method. But now that I’ve been doing it for years I find it’s soooo easy. Let me explain in three simple steps how to Fun-School the most stress-free way for ages 5 to 13.

1. Plan your semester by putting five Fun-Schooling Journals into a cute basket with fresh art and school supplies. Add in some mini games. Have a computer or iPad set up for educational videos, an online math program and research sites. You can block everything else. Get an assortment of books that focus on the child’s passion and career goals. Your child is set!

2. Set up your Mom-School. Make a Mom-School Basket with your mom Journal, planners, and books about things you want learn. Use your Mom-School stuff to enrich your heart and mind, and be an example to your child. Use your Mom-School a few times each week while your child is aware of your learning activities. Teach by example.

3. Daily you will need to remind the child to get their Fun-Schooling Basket and go to a favorite place to do… ten pages, or whatever. I let my kids choose what Journals to use on most days. I am available for questions and some collaboration. I don’t teach much. I collaborate and show an example. I only teach reading (but sometimes I don’t).  I let them learn to read with Starfall.com, Dyslexia Games, or readingeggs.com, and if I teach I use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. They learn to spell with Fun-Schooling Journals.)

I do projects with the kids using their passions. Or I just give them permission and supplies.

If kids rush and are sloppy, they don’t get computer time–they get chores after learning time. I check all their Fun-Schooling Journals every Friday. If they do awesome they get to some new art or school supplies from my little prize shelf.

For tips on Fun-Schooling your teens: