Marty Layne offers tips for homeschooling families

Author Marty Layne reminded me of something important this past weekend.

The veteran homeschooler and mom of four spoke to parents of kids in home learning programs during her workshop: “Celebrating the Joys and Challenges of Home Schooling” at the SelfDesign 25th anniversary celebration in Vancouver on Saturday.

Marty reminded us that our kids are young for only a short time in our lives. It’s important to cherish this time while we can because “they grow up so fast” as the cliché goes. Those of us who find a way to learn from home with our children – even part time – will have more time to enjoy this fleeting experience of childhood.

Marty showed slides of her family learning at home and outside – playing on the shores of Vancouver Island, creating block kingdoms in the living room, and building castles in the sand delivered to the bottom of the driveway in a dump truck. All four kids did home-based learning and now, as adults, they each followed careers in the arts – including a dancer, a harp player, a percussionist, and a visual artist. Marty was a preschool teacher before she had her own kids and says she has always been passionte about kids’ learning.

In 1998, Marty wrote: Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling and in 2008, she released a second edition. In addition to her workshops, she also offers a phone-based coaching service for homeschooling parents – along with some extremely cute pieces of art: little fluffy birds, squirrels, and other animals made in needlefelting (a great homelearning project!)

Here are some examples from Marty of things parents have done as a result of learning at home with their children:

Started a business running a homeschooling conference
Started a business designing fashions
Started a publishing company
Written books
Published magazines
Gone on to university or college to pursue another career.