 Hey everybody, welcome to the La Duc Way. I'm Jessica. And today's video is a homeschool show and tell. That's right, it is the brand new season of the homeschool show and tell series and I could not be more excited. The homeschool show and tell series is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted in Rest and Myself. Our goal with the homeschool show and tell series was really just to show that there's not one right way to homeschool. There are tons of different ways to do it and that technically we're all right in the ways we do it. So we do that by bringing homeschoolers together from around the world to share their take on a certain topic every month. This month's topic is one of my favorites because it is a get to know me month and I love getting to know everybody that's participating in the homeschool show and tell. Now if you would like to participate in the homeschool show and tell collaboration with us there will be a link in the description box that has all of the details that you can, how to join in, what our schedule is gonna be and even the get to know us this or that questions. If you are not on YouTube or you do not wanna film a YouTube video, don't worry, Abby and I still have you covered because we're going to be sharing a story template for social media so that you can join in on the get to know us homeschool show and tell this or that fun too. All right, without further ado let's jump right in and get to know me. So these are going to be this or that questions. We can only choose one and then I'm going to somewhat try to explain my answer if it's relevant. The first one is coffee or tea. I do not drink any kind of coffee. I don't enjoy any coffee, anything like not mocha and not cappuccino and just I don't like it. So tea all the way for me. Early bird or night owl. If you know me, you know that I am a night owl 100%. It is literally a joke in my family that if you want Jessica to show up you don't plan anything in the single digits and that's 100% true. Like if you plan it before 10 a.m. I'm not coming, period. Like I'm just going to tell you it's not happening. 10 a.m. is the earliest that I can physically function or human outside of my house if it requires me to like get dressed and be a presentable human. Paper planning or digital planning. Ooh, that's a tough one. Okay, if I have to, if it's based around planning I'm going to pick paper planning because technically what I do digitally is like record keeping, not planning. And I like to paper plan because there's something about like writing it out that makes me more realistic because if I'm physically writing it out and my hands start turning chances are I'm over-scheduling our day and I should probably back off a little bit. But if I'm typing it and keeping it digitally I will continuously like make the font smaller and fit in more things. And I just feel like paper planning for our homeschool it makes me more realistic. And so I tend to do that. Planning from ahead or planning from behind. Well, technically I do a little bit of both but if I can only pick one I'm going to plan ahead because I feel like when I do plan ahead I am more prepared and our homeschool goes better like the days flow better, we get more done. I mean, it doesn't always work that way but if I don't plan ahead or I don't at least have like a general idea of what I want to do ahead of time then I feel like I'm playing catch up and I don't like that feeling at all. One homeschool method or eclectic. We are definitely eclectic. While I don't fault anybody who chooses one homeschool method and as a purist I don't like to box myself in or I don't want to box our homeschool in. So we pick and choose all of the things that we want from the different methods and we leave all of the things we don't want from the different methods. Then we just do basically what works best for our family. Crayons or markers, that's a hard one too. Probably markers. I mean, I like both but I like that markers are bolder especially we have alcohol markers and they're definitely my favorite. They're bolder and I feel like it does a better job than crayons, I don't know. I enjoy coloring with a marker better than a crayon. Whiteboard or chalkboard, whiteboard all the way the sound of chalk on a chalkboard makes my skin crawl. I honestly don't think we've ever owned one in our homeschool because of that. I think Emily had the little personal sized chalkboards and I was like, oh no, this isn't gonna work. I just can't, the sound of it is too much. I hate it. Games or puzzles, that's another tough one. I love both obviously but if I can only choose one in our homeschool it's gonna be games. While I both think they both are super beneficial and I love them both I can't imagine homeschooling without games, like our homeschool would not be the same as it is and I think there's a lot of games that could double as puzzles so we're just gonna go with games. Screens or no screens in your homeschool, we are a huge advocate for using technology in our homeschool. We use YouTube all the time for education and in fact I include YouTube playlist in all of our unit studies. We listen to podcasts, we listen to audio books, Emily has educational apps, we watch documentaries. I mean, am I going to be like, here we're gonna do 100% of our homeschool on a screen? No, but I am totally on board for using screens as much as possible in an educational way while I'm watching. I don't want her to go watch YouTube not in my presence because you don't ever know what ads gonna pop up but for the most part we will incorporate screens as much as possible because it's just one more way to learn and it's one more resource at my disposal. Are you a homeschool minimalist or a homeschool hoarder? I am definitely not a minimalist in anything in my life. I may not be a hoarder in all things but I'm definitely a hoarder when it comes to homeschool and I like to have all of the resources for all of the things because we don't use one specific kind of open and go box curriculum. I like to have a lot of different resources to present topics and concepts in multiple different ways. So that might be a game, that might be a book, that might be some other hands-on resource and I just like having them at my disposal. So definitely, well, Kevin calls me a maximalist but anyway, definitely more hoarder than minimalist when it comes to homeschool resources. Pajamas all day or get dressed? I mean, if I get to choose Pajamas all day hands down, I don't like getting dressed but we do actually typically put on some sort of clothes. Mainly because we started finding that when we were staying in pajamas all day every day which we were totally doing for forever, when we would get ready to actually go somewhere like none of Emily's clothes would fit. It would be like, wait a minute, how do none of your clothes fit? And it would be because we hadn't worn them in two weeks. So while I mean my preference would be pajamas in our actual homeschool, we get dressed most days. So there's that. Read aloud or independent reading? While I think these both have their place in a homeschool, if I can only choose one, I'm reading aloud because then I get to share in the story with her and it develops this family culture and there's just so much that goes along with it outside of just the story or the reading itself. In fact, I did an interview recently with Sarah McKenzie about the power of reading aloud in your homeschool. So I will link that up here in case you're interested but hands down, like if I could only pick one thing, it would be reading aloud. Classic or modern literature? That's another tough one. I would say we probably lean more towards modern literature not that we don't love classic literature because we do when we've read a lot in our homeschool but we tend to enjoy more modern or kind of the newer written stuff. I don't really know why that's just what we read more of. So I guess that's where I'll land but I love both technically. Science or history? Well, since I'm the one that you're getting to know, I'm gonna pick history but if Kevin was sitting here or even Emily was sitting here, they're both going to pick science. So I would say we probably actually do more science in our homeschool because that's their preference and obviously we follow Emily's lead and her interests and so since that's what she's more interested in, that's what we do more of but if you're getting to know me personally then my answer is history. Art or music? I am married to an artist and I have a budding artist on my hand so it is art. Not that we don't love music but if we can only pick one, it is definitely art hands down. Oh, this one's really tough. Nature study or poetry tea time? I really love both of those things but if I can only pick one, I'm gonna pick poetry tea time because I know that it's Emily's absolute favorite and because I like doing things that she likes while I love them both a lot, I would pick poetry tea time if I can only pick one. Lunch with your kids or lunch alone? 100% alone, like I know that sounds kind of selfish but I am a 100% alone person especially as a homeschool mom of an only child, I use lunch time to kind of recharge and repower myself and prepare for the rest of the day that we have ahead and so during lunchtime, even if we're sitting at the same table together, we are not like engaged with each other. She's listening to a podcast or an audio book, I'm reading a book on my Kindle or listening to an audio book and we may be in the same presence of each other but we are totally not necessarily together if that makes sense. Sometimes I'm in my room, sometimes I'm doing chores but we definitely, that's the one meal that it's 100% independent because I need that 15 to 25 minutes of not being asked questions and not being talked to to be able to be a better mom and be a better homeschool mom and the teacher later in the day so that's something that we've done out of survival when she was younger and then after realizing how well it worked for us, we've been doing it for years now. School at the table or school all over the house, school all over the house in the car, outside, on the couch, in the bed, wherever. I mean, do we end up at a table at some point? Normally, but do we do the majority of our schoolwork here? No, we're all over the place. Wherever it gets done, it gets done. Take summers off or school year-round. We definitely school year-round. We're more relaxed in the summers and even in the winters if we're being honest but we school year-round and the reason we school year-round is because I live in Florida and it is hot and summers are measurable so we might as well school through them anyway and I like the ability to take off weeks that are dead when other kids are in school and we can just relax or go to the beach or go to Disney or go wherever and it's not busy because they're in school and I like being able to be like, hey, we're not feeling it today so we're not gonna do school today and not feel like we're gonna be behind or feel guilty about it so that's the main reason that we school year-round. And the last one is a fantastic one. Would you rather mummify a chicken or dissect a frog? I'm sorry, that's hilarious to me. Hmm, probably dissect a frog. I really, really want to dissect. Like I took human anatomy and physiology in college as one of my labs just because I like the idea of it. We've done like owl pellets and a worm, I think maybe a cricket in our home school so far. Emily's not necessarily keen of the idea of dissecting but once she tells me like, hey mom, I'm ready to dissect, I'm all in. I think it's fun. I think it's a great way to learn more. Yeah, so I would dissect a frog and a heartbeat. I hope you guys enjoyed learning more about me and now I can't wait to learn more about you. So again, if you are participating in this video with us in the series, make sure you check out the link in the description box to get the questions and the schedule and all of the details. And if you want to participate but you're not on YouTube, just make sure you follow Abby or I on social media and you can grab that template and participate on social media instead.