Hang Out with This Homeschool Mom of 8 ║ School Week 5 │ ACE Curriculum

[@bobtinklesnews]

When she brought him the apple I lost it 😂 so sweet!

[@susanrobinson408]

Your children are such a joy! They are all so well behaved and sweet.

[@mallorycandace]

Sophia bringing him a real apple was so funny and sweet. I could tell he didn't find it as funny as I did! Haha

[@lanarose3783]

I have Systemic Lupus , Fibromyalgia, and Epilepsy really bad . I have to get surgery soon and I've been put on bed rest . Your videos always brighten my day . You are such a loving , compassionate, hard working , and wonderful mom . We truly need more people with hearts like yours in this world . The way you raise your children is amazing ! Not only are they going to be extremely intelligent but also have such kind hearts . I love that Christ plays an important role in your family . Thank you for sharing a piece of your heart with us . Love your channel and will continue to share it ! Have a happy day 💜

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Thank you, Lana, for all your encouraging words and I pray your surgery goes well!

[@mollygrant7535]

YES! I am early, (for once ._.) just want to say how happy you make me feel uploading about your family! There all so great, and there all going to go far in life!

[@jendouble3626]

Love this window into your world and love that Tom is a romantic sweetie pie. Love Claudia crawling with the sucker and knocking it on the ground. Great Job to the Mills family for one more successful week!

[@PotawatomiProud]

You have the coolest ideas, love all your kids.

[@aurie6895]

Aww Judah(?) was so good with Claudia and so patient! I love your videos, I'm going into teaching (internship starts on Tuesday! 😬) and they are giving me so many ideas!

[@valerienagel5882]

Asher is so sweet towards Claudia!

[@4SensFan4]

I'm new to your channel! Just wanted to say how sweet all your kids seem. Keep up the awesome work. :) God Bless

[@InHimAlone]

Another good video! You always seem to have good solutions to and discipline/character problems. It is very helpful for me, as we deal with the same stuff! I would love a video of you sharing any creative discipline you have for your kids. You have the privilege system, chore system, and the character of the week. Do these work well for behavior issues, or do you do other things like time-out, extra chores, immediately losing a privilege, etc? I am thinking mainly about bad attitudes with kids old enough to know better and bickering among siblings. Asher always makes me laugh when he is trying to be serious. He has his stare down good. My second-born tries the same thing, but he is younger and not as practiced, haha.

[@Naamy19X9]

Yes! Always look forward to your videos. Let me watch :)

[@Naamy19X9]

Wish it was longer. Truly enjoyed it.

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

I must not have shot as much footage that week. I was surprised by how short it turned out.

[@Trendywendy10]

that was so cute and kind of Sophia to get the apple for Solomon! Eden seems so sweet and considerate!

[@Trendywendy10]

also do you have any tips for picky eaters my two year old refuses to eat so many foods! wary of going down the route of discipline actions ( I use the bold step/time out method)

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

In our experience, some kids are more willing to try new foods than others and if they fall into the "unwilling" it only gets worse if you try to use force. We just don't make a big deal out of it. I'm not going to make a separate dinner for someone, but I'm not going to force them to eat the one I did make. No one starved from missing one meal! We try to encourage them to try something in a subtle way and if they do try it we make a big thing about how grown up they are. We tell them how you can tell they're growing up when they are brave to try new things because that's what grown-ups do. (Or for a 2 year old it's more like, "Look what a big girl you are eating the _______!" Once they are around 5 and have more self-control, we make them start trying two bites of things they don't like. I try to make sure that each meal has at least one thing that the picky eater will like.

[@Trendywendy10]

Andrea Mills thank you so much for your reply. That's what I was thinking, my little girl is quite stubborn and the more I tried to get her to eat the more she said no...so I have developed a more relaxed approach, though in saying that she is an only child so I usually end up making her what she will eat ( which is an extremely limited selection of plain food). thanks

[@ecmomma]

Your kids are so diligent at starting early! Being sick with this pregnancy we sometimes don't start till almost 10:00. And if I didn't make my kids they wouldn't even start then!

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Some of my kids are very diligent about that, some aren't. Sometimes Solomon and I don't sit down together till after lunch. It sounds to me like you are actually doing really good!

[@burkenshaw]

I've seriously been waiting for this since the last one!! I wish it was closer to an hour like the others. Now countdown to the next one haha

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

I must not have shot as much footage that week. I was surprised by how short it turned out.

[@burkenshaw]

Loved it anyways!!

[@SuperShakes10]

Love the videos your family is so cute x would like to learn more about the older boys as I have a son age 15 (16 in March) and a daughter age 9 at the end of no lots of love from Ireland

[@SuperShakes10]

Lol end of November !!!!

[@volition51]

You took the wall out!!! When did this happen? Looks great!!!!

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

We took it out last spring sometime. It's been so nice having it gone!

[@wandagreene21]

Andrea, I would love to home school my kids, but I so afraid that I will not be able to do it and will hold the kids back. They are all good students, and a couple of them are advanced. They have all requested that they be home schooled, especially the 13 year old who is in the eighth grade. I wish I could talk to you more about how to get started.

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Hi Wanda. I dealt with some of those thoughts myself. One day it occurred to me that King David in the Old Testament didn't spend a single day in King School. He spent his days going about his father's business tending sheep. Yet he was perfectly capable of doing the important job God had for him when the time came. I realized that God gave me the children He did because he knew that- with all my strengths and weaknesses- I was the the right mother to raise them. It also seemed to me that families were designed to work, play and learn together. While it's not necessarily bad to send your children away every day, it's also not exactly natural and something that has only been done on a mass scale in fairly recent history. We're taught to revere wealth and honor so we feel inadequate guiding our children to the best path for achieving that. But what if we have a different dream- one of guiding our children to love the little things in life, to be happy in family life, to work hard, to be humble, to put others above ourselves? That's something that any mother can teach her children. It also occurred to me that no matter who oversees a child's academic education, it's always done through some sort of material like textbooks, video, etc. We all have access to those. I'm pretty rusty myself with algebra (maybe because it's not something particularly relevant to the average life?) but I'm perfectly capable of looking at the textbook and figuring it out to help my child. If I wasn't I could always find someone to help us. Therein lies the difference between homeschooling and conventional schooling- one hires out all of the work to a teacher, the other does it herself and only hires out the things that she really needs to. Either choice is valid (well, when we are paying for it ourselves, anyway) but for me, I like doing things myself. I like ACE Curriculum because my children are so independent with their work and I don't have to plan lessons. If you are interested in checking it out, ACE has a free diagnostic test on their homepage that will tell you exactly what you need to order for each child. www.schooloftomorrow.com (I'm not affiliated with ACE in any way other than as a customer, just in case you wonder.) If you haven't seen it, here is a link to a video that I did talking about the curriculum, ordering, etc. :kzbin.info/www/bejne/moWZhGqvaNF7bZo&lc=z13sjblrusruebv3h23ejfjw4wagw5zfu Each state has it's own laws regarding homeschooling and how you notify the school district that you are going to homeschool. Homeschool Legal Defense Association has state-by-state information on that and you can ask them questions. www.hslda.com

[@wandagreene21]

Hi Andrea, Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. I will check on ACE Curriculum. I had already been thinking of it since this is what you use and you seem to be satisfied with it. I feel that you are right about teaching your children at home. You can better control their outside influence. We live in such crazy time with so many bad influences and children are so vulnerable. I know that you have to abide by your own state laws. I called the superintendents office about home schooling back in the summer before school started to ask where I could get the supplies. They told me that they did not offer that information and that they did not recommend that I take that route. The children would not be allowed back in the same grade they are in unless they had completed the same curriculum and were proficient in it and they would be tested. They actually scared me off. One of our biggest problems is the school is at least 10 miles from our home and the kids have to get up at 5:00 am in order to get dressed and eat and catch the bus by 6:10 am. Since school doesn't start until 8:25 am I feel that they have wasted at least 3 hours of study time just dealing with the bus ride alone not to mention the time they have to wait their turn in class for the teachers attention. Another problem is our little 6 year old boy has a heart condition and takes medication for it. I give his medicine at bedtime so I don't have to worry whether he is getting the medication or not. For some reason that I have not been able to determine he has gone from no episodes for the past two years to 4 in the 4 months. Each episode requires a trip to the hospital with Ekgs and IV medication to cardiovert him. He said he told his teacher and she told him to go sit down and rest. I gave her and the school nurse written instructions about what to do in case he had a problem. He knows when he is having a problem and without fail he always tells me. He has a very sweet teacher and I don't blame her. She has a lot of students and this is a lot to ask of her but this is a very serious thing and he dealt with it all day on his on. She did not even send him to the nurse. While I do not want to over protect him, this was very frightening to him and to me.

[@juliehill320]

It’s common at least in my house people bicker when they have to clean 🧼.

[@ashleyklug4538]

hello! found your channel by way of looking up room decorations for boys. I have a question regarding ACE. I have a masters degree in higher education administration and I'm wondering - as your oldest son moves toward being college aged, what opportunities exist within the ACE curriculum that allow him to practice research? certainly, this would be a necessary skill to have when entering an institution of higher learning. and please understand that I'm not criticizing ACE; I'm just really curious to learn about it. thanks so much! you have a beautiful family!

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Research papers are part of the English curriculum in high school.

[@ashleyklug4538]

Andrea Mills thanks so much for filling me in!

[@drummerlovesbookworm9738]

Do you hire out as a family-chaos-repair consultant? Come spend a few weeks with us and fix things? :-) xoj (The best cleaning music is vintage Motown stuff. You need some foot-tappin' energy tunes! LOL!)

[@calebhenning686]

Why do they wear shoes inside? Doesn't that track dirt onto the floors and furniture? Are they indoor only shoes?

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

We wear shoes from the time we get dressed till we go to bed. (Well, except for the little ones. They haven't got into the habit yet.) In winter if the kids are going to play in the snow, they change into snow boots; otherwise we wear the same shoes inside and outside. My grandparents ran a restaurant, propane business and a motel when my mom was growing up. The motel office was part of their house, so home was business for my mom. My grandparents taught their kids to "dress to shoes" in the morning and that's what my mom passed on to me. I find keeping shoes on helps us be more productive; I guess it keeps us in "work" mode. It would be weird to take your shoes off at school or the office. Our house is our productive place. Of course, if we go to someone's house who has the custom of taking shoes off inside, we take them off.

[@calebhenning686]

Makes good sense I suppose. If your home is your school and work, then you ought to be dressed the part. Thanks for the reply.

[@joysmith8245]

That's lovely , love your vlogs , can you do a cooking one please x

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

I plan to devote a month to cooking videos at some point in the future. I've been shooting things here and there so when the times comes I can edit them and put them all up.

[@mrsadept]

I am also interested in the cooking video's too. :o)

[@akaciapaine3469]

Hi Andrea I find your videos fantastic. I am only 13 yrs old ! 😀💗

[@maryzogbi3461]

I love your guys' problem-solving skills! I'm a freshman in college and you guys have given me inspiration for my classroom and possible family in the future! Just curious, what are your family's thoughts on adoption?

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

While it's not something we've ever looked into for ourselves, I think it's a wonderful thing to do. We have friends who hoped to adopt and have found it much more difficult to do than they anticipated, which is unfortunate.

[@sourapple3059]

Is Thomas in pre algebra? Or in advanced math like algebra or geometry because I'm in 6th grade and in pre algebra and was just wondering because no 8th graders are in pre algebra in my school..

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Thomas is in 9th grade and Algebra 1. How that translates to another school's curriculum I don't know.

[@amyz1502]

Does your eldest child have many opportunities to meet other kids his age?

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

He's got several friends he sees throughout the week. He also goes out most Friday nights to play Magic with a big group of guys. I don't follow him around much with the camera.

[@Advent397]

How do you work out when some of the children can skip school for a day ?

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

Before the school year I plan out our schedule for the year including when we'll be taking days off. I make cards for the kids to plan their daily school work (sort of like a planner) and I gray out the days we'll be taking off for holidays and I use light gray on optional days like someone's birthday. On the optional days, they can take the day off if they feel they have enough work to get on privilege. (Our privilege system is one of the ways we make sure each child is getting enough work done during any given week to complete everything by the end of the year.)

[@Advent397]

Andrea Mills Thank you Andrea. You are so organised !

[@momof6931]

❤️

[@justicesmith1904]

Are the girls not allowed to wear pants?

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

They wear jeans about 1/3 of the time (although we think dresses are very pretty and feminine.) I thought I'd show you Eden's jeans somewhere in this video, but as I skimmed through it I saw that she must've chosen to wear her denim skirt on any of the days she couldn've worn jeans.

[@juuzousuzuya6896]

Haha, Naruto music!!! hahaha lol

[@LifeByJen]

Does Thomas ever express any sadness or feeling isolated from his siblings since he is alone in the store most of the day? I was also thinking he seems a little shy and just might not like being filmed too. Your new cleaning system looks like it's working well. Great idea and such relaxing music!!!

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

He's in and out all day long because he scores his work in the living room like the other kids. He comes in every 10-15 minutes probably (not counting break times, lunch, chore time, etc.) I think I just film him less because he doesn't need me as much. Most of my video clips dome from the hour I spend with Solomon. The rest of the day I try to remember to grab the camera once in awhile and get some footage. Thomas definitely isn't shy, but he probably is underrepresented in the videos!

[@joysmith8245]

Would you like more children x

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

We'd be happy to have more children!

[@foilole4575]

Very nice children but do they ever interact with other children? Seem kinda sheltered

[@TheMillsFamilyVlog]

You must be new to our channel. Yes, they have lots of friends.