These days homeschooling is becoming more and more commonplace. A good support group is as good as it gets. We don’t trouble our families with a million bake sales, fundraisers, booster sales and more. If you have a homeschooler in your family you get off EASY! With the holiday season approaching many of us have decided to throw caution to the wind and tell you and our friends and family what you should REALLY give a homeschool mom for Christmas! I polled several different groups of my homeschool friends and here are their answers…….
TOP 3 GIFT IDEAS:
Subscriptions/memberships/gift cards. This actually counts as a gift for both mom and kid. Homeschooling can be expensive! Gift her with a zoo or museum membership. We homeschool mamas LOVE teaching using real life experiences. Gift cards from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or an office supply store is always a PLUS! We *do* have to pay for our own school supplies, books and curriculum.
A day off…..ALONE!! No, totally not joking here. I did say alone--completely alone. We don’t even want to be around other homeschool moms or humans alone. As in being able to go to the bathroom in peace, drink our coffee or tea while it is hot, not recite cute Math jingles stuck in our heads, grade an endless mound of papers, discipline the 9 year old, hold our children’s very future in our hands (Oh my gosh! Am I doing it right?!), feed the dog, cook 3 meals AND clean the house. Then go from “teacher mode” to “mom mode” to “wife mode” all in about 1.2 seconds flat….and don’t forget to SMILE!!
Bookshelves. Most homeschoolers nearly own their own libraries and just in case somebody gets #1, we need a place for all those shiny new books, supplies and educational games. We also need ORDER (see gift idea #2 for why).
There were several gift ideas that deserved honorable mention….we homeschool moms sometimes have our own twisted sense of humor.
Copy machine and tech support. No, not just ANY copy machine—we need a workhorse of a copy machine. You know, like the “real schools” have? Tech support because we are constantly jamming the one that we do have. Or running out of ink…in which case the next gift would work just fine!
Lifetime supply of copy ink. Yup. We homeschool moms like to be frugal with the workbooks but drop large wads of cash on printer ink and new copy machines that promise the world and don’t deliver it. Which leads me to the next request…
Stock in Expo markers. Not only would a HUGE supply be nice, but actual stock in the company. Everyone knows it’s not a “real homeschool” without a giant dry erase board. We could start an awesome hashtag like #dryerasemarkersmakemesmarter and watch the stock soar!!
Cooperation and enthusiasm. No, we don’t need our kids to be the Duggar’s but we sure could use a little help sometime. Collectively groaning or sighing every time we say things like, “it’s time for Math guys” or “why yes, a trip to the beach can be educational!” is totally not necessary. A note to our children: please keep in mind that it is from OUR side of the family that your snarkiness comes from.
There you have it!! Show the homeschool mama in your life that you love her and are rooting for her!
