Homeschooling would be enjoyable and easy if that’s all a mom had to do! But there’s often pre-school children or babies who need care, laundry that never stops, meal prep and clean-up, and a myriad of other household tasks that can’t be ignored for long. Just homeschooling a few children is a big task in and of itself, involving choosing the right curriculum, teaching daily, grading assignments and tests, answering questions, and helping each child make daily progress.
Meet Andrea
Andrea Mills understands all this – she’s a mom of several children, living in Wyoming. I’ll cut to the chase and reveal that she has found that the ACE PACES work great for them! She appreciates:
- All her children are able work at their own grade level – independently
- She is able to deal with the needs and demands of her little ones at the same time the older ones are schooling
- She is confident that children are getting continuity in the academics from year to year and won’t end up with gaps in their learning
Like many Millennials and young moms, she finds herself searching YouTube when she has questions or is looking for ideas. She found very little content to encourage and support families who use the ACE PACES and so she determined to start a channel and gradually add videos with ideas and tips that she has found work for her.
Andrea’s background with PACES
Andrea is not new to PACES. When she was a student she was in an ACE school and used PACES for 3rd grade through graduation from high school. After high school she was told by others that she had received a “lesser education” since she had done PACES, so she was hesitant to go to college. However, when she did go, she out-performed her peers and earned some academic scholarships.
After she was married, she and her husband went through the required ACE training in Texas to be the school administrators and worked in an ACE school for a few years. So she’s been working with ACE as a student for many years, then as a school supervisor, and now a homeschooling mom.
Speaking of being a mom – Andrea has 9 children. She started a YouTube channel (“I’ve Got 8 Kids and I’m Not Afraid”) to post video blogs with “hacks” or tips she’s found helpful for running a large family. Some of her playlists include menu planning, household organization, do-it-yourself projects, and even theology! But the videos I want to draw to your attention are the 20+ about homeschooling with ACE. Here are links to a few of my favorite episodes that I would recommend you check out:
- Scorekey Organization idea
- Making study carrels for students
- An average day homeschooling with ACE
- Her review of Accelerated Christian Education – this is her most watched video and also her longest (36 minutes) and it is the one she directed me to in order to introduce herself and answer most of the questions I had
I think of Andrea’s videos as a combination of a mom’s blog and Pinterest ideas – but all in video format. She says she just uses a small Canon camera and then the inexpensive Corel video editing software (http://www.videostudiopro.com/en/) to edit it a little before posting. I am discovering that more and more folks (especially Millenials) are using YouTube instead of Google to look up topics, so it is valuable to have some good content supportive of ACE being put on YouTube regularly.
As with any blog or Pinterest page, you probably will not like all the ideas nor feel they all are a good match for you, but viewing her videos may get your creativity going to try something new this school year. Talking with Andrea on the phone, I very much felt that she is wanting to be a help and blessing to others, not at all wanting to communicate that she is the perfect homeschool mom who has it all together!
I like Andrea’s videos about Accelerated Christian Education curriculum for these five reasons:
- She’s been on both sides of the desk now, using PACES for many years
- She is positive and encouraging about using the ACE curriculum
- She knows how the PACES should be used correctly and gives ideas for following ACE’s recommended rules while adapting them to homeschooling
- She is populating the YouTube platform with some good ACE support
- New users to ACE for homeschooling can easily identify with her
Sad update . . . Andrea passed in the presence of her Savior in August, 2019, after a very short battle with aggressive cancer. Her friendship and contributions to the homeschool community are missed, but not as much as the grief experienced by her husband Tom, and 9 children.
Mills family – July 2019