Our Journey Through Gather 'Round 2020 Christmas Homeschool Unit

When we decided to spend 2021 traveling the country in our Airstream, I knew I needed to find a good homeschool program.

While Stella is still in her normal school, working virtually like her classmates, the boys are still young (five) and with them, we were starting from scratch.

Being the avid researcher that I am, I looked high and low on the internet to find a homeschool program that would work for us.

After a few weeks of research, the answer dropped right on my doorstep. Literally.

I had listed some of the boys’ old clothes on Facebook Marketplace when we were in our downsizing phase (you can read more about that here), and the mom who came by to pick them up asked why we were getting rid of so many things.

When I told her we were about to be a full-time travel family, she asked if I had ever heard of Gather ‘Round Homeschool. I hadn’t, but right after she left, I hopped on my laptop.

When I read the story of how Rebecca Spooner started Gather ‘Round, I knew I had found the answer to my homeschool dilemma.

Rebecca was homeschooled as a kid herself, and talks about how her mother schooled her many brothers and sisters without any issues. But when Rebecca herself set out to homeschool her own five children, she felt like she was spending her days as a “human pingpong ball,” just popping from one kid to the next, not really engaging with any of them.

Finally, she discovered that if she could teach all of her kids at once, and work from a curriculum that could be appropriate for any age but tweaked for different learning levels, she could save some sanity and teach her kids well in the process.

And this is what I love about business and entrepreneurship, y’all. Rebecca could have easily said to herself, “You know what, there are thousands of homeschool programs out there. Do I really need to add another to the noise?”

But when you take your unique problems and turn them into solutions, you don’t just help yourself, you can help dozens, hundreds, even thousands of people.

I’ve seen it time and time again with my course The Business Behind the Blooms, my book Sleeping with a Stranger, and every new project I work on or product I fall in love with.

And let me tell you, we have been loving Gather ‘Round.

We’ve even been doing her advent curriculum the past few weeks as we prepare for Christmas.

In our family, advent is a time of waiting with expectation to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. And although this curriculum is meant for kids, I find myself experiencing this advent season in a totally new way thanks to Gather ‘Round.

It feels more real to me than ever, and each morning we sit at our little dinette table and read scripture about what it was like for Mary to sit on a donkey at nine months pregnant, to be turned away from a safe space to rest and give birth, I have deeper gratitude and awe surrounding the Christmas story than I ever have before.

One day this past week, our daily activity was to read the book The Sparkle Box, which you can listen to on youtube here.

This story really helped my kids understand that to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, we can give him gifts, and that the Bible tells us: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

When we are kind to our neighbors, when we serve each other in love, we are giving Jesus good gifts.

Since reading the book, we’ve been looking for ways we can give Jesus gifts by serving and loving the people around us.

Christmas in an Airstream may be different that what we’re used to, but I’m so thankful for this new Gather ‘Round tradition.