A bit about Tammy

I grew up in Northern California, spending as much time as possible in the redwood forests, at the beach or curled up with a book. Almost all off my school years were in Christian schools, including university. My first job was teaching kindergarten. I quickly realized I had found my niche!

Several years later, our first son, Tobin, was born and I became a stay-at-home mom. When he was four, I was able to hone my teaching skills in a small school we began in our home. Most years our little school was a kindergarten/first grade arrangement. However, when our second child, Megan, turned five, we found ourselves with a multi-age group reaching all the way up to age twelve!

Unit studies and hands-on learning became a central part of our homeschool. Book making, which began in my school teaching day with simple books, was elaborated on with my own children in the form of Lap Books and more! As Tobin finished his homeschool journey, I am delighted to look back over all the meaningful books we read, stories he wrote, projects, models, dioramas, activities and plays he has worked on. His retention level is very high, and I believe it is due to the child-friendly techniques we used. I am thoroughly glad Megan is coming along the same path in her own way, since she is a child for whom creating and producing is very important.

At present, our family lives in the countryside of Virginia where my husband, Mike and I run Tobin’s Lab: Hands-on Science for Families. We travel to conference helping parents with science and, of course, showing them how to make books with their kids! Our oldest, Tobin, is studying at Patrick Henry College. Our daughter, Megan, continues with sixth grade at home.

A Bit about Cyndy Regeling

I am often humbly amazed at how God charts my path with a higher purpose in mind than I ever imagined. When I was accepted in teacher’s college at York University, Toronto  in 1984, I envisioned a teaching career that would allow me to impact hundreds of young lives. Little did I know that the teaching techniques to which I was exposed, would be instrumental in how I would educate my own sons!

Whatever education trend is popular at a particular time becomes the method in which young, idealistic teachers-in-training are taught. During the 80’s “whole language” was the buzz word in the education field. This method included story-telling, book making and exposing children to lots of print. The children were expected to “absorb” language through exposure. Another popular technique was “active learning”-- really just another term for unit studies. As student teachers we learned how to plan our own unit studies over and over again. I thought these were great! When I began teaching in Christian schools north of Toronto, Ontario, I quickly learned that in a large class setting these methods were not always effective. I learned to blend them with more conventional methods for a more manageable approach.

A few years into my teaching career our first son, Kyle, was born and I became a stay-at-home mom. Three years later he was joined by our second son, Hayden. By the time little Luke was born in 1994, we were faced with the decision of where to send Kyle to school. After considering the options, we chose to give homeschooling a try. We have never looked back!

In deciding how to teach Kyle I chose to return to my lessons from teacher’s college.  Though I found the unit studies and whole language approach difficult to implement in a class setting, they were ideally suited to our homeschool. Unit studies became the way our boys studied the world around them. Sometimes I chose the topics, sometimes they did.  Whatever we studied, we made it hands-on and fun. One aspect of the whole language approach we drew upon was the book-making process. By packaging the boys’ written material in a variety of homemade books I was able to build pride in their work and their writing ability.  They created wonderful stories, poetry anthologies and research projects. These were turned into hardcover published books, stick books and plenty of lap books! As they are getting older, the boys still love to peek through their early home-made books and projects. They are priceless treasures they will proudly show their own children, I’m sure!

At this time, my husband Harry and I live on an acreage north of Toronto, Ontario in Canada. Kyle is wrapping up highschool, Hayden is getting ready to begin highschool and Luke is busy keeping up with his brothers. We are grateful that our homeschooling journey continues, but other things are added to our family agenda. Hockey, snowmobiling, skiing, camping and dirt biking are things which dominate this manly household. As mom, I keep everyone clean, fed and bandaged!

Cyndy has written a few books on her own. Click here to see here collection.

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