Hi, I'm Brenda 

Hi! My name is Brenda Scott. I am so glad you are here! Here is a bit about me:

I have been homeschooling forever. :)

I’ve been married to my husband, Karry, for 24 years and we have five kids. I started attending homeschool conferences, buying all the books, and calling myself a homeschool mom when our oldest son, Isaac, was two years old. Isaac is 22 now! We were using Letter of the Week and Hands on Homeschooling in hospital rooms (instead of cartoons all day) when he was struggling to grow and on a feeding tube. (Note that Charlotte Mason recommends that formal schooling should not begin until a child is six years old. I didn't know that two decades ago!). 

Our three sons have graduated. Isaac is twenty-one now, healthy (praise God!), and is studying Gaming Design, Graphic Design and Studio Art at Liberty University. We had another son, Kaleb right after Isaac, and when we adopted our third son, Noah, they were 3, 2 and 1! Now they are 22, 21 and 20. Kaleb studies Songwriting and Business at Liberty, and Noah is a soldier in the U.S. army—something he said he has said he wanted to do since he was a little boy. Our years of homeschooling our boys are over.

We are not done homeschooling, though. We have two daughters left to homeschool: Ruby and Briella, who are 16 and 13. Ruby will be a junior next year, and Briella will be in the eighth grade. I look back on our time homeschooling our boys and realize how quickly it went. In this season of life, with three graduated sons, I see how amazing homeschooling is and how much I want to support and encourage others in this journey. It is worth it. Trust me!

If I could go back…There are, of course, some things I wish we would have changed in our homeschooling. When our boys were small, I did not know about Charlotte Mason’s methods, nor did I implement them in our homeschool. When I began to dig into CM’s ideas, I cried. I realized how freeing and beautiful it would have been to homeschool our kids this way when they were little. My husband encouraged me that I learned these things ”for such a time as this,” and that it is what I need to know now, for our girls. And, for the community I am leading in Lynchburg. I started the STAR community for our family and for everyone else who participates, and I have a vision that we will all have beautiful homeschool stories to tell in the future.

We have experienced many types of homeschool communities and learned the pros and cons of each. Over the years, we have participated in several kinds of co-ops and I have served as tutors and in a leadership capacity in multiple communities. I have seen what worked and what could have been improved upon. We were in a Classical Conversations community for a couple of years (when our boys were in high school). I realized that I am not a huge fan of so much Latin, an intensely rigorous schedule for high school students, and memory work that lacks context. That community was like family to us, though. We had regular potlucks, mom’s nights, get-togethers and a yearly camping trip. Even the dads got to know each other. Our family is craving that kind of community experience again, but with a gentler educational approach.

I wanted a curriculum that worked for the whole family. My favorite moments, over our many years of homeschooling, were when my children were gathered around the living room or at the dining room table, doing school work all together. We all remember several of the books I read aloud and we look back on that time fondly. So many well-intentioned curriculums and communities divide the family. As soon as children are broken up into grades, like a public school, and assigned different materials for nearly all of their subjects, the family is divided. My heart is to create a one-room schoolhouse kind of atmosphere in homes across the nation (or possibly, the world!). Please do not spend your days on curriculum or in a community that divides your family any longer! If you have older children, they will be assigned independent work at their level--of course. But, mama, please  gather your children together to read aloud, in as many subjects as possible, for as long as you can. Please go on nature walks all together. Please look at the map together, and fill out a family timeline book all together. You will not regret this time. In fact, when your children have moved on to college, careers, homemaking or the army (wherever God calls them), you will miss this time, and possibly, you will wish you had more. Your children will gain more from this time together than from any other kind of education they could possibly get. 

God has been preparing me for this. My degree is in Culture, Literature and the Arts. Homeschooling made me realize how much I adore History, as well. I have been tweaking and designing curriculum for the last eighteen years! I keep detailed spreadsheets of books and other materials by time period, books I want my kids to read before graduation, etc., etc. God gave me a gift of administration and I really, really enjoy planning out homeschool curriculum. I also studied nutrition through the Nutritional Therapy Association, and we have a small farm and raise some of our own meat. Along with Bible, great literature, history, science, math, etc., I believe that survival skills rank up there as one of the best things we can teach our kids. In February 2020, I signed up for an online public speaking course. I knew God wanted to use my voice, but I did not know how. Would I speak about adoption, or nutrition, or homeschooling? He led me on this path to writing about and speaking about homeschooling, and I am so glad He did!

I love Jesus and I want students to memorize God’s Word. My Grandpa Warren taught me about Jesus and I trusted Jesus with my whole life when I was eight years old. My Grandpa memorized God’s Word and knew it well. Every time we went to our grandparents’ home, Grandpa had a new verse for us to memorize. He knew full passages of the Bible. He may have memorized entire books. Do you know what? Our families can memorize Scripture, even long passages, too. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we, together, raised up a generation of kids who know God’s Word by heart?

We haven’t always lived in Lynchburg, but this is HOME. We moved here from Oregon in January 2020. We praise God that He led us out of there when He did! Most of my extended family also left Oregon—a total of sixty-five people. Many of them ended up in Tennessee, but God had been paving a path for our family to move to Lynchburg. Oregon is beautiful, and we do miss friends and family who are still there, but we are home here. We are confident that it was the LORD who brought us here and we have been so delighted to be in this wonderful place in the world.

I had some experience leading a community of teachers and students. When we were in Oregon, I was a Class Coordinator for Christian Youth Theater. That means that I trained and worked alongside teachers, helped them pick out curriculum and managed the weekly class sessions and the Showcase event. I’m pretty sure that experience was a season of preparing for starting this community.

We have adopted three out of five of our kids and fostered eleven others. One last thing about us: we are an adoptive family and big advocates for adoption and foster care! After getting so many questions about how to adopt, I decided to write a book about it. It went live on Amazon the same day we moved to the Lynchburg area in January 2020! My book is titled: Adoption: your questions answered.

That was a lot about me, but I can’t wait to get to know you! I am happy to answer any questions you have. Feel free to email me at [email protected].