Montana's Homeschooling Journey
Meet Montana: four little girls, an immaculate dining table and a homeschool she genuinely loves
I think every homeschool mum needs a Montana in her life.
She’s warm, funny, thoughtful, completely devoted to her family and VERY Type A. I knew we were going to get along when I asked what her dining table currently looked like and she told me it was immaculate.
Not “pretty good considering we homeschool.” Immaculate.
The books for the week have their spot, the printouts are organised, the Bible study is in a folder and the little whiteboards are in their caddy.
“Clean space, clean mind,” she told me.
Okay Montana, I like you already.
She lives in Torquay with her husband and their three girls, aged six and a half, three and a half and two, with their fourth little girl currently on the way. Their life sounds like the best kind of full. There are parks, op shops, playdates, books in bed, French toast mornings and afternoons where her husband can be home building a motorbike with the girls.
By this point in our chat I was ready to plan a family holiday to their house because it sounds like an absolute blast. Also, cue my husband now being required to become her husband’s best mate.
There is a lot going on in their home in the loveliest possible way, and Montana wanted a homeschool program that gave her girls an incredible education without requiring her to spend hours creating it herself.
So settle in and enjoy my chat with Montana below.
A little more from our chat...
SHE WANTED SIMPLE, BUT SHE ALSO WANTED SERIOUSLY GOOD LEARNING
When Montana first started looking at curriculum, open-and-go was really appealing. She had little kids and wanted something she could confidently pick up and teach without spending her evenings finding extra projects, piecing subjects together and planning the entire week herself.
So initially she chose another program that was simple to use and covered the basics. After using it for a while, though, she realised she wanted more for her daughter.
In her own words: “I was bored, and she was bored.”
They were getting through the work, but Montana wanted the learning to have more life in it. She wanted her daughter learning about the world, making things, experimenting, moving, thinking and having those moments where something new completely grabs her.
She knew she could find extra resources and add all of that herself, but then the simplicity she had deliberately chosen starts disappearing pretty quickly.
With three little girls and another baby on the way, Montana already has a very full and beautiful life. She wanted to spend her time actually learning with her daughter rather than constantly hunting down what to teach her next.
THE FUNNY PART IS SHE NEARLY DIDN'T CHOOSE WONDER & WILD
When Montana was first deciding what curriculum to use, a friend showed her screenshots of the Wonder & WILD Parent Portal.
Our Parent Portal is JAM PACKED. There are resources, tools, videos and support in there to equip parents, explain how children learn, help you understand what you’re teaching and give you the confidence to make really good decisions for your own child.
Montana initially saw everything inside and thought it might mean a lot of planning for her. Then she joined. “It’s all planned for me. What was I thinking?”
I smiled so much when she said that because she’d got it. All that goodness in the Parent Portal is there to support and equip her, while the actual day-to-day learning has already been planned.
As Montana put it: “You literally plan day by day for me.”
Wonder & WILD also covers every single subject, so families don’t need to use us for a few subjects and then head off to find another maths program, another science curriculum or extra resources to fill the gaps. It’s all there, including the resources you need to actually do the learning.
That matters when you’re trying to give your children a rich education without turning Mum into a full-time curriculum coordinator.
Simple for the parent can still be seriously rich for the child.
Their homeschool feels completely different now. Montana lights up when she talks about what they’re learning.
They’ve been studying Ancient China and discovered the history of ice cream, so the ingredients went straight onto the shopping list, which is also already included in the program.
They’ve decoded hieroglyphs, done experiments and moved around the house finding real objects for maths. Montana isn’t standing on the sidelines handing out work either. She’s learning right alongside her daughter.
“I love that I’m involved and I’m learning as she’s learning.” Before, she said they could both feel like, Okay, let’s get it done.
Now it’s: “What do we do each day? When do we get to make the ice cream? When do we get to do this?”
There is serious learning underneath all that fun too. Her daughter is moving and manipulating things in maths so she can understand what numbers actually represent, she’s creating, experimenting, talking about ideas and getting opportunities to use what she knows.
As Montana said, she loves “getting her up and moving and getting her learning.”
This is exactly why the hands-on parts of Wonder & WILD are built into the education rather than sitting on a Pinterest board somewhere waiting for Mum to find time for them.
MONTANA FEELS MORE CONFIDENT TEACHING NOW TOO
One of the things that came through so clearly in our conversation was how much Montana herself has learned since starting Wonder & WILD.
The Parent Portal has helped her understand things she simply didn’t know before, even down to why the shape of a pencil can matter when a child is developing their grip.
At one point she said: “Now I feel like I have an idea... I could be a teacher.”
She was having a bit of fun with that, but what followed was really important. She feels supported, understands more about how her daughter learns and knows there’s research and thought behind what she’s doing.
“I know exactly what I’m doing now.”
That confidence changes the way she teaches. If her daughter already knows how to count to 20, Montana doesn’t need to keep repeating the same thing simply because there’s another page available. She can challenge her to count by twos or move forward. If something needs more time, they can stay there.
She knows her daughter, and now she has more of the educational understanding to go with that.
AND THEN THERE WAS THE WRITING
Montana sent me two pieces of her daughter’s writing from only a couple of weeks apart, and even her husband immediately noticed the difference.
The letter formation was changing, the spacing was changing and her daughter was becoming more capable of getting her own thoughts onto the page.
Montana called it “magic.”
There really is something special about watching those skills start clicking into place when you’ve been right beside your child as they’ve worked at them.
It’s also why we give children opportunities to actually write their own thoughts in Wonder & WILD. Writing asks a young brain to do a LOT at once. They’re holding onto an idea, choosing words, hearing sounds, remembering letters, forming them and trying to get the whole thing onto paper.
We can teach those skills and then give children room to use them.
Montana is watching that process unfold in her own daughter, and you can hear how proud she is.
HOMESCHOOLING HAS BROUGHT SOMETHING OUT IN MONTANA TOO
Montana told me she used to read for fun and write stories for fun, and homeschooling has started bringing some of that back out in her. She gets this pocket of the day where she sits beside her daughter and learns too.
“I’m learning, she’s learning.”
She’d always said she wasn’t a creative mum, but now she’s thinking about what they could make, what they could create and how she can make things special for the girls.
And apparently homeschooling has also confirmed that she is even MORE Type A than previously suspected.
She has lists, she has a weekly homeschool rhythm, and she loves Sunday-night planning in bed with her laptop, looking at the week ahead and printing what she needs.
Her homeschool rhythm is taken so seriously that when her husband recently suggested she needed some rest, their daughter informed him: “Daddy, that’s on Thursdays at nap time. It says on the homeschool rhythm.”
Mummy time made the schedule.
Between that and the motorbike building, I really am considering this family holiday.
SOME HOMESCHOOL DAYS ARE HARD TOO
Montana is wonderfully honest about real life. She can tell you how much she loves homeschooling and also tell you about a recent day where she thought: “I just need a hug and a cup of tea and a cry.”
She has three little children, she’s pregnant, she’s homeschooling and running a home. Some days flow beautifully and some absolutely do not.
She spoke about how much having a strong reason for homeschooling helps her on those harder days. Wonder & WILD takes so much of the educational guesswork off her plate. The learning is mapped, every subject is covered, the resources are included, the hands-on learning is built in and the parent support is there.
Then Montana gets to spend her energy where she actually wants it, with her girls.
WHAT DOES SHE HOPE HER GIRLS REMEMBER?
At the end of our conversation I asked Montana what she hopes her daughters will say about their childhood when they’re grown.
She hopes they remember that Mum and Dad were there. That they were present, watching and supporting them.
After hearing about their family life, that answer fits her perfectly.
There are books in bed and French toast, Dad building motorbikes with the girls, Mum decoding hieroglyphs beside her six-year-old, parks and playdates and op shops and little sisters everywhere.
There is loads of childhood happening in this house, and right in the middle of it there is a seriously good education happening too.
Montana wanted something manageable for her, but she also wanted richness, depth and learning that made her daughter curious about what was coming next. She wanted to know she was covering everything without spending her nights piecing it all together herself.
Now she describes what she’s seeing as “magic” and, when she talks about recommending Wonder & WILD to other parents, her advice is beautifully uncomplicated: “Go this one, please.” I promise I did not pay her to say that.
Montana, you are an absolute superstar mum. Your girls are being given a beautiful childhood, parents who are deeply present and a mum who has taken their education seriously enough to keep learning right alongside them.
I’m very glad Wonder & WILD gets to be part of it.
And yes, I’m still considering the family holiday.
Comments