About Us

About the author and inventor, Renee Ellison

Mrs. Ellison has more than 30 years of experience in the field of education—in Christian, private, secular, and home school settings. She home educated for nearly 20 years. Renee taught nearly all grade levels, was an elementary principal, head of a high school English department, was awarded Teacher of the Year, developed and ran gifted and talented programs, has conducted numerous teacher training workshops, and offers one-on-one mentoring of younger moms.  Check out her Homeschool How-Tos YouTube channel.

Click here to listen to a full-hour interview with Renee about how she got involved in this, and her thoughts about many homeschooling topics.

 

Renee has invented a system for learning how to touch-type that has been sold worldwide, as has her similar system for learning how to play the piano and a phonics program that helps a child get on the reading bus much earlier and way easier. As a Bible-believing home-schooling mom, she delights in using her professional academic background to help others teach and train more effectively at home. Renee and her husband are the parents of a grown child here (more in heaven), and work together to create homeschool how-tos and make them available to you.

 

What is distinctive about our products?

(1.) Our products help you to cross over from inability to ability, from a slow way to accomplish something to a fast way, from inefficiency to efficiency, from sluggish left brain techniques to hyper-drive right-brain freeways—and from inferior products to superior ones for your health and exercise.

(2.) We are impelled and enabled by the power of what Messiah accomplished by His death and resurrection. (Read our statement of beliefs.)

(3.) Renee always has you, the person who is facing a challenge in some area of homeschooling, in her sights when she is using her inquisitive mind to develop materials and teach other moms. What thrills us most is to find that our materials have helped you to not reinvent the wheel. (Read what our customers have told us.)

Our objective at Homeschool How-Tos is to make a homeschooler's life easier, more productive, and happier, through tying in with the way the Creator designed us and the purposes for which He set us here.  This is attained by combining theory and application so that we all can produce good works--for the glory of God.

Workshops Offered by Renee Ellison

1. Teach Phonics Faster
A look at WHY we sit 24th in the world in reading test scores.
A look into a child’s perspective on the job of decoding.
And a look at how to employ some powerful learning hooks to initially get a child up and on the “reading bus” faster than we have ever done it before.

2. Twelve Optimal Ways to Trigger the Brain—with any subject matter
Discover the fastest route and the shortest distance for mastering new information. Innovative, jaw-dropping methods useful for any home educator. Tips that even teachers wish they had learned in their education majors, but didn’t. Come learn simple teacher secrets gained only by years and years of experience in the trenches with children who “don’t get it.” Just watch—you’ll be so fired up about gaining this bag of tricks, you’ll start using them tomorrow.

3. Top-Notch Home Management Strategies
Super tips you wish a whole string of grandmothers had passed down to you. Scores of techniques to make getting through your school day and home life easier, more productive, and happier. Save time~~save energy~~reduce stress.

4. Conquer Academics Faster
Shave months and years off from academic sludge by using these clever strategies to “cut to the chase.” Cut corners, cut cluelessness, cut confusion—replace them all with awesome “aha’s” in subject area after subject area. These trump academic drudgery. Renee developed and employed these new “academic-lasers” to advance numerous children several grade levels within a matter of months. These strategies work like nothin’ you’ve ever seen. You’ll go forth happily empowered. Teach Phonics Faster ~~ Teach Math Faster ~~ Teach Grammar Faster

5. How to TRAIN Your Children, Not Just DISCIPLINE Them
Mom, here are practical, loving, nurturing discipline strategies that work. How to run ahead of your children in training them for the next time, not just getting rid of your current irritation. No monkey business! No ho-hum theory here—just teacher-proven, time-tested techniques used with scores of children at the worst times of the day in the worst settings, with happy results.

6. Homeschooling Burnout: Its causes and cures
Are you bogged down? Burned out? Do you have a worn-out spirit? Don’t care anymore? Can’t face another day? Does the daily grind now supersede your once high-held vision of educating your own children? You’re not alone. Many have faced burnout. In fact, educators in general are one of the highest classes of people to experience burnout. We will identify the warning signs, and then consider strategies for pulling you and your children out and up. Dynamite strategies to avoid ever burning out…or ways to crawl out, if you’re already there.

7. Homeschooling a Resistant Child: Diagnosis and strategies
Are daily battles with one or more resistant children over academics wearing you out? Often, a child will seem quite agreeable until you try to teach him or her something. Then the body language kicks up, sour expressions emerge, stubbornness sets in, and a general pathetic weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth begins. Chronic resistance to academics means something. We need to get at root causes in order to turn this daily duel into progressive energy that will result in a pleasant lifetime eagerness to learn.

There are basically nine reasons for academic resistance. If you can successfully target which one you’re dealing with, you’ll be able to achieve some pretty wonderful results. You’ll have the joy of seeing the resistance melt away.

8. The Two Most Common Homeschooling Academic Pitfalls—and How to Avoid Them
A growing number of homeschoolers are facing one or the other of two extremes. Many are not schooling at all…unschooling…letting lots of other things take priority…not tending to business…finding it difficult to be disciplined in the area of academics. On the other end are some who are making academics their god—forcing their children to study works by ungodly individuals (just because they’re in vogue) and obsessing about achievement and traditional formal college routes…not caring if these academics are Christian-based or not. The objective of this workshop is to help you find your balance; how to avoid the two major pitfalls of home education.

Mom, come to this workshop to learn how to know if you’re in academic idolatry or falling short in the fundamentals of home education. Find out what the normal pursuit of general knowledge is not good for, and examine the marks of a truly Biblical education.

9. Just Starting to Homeschool?  Spiritual, social, academic and personal advantages
Mom, let’s take a look at the fundamental reasons why you want to homeschool. We will consider what home schooling does for your child spiritually, academically, and socially, and its benefits for you as the parent (and the challenges you can expect to face). This workshop will buttress your personal resolve to either start homeschooling or to continue homeschooling with deeper conviction, and will also give you excellent fodder to answer all those naysayers among your relatives and friends.

“What am I doing? I am laboring on a deep quiet work that will have a big impact in just a few years. I am spending a lot of time now purchasing uncommon heart rest for later. I’m big on delayed gratification and tending to business. I look forward to looking back upon a well-groomed field that yields a burgeoning relational harvest. I’m hurling my small weight vigorously into this project of raising godly seed. I’m sticking my finger in the hole in the dike that threatens my field, and here I take my stand.”

10. The Power of a Focused Mother
You can spot the difference in the children of a focused mother a mile off! Today’s mothers are distracted by many “noble” uses of their time. But while she is preoccupied, her children are the silent losers. These losses are deep and irretrievable. We’ll show you have to raise your conviction and sharpen your aim, so that your children will end up a cut above the pack. The impact of focused motherhood is huge and blessed. Mom, come to this one to see how your influence is more than you know.

11. Wise Womanly Secrets to Growing Your Marriage
Women, learn how your godly ways can make a world of difference in any home. Discover the secret tools God gave to a woman to promote harmony and achieve good conflict resolution. With divorce at epidemic highs, this workshop is a must. Taught by a seasoned older Titus 2 wife, who began as an apple-pickin’ daughter of Eve!

12. How to Raise a Holy Child
Moms, learn these tips for how to cultivate a lasting love of the Bible in your children. Six ways to pour the love of God’s Word into your children, and have them still want more. For elementary and up.

13. No Nonsense Nutrition and Health: Turbo-charged practical helps
How would your car perform with ice cream in its gas tank? Give your loved ones the best fuel possible. Optimum nutrition can correct misfiring in the brain that leads to hyperactivity or sluggish mental response. Learn nuggets of nutritional know-how that’ll make your family healthier.

Many moms simply don’t have the time to read the hundreds of health books out there to find out how to feed their families optimally. Yet, an entire family’s health can hang on the choices that mom makes in the kitchen. The more knowledgeable she is about food, the better they feel. We have tried to package the best of the ideas about nutrition in this workshop, so moms can quickly learn some key facts about food that make such a dramatic health difference. You can quickly learn the key facts about food that make such a dramatic health difference. This workshop will help you as a busy mom feed your family much better than you ever thought possible.

14. The Story of J. S. Bach
This inspiring workshop includes little known facts and musical samples of J. S. Bach—one of the godliest heroes of all time. The father of twenty children, Bach was a devoted family man, teaching his children and composing music for them which millions of classical music lovers enjoy today. You’ll fall more in love with his music as you learn more about his life’s passion: to do all for the glory of God.

15. Sure Financial Steps for Beginners
Tips for mending the holes and filling your wallet! ... for the fastest route to getting out of debt – even house mortgage debt! Powerful and do-able strategies to start gaining money instead of losing it. You’ll be so glad!

In this workshop, Renée focuses on the EMOTIONS of managing money: the rewards for yourself, the gumption it takes to get there, and how to manage your thoughts in the process. It is our hope that these principles laid out with this sort of emotional pungency will be the boot you need to get you across the line from financial chaos to solvency, and that they will, in fact, move you from having a hole in your pocket to having a full wallet.

16. Emergency Preparedness for Homeschooling Families
Practical and prudent details of preparations for difficult times. How to plan physically, spiritually and intellectually to put your family in a posture to profoundly help people.