#66: A Mother's Day Gift For You: Book Recommendations to Transform Your Mindset, Your Heart, and Your Homeschool

Embark on a journey of discovery and empowerment as Katie Berry, a beacon of inspiration, returns to our show to share her pearls of wisdom for homeschooling mothers. Delight in her transformative strategies for intertwining books into the fabric of a busy mom's life, and find solace in the pages that promise growth and wisdom. Together, we unveil the joys of incorporating reading into your daily rhythm, from the convenience of audiobooks during mundane tasks to the tranquility of printed stories in the stillness of the night.

As our episode reaches its thoughtful conclusion, we shine a light on curriculum choices and the pivotal role of continual parent learning. Experience literature-based curriculum that ignites curiosity and grow alongside your children, embracing Charlotte Mason's philosophy that elevates the role of the educated mother in the homeschooling voyage. As Mother's Day approaches, join us in honoring the remarkable dedication of homeschooling mothers and their profound impact on the tapestry of family life and education.

Book Recommendations (it did not let me link these :( but here are all the books we discussed):
Teaching From Rest
Brave Learner
Awakening Wonder
For the Children's Sake
A Pocket Full of Pinecones
Know and Tell
Educating the Whole Hearted Child
Mere Motherhood
Mrs Sharp's Traditions
Memory Making Mom

Katie's 1st episode- Episode #4
Episode with Pam Barnhill

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TreehouseSchoolhouse for your Spring Nature Study Curriculum- use promo code: THEHOMESCHOOLHOWTOPODCAST for 10% off entire order

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region, and should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with us today we have Katie Berry. Katie was on episode 4 on March 4th 2023, so over a year ago now. Katie, welcome back. Thanks, it's so fun to see you again.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Cheryl.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Oh, you were such a plethora of knowledge. Um, our your episode was titled curriculum curriculum how kids learn and what curriculum is best for you. You have had 1,498 downloads for that episode. That is one of my top five. People loved it, and you have also referred so many knowledgeable people to me to talk about other aspects of homeschooling. So thank you for that, because I think I pretty much got almost all of them on. But what you came on today, we wanted to do a little bit something special for mothers, because Mother's Day is right around the corner, and why don't I just shoot it over to you? What did you ask to come on today to talk about?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Well, I wanted to talk about books for homeschool mom encouragement. I've been a lifelong reader and as I entered the homeschooling world I have found I've read probably well. When I say read, I either listen to an audio book or I read in print. I've probably read over 50 books about homeschooling and it got to the point where I was feeling kind of like satiated and then I so I kind of made my top favorites and those are the ones I revisit again and again.

Speaker 2: 1:57

But I just felt like mothers are the heart of the home. They're the ones that are running the home, they're the ones that are making sure their kids are being taken care of and their families be being taken care of. And one of the ways that for me as a mother, for me to have something for myself, is reading, has become that I just I love reading, I love the stories and I love furthering my own knowledge and my own education, and that is something that I have cultivated for myself, and so I just encourage moms out there. If you're homeschooling, reading kind of goes along with that, and so if you're not a reader, it's okay. It's never too late to become one, and I just wanted to share a few tips on how to become a reader if you're not one, and my number one tip is audiobooks, audiobooks, audiobooks.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Yeah, that's for me Like I want to be a reader. I really do. But I have this problem where I fall asleep the minute I sit down to read a book or someone needs something, and I think, just because I wasn't like properly educated on how to read well and retain the knowledge that I that it carried with me that you know you read something and I read slow, and then I lose my train of thought because I'm thinking about laundry or whatever else I have to do that day. So audio books have been my saving grace.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Yes, and I will say audio books. I'm choosy with narrators and I also. If I listen to the first hour and I can't keep full attention, I abandon it, because I've just learned that non-fiction in particular, sometimes it's really interesting and it keeps my attention. Sometimes the book itself might have interesting information, but the way it's presented I just zone out, and so I will listen for an hour of an audiobook and if I can't get into it then I'll switch to print. But times you can listen to audiobooks For me, I listen while I'm making dinner, I listen while I'm folding laundry, while I'm grocery shopping, if I'm driving alone, just any of those little pockets of time when I'm doing something that frankly I don't want to be doing.

Speaker 2: 4:05

If I pair it with an audiobook, that thing feels more enjoyable. But it's also allowing me to read more. The other thing is that it's okay to plod your way through books If you have. If you only read two or three books a year for yourself, that's still two or three more that you wouldn't have read before. And it's totally okay if you read two or three pages a day if that's all you can do. For me, I find I do best reading books in print either early morning, before my kids wake up, or late at night, because in the early morning, if they're not awake yet, it gives me a little time to focus without the kids needing my attention. Or in the evening it's a little easier because you've kind of settled down for the day. All your to-do list tasks are done and you're winding down and my brain is calmer and I'm able to focus more. And so those are the times I read in print. Books is early morning or late at night.

Speaker 2: 4:52

I will also say that when I started homeschooling my youngest was eight months old and for the first couple years I really did only read maybe four books a year for myself. I started reading books to my children out loud that I wanted to read, so some of the children's classics like Secret Garden and things like that. So I was getting my reading with my children as I was reading to my children. But in the last two or three years, as my youngest has aged, I've had more time. So that's.

Speaker 2: 5:17

The other thing is there's ages and stages to your family rhythm and it's okay. If you're in a stage where most of your reading is done with your children, that's totally fine. But I do think that if you're homeschooling it's nice to have a few books for encouragement, because sometimes it can get monotonous or it can be hard and it's just great to have some wisdom to help you on your journey. And I really like the springtime and summertime to read homeschooling books, especially if you are someone that does a lighter summer or you're taking summer off. It gives you more time to kind of reinvigorate yourself for the fall.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Awesome. So what are the books that you do recommend and where do these come from? Like, how do you pick?

Speaker 2: 6:01

Oh man, um, so I've I've been homeschooling I'm just finishing our seventh year and so some have been recommended to me from other homeschool friends. Some I found on groups, um, some I've seen as recommendations, like I go on Amazon to buy a book and then it says other people have bought these ones, or um, on on Goodreads. I'm on Goodreads and I follow a lot of homeschooler friends on Goodreads and I will see what they're reading and then I add it to my to read list. So that's how I find them. The other thing is that a few books are written kind of by homeschooling social social media influencers and so you'll be able to see on their accounts if they come out with books and then I read those um, but really it's just kind of been a a smattering of places.

Speaker 2: 6:43

I found these and these have come out on top as my favorites, like I said. So I kind of broken them up into like encouragement books, some that are kind of like the how to homeschool. Like that's kind of funny, yours is the homeschool how to podcast, but how to get started, or kind of uh, processes, homeschooling. And then I had some bonus ones on kind of family culture.

Speaker 2: 7:08

So those are the categories that I'm going to share, so I'll just get started. I'll start with encouragement my hands down. My favorite one is teaching from rest. This is by Sarah McKenzie, um her, she has a podcast called read aloud revival. That's really popular and this is just a short. I think it's not even a hundred pages.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Read aloud revival that's really popular and this is just a short. I think it's not even 100 pages. Yeah, it's like 80 something pages and it's just very short. It's very Christian, just so you're aware of that, but it's just telling you how you can do it, and from a restful place, and I read this almost every summer as a refresher before we start our year, to remind myself that relationships are more important than than you know the curricula. Anyway. I just I love Teaching from Rest. That's probably my top one and I love, like I said, it's short, really, really short. So if you are in that stage of like you can only read one book a year, it's blissfully short and you can get through it. So I really love this one.

Speaker 2: 8:06

All right, another one that I don't have with me because I listened to it on audiobook, but is Brave Learner by Julie Bogart, and that one is a little bit of her journey with homeschooling and how she did it and her friend Susie, and inspiration Susie gave to Julie when they were homeschooling together in the 80s and 90s and I just really loved. She was kind of more unschooly and I just loved seeing how it can be done beautifully, how homeschooling and unschooling can be done in a very beautiful way that supports the individual and is messy and artistic and just. I loved Julie's Brave Learner. Julie herself is Christian but that book has no Christian material in it, so if you're a secular homeschooler you might like Brave Learner.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Okay, and I will put links to these in the show's description as well, so people can easily find them.

Speaker 2: 8:58

Yeah, great. And then I like to say that the Christian equivalent to Brave Learner is Awakening Wonder by Sally Clarkson. So Awakening Wonder is kind of the same thing. It's how you can homeschool your child and awaken that sense of wonder in them and the joy of learning Anyway. But it's written for more of a Christian viewpoint. So whenever I have somebody new to homeschooling I say okay, if you're more secular you might enjoy Brave Learner, if you are Christian you might enjoy Awakening Wonder. To me they're very similar in content, but one has Christian content and one doesn't, and both of those are just great, giving you like the big picture of what home education can look like.

Speaker 1: 9:39

I tell you, I mean, I've been interviewing people for over a year now and I think every with every interview my eyes open up even more. You know it started with okay, I'm gonna look into homeschooling. For these reasons you know, x, y and Z. That was my first episode. Actually. Should I homeschool my kids? And I gave the reasons why I wanted to and the reasons why I was afraid to, and a year and a half later I'm just like the reasons are still the same for why, but they've only expanded and into more things like, for example, just having that time to connect more with nature, with our food, and connection of our relationships with each other. It really is so I'm sure these books can only add to that.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yes, absolutely, and I know for me, when I started homeschooling I didn't know anybody else that homeschooled. I really jumped into that on my own, and you can listen to episode four if you want to hear more of that journey. So I really appreciated the wisdom of these homeschoolers that were doing it a generation before me and learning from their experiences and seeing what it looked like in my home. I'm a very like I want application. When I read books, I like the inspiration, but I also like, okay, how does that apply? How does that inspiration look when it's being done in the home? And so I really yeah, so I really appreciate those books in particular that guide me through how it can actually look in the day to day.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Because it's so easy to talk and hear people talk about it. But, like, my big thing was always like but what does it look like? And you know you're envisioning like, okay, chop, chop, my fresh muffins are on the counter. And you know everybody's running out at 7am and you do your curriculum and then you're like reading books all day and it's like it hasn't looked anything like that for me and every day looks different, not because I am even trying to, but it's just like you're living life.

Speaker 1: 11:37

And then, when you can fit in some curriculum, you do, but the curriculum's all around you and everything you do, and making those pancakes together in the morning and you know learning how to make sourdough bread together. And oh, look, there's a cocoon outside, like let's check that every day. And where, like a year or two ago I would have been like, ew, something is stuck in spider web, let's take a shoe and smash it. But like now that we're reading these books about springtime and nature, I'm like I bet it's a cocoon and we're like, so every day we're running out there to see if it the silkworm has hatched into a moth, and it's just like all these little things that you know, the curriculum happens all around us. Yeah, all right. What else do you have for us?

Speaker 2: 12:23

so then, um, I want to talk about oh, I guess there's one more I wanted to share in that category um, and that is for the children's sake, by Susan Schaefer McCauley. Now, this book is widely known in the Charlotte Mason homeschool community, but this book was written in the 80s and it's what ignited the Charlotte Mason movement.

Speaker 2: 12:44

To come back, oh, wow and so it's just about, um, it's like on the back it says we hope the education we provide is a joyful adventure, a celebration of life and preparation for living, and so she talks about and this is also very Christian. Anyway, this is the book that Cindy Rollins bought with her high chair money and you know to, when she was homeschooling and what ignited in her the desire to start Charlotte Mason homeschooling. So, um, but I do think, even if you're not a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, the wisdom in here about, um, gentle education and the Charlotte Mason methods that are in a very inspirational way, I think is can benefit any, anybody, because the more you learn about Charlotte Mason, the more you realize that her education is more of like a whole life philosophy and not just educational philosophy. So Charlotte Mason's for everybody, not just Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, it's for anybody that's a parent. So anyway, I do like, for the children's sake, if you want to read about what ignited the Charlotte Mason homeschool movement in the 80s, awesome, all right.

Speaker 2: 13:47

So then I want to go into a few more books that are kind of like helpful in building, kind of how you want to do things in your home, and one of that that I really like is Better Together by Pam Barnhill. So this is all about basically learning together as a family through something like a morning basket. So she talks about the benefits of learning, having all your children learn together regardless of their ages, and how to do that, and there is a bunch of information in the back on how to build out a morning basket where you guys can learn together. So if you're looking into building a morning basket or you want to do a lot of your education with all your kids you know high school all the way down to kindergarten Better Together is a great way to help you see that big picture and understand how to do that.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Okay, and we did have pam on this podcast as well.

Speaker 2: 14:46

episode 30 your morning baskets pam barnhill and her advice to a new homeschooling mom I can link that below too, along with katie's episode yeah in the show's description and then this one is a pocket full of pine cones nature study with the Gentle Art of Learning by Karen Andriola, and this one's a little interesting. I got this for Christmas two years ago when I ran over the Christmas break and Karen was a Charlotte Mason educator. Well, she's still alive, but I think she's a grandma now, anyway, and she wrote this as a fictional story on how to nature study.

Speaker 1: 15:27

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Speaker 1: 16:33

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Speaker 1: 17:12

You can use code HomeschoolHowTo for 10% off of your first order, and I also urge you to check out Treehouse Schoolhouse. They have a nature study supplemental curriculum and, given that springtime is now upon us, this is a perfect time to check out their springtime nature study and really become one with nature. Let's learn what's going on around us. I can't wait to do that one with my kids. So head on over to the show's description and grab these links. Don't forget to use the code to get your discount, or head on over to the homeschoolhowtocom under listener discounts. Thanks for checking out the show today.

Speaker 2: 17:48

So her goal was to teach parents how to do nature study with their children in a Charlotte Mason way, but in true Charlotte Mason fashion.

Speaker 2: 17:56

She wrote it as a narrative, so you read about this family. So there's Carol, and she's got a boy and a girl and she starts to homeschool. And I think it takes place in like the 1920s I'd have to verify that, but it is before modern times and you follow this mom through starting to homeschool her children, deciding to homeschool Charlotte Mason style, and then how they started doing nature study, and so one of the very early chapters she talks about how her son saw a spider on their porch and so she gave him his notebook and asked him to go draw the spider and write down some things that she, he observed about the spider spider and write down some things that she, he observed about the spider, and so, um, anyway, I just I loved this because it taught me how simple nature study can be. Sometimes it feels like a big thing and it talked about how simple, how simple it is, but it reads like you're reading a fictional story, so it's very enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 18:54

It doesn't feel like you're reading another, like do this, do that so that's for parents, or something that you would read along with your children.

Speaker 2: 19:01

It's for parents, it's for you. Although you could read it aloud to your kids because it's a story, there's nothing in it that, as far as content, that wouldn't be appropriate for children. So you could read it aloud to your children if you'd like and that might. Especially if you have children that are maybe second, third or fourth grade, that maybe you're starting nature study with, you could read it aloud with them and then say, okay, so maybe we could do that, maybe we could go see if we could find a spider on our porch. But it wasn't written to a child, if that makes sense. Okay, yep, okay, I've got two more. One is Know and Tell by Karen Glass. This is all about narration. So if you and I know keep talking about Charlotte Mason, I but narration is basically just the art of listening and telling back what you hear in a story. So, um, but narration can feel intimidating to parents if they're trying to figure out how to get their child to narrate, especially if they are Charlotte Mason homeschooling or switching to a Charlotte Mason method. Um, you know my 12-old I can say what did you read in that? It was about bears. And it's like okay, so what did you learn about bears and you feel like you're trying to pull that information out of them. And Know and Tell walks you through narration and how to get good narrations from your children. So this is it, and there's practical applications. She tells you what to expect when you're just starting out. You know, and then how to encourage your children in a way that encourages them to want to narrate. If you are interested in helping your children with narration, know and Tell by Karen Glass is a great one, awesome. And then the last one I want to share is Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson. One thing to know about this is they are Christians and this is a very Christian book, and in the first couple chapters they take the stance that if you read the Bible correctly, you should be home educating. They state that in the opening chapters. So if you don't agree with that, this book might not be for you, but this is the one book that the Clarksons have written. That is how they did it. They've written. I don't even know how many books Clay and Sally have written More than I can count on two hands. Oh, wow, yeah. And because they have four very widely successful children, they homeschooled their four children and two or three of their children are authors themselves. They've gone to Cambridge and some of the Ivies and things like that and just very successful children, and so people have asked them what did you do in your homeschool? And this is the one book they wrote about that, and this is actually. I like this because it does give curricula suggestions, but it really just walks you through creating your own home education in your home so how to pick a math, how to pick a language, arts or science or history, and so they give curricula suggestions, but they actually say, if you don't need a curricula for this subject, then don't use one, right? So I started reading this this spring and I'm using this to help me create my own curricula for the fall, so we won't be using a lot of curricula as written. I'm gonna be using this as a guide on how I want to teach those subjects in my home. So, anyway, that's. This one has been my favorite as far as, like, if you want to let go of the training wheels that curricula provide, then this is kind of that stepping stone to letting off those training wheels and starting to pedal yourself Awesome.

Speaker 2: 22:23

I have three more books I want to share. Two of them are about traditions and this one's kind of its own. It doesn't really have a category, but it's Mere Motherhood, by Cindy Rollins, and this is her memoir. So she homeschooled all nine of her children. She had eight boys and one girl. This goes through her childhood and upbringing meeting her husband, getting married, having all those children home, educating, raising them and trying to afford things. One of the things I loved in this book was she said she saw friends buying these big curricula packages and she, she was worried how she was going to going to be able to afford math, just math for her kids, and so I just liked how real she is. In this book there are really funny things. I mean, with eight boys, you could imagine that there's lots of stuff that happened in that home, and Cindy doesn't shy away from telling some of those stories.

Speaker 2: 23:16

This one has been my favorite because it, like I said, it's another like view into how somebody else did it and what it looked like in the day and she has like two or three chapters at the end that have some gentle encouragement, but the vast majority of the book is just her memoir, and so I really really like this. And she was she was a charlotte mason home educator. That she's the one I said. She tells a story about how she had one child, was pregnant with another, of her second or third, and her husband had given her money to go buy a high chair. And she went into the bookshop before she got to the high chair store or where she was going to buy the high chair, and she saw for the children's sake, um, in that bookstore and bought it with the high chair money, and that's what ignited her desire to homeschool in the Charlotte Mason way. Oh, so anyway, love this because it's very relatable and it makes you feel like whatever you're doing is good.

Speaker 1: 24:12

So anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I love that. I'm definitely going to check that one out.

Speaker 2: 24:18

This one I think would be a great gift for Mother's Day, because some of the other ones are ones that, like you as a homeschool mom, you might want to preview and buy yourself if you're interested. But this one, I think, could be relatable for any homeschool mom in your life, and so I think this one is a great one to gift to people oh awesome is a great one to gift to people oh awesome what a great idea yeah, and then the last two that I wanted to share are around building traditions in your home.

Speaker 2: 24:45

For me, I, as my children have gotten older, I kind of have left a lot of the parenting books behind because, number one, I have enough.

Speaker 2: 24:56

I have wisdom that I've learned from the early years that I just feel like I don't really need as much, you know, of that later in life. And, like I said, my youngest child is now seven and a half, and so I just I've shifted. I'm no longer building my family, I'm raising my family, and so for me, I shifted from a lot of like the parenting books to more of like a family culture how to build the culture I want in my family and so I shifted to learning more about creating traditions. Growing up in my home, we didn't have a lot of traditions, and that was something very much lacking in my childhood and I just realized as an adult that's a very easy way to bring joy into your life is through creating traditions and breaking up the monotony of every day. So the first one I have is Mrs Sharp's Traditions Reviving Victorian Family Celebrations of Comfort and Joy, and this was written in the 1990s and this one is all about bringing back that Victorian culture of celebrating things like May Day and Candlemas and having big Sunday dinners.

Speaker 1: 26:08

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Speaker 1: 26:35

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Speaker 2: 27:02

It walks you through the year. So there's the art of domestic bliss and then the joy and comfort of seasonal pastimes. So there's a little section at the front, about 50 pages, about domestic bliss and how we can learn from the Victorians in creating domestic bliss, and then it walks you through the seasons month by month through the year and suggesting traditions and holidays and celebrating those the way the Victorians would have. I really like this one for those holidays, like I said, like Christmas or Candlemas, that I maybe want to spend a lot of time on creating like a big holiday cool thing and then, oh, that's cool yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:47

And then this one is memory making mom, building traditions that breathe life into your home, by Jessica Smart and um, I believe she yeah, she's also she's also homeschooler.

Speaker 2: 27:58

And this one starts out kind of talking about her reasons for wanting to create a memory. You know a home full of wonderful memories, with traditions and celebrations, so it talks about her journey and then in the back it has suggestions for the holidays. This one is a little more modern, like it has examples for you know, like maybe National Donut Day, you know, or Groundhog Day, like things that might have not been around in the Victorian age. So this one has a little more modern ideas. I also find she gives really she gives tips for really quick things you can do, so something that only takes maybe 30 minutes of planning or like one trip to the store. So, like this one is great for if you're kind of a busier mom where I feel like these ones, like I love the idea of bringing these back, but some of them I read the chapter on family dinners and I was like that would take a lot of work like like she talked about, um, like having the nice place setting and using your nice china.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Everybody has to change into nice clothing. You plan the meal, everybody prepare something to talk about. You know like and that might sound I mean, we we do family dinners right, like we do that, but we're very much like buffet style Everybody get your food off the counter, then we meet at the table, we eat.

Speaker 2: 29:17

Everybody eats as fast as they can before we go to sports, you know, and so yeah this like we could probably do a sunday dinner this way, but some of these in this book mrs sharp's traditions might take a little more forethought, where I feel like memory making mom is maybe something you could do a little more on the fly.

Speaker 2: 29:36

If you're like, oh, tomorrow, like tomorrow, like it's, you know, 10 o'clock at night and you're like what could we do tomorrow, okay, I can grab something out of the art you know, the art cabinet or whatever, and we can do that thing. So I like both of them. I feel like they each fill a different need in my home. Oh, they sound awesome. Yeah, so those are the books that I wanted to share with your homeschool audience and I hope that maybe somebody found a gem in here that will help them on their journey in some way. I love providing encouragement for homeschool moms, like I've said this, I think, probably on the previous podcast, but I very much appreciated the wisdom of homeschool moms that had come before me, and so I love that in my journey I can be that for other people and point you towards some awesome resources.

Speaker 1: 30:26

Oh, and we thank you so much for doing that. It sometimes, especially when you have the younger kids, it just feels like, you know, you're just trying to keep a flow and, okay, how can we get through today and tomorrow? You're not thinking of these long-term extras like a Sunday tradition, or you know, even I'm just thinking like little off of that, like, okay, for Sunday tradition. You know, maybe you send the kids to make a craft for you know each place setting at the table and okay, well, you guys can decide whatever that craft's going to be, whether it be a painting or a molding of you know the little clay molds or a Play-Doh mold or whatever. While I'm cooking you do that. Maybe we make dessert together, and so it's just little things like that. But yeah, they're going to grow up and be like, oh yeah, my mom always had us do that. It was fun, or maybe I groaned about it at the time, but now I see the value in it and what awesome little tidbits. So thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 31:27

A couple things about traditions, just because those were my last books. I suggested One is that you can cultivate traditions at any point in your life. So, for example, like my oldest is 21. If I decided to start a tradition now, she'll still have memories of that like it doesn't. It doesn't matter how old your children are when you start implementing traditions. Um. So for me, I really didn't do a lot when I had lots of little kids. It was like, okay, we did like the big holidays, we did Christmas, and you know that was it. But now that my kids get older I have a little more time that I can do that. So just recognize that it's okay when you're in the baby and toddler stage if you don't build gingerbread houses this year for Christmas, like no one's going to die because you didn't do that.

Speaker 1: 32:07

I think people needed to hear that. Yeah, yeah for sure You're like, oh my gosh, we missed this thing. We missed doing that. I remember my sister-in-law saying how, like on St Patrick's Day, she had green food coloring in the toilet and then said to the kids like oh, the leprechaun came and he peed in our toilet and I'm like what? I've never even that thought, would never even cross my mind to celebrate St Patrick's Day with children. You think of it as like just like a college drinking holiday. But this year I did put some food coloring in the toilet. I was like, whatever, let's see what if he likes it. He more was like mom, that's disgusting. Can you flush that?

Speaker 2: 32:47

I'm not peeing where a leprechaun peed, but it was it was something funny to remember and with traditions, you don't have to do them every year for them to be a tradition. So like, for example, if you decide that you're going to do something really neat for valentine's this day or this year, but then next year you have a baby and you can't get to it and then you do it again. Like it doesn't matter how often you do it. If you do it more than two times it can be a tradition, so you don't have to do it every year. I think that takes a lot of pressure off to like just recognizing that you don't have to do every tradition every year for it to be a tradition.

Speaker 1: 33:23

Awesome, and so we were also going to touch base a little bit on the curriculum, since you are, like my, curriculum expert. You and I had done a live on Facebook together once as well, where we totally went into depth on what you were advising or recommending for me to do for the kindergarten year for my son, and we did so a solid six months of. You would recommended the Hagerty phonics program, which is what is actually done in schools in combination with all about reading, the pre reading, and I have the curriculum series that people are probably familiar with. At this point it is a subscription which just basically covers the cost of, like, running the podcast, but so three dollars a month and you get access to the curriculum series. But what I discussed was I got really into depth on what the all about reading, pre-reading was for us on a day to day basis, like what that curriculum looked like in our home, how my son reacted to it, how I thought about it and the different things that the curriculum provided, like versus, you know games and and you know the puppet, the little books with it. So we we did go into depth on that. We talked about the Hagerty Um, and we also went into depth on our Instagram live on. Uh, did we do a little math? I think, yeah, we did do like a good and the beautiful math a little bit. So, yes, and then I also have a curriculum series episode about that.

Speaker 1: 34:47

Are you trying to pick a curriculum but feel a little overwhelmed at the variety of options? Me too. I mean, how do you pick a curriculum when you don't know what each one has to offer? That's been my biggest problem. Well, I am here to help. I just launched a premium content series, psst. That means it's $3 a month, which will just help cover the cost of running the podcast.

Speaker 1: 35:07

In my curriculum series, I interview homeschooling students and parents and curriculum creators about specific curriculum each week so that you can take the guesswork out of your curriculum choices. I'll be asking questions like what does the day-to-day look like with this curriculum? What does it cover from a bird's eye view? How long does one lesson take to complete? How many lessons does the curriculum contain and what does it cost? Did you have to order the book or could you download them and print them somewhere like your library? Does this curriculum have a lot of games, writing or crafts, and did your child enjoy this curriculum? Can you do it with more than one child at a time? And if I did this curriculum with my child, would I need to add any sort of supplements to it? These are all questions I've had while I search for the perfect curriculum to suit my son's personality and my expectations. Let's face it there is no one curriculum out there that will work best for every child and adult. So I invite you to join me in my search to find out what every curriculum has to offer so that you can feel confident in your curriculum choices and enjoy your homeschooling journey that much more.

Speaker 1: 36:10

Right where you find all of the Homeschool How-To Podcast episodes, you'll see my curriculum series and you can subscribe today. So we covered those. I asked you what other curriculums that you had kind of gone through, so we're going to just go through like an overview so people have just like a general gist of what I cover on my curriculum series and then we'll go into depth in a couple of future episodes on the curriculum series for a couple of them that you were really excited to talk about. But let's just go through a general overview on what you have used and how you felt about those curriculums. Okay, am I saying it wrong? Is it plural Curricula, and I'm saying curriculums.

Speaker 2: 36:52

I think it's probably you could use either one, I would guess. I think I probably.

Speaker 1: 36:56

Oh God.

Speaker 2: 36:57

So, like I said, I've been homeschooling now seven years. We're ending our seventh year and I have approached curricula in a different way than most people. A lot of people start with their philosophy and then they narrow it down to curriculum within their philosophy. For me, I'm eclectic Eileen, charlotte Mason, if haven't noticed but I'm I really am more eclectic, and so every year I look at the needs of my family and I look at like how the previous year went and I look at how much time I'm going to have and how you know what I'm going to be having to help each child with, like how parent heavy the curricula is anyway. So I have went through a lot of different curricula and I've used different stuff almost every year, and that's one of the reasons. It's not that because, like most of the curricula I've used has been good. For some reason I haven't used anything that I would straight up would say like a bad one, but maybe it served us one year and then the next year it didn't serve us. So that's why I have tried so many things.

Speaker 2: 38:00

So for math, we have tried MathUC. My oldest son did MathUC for three. The first three years we started homeschooling. We have done the good and the beautiful math. And this year my youngest has been doing math with confidence that is Kate Snow's program and my older son moved into Denison pre-algebra. So those are the math that we have tried. Oh, and we've also tried beast academy. We had one year of beast academy, so we've tried beast academy.

Speaker 1: 38:31

Yeah, I've heard of Khan academy, I haven't heard of beast Academy.

Speaker 2: 38:34

Yeah. So Beast Academy is a very critical thinking style of math. You can do it online or they do have workbooks. It's geared towards kids that really like math. They're very math minded and it is very advanced. So, um, but any, any kid could use, use Beast Academy and find success with it. It's just that if they struggle in math it might be a little frustrating for that child. Okay, so those are the math programs that we have tried. And then language arts. Oh man, I'm trying to think We've done a few. We did the good and the beautiful language arts. We've used IEW, which is Institute for Excellence in Writing. We've used Essentials in Writing, eiw, and we've used the vocabulary not vocabulary, excuse me grammar program from Michael Clay Thompson. And then, for science, we've really only tried two science curricula. We used the Good and the Beautiful Science for the first five years that we've homeschooled, and then we have been using Science Shepherd this year, um and yeah, and then for social studies, that's.

Speaker 2: 39:43

That's the one I've jumped around a lot in as well, mostly because I love social studies and it's kind of like, oh, I want to try that, oh, I want to try that, I want to try that, I want to try that. So I've I've tried a lot of social studies programs for that reason, because I love social studies and I just think there's so many cool things out there. So we've tried Story of the World, we have used Beautiful Feet the most, we have tried Homeschool in the Woods and we've tried Knotgrass History and we've done Tuttle Twins. I think that's probably the history and social studies that we've done. Tuttle Twins, I think that's probably the history that in social studies that we've done. So anyway, yeah, that's kind of a broad overview of curricula that we have used over the seven years.

Speaker 1: 40:29

So, and I'm obsessed with the Tuttle Twins books and you know I'm an affiliate for them. I talk about that all the time and so you know I can put a link down in the show's description too if anyone wants to check out their stuff. But I'm really excited to use their history curriculum because I just feel that they have such a way of talking about big concepts but in a way that it's easy to understand, like the textbooks in school never put it together in like a story version, it was just dates and people. It didn't really connect anything for me and it seemed like, oh my gosh, this stuff happened so long ago. Why do we care? Now that I'm older and kind of like looking at the big picture, the timeline of the world and our first civilization and you know the the world changing over from BC to AD and how things really weren't that long ago, even America has just not been here that long. So for people to scoff at like why would you teach your kids self-sufficiency skills? That's so stupid. It's like we've only been here 250 years, like our country has. It's so new. How do you know we're not going to get taken over by another country in a decade, 50 years, a hundred years, and our kids kids are not going to need to know how to get food, like that's so foolish to not think that that's important. So I love how the title twins kind of take these big concepts and bring it down to a way that it's easy to understand as a parent and the child. And so I'm excited to use their history books.

Speaker 1: 42:05

I just my son's five and my daughter's one, so I haven't delved into it yet. I really want them to like get the most out of it, so I'm going to wait a little bit. But, um, but they have a couple. They have volume one and volume two. I believe that's it right now.

Speaker 1: 42:21

And just from what I have looked into on them, even just when they talk about slavery, they really get into the more like depth of it and and how it was in relation to the rest of the world, cause I think that's something our schools lack. They talk about slavery in America and and again, we've only been a country for 250 years, so like we fairly quickly I I don't again, I didn't go into this yet, but from what I've seen them talk about like they talk about how long it's been going on in every single country and that we should really give ourselves a pat on the back for abolishing it. You know, as quickly as we did when we were an established country because of what was going on another, it's going on today and nobody cares you know so it's like I really just I'm excited to get into the Tuttle Twins history of volume one and two.

Speaker 1: 43:16

So for anyone that wants to check that out, even just check out the website through the link, I'll attach it and you know, they'll know I sent you if you use the link. So that would be awesome. But tell me a little bit about just what your take on the Tuttle Twins History curriculum is like.

Speaker 2: 43:33

I love it. One of the things that you'll find in homeschool curricula like, for example, not grass, which we have used it's very much like this is what happened. Here's the dates. Here was that person, here's what happened. But there's not a lot of reason of like well, why like? Why were they doing that? Or like because they made these decisions. How did that influence?

Speaker 2: 43:59

For, like the, the next section of history that came, you know, the next civilization, and I think that title twins is probably one of the only things I've seen on the market that really goes into well, why was it happening this way? What was the thought process behind it? How can we learn from that? Because you know, the whole point of history is that we learn from history so we don't repeat past mistakes. And if you're just learning like this is what happened, then for you as a child, they're thinking well, it just happened that way. They don't. They're not like thinking through well, why did it happen? Or what can I learn from this, or what was bad about that event, or what was good about that event, or what was good about that event, and Title Twins really leads that child through that thought process. So that's why I like it.

Speaker 2: 44:42

The other thing is that their book series, the 13 book series I just saw they're working on the 14th book in their children's books and those take big topics like government and economics and free market rules and they break that down into a story that a child can understand. I used the 13 books in a co-op class last year and the class was first to third graders and it was amazing how much they picked up. I think we had 14 weeks of class. I would read the book and then we would discuss some things and then we would do some hands-on activities about the principle that we had learned that day. But they really did pick up on things like the first book. The Law talks about corruption government corruption yeah, you know, yeah, plunder.

Speaker 1: 45:33

And they relate it into a way yes, plunder. They relate it to a way where the kids are talking to their neighbor and they're going through. Well, this is what it looks like in a day to day. I'm growing a garden, I'm growing tomatoes, you know, the lady across the street really, really likes them, um, if, uh, and they're like, oh, why do you have all these canned foods and this? And that he goes.

Speaker 1: 45:57

Well, I like to give away stuff too. You know, I have it for emergency. But if somebody has a baby, if somebody loses a job, I like to bring them food so that I can help out. But is it right if a policeman comes to my house, takes my stuff and gives it to someone less fortunate, and so they're putting it in, you know, and he's asking the kids these questions? So it really puts it in a way of like, well, if that's not right, then why would it be right for the government to do that? Or? You know? So I love those books and they have discussion questions in the back of the book too, so that I never thought about using those books for a co-op and actually do have a discount code for people cheryl 40, um, you can get 40 off of the entire series for the ages 5 through 11.

Speaker 2: 46:41

And those books, yeah, they're, they're awesome oh yeah, and they come like if you get the one, the book series, 13 book series, with the parent guides. There's writing activities, like it gives them writing prompts, there's crossword puzzles, there's mazes, all sorts of things in those, in those that come along, or the workbooks that come along with it. The other thing is that it's inspired me to read some books as well, like when we read the Atlas Shrugged children's book. It actually encouraged me to read the real Atlas Shrugged by Anne Rand, and I read that last year, and so it's encouraged me because some of the books are based off like the Law is a book by, I think, frederick Bastiat. There's Atlas Shrugged by Ian Rand, yeah, and then I know the 13th book was Dumbing Us Down.

Speaker 1: 47:24

One of them is for the homeschool book is based off of John Taylor Gatto's yes, I think Dumbing Us Down is what they were referencing in that one.

Speaker 2: 47:34

Yes, so it's. So. Reading some of those books has inspired me to go and read the adult work that inspired the children's book, and so I'm learning along with my kids that way.

Speaker 1: 47:46

Yes, me too 100%, so you are enjoying the history. Yeah, yes, now we are going to get into on our curriculum series a little bit more, but let's just tell the listeners now which ones that you really liked and that we are going to get in to talk to you about in depth on the curriculum series.

Speaker 2: 48:05

So I mentioned before that social studies is my favorite subject, and so the two curricula that I love to talk about the most is Beautiful Feet and Homeschool in the Woods love to talk about the most is Beautiful Feet and Homeschool in the Woods. Now, beautiful Feet is a very is a popular curricula. That is a literature-based curricula, and we've been. We've used the early American history and this year we've been been using the around the world with picture books curricula from them, and it has been hands down. One of my favorite curricula we've ever used has been this around the world with picture books. And then homeschool in the woods is a lesser known curricula out there. It is a history curricula. They have their time traveler series is the American History and the Project Passport is World History and they are a very, very hands on history company. So those are probably my top two favorite curricula that we have done, mostly because of how engaging they are, and so those are the two that I would love to talk about more Awesome, all right.

Speaker 1: 49:31

Well, I would love to talk about more. Moms can kind of find that space in the day where we give ourselves the grace to let the clothes go unfolded, let the dishes maybe stay dirty in the sink. Give yourself that time to read a book, or even in the morning, like that's when I start thinking I should get to this, should get to that, and it's like you need to kind of do something for yourself too, because you deserve it. You can't wait until all the kids are gone and out of the house to start reading these books, because you don't know what you're going to read that's actually going to inspire how you live your life that day or for that season. These books just sound like they would make you a much more present parent and give you great ideas and insight about your homeschooling journey. So I think these are awesome.

Speaker 2: 50:16

Yeah, and Charlotte Mason believed in educating mothers just as much as children were educated themselves. She believed that an educated mother is just as important, because that mother is educating their child, and so that's one of the things that I encourage moms is that I know it's busy, but don't neglect your own education and don't neglect your own needs as a mother, because you can't pour from an empty well. You need to be taking care of yourself, and I hope that these books in some way can be inspirational in helping you do that. But no matter what, whether you read in these books or not, just know that you're doing an amazing job as a mother, that you've already done the hard thing by pulling your kids to homeschool, and everything else is just the cherry on top. You're doing great as a mom.

Speaker 1: 51:09

Oh, and you too. Happy Mother's Day, and happy Mother's Day to everyone listening. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the Homeschool how To. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.