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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#87: Discover the Magic of Reading Aloud with Sarah Mackenzie
What unexpected joys can homeschooling bring into a family's life? Join us as we welcome Sarah Mackenzie from Read Aloud Revival, who shares her inspiring journey from uncertainty to becoming a devoted homeschooling mother of six. Discover how her family found happiness and success, with three children now thriving in higher education. Reflecting on our own transitions during the COVID pandemic, we'll discuss how homeschooling has become a surprising source of joy and empowerment for many families, offering a fresh perspective on education and family dynamics.
Join us as we explore the art of balancing book choices, emphasizing the role of quality literature in fostering a lifelong love for reading. Sarah provides insightful tips on selecting meaningful books and shares heartwarming stories about family-friendly favorites. We also tackle the common concerns about socialization, highlighting how homeschooling offers unique opportunities for building lasting friendships and strong family relationships. With Sarah's expert guidance and resources from Read Aloud Revival, families can embark on a homeschooling journey that's both fulfilling and transformative.
Read Aloud Revival- Sarah's website; booklists, podcasts and more!
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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.
Speaker 1:We have the pleasure of having Sarah McKenzie from Read Aloud Revival with us. Welcome, Sarah. Oh, Cheryl, I am just delighted to be here to chat with you. Yeah, I'm glad we finally touched base, because my podcast the premise it's probably a little different from yours because you have the years of experience and you have a podcast with Revival, correct? Yes, Yep, Among other things which we'll get into. But I started my podcast because I kind of was seeing things as my child was in daycare and I worked for the government, so I shuffled him off and I went to work every day in a cubicle and didn't really think otherwise of it. And then COVID happened, which you hear a lot of people say. Okay, we're kind of realizing we don't have a lot of, I guess, authority that we thought we had as parents over our own children.
Speaker 2:That's a good word for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that snowballed into a whole lot of, I guess authority that we thought we had as parents over our own children that's a good word for it, yeah, and that snowballed into a whole lot of things and I said I don't think I really want to send my kids to school. But I never pictured myself as a homeschooler. It was like never on my radar. If anything, I pictured myself never having children and just like making money and sitting on the beaches of resorts and places. But lo and behold, now I have quit my government job. I homeschool the kids and I started the podcast to interview homeschooling families, to hear all the different ways that people homeschool. And early early on, your name and Read Aloud Revival came up, and it comes up often. And now when I go on other people's podcasts, I bring up Read Aloud Revival because people want to know well, where would I begin? And I always say it starts with reading to your kids, which I never got as a child, but it's so important.
Speaker 2:So why don't we just start by you telling us how did you get into homeschooling in the first place, man, okay, so my husband Andrew and I, we have six kids schooling in the first place, man, Okay, so my husband Andrew and I, we have six kids. The oldest three are all in college or graduate school now, so they're 22, 20 and 18, 19. He just turned 19. Man, keeping track of the birthdays, I'm telling you. And then our younger three we're still homeschooling and they're 12 and the twins are 11.
Speaker 2:And when we first started it was actually I didn't know any real life homeschoolers. Like I didn't know anybody who homeschooled. But I was reading some blogs, Remember those. I was reading some blogs of homeschoolers. I got a few books from the library like on. I think they were more like on doing Montessori type stuff with your kids at home. Basically, what was happening is, as my oldest got closer and closer to school age, I thought I mean, she's really enjoyable to be around now. Like she's really fun to be around, I don't really want to send her to school.
Speaker 2:My husband was absolutely opposed because we didn't know any homeschoolers. He knew one homeschooling family growing up. They were super weird. So he was like no, this is not going to work. Um, but what ended up happening is we didn't see eye to eye. I acquiesced Okay, we're just going to have to put her in.
Speaker 2:I researched which school we were going to put her in and two weeks before kindergarten registration day he came home from work. Does not remember what the impetus was, but he just came home and was like, okay, listen, you can have one day. And the school district we lived in at the time had a lot of crime. So that prop. My guess, my hunch, is that he probably heard something that happened in one of the schools and was like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. So he said, okay, you can do one year. Did I say one day? One day? That would be it. One day a week, you can homeschool for one day. Everybody We'd be, yeah, we'd be amazing, wouldn't we? You can have one year. And I was like I'll take it. And then about halfway through that year it was like, well, maybe a couple more years, Okay. And then he got on board and loved it so much that we homeschooled. All of our kids have been homeschooled all the way through. Our three oldest, like I said, graduated from a homeschool. They all went to college or are either in college now or are all just graduated. She's off to graduate school.
Speaker 2:So it's very fun now to see, kind of like it's interesting, because when you were just saying like you were basically an unexpected homeschooler, this is not something you saw. I love that about homeschooling. I feel like that's a story a lot of us have. That's like. This is definitely not what I had, you know, on my calendar for my life, but the unexpected joys of homeschooling are one of the best selling points, I think of it and that's one of the things that actually happened during COVID. That, I think, is a real blessing, is that? So I meet so many families who say we homeschooled because we had to and then all of a sudden I was like, wait, why aren't we doing this? So that's really great.
Speaker 1:Yes, and they snowball because my reasons. My first episode was like the 10 reasons that I want to homeschool and then the 10 reasons that I am totally terrified to and since talking to like over a hundred homeschooling families now I'm like, oh my God, the reasons have just snowballed for why we would homeschool and I don't know why anyone would send your other than you're still kind of in that matrix mindset of like this is just what we do because, it's what we've always done, and you know you don't think that there's another way.
Speaker 1:Um, or it seems so unattainable too, so okay. So you started homeschooling. Where did read aloudival come from? Where was the creation of that? How did it come about?
Speaker 2:So I was reading aloud to my kids like picture books. I was definitely of the mind that I think most of us are, that like, reading aloud is what you do with your kids until they can read on their own, and then it's preferable for them to read themselves. But then I heard a talk. It was a conference talk. I didn't go to the conference. My friend sent me the recording. It was Andrew Putawa from the Institute for Excellence in Writing and he was talking about how the best thing you can do to help your kids be good readers, writers and speakers is to memorize a lot of poetry. That was one thing and then to read aloud constantly, like as much as you possibly can. And he's a very motivating speaker and after I heard it I was like, okay, I'm going to try this. And he makes a very compelling argument in that talk for, like all the academic reasons, that it actually helps your child be a better reader and a better writer and a better speaker. You have to put these good language patterns in their head so they have them to draw on later. But it wasn't until I did really up the Reading Aloud ante in my own home that I realized there were all these other benefits too, not just the academic benefits, which studies have really backed up now. So we can see that Reading Aloud is the number one thing we can do to ensure our kids' academic success. It's even more impactful than sending our kids to private school or getting a tutor. Reading aloud, which just can seem completely unrelated to a lot of subjects, actually does all these things in our children's brains that really help them academically.
Speaker 2:But then also I realized that every time we read a story together, our kids are walking a mile in the shoes of someone else. So they're becoming, they're being able to see from other points of view. And as a parent, one of the things we really want is for our kids to be prepared for whatever life throws at them later on. But how do we do that? We don't even know what life is going to throw at them later on. Well, one of the ways I think we can do that is by giving them a lot of miles and a lot of different shoes so that, regardless of what comes their way, they've seen something like it before they can draw on, which also gives us this academic benefit. It gives them this ability. We know that kids who have read a lot of stories tend to be more empathetic, compassionate, kind people. That's great, want that. And then the third thing that I noticed is it also gave them the chance to bear witness to people facing seemingly impossible odds over and over, because that's what every story is. Every story is about a character who has to overcome seemingly impossible odds to get what they want or need to become. And I thought, wow, that's a front row seat at fortitude and the ability to withstand hardship. That's a really helpful thing to give our kids as well.
Speaker 2:And then, on top of all of that, what I noticed is that the relationships in our home changed. So we had, like these inside jokes and I don't know, like funny quips that would come up or we'd be, it would be snowing outside and the kids would be like this is just like the long winter, even though it's nothing like the long winter, you know. And it was like one thing after another, like that where I thought, oh, my goodness, there is literally nothing that we can do for free in about 10 minutes every other day, 15 minutes every other day. That gets all these benefits. So I got a little zealous I think zealous is probably a fair word, because I got so excited about it, I thought I'll do a few podcast episodes. This was back in 2014.
Speaker 1:Wow, when podcasting was like very new.
Speaker 2:Yes, I loved them, I loved listening to them. But there were not homeschooling podcasts, there was like three or four of them. So I thought, well, I'll just do a few episodes on reading aloud. But I have a tendency to get out over my skis. This is a character flaw.
Speaker 2:So I thought to myself man, I'm like sitting there, I have I have a 12, 10, 8, one year old newborn twins and I'm like if I was to have to have a podcast, I would talk to Andrew Putawa because I would love to talk to him about how reading aloud has really shaped our home.
Speaker 2:And so I just fired off an email to IEW saying would Andrew Pudow like to come talk to me on my podcast? And to my horror, they wrote back right away saying, yes, I thought I have to figure out how to start a podcast. So I did and I really thought it would be a handful of episodes and it just kind of took on a life of its own and it just we got. There was so many of us that were really excited about talking about books and listeners that were really excited about what they were noticing in their own home when they read aloud, especially with kids who could already read themselves, so not just until they could read for themselves, but beyond that that. It just kept going, and now we've been going with. The podcast is 10 years old this year, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. Now, okay, so read aloud revival. What I've used of yours is your book lists, but I I haven't delved in too much further, so let us know what is it? Read aloud revival in its entirety okay.
Speaker 2:So the book lists are always the most popular thing, so we assemble what we think of our as pretty short book lists. Actually, because we read so many books, I have a little team that works with me and we assemble book lists like books. Boys love books, girls love books for different times in history. We're working on a book list this coming year set in different parts of the US, so people who are traveling with their family and they want to read stories around that, wherever they're visiting, can find stories there Books about inventors or scientists or mathematicians.
Speaker 2:We have all these different kinds of book lists and what we're really looking for are books that read aloud particularly well, especially that do well with a wide variety of ages and that are very likely to be wins. Because I know how painful it is to like you finally get all your kids collected and get all the things organized to sit and read aloud and you start reading aloud and the book makes you want to poke your eyeballs out, you know, and so instead, what we're trying to do is just find the best of the best for each category. So those are our booklets and those are free on our website, readaloudrevivalcom, but the podcast is every other week and it's where I talk about either what we're putting on our book list, or sometimes I talk to parents about how reading aloud is impacting their home, or experts or authors and illustrators about making their books kind of a wide variety of topics all related to reading aloud and homeschooling as being primarily about relationships that we forge through read alouds.
Speaker 1:You guys know I am a big fan of the Tuttle Twins and their book series, and it looks like you're enjoying them too. Out of all of the brands that I affiliated with for my podcast, the Tuttle Twins is the most popular. If you haven't checked it out, click on the link in my show's description and give their site a visit. These books teach us real life principles in a way that kids can understand and, let's face it, that I can understand, so you will too. For us to make decisions for our family. Why the world is a better place because of entrepreneurs who create businesses to help serve their fellow neighbors. What socialism is and why it's so destructive to our freedoms and wellbeing. How the golden rule, which is treat others how you'd like to be treated, is so important to people getting along with one another, no matter where we live, what we look like or what we believe. Their book Education Vacation is all about homeschooling and what a value that that can be. Their books go over laws, why we have them and what the role of government is supposed to be, instead of what it is. Grab the link in my show's description and use code Cheryl40, that's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0, for 40% off books in the age five through 11 series.
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Speaker 2:Then we also have the next sort of level. So we always think of the book list as like the top level that most people want, and then the podcast layers on top of that. And then we have something called RAR Premium, which is an online program for homeschoolers who want ready-made book clubs based on these excellent read-alouds every month and also that is where I do homeschool coaching and mentoring. So I have a podcast inside RAR Premium that goes out every Monday morning and is an encouragement for homeschooling moms and really our whole. It's called the Circle with Sarah program. But that whole program inside RER Premium is about helping moms love their homeschools and help them really make that kind of homeschool that feeds and nourishes them and their kids that they can be excited about.
Speaker 2:I noticed with my own homeschooling when my oldest daughter left to go to college. It's like she's applying for colleges. You're like man, I hope this works. I hope all those people who told me this works you know they get in You're like OK, and then this happened with all three of them, but my oldest, my oldest daughter. So she was like you know she gets in.
Speaker 2:I'm like OK, and then we, we graduate her, we.
Speaker 2:And I'm like okay, and then we, we graduate her, we throw a party, graduation party for her, and I mean, I like I'm pretty sure this party is about me, because I just homeschooled her all the way through, right? So, like I buy a new dress and then, like we do the party, we send her off to college and I realized, oh my gosh, I'm still here for a really long time, I'm going to still be here. And it occurred to me then, in a different way than it had before, that it was really important for me to enjoy my homeschool because I'm going to be here the longest. We still, like I said, have 11-year-olds, we have a ways to go, and so it was just really interesting to me and I realized this is what we talk a lot about kids' learning styles and how to give your kids what they need and light their fire, but we sometimes forget to talk about mom, and the fact that you're here the longest means that your fire also needs to be lit so that you can pass that on to your kid.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's such good advice and you know, what I kind of came to the realization of recently is that we think reading with our child is going to be us all snuggled up on the couch or in bed and they're going to, you know, be looking at the pictures and pointing to things they like as I'm reading, and they're learning to read because they're going to recognize all of the words I'm saying. And my son is six, so it doesn't go like that at all and at first it was sit down next to me and read this
Speaker 1:And now I've gotten to the realization that it it actually doesn't matter whether he's sitting with me and listening or he's bouncing around the room and listening, like, as long as I'm reading story, that's getting his brain going and he doesn't have to look at the pictures.
Speaker 1:If that's not what he wants to do, right then, because he can imagine the pictures in his head which might even have more of a cognitive benefit to him.
Speaker 1:And even just stopping to ask a question in the middle of the page, you know, maybe just to see if he is listening, or get his brain jogging, bring him, reel him in so that he feels a part of it. But I think that was a struggle for me this first year. We've completed our first year of homeschooling um, when he was five for kindergarten and you know, really getting to that point where it's not going to be like I imagined, where we're sitting down and snuggling and he's just gonna. He's going to really appreciate that mom quit her job to stay home and teach me Wow, I'm so thankful for this. No, he's going to really appreciate that mom quit her job to stay home and teach me Wow, I'm so thankful for this. No, he's going to be bouncing around the room because he's six and he can't sit down, and probably in a school they would drug him up with Ritalin or something, I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, here's the thing my oldest three girl, girl boy my girls would sit there and they would listen very seemingly attentively. And girl boy, my girls would sit there and they would listen very seemingly attentively. And my son would be doing handstands and cartwheels and his favorite thing was if I would read aloud to them, sitting on the back deck so he could jump on the trampoline, which is kind of loud right, and I would think there is no way this kid can hear anything. The next day. I would say, okay, who remembers what happened yesterday? And he's the one that could rattle everything off.
Speaker 2:So I did an episode with Dr Michael Gurian on Reload Revival about boys' brains in particular, which was really interesting and how they they work better if they're moving. I actually know this about myself Like I will listen to an audio book or a podcast better if I'm washing the dishes or doing the laundry or something than if I'm. I just can't actually imagine just sitting and listening to. I think I'd be like twitching, you know, um and so when. When they give them something to do with their hands, that can really really help them focus, and also it just takes the pressure off, exactly like you said, whether or not they even get. Everything is actually not the most important piece, which is weird for our minds to get around, but the grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns are getting into their brains, whether they understand the story or they remember it five years from now or not, and that those language patterns are going to do more for their ability to communicate better later than anything that they else they could listen to or watch or read, even reading with their own eyes. Because even if they're reading with their eyes, what happens when we read with our eyes sorry, I'm totally geeking out now. Uh no, what happens when they read with their eyes is that they skip little words. They skip like like connector words. We all do this. It's why, if you and I were reading the same page out of I don't know the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we could read it silently to ourselves faster than if either you or I read it aloud to each other, because our eyes scan and this is how we read. We just read quickly.
Speaker 2:But then what happens is those complete, grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns don't get stored in our brain in the same way they do if someone reads it aloud to us, where every single word is in order, and then a book is actually the only place where they get that grammatically correct, sophisticated language, because we don't speak in it.
Speaker 2:I mean you and I aren't even speaking in grammatically correct, sophisticated language right now, so a book is the only place they actually get those patterns. So even if they don't speak in it I mean you and I aren't even speaking in grammatically correct, sophisticated language right now so a book is the only place they actually get those patterns. So even if they don't remember this book five years or 10 years from now, the fact that you read it to them means that they were getting these language patterns in their brain that are going to do that. This is where all that like magic, academic alchemy happens in their mind that we're like well, how does this make a difference? It's very difficult to quantify ways, but it's happening, whether or not your kid is getting the story or not.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is so true, you know. Another thing I loved about your book list too is that, especially being someone that, like I don't know, my parents weren't into like reading to me when I was a kid and I thought maybe I was like well, our house is a little dysfunctional. So I asked my husband if his family read to him. He's like no, I don't remember my mother reading to me, so I'm like all right.
Speaker 1:is this a thing that didn't really happen? And now it's making the revival, yeah, a little resurgence, yeah, but I don't't. I didn't know where to even start with good books to read to my kid. Because you go to the library and you think, well, the good books are just going to be there, right.
Speaker 1:And there have been, especially lately, so many books that my son will pick out because they have right on the top. You know he doesn't have to search through, they're displayed on the top and he takes them because the cover looks, you know, entertaining to him mildly entertaining and it's just a book that's kind of inappropriate or has no substance whatsoever, is not rich in any sort of literature, and I'm kind of like, okay, well, he's looking at words, but is this really what I want him to be reading? Is this really going to take us the farthest that it can? And so what I love about your books and you group them in all different ways too, like for seasons or age groups, picture books, different themes. So I love that you can just go to your website and, like you said, it's free. And even if I let him pick out a couple of books that he wants from the library. I know that the bulk of our books will be good quality books like the the Winnie the Poo series, but the original that you had on there I never would have thought it never would have dawned on me to get that book out, and we've we've've rented it twice from the library and you
Speaker 2:know he just he loves it and it's so quirky and comical, but yeah, it's way the language is way better than you think it would be if all you've known is like the Disney-fied version, which actually I also really enjoy. So I'm not just going to but the AA Milne stories. There's a lot of humor in there too. That would be lost on a three, four, five-year-old that you as a parent will be like oh my goodness, I didn't see that before. That's so lovely, that's so funny. Yes, I love too that you're letting them do both.
Speaker 2:I think this is one of the things that we can get a little bit over, we can over-index, for which is when we realize that not all books are created equal, and that is true. Then we realize that like, oh, we just want our kids to have the best ones, but all kids pick up books that we're like, oh really At the library. And what happens as soon as we go, like that's twaddle is a favorite word in the homeschooling world that I really don't like, because I feel like nobody ever feels better if we devalue something they like. Like if someone looks at me and says Downton Abbey swaddle, it doesn't make me love Downton Abbey less, it just makes me not want to talk about it with you. That's usually what happens. So I think it also kind of gives it this forbidden fruit feel where our kids are like why doesn't my mom want me to read that book? So oftentimes what I'll do at the library is let them pick a couple that they want from the shelves, even if I'm like this is way below your reading level or this is dumb, and then the bulk of what I'm reading aloud is good stuff and that taste is acquired over time. So if we let them pick a few books so it's not like the forbidden fruit and they're not being insulted by us going like I can't believe you would read that you know Diary of a Wimpy Kid Like of course they're going to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, it's funny to a 10 year old boy. Then we fill their plate with like this other stuff that's really good. Over time their taste acquired like they get acquired taste, I guess, or what's the word I'm trying to say they develop a taste for really good language.
Speaker 2:All of my kids went through a stage where they loved like some sort of dumb series that I was like this is a way under your reading level, but what happened is by reading something that's really easy for them or a little on the light side, they can read them really fast, which helps them like sort of identify as a reader, like, oh, I'm a reader, I'm a person who finishes books. Look at all these books that I've read in this whole series and then what happens is at some point they get far enough into that series that they're like I kind of think they're all the same and that's true. But if you point it out, it's not great. If they discover it on their own, then they're ready to move up to something else, which usually happens without too much fanfare if we've been reading them. Really good stuff. So I love that mix. I think that mix is important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are your thoughts on audiobooks for kids?
Speaker 2:I love audiobooks for kids, so audiobooks have a few really key times too when I think they're especially helpful. One is in the car, because you can kind of redeem that time in the car. One is if you have little babies at home or toddlers, or you're pregnant and sick or there's a health issue in the family, because a lot of times we don't have the actual time to sit and read aloud with our children as much as we want or like. In my case I had twin baby, twin newborns and so it was hard for me to sit and read aloud Little House on the Prairie. But if I could turn on the audiobook then, even if I had to step out of the room to go change a diaper or rock a crying baby or something, I could come back and the kids didn't miss anything, like they were still reading. So it helps us get a lot more reading in.
Speaker 2:But the other thing to keep in mind is that there's a few benefits to this reading out loud business.
Speaker 2:One of them is the fact that our kids are getting those grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns in through their ear and they get those whether it's coming from an audio book or whether it's coming from you. That's the same. The other big thing that we're getting is a shared experience, and again, that happens with an audio book if you're listening to it in the car, or even in my case, I would either like turn on Little House on the Prairie, for example, and have to walk out with like a toddler who's having an accident or somebody who's waking up from a nap, or I would fall asleep on the couch while we were listening. And then you can, when you come back, you can say, oh gosh, okay, pause it, I missed all that. Can you catch me up to what's happening? And then your kids are summarizing what they just heard. There's so much good learning happening here in a very low pressure way. So you actually get that shared experience and the grammatically correct, sophisticated language just as easily from an audio book as you do from reading aloud.
Speaker 1:Do your kids know what to do in an emergency? Do they know how to call 911 from a locked cell phone? Well, if you've been listening to my podcast for any length of time, you know that I have been working for the last year on a book that talks about exactly this. I was going through homeschooling curriculum with my son and realized that, although they would brush over certain things that my son would need to know in an emergency, nothing really delved into it, and definitely not on a repetitive basis. I started reaching out to teachers and asking them what schools do to prepare kids for emergencies and, other than skimming the surface, they said that they really feel that this information is the parents responsibility to teach. But do parents know that? It's not like there's a handbook where we talk about who is responsible for what?
Speaker 1:So I set out on a journey to write a book about exactly this, and it is finally published. My illustrator, cheryl Krauthamel, is a retired NYPD officer, so she was the perfect fit for this book. We have hidden a 9-0-1 and a 1 in each illustration so that you and your kids can have fun searching for these numbers. While solidifying for your kids what these numbers look like, I've put the steps for how to reach 9 to reach 911 on various cell phones even if they're locked, and what that call will go like and what information they will be looking for. My book will help your child practice their first and last name, mom and dad's first and last names, their address, what to do if there is a fire, it goes over stranger danger, internet, water and gun safety, and I have paired an activity book to go right along with it.
Speaker 1:To solidify these concepts, give yourself peace of mind and give your kids the confidence to handle the unexpected. By grabbing your copy of let's Talk Emergencies today, you can head on over to the link in my show's description or thehomeschoolhowtocom, and if you do purchase the copy, please, please, please, leave me a review on Amazon. The more reviews I have, the more the algorithm will push this book out there, so I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening and for all of your support of the show.
Speaker 2:I've heard the argument that like, well, it's really good for our kids to hear read alouds in their parents' voices, and I can appreciate the sentiment. But I also think, especially if you're homeschooling, your kids hear a lot of your voice. I don't know, I think my kids hear enough of my voice. I'm not sure that. I don't think I would use that to feel like an audio book is subpar to a read-aloud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's important just to note that apps like the Libby app you can often just get audio books from your library for free. You know, you check them out. I know my son has used that for the boxcar children and stuff. And there's also a woman I had on my podcast a few months back who created her own podcast called Kids Storytime Favorites, and it's her and her six-year-old daughter reading the books and they're very common books that most of us have or can easily get from the library, or I got a couple for $5 from the thrift book websites Goodreads, and so she reads them and dings a bell every time the page turns. So if it's a night where you don't have time to sit and read to your child, it's kind of a treat to say, well, let's listen. You can turn on your podcast and, you know, read along with the book, and her daughter has cute little sayings and questions she'll ask during the book. It's really adorable. So we've enjoyed that as well. There's so many different ways so that you don't get bored with one way.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that idea of like the ding so much so we're making books now at a publishing company. We started at Read A Lot of Revival called Waxwing Books and all of our picture books. We make the audio books with those with and without those page turns, cause I remember those as a kid. I don't I'm sure my mom read to me, I'm sure my parents both read to me. I don't remember it though, but I do remember audiobooks with the little when you hear this sound turn the page, and I think that's so wonderful and it gives kids this opportunity to meet the book itself without a parent intervening necessarily. Like I think that's also beautiful. Of course we're the read aloud revival, like of course we're talking about read alouds, but I also think there's something beautiful about a kid and some beautiful art just the two of them and being able to have that quiet moment, and it's also there's something beautiful about mom being able to have that quiet moment where she feels like this is better than the screens that I want to give you.
Speaker 1:I'll let you read a lot with this audio yeah. And the kids' storytime favorites. She said that she came up with that idea because her husband would get home from work so tired and all her daughter wanted to do is sit in his lap and have him read a story. But he was so tired he'd fall asleep. So she recorded herself reading the books, and all the little girl just wanted to do is just sit in her dad's arms. So he fell asleep, as the mom's recording would read the book and it was so that's how that idea was born, and I just love that so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wish I knew about your publishing company. I would have pitched my book to you. I had written a book earlier this year. That was my project with my son, because I needed another project on top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand this. I didn't. As I was going through homeschool curriculum, I didn't see a lot about how to handle emergencies out there. So like, especially, you know we grew up with I grew up with landline phones. I'm 40, you know, so we always knew where the phone was. If there's an emergency, you run to the phone and call 911. But I'm like with cell phones now nobody has landlines. So like, do kids know how to call 911 from a locked cell phone?
Speaker 2:Well, and at like, if you went to school, like I did, we did drills and stuff at school. I don't, I'm sure they do. I don't even know what they do now, I don't know, I don't want to know, but I do know that my kids I would like oh, fire, like where, what happens? Where do we meet If there's a fire? Like, yeah, I've, do we remember to talk about this stuff? Like, I don't remember there's a lot nine-year-old doesn't know how to tie a shoe and you're like, oh, I guess we've been buying Velcro. Guess we better teach that. That's exactly why.
Speaker 1:Yes, why I wrote it? Because I'm like I don't see, and I and I a family that's cops and I was like you know, what are you guys seeing that kids don't know that they should? And my brother-in-law said the number one thing is they don't know their parents first and last names, and I'm like I haven't seen any of our homeschool curriculum. Ask that to the child, you know, sometimes it'll say what's mom's phone number, but like once or twice reciting it isn't enough. So, yeah, so that was our little um uh project for the last year. I thought it was going to take like a month to write a children's book, get it illustrated and published.
Speaker 2:Yeah, took a year yeah, and even that's pretty quick, that's great, that's really good well, it's self-published.
Speaker 1:Everyone's like, oh, you're a published author. I'm like it's self-published. Anybody, it's published, oh girl, don't do that.
Speaker 2:No, it's published.
Speaker 1:I love it oh, but it's so important. So have you guys started writing and creating your own books?
Speaker 2:now. Yes, so Waxwing Books is an imprint we started at Read Aloud Revival for Read Aloud, so we have actually a couple of them. Oh, you can't really see them behind me because my camera is too fancy it fades them out. The first few picture books that we published were written by me and they're all illustrated by different people, but we've actually acquired several books written by others too. So in 2024, we have four books coming out.
Speaker 2:One is a picture book I wrote and the other three are. There's two more picture books, there's a middle grade fantasy novel, and really what we're trying to make are like the kind of books that I wish we had more of at the library. So you find these books that are just absolute gems and you're like why aren't we making more books like this right now? Why is it so hard to find? Those are what we're trying to make and the kind that you really want to read aloud, especially with a wide variety of ages, or picture books that you want to keep reading with your older kids, or middle grade novels that you could read even if your 4-year-old and you're a 14-year-old we're in the same room. That's what we're making at Waxwing. So those are all I should say they're at waxwingbookscom, but you can actually find them at any bookstore.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Now, okay, so that's one of the things I love about homeschooling, too is that you can do this family-style sort of learning. For many of the subjects like history and science, you just and science, you just give them each different levels. So, with you saying, the books that you're reading, where you can read it, a young child would enjoy, but, just like the Winnie the Pooh, your 10, 11, 12, or maybe 14-year-old is also going to enjoy it. Yes, do you have a book list that is specific for that family style sort of learning?
Speaker 2:What we do is, for example, we have a brand new book list on the Middle Ages.
Speaker 2:So if you were going to try and study the Middle Ages, we have books and we have them grouped so like these are really good ones for four and up, these are really good ones for eight and up and these are good ones for teens, and so you could pick some of those books will indicate on our list like this one's really great for all ages, so you could read some of those with everybody and then you could also say, okay, I also want my teen to read this book on the side, and the eight year old, maybe they can read this one or listen to this audio book, or maybe we just read this novel to everybody and then everybody can listen to the picture books.
Speaker 2:So not every single book on all of our lists is appropriate for all ages, because some books you don't really want your younger kids to have until they're a little bit older, of course, um, but yeah, what we'll do is we'll do like different time periods, or I think our most popular book lists are our monthly book, picture book lists. Um, actually, I don't think those are the most popular. I know those are the most popular, uh, and people use them to go. Like we have a picture book collection for every month of the year that a lot of families just use as their preschool or kindergarten curriculum. Like we're just going to get a bunch of these books and then we'll do some activities or we'll add a little bit of math and we'll go outside, and that's a great education for a four, five, six, seven year old.
Speaker 1:So four, five, six, seven year old, so that's exactly what I had said last week when I was on.
Speaker 1:It was either the Quite Frankly podcast or the Jeremy Ryan Slate podcast. That went. When they said, and I said your book lists? I said get some good quality books, you can order them from. I know like we have in New York the Upper Hudson Library System app so I can go on search for the books that are on your book list. They will be delivered to my library and I'll get notified when they're all there and I pick them up and then you can just go outside and have their and that's literally all you have to do. You don't have to overwhelm yourself with all these curriculums, especially when they're young, that just reading to them and they even have books now where there's math, like I read a couple with these little ducks and there's like math involved in the reading of the book.
Speaker 2:These little ducks were on a beach and I don't know, so that's kind of cool too, one of the things we made and I can send it to you for your show notes if you'd like. But we made a book list that is nature based for the whole year and so then, like in fall, there's 12, at least 12, I think picture books, and then each of those you'd be able to find at your library. We picked ones that are not like out of print or difficult to find, and then each of the books we also paired a really simple activity to go with it, so like leaf rubbings or a fall scavenger walk to go find certain things that we have on a list or whatever a fall scavenger walk to go find certain things that we have on a list or whatever they're. All all the activities are purposefully picked that you don't need to go out and buy any supplies for, because I am not a very hands-on project kind of a mom and that did those kind of curriculum just make me run for the hills. So it's basically just like reading aloud and going outside and doing this simple activity and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I think once you start doing it and realizing gosh, at the end of the year or the month when you ask your kids. What are some of your favorite things we did this year? Those are the kind of things they usually remember. They don't have to be overcomplicated. You don't have to come up with like a whole geography unit about that book. Just reading the book, going outside picking something up about it or even just reading the book and talking about it for a minute are really excellent ways to engage our kids, and sometimes I think we overcomplicate things to calm our own anxiety about doing enough.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, yeah, yeah, you, you fear that you're not giving them enough, but really sometimes less is more. And yeah, oh, I had a post on my Instagram page a couple of weeks ago that I was like I think I've learned more in my one year of homeschooling my kidner gardener than I have learned in 13 years of school and four years of university.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and yeah, I'm sure it was yearbook lists that, um, I had gotten the children's book about Susan Comstock and you know these real people in, you know in our history that made an impact. But they're books written for children so it's engaging and entertaining to them but they're learning real world history put in context and that's sort of the Charlotte Mason way of learning through living books, which makes such an impact when we are learning to have it put into context, not just through a textbook of name dates, what happened, exactly Because we remember stories, we don't remember facts, and so I love that about that Charlotte Mason way of like get to know one person in history and you'll be much better shaped than if you were just memorizing facts and dates and wars from a textbook.
Speaker 2:And that's what the thing. One of the authors that I interviewed, who writes historical fiction novels, was saying her first stop for research is always a picture book. Like if she's going to write a book set during the Great Depression, she's looking for every picture book she can, because she can learn so much and that's a gift we can give our kids too, so we get to learn alongside them, which is extra fun.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay. So to round out, because I know I don't have you for too long, how has your homeschooling changed with your children? From you know you have adults now that are in college to how you homeschool the younger ones.
Speaker 2:That's such a good question. I am a much more relaxed mother now, I think, realizing like with my older kids, the roughest years were when my oldest were 12, 10, and 8. We had a one-year-old and newborn twins and then for the next couple of years because newborn twins turn into one-year-olds and two-year-olds and three-year-olds they're not getting easier for a little while, and so those were some really difficult years. But also my oldest daughter, those were also years where it's not like when they're 12, 13, 14, you're like it's okay if we like take our foot off the gas for a while. You know, that's not exactly the feeling we all have. I had a lot of anxiety about whether we were doing enough and knowing the balls that I dropped and the holes that were there, and then also how all three of our older kids have done so well and how they get hungry to fill the gaps for themselves. It's made me more relaxed. I feel so much less of an impulse to fill them with a certain amount of knowledge or make sure they have everything, and instead focusing on our relationships and a basic feeling of home as being a place of peace. That's like a much bigger priority than it used to be.
Speaker 2:Um, I read aloud. I mean, I read aloud a lot with the older ones, but I value it more than ever. I actually did a survey last year where I asked um homeschool moms who've been homeschooling for more than 10 years at least to answer what they wish they had done more of, and less of 726 women answered this. It was amazing. Over 150 of them had been homeschooling for more than 20 years. It was crazy. Almost everybody said they wish they had read aloud more and they were all read aloud people and I feel that too, Like yeah, that was really. It really was the thing I wish we had done more of. So we read aloud. That's something we do. That's the same.
Speaker 2:I worry a lot less about content subjects Like have we covered everything in history or science? Those aren't questions I ask anymore and I have a very high priority for giving my kids good friendships. That is something that I did with my older ones to a degree to the degree I I was able to because I had also schlepping around all these babies everywhere we went, but it felt like it took a lot of time to like drive them like our homeschool co-ops not super close, so it's like driving them to their friends houses or organizing social activities for them. And talking to my adult kids and hearing what an impact that made has made it like one of my top priorities with my younger kids Like, OK, I know we have to drive 45 minutes to go have a play date with that family, but that's going to be, that's worth it. And so I have a very high value now for friendships in our real community, even if they're, even if they take a lot of work or time to make happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, and that goes kind of hand in hand with that big fear tactic of socialization. They won't be socialized, but it's like there are 9 billion people on the planet. You see them everywhere you go. So as long as you find a couple that your kids really enjoy and you think that they're good. You know natured and it's not like that your child has to be around 30 kids their exact same age, no, I mean really what we mean.
Speaker 2:the funny thing about that whole socialization is what we mean when we say someone's well socialized is that they can engage with people who are not like them, and so the way that we then go socialize them is put them in a group of a whole bunch of kids who are their exact same age. It just doesn't make any sense. So of course, they are better socialized in real life, where the people that you have the hardest time getting along with are usually the ones you live with. And then going to the library and the post office and the grocery store and then church and then activities in a park day I just love so much.
Speaker 2:Dr Meg Meeker is a pediatrician and she told me once that if she she could see, like in a in a few kids, if they were to line up, she would be able to tell within the first five minutes without them saying who went to public school and who went to who was homeschooled, because the homeschooled kids will look adults in the eye when they talk to them. They're just more cause they're. They're engaging with more adults than kids who go to school are, which is interesting with. We're always being accused of not socializing our children.
Speaker 1:So true. But yeah, we went to a community little concert the other night and I always have been like you know, we're not weird like the homeschoolers, we don't wear bonnets and whittle, but we go to this little concert and I'm dancing to the country music on the dance floor. My son comes out and I hadn't gotten a good look at his outfit before he's dressed himself. He's got his tight jeans on his cowboy boots, which are like tucked into the cowboy boot. The jeans are tucked in. He's got a shirt all tucked in as tight as it could be, with a belt buckle with like American Eagle, like right.
Speaker 2:Oh crap, we're the homeschoolers. Yeah, I mean we are weird, it's fine, it's everybody's weird. But uh, it is funny to me, like every once in a while my kids say something. I'm like that was a super homeschooled kid thing to say he looked good. Hey, man, like he owned it, he was dancing, I like it.
Speaker 1:He did. He didn't really dance, he stood up there and he's like all right, I'm in the spotlight. I'm going to go back to my seat, but it was cute. Oh, sarah, thank you so much, what an awesome conversation. I'm going to put the link to read aloud revival into the show notes and anything else that you would like me to link down there. Please do so. I use your stuff all the time. I urge other families to and to check out your podcast. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you. Thank you, cheryl, for having me. Thank you for tuning into 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.