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
Curriculum Series: Blossom and Root- Language Arts, Science & Nature Study
Prepare to be whisked away into the heart of homeschooling as Olivia Rian shares her treasure trove of knowledge on the Blossom and Root curriculum. Through our engaging discussion, listeners will grasp how this unique educational framework beautifully weaves together language arts, science, and nature study from preschool through the elementary years. Olivia, with her practical insights, unveils the delights and challenges of pairing Blossom and Root with programs like Wild Math and Easy Grammar, ensuring a rich tapestry of learning for every child. As we journey through the curriculum's evolution, you'll discover its increasingly user-friendly approach from the third grade, allowing for a smoother daily teaching experience.
This episode isn't just about curriculum choices; it's an invitation to reimagine the classroom under the sky. Join us as we share inspiring nature-based science activities that promise to ignite curiosity across grade levels. From weather journals for eager first graders to the intricacies of physics for budding fourth-grade scientists, Olivia articulates how everyday practices like gardening and composting bring complex concepts to life. Together, we map out the rhythm of daily lessons, integrating art and literature into a seamless educational dance. For those seeking to nourish their child's learning with the freshness of the outdoors and the flexibility to tailor education to individual needs, this conversation sparkles with possibilities.
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my Curriculum, a series where we talk all about curriculum. I've been interviewing homeschooling families for over a year now on my main podcast, the Homeschool How-To, but I really wanted to zero in on curriculum. There's so much out there. How do I know what would work best for me and my child? How do I know what works for one child would work for the other? I might like the curriculum I'm using now, but how do I know there's not a better one out there, especially if I don't know all the curriculums? And what about supplemental curriculum? Should I be using that too? This series is to help you decide just that. I'm going to interview parents who are using all the curriculums so that you can decide the absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. The absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. Welcome everyone With us.
Speaker 1:Today I have Olivia Ryan from Maryland and she's going to talk to us about Blossom and Root. Welcome, olivia, thank you for being here. Hi, so I don't know anything about Blossom and Root. I'm really excited to hear about this curriculum because I feel like we hear about the same curriculums kind of all the time and you don't know if it's because those are really good curriculums, or if those just had really good marketing behind them to become so popular, you know. So I'm so excited to talk about this one. Now, what ages and do you use this for for your kids?
Speaker 2:So we started with Blossom and Root. I actually started with my daughter when she was in first grade, but then I went back and I used it for my son in preschool. So we started in preschool and first grade using the curriculum, but it goes up to fifth, sixth grade and it covers language arts, science and nature. Oh, okay, it gives suggestions for other subjects such as, like, I think, wild math. Is they like to pair that with blossom and root?
Speaker 2:Oh that's interesting, but they're not the same company, not the same company, no, but yeah, I've used different parts of language arts, science and nature over the years. In some years I kind of mix and match with other curriculums, but I especially love their preschool curriculum and their science and nature. I didn't use their first grade language arts, or I did use it once. I didn't love it though, and I so I used a different curriculum for first and second grade, kindergarten through second grade for language arts, but I really love once my daughter got really solid with reading. I love their literature with third grade and up Now language arts.
Speaker 1:Okay, is that just like reading, writing and spelling?
Speaker 2:Reading, writing, grammar they do a little bit of grammar copywriting. Each week. You have a reading selection and she'll have two journal entries and she draws about what she learns and usually the first journal entry is something to do with the reading, like a question, and the second journal entry is her favorite part of the reading and then they usually play with vocabulary and write a poem or do something creative with vocabulary in the reading and then something with copywork and grammar.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. So let me break this down a little bit further, just to like really drill in. So you use it for language arts, science and history. Did you say Nature, nature, nature study, nature study. Okay, perfect. So we have like those three that you and is it one curriculum that encompasses all that, or are they three different books that you need to purchase?
Speaker 2:You can buy the full third grade and you'd get like all three of those in third grade or fourth grade. Okay, but you also will separately buy the science and nature and use like a different language arts or something. Okay, they let you buy language arts separately or science and nature separately, or you can buy the three together Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that that makes it a little bit clearer. Now, is this what they call open and go, or do you have to like prep beforehand?
Speaker 2:I would say third grade on. My kids are more independent with language arts, absolutely open and go Um with science and nature. There's a little bit of there's a little bit of prep, because I I've tried other sciences and I really like how this one um, there's always there's highlights and main points they read, and then there's videos that they watch or books that they read and I find a lot of the books free on YouTube and so I have to set those videos up. I pull them up on the computer, read the highlights and then they just sit down, they watch their videos, they write what they learned, they draw about what they learned and then I set up the science experiment. So I think maybe when she's in fourth grade right now, maybe when she's in fifth grade, she'd be able to look at that and set it up herself.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's a little prep work with.
Speaker 2:I've taken that step and set it up herself. But okay, there's a little prep work with.
Speaker 1:I've taken that step and set it up for her with the nature and okay. So the nature and the science have the little bit of prep work. Language arts is pretty open and go pretty, yeah, pretty much open and go.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you talked a little bit about what the day to day would look like with the curriculum, with the language arts. Um, you know as saying that you know she would have the passages and and the reading, and actually, well, you kind of talked about it too when you talked about the video. So maybe just break it down for me, like what does a day in your life look like for your children doing this? Do you have it where they do a certain subject first and second and third, and what is it kind of go through? And like the bird's eye view, looking down.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So with language arts they would start, they break, they'll break up the reading for the week and see how much they need to read each day and then usually with Bossman Root, it gives you a layout of how you can do it for the week. So my daughter will usually do a journal entry Monday, a journal entry Tuesday, the vocabulary on Wednesday and the copywork and grammar on Thursday. Third grade on, though I do pair easy grammar with Blossom and Rooks, I feel like they need more grammar than that. I don't feel like there's enough in the curriculum, so she does a separate grammar worksheet, but I think it still helps. It's still an activity she can do with the book that she's reading, and she's read some really fun books like wonder and the secret garden and um alice's adventures in wonderland, so it. So she'll do the reading selection and then something each day that correlates with it and the.
Speaker 2:In the curriculum all three, or at least the science and language arts. There's 36 weeks and one week is like one lesson that you break up for the week. Okay, so you kind of decide. It's more open-ended. It's not like you know the good and the beautiful, where you have a lesson a day that's already broken up for you. You kind of decide how much you want to do each day and how you want to break it up over your school week.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah, so that depends on do you teach all year long, do you take a summer break, do you want to do five days a week, or you know, maybe try to condense it into three or four. So that's good to know, all right, so what now? You're talking about three different ones. So we'll just say, for the language arts, what, in a nutshell, do they learn from like the beginning of the third grade year to the end? Or, you know, what sort of information does it encompass? Like you talked about reading, like I know that's kind of it's an open thing, especially because you're talking about three different subjects.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a large question yeah, well, they, um, they began like studying themes and literature and like symbols and literature. I really. I mean, I really like how she reads six or seven books for the whole year, so she really gets to. And there's there's accompanying projects, literature projects. She can do with them, so she really goes deep into the literature on and there's kind of a theme for each year, like this year, for fourth grade is really focused on heroes. So there's everything from like Norse mythology to just all sorts of different books. They do start with I don't know, off the look. Yeah, no, that's fine, like Like they have to look. They start with grammar, I mean like nouns and verbs and identifying them and punctuation, capitalization.
Speaker 1:And even for like the science. What kind of stuff does that? Are you learning at the third grade level in that year?
Speaker 2:So there's like a different theme each year. First grade was my son's doing first grade right now and it focuses on like the earth and um, like natural disasters. And then, um, I can't remember, I can't remember second grade, but third grade is animal or no. Second grade's plants, okay, you like study a different plant every week. Third grade is animals, like the animal kingdom.
Speaker 2:And fourth grade had we had like physics and engineering for the first half of the year and then she's doing anatomy, anatomy and physiology for the second half of the year, like learning about different parts of the body and how the systems and organs work. So each science year has to focus on something different. And again, I love how it's set up because I've tried, I've tried like Good and the Beautiful Science where, and they've actually really improved it I feel like they've made it more for the right level of student. Before, like I was trying to do it with a kindergartner and it was going way over their head. But I love how, um, the science is, like it's suited to your child's level and because there's videos.
Speaker 2:Kids love videos, they love storybooks. Even in fourth grade she still has like storybooks that she reads for her science. I mean more in fourth grade there is more science videos like SciShow Kids and like last year, she did a lot of like animal videos of from different biologists and things like that. But I just feel like it's very engaging. They're very engaged in the content because they're watching the videos and then they can do the experiment afterwards. That kind of helps them be hands on with whatever they learn that week, whereas when I was trying to read like a chapter of science with them, I don't know, I was totally losing them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:When I hear you say experiments, I'm just thinking of like a lot of work for the adult. What is an example of an experiment or two that you've done?
Speaker 2:Let me look, pull up. I have it pulled up right here. Baking soda everywhere Not that that's the end of the world but are they everyday experiments or once a week? They're just one for the week and sometimes we skip it, but they always one for the outdoor learners. They say the table lab, crowd the crafts and projects families. So there's kind of a different.
Speaker 1:I love that yeah.
Speaker 2:So whatever like works for you, like works for you and some sometimes I don't want to do any prep and the experiment is walking outside and like identifying, like a certain tree or something or it's, it's or a nature walk or going walking on the beach. It's not necessarily a bunch of like prep work, right.
Speaker 1:With pouring in the what do they call them? Beaker cups and stuff. All right, right, that makes it a little bit more like doable, so that's good, I'm glad I asked Now how do you differentiate the nature then? Because it sounds like a lot of the science is kind of nature stuff.
Speaker 2:Are they separate? They try to make the nature, then, because it sounds like a lot of the science is kind of nature stuff. Are they separate? Uh, they try to make the nature activities coincide with the science.
Speaker 2:For the year, like with first grade, we did um because like it was what lots of weather related activities. So she did like a weather journal where she went outside and like, looked at what, what the weather was that day and the temperature, and wrote it down and drew what she saw outside for the weather. And she did like a book of firsts where she had to go get a leaf or something outside and glue it into a book and identify what the leaf is. Oh, that's cool. And then for fourth grade right now, with fourth grade, I mean, I'm trying to make the connection here Sometimes it's a little bit more vague because she's doing physics and engineering and the human body but the whole entire science or sorry, nature this year is focused on starting a garden, so it starts in the fall, fall, winter, spring and summer and all the prep. So she's learned, you know, she started a worm farm and she's learned just about composting and soil and seed, seed prep, and so we're right now we're at the stage where we're starting to plant the seedlings, that's cool.
Speaker 1:I learned zero of that in school. As you're talking, I'm sitting here trying to go. Did I learn this stuff in elementary school and just completely forgot? Like either I learned it and they taught it in a way that was so boring I didn't retain any of it, or they I don't know what we did for all these hours I sat in public school. I don't know any of this stuff, and that's. That's just so cool. I love that, especially the gardening. How long does your day take when you're at least for these three lessons? I know you talked about having other curriculums and I'll ask you again what else you add in at the end of that too. So how long does all of this take?
Speaker 2:Okay. So for preschool and they have preschool for basically age three, which I usually skip. Preschool for three-year-olds it's never been much done, much for my three-year-old before four-year-olds. I totally do preschool for three four-year-olds and I'd say it's only about 30 minutes a day and with the preschool they have like composer study, where they study like composer, like Beethoven, and then they do a famous artist like, such as Picasso, and then they do like an art project that focuses on the artist they're learning about and it's usually things that you already have around the house and then they do like a kitchen classroom activity, letter activities and a story or poetry selection for the week and you just break this up. That's preschool the whole week. Yeah, wow, it's. It's very like hands-on and not I don't feel like it's overwhelming, but I guess that is kind of maybe a lot for a preschooler.
Speaker 2:I love the story, poetry selection. So we usually there's like a little like a book we read and we talk about it. I think we did like Little Blue Truck or something and you know, you go outside and play in the mud. I mean I, yeah, I definitely like the forest school stuff with preschool, but we did do some of this not all of it with preschoolers, just for fun, and it was fun listening to, like looking at a painting and like listening to a song and just talking about it.
Speaker 2:But I will say, when I started Blossom and Root, I went to the material list. I bought everything on the material list. I bought all the books it said. And I've definitely changed since then. I just kind of I get things as I go, because you don't always use 50 toilet paper rolls for whatever it's asking, you know, and I like I don't buy every book. I like I said you can go to the library or there. A lot of them are on YouTube where someone reads. I don't even know it's legal, but yeah, they read the story, yeah the read alouds.
Speaker 1:I do that. I listen to that all the time. That's how I listen to john taylor gatto's uh, dumbing us down. A woman reading on youtube I love.
Speaker 2:I love that it's on youtube because it's just like save. They're just fun to watch and it's just saved so much time and it's like an easy resource for homeschooling or any kid. We've done books as well. Sometimes the book will be on books V-O-O-K-S. So anyway, preschool takes about 30 minutes Language arts with the reading each day Because, like I said, I do it. Third grade on I've used something else for first and second grade. I'd say it's about 30, 45 minutes for language arts, just the language arts, just the language arts. Probably more like 30 minutes a day with her getting up to even fourth grade. Probably about 30 minutes. Science we actually do it all in one day because I try to do um, because I'm in maryland, we have subject requirements, so we do science on monday, history and art on tuesday and thursday and health on wednesday, so I do all of the science in one day and so it's about an hour, 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how many videos um is on the suggested list yeah, that's a neat idea yeah, I've always.
Speaker 1:I'm just, I'm a minimalist, I feel like, and I just want to just do it one day well, yeah, and then you're not shifting their like way of thinking, like, okay, we're supposed to be like discovering things right now and now we're supposed to learn about letters and writing. You know, I can understand why. Maybe it makes more sense if it only takes an hour to just kind of do and a lot of it is like video watching to do that in one day, that's a cool idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it uncomplicates things. I feel like it'd be harder to do a little bit of something every day. I mean, we're doing that with language arts but with yeah, with science it's, we just do it in one day. And then nature about 30 minutes, depending on what they're doing. They've made like a bug hotel it's. Usually they are sent outside. Sometimes they need to go outside and use their five senses and there's like a nature journal where they come in and write about it. I really believe that spending time in nature is something you can enjoy your entire life. If you can identify birds and trees, it's something like very peaceful and calming that can you can enjoy your entire life and I think should be part of school curriculums and kids should get I we're part of the whole 1000 hours outside, fun movement and try to spend lots of time outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I didn't grow up that way. And even moving into this house in upstate New York where, you know, my husband owned it before and I'm like, oh my gosh, you can't even get internet out here Like this is insane. And I was like spring bug spray spray like all over the house to kill every bug when I first moved in.
Speaker 2:And then now, like 10 years later, I'm like let's put up some bee homes, bring the bees back yeah, I've had to adjust living in the forest spiders like I used to just scream when I'd see a spider and now I can seriously look at a really big spider and be like thank you for your service. Those nasty mosquitoes as long as it's not in the house. But I've walked outside and just seen really big spiders and we still I mean, we'll still try to spray around the house so they'll not come inside, but we've had some fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so funny, but I yeah, it's so important that kids learn the because and and that's why I had no appreciation for it. I didn't know, like, what good a spider could do, or you know the birds, just even that we have turkey vultures that live in the tree outside our house and like how they clean up roadkill or you know all dead animals, and just it's so beautiful how it all like fits in. I love it. Do you remember how much these curriculum costs off hand? If you don't, that's fine.
Speaker 2:No, I I think for everything, if you bought all three no-transcript paper. I didn't know about that. I think the homeschool printing company is one of them and they'll just print and bind your book and it's like a fraction of the cost compared to like going to FedEx or something.
Speaker 1:Could you also like take it to your local library I don't know how either by email or USB or something, and have your library printed out.
Speaker 2:Oh, probably I haven't tried that. But yeah, my library is like I don't know. I think order a print or something. I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so it might add up All right.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like the website is the best, the cheapest route. Yeah, doing like a homeschool printing website, and I just do the like what they need for the science notebook, the language arts notebook and the nature notebook, what they need to write in, and then I use my computer to read, like the highlights for science, and set up the videos and okay.
Speaker 1:I don't print a higher curriculum so now do you think your kids enjoy this curriculum?
Speaker 2:yeah, I do, I do. I think they really enjoy it. My daughter loves the reading selections and my. They both love science. My daughter and son love the science. Um, I think it's good for them because they both love to draw and they're able to. I guess it's less I don't know it's less regurgitating than maybe other curriculums with, say, like a test afterwards, because they are just writing what they learned, drawing about it and then applying it with the experiment okay, so they all kind of intertwine and connect yeah, so I do like that.
Speaker 2:But I guess you you have to like, look back. You can't just, I mean, with a worksheet. You can look at a worksheet and say, okay, this is what they learned from today. You know, I have to look at. Okay, what did they write about? What did they glean from this video, like what stuck out to them and what's important for them to know before we go on to next week right, and then so can you do this with multiple kids at the same time?
Speaker 1:you think it sounds like you could if you had separate writing sheets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have thought about that. It's because, like my daughter, like I said, is in fourth grade and my son's in first I could if she I feel like if she hadn't already done all these sciences I could have just had them sit and do it together and I guess I could have had him jump forward and do whatever science she's doing and then go back to the other ones, because they don't necessarily build on each other, like you could learn about animals before you learn about plants. But I think you definitely could, if you had kids in different grade levels, do the science and nature, because we've already for nature this year. It's like we already did a lot of the nature activities and I let him, when he was younger, participate in those. So I focused less on the first grade nature this year and focused more on the garden for both of them.
Speaker 1:Now you said that you use a different curriculum for first and second grade. Can I ask which one you use?
Speaker 2:The good and the beautiful. I like it's. It's not for every kid, it's definitely more prescriptive. I think it's more basically what you get at public school, butchool kind of situation. But my son I just I believe you do whatever's right for your kid and he did really well with the preschool books and learned to read. I don't think, like I said, it's the best reading curriculum. I think there I I kind of wish I hadn't used it for my daughter because I didn't like no, you know, it's the best reading curriculum. I think there I I kind of wish I hadn't used it for my daughter because I didn't like no, you know, that's where we started.
Speaker 2:We started homeschooling when she was in preschool and we just did the good and the beautiful, like you said, cause that's what everyone did and it really didn't work for her with learning to read like it did. But it didn't. But it did work for him, for him and so for him I just stuck with it through second grade because he's learning to read really well with it. But with her we actually stopped the good and the beautiful after kindergarten because I felt like it was just not working for her and we did blossom and root instead, language arts. That, and then I feel like doing the first, the second grade Good and the Beautiful kind of got her to the level I wanted her to be at, to where she could go back to Blossom and Root and be at the reading level she needed to be to read this huge stack of books for third grade with Blossom and Root and be able to keep up with it and be able to keep up with it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad it worked out, but it just is a testament to how you know something that didn't work for your daughter did work for your son. Like, every kid is different, even within the same family, and that's why I wanted to start this curriculum series, because it's like, how do you know what one to pick when you don't know what each one is really about, like what what's inside of them and what the learning style is? So that's super helpful for you to be able to explain all that to us today. So you are going to continue this curriculum with your son as as he goes through yeah, I definitely with the science and third grade.
Speaker 2:I'll start him with the blossom and root, third grade and he'll read the books that she read and I'll already have it. But I, yeah, I like how it's heavily literature focused. I like because I feel like I've noticed, at least with good and the beautiful, there's just so many, um, they don't read. I don't. I mean they have reading selections in the book and they tell you to go read, but it's not focused on the book. Okay, and I like how ilma is very focused on each book that they read and like they delve deeper and it's like classic literature. It's not all classic, some of it's modern, but it's not necessarily something that the good and the beautiful produces a lot of their own literature, which is kind of funny. It's like not something they wrote, necessarily it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Now is this is Bostman a religious or secular curriculum?
Speaker 2:It is secular and I mean I like that with science because I can add what I want with religion into it, like I can like add what we believe personally with religion into it, instead of reading something written out by somebody else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, all right. Well, I was. That's all the questions that I had for you about the curriculum. Was there anything that I didn't ask, that you wanted to make sure that you touched upon or think people should know about?
Speaker 2:like I said, I love the nature focus of it. We started blossom and root because I was homeschooling before that, but we started at my in-laws backyard during 2020 and so it was really peaceful, like connecting with nature through the curriculum and having something to do. And now that we like live in our own forest and we can learn about nature using Blossom and Root, it was just a great start, like a shift for our homeschool, shifting and focusing more on the nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's nature based and so I love it with our forest schooling and yeah, I picture you just like walking out your front door and like living in a mushroom, like in the middle of the forest. Yes, in my head that's what I'm envisioning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're in the middle of the woods lots of trees and lots of houses.
Speaker 1:That's so great. Well, I do invite you to come back onto the main podcast to tell us all about your homeschooling journey and what even got you into it and how you incorporate the forestry part to it. So hopefully, people will continue to listen, but in the meantime, where can people find you? You do have an Instagram page where you kind of chat about that, right, yeah, so I have the Navu Sun Farms.
Speaker 2:That's kind of our homesteading farm account where we do a lot of. We have quail and goats and that's part of the homeschool and but I also have I mean that would say that's my public account. I do have an author account, author Olivia Ryan. That one's more private. But yeah, finding me on navu sun farms and I try to post more about our homeschool journey on the, what we do day to day on that account with the animals and with school spell that for us um n-a-u-v-o-o-s-u-n-f-a-r-m okay, all right.
Speaker 1:And then, yes, you're an author as well. You've written eight books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have three children's chapter books. I grabbed one just to have right here. It's just about a detective beaver who solves a nutty mystery. Yeah, so they're supposed to be educational. We have a glossary in the back teaching about North American mountains and the Victorian era, and I also write clean romance.
Speaker 1:But those are my, I'd say, homeschool educational books, book, and I'm like and I love the process, even just homeschooling Cause I'll say to my son, like can I read this to you and you kind of edit, tell me what you don't like about it? And I can like just envision you doing that with your kids as you're writing that. Yeah, Like, what do you think about this? So cool, All right, Well, I hope. Um, you know people check out your page. I was looking at it. It's really fun and informative and I look forward to chatting with you further on the main podcast about how you got into homeschooling. Thank you, Olivia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please consider sharing this podcast or my main podcast, the Homeschool how To with friends, family, on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. The more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it going and the more hope we have for the future. Thank you for your love of the next generation.