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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
#115: Shifting from Curriculum-Heavy to Self-Directed Learning with Katie Berry
Katie Berry returns to The Homeschool How To Podcast with a refreshingly honest revelation about her educational transformation. Once a curriculum devotee who meticulously planned each subject for her five children, Katie now champions a dramatically different approach that has revolutionized learning in her home.
The catalyst? Life's demands forced her hand when increasing work responsibilities made her traditional teaching schedule unsustainable. What began as a necessary adaptation revealed an unexpected truth: her children learned more, retained information better, and developed genuine enthusiasm when given agency over their education. From her eight-year-old narrating detailed animal facts after watching Wild Kratts to her older son eagerly sharing discoveries from science comics, the evidence was undeniable.
Katie still maintains that some subjects—particularly reading—benefit from direct instruction. If a child hasn't begun reading spontaneously by age six or seven, structured phonics teaching becomes essential. But for history, science, and other subjects, she's transitioned from teacher to mentor, guiding her children toward resources while allowing them to chart their learning paths through documentaries, podcasts, books, and hands-on activities.
This shift addresses a profound educational gap Katie observed when her public-schooled daughter, despite graduating with honors, called home during her first month of college having panic attacks because she didn't know how to learn independently. The checkbox mentality of traditional education hadn't prepared her for self-directed learning. By contrast, Katie's homeschooled children are developing the exact skills needed for higher education success—finding resources, managing time, and pursuing knowledge without constant direction.
Are you struggling with curriculum overload or wondering if your approach is sustainable? Join us for this thought-provoking conversation about loosening the reins, trusting your children's natural curiosity, and reimagining what effective education truly means.
✨ This episode is brought to you by Excelsior Classes — live, online courses for homeschoolers taught by passionate, Christian instructors. Whether your student needs support in core subjects or wants to explore exciting electives, Excelsior offers rigorous academics in a nurturing environment. Learn more at excelsiorclasses.com!
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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 I am welcoming back Katie Berry. Katie, thank you so much for being here again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, I always love talking with you, cheryl, I love having you on. You've been on a couple of times. We did a live together a couple I guess last week, where we had a couple of other homeschooling moms on and that was really fun. We had kind of an open Q&A session. We went over a lot of the how to even begin homeschooling. So if you didn't check that out, please go check that out. It's on YouTube and Apple Podcasts, spotify, all the good places.
Speaker 1:But today we wanted to kind of just touch base on where you have come, because you were on episode four originally, so like the very beginning and we it was titled, I think, curriculum, curriculum, curriculum, how do I pick a curriculum? And you have also been on a couple couple other episodes on my curriculum series talking about different curriculums that you've used. And we also had an episode for Mother's Day where we talked about books that you recommend to the homeschooling mom to help us sort of find comfort in our everyday homeschooling and find peace within our homeschool. So thank you so much for all that you've added to the show so far. Yeah, absolutely All right. Today we are going to touch base on where did you want to begin this one?
Speaker 2:So I think that it would be best if we start where I talk about how my views around curriculum and homeschooling has changed, because it really has changed and shifted over the last year or year or two, since we talked at the very beginning about curriculum.
Speaker 1:Okay, and if I remember back to that episode, let's recap a little bit. Where were you in the beginning? You know what were your views surrounding when you started homeschooling, Because you had some kids that were in public school right and then others that you were choosing to homeschool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have five children. My oldest two were never homeschooled. They went to a brick and mortar charter school for K-8 and then went to public high school and graduated that way, and then my younger three had been exclusively homeschooled. But when we talked a few years ago I was still very heavy into curriculum and choosing things like per subject for each of my kids and just really like very, very curriculum heavy in my home, and that has changed over the last few years.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's interesting. And you know, yeah, you recommended to me the Hegarty Phonics, which I did do with my son he was four at the time, turning five and in conjunction with All About Reading, the pre-reading, and you may have even recommended the Good and the Beautiful for math. But so those were like the three main things that we did and, honestly, the year went pretty well. But I'm like you, honestly, the year went pretty well. But I'm like you, I kind of pulled back.
Speaker 1:The more I started homeschooling and talking to other homeschooling families, I pulled back with the curriculum and started kind of looking at the Hagerty. I can see where that is necessary, right, like it's, we're breaking up words, we're really listening to the beginning sound, the middle sound, the end sound, and I do think that that makes things easier when you go on. But, however, my son is still six and we're still like, kind of like struggling to find the groove of like what he likes doing and you know how to get him there to where he's actually reading on his own. Um, and it does take changing up things. So it's to let parents know, like it's, you're never going to get it right on the first try, right it's. That's just the beauty of homeschooling is we have that ability to do trial and error. What was what works for one might not for another. So yeah, tell me your experience and what has changed for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I still believe that there are certain subjects that do need direct instruction, reading being one of them. While there are kids that some of them that can learn to read very naturally through a literature rich environment, Most of those kids are learning to read on their own before the age of six, the ones that are natural readers. If, by age six or seven, they have not started reading spontaneously, they're not probably not going to become readers unless they're given direct instruction. So I'm not saying that kids can't learn on their own to read. I'm just saying that usually those kids that do do so before the age of six or seven.
Speaker 2:So I still hold the view that reading instruction is important. I think reading is the base of all learning and although I do think that kids are ready to learn between the ages of like four and seven so if you have a six-year-old that's not reading yet, there's nothing to be alarmed about. I'm just saying that they probably will need direct instruction and if you want to delay that until age seven, I'm in support of that as well. Sometimes delaying until the brain is ready to learn is a better choice, but I still think that no matter if you wait till age seven or what have you that there should be some direct instruction in the home when it comes?
Speaker 1:to reading. Ok, so when you say direct instruction, you mean just like a, like a curriculum or something that you are intentionally doing every day, Because I think I know what you mean by the spontaneous. I've talked to some parents that are like I didn't even teach my kid how to read, that are like I didn't even teach my kid how to read, they just all of a sudden absorbed it from maybe hearing me talk. You know, teach the older child or you know they just their four year old picked up a book and just started saying the sounds. So is that the difference, that sort of intentional versus unintentional?
Speaker 2:Yes, so, for example, my youngest daughter, who is now eight years old. I started homeschooling when she was eight months old and she has been raised in a very literature-rich environment where I was reading aloud a lot to my kids. They were reading aloud a lot and she also was immersed in the homeschooling world. Because you know as you probably know're doing something with an older child. Those toddlers want to join in and so I always tried to find a way to incorporate her, like whether I would let her paint with water. So I'd get like construction paper that was red or a dark color and give her a paintbrush with water and she would, you know, the paper would darken as she painted with water, things like that that were very like non-messy. But she could sit and be involved with us and she's my one that did spontaneously read. So at age five she was struggling to blend. So I just used Hegarty with her, and I only did Hegarty for a year with her when she was between the age of five and six, and at the end of that year she was a spontaneous reader and began reading. I decided to use all about reading with her anyway, because I thought all about reading is important to helping kids decode harder words, because all of us have gotten to a point where there's a word that we don't, we've never come upon and it requires us to sound out a word and decode that. I still have that happen every once in a while as an adult. I'm sorry my dog Dogs happen, but anyway so. So I still did all that reading with her, but she has kind of outpaced it. So, like every time I give her a new lesson, she is getting it down fluent, but I'm still doing it with her because I feel like she's still learning skills along the way.
Speaker 2:However, my son that's directly older than her, that's now 11, he's my one that like he wasn't really ready until age 8. Like I would try to teach him, try to teach him, and it just wasn't sticking. It wasn't sticking and all of a sudden he turned 8 years old and it clicked and then he was great. But he's one that needed direct instruction. The visual motor delay, that mimics dyslexia, and I didn't know that at the time, I didn't know that until he was 10, that he had that and so and all about reading is one of those curricula that kind of captures all learners, including struggling learners, and so using that with him allowed him to be a successful reader, where if I had chosen maybe a less robust program or tried to let him learn on his own, he would have never learned to read. Okay interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did the All About Reading pre wanted to try other like see what other curriculums were, especially since I was, you know, having the podcast. I wanted to have the experience, the knowledge to be able to tell people well, this one is like this and this one is like that. That's why I have the curriculum series. So I switched it up and, yeah, I think I would definitely go back to the all about reading. Um, you know, when we move on for next year. I think there was a structure to it. I don't. It's funny that you say robust, because it never felt like hard work. You know it had so many different elements to it, but whether it's a game, whether it's rhyming, you know the pre-reading has the puppet. So there were a lot of fun elements to it. That was never the part that my son gave me a hard time with. It was more the haggardy because it was like repeat after me. Yeah, so it which the middle sound. So that was what aggravated him. But yeah, he loved the all about reading pre-reading.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the levels one through four are pretty different than the pre-reading um, they are like you use letter tiles, so they're like little magnets and the consonants are blue, the vowels are red and they build words with these magnets you. There's also an app you can download if you have a tablet, and they won't download on phones, but you can download it on a tablet if you don't want to use the magnets.
Speaker 1:That makes a a lot of sense. They kind of have that manipulative where they're using it with their hands to kind of make what words that they need. Where we used this year the teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. But they didn't pan out to be 100 easy lessons for us. But I've had many people on the show that absolutely love it and rave about it and that is totally fine. That works for some people. It just doesn't work for my son. We went through lessons one through 50 twice, still up to lesson that around lesson 50, it just started getting so hard for him and so frustrating that we actually just kiboshed it all together and switched now to we're doing a little bit of reading eggs, a little bit of explode the Code and a little bit of reading Bob books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Explode the Code books are awesome. I've always, I've used those with my kids in the past, almost like focused, busy work is like what I want to say, like sometimes I was helping an older child and I just needed someone to be busy for a minute while I helped the older child and explode the code books were perfect for that. Yeah, so, um, yeah, I've used those. And I think reading eggs is another great program. Um, I, I think my older son um, that is 11 now when he tried reading eggs he would sometimes guess and get really far ahead in the program and then get frustrated. So, um, it depends on the type of learner. If you have a kid that is willing to put in the work and not guess their way ahead, reading X can also be a great supplement. But, yeah, so Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a great program.
Speaker 2:In fact, my degrees in psychology and when I was in behavioral psychology in that course, my teacher mentioned Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons as one of the best ways to teach a child to learn, which they call it errorless learning, e-r-r-o-r. Errorless learning, where you give the student or the child the you say, like the question is, you give them the answer and ask them to repeat it, so you're modeling the right answer to them and not making them guess. When you ask a student to guess, that's where they make mistakes. So you model the right answer to them and not making them guess. When you ask a student to guess, that's where they make mistakes. So you model the right answer and then ask them to repeat it and that's errorless learning, because the child never has to make an error. And she said that in behavioral psychology they consider that the best way to teach.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know how that relates to the 180 lessons, but yes, there was, like you know, the way that they would manipulate an A or you know, if they want the long A, they would put a line over the top. And I get that. That totally makes sense. And it says try not to read things that are outside of this program until you've completed the program, because I assume when you get past the 50 lessons they will drop those little nuances, like you know, the line over the long a. So you know that. But and there and there were other things throughout the way that they did a D a little bit differently so that you could distinguish it from a B.
Speaker 1:So that was great, but it was taking my son so long, and since he went through one, through 50, and then it was like, okay, this is draining you and you're starting to hate reading, let's take a break. And then it was like, well, we can't go to something else because we haven't learned, unlearned, the tricks that they were teaching us. So then we took some time for me to just read to him, then went back to lesson one up to 50 again, and again it was the same hurdle, so I never actually made it to where they like took. So now we're trying to counter correct. So when you know he sees an A in Explode the Code or the Bob book, um, you know we have to say no, this is, this is an A sound, because then there's a vowel and an E next to it, and so I'm like so yeah, it's interesting. I definitely, definitely went about this a different way, but that's okay, because he's only six, so I couldn't have damaged him too hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I mentioned the um, the a hundred easy lessons, as an example of errorless learning.
Speaker 2:That's why my professor had mentioned that book as a great way to teach reading, because it was a example of a program that used errorless learning.
Speaker 2:However, I agree I've used it. I used it briefly with my actually my older two that were in public school. I used it at home with them and I agree that the way that they structure that, with the letters being bigger or smaller and lines over them and things like that, it was really hard for my children to translate that to other material, which is why I think something like All About Reading is better. All About Reading also uses an errorless method because you're modeling and then you have them repeat what you've modeled, and so it uses a very similar system as 100 Easy Lessons, but it goes more in depth and All About Reading includes readers and they're completely decodable. So, even in level one, once they have done a lesson, like every other lesson, there's a story that they read and all of the words in that story they can read using the skills that they have learned is your child interested in aviation, chemistry, maybe even podcasting, but you have no time or desire to teach it yourself.
Speaker 1:I've talked to over 100 homeschooling families on the homeschool how to podcast, and one name keeps coming up excelsior classes. They're a fully accredited online program for 5th through 12th grade homeschoolers, offering live classes in everything from filmmaking to economics to architecture. It's flexible, affordable you only pay for what you need and it gives your kids valuable online learning experience. Check out their course catalog by clicking in the link in the show's description Excelsior Classes live online learning for homeschooling families classes, live online learning for homeschooling families, and so I like that.
Speaker 2:It includes the readers decodable readers with it. But yeah, all About Reading uses a very structured, systematic phonics approach that uses an Orton-Gillingham method, which is a specific type of reading method that does hit multi-isensory learners. If you have a visual learner versus an auditory learner versus a tactile learner, it kind of hits everybody. And it does include good instruction for struggling learners in particular. I do still, and I don't want to spend too much time on reading in particular, but that is one view that has not changed is that reading instruction does need to be explicit, systematic and taught by the parent, and I like all about reading because of the things I've mentioned, but also it's very easy for the parents because it's scripted. You open the teacher manual and the lesson actually tells you exactly what to read for the instruction to your child. So I think it takes the guesswork out of like, how do I teach my child this?
Speaker 1:So did you get into now what you have changed into?
Speaker 2:you know how you viewed it before to now what you're doing with your son. So pretty much my stance on reading is the only thing that hasn't changed. I pretty much have completely done a 180 as far as how I view curriculum and how I view homeschooling, and part of this came about because of necessity. I work part-time from home and I just, frankly, didn't have enough time in the day to teach my kids all subjects all the time, and so I started having them learn on their own, using basically choosing their own materials to learn, and what I found was that my children learned way more choosing the materials and learning on their own than then. I pick curricula that is less of like written as a textbook and it's a lot more of like a guide on how to do something on my own.
Speaker 1:What are the differences that you kind of see in the ones that graduated?
Speaker 2:I mean they might listen to this, so it can be too hard, but are there any differences in their learning or what they learn or how they learn? That you saw, yeah. So, um, my oldest daughter was one that, um, like she always loved school, she did well in school. She graduated with almost a 4.0. She graduated with high honors and scholarships and she had almost had an associate's degree because she'd been doing dual credit classes in high school, taking, like college, algebra and things like that, and just very, very successful in public school.
Speaker 2:She went to college and within the first month of being in college, she called me having a panic attack because she didn't know how to study and she did a semester and then she took us a year and a half off to go on a church mission and then she came back into the semester and basically failed every class, oh my goodness. And so she has decided that college is not for her. She recently got married, last year, and she's looking at either doing a tech degree or something like that. So right now she's just working until she figures out what she wants to do educationally, but she's not going to back, going to go back to a four-year university because of the experiences that she had there. Just kind of tainted.
Speaker 1:So it's like, and it's like, how do you study? I don't know you. You read the material, but are you retaining it? Do you know how to retain it? Or is the stuff just so boring that you can't retain it.
Speaker 2:Well, and I remember so, during COVID I think she was a junior in 2020. And so I remember watching the school board meetings that they would have locally, and I remember there was a dad that got up and he and I had been homeschooling my younger kids at this point. But this dad got up and he said what are we going to do about our high schoolers? I have a kid that's 15 and he wasted a whole year of learning Like, how are you going to get my kid caught up to graduate? And in that moment, the first thought that came to my mind was if you have a 15 year old that doesn't know how to learn on their own, you have a bigger problem.
Speaker 2:A 15 year old, should know how to search out information and learn without anybody telling them what or how to learn. So I think that that, um, that moment really solidified in my mind that, like, one of our jobs as homeschool moms is to teach our children how to learn. We teach them you know how to become self-learners. Where to go to find our children how to learn? We teach them you know how to become self-learners. Where to go to find information, how to find information, how to use that information. That's what our job is. It's not to really teach them, it's to teach them how to learn on their own.
Speaker 2:And that's something that has really shifted in my mind, and one of the reasons why I've moved away from using curriculum so heavily as I used to is because I've realized that my children actually learn more if they're self-learning, if they're seeking out their own materials. They're doing their own learning. They learn more that way. So I've kind of taken a different role, especially with my older two that are 11 and 13. I let them choose a lot of how they learn and what they learn now, because I have seen that they learn more that way, and so I've become more of a mentor rather than a teacher.
Speaker 1:So how does that work when you know, you think about I mean, we talked about it in our q&a different states have different reporting requirements. You in Idaho are pretty laid back in New York. Here we have to do more strict guidelines on the subjects that you have to teach every year and even the testing. So once you hit like third or fourth grade you have to do a testing every year. So how do you in a state like mine at least you allow your child to learn what they want to learn, how they want to learn it, but still maintain, you know, the reporting requirements or the testing that's required?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a couple of ways you can do that. First of all, I would suggest you talk to other homeschoolers in your area that are familiar with the laws and ask what they're doing. The first thing I would suggest but I think it's okay to say you know, this is what the state requires how can we meet that in a way that you like? How can we meet this requirement in a way that you choose? So that could look like them choosing a curriculum Like I've done that with my own kids and said, okay, you can do this, this or this, what do you choose out of these choices? And then that gives them a choice you know in how they learn. So you could do something like that where you say this is what the state is saying we have to do. How would you like to meet that requirement?
Speaker 2:And realizing that a lot of things, like portfolios, for example, they just what the state's looking for is that there's student learning. They want evidence the student is learning right. So you can get creative how you do that evidence. Something I've done with my eighth grader this year is he just writes about everything he's learned, so like he reads a biography for history, he writes a paragraph about what he learned from that biography. He reads something for science.
Speaker 2:He can write a paragraph about what he learned for science, and so I've had him start writing a lot this year about what he's learned in the other subjects and I think that's one way you can do things. It just really depends on what the state laws are and what they're asking for. But in general, I think, no matter what your state law is, they're asking for proof of learning and you can decide how you want to show that proof. But I think that how the student learns, they still can have some choice, no matter how regulated your state is. Like I said, whether that's choosing curriculum or choosing the resources that they use to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a good point. So if I have to teach the US history in ninth and 10th grade, I mean that's just what I think I had to do in school. So, say, that's what New York is requiring of me, I can sit down with my child and say, okay, how do we want to learn this? What time periods do we want to go through? What books do you want to use? What trips do you want to take? Do we want to go to a museum? Do we want to go to a monument? Want to take, you know, do we want to go to a museum? Do we want to go to a monument? Do we want to go down to Virginia and go to Gettysburg and really learn about that? And what do we want to research before we get there? And how will we put that all together once we're there and afterwards come home and, like you said, write about it and you know, is there something we can put together? A book, put together a book or a scrapbook about it, really connecting all the pieces. So, yeah, I that is, as you think it over, you know, really cool.
Speaker 1:And yes, schools take field trips. However, I've noticed in just the short amount of, you know year or two that I've been homeschooling field trips with groups don't usually work, so field trips with classrooms don't usually work either. Okay, and it's not just the age of my kid going to a museum with, you know, 15 of his friends. They're not going to learn anything, they just want to play. So keep that in mind, as you are, you know, looking up.
Speaker 1:It's great to look at the field trips that the homeschool groups are doing in your area to give you ideas of where you might want to go. But yeah, that's what I've learned Like fine, spending the money and taking the bus or whatever to get down there, the kid's not paying attention anyway. So if you can take just the time for you and your family to go, you'll have a much more personalized experience and they might pay attention a little bit more and be a little less distracted. And you can kind of include that this into oh, that is that's what we just read in the Tuttle Twins book. Look at, this is where it is, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and I and I agree, like we definitely have our homeschool friends we love to get together with, but I actually don't like scheduling field trips with other people because I don't like a schedule Like I like to be like today let's go to the museum or you know so, and so had this planned but we're too busy today. Like I don't like all the scheduling with other people because then you're kind of locked in and I like to do things like field trips more spontaneously or when it fits into my life the best. And so lots of times you have to be accommodating to schedule with other people, and sometimes I don't have to be accommodating to schedule with other people and sometimes I don't want to be accommodating, I just want to go when it's good for us. So there's that. But, like I said, like this year my kids kind of switched to doing independent learning because I ended up having more work put on my plate and I just didn't have time to do it all. And what I found was that I had used a popular science curricula for the first five years. We homeschooled like the same curriculum and it was me sitting at the table with all my kids at the table and I was reading from the manual and teaching them, and then there were hands-on activities and science experiments. But most of the instruction was me as the teacher at the table instructing them, and a lot of times it was in one ear and out the other and that they only remembered or learned from the hands-on activities or the experiments.
Speaker 2:And this year, like I said, I've been having them learn on their own and, like my eight-year-old, watches, like Wild Kratts, you know, or Magic School Bus, and she can come to me and give me a 10 minute narration about an animal she learned about. Or she can give me, you know, this whole long 10 minute narration about what she learned from magic school bus. Um, my older son has reading science comics. There are these comic books that each book is around a different science topic and he comes to me and tells me what he learned from science comics. And so I just learned this year that, like when they are picking what they learn and how they learn, they remember so much more. And I think that, like I said, I don't know if I would have made this shift unless it was something that was like kind of just had to happen. But I see now the fruits of this that children can learn on their own and really retain a lot more.
Speaker 2:Something else that I have found for my older son is I have found podcasts. I found a history podcast that was American history based, and I preview episodes to make sure they're appropriate for him and there's no like wonky ads or anything. But lots of times I will tell him like oh, this podcast episode is kind of about what you're learning about. You might want to listen to it when you go on a walk today or something like that, and so like opening up ways of learning too and realizing that there's learning that happens all the time and everywhere. They can learn from YouTube videos. They can learn from podcasts. They can time and everywhere they can learn from YouTube videos. They can learn from podcasts. They can learn from documentaries. They can learn from books. They can learn from field trips and museums. There's virtual field trips. Now, all you know on the internet there's lots of virtual field trips. If you go to like, for example, mountvernonorg, there's virtual field trips of Mount Vernon. So there's things like that that you can do, um, that they can learn so much more. And if you have a state where you have to show learning things like um. Like I said, teaching them to write about what they learned is a really excellent way to show that they've learned. Um, teach them how to make presentations in Canva, you know, um, I'm like all you need is like a free Canva account in a dream and you can show anybody anything you know. So, yeah, I think teaching them how to you know make things in Canva to show what they learned is another good skill. My eight year old actually asked me if she could start a blog the other day because she had watched some show called Dog with a Blog and she asked me what a blog was. And she said Mom, can I start a blog? And so I said well, I'll see if I can find a way to do that securely. Where you're eight years old, I don't think that should be public, but I thought why not? If you want to start a blog like, let's get you a blog.
Speaker 2:So yeah there's lots of things that you can do to show learning for state requirement.
Speaker 1:I love that. Was there a specific podcast for the history podcast?
Speaker 2:So the one that my son has listened to is American History Hit. It's a podcast within a whole program called History Hit. I kind of found them on accident. It's kind of a funny story, but I was scrolling on Instagram and saw a reel that mentioned a podcast and when I found it I found out it was in a network of podcasts called History Hit. But I have researched them and they actually have a website where you can subscribe and there's documentaries and they have eight podcasts they offer.
Speaker 2:I will say that it's not directed towards students, it's more directed towards adults, which is why I preview the episodes before he listens to them, and at least out of their eight podcasts, one is very adult directed and so I wouldn't just hand it over to your kids. But so far the American History Hit podcast has been awesome. The host he interviews people that are experts in their field or they've written books or they work at historical places, like they do research at historical Jamestown and so forth. They just had a really fun episode about the history of the Illuminati that I listened to the other day. But yeah, so we've listened to, like the Viking episodes. We listened to a lot of the Jamestown and the Mayflower episodes so far and a lot of learning happening in those.
Speaker 1:I love that. And what about the science comics? Is that something specific?
Speaker 2:So it's actually a book series and it's literally called Science Comics. If you went to Amazon and searched Science Comics, they would come up. I think the publisher is Macmillan Don't quote me on that, but there are probably 25 to 30 of those books currently on the market and they are colorful comic books about science topics. So there's frogs, one on frogs. There's sharks, there's skyscrapers, there's robots, there's cars, I'm trying to think. There's spiders, there's weather, yeah, plagues, like human body plagues, and there's that one. So there's a whole bunch of those and they're continuing to publish them. Like they come out with a few more every year. We have those and they're very economical. I think they're like for paperback. They're like ten dollars a book. A lot of times when, um, amazon or target has their book sales, they can get buy two, get one free. So anyway, we've kind of stockpiled quite a home library of those science comics.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool, um, okay so and oh. I remember back on episode four, you recommending wild kratts and magic school bus, and we have watched both of those series, both amazing. I love them, my kids love them. It's funny because you know you put them in front of a TV because you're like trying to do something else. You know you're trying to like do laundry or cook or do a podcast, but I'm like, wait, I want to watch that. I need to learn about what that like bab to watch that. I need to learn about what that like baboon is doing. I need to learn about the baboons. But um and and yeah, the magic school, but it's the same thing. I love watching them. I learned so much and they're so entertaining. Uh, so I I do love those.
Speaker 1:Thank you for recommending them and I would recommend them to people who, you know, do use screens. It's you know I commend the families that don't. I'm just not one of them. We do so it's nice to have something trustworthy that I could put on and they're a little bit older of show like Magic School Bus is an old show, so you know they didn't quite have all of the. They don't have all the stuff that the newer shows today have, so all the stuff that the newer shows today have. So it's just a lot of fun learning. So, okay, when I was having my technical difficulties was that when you were talking about what you have changed now as far as kind of being less curriculum heavy, so your views around homeschooling, did you talk about that in that segment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that that was mostly my view. How my views has changed is that if we are trying to be teacher mom, they will learn, but probably only you know what they want to learn from that. I just feel like, in general, when they have more control over what they're learning, they learn more and they're more willing to learn. So I've learned that, like I said, rather than being a teacher, I've become more of a mentor and, you know, guiding them towards you know what they choose. So how that might look is offering curriculum and letting them choose that or letting them choose their own materials. So, for example, my son that's in eighth grade I said for you know, for next year, for high school, for history, you can use this program, or you can use this program, or, if you want, I can kind of like create something for you out of like the things that you want. And he said I want you to create it.
Speaker 2:So we've collaborated together and I've said, okay, you know, if we're going to learn about American history and you know this is the topics in ancient history what do you want to learn about in ancient history? Do you want to learn through books, documentaries or a podcast or a combination of them, you know, and then I present him kind of some materials and say this is what I found, what do you want to use with? Do with this? So it can look like that where you're offering different choices and they're picking within those choices. I did that for high school for him, because I felt like high school's a little bit of you know, a different thing where you want to make sure that they're equipped for adulthood and to be able to make choices for their future, and so to for him. I try to give him choice within parameters, like we need to be teaching math. You know we need to be teaching these things, but how we do that is up to you.
Speaker 1:Do you give tests or projects? No, no, hey everyone, this is Cheryl. I want to thank you so much for checking out the podcast. I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I know your time is valuable. I want to ask you a serious question Do your kids know what to do to actually save their life in an emergency?
Speaker 1:The most important thing we can talk to our kids about is knowing their first and last name, knowing mom and dad's first and last name, mom's phone number, dad's phone number, their address, what to do if they get lost, what to do if someone who's watching them has a heart attack, a stroke, an accident where they fall and your child needs to get help. We live in a world where there's no landline phones anymore, basically, and cell phones a lot. Does your child know how to call 9-1-1 from a locked cell phone? It is absolutely possible, and my book demonstrates how to do that, whether it's an android, whether it's an iphone and, most importantly, it starts the conversation, because I was going through homeschooling curriculum with my kids, realizing that, gee, maybe they skim over this stuff, but they don't get into depth, so my child's not going to remember this should an accident occur right? I asked a couple of teachers what they do in school and they said they really don't do anything either other than talk about what to do in a fire during the month of October fire prevention month.
Speaker 1:So I wrote a book because this is near and dear to my heart. I have had multiple friends that have lost kids in tragedies and I don't want to see it happen again, if it doesn't have to. We were at the fair over the summer and the first thing I said to my son when we walked through that gate was what's my first and last name, what is your first and last name and what is my phone number? And if you get lost, what are you going to do? You can get my book on Amazon and I will put the link in my show's description Again, it's called let's Talk Emergencies and I really hope you'll check it out, because there's just no need to be scared when you can choose prepared.
Speaker 2:Not at all. I do, depending on what's required, you know, by the state. I think you could assign those if you wanted to or you felt like you needed to, but currently no. When for history? For example, when he reads a book, he'll either, like I said, write me a paragraph, or we'll have a discussion, like he finished a book on the Aztecs today and I said, okay, did you like that book? And he said, yeah, I'm like, hey, tell me something you liked about it, something you learned, and he's like I didn't know, they invented this or whatever and they sacrificed humans because of this reason, you know. And so sometimes it's just a discussion like that that, like you know, I'm not making him write an essay for like everything he's read, cause then, like you know, I'm not making him write an essay for like everything he's read, because then, like, who would want to do that, right? Like if I had to write an essay for every time I read a book I probably wouldn't read as much as I do, so that's why school does it.
Speaker 2:So you know, occasionally I'll ask for a written paragraph or something like that, but it's not every day. I do that. Lots of times it's just having a discussion and him telling me what he learned what has been your favorite American history curriculum so far?
Speaker 2:That's a trick question because I love history. I personally love history and I think that the best history is one that I have pulled from various places. So I'd still love Beautiful Feet. One of the reasons why I love Beautiful Feet is because it comes with a book pack, but also the guides are exactly that they're guides, so they're not like a curriculum that's written that you read this out loud to your child. It basically will say, like read this book and have this discussion. Here is an optional project if you want to do that. So that's why I like Beautiful Feet is because it really does. Even though it's a guide to help you with learning, it does put you in the driver's seat as far as how you're using it. So that's probably still one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:But I kind of this year, kind of winging it, like I feel like I've liked what we've done better, like I have a book that I got about a year ago called All Through the Ages. It's by Christine Miller. I believe and it's basically a homeschool mom that she went and researched all of the literature history curriculum and created a giant book list from all of them into one big book list and published it as a book. So the whole book is just a book list and it goes chronologically from ancient history to modern and it has book suggestions for grades one through three, four through six, seven through nine and 10 through 12. And so like, if you're studying let's say you want to study civil war you can go to that section and you can pick a book for your first through third grader, you can pick a book for your fourth through sixth, one for your high schooler, and they can all read their book and you're all in the same time period together. But the books are on their grade level.
Speaker 1:Wow and now what is?
Speaker 2:this called um all through the ages. All right, um, I will say that some a fair amount of the book suggestions in there could be out of print books but I have found them very economically buying them used um. But for example, the other, like when I was learning about like jamestown and stuff, I thought, okay, from the time columbus hit, you know, like central america, when did the french come in? Like the french missionaries were there at some point and doing trading right. And then you have, like the um englanders, like the French missionaries were there at some point and doing trading right. And then you have, like the Englanders, like the people from like coming over from the Mayflower, so you have the Puritans on the Mayflower, then you have, you know, people coming over with Jamestown, and there's the Roanoke colony, there's all these.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, how did? Like I want to know what happened there and then what happened between Jamestown and like the colonial era, like what was happening during that time period? I had that question in my mind and I went to all through the ages and found a book that literally covers that time period. It covers from Columbus to the colonial age, and so I'm reading that because I want to learn about it. But yeah, so I've loved that guide because it answers questions like that. Like, if you're like, okay, I want to learn about this. There's a guide, there's a suggestion for a book in there.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. And we just recently bought a like a timeline of the world. That's now whether it's accurate or not, I don't know, but it's more than I ever got in school. So I was just like sitting there looking at it the other day my kids must have thought I was nuts because I like pulled up a chair to the wall where it's taped and I'm just like what? Like, for instance, great example. Okay, I went to public school.
Speaker 1:So to me, when I hear of the Roman empire, I've always been like, like Italy is really small. So Rome's even smaller. So what the hell are these people talking about? Like why was this an empire? And then, not until I put that on there, I was like it was. How big it's not just Roman. Like that's. Nobody ever told me that in school, nobody ever showed a map of it compared to like today's map. So I agree with you.
Speaker 1:And as I was reading our Tuttle Twins US history book, which that's what you were supposed to say, that's what I was leading you to, you didn't say it, but I know you love the Tuttle Twins too. Yes, I do love the Tuttle Twins. We're reading the Tuttle Twins, america's History Volume 1 right now and my son's only six, but he does still love it because it's in story and I'm like learning too, because it starts with the Silk Road and they're like, okay, this obviously didn't take place in America but the trade on the Silk Road had it led into what happened in America. And then that kind of got me looking into like the Hudson River where I live and I'm like no one ever told me about the Hudson River and apparently this was like the start of trade for America, like this is a huge thing. So last week they actually had at our library these people come in and talk about how the Hudson River impacted our town and I went to it and I was the only one under like 75 that was there.
Speaker 2:It was really sad.
Speaker 1:I'm like nobody else cares. Oh but yeah, well, and I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do love the Tuttle Twins, like I have almost everything they sell. I think the only thing I don't have is their um toddler books because my kids were older by the time those came out. But I, um, like I have the third, the kids books. I have the history books, I have the um economics, I have the monthly magazine. We've gone deep into Tuttle Twins and I still love the Tuttle Twins. Sorry, my light got really orange but it was getting dark, but I think with Tuttle Twins I use that also. Like here, read this. I don't read it aloud to my kids, I wait until my 11-. My 11 year old is reading the American history books. I'm just like, okay, here, read the book and learn something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is why I love reading it now with my six year old Cause I'm the one really learning. I'm like Ooh, no one ever explained it this way to me before, and it really it's so interesting. How did they manage to take history and make it the most boring thing ever in school? I mean that it makes you angry when you think about it. It is so interesting I know it is.
Speaker 2:yeah, like I said, history, social studies is my favorite thing to learn about. It's so interesting, um, and I just find learning about people fascinating, like I I've always been a people watcher and I'm like history is another form of people watching, I guess. But yeah, so, and I love like the monthly magazines they started creating. Well, and I've had the plus packs with those for a while where they came with like extra bonus content, like little worksheets and crossword puzzles and coloring pages and stuff. But they just recently recently revamped their plus packs that now are cross-curricular, so it comes with like some math stuff and it comes with like a science project and something with history and so like the monthly magazines now are cross-curricular and kind of hit on all subjects and that's a new feature as of February and absolutely loving that. So, yes, I still love, love Tuttle Twins. I just don't use it as a curriculum, I use it more as like learn on your own with it.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the things I've shifted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm not against curriculum. I just have learned that I like the curriculum that is more of a guide. So, for example, like Little School of Smiths, she has an American Girl History curriculum that I purchased for my daughter to use and it basically is like here's the doll, you do one doll for four weeks and it's like read this book, if you want to learn more about this subject, you can learn more about this, and do a notebooking page, and so it's basically just guiding you how to learn through books. And so I still like curricula like that. That's more of like a guide rather than a written curricula that you read aloud.
Speaker 1:So, all right, let me ask you this how do you think your children that you're homeschooling will differ when they get to college and they need to know how to study? Something Like what is the difference between your oldest daughter and them? Like? Is it the way that they're reading, or how they retain, or what they'll seek out? You know, like, what is it that your daughter didn't learn in school? That your homeschool kids are?
Speaker 2:So I think public schools really create an environment where the kids become complacent and they're learning and they're wait to told what to do. So, like they sit in their seat, they're wait until the teacher writes on the board what their assignment is and tells them exactly what pages to read and what to do. When you go to college it's not really like that. They give you a syllabus but really most of the learning has to come through you. You have to read the textbook or do whatever, and you have to attend the lectures, but you have to get out of that on your own.
Speaker 2:No one's going to spoon feed you in college and I think in public schools and I think in public schools students learn to wait until somebody has spoon fed them, basically giving them exactly what to do, telling them exactly what to do. And you know teachers, depending on where you're at, if they are being, you know, paid based on performance, they want their students to get an A because they get paid more and so they probably provide more help than a college professor can do, because a college professor has hundreds of students. They can't give one-on-one attention to all those students, although there are office hours and such. But I think the big thing was that she was so used to checking a box Like somebody would tell her what to do and she would do that thing and get an a right. But she never learned how to actually learn. She just learned how to check a box or meet a requirement if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Because one thing that stands out to me in in high school uh, I'd always think of this we were in the library and it must have been like an english teacher or something had us down there and she said to me okay, highlight, highlight the main idea. So I just like highlighted some sentences, I don't know, and she's like that's not the main idea, you're right. Like, but no one's ever told me what to look for in the main idea, or like how to read and retain it, or you know, I get it's. Yeah, that that makes sense. That like, if you're homeschooled, you're doing, you're reading it because it's something that interests you, or at least it's related to something that you know, maybe you picked.
Speaker 1:So I don't know where I'm going with this, but that always stuck out to me that, yeah, I did, and I didn't know how to study in college either. I think it was all preparation for you just learn how to like, get by by, like the the tricky things, like you know, telling them oh, I had an you know uncle break his leg and I had to sit with him last night, so that's why I didn't turn in my paper. So I'm going to need an extra week, you know, and just getting really good at trying to scam your way through. And then, when I worked in government, I sure needed all those skills.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think anything when it, when it comes to any sort of institution like a government, school or college, it's a game. It's just a game. You learn how to play. You know it's like, okay, this professor wants me to do things this way and give them this information. This professor wants me to do it this way, and I mean honestly as someone that leans more conservative. You know, in schools now, you have to almost pretend to be not yourself. You have to give the professor the answer they're looking for, to get that A, so that you can get your certification, so you can work in the job that you want. You know it's a total game and to do well, you have to learn to play the game, and I think that's the people that do well in college have learned how to play the game well.
Speaker 2:I don't think that learning really happens in institutions. I know for myself I have learned vastly a lot more since I have graduated college and just become a homeschool mom. I'm reading more and learning more than I ever learned, um, you know. So, yeah, and I think that, um, writing what you've learned can help with with comprehension or retention, and so that's why sometimes I have my son write what he's learned, because I feel like it does help with um re, you know, retaining that knowledge, because I feel like it does help with you know retaining that knowledge. So, anyway, but I don't make him write for everything, just sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that a lot as we round out. You know you would also wanted to touch on what your plans were for high school for your ninth grader. Did you touch on that before, when I was not able to hear you?
Speaker 2:No, so I kind of alluded to it. Uh, not able to hear you. No, so I kind of alluded to it. So for history, I'm kind of designing that with my son using the All Through the Ages book, documentaries and podcasts, and then I'm just going kind of by time period, so I have like exploration, and then we have colonization, and then we have colonial era, american Revolution, you know, post-revolution, and so I've kind of broken up into time periods and we're just choosing resources in those time periods for him to learn with. For science, he's actually chosen to go to our local public high school and take a science class there. That was something that he wanted to try, so he'll just be doing one class at the high school. We're very lucky where we live they do allow homeschoolers to do that. So and then, yeah, for language arts, he's mostly just going to be writing a lot about what he's read.
Speaker 2:I feel like reading and writing is enough. Something I've learned is that subjects when they're learned together, it kind of creates more learning and more retention when they're learning together. So, for example, grammar, learning grammar in isolation is kind of pointless because you need good grammar to write, so it's better to learn it with your writing. So, for example, when you're writing, you can talk about adjectives because they describe nouns. So you can say, ok, this paragraph would be better if you added more adjectives to describe your nouns. Like you can teach the grammar within context of writing and then your writing centered around what you're learning in the other subjects. I think that is actually the best way to do language arts.
Speaker 1:So you mean, for example, like combining what he's reading for history that's reading because he's reading books about it and whatnot he's writing because you have him summarizing his main points or what he liked about it, and then you're also, you know, doing the grammar within that writing. So you're combining all these subjects into one, which is a huge time saver and just puts it into context why this stuff is important. Yes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, with math we found a program last year called Denison that he's going to keep using. But I've also come to realize that math is math, can be playful. Math doesn't have to be sitting down and memorizing algorithms. So, for example, I've been reading a book called let's Play Math by Denise Gaskins and she talks about how math should be taught with. Cross-training is how she calls it learning math in different ways.
Speaker 2:In the foreword I found a guy that he had mentioned an article that he had written, something that I went and read this article he talked about how algebra was developed anciently as a way to work with money. So they would, for example, they would say you know, I want to charge this amount for the product I'm selling. I need to earn this much money. How many products do I need to sell to earn that? And that's how algebra was developed. And then, of course, now there's linear algebra and also other crazy stuff, but basic algebra. That's how it was developed and they were using numbers as adjectives. They were using numbers to describe quantities of money or numbers of items. And when I read that article, all of a sudden my brain something switched in my brain and I understood algebra. You guys I have. I failed algebra too in high school when I read that article, just learning how anciently they developed algebra. All of a sudden now I know I understand algebra.
Speaker 1:Because that's something. When it was put into context, it made sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, exactly. And like she gives in this book she talks about, her daughter came in one day and said I want to learn about even an odd numbers. And so she sat down and she had been doing paperwork and she said let's imagine this paper or cookies and we need to divide them between us. And so they would divide. Her daughter was helping divide the papers as these pretend cookies, and then they get to one and there's one left they can't divide. And so she's like oh, this must be an odd number. There's this extra one, you know there's. We have an extra cookie, and so we can't divide that. And so she talked about, you know, like just things like that Math can happen all the time.
Speaker 2:So like, for example, with my own kids when we learned about fractions, I would get an apple and a cutting board and say, okay, this is one apple, now I've cut it in half, now I have two halves, they still equal a whole. There's still two halves of an apple that equal whole. And then what happens if I cut those more? Now we have fours, but four fours still equal one whole. Or two fourths equal a half. And so just cutting an apple we've talked about fractions.
Speaker 2:Sometimes when we're baking it'll be like, oh no, our one cup is dirty, we need one cup of flour. What can we use instead? And how many of those do we need to use, you know? Or when we go out to dinner and saying like how much should we tip the waiter? If we want to pay the waiter 20% tip, how do we find that tip?
Speaker 2:You know that amount, and so, although I still use math curriculum, I've started doing more playful math. So, denise Gaskins she actually has books that have math games in them that you can do. I found a series called Junk Drawer Algebra and Junk Drawer Geometry that have activities you can do for algebra and geometry and I've just tried to be more playful with our math. But yeah, and I also for my son that's going into high school. I kind of looked at what was important for him when it came to math and something I realized is that I wanted him to understand personal finances and I wanted him to understand statistics because I didn't want him to be swayed by false statistics and false data. That's all over in the news and so for him 99% effective.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I'm like, once he's learned, I don't know, you know, two years more of math, let's say algebra, like geometry, and algebra too, what he's got there. We're not going to pursue like calculus and stuff. We're going to be doing consumer math and we're going to be doing statistics, because, to me, unless you're going into a field where you need the higher math, it's makes more sense to focus on the real world things. So, um, yeah, so I've kind of um taken an approach where um, like I said, he's more, he's going to be more involved in how he learns and then trying to make learning more just part of our life rather than something that we have to do today.
Speaker 1:I love that and, yeah, it can be in anything that your kid loves. Do they love, you know, working on cars? Math can go, you know, into anything there, history even. Where did they even learn how the motor engine started working and who invented it and what year? And how did cars get implemented? Okay, well, how did roadways get implemented? And then all of a sudden, you're going down this road no pun intended about so many subjects and then it actually interests your kid because it's something relevant to today. We drive cars, but they're learning history, math reading. They can write with it, you know, give you a presentation on it. It's like really such a beautiful way to learn. And you hope that you're creating that lifelong learner in them. Cause I agree with you, I've learned way more in the last two years of homeschooling than I ever did. With 13 years of, you know, grade school, four years of university and then 16 years working for the government, I didn't learn anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I, yeah, I'm the same way. I'm like school, college, you know, working, and then I actually have my teaching certification too and I'm like I still learn more just reading and naturally learning with my kids. So, yeah, I still, like I said, I'm not anti-curriculum. I think it serves a purpose. I just have found that, for my family, we do better when, if we use a curriculum, it's more of a general guide that puts us in the driver's seat with how we use that.
Speaker 1: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.