Kitchen Table Homeschool

This one goes out to Noelani Perry, the Inclusive Academic Homeschoolers, and all the homeschoolers who've helped share their wisdom over the years. In this episode, we talk about some clues that your child may have atypical development, give an overview of how to find testing, and then review the usual steps of the testing process. Finally, we give a quick sketch of how we used that testing for College Board accommodations.

In this episode we discuss three homeschooling books we love: Minimalist Homeschooling by Zara Fagen, A Literary Education by Emily Cook, and The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. Then, we talk about why we still felt it necessary to write our own book, including experiences we wanted to share, applying the science of learning to homeschooling, and neurodiversity in the homeschool. 

We review the core subjects for grades K-8, as well as some pitfalls for instruction at those ages. We begin with Academics, Arts, and Athletics, and then divide Academics into English Language Arts; Mathematics; Social Studies; Science; and World Languages. We divide English into the skills of reading, handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and composition, as well as the content of literature. We talk about what a substantive math progression looks like, as well as options for social studies and science. We share strong opinions about teaching other languages. We distinguish between skills and content for the arts. We have thoughts about athletics and health. Last but not least, we have some love for checklists.

Jenn, Courtney, and Drew review a classic in pedagogy. This 2014 book is chock full of advice about how to, well, make it stick. In the episode, we review this book from a homeschooling perspective. We also share some advantages that homeschoolers have over classroom teachers, especially specialist teachers. 

We talk about where this idea came from, how we've developed it, and what it means for our philosophy of education: rigorous academics, adult-directed, inclusive, mostly secular, and evidence-based. 

What it is, why you need it, when it is important, how you can help your children acquire it, how cognitive science works with it, what curriculum helps.

We go deep on Charlotte Mason style homeschooling with a short bio of Charlotte Mason, Glass's argument, the three "educational instruments", Glass's definition of the classical tradition, the idea of "synthetic knowledge", teaching virtue, the need for people to earn a living, twaddle, the love language of infodumps, homeschooling as an exercise in Historical Cosplay, neurodiversity and the CM method, "majoring in the minors", renounce homeschool policing, and last but not least, make recommendations for a wide variety of "modern" CM homeschooling sites.

A short episode about homeschooling over the winter holidays, the dreaded re-entry, and the February slump. Plus a recommendation for a holiday unit study and some tips on how to beat those winter blahs.

Courtney, Andrew, and Jenn discuss questions like: What is cognitive science? And why should we care? Why should homeschoolers read this book? Then we discuss each chapter, applying it to homeschooling and curricula choices. Spiral curricula, fluency, schemas, novices vs experts, and the importance of knowledge-rich curricula are all on deck.

What it is, philosophical underpinnings, products and services, what users we contacted liked, what we didn't like, who we think this would work for, and our overall recommendation.