Kitchen Table Homeschool

Jenn and AJ interview Courtney about standards: what they are (including Common Core), why homeschoolers should care about them, choosing curricula with standards in mind, how homeschoolers (or classroom teachers) can use them, the difference between content standards and learning objectives, using standards and textbooks, standards and lit-based curricula, and identifying instructional materials that do a good job of working with standards.

Andrew, Jenn, and Courtney dive deep into Memoria Press, reviewing what we like (easy to use curricula especially for students with executive functioning issues, thorough coverage, explicit phonics, special education offerings, literature sets, daily checklists) and what we don't like (workbook style curricula, grammar-translation method for Latin and Greek), as well as what we think parents should be aware of (Christian-based science, procedural emphasis in math curricula, text set diversity issues, emphasis on student perseverance, and strong conservative approach). 

In this episode, Jenn, Andrew, and Courtney discuss why your educational philosophy should guide your curricula choices, run through a quick checklist for identifying a solid curriculum, review some caveats (and share some blunders of our own), and talk about annual scheduling, working with family demands and homeschooling, and how to schedule your time during the day. Then we talk about daily checklists, loop scheduling, the spiral notebook method, doing the next thing, and the file folder method. Finally, Jenn rates paper planners.

In a special double-length episode, Jenn, Courtney, and AJ tackle the academics of Brave Writer. We begin with a high level overview of how Brave Writer covers grammar, literature, and writing, dig deep into the teaching methods (with stops along the way for the curse of expertise, paragraph-level writing instruction, and the intersection of cultural capital), and take a look at curricula sequences, including analyzing rigor, parent effort, online classes, FERPA, cost, and "high tide/low tide" homeschooling seasons.  

In this episode, we finish our curriculum rating game, all the way down to Z, and Zaner-Bloser handwriting. 

In this episode, Jenn, AJ, and Courtney go from M (Mater Amabilis) to S (Saxon math), with a few detours here and there.

On deck in this episode, we do Yelp-style reviews of: Explode the Code, Exploring Nature with Children, Memoria Press Latin, Galore Park, Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting, Italics: Beautiful Handwriting for Children, Getting Started with Latin (etc), Guest Hollow, Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind, Hake Grammar, First Language Lessons, Hey, Andrew! Teach Me: Some Greek, Henle Latin, Pandia Press, History Odyssey, Human Odyssey, History Quest by Pandia Press, Handwriting Without Tears, iCivics, IEW, Institute for Excellence in Writing, Jump Math, Killgallon, Kumon, Life of Fred, Lingua Latina, Book of Lively Latin, Living Memory, Logic of English, Lost Tools of Writing

AJ and Courtney interview Jenn about the Bookish Society, including what parents and students can expect and how an international community of young readers has bloomed amid the latest book releases for K12 (and beyond!)

In this episode, Jenn and Courtney interview Andrew Campbell about the newly published curriculum Exploring the World through Story. We talk about what it covers, the educational philosophy behind it, and what's included.

Jenn keeps score as she, Courtney, and AJ rate curricula, Yelp style. On deck in this episode are: 100 Easy Lessons, All About Learning, Analytical Grammar, History of US, Seton, Ambleside Online, Art of Problem Solving (Beast Academy), ARTistic Pursuits, Blossom and Root, Barefoot Meandering, Beautiful Mundo, Five in a Row, Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, BookShark, Botany in 8 Lessons, Botany in a Day, Building Thinking Skills, Brave Writer, Build Your Library, Calvert, Canon Press, Logos, and Veritas, Matin Latin, Writing & Rhetoric, Latin for Children, Phonics Museum, Classical Conversations, Core Knowledge, Charlotte Mason, Ecce Romani, Evan-Moor, Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool, English from the Roots Up, and Elemental Science.