In this episode of At Home, Brianne Buskey leads the discussion on all things home school. That’s right, we’re doing a homeschool Q and A!

We get questions from our wonderful listeners all the time, and since “back to school” is in the air, we decided to focus on answering some of the home school questions.

We cover a lot of territory in this episode. We talk about everything from inspiring books to get you started on your home school journey, to our favorite math curriculum, defining a Charlotte Mason education, how we organize our school books, and so much more.
This episode is chock full of practical tips.

But we also share our thoughts on some of the harder questions like, “am I really equipped to teach my kids,” and “do you ever feel like you need a break from your kids”.

We hope you find this episode to be helpful and encouraging. And along those lines, we’re wondering what your favorite inspirational homeschool book, podcast, or other resource is? Please share with us what you read, listen to, or do, when you want to get inspired and excited about home schooling. Thanks guys!

Show Notes
Books:
“For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
“A Charlotte Mason Education: A Home Schooling How To Manual ” by Catherine Levison
“A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning”” by Karen Andreola
“102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum” by Cathy Duffy

Curriculum:
Saxon Math
Right Start Math
Math U See
Teaching Textbooks
Life of Fred
Simply Charlotte Mason
Beautiful Feet Books

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In this episode of At Home, we are continuing our book club discussion on Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. Kristin Rogers does such a great job steering our conversation, despite the fact that we all jumped around quite a bit. The book just brought so many different things to mind that it was hard to stay in one place for very long. If you haven’t listened to episode 1 yet, pop back and listen to that one first. Episode 2 will make a lot more sense when you do.

We are excited by how many of you picked up the book to read along with us, and by all those who have decided to read it now because our book club sparked your interest. Sharing the love of good books and then good book talks is so much fun!

We had a lot of fun doing these episodes, mixing it up a little, you know? Now we’re wondering if you all would like another book club in the future? And if so, what kind of book should we discuss? Classic fiction, new fiction, non fiction, biography, a home schooling book, a parenting book, or something else entirely? We value your feedback, so if you have any ideas, please, please share them with us!

Show Notes:

Kristin Rogers
Book: 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke
Book: Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

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In this episode of At Home, Kristin Rogers leads our first ever book club discussion! This episode is different than any others we’ve done. We have a very free flowing, free form, talk about the book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman.

This book, published in 1985, is all about the corrosive effects of television on modern society. We all found the topic immensely interesting, especially now, when television is only one part of the mass amounts of media and technology we consume daily.

As we excitedly discussed the ideas in this book we talked about how it applies to us today. And ultimately we all came away feeling challenged to really examine the television, the social media, and all the rest, that we’re allowing into our lives, and the effect it has on us.

In fact, we had so much to say on the book itself and the ideas it puts forth, that this is part one of our book discussion. We’ll have more to say next week!

Show Notes –

Kristin Rogers

Book – 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You – HERE

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In this episode of At Home, Greta Eskridge leads the discussion on “Choosing Joy”.  This is a regular theme in Greta’s own life and she tells us why that’s the case.
We go on to talk about what a joyful person looks like, and why choosing joy really matters. We discuss practical ways to seek joy in times of trial or sorrow. And what we need to offer to our children, our spouses and our friends when choosing joy is hard to do.
This isn’t a light and frivolous episode. But rather a real talk about what it looks like to choose to walk with a joyful heart, even if the path we’re on is one lined in hardships and sadness.
We hope you’ll find this episode uplifting whether your hearth feels heavy or light right now. As always, thank you so much for listening and supporting At Home!

Show Notes:

Greta Eskridge

Article: Joy Is Not Optional  http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/joy-is-not-optional

Scripture: Proverbs 17:22 

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Scripture: Habakkuk 3:17-18

“Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Podcast: Episode 63 Risen Motherhood https://www.risenmotherhood.com/show-archive/ep-63-jen-wilkin-growing-in-gods-word-as-a-mom-of-little-ones

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In this episode of At Home, Brianne Buskey leads the discussion on “Kids and Money”.  Brianne’s introduction to this topic was eye opening for all of us. She had some interesting, and even alarming, statistics and numbers for us to think about. As a result, each one of us was instantly even more invested in the conversation that we already were.

Brianne went on to ask each of us to share our own memories of dealing with money as children, teens and young adults. We also talked about why teaching kids about money is important, how we handle allowance in our families, and offered a few practical tips for money skills.

And at the end of the episode Brianne surprised us with some special guests! You’ll love hearing from them just as much as we did.

We came away from this episode feeling so inspired to help our kids develop good habits with money. We hope you will too.
And now we want to know, are you the kind of mom who often (or always) forgets to pay allowance? Be honest!

Show Notes:
Brianne Buskey
Book: Your Money Counts by Howard Dayton
Book: Smart Money Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz

Kristin Rogers
Article: Training Your Children to Manage Money

Budgeting tool and App –  https://www.daveramsey.com/everydollar

Jen Dees
Audio: Church History–Mary Jones’ Bible

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In this episode of At Home, Kristin Rogers leads part 2 of our discussion on “Kids In Church”. We were excited to hear from so many of you after our first episode on this topic. There was a lot of great discussion here on Instagram, with many great insights and opinions from differing points of view. We hope this episode gives you all as much food for thought as the last one did.
For part 2, we shared some specific ideas for how to train your child to sit quietly in church when they are little and squirmy, how to talk about learning with your child if they are in children’s church, how to prep your family for church on Sunday morning, babies and nursing in church, and quite a few other things as well.
Again, we are grateful to you for thoughtful discussion here. It’s so good to get feedback from you on our conversations. Thank you for being a part of At Home!

Show notes:

Articles-

John and Noel Piper – http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-family-together-in-gods-presence

Dr. Todd Hall – http://info.austingrad.edu/christianstudies/childrens-church-the-entertainment-culture-and-the-story-of-god

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In this episode of At Home, Kristin Rogers leads the discussion on “kids in church”. Kristin comes to the discussion with lots to say, and even research on the topic. There was so much to talk about that this is the first half of a two part series.

Kristin asks each of us ladies to share our own church experience growing up, as well as to share a bit about how we’ve approached church time with our own kids. We explore the benefits of having our kids sitting in the service with us from the very beginning, as well as what it looks like when our kids attend children’s church for part of the service. Spoiler alert: only one of us lets her children attend children’s church. Can you guess who it is?

Whatever you do with your kids on Sunday morning, you’ll want to listen to this episode. It’s chock full of practical ideas as well as our own personal passions. More than anything, we hope it gives you lots to think about on a topic that really is an important one.

Show Notes:

Kristin Rogers

Article  – When children’s church started – HERE

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In this episode of At Home, @jendydees leads the discussion on all things travel!
It’s summer time, and we all have a bit of wanderlust. So we just had to talk about traveling.
Whether it’s road trips, big trips to another country, or even exploring your own town, we have lots of ideas for traveling with your family.
We even share some books for when you have the travel bug but can’t leave home. Because we understand that we’re all at different stages and places, and traveling might just be a day trip to the town next door. But no matter what kind of traveling you’re doing, we’re excited to share the joys of travel with you in this episode!

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In this episode of At Home, Kristin Rogers leads the discussion of Building Our Husbands Up. Our last episode on marriage is one of our most downloaded episodes, so we are excited to share another one with you.
We cover a lot of ground in this episode; from sharing practical, every day, ways we can build our husbands up, to discussing how the modern day feminism movement has affected our view of wives taking care of our men.
This episode is not meant to feel like one more weight to add to your role as a wife and mama. Instead, we hope very much to encourage you to think of your role as a wife as one that is important, beautiful, and valuable.
Marriage is such a wonderful journey. But like any journey, there are hills to climb, valleys to walk through, and mountaintops to stand atop and rejoice over. It’s our hope that this episode will give you encouragement wherever you are on your journey. Because marriage matters! And it is our hope to not just build up our husbands, but to build up marriage in general.
Thank you so much for listening and being a part of our At Home community. We appreciate you all so much!

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In this episode of At Home we are talking all things poetry! But don’t worry, this episode is anything but stiff and formal. In fact, the episode begins with lots and lots of laughter as Greta and Jen express their excitement to talk about poetry while Brianne and Kristin poke fun at them for it. (and mention tacos a far bit)
Greta Eskridge leads the discussion with much enthusiasm, sharing her own journey with reading poetry. She admits her childhood wish of wanting to be like Anne of Green Gables, quoting poetry while playing dramatic games with her girlfriends.
More laughter.
Amidst all the silliness, there is a lot of great information about poetry shared in this episode. Each of us shares how we approach teaching poetry with our children, giving lots of practical and fun tips for making it enjoyable and meaningful. We share heaps of books and resources, so be sure to look at the show notes.
You may think that poetry is not for you, but in this episode, we’re out to prove you wrong. Poetry and tacos for everyone!
Now we want to know, do you have a favorite poem, poetry book or poet? Please share with us!

Show Notes

Greta Eskridge:
Quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best order.”
Books: Honey for a Woman’s Heart and Honey for a Child’s Heart
Website: Ambleside Online (this is a whole year’s collection of poems for downloading, printing or kindle)
Greta’s Poetry Units: “Why Teaching Poetry Matters” (this one includes a massive book list)  “How to Discuss a Poem”  and  “Poetry Study on ee cummings”

Jen Dees:
Books: Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions,
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Talking to the Sun, A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy, When We Were Young, Now We Are Six, Carl Sandburg Chicago Poems

Brianne Buskey:
Book:Child’s Garden of Verses
Poem: The Camels Hump by Rudyard Kipling

Kristin Rogers:
Book: A Visit to William Blake’s Inn

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