Cultivating Inclusive Friendships as Homeschoolers

We enjoyed every episode of Bookend Homeschoolers. Sharing with you, discussing subjects, and tackling topics that we face as homeschoolers, from the Near and Far Bookend views has been a delight. In our podcast finale, we bring you some special thoughts to end our show.

1:40 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (Sam’s improvement with therapy and excitement for reading)

2:57 HSMotW: Mindy (Paul Louis and the mug warmer resurrection)

5:39 Best part of being a Near Bookend: Rachel

7:30 Best part of being a Far Bookend: Mindy

9:40 Our Adoption Stories

9:55 What I wish every Near Bookend Knew: Rachel

11:07 What I wish every Far Bookend Knew: Mindy

13:05 My favorite parts of doing the podcast: Rachel

14:47 My favorite parts of doing the podcast: Mindy

16:00 Which episodes I wish everyone would listen to: Rachel

16:58 All guest episodes :)

16:34 S1E2 Choose Your Method(s)

17:47 S2E22 Homeschooling in the Kitchen

18:50 Which episodes I wish everyone would listen to: Mindy

18:54 every single episode :)

19:14 S2E3 Cultivating Inclusive Friendships

19:47 S2E36 with Adam Brooks Bullying, Building Confident Kids, and Bridging the Communication Gap

20:36 S2E37 C’mon, Audiobooks Don’t Count as Reading, Right?

21:25 S1E21 Evaluating Our Curriculum for Diversity with Kaytee Cobb

21:30 S2E2 Keeping (or Getting) a Sense of Humor with Betsy Jenkins

22:26 S2E5 Embracing Our Kids for Who They Are

23:51 S2E14 Being the Bad Guy

Listen to all of the episodes

25:18 Memorable Moments: Rachel

28:00 Memorable Moments: Mindy

28:30 S2E34 Hanging Our Hat on How Our Kids Turn Out HSMotW

29:13 Bonus Episode Our Adoption Stories

29:34 Including YA in Our Homeschooling with Jeff Zentner

32:50 What I haven’t gotten to say: Rachel

33:17 What I haven’t gotten to say: Mindy

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

This episode we answered questions sent in by listeners. A wide variety of topics here for you today… behavior, curriculum, guilt, storage, and interference. We were honored to chat about your requests!

1:37 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Mindy (PL getting the Tender Heart Award)

3:05 HSMotW: Rachel (Zeke and his map skills)

4:56 Question 1: How and when would we step in with another teacher with our kids?

7:15 S2E36 with Adam Brooks

11:30 Question 2: What do we keep?

16:46 Question 3: How do we keep kids from fighting all day and how can we homeschool if our kids can’t get along?

24:52 Question 4: When do I start looking for a different curriculum?

25:57 S1E15 Evaluating the First Semester

25:03 S1E31 Prepping for Next Year

29:17 Question 5: How do we handle guilt if we can’t make homeschooling work?

30:09 S1E1 Know Your Why

30:28 S2E2 Having (or Getting) a Sense of Humor with Betsy Jenkins

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

Readers around the world debate this topic and homeschoolers are no exception! For our last regular episode for the podcast, we talk audiobooks verses print and ebooks. Where do you fall in the discussion? Hear us out (see what we did there?)!

2:10 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (puppy food teaching)

4:26 HSMotW: Mindy (Esther and Drawing 1 in dual enrollment)

6:22 Topic Talk: Print vs Audiobooks!

7:10 Benefits of audiobooks

12:56 Andrew Pudewa’s talk: Nurturing Competent Communicators

13:45 Research to support audiobooks

20:56 Recognize our issues in accepting this

25:32 S1E9 Read Alouds: What, Why, and How? (to check out the audiobook apps)

26:41 Make It Personal: Near Bookends (choose an audiobook for the fam and one for you)

28:48 Make It Personal: Far Bookends (if you still aren’t convinced, read the research)

30:14 YA helps reluctant readers S2E31 YA Reading with Jeff Zentner

30:30 Audiobook narration speed chat

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

 

Some of the research for you to peruse:

National Literacy Trust

Tech & Learning

Reading Trust

TIME Heath Research

Book Riot

What an episode we have for you this week! It ended up twice the length because we just couldn’t delete any of the good info Adam brought us, but it’s more than worth it… we promise! Today we have Adam Brooks on the show to share with us about bullying and all that is involved, can lead up to it, how to handle it, how to prepare our kids for it, and more. Seriously, this may be our best episode. Listen to every minute, even if you have to break it up, because you will learn so much and add to your parenting tool bag in many many ways! We have some powerful, humorous, and amazing Homeschooling Moments the Week to start you off.

0:50 Guest: Adam Brooks

1:13 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (Sam stepping in to defend Gideon)

4:10 HSMotW: Adam (sitting through a 5th grade music concert)

5:12 HSMotW: Mindy (hearing humpback whales under water)

6:17 Adam Brooks: Speaker, Educator, Advocate, & Communication Enthusiast

7:00 Topic Talk: Bullying+

7:15 Wrong mindset that can make bullying unexpected

8:41 Types of bullying

8:55 Terms to clarify: drama, bullying, and harassment

11:52 Problems with zero tolerance policy

13:00 How can parents lessen the risk of bullying, if anything?

17:30 How many times do we need to talk about big topics?

19:00 Compounded conversations are the worst

20:00 A big tip to help our kids talk to us about big topics

22:36 When should you talk about big topics?

25:26 How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims

26:00 Drive-A-Logue Big topic help for family communication

50:31 A problem with us, questions, and kids

33:25 What are signs that our kids are being bullied?

35:00 How to navigate when kids don’t want to talk a change in their behavior?

38:00 What if we are coming to this late in our kids’ bullying experience?

42:00 What can we say/do if the bullying is happening? Cheerleader vs Coach vs Referee

44:35 Also, and! Not Yes, but!

46:00 Group/crowd bullying and instigator(s)

48:30 Unselfie by Dr. Michele Borba

50:25 What should we avoid doing?

54:00 Rachel shares a personal struggle in their home, knowing others may relate: How to handle when one child is provoked by a sibling intentionally to get responses AND cause the other child to be the “bad kid” ?

56:25 Rosalind Wiseman and Cultures of Dignity

Tiny Guides by Cultures of Dignity

FREE Tiny Guides by Cultures of Dignity

57:25 Teaching kids to recognize their cues, triggers, feelings, etc. and what to do to help work stress, anger, frustration out

59:30 Saving Our Sons: A New Path for Raising Healthy and Resilient Boys by Dr. Michael Gurian

59:44 Why we shouldn’t have our sons write down what happened, they felt, etc.

1:01 How oxytocin affects us in being able to rationally talk through something and the only two things that can bring that hormone level down

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

Adam Brooks on IG and his site and at Drivalogue

If you work at a school/center/camp/RTC, we humbly suggest you hire Adam for a talk. Or two.

Listener requested episode, part 2! Aubree asked about narration and dictation and we love these tools, so here is a discussion on dictation.

1:30 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Mindy (Paul Louis persevering and succeeding at logic work)

3:18 HSMotW: Rachel (puppy labor and delivery)

7:27 Topic Talk: Dictation

7:33 S2E32 Narration: What, Why, and How

7:45 What is dictation?

9:21 How Mindy has used dictation

12:03 How Rachel has used dictation

21:00 Why it’s ok for a discrepancy between use of grammar and dictation

23:04 Remember what you are focusing on at the time

25:18 Make It Personal: Far Bookends (“test” your older kids by having them try a dictation via dictating a text to them)

26:08 Make It Personal: Near Bookends (start dictation via a grocery list)

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

We had such great conversations with Heather Schwarzen that we had her back for a Q&A from listeners! Hear some GREAT tips, plus some doggie doula, spices, and finicky kid talk!

1:35 S2E27 Homeschooling Kids with Learning Challenges

1:36 S2E28 Homeschooling Kids with Intensive Cognitive Disabilities

1:52 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (dog in labor and being a doggie doula)
3:00 HSMotW: Heather (reorganizing a kitchen cabinet and the 9yo alphabetizing all the spices)

4:15 HSMotW: Mindy (Jubilee’s pickiness and success with the BambinoLUK)

4:18 MiniLUK Heather shared about in S2E28

6:30 Topic Talk: Q&A on homeschooling kids with learning disabilities

6:33 Q1: How to handle family pressure?

9:00 S1E24 Handling Unsolicited Criticism

13:15 Q2: How to help other kids understand the time needs of the one child?

17:32 Q3: How to help a kid who refuses to sit still and do school?

21:54 Q4: How to get with a private therapist for an evaluation?

24:33 Q5: When do you give up on certain skills?

28:30 Q6: What to do if a (speech) therapist doesn’t like your child?

32:12 Q7: What to do about sleep issues?

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

Heather Schwarzen at to sow a seed on IG

Sometimes current events dictate the topic of Bookend Homeschoolers. Mindy & Rachel discuss teaching and talking about war in our history teaching and then about current wars, especially Ukraine and Russia. We DO start with some sweet and funny Homeschooling Moments of the Week, though.
1:11 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (Sam reading to Grace for the first time)

2:21 HSMotW: Mindy (not PL with an airsoft gun on the balcony; Jubilee asking why)

3:53 Topic Talk: Invasion of Ukraine inspires thinking about how we teach about war

3:56 Talking about war while teaching history

12:58 HSMotW for Mindy and Rachel both involved Ukraine in S2E32

13:11Talking about Ukraine and Russia’s war

32:00 Make It Personal: Far Bookends (google current wars 2022 and discuss the list)

32:50 Make It Personal: Near Bookends (research ways to help Ukraine and involve our kids)

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

Another listener requested episode for you this week! Mindy & Rachel think there is one educational tool that brings the biggest bang for your buck and … it’s FREE! Aubree asked for us to delve into narration and we were happy to oblige!

1:45 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Mindy (PL knowing where Ukraine is and discussing current events)

2:00 S2E30 How to Reboot Your Day

3:30 HSMotW: Rachel (learning where Ukraine is having conversations about current events)

4:40 Topic Talk: Narration

5:05 Definition of narration

6:24 Use at any age

6:32 History of use in education

7:15 Why it is useful

8:00 How to do it

9:17 Use in special education, calling it narrative instruction

14:00 Charlotte Mason’s goals

14:11 John Locke’s goals

14:20 Comenius’ goals

15:07 The hardest part of narration for Mindy

15:52 The hardest part of narration for Rachel

16:32 Wild Kratts

19:08 It’s a gateway to conversations

19:22 Ways kids can do their narration

21:00 How to start

23:15 The more you do it, the more you benefit

27:04 Have your kids narrate where you left off in the read aloud before you start

29:03 Make It Personal: Far Bookend (have our high schoolers narrate and get a pass on writing)

29:47 Make It Personal: Near Bookend (make a commitment this week to do it once a day)

30:37 View from the (Near) Bookend: narration journals as a part of family life

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

*Please note that many products linked are Amazon affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. Thanks for your support!*

We are super excited to share this episode with Jeff Zentner with you! Jeff is a YA author with four books in his catalog and two of them best sellers! Those same two made it on to Mindy’s Top 21 of 2021 (she read 189 books, so that’s a big deal to her). Jeff shares what YA brings to the table that other books often don’t. You may be surprised at what you hear and some of it may challenge you. We’d love for you to hear why including YA novels in our homeschooling plans can have long term benefits.

1:00 Jeff Zentner: best selling author of YA novels In the Wild Light and The Serpent King

1:15 Currently Reading Podcast

1:50 Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee

2:00 Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (puppy birthing needs hay)

3:00 James Herriot Treasury Collection for Children

3:05 PBS Masterpiece on James Herriot

3:34 HSMotW: Mindy (Jubilee pre-writing skills and “writing” stories)

4:20 HMotQ: Jeff (snuggles and reading at home after being away)

5:20 Topic Talk: Including YA in our homeschooling plans

7:25 Writing about living in the South

10:20 How Jeff describes YA to us

11:39 Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Jones

14:00 What does YA have to offer in our homeschooling?

14:13 YA is great for drawing in reluctant readers

15:00 Teens can see themselves reflected in YA books

15:14 YA books are hopeful

17:00 Can YA be for families who are more conservative in their kids’ reading selections?

18:28 Julie Berry

18:38 The Lovely War by Julie Berry

18:44 Caroline George

18:50 Caroline George books

19:00 Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Matinee

Clean YA books (post by Book Series Recaps)

21:31 The Lunar Chronicles (Cinder is book #1)

21:33 The Selection Series (The Selection is book #1)

21:45 YA can be a gateway to conversations

22:23 YA helps us remember how things actually felt during our teen years

23:55 How Jeff incorporates reading in his family life

25:33 Gary Schmidt books

25:36 Gary Paulsen books

25:40 Jason Reynolds books

25:55 Does Jeff think about topics he wants to address in his books?

27:00 How Jeff feels about and treats teens

29:30 Which of Jeff’s characters is most like him?

29:44 Why Jeff doesn’t write himself on the page

30:44 Benefits of Easter Eggs in novels

32:06 How Jeff is involved with the narrators for his audiobooks

33:06 Angela’s question for Jeff

33:27 Kelly Loy Gilbert

33:29 Jessie Ann Foley

33:45 Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert

33:51 Sorry for your Loss by Jessie Ann Foley

34:07 Make It Personal: Near Bookends (start reading YA)

35:02 MIP: Far Bookends (read a YA with your kid)

33:57 Bookend Homeschoolers Reading Guides: Summer, Japan, Fat Bear

33: 45 Jeff’s novels: In the Wild Light, The Serpent King, Rayne and Delilah’s Midnite Adventure, and Goodbye Days

Clean YA books and tween books (List created by Book Series Recaps)

36: 47 View from the (Far) Bookend: show value to each season of our kids’ lives, including late teenhood

(If you have read The Serpent King, we have a fun bonus at the end of the show)

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG

Jeff Zentner on IG, on Twitter, and his FB author page

We often find ourselves in the midst of a bad day as homeschoolers. Today, we share ideas on how to reboot those days!

Homeschooling Moment of the Week: Rachel (had to reboot a day, but did so successfully!) 

HSMotW: Mindy (Jubilee, “Go home.” “You. go.”)

4:35 S1E22 February Funk

5:00 Topic Talk

5:23 What most often creates the need for a reboot?

7:37 First idea to reboot: talk a walk, literally.

8:55 Frances Nojd, listener in Canada! Check out her family walk photos

9:45 Second idea: dance party of all varieties

10:05 Create playlists!

10:26 We Don’t Talk About Bruno (just in case you’re the last family to not have heard this amazingly addictive song)

11:44 Third idea: switch up locations!

12:44 S1E11 Car Schooling

12:53 Fourth idea: (especially for subject reboot) use a timer and alternate between work and fun

14:42 Fifth idea: designate a new teacher

16:23 Sixth idea: put phones in jail

17:38 Seventh idea: set up a play date/hang out/phone a friend

20:30 Eighth idea: stop, drop, grab a book

21:39 Ninth idea: easy craft of any kind

23:48 Tenth idea: lean into the fine arts of music also

23:56 Handel’s Water Music

24:00 S2E18 Easy Music Appreciation

24:11 Twelfth idea: prevention by thinking what causes need for reboot

27:00 Are we the reason for reboots?

28:54 Help walk our kids through the need for self-regulation

29:38 Make It Personal: Near Bookends (scope our a nature walk to have ready for a reboot)

30:37 Make It Personal: Far Bookends (create a list in Notes on your phone with your preferred reboot ideas)

Bookend Homeschoolers on IG

Mindy at gratefulforgrace on IG

Rachel at colemountainhomeschool on IG