Everyday Educator - Open a Book, Open the World
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:07.000 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:09.540 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.120 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.260 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:17.480 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.760 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.000 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.880 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:27.960 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:31.840 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:35.480 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:40.480 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:45.440 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:49.680 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:53.340 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to welcome you to this episode
00:00:57.940 | because I'm talking to one of my dearest friends
00:01:00.920 | about something that we both really love, and that's books.
00:01:05.280 | I know as you launch you and your family into the summer,
00:01:10.840 | as your homeschooling year has come to a close,
00:01:14.400 | you are looking forward to a time of rest.
00:01:17.480 | Maybe you're looking for some good stuff
00:01:20.240 | to do with your family this summer.
00:01:22.760 | And some of you may be,
00:01:24.240 | as you attend practicum this summer,
00:01:26.680 | looking toward the fall and thinking about resources
00:01:30.700 | you could begin to gather now
00:01:33.420 | that would get your fall started off with a bang.
00:01:36.080 | So I have Jennifer Courtney with me today,
00:01:39.860 | and I'm excited to talk to her about the books
00:01:44.100 | that could open the world for us.
00:01:46.020 | Jennifer, thanks for coming.
00:01:47.860 | - Thanks for having me, Lisa.
00:01:49.380 | I always love talking about books.
00:01:52.180 | - I know, and so we could go on and on.
00:01:54.700 | And my job today will be to make sure
00:01:57.400 | that we don't go on and on,
00:01:59.500 | and that all of you who are listening
00:02:01.840 | can get this in a manageable bite
00:02:05.280 | of delightful conversation.
00:02:08.320 | So, Jennifer, I do happen to know,
00:02:10.560 | I knew in advance that you loved books
00:02:14.400 | and that you are devoted,
00:02:15.600 | you and your family are devoted
00:02:17.120 | to reading and reading together.
00:02:19.520 | What is the latest token of devotion in your home?
00:02:24.000 | I actually know the answer to this,
00:02:25.720 | but I want you to share it with our listeners.
00:02:28.280 | - Well, I finally realized a lifelong dream
00:02:31.640 | of having a library with lots and lots of bookshelves
00:02:36.320 | and one of those sliding ladders.
00:02:39.040 | Truth be told, my ceiling in the library
00:02:42.240 | is probably not high enough to walk that ladder,
00:02:44.520 | but I have always wanted one,
00:02:45.920 | and my husband is very gracious
00:02:47.640 | and made that a reality.
00:02:49.040 | And my daughter, my oldest daughter,
00:02:51.480 | helped me over her Christmas break from college
00:02:55.400 | to inventory all of our books into an online system
00:03:00.040 | so that we have everything arranged and organized,
00:03:03.760 | and we're actually lending out our books.
00:03:07.400 | And so it was a whole family effort.
00:03:09.440 | My mom and dad came down
00:03:11.800 | and we filled out the little white library cards in them.
00:03:15.360 | I got a library stamp.
00:03:18.280 | We covered them with protective plastic
00:03:21.360 | so that people can borrow them.
00:03:23.640 | And I do have a few patrons right now.
00:03:26.800 | I'm hoping now that it's more organized
00:03:28.760 | and we finished some renovation projects in our house
00:03:31.800 | that we can have even more folks coming
00:03:34.080 | and checking out our books.
00:03:35.920 | - That is the most charming story to me,
00:03:38.000 | I have to tell you.
00:03:39.960 | When you started talking about
00:03:41.640 | that this was gonna become a reality,
00:03:43.800 | I was really excited.
00:03:45.760 | But when I saw the pictures of the beautiful shelves
00:03:49.600 | and all your books on the shelves,
00:03:52.680 | and then when I saw the ladder that you guys put up,
00:03:55.760 | I was filled with happiness for you and envy for myself.
00:04:00.760 | And I just think that that is super cool.
00:04:03.320 | And one of my favorite parts
00:04:06.080 | is that you are actually lending books
00:04:09.240 | to little readers in your sphere.
00:04:11.600 | And I think that that is super cool.
00:04:14.400 | - I know, I have one devoted little reader
00:04:17.240 | who loves these 1950s mysteries called the Happy Hollisters.
00:04:22.240 | And they're about a family of five children and their dog
00:04:26.000 | who solve little mysteries.
00:04:28.120 | And she comes every two weeks
00:04:30.960 | and gets her next few Happy Hollisters.
00:04:33.600 | And then I collected up a bunch of landmark history books
00:04:40.600 | from the 1950s that are biographies of famous Americans,
00:04:45.600 | Dolly Madison, Daniel Boone.
00:04:47.760 | And then I also collected the ones
00:04:49.680 | that were about world history.
00:04:51.360 | So there's Shakespeare and his globe
00:04:53.280 | and Cleopatra and things like that.
00:04:55.480 | And so I have had some CC essential students.
00:04:59.680 | - I bet so.
00:05:01.160 | - Faces of history and get biographies
00:05:04.400 | that they could read that go with our cycles.
00:05:07.280 | So that's fun for me too.
00:05:08.920 | - That is really cool.
00:05:10.320 | I suspect that that is the series
00:05:12.920 | that I used to check out of my church library.
00:05:15.640 | 'Cause I went through a period, one summer at least,
00:05:18.880 | where all I read was biographies.
00:05:21.520 | And so I suspect it was that very series.
00:05:25.000 | That is really cool.
00:05:26.240 | I love it.
00:05:27.080 | I love that you've got that and that you share that.
00:05:30.160 | Now I know, like the first time I ever saw the movie,
00:05:35.040 | The Beauty and the Beast, I did not want The Beast.
00:05:38.440 | I did not want The Prince.
00:05:40.080 | I wanted that library.
00:05:41.640 | And still, when that picture,
00:05:43.960 | when he pulls back the tattered curtain
00:05:46.960 | and you see the library,
00:05:48.800 | every time I see it, I still gasp.
00:05:51.240 | - I know.
00:05:52.080 | - That is my dream.
00:05:54.040 | I will not ever have it 'cause my ceiling is not that high.
00:05:57.560 | - I know.
00:05:58.400 | - But I absolutely love it.
00:06:00.960 | So let me ask you this,
00:06:04.320 | 'cause I can remember also wanting a library
00:06:07.240 | when I was a little girl.
00:06:08.320 | And of course, I always wanted the latter.
00:06:11.160 | Not just when I was a grownup, but when I was little,
00:06:13.640 | did you have lots of books around you
00:06:16.720 | when you were growing up?
00:06:17.760 | When you were a little girl,
00:06:18.800 | did you have lots of books in your home?
00:06:22.080 | - Yes, I did.
00:06:23.360 | So my dad's family particularly were readers
00:06:27.440 | and they passed down some of the books
00:06:30.240 | that he and his brothers had read.
00:06:32.440 | I seem to be the one in the family who inherits all of this.
00:06:35.440 | - Who gets the stuff.
00:06:36.280 | - So I have one that is just precious to me
00:06:39.800 | called "Children from Around the World," which was-
00:06:42.400 | - I have that book.
00:06:43.600 | - Do you?
00:06:44.440 | It's so lovely.
00:06:45.280 | - Yes.
00:06:46.120 | - I love, love, love old children's books.
00:06:48.000 | And that one is precious.
00:06:49.280 | It talks about little customs in each country.
00:06:52.200 | And that was sort of my first introduction to globalism.
00:06:55.600 | But we did, we were at home where we had lots and lots
00:07:00.040 | of books.
00:07:00.880 | I think I've shared this story before on the podcast,
00:07:02.960 | but my mother was educated at the time of whole language
00:07:06.800 | instead of phonics instruction.
00:07:08.400 | And she still claims that that made her a slow reader.
00:07:11.840 | And she was determined for me and my brother
00:07:13.760 | not to be a slow reader.
00:07:15.120 | And so every week when I got my allowance,
00:07:20.120 | she took us to Little Professor Bookstore.
00:07:24.920 | Isn't that the cutest name?
00:07:26.400 | - Oh, I love that.
00:07:27.840 | - It doesn't exist anymore, sadly,
00:07:29.360 | but we would go to Little Professor Bookstore
00:07:31.800 | and spend our allowance buying whatever series
00:07:34.640 | we were wildly in love with at that time.
00:07:36.760 | So I have all of those books.
00:07:40.480 | My parents moved a lot for my dad's work.
00:07:43.520 | And I'm very grateful that my mother continued
00:07:46.080 | to move the books around and hold onto them for us.
00:07:50.320 | So I have all of those in the library
00:07:52.280 | as well as the ones I'm adding.
00:07:54.480 | - That is so cool.
00:07:57.760 | I have made myself a note that if I ever get my own library,
00:08:01.920 | maybe I'll call it Little Professor's Library.
00:08:05.160 | That is just the sweetest thing.
00:08:07.480 | So your family had lots of books.
00:08:11.160 | I'm always amazed when I go into somebody's home
00:08:14.440 | and there aren't a lot of books.
00:08:17.120 | Like I can't, like we have all the rooms in our house.
00:08:21.080 | I mean, the bathrooms, the kitchen,
00:08:23.280 | all of the rooms in our house, maybe not the laundry room,
00:08:27.000 | but all the other rooms in our house have books.
00:08:29.640 | And I'm always amazed when I go visit someone
00:08:32.760 | who doesn't have a lot of books.
00:08:36.200 | And I think that my children were always amazed
00:08:38.960 | when they went to visit friends
00:08:40.920 | who didn't have as many books
00:08:42.520 | 'cause my kids had books of their own
00:08:46.200 | even when they were little.
00:08:47.720 | Do you remember the first book
00:08:49.760 | that belonged completely to you?
00:08:53.120 | - Yes, and I'm gonna butcher the title.
00:08:55.000 | It was this really, in the '70s,
00:08:58.160 | they made these horribly unsturdy books for children
00:09:01.240 | that were like (indistinct)
00:09:03.200 | and it was something like "My Little Red Shoes"
00:09:05.600 | and it was about a little girl searching high and low
00:09:08.000 | for her little red shoes to wear out
00:09:10.120 | and she kept finding everyone else's shoes
00:09:12.040 | and trying them on and they didn't work for her.
00:09:14.040 | And finally she found the little red shoes.
00:09:16.240 | I think they were under the crib or something.
00:09:18.280 | - Yes.
00:09:19.720 | - And I just remember reading that book with my parents.
00:09:23.440 | I have fond memories of that little book.
00:09:26.320 | - That's fun.
00:09:27.280 | And why did you love it?
00:09:30.200 | Just 'cause it made a family memory,
00:09:32.160 | a warm memory of being bred to or family time?
00:09:35.640 | - I think it was partly that.
00:09:37.080 | I think that storyline also really appeals to children
00:09:41.080 | because although that book is lost to us,
00:09:44.120 | my children had a love for a similar book
00:09:46.240 | that was called "D.W.'s Glasses."
00:09:48.400 | - Oh, yes.
00:09:49.360 | - In that book, D.W. tries on all kinds of different glasses
00:09:53.520 | including some that had windshield wipers on them for rain.
00:09:56.800 | And my kids just,
00:09:58.680 | I think it's that variety of funny choices
00:10:02.200 | of things that you would be on
00:10:03.600 | that kids really gravitate to that story.
00:10:06.440 | - That's fun, that's fun.
00:10:07.560 | I love things that allow their imaginations to soar
00:10:11.760 | and that hit their funny bone.
00:10:13.520 | Even when they're little,
00:10:14.680 | they can recognize the ridiculous or the comical
00:10:19.440 | or the sort of outside what could be true,
00:10:23.040 | but I'd like to imagine it.
00:10:25.080 | That's kind of cool.
00:10:26.480 | So did you continue to amass your own collection of books?
00:10:31.480 | - Yes.
00:10:32.440 | And in fact, besides our trips to Little Professor Books,
00:10:36.760 | and my grandparents, the ones who were readers,
00:10:39.720 | gave us hardbacks every year for Christmas.
00:10:42.560 | That was one of our special gifts.
00:10:44.760 | And of course I grew up in the era
00:10:46.040 | when you could go to the Scholastic Book Fair
00:10:48.400 | and it was okay.
00:10:49.240 | - Oh my gosh, that was the best day of the year in school.
00:10:51.640 | - It was the best day.
00:10:52.640 | I still have my box set of "Little House on the Prairie"
00:10:55.400 | books from the Scholastic Book Fair.
00:10:57.520 | But I also would go to garage sales.
00:11:01.880 | And one of the books that is lost to me that I really miss
00:11:06.680 | was a fifth grade reader of all things.
00:11:09.680 | - Oh my gosh, yes.
00:11:10.520 | - It was an old school book,
00:11:12.720 | but it had really charming stories in it.
00:11:15.440 | And that some of them were science stories
00:11:17.360 | about how pollywogs turned into frogs.
00:11:20.200 | And some of them were retellings of Greek myths.
00:11:23.320 | But I adored that little book
00:11:25.760 | and had it for years and years.
00:11:26.880 | And I think I paid a quarter for it at a garage sale.
00:11:30.400 | - You know what?
00:11:31.800 | I remember, I liked those kind of collections of books too.
00:11:35.400 | And I can remember that my elementary school
00:11:38.760 | had a book sale and they were getting rid of,
00:11:41.120 | and some of them, I guess, were just reading textbooks
00:11:45.120 | and they had collections of stories like that.
00:11:48.120 | And I remember my family buying some to have at home.
00:11:52.040 | And for a while, some of those were my favorite books
00:11:54.360 | 'cause they had lots of stories.
00:11:56.680 | It was like one book, but lots of stories.
00:12:00.560 | And I did love that.
00:12:01.920 | So why would you,
00:12:04.200 | if you were gonna talk to a young parent just starting out
00:12:09.200 | and maybe a new mom or dad who did not grow up
00:12:16.520 | with a house full of books,
00:12:18.920 | and maybe they went to the library and checked out books,
00:12:22.880 | but took them back
00:12:23.920 | and they didn't have a library at their home,
00:12:27.840 | but now they think they want something different
00:12:30.440 | for their family.
00:12:32.200 | Why, what would you tell that young parent?
00:12:34.880 | Why should we build libraries at home?
00:12:39.280 | - Yeah, well, one reason, of course,
00:12:44.480 | is that children who have libraries at home
00:12:47.720 | do become readers.
00:12:49.440 | If you read Jim Trulisa's book,
00:12:51.880 | the Read Aloud Handbook,
00:12:53.400 | statistics show that homes that have lots of books in them,
00:12:57.400 | whether or not people open them,
00:13:01.400 | those households become better readers.
00:13:03.040 | I find that an interesting statistic.
00:13:05.960 | But also I would say that,
00:13:07.640 | and I did use the library at school
00:13:09.480 | and the public library quite a bit growing up,
00:13:12.160 | but there is something about having those favorites
00:13:14.640 | that you read and reread and reread.
00:13:17.240 | So I was on a family trip
00:13:19.560 | and a friend of a friend of a cousin,
00:13:22.800 | that's a very loose connection,
00:13:25.280 | happened to come over to my aunt and uncle's one night
00:13:27.440 | and she gave me a hardback copy of Little Women.
00:13:30.200 | And I couldn't believe that she was willing to part with it
00:13:33.120 | and that it was being given to me.
00:13:35.520 | And I had a tradition
00:13:37.200 | where I read that on my birthday every year
00:13:39.160 | from the year that she gave it to me on.
00:13:42.040 | And so I think that partly having a library at home
00:13:45.720 | is about cultivating an atmosphere of reading,
00:13:47.840 | but it's also that you have your favorites
00:13:50.120 | that you want to savor over and over again.
00:13:53.440 | And now I think we're in a stage
00:13:55.760 | where we're preserving printed books.
00:14:00.160 | I've talked to a lot of parents
00:14:01.360 | who are borrowing things from my library
00:14:03.000 | who say that they go to the public library
00:14:04.920 | and there aren't books anymore
00:14:06.440 | because so many resources have become digitized.
00:14:10.680 | And so their kids are longing
00:14:13.680 | to find these good old books that they,
00:14:16.560 | and the parents don't have to vet
00:14:17.760 | the books that are in my library
00:14:19.040 | 'cause I've vetted them all.
00:14:20.560 | - Right, right.
00:14:21.760 | - They're age appropriate and good and wholesome.
00:14:24.160 | And so that's been nice.
00:14:28.800 | - Those are all great reasons.
00:14:30.640 | And if I didn't already have a library at home
00:14:33.280 | that my children used
00:14:34.960 | and that I am continuing for grandchildren,
00:14:38.040 | I would want to do it for those reasons.
00:14:39.960 | I love that.
00:14:40.800 | Create an atmosphere, create some connections,
00:14:44.000 | value the printed resources,
00:14:48.080 | and then just know that you've got a collection
00:14:51.240 | that has been approved, that's vetted.
00:14:54.000 | It's not scandalous,
00:14:56.160 | but also it's not just what you're running away from,
00:14:59.520 | it's what you're running toward.
00:15:00.920 | You're able to build a collection
00:15:03.160 | that talks about noble character
00:15:05.600 | or becoming curious or being adventurous
00:15:09.080 | or being kind.
00:15:11.080 | I really like that.
00:15:12.480 | What do you think?
00:15:14.480 | What does creating or collecting good books
00:15:18.680 | teach our children?
00:15:20.880 | Because I know that our children
00:15:25.520 | watched us and they still watch us.
00:15:28.240 | One year, my husband and I decided to see
00:15:32.600 | if we could go a month without buying a book.
00:15:35.080 | And I know you're laughing,
00:15:37.720 | and it didn't last a week.
00:15:39.480 | And I really think that probably a week doesn't go by still
00:15:44.320 | that we don't buy some kind of a book.
00:15:46.560 | What does collecting good books teach our children?
00:15:49.560 | - Well, definitely what you collect
00:15:52.560 | says something about what you value.
00:15:54.960 | And so I think we're setting an example
00:15:57.800 | that this is important, this activity that we're doing.
00:16:01.720 | But it also communicates that you love them.
00:16:04.760 | I have a love relationship with the books in my home.
00:16:09.760 | And so the children, I think, see that modeled for them,
00:16:12.960 | that it is lovely to own a book and read a book
00:16:16.160 | and share it with your family.
00:16:20.760 | - Do you think having lots of books at home
00:16:24.960 | when your kids were little taught them how to be readers?
00:16:30.840 | - I think so.
00:16:32.640 | And for some of them, it came later than others.
00:16:34.800 | So I'm certainly not suggesting that this is a magic bullet
00:16:39.800 | that you will have all these books at home
00:16:41.560 | and all of your children
00:16:42.920 | will just bury themselves in them all the time.
00:16:46.280 | Some of mine came to love reading later.
00:16:48.800 | Some of them, a couple of them actually
00:16:50.880 | didn't read much outside of their assigned curriculum
00:16:57.440 | until they were in college.
00:16:59.400 | And then they realized how much they missed
00:17:02.200 | reading lovely books.
00:17:03.880 | - Oh, yes.
00:17:05.880 | - So they began anew.
00:17:07.280 | - I like that.
00:17:10.840 | - And I think some really- - I really like that.
00:17:12.760 | - Yeah, it's been nice for me.
00:17:14.160 | Sometimes they went back and reread things
00:17:16.280 | that they read in challenge.
00:17:17.440 | So my son particularly has been rereading his way
00:17:20.960 | through C.S. Lewis
00:17:22.560 | and wanting to really go back and remember those ideas
00:17:27.560 | and those conversations that he had with his community.
00:17:29.960 | And also he's sharing that he's much more mature now.
00:17:34.000 | And so these things have a different meaning for him.
00:17:36.640 | - I love that.
00:17:38.400 | I love how what we do with our children when they're young
00:17:42.960 | becomes an echo that they hear.
00:17:47.400 | Sometimes, like you said, across the years,
00:17:50.320 | and it calls them back to what was lovely
00:17:54.200 | or warm or challenging or special in some way.
00:17:59.200 | That's cool.
00:18:02.080 | - Yeah, and sometimes I enjoy being librarian.
00:18:06.480 | So earlier this week, Mia was about to go on a trip
00:18:09.280 | and she was flopped down on the Shays Lounge in the library.
00:18:12.840 | And I said, "Be sure to grab a book for your trip."
00:18:17.840 | 'Cause she's going to visit her sisters
00:18:20.160 | and they have to work some.
00:18:21.480 | And she kind of just looked up and she was very tired.
00:18:25.000 | She'd just gotten home from camp.
00:18:26.240 | And I said, "Are you looking at me like that
00:18:27.800 | "because you need help choosing a book?"
00:18:30.200 | And then we had a lovely conversation where I said,
00:18:34.880 | I got to really be librarian, I felt like.
00:18:37.160 | I was asking her questions about
00:18:39.000 | what are you in the mood for?
00:18:40.560 | And let me find one that I've handpicked for you
00:18:44.760 | based on what you're wanting to read.
00:18:46.680 | That was really fun for me.
00:18:48.840 | - That is really fun.
00:18:50.320 | I love that.
00:18:51.160 | I love knowing enough about a lot of different kinds of books
00:18:56.160 | that you can help somebody find something
00:18:59.520 | that will delight them in the moment.
00:19:02.900 | That's really fun, I like that.
00:19:04.760 | Let me ask you this.
00:19:06.600 | I titled this podcast, "Open a Book, Open the World."
00:19:11.600 | How do books open the world?
00:19:14.960 | 'Cause I believe they do
00:19:16.680 | and I'm pretty sure you believe they do.
00:19:19.480 | - Yeah, so like you, I read aloud to my kids every day
00:19:24.480 | when we were home educating
00:19:26.920 | and I tried to continue that practice well into high school.
00:19:30.380 | And just, it got harder to grab time since they got older
00:19:35.000 | but we made it a priority in our home.
00:19:37.320 | And I think back to some of those books
00:19:39.460 | that really opened the world for them.
00:19:41.080 | And sometimes it's because they were
00:19:43.440 | about someone who lived a very different life from us.
00:19:47.560 | So I remember Benjamin Loving Henry Huggins
00:19:51.480 | who basically lived in the 1950s in Oregon.
00:19:56.640 | And that was very different from our life here
00:19:59.080 | in the 2000s in Oklahoma.
00:20:01.520 | And he loved reading about Henry
00:20:03.920 | and the adventures that he got to have.
00:20:05.760 | One of the unfortunate consequences
00:20:07.560 | of us reading about Henry Huggins
00:20:09.040 | is that Henry grew up in a different time
00:20:10.840 | and he was allowed to take the bus into the city
00:20:13.320 | and go to the Y and go swimming
00:20:15.440 | and take the bus into the city to run errands for his mom.
00:20:18.280 | And that made my son want to do that.
00:20:20.920 | (laughing)
00:20:22.040 | Which wasn't a reality for us.
00:20:23.840 | Of course, everyone, I think most people
00:20:27.480 | who have had the boxcar children read to them
00:20:29.620 | have fond memories of that one opening the world to them
00:20:33.080 | about making your own home and space.
00:20:36.440 | And my girls made their own boxcar next door.
00:20:39.720 | - Oh yes, oh yes.
00:20:41.520 | - And so it tended to be that those books
00:20:43.800 | that were so different from our experience
00:20:47.800 | were what opened the world to them.
00:20:48.980 | We read through "Little House on the Prairie" multiple times
00:20:52.560 | and just thinking about those struggles
00:20:54.560 | that that family faced.
00:20:56.040 | But then we also had nonfiction books
00:20:57.800 | that opened the world to them.
00:20:58.960 | I had a little, they weren't anything special.
00:21:01.760 | They were literally stapled books
00:21:05.160 | that I think I did get from Scholastic
00:21:06.700 | that were about the planets.
00:21:08.360 | And my children read those over and over again
00:21:10.760 | about what is the planet made out of?
00:21:12.800 | What's the temperature like on the planet?
00:21:15.400 | How much would you weigh on the planet?
00:21:17.200 | And that opened up astronomy for them
00:21:19.640 | to read those little books.
00:21:20.480 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:21:22.560 | And that brings up a really good point.
00:21:24.920 | Books are not just good for wiling away a rainy afternoon.
00:21:30.940 | So I do know that you read to your kids a lot
00:21:34.080 | and that they enjoyed a good story when you presented it.
00:21:38.420 | But books are good and books that you have at home
00:21:41.720 | can be good for other things.
00:21:43.280 | Like you said, introducing your children
00:21:46.160 | to the natural world, but doing research
00:21:49.800 | or answering questions or opening them up to curiosity
00:21:57.940 | about things they know nothing about,
00:22:01.240 | when they're little like physics or explosions
00:22:05.160 | or all kinds of things, piquing their curiosity.
00:22:10.040 | Books are great for that.
00:22:12.400 | - Yeah, and I think sometimes as homeschool parents,
00:22:14.920 | we feel pressured to have a set schedule
00:22:19.920 | and quote teach all these subjects.
00:22:24.060 | And really an afternoon practice
00:22:27.020 | of allowing children to select books,
00:22:29.780 | they will naturally want to read about science
00:22:34.860 | and they will naturally want to read fiction.
00:22:39.740 | So just having a few well-placed books
00:22:42.940 | is actually a better way
00:22:44.660 | than trying to cram in a bunch of subjects.
00:22:47.660 | In fact, I was reading about,
00:22:49.580 | I'm always fascinated about people
00:22:52.300 | who did not have a chance to get a formal education
00:22:54.880 | and the ways they compensated for that.
00:22:57.420 | And my favorite author, Dickens, was one of those people.
00:23:00.340 | - Of course he was.
00:23:03.260 | - Of course he was.
00:23:04.180 | And his father got into financial trouble,
00:23:06.780 | which meant Dickens had to go to work
00:23:08.500 | younger than he wanted to.
00:23:09.660 | And that's a pretty typical story
00:23:11.100 | in the history of the world, actually.
00:23:13.540 | And he was so excited because in London at that time,
00:23:19.020 | when you turned 18,
00:23:20.340 | you could sign up to be a reader at the British Library.
00:23:23.520 | And that is how he compensated for his education
00:23:27.700 | is he got a library card to the British Library,
00:23:30.860 | which is gigantic and has all you could ever want
00:23:33.140 | to put in it and then some.
00:23:34.940 | And that's how he made up for his education.
00:23:36.980 | And when you read his books,
00:23:38.020 | he has such a lively mind and a huge vocabulary.
00:23:41.260 | So it's fun for me to think about him
00:23:43.180 | whiling away his spare hours in the British Library.
00:23:47.520 | - Yeah, and you will learn a lot of stuff
00:23:51.300 | on the way through a good story.
00:23:53.580 | I know when I used to play,
00:23:55.420 | when we used to play Trivial Pursuit,
00:23:57.180 | sometimes my husband would look at me like I had two heads
00:23:59.920 | and say, "Why do you know that?"
00:24:02.420 | And I would be like, "I don't really know.
00:24:05.100 | "I think it was just, it was a random fact
00:24:08.700 | "in a mystery novel that I read when I was little."
00:24:12.040 | You know, there's all kinds of random facts
00:24:14.740 | that you pick up along the way to a good story.
00:24:17.580 | - Absolutely.
00:24:19.660 | - Okay, I know that lots of us
00:24:21.880 | are gonna spend time reading this summer.
00:24:24.460 | You know, it's on everybody's to-do list.
00:24:26.820 | We're gonna spend time reading to ourselves.
00:24:29.300 | We're gonna be reading with our kids.
00:24:32.200 | Lots of us will be reading ahead
00:24:34.460 | as we prepare for the fall learning season.
00:24:38.140 | I suspect that you have some good suggestions
00:24:41.900 | for the readers among us.
00:24:43.460 | So I want you to share some of your favorite summer reads
00:24:48.460 | or even a reading plan that really worked for you.
00:24:53.200 | - Yeah, so every summer that I've been home educating
00:24:58.360 | my kids, which I did a tally to introduce myself yesterday
00:25:01.500 | at practicum, and that tally is at 22 years.
00:25:05.520 | - Oh my gosh.
00:25:07.220 | - That was a shocking number to me.
00:25:08.920 | I have picked a devotional book
00:25:13.100 | and a classical education book
00:25:15.660 | and one subject book like Latin or science
00:25:19.980 | to get myself prepared for the next school year.
00:25:23.860 | And one of my very favorite devotional books
00:25:28.060 | when my kids were small was "A Mother's Heart"
00:25:30.420 | by Jean Fleming.
00:25:32.060 | That's a beautiful book for talking to,
00:25:35.060 | for introducing your children to Jesus around your home.
00:25:37.660 | And I will always treasure that book.
00:25:42.060 | I've read through most of the parent resources
00:25:44.860 | in the classical conversations catalog
00:25:46.580 | as my education reads.
00:25:48.820 | So starting with something like the core
00:25:51.620 | and working your way up toward something
00:25:53.660 | like norms and nobility,
00:25:54.820 | but I read a classical education book every year
00:25:57.900 | and then tackled a different subject.
00:26:00.000 | So I might be into biographies one summer
00:26:03.180 | or I might dive into Latin,
00:26:06.500 | but that was kind of how I organized my summer reading.
00:26:09.780 | And then I always had something light
00:26:11.740 | and for those moments when my brain was tired.
00:26:14.020 | And usually for me, that's a mystery series
00:26:16.140 | because I can let my brain shut off a little bit.
00:26:20.060 | - Yeah, yeah, I always have to get,
00:26:22.580 | I have, I used to, when I was little, younger,
00:26:26.700 | I would only, I would read one book at a time
00:26:29.340 | and I would just like devour it.
00:26:32.060 | Like I was power eating through this book.
00:26:34.260 | I was just gonna swallow it whole.
00:26:36.700 | And I only had one book going at a time.
00:26:38.860 | As a grownup, I can't do that.
00:26:41.940 | I mean, I'm reading for work.
00:26:44.340 | I'm reading to grow in the Lord.
00:26:46.400 | I'm reading as a teacher, you know,
00:26:49.920 | and then like you said, I'm reading for a brain break.
00:26:52.780 | I'm reading something like that would be candy,
00:26:55.700 | you know, to my mouth.
00:26:57.940 | And so I have lots of books going at the same time.
00:27:01.520 | And so that's what I would say to parents and to families.
00:27:08.220 | Dabble in a lot of things.
00:27:11.340 | At the same time, you could enjoy reading a magazine.
00:27:16.020 | You could enjoy reading a how-to book
00:27:18.460 | that would help your family do a project this summer.
00:27:21.580 | You could be reading a devotional
00:27:24.660 | that would help you grow in the Lord as a parent.
00:27:27.600 | You could be reading a devotional with your kids
00:27:30.700 | in the summer to help them on their way
00:27:35.020 | to learning what it means to belong to the Lord Jesus.
00:27:38.200 | All kinds of things.
00:27:40.500 | And you could be doing them all at the same time
00:27:43.260 | and have a really well-rounded reading diet.
00:27:47.420 | I think that's cool.
00:27:49.440 | All right, we know that we are,
00:27:51.700 | as Classical Conversations parents,
00:27:55.020 | finishing up our academic year.
00:27:58.300 | But as we go to practicum and we hear about
00:28:00.340 | all the new books that are out there,
00:28:02.740 | and as we look towards cycle one,
00:28:07.740 | some of us are thinking,
00:28:10.980 | if I could begin to gather some good stuff,
00:28:14.460 | then I'd be ready for the fall
00:28:16.540 | and I would not skid into August and feel frantic.
00:28:21.260 | So share some of your favorite cycle one resources, okay?
00:28:26.260 | So those of you who have been involved
00:28:30.940 | in Classical Conversations for a while
00:28:33.500 | know that this coming fall, everybody everywhere
00:28:38.500 | in this next academic year will be in cycle one.
00:28:42.980 | So Jennifer, tell us, what does that even mean?
00:28:45.540 | What is cycle one?
00:28:47.020 | And then share some of your favorite cycle one resources.
00:28:50.820 | - Yeah, so we're all gonna be looking at ancient history
00:28:54.900 | and world history next year
00:28:56.860 | in the Classical Conversations Foundations program.
00:29:00.620 | And my, I may be biased,
00:29:03.820 | but because I was involved in helping to make them,
00:29:06.860 | but I do love our Copper Lodge books that go with cycle one.
00:29:10.980 | And those include Ancient World Echoes,
00:29:14.260 | which is stories from Greece, Rome, China, and Africa,
00:29:19.260 | as well as a few other places.
00:29:20.820 | So looking at stories that really came
00:29:23.060 | from the ancient world.
00:29:25.740 | And then we have Exploring Insects with Uncle Paul.
00:29:30.660 | And I love that we're encouraging our children
00:29:34.140 | to look down and see the multitude of life
00:29:37.260 | that God has made smallest level.
00:29:40.740 | Kids love bugs.
00:29:41.860 | Let's be honest, they love them.
00:29:44.780 | And then Kings of Rome,
00:29:46.420 | which is those founding stories about the Roman Empire
00:29:50.580 | that are short and sweet
00:29:53.140 | and introduce our kids to that era of history.
00:29:55.660 | So I love gathering up those kinds of things
00:29:57.900 | to read with my kids in the mornings
00:30:00.500 | when we're doing foundations.
00:30:02.300 | And then, so we would gather and read those things.
00:30:04.820 | So we would read,
00:30:07.140 | you can read Ancient World Echoes
00:30:08.340 | for a couple of mornings a week
00:30:09.580 | 'cause there's two stories a week and one fable.
00:30:12.660 | And then Uncle Paul and Kings of Rome
00:30:15.540 | lend themselves to reading on the off days of the week,
00:30:19.220 | if you want to spread them out like that,
00:30:20.540 | 'cause there's one story a week from those.
00:30:23.900 | And then I liked having the beautiful science
00:30:26.740 | and artist cards and timeline cards
00:30:28.860 | 'cause we liked to look at the beautiful pictures
00:30:32.260 | while we were doing our memory work.
00:30:33.820 | And then also read a little bit more on the back,
00:30:36.140 | just the stories that are on the back of the science cards
00:30:39.180 | and the composer cards and the history cards
00:30:41.660 | were fun for us to explore just a little deeper
00:30:44.100 | after we had recited our timeline or our history sentences.
00:30:47.940 | - I like that.
00:30:49.220 | We liked the cards with the pictures.
00:30:53.780 | It appealed to my children's imaginations
00:30:57.020 | and they always found something in the picture
00:31:00.540 | that I didn't see, right?
00:31:02.580 | They're looking at it more closely than I am
00:31:05.660 | that made them ask a question
00:31:08.540 | or that stretched me to think more deeply about the picture,
00:31:12.860 | but also about what it said on the back of the card
00:31:16.460 | and what we were learning about that event
00:31:20.500 | from the history sentence, from the timeline song
00:31:24.300 | or from something else that we were reading that week.
00:31:26.860 | So I like it that you mentioned some resources
00:31:30.100 | that aren't books that can still help us
00:31:34.540 | with what we're trying to explore
00:31:36.540 | with our children in cycle one.
00:31:39.140 | What are some other resources that parents might enjoy
00:31:44.140 | that aren't necessarily books
00:31:47.460 | or even CC products?
00:31:50.820 | What other resources did you use as a parent
00:31:55.820 | to open the world to your children?
00:32:01.140 | - Well, costumes, of course, dress up.
00:32:06.140 | One of mine really, really liked to dress up
00:32:08.660 | and so "Faces of History" was a favorite
00:32:11.260 | 'cause that was a great opportunity.
00:32:12.420 | - Yes, oh, that's great, Jennifer.
00:32:14.900 | - And then one of mine really loved to have,
00:32:19.580 | to make crafts for presentations.
00:32:22.180 | And so having those craft supplies is part of,
00:32:26.220 | I always considered that part of our library.
00:32:28.580 | We had good wall-sized maps always
00:32:33.060 | that we could see in front of us all the time.
00:32:35.300 | And then we always had lots of colored pencils,
00:32:38.340 | crayons, modeling clay, Play-Doh, I mean, you name it.
00:32:42.260 | We had all those supplies.
00:32:43.420 | I miss that actually in my house.
00:32:45.060 | I don't have anyone coloring anymore, so no crayons.
00:32:47.900 | - Oh, I still have the craft closet.
00:32:50.980 | Yeah, we had a craft closet and the girls knew
00:32:54.900 | anything in that except for glitter
00:32:59.260 | is open to use at all times without direct supervision.
00:33:04.260 | Glitter was a restricted subject
00:33:06.460 | or was a restricted resource after a few mishaps.
00:33:11.300 | But I agree with you, and that my girls knew
00:33:16.300 | that that was a place they could go
00:33:19.260 | and get whatever supply they needed
00:33:22.700 | that they could use as they re-imagined
00:33:27.300 | the lesson of the morning into their afternoon play,
00:33:31.060 | because that's what happened at our house.
00:33:32.780 | Whatever we studied in the morning,
00:33:35.020 | I could look outside and find them enacting it.
00:33:40.740 | In the afternoon, I love that, it's such a good idea
00:33:45.060 | that a resource like a craft or a costume,
00:33:50.060 | I think eventually I had no more white sheets in my home
00:33:55.500 | because they would come in and they would need a sheet
00:33:58.740 | and I would say, "Okay, are you going to cut it up
00:34:02.060 | "or draw on it?
00:34:02.900 | "Is this gonna be a sheet that I could ever use again?"
00:34:05.460 | And sometimes they're like, "Well, I really need to cut it
00:34:08.540 | "or I really need to tie it to this tree."
00:34:11.300 | And so I would know that the white sheet sets
00:34:15.580 | are not ever going to be intact again,
00:34:17.980 | but for them to have that, and so that's a great reminder
00:34:22.860 | that there are resources that aren't books
00:34:27.300 | that might be part of your, if not library,
00:34:30.340 | then at least your arsenal of materials.
00:34:34.100 | I love that you said you always had math
00:34:37.700 | on your wall, talk about that.
00:34:39.940 | What did you guys use the maps for
00:34:42.620 | when you weren't studying geography
00:34:44.660 | and trying to draw them or blob map?
00:34:47.740 | - Well, we used them all the time.
00:34:50.300 | So if we were reading a story like Heidi,
00:34:53.540 | we had to go find Switzerland.
00:34:55.220 | Where are we in the world when we're reading this story?
00:34:59.300 | So that was sometimes what we did,
00:35:01.140 | or we would read a biography of someone
00:35:04.180 | who fought in World War II,
00:35:05.180 | and we needed to go look up those locations.
00:35:07.580 | So that was a lot of, it was a good supplement
00:35:10.340 | to our reading because we liked to locate ourselves
00:35:12.620 | in the world when we were in trance.
00:35:14.820 | - Yes.
00:35:15.660 | And that is so awesome.
00:35:18.140 | That is one of the best, best things
00:35:21.580 | about my daughter's classical education
00:35:26.020 | was that emphasis on geography,
00:35:27.740 | which I don't really think I ever had as a student,
00:35:31.860 | that they memorized all those places in the world.
00:35:36.860 | And it was such, it proved to be so much more
00:35:42.340 | than a parlor trick.
00:35:43.980 | You know, it wasn't just that they could tell you
00:35:46.220 | the capitals of all the countries in Africa, okay?
00:35:50.060 | It became when they read a novel,
00:35:52.940 | or they read a biography, or they read a history book,
00:35:57.940 | they could immediately put the places mentioned
00:36:02.940 | into context.
00:36:04.420 | They knew what it was close to.
00:36:06.060 | They knew what bodies of water were nearby
00:36:09.100 | and what mountain ranges separated it
00:36:11.140 | from another important place in that text.
00:36:14.980 | And so, I feel like it gave them,
00:36:18.740 | the study of geography gave them a much better context
00:36:23.340 | for people and places in the world.
00:36:26.460 | And even to today, when they hear news reports
00:36:30.580 | of what's going on,
00:36:32.620 | they have a much better mental picture than even I do
00:36:37.620 | of what that means in the world in which they live.
00:36:42.500 | - Yeah.
00:36:44.060 | - I love it, I love it.
00:36:45.780 | I know that when my girls were little,
00:36:49.540 | we sometimes, I had to push them to see this,
00:36:53.820 | but we sometimes used people as resources.
00:36:58.140 | And so, I would think ahead to what we were studying
00:37:02.300 | and try to think of someone in our sphere
00:37:06.500 | who knew something about that, who worked as a scientist.
00:37:10.340 | We had some friends who were chemists at the local college,
00:37:14.700 | and so they could talk to them about chemistry,
00:37:18.220 | and we had doctors who could talk to them about anatomy,
00:37:22.180 | and we had people who worked in local government
00:37:25.740 | who could tell them what it's really like
00:37:27.860 | to be on the town council and stuff.
00:37:29.980 | And so, people can be resources.
00:37:32.380 | And so, as parents, I would encourage you,
00:37:34.940 | when you're thinking ahead to the fall,
00:37:37.660 | think about what you're gonna study
00:37:39.340 | and what your children and you are going to explore
00:37:42.500 | and ask yourself, do I know any people
00:37:45.260 | who have that as a hobby or have that as a vocation?
00:37:49.340 | Is there anybody who could talk to my kids?
00:37:51.900 | Could my older children shadow somebody for a day
00:37:55.540 | and find out what this job is really all about?
00:37:59.580 | That's a good resource too.
00:38:01.660 | Let me ask you this, think back, all right, back,
00:38:07.260 | 'cause I know that your youngest
00:38:09.380 | is up into the challenge area years now,
00:38:13.140 | but I want you to think back,
00:38:15.140 | what is something that you remember enjoying the most
00:38:21.580 | about cycle one with your kids?
00:38:24.020 | Well, one memory that I have is,
00:38:29.060 | I've actually heard this shared
00:38:30.700 | by other Classical Conversations families as well,
00:38:33.780 | but we had, I think the song has altered slightly,
00:38:36.500 | but we had a little song about the fall of Rome
00:38:40.380 | that it was caused by taxes and slavery
00:38:42.900 | and unemployment and diseases.
00:38:44.860 | My kids, for whatever reason,
00:38:47.820 | they loved the melody of that song
00:38:50.060 | and they would, I would find them in the room giggling
00:38:54.540 | and then I would come in and they were singing that song
00:38:57.220 | and when it said contributed to the fall of Rome,
00:38:59.980 | they would plunge backward onto the bed.
00:39:02.660 | And so they were literally falling.
00:39:05.900 | That's hilarious.
00:39:07.060 | I just have such fond memories of them singing that song
00:39:09.660 | and giggling that year.
00:39:11.420 | Yes.
00:39:12.860 | That was also the cycle where Abby often challenged me.
00:39:15.820 | She wanted to make the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
00:39:18.580 | Oh my gosh.
00:39:19.860 | Rice Krispie Treats for a presentation one day.
00:39:22.460 | So we needed not just the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
00:39:25.060 | but we needed an edible Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
00:39:28.020 | So I went along with that and we've made that.
00:39:31.420 | That's a good one.
00:39:32.260 | You are a good mama.
00:39:33.180 | You are a good mama.
00:39:35.260 | That one pushed me.
00:39:37.060 | It is funny that our children come up with these wild things
00:39:42.060 | that we would never in a million years try to do.
00:39:48.020 | But if our children are interested, we'll try it.
00:39:52.100 | It's just amazing to me.
00:39:54.380 | What do you think that your kids remember?
00:39:58.020 | Do you think Abby still remembers
00:39:59.580 | the edible Hanging Gardens?
00:40:02.140 | Oh, she definitely does.
00:40:03.220 | That was a hallmark moment in our education.
00:40:08.220 | But I also think that they will remember circling back
00:40:10.780 | to our open a book, open the world idea.
00:40:14.300 | I had bought, I think at the homeschool convention,
00:40:17.780 | some books called "You Wouldn't Want to Live in."
00:40:20.780 | Oh, yes.
00:40:22.220 | Some of them was "You Wouldn't Want to Live in Pompeii."
00:40:25.180 | That was, that tragedy was a compelling,
00:40:30.180 | fascinating story in our home.
00:40:32.220 | The idea that that entire town was buried.
00:40:35.100 | So I hope to take them there someday
00:40:37.140 | so that they can see it in person.
00:40:38.580 | But that was one of them.
00:40:40.420 | "You Wouldn't Have Wanted to Be a Roman Soldier."
00:40:42.420 | It was those kinds of books.
00:40:43.700 | Yes.
00:40:44.660 | Just strange facts about living in the ancient world
00:40:47.820 | that we devoured and enjoyed during cycle.
00:40:51.020 | It's so funny.
00:40:51.860 | I don't know if I would have remembered this at all
00:40:53.580 | if you hadn't said that.
00:40:54.820 | But I think we must have read that same book,
00:40:57.540 | "You Wouldn't Have Wanted to Live in Pompeii."
00:40:59.580 | And I remember, especially my older daughter,
00:41:03.460 | being fascinated that it just kind of buried people that,
00:41:06.980 | she couldn't understand how, like,
00:41:09.100 | why didn't they run away?
00:41:10.340 | Or why couldn't they get away?
00:41:11.700 | And when she was little,
00:41:13.300 | that was just so weirdly fascinating to her.
00:41:18.300 | And then we actually did get to see it.
00:41:22.740 | The year that she graduated from Challenge Four,
00:41:25.820 | we had saved for years and took a trip to Europe
00:41:28.500 | and we did see Pompeii.
00:41:30.700 | Oh, nice.
00:41:31.700 | Yes, and it was a full circle moment, you know,
00:41:36.700 | from what you remembered
00:41:38.900 | and what you understood, even dimly as a child,
00:41:43.740 | to seeing those ruins in person.
00:41:48.380 | That was really cool.
00:41:49.540 | So yeah, yeah.
00:41:51.180 | Well, I appreciate you, Jennifer,
00:41:54.020 | taking a few minutes with us
00:41:56.540 | to talk about books and libraries and reading
00:42:00.580 | and then help us to think our way
00:42:03.260 | toward preparation for cycle one.
00:42:05.420 | So thank you very much.
00:42:06.940 | And we'll all show up at your house
00:42:09.340 | in the next couple of months
00:42:10.900 | to check out a book from your library, okay?
00:42:12.940 | I would love that.
00:42:13.980 | Everyone, all are welcome.
00:42:15.740 | That is so great.
00:42:17.820 | And listen, parents,
00:42:19.140 | if a trip to Oklahoma is not in your future
00:42:24.500 | and you can't go visit Jennifer's library,
00:42:27.420 | there are lots of other ways for you to prepare yourself
00:42:30.220 | to be the lead learner in your home.
00:42:32.540 | You can start building your own library
00:42:35.860 | using some of these titles that we've mentioned today.
00:42:38.780 | That would be awesome.
00:42:40.260 | But if you're looking for something to do,
00:42:42.500 | maybe if you're looking for a community
00:42:45.140 | that could learn and grow along with you,
00:42:48.260 | you really are committed
00:42:50.540 | to becoming a better lead learner in your own home
00:42:54.500 | and learning how to lead your children
00:42:57.980 | to be ever more classical learners.
00:43:01.820 | I'd love for you to check out the Classical Learning Cohort.
00:43:06.820 | We really believe that parents can learn
00:43:11.100 | to be better educators for their own children.
00:43:15.140 | Even when we all feel a little unsure about that goal,
00:43:19.500 | the Classical Learning Cohort program can really help.
00:43:23.260 | This is what I would encourage you to do.
00:43:25.100 | Go to classicalconversations/cohort
00:43:30.220 | and find out what the Classical Learning Cohort
00:43:35.020 | has to offer you and your family.
00:43:38.420 | Thanks for listening with us today.
00:43:41.620 | As Jennifer and I talk about our favorite subject books,
00:43:44.980 | and I wish you happy reading this summer.
00:43:48.700 | Thanks guys, and I'll see you next week.
00:43:51.340 | (upbeat music)
00:43:53.940 | you
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