(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm super glad to be with you as always. And I want to share some information with you today about one of our resources that's been out for a little more than a year that there are a lot of misconceptions about.

And I have one of my best friends who was instrumental in putting scribblers at home together with me. Amy Jones is with us, and we're going to talk to you about some of the things that we think might be misunderstood about scribblers at home, and hopefully give you a couple more reasons to be curious and fall in love with it.

Amy, thank you for coming. - Oh, thank you, Lisa. This is so fun. And I love talking about Scribblers Resource. It's just one of my favorite things that we have put together. It's a surprise. - I know! - I know, I love it too. And I fell more and more in love with it the longer we worked on it.

It just, it grew in richness to me, and I was able to see how much I really believed it would touch the lives of all kinds of families, not just families with little children, you know, four to eight year olds. And so, but one of the reasons, listen, one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast now was to get the good word out, but I also wanted to do it now because congratulations are in order for you and for the other writers.

Scribblers at Home, Recipes from Lifelong Learners, just won an award, okay? We won the Illumination Book Awards Gold Award for Children's Education. Were you excited about that when you heard? - I was so excited. I was, first of all, surprised. One of my children said, "Mimi, you're famous," which is hilarious.

- Yes! - The first question was, "Are you a princess?" No, you're too old to be a princess. You must just be famous, which was hilarious. - That is so fun. - You know what I loved about it is it's the idea for children's education. And I thought it's the whole range.

And that's what I really loved about the award. You know, I was surprised, but I wasn't shocked. I was thinking it is an excellent product. And I think it's just one of those hidden gems that you get your hands on it. You're like, "Wow, there's so much into these pages." And it's so relevant.

I think I just am amazed at how usable it is for anybody. So I was really excited about it. And I was excited for everyone on the team. I thought, "Wow, this is cool." - I was excited too. I had forgotten that they were gonna put it out there.

And somebody just said, "Hey, congratulations on your award." And I thought, "On my what now?" And so it's so funny. You feel kind of bashful about telling people. And so when I passed it on to my husband, he was like, "What, this is amazing." Kind of like your grandchild.

"Oh, now you're famous." I'm like, "No, I'm not." I mean, this is a very localized fame here. But like you, I was very gratified to see that others recognized how special it was. You know, when we were beginning to write and put the resource together, we looked and there really is not anything else like it out there.

And so it was real exciting to me to have an independent board recognize that Scribblers was something out of the ordinary. So that was really cool. And I do wanna pick your brain about Scribblers and get some of the things that you've been hearing and things that are like burning on your mind to share with other people.

But first I have a different question, okay? You're used to having all kinds of questions. So here's my question for you. Are you, Amy, a good cook? - Oh my, I've gotten better. - Okay. - I would say if I trace it back to when I was first married, I married at 28.

So I had lots of roommates before wet. And you know, typical post-college, you just eat like windy salads. - Right. - So I didn't really have the need to cook until I married my very hardworking husband. And what was funny was my mom would call me like checking in, you know, newly married.

Like, "What are you fixing for dinner tonight?" And I said, "Oh, chicken and rice." And evidently I must have said that for- - A lot. - Yeah. So in the mail, I got a recipe book that's "365 Ways to Cook Chicken." And so, along with the "Better Homes and Garden." - Yes, I bet we have the same edition.

- Standard edition. And my mom just gently, in her quiet way, suggested that perhaps wet would like something more than chicken and rice. He was very grateful. It was very grateful. He said he would never say he liked something because he knew I was gonna just cook it. - Just cook it over and over and over.

That is so funny. - I had to learn to cook. I did not, yeah. - Yeah, so you learned, you did learn, and you learned from cookbooks. So you did use recipes in cookbooks when you were learning to cook. - Oh, oh, absolutely. I just felt like what I loved about a cookbook is they had already tried these recipes.

- Yes, yes. - They were good enough to publish them in a book. And also what I loved about it, especially those standard cookbooks, they gave you tips and techniques that were not intuitive. And so you would just try, like, oh, you put parchment paper there. It keeps, it's like having your mom in your kitchen all the time.

I could just read it and go, oh, that's a simple thing to do. - That'll make a huge difference. Yes, yes, yes. And even like measurements and how, if you don't have mayonnaise, what can you substitute it for? - I love those little columns, yes. If you don't have buttermilk, did you know that?

You can just add lemon juice to regular milk and let it sit there for five or 10 minutes and voila, it will act like buttermilk. - Yes. - Yes, all of that stuff. I think we might've learned to cook the same way. My mom was a good cook and I loved eating her cooking.

And I guess I had watched her through the years. So it wasn't like I was an absolute ignoramus in the kitchen, but I tended to be like you and make the same several things over and over. And they did not require a lot of imagination. And I didn't know a lot about different seasonings or even like you were saying, different techniques.

You know, I didn't really know the difference between stir and fold. - Yes. - And all of those delicate maneuvers in the kitchen when I got married. And so I, like you, loved those basics cookbooks that would say, you know, okay, this is how you do a pot roast.

You know, searing the outside before you put something in a roasting pan. That's not intuitive for heaven's sake. If you're gonna roast it, why would you sear it? And so I love what you just said. Things that are not necessarily intuitive are really helpful to have written down for us who want to learn to do better than we're doing.

So let me ask you this. Do you still use, do you still have your cookbooks, your recipes? - Oh yes, oh yes, I do. I do depend on online things, which is lovely, but I like, I have those old cookbooks that I have used those recipes multiple times. I know this is a banana nut bread recipe that does work and has the right amount, and I like the ingredients, and I like how it looks at the end.

And so I always have those marked, and I know which cookbook it is. I know, and I put notes in the side, like I doubled this, it didn't work, or add more ginger or whatever, because that's the lovely thing about a cookbook. It becomes your own in a sense that you can integrate your own ideas.

Like it tastes better if you put this on top, or we did this for a birthday party, lots of fun. So just becoming those notes, it becomes your own personal kind of diary of food. And I think because my mom had her mother's cookbook and she did the same thing.

So you have all these little notes and nuggets or old recipes stuck in the, you know, at the, you know, on this page. Meringue cookies, you know, you just sort of know that. And yes, I still have cookbooks that I use that I refer to. - I still look at, I mean, I know how to cook now.

I've been married for a whole lot of years, but I still will pull those out. And sometimes it's because, like you said, I have the notes in the margin. Like there's some recipes that it is never enough to make one. So I have the, I have the, in the margin, I have all the measurements for a double batch, you know.

Or I have, the first time I ever made a red velvet cake, my mom had given me the recipe. And when I got done, I thought, well, the icing looks weird. I don't know, this does not look like mama's icing. And so I called her and I said, I just feel like I did something wrong because it's kind of tan.

And she said, tan, why would it be tan? And I'm like, I don't know, that's why I'm calling you. And so she made me read the ingredients and written on, by her hand on that recipe, I promise you, it had a little bit of cocoa powder in the icing.

And she said, well, that's why it's tan. And I said, but that's the recipe you gave me. And she said to me, oh, I never, I always leave that out. I was like, it was not left out of your recipe. And so now, sometimes I look at those old recipes just to make me laugh or to bring back a sweet memory.

So I've kept my cookbooks because like you said, they have sweet memories and sweet notes. And sometimes I pull one out that I haven't done in a long, long time. And I need a refresher. I don't remember how long this is supposed to bake and I really don't want it to come out like a brick.

So I look again. And so we keep our cookbooks, we use our cookbooks. Maybe we don't rely on them for the same things that we did originally, but we still love them. - Also, Lisa, you grow in your cooking because I know when I got that Betty Crocker cookbook, there were recipes I'd look at and go, no way, Jose, am I gonna ever- - Absolutely.

It's like, nope, it has too many ingredients or too many hard steps. - But then over a while I'll go, oh, you know what? That's just an extra step. Why was I so- - Right. - So you kind of grow sometimes into it. - Yes, yes. And sometimes you can say, oh, well that part, gosh, I guess that used to seem really hard to me, but that's not really hard.

That's not, doesn't take long. It's not hard to do. It's almost so much of a habit that I don't have to think about it. So I can afford to look at a harder recipe now. You know, that's really true. Here's the thing, y'all. Most of us needed a recipe or a cookbook in the worst way as beginners.

We did not know what we were doing. We needed somebody or something to tell us what and how much and how long and in what order. And like you said, what is it supposed to look like? As we learn to cook, we mostly, sometimes I use my cookbooks for inspiration.

I know there are recipes in there that never fit my occasions, but maybe they would now. So we use recipes and cookbooks for inspiration or as like you said, reminders that we can take things to the next level now. So listeners, why are we doing all this cooking talking?

Because Scribblers is just like that. In the beginning of your homeschool journey, you really might wish that somebody would tell you what and how much and how long and in what order and what is this thing supposed to look like, but you're gonna grow and you're gonna be willing to do things that are more complicated or more abstract or require more of your imagination or your family's input.

So Scribblers can grow with you on your homeschooling journey, just like most of our cookbooks grew with us. And the cool thing about Scribblers, if you don't already know, is that it is set up like a cookbook with sections and serving suggestions and prep time and ingredients and the steps and the yield and even those tips and hints that Amy was talking about in her favorite cookbooks.

So we would love for you guys who haven't seen a copy of Scribblers before to take a look at it, maybe at Practicum this summer. You can even look at it online and you may be in community with somebody that would let you borrow theirs and take a look.

So let's talk a little bit about Scribblers specifically. Amy, what did you love about working on Scribblers? - You know, Lisa, I was brand new to the company, so I had no prior experience on that end of the world. And I was so moved. I was gonna say impressed, but that's not really the word, that here was a group of women.

I think there was Lee, you, Jennifer Courtney, I think Heather was there, and Jen Greenholt. There was this whole group of women that you all had been praying over this, thinking over this for, I think, several years. And I remember Lee sharing that she had sat with a group of young women asking them, "What would you like?

What's your heart's cry? What do you need?" And I thought that was so humble of just us, and said, "Just, we're gonna hand you something that we think you need." But really, really seeing that the heart of this whole enterprise, and it's for everything, but this particular resource, just the amount of care that went into thinking carefully through how will this benefit mom, dad.

And it's not just for, I remember Lee saying, "This is not just for preschoolers. This is for challenge for moms." And I remember having to get my mind wrapped around that, but seeing that vision of equipping people to follow the Lord's calling on their life to homeschool their children.

And so, to be a part of that vision was just remarkable. And it was, people are creative, they're fun, they're hardworking. I mean, just the ideas flowing. It was just wonderful to be sort of listening in on, and watching the process of this, and just the care that went into the vision for this.

It was pretty remarkable experience for me. So, I was very humbled. - It was fun. It was really fun to get together and to brainstorm, and I loved playing off of one another. But I'm so glad that you brought up Lee's beginning, because it was always her heart to meet, not what we perceived the needs of families to be, but the needs that families had expressed.

We had rubbed shoulders, many of us at practicums for a lot of years, had rubbed shoulders with young homeschool moms and dads, people who had older kids, but maybe were just bringing them home to a home-centered education. We had rubbed shoulders with a lot of people who said, "But how do I get started, and what does this look like?" And then, "Where are we going with this?" Okay, I hear and I believe, I had lots of dads come up to me at practicums and say, "My wife is totally in love with this curriculum, and my foundation's kids are doing it gangbusters, and they're happy, and my wife is happy, and I can tell they're learning stuff.

But can you tell me where is this headed? Where is this headed?" They were looking at junior high and high school and thinking, "Is this, I mean, are we going where I think I want us to go?" And some of them weren't really sure. They weren't able to articulate where they wanted to go, but they wanted to know that we had a plan.

And so there was that need of giving parents the whole roadmap. Here's how you get started. Here's what it looks like as you're traveling along the way, but here's where you're going. And I think that we didn't recognize maybe how ambitious a project it was when we started, which probably helped us to start with a lot more excitement than fear, and that's a good thing.

So I was really proud of what it became. I was proud of having this resource that answered, well, it helped families ask the questions that maybe they should have asked as they started homeschooling. I was really proud of producing a resource that helped families intentionally begin their journey in a way that I, looking back, wished I had begun my own.

And I think that's what, 'cause in a minute, I'm gonna ask you, "What are you the proudest of?" I think what I'm the proudest of is being part of providing a resource that positions families to begin learning together with enthusiasm from the beginning, knowing where they're going and how they want to get there.

- Yes, yes, yes. You must have read my mind. That was exactly what I was thinking, that the way this resource is arranged is that first part of just reflecting on what's the purpose? What are we striving for? Before we jump in to the deep end, what does God have for our family?

How do we identify the needs we have, the type of family, the situation we're in? And I think that word position, it positions you in a way that's restful, that focuses on the Lord. He's leading us, so He's gonna equip us. And then it shares with you, here are all, it's like a cookbook.

Here are all the tools that are available for you. You can use this, and here's another thing, and here's another thing. And it gives you the language you need to articulate what you are attempting to do. I think that's the hardest thing is when you're asked by someone that's like, "Why are you doing this crazy thing?" That sometimes you just don't have the language, like you know in your heart, this is the right thing for our family, but I don't know how to articulate what we're about.

And I think part, especially that first part of this book, it gives you all the language. It gives you, here's the way, it's giving you time to pause and think about, here's the vision of what we want, and here are the tools that we can use to accomplish that.

And it reminds me again that God is leading us and can rest in that. And I just love that. I think that's one of my favorite parts of the book is that first introductory part where you are really inviting people to define their own school. And they're lovely, it's really lovely.

- I love that. I went back as I was preparing to interview you, Amy, I went back and read that part again. And what you say is really true. It just, it gave me a warm feeling. The goal for that introduction was to empower parents to intentionally choose their path and their tools, to articulate their vision, to realize that we all get to fine tune this journey for our family.

Like everybody's homeschool is gonna look a little bit different 'cause everybody's family is a little bit different. And that's beautiful and wonderful. And that is part of the privilege that the Lord is offering us. - Yes. And you know what I love about it too, Lisa, I think when you, I think you were writing that part is that we, you know, just like cooking, you grow your family ages and almost every year or every couple of years to go back through that and go, okay, let's realign.

Let's remind ourselves, what was our vision? What in the heck was I thinking? - Yes, right. - That was really a bad idea. You know, cramming 50,000 things in our year. I really wanna back up and reassess. And that's also how this could be used is to realign our vision.

Like, okay, because I get off, you know, I start gravitating into all these other places instead of going, no, wait a minute. I have four children. What is best for our family? How can I honor my husband? How can I serve the Lord? How can I keep things in balance?

And I've gotten off balance. And I feel like that first part just helped, just rereading it going, that's right. That's right. - And it's always a good thing to remember 'cause on a dark day you think, I don't know why I ever thought this was a good idea. I don't know how I ever thought that I was gonna get to the end of all of this with my sanity and all my children alive and fairly well, you know, fairly well developed and adjusted.

But when you have thoughtfully designed a family mission, when you have really thought about what is it that I want my children to know? What is important to our family? How do we want to grow together as learners? Then you can always go back to that. At the end of a really bad day, you can go back and say, oh, well, actually I didn't say that everybody was gonna learn to speak three languages by the time they graduated.

I said that we were gonna learn to have good conversations together and love the Lord and use our tools of learning to study His word and His world and be good. And so I think that's really, that's awesome. So that's what you and I love and that's what we're proud of.

What do you hear people loving about Scribblers at home as you're out and about, as you're helping families, how are people using it and what are they doing with Scribblers? - I think that people are just discovering things. Like they probably picked it up at practicum last year. And what I hear is as they are about to launch their Challenge A student or their Challenge One student, those big launching years, they are like, I cannot believe what these charts, so excited to have these all in one place.

So I know what team policy debate looks like. I know what a first conjugation, at least I have a chart. You know, I may not understand it, but I can look at it. I can review it and I can pull it out for my student and we can sit down and look at it.

I know how to play a math game. I mean, there are so many things, especially, and that was the vision that Lee had was really equipping parents to really get to for the whole years of schooling, of homeschooling, whatever that is. And it's so rich in resources. I think that's the biggest surprise that I've heard.

And they're like, if I had only had this last year. And that's what I hear. I also hear from younger moms, I gave these as gifts. I bought some and gave them to my daughters and daughters-in-law and they, and Mary Claire called me and said, "Mom, that whole section on the parts of a story, "that is so clear." And so she was like, "We're really using that." Now, her oldest is nine.

So it's for that younger, she goes, "I didn't have it all in my mind." She said, "This is what I would typically do. "Go online and spend 25 minutes looking "for a chart of what the parts of a story, "the climax of the story and what's the plot with it." And she said, "It's right here.

"I didn't know it had so many resources like that." So that's what I've also heard, is that people, it's like at your fingertips when you're just right there, I'm in the middle of something, I don't have time to go look. I can just go, "Oh, let's learn some Roman numerals." Right there.

And so I think that those are the two things just surprises older moms going, "You need to have this." - I've heard people say, "Oh my gosh. "Why did they not tell you that this is what you need "to understand the whole program from beginning to end?" I have actually heard people, sometimes I'm not really lurking, but I'm in a crowd and people don't know that I had anything to do with it.

So I just hear them talking about it at a practicum or at a book sale or something like that. And I hear people, I've heard people say, "This, this is what you really need. "This is how it starts, but it shows you where it's going "and it shows you where every strand is going." And one of the things that I really, really like that I think is helpful that I also think gets overlooked.

And so listeners, what Amy and I are also telling you is all the pieces of this resource that we love that some people have not found yet. One of the things that I love is the two-page spread that each strand has before the recipes, before the activities. So it's called "Everyone Has a Grammar Of." So like there's a grammar of science.

There's a two-page spread and it tells you, it answers all those questions that your mother-in-law or maybe your dad, maybe your husband is saying, "Why are you studying this?" 'Cause like for Latin, why are you studying Latin with these little four to eight-year-olds, okay? Why are you studying science?

What kind of science do you want to study? How can you and your children together at home become scientists? What are the skills of a scientist? We don't want you at home just to learn about science. We want you to become scientists. So what tools and thinking patterns do scientists use?

What questions do they pose? And then how can you become a lifelong science learner? We give a lot of lip service to becoming lifelong learners, but how do you do that? I mean, what will start us on that path? And then I love it 'cause there are tools over here.

So if you want to become, if you want to study science and you're a scribbler, what do you do? Well, it tells you right here, go out and get a magnifying glass. You can get them at the dollar store, okay? You want one big enough for little hands to use, okay?

A magnifying glass and tweezers and safety scissors and a flashlight and a funnel. Now see, I might not have thought of that before I had kids, that a funnel might be a scientist tool. A bug net and a bug container, a notebook, some plastic bags, a dip net and a bucket and a picture encyclopedia of the natural world.

So what an easy thing. So what if you, what if your mom or dad says to you, "Well, what should I get the kids for Christmas?" And you don't want them to have another video game and you don't want another toy to strow around your playroom floor, look on these tools pages.

Maybe they'll get your kids some eyedroppers and some beakers if they are a little bit older. So I love those pages that got really concrete it doesn't just say, we're gonna study, we're gonna do this science activity. So this is what comes behind it. And I liked that. - Oh, I think it's wonderful because it gives me as it, it provides me as a mom, as a kind of a way of thinking about how to introduce these strands to my children in a way that I take ownership.

I can educate myself. That's what I was telling someone. This book is sort of like a foundations curriculum that if I had had, this is like, not only just the on-ramp to homeschooling because if you had this, you would be very, very well prepared. But also it's the ongoing ramp that you, like you just said, I would have never thought of that.

And someone thought of it for you is that you thought, oh, I see. And it equips you to take the next step. You don't have to reinvent your homeschool environment from scratch. This is a guide that helps you think like it just gives you a way of thinking and approaching something.

Why, what, how, that's super simple. But I skip that. I just go to, well, what do I need at Amazon or something? Instead of, no, let me think. Even as you're evaluating curriculum, why, what, how, those are really good questions. And so, and also I love the fact that they use the classical tools.

We incorporated those. So they're not just some foreign word. It's like, oh, I need to compare. Oh, that's a great, that's simple. But I don't have a form, and I think it establishes your own habit of how you educate. It's really lovely in that way. Yes, yes. - Oh, I love it.

And I do love, I don't want to say that I don't love the activities 'cause I still do. I love being able to do what you said, just pick and choose, just let the book fall open and decide what are we gonna do. So I just let the book fall open now.

And there was a history. It's a history activity called Fill the Shelves. And you can play, it's a game you can play in the car. - Ah. - So there are all kinds of activities, things that you do in the backyard, things that you do in the car, things that require no equipment or supplies at all.

And some that require things that you're gonna have at home, crayons, scrap paper, a clothes hanger, stuff like that. Things that are easily accessible to most of us that we might not think of the activity when we've had a really long, hard day on our own, but we could easily follow somebody else's idea for the activity.

And so I just really love that. - I do too. I think, I'm sorry. I think that some people just see it as maybe it's just an activity booklet. And I thought, oh no, you can do that on Pinterest. I mean, that's just easy. But what I do love about it is, for example, I think in the math portion that there's this, there's an activity, but then you look right over and you go, oh, wait a minute, that connects with this.

And so, especially as, if you are a mom like I was, and when they said, oh, we're gonna do Latin, I just thought, no. (both laughing) - No, no we're not. - But what I love about this is so restfully arranged. And so it's not just those activities are great for your children, but they're inviting for adults like, oh, well, wait a minute, we can play that little game and I can look like I know what I'm doing.

- Right, until I do, we can fake it till we make it, right? - Exactly, and then you start seeing like, well, that's not so hard. And I think I just love how they put just the design of the book. It just is very, it's very inviting. - It is very inviting.

- Technical book is very. - Yep, it's very colorful, it's very easy to use. It's easy to flip open the spiral binding, makes it really easy to find your spot and just carry it around. - Well, there are people who, I always hear people say, oh, well, I didn't think Scribblers was for me.

So here's the thing, here's the deal. Every family should give Scribblers another look. Families who are just starting out who think, I'd really like to do this well from the beginning. What are some of the things I should think about? What should my husband and I sit down and consider before we jump into this journey?

Or we've been doing this for a couple of years and it feels a little chaotic. And I would like to think that we are more unified in the why. So Scribblers is perfect. That whole first introductory section helps you build your why as a family. There are so many, like you said, Amy, challenge parents who pick this up and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

This is supposed to be an activity book for little kids, but I want all these charts, all of these charts, the topic wheel chart and a microscope chart, a polygons chart, like Mary Claire said, the parts of a story chart, an invention chart. How many of us had our child come home from challenge and say, well, this week is invention.

I need to think about how to write my paper. And we're like, invention, now what would that be? So here on page 109, families, is an invention chart. It tells you exactly the guiding questions for inventing. So lots of challenge parents would be blessed by this resource because it shows you where you're going with all this fun that you can do.

But I'll also tell you, lots of challenge students enjoy Scribblers activities. Another group of people that I think would really love Scribblers, if they had half a chance, is grandparents. Scribblers makes it really easy for you to let grandma or grandpa be part of your homeschooling because the activities are so easy to do on the fly.

You don't have to have a lot of context. They don't have to know what your children have been memorizing for the last eight weeks in order to do a Scribblers activity that will really build a skill through intentional play. And it makes your kids excited to have grandma and grandpa play with them.

It makes grandma and grandpa excited to feel like they are part of your homeschool mission and they know what to do and how to do it. So that's another group that I think might be missing what Scribblers has to offer. What about you? Who do you think might love Scribblers if they gave it another look?

- You know, I think I was just thinking for myself that through all the stages of, especially I would say after we made that initial decision and probably three years in, and that's when you're sort of hit with the reality that by that time we had two, soon to be three children in our homeschool family.

And it just felt like I was a frantic and I didn't know, why am I doing this? Am I capable of doing this? And I think that, I think it's one of those resources that you need to keep on your shelf like a cookbook. You pull it off your shelf and you say, okay, what do I need?

Where do I feel like I'm lacking? And I think one thing that's lovely, and I love this about classical conversations, everyone is a learner. And as a mom, you're a lead learner. You are a, and you are a fantastic learner. And there are some things in here you might go, oh, I was an English major.

Got it, got the literature part. But I am so intimidated by science or history. I wasn't really into that. I'm gonna just, and really, I'm not kidding you. If you, I told me, I was telling my daughters, if you just open the book and look at, oh, Latin prepositions and adverbs chart.

I'm just, and I think, oh, it might make you feel a little nauseous, like what? I don't know what that is about. But then I looked, there's a little clock that talks about time. There's manner, affirmation, negation, place, and degree. And all I can do is look at this, and in a matter of, I would say 10 minutes, maybe, look over this, and that becomes a little more familiar.

And we always learn in cycles, in layers. And so the next time my child comes home and says, what's a preposition? I can say, well, not only can I tell you what a preposition is, I can tell you what a Latin preposition is. And I can help them. It just empowers you.

I think the world just inundates us. And it does, it's not just at the beginning. It's every year you are fighting for the truth that God has placed me as the educator of my children. And every year, I would say, even throughout the year, I was always going back to that truth.

No, this is our calling. It's what God has called us to. And yet we don't have a fancy lab, and I don't know all this or that. And the world just kind of screams at you that this needs to be a professional doing what you're doing. And this, I think, what I love the most about this, the Scribblers, is that it's a resource that I feel equipped.

Like I have at least the words, the language, the basic understanding, and I can go from here. I can get deeper, but I've already got the groundwork is laid for me. So when my challenged one child comes home and says, we're doing team policy, I don't have to go online and look up someone else's version of what a team policy debate is.

I can go right here and know this is, and of course, the beauty of this is it's directly tied to the challenge curriculum. So it's not gonna be some odd definition that- - Right. - It's gonna be directly what your child is learning in community. So I love that.

That's just wonderful. - It's gonna help parents get started well and continue alongside their child on that educational journey. And really, that's the whole point of Scribblers is to create a family culture of learning, the rhythms of learning together for life. Amy, thank you for helping me celebrate Scribblers and maybe giving people another reason to take another look.

- Yes. - Families, I also want you to know that the Scribblers writers will be receiving their Illuminations Gold Reward at National Conference. So let me tell you, if you want to meet the writers of Scribblers, that's only a small reason to go to National Conference. You need to mark your calendar for May 2nd through the 4th in Southern Pines.

There's gonna be a lot of things going on there. You're gonna be able to hear talks from homeschool leaders like Lee Bortons. You could be part of National Commencement. You could watch our official graduation ceremony for Challenge graduates and their parents. You could see some of the National Memory Master Championship with the grand prize of $10,000.

If you haven't been, if you're a CC family who hasn't been to National Events Weekend yet, this might be your year to go. If you're interested and you want to find out more, you can go to classicalconversationsfoundation.org. Amy and I hope that we'll see you there. Amy, I can't wait to see you there.

And I'm looking forward to touch a base with you. And I want to say thank you again for sharing your heart for Scribblers with our listeners. - This was just a delight. Thank you. - This was fun. Okay, I will see you soon, Amy. Listeners, I hope I'll see you soon too.

Bye-bye. (gentle music) (gentle music)