BONUS: The Power of What You’re Already Doing (Sneak Peek Inside RAR Premium)

Sarah Mackenzie (00:04): Hey, hey, Sarah MacKenzie here, and this is a bonus episode of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. I had to share this episode with you because as homeschooling moms, we oftentimes get very focused on which curriculum is best to use with our kids, right? But there is something way more important than our curriculum. (00:27): See, the key to a successful homeschool is a peaceful, happy parent. And homeschooling itself is all about relationships. Relationships with God, and relationships with ideas, and relationships with each other. But relationships can't really be put on autopilot. They're not like something you can put down on a lesson planner and check off, right? Which is why most curriculum leaves us feeling a bit dissatisfied, because we know homeschooling is about so much more than that. Those tasks are important, but there's something deeper here. Well, RAR Premium is an online program where I offer mentoring for homeschooling moms who want to make their homeschool a rich place for relationships to thrive. We also help you make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through a monthly Family Book Club that is designed with this understanding about relationships at its core. (01:26): Well, this particular replay I'm sharing with you today is straight out of RAR Premium. It's a Circle with Sarah Live, which is one of our regular homeschool mentoring Zooms where I'm mentoring homeschool moms. And in this one, I want to help you see how what you're already doing in your homeschool is making a huge impact. So often we don't realize the things we've done count so much and what they're doing. So in this episode, I walk you through RAR's framework for rich and meaningful connection. There are cupcakes involved. You're very likely doing most of these things already, and whether you're ready to join RAR Premium or not, I think this episode will help you think about how you structure your homeschool and how the things you're already doing are having a huge impact on you making meaningful and lasting connections with your kids. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you leave knowing you're doing a better job at homeschooling than you might think. (02:32): Well, here's what we're going to do tonight. We're going to be talking tonight about the power of the things you're already doing in your homeschool. We're going to talk about how we really make meaningful connections, meaningful and lasting connections with our kids through books and the things you're already doing to do that. And I think sometimes we kind of forget to give ourselves credit for the things we do, especially when you've been doing them for a while. For example, most families with kids who can read on their own, don't read-aloud to them, but we kind of beat ourselves up if we feel like we're not reading aloud enough or if we feel like we're not maybe having the right discussions or we're not doing the right things. (03:11): So tonight I want to kind of point out some of the things that I know you're already doing because we talk about them all the time here at Read-Aloud Revival, and I hope will help you see the power of what you're doing already in your own homeschool. I'm going to be talking for a little while and then at the end we are going to have time for Q&A. We are going to have a great time tonight. So, let's see. I think I'm going to go ahead and open us up in prayer and then we'll get started. (03:45): Oh, dear Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this time. Thank you for every single woman who's here tonight. You know who each of us are, you know the longings of our heart, you know the things we're worried about, the things that we are losing sleep over, the things we're excited or hopeful for. You know it all better than we do and you know what tomorrow brings. We ask that you remind us that you alone give us peace that transcends all understanding and that you guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. We especially ask for your protection and safety over everybody affected by the hurricanes, either Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton. We ask for your peace and your safety and that you would give energy to all of those who are helping those who are affected. And again, we thank you for this day and I ask your blessing on every single one of us here tonight. In your name we pray, amen. (04:45): So, who's jumped into any new Family Book Club Guides? We've got three new Family Book Club guides of course for fall. James Herriot's Treasury for Children, which we did in September. The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street, which we're doing as a novel all quarter because Barbara, which we're doing right now because we're going to be talking about the new format of these and also how what you are doing in your home schools are, like I said, count for more than you might be giving yourself credit for. (05:15): You might have noticed that starting with James Herriot and for the rest of the Family Book Clubs this fall, we changed the format. We used to have just one Family Book Club Guide, it looked like this. It was just for a Family Book Club Guide for because Barbara, and beginning with this fall, we actually split it up into two pieces. We split it up into a Family Book Club Guide and a Rabbit Trails Guide. And we changed this format to make it easier to use and to kind of emphasize the things that matter most. We wanted just it to be easier to prioritize the things that actually matter because reading aloud is the most important part. The reading aloud is really how you build your family culture around books. And in fact, the things that we put in the Family Book Club Guide support you in building your family culture and the things that were in the rabbit trails and they're still in the rabbit trails, we just pulled them out into their own guide. They really help you enhance your experience. (06:16): But one of the things we wanted to point out, and the reason why we pulled them out into two guides is because we felt like when they were all in one guide, maybe that was getting lost a little bit and it seemed like the rabbit trails, the things like poetry or history or geography were just as important as the reading aloud and discussing it, and that's just not the case. And actually, you can do a lot less and still build your family culture around books. (06:40): Our attempt here is to help it be more obvious that the Family Book Club Guide is how we build our family culture, and then the Rabbit Trails Guide is how we enhance the experience, because the culture always matters more than the curriculum. That matters no matter what you use in your homeschool. It does not matter if you use an out of a box curriculum, if you use all workbooks and grade level curriculum, if you completely fabricate something yourself, if you do un-schooling, if you do an eclectic mix. It doesn't matter what style or method you use, it's absolutely true all of the time that homeschooling is about relationships. So, building your family culture is far more important than anything than a curriculum can get you or can give you, I should say. (07:25): One of the questions we get a lot is, is RAR Premium a curriculum? And I hate answering that question even though I understand why it's being asked, because I want to say, well, it's not a curriculum, it's better than a curriculum, because it's razor focused. It's really primarily focused on helping you build those relationships with your kids, meaningful and lasting connections with your kids. It's the whole idea of Premium, what we do at Premium is to help you build your culture and that matters so much more important, that are so much more than a curriculum does. And because homeschooling is about relationships, we want to make sure that we're constantly putting relationships first. (08:04): So tonight I want to talk about the power of the framework that you're probably already using because we are using it at Read-Aloud Revival. That really, it's like a framework to help you build that culture, a framework to give you that rich and meaningful connection. And I really do think that it's so often true that we don't really take stock of what we're doing or why it actually matters. Like I said, most families aren't reading aloud with their kids who can already read to themselves. Most families aren't having really good open-ended discussions about anything, let alone the books that they're reading. And sometimes we can be really hard on ourselves because we have these very high expectations for ourselves and we forget how much we're doing and that it actually matters and it all counts. (08:46): So I know this is cheesy, totally know it's cheesy, I love it so much, so we're going to go with it anyway, because I like thinking about this framework as a cupcake. And on this cupcake, our main cupcake part of the cupcake, the cupcake part itself is the reading aloud. It's the foundation and really, because homeschooling is about relationships, the reading aloud that we do with our kids is the best, most effective way to nurture the relationships that matter most. So this is sort of a no-brainer, and this is why even if you don't crack open your Family Book Club Guide at all, but you're just reading aloud, that's the most important activity in your homeschool, bar none. There is zero things you can do in your homeschool that will make the same impact as reading aloud. (09:35): We know that reading aloud is the single most important activity for helping kids succeed academically across the curriculum, and so whether or not you do anything else with a book, just reading aloud, you're doing so much, you're doing the most important thing. So that's why it's the foundation and the most important piece. And that's why I mentioned that. I saw a few people in the chat said, "Haven't even cracked a guide in a while." You might be kind of compelled to crack one after I show you a few things tonight, but even if you don't, you're getting the most important things and you're making the biggest difference just by reading aloud. (10:10): Now, the frosting on our cupcake is the relate piece, and we call it the relate piece. This is engaging in open-ended conversations, it's sharing a cozy memory around the table. Right? These are the things that we give to our kids as a way to help them enjoy reading. We're really bonding, reading with some of their favorite memories and we're connecting with them, we're relating with them. (10:38): And then the third piece is sprinkles, the sprinkles, right? Which is what we call remember. So we read-aloud, and then we relate by connecting with our kids with those books, and then we can remember. And this is the sprinkles on a cupcake. The cupcake is equally delicious without sprinkles, but sprinkles make it more fun, right? Once your kids get a little older, they might be interested in meeting the authors and illustrators behind the books that they love. And usually our younger kids are not really interested in meeting the authors and illustrators and that's totally fine. As they get older, they might get interested in that, and then we can help them connect more deeply with their books, or yeah, with their books and their reading life. (11:20): So this is where in Premium Family Book Club events come in, where you get to meet the author or illustrator because by doing so, a lot of times your kids then will start recognizing those names. I don't know if you've ever had the experience after a Premium event, a Family Book Club event, where you've been at the library and your kids see a book by the same person, by an author, and they're like, "Oh, I know him," or, "I know her." It's so great when that happens. So they have this deeper connection, which is really fun. (11:49): And then of course we have the cherry on top, which is really delicious and fun. I don't know, I've told you maybe, that I ate a ton of maraschino cherries when I was pregnant with Clara. Have I admitted this publicly yet? I can't remember if I have or not. I ate them out of a jar, they were like my craving. I know, everyone's like red dye number 40, Sarah, come on. Look, Clara came out fine, she's great, she's a lovely child. I ate them straight out of the jar. I loved them so much, and I had a friend who was so worried about my health and the health of the baby, but she brought me these Trader Joe's organic-y, I don't know, they didn't cut it. I was like, "Listen, I'm eating the maraschino cherries." In our guide, these are the rabbit trails and they're just the cherry on top. (12:40): So when time and energy allows, you can extend whatever stories you're reading with subjects like history and geography and picture study or nature study, right? But it's really the cherry on top. Sometimes you have them, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you eat the whole jar, sometimes you don't. But the key here is the reason we pull them out to their own guide is because they really are the cherry on top. You really don't need them to make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books, but they can be really fun when you have the time and energy. So, that's why it's separate, because it's not essential, but it's delightful. (13:19): And this framework, this read-aloud, relate, remember and rabbit trails, this is how you build your family culture, the how you can build your fam... Or let's say read-aloud, relate, and remember, that's how you build your family culture. That's the part, these three parts right here. I don't know, can you see my little blue? Can you see that blue ball on the screen? I wonder if you can, I think you can maybe. You can. Fun. Okay, I'll try not to be too crazy with it. So reading aloud, relating, and remembering are the pieces that are in our Family Book Club guide, and Rabbit rails get their own guide extra. So let's take a closer look at what that looks like, and we're going to take a closer look specifically at the Family Book Club Guide first. (14:00): So inside your Family Book Club guide are, there's a table of contents, and this is our new format for the ones that have come out this fall and in the future. And you can see the steps here. The step one, Read-Aloud, right? The step two, relate, and the step three, remember. And those are the same ones that we just talked about with the cupcake. Right?So let's start with the reading aloud and see what's important. And this is actually one other important thing to know, is that these are actually put in order of importance because you absolutely will not have time to do all of them every month. You're going to have stick kids or visiting family members or one thing happening after another or just low energy. And you're going to be like, oh my goodness. So we put them in the order of importance. You just start at the top, baby. Step one, read-aloud. If you get to that, you're the most important thing. (14:52): In step one we have three sections here. About the book, the looking closely with Sarah, and related reading. So about the book is the first part. In your guide, you're going to find the book cover and a description. If we have specific age recommendations, if we recommend it for certain ages that you're going to find it here. Right? You'll also find more about the author and illustrator on your about the book pages. This is a very basic page, but it kind of gives you the nuts and bolts of the book that you're about to read. (15:21): And then in your guide under the same read section is the looking closely section. And the looking closely with Sarah is really about inviting your kids into reading the book. Now, we've all had that experience of having a teacher who's really enthusiastic and just naturally excited about what they're teaching, versus a teacher who's just there getting it done. Listen, when I teach math or science, I'm just a teacher who's there getting it done but when I am talking about picture books or novels, I get very excited. And so it's this idea of, our kids pick up on that. And I know I've heard from a lot of you that for some of your kids, they just sort of receive the invitation a little better when it doesn't come from mom, which I also understand. I've had children like that myself. So this is a really easy way for your kids to get introduced to not only the book but also literary devices. (16:14): So what I do in these looking closely's, they used to just be an invitation to invite your kids into reading. But now what we do is I invite your kids into reading a book and I usually teach some literary devices without it feeling school-y. So I'm kind of giving your kids the tools they need to become discerning, attentive readers and notice things they might not notice otherwise. But it doesn't feel like school, it feels like hopefully, it feels like somebody who's very excited about the things she found in the book. Getting your kids about the exciting thing in the book. (16:49): So in the guide you find the looking closely, you'll find a link to the video. The video is always on the website. We've added QR codes so that you can, if you print this out and you're like, I don't want to have to pull up the PDF to click the link, you can just use the QR code. It'll take you straight to the right place where the video is. And then you'll also see that there's notes in the section of the guide where we're giving you some written notes. I'm like in this video for the living closely with Barbara. I teach the Hero's Journey in three act structure because it's my favorite thing on the face of the planet to teach, so it keeps coming up again and again. And you'll find notes there so that you can reference them, or if you are like, oh, I can't remember what she said about XYZ, you'll have some notes there in your guide. That's the looking closely section. (17:35): This is new, we also have a section called Words to Watch for in this area, in this read section. And I'll tell you why, because I was leading a co-op class, book clubs at my co-op last year for a couple of different age groups. And I found last year one of the books we read in our book club was A Place to Hang The Moon by Kate Elvis, of course. Right? And what I would do at the beginning of each week before I started reading aloud is I would just write out the words on the whiteboard that I knew were going to trip the kids up. They might not know what WVS was. The Women's Voluntary Service, volunteer service, I can't remember what it's called technically, during World War II. Or, I mean, would they recognize a name like Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler? All of these names come up in A Place to Hang the Moon, right? Or just interesting vocabulary words. Do they know what crumpets are or whatever, right? (18:32): So I would kind of skim through the chapter and pick words that I thought they might not know what those are and write them on the board. And what I was surprised at and I just write them on the board and sometimes I would write the definition next to them and sometimes I would just, I didn't have the kids write them down. I didn't have them do anything school-y with it. Before we read, I just went through the list and I would say, "Okay, a crumpet is," and I would define it, just tell them what it was. "Hey, does anybody know who Winston Churchill is?" And then I'd ask a kid or two. "Okay, this is who he was. You're going to hear that name today, listen for it." And it was more like making it a treasure hunt, not an assignment, not like a vocabulary assignment. They didn't have to write down the words and define it and write it on an index card, nothing like that. It was just sort of a, "Hey, watch for these. These are great words that are in this chapter." (19:15): And what I found is then I would Read-Aloud to the class and the kids would literally perk up when I read the word, when I read the name Winston Churchill or crumpet. You'd see 25 heads pop up and eagerly look at the board to see what it said, it meant. And I realized, oh yes, this is what we should do. (19:33): I think sometimes in Charlotte Mason homeschools, they talk about pulling out the words ahead of time before you do a read-aloud, especially if there are words that your kids are going to encounter that they don't know. So I just know you don't necessarily have time to pre-read the chapters and pull them out or pre-read the picture book and pull them out, so we just did it for you. We've got words to watch for. You can use them however you would like, but I would recommend not making it school-y. I would recommend not making your children copy them all down or anything, just talk about them. Your kids' vocabulary will expand a lot just by you talking about them very casually. So this is included in this section too, words to watch for. (20:12): Oh, we did put this tip in here, this is kind of fun. That it can be really fun to make a game of using vocabulary words like this. I wonder how many vocabulary words or how many of these words to watch where you can use in dinner time tonight. Or if you are reading A Place to Hang the Moon and you're like, I wonder if you can bring up Winston Churchill in conversation tonight. That's fun, it can just be kind of fun. In a picture book it might be like, I wonder how many you can bring up tonight. But really, the best books have words that are new to us. And as an adult sometimes too, I'm like, the kids will be like, "What does that word mean?" And I'll think, I don't actually know. Let's look it up. So you will expand your own vocabulary as well. Okay, let's keep going. (20:56): Also in this read section is our related reading, and because we know that readers got to read and the more you read, the more you want to read. So we're collecting our related reading selections in two different categories for picture books and novels, depending on what you want. If you're wanting just more picture books from the library that read that are kind of related to the book, the main book for picture, sorry, for Family Book Club, then you'll find those in picture books. You might want a novel, you might want to assign your older kids to read, pick one of the novels from the list. If there are age specifications as far as like, hey, we recommend this one for only 14 and up, we'll put it in here. So you can always find that as well, and that's right in the read section. (21:45): When we have books in this section that either have a podcast or maybe we've done a Family Book Club for them before, we usually point that out and put a QR code for you to be able to easily find it as well. Okay, so that was all in step one. That's just in Read-Aloud, and I'm telling you, that's gold. That's why it's number one, because it's gold, that's the good stuff, right? (22:10): But if we want to keep going with step two, now we can relate. And if you remember on Circle with Sarah podcast not too long ago, we talked about the sleeper tools, right? And that reading aloud, you remember what they were? They were prayer, reading aloud, and conversation. And relating is just, we just wanted three R words, so read-aloud, relate, remember. But we're talking about connecting, we're talking about discussions, right? Something interesting is that research shows that the simplest way to help your kids form a happy memory is to make it sensory and social. Okay? So this is like why when you go to Disneyland, even if you had a really rough time in the middle of the day where the kids were melting down stuff, your kids will and you probably too, will remember the beginning, the ending. Disneyland people know how, the Disneyland magic people know how to make your experience sensory and social, and that's how we actually build really happy memories. Lots of interesting things about this in the book, the Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. (23:15): But aside from that, we really built our Family Book Clubs alongside that idea like, if we have the ability... I was almost going to say power but that sounds a little mastermind-y, doesn't it? If we have the ability to help our kids remember certain parts of their homeschool better than others, then let's do it. Right? And we want them to remember books in this positive warm way, so we want to make our reading experiences sensory and social. So we do that in this section. This relate section is really that happens. (23:46): Now, I am not a big fan of adding anything to my to-do list or yours because we have quite a lot on that already. So we tend to like to transform something we're already doing, feeding our children 1,000 times a day, right? Into something that is sensory and social. So we do this by basically transforming a meal into something that relates to our book, because you're already feeding your kids a bunch of times every week. It helps us transform something we already do, making dinner, making breakfast, making a snack, right? Into something that they'll remember that links it to the book. (24:24): So for example, this is from the Because Barbara Guide, we have packing a picnic because Barbara Cooney loved, loved picnics. And not only do we have, we have a couple of ideas in the guide, this is just one of them, but not only do we have ideas in here, we also are now including printer-friendly printable versions of the recipes. Usually they're recipes. This particular one is a picnic packing planning list, but if it was a recipe for cookies or something, you'll find a printable version of the recipe there in the end. And that way you can print them out if you like to have your recipes printed, there's an easy printable version of that. (25:04): Another way, if you don't want to do a food thing, another sensory social thing you can do is just to play music. And especially if you are either trying not to use food as a thing, you don't want to do the food thing. You don't like the recipes, you don't like the options or you don't have time or energy for them. You can, we oftentimes are creating curated playlists each season that correlate with our books. And so again, there's QR code where you can go find that Spotify playlist and you can just turn it on, and that's also sensory and social. So again, we're trying to make this really simple, regardless of whether you're really low energy, pressed for time, or whether you are like, no, I really love this. Around the table is a really lovely way to do that. (25:50): I love this, to remember that Dr. Meg Meeker, remember when she came to Premium? She said, "Your kids don't care if the brownies are homemade, or if they're from a box, or if they're store-bought. They just want to eat the brownies with you." And I think we all know our kids don't really care too much if the brownies are homemade or from a box or store-bought, we just forget that they just want to eat the brownies with you, with us. It's the with you part that we're after, not with me while I'm scrolling my phone or with me while I'm washing the dishes or with me while I'm folding laundry and making the grocery list in my head, right? Just with me. So we are really focused too, when we're picking what to put in this section. (26:35): A lot of times we have something a little bit more involved for those who really want it, but we always try to have something very simple in this around the table section, because we know that the most important part is that your kids actually do not care if the picnic is amazing or if it's very, very simple. But they do care if you are there, because that's what they really want. They really want to spend time with us. (26:59): And this leads us right into conversation starters, because this is also part of relate. And there are so... I'm like, where do I start with conversation starters? We used to call these open-ended questions, it's the same thing, but what I didn't like is that when we think of them as open-ended questions, we think of it as questions we're asking so our kids can answer them. But actually, the whole point of an open-ended question is to be kindling for a fire. We want to throw in kindling to have this. The fire is like the discussion with our kids, the really engaging conversation. And the only way we get there is by asking some open-ended questions or answering some open-ended questions ourself. (27:38): So we have questions that we've created that are open-ended, meaning there's no exact right or wrong answer. It's not like, where did this story take place? Or How old was Barbara when she won her first Caldecott Award, or something? Instead, they're open-ended questions that would actually lead into a conversation because this is what adult readers do after we finish a book we love, right? We talk about it. We don't answer comprehension questions after reading a book. I don't go to book club and have to fill out comprehension questions about what happened in what order or specific details. Instead, when adult readers read a book, we engage ideas and have conversations in ways that help us think about the book more deeply. And this helps us develop the habit of asking questions when we're used to having these conversation starters as part of what we do when we read a book. Right? So that's why in our tip here, we remind you that it's not a quiz, it's a conversation. So I wouldn't even necessarily ask my kids one of these. I would answer it myself to start the conversation. (28:44): So the first one listed here is, what is something you would like to do well but feels a little difficult right now? Because of course Barbara, that's Barbara's story, right? And I could tell the kids, "Something that I would like to do well but I feel really kind of difficult right now is," and then answer it. And then just almost like you're playing one of those games where it's like a conversation starter at the dinner table. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's just a very engaging way of... The temptation is to make it a quiz, but we really want to challenge you to make it a conversation because your kids will become better readers and more discerning readers if they ask open-ended questions. (29:21): And the really fun part, I almost forgot to put this part up. The really fun part is that we also added printable bookmarks to every guide that have a couple things. First of all, we've always included these five questions that you could use for any book. Should he or she have done that? How is X like Y? How is X different than Y? Who was most, blank, in this story? Those are five questions you can ask about any book at any time, but we also are including conversation starters specific to each book. So if you wanted to print this out for Because Barbara or print out the ones for the Vanderbeekers, you could print out that bookmark, stick it right into your book as you're reading, especially your novels, and then you'll have those open-ended conversation starters with you all the time. (30:10): Okay, so we're moving along because we already talked about how we read-aloud and then we talked about how we relate, which is around the table and the conversation starters. And then it's step three. Remember, this is sprinkles on our cupcake. And this is remember, because remember, we can do things that are sensory and social, we're still doing that. The sensory social piece, the sensory around the table experience or the music experience and the social conversation starters are going to help our kids remember things. But we can also, if we're raising kids who love to read, we really want to help our kids develop the habits of real readers. And we can do that in a couple of different ways here in the remember section. (30:49): And so one is that you can keep a commonplace book, so that you can remember this book in particular or remember what stuck out to you. And this might actually be mostly for you, but we do put it in the guide every month to remind you that you might want to add to your commonplace book. No, commonplace book, let me just do the mini version. A commonplace book is really very simple. It's just a journal or a notebook where you're saving passages or words or quotes from a book you love. My commonplace book actually is just in my notes app on my phone. I just keep a notes app on my phone where I jot down a book or a quote or I mean, a passage or a quote from a book that I really love. A lot of times I use it on my phone. I also have a notebook that sometimes I write in. I'm just less likely to do that because I have to go find the notebook and yada yada, you know how that goes. But there's no right or wrong way to do this. (31:41): You could have kids have their own commonplace book if they wanted. You could keep one family read-aloud commonplace book that's just like a cheap spiral notebook even, that you keep on your shelf and when you read-aloud at the end of your read-aloud time, you're like, "Did anybody have anything they wanted to add to the commonplace book from this?" I mean, you can make this work in a lot of different ways. You also don't need to... Again, this is the sprinkles. So if it makes you excited, like, oh, I love the idea of collecting interesting words or interesting passages or interesting quotes from the books I read, then common placing might be a really fun habit for you or for your kids or for all of you, but it's also just extra and which is why we're kind of moving. It wasn't in the first,, it wasn't in the second, right? We're moving it, we're moving it down. (32:26): Michelle's asking, at which age would you start a commonplace book? I wouldn't necessarily start it for my kids. Here's what I would do. I would just start keeping one in front of them. I would have a notebook out during read-aloud time, and if I came across a passage, not while I was reading, but I might mark it and then afterwards go, "You know what passage I loved in here? I loved that sentence where blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to put that in my commonplace," and just start modeling it. And then any kids who are interested and ready will probably be like, "I want to do that. Do you have a notebook I can do? Can I add one?" That's how I would probably do it. So we do have a page in here for common placing. Again, it's completely optional. (33:06): This is the really fun part. We do Family Book Club events with every Family Book Club because when kids have an opportunity to meet the authors or the illustrators of the books they're reading, they oftentimes develop a deeper connection with the stories. Like I said, it changes the way they approach books. So first of all, it helps them realize that books are made by people who write them and illustrate them, which is not something that we all just know growing up. (33:35): When I was a kid, totally thought authors lived in a remote mountain top somewhere. I don't know what I thought they were, but I definitely didn't think they were ordinary people with children and normal life. Right? And then when our kids start meeting these authors and illustrators, they recognized them at the bookstore or in the library or on our home shelves and realize, oh my goodness, I loved that one book by SD Smith, maybe I'll like this one by SD Smith, or I recognize that Grace Lynn wrote Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and now I see that she has this When the Sea Turns to Silver, When the Sea Turned to Silver. I'm getting that title wrong, but that's okay. I had loved her. I met her, I remember her. They feel like a friend, right? (34:22): Now, a couple things. First of all, if your kids are young, they probably are not interested in hearing authors and illustrators talk about their process, and that's totally fine. You might actually really love it though. And what we have found is that a lot of times moms will watch these Family Book Club events and be so excited, and then of course that enthusiasm is transferable when they're reading and talking about the kids, or about the books with their kids, right? Again, going back to that whole enthusiastic teacher bit. But even if your kids don't stick around for the full interview, getting to see a snippet, even if they just watch a few minutes, getting to see creative people behind the books that they love or that they're reading can make a really lasting impression. (35:06): So we have been at our Family Book Club events, we usually start with a series of lightning questions. They're like rapid fire questions. Things like, what do you like to snack on? Where would you go have a picnic if you could go anywhere in the world? What's one of your favorite books from your childhood? And we ask those at the beginning because we know that some kids, that's all they've got the attention span for is just like that. And that's still introducing them to the authors and illustrators of the books they love. Then if they toddle off or wander off or whatever, you can stay and enjoy rest of it. But in this way, these Family Book Clubs events help our kids see that the authors and illustrators are real people and they can start recognizing them and learning about what it takes to make a book. (35:51): Now, that's it for our Family Book Club Guide because we are reading aloud and we're relating and we're remembering. And then there's an appendix at the end that has some really useful things in it. For example, we have schedules. We made such schedules only if you want them. Now remember, I want to make this super clear. This guide is a tool, it needs to work for you or it's not working at all. (36:16): So we know that some of you want to do the Family Book Club in one day. You just want to read the picture book and do the read, relate, remember bit in one day. So if you want to do it in one day, great, we've got a page for you. Some of you want to spread it out over a week. We've got some ideas for how you can schedule that. If you want to spread it out over a month, then we suggest ways to do that, and you could do that with your picture books. You can do that with your novels, we suggest ways for you to spread it out, not in one day because that doesn't make sense, but for a novel in a week or a month or a quarter, I think. Is that right? Leilani? Am I getting that right? Over the whole season. (36:54): And then we also have a blank page for your Family Book Club schedule. So if you're like, I don't really want to follow any of these but I want a grid where I can jot down some of the things I like from here, then we have a blank grid for you as well. But just remember that this is your tool, it is absolutely not your master. Your Family Book Club Guide is not your to-do list. It is like a menu. So imagine that you go to a restaurant and you're just going to pick the things that are fit for your family in this season and this month even, because it's like, next month is going to look different for you than this month does. Right? (37:26): So, that's right. Leilani, by the way, who will be on screen with me soon. I can't remember, next month, I think? I can't remember. She is a huge part of the magic of these guides and why they're so amazing, by the way. And so for the novels, yes, we show you how you can schedule them in a week, in a month, or across a whole couple of months. Okay, so we're still looking at these. We just looked at the Family Book Club Guide. Now let's look at the Rabbit Trails Guide, and we're at the maraschino cherry, the cherry on top. Right? (38:04): So if you'd like to use RAR Premium and Family Book Clubs for your core language arts for ages six to 12 or so, you can do that. And for a long time we've been sort of trying to figure out how to lay this out for you in a way that makes the most sense and is really easy. So here's the deal, definitely for kids who are ages six to 12 you can use RAR Premium's Family Book Club Guide, and then this Rabbit Trails Guide for your core language arts. And I'm going to show you how and how it all works here in just a second. The language arts piece, the Rabbit Trails Guide includes a couple of different pieces. I forgot to put the table of contents on here, but that's okay, I'll just tell you about it. (38:46): It always is going to include a pretty robust language arts section so that you can use it for your core language arts if you want to. But again, remember cherry on top, you don't have to. And you can get all the good from just using your Family Book Club Guide. But if you'd like to use it for your core language arts, you'll find a pretty robust section there. And then there's also some other curriculum areas, so we're going to talk about it in a second. But here in the language arts section, you're going to find writing, copywork literary devices, grammar, usage, poetry. Let's look at it. (39:16): Let's look at writing in particular, because this is a big pain point for a lot of homeschool families, I know. And here's the thing. To become good writers, students need to develop a couple of things. They need to develop the ability to ask good questions, and they need to develop the ability to think deeply and connect ideas, and then communicate them. So asking questions, thinking deeply, and connecting ideas, and then communicating those ideas. That's what writing is, and so when we're coming up with, when we are trying to decide how to teach our kids how to write, that's really what we want to be thinking about. We really want to be thinking about, how do I help my child ask good questions, connect ideas, and communicate them effectively? (40:07): Now, the really good news is that two of the most fundamental pieces, there's really three main pieces to learning writing, and two of them you're already doing in Family Book Club, because reading aloud is where your kids get all of their grammatically correct, sophisticated language patterns. They do not get them from reading on their own, and this is why. Not much, they don't get much of them from reading on their own because when we read on our own, if I was just to pick up a book and start reading it silently to myself, I'm going to read it pretty fast. Exactly why if I gave you all the first page of the Vanderbeekers and said, "Read it silently to yourself," you could read that a lot faster than you could if I read it aloud to you because when I'm reading it aloud to you, I have to read every word in order. (40:51): So the whole language pattern, all of the little connector words, all the articles and things, they are having to be read in order. We skip over those when we read with our eyes, but we don't skip over them when we read with our ears, either by being read-aloud to or listening to an audiobook. And so that whole language pattern, grammatically correct sophisticated language pattern, gets stored in our brain and that in our children's brains. That's not something they can get from anywhere else. They can only get it from books because we don't speak in grammatically correct sophisticated language patterns. Even when educated intellectual people speak to each other, they don't speak in grammatically correct sophisticated language patterns. So reading aloud is the fundamental thing that your kids need to become good writers. They need those good language patterns stored in their brain, and they only get them through reading aloud. (41:46): So when you're reading aloud, it's not just... There's a reason why it's number one, there's a reason why it's the most important thing you do in your homeschool, and this is just one piece of it. It is the most fundamental part to writing, is reading aloud, and it will be the foundation for a solid writing curriculum. (42:03): And then the second thing your kids need to become good writers is to discuss what they're reading because discussing what you're reading makes you get in the habit of asking good questions and connecting ideas. And you remember what we just talked about a second ago, right? Conversation starters. The conversation starters are helping our kids become thoughtful, discerning readers and writers. Because if they're learning to ask questions as they read and you're having regular conversations about books, you are laying the foundation for good writing, because they need to have discussions about what they're reading. That is really... The hardest part about writing is not the actual physical act of writing. It is connecting ideas and having something to say and being able to say it well. And so by discussing books with your kids, you're doing a major piece of your writing curriculum. (42:57): So if you are reading aloud and discussing books with your kids, you're doing the two most important parts of a writing curriculum. And I feel like none of us give ourselves credit for this. We always think, oh, I didn't do much writing this year, but you were reading aloud and you're talking about books. And those are the two most fundamental important parts of our writing curriculum. So no matter what their age, this is the most important thing. (43:22): This is why my oldest daughter is going to graduate school in Scotland, the University of St. Andrews. Can I brag again? I'm so sorry, I'm so proud of her. She's getting a master's in theology and the arts, and the majority of her class is reading and discussing. That's because that's what thinkers do, right? And then the written communication comes after both of those things, reading aloud and discussing. So, the great thing is you're already doing most of your writing curriculum. (43:53): Now, there's a third thing that helps your kids become good writers, and that's actually practicing the craft of writing. For kids who are under 10, they best practice the craft of writing by copying it, doing copywork, because they need to see what good language looks like in order to be good writers later on, right? And so by doing copywork and copying good language again and again, these patterns are being carved into their brain of like, this is what good, grammatically correct, sophisticated language looks like on a page. Right? So, that's what under 10s need, they need copywork. (44:37): And then once they turn about 10, and this is wiggly, right? So for some kids it might be 11 or 12. My son, I don't think I moved him into writing projects till he was 12. My twins right now, were pretty excited about writing projects when they were nine. So it just depends on the kid. So 10 is like ish, right? Do I need to say that? I hope I... I'm just going to say it ish. Okay, 10-ish. When they're ready... And they still do copywork, by the way. My twins who are 11 still do copywork, but we also start introducing writing projects. And writing projects, give them the ability to practice the craft of writing because they're getting all those read-alouds, all that good language into their ear, and they're discussing and connecting and asking questions. And now we're going to give them that practice at communicating it written. (45:24): So let's see what this looks like on our Rabbit Trails Guide. You will find best for students under 10, you'll find copywork. Now, again, my 11-year-old and my twelve-year-old do this copywork. So we're just saying this is the third piece of writing for kids who are under 10, but there's certainly no reason why you have to stop it here. You will find a couple of different kinds of copywork in your guide. You'll find print and you will find cursive, I just didn't pull an example here. And of course with your older kids, you could also have them just do it on a blank piece of paper where they don't even trace it, they're just copying it copying it. (46:02): Yes, the question. Do my 10-year-olds trace it? No, my 10-year-olds actually just look at it and write it down on a piece of paper. Younger kids, you're going to want to have them trace it, and then you'll want to move them up to the next phase, like copying it instead of tracing it, when they're comfortable tracing. And then, how often do I have them do copywork? I do copywork from our Family Book Club Guide once a week. Yes, I'm just thinking, it kind of depends, but once a week I have the need. (46:29): We actually have in the guides right now and in the future, we have four copywork options so that you could do one every week for a month and you would have copywork for a month. You could, even if this is too much copywork, you could even split it up. So if your child's young and one sentence is too much, you could have them do just a couple of words each week, right? And then when they get older, they can repeat it and you could have them copy the same sentence every single week or every couple of days. You could do the same sentence, say, "This week, every day you're going to write this one sentence." And they're going to learn a lot from that. So, Copywork is included in your guide. (47:07): And then for your over 10s, 10 and ups, we have writing projects. And again, this is, yeah, the practice. This is instead of copywork or in addition to copywork, you could allow your kids the chance to start practicing the skills of writing. Now, what we're doing right now in our guides is we are giving you a couple of different options. So right here you can just see option one. I think there's two options in each of our guides, where there are a couple different options for writing projects, any of these writing projects would be useful to your kids. In this particular one, we pulled the, a WOW, Writers on Writing workshop that we did with author and illustrator, Lita Judge on journaling and sketching for story ideas because that ties in really nicely to Because Barbara, because Barbara herself kept journals where she kept notes on everything that she saw and heard and her sensory experience of the world. And so in this section of the guide, you will find description of how to do this writing project with your kids. (48:11): There will also be a second option, and when we have... We sometimes revisit, like in this case, we were revisiting a previous WOW workshop that we've done at RAR Premium. We're also in process of creating new writing projects. So every single Family Book Club Guide, you will find a couple of writing projects that you can use for your kids. And this is why we say that RAR, the Family Book Club can work for your six to 12-year-old, their core language arts, because between the reading aloud and the discussing and then either the copywork or the writing projects here, your kids will have plenty of language arts. Yes, no, we are not getting rid of the WOWs and new ones are coming. So, very exciting. Okay, so these writing projects are going to be how your kids can practice the craft of written communication, which is that third really important piece of writing. (49:03): Then there's another thing that we often talk about, and I don't know why this one's fuzzy, but that we often talk about in language arts and that's grammar. Right? And in your guide you will find a grammar lesson. Now, we actually use the very first copywork sentence as our grammar lesson, and we do this, I'm going to show you. We do this to kind of tie it in so that it's not coming in out of the blue, so your kids have context for it. We're not just learning about adjectives or how to use an M dash just for the heck of it, but because these are actually coming up in real writing and the kids can see that themselves if they see the copywork sent, the first copywork sentence is also our grammar lesson. We'll use that sentence to teach something. (49:46): I should have mentioned this earlier, but in our guides you'll find two different icons. One is a heart and one is a star. The heart means this is best for younger kids, and the star means this is best for older kids. And you get to define what younger and older mean, depending on your particular children, because some kids are going to be ready to move up to the older kids lesson earlier. None of mine would have, so all of my children would've needed the grammar lesson, the younger grammar lesson for quite a while before they're ready for the older one. But you can look at them and go like, which one is my kid ready for? And there'll be a less advanced and a more advanced grammar lesson in every single guide. Okay, so that's language arts. Right? So we've got writing, copywork, all the different pieces of writing. I forgot to pull it up here, or no, maybe we put poetry in the across the curriculum section. Anyway, all the different pieces of language arts are in that language arts section, but we also have other lessons across the curriculum. (50:45): Now, again, remember these are all the cherry on top. Everything in your Rabbit Trails Guide is a cherry on top, and these lessons that are across the curriculum are going to tie, they're going to enhance the reading. So we have, for example, for Because Barbara, we had Whitney come and teach. This is an absolutely fabulous art lesson by Whitney Newby from Brighter Day Press. She came and taught, for your kids, a Lupin painting project. There's a video lesson and it's so good, and we've got some really, really fantastic more lessons coming from her to help your kids learn watercolor. Sometimes it's watercolor, sometimes it's drawing, sometimes it's chalk pastels, sometimes it's all different kinds of things. (51:34): Across the curriculum, means really across the curriculum. So there's art, sometimes there's nature study, sometimes there's geography, sometimes there's picture study. I guess poetry is in the language arts section. I was trying to remember. I'm like, where do we put that? Poetry would be in the language arts section, so, thank you Leilani. She said, yes, she's clarifying that poetry is in language arts. So there is also a poem that we pull, and I forgot to pull a sample of that. (51:58): There is a poem that we pull for every Family Book Club that you can use. We put it in a printable so you can print it out and just give it to your kids if they have, I don't know, a notebook that you do your memory work from, they could memorize the poem, or you can just introduce the poem. Just read it and we usually give you some information about the poet so they can learn about the poet too. Yeah, so good stuff. That's a lot, right? (52:21): Okay. Also, in the appendix of this Rabbit Trails Guide, we have schedules. Now, these schedules look more robust because what we're doing is we're saying the schedules that are in Rabbit Trails Guide are like if you want the Family Book Club Guide and you're going to do rabbit trails, here are some schedules that you can use. Here it is in a week. Here it is in a month. We also just include a list of the rabbit trails that you can, if you just want a checklist and you're like, I just want a list, so I can check them off as we do them, whichever ones we do. There's a list of them. We basically are creating, we gave you as many forms as we can because we know everybody works a little different. Some of you want a grid that tells you exactly what to do on which day or which week. Some of you want a blank grid that you can fill it in for yourself, right? And some of you want just a list you can check off when you have time. (53:07): Some of you don't want any of that, so that's why we created it all for you, so that you can use it in a way that fits your family. Again, it's a tool for you. Right? This is why we call it better than curriculum because it's not exactly like an open and go curriculum, it's like open and go culture making. Right? It's culture building, which is something that your most curriculum can't do. But hopefully this will invite you into a way of learning and connecting with your kids in a way that feels easy and enjoyable. (53:38): Well, I really hope that you're encouraged and feel like, hey, I'm doing so many things right now that really matter, that the reading aloud and discussing, for example that we're doing, is really laying a groundwork for writing that the things that we do normally in our homeschool are some of the very best things that we can do in our homeschool and give ourselves credit, but also feel the freedom to use the tools in RAR Premium to help you connect with your kids. Remembering that your culture building is always more important than the curriculum you're using, and that matters no matter what kind of homeschooler you are, no matter how old your kids are, whether you're homeschooling a kindergartner for the very first time, or you've got all high schoolers. The culture always matters more than the curriculum because homeschooling is about relationships and culture is where those relationships are made. Your family culture is really what matters. God bless you all. Thanks for coming. (54:34): Like I said in that Circle with Sarah live, in a homeschool, the culture matters way more than the curriculum. And you can homeschool well with peace and with joy no matter which program or curriculum or method you use. No matter how many kids you have, no matter how much sleep you got last night, you already have everything you need to do this. Now, if you'd like to join our community and be surrounded by others who are really focused on putting relationships first in their homeschool, on delighting in the connections that their kids and them make through the framework I talked about today, we'd love to have you. So join us at rarpremium.com. See you soon.