RAR #152: Finishing the School Year Doesn’t Need to Be a Slog

Sarah (00:00): Hey, we've got a special something planned for you. If you are ready to take your mind off all the things in the world for about an hour, yeah, so are we. And we have a fun little activity for you to do just that. On April 29th Ken Ludwig, he's an award winning playwright who's had six shows on Broadway, seven in London's West End, he's won Tony Awards and his work has been performed in over 30 countries in over 20 different languages. Kind of a big deal, right? He's going to join us on Zoom to chat up Jane Austen's, Emma. Okay. Now here's the best part. You can read Emma before then if you want to, but you don't have to. Between now and April 29th, just watch one of the Emma movies. There are several versions and we have recommendations for which ones to watch. And then, on the 29th, you're going to pour yourself a little something special and join us on Zoom for a rousing conversation about Emma. (01:01): It's going to be lighthearted and fun. And I absolutely promise that Ken Ludwig is one of the most engaging and wonderful people you've ever heard talk about books and movies and stories. I adore him and you will know why soon. It's free and it's going to be so much fun. So here's how to join us. First, you want to grab your seat at our Zoom chat with Ken Ludwig, and you also want to grab our PDF that shows you which movie versions on audio book versions Ken recommends, right? So to do that, you text Emma to 33777, or you can just go to readaloudrevival.com/emma. That's where you register for free and you see all of our recommendations. Then, you're going to want to watch one of those movies between now and April 29th. On April 29th, you'll join us for the Zoom chat. It's going to be so much fun and the replay will be available afterward, of course. (02:01): Look, even if you don't have a chance to watch a version of Emma before April 29th, I think you should join us because I can't wait for you to see how when Ken talks about stories, there is nothing you're going to want to do more than read that story, or watch that story after. I promise you it's pretty much a guarantee. So join us. Tell your friends. The more the merrier. When Ken and I came up with this idea, we wanted to create space for you to just relax and enjoy yourself, take your mind off things for an hour. Do something just for you. So I don't know, a movie, a cup of tea, conversations with a world renowned playwright. We like to do things upright here at Read-Aloud Revival, don't we? Text Emma to 33777, or go to readaloudrevival.com/emma to grab your free seat and to join us. (03:02): You're listening to the Read-Aloud Revival Podcast. This is the podcast that helps you make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids, through books. (03:18): Hello, hello everyone. This is Sarah Mackenzie, and you've got episode 152 of the Read-Aloud Revival. I sincerely hope that wherever you are today, you are healthy and doing well. I'm excited about this episode because I can't wait to tell you about all the things we've got lined up for the rest of this spring and summer here at Read-Aloud Revival. We've got kind of a doozy of a lineup right around the corner. So I think this is probably what happens when you take an energetic extrovert and make her stay at home all the time. Our poor team at Read-Aloud Revival, they turn the other way and then when they turn back to me, I've got 15 different ideas that I'm ready for us to launch. They're trying to keep up with all my ideas. Anyway, we've got something brand new that we've never done before here at Read-Aloud Revival. I'm most excited to tell you about that. But before I do, I want to answer a listener question. So let's take this one from Laela. Layla (04:14): Hi, Sarah, it's Laela from Greenville, South Carolina. I had a question because we are all stuck on lockdown for, it looks like at least the next month. I have always let my kids browse through the library, and they get so excited about picking books and bringing them home. And because our libraries are shut down, I am struggling to figure out what books I should purchase and how I can keep their love of reading alive during this time? Sarah (04:45): Oh, such a good question, Laela, one that we're hearing in a lot of different places. So I'm glad you left a voicemail so I could put it here and answer it. I have a few ideas for you. First of all, your libraries are shut down, but your friend's home libraries aren't. So one idea is to see if you can do a book swap with some friends or neighbors. You just want to maybe agree on a certain number of books to trade. So you might say, "okay, we're going to trade 10 books with you", then pack them up in a tote and leave that tote on your friend's porch. And maybe she can leave a tote of 10 books there for you to take, and that way you can swap. You can either just wait a couple of days to let the books sit or you can wipe them all down with a Clorox wipe. (05:26): And that is a great way to share books your kids love with their friends and neighbors and to widen their offerings, whatever you're offering your kids to be able to read. Just because you don't have access to the public library doesn't mean you can't share books with your friends. And really, I was thinking you could even take this a step further if you wanted and let your kids FaceTime or Zoom with those friends to talk about their favorites. So maybe you swap books and then say, okay, next week we're all going to read one of these books and then week we're going to jump on a Zoom or a FaceTime and talk about which one was our favorite, which is kind of fun. That would be a fun idea. (06:02): Another idea, another thing to think about, is that this is a really, really good time to reread books. Now on episode 141, I talked more about rereading because I believe rereading is the very best kind of reading there is, so don't shy away from it. I go into all the different benefits of rereading in that episode and that counts for your own reading, your kids' independent reading and the books you're reading out loud. It's just a higher quality read when it's not your first time. More on that, like I said, is in readaloudrevival.com/141, that's episode 141 in your podcast app. (06:38): Another idea that will help to renew interest in the books you already own, is just to pull a few off your shelves each night before you go to bed and put them face out. I talk about that idea, that strategy, more in episode 104 of the podcast. It's kind of amazing how much more likely your kids are to pick up a book and enjoy it, if they find it face out on a shelf, a window sill, a table. Try it and see. Before you go to bed tonight, pick three books, put them face out where your kids might see them. You can put them on the breakfast table or you can just set them in a window sill, on a coffee table or even on the couch or right in front of the bookshelf and see if your kids pick them up. It's kind of crazy how well that works. And sometimes we just forget. A lot of us have books on our shelves that we've not read. And so this is a great time to renew some interest in those by putting books face out. (07:29): One more thought. If you are able to purchase any books during this lockdown, I'd like to make a little plea for your local independent bookstore, if you have one. These are hard times for small businesses like indie bookstores and if you want your bookstore to be there for you when everything opens back up, the best way you can help them is to order your books through them. A lot of independent bookstores are shipping books or offering curbside pickup, so give them a call. If you have an independent bookstore, next time you're making a purchase. And offer them a little love, they will appreciate it, and then they'll be able to stay open for you. So I hope that helps, Laela. Thanks so much for your question. I really think swapping books with friends, rereading favorites, putting some books face out to renew interest in the books you already have, and then when you can, ordering your books from your local indie. Those are all really great strategies for this unusual time in our reading lives. (08:40): Let's talk about what we're up to here at Read-Aloud Revival, this spring and summer. This is an unusual spring for everyone, right? But I'm so excited about what we're offering. First up, I want to talk about that brand new thing I told you I'm so excited about. I think being stuck at home is getting old kind of fast, right? And if that's true for you, you might find that you need something to kind of spice up your learning, a change of pace maybe. But you also want to make sure your kids are making progress on core academic subjects. And I know, every spring I have this struggle where I want to finish well. I want to finish our school year well. Well, if you want your kids to ramp up their writing this spring, then who better to teach than published authors, right? And if those authors also happened to be the authors of your kids' books, that's even better. (09:32): We are introducing a brand new series of workshops that we're calling Read-Aloud Revival WOW. Writers on writing. These are writing workshops for your kids taught by published authors. So here's how this works. For six weeks, your kids will watch a live writing workshop taught by a published author. The workshop will last about an hour. And if you can't make it live, you can watch it on replay. During these workshops, your kids are going to be learning about things like creatively writing nonfiction, telling fictional stories using the hero's journey, adding sensory details to their writing, the magic of revision, writing poetry, harvesting stories from their own life. These topics are going to be taught from some of today's best writers for kids. And then, after each workshop, we'll give you some writing prompts that will keep your kids writing until the next workshop. That way your kids can practice what they just learned and keep it fresh and continue to improve their writing. (10:34): So our WOW, Writers On Writing, workshop series is happening in Read-Aloud Revival Premium, which is our online community. You can join that for a month, for a quarter, for a year. We have a 30 day, 100% money back guarantee, because we are so sure you're going to love it as much as we do. So if you want your kids to wrap up this kind of unusual spring with a new vigor for writing, then our WOW workshops are really made just for them. Learning to write well shouldn't be a slog, and I think these workshops will spice up our days of home learning and take our kids' writing to the next level. They begin May 12th, and they're going to run live every Tuesday for six weeks. This can absolutely be your writing curriculum for the spring. The workshops, this hour long workshop each week and then the writing prompts in between will give your kids so much to learn and practice all throughout the spring and finish out their school, year writing really strong. I bet they'll have a lot of fun. (11:32): I love learning the skill of writing from published authors myself and I am delighted to offer this series for your kids as well. The workshops vary in age range. You can see those on the website at RARpremium.com. But they, in general, depending on the workshop, are best for ages seven to 16. And you can see which workshops are best for which age groups by going to RARpremium.com. Now that's happening in RAR Premium of course, and so does Circle With Sarah. So Circle With Sarah, our monthly live classes with me, where you get ideas and encouragement to create the homeschooling life you really crave. These classes, they're based on taking one small action each month that moves your homeschool in a positive direction. (12:15): So many of our members have told us since we started these last January, that these are their favorite part of Premium. Over the next few months, we're going to be talking about what's really happening when we worry, because knowing this is really helpful when we're trying to evaluate our kids' progress at the end of a school year. We'll talk about modeling a robust and rich reading life and even tackle strategies for reading better for yourself, strategies for reading deeply, even if you don't feel like you know how. And then we're going to talk about different ways you can assign books to your kids during the school year, while encouraging free voluntary reading, in ways that help your kids fall more in love with books because of the reading you do in your school and home. Not less in love with books because of the books that they're reading for school. (12:59): We do those Circles With Sarah the first Friday of each month. The replay is up and available afterwards so you never have to worry about missing. And that's true for everything in RAR Premium, in fact. If you can't make it live, you just watch it on replay. It's always available to you. And I think now is a good time to mention that RAR Premium is a feast. So here's the deal. If you were just to do one thing each month from RAR Premium, that would be well worth the price of it. What we do though is we spread this wide and generous feast so that you can find exactly what's best for your family in this season, with whatever age kids you have, whatever you need most. We have members who have all young kids, six and under. We have members who have all teens, we have kids who have a widespread, we have grandmas. (13:44): We really want to be a ballast for you, especially right now in this really uncertain, uneasy time. We want our RAR Premium to be a place where whether you go anywhere else online all day or not, you know that every time you login to RAR Premium, you're leaving refreshed, equipped, rejuvenated and excited about your work as a homeschooling mama, because that's what we're all about. Okay, so back to that feast. Monthly Family Book Clubs, we do these every month. Our Family Book Club books are picked because they're especially good to read aloud and because they appeal to a wide range of ages, which is really excellent because our Family Book Clubs work with your kids, no matter whether you have toddlers or teens or both. Here's how they work. You read the book aloud with your family and I'll tell you that right now, while libraries are closed, we've obtained permission from publishers to read the books that we're featuring for book clubs, out loud to you. (14:42): So while we're in this current shutdown mode in our country, I send you a video of me reading aloud the book to your kids. So if you can't get your hands on the book, you're okay. You're going to also get a Family Book Club guide, and that guide gives you ideas for creating a simple shared experience around the book, a meal, a special memory of some kind. The goal there being to seal the book in your child's memory as one of their favorite memories. These shared experiences kind of catch our members by surprise, I thin, especially dads. They're always surprised at how much they love them. I just love them. And we really work hard to make sure those shared experiences don't feel like we're adding to your to do list. (15:22): We like to, for example, offer dinner ideas that are paired with our Family Book Club because you're feeding your people dinner every night anyway, right? So might as well just transform that into something that counts for school, right? So that's kind of what we do. And then we also give you some excellent open ended questions that are great conversation starters around each book. And then, and this is just the cherry on top, we meet the author or illustrator. The author or illustrator comes on to Zoom and answers your kids' questions in a webinar. These are so fun and I love how so many of our members have told us that their kids start seeing authors and illustrators as their friends. So they might go to the library back when we can again, right? Or a bookshop and they recognize the author's name and they feel like they know that person, they feel like they have a personal relationship with them. So our Family Book Club picks, coming up spring and summer, are pretty fabulous. (16:22): This April, the end of this month, right now, we are reading Balderdash!, which is a wonderful picture book biography about John Newbery, written by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter, who is one of my favorite illustrators. Her illustrations are always so hilarious and so well done. Nancy Carpenter is coming the last week of April to meet the kids in Premium and answer their questions. And then in May, our Family Book Club pick is Nine Months, by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Jason Chin. I just love this book. It's a nonfiction book. It tells the story of a baby in the womb. It's a celebration of life in the womb for nine months. I mean, if your family loves babies, you need this book on your shelf. It's so lovely. Jason Chin is the illustrator and he's done some other remarkable work as well. He's going to come in May and meet our kids and talk to us about illustrating that baby in the womb, which is kind of amazing. (17:29): June. I'm so excited about this one. Our Family Book Club choice is Hello Lighthouse, by Sophie Blackall. And Sophie Blackall won the Caldecott Award for Hello Lighthouse. I don't think you're going to be surprised. If you haven't seen it yet, when you see it, you're going to say, "yeah, yes, this won all the awards", and it did. It's absolutely stunningly beautiful. It's kind of a perfect summer book read aloud and it really is appealing to kids of all ages. There is so much to dig out of that picture book and we're going to do that with you and your kids. One of my favorite parts about these Family Book Clubs, when we do them around picture books, is how much our older kids get from these. In your Family Book Club guide, there's a section in there called, Looking Closely, where we really help you and your kids look at a picture book in ways that you probably haven't before. (18:22): And it's just really interesting and delightful and enriching. So I think you're really going to like that and I'm really excited to make that Family Book Club guide cause that's a beautiful book. And yes, Sophie Blackall will be coming at the end of June to meet your kids, to answer their questions. In July, we've got another picture book biography, and this one is Prairie Boy, by Barb Rosenstock, who's one of our WOW teachers by the way, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. And he also illustrated Kate Messner's picture books, Over and Under the Snow, and Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, Over and Under the Pond. Prairie Boy is about Frank Lloyd Wright, as an architect who shaped America's heartland, made the houses look completely different. It is a stunning picture book biography. I'm so excited to talk to Christopher Silas Neal, and he's going to come do an illustrator access for us. (19:15): And then in August, we get to meet Jessica Day George, who wrote Tuesdays at the Castle. Now here's the deal. Every season, we pick a novel to read for that season. And if you have all young kids too young to listen to a novel, no problem because we give you book recommendations for every month. But if you've got older kids, we choose novels that have a wide age range appeal. And Tuesdays at the Castle is a series that is so much fun. Magic and humor and sibling goodness. I love these books. So you can read any in this series. You want to start with Tuesdays at the Castle. Jessica Day George, I just love her and I'm really excited to talk with her and have her answer our kids' questions. So like I said, all of these books will come with a Family Book Club guide for you in Premium. Good stuff, right? (20:06): Here's the thing. If you're a homeschooling mama who wants to have warm and wonderful relationships with your kids, and also wants to raise kids who love to read, then we're your people. You will discover that within minutes of getting inside of the Read-Aloud Revival Premium community. You can find all the details to these events. You can grab a printable, where it shows you all of these events on a page or two, all the events I talked about today. And then you can also get answers to any questions you have at RARpremium.com. And I would just love for you to join us. I really think this is the best way for us to finish our school year strong, and put our connections and relationships with our kids first, while also helping our kids become better readers, better writers, deeper storytellers, more engaged with the stories in their life, on the page that they're reading and that they're writing. And to do that in a way where we also feel like we're strengthening family bonds and having just a good time doing it, is my jam. We are all about that at RAR Premium, so we'd love to have you join us. Again, details for all that good stuff is that RARpremium.com. Okay. I'm excited to hear what the kids are recommending for us today, so let's listen to the kids. (21:28): Now it's time for let the kids speak. I love this part of the podcast because kids share the books that they've been loving lately. Malakai (21:45): Hi, my name is Malakai. I am from Wisconsin. I am six. My favorite book is, What are the Chances? The Wildest Plays in Sports. Speaker 6 (22:05): Why do you like it? Malakai (22:07): I like What are the Chances?, because it's the craziest plays in sports. And I also like, Little House in the Big Woods. It's because there's a girl named Laura. Gianna (22:30): Hi, my name is Gianna, and I am seven years old. I live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My favorite book is Mary Poppins. I like it because Mary Poppins takes Jane and Michael and the twins on unusually magical adventures. It makes me laugh when Jane and Michael talk about the adventures and Mary Poppins acts annoyed, and pretends not to know what they're talking about. Hope you enjoy it like I do. Evie (23:08): Hi, my name is Evie and I'm 10 and I'm from Florida, and my favorite book is Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster. And I like it because I like it. Sam (23:22): My name is Sam and I like the Too Many Jacks because they're my favorite, and he swattered the bad rats, the rat brat I mean. And I live with my family. Speaker 10 (23:56): What's your name? Baylor (23:57): Baylor. Speaker 10 (23:58): And how old are you Baylor? Baylor (24:00): Five. Speaker 10 (24:01): And where are you from? Baylor (24:02): Toledo, Ohio. Speaker 10 (24:04): And what's your favorite book? Baylor (24:05): Charlotte's Web. Speaker 10 (24:05): Why is Charlotte's Web your favorite book? Baylor (24:10): Because a spider rescues a pig named Wilbur. Emma (24:14): Hi, my name is Emma. I'm 10 years old and I live in California. My favorite book is Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Why? Because they go on so many fun, wild adventures. Speaker 13 (24:24): What is your name? Gracie (24:26): I'm Gracie? Speaker 13 (24:27): How old are you? Gracie (24:28): I'm three. Speaker 13 (24:30): Where do you live? Gracie (24:31): In California. Speaker 13 (24:34): In California? Gracie (24:34): Yeah. Speaker 13 (24:34): What is your favorite book? Gracie (24:36): No pictures. Speaker 13 (24:37): The Book with No Pictures? Gracie (24:39): Yeah, mommy silly things. Speaker 13 (24:42): It makes mommy say silly things? Gracie (24:44): Yeah. Speaker 13 (24:45): It sure does, doesn't it? Gracie (24:46): And now not. Speaker 13 (24:46): Very good. Lilly (24:52): Hi, I'm Lilly and nine years old and I live in Guam. Today I'd like to tell you about my favorite book, Love from your friend, Hannah by Mindy Skolsky. This is a book about a little girl who is growing up during The Great Depression. Her name is Hannah and her best friend, Aggie, just moved away. Since then, she's been writing letters to a lot of different people, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I like this book because the author's clever writing makes me laugh, and I can't wait to read more books about Hannah. Luke (25:20): Hi, my name is Luke and I'm eight years old, and I live in Startzville, Texas. My favorite book is The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. And my favorite part about it is where they're all in the living room talking. Ben (25:41): Hello, my name is Ben and I live in Startzville, Texas. My age is six years old, and my favorite book is, Click, Clack, Moo. And my favorite part about it is where the cows learn how to type and then they spread it to everyone else, and farmer Brown gets very, very angry. Clair (25:59): Hello, my name is Clair, and I like Baking Day at Grandma's. And I'm four. And the favorite part that I like about it is where the bears cook. Sarah (26:15): Awesome. Hey, we'll be back in two weeks with another episode. In the meantime, go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids, through books.