5 Homeschool Podcasts You Need to Download

Hi, this is Sheri from the blog ourlifehomeschooling.com where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I'm going to be talking today about five homeschooling podcasts that you need to download. I have a lot going on right here. I just put the baby down for her nap. My husband and my son are outside mowing the grass and I've got kids in the basement that are playing who might come up randomly at any moment. But I wanted to get on here and share with you these podcasts that I think you should listen to. These podcasts have been very influential to me. They have shaped who I am as a homeschooler and our homeschool very much is a reflection of what I have learned and gleaned from listening to these five podcasts over a decade. Listening to podcasts has truthfully shaped my homeschool, what our home looks like. I've been very influenced by listening to these podcasts. They have kept me from making some mistakes. They have a lot of experience so they're able to tell you the things that they've learned and the things that have been effective for them. Most of them have children that are grown, maybe all of them. So they've been homeschooling for quite a while and they have a lot of wisdom to share. You may have some friends that you know that are homeschooling so you feel like you have a little bit of a community and that's great. It's very important. But the greater homeschool community in general is vibrant and thriving. And by listening to these podcasts, you can get a feel for homeschooling in the larger community. So listening to homeschool podcasts will really open your eyes to the homeschooling world at large and it will just give you the encouragement you need. Sometimes it can be lonely to be at home by yourself, especially if you don't know a lot of people that are doing it. You can get burned out quickly and you just need a pick-me-up or someone to remind you that home is a great place to learn and that you are a wonderful teacher for your kids. And these homeschooling podcasts will do that for you. The first podcast that I recommend highly is the Smiling Homeschooler podcast. Todd Wilson and his son Ben lead this podcast. Todd and his wife Debbie have eight children. They live in Indiana. They have many grown children. They've been homeschooling for several years. Todd is the author of several books. I've only read a few of them. Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe, Live Homeschool Teens Believe. He also wrote the official cartoon book of homeschooling and you gotta get it. It's really funny. Everything will just resonate with you. Everything that he has in there. He also wrote What's Next? Affirming God's Plan for Your High Schooler. He's written several books. Todd is also a speaker at homeschool conventions. So Todd has a lot to share and really has a good pulse on the homeschool community. The thing I love about this podcast is that it encourages you to place home as the priority over school. And I think one thing that I have learned specifically is the importance of prioritizing relationships. He reminds us that you are a wonderful teacher for your children and home is a wonderful place to learn. He starts out each podcast by just giving a little update on their family, what their family's doing, what they're up to. And so you kind of get a feel for what they're like and what their family is experiencing. You can kind of grow along with them. And then he usually dives into a certain topic. And you will walk away from this podcast just feeling the pressure taken off of you as a homeschool mom because you will just realize that I think a lot of times as moms, we just do more than we should or we put so much more on ourselves than we need to. And he just gives a lot of practical tips. I listen to the Smiling Homeschooler often. This is one of my favorite podcasts. The second podcast that you should listen to is the Read Aloud Revival. This podcast is led by Sarah McKenzie. She is the author of the book Teaching from Rest, Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace. I have read this book. This is one of the first homeschooling books I read. And it definitely was a huge encouragement and gave a lot of practical ideas. The best thing about the Read Aloud Revival is Sarah's resource, her Read Aloud Revival book list, which you can get free access to by subscribing to her blog, Read Aloud Revival. I have been subscribed to this list for many years. Her book list is the book list that I use for all of our schoolwork. Even weekly, I will get onto our library's website and I will open up her book list and I will just kind of plug everything in that I want to request. She has all kinds of things on her book list. She has book lists for boys, for girls, for toddlers, board books, books on the seashore or on nature. She just has a plethora of topics and she also is always updating and changing the book list. It's something that's always changing and growing and you can kind of get different topics based on the season. This is an excellent resource. On her podcast, she interviews authors. She also gives some tips on how to help maybe a struggling reader or just some practical homeschooling tips. This is a podcast that I've been listening to for a long time and it's one that I think you should add to your list. A third podcast is Your Morning Basket by Pam Barnhill. I was introduced to Your Morning Basket a couple years into our homeschooling journey. This is where I learned the first time the concept of morning time. She calls it morning basket. I have called it morning time. The very first podcast that Pam had, she interviewed Cindy Rollins, who I consider to be basically the author of morning time. She had started doing morning time with her kids before it even had a name. It was something that she just began and she kind of put together and then wrote a book on it, Your Morning Time Handbook. I've shared extensively about this on a post that I did, How to Simplify Your Homeschool with Morning Time. The Your Morning Basket podcast with Pam Barnhill gives a lot of ideas and inspiration for morning time. When I discovered morning time, it just revolutionized that way that we do everything and definitely added something great and it's something that we're still doing today. When you listen to Your Morning Basket with Pam Barnhill, you're going to get ideas for how to make morning time work well, ideas for just different great resources. She interviews a lot of different authors and talks about how to handle sibling rivalry, just some of the different roadblocks you might encounter. You know, sometimes in morning time, you can just get into a rut. If you're looking for some good resources and things that will work and ideas for trying morning time in your homeschool, Pam Barnhill is the resource that you need to go to. This is also a podcast that I listen to regularly. Another podcast I recommend is Homeschool Made Simple by Carol Joyside. This is a newer podcast that I have been listening to. Carol just has a really calming voice and when you listen to her podcast, you walk away with this feeling that I can do this. I really think that I can do this. Carol mentions that her podcast is for young parents that have babies and toddlers and are just kind of not sure what they're going to do. It's also for people who are homeschooling and have a lot of pressure on them. You know, maybe their parents or family is not completely sure about homeschooling and they're not, you know, they're kind of in the beginning of trying to pick out curriculum. It's also for people that have been homeschooling for a while and are tired. On Homeschool Made Simple podcast, Carol tells people how to homeschool simply, inexpensively and enjoyably. Carol has a couple different topics on her podcast. She interviews a lot of current homeschoolers who follow her style of homeschooling. She also has on there people who have been very influential in her life. So she may have a whole podcast on Corrie Ten Boom or Elizabeth Gouge or Ruth Bell Graham. Just some women that have been highly influential to her. She also likes to share some current books she's reading. She also covers topics that would just be interesting to homeschoolers or maybe things that, you know, we run into, problems that we run into. She has a lot of experience. She is a homeschool consultant. She has homeschooled her own children and now has grandchildren. And as I said, she just has a really calming voice and you walk away after listening to this podcast feeling like, I can do this. I can do this. And this is something that is going to be so rewarding for our family. The last podcast that I recommend is the Dorenda Wilson podcast. Dorenda Wilson is a mom of eight children. I think most of them are grown. And she wrote two books. The first book is The Unhurried Homeschooler. I have read this book. It is fantastic. She's also written The Four Hour School Day, which is one that I have not read, but it is definitely on my list. Dorenda gives a lot of practical biblical counsel for parenting in the current culture. Dorenda defines what unhurried homeschooling is. It is not letting your kids run amok. It is not having this relaxed attitude and not really being fully engaged in what they're learning. But it is letting a child have room to play, letting them learn at their own pace, customizing their education, being a student of your child. If you're looking for a mom who has done this, who's been there and who's not gonna make you feel inadequate or like you can just never measure up to the standard, Dorenda is gonna give practical wisdom. She has been there and she has seen what works. She has adult children. She has grandchildren. So I highly recommend the Dorenda Wilson podcast as another one that you need to add to your list of homeschooling podcasts to download. If you are a new homeschooler, I hope that you try some of these out and that you can find the encouragement, the wisdom, the experience that I have gained from listening to these people that have gone on before us that have a lot to share, that have helped me keep from making a lot of mistakes and helped me prioritize the things that are important. If you've been homeschooling a while and you have some podcasts that have really influenced you for good and shaped your homeschool, would you consider adding to this conversation and leaving a comment below? Let us know what podcasts you love. If you have listened to some of these five that I have mentioned and they have blessed you, would you share the things that you have learned from them or how they have benefited you? I love hearing from other homeschool moms and I think we all benefit from learning from each other. So thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day.