Episode 85: Mentor Mom - Kathy
When an experienced homeschool mom with 25 years of experience shares wisdom, perspective, ideas, and homeschool hacks - we listen! In this episode, we interview a long-time friend Kathy about her favorite resources, positive experiences, regrets, and everything in between. Calling all Game-Schoolers! We recommend a few geographical and history themed games that will spice up your history lessons.
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*some of our recommendations may include affiliate links, which means when you order them from Amazon, we will receive a small commission.
Scoop on the Coop
Mandi is enjoying the I Can Read Frog and Toad books once again with her youngest child. The Frog and Toad series is a tender collection of stories about friendship and kindness, perfect for an early reader.
Jessica and her family are spending their summer enjoying the arts with a season at the symphony. Any time we can expand our children’s exposure to the arts is a gift to their future selves - an opportunity worth our time and budget.
Mentor Mom: Kathy
Why We Chose Kathy:
Kathy has a wealth of expertise in homeschooling and beyond - she has homeschooled for 25 years in a home set in rural San Diego county with their version of homesteading gardens, a horse, and plenty of Little House on the Prairie moments. Their home was one filled with peace, understanding, and unconditional love. Her foundational belief about homeschooling is that this educational method truly gives your child a childhood. She shares her personal experience, educational tools, and inspiring resources.
About Kathy:
Kathy and her husband raised their three kids here in a rural area of San Diego. For three years, while Mandi’s husband was in seminary, Mandi watched Kathy and her children at corporate worship at church, Sunday school, at church events, and in their home. (Interesting fact! Kathy’s husband was Mandi’s husband’s Greek and New Testament professor.) Their kids are all grown now with advanced degrees living wonderful lives throughout the country. Presently, Kathy, now in her grandparent years, has been a beautiful source of encouragement and ideas for Mandi’s parenting and homeschooling life.
We thought it would be helpful to share the wealth of Kathy’s expertise and inspiration with everyone. Tune in to learn about her approach to homeschooling, her daily schedule, and her history co-op that involved period costumes, skits, reports, and more!
Kathy’s Recommended Resources:
The Lost Tools of Learning, by Dorothy Sayers
The 3 R’s, by Ruth Beechik
The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer
How Children Learn, by John Holt
Game-Schooling
History Games!
Teaching history also means learning some geography! We recommend a geography game that will do the following:
Familiarize names of places: Familiarity with the names of cities, states, coasts, countries, and continents can really help children understand the context for history content. The names of some of these places will sound so foreign to our kids that it makes it extra hard to learn what happened there.
How countries are connected or spread-out: Knowing where these places are in relation to each other can help someone understand wars and trade routes - which are a huge part of a zoomed out view of history.
(For more about using games, check out our “Why Teach History Through Games” blog post!)
Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities in various countries around the world. This game requires a high level of strategy and planning, and can be pretty competitive. There are other versions such as: Europe, Nordic countries, Asia, Germany, Heart of Africa, India, Netherlands, San Francisco, New York, and a younger child version. If you are spending time on a unit study or studying world or American history, this game can be a really great way to acclimate your child to the names and places they are studying.
Here’s a list of top history games that came up on several lists. Some of these we are planning to incorporate into our next school year:
Ancient History
Middle Ages
Timelines
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