Episode 12: Pollen! (Also: How We Teach Language Arts)

In this allergy medicine-fueled episode, we’re talking about how we teach (and don’t teach) language arts in our homeschool, from workbooks to deliberate avoidance, sharing our favorite podcasts that aren’t this one, and talking about that delightful comfort book, 84 Charing Cross Road.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• Sorcery and Cecelia
• The Lost Episode (it’s up!)
• The Well-Trained Mind
• Modern Curriculum Press: Spelling Workout
• Vocabulary from Classical Roots
• VocabTest.com
• First Language Lessons
• Growing with Grammar
• G.U.M. workbooks
• The Mother Tongue
• The Transitive Vampire
• Eats Shoots and Leaves
• Writing With Ease
• Writing Strands
• Paragraph Town
• Essay Voyage
• The Westing Game
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• Little House on the Prairie
• Heidi
• Pippi Longstocking
• Anne of Green Gables
• Norton Anthology of American History (Volume 1 and Volume 2)
• When Marnie Was There
• The Borrowers
• Howl’s Moving Castle
• Witch Please
• Philosophy Bites
• Thrilling Adventure Hour
• Welcome to Night Vale
• Fresh Air
• Radio Lab
• This American Life
• On Being
• The Infinite Monkey Cage
• Book Riot
• Reading the End
• 84 Charing Cross Road
• The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
• Ancillary Justice

We love to hear from you! Email us any time!

Episode 11: The Orange Elephant in the Room and Finding a New Normal

In this episode, we’re trying to come to terms with a new normal and nervously peeking out of our political closets, talking about how we homeschool when all we want to do is hide under the covers and/or obsessively check the news (spoiler: sometimes we just don’t), and trying to get back on the book reading wagon with a comfort read classic. (Also: The scoop on the Lost Episode—a.k.a. Episode 10—which Amy promises she really will upload eventually.)

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• How to build a pillow fort
• The Handmaid’s Tale
• Are you registered to vote?
• March for Science
• Teen Vogue
• Duolingo
• Suzanne’s Hamilton History class
• One Crazy Summer
• Our Black History Month reading list
• Jason’s school, The Academy
• Our homeschool testing workshop
• The Good Place
• Jane Steele
• The Road Through the Wall
• A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III
• The Lie Tree
• 84 Charing Cross Road
• The Supernatural Enhancements

We love to hear from you! Email us any time!

Episode 10: The Lost Episode Is the Math Episode, But It’s Not a Metaphor, We Promise

In this episode we’re talking about math, math, and more math, including our favorite homeschool math curriculum options, chatting about British television, British writers, and the historical plight of women married to Percy Shelley, trying to explain the awesomeness of Suzanne’s Bag of Justice, and the puzzling out the problem with Atticus Finch.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• Saxon Math
• Singapore Math
• Life of Fred
• Miquon Math
• Beast Academy
• Khan Academy
• Acorn on Amazon Prime
• And Then There Were None
• Partners in Crime
• Raised by Wolves
• Inspector Morse
• Agatha Raisin
• The Brontes
• Jane Steele: “Reader, I murdered him”
• Romantic Outlaws
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
• Shrill
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Catcher in the Rye
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
• Coretta Scott King awards

We love to hear from you! Email us any time!

Episode 9: When the Going Gets Tough

In this episode, we’re coming out of our pillow forts to talk about how to homeschool through challenging times, our favorite coping mechanisms (including the Library Chicken Book Bender exception), and some of the titles on our comfort reading lists.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• Odd Squad
• NOVA
• Ken Burns documentaries
• Oliver!
• Globe Trekker
• Candlewicking
• Little House on the Prairie dress pattern
• Portlandia
• Parks and Recreation
• Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Hamilton soundtrack
• Stuff We Like
• Dorothy Sayers
• Mapp and Lucia
• The Blue Sword
• Sorcery and Cecelia
• To Say Nothing of the Dog
• L.M. Montgomery’s short stories
• Chuang Tzu
• The Myth of Sisyphus
• The Blue Castle
• The Tangled Web
• Cotillion
• The Grand Sophy
• Frederica
• The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
• Ivory Book Series
• To Kill a Mockingbird

We love to hear from you! Email us any time!

Episode 8: You Might Have Mentioned That a Little Sooner

In this episode, we’re talking about things we wish someone had told us before we started homeschooling, adventures in the Twitterverse, library chicken victories, starting a liberal arts high school, and Lab Girl by Hope Jahrens.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• Follow Suzanne on Twitter. (HSL is on Twitter, too, totally thanks to Shelli!)
• Jason’s liberal arts high school (Suzanne is teaching Hamilton history)
• Lab Girl
• To Kill a Mockingbird

Want to chat? An email to this address will always find us.

Episode 7: Making (Up) the Grade

In this (slightly all-over-the-place) episode, we’re talking about how to figure grades for transcripts if you’re in a situation where something’s forcing you to figure grades for transcripts, superheroes who like saving the day, Veronica Mars in the afterlife, what’s happening in library chicken, and many, many books.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode:

• Supergirl
• The Flash
• Jesse L Martin, Rick Cosnett, and Carlos Valdes inging Firefly theme
• Parks and Recreation
• The Good Place
• Beachwaver
• The Almost Nearly Perfect People
• The Year of Living Danishly
• Danny, Champion of the World
• Mansfield Park
• Leading the Blind
• Worst President Ever
• The Secret Keepers
• Blackout
• Crosstalk
• Harald Bluetooth
• LibraryThing
• The Alex Award
• Lab Girl

Email us any time!

Episode 6: But Why Do I Have to Do This?

In this episode, we’re talking about how to handle it when a kid just plain doesn’t want to do something on your homeschool’s academic to-do list (and, for the billionth time, about how Amy stopped doing math for two years and the world did not explode around her homeschool), what we’re up to on the homefront, and Five Children on the Western Front, Kate Saunders’ tribute to the great E. Nesbit. 

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we're starting to feel a little lonely!)

In this episode: 

• Saxon Math
• Singapore Math
• Eats, Shoots and Leaves
• Khan Academy
• No, but we’re serious, you can email us any time. It is the high point of our week.
• home | school | life reads
• The Westing Game
• DragonCon
• Mo Willems’ Pigeon books
• Best Cities for Homeschoolers (and the list from 2014)
• Five Children on the Western Front
• Five Children and It
• The Phoenix and the Carpet
• The Story of the Amulet

Episode 5: I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

In this episode, we’re talking about the dreaded “S” word, socialization, and what it does and doesn’t mean and about how homeschoolers find friends and build social networks, which isn’t the same thing as being socialized, darn it. Also: Star Trek, All the Birds in the Sky, and more.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

In this episode:

• Our online classes (including Suzanne's critical thinking class)
• Oliver Twist
• Saxon Math
• Star Trek: Beyond
• All the Birds in the Sky
• Five Children on the Western Front
• Five Children and It
• AND INTRODUCING home | school | life reads:

Suzanne's family's favorite hand-me-down: the unsocialized homeschooler t-shirt!

Episode 4: If Fall Is Approaching, We Must Need School Supplies

In this episode, we’re talking about how we gear up for a new homeschool year (school supplies and denial are involved), the done list versus the to-do list, nerdy movies, getting your AP class approved, Aaron Burr in history and in Gore Vidal’s Burr, and more.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

In this episode:

• Amy’s high school planning process
• Ghostbusters
• Spring into Summer Romper
• Puerperium Cardigan
• Pixie Hood
• My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
• The College Board’s course audit info
• Burr by Gore Vidal
• The Memoirs of Aaron Burr
• Lincoln by Gore Vidal
• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Episode 3: But How Will You Teach Calculus?

In this episode, we’re answering the weird curriculum questions people always seem to ask homeschoolers and the curriculum questions we ask ourselves, the rules of library chicken, domesticity vs. housework, and the deliciously Victorian dragon society in Jo Walton’s Tooth and Claw.

UPDATE: 7/18 @ 1:26 P.M. Sound issues have been resolved—if your sound is off, download the new version below, and it should solve the problem.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

In this episode:

• E.D. Hirsch’s What Your X-Grader Needs to Know series
• The summer issue of home | school | life
• Strawberry freezer jam recipe
• Our fall classes (registration coming soon!)
• Tooth and Claw
• Framley Parsonage
• To Marry an English Lord

We love to hear from you! An email to this address will always find us. 

Episode 2.5: Homeschool moms don't get sick days

In this in-between episode of the Podcast with Suzanne and Amy, Suzanne gets sick but doesn't actually take the day off—which is kind of how sick days usually work in our homeschools so that's what we're talking about. (As soon as Suzanne's voice returns, we'll be back with Episode 3!)

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

Episode 2: Summer Homeschooling and Lack Thereof

In this episode of The Podcast with Suzanne and Amy, we're talking about how summer fits into our homeschool lives, the fine line between delightfully snarky and annoyingly snobbish, ridiculous amounts of baby knitting, and Greensleeves by Eloise Jarvis McGraw.

Want to read along with us? We're talking about Tooth and Claw in our July 4 episode and Gore Vidal's Burr on July 18.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

In this episode:

• The Duke TIP program
• The Hamilton cast closes the Tony Awards ceremony
• James Corden on Doctor Who (5:11 The Lodger and 6:12 Closing Time)
• Ravelry (and Amy on Ravelry)
• Umaro by Jared Flood
• Mara, Daughter of the Nile
• Greensleeves
• The Westing Game
• Tooth and Claw
• Subscribe to the magazine
• Email us about home | school | life reads

In related news, Suzanne's kitten continues to be adorable:

Episode 1: It seemed like a good idea at the time

In our first official episode of the Podcast with Suzanne and Amy, we talk about how we came to be homeschoolers, dish about what's happening in our lives right now (Jane Austen! Men in 18th century shirts! KITTENS!), and discuss the infinitely delightful Mapp and Lucia in our book talk.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

• In this episode: 
• The Well-Trained Mind
• Love and Friendship
• Lady Susan
• Cold Comfort Farm
• Poldark
• Mapp and Lucia
• Greensleeves
• Mara, Daughter of the Nile
• More information about HSL's online classes
• More information about group subscriptions to HSL

Plus: Gratuitous kitten on books photo. (Can I just point out that Suzanne also had a deer give birth to twins in her backyard this weekend? So she basically has a kitten AND baby deer right now. In related news: Life isn't fair. :))

We love to hear from you! An email to this address will always find us. 

Episode 0

Welcome to The Podcast with Suzanne and Amy, home | school | life's new podcast! In this episode, we're testing out our cool podcasting tools and talking about what you can expect in upcoming episodes. (Spoiler: Books. Lots and lots of books.) Check back Monday for EPISODE 1: At Least It's Better Than the Phantom Menace.

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or download the podcast to listen to at your convenience. Of find us on iTunes. (And if you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating—we appreciate it so much!)

LISTEN TO EPISODE 0:

Got comments or ideas? Leave them here, or email us at podcast@homeschoollifemag.com.