The Smiling Homeschooler Podcast

Welcome back to The Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we are talking about advice we'd give to a mom who is just getting started homeschooling. We talk about everything from knowing when it's time to make the jump, to avoiding comparison, keeping things simple, and remembering what really matters most. Whether you're just considering homeschooling or have been doing it for years, we hope this conversation offers some encouragement and reminds you that you can do this!  We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for supporting the Smiling Homeschooler. If you want a math curriculum that helps you and your kids smile, then check out a free trial at teachingtextbooks.com.  Today's show is also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem Healthshare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman. Lastly, the You'da Dad Daily calendar is up on our website! This is a page-a-day calendar that is the perfect Christmas gift for your husband. It is fun and encouraging, so head on over to https://store.familymanweb.com/2027-you-da-dad-daily-calendar/ to pick one up for your husband!  Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we're talking about knowing when to push our kids and when to back off. As homeschool parents, we all have things we believe are important for our children to learn, but what do we do when they don't enjoy them, don't want to do them, or flat-out tell us they hate school? From math and history to music and Bible time, we'll walk through some real-life scenarios and talk about how to know which battles are worth fighting and when it might be time to change things up. We hope you enjoy the conversation! We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for supporting the Smiling Homeschooler. We truly think they are one of the best math curriculums out there, and if you don't already use them, you should! Check out a free trial at teachingtextbooks.com. Today's show is also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman. Lastly, the You'da Dad Daily calendar is up on our website! This is a page-a-day calendar that is the perfect Christmas gift for your husband. It is fun and encouraging, so head on over to our store to pick one up for your husband!  Have a great week and don't forget to smile!

Welcome back to The Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! Today we're joined by speaker, blogger, podcaster, and homeschool mom Nancy Manos to talk about a topic that seems to be everywhere right now: Artificial Intelligence. We discuss the potential benefits of AI for homeschool families, from helping with lesson planning and brainstorming to preparing our kids for the future, but we also talk about the dangers, especially when it comes to our children’s learning, critical thinking, and relationships. So how do we take advantage of this new technology without letting it take the place of real learning and human connection? Nancy shares why she believes we need to be part of the conversation, how parents can approach AI wisely, and why we don't need to live in fear of the changing world around us. It was a great conversation, and we hope you enjoy it! We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for supporting the Smiling Homeschooler. We truly think they are one of the best math curriculums out there, and if you don't already use them, you should! Check out a free trial at teachingtextbooks.com. Today's show is also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Their Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman   Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we’re talking about a question that can be a little tricky as our kids get older: What decisions should we let our children make, and what decisions should we make for them? Obviously, a five-year-old and a seventeen-year-old are going to have very different levels of freedom, so we’re breaking this down from the little-kid years all the way through graduation. We’re talking about where we can give our kids more responsibility and independence, where we still need to step in as parents, and how that can change as they grow. It was a really good conversation, and we hope you enjoy it! Before we begin, we want to thank Teaching Textbooks for supporting the Smiling Homeschooler. We truly think they are one of the best math curriculums out there, and if you don't already use them, you should! Check out a free trial at teachingtextbooks.com.  Today's show is also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman   Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we’re talking about how to communicate your homeschool needs with your husband. If you’re the one doing most of the homeschooling, it can sometimes be difficult to explain to your husband what you need from him. Maybe you need more help, more encouragement, more time, or maybe you just need him to understand a little better what your day-to-day life actually looks like. So how do you communicate those things without it turning into an argument or making your husband feel like he’s not doing enough? And what can husbands do to better understand and support their wives in homeschooling? Today we’re talking about how husbands and wives can communicate about homeschooling, understand each other’s needs, and figure out what it looks like for Dad to really support Mom in the homeschool. We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for sponsoring the Smiling Homeschooler. They are the math curriclum that helps homeschoolers smile, so check out a free trial at teachingtextbooks.com.    Today’s show was also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman   Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we’re talking about how much time you really need to spend homeschooling each day. There can be a lot of pressure to think that homeschooling needs to take up most of the day, but does it really need to be an eight-hour-a-day job? We’re going to talk about what a realistic homeschool day can look like and how much time you actually need to get the important things done. We’re also going to continue talking about the things our listeners have told us they wish they could change about their homeschools. We’ve gotten some really interesting answers, so we’ll share some more of those and talk through some of the challenges and frustrations that homeschool families are dealing with. We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for sponsoring the Smiling Homeschooler. We use and recommend Teaching Textbooks for anyone that wants a math curriclum that is fun and engaging! You can test out a free trial over at teachingtextbooks.com. We also want to thank Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at Samaritanministries.org/familyman Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week we’re talking about what we and our listeners wish we could change about our homeschools. We recently asked our listeners what the one thing they would change about their homeschool would be, and we got some really interesting answers. We’re talking about everything from consistency and expectations to having more help with little ones, simplifying high school, and even wishing the years would slow down. We’ll share some of those answers and talk about what we can learn and we hope this is an encouraging and relatable conversation for you! We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for all of their support of the Smiling Homeschooler. They are one of the best math curriculums around, and we believe they help more homeschoolers smile during math! So go check out a free trial at www.teachingtextbooks.com.  Today’s show was also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman Have a great week and don't forget to smile! 

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! Debbie is back to share more underrated homeschool curriculum recommendations, plus we’ll be answering listener questions, including whether writing and spelling are really important and what to do when you get off to a rough start to the school year. If your school year hasn’t gone quite the way you hoped, you’re looking for something different with your homeschool curriculum, or you just need some encouragement, then this is a conversation you won’t want to miss. We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for sponsoring the Smiling Homeschooler! If you want a math curriculum that helps you and your children smile more during math, go check them out at teachingtextbooks.com! Also, thank you to Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare, where members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, “We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries.” You can learn more about Redeem HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman. Have a great week, and don’t forget to smile!

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! What are some of the most underrated homeschool curriculum options out there? And what are some of the subjects that we tend to forget about in our homeschools? This week, Debbie Wilson joins us to talk about some of her favorite underrated curriculum picks and the subjects that may not always get the attention they deserve. We talk about practical skills like budgeting and typing, along with other things that can help prepare our kids for life beyond their homeschool years. We also answer questions from moms who need a little encouragement and advice as they navigate the challenges of homeschooling. If you’re looking for some new curriculum ideas or wondering if there are subjects you might be overlooking, this is a great episode to check out! We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for all of their support of the Smiling Homeschooler. They are one of the best math curriculums around, and we believe they help more homeschoolers smile during math! So go check them out at teachingtextbooks.com.  Today’s show was also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare at SamaritanMinistries.org/familyman Have a great week and don't forget to smile!

Welcome back to the Smiling Homeschooler Podcast! This week, we have a great episode from the archives where Ben was joined by his mom, Debbie Wilson, to talk about getting off to a good start this school year. Since we’re officially past Labor Day, wee thought this would be a really helpful episode to revisit. Debbie shares her recommendations, practical advice, and even some of her curriculum choices. And as always, her wisdom and encouragement make this a great conversation! We hope you have a great start of the school year! We want to thank Teaching Textbooks for all of their support of the Smiling Homeschooler. They are the math curriculum that our family uses, and we believe they help more homeschoolers smile during math. So go check out a free trial over at teachingtextbooks.com.  Today’s show was also underwritten by Samaritan Ministries and Redeem HealthShare. Where Members are committed to honoring Christ and serving one another through health care needs. As Todd likes to say, "We use, love, and recommend Samaritan Ministries. You can learn more about REDEEM HealthShare by Samaritan Ministries at samaritanministries.org/familyman    Have a great week, and don't forget to smile!