Episodes
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Are you in need of a restoring tonic when it comes to your home education? If so, then chapter 4 of “Another Way to Learn?” written by the lovely Sian is the one for you right now. With a career as a secondary school teacher behind her, Sian is now a home educating mum of three delightful girls. She and her husband and the girls live in rural Wales surrounded by green hills, a plentiful supply of rain and a characterful dog just in case there are not enough challenges in the day!
Sian writes candidly and with warm humour about their journey from school education to home education. Listen in to the podcast to find out the back story of how she and Molly met (and realised they had been living in the same shared house many moons before) and some of our own thoughts about how we “de school” both our children and ourselves. -
What do you reckon are the top ten most asked home ed questions? It would be interesting to do a poll. However, queries around the socialisation of our children must be right up there at the top.
In the third chapter of "Another Way to Learn?", Juliet English dives straight into this topic. A social worker by training, Juliet is a mother of seven, grandmother, foster mum, director of Streams and co-ordinator of the Learn Free conference. She is a woman of extraordinary capacity and great depth of wisdom and experience. There could not be a better placed home educator to talk us through this hot potato of socialisation. Listen in as we consider the topic, connect with Juliet via the links below and get hold of a copy of “Another Way to Learn?”. It’s available from our website or any other book retailer or from your library. You could also join up with a few other home educators in your local area and form a book club to read it together. -
Missing episodes?
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I wonder what springs to your mind when someone mentions teens? And then home education and teens in the same sentence. Maybe it’s lengthy conversations as you discuss life, values, ideas, current affairs and faith around the dinner table, accompanied by good food, music and candle light. Maybe it’s standing for hours on a cold sports pitch showing up while your teen gets caked in mud; maybe it’s trying to block out loud and jarring music; maybe it’s a houseful of laughing young people, overflowing with interesting concepts, deep questions and quick quips. Or, maybe it’s battling with mental health concerns, trying to walk in dark places alongside your teen, determining to champion them even when the rest of the world doesn’t seem to understand.
Maybe you are living the highs and lows of the teen years now, or maybe they are yet to come. Whatever your point in this journey, Dr Kat Patrick, home educating mum of four, speaker, blogger, teacher and CEO of Dreaming Spires Home Learning has written a fantastic chapter inspiring us to explore delight-led learning during the teen years.
Join us as we chat through some of our own home educating experiences during the teen years, both past and present. -
Over the next few months we’re going to be taking a gentle amble through “Another Way to Learn?” We’ll introduce you to each chapter and it’s author and reflect on our own home educating experiences around the topic.
This week we’ll introduce the lovely Jessica Girard, who writes beautifully on the early years of home educating. Grab a cuppa and listen in to how Molly’s and Jessica’s paths crossed, find out a little more about her life with little ones on the stunning and fascinating island of Guernsey and join our trip down memory lane as we remember those long ago times with little ones. -
Welcome! Whether you’re a faithful listener or completely new to Mended Teacups Home Ed Podcast, we’re so glad you’re here and allocating a few minutes of your precious time to join us. Our hope is that as you listen in you’ll be encouraged to continue, day by day, in the profound work that you have undertaken to home educate your children.
In this episode we have a catch up of the summer holidays (doesn’t that seem a while ago now?) and offer a few tips for those of you who are just stepping out and beginning your home education journey.
We are hoping to record on a slightly more regular basis this year, so do let us know if there are any topics you’d like us to cover, or any other ways we could encourage you. -
In the last of this season’s podcasts, we reminisce slightly on days gone by, but mostly look towards the summer and how we can most cherish our days.
We also share a little more about Another Way to Learn? our new book for home educators, which will be hitting the book shelves in September. Endorsed by Leah Boden (Modern Miss Mason), Lyn and Steve Richards (Making the Right Impression, 2007) and Jacqui Wakelam (Mum Heart UK) it’s had its first review which is everything we had hoped it might be. So, check out the website, follow along on social media and pre order your own copy.
We will be back in September and look forward to sharing some more of our home ed adventures with you then. In the meantime, have a wonderful summer; a different pace, time outside, adventures small and large, maybe seeing some new places and spending time with friends, maybe picnics or parties. Make time if you can to nurture and replenish your own body, soul and spirit to set you up afresh for this profound mission you have embarked upon - raising up the foundations of the next generation. -
We once took a family ramble up a relatively small mountain. The weather was fine, the banter good humoured and the snacks plentiful. The view from the top was out of all proportion to the height we had climbed so the effort we put in was well worth it. However, there were parts which were hard for little legs, where our younger two needed help and when a rest was necessary.
We all hope that this is a picture of home education; we know it will be tough at times, but when these seasons come we will work together, find a good way through and the view from the top will be worth it. However, what happens if seasons come when it feels we are trudging though boggy ground every day? When whatever we do doesn’t seem to make much difference? Do we continue and be miserable, do we go for the school option or might there be another way forward? Listen in to our conversation and find out. -
Have you come across the Miss Read books? I’ve been a fan of hers for years, and her semi autobiographical novels chronicling the daily happenings in a small, rural, two teacher school during the 1950’s shaped my own vision for our “home school”. In “Village Diary” she writes,
I, for one, am always glad to see the end of this most miserable of terms. In it we endure, each year, the worst weather, the darkest days, the poorest health and the lowest spirits. But now, with Easter in sight, and the sun gaining daily in strength, the outlook is much more heartening.
This certainly resonates with me, and I always feel my spirits rising as Easter approaches bringing with it longer days and warmer weather. In keeping with this optimistic outlook we are reminiscing today about some of the hopes we held as we started home educating, how these have found fulfilment, and also some of the many unexpected surprises along the way.
We also have an exciting announcement… so make yourselves a cuppa, listen in and be encouraged! -
We’re recording in person again! It’s so much more fun chatting whilst sitting on the same sofa rather than in separate houses. So, we hope our enthusiasm for a subject which can cause consternation comes across today. Make yourself a cuppa and join us as we talk through how we’ve explored science in our homes, from toddlers and mess through to teens and iGCSEs.
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A belated happy New Year to you all! We’ve been hibernating for most of January, but are just beginning to peek our noses out into the podcast world again. Helen and I planned to record this episode via zoom, and then, just as we were winding up some history reading, we heard a knock at the door. It was none other than Helen and one of her daughters, complete with flowers, waffles and big smiles! It was so lovely to see her and catch up in real life over a mug of hot tea and the last of the (somewhat burnt) chocolate brownies.
We hope you enjoy our conversation as we offer suggestions to help get our days off to a good start. And maybe we can all surprise and encourage a friend this month in the same way Helen did me! -
Advent has flown by; a daily mix of the reality of our present, broken world, gloriously interrupted by generous rays of light reminding us that we are indeed living in the tension of the now and the not yet. We’ve had some fabulous outings, enjoyed meeting up with friends, thrown ourselves into Christmas crafting and cooking and taken time out to sit and read aloud together. There are many things we’ve not done but we are celebrating our wins.
So, dear home educating friends, how are you at the end of this year? Whatever your circumstances and however you may be feeling, please know you are daily doing an extraordinary thing, teaching and parenting your children. Together, we are raising up the foundations of the next generation. Amidst the excitement and celebrations, the mess and mayhem, we hope you can find some time to sit quietly and in a very un-British way, accept the praise and affirmation due you, for a job well done. This mini podcast episode comes with our love and encouragement. May our celebrations, though imperfect, be filled with laughter and smiles. -
Advent is upon us! This month of December can be like a helter-skelter, landing us in a exhausted, yet hopefully happy heap on the eve of Christmas. It is usually filled with delicious foods, much loved traditions, twinkly lights, and sparkly-eyed children. It can also be somewhat fraught with to-do lists, busyness and bustle ... or is that just us?!
However, Advent is not merely a preparation for Christmas. It is a separate season in itself, a little like Lent is to Easter. It encompasses the tension between the brokenness of our world now and the glorious hope we have in Jesus. It allows us to grieve deeply for the pain around us, while knowing that there is redemption in Jesus. It is time to deeply engage with a God who did not stay far removed from His creation, but came down as a helpless, vulnerable baby to share in all the everyday joys and challenges of life.
During Advent we can hold the ideals of what we’d like our families to look like, alongside the reality of our everyday day lives. It is a season which invites us to both weep deeply and rejoice wildly.
And of course there is so much fun with little children around. We’d love to share some of our reflections on this season with you. Hope you enjoy listening in to our conversation. -
I’d love the fruits of what we pour into our children to metaphorically look like an abundant harvest! But it is hard work. As it happens, we’d both had hard days the week we recorded this. I’m sure we’re not the only ones! We hope we can encourage you as we share some of our home ed experiences both from the perspective of being in the trenches with our younger children, and as we look back from what we’ve learnt with our older ones.
Find more links and encouragement in our blog - mendedteacups.wordpress.com -
How has this first half of the autumn term been? Gentle walks through golden woods, blackberry picking under warm blue skies, hot chocolate and read alouds? We’ve had some wonderful moments like that, but also a lot of busyness and struggles to settle into the first “normal” term for a long while. Our calendars have been so full we’ve not even managed to co ordinate recording a podcast.
However, last week we had a zoom chat and it felt good to catch up and share some of our home ed thoughts again. We hope you’re encouraged, reassured and even inspired as you listen in, and we’re looking forward to chatting with you again soon! -
We got together in real life, to record the first podcast of this new season…season 5! Do join us as we look forward to the year ahead and share some of the ways we plan for and celebrate a new term. We’d love to know any special rituals you have. As always let us know via this site, or on Instagram or Facebook.
It’s great to be chatting with you again… pour yourselves a cuppa and listen in! -
Do you have any special traditions to mark the end of term? Or to mark specific days in your home ed year? Whatever your rhythms are, celebrations are the order of the day here. We’d love you to join us for this last episode of the academic year as we share how we celebrate our families’ achievements big and small.
We hope you have a very good summer break, with times of rest and refreshment, fun and celebration. -
Today we’re looking at how we get support for ourselves, as home educating parents. We’re aware that the rise in families deciding to home educate has coincided with a time of isolation for us all. This is not how it usually is, and for those of us who have been treading this path a while we have missed our network of friends, but know they are all there, waiting for us. However, for those of you at the beginning of the journey, it might feel quite lonely; it has been so much harder to meet up and make new friends.
But....hang on in there! There are lots of other like minded families out there, and there are ways to connect. Listen in as Helen tells us the inspiring story of how our local home ed group began, almost twenty years ago, and we suggest ways we can develop our own home ed friendship groups. We hope you’ll all be encouraged to reach out, and that many more grass-roots support networks will develop across our nation.
For more information, check out our blog - mendedteacups.wordpress.com -
Join us for an episode in our occasional series on the great and the good of the home ed world... Those that have gone before us, who have challenged conventional thinking and whose influence still lives on.
John Holt was an American educator, writing such classics as “How Children Fail” and “How Children Learn” in the 1960s. After hoping for reform in the public school system, but seeing none, he became a leading advocate for the homeschool movement, and is arguably a founder of the unschooling approach.
Listen in on our conversation and see if you can spot any of his ideas in your home ed philosophy.
As always, we love to hear from you, and we’d especially appreciate any thoughts and encouragement from the unschoolers amongst us. Let us know if Holt’s ideas have influenced your learning.
Find out more in our blog - www.mendedteacups.wordpress.com -
I think we could all do with an infusion of joy and hope at the moment. Easter provides the perfect opportunity for this. For those with a Christian faith it is the highlight of the liturgical year, literally the crux of our faith. But for everyone, it is a festival associated with hope and new life.
We’d love you to join us as we share some of our Easter family traditions, discuss how lent and Easter might look different for home educating families, and explore how we can help our children to hold pain and suffering alongside hope and joy.
We hope that, in the midst of our weary world and tired families, your celebrations will be overflowing with fun, rest, sunshine, hope and chocolate! -
Have you ever thought of the difference between an inheritance and a legacy? While an inheritance is material in nature and may diminish over time, a legacy is a rich handing down of qualities and values which have been cultivated and reflected in a person’s life, and continue to influence following generations.
Helen’s grandmother died recently, aged 103. We’d love you to join us for a truly uplifting conversation as Helen shares stories of the rich heritage her grandma left, and how this has influenced both her and now her own her family.
More information can be found in our blog - MendedTeacups.wordpress.com - Show more
