Read-Aloud Revival ®

The heart of homeschooling is relationships. Building meaningful, lasting connections is the real secret sauce of reading aloud with your kids. Those connections are also built when you spend time in nature together. Sounds simple, right? Read books. Go outside. But it can also feel like yet another thing to add to your already packed to-do list. How do we make time in our already full days to get outside with our kids?We’ve got an absolute treat for you today on the show. Ginny Yurich, the founder of the global 1000 Hours Outside movement, is here to talk about how families can bring the transformative power of nature into their everyday lives. She candidly shares her journey from indoorsy kid to overwhelmed mama to the fall afternoon that planted the seed of 1000 Hours Outside. We also dig into the benefits of spending time in nature, and of course, practical strategies for spending more time outside.In this episode, you’ll hear: The lifelong physical, social, emotional, and academic benefits of spending time outsideHow accessible 1000 hours really is Practical ways to get more time outdoors, how to engage older kids, and why it doesn’t have to be that complicatedLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/ginny-yurich

Books are so much more than just a collection of words. They are lanterns that illuminate our lives in so many incredible ways.Today, I want to share a story with you about a group of women who also believed in the power of books to transform lives. So much so, that they were willing to endure quite a lot of hardship to get books into the hands of people who otherwise wouldn’t have had access to them during a difficult period of American history. In this episode, I’m talking with Caroline Starr Rose, author of our newest Waxwing Books release, Books Up the Mountain: A Packhorse Librarian Story. Caroline is an author and editor of middle grade and picture books, and in our conversation she talks about the real-life program that inspired Books Up the Mountain, the scavenger hunt process of researching historical fiction, and writing stories that honor children and their experiences.In this episode, you’ll hear: About the Great Depression-era librarians whose work and communities inspired Caroline to create The Book WomanWhy Caroline finds writing for children such lifegiving and compelling work The challenges presented by writing historical novels versus picture books, and what makes “picture book alchemy”Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/becoming-a-book-woman

Hey hey, it's Sarah Mackenzie!I am here with a bonus episode. I host another podcast — it's called Circle with Sarah— and it's a short, weekly podcast that helps all of us become the peace-filled, joyful mamas we're called to be. It goes up at RAR Premium every Monday during the school year. Recently, I recorded an episode for that podcast called "God is Not Disappointed in You." And not only did it really resonate with RAR Premium members, but we got several requests from members to please post this on the Read-Aloud Revival podcast so they could share it with their friends even if their friends weren't inside RAR Premium. Here's the episode:In our recent Circle with Sarah Retreat, you were all invited to submit questions about maintaining peace in your homeschool, because of course that was our theme, and so many of you did!It has been just a complete joy to read through those and consider them. Almost 120 questions came in actually, and we were only able to touch on a few during the retreat, and then we touched on a few more in our last Circle with Sarah Live.But as I was reading through your questions and just prayerfully considering how to answer them, one thing jumped out at me over and over again. I mentioned it, actually, at the very end of the September Circle with Sarah Live. It's this pervasive fear that so many of us have that really feeds into our anxiety about our homeschools and our kids and our parenting and our worry that we're not doing a good enough job with any of it. And the underlying belief that is a problem here is that we believe that God is disappointed in us as homeschooling moms, that we're failing Him, and He's disappointed.And I think this fear is probably exaggerated somewhat for us if we had a father or really any authority figure over us at any point in our lives who did express chronic disappointment in us. I think then it's very easy to translate that into feeling like God must also be feeling disappointed in us. That seems like the easiest thing to believe, like the truest thing.But listen to me, God is not disappointed in you. He is not surprised by anything you are facing in your life, your motherhood, your homeschool, your marriage, any of it. He's not surprised by any of it. On your absolute worst days, He's not surprised by how you acted or reacted. He already knows the worst and hardest and most challenging things that you are facing right now, and He loves you and He's calling you to this work anyway.He actually never asks us to be good enough. And He never asks us to get this just right. And I think it's worth remembering that He didn't actually think you would do a better job than you're doing. He's all knowing. He's sovereign. He didn't think you'd do a better job than you're doing at anything, in any part of your life. And He's not disappointed in you. I wonder if you can sit with that for just a second, like really sit with it? I want to read from Psalm 103:"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."Later in that same psalm we read, "For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust."So He knows who we are. He knows our capabilities, He knows our limits, He knows our frame, and He remembers that we are dust. And yet He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.I wonder if you can say that out loud to yourself. God is not disappointed in me. Try it.How did that feel? Did it feel true? Did your voice wobble? Did you feel choked up? Did you feel like, I don't know if that's true? Listen, this is what you can say to yourself and know it is true. God is not disappointed in me. He is not disappointed in my kids. He is not disappointed in my homeschool. He is not disappointed in how I cook or how badly I cook. He is not disappointed in how clean I keep the house or how much laundry I got done this week, or whether I even touched it at all. Whether I ever follow through on teaching my kids chores or following up on that character issue or taking care of the parenting issues that are screaming at us in the face. He is not disappointed in how often I read aloud or how much homeschool we got done, or how many activities my kids are in, or whether my kids are still in their pajamas at 4:00 PM. None of this is a disappointment or a surprise to Him. He loves me. He loves you. And He promises us peace that transcends all understanding.That's a big one so I'm just going to leave us here today. We're going to come back to it again next week. But I wonder if at different points during your week, you can remind yourself, God is not disappointed in me. Write it on a post-it. Put it in a few different places. Put it wherever you brush your teeth. Put it where you wash your dishes, put it in the car when you're getting in the car to take your kids to activities or run an errand. Put it by your coffee pot in the morning. God is not disappointed in me. Write it down. See if you can maybe start to believe that this week and we'll circle back to it next week. You have everything you need to teach with peace that transcends with all understanding. You were made for this life. I'm praying for you.--- If you want a podcast episode like this to start each week on the right foot, you probably want RAR Premium—that's where you get access to the CWS podcast. Find out more at rarpremium.com or circlewithsarah.com.

Many of you will already know that I am a huge fan of The Chronicles of Narnia. Today, I want to introduce my fellow Narnia lovers to a new book that jumped right off the shelf as soon as I saw it. Giant is a middle-grade novel by debut author Judith McQuoid where we meet Davy, a fictional working class boy from East Belfast, Ireland who is sent to work in the wealthy Lewis household in 1908. There, he forges a friendship with Jacks–as C.S. Lewis was known to his friends and family–over books, stories, and building worlds of imagination and adventure.Giant is a must-read for Narnia fans that adds a whole new depth of experience to C.S. Lewis’s world and will help you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in a fresh way. And today, I’m chatting with the author about what inspired her to write the book, how much of the story is fictionalized, and how the process of writing the book shaped her identity. And you’re going to love her Irish accent! In this episode, you’ll hear: The way her dad’s love of Narnia and Lewis’s Belfast heritage inspired Judith to write this story How Judith started with a “skeleton” draft and added layers of detail and depth with revisionsThe faith that carried Judith through the ups and downs of creating GiantLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/judith-mcquoid

Peace. It sounds lovely, right? It’s what so many of us want more than anything else in our homeschools. We long for peace, even if it often feels unattainable.But what does peace actually look like in the midst of a real, chaotic homeschool day?Last month in Circle with Sarah–my mentoring program for homeschool moms inside RAR Premium–we had a retreat. And our theme? Maintaining Peace in Your Homeschool.Over four sessions, we walked through practical tips for letting go of guilt and holding onto peace when your day doesn’t go as planned–which we all know is basically every hour of every day, right? Today, I’m sharing the first session of the retreat, called “What Do We Mean by Peace?”I hope you find encouragement for maintaining peace within the everyday rhythms of homeschooling and that you get a better picture of the peace that’s available to you right here, right now, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in.And if you want to check out the rest of the retreat, all of the sessions are available now as part of RAR Premium (Join us right here!).In this episode, you’ll hear: The real definition of peace (hint: it’s not always calm and quiet!) Our primary responsibility as moms and homeschoolersHow our fears cause us to lose hold of peaceLearn more about Sarah Mackenzie:Read-Aloud RevivalWaxwing BooksSubscribe to the NewsletterFind the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/peace