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 outside
How 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 complicated

Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
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Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/ginny-yurich

Over the past few months on the podcast, we’ve talked a lot about how reading aloud benefits kids academically, how it develops their resilience, empathy, and virtue, and even reduces physiological stress. Today on the show, we’re diving into the flip side of reading: writing. 

Without writing, we’d have no stories to read. But creating books to share with others isn’t the only reason why writing is so important. Writing also has tremendous benefits to the person sitting down and putting words on a page.  

In this episode, Audrey and I talk about some of the many reasons to invite your kids –– and yourself! –– to write and we’ll share a few of our favorite exercises and tips for getting everyone’s creativity flowing.

In this episode, you’ll hear: 
Why creativity is available to every single one of us, even if we wouldn’t consider ourselves to be artists 
How writing helps us slow down, notice details, cultivate attention and presence, and uncover what we’re thinking even when life is busy and messy
How writing, like reading, has the power to connect and transform us

Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Read-Aloud Revival
Waxwing Books
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Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/why-we-write

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 Woman
Why 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:
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Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/becoming-a-book-woman

How long is your to-do list? 

What if you added in all the extra shoulds and supposed-tos that you are in your head but you don’t even write down because that would be too overwhelming? How long is it then?

It might feel a little cliché to talk about how busy we are. But I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that most of us are at least a little bit (or more) fried. 

So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we keep piling things onto our to-do lists?

If you take a closer look at your list, I think you’ll find that underneath that busyness, the reason is relationships. Your list is long because you love your kids, and you want them to feel loved and supported by the things you do for them, from teaching to cooking to cleaning to working outside the home. 

But a hard truth I’ve learned in nearly 25 (!!) years of motherhood is that restless busyness can make it harder to do the things that actually allow us to nurture our kids, develop fruitful relationships with them, and model God’s love.

Today on the show, I want to help you find some rest in the mess so you can show up in all of your relationships with more peace and even, dare I say it… joy. 

To do that, I’m going to let you in on some of our favorite moments from Circle With Sarah over the last year. Circle With Sarah is one of our Read-Aloud Revival Premium members' favorite features. It’s a private podcast, live virtual events, and biannual virtual retreats all designed to support you in the journey you’ve chosen as a mom.

In this episode, you’ll hear: 
Shifting your focus to how far you’ve come from how far you have left to go
A simple exercise for getting to the root of worry and learning to trust that what we do is enough 
Tips for reframing interruptions, prioritizing rest and connection

Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Read Aloud Revival
Waxwing Books
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Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/finding-rest-in-the-mess

Here at the Read-Aloud Revival, we’ve been asked more times than I can count to create virtue-based book lists. And I always say no.
Today, our Creative Director (and my eldest daughter) Audrey is back with me to talk about why we don’t make lists of books that specifically set out to teach kids about kindness, honesty, or other virtues. 
The reality is, all good books have a powerful capacity to inspire us towards virtue, and the ones that are the most effective are the ones that don’t set out to teach. They just set out to tell a good story. Good stories, by their nature, form us in virtue.
We’re going to talk about what makes a story formational, and of course, share some of our favorite books that have been formative in our family.
In this episode, you’ll hear: 
Why learning virtue doesn’t need a lesson plan or bullet points, and can even be delightful
How stories invite us into the experiences of others, with all their human strengths and weaknesses
The guiding question behind every book recommendation we make at RAR

Learn more about Sarah Mackenzie:
Read-Aloud Revival
Waxwing Books
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Find the rest of the show notes at: readaloudrevival.com/books-forming-virtue