Better Together: Strengthen Your Family, Simplify Your Homeschool, and Savor the Subjects that Matter Most Paperback – March 13, 2018

Pam Barnhill has hit a home run with this practical and inspiring book.The beginning chapters give you a wonderful overview of the WHY behind this book. Pam manages to take complex ideas from a wealth of books on educational philosophy and summarize them in a persuasive and easy-to-understand way. Happily, she also has a slightly snarky sense of humor which makes this fun to read. At a time of year when we’re struggling with homeschool slump, this is a refreshing reminder of what the most important, foundational things are.The thing I like best about the book, though, has to be how practical it is. Don’t you hate it when you get all inspired to do something but you can’t figure out how to make it work in real life? Pam has anticipated the questions a mom would ask, and delivered all the ideas, encouragement, and resources you’d need to start. This is thoroughly grounded in real life, with everyday struggles, doubts, toddlers, and mayhem! But it doesn’t stop there, because there is encouragement that you CAN do this well, and plenty of tips to help you. Even as someone who has been doing this for several years, I still had several aha moments and got ideas I’m excited to go home and implement.I enjoyed the Homeschool Snapshots interspersed throughout the book, where she interviews different families. We get to take a peek into how different families are doing this on a day to day basis and hear about their favorite things and biggest struggles.Two Appendices contain a list of resources and a list of 100 things for kids to memorize, from Scripture to poetry, to speeches and science and math facts. These all look to be wonderful selections and could save a busy homeschooling mom a lot of work.I’m excited to have a great resource to recommend to both beginning and seasoned homeschoolers, which shows both why we want to root our homeschools in Truth, Goodness and Beauty, as well as how to get it done.

I had previously done morning time/basket using Gentle Classical Preschool with my four year old when I had a two year old and it went fairly well although he hated listening to classical music and would only memorize one poem (albeit impressively long). Then I had another child and needed to do more than simple math/reading skills with the oldest and I abandoned it because I felt overwhelmed. This book helped me embrace the idea again and really understand the why behind it. I was looking for encouragement while struggling with the grind of the basics with my six year old who hates school. Now I treasure it as part of our day that we all enjoy. I appreciate all the real life examples of what different families do with kids of varrying ages and after reading it I feel free and encouraged to keep it simple and enjoyable in this busy season with three boys: 6, 4 and 5 months old.

My favorite part about this book was probably the appendix as it had a wealth of information and resources listed. I have already been doing “morning time” but still feel new to this homeschooling thing so it was nice to have additional resource recommendations. I feel like what this book was lacking was a more practical, day in the life, homeschooling with morning time with actual schedule since it seemed morning time includes all this beauty in only 30 minutes a day!? I feel like ours takes that long just with our Bible time, forget poetry, memorization, story and Shakespeare. I mean even reading a chapter from our read aloud scan be 15-30 minutes. I want to know how they get all their scripture in, Shakespeare in, reading in, and memorization in 30 minutes or if it is spread throughout the day like ours. It would be nice to have actual schedules. Not so one can copy, but so one can be inspired. It’s like getting decor ideas for your house. It’s nice to see actual pictures of rooms of houses to get inspired. You don’t want to copy but seeing actual real life pictures helps to inspire you for what you want in your home. I guess that’s why I appreciated concrete examples of resources at the end instead of just a blanket statement of “Latin memorization.” For those who are new to such, which resources would you recommend and why. Loved that the appendix had a good source of that.Recommend book for:HomeschoolersTeachers

Better Together is an encouraging note from an old friend, a toolbox for homeschooling moms, and a window into the many ways homeschool looks different but beautiful for each and every family.I have truly enjoyed Pam's knowledge and tips for bringing our family together each day. Her wit is also a delight throughout the book. It conveys the reality of homeschool and motherhood with a bit of sass thrown in.If you really want to cultivate the habit of a daily time where your family comes together to learn about Truth, goodness, and beauty then this book is the one you need. Full of glorious resources in the back, that alone is worth the price of the book. But you would be remiss to skip the first portion of the book and glean from the wisdom of so many homeschool moms who have strengthened their family through the joys of morning time.

I've practiced morning time in our homeschool for years and it's always been one of the best parts of our day. Better Together is the perfect resource to teach you all about morning time and how to implement it well. I love that the author has included several practical suggestions and resources, but never tells you exactly what YOUR morning time should look like. Instead, she guides you through an easy planning phase that will make it work for your family, and even includes snapshots of various people to show you how they do morning time in their homes.If you happen to be a morning time veteran, there is a lot of refreshment to be found in this book for you, too! I made a few really great tweaks to our schedule that have made a world of difference for us.

Morning time is a great concept and whilst Pam wasn't the originator, she provides great structure for people of follow to get the most of this family time.

Just what I needed!