The Daily Signal - Actress Sam Sorbo Shares Her Homeschooling Tips and Tricks

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Sam Sorbo wears a lot of hats: actress, radio show host, writer, wife, and homeschool mom. Famously known for her role in the 1995 TV show “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” Sorbo has stayed very busy over the past 25 years.  Not only has she continued to act, including recently starring in “Let There Be Light,” but she also hosts the radio program, “The Sam Sorbo Show,” and has become a passionate homeschool advocate, writing two books on the subject: “They’re Your Kids” and “Teach from Love.” Sam Sorbo joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss practical tips for families who now find themselves homeschooling their children. Check out resources for homeschooling during the coronavirus here. Plus: Jude Schwalbach, research assistant in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, discusses the new Heritage Curricula Resource Initiative. We also cover these stories: President Trump warned Iran of "very heavy price" if there's a "sneak attack" on U.S. forces in Iraq. Vice President Pence criticizes China for its lack of honesty about its COVID-19 numbers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issues a statewide stay-at-home order. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, April 2nd. I'm Rachel Dahl Judas. And I'm Kate Trinko. Today, our co-host, Virginia Allen, interview Sam Sorbo, host of the radio program, The Sam Sorbo Show. She's also an actress and she's a homeschool mom. Sorbo shares her advice for parents new to schooling their kids. Plus, Virginia speaks to you, Jude Schwalbeck and education researcher at the Heritage Foundation about educational resources for parents.

Don't forget, if you enjoy this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Governor Ron DeSandis of Florida has put the whole state under a stay-at-home order saying during a media briefing, I'm going to be doing an executive order today directing all Floridians to limit movements and all personal interactions outside the home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities. Governor Tom Wolfe of Pennsylvania has also put his state under a state home order, saying that essential services can continue, but that all Pennsylvania residents should stay at home as much as they can to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Health Speaker Nancy Pelosi is firing back after Republicans said impeachment distracted the country during a pivotal time period when they could have been preparing for COVID-19. Here's what Pelosi told Anderson Cooper on CNN. I think that's an admission that perhaps the president and the majority leader cannot handle the job. We have a life-and-death situation in our country, and they should not try to hide behind an excuse for why they did not take action, but it does admit that they did not take action.

But that's for an after-action review down the road. Right now, we have to work together to get the job done. And all of the statistics that we are hearing break every one of those deaths. All of that loss of life is tragic for our country. To see the big numbers, though, we have to see what we can do to stop that growth of that number of people dying. President Trump had harsh words for Iran on Wednesday, saying that the country would pay a very heavy price if it carries out a surprise attack on U.S. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and or assets in Iraq. If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price

indeed. The Hill reported that it was not immediately clear what information Trump was referring to and what the alleged sneak attack would entail. Trump was slated to receive an intelligence briefing at noon, according to his daily schedule. Has China been honest about the coronavirus? Vice President, Mike Pence, told CNN Wednesday he didn't think so. Here's part of Pence's interview with Wolf Blitzer. The president last night said that New York and New Jersey, and his words, got off to a very late start in fighting the virus. But didn't the United States as a whole, and I'll reiterate the question, Mr. Vice President, didn't the United States as a whole get off to a late start? Well, the reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming.

I mean, the reality is that China's been more transparent with regard to the coronavirus than certainly they were for other infectious diseases over the last 15 years. But what appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China. Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said in a statement, the claim that the United States has more coronavirus deaths than China is false. Without commenting on any classified information, this much is painfully obvious. The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus,

to protect the regime. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, underreporting both total cases and deaths. It suffered from the disease. The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials. Target Aldis and Trader Joe's are giving their employees the day off on Easter Sunday,

in appreciation for their work in keeping shelves stocked and customers fed during the coronavirus pandemic. This week, Trader Joe's website posted an announcement saying, fill your Trader Joe's baskets with Easter fare early. All Trader Joe's stores will be closed on Easter Sunday, April 12th to give our incredible crew members a much-needed day of rest. Next up, we'll have Virginia's interview with Sam Sorbo about homeschooling. It is of the utmost importance to all of us here at the Daily. signal to ensure you are receiving the best information about how you and your loved ones can stay healthy during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is an important message from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on what to do if you think you might

have COVID-19. People who are sick should stay home. You don't go to an emergency room, you don't go to a clinic, you get on the phone and you ask for advice and instructions from your physician. Then you use those instructions to determine what you're going to do. But the first reflex should not be, I feel sick. I'm going to go to an emergency room. I feel sick. I'm going to just go to a doctor's office. We need to physically separate. Ultimately, you may need, obviously, to see a physician or to go to a hospital. The first reflex should be to make a call to your physician. I am joined by Jude Swalbock, Research Assistant in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Jude, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you, Virginia, for having me on. This is great. Yeah, we're excited to hear a little bit more about the resources that the Heritage Foundation is offering in the area of education. So you all just released some new curriculum resources for students that are now learning from home, like so many are. So can you tell us a little bit about what these curriculum resources are? Yeah, definitely. The whole situation is really crazy. The pandemic has closed about 123,000 schools, public and private nationwide. That means about 50 million kids can't access their physical school building. Sports seasons have been terminated, school clubs are inaccessible, and teachers probably seem really far away. In some states, have even considered closing their schools for the remainder of the

school year. So families across the country have become sort of accidental homeschoolers. And this is really tough, since most of these families, didn't have the time to prepare for teaching at home like most traditional homeschoolers did. I was homeschooled and I remember my family prepping over the summer, ordering books and spending the summer getting ready. But most families, in light of the most recent, in the pandemic, they maybe had a weekend to get ready for having their kids at home. While at the same time, that can mean juggling remote work, canceling social events, maybe losing a job and having to shelter in place.

So this whole scenario is really quite unprecedented. And so it was really convenient. Heritage was prepping our curriculum resource initiative. And then as schools started closing, we launched it. And we realized we can take this initiative and really bring more resources to families, especially these families that are just having their kids at home and learning what it's like to educate them. So our curriculum resource initiative

is a collection of education resources for schools and families. These resources include school models, curricula, essays, research and other products that emphasize moral education, civics, and character development, and classical content. But we've also made sure to include just the resources that are newly available for, families as they learn to sort of do this mini homeschooling experiment. So in light of the pandemic, we've been updating this resource about twice a week

to ensure that families have the most up-to-date information on curricula and education resources. Moreover, many of these companies are offering their online products for free for a limited time. So it's really cool because we've seen the nation come together as this educational community and these organizations that build out curricula and have these education resources, whether it's lesson plans or projects for kids to do at home. And they're like, this is crazy. We need to give these kids something to do.

And so they're making it really easy and available for families. So some of the options we have in our curriculum library right now, some of our most recent additions, come from core knowledge. Core knowledge has a vast array. of resources. And right now, their language arts, history and geography, and science curricula are available for free. And more of the products are available for purchase in their online store. We also can, you know, you can also send your kids to Project Gutenberg.

Gutenberg has over 60,000 free online books. And some of the most popular titles are things like Grimm's fairy tales, pride and prejudice, little women, and Frankenstein. So maybe it's, you know, you need your kid to do some reading and there's a vast array of literature out there. So books are available and various curricula are available as well. But there's other aspects that I wouldn't have certainly expected off when I initially started looking into this. For example, Another great resource is the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is right down the street from the Heritage headquarters, actually. And DC's Shakespeare Library is offering seven full-cast audio recordings of plays like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. And the library is also providing free access to their video recording of Macbeth.

their plays are outstanding and excellent, and everybody, I feel like, could use a little bit of Shakespeare in their life, especially as some comedy in this, when things, see, feels kind of dark. But these are all free through July 1st. And then another really, this just sort of illustrates how innovative some of these, some organizations have been in meeting the needs of families. There's this online game called Minecraft. And it's really popular with kids.

And apparently they've made an education edition. And they've made it free through June 2020. And basically, it has over 50 lessons, STEM, project-based learning activities. And using the platform, kids can visit the International Space Station, explore the human eye, and tour DC's most memorable spots virtually. So there are loads of resources. we also just added a section on special education. There are college courses from,

so college courses on economics, courses on literature, or politics. So there really is just a vast array of learning resources online that we've accumulated and sort of put in one spot with our curriculum resource initiative. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, to kind of like you have everything from Shakespeare to Minecraft, I mean, just across the board, really a resource for everyone on there.

That's amazing and a huge ordeal to go about gathering all of those and putting them in one place so that a family that has, you know, kids in first grade and fifth grade and, you know, high school can all kind of have this one-stop shop to go in and grab these materials. That's so helpful. Exactly. So many, I mean, I just, I would totally understand that your average parents that are thrust in this situation where their schools are closed, they don't, they wouldn't necessarily know where to look first. So we just really wanted to bring all this information together and have this big sort of library of curriculum. So that, you know, it's not all the same thing either.

There's lots of different learning styles and different programs. So since not every, there's a, it's not a one size fits all for every kid. As a former teacher, I remember, you know, every kid learns differently. So the great thing about this curriculum library is that you might find something for one kid that works great and then something totally different from it for your other child. And you can really use it to tailor your kids' education. Yeah, that's so helpful. And let's talk a little bit about the other central resource you all have on the site. And that's school models.

And this includes various homeschool models. So can parents who are now teaching their child from home, how can they utilize these models? Well, the school models are, I think, a little less accessible right now, unfortunately. Some of them, as far as I can tell, I was just looking at these earlier. They're usually semester-long programs. And so I think they're in the middle of their school year moving forward. So I don't know if you can necessarily log into these accounts or into these programs and sort of hop on in the middle of the school year. But I'm sure if you reached out those organizations, they'd be able to let you know firsthand.

Awesome. But those curriculum, that's things that our parents can go and get right now and start instituting in their own homes and with their own kids. So where can our parents find those? So if you go to Heritage.org and you go to our curriculum resource initiative it should be right there under school models and then under curriculum library we have our other resources that might be a little more immediate.

Awesome. Jude, we really appreciate you joining us and just breaking this down and letting us know what those resources are and how we can easily start using them with our kids. We really appreciate it. Yeah, of course. It's my pleasure. Next up, we'll have Virginia's interview with Sam Sorbo about homeschooling.

Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. I am joined by Sam Sorbo, actress, radio talk show host, author, and homeschool mom. Sam, thank you so much for joining me. Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Now, I just, I love all the hats that you wear on a regular basis. You have your own nationally syndicated radio show, the Sam Sorboe Show. You've acted in a number of films and TV shows, including your most recent film, Miracle in East Texas. And you're also a homeschool mom, but not only that, also an advocate,

and you've written books on the subject. So I just want to begin by talking about your own, homeschooling journey a little bit. You published a book in 2016 titled They Are Your Kids, An Inspirational Journey from Self-Douder to Homestchool Advocate. So just tell me a little bit about that journey from being in self-doubt to not only homeschooling your kids, but really encouraging others to do so. Well, sure. I would tell you that, you know, I didn't think that I was up to the task. And I think that's actually the situation that a lot of parents today find themselves in, but the school wasn't getting it done. The school was actually failing my child. And I don't mean like giving him a failing grade. They just weren't teaching him properly. And so I was stuck between

a rock and a hard place. And I thought, well, I could fail homeschooling him and still end up with a better relationship than I have with my child now. And so I just decided to give it a try. I went to Kevin, my husband, and I said, I think I want to try this. And he was like, really? And I said, yeah, but just for the fall, just till Christmas, when we go on Christmas break, then I'll, you know, reevaluate. We'll see, you know, maybe there's a different choice. Maybe we'll go private school or something. And I would love to tell you that once I started down that road, I never looked back, but that would be a lie. And I talk about it in the book. I put the kids back into school about a year and a half later because I thought that I was inadequate and I just had such feelings of

self-doubt and that was a disaster and so I pulled them out after six weeks and I'll tell you part of the reason I pulled them out is because I sat down it was a hybrid so it was part homeschooling but part school I think two days of homeschooling a week that was guided by the teacher because the teacher knows best right that's what we're taught in school and and And then three days a week in a classroom situation at the school. And so after six weeks, I requested to meet with the teacher because I wanted to make sure that I was upholding my end of the bargain. Because the bargain is they are the educators and the child will get an education from them. And all I have to do is jump through whatever hoops they give me, right?

And I sat down with her and for five minutes, she told me about how well-behaved my child was. And for those five minutes, I had this little voice in my head saying, that's not why he's coming to school. That's not why he's at school. He's not at school to learn how to be well-behaved. That was my job. I taught him how to be well-behaved. And for heaven's sake, I know that he's a well-behaved child. Why is she telling me this?

And it just, I doubted again that I had made the right decision. And in fact, I'd made the wrong decision by sending them into that little school. And I'm glad that I pulled them back out again. And I had a friend tell me that wasn't it great that I could make that mistake so that I could learn once and for all that I was doing the best by my children. And how did you get over, though? Like you said, your whole reason of putting your child back into public education was this thought of, well, I'm not really adequate enough to be teaching them. And I know so many of our parents right now are in the same boat. they're looking at their kids algebra homework thinking, oh my gosh, I'm not qualified to be teaching

this. What would you say to them? Well, the thing that we tend not to learn in school is that the textbooks have all the answers in them. You don't actually need a teacher. That's like the big secret in all of this, is that the books, if they're well-written books, they have the lessons in them. And then, yeah, the teacher goes up on the board and she rewrites the lesson for you. up on the board. But you shouldn't actually need that. So if the parent is struggling with algebra, first of all, there's plenty of online resources, how to solve a quadratic equation, how to, you know, whatever it might be, there are plenty of resources online where there are videos that will walk you through the answer. But seriously, all you have to do is turn back a couple pages and the book will

walk you through the answer. And I mean, that kind of stuff is really just learning how to how to manipulate the terms to get the right sentence, basically. Math is a language, just like English or Latin or any of the other ones. And you just have to learn the grammar. You just have to learn how it works. And if parents are struggling with that, and I get that. I get, okay, parent, you grew up feeling completely inadequate in math. I'm here to tell you that part of the reason that that happened is because you were in school,

because the schools are very adapted teaching us how inadequate we are. But we're not inadequate. We're actually very capable. Look where you've come. Look how far you've come, right? And so now you have children. Do you want that feeling of inadequacy for your child? Yeah, this is so good.

Sam, I don't even have kids, but I'm feeling encouraged. Thank you. Good. So talk a little bit about how you, balance career and kids at home. I mean, you do so much, like we said, you have your radio show and you're an actress and you've written books and, you know, so many parents, they both work full-time. Mom and dad have jobs. Now they're both working from home. Their kids are home and they're trying to figure out, oh my goodness, how do I do this? How much time do I give to them?

My children every day with schooling. What would you say to them? So school for younger kids isn't more than three hours a day. Elementary school shouldn't be more than three hours of work a day for a child. That child needs to play. That child needs to learn how to cook and bake and do fun things and decorate cupcakes and goodness knows what, right? The child learns during play. And you can have guided play where they're playing with, you know, science manipulables or their learning about science by making a volcano or something like that, right? So for younger kids, it shouldn't

require that much time because if the child is putting in three hours, then you know darn well that the adult isn't putting in that three hours because the child needs to do some things on its own. So you set the child up with, here's your math workbook, I need three pages done, you have an hour, go for it. And then you have that hour to do stuff that you need to do. And if the child has questions, obviously, you need to take some time apart and answer those questions. I had a gentleman explained to me. His son was in seventh grade and was failing, and they were going to hold him back. And so for the following year, this guy, he was married, but his wife didn't want any part of homeschooling.

He switched his shift and worked nights so that in the mornings he could at homeschool his seventh grade or through eighth grade. through seventh grade and eighth grade in one year so that by the time ninth grade rolled around, the child was re-enrolled in the public school with his class. So, you know, don't tell me you can't get it done. Tell me that you don't feel like sacrificing. Okay, it's a choice, right? In theory, we've chosen to have kids. There are some more sacrifices to be made aside from just having the kids, right?

And so, you know, we have to prioritize. And you have to feel, you have to feel good about that. Whatever prioritization you make, you need to understand that you've done so. Yeah. Yeah. And you do have several children. How did you handle teaching different age levels at home? Sure.

So I will point out that I've done a number of videos and I'm continuing to to do videos. So if you go to samshorwa.com, you can find my videos there. And I've done a couple on multiple grade levels. So the great thing, there's a couple of great things about homeschooling with regard to multiple grade levels. And one of them is when I sit, when I would sit at the kitchen table with a fifth grader, a third grader, and a first grader, I would give the fifth grader the book, and I would say, you read the lesson. I would give the third grader his book, and I would say, I need you to look at what you did yesterday, basically to bring his memory about what he did yesterday, right? And then for the first grader, I would give her the book and I would say, this is what you're doing.

And I would give her the lesson. I would teach her the lesson about whatever it was, addition or whatever. And then I would send her, I wouldn't send her away. I would say, now you work on that. Then I'd go back to the fifth grader and I'd say, okay, you read the lesson. Show me how you do the first thing, the first problem. And he would show me. And I'd say, great, you're on your way.

go do the rest of them and then to the third grader right and so i go around it's like around robin you run around robin and if your third grader has a question but you're busy with the first grader you say see if our fifth grader knows the answer and then what happens is the kids start to teach each other and the fifth grader develops respect for the younger kids because he has to deal with them every day and he sees what they're going through and he's got empathy because he just went through it and the younger kids develop a kind of a respect for the older kid and you come together as a family. Now, what happens in school is the older child learns that he's better than the younger kids because school teaches ageism.

And that's not me. That's John Taylor Godot who says that. But I tend to agree. So is it a juggling act? Absolutely. But are there tremendous benefits from having multiple kids in multiple grade levels? Absolutely. And, you know, if you want to start with the, you know, with the middle child, then you say to the older child, go and play with the younger child and show her how to do, you know, how to, I don't know, work with the blocks or count pennies or, you know, whatever it is.

And what happens is after you get into the groove of things and you start doing a little research online, like if you go to coronavirus homeschooling.com, which is a new website that we've just cobbled together, we're still working on it, but we've got K through five. resources over there with lesson plans and a daily planner and tips and tricks and all kinds of videos and stuff. Once you get into the hang of it, it becomes sort of old hat. And then what happens is you make the remarkable discovery of what a joy it is to hang out with your kids. And it's fun. I love that. I love that idea of really empowering your older kids to take ownership and be helping the younger kids and the family. That it makes so much. sense and you're kind of achieving multiple things at once, not only on an education level, but also on a on a responsibility level. And that's so good. Right. And it takes some work.

And you know, you have to work at it, absolutely. But nothing, nothing worthwhile is ever free. I mean, come on. Haven't we learned that lesson yet? I hope so. So let's talk a little bit more about coronavirus homeschooling.com. If I go to the website, what are the resources that I should see? and how should I kind of approach navigating the website? Well, the first thing that you'll see is, you can do this. So it's an empowering website. It's a website that is geared to making parents feel less inadequate. Because let's face it, we all feel inadequate.

That's how we were taught to feel, sadly. I hate to say that, but it's just the truth. So you go to the website, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. It's self-explanatory. There are lesson plans. You can find things that are geared to specific ages. Not to age grade your child. Maybe you have a third grade, a third grade aged child who's working at a fifth grade level.

What a fantastic idea to give them fifth grade work, you know. When my son was in first grade, he finished first grade math on Halloween because I just gave him the workbook. And he would come to me and say, Mommy, can I do 30 pages today? I want to do 30 pages. be like, sure, you know what I mean? Like, that would be fine. I'm not going to stand in your way. And so, I mean, look, the idea with education, education should be about engaging the child's natural curiosity. Children are born naturally curious. I don't know about you, but going through school was torture for me. And I was a straight A student and I hated every minute of it. And I think

I had probably the biggest truancy file in the school because I would just refuse to go to school and my mother worked and so she would write me an excuse. And, you know, basically I felt sick and so she'd write me the excuse. So I never got in trouble because I was a straight-A student, but I hated it and I hated learning and I thought it was so hard. And I don't know why we are engaged in teaching our children that learning is hard. We should be showing them how easy it is. And the fact is, it is easy. So if your child comes to you, you know, I have a lot of people asking, you know, if you don't know the answer, like where are you going to find it, well, come on, you're an adult. You know how the internet works. You look at it, ask Siri for crying

out loud. Alexa, what's the answer to the, I mean, it's literally, it's that simple. And all we really are meant to do as homeschool parents is show our children how to find answers, show our children that learning is easy and, and model that behavior for them so that they understand that they can learn anything that they want at any time. That's how we empower children. not by teaching them that things are hard, but by teaching them that things are easy. And that way, when life gets hard, they're prepared for it because they have an attitude of, I can do this. So practical. So how do you handle teaching kids at home when there are a lot of distractions,

especially now with modern technology? So many have phones and various games to play and things like that. how do you really set those boundaries and allow them to hone in on schoolwork? This is actually a buried question because really the question that you're asking is, what about authority? And I've actually done a video on that and I'm going to do another one because what's happened is as parents, we didn't realize this, right? Because we kind of got suckered into this whole public school, government school thing.

but we seed our authority at the door of the schoolhouse. And the children know that because they can tell. Because when they bring home something for mommy to sign and they say, Mommy, teacher said you have to sign this and mommy signs it, then the child understands, oh, the teacher's in charge. Mommy's not in charge anymore. And so when you see that your authority is being challenged, I understand that that is engendered within that,

that relationship between you and the school and your child. So now your children are at home and there are distractions because they have iPhones or they have whatever tech, right? No, you turn off the tech. You want total control? You change the password. Okay? It's that simple. What? You change the password? Yeah, I had to change the password because it's just too distracting. But mom, there's no but mom. If you get your work done, I'll give you the password. If you don't get your work done, there's no password. But mom, all you have to do is calmly and coolly assert your authority because you still have the authority. You didn't realize that you gave it away. You still have it. So all you need to do is reassert it with your child.

Calmly. There's no fighting match. There's no screaming match. None of that. That's completely unnecessary. If your child wants to scream, then you need to deal with that because that's a discipline problem. That's not an authority problem. That's a dissonant problem. And so then you say, wow, I'm very sorry, you're so upset. This tells me that you shouldn't

have electronics. So I'm going to have to take your phone. Yeah. Right? Just very slowly, and you escalate it. But you don't escalate it in volume or tone. You just escalate the consequences and you assert the consequences. And I'm sad that, like, parents need to be taught that. I don't know.

It came naturally to me. But it's the truth, right? And so there are distractions. You think there aren't distractions in school? Holy smokes their distractions in school. That cute guy who's sitting across the aisle is a distraction in school. You have fewer distractions at home. But that means that you have to shut the TV off too, right?

you have to shut down the phone. You have to turn off your phone. You sit down with your kids. Make them the priority. You check your phone at the door too, right? Yeah. And when you can't, when it's, oh, well, daddy's got to work now, then you make that time. You carve that out.

You say, oh, daddy's got to work now. So I'm going to keep my notifications on because if I get this email that I'm waiting for, I've got to jump back at work. But until then, let me help you with this. And so you show your child time management. attention management techniques. What a great exercise for you too, right? Absolutely. This is a tremendous opportunity that we have. Yes, it's a burden. Yes, it's a hardship. Goodness, it's a tragedy, but it's also an opportunity. Let's use it as such, right?

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I think that is so powerful to think of what's going on in the world right now as an opportunity, because it's obviously scary. I mean, coronavirus, we don't know what the future holds. But what we do know is we've all been given an opportunity. Many of us have been given an opportunity to spend a lot more time with our families. And that is a gift. So you've mentioned a lot of resources, the videos and the website. Can you just kind of review for us where we can find all of these things? Of course. So coronavirus homeschooling.com is an online resource that's developed by Texas homeschool coalition. And right now it's K through five. It will be upper grades. If you need advice for upper grades right now, or just sort of in general, need to be encouraged, go to samsorbo.com.

All my videos are up there. There's also a link to the coronavirus homeschooling website there as well. And my gosh, there's so many homeschool resources available to you. And if you have teenagers and you're like, and you don't have anything that the school is sent home, by all means, go and get classic books that you can get them used on Amazon right now. Like, it just buy some classic, and set your children to reading classic literature, the classics, okay? So Jane Eyre, anything by C.S. Lewis, for heaven's sake, the Hobbit, a tale of two cities by Dickens, a passage to India.

Starship Troopers is a fantastic book. It's not a classic in that sense, but it's a fantastic book. Jane Eyre, The Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Law, Sculliver's Travels, the Screw Tate Letters is a phenomenal book. Phenomenal. George Orwell's 1984, A Rinkle in Time. There are so many fantastic books out there

that you can just set your children's minds and imagination ablaze through reading. And you know what? What is a fantastic blessing? Read with your kids. Take turns, read out loud, do voices. Have some fun with this, okay? You can't be your public school at home.

Thank goodness you can't be the public school at home. Okay. So don't try to be that. Be better than that. Be you at home as the educator. And you can be better than all of that. Put together. Because why? Because you love your kids.

This is so good. Sam, I love your fiery passion for homeschooling. And I hope some of our listeners are catching that passion. We just really appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for joining the Daily Signal. Thank you for having us. And that will do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks.

Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. Please leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts to give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Fully Arampersad, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.