The Homeschool Advantage Podcast

Intro  Greg Baran, Creator of The Baran Method. The Baran Method turns every child into a writing ninja. Kids learn the method in the handbook and then practice in the workbook. They recommend every child have their own handbook since they’ll be referring to it regularly throughout their school years. Yet once your child has their own Baran Method text, there’s no need to purchase a new one every...

Intro  Tina Hollenbeck, The Homeschool Resource Roadmap's creator, is a veteran homeschooling mom (i.e., educational entrepreneur) who passionately advocates for the merits of home education. She launched the research project that birthed the Common Core Project database and later created The Homeschool Resource Roadmap to serve the homeschool community she loves. Through this initiative, she seek...

Intro  B.J. Meurer CEO and Founder of Jesus, Help Me Parent help parents learn how to use a heart-based approach to parenting to empower their children with the skills they need to not simply change behaviors but to also change their hearts. As a husband and father, his wife and him have used a heart-based approach with all 8 of our children no matter what stage of development, whether or not they...

Intro  Marisa Donnelly, M.Ed., and Founder  Donnelly’s Daily Apple  — a tutoring and flexible learning company, website, educational resource platform, and collaborative network for teachers, students, home school programs, and parents.  She is also the founder & CEO of  Be A Light Collective , a virtual and San Diego-based writing/editing and content creation services business with an emphasi...

Intro  Madlen Sarkisyan CO-Founder of Children's Forest School for over 15 years and homeschooling Mama since 2020 Madlen has had a passion for nature and child development that compelled her to begin her journey.   Madlen is a seasoned classroom teacher with years of experience working alongside children. She has a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education and has presented at conferences acro...

Intro  Jennifer Payne Pierson CEO and Founder of Jentopia Farm, she has been animal crazy since the beginning of her time on this Earth. She was that kid who brought home stray dogs and cats and, well, maybe even a chicken once. So it's no wonder she studied Animal Science!  Jentopia Farm Experiences is safe and convenient for the whole family, and they keep the class sizes small to make sure stud...

Intro  Connie Williams Founder of Strugglers And Others, is an author and retired school teacher in California.  Strugglers and Others is a deep dive into life with ADHD and different learning difference and Connie is here to help you with your child's learning difference. She helps you answer the questions  How do I know if my child is dyslexic?  Is there a checklist of traits?  How do I know if...

Intro  Jamie Heston CEO and Founder of Jamie Heston Homeschool Consulting,  Jamie has been encouraging new homeschoolers and helping them get started for over 13 years. Jamie homeschooled for over 15 years and is very active in the San Francisco Bay Area homeschool community as an activities organizer, volunteer, and conference speaker. She has successfully launched her kids into college where the...

Intro  Kat Patrick CEO and Founder of Dreaming Spires Home Learning, Dreaming Spires has live, online courses designed and delivered by the subject experts themselves that do all the teaching. All tutors at Dreaming Spires are hand-picked by the CEO, Dr. Patrick, for their knowledge and proven teaching skills.  Additionally, they all have years of experience as home educators, giving you the confi...

Intro   Dave Peterson CEO and Founder of No Debt College, Dave is the father of a current college sophomore who, to date, has won over $80,000 in scholarship. And that amount keeps increasing. Dave now uses the same methodology the he developed for his son to coach other students to find and win scholarships so that they can achieve their own debt-free college dreams.  My mission is to help studen...

Intro  Deepti Jain Co-Founder of We Skoolhouse,  felt the challenge and constraints of accessing quality early childhood learning programs for children, and quickly realized she wasn’t alone. With an evident need, combined with a deeply rooted love for children and an understanding of how critical these early years are, Deepti and her partner embarked on a journey to elevate the quality of early c...

Intro  Lauren Bordeaux CEO and Founder of Homeschool HQ. The HomeschoolHQ app is a user-populated homeschool resource platform. The app was built by homeschoolers for homeschoolers to help build community. Users can add resources in multiple categories like co-ops, activities, camps, conventions, and field trip ideas. The app also has a Built-in location service to enable homeschoolers to find nea...

Intro  Svetlana Khmelnitsky CEO of Kids Look Listen Create. Each Kids Look Listen Create program is a multisensory experience that exposes young children to classical music and fine art through active engagement. It stimulates imagination and encourages unlimited interpretations of works of art and classical music. It celebrates childhood creativity and play by offering creative movement, open-end...

Intro   Monica Cuquerella is the CEO and Founder of Active Play. When Active play was born, Monica was running workshops, extracurricular and after school classes, birthdays party, corporate events, camps, messy play sessions, phonics and private lessons, and much more.  Active play  provides great experiences for you& your family that shape your little child life. Their motto is learning thro...

Intro   Jane Engel CEO of Angel Educators, she started tutoring after she retired from the classroom, due to the overwhelming amount of students that were struggling with reading. As she searched for educational materials to support almost everything she found online didn't comply with the approach she learned during her training, and over the years Jane ended up making hundreds of worksheets of h...

Intro   Tiffany Philips Founder of Learning Made Easy Publishing was inspired by the negative impact virtual learning had on young children during and since the pandemic. She believes that it’s incredibly difficult to replicate the benefits of an in-person learning environment to young kids in a digital space. After seeing how ineffective virtual learning was for young kids to grasp fundamental co...

Intro   Peter Edwards is Director of San Diego Liberal Arts Academy.  SDLAA employs an "upside down classroom" model, in which live class meeting time focuses on hands-on activities, collaborative learning, interactive discussions, projects, and simulations.  Background research and assignments are completed independently, with teacher support available. SDLAA strives to focus on teaching students...

Intro   Marcela CEO and Founder of Calming Bee, Calming Bee is designed to be a Balance for children.  Their class routine here is designed with the purpose to create a harmonious balance between structured and non-structure activities. Children are set up for success. When children are engaged they get to explore, think outside the box, they are creative and free to be!     At the Calming Bee chi...

Intro   Gabrielle Hughes a Tutor and an Autism advocate, Gabrielle got her start in by teaching sewing lessons when she was a homeschool senior. She taught classes at a local home school group and discovered she had a passion for teaching. When she was 19 she discovered she was most likely autistic and was able to get an official diagnosis at 21. This was a huge revelation and helped explained so...

Intro   Sensei Jan Stockton, she is a 3rd degree black belt, and has been a leader in the martial arts for over 35 years.   She is the founder of Great Start Karate and co-founder of Karate West in Washington state, one of the largest martial arts schools in the country.  The Great Start Karate hosts in-person and virtual programs! Our programs are exclusively designed for kids ages 4 to 12. Our m...

Intro   Erin Madden, BSc AHN Dietetics is the founder and CEO of Happy Kids Nutrition Academy. At Happy Kids Nutrition Academy, they believe that good food starts with good education. That’s why they offer online nutrition and food science courses to teens and preteens. Their programs are designed to give kids the skills and knowledge they need to make healthy choices about food. They offer a vari...

Intro   Katie Kelly CEO, Director of Learning and Platform Development  at Cresconova  Cresconova is a nonprofit organization that fosters critical thinking, social-emotional learning, collaboration and problem solving. The world has changed drastically over the past 20 years, but so much of what is taught in the classroom has remained the same.   At Cresconova they believe children should learn h...

Intro   Leon Olguin CEO and Teacher of At Home With Music, He is a classically trained pianist with over 3 decades of experience in playing classical music, pop, rock, and jazz.   His career as a professional musician and record producer afforded him the flexibility to homeschool her daughter for 5 years back in the 90s from grades 6 through 10! He has a tremendous amount of admiration and respect...

Intro  Michele Holmes CEO of is a veteran homeschool mom of 30 years. Her desire is to help you give your student the best home education you can for their high school years. She helps homeschool parents create high school credits that meet their homeschooled teen's needs and interests. You'll get clear on credit requirements and work out a plan for the next four years so you can confidently prepa...

Intro   Teresa Wiedrick CEO of Capturing The Charmed Life, author of Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer, Theresa offers homeschool life coaching, helping you shed what’s not working so you can show up in your homeschool (& life) authentically, purposefully, and confidently. Her coaching helps you  Transform your frustration, confusion, and overwhelm to clarity, confidence, and p...