Welcome back to another episode of the BIG Home Ed Conversations Podcast. Kelly and Ashley are continuing Season 5’s “topic from a hat” home education challenge — where they pick a theme, explore it with their kids for the week (without telling each other what they’re doing), then come back to compare notes, resources, and real-life learning.

This week’s topic: Food Around the World — and it takes them way beyond “trying new recipes”, into geography, history, climate, farming, food miles, hunger relief, and how food choices impact communities and the planet.

This season is sponsored by Strew — a home education logging app developed by a UK home educating mum and her brother. They’ve given us access to the app and we’re using it to track what we’re doing and share what we’re enjoying as we go. This week, Ashley has been focusing on the book tracking function:

• You can scan a book and log it as an activity (great for read-alouds and independent reading)
• Ashley created a “dummy child” called Library to track her home education book collection
• She tags books with keywords (country, geography, history, etc.) so she can quickly see what she already owns
• It helps prevent over-buying or borrowing loads from the library when you don’t need to

Kelly’s also using Strew to support a reading challenge with her kids and to look back over time at:

• What they’ve read
• How their reading level and text complexity is developing

You can download Strew on iOS and Android. https://strew.app/
Use code bighomeed when you subscribe (so it links back to where you found it).

• Why “Food Around the World” can go in a million directions (and why that’s the magic of it)
• Food, travel, culture, and how communities grow/produce food differently
• How climate, geography, and environment shape what people eat
• How food connects to history (including Roman influences in Britain)
• Why this topic can be tricky with neurodivergent / selective eaters — but still totally doable
• Food miles, carbon impact, and the surprising footprint of an everyday breakfast
• Soil health, farming, and how modern agriculture affects nutrients, rivers, and habitats
• Hunger relief, food banks, and how food distribution works behind the scenes
• Local economy: where your food money goes (and why local matters)

Listen to find out next weeks topic!

Instagram + TikTok: @bighomeedpodcast
Website + weekly blog/resources: bighomeedpodcast.com If you’re joining in with our weekly topic challenge, come and tell us what you did — we’d love to hear your ideas and share them with the community.

Welcome back to the BIG Home Ed Conversations Podcast. In this episode, Kelly and Ashley share how they tackled a surprisingly big topic with their kids: capital allocation and investing — including spending vs saving, risk, impulse buying, and how money habits form early (for better or worse).

In this episode, we chat about:

• Why this topic matters (and why most of us weren’t taught it!)
• Helping kids understand spend / save / invest / give
• Kelly’s “family token currency” experiment (spend pot, save pot, investment pot + family pot)
• How risk works (and why investing can go up or down)
• Monopoly as a not-so-surprisingly good money-learning tool
• Bank accounts, budgeting, and setting realistic goals
• Impulse buying (and a family challenge to reduce it)
• Why values matter: experiences vs “stuff” (and how everyone prioritises differently)

Every week we will be picking a new topic from the hat that we wouldn't often choose to cover with our kids - we go away and give it a whirl, coming back to share what we did - bit like home ed topic speed dating!

Listen to find out next week's topic!

Resources mentioned:
Finance With Kids Podcast (Episode 24: Practicing Smart Spending Habits and Avoiding Impulse Buying)
FI for Kids podcast (Financial Independence for Kids)
Teachers Pay Teachers: “Personal Financial Literacy” (3rd grade math unit)
Usborne Lift-the-Flap Questions & Answers About Money
Know Nonsense Guide to Money: An Awesome Fun Guide to the World of Finance
Investing for Kids: From Piggy Banks to Portfolios
Why Money Matters (Deborah Meaden)
Monopoly - any version

Season 5’s paid sponsor is Strew — a home education logging app developed by a UK home educating mum and her brother. They’ve given us access to play around with the app over the next few weeks, and we’ll be reviewing it honestly as we go.

So far, we’re especially loving:
The feed (a scrollable timeline of what you’ve been up to)
Uploading photos and adding notes (so your memories don’t just sit in your camera roll with no context)
The ability to scan books (and other learning) into the app
The optional AI feature that can help categorise what you’ve logged (e.g., literacy, maths, etc.) and generate “study points”
If you want to try Strew, use code 'bighomeed' when you subscribe. - Head to https://strew.app/ to download it now on IOS and Android.

Follow + connect
Instagram + TikTok: @bighomeedpodcast

Website + weekly blog/resources: bighomeedpodcast.com

If you’re joining in with our weekly topic challenge, come and tell us what you did — we’d love to share your ideas with the community.

Welcome back to Season 5 of the BIG Home Ed Conversations Podcast.

In this short “we’re back!” episode, Kelly Rigg (home ed mum of two, qualified mindset + ADHD coach) and Ashley Vanerio (home ed mum of three, former primary teacher) share what’s been happening behind the scenes, why we took a break, and what’s coming up next.

This season we’re doing something a bit different: each week we’ll pick a random topic out of a hat, go away and explore it with our kids (without telling each other what we’re doing), then come back to compare notes.

We’ll share what worked, what flopped, what resources we found, what questions our kids asked, and what unexpected learning popped up along the way.

We’re also excited to share that Season 5 is sponsored by Strew — a UK-built home education app created by brother and sister duo, Kayley & Woody as fellow home educators - they really know what we need from a home ed app!

We’ll be trying out features across the season (photos, activity logging, book scanning and more) and reporting back honestly as we go.

Take a listen to find out what we pulled from the hat first then come and join the conversation on social media, and tell us what you do with this week’s topic.

Season 5 is Sponsored by: Strew App - Download here: https://strew.app/ and use code: 'bighomeed' so they know where you found it! Follow Strew on Social media - @strewapp on Instagram and TikTok.

Follow us: Instagram + TikTok: @bighomeedpodcast Website: bighomeedpodcast.com