Tony Silva

I tagged a recent review of The Old Schoolhouse magazine's online edition, "the best just got better". That's not exactly true -- at least not for everyone. Yes, in my experience, The Old Schoolhouse magazine is the best of its kind on the market. That's a lot coming from a guy who's, well, a guy. It's also a lot coming from a guy who has written for some of their "competition."

There are no incredibly bad national homeschooling magazines. However, when my wife got her hands on a sample copy, she was impressed and she encouraged me to read it She pointed out that it was far more practical than others we have read in the past. She was right! Like most homeschool magazines, TOS is somewhat theme oriented. However, it still manages to give ample treatment to curriculum teaching methods and other things of interest to home educators with some of the most innovative ideas I have seen.

The magazine reflects the creativity of people with a natural bent toward marketing -- and who haven't heard of the philosophy that something cannot be done if nobody's tried it before. That said, I think those who want a solid grounding in homeschool basics will be right at home. This is a magazine you can enjoy for its in depth coverage as well as some light content. While it is filled with links and ads to various resources, it doesn't come across as a huge shopper with a few homeschool articles thrown in to keep the reader involved. Instead, much of what would be ad content in other magazines is actually quite practical. Then again, I'm biased. Almost anything, ad or article, that has "www." somewhere in the text holds my attention. There are plenty of links in every issue for those who want to dig deeper into a subject or learn more about a product.

Time for a shameless plug. Recently, subscribers to The Old Schoolhouse magazine were invited to apply for membership in a marketing focus group. After their screening process, 100 bloggers and online writers were selected to link reviews of products featured in the magazine to The Old Schoolhouse's Web site. I was one of the 100 selected. According to a member of the TOS editorial staff, I made the cut because I'm a guy (not a lot of those out there?) and because I lean toward the technical. Actually, I think the staffer said I wrote over their heads. And I thought it was because I had the integrity to honestly tell readers what my concerns were with a TOS product we reviewed last month -- "Great product, but not for the reasons you'd expect".

Seriously, the focus group debutted as "The Homeschool Crew" and the folks in the group provide a diverse collection of reflections on some of the up and coming products in the homeschool community as well as some you will be familiar with.

I also wanted to tell you about The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Fall Special. You can get two years of the magazine, 6 fabulous physical gifts (no downloads!) worth over $120, plus the current issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine that is full of ideas for the new school year, so you start receiving your magazine in a flash! To take advantage of the offer, follow this link.

It really is one of their best deals ever and you don't want to miss out. In fact, they've got a really cute Homeschooling with Heart tote bag (valued at $13.95) for the first 1000 to subscribe. About half of them are gone, but you should still be able to get one if you hurry! (They will remove the info from the subscription page when the bags are all gone.) The total value is over $212, but you receive it all for only $39 - 50% off of cover price! Plus subscribers get their online monthly Teacher's Toolbox which focuses on a different topic each month, giving you words of encouragement, hands-on teaching ideas, book recommendations, field trip ideas, and a bonus download item. Again, to take advantage of the offer, follow this link.


Hint: If you're a guy, you may want to let your wife subscribe or at least give the lovely tote bag to her. It clashed with my cammo sun shorts.

I look forward to including some product reviews for TOS here, and to making a contribution to their community through the magazine's resoruces for homeschoolers.


If you haven't tried the magazine yet, be sure to give it a try when they're running these promotional offers. As I mentioned earlier, that's how we got started.

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