%post_title% | Heart of the Matter | A daily blog, quarterly magazine, and online conference host, meeting the needs of homeschooling families

You Have Need of Endurance

The Christmas season is upon us (and yes, I do mean upon us—ha!) Soon, it will be time to turn our thoughts toward a new year and all that means. One thing I know for sure, mama … you have need of endurance. Is that a...

A Mid-Year Tuneup for Your Homeschool

It’s that time of year … the most wonderful time of the homeschool year … Christmas break! In our house, that means a whole month of no school. A month of playing in jammies, of enjoying our Christmas trees, baking...

Ta-Da!

Happy September! There are back to school signs everywhere, cool breezes are finally blowing, and it’s almost time for my favorite drink at Starbucks. (I’m a purist, and have strict rules regarding the consumption of...

Children’s Literature: Instruction and Delight

In the novel Don Quixote, Cervantes states through his main protagonist that the ” . . . ultimate end of writing is both to instruct and delight” (476).1 Since Cervantes is credited with the invention of the modern...

Homeschool for Less This Year

I’ll admit it … I’m a curriculum junkie. I love books, first of all. Give me words on a page and I’m a happy camper. Reading was always my ticket to escape as a child and I used it often, wishing for a kinder, gentler...

A Homeschool Mama’s Summer

You’ve worked hard all year, mama. The math workbooks are (mostly) filled out, the fascinating biographies have been enjoyably read, the sentences have been diagrammed, and you’ve closed the book on another year of...

E-Book Review: Back to Homeschool

Everywhere you look on the internet and in the blogosphere there is someone telling you how to do something. They could be giving me advice on marriage, gardening, cooking, home decorating and yes, even home education. A...

The Homeschooler’s Simple Guide to Choosing Curriculum

This fall officially marks my twenty-first year as a mother and my sixteenth as a curriculum-purchasing homeschooler. I am also a renegade at heart, which means I’m hesitant to do what I’m told, what everyone else is doing,...

How to Homeschool the Early Years

Over the past several weeks, I’ve had many opportunities to be with sweet moms who are homeschooling young children. Over and over the same question comes up, phrased slightly differently each time but with the same basic...