August 08 Edition | Heart of the Matter

12 Essential Back-To-School Ideas For Mom

1. Take inventory of your supplies This is a two part process. First, you must go through all of your materials. Throw out broken crayons, dried out ink pads, crusty paint bottles, things you’ve been saving for over a year that...

Only “Actual Teachers” Should Read This!

A virtual school had an advertisement with a parent testimonial stating: “We have found the K12 curriculum to be far above anything we could have done on our own, plus we have the added advantage of an actual teacher for...

Snippets of Time

What if I dropped by your house one day and asked if you could spare me 3 minutes and 12 seconds of your time? How would you respond (after you got past the oddity of my question)? Would you be too busy? Or would you welcome me...

Public school administrator calls for homeschool exposé

According to Rory Ryan, publisher and editor of the Times Gazette, an Ohio newspaper, a public school administrator challenged the paper to do an exposé on homeschooling. This seems like a rather odd thing for a public school...

Give Me The Simple Life

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh As I pondered about this month’s article, I wondered...

Let the Games Begin

It’s that time again….as this issue of Heart of the Matter goes to publish, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games will begin in Beijing, China. This month we’ll watch the world unite for a time, in the name of competition. What do...

Getting Out of the Way

When reading the Bible, I sometimes laughingly think (with all due respect to the authors of how-to books on the market) about how God presented us with the original home education model. Jesus’ ministry catered to every...

Nature Study – Relaxed and Fun!

This past spring, we finally began doing weekly nature studies. All along, I’ve had good intentions, and we’ve done some lovely nature readings but actually getting OUTDOORS to do our studies just wasn’t happening. I think...

Teaching Emotions Through Conversation

One of the biggest obstacles parents face when homeschooling a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is how to teach appropriate socialization. This becomes just as important as the core subjects like math, language arts,...

Homeschool Built on Christ

So You’ve Chosen to Homeschool Maybe you recently made this decision, or maybe you’ve been homeschooling for years, yet you feel unsure, lost, confused, and are left wondering, “Why, exactly, am I doing this?...