Danielle Youngdale

Dear Homeschool Mom, As you look to the start of another homeschool year, I know it is tempting to be fully in this moment in time. You are thinking about this year’s curriculum, the daily schedule, the first read aloud, how to manage co-op with nap schedules, potty training and learning the multiplication tables, sports practices and checking everything off your school to do list every day. But I’d like to invite you to look past those things for just a moment.I’d like you to look far past...

What deserves a place on the family calendar, and what doesn’t? This hasn’t been a one-time question in our household. Every so often, I notice the calendar looking busy and the days feeling uncomfortably full, and I know it’s time to hone in again on our priorities and our limitations. When that happens, I come back to a few questions. Are we protecting enough margin to actually enjoy one another? Are the things filling our calendar helping us become the kind of people we hope to be? Are we...

Our Dearest Homeschool Mom, It’s almost the end, we’ve almost made it. There’s a particular kind of tired that only an end-of-the-year-homeschool-mom knows. It’s not the tired of a hard day, it’s the tired of a whole year. A whole year of being the teacher, the scheduler, the encourager, the driver, the lunch lady and the noon duty. It’s a full-body, soul-deep tired that deserves to be honored, not rushed past. So before you open that new curriculum catalog, before you sketch out next...