The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

If there's one subject that can get a homeschool mom down, it's usually math. Listen in on this conversation between Mystie and Virginia Lee about getting math done, keeping it organized, and helping our kids progress at their own pace.

So this season is about rest. All the rest of the episodes are going to be clips from a workshop that I did on getting rest as a mom because sometimes that just seems impossible. So, I thought today we would kick off that season by having a quick conversation about specific ways that we rest and recuperate from an intense day with the kids. And, I think that thinking about it in terms of recuperat...

Somehow, Berry makes you feel affection for all mankind, even those who aren’t likable and maybe even those who are wicked but especially for those who are foolish — which is each one of us. “Membership” with one another is the underlying thread in them both, and these novels have given that word much more depth and richness than I had ever seen in it.

As I’ve written before, the goal of education is virtue , and Karen’s first chapter jumps right into the heart of it. She proves that virtue – right acting – needs to be the end we are pursuing when we educate children (and also ourselves), and demonstrates this is the classical notion about what education is for.

Too often, when we start making goals around keeping house better or getting more done, our focus shifts too far and we start seeing these means as ends – which means anything that gets in the way of our ends is a problem to be overcome or a frustration to bear resentfully. And too often, that means grumbling against our husbands or shouting at our kids. We could reach our goals, we think to ourse...

I recently finished Laurie Bestvater's The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason , and I loved it. I bought it based on Brandy's reviews , and I'm glad I made the leap-of-faith, even though I am only a Charlotte Mason admirer and not a strict adherer. I think this book, with the history behind commonplace books and Mason's implementation of it, demonstrates more clearly than ever tha...

One way we give in to perfectionism is to not start unless we know we can finish and get the results we want. But as busy moms, that is rarely possible. We can’t put things off until the perfect moment, because that moment will not come. Instead, try embracing 15 minute chunks.

It’s easy to smile at our newborns, smile at a cute three-year-old antic, smile at our bigger kids when they volunteer to help out. It’s good our life as mother provides us these opportunities to smile, because smiling is good for us and it is good for our kids.

“Cross to carry” is a phrase used to talk about suffering as a lot in life, but this portrayal of that cross, that suffering, as an active things in our life struck me. I have always pictured “cross to carry” as a passive sort of thing. But difficulty as a purposeful, active thing in our life, rather than a weight holding us down, is a much more biblical picture.

It’s paralyzed us all. Perfectionism. We wait to start moving forward with our plans because we aren’t sure if we’re doing it right. We aren’t sure they will work. We aren’t sure we like the colors we picked. We pull back and reformat the page or change the app we’re using. We make the list over again to ensure we didn’t miss anything.

If you are starting out homeschooling with a bright-eyed little 5-year-old – a toddler tagging along and another on the way – you eat up the stories of those ahead of you on the journey. When I was in that spot 8 years ago, I had my mom who had homeschooled 7. I also had other local older moms who let me browse their bookshelves and ask them questions. And then on my computer screen, I had Cindy R...

Season 11: Attitude Organization Tips When we recite a handful of mottos over and over again, and conform our choices to them, we more and more naturally live them out even when we don’t use them. They become the way we simply do things. The best way to form new habits is to take on the identity as the kind of person who … leaves places better than they were, smiles and starts, or doesn’t let a mi...

What should a homeschooling mom read? Mystie and Virginia Lee each recommend their top three book picks.

tips for organizing our attitude because it often needs it with stuff day to day.

Certainly we are to watch and train the habits of our children and our household, but that is not all the work to be done. The confirmation of the habit into a character is work done by the person himself when he is independent. The test of character comes when each person is an adult – will he confirm the habits he was brought up to? Will he practice what he has been taught?

When we plan, we need to be planning to work within our vocations.

It is by means of language that we both procure and use wisdom – for does not thought require language? So practice in speaking and in using language (today we would add writing as a method of discourse) is of upmost importance not just to learn to communicate effectively with others, but even to be able to understand within our own minds.

The real secret of making your planners work is actually looking at it.

Education in the broad, unspecialized sense is summed up as how to obey and how to rule. One who rules without obeying is a tyrant, one who obeys without ruling is a slave. And both truly all begins when young children learn to obey, because that requires the beginnings of learning self-control.

Planning is not always going to be the same. We need to be flexible according to our needs at the time we're in.

Mothers must be both teachers and learners. As mothers home with our children all day every day, we are their primary influence, especially in the younger years. We can’t just wing it and expect great results or satisfaction. If we can be always learning, always growing, always stretching, we will be happier and we will be modeling for our children the life we’re asking them to embrace.

Learn what your planner really is supposed to be doing for you.

If we start off on this homeschool journey with no idea what education is, why we’re doing it, or where we want to be at the end, we’ll flounder, frustrated and fickle. We’ll have no idea whether what we’re doing is working or if we’re doing a good job. We have to have a measuring stick to determine if we’re straightened out and moving forward. A measuring stick has a beginning and an end.

Productive procrastination is doing anything except what you really ought to be doing.

The one thread that strings through all the classical educators from Perrin to Plato is that education’s aim is virtue – not a diploma, not a job, not a stack of accomplishments. Our children – and even ourselves – should be better people, inherently, because of the education we received, no matter what circumstances or results come afterward.