Do you ever look around at your homeschool and wonder if you just need *more*—more curriculum, more systems, more perfectly planned schedules—before it will finally feel like it’s working?
Friend, we want to gently remind you: you don’t have to be a superhero mom who teaches every subject flawlessly, handles every big emotion perfectly, and somehow raises kids who always love learning and love the Lord without any struggles.
When you put biblical discipleship first, you can let go of trying to do it all—and start enjoying teaching at home alongside your kids. At the free, five-day online Homeschool Teaching Summit (coming October 19–23, 2026), you’ll be encouraged to lean on the Lord and …
You can grab your free ticket now at homeschoolsummits.com/teaching for five days of practical, God-centered help from real parents, authors, and experts—so you can step into a homeschool rhythm filled with more joy and peace for your whole family.
Praying God’s richest blessings over you and your homeschool!
Pip: Pollywog’s Place Blog is here to remind you that the secret to surviving a large, loud, chaotic household might just be waking up before it does.
Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog makes the case for carving out quiet time before the day takes over — morning routines, sleep habits, and what it actually costs a mom to skip them. Let’s start with why mornings matter so much.
Successful days start with successful mornings
Pip: The central tension here is one a lot of parents will recognize — you want to start the day with intention, but the household has other plans. The question the post is really asking is: what does it take to protect even thirty minutes for yourself, and is it worth the effort to try?
Mara: The post is direct about what’s actually at stake. The framing is this: “This 30-45 minutes gives me a chance to refresh my patience and get my thoughts together before I am bombarded with so many questions that I can’t even think straight.”
Pip: So it’s not a luxury. It’s maintenance. The quiet time is what makes the rest of the day functional — for the kids, for the household, for everyone who needs something from Mom before breakfast.
Mara: And the post is honest about the obstacles. Getting up early only works if you get to bed at a decent time, which means negotiating with a toddler who’d rather sleep sideways across two adults. The domino goes all the way back to the night before.
Pip: There’s a whole infrastructure described here — setting up the coffee maker the night before, using the dim light over the kitchen sink instead of the overhead so the kids don’t register it as a green light to start the day. It’s a stealth operation.
Mara: The quiet time itself isn’t idle either. The post lists Bible study, menu planning, grocery lists, school plans, blogging, or reading — things that feel peaceful, as the post puts it, “when I can fully concentrate on them without worrying about why the baby is crying.”
Pip: The post also links back to an earlier piece on mornings from 2016, which means this is a habit that has been lost and rebuilt more than once. That’s actually the most useful detail — it normalizes the cycle of falling off and starting again.
Mara: And the post closes with something worth sitting with: the biggest reason to get up isn’t productivity, it’s showing up well for the family. A few minutes with God and a plan for the day, and the whole household runs a little better.
Pip: Quiet mornings, it turns out, are loud in their consequences.
Mara: The throughline here is really about margins — the small buffers that keep a busy household from running on empty.
Pip: Build the buffer the night before, protect it in the morning, and apparently the elephants can wait until after the coffee.
Pip: Welcome to Pollywog’s Place Blog — where the questions are ancient and the stakes are genuinely personal.
Mara: Susie at Pollywog’s Place Blog has been writing about things that actually matter at home and in the heart — what it means to know your own worth, and what it looks like to tend a household with intention. Let’s start with identity and what scripture says you deserve.
Biblical Worth And Identity
Mara: The posts in this segment are asking a question that sounds simple but cuts deep: do you actually believe you are worth something, and does that belief shape who you let into your life?
Pip: The anchor text opens with Proverbs 3:15, and then the post speaks directly to daughters: “You deserve to be loved, but not just loved like the general idea of love, you deserve to be cherished.”
Mara: That distinction matters. The post is not talking about settling for affection that shows up occasionally — it is talking about being someone’s active priority, the person they protect and keep in their thoughts.
Pip: And the post is practical about it. Don’t chase, don’t lower your standards to accommodate someone else’s excuses, and don’t assume you can change a person — that kind of change, the post argues, comes from above, not from patience or pressure.
Mara: The companion piece, “Cherished,” works through exactly what that word means in practice. It defines cherishing as making another person your priority relationship — shown through daily small acts, touch, listening, encouragement, and showing respect in public as well as in private.
Pip: So the two posts are really one argument in two directions: know what you deserve, and then actually demonstrate it when you’re in a relationship.
Mara: That thread — worth informing behavior, not just self-esteem — carries right into how those values play out inside a home.
Home And Family Stewardship
Pip: If the first segment was about knowing your value, this one is about what you do with it once you’re building a life — specifically, what it means to take a home seriously as a responsibility, not just a location.
Mara: “Keeper of The Home” opens with Proverbs 24:3-4, then states the core claim plainly: “We are responsible for our homes and that our homes and families should be a priority for us. It means that we are each responsible for setting the tone of our homes.”
Pip: Setting the tone. That is a bigger job than it sounds — it covers what comes in, what goes out, whether people inside feel safe, and whether guests find rest there.
Mara: The post is also honest about the gap between the ideal and the reality. It names the experience of being a single mother working multiple part-time jobs and still holding the household’s emotional climate as the first priority. The practical sections — meal planning, cleaning routines, budgeting, time management — are offered as tools, not judgments.
Pip: It reads less like a lifestyle prescription and more like someone handing you the manual they wish they’d had at twenty-two.
Mara: The post closes by framing all of it as intentional work. A keeper of the home is not something you drift into — it is a decision made deliberately, then built on through routines, prayer, and the goal of passing those habits forward to the next generation.
Pip: Worth knowing. Cherished at home.
Mara: Both threads come back to the same idea — that what you believe about your value shapes everything downstream, from the relationships you accept to the household you build.
Pip: And apparently the work is never quite finished. Next time, more from Pollywog’s Place.
I recently came across something that made me question why I keep doing what I’m doing for FREE… I didn’t question it for long as GOD reminded me that I once was the person who couldn’t afford even $1.00 for access to recipes or an ebook full of tips to help me with whatever situation I was facing.
It’s that time of year again for us… time to get the next school year planned out. We technically finished up our 2025-2026 school year before Easter but I’ve been busy with the garden and such so I am just now getting around to making our new schedule.
It is always SO TEMPTING to take a few months off to just focus on this house but I know from past experience that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE.
Having a little extra wiggle room in our schedule means that we can take off more time around the holidays and I can take a week off for new grandbabies too!We also love taking the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to just reflect on the reason for the season and it gives us time to do fun things with the family too.
A couple of years ago we switched to more of a Charlotte Mason-style approach and it was GREAT for the most part. We still have a couple of kids who just hate anything to do with math so that’s been a little challenging but we’re making progress. We’ve also really enjoyed using some of the FREE courses with Under the Home Homeschool, even though some of the YouTube links no longer work. They have a lot of great lessons though!
I will also be pulling some lessons from the Old Fashioned Education site. They have a TON of great resources and FREE printable lesson plans for every grade! You can also check out the Plain and Not So Plain Website for FREE resources and complete lesson plans!
I had a rainy day to gather my thoughts for the new year and I put that to good use. Last year, I also purchased a Montessori Curriculum for Shyanne so we will continue to use that with her, while including her in some of our other lessons too. Shyanne has LOVES being a part of our school routine and she has already completed the Easy Peasy All-in-One Preschool program. She’s also been loving the printable packets from Living With Eve.
