Lara's Top 10 Books for Homeschool Moms

Prepare your mom heart for homeschooling with these 10 books

So you've decided to homeschool!

Are you nervous? Overwhelmed? Just plain scared? It's totally normal and yes, you can do this!

Homeschooling is just an extension of parenting. You teach your children everyday. They learn values, behaviors, attitudes, faith, and life skills from you whether you homeschool or not. And that is really the scary part (if you're like me and fall short a lot).

The academics are not so tough when you realize that homeschooling is more about tending to their hearts and instilling in them a love of learning. If you neglect their hearts, all the knowledge in the world will never equate to wisdom.

So here are my top 10 homeschooling books to help prepare your mama heart, both for training your children in the way they should go and for academia, to homeschool.

I hope you find some that resonate and really help to calm any anxious feeling you may be having so you can focus on the excitement of the amazing journey you are undertaking with your little ones. You can do this, mama!

I am grateful to be of service and bring you quality homeschool and homemaking content. I receive compensation through subscribers, curriculum sales, and affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lara’s Top 10 Books to Prepare Your Heart to Homeschool

• Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must be Done This book by Misty Winkler addresses one of the most common struggles for moms who are home educating- the home and the keeping of it. “Let’s be real. Homemaking is harder than we thought it’d be. Others make it look easy, but we end the day exhausted with so much left to do. We feel unprepared.

  This book will shift your perspective on homemaking and guide you through six steps to competently and cheerfully manage your home.

  Our homes matter because people matter, and homes are where people are built. Being overwhelmed and paralyzed by perfectionism is optional. We can do better.If you are a Christian woman who wants to honor God in the way you keep house, this book is for you, no matter how much clutter or chaos currently surrounds you.”

• How to Have a HEART for Your Kids is a great resource for every mom. Having a heart for the things of God, Enriching your marriage, Accept your children, Release them to God, Teach them the Truth. All that goodness for your own heart in one small book. It's another one you'll want to keep on your resource shelf for those days when we might need a reminder of why we are doing this.

• Awaking Wonder - this lovely book is part devotional, part encouragement, and part guide from the beloved Sally Clarkson. “In our outcome-based, technologically driven society, it is easy to lose sight of the innocence and uniqueness of each child. Sally Clarkson helps parents unearth the hidden potential of their child's imagination, learning capacity, and ability to engage authentically with the world using the same principles that guided her.”

• A Charlotte Mason Education is a wonderful look at the gentle art of learning as described by Charlotte Mason. It includes lots of nature study and allowing your child to develop at their own pace and to learn things naturally. Lots of wonderful fine arts are part of a CM education and living books are a must.

• The Busy Homeschool Mom's Guide to Romance Just trust me on this one. You will find yourself exhausted, stressed, or cranky at some point and this book is a great reminder that without taking care of our marriage and letting our children see us actively doing so, we are doing a disservice to our spouse, our children, and to God. So take a few minutes to glean some wisdom and encouragement from veteran homeschool mom (and now grandmom) Heidi St. John. Your hubby will be glad you did ;)

• For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School : This book is one I reread almost every year. It is such an encouragement and admonition to do this job well that I cannot recommend it enough!

• Educating the Wholehearted Child A resource for Christian homeschooling families that covers everything from getting started to biblical disciple to discipleship. This book is one every veteran homeschool mom who has read it will tell you to read. It's as close to a how-to manual as you'll ever get for homeschooling.

• Honey for a Child's Heart This book is excellent for beginning to build your home library while your children are young. “A compelling, essential guide for parents who want to find the best books for their children ages 0-12. This updated and expanded edition includes a new preface, an updated list of recommended reads for each age group, and audiobook suggestions.”

• Tending the Heart of Virtue This book is invaluable for equipping mothers who wish to give their children a literature rich education. “In Tending the Heart of Virtue, Vigen Guroian illuminates the power of classic tales and their impact on the moral imagination. He demonstrates how these stories teach the virtues through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, while he also unveils components of the good, the true, and the beautiful in plot and character. With clarity and elegance, Guroian reads deeply into the classic stories. He demonstrates how these stories challenge and enliven the moral imaginations of children. And he shows the reader how to get "inside" of classic stories and communicate their lessons to the child.”

• The Liberal Arts Tradition (Revised Edition): A Philosophy of Classical Christian Education For families with a more classical education bent, this is an excellent resource, but overall it’s a good read even for families who use a different home education style. “The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education introduces readers to a paradigm for understanding a classical education that transcends the familiar 3-stage pattern of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Instead, this book describes the liberal arts as a central part of a larger and more robust paradigm of classical education that should consist of piety, gymnastic, music, liberal arts, philosophy, and theology. The Liberal Arts Tradition also recovers the means by which classical educators developed more than just intellectual virtue (by means of the 7 liberal arts) but holistically cultivated the mind, body, will, and affections. This is a must-read for educators who want to take a second big step toward recovering the tradition of classical education.”

I hope you find this homeschooling book list useful and encouraging. If you already homeschool (or have graduated your not-so-little-ones), what would you add to this list?