As a teenager, my mom introduced me to The Well-Educated Heart. At the time, I didn’t care. But as a mother of young children, I sure do! So a few months ago, I went through and watched “Catch the Vision” over the course of a few days. Since then, I have been joyfully implementing The Well-Educated Heart principles in my homeschool and personal study.

What is The Well-Educated Heart?

To my understanding, The Well-Educated Heart is a philosophy of education centered around shaping your child’s heart rather than stuffing their heads full of facts. Because of this, the emphasis is on home, family, art, music and story rather than traditional school memorization and lecture. According to the website, their mission statement is:
Dedicated to building a community of families who are learning to restore the lost art of educating hearts through the Arts.
We seek to preserve a culture of faith, freedom and family and a love of the good, the true and the beautiful.

The Well-Educated Heart philosophy sees children (and adults!) as people first, ready to fall in love with learning, build relationships and pursue truth and beauty.

Catch the Vision is a free course to help understand these principles in more detail. Few resources have been a better help to me as a mother in understanding who I am, why I’m here and how I can reach my children’s hearts. Go watch it! Seriously! It’s long, but a worthwhile way to pass time while washing dishes, folding laundry, cooking meals or commuting to work.https://www.librariesofhope.com/catch-the-vision

To support this mission, Marlene Peterson (founder of WEH) also started printing hard-to-find classics that can help support a heart-centered education. Some of these books are for parent education specifically, while some are collections of stories, art and poetry focused on different topics. Find these treasures at Libraries of Hope.

Although I don’t own most of the collections from Libraries of Hope, I do try to follow the recommended monthly rotation. Each month of the year, WEH focuses on certain topics. This way, children have an opportunity to sample different cultures and topics throughout the year, building on thier understanding as they get older with passing years. The rotation schedule has been super fun for my family. We try to collect relevant books from both our home library and the public library, plan meals around the countries we’re studying and listen to music from these countries as well. (Keep an eye out for my post about our March selections!)

Where do I start?

Watch Catch The Vision! Check out the rotation. Read story books to your kids, start listening to beautiful music and enjoy good food as a family. The nice thing about WEH is that you can truly make it whatever you need to as a family.

WEH in Preschool

Although WEH works for any age, I really enjoy using it in preschool. As I mentioned before, our schooling mostly consists of story books, art, music and food following the rotation. But the impact of WEH in our preschool goes more deeply than that. WEH encourages me to slow down, savor the time I have with my kids, and honor my calling as a mother in even the most mundane of days.

Did you already know about The Well-Educated Heart? What does it look like in your family? Tell me in the comments!