Does your homeschool ever feel rushed, overloaded, or focused more on getting through the curriculum than enjoying your children?
Slow schooling offers another way.
In this episode of the Homeschool Connections Podcast, host Kaitlin Zara welcomes educator, homeschool mom, and author Leslie Martino for an encouraging conversation about restoring balance, connection, and wonder to homeschool life.
Leslie explains that slow schooling is not about laziness, avoiding academics, or following one particular homeschool philosophy. Instead, it is an intentional approach that values depth over breadth, connection over control, and meaningful learning over simply checking boxes.
Together, Kaitlin and Leslie explore how families can use curriculum without becoming controlled by it, preserve play throughout the middle and high school years, assess progress in more meaningful ways, and create space for curiosity, boredom, creativity, and stronger family relationships.
This Episode Is Sponsored by Ascension Press
Pillars of Faith from Ascension Press is a brand-new K–8 Catholic curriculum deeply rooted in Sacred Scripture and Tradition and designed to evangelize the whole family.
Learn more about Pillars of Faith for your homeschool:
https://ascensionpress.com/pillarshomeschool
Resources
The Joy of Slow: Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning by Leslie Martino
https://amzn.to/4irdVhm
Visit Leslie Martino’s website
https://lesliemartino.com/
Follow Leslie on Instagram
@lesliemmartino
In This Episode
- What slow schooling is, and what it is not
- Why slow schooling can work with traditional, classical, Charlotte Mason, interest-led, or unschooling approaches
- How to choose quality over quantity in your homeschool
- Why doing fewer things better can lead to deeper learning
- How to use curriculum as a tool rather than allowing it to control your family
- Why slow schooling does not mean ignoring academics or learning gaps
- How to balance child-led learning with core subjects and necessary structure
- What a day of slow schooling can look like
- Why joy can be a meaningful measure of homeschool success
- How slow schooling can work during the middle school and high school years
- Why adolescents and teenagers still need play
- Ways to assess growth beyond tests and standard benchmarks
- How families can make thoughtful decisions about technology and screen time
- Why boredom is a good thing
- Practical ways to help children discover what to do with unstructured time
One Big Takeaway
Slow schooling is not primarily about moving at a certain pace. It is about making choices that reflect what your family truly values.
Instead of asking whether you completed every lesson or checked every box, consider asking: Did we experience joy? Did we connect? Did we learn something deeply?
Leslie encourages parents to see curriculum as a helpful tool—not a master—and to resist making decisions out of panic, comparison, or fear.
One practical place to begin is to ask: What is one area of control I can exchange for greater connection with my child?
About Leslie Martino
Leslie M. Martino is the author of The Joy of Slow: Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning: https://amzn.to/4x0LJ9w
She has more than twenty years of teaching experience as an elementary school teacher, home educator, and adjunct lecturer for graduate courses focused on the teacher’s role in supporting children’s individual work preferences.
Leslie homeschools her four children and works as an educational consultant, writing curricula, training teachers, and coaching parents to approach learning in an interest-based and connection-rich way. She is also a speaker on education and motherhood and a contributing writer for Wild + Free and other publications within the homeschooling community.
She lives in sunny Florida with her husband and children.
About Your Host
Kaitlin Zara is a veteran educator, homeschool mom, and host of the Homeschool Connections Podcast. See her homeschool blog posts here:
https://homeschoolconnections.com/author/?n=245991