Commitments & Distinctives
What we affirm. What we reject.
A curriculum's worldview shows up in every lesson. Here's ours, written plainly so you can decide if it fits your family.
Our Mission
To pass down a biblical way of life.
To guide students into a rightly-ordered relationship of love with God and the things of God — the True, the Good, and the Beautiful — through the best that has been written and created throughout time.
To foster increasing humility, wonder, wisdom, and worship of God.
The four
What we commit to.
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1. Biblically Faithful
Rooted in the historic Protestant faith. We affirm sound doctrine, biblical worldview and imagination, young earth creationism, and properly ordered loves — and we reject postmodernism, progressivism, secular psychology, and cultural Marxism.
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2. Charlotte Mason
Living books, not textbooks. Narration, not worksheets. Short lessons, slow reading, deep digestion. Beauty matters. So does shaping the heart instead of mere information accumulation. Not simply knowing — but caring.
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3. Family-style, K–12
Every child in your home in the same cycle of history at the same time, with age-appropriate reading assignments for Group 1 (grades 1–4), Group 2 (grades 5–8), and Group 3 (grades 9–12). Kindergarten plans included. One curriculum. The Great Conversation in your family.
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4. Open-and-go
Your choice of weekly or daily open-and-go lesson plans for 30 Ordinary Weeks and 6 flexible Festival Weeks (Advent, Reformation Week, Passion Week, Thanksgiving, and a Patriotic week) — built so that you can simply open the plans, read the books, and watch the wonder blossom.
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Why these four
These commitments aren't arbitrary.
They came out of Dr. Becky Aniol's doctoral work in Christian Education, many years at the kitchen table with four children, her own Kindergarten - PhD completely Christian education, and a conviction that homeschool families deserve a curriculum that doesn't apologize for theology and conservative convictions.
Most homeschool curricula compromise on at least one of the four. Living Heritage refuses the compromise. All four, all the way through.
Our Distinctives
Plainly stated.
These aren't tack-on values. They shape every book we choose, every assignment we write, every plan we create.
We affirm
- Sound Doctrine and the Traditional Protestant Confessions of Faith
- Objective Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
- Biblical Worldview
- Biblical Counseling
- Young Earth Creationism
- Pre-Modern Thinking
- Proper Ordering of the Affections
- Highest Quality, Beautiful Books and Art
- An Inherited Body of Knowledge
- Teaching Church History
- The Statement on Education & Culture
We reject
- Postmodernism
- Cultural Marxism
- Adding Diversity for Diversity's Sake
- Personal Feelings and Personal Experience as a Criterion of Choice
- Evolutionary Child-Development Psychology
- Reconstructionism
- Progressivism
- Education as Information Accumulation
- Books with gratuitousness, explicitness, or inverted moral tone
- Visual art that depicts any person of the Godhead
What it looks like in practice
Convictions become choices.
Reformed means our doctrine of God, of Scripture, of salvation, and of the church follows the historic Protestant confessions — the Westminster, 1689 London Baptist, and the Three Forms of Unity. It's why we partner with G3 Ministries and why we don't apologize for the confessional shape of the curriculum.
Young earth creationist means every science course (including all five high-school options) is grounded in a literal six 24-hour-day creation. Where excellent books exist that contain passing mentions of evolution, we mark them and turn them into narration prompts for biblical refutation.
Biblical counseling, not psychology means that we foundationally rely on the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture. Every plan is created and every book is chosen to point children to the Word of God as the ultimate authority for human behavior. We don't want children to feel better about themselves or rely on secular theories for living. We aim instead for putting on the mind of Christ.
Living books, not textbooks means we will choose beautifully written books that communicate love and wonder for the subject over a dry, choppy textbook — even if it's a Christian textbook. God's Word dictates not just the content but also the form of what we read. Truth and Beauty must co-exist.
Books, instead of pointing us to ourselves, should point us to Christ. This certainly does not mean that every book we read was written by a person with a regenerate heart. What that means is that the literature we read should give us eyes to see the Creator, the Redeemer, the fallen human condition and the overarching story of redemption. When good overcomes evil, when the prince rescues his bride, when the mystery is resolved, these properly order our affections and point us to the One who orders our universe, who triumphs over evil, and who rescues his bride.
— Living Heritage philosophy
Criteria of worth
How we choose what your children read and see.
Not every story worth telling is fit for our children, and not every classic survives our criteria. These filters do most of the work.
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Not gratuitous
We don't choose books in which evil is present merely for the shock value. Evil must be purposeful for the moral arc, or it isn't there.
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Not explicit
Evil isn't depicted more vividly than the story requires or than is appropriate for the child's age. We use the stories of Scripture as our guide.
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Not inverted
Evil is never presented as good, and never left uncondemned. The moral order of the universe is preserved in the stories we read.
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Time-tested
We start with books that have stood the test of time and been found worthy by generations. We always apply the three criteria above. We do not select on ethnicity or gender of author or character, which is a racist criterion of choice.
If this fits your family
Browse the plans.
Three tiers, four cycles, K–12. Pick the level of support that fits your year — you can always upgrade later.